Flat Tax Falsehood

I had intended to start a series of posts on my family's trip to Disney World at the end of March and beginning of April but it's tax day tomorrow. That brings out all the stupid from the woodwork. Taxes, after all, are a bigger sin than adultery in the current GOP playbook.

The folks at Mort Walker Enterprises decided to chime in on taxes yesterday. Usually this means some dull "joke" about Hi's drudgingly completing the family's taxes. This year the corporation and its 1% operator, or his stand-in, decided to take the opportunity to advocate for a flat tax.

Now, I'm not one to begrudge the wealthy like Steve Forbes, Herman Cain, or Mort Walker from advocating for this. They'd be the prime beneficiaries from such a tax. It would cut their taxes owed substantially while raising it for the middle class, who pay 8% of their income on average. But far be it from me to hold the wealthy accountable for being greedy. Plenty of us in the lower income classes are greedy, too.
What's irksome about this strip is that when Hi says a flat tax doesn't seem like such a bad idea, Lois asks about losing their deductions. Hi's response is that they don't amount to much, which leads into the lame joke about loopholes.

Hi should not be completing the family's taxes. Hi is an idiot. His wife is a realtor. The largest deduction for most middle class taxpayers is the mortgage on the house. Lois's livelihood relies on that deduction to entice people to buy houses. Without it, most people would be better off renting.

So, not only is Hi too stupid to recognize that his own taxes are significantly reduced by the mortgage deduction "loophole", he's too stupid to realize that without it his wife would be unemployed. Brilliant.