Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 2, No. 16 Thank God we don't get all the government we pay for! The Jig Is Up To our great disappointment () Senate Lib Leader George Mitchell last week withdrew from the race to be the next social meddler on the Supreme Court. Since the Clinton Comprehensive Care Plan (CCCP) seems to have about as good a chance of surviving as the Titanic, Senator Mitchell said he felt that his place was in the Senate, helping to bail out President Clinton and Bill's plan. We at Spiff believe George may have lost out for another reason: the law. This whole deal was a setup from the beginning. One need only look at the chain of events that led to Senator Mitchell's withdrawal. We now know that President Clinton was told by Harry Blackmun that he planned to retire this year on New Year's Eve. (We assume that he also told Bill) Mysteriously, at the height of his career in the Senate, Mr. Mitchell, who has no problem using Senate lawyers at taxpayer expense to defend his colleagues against the voters' attempts to impose term limits, suddenly decides to limit his term in the Senate by retiring. When we little people are finally allowed to learn of Blackmun's decision, Mr. Mitchell's name instantly leaps forward as the frontrunner. He would have had the job, but for one little thing. As they usually do, the liberals forgot to properly read (if they read it at all) one of their own laws. This law bars any member of the Legislative branch from accepting appointment to the court if he has voted to raise the salaries of the Judicial Branch of government. Of course, Mitchell never met a pay raise he didn't like, so he was disqualified. When word of the annoying little law first surfaced, medialibs dismissed it as a nuisance and were sure that President Clinton and Bill would find a way around it. This is what happens when you have a bunch of cheap crooked liberal politicians in charge of the government. Now that we have a void in the selection process, Spiff has decided to help President Clinton and Bill with a few names for the high court: ù Diana Ross: It is, after all, the Supreme Court and she would be a woperson of insert-continent-of-origin-here descent. ù Martha Craig Daughtrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ù Rush Limbaugh: It would be nice to have a court that is right 97.2% of the time. ù The President: It would be even better to have a court that is right 99.9% of the time. (He did nominate Sandy D. to the court.) An Offer You Can Refuse By now, as the informed people we know you are, you are familiar with the exchange between the CEO of Godfather's Pizza and Bill Clinton during a recent "town hall meeting." If you missed it, the Bill was informed that the Clinton Comprehensive Care Plan (CCCP) would cost jobs. This is not a new idea. Business groups across the country share a similar dread about the health scare plan. Many have come out against it as a job and investment killer. Unemployment rates refuse to budge because companies are waiting to see what government burdens they will have to bear before hiring any new people. When told of the impending doom President Clinton's plan will bring, Bill thought for a moment, bit his lip, looked to his questioner and asked him, "Why can't you just raise the price of pizza by two percent?" Yes folks, he really said it. Death and Taxes April 15th has come and gone. Good ol' 1040, complete with its middle-class tax cut (snicker), is finished and on its way to the IRS (although we did use the U.S. mail to send it). The topic of conversation for the last week has been taxes. They typically went something like, "Got your taxes done?" "Yeah, finally." "How bad was it?" "Not too bad. I only had to pay $100." Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! You had to pay only $100 more than what they already took from you. Most of us had to pay thousands of dollars in federal income taxes alone last year. That doesn't even include sales taxes, property taxes, inheritance taxes, gas taxes, Social Security taxes, yacht taxes, you-bought-a-fuel-inefficient-car-and-now-you-must-be-punished taxes, unemployment taxes, hotel taxes, entertainment taxes, breathing taxes...well, you get the idea. Whoever thought up the idea of all these taxes was smart_evil, but smart. It's a lot easier for President Clinton, Bill, Jim Sasser, and Bob Clement to raise rates on a lot of little taxes than to raise one big tax. If they did that, the voters might actually complain. Next year, don't look at line 62, the amount you overpaid, or at line 64, the amount you owe. Look at line 53. It says, "This is your total tax." Don't Forget Your Lunch Recently a Spiff reader relayed the story of a visitor to our great nation from the country of Sweden. This visitor was asked to tell a group about his free health care in Sweden. His response to the question was to say, "Yeah our health care is free. It's so free that we pay $600 for a $200 suit, $4 for a gallon of gas, and $50 for a steak dinner that you pay $12 dollars for. It's really free." This response got the creative juices flowing here at the Spiff Executive Plaza, towering over beautiful downtown Donelson Tennessee. Please look over the permission slip you will find in this week's edition of "Words to Live By." Since they are going to take care of all of us, President Clinton and Bill Clinton have already signed your permission slip so you can go on our field trip. Please fill in your name and enclose it with next year's tax return. And where, you may ask, are we going? Since we are so desperate to emulate the socialist tendencies of some European countries, we at Spiff think that a nationwide field trip to Sweden would help our under-educated people understand the wonders of a government-run health system. Up to now, President Clinton and Bill have been unable to convince Americans that they should turn over their lives to Donna Shalala. Perhaps this will help. Now, we at Spiff do believe in maintaining some shred of self-reliance. You will have to make your own reservations on the airlines and for accommodations in Sweden. We suggest that you hurry. 250 million people going to Sweden might cause a bit of a jam. And please don't forget your sack lunch. We'd pay for it, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. Just free health care. Quote of the weak: "Thank you all for making my role almost completely irrelevant. There is hardly anything left to say." Bill Clinton Quote of the strong: "You have got to be Karl Marx to read this plan and understand it." Rush Limbaugh, on the CCCP Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Plaza, towering over beautiful downtown Donelson, Tennessee at 615-883-0435.