Step Right Up Here Folks, Tell You What I'm Going to Do...

I'm at work on a memoir. My family sees little of me. My Concord Music Group sees less. Send me an email and you learn I'm in seclusion and won't read it. But I am haunted by something I saw on my TV set this morning as I walked the treadmill in front of it, and I must take the time to get this off my chest.

Governor Rick Perry, reminding me so much of the classiest of sideshow barkers in the travelling carnivals of my youth, was telling the world about his new tax plan this morning. I am as ill-informed on tax matters as a six-year-old, unless it is my granddaughter, and so I have no comment on the plan. But there was this moment, this astounding moment.

Governor Perry was telling us how simple it would be to fill out a tax form for those who bought into his plan And to illustrate his point he pulled out what looked to be a blank 5"x7" card. Fill out the card, write the check, and you're done, he said. "Wait a damned minute," I thought. That would be my entire transaction with the government at tax time?? I fill out the one card stating my income and my deductions (he mentioned charitable giving specifically) and that's it? Can I use both sides? He didn't say, but what the hell, I'll let him have it.

Why do I think it so hilarious? Or is it possible to provide on a card all the backup needed just to prove the income and write-offs and deductions I'd be claiming ? Let alone the other matters that rush to the minds of you who are far more informed.

But holding up a pocket-sized blank card and telling me that filling it out will be all I need do at tax time -- there I am back to thinking of that natty sideshow barker, holding up a vial of some elixir and promising it will cure me of anything that ails me.

Of Rick Perry perhaps?