I’ve been laid up in bed for the last four days with a terrible chest cold. No, not swine flu, or vanilla flu either, I’m sure, because I was inoculated against both of those. And of course, like everybody else lately, I’ve been as cautious as possible about avoiding contagion. The rest room at my office is stocked with the best anti-microbial hand soap, and Gretchen has been spraying and wiping down door knobs and surfaces like mad, applying her usual Teutonic efficiency with a vengeance. Plus, I haven’t ridden any form of public transportation since last August, when I accompanied a client who doesn’t drive and is nervous in crowds back to their hotel via the Metro – on the clock, of course.
No, it couldn’t be anyone I have been around regularly, either – Gretchen is completely asymptomatic, and so are Cerise and Veronica. What’s more, I haven’t been near my dear brother Rob Roy, or my dear sister Rose, or their families, lately, either; nor have I been frequenting close-packed night spots, not with Cerise or any of my male drinking buddies. So I guess I must have either picked up this monstrous package of coughing, sneezing, fever and congestion from one of my clients (none of whom appeared sick, however), or had the misfortune of boarding an elevator car shortly after somebody else hacked and wheezed their damn head off in it.
My favorite cold remedy is honey, lemon, lime and hot water, a drink for which, I discovered very early in my adult experience with such maladies, a jigger of bourbon or brandy does wonders. A couple of those, and well, maybe you still have a cold, but you can be one hell of a lot more philosophical about it. Then there’s Asian food, particularly the dishes made with peppers, garlic, onions and ginger. Peppers potentiate the Vitamin C in those citrus fruits and juices you’re supposed to consume when you have a cold, that’s why the traditional Szechuan meal of highly peppered food ends with orange slices. Szechuan is, by the way, a cold and rainy place, where fighting off respiratory infections has become part of the cuisine. Garlic and onions contain natural bacteriocidal and virucidal compounds, and ginger is a great decongestant. Finding a good Asian restaurant that delivers is another problem, of course. Fortunately, out here in Great Falls, Virginia, the population is sufficiently affluent to support a couple of them. When medicating a cold with Chinese food, I always make sure to order two large containers of hot and sour soup. The place I ordered from last night also has clear clam and ginger soup, and thick pork soup with garlic, which are also quite effective. As a matter of fact, I had just finished some orange lamb with ginger and scallions and a cup of hot and sour soup, and was feeling much, much better, when the phone on the night stand rang.
I’ve been working from home, giving my clients who had appointments with me at my office downtown the option of cancelling, re-scheduling or using the telephone. Nearly all of them opted to substitute telephone consultations, which means that since last Wednesday, dozens of politicians, captains of industry, diplomats, leaders of NGOs, legislators and high-ranking federal bureaucrats have all been getting advice from somebody under the influence of artisanal single-barrel bourbon and Robitussin DM. Well, I haven’t seen any disastrous results – yet, anyway. My caller ID didn’t show who it was, but I figured that, even though it was Saturday morning, the call was probably business, and it was – Congressman Thaddeus McCotter.
Tom: Good morning, Congressman McCotter. How are you today?
McCotter: Fine, thanks, Tom. Sorry to hear that you’re a bit under the weather.
Tom: Fortunately, I can still talk. Laryngitis would have really posed some significant problems, but my throat is staying out of the fray, at least for the moment. How can I help you?
McCotter: Well, Tom, I’m having some problems with this new bill I’m trying to turn into law up here on Capitol Hill.
Tom: Which bill would that be, sir?
McCotter: The HAPPY Act.
Tom: Golly, Congressman, with a name like “the HAPPY Act,” I can’t imagine what kind of problems could your bill possibly have. What does “HAPPY” stand for anyhow?
McCotter: It’s House Bill 3501, the Humanity And Pets Partnered through the Years Act.
Tom: Oh, my goodness – “Partnered through the Years?”
McCotter: Yes, that’s what I said.
Tom: Please tell me that doesn’t mean, uh, you know, like what gay people mean when they…
McCotter: Of course not!
Tom: So it’s not a bill legalizing little old ladies marrying their cats or anything?
McCotter: No, it’s a bill to allow legal owners of domestic pets to claim a deduction for them on their federal income taxes.
Tom: Excuse me? I’m sorry, maybe this infection has spread to my left ear. I thought I heard you say that you’re sponsoring a bill that would, if passed into law and signed by the President, allow people who own pets to claim those animals as dependents on their federal income tax returns.
McCotter: That’s right, Tom, there’s nothing wrong with your ears.
Tom: How much is the deduction?
McCotter: Thirty-five hundred dollars per pet.
Tom: Per year?
McCotter: Uh-huh.
Tom: My goodness, Congressman, that’s the same amount as if old Rover was the taxpayer’s child!
McCotter: Yeah, I do seem to remember somebody else making that observation…
Tom: Do you recall who?
McCotter: Oh, some guy from the Congressional Budget Office. But you should realize that not only do some people love their pets just as much as others love their children, the medical bills for a sick pet can easily rival those for an ill child.
Tom: Not that I doubt it, but still – here we are, Congressman, with the economy on the ropes, unemployment at ten point two percent, officially, and pushing twenty percent if you count people who have completely given up looking for jobs because there are eight applicants for every opening in the country; not to mention the environment, and how the United States urgently needs to reformulated its policies on global warming, greenhouse gases and sea level rise; on top of which, Congress is torn asunder in multiple directions by the health care debate while the public anxiously awaits a solution to a public policy crisis that has grown to the point where nearly one hundred thousand Americans die every year from lack of affordable health care. With all due respect, sir, given those circumstances, do you feel that drafting and sponsoring a bill that gives pet owners tax deductions is – not to put too fine a point on it – sane?
McCotter: You have to understand, Tom, that I’m a Republican.
Tom: And? What’s that got to do with it?
McCotter: Well, first of all, you mentioned the economy. You know, Tom, I would really like to get in there and do some serious legislating about that, but I’d have to, you know… cooperate… with Democrats to do so, and House Minority Leader John Boehner has made it very clear that anybody who does is toast. And it’s the same story on the environment, too. I’ve got a lot of important environmental legislation ideas and such, but I can’t even talk about them, or come 2010, they’ll have some nasty, cut-throat conservative demagogue Sarah Palin picked out run against me in the Michigan eleventh Congressional District Republican primary, give them ten million dollars and have Fox turn my name into a household obscenity overnight. And health care? Forget about it! Health care is supposed to be Obama’s Thermopylae, his Stalingrad, his Yorktown, his Waterloo! That’s what the Republican leadership has decreed – Obama must be defeated on health care, because that will enable the Republicans to discredit his entire presidency! All I’m allowed to do about health care is nod my head like a bobble-head doll every time Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or somebody like them spouts the Republican party line. Jesus Christ, Tom, I couldn’t just sit around the office all day! I had to do something! It’s relevant! It’s meaningful! Look, since the economy fell apart, people have left millions of lovable pets at animal shelters all over the country, just because they didn’t have jobs and couldn’t afford to feed their children or themselves, much less Mittens or Fido. The HAPPY Act will give that vast majority of the American work force – the eighty to ninety percent who still have jobs, an incentive to adopt a pet – a cute furry little friend who will provide years and years of love and companionship. Tell me, Tom, do you have a pet?
Tom: Yes, I do, a cat named Twinkle.
McCotter: And you love your furry, purry pussycat, don’t you?
Tom: I’m very fond of her, yes.
McCotter: And I bet she loves you right back, too, doesn’t she?
Tom: I, like every other person who has a pet, sincerely believe that to be the case. Yes, my pretty little kitty loves me. I’m not just a large warm presence that fills her food and water bowls, brushes her, changes her cat box litter and gives her cat toys. No, I’m positive that she both loves and appreciates me as a friend and companion.
McCotter: Right, because of the way she behaves, you know.
Tom: Actually, she has told me.
McCotter: Of course, in that inimitable way animals have…
Tom: No, in fact, Congressman, my cat can talk, and she’s told me, in quite distinct English, that she loves me. She has also told me that she loves my girlfriend Cerise and hates my room mate, Veronica, who had to move in here after her mansion in Malibu burned down.
McCotter: How come she doesn’t like your room mate?
Tom: She says Veronica is “too catty.” Also, “doesn’t pet,” which I think means, Veronica can’t take a hint when Twinkle would like somebody to pet her and there’s nobody else around.
McCotter: Interesting. Well, there you have it then – you’re an animal lover, you have a pet, you realize their value and the contribution they make to people’s lives, so why shouldn’t pet owners get a tax break?
Tom: Okay, in that case, if I may ask, how come people who own their homes get to write off the interest on their mortgage, but people who rent their housing get no tax break at all?
McCotter: Huh. I never thought about that. Maybe that might be a good idea. I’ll check with John Boehner and see if he’ll let me to sponsor a bill so renters can get a break on their taxes, too, just like home owners. But hey, wait a minute. Something just occurred to me. Practically everybody who pays income taxes either rents or lives in their own home, right? I mean, what else is there? So if we did what you suggest, there would be no incentive for people to own their homes, would there?
Tom: Certainly. A policy like that could definitely be expected to keep… certain people… from ever buying a home.
McCotter: But the purpose of the home mortgage interest deduction is to encourage as many people as possible to buy homes.
Tom: Correct. And we have seen where that got us…
McCotter: Oh, I get it – you’re saying that if poor people had been getting a tax break on their rent, the mortgage sales crooks we’re catching and putting in jail right now wouldn’t have been able to sell as many sub-prime mortgages to them as they did in the first place…
Tom: … And the economy wouldn’t have collapsed to begin with…
McCotter: … And John McCain would be President of the United States right now!
Tom: Most likely; and you wouldn’t be calling to ask me obvious questions about some bill you’re sponsoring to give pet owners a deduction for their cats and dogs. Speaking of which, Congressman, does your bill include ferrets?
McCotter: Uh, um, well… ferrets are pets, so I guess it should…
Tom: And cute, too! Like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll tell you something, Congressman, ferrets are so incredibly cute, it’s amazing. Try this – you blow up a bunch of party balloons, and leave them all over the living room, right? Then release a ferret. They instinctively jump those balloons, one by one, sink their teeth into them and… POP! The balloon explodes and the ferret goes flying; and all that does is make the ferret more determined to get the rest of the balloons. And you can get ferrets to do all kinds of other amusing things, too. Plus, if you tend to lose things, and have a ferret, they’re a God-send.
McCotter: Really? Why?
Tom: Because very soon after you get a ferret, you will notice things missing, and very soon after that, you will find the two or three places your ferret has chosen to put the things it takes a fancy to. Then, you’re all set – if something is missing, well, it doesn’t matter if you misplaced it or if your ferret took it, because, in either case, that object is going to be in one of your ferret’s hiding places.
McCotter: Why, I didn’t know that. How nifty can you get? Our little furry friends never cease to amaze, do they?
Tom: So ferrets would be one of the kinds of pets you can get a thirty-five hundred dollar tax deduction for?
McCotter: Why sure! What Republican wife hasn’t lost a thirty-five hundred dollar earring around the house? And if she owned a ferret, she’d have it back in no time, plus the thing about the balloons! That’s going to absolutely slay after a few cocktails!
Tom: And oh, yeah, ferrets smell really, really nice.
McCotter: They do?
Tom: Yeah, they’re part of the weasel family, and they’re all related to the perfume civet.
McCotter: Okay, then, yeah, good. This is the kind of issue I need to discuss with you. Sounds like ferrets should definitely be on the list.
Tom: So there’s going to be a list of approved species?
McCotter: Gosh, I guess there has to. My staff more or less insisted. I mean, otherwise, you’d have somebody who runs a chicken farm giving all his chickens names and claiming them as deductions or something, you know?
Tom: So no thirty-five hundred dollar tax deductions for pet chickens, then?
McCotter: No, I don’t think we could have that, not when you can buy a chicken at the New York Avenue Giant supermarket for six bucks.
Tom: How about pigs?
McCotter: Same story as chickens, I’d imagine.
Tom: Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are very well known as household pets, though.
McCotter: Pot-bellied pigs?
Tom: Yeah, they’re tiny, cute little pigs; and very intelligent. A lot of people say they’re smarter than dogs.
McCotter: Really? Smarter than dogs?
Tom: A lot of people who own them think so. They’re definitely smarter than cats…
Twinkle: Not smarter!
McCotter: Who was that?
Tom: My cat. She disagrees. But pot-belly pig owners will tell you, in no uncertain terms…
McCotter: Okay, okay, pot-belly pigs are in.
Tom: Parrots?
McCotter: You mean, like sitting on Long John Silver’s shoulder; pirate-style, talking parrots?
Tom: Certainly, the Caribbean and South American varieties, with their striking, beautiful plumage immediately come to mind, but consider the African Gray, a species of bird so intelligent…
Twinkle: Stupid birds!
Tom: … that most authorities consider it as clever as a three or four year old human…
Twinkle: Two! Dumb birds!
McCotter: Well, despite your cat’s objections, in that case, we’ll definitely have to include parrots in the bill.
Tom: But no rodents. You should definitely draw the line at rabbits.
McCotter: You think so? I remember, back when our kids were little, one of our neighbors had rabbit and they were just nuts about it…
Tom: Yes, yes, I know. They have those lovely glass button eyes, the fetching ears, the…
Twinkle: Rabbits suck!
Tom: … the little twitching nose, the soft, inviting fur, and that passive, huggable manner about them, but sir, you must not, under any circumstances, allow pet income tax deductions for rabbits!
McCotter: But, why not?
Tom: Because if your bill passes and becomes law, and a person buys two rabbits in tax year 2010, by tax year 2015, they will have so many deductions, Uncle Sam will owe them money!
McCotter: All right then, I see what you mean; we at least need a limit for rodents. Maybe one per household per year or something. How do you think the bill ought to handle horses?
Tom: Well, if the horse lives on a farm, then we’re talking about whether the cows, sheep, goats and, oh, I don’t know… ostriches, llamas, alpacas and camels that live there with it are, according to the intent of Congress, “pets,” or not.
McCotter: Sure, I see what you mean there…
Tom: And if the horses are not in a situation like that, sir, then, well, frankly, you’re talking about people like the ones down the road here in Loudoun County, who, admittedly, own horses. They keep them on their multi-million dollar estates, just like the people who own Mine that Bird…
Twinkle: Stupid birds!
Tom: … or Da’ Tara. If those people need a tax break, however, then I’m Harold Stassen.
McCotter: But what about a family that adopts a mustang from the Department of the Interior?
Tom: I would recommend you at least see to it that claiming a horse as a dependent requires an application for a waiver.
McCotter: Okay – IRS waiver required if a person claims their pet horse. Reptiles okay, then? I mean, it’s not like they reproduce all that fast…
Tom: If you include reptiles, Congressman, I predict a boom market in tiny turtles like we used to play around with in the first grade.
McCotter: Your first grade classroom had one of those turtles, too?
Tom: I’m pretty sure they’re standard elementary school educational equipment.
McCotter: So – no reptiles?
Tom: Probably wouldn’t be a good idea, generally speaking.
McCotter: Right. Okay, so we’ve got dogs, and cats, of course; and ferrets…
Tom: Ferrets, check.
McCotter: And pot-belly pigs…
Tom: Better do the same thing we did with horses – get an IRS waiver to screen out the barnyard livestock.
McCotter: Got that; waivers for horses and pigs. And a limit of one rodent per household per year… to include rabbits, hares, hamsters, gerbils, squirrels, guinea pigs…
Tom: Guinea pigs aren’t actually rodents. You’ll need a list of “miscellaneous species” with guinea pigs on it and a note that they are regulated as rodents. Otherwise, some slick tax lawyer with a client who has invented names for his fifty-seven guinea pigs is going to be soaking the federal treasury during a recession, which I’m sure neither of us want.
McCotter: Absolutely not. And none of those… uh, what are frogs, anyway?
Tom: Amphibians. No, certainly not. You’ve got to keep people from claiming pet amphibians as deductions. We can’t have people building lily ponds in their back yards as tax shelters. And no pet dolphins or killer whales, either. That’s like with horses, but worse. Nobody who can afford to have a pet dolphin needs a tax break.
McCotter: But what about Flipper? What if a cute kid from a poor waterman’s family makes the best friend they’ve ever had, and it just happens to be a dolphin?
Tom: Okay, if you think so – but I’d still recommend an IRS waiver for that one.
McCotter: Sure, why not? Deductions for pet dolphins and killer whales, but only with an IRS waiver.
Tom: Good. Also, no pet elephants, zebras, antelopes, giraffes, hippos, rhinoceroses, donkeys, sloths, narwhals, seals, walruses, manatees, deer, racoons, anteaters, armadillos, bats, otters, hyraxes, aardvarks, foxes, lions, tigers, bears, moose, bison, elk, apes, monkeys or lemurs. No pet fish of any kind; and no marine invertebrates, either. And no kangaroos, wombats, akidnas, platypuses, opossums, hell, no marsupials in general – none of that stuff. And no pet insects – otherwise, one wiseacre with a flea circus could make our tax code a national laughingstock. And no arachnids, either.
McCotter: What’s an arachnid?
Tom: Spiders, mostly.
McCotter: Ick! Pet spiders?
Tom: It takes all kinds to make a world, Congressman.
McCotter: Gee, I guess so. Do you think that about covers it, then?
Tom: I’m sure one or the other of us will think of something we left out before tomorrow.
McCotter: Okay, sure. Thanks for your advice, Tom.
Tom: You’re most welcome, Congressman. Oh, by the way, how about you introduce a bill that encourages people to adopt American children instead of foreign ones by offering the adoptive parents a double deduction for that child on their income taxes?
McCotter: You mean, let them deduct seven thousand dollars per year if they adopt an American child that needs a home instead of getting one from someplace like China or Romania?
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
McCotter: I don’t know, Tom. That sounds a lot like socialism to me.
Tom: Just a thought. Have a nice day, Congressman.
McCotter: You too, Tom. ‘Bye!