Make the rich pay

President Bush had better consider banning men in tights because if he pushes for a budget that takes from the needy and gives to the rich, he might wake up one morning to find Robin Hood getting medieval on his ass.\nLast week, the President proposed a budget for fiscal 2006 that benefits the wealthy and gives the fiscal one-finger-salute to the middle and lower classes. I'll just pretend to be surprised.\nI've heard several examples of how this budget proposal gives low-income working families a kick in the backside when they're already down. But none of them compare to the one I saw on C-SPAN last week.\nThis budget proposes to cut health care aid for veterans. One of the cuts would increase the cost of prescription medication to $15, up from $7 last year. It used to be $2 only a few years ago. Many veterans have as many as 10 prescriptions they need to function. By cutting this support, Bush would effectively take 750 percent more money away from the men and women who bore the burden of war for our country. Our nation is indebted to them, not the other way around.\nBut it isn't that simple. As I watched the television and learned what this plan would do, I remembered something that happened to a friend of mine back home in California.\nShe was nearly kicked out of her house when her parents discovered she was dating a Marine. In her parents' opinion, Marines are the lowest of men and are not fit to participate in regular society, which is why her parents believed the Marines go into battle first, where they're certain to sustain heavier casualties.\nIn short, her parents thought people who enlist in the Marines should be cleansed from our society.\nDon't get me wrong, I still believe most conservatives support our troops, but there are some who believe the lives of soldiers are dispensable. I don't think all Republicans who complain about taxes are the kind of people who get up and fix a bowl of Soylent Green every morning. In fact, I don't have any reason to suggest Bush feels this way, either. But some who believe in Bush's war do.\nAnd what great reward awaits the Marines? They get to chip in to foot the bill for Uncle Sam, in place of the wealthy civilians whose political beliefs cost these young soldiers their limbs.\nThe atrocity committed here is nowhere near the scope of the Holocaust, but the blatant callousness behind it comes pretty close.\nOur soldiers have already paid for this war once: with their limbs, lives and souls. Making veterans pay a second time with their money is wrong. Believing our troops deserve to pay a second time is monstrous.\nForget about Jesus. I want to know, What would Robin Hood do?\nWhether they choose to support our troops or not, wealthy conservatives who really believe in Bush's war should be willing to pay for it, if not with their money, with their limbs. \nI have a modest proposal: Increase the penalty for tax fraud. I want gross cases of tax evasion to cost an arm and a leg. Literally. If Congress passed the Patriot Act, I'm sure it could pass this.\nThe limbs collected from this new law would be surgically installed on veterans who would benefit from having a second arm again. Oh yeah, stealing limbs from the rich and giving them to the poor: That's what Robin Hood would do, baby!\nGranted, it would be easier to just roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy, and it would definitely be more logical. But remember: In Washington, "logical" is a euphemism for "unlikely"