Voodoo Economics

My friend, a middle-aged geek, has four boys, all in their teens. My friend has little or no money of his own and doesn't like to work much, so the boys have gone to work to hold the family together.

They give about 20 percent of their income to my friend, who then agrees to provide them with one meal a day, feed the dog, cut the grass and clean the pool.

My friend, for some odd reason, was reading about President Reagan the other day, and he decided to make some changes. He told his boys he was "cutting their taxes." They would only have to give him 10 percent of their income.

They thought that was wonderful, of course, praised his incredible intelligence and his generosity.

It wasn't long, though, before they had second thoughts. One week, good old dad wasn't able to provide their usual meal. The next week, he said he didn't have enough money to buy dog food and the dog, unhappy and hungry, bit the oldest boy in the leg.

On the third week, the boys came home and found that the grass had not been cut and the yard was overgrown and weedy.

The pool turned green and filled with slime the fourth week.

The boys called a family conference the fifth week.

"What's going on?" asked the youngest boy. "Why aren't you fulfilling your obligations, Dad? What are you doing with the money we give you."

"Hey," said my friend, "I'm doing the best I can. Now that I'm getting less money from you guys, I've had to trim some services. There just hasn't been enough cash to do all the things you need me to do."

"Well, that's just crazy," said the oldest boy. "Why did you cut our payments in the first place?"

"I read this book that said when Reagan was president he cut taxes and that meant people had more of their own money to spend and everyone was happy."

"No, dad," said one of the middle boys. "That book must have been written by a Republican. What happened was that services on which people depended were cut, and everybody was hurting and then Bush Senior came in and made it worse, and it took a Clinton about eight years to fix the economy."

"Well, I'll be darned," said my friend. "OK, we'll go back to the way things were. But I'll need 22 percent from each of you this week. Inflation, you know!"


A story in the local paper today described how this year's budget for the state of Florida will be slashed by about $1.5 billion. Part of that decrease is due to tax cuts, and part of it is due to declining revenues.

"Everything from schools to prosecutors to feel pinch," said the headline. Because the state legislature is dominated by Republicans, the focus is on what services to cut, not on how to find other sources of revenue.

There has been no discussion of re-instating taxes on investments that used to bring money into the state's coffers; there's been no discussion of stopping the tax-free shopping days that occur every year just before schools starts; there's been no discussion of increasing taxes in any area.

All the people who depend upon state services are going to be hurt. The first areas to be cut will be, as you might guess, children and family services.

Voodoo economics!