Cutting Taxes or--Attaining Bigger Deficits

Economist, Fayetteville, Arkansas

The frost was laying fresh designs

On every window pane.

Old Kaspar washed the supper plates

and stacked them up to drain,

While Peterkin and Wilhelmine

Looked at the television screen.

They saw the merchants close their shops

And brokers quit their seats

To join the wildly cheering crowds

Along the city streets,

Where congressmen with bandaged heads

Were wending homeward to their beds.

"I wonder what," said Peterkin,

"The shouting’s all about."

"Those congressmen," Old Kaspar said,

"Have put the slump to rout

By breaking down the fiscal wall

That trapped and paralyzed us all."

"Was that the Wall of East Berlin?"

Asked little Wilhelmine.

"It was a wall of taxes, dear,

The highest ever seen.

It clogged the sale of merchandise

And blocked the path of enterprise."

"Now tell us how they broke the wall!"

Cried little Peterkin.

"They found the courage," Kaspar said,

"And iron discipline

To gather up their cliques and claques

And vote against the Income Tax."

"With taxes down," asked Peterkin,

"Will they cut spending, too?"

"Now that is something," Kaspar sighed,

"They’re very loath to do,

Because we’d lose the benefits

Of soaring federal deficits."