Taxes

(Guest Post by Larry Kennifer)

I like keeping in touch with the government. You can talk to them if you want to. Just get on the phone. The government's phone number is everywhere. I mean, you won't get to talk to the President  or anyone like that. But you always get to talk to someone. The other day, I called up the White House, and I talked to some woman named Cindy about how I think the President should put a trampoline on the White House front lawn. I also asked her about the White House hot tub. I really wanted to know the process the President uses when he gets a woman in there. I mean, if you're just some bachelor with a hot tub in your house, it's pretty straightforward. But if you're the President of the United States, and the hot tub is in the White House, how does that work? If you're talking to the Queen of Canada, do you just say to her, "So, uh, how about we go to my place, and have a few drinks, and get into the hot tub, and see what happens? Let me just call my wife first, and tell her to go to a press conference or some bullshit like that."

Cindy didn't tell me that much about how the President gets the Queen of Canada into his hot tub. The White House keeps things like that confidential. The IRS, on the other hand, will talk to you about anything. They're all like, "Yeah, bro. We got a crazy hot tub over here. Last year, we found some Canadian girls who were here on spring break, and we took them to our office, and we had some Smirnoff, and then they got naked and into our hot tub! You should've been there, bro! We do all kinds of crazy stuff like that. No one parties like the IRS!" Then later, I tried to talk to the IRS about taxes--but they were all like, "Fuck taxes, bro! Let's talk more about hot tubs."

Let's talk about taxes. I think we should tax rich people 99.9% of their income. But in exchange for that, they should get to call the President at 3 am, and insult him for a few minutes. That's a good economic system. You call up the President in the middle of the night, and you tell him, "I paid $9.9 million in taxes, you motherfucker! I only took home $100,000, you fucking prick!"

Actually, I have an even better tax plan. Instead of tax laws, we should have tax recommendations. As in, a few guys come to your house, and they say, "Hi, Billy. We just dropped by to make a couple of government recommendations. Recommendation one: Eat fruits and vegetables. And recommendation two: pay us $5 million in taxes. Those are just recommendations. It's up to you, bro. You can eat fruits and vegetables, or you can eat McMuffins and Chalupas. And you can give us $5 million, or a you can give us a naked photo of your girlfriend."

As you can tell, I'm really good at coming up with tax plans. Here's one more. Have you ever heard of the FairTax? It's an income tax that's on the stuff you buy, instead of on the money you make. You just pay an extra 40% for everything you buy. I came up with an even better version of that, known as the Douchebag FairTax. It's like the FairTax--only you pay a higher rate when you buy stuff that makes you look like a douchebag. So, if you buy Corn Flakes, the tax rate is 1%. But if you buy a yacht or Axe body spray or you like Nickelback or you call people "chief," then the rate on those things is 1,000,000%.

Costco, Target, and the 99 Cent Store

National Anthems

Did you know that the Japanese national anthem is, "May your reign continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations--until the pebbles grow into boulders lush with moss." That's not the title. That's the entire anthem. What was the meeting like when they were working on those lyrics? "OK. We are up to one sentence. Do you think we should say anything else about Japan?" "No! One sentence is enough! We have already made our point! To add any unnecessary material to our anthem would bring great dishonor to our ancestors!"

One national anthem I'm unwilling to listen to is the one from Greece. You want to know why? Because the full version has 158 verses. What was the meeting like for that one? Some Greek guy said, "Let's go for 158 verses. That way, when someone attempts to sing the whole thing, he'll drop dead of exhaustion five hours into it."

How did they fill up 158 verses when they wrote that song? How many different ways are there to say that Greece is a fantastic country? You don't see us running the Star Spangled Banner past verse one. As in, "O'er the land of the free / And the home of the brave / Just to reiterate / America is really freaking awesome."

The Japanese anthem is one sentence, the Greek anthem is 158 verses. What if Japan unites with Greece, and they become one country called JaGreece? They'd have a tough time settling on a unified national anthem. The Japanese people would say, "Let's focus on how JaGreece's reign will continue for eight thousand generations." And then the Greek people would respond, "Yes. That's a good idea. We'll focus on that theme for 158 verses." "Well. We were thinking something more like one sentence." "No! We want people to die trying to sing our anthem."

Speaking of death and national anthems, the country of Ukraine has a national anthem titled "Ukraine is Not Dead Yet." Interesting. Japan wants its reign to continue for eight thousand generations, until pebbles grow into mossy boulders. But apparently, Ukraine is not nearly as ambitious. What was it like when they came up with their anthem's lyrics? "OK. I came up with two versions of our our national anthem. The first one focuses on Ukraine continuing for eight thousand generations. And the second one focuses on Ukraine not being dead yet." "The second one is much better. Ukrainians are not going to appreciate Ukraine, unless they're told that the country will die very soon." Ukraine must be an interesting country. I'll bet over there, the most romantic thing you can tell someone is, "I don't hate you yet." And they honor the president by saying, "We haven't assassinated you yet."