Helping the economy can be taxing

As you may know, I am deeply interested in proposing ideas to help our national economy.

In March, for example, I explained my idea about giving corporate sponsorships to natural disasters as a cost-effective way for companies to promote their services.

You will be pleased to note that I have another smashing idea.

Actually, it isn’t 100 percent my idea, so I must give credit where credit is due. (That statement is actually quite pun-ny.)

President Barack Obama recently signed a bill that will restrain credit card companies from pounding the deadbeat customers with late fees and higher interest rates.

This is good news for payment-dodging credit customers. This is bad news, however, for credit card companies.

In fact, an article on reports that credit card companies rake in up to $1 billion annually from late fees.

So now the payment-shirkers are federally protected. Now what?

Answer: To offset this lost revenue, card issuers are looking into raising interest rates for customers who pay on time and charging fees to customers who clear each month’s balance.

I think this a great idea! I’ve given this several minutes of thought, and have come up with an even bigger scheme:

I am proud to introduce the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Charge System.

Under this system, certain fees could be applied to anyone who does—in regard to social standards—the “right thing.” The collected funds from each “good deed” would go to its respective business or organization.

Under my system, money would be pumped from consumers who do the right thing back to larger groups who need the money so they can keep awarding themselves large bonuses, or whatever corporations are doing with those government bailouts.

Following, I will highlight several ideas where this system could be applied, but rest assured the possibilities are endless.

n The Please and Thank You Toll. Under this tax, any time any sort of manners were exercised, the well-mannered person will incur a fee that will be awarded to either the person to whom the polite remark was directed at or the government, whichever has more power.

n The Good Samaritan Law. Actually, this law already exists. It was set up for people who help someone in need, and protects the do-gooder from lawsuits or similar actions. However, under my system people who jump in assist a person in distress would be charged a fine.

This fine will fluctuate—without mandatory prior warning—depending on the severity of the situation. For example, dialing 911 would be a minor fee, while assisting, bandaging, transporting and paying for a person who was beat up by robbers would be considerably more expensive.

n The Turn Signal Tax. This feature of my system would be quite useful for automakers, which seem to be struggling considerably right now.

n Every time I observe a person turning or changing lanes without signaling, I want to pull up beside them, roll down my window and raise my left hand, as if I am waving, because this is the hand signal for “I am going to veer to the right and run you off the road because you can’t even use your flipping turn signal.”

There are few pet peeves higher on my list than blatant turn signal neglect. And these days, I find turn signal-using drivers to be quite noble. This is why I am imposing the largest tax on them. Automakers would just need to install a government-mandated device in their cars that would record turn signal usage. For each time a driver used the signal, they would owe the auto company a large fine.

I also feel people who actually slow down for yield signs should be given similar fees, while those who drive straight through them would be given a large government grant.

Those are just a few of the possibilities for my No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Charge System. Perhaps you find these ideas to be backward. Normally I would demand money in response to this disagreement, but thanks to Obama, I don’t think I can charge you for not playing by my rules.

But for those of you who agree, fork it over.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.