CHEERS and JEERS to one of the two things in life that are certain. (Hint: it ain't death!) On February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment, establishing the beloved income tax, was ratified and became part of the U.S. Constitution. Here is our annual posting of the full text (in italics so it looks old and wrinkled and historic):The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Further, Congress shall have the power to take all tax dollars collected and burn them, eat them, turn them into confetti, light cigars with them, or wad them up and shove them up their butts.
Congress shall also have the power to conspire with giant corporations to use tax dollars to build a war machine that can destroy every planet in the solar system many times over. We want guns. BIG guns! Tanks, planes, nukes, bunker busters, aircraft carriers and a few thousand bullets for every man, woman and child. And bazookas---we need lots of bazookas. Anything that proves to the rest of the world that we've got the biggest penis on the planet must be arsenalized. We are woefully short on lasers---let's fix that.
If the citizenry is paying a reasonable and fair share of taxes in order to allow vital and necessary services to be funded domestically, those taxes must be cut so that these services can be funded properly---with massive loans from China, India and Japan.
At various times, taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts may be necessary. These bailouts will be prioritized in the following order: white collar idiots, white collar dolts, white collar crooks, white collar morons, white collar charlatans, and white collar bloodsuckers.
Finally, Congress shall impose the strictest penalties on citizen scofflaws who fail to pay their income taxes on time and in full without exception. And by 'without exception' we mean except if you're rich and can afford really savvy CPAs and lawyers who can get you out of paying them. Or if you're really rich and you "forget" to pay them, in which case: tut tut.
Okay, that's our amendment. You may now begin stuffing hundred-dollar bills down our pants.
And from the comments to the post comes a cheer for the link to the video of my fellow New Orleanian, Fats Domino, singing "Blueberry Hill".
This was written by Vincent Rose, Al Lewis and Larry Stock for the 1940 Western "The Singing Hill" before they decided it was good enough to be released commercially. The song was used in the movie, where it was heard for the first time performed by Gene Autry.
First sung by Gene Autry in a Western? Dang!
I slow danced to Fats' song on many an evening. Those were the days.
From our friend who signs himself:
Cheers,
Paul (A.)
