Mystery Solved

Obama promises a tax cut for 95% of working families, but about 35% of families already pay no Federal income tax.

So how can 95% get a tax cut?

Here's how:

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

(A check is a cut to below zero!)

This is The Socialist Dream. (End of history!)

But Byron's version goes in a cycle, like this:

(1) The hated rich pay all the taxes, and everybody else rides free. (Whee!)

(2) That's only fair, because the rich got rich by exploiting everybody else. (Turnabout. Pay-back. High time!)

(3) Elections become auctions, with votes to the one who can promise the most free goodies, paid for by somebody else. (Christmas!)

(4) That's how you get to socialism through the ballot box, without a revolution. (Much nicer. Human face!)

(5) Ordinary people, now so generously provided for, become happier and more productive, and the society surges forward in every way. (All for one, and one for all. Same boat! Community! Heaven on Earth!)

(6) But that vision is based in total ignorance of both economics and human nature, two things that are intimately linked. (Bummer!)

(7) They're linked because, in essence, economics is just a formalization of human nature, and the implications of that nature when it comes to making and distributing things. (Wait, they said there'd be no math!)

(8) So when the economics gets weird and unnatural, none of it turns out to work. (They said there'd be no work!)

(9) Socialists blame the failure on current human nature, for not meeting the requirements of the new system. (Thank God for tautologies!)

(10) To succeed, the new system requires the New Socialist Man, whose human nature is different, and better. (Like Ralph Nader! Like Ben and Jerry!)

(11) Creating him requires increasingly brutal attempts to modify and reform the human raw material at hand. (Eggs! Omelets!)

(12) As a result, and before too long, all but the leadership are oppressed, poor, or dead. (Oh, dear. The leaders weren't New Socialist Men, either?)

(13) Socialists do not count this as a failure, but merely a badly flawed attempt that, naturally, went awry. (That wasn't real socialism! Not what we meant, not what we meant at all!)

(14) The Socialist Dream remains untouched and undiminished, sure to find success the next time out. (Zimbabwe still has plenty of potential!)

The End-Beginning.