America needs money. He's got money.
Hooray for greed!
Just when we thought our relationship with the G.O.P. presidential primary candidates had reached its denouement (i.e., had moved from the Getting To Know You phase of hot sexxx and late-night talks to the ho-hum Trapped In A Loveless Marriage phase of misery, boredom and shame), look who has jumped out onto the campaign stump: it’s the walking, talking corporation Gordon Gekko!
The general rule, I think, is the richer the “businessman” candidate, the flatter and taxier the flat tax plan. Rick Perry and Herman Cain? Out. Steve Forbes? No way. Donald Trump? Who knows, but judging by hair quality and swagger (which are actually things that influence the way people vote), I think it’s safe to assume that Trump’s got nothing on the master. I mean, this guy has been making shady deals since cell phones looked like this:
Size mattered, back then.
In a speech given to an audience of supporters – or “shareholders,” as it were – he had the following to say:
The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book, you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies; I am a liberator of them!
At this point, Mitt Romney allegedly appeared for a big high-five, and then the two of them proceeded to make out, egregiously, for company-liberation and freedom. He continued:
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.
Teldar what?? Oh, I see. I’ve just been told that this scene actually took place in a fictional movie, long, long ago (1987).
Sorry, Republicans. I’m sure that a hero with a 0-0-0 tax plan will come along one day though, for freedom.