Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

(Taxpayer’s Version)

Four Score and ten years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this nation a new tax, conceived in desperation and dedicated to the proposition that all men are fair game.

We are met on form 1040. We have come to dedicate a large portion of our income to a final resting place with those men who here spend their lives that they may spend our money. It is altogether anguish and torture that we should do this but, in a larger sense we cannot evade, we cannot cheat and we cannot underestimate this tax. The collectors, clever and sly, who compute here, have gone far beyond our poor power to add and subtract.

It is not for us, the taxpayers, to criticize the taxes the government has thus far so ignobly spent. It is rather for us to dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us – that from these vanishing dollars, we take increased devotion to the few remaining – that this taxpayer, underpaid, shall figure out more deductions, and to resolve that next year will not find me (us) in a higher income bracket so that this tax of the people, by the Congress, for the government shall not cause solvency to perish.