Big Breasts and the Value Added Tax

Sometime in the next decade, the accumulated debt of the U.S. federal government will total one year’s worth of the nation’s output of goods and services. This is a milestone that Greece and Great Britain are now approaching with calamitous results. As I write this essay, these two European nations are experiencing capital outflows, rising interest rates, and a ruinous growth in taxes stemming from profligate government spending. And here in the U.S., if all goes as planned, the cost of health care reform, and cap & trade energy taxes will push the nation into financial territory that is normally associated with bankrupt regimes in the southern hemisphere.

This year alone, the federal government will add $1.6 trillion, about the size of the entire U.S. economy in 1975, to the accumulated debt. In an effort to stem the red ink, some in Congress have called for the implementation of a federal value added tax (VAT) much like that paid by European citizens.

A VAT is appealing in that it is easy to administer and punishes consumption, not work. However, exempted products in the name of fairness become a real quagmire. For example, in Great Britain, bras, up to and including size 34B, are not subject to the VAT since it presumed that this is children’s apparel. Of course the impact of this exemption would punish the breast implant industry, or worse yet, force more well endowed women into underwear more properly worn by devotees of the Marquis De Sade.

For our sisters’, daughters’, wives’ and mothers’ sake, just say no to the VAT. Restraints on government spending are the answer, not new taxes.

Ernie Goss