I'm posting this without any comments as I'm sure plenty will be coming from our collective of comrades. This is so much along the lines of the People's Cube thinking - only it's for real.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Tax Me More Act
April 11, 2008; Page A16

We recently suggested that if Bill and Hillary Clinton are eager to pay more taxes, they should write a personal check to the U.S. Treasury to compensate for the lower tax rates they so frequently decry. And lo, here comes legislation to make it easier for the former first lady and other pseudo-populists to do just that.

California Republican John Campbell yesterday introduced in the House his "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act," which would amend the tax code to allow individuals to make voluntary donations to the federal government above their normal tax liability. The bill would place a new line on IRS tax forms to make this easy.

Mr. Campbell says he has heard the "cries" of those wealthy Americans – Mrs. Clinton, Warren Buffett, Barbra Streisand – who reject the lower tax rates passed in 2001 and 2003 and complain that they and their fellow rich don't pay enough. "It's a great injustice that citizens wishing to fulfill their dream of paying more taxes cannot simply check a box on their 1040 form to make a donation," he says. His bill would give liberals a chance to salve their consciences without having to raise taxes on millions of Americans who already feel overtaxed as it is.

Still, don't expect many to take Mr. Campbell up on his offer. The Treasury already accepts voluntary donations to decrease the nation's debt; last year it received all of $2.6 million. Apparently even most liberals would rather keep their money, or bequeath their estates to charity rather than to the IRS.

Leave it to a Republican to screw this up. If you want more people to voluntarily donate to the U.S. Treasury, then the obvious solution is to bring all of Hollywood's celebrities together for a star-studded Government Deficit Reduction Telethon!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23994099/

Former American Idol and freshly sated kool-aid drinker Carrie Underwood gushes:

“It's not about self-promoting,” Underwood said backstage. “It's not about singing your latest single. It's not about trying to be the most-downloaded whatever on iTunes. It's all about getting people to call in and do something.”

Of course it is, Carrie!

I'll have you know Commissarka that Ms Underwood is right on! In fact I call in and did something! I intend to do something again soon, and will continue to do something till Comrade Lenin calls me to the great Collective in the... the... where did we put that any way? In the meantime, I exhort my comrades to do something as well!

Pfft... voluntary. "We will make you generous!"

Red Square wrote: "It's a great injustice that citizens wishing to fulfill their dream of paying more taxes cannot simply check a box on their 1040 form to make a donation," he says. His bill would give liberals a chance to salve their consciences without having to raise taxes on millions of Americans who already feel overtaxed as it is.

I cannot fathom why the WSJ would choose to plagiarize Scrappleface. or "The Onion." I've read this piece twice' (once at the source), and that seems to be the origin...

Nevertheless, one must do one's civic duty, though I frankly don't see why they should go to all this trouble when Next Tuesday, we'll have all our paychecks cut by the government anyway.

I mean, that is the eventual goal, isn't it? How else will there ever be Free Everything For All?

And, while I'm thinking about it, would those extra contributions be deductible?

Actually there has been some state that enacted this as well, and collected all of $10,000 in Virginia over a number of years, $2,000 plus big ones in Arkansas under Huckabee.

Here is an CBS News story pn this, and if you can't trust CBS News, who can you trust?

Comrades, the wonder of AmeriKKKa is the division of labor. You thought that Adam Smith had figured it out in <i>The Weath of Nations</i> but no, he didn't.

When a wealthy Progressive wants high taxes, he's showing his sophistication. He is buying Conspicuous Compassion by the hundredweight. He's gone to the Nieman Marcus of the professionals of Conspicuous Compassion, the Federal Government, and he has enabled the professional caring-and-compassion crowd to hone their craft of ministering to people.

Don't you get it? This is an efficiency of production that the Soviets could only dream of.

I nominate Theocritus to the position of Commissar of Organized Compassion and Benevolent Caring.

It's high time we had compassion regulated! We must end the chaotic and unfair dispensations of compassion by individuals whenever they feel like it. We must stop the back-alley compassion, remove the individual compassion from our streets, arrest the compassion whores and put the dirty compassion addicts into government rehabilitation facilities.

We must replace all that with Organized Compassion of the benevolent government. The inner-city folks who have tasted, liked it. The knuckle-dragging small-towners of Pennsylvania and Midwest are next.

But wouldn't one who believed and practiced Conspicuous Compassion also be one who would be contributing to these voluntary tax funds? Commissar Theocritus? May we see your Conspicuous Compassion spreadsheets for review?

Commissar Pupovich, my spreadsheets for Conspicuous Compassion have been outsourced to Jesse Jackson's Operation Push. He has been getting his files in order for audit for at least 20 years and I'm sure they're in perfect order. Just about. When he gets them to me, I'll be sure to pass them on.

Red, if it so suits your Incarnadine Rectangularity, you could modify my avatar to be "Commissar of Conspicuous Compassion and Caring," that being the de facto successor to the CPUSA.

Don't you see just a teeny bit of contradiction Commissar? Where a Commissar of Conspicuous Compassion and Caring is unable to actually be conspicuous?

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Red, if it so suits your Incarnadine Rectangularity, you could modify my avatar to be "Commissar of Conspicuous Compassion and Caring," that being the de facto successor to the CPUSA.

It suites me fine, but what do you suggest for an image - symbol/face/object? (besides the middle finger?)

What we need Comrade Red Square. not for the Commissar exactly, but for all....a People's ATM! Why should we have to wait for the mail for our subsidy?

You like this one?

Yes, I do. I'll email you some others which you might find amusing.

But Vlad Tepes? Very nice.

What was that commercial from way back.... Be Glad it's Vlad?

I don't think that the Ottoman Turks were glad to see Vlad Tepes--Count Dracula. They came into his fortress and found 20000 people impaled and the Muslim turned white and went back to Constantinople. For a Muslim warlord to get squeamish means something. Were it not for Vlad Tepes, the Turks would have spread Islam up to Vienna. There would be no Michelangeo, only a theocracy and a fundamentalist dark age.

This from a documentary, not hard research. It's all I can wrap my head around these days.

So you're saying he's too right-thinking and civilized to represent your character of Commissar of Conspicuous Compassion and Caring? He impaled 20,000 for the Greater Good(TM)! He did it for The Children(TM)!

He cared.

Perhaps it would be more palatable for them if the limousine liberals had a check-box on their tax return to give a servant or two to the government rather than money.

Halliburton, a Limousine Liberal would never give a servant to the government for it might get uppity. After all, the champagne socialist needs to be able to <i>lick</i> the servant in oleaginous compassion to show the servant that the limousine liberal <i>cares</i>.

For if there is no live-in audience to be impressed by the grandeur of the caring, then what is the point?

And that, dear Halliburton, is why I am the Commissar of Conspicuous Compassion and Caring.

Because I get it. As much of it as I can.

Jeez. With his wheeze pretty soon I'll leave Meow in the dust.

A very, very silly Theocritus wrote:Jeez. With his wheeze pretty soon I'll leave Meow in the dust.

No one is more caring than me, Theocritus - NO ONE!

Right now -- as I listen to myself speak (which is always a pleasure!) -- I am currently working on a new initiative that will rid our streets of water guns.

Yes, never again will our Children - who we CARE for - be able to get a hold of a water gun which promotes violence, violence, violence and more violence. Never again will they squirt one another. Never again will they be programmed to embrace a culture that celebrates guns! WATER GUN CONTROL, NOW!

Our kids cannot afford us to waste time on this issue of national importance, Comrades. That is why I am asking you -- as a friend -- no, scratch that, I am not asking you. No, I AM DEMANDING THAT YOU MAKE A DONATION TO THE PUNCHENKO FOUNDATION FOR A WATER GUN FREE AMERICA!

With your donation we will be able to send out three NLG goons to push kids down on the ground and snatch up their water guns before summer arrives. Armed agents will swoop into homes -- unannounced, of course -- to search and destroy any water guns found on the premises. We will also press full charges against those who have water guns and will offer $900 Best-Buy gift cards to those who volentarily turn in their water guns to the proper authorities -- these gift cards will be paid for by the American taxpayer, of course.


WE MUST ACT NOW AND PUT A STOP TO THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!


GASP! A WHOLE ARSENAL DESIGNED TO MAKE OUR KIDS WET! THE HUMANITY!!! SAVE US, STALIN! SAVE US FROM OURSELVES! OHHHH! WHAT HAVE WE DONE!?!?

Chairman, please tell me you do not plan on destroying these "water guns" though of course I am behind you all the way in your plan to protect the children from them. But the actual weapons themselves can still be quite useful, one just needs a different ammo than water.

Like gasoline? Or butane? Or sulfuric acid?

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of vodka and champaign. Sometimes I find a Superblaster is the only way to keep some comrades thirst appeased.

*cough*Meow*cough*