We Could Be Tax Free

From what I've been reading of the King of the Fundraiser, there is no reason why Americans of any stripe should ever have to pay a single tax, ever again. While people like Howard Dean have previously set records for internet, grass-roots fundraising efforts, those people have not ascended to the top position.

President-elect Barack Obama shattered records for fundraising in his campaign to win the election. He also eclipsed previous records for spending, and now he's won. I see no reason to believe that he cannot continue to depend on his ardent supporters to give him all the money for which he asks. How sweet is that?

Finally gone will be the need for class envy, or guilt, as the case may be. Rich liberals will mercifully be unleashed to donate at will, funding the government programs they so cherish. Think of the economic power this will unleash as everyday working folks get to keep the meager salaries they earn. When I think of Alec Baldwin personally signing my Social Security checks, I get an electric thrill running up my leg. Free money and an autograph I can sell on E-Bay! Everyone I know can use an extra thirty-five bucks a month.

Of course, I am facetiously referring to not only the sums Obama has raised throughout the campaign, but also to the funds he's accrued from donations in the first ten days following his Election Night victory. If a candidate can raise more than $1.1 million in ten days, all the while being bound by FEC rules, what's to stop the president from accepting donations for the common good?

Granted, the amount raised equates to roughly $41 million per year, but when you factor in the over $600 million he raised in the months of the campaign, add the $41 million, and then remove the FEC rules for contribution limitations - since he won't be running a campaign, but the country - and there is no end to the funds that Hollywood may donate.

Seriously, though...how confounding is it to realize that money flows so easily when it means winning a contest such as a democratic election in a free country, but becomes akin to dental extraction when it matters most? When actors can unabashedly spend the equivalent of the gross domestic product of many small nations to attack a particular politician, but not to correct the very affliction of which they complain?

Yes, we could have a tax-free nation if the people who live large off of our collective sweat would acknowledge their own dependence on the people they claim to champion; the working stiffs who struggle to get by and decide on occasion to treat their families to the oft-times awful products they serve up. If they truly cared for us. They don't care, though.

Except for the thrill of election victory.

Sphere: Related Content