You say you want a revolution

It still surprises me what topics attract comments here among the brilliant yet enigmatic readers of too saucy. I post a pithy and scintillating take down of George Bush's disastrous foreign policy and, yawn, no one gives a rat's tiny ass. I use a random throwaway line about the Brady Bunch in another post, and it gets a shitload of scholarly comments.

I make an offhand post on Thursday about Katie Couric finally signing with CBS - mostly out of my relief that all the media chitchat about will she or won't she? can now end – with a casual aside about a Daily News article on her salary ($300,000 a week) and, of course, the commenters get all riled up.

And they made some good points, mostly about how the obscenely wealthy – and Katie, believe it or not, is really just in the middling level of obscene wealth – get so many breaks it's not even funny.

Case in point, I saw this article in the Times a few days ago about Bush's tax policy and who it benefits, and, frankly, was so disgusted, and so not surprised by the information, that I didn't even have the energy to write anything about it. But, given the commenters' quite disgusted takes on Katie and her salary, here are a few fun facts from the article to rile you up:

The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.

(snip)

Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.

These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.

So, folks, with April 15 fast approaching, as you're sitting down with your accountant, or perhaps slogging through the IRS forms yourself, looking for every pathetic little break you can get to save 300 bucks on your taxes, just remember, some smug turd making $10 million got his taxes reduced by $500,000, courtesy of W.

A big thing the Republicans in power have going for them is that Americans, unlike Europeans, don't like to practice class warfare. I guarantee you, someone out there is reading those tax statistics and saying, “Oh good, when I make 10 million a year, I will get that huge tax cut too!”

Sorry, Cletus, I hate to burst your bubble, but – unless you are an undiscovered superstar singer, actor, or sports phenom, or you're going to invent the next Google - chances are, if you are an employee somewhere, an average working person, even one with a really, really good job, you aren't going to make $10 million in your lifetime, never mind in one fucking year. So all those generous tax breaks for the super rich aren't going to help you.

Oh, and Britney Spears made about $35 million last year. Again, just note, you aren't going to make that in your working lifetime, all those long decades you will spend sitting at your little desk, year after year after year, slogging away for 40 hours a week, with your sad little 3-week vacation each year. After year. After year.

Until you can finally hobble into retirement at 65 - although they are talking about raising the retirement age to 72, to get a few more years out of you. Of course, that's actually if you're one of the lucky ones. With corporate America getting everything they want from the GOP, you could lose your job to outsourcing and have to beg for work at a Wal-Mart for minimum wage with no health insurance or retirement plan.

Anyway, Britney is no doubt swilling champagne right this moment in a fabulous Las Vegas hotel suite, wondering if she should get the seaweed wrap or the Swedish hot stones massage tomorrow, probably not even aware that her taxes dropped by a couple million bucks this year. And you're getting up at 7 a.m. to make your way into your job, wondering if you should bring a sandwich with you to save the lousy $8 that lunch costs at the Soup Nazi.

Goddamn it, what does it take to stir you peasants up for a revolution?

I tell you, it's very lucky for Bush that I live the relatively good life, or I would be rioting in the streets right now. I mean, really, people. Fight the power.