Rodent Regatta

More Mass Demonstrations for Bush Impeachment
by Craig J. Cantoni

(AP) Washington, June 8, 2006 – The largest demonstration ever held on the Capitol Mall continued for the second day, with even more groups joining those that have been calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

The President, who is secluded at Camp David, said that he remains committed to letting Americans save for retirement ”without being harassed by government agents and wasting money on lawyers and accountants.”

The demonstrations began when the President proposed that hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations from the Internal Revenue Code, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and the Health Care Finance Administration be replaced by one sentence: ”It is legal for Americans to save as much money as they want for retirement, without ever being taxed on the income earned on the savings and without filing reports with the government.”

Many of today’s protesters wore black armbands in memory of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who died of a heart attack on the Senate floor on Tuesday after learning of Bush’s proposal. ”Over my dead body!” were the last words that he whispered to Senator Tom Daschle.

Kennedy had triggered the Bush proposal through his successful effort last month to overturn the provision in the 2003 Medicare Reform Bill that had authorized Health Savings Accounts. The accounts allowed Americans to set aside a relatively small amount of money in tax-deferred accounts for their future health care needs, if they complied with numerous restrictions and reporting requirements. Kennedy and other Democrats saw the accounts as blocking their goal of nationalized health care.

Groups that previously had nothing in common have united in solidarity to impeach Bush. Wearing brown suits and shoes, 10,000 members of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants gathered by the Lincoln Memorial and sang ”We shall overcome.”

Around the Reflecting Pool in front of the accountants, an estimated 200,000 members of the American Federation of Government Employees joined in the singing. And over at the Jefferson Memorial, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor read the U.S. Constitution to 40,000 Gucci-clad members of the American Bar Association, to make the point that Americans have no constitutional right to keep their money.

At the other end of the Mall, the president of the Society for Human Resources Management handed an impeachment petition to Congressman Dick Gephardt on the Capitol steps. Signed by SHRM’s 130,000 members, the petition claimed that an estimated 10 million Americans will be out of work if Bush eliminates the regulations that are the sole source of their income.

To drive that point home, scores of financial advisors from Merrill Lynch, Wachovia Securities, E.G. Edwards and other financial firms demonstrated in front of the Treasury building. Financial advisor Pete Dombrowski of Sioux City, Iowa brought his 12-year-old daughter Megan. ”How does the president expect me to send Megan to college if I’m no longer needed by my clients to develop complex investment plans to avoid taxes?”

Protests were even held at the French embassy, where the French ambassador said that the United States would gain an unfair competitive advantage in world trade if it shifted millions of Americans from unproductive work to productive work. ”This could have a destabilizing ripple effect throughout the world,” he said.

Only one Bush supporter could be found. Retired history teacher Mary Carver sat in a wheelchair in front of the Smithsonian, holding a sign that read, ”Hooray Bush!” She explained that before she was born in 1913, there was no income tax and people could save as much money as they wanted without giving much of it to the government. ”This incentive to save is what produced the capital that improved our standard of … ”

Her history lesson was interrupted by a protester wearing a knit shirt monogrammed with the name, ”H&R Block.” Purple with rage, he ripped the sign out of her hand, threw it on the ground, and stormed off in the direction of the IRS building, where 35,000 tax preparers had gathered for a silent memorial in honor of Form 1040.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com