Government Blues
Bernie’s in a bad mood today. That’s because Mr. Rentner called. Mr. Rentner’s our accountant. I don’t know what he does, exactly, besides putting Bernie in a bad mood. Right now Bernie’s at his desk and there are papers all over the place. I took one or two out into the hall and gnawed on them a bit. I don’t like seeing Bernie in a bad mood.
“Do you realize,” he says, “that there wasn’t any damn income tax until the Civil War?”
The Civil War? That was new. I go into the office, scarf up another sheet of paper, more of a scrap, really, take it into the hall. Oops. I’ve just started gnawing when all of a sudden here’s Bernie, looking right at me. But he doesn’t seem to see what I’m doing.
“The better angels of our nature,” he says. “That’s really something.”
I wag my tail; it seems like the right response at the time.
Tags: Chet and Bernie, income tax, Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under Chet The Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
4:46 am on December 14th, 2009
Goodness, how wonderful that is. Had to actually look it up. Well worth it!
Of course, it goes just as well for the Nation with in the Nation.
4:54 am on December 14th, 2009
Lincoln's phrase was recently used in this editorial:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/the-better…
8:42 am on December 14th, 2009
Originally income tax was supposed to be a temporary measure. Of course, where would we be without it today since the worst angels of our nature seem to be working on Wall Street.
I like the fact that Bernie is an optimist and that beautiful words and their meaning can get him out of a bad mood.
6:33 pm on December 14th, 2009
Chet, you are as helpful with taxes as my cats are with laundry, as Wojo is with dishes.