Let me educate you on the economics of family budgets and child allowance. We have been crafting some fabulous legislation here in Ottostan. I'll tell you about the Free Allowance Initiative Law.
Okay, so Representative Lynn Jenkins has given me an idea. I have two children. At times, the financial system in our home can drive us into the red. Our kids have great earning power. They have a list of qualified chores that pay them a set amount. This is a little bit like the socialist nightmare of Medicare. Most of the time they choose not to do the chores. I am generally not one of those parents who thinks letting the kids choose everything is the best way to go, but we were really at the end of our rope in regards to allowance and chores. The Allowance Czar wanted a more market based approach.
Well, the good new is Representative Lynn Jenkins has give me the clearly thought out rationale I need in order to implement a program which will fully cover our allowance needs, and also be entirely free!
Are you enticed by this amazing plan!? Would you like to learn more!
Note- This plan is being boldly crafted by Carl Weathers, the Honorary Rank Bluntz Chair of Ottostanian Economic Wordsmithing Department.
Okay, here's the deal. Each kid in my house is entitled to earn up to one dollar for assisting in the folding of the laundry. That's kind of expensive for just for putting a little groove in some underpants and matching the edges. I realize that previous line can be read in different ways, but the complexity of the law is a feature, not a bug. If I were able to be paid for putting a groove in my BVD's... well, I'll just leave it at that.
Each kid has the opportunity to earn 75 cents by taking the garbage, recycling and yard waste out. That's a lot of money for fueling the contemptible, vile, and greedy environmentalists. All they want to do is make money by forcing us to divide our refuse into separate classes based on the the taxonomic distinctions of said waste products (Think hard. Would a sane person say this? Option 1- Otto is insane. Which means he has eluded your detectors all this time. Option 2- It's a joke.)
I could go on and on about the amount of money the unelected and unduly appointed adult representatives in this household could be forced to give to the younger, less sophisticated, less "legally allowed to work" in this domicile. I mean, seriously, can't these kids get their own jobs? Why is it that these lazy children can't get themselves out of bed and into an office to sit in front of a computer to shirk their employment responsibilities and blog while someone pays them?
A side note- the older kid has been wildly successful with an economic stimulus plan this Summer. Ye Olde lemonade stand has made a strong comeback. The child earned 240 dollars over a 2 day period just by sitting on the corner. (Pause for collective or individual gasps of astonishment at the entitlement of today's youth.) I know! To be fair, 200 of that money was earmarked for a trip to Atlanta to play in a chess tournament.
It was poorly thought out work incentive plan on the administration's part. One administration official had indicated that if the child wished to attend said event in Atlanta, the child would be required to earn 200 of it. The unnamed source was disappointed that it only took 2 days. The assumption being that it would take weeks or perhaps months to earn that kind of money, and that the afforementioned child would learn a clear lesson about the value of money. It was just like Cash For Clunkers. In one respect it was wildly successful, but on the other hand, it might have been a colossal failure.
So, here's the new free allowance program:
Each kid in this home will be given a tax credit for doing their chores. That tax credit can be applied at the end of the year when they file their itemized tax returns with the revenue department.
See. That's free! It doesn't cost us anything to give a tax credit. A tax credit has no impact whatsoever on the overall financial structure of this home's budget. Now that we have freed up resources in this system, we have the flexibility to throw some more cash at our Strategic Drinking Initiative. That plan is fantastically popular with one of the political parties in this administration, but some complain that it drives a bubble drinking economy where everything is great at 10PM, but when 6AM arrives, the bubble has crashed. It's really okay, though, because all some administration officials are interested in is lubricating the financial system so that we, um they, can make hot love.