Newt’s Magical Goose

Newt Gingrich posted a silly challenge on YouTube the other day. He wants people to submit 2 minute videos that “a sixth grader, or a member of Congress” can understand, explaining how any tax increase would threaten to kill the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs, i.e., the American economy.

Obviously, this ignores the economic boom and budget deficit elimination we suffered under Bill Clinton, but let’s leave that aside for now. What’s even more aggravating to watch are the bizarre responses he’s getting that are pretty much nothing more than rants on the theme of “You punish me with taxes for working! Stop punishing me! If I can’t have my money to spend than how can I spend my money? And if I can’t spend my money how will you tax it anyway?” (That last logical step is my favorite.) I find it just a little bit ironic that taxes — not just an increase in taxes, but any taxes in and of themselves — are so consistently viewed as a “punishment” by the same people that claim to be the most patriotic in this country. Support our Troops! Good Bless America! What’s in your wallet? They love our country to death, they just don’t want to pay for any of it.

There’s one guy who looks like he broke into a kindergarten classroom to make his video, crouched over a webcam that appears to be at crotch level and surrounded by colorful bulletin board posts, who rambles on and on about “if I have less money to spend then that’s less money for taxes,” sweating profusely from under his baseball cap either from the pressure of meeting the two minute deadline (which he does simply by abandoning his derailed train of thought) or the fear of being caught in violation of his parole again. Another entry is not so much a video as a boring slideshow set to music that says

With muscles you can swim down a river…but with your mind you can build a boat. In some countries, people are free to use their minds. They are free to start businesses and invest. Other countries choose to make this difficult. Why? Many of them believe in socialism, which values muscle over mind. They steal from the minds (businessmen) and give it to the muscles (workers). When you have fewer people building boats, more people have to swim. The brightest minds hold up a country like Atlas holds up the world. If you don’t want it to fall, you have to give Atlas a rest…from Regulations, Entitlements, Subsidies, and Taxes. These four things punish our nation’s Atlases — the people who help the economy most. Does that make any sense?

No, Slideshow Bob, it doesn’t. If your premise that the workers are all brawn and no brain is right, how “free” are they to just up and “start a business?” Kind of hard when you’re still struggling to pay for health care and food. And who the hell do you think is actually building the boats? Your telekinesis? As for switching metaphors mid-stream and using muscle-bound Atlas…oh nevermind. F minus minus.

This dough-faced 16 year old economist says something along the lines of money being like the water that allows the seed to grow, and taxes are like “half the water going down the drain” before you can water your plant. I’m guessing if we really ran with that analogy, repealing the Bush tax cuts would be like siphoning 2 gallons per hour from the sprinkler system of a private golf course for use on a small vegetable garden to feed the family of the groundskeeper. But, you know, “down the drain” is just so much easier to grasp.

Anyway, enough rant. I made my own little tongue-in-cheek liberal response, though it’s over the two minute limit (like they’d pay attention, anyway). Sure, it contains its own simplifications (though far, far more reality-based than any of the serious responses Newt has gotten), and a good dose of villainizing the mythical Robber Barons of yore, but hey, I fight fire with fire. On with the video! (Except you, Mom, don’t watch; I don’t want these to be my last Easter eggs ever!)