There's Backwards and there's . . .
BurkeWords
There's Backwards and there's . . .
In this issue:
It's amazing how Bill Clinton will always be -- in the name of the American people, of course -- for higher taxes. For your own good, of course. For your children's sake, of course.
Smarter people can see through all the smoke he's puffing, which is ironic because the President claims that he's trying to do something about smoking. The President feels that by taxing every smoker in the United States, that will prevent teenagers from starting to smoke.
And, coincidentally, it will create a slush fund of revenue to finance a whole host of goodies that have absolutely nothing to do with Saving Social Security. For that matter, the President doesn't want it to go to smoking-related expenses, either. Logically, as we wean the public off of cigarettes, the tax revenues will decrease, but so will smoking-related illnesses. On the other hand, if everyone in America stopped smoking tomorrow, children would still need, say, vaccinations. So funding a program that won't go away with a source that you hope will is sheer folly.
But that's Bill for you. After all, look at his logic. Raising the price of cigarettes by $1.10 over a period of five or ten years (I've seen references to both) is supposed to make them unaffordable. Just out of curiosity, I wonder how much the President expects the minimum wage to rise in the next five or ten years. Perhaps Mr. Clinton hopes that it won't rise so much.
Due your own comparisons: how much have the prices of records and movie tickets increased in the past five or ten years. It hasn't seemed to hurt their sales much, has it. If kids want to get cigarettes, an extra dollar won't stop them. They'll either get the money or they'll get the cigarettes. (How many of you smokers out there started by sneaking one from your parent's pack? Or grubbed them from friends?)
Smoking legislation is about one thing and one thing only: raising taxes again.
Now it's time to pick on a Republican: Mayor Rudy Guiliani of New York City.
Rudy seems to be dead set on having the taxpayers build a brand new baseball stadium for a man that can afford to build his own stadium with the spare change under his cushions. I've been a Yankee fan for a long time, but to drop prostrate at the feet of Steinbrenner is ludicrous. What's George going to do? Leave? The New Jersey Yankees? I don't think so. The Meadowlands Bombers? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. And let's not forget that wonderful "NY" logo, which has come to signify the Yankees more than it does New York.
But let's put that aside for a moment. I want to talk as a Yankee fan, who has traveled many times to Yankee Stadium. You know, that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it. Yankee Stadium. Sure beats Continental Airlines Stadium. Or Some Stupid Bank Stadium.
Mr. Mayor, if you insist on building this stadium that the people -- the fans -- don't want, just remember what name goes on top of it. Not some airline, bank, record company or fashion designer. And The House that Baby Ruth Built will be absolutely, downright sacrilegous.
Customs officials in Houston stopped one million dollars in U.S. currency from being shipped out of the United States to Colombia.
The money was hidden inside a shipment of Monopoly games. Now that would buy quite a few houses on the Boardwalk.
Celebrete Earth Day right:
"Aw, shucks."
This page is Copyright 1998, Christopher J. Burke. All rights reserved.