I recently discovered that the government intends to hire 87,000 more IRS employees.

There are about 700 billionaires in the United States. Since 87,000 is clearly larger than 700, I think we can safely assume that those 87,000 IRS employees will pester the rich. In high school and middle school, we studied the American Revolution and learned how the American colonists became angry at the English government’s introduction of new taxes through the Stamp Act. When the American colonists had enough, their ire sparked the Boston Tea Party, and the entire American Revolution. If tax matters can trigger an entire revolution, the first thing I’d take care of as king for a day, would be to get rid of the 87,000 IRS hires. Our government essentially wants to give the IRS a confrontational role and audit the heck out of everybody.

I run a business and recently got a notice from my CPA informing me that I need receipts for every little purchase, or I won’t be able to deduct them. If I have a credit card receipt at Office Depot, I obviously bought stuff for the office. Now I need a receipt to prove that everything I purchased was used at the office. It’s an accounting nightmare. Do you know how many monthly charges I have on my credit card statement? 300. This means I now have 300 receipts to keep track of each month just in case I’m audited by one of these 87,000 yahoos that the government hired. As king, I would reverse the hiring of these people, but I would also implement a better law. This whole situation has me going crazy about our government. The government has the fiscal responsibility of a three-year-old, and that’s being generous.

Warren Buffett had an idea for a solution to this that I appreciate. He proposed that if those in the government can’t balance the budget each year and limit their spending to what’s coming in, then they aren’t eligible for reelection. My first law would make anyone who works in the government and can’t balance a budget to be ineligible for reelection. I think most Americans would support that. There’s a reason that the American people have a higher view of used car salespeople than of our government.

My second law would ban spreading random factoids on Facebook, or any other social media, without first spending at least 30 seconds to google the information and ensure that it’s reasonably accurate and not pure balderdash. I’d call it the  Balderdash Law. I’ve had enough of people on both sides of the political aisle spreading random content they come across, regardless of whether it’s true or not. If it sounds good to them and fits with their self-image, they immediately spread it to the rest of the world.

I hate how rampantly disinformation spreads. I’m a big believer of free speech, but I think that we should all be doing our due diligence in checking the accuracy of our facts before dispersing them into the ether. It’s not only Republicans or only Democrats who do this. It’s everybody. In fact, I’m sure I’m guilty of it as well. This weekend, I concluded that I need to be better. I don’t want to be one of these people who circulate catchy headlines without first double-checking their legitimacy. So many people are spreading disinformation, and then other people are arguing back and forth about a topic that wasn’t even true to begin with. Let’s all be more responsible about the content we share on social media.

In my time as king for today, I’ve made two laws:

1. Those in positions in the government must balance the budget, or they are ineligible for reelection.
2. People who post inflammatory factoids on social media must first google it to make sure it’s reasonably accurate.

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