Now that manifestos are fair game, I’d like to unveil my proposed plan to fix social security. It’s pretty simple, and also pretty affordable. We’ll lose a little tax revenue in the first few years, but I think the economics are pretty compelling. Here’s what I propose:
- Federal subsidy for fried foods. Every time somebody buys a bucket of chicken from The Colonel, Uncle Sam picks up 10% of the tab. Same goes for french fries, chicken fried steak, and popcorn shrimp. If successful, I think the subsidy should be extended to gravies as a family—your cream gravies, sausage gravies, one-eyed rabbit gravy, what have you.
- Repeal federal taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and prohibit the states from taxing same. I know, this is a problem because it’s a big source of tax revenue at present. But I have a fix for that…
- Levy a 50% tax on Lipitor and other cholesterol controlling drugs. To put teeth in this, public insurance programs like Medicare can still pay for the drug, but the tax must be paid by the user.
One, two, three. It’s that simple. No need to raise payroll taxes or move back the retirement age for social security. Claims for retirement benefits will go way down, and we’ll still be solvent for decades to come.
Another idea I batted around but ultimately rejected would be to impose a road tax on joggers. I think it makes a lot of sense, but would be very difficult to implement. Also, people might move en masse to treadmills, essentially gutting the tax.
One of the real beauties of this scheme (‘Scheme’ sounds like an evil plot, doesn’t it? Maybe I should stick to calling it a plan.) is that it will provide some extra funding to public schools. Remember how much fried food they served in your high school cafeteria? Now the schools get back 10 cents on the dollar every time they serve up a plate of chicken fingers and fries. Do the math on that and gimme a side of gravy!
