This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 25, 2011 - The Easter Bunny was the first to go. I was still in kindergarten when it struck me as highly unlikely that a giant white rabbit hid colored eggs around my house to commemorate the resurrection of Christ.
Besides, what adequately nourished kid is going to get excited over a hard-boiled egg? All the good stuff -- the chocolate bunnies, marshmallow eggs and jelly beans -- looked suspiciously like merchandise from the supermarket. Picturing the Easter Bunny in the check-out lane caused me to skip agnosticism altogether and jump directly from unquestioning belief to apostasy.
I shared my insight with the little girl who lived next door. As I recall, she promptly broke into tears and ran inside to inform her mother that there was a heretic in the neighborhood. Her reaction left me feeling both sad and wise -- the poor kid couldn't bear the weight of my worldly knowledge. It was my first taste of sad wisdom, but certainly not my last.
Next out was the tooth fairy. Due to monetary considerations, however, I feigned credence in that improbable character for quite some time. If you knew my father, you'd realize how absurd it was to suggest that he'd allow his home to be burgled by nocturnal fairies while he snored peacefully in a room down the hallway. On the other hand, kids who believed got paid for their gullibility, so when in Rome...
Of all the demented fictions of childhood, I found Santa Claus to be the most credible, although there were some serious holes in his story. For one thing, our first house didn't have a fireplace. If Santa came down our chimney, he'd wind up in the furnace. And then there were the logistical problems: How did he get all those toys around the world in one night? Just how big was that sack, anyway?
But in this instance, magic seemed more probable than fact. As a kid, I was constantly in trouble of one sort or another. An uncle once predicted that I'd be hanged before I turned 12. Given my innate propensity to drive adults to distraction, I found an elf propelled by flying deer a more plausible explanation for the arrival of toys than the notion that these people would part with their hard-earned cash to make me happy at Christmas. In fact, when I learned the truth, I was quite impressed and thereafter took a more sanguine view of my family situation.
Unfortunately, magical thinking doesn't end with childhood. Rather, the content of fantasy tends to become more sophisticated and its consequences more dangerous.
Ten years ago, George W. Bush was touting the pressing need for massive tax cuts. Congressional Budget Office projections of the impact of his proposal were so dire that the cuts had to include a "sunset provision," expiring after 2010 to keep the numbers within the realm of feasibility.
Bush shrugged off these ominous predictions, arguing that by the time the cuts were set to expire, they'd have generated a surfeit of additional revenue through the miracle of supply-side economics. The nation's coffers would be flush, and the reduced rates could be made permanent.
We now know that the CBO's projections were in fact terribly inaccurate -- they were far too optimistic. What really happened was some very fat cats got considerably fatter while bankrupting the republic in the process.
Hardly chastised by the disastrous outcome of their "tax less to get more revenue" experiment, proponents now advocate curtailing entitlements for the elderly to avoid raising taxes on the rich. Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner has just termed the proposal to return rates to their previous levels for individuals making over $250,000 a year a "non-starter."
The same crackpot economics that drove the federal government to insolvency are now at play locally. According to a study funded by un-billionaire Rex Sinquefield, St. Louis should abandon its earnings tax as an unnecessary hindrance to private investment.
The resultant $140+ million shortfall would be offset by all the new businesses that would flock here, as well as raising the sales and real estate tax rates.
A couple of questions: Why would investors relocate to the city to avoid a tax they already don't pay? And if a 1 percent levy discourages investment, what do you think a 20 percent hike in sales tax would do to city merchants, or a 50 percent increase in real estate tax would do to property values?
Rather than repeat mistakes, let's try a different approach. The city is coping with a $40 million budgetary shortfall. Instead of doing away with the E-tax, let's raise it by one-half of 1 percent for the next two years. That would generate about $140 million in extra revenue, thus balancing the budget for the period and leaving City Hall with a $60 million cushion going forward.
Admittedly, there's nothing magical about this suggestion. In place of the promise of miraculous prosperity, it offers the mundane certainty of taxation. But a temporary one-half percent surcharge shouldn't run too many people out of town.
Then again, I could be mistaken about all of this. Maybe there really is an Easter Bunny...
M.W. Guzy is a retired St. Louis cop who currently works for the city Sheriff's Department. His column appears weekly in the Beacon.