Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 21, 1993                   TAG: 9304200307
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S OBVIOUS THE PEASANTS WANT NONE OF VAT

The peasants waxed reasonably happy until the crier from the government came and told them they now had a VAT on them.

"Woe is us," the peasants cried. "What new horror is this? Is it some novel form of oppression invented by the dark princes and princesses who meet in the domed building across the Sacred River? Verily, much of our suffering has issued from that structure in the past."

"Nay, you miserable wretches," said the crier, who was a longtime government employee who would get one helluva pension. "This is not oppression. It is a value-added tax, which will help to pay your expenses when you falleth ill."

"Alas and alack," the peasants cried. "Are not our humble cottages taxed, along with the humble carts that stand outside them? Do we not pay taxes on the very bread that sustaineth us for a purpose we knoweth not? Do we not pay taxes on the magic water that makes life in this kingdom bearable? Must we now be beaten further into the dust by a VAT?"

"Nonsense, you poor benighted creatures," the crier said. "The VAT is designed to raise you from the dust and to beam the sunlight of a kindly government into your harsh, dismal lives."

The peasants continued to raise their plaint, but governments do not pay much attention to peasants when there are no big elections coming up, and the VAT was the law of the land.

Some of the peasants did falleth ill, and the kindly government took care of them because of the monies collected by the VAT.

But soon, the VAT, which taxed a can of beans from its original seed to its harvest and canning, threatened the healthy peasants with hunger, or even starvation - which was not considered to be a matter of falling ill.

"Lo," the peasants said. "Once a can of off-brand beans was 69 cents, and since the VAT has been upon the land, we pay $2 a can for the same beans. Surely, we shall falter and die, and the dark princes and princesses across the Sacred River will care not."

And, indeed, the peasants did falter and die - many of them in the year a can of off-brand beans went for $4.50 - and the dark princes and princesses across the Sacred River smote their heads and tore their garments.

"Lo, what have we done?" they moaned. "We have killed the peasants with hunger. Who will now vote for us?"

The moral here is: Don't killeth off the voters unless you want to voteth the graveyard, which ain't legal.