Now that healthcare reform bill has been signed into law, and we are NOT holding our breath to see when changes can really be carried out, probably years, and by then, I’d probably be dead from holding my breath especially since I can in all honesty hold my breath for only 10 seconds under normal circumstances… It’s amazing I know for someone with such a loud mouth and loud voice, my lung capacity is pathetically puny… what with the lawsuits filed by several states, the continual protests from the GOP and the Tea Don’t-Call-Me-Baggers Party members, something else on the horizon for the Republicans to wage a new battle:

The proposed VAT.

Actually, it was not even proposed in the congress. People started ASKING QUESTIONS about VAT because economist, former Federal Reserve Chairman, current White House advisor, Paul Volcker on April 6 answered a question at a New York Historical Society event, saying that VAT is not as toxic an idea as people may think. Oh, he also said, “If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes.”

Ooops. They (The Dems) did it again! Sound the alarm!

I have been trying to read upon various opinion pieces to draw my own conclusion. But the fact is: NOBODY has officially proposed it yet except John McCain, the Maverick. He alone proposed an anti-VAT amendment preemptively.  Like anybody else I would like to be able to keep as much of my hard-earned money as possible. I was surprised therefore by my annoyance when I received an email from my Congressman, taking a survey, with a simple question: “Should Congress impose a new VAT tax?”

With NO information whatsoever on the background and origin of the recent brouhaha over VAT.

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Most likely I simply needed a good dose of rage to distract me from life itself. Nothing, NOTHING, gives a good slap to wake me up from my self-pitying stupor like a good invitation for raging psychotic foaming. I immediately saw this email, perhaps wrongly, as an incendiary, biased missive disguised as an innocent, neutral survey. A fear monger. So I fired off this email, perhaps a bit pigheadedly. It felt good, I have to admit.  I don’t really care that he will not read it.

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Dear Congressman Kirk,

I feel the email survey on the proposed VAT you have sent out via email is misleading, if not disingenuous. When you send out an email with a brief question “The Congress decided to add more tax. Do you think they should levy more tax?” I am going to take a wild guess that most of the respondents will say “H to the ELL NO WAY!” I am going to take another wild guess that you and your staff will then show the survey results, perhaps even call a news conference, with the “stunning” result of the majority surveyed having chosen “NO”.

If a doctor goes to a patient and says, “Would you like to have toxic chemicals injected into your body, with the potential risk of killing the cells in your bone marrow, losing all your hair, and in general feeling weak and like cr*p all the time?” I am going to take a wild guess that the patient is going to say, “NO.” But if the doctor provides the patient with the facts and the reasons behind his/her recommendation, the patient will be empowered to make an informed decision.

Yes. You can argue that people who want more information can always go online. After all, google is just one click away. But let’s be honest with ourselves: The topic of TAXES has always been extremely personal to people especially those who are blessed enough to be in the high-income bracket, and lately it has been turned into an emotional subject as well. in your wildest guess, what will be the % of the people who after receiving this email wondered about the facts behind the VAT proposal instead of getting some gut / visceral reactions to the short question you posted?

Frankly I am disappointed. For the very least you could have included a link in your email to a fact-based, neutral information page. Granted very low % of the recipients are expected to bother to click on that link, but to those who care to learn more and to make their decisions based on facts and not based on a base human desire for self-preservation and an all-too-human “They can eat cake” mentality, such a skin-deep effort on your part would have helped prevent this bad taste in my mouth I am experiencing.

Sincerely,

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I only bring up my degree when I write complain letters...