Welcome to the elephant house!

Sean Hannity was righteously hammering away at the fact that the Dems’ (and Obama’s) tax plan, by dramatically raising taxes on society’s producers, de-incentivizes work.  Democratic callers professed themselves bewildered: “The people who work will still have more money after taxes than if they hadn’t worked.” Hannity agreed, but couldn’t get through to them that, at a certain point, the work simply isn’t worth the lower rate of return. I totally got Sean’s point, both because I work and because of a true story out of Laborite England in the pre-Thatcher era.

A friend of mine, the summer after he graduated from grammar school, decided that it would be a fine thing to earn some spending money to have when he went away to university. He eventually managed to get himself a job at the local zoo, driving the kiddie train and cleaning out the elephant enclosure. His older sister, already wise to the ways of the socialist world, refused to work. Instead, she spent the bulk of the summer watching soaps on the telly and collecting dole checks.

At summer’s end, after weeks slogging through elephant poop, my friend was dismayed to learn that, once he’d paid his taxes, he and his sister had virtually the same amount of money in their hands — his earned by the sweat of her brow; hers also earned by the sweat of his brow.

My friend learned his lesson well. He never held a job during college, relying instead on government grants. When he graduated with an engineering degree, he left England for a “real” job — one where he could keep his money.

I haven’t heard from my friend in almost thirty years, but I suspect he’s not the only one who learned the hard way that that socialist economic reality and poop have a lot in common.