You Can't Fix Stupid. But Can You Tax It?

The comedian Ron White has a routine with the tag line that you can't fix stupid. I like him, except for his Texan loyalty to an indiscriminate use of the death penalty. But I was thinking about it the other day, when trying to figure out health care reform.

Obviously adding scores of millions of people to the rolls is going to be costly. Yes, there will be inherent savings in ER costs, and savings from early detection and treatment. And yes there is probably some waste and fraud in the system, though why that needs special legislation to fix is beyond me. But even after that there will be additional costs. And it does not appear that the cost reductions are going to come by equal reductions in the profits of health insurance companies and other related entities. So there will have to be taxes, or revenue enhancements.

It would seem obvious, since we call ourselves a Christian nation, and we like to brag about how we are the richest and most powerful nation ever in the history of everything, that coughing up a few bucks, OK a few hundred billion, would be worth it for this endeavor. But of course it isn't. Spending trillions to set up swords for us to fall on in Iraq and Afghanistan are well worthwhile, but enriching the lives of every American, well that's not my problem. Besides, some of them might be immigrants.

I was watching the Dallas / Denver football game on Sunday. Tony Romo threw another errant pass, and Troy Aikman's comment on it was, "He under threw him, even though it was over his head." I don't know how much Mr. Aikman makes to make these incredibly stupid comments, but I bet it covers some pretty good health insurance.

So I'm thinking that maybe we should tax stupid. I believe it should be handled like the social security taxes. It should be paid equally by the stupid person, and by the stupid employer who hires him. So in this case, Mr. Aikman has to chip in a large amount of cash, as well as Mr. Murdoch.

Mr. Murdoch will have a very large return, there would be a lot of names listed.

Now I know that there are people out there that just about everyone would agree are stupid, yet they function well in the jobs they hold. They would be exempt. I'm talking about stupid people who are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars. Or even just tens of thousands of dollars, per episode. Like John and Kate (the Plus Eight should be exempt), or the Real Housewives of anywhere. These people would be taxed, the lousy waitress I had last week wouldn't.

While watching the Rachel Maddow show last night, I was tempted to add a tax on people who affect society by the stupid things they believe. Rachel was interviewing that PR whore and miserable human being, Rick Berman.

He is not stupid, but he speaks the language. He is a master at communicating with stupid people, and gets them to buy into his lies. An example, he stated that the average family income of minimum wage owners is nearly $50,000. In some pieces he has written he has used the figure of $47,000. This makes people think that the minimum wage is adequate, and shouldn't be raised. It is also a damned lie. In order for a couple to earn $47,000 in a year, each one would have to work about 3,450 hours per year, or 66 hours a week, every week. In that scenario, the $47,000 would be quite substantial, as they would have no time to spend any of the money.

I was truly struck by another comment Mr. Berman made last night, while trying to justify why he will not release information on the donors to his various non-profit groups who put out this disinformation. "People don't want to have their right to free speech curtailed by people coming after them." Wow! I'm sure that's exactly what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. The freedom to speak in anonymity, hiding behind a rock.

The freedom to speak should imply that you back your words, and stand up for them. Not hide.


Mr. Berman isn't stupid, but should be taxed out of existence.