Here is the latest news item from the Associated Press: It seems that a man named John Yeutter, a professor of tax policy, and representative of the American Mustache Institute, has made a radical proposal on behalf of all taxpayers. He is calling for a $250 tax break for all Americans with mustaches. His airtight argument is that the mustache sector adds significantly to the nation’s GDP, since a 2009 study has shown that men with mustaches make 4.3 percent more than their shorn colleagues.
Claiming that the stimulus money would be a “disincentive for the clean-shaven to enjoy the mustached lifestyle,” Yeutter has made the obligatory rounds of the morning shows, sporting facial hair that would have made Chester A. Arthur proud. As a result he has gotten his 12 minutes of fame, which is all he can expect in this economy.
This is, of course, what the late Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin once defined as the pseudo-event, a meaningless moment staged for the sake of staging something. Like the MTV Video Music Awards. It is how news is now created in America. Yuetter spends years grooming a huge mustache, comes up with a catchy tax-season headline, which is then picked up by news organizations which not only have 24 hours per day of airtime to fill, but must also pack the Internet with quirky stories for people to thread comments on. The event is taken seriously by no one, except for humor columnists who waited until the night before a deadline to find a topic.
And yet, as much as we all know that this stunt is the mustache-publicity- seeker’s version of “Pants on the Ground,” we roll with it.
The $250 tax break for mustaches is a national disgrace. This is how all entitlement programs start in this country — with a seemingly harmless benefit snuck into a piece of legislation in order to get some unshaven senator to vote for it. Before you know it, the tax incentive creeps slowly upward to keep pace with inflation and the spiraling length of Daliesque facial hair. Sooner or later, bearded Americans insist upon getting some of this ball of wax, including those poor 45-year-old men who view goatees as a less expensive mid-life crisis than a Bugatti. Can I get 50 bucks for a soul patch?
Considering the fact that no United States president has dared to sport even the slightest hint of stubble since William Howard Taft, clearly it is an insult to the executive branch to penalize the clean-shaven. And during a recession, can we really afford to raise taxes on the bare-lipped Americans who are the backbone of this country?
Please understand that I am speaking out against my own interests. I have worn a mustache continuously for 21 years (Except for one week in 1996 after an “incident” with an electric razor, in which I learned that it is unwise to sneeze. And even less wise to overcorrect. Trust me, the Charlie Chaplin look is not flattering). At any rate, though I stand to benefit significantly from this tax break, I cannot in good conscience support an incentive that is not available to all good men and women.
So whether you have a pencil line, a soup stainer, an imperial, an English, a handlebar, a Pancho Villa, a walrus, a toothbrush, a horseshoe, a chevron or a Fu Manchu; whether you like it straight, curled, tapered, spiked, parted, sparse, bushy, groomed or freestyle, the gravitas and lip appeal it brings should be reward enough.
The legend is that Groucho Marx was once late for a vaudeville performance with his famous brothers and did not have time to apply the false mustache he usually wore onstage. So he dipped his finger in some black greasepaint and wiped it across his upper lip. The look stuck, and Groucho sported the smudge for the rest of his career.
But if this tax for the mustachioed passes, I do not even want to think about the fraud that will follow. IRS investigators will be swamped with disguised claimants — Frank Zappa lookalikes who demand $250 for something they did not earn with blood, sweat and Miracle Gro. I’m tempted to shave in protest.
