Cutting Taxes or--Attaining Bigger Deficits
FEBRUARY 01, 1963 by H.P.B. JENKINS
The frost was laying fresh designs
On every window pane.
Old Kaspar washed the supper plates
and stacked them up to drain,
While Peterkin and Wilhelmine
Looked at the television screen.
They saw the merchants close their shops
And brokers quit their seats
To join the wildly cheering crowds
Along the city streets,
Where congressmen with bandaged heads
Were wending homeward to their beds.
"I wonder what," said Peterkin,
"The shouting’s all about."
"Those congressmen," Old Kaspar said,
"Have put the slump to rout
By breaking down the fiscal wall
That trapped and paralyzed us all."
"Was that the Wall of
Asked little Wilhelmine.
"It was a wall of taxes, dear,
The highest ever seen.
It clogged the sale of merchandise
And blocked the path of enterprise."
"Now tell us how they broke the wall!"
Cried little Peterkin.
"They found the courage," Kaspar said,
"And iron discipline
To gather up their cliques and claques
And vote against the Income Tax."
"With taxes down," asked Peterkin,
"Will they cut spending, too?"
"Now that is something," Kaspar sighed,
"They’re very loath to do,
Because we’d lose the benefits
Of soaring federal deficits."