Judge Roger Vinson ruled this week that the newspeaky ’Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’ – and specifically its mandate that each American must purchase a service or good, even if you do not need or desire that good – is unconstitutional.

He had the least enviable job in the nation in making this ruling. Even if his ego is monumental, he must have understood that any ruling he made would be subject to withering, arrogant second guessing. As a layman reading his ruling I was struck by the length to which he went to separate the constitutional argument from the political. My cursory reading of the ruling reinforces my basic belief that the individual mandate shreds the constitution in easily foreseeable ways. The more damning commentary in the ruling is the further reinforcement of my personal belief that the constitution and other foundations of our liberty have been steadily erased through legislation and judicial activisim ever since 1932.

Since then, the political bludgeon of good intentions has been wielded by the left of center to invest ever growing power in the organs of state, and very frankly, the tiny minority of clever men and women addicted to the power that the big state gives them. Vinson, in my opinion, did the yeoman’s work of stripping off the veneer and exposing the legislation for what it really is: an unconstitutional act that indentures every American from the day they are born, democrat or republican.

See the ruling here.

Lazy Jack

Is it not time to accept the ample evidence from the long tragedy of the ’30s, the  TWO lost decades in Japan, and every decision made by the Bernake fed that we should be trying the exact opposite of the Fed’s stated objective to add an additional $600 bln in treasury purchases?

Or maybe, we should do the exact opposite of anything recommended by this administration when it comes to finance, the economy, or the constitution?

Lazy Jack

The President, his legislative allies and the vast majority of media outlets have been reduced to campaigning on the so-called failed policies of the Republicans this last decade.  You, dear reader, apparently believe them when they say that only since George W. Bush was elected have we enacted policies harmful to the economy, your freedoms, and your families. After all, we elected the Democrats in a landslide in 2008.

This campaign theme is, perhaps, the greatest fabrication of facts in modern history.  It is made more so because so much of the electorate swallowed the bait.  In truth, Republicans in love with progressivism governed like ‘60s Democrats yet were successfully painted as the antithesis.  They are to blame for all the deficits, the wars, the cracker babies, the Frank-Dodd-Schumer-Cuomo-Clinton economic meltdown, the death of the cassette tape, and Cousin Ryan’s diabetes.  All evil, all the time.  Really? 

We bought it in 2008.  Surprisingly, many Conservatives and Libertarians bought it, their guilt over the Republicans’ six year spending spree a nearly incurable infection of self loathing. Frankly, it is about time someone looked at the facts and called out the real causes of our current problems. Otherwise we will end up calculating our nation’s wealth with the Grecian Formula.

The sad truth is we are living through an ongoing economic and political sitcom called “That ‘70s Show.”  Some facts:

Democrats have held majorities in the Senate 73% of the time since 1932.  Democrats have held Majorities in the House 79% of the time since 1932.  So, for 78 years Democrats have controlled the legislative, spending, and social agenda of the United States for about 75% of the time.  It is “That ‘70’s Show.”  When James Carville declared in 2009 that this was a new dawn and Democrats would hold a majority for the next forty years it must have been a joke.  There was nothing new about it. 

In fact, during the last 39 congressional sessions Democrats had a 60% or better majority in the senate chamber 12 times. In that period there has never been a Republican majority above 55%, and that figure occurred only once. In the house, of the eight sessions with a majority of Republicans, one was a majority of 58 seats.  The other seven sessions averaged a majority of roughly twenty-three. Democrats, on the other hand, had one session with over 200 seats and about twelve sessions with at least one hundred seats. 

In simple language, any Republican control was marginal at best, compared to the Democrats.  Logically, it could be concluded that nearly every major social or spending initiative that is causing our difficulties today has roots in Democrat legislation. But, do not take my word for it. Maybe some facts will clear out the stink.

Today our unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid alone might be as high as seventy trillion dollars.  This is because Social Security is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme dressed up as pay-as-you-go and Lyndon Johnson, as the voice of the Democrat, is on record as stating (and I paraphrase):  “Never tell them how much Medicare will really cost or they will not vote for it.”  These poorly designed programs were created by Democrats long before the year 2000 and are running up your tab every millisecond.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created in 1938 and 1970 respectively, and no matter what George Soros and Barney Frank say, were used as political tools and were integral to the creation of the U.S. property asset bubble.  Somehow, problems created by entities functioning on policies established by the Democrats (and distorting the demand for housing) for the last seventy-two years were REALLY created during six years of Republican control of the legislative and executive branches?  Huh? 

Federal government annual spending increased by approximately $1.3 trillion from 2000 to 2008. This year’s Democrats would have you believe all that spending was for George Bush’s wars. Right? Of that $1.3 trillion more, about $1 trillion (or 76%) was for civilian or entitlement spending, not military or war spending.  Part of that increase was to pay for significant increases in education funding (a dubious federal responsibility) and for the Medicare drug entitlement enacted under the Big Government Republican Majority.

Prior to 1932, average government spending in this country was around 13% of GDP.  This includes all federal, state, and local spending.  Today it is roughly 45% and has been for two years.  You are asked to believe that all we have to do is spend more through the government by incurring more debt, all in the name of compassion.  Yet, is the poverty rate going down?  Is the unemployment rate growing or shrinking?  Is GDP growing at a faster rate than ever?  Are businesses investing more in the U.S.? Are we generating new innovations at a faster rate?

The answers to all those questions appear obvious.  Our GDP is now growing at less than half the rate of the 1920s (prior to the New Deal), thereby robbing U.S. citizens of income and prosperity.  For the last 30 years we have been growing slower than our growth rate in the early sixties (prior to the Great Society).  Below is a chart illustrating our economic condition relative to the period just before the 1960s eruption of so-called progressive good intentions.  

	1966	2008	2009
Government spending (Billion’s)	$216	$5,297	$6,456
GDP	$789	$14,441	$14,240
Government spending % of GDP	27.4%	36.7%	45.3%
Unemployment rate	3.9%	7.2%	9.6%
Poverty Rate	14.7%	13.2%	14.5%
Generational Obligation (Billions)	$717.0	$42,000.0	$61,000.0
Government Spending Definition	All Federal, State, and Local Spending
Generational Obligation	The deficit gap obligated to taxpayers for the trailing 80 years
Generational Obligation for 1966 is an estimate, as is the GDP for 2009. Generational obligations are estimates based on projections by the CBO.  Other data is derived from the US census, From the CBO, and from the Executive office of the President of the United States, specifically the budget and its associated historical tables. The 2009 poverty rate is an estimate.

 

I will not speak to all the possible conclusions of this chart, with one exception. The significant increase in government spending does not appear to positively impact poverty and appears to negatively correlate to unemployment. 

Democrats want us to believe that nothing happened before the year 2000, and that if it did, none of it matters because we had an evil-palooza from 2000 to 2006.  They want us to forget about “That ‘70s Show” during which they enacted virtually all the policies affecting us today. They want you to believe that they are just emerging from the wilderness, and somehow succeeded enough to convince you that after 78 years of more spending and government, all we need is more. The real fact is that, with the exception of a brief hiccup for a year or two in the eighties, the solution to every problem has been progressive intervention by government.

One can also suppose that even more harmful affects were ameliorated by the U.S. innovation engine in computing, engineering, and sciences because the U.S. was still the most stable, friendly place for innovators. But the best and the brightest now have other places to go. They know that the progressive ‘70s show needs to end or the U.S. will become Greece, a fiscal basket case. We can either sit here and listen to the Democrat establishment hum us a lullaby about how retreading bankrupt ideas from the ‘30s are really good for us.  Or, we can turn off “That ‘70s Show” and end 78 years of nearly one party rule in our legislative and intellectual life.

One upon a time a man named Barack Obama came to prominence in the United States of America. He was elected to the highest executive office in the land. He was regarded as the greatest orator and leader in generations. The intelligentsia trumpeted these descriptions from every media outlet and political machine available. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace just because he was elected President. One would presume he should be studied, his words remembered and recorded, so that we can all learn from his example. A sampling of his words would presumably be enough to frame both his oratory skill and his leadership philosophy. Better still; a comparison of his words to other so-called leaders that preceded him would throw into stark relief his towering presence over the lesser lights of history.

I invite you to review such a sampling below. In selecting these quotations from the thousands of pages of words spoken or written by each individual, we tried to select those fairly reflective of the individual’s personal beliefs.  

What better place to start than with Barack Obama’s view on the people of the United States of America.

On the People:

It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Barack Obama

A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
Mohandas Gandhi

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
Frederick Douglass

You’ll be free or die!
Harriet Tubman

On Framing Difficult Choices to Make About the Future:

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.
Barack Obama

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
Nelson Mandela

If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
Margaret Thatcher

A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Mohandas Gandhi

On Commitment in Time of War:

Al Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK.
Barack Obama

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy

On Race:

We’ve got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. We’ve got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. … This country wants to move beyond these kinds of things.
Barack Obama

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.
Nelson Mandela

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
Nelson Mandela

On Government and the People:

I think when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.
Barack Obama

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Ronald Reagan

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy

On Religion:

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Barack Obama

I’m a Christian by choice.
Barack Obama

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
John F. Kennedy

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
Mohandas Gandhi

On the Greatness of our Antecedents:

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.
Barack Obama

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
John F. Kennedy

On Advancement:

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.
Barack Obama

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.
John F. Kennedy

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
John F. Kennedy

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
John F. Kennedy

On Politics:

Politics has never been for the thin-skinned or the faint-of-heart, and if you enter the arena, you should expect to get roughed up.
Barack Obama

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
Frederick Douglass

On Whining:

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.
Barack Obama

Why can’t I just eat my waffle?
Barack Obama

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
John F. Kennedy

On Humility:

We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Barack Obama

Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.
John Madden

I prefer you draw your own conclusions from these words. For myself I am deeply saddened that we have forgotten so many great leaders,  their words, their sacrificses and their passions that we are unable to recognize a real one when we see it.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2011

Tommy Says Government Healthcare is Awesome, Taxes are Good, and the Earth is Flat.

Thomas Friedman wrote the following missive at the New York Times this week:

Tom Friedman: Flat Earth Genius

After reminding us that Republicans are the party of NO, Tommy then goes on to tell us how we must build bridges to “get things done.” Apparently, he never read the Federalist Papers or the Constitution, so he can be forgiven if he is unaware that our government was designed to be limited in order to limit government sponsored mischief.

I am delighted to see that Tommy, like his progressive ideology, has ceased to evolve. He is absolutely content to use outdated canards and ideas that were ossified twenty years before I was born. For example, he implies that the Republicans have a Wall Street wing without, of course, highlighting the fact that you can’t turn around in the Obama administration without tripping over an investment banker (as he or she feeds a pet union boss).

And, though he is busy talking in modern MBA newspeak (Newocrat, E.T.), it is apparent that he has given almost zero critical thought to his subject. For example, as he lauds the president for trying to encourage an evolution in our industry (perhaps another Nobel for ‘effort’ is on the way), he fails to point out how channeling greater than 40% of GDP through government (if one includes state, local, federal, and federal deficit spending), is going to do that. He also fails to point out how alienating recent (India) and long term (Britain, Canada, Japan, Germany) allies will help us become competitive in the world economy.

Perhaps, as we get to know how awful is the healthcare indenture, those citizens that are not indelibly progressive will begin to understand that Tom’s progressive script is not only unoriginal, but actually has an affect opposite his claims. For example, average annual GDP growth slowed by a significant factor after the last wave of New Dealish entitlement in the 1960’s.

See this post for the back of the napkin analysis.

In other words, we enacted Medicare and Medicaid and became a poorer nation over the ensuing 40 years. I shudder to think how poor we would have become without the revolution in computing technology.

But, let Tommy sing his lullaby of newspeaky, flat-earthy platitudes. The rest of us have work to do cleaning up his and this administration’s mess.

Thanks for the laughs, Thomas. Your world is indeed flat.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2010

Thanks to Chris Dodd, Lawrence Summers, Tim Geithner, and Paul Krugman among other luminaries for proposing the New Banking Reforms.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, The Federal Trade Commission Act, The Wheeler Lea Act, The Interstate Commerce Commission, The Treasury, Sarbanes-Oxley, The IRS, The FCC, OSHA, The FDA, The EEOC, The EPA, fifty state Attorneys General, the Federal Attorney General, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, The SEC, The Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, HIPAA, the NLRB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the SIPC, fifty state banking offices or commissions, the trial bar, fifty state and one federal legislature apparently just don’t do enough regulation.

Barney Frank said on July 14, 2008: “I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under. I think they are in good shape going forward.” He and his peers had no culpability in the global contagion, of course. Early warning signs going back to the nineties were apparently not even shared with the august group on Capitol Hill. They were “shocked” to find gambling going on in this establishment, to paraphrase the great scene from Casablanca.

So we cheer that they will charge into the breach one more time on our behalf, confident that their newly created regulatory regime will solve what the hundreds of departments and laws affiliated with the list above and their employees (numbering in the six figures) could not do the last time around. As the great showman Carl Sagan said, “It strains credulity!”

Cannot wait to see how this turns out.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2010

I had a conversation with an absolute supporter of the Left and the healthcare legislation two weeks ago. As I described the legislation’s potential risks to our company and the probabilities of unintended consequences and the near certainty that the mandate is unconstitutional and the provable fact that the cost spiral really started when Medicare and Medicaid were enacted I was met first with silence and then the statement: All those Republicans are racist. I assume she felt that I was not a tobacco chewing, wife-beating, war-mongering, insensitive, uneducated Republican. I leave it to you to guess my politics.

I should not have been surprised, but the words uttered from a rational person with whom I have had a long relationship were startling. In other words, if you oppose anything the President does, you are a racist. I suppose if you picked Duke to win the 2010 NCAA basketball tournament, you are a racist. If you do not like the White Sox, read the previous sentence. I expected this from Jesse, and Al, and Eleanor Clift, and Keith Olbermann. That is politics (race baiting, but politics). But, from an average citizen? And that is why we got here.

Perhaps in this there is some hope. The left, so apparently devoid of originality, has devolved to schoolyard arguments to defend obviously awful policy. I especially like their argument in favor of healthcare. Other countries nationalized healthcare, so we should too!! And if you do not agree, you are a Klansperson. Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah… Nyah. That appears to be the best the Left has left, now that we are getting to know the bill.

How much longer will the citizenry swallow this infantile logic before retiring the current ruling elite, now in power since 1932? Tragically, it appears we have been willing to swallow an ocean full of it. In previous generations our own petty socialists appeared to be adults, and their false veneer of dogoodisms seemed marginally more sincere. But now that the Left’s rhetorical argument in support of their agenda is reduced to calling everyone who disagree a bigot, perhaps the socialist tide can be pushed back. More to the point, it, and they, deserve to be.

Here’s hoping for some real change this time around.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2010

Last week, as major companies began announcing the preliminary estimated costs of just one portion of the national healthcare indenture, Representative Henry Waxman dressed up in high dudgeon and played the part of Captain Louis Renault from Casablanca. He was “shocked” to find gambling going on in this establishment.

Foul, he cried, and loudly. How can Caterpillar, AT&T, Prudential, Verizon, 3M, Deer & Co., Valero Energy, and AK Steel Holdings be taking gigantic expense reserves when the legislation was designed to reduce cost, improve care, increase access, and bring about world peace? It must, he said, be a conspiracy, and it is time again for the Democrat collective to sharpen its pitchforks. As if he did not know this was going to happen all along? Among its myriad of do-dads and ge-gaws, the bill ends the subsidy created in 2003 to keep companies from kicking retirees out of company prescription drug plans and onto the newly minted Bush Medicare drug entitlement. Since this tax relief officially ended with a stroke of Obama’s pen, accounting rules require such material events to be recorded in the period in which they occur whenever they affect a company. Foul, he cried again, there were no adverse consequences of the bill to see here.

You, dear reader, were asked to suspend disbelief because the press had done so an eternity ago. In the months leading up to the futile bi-partisan vote against the so-called healthcare bill, editorial pages across the country, including the lady on life support in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, beat the drum in support of this entitlement. They argued with conviction that other countries do it, so the U.S. should. As terrible as that fourth grade reasoning was, it gets worse. Absent was any critical thinking about the constitutionality of the mandate to enter into a private contract. Absent was any critical thinking about the true cost of the bill. Gone was any analysis of the real number of uninsured. So shallow was the reasoning of the editorial army of the fourth estate they actually believed that the CBO score showing deficit reduction was true. Or worse, did not care.

In their world, there were no adverse consequences to government intervention. Their convenient temporary belief in the infallibility of the CBO is so fervent, for example, that they are pathologically ignoring the fact that the CBO predicted last year that the Social Security had until 2017 before it became a deficit spender. Yet, here we are one year later and Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in; this year. This is the same CBO that says the Healthcare bill will reduce the deficit over the next 10 years. Mathematical Illiteracy does not even begin to define this problem, and I am not just talking about the hapless CBO.

So, in celebration of King Henry’s practiced revelation that the bill has consequences in the real world, we offer that the roughly $1.7 billion dollars already recorded as losses only means 28,378 private sector jobs lost for one year. This assumes the average cost of $59,909 per private employee based on statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But, do not worry, we will replace those jobs with federal government jobs at a mere $119,982 per worker, or $3.4 billion per year. That is one heck of a multiplier. It will only take 257,966 private sector workers paying a 22% net federal tax rate to support those government jobs.

So King Henry is directing his rage at the private companies that must comply with standard accounting rules (or risk jail time and lawsuits, by the way). He is demanding hearings on April 21st because these evil business people are the first to demonstrate the real world affects of this terrible legislation. I do not know which is worse; That King Henry did not know what was in the bill, or that he did and now pretends he did not. To paraphrase the famous Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: I shall not today attempt further to define socialism, but I know it when I see it. Mr. Waxman’s indignation is great theater, and as usual it is we who are about to pay the ticket price.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2010

I just cannot get over the Excise Tax on Indoor Tanning. It makes the Healthcare Legislation feel, well, right with the universe.

Forget missile defense of our allies in Eastern Europe. Forget sanctions against a Persian Empire about to go nuclear. Forget Israel, we have done enough. Forget that our Constitution has been re-defined per “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and is now more a guideline than a rule. And, Al-who?

I say rejoice, for we now know what the bow-around-the-world tour was leading up to. Our President has just drawn his heroic line in the tan with the exceptional healthcare legislation just in time for summer.

I for one am delighted at this new legislation. We have finally struck a blow for freedom from tanning. The 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services that will take effect July 1, 2010 is our equivalent of the landing on the beaches of Normandy and a huge blow against the enemies of freedom. Not only will this bill provide healthcare for every human in the fifty, but it will do it for free and strike a blow against vitamin D as well. And the anti-tanning regiment, as just about the first part of the bill to go into effect, will be the vanguard of this newly beloved legislative overwrite of our liberties. I cannot imagine a better way to get started. Nice going, Democrats. Keep up the good work. I think you forgot to protect us from another threat, though. Where is the excise tax on poodle and Chihuahua grooming? I get queasy just looking at those poor animals after they’ve been sheared, scented and bowed. Taxing that into oblivion would surely help my health.

Lazy Jack

Jane Fonda, Britney Spears, and Matt Damon can no longer get their Bronze on thanks to the new Healthcare Bill.

From The Very Serious Bill Itself:

20 SEC. 10907. EXCISE TAX ON INDOOR TANNING SERVICES IN
21 LIEU OF ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PRO22
CEDURES.
23 (a) IN GENERAL.—The provisions of, and amendments
24 made by, section 9017 of this Act are hereby deemed null,
25 void, and of no effect.
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HR 3590 EAS/PP
1 (b) EXCISE TAX ON INDOOR TANNING SERVICES.—
2 Subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amend3
ed by this Act, is amended by adding at the end the fol4
lowing new chapter:
5 ‘‘CHAPTER 49—COSMETIC SERVICES
‘‘Sec. 5000B. Imposition of tax on indoor tanning services.
6 ‘‘SEC. 5000B. IMPOSITION OF TAX ON INDOOR TANNING
7 SERVICES.
8 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—There is hereby imposed on any
9 indoor tanning service a tax equal to 10 percent of the
10 amount paid for such service (determined without regard
11 to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise.
12 ‘‘(b) INDOOR TANNING SERVICE.—For purposes of this
13 section—
14 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘indoor tanning
15 service’ means a service employing any electronic
16 product designed to incorporate 1 or more ultraviolet
17 lamps and intended for the irradiation of an indi18
vidual by ultraviolet radiation, with wavelengths in
19 air between 200 and 400 nanometers, to induce skin
20 tanning.
21 ‘‘(2) EXCLUSION OF PHOTOTHERAPY SERV22
ICES.—Such term does not include any phototherapy
23 service performed by a licensed medical professional.
24 ‘‘(c) PAYMENT OF TAX.—
2399
HR 3590 EAS/PP
1 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The tax imposed by this sec2
tion shall be paid by the individual on whom the
3 service is performed.
4 ‘‘(2) COLLECTION.—Every person receiving a
5 payment for services on which a tax is imposed under
6 subsection (a) shall collect the amount of the tax from
7 the individual on whom the service is performed and
8 remit such tax quarterly to the Secretary at such time
9 and in such manner as provided by the Secretary.
10 ‘‘(3) SECONDARY LIABILITY.—Where any tax im11
posed by subsection (a) is not paid at the time pay12
ments for indoor tanning services are made, then to
13 the extent that such tax is not collected, such tax shall
14 be paid by the person who performs the service.’’.
15 (c) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of chapter for
16 subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended
17 by this Act, is amended by inserting after the item relating
18 to chapter 48 the following new item:
‘‘CHAPTER 49—COSMETIC SERVICES’’.
19 (d) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this
20 section shall apply to services performed on or after July
21 1, 2010.

I wanted to make a big joke out of this, but then I thought harder about it. A few days ago I would never, in my wildest dreams, have thought any thinking U.S. legislator would enact such a ridiculous behavioral tax. As the artificial vehicles created by this legislative march off the cliff run out of money (notice I did not say if), how long do you think it will be before they start taxing other things. Since tanning is so evil, I can imagine a beach vacation tax. Yeah. How about we tax 10% of the rental property revenue at any location less than a mile from a body of water? If we are to stamp out bronzing, let’s do it the right way.

Venereal Disease should be next. Let’s tax any alcohol sale at a 10% rate at any pub within 10 miles of a college campus. Or, better yet, let’s put a 12.5% VD surcharge on tuition and on all airline tickets to Cancun. Even better, let us copy our European teachers and call it a VDAT (VD Added Tax).

As VIP Biden says: ‘This is a Big F_____ Deall!!!’ One of the first elements to go into force of this “Historic,” “Ground Breaking,” “Compassionate,” “Life-Saving,” legislation is a tax on tanning.

Nice Job, Party of the Democrat. We cannot wait for more. At least Jane, Britney, and Matt can still do jazzercise without a tax…for now.

Really, thanks for the laughs on this one.

Lazy Jack

© Edward Hunter and Thanks for the Laughs, 2010