Dude, Where's My Tax Cut?

By Farai Chideya, AlterNet. Posted May 29, 2003.

Dude, I'm feeling majorly shafted. Like, I was reading the newspaper -- well, not really reading it, I was, like, watching "Fantasy Island" (Mr. Roarke is SO boss) and dropped my pepperoni slice right on top of my roommate's paper. Oops.

Anyway, I ate this 'roni off of this headline about "A Tax Cut Without End." The government is giving away all this money, see? And it might be, let me look at the paper again, $320 billion over 10 years. Or it might be, like $800 billion, 'cause, y'know, once you're gettin' all the free loochie, why stop?

I was doin' my end-zone dance cause I figured I'm a millionaire now, right? That's mucho zeroes to split -- $800,000,000,000!!!!! Then my roommate came home.

I call him Dr. Doom because to him, everything sucks. He sucks. He's always bugging me to take out the empties and saying if I don't recycle the world's going to end.

So told him I'm a millionaire! Uh huh, uh huh!

Dr. Doom totally harshed my high. He was, like, you're not gettin' any of this money, dude. First off, he said, you're on unemployment, remember? I told him it wasn't my fault I got fired from the copy shop... and he said, no, listen, that even if I got back on the 9-to-5 groove, I wouldn't be seeing any serious cash.

Why not? I said.

'Cause, he said. 'Cause it's not for people who work, it's for people who make all this money off of stocks. Take the Doomster, for example. He's making good loot for a patchouli-smelling guy, almost fifty G's for writing stupid articles. And he's going to get back, like, $300 a year.

He got all bitter, see. Three hundred bucks a year! He pays three hundred bucks a month for health insurance. And then he went off on how he had to live with a pig like me so he could save money for his own place, but he didn't want to be home it stinks so bad, and why was the kitchen full of empties?

I said, dude, calm down, don't get all personal and stuff. But I really wanted to know where my million dollars was going.

Dr. Doom said that that heart attack guy, the Vice President, is the kind of guy who gets the cash. The Vice Prez was the tiebreaker vote on this tax cut, and he was gonna get 85 extra G's just the first year, even more the next. The Prez was getting back $33,000.

So, like, the Prez and Heart Attack Dude are getting my money? I said. Whoa.

Dr. Doom said they were getting back his money. He got all pissed again, saying how he was working and my parents were paying my rent. For him to get back the four grand he paid for health insurance each year as a tax cut, he'd need to make over 250 grand. And then, y'know, he wouldn't care if he had to pay for insurance. Plus, 25 percent of people who aren't geezers on Social Security don't have insurance at least part of the year. If only we had nationalized health care, Doom said. That would be a friggin' tax cut.

I said, what was nationalized health care?

The Doomster just sighed. He pulled up this site on the internet, the Freelancer's Union. It's this thing he just joined so his healthcare would cost less. He said that 30 percent of the people who work in NYC are freelancers like he is. But unless you make over a hundred grand a year, you can't afford decent insurance. So these guys, the union, are trying to make a stink about it. They call working and not having insurance "middle class poverty."

My roommate said a lot of other stuff too, about how the schools are screwed up now but just wait 'til there's even less money 'cause of the tax cut, and raising the cost of the subway was like taxes too, and, y'know -- when was I going to take out the empties?

Fine! I can take a hint. Is raising the cost of beer like taxes, too? If so, I was thinking -- and I hate to say it -- Dr. Doom might be right.

Farai Chideya is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.

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