These are difficult economic times. People are losing their jobs, their houses and that good feeling that comes when you charge a big-screen TV on your credit card in time for the Super Bowl and pay it off next year or whenever.
To dampen the effect of decades of consumer excess and Wall Street bloat, the American government has taken drastic action. It has borrowed money from the Chinese to buy sheets of special banknote paper and printed gobs of greenbacks, specifically the billions of bucks it threw willy-nilly at banks, big car companies and CNN in an effort to convince people that their government had the situation under control.
Printing money works well for the federal government, sparing it the embarrassment faced by states such as California for whom the worse the economy gets the lower state revenues get. When California hits the "RUN" key on its Quick Time State Budget Program nothing happens.
California is caught between a cliff and a cashless place. It has little room to make spending reductions as the bulk of its expenses are locked in by entitlement programs and legislative handcuffs. The obvious source for additional revenue, raising taxes, is blocked for California, the only state in the Union stupid enough to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to approve a budget orto increase taxes. The last time the California Legislature voted over 2/3 in favor of anythingwas the last time its members voted themselves a raise. And you thought bipartisanship was dead.
As usual, Californians are thinking parochially. A solution to their dilemma is staring them in the face — well, not technically in the face, more like in the shins. We shouldtax animals. Yes, I'm referring to Fifi, Fido, Speedy the Killer Snail and all the other coddled critters living in our homes rent-free.
Admittedly, cats do catch the occasional mouse and potty train themselves, but they are constant complainers. My cat, Ashes, whined to a rival newspaper reporter, "My human uses the same can opener for both tuna and salmon and we have basic cable."
As for dogs, they are 100% on the dole.
We could tax wild animals but we'd have to catch them first and taxing chickens and pigs and cattle fated for the abattoir would be adding insult to injury. Besides, what would be their motivation to pay, other than to sidestep off the food chain? "This empty hamburger bun is brought to you by Elmer the Cow — a proud California taxpayer."
Household pets, on the other hand, are the largest sentient species in California using services and not paying anythingfor them — if you exclude landscape industry employees.
However, before we go running to Sacramento with this proposal, we need to work out one slight glitch — pets need income in order to be able to pay taxes. I don't know about your household but Ashes has a total lifetime income of 23 cents and that's only because she swallowed some loose couch change one night while stalking a spider.
Here are just a few ways your pets could add to the household income:
* Dogs are natural retrievers. People would pay good money to have someone on call to find and fetch their car keys and TV remotes.
* Longhaired yippy dogs and shedding unspayed cats provide excellent unwanted houseguest deterrents.
* Ladies: Locking a petulant pet in your husband's closet for a few days while he on a business trip is a blame-free way to shred and shed your husband's wardrobe, most of which he's had since high school.
* Guys: Everyone knows a cute dog is a proven chick magnet. Renting one for weekend walks in the park is a lot cheaper than owning one.
* Even non-traditional pets have income potential. Hooked up to a battery charger, an ambitious rodent in a hamster wheel can cut cents off your PG&E charges.
It is time to corral your cats and coach your canines in the fine art of making money the old-fashioned way. I'm thinking if I order the big screen plasma TV now, I can see most of the NFL season in hi-def.
-###-
recommend
Facebook
Twitter
bookmark 
print
Comments: 78
When the Egyptians made cats gods, they ruined them for the rest of us :)
When you tell people you have an Egyptian Mau cat you are repeating yourself. LOL!
You may have already read this: Laid-back recession in California
All the time it was staring me right in the foot :)
Thanks for the funny article. Pets used to have to work for their keep. We can put them to work again. Why not get your dog to pull children on skateboards and scooters, for a fee? There are endless possibilities. (:OD
Pets today seem to have lost the work ethic of their ancestors.
One is permitted to live with a cat, not the other way around. Therefore, this plan of yours could have unintentional consequences. Not only would we have to provide approved food for our feline(s), but we would have to pay them via some mechanism - probably a Feline Trust Fund maintained by the government.
Of course, I now have only one budgie bird. The long-lived cats I had have passed into cat heaven.
BTW - 10 4 U.
Hadn't thought of birds. What kind of work might a budgie do?
Males are very good at doing their own thing, whenever they want to.
Outside of looking at themselves in a mirror, preening or regurgitating seeds to feed the bird in the mirror, I really do not know how to motivate a male budgie. (although, mine will do almost anything for popcorn or orange rind)
The male budgies sound an awful like like cats.
No more animals - been there, done that. So now, whom could I tax? Maybe the birds that fly past my window(6th floor)? Can't catch them...
So the occasional spider?
Hmmm, got to think more about this, lol!
Spiders spin webs, gotta be some us for that.
And who's the "we?"
Of course, we're not going to assume that because denial is our 3rd largest state product. We produce almost as much denial as artichokes.
A walk through a festival
When I say, "Ashes, supper's ready." She gives me this look like, "I know that. But now that you called me the Cat Code requires I wait 5 minutes."
Do you mean Prop 13 as one of the causes of the budget problem?
I'm sure someone can train another animal to do taxes.
And Florida would pay us to get rid of those monsters they have making their way to the swamplands.
I hope that's a lesson for everyone.
Don't hold your breath.
How you doing up there? We here in the southern desert are getting a heat respite!
Did get a lot of quiet writing in though and a week of sleeping with the surf noises.
We cooled down from 103 to about 77 today, then another Santa Ana event starting and the heat with it.
Doing all my pre-op stuff, donating blood etc.
But, if my dog made us money, I might just rethink my annoyance of her getting into the garbage and shredding our sons mattress.
Maybe.
Rest easy
It would definitely go over in Hollywood. They do a lot of that now.