“God is dead.” That was Bubba’s eulogy when we had him over for dinner the other night. After his third wife left him, he hasn’t been eating well and Flower has been having him over often.
“You mean Freidman, Bubba?”
“Of course, the God of Economics. What a sad day, we will never be the same.”
“You mean like 911?”
“Worse.”
“Worse than 911? Wow Bubba.”
“Friedman was behind Reganomics which changed America!”
“Indeed it did Bubba, it tripled our national debt in eight years, which has caused each of us to pay 20% of our tax bill on Friedman’s bad idea. It created higher poverty among children, reduced wages and was the precursor of moving tens of millions of jobs offshore. Bill Clinton jumped the Friedman ship, eliminated the deficit, and was witling down the debt when George began the Friedman thing again and tripled the deficit and doubled the debt again! What’s good about that?”
“My taxes went down! Friedman wanted to initiate a fixed overall tax rate at 10% instead of the 50% it is now.”
It isn’t 50% Bubba, its 30%, the lowest in the world. Federal taxes are about 10% of our income.”
“That’s a lie! I work until October paying off the federal government!”
“Come on Bubba.”
“I suppose you got that bogus information from that computer of yours.”
“Indeed, in fact it was from who I would guess you consider the Son of God. “Our overall average individual federal tax rate is about 10%.” Rush Limbaugh.
“Never happened!”
"I heard him say it Bubba. And then I looked it up and printed it. Here it is.” I handed it over. I carry it, along with my THIS MAN HAS SWALLOWED HIS NOSE cartoon around with me. “But that’s neither here nor there, thing is Bubba, everyone in America in the early Spring puts their gross income on the top line of a form and their taxes owed on the bottom line. All they have to do is divide the top line by the bottom line and out comes the answer, about 10%. Year after year after year they see it right in their hand. So everyone knows this 50% tax rate you and the Right-wing media push ad nausem is crap. Everyone knows it. So just give it up.”
"The best economy in Latin America is in Chile, where Alfonso Pinochet, a student and friend of Friedman’s enacted all of his economic policies!"
"Well Bubba, I will give you that as the last word. Friedman, the father of murdering totalitarian economics!"