Real outsider presents tax reform ideas

When people talk about changing the tax code, they always say the same thing: Our federal tax code shouldn't pick winners and losers.

Baloney.

By the very nature of taxes, they do that and always have. When we tax people's income (or anything else), we pick winners and losers: What do we tax? What do we ignore? At the same rate or at a varying rate?

I mention this because we're in the middle of the biggest push for comprehensive tax reform in Congress since 1986, when "Say You, Say Me," was the second-most popular song of the year (and we learned that to say it for always is the way it should be).

I know about tax reform because my day job involves the subject . . . and because it's in the news. Tax reform this, tax reform that, corporate rate this, itemized deductions that, pass-through rate this, alternative minimum tax that.

Confused? Me, too. But I have a plan, if it's not too late for Congress to make some changes.

We can do this!

The first issue we must agree on is that the purpose of the tax code is twofold: Raise money for the government and encourage certain behavior.

Why do we get to deduct home mortgage interest? The government wants us to buy houses.

Why do we get a deduction for each child? The government likes children.

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be close to you.

We can agree that we pick winners and losers. We just need to agree on what they should be, which leads to my first proposal:

Proposal No. 1: Tie the individual tax rate to the taxpayer's BMI.

The current tax code taxes us between 10 percent and 39.6 percent of our income (with all kinds of confusing deductions and other options). At the same time, the government wants us to eat healthy and exercise. Under my plan, if your BMI is "healthy," your tax rate will be 18.5 percent to 24.9 percent. If you're way out of shape, your tax rate will be high.

We don't want to encourage unsafe dieting, so I would set the low at 18.5 percent. (By the way, I'm not saying you should be thin. The government is. I think you look great.)

Under my tax plan, you would visit the doctor in January of each year and get a BMI number. That's your tax rate for the previous year. Think that might affect your holiday diet?

Proposal No. 2: Tax-free lottery.

Under my plan, we'll have an hour-long TV show each year, capped by a low-level Internal Revenue Service employee pulling out a four-digit number (maybe one every 15 minutes, building suspense). Anyone who has that sequence of four numbers to finish their Social Security number gets a full tax refund.

Bonus idea: Tell taxpayers they must file by March 15 to be eligible for the drawing. That would speed up the filing of returns.

Proposal No. 3: Make tax form smaller than a postcard.

People have advocated a simpler tax system for years – but they nearly always dictate what that means: It needs to be three pages or it needs to be the size of a postcard. How about this? We make it smaller. Much smaller. You can shrink anything – heck, a guy copied the entire Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible on a grain of rice. Let's shrink taxes by shrinking the tax forms.

If our tax code is broken, the solution is simple: A BMI rate (for corporate rates, too. We'll see if they're really fat-cat rich guys), a lottery show. And for those obsessed with size, a tiny tax form.

I guess this column should have appeared on the business page.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

When Thanksgiving Day changed our lives

My favorite holiday of all time is Thanksgiving, 1990, which involved a middle-of-the-night drive down Interstate 680, dinner at Denny's and a night at a cheap hotel.

It was a life-changing event.

Just a few months prior, Mrs. Brad and I dived into the world of adoption. We had done as much infertility treatment as we could stand (not that much) and made contact with lawyers who dealt with adoption. Within a few weeks, we miraculously met a brave 21-year-old pregnant woman named Denise who made the painful, best-for-the-baby decision to allow a family to adopt her child.

Us.

It was rapid-fire: We fell in love with Denise, we feared she might change her mind, we raced to get our home set up, we met with lawyers, we told our families, we worried again that Denise would change her mind. She was due to give birth Dec. 3, so I went to an electronics store Nov. 21 and picked up a pager, so we could be reached at any time. That night – the night before Thanksgiving – Mrs. Brad and I watched a TV movie, then went to bed, knowing our prospective child wasn't due for two weeks.

At about 1 a.m. the pager vibrated, waking us.

There was only one possibility: Denise was in labor. My hands shook as I tried to dial the number from the pager (great technology!). It took multiple efforts, but finally I reached Denise's sister and found out it was true: Denise was in labor.

Mrs. Brad and I threw everything we could in our Hyundai and headed toward San Jose, where our child would be born. At a convenience store, we bought some terrible coffee (it had grounds in it!) and made the 70-minute drive to Alexian Brothers Hospital with our conversation bouncing between terror and excitement.

We rushed in, Mrs. Brad served as the labor coach and I watched the miracle. Just after 3 a.m., our son was born. He was beautiful.

A birth is always chaotic, but ours seemed more so. The nurses weren't sure how to handle us (were we stealing the baby? Had we brainwashed the birth mother?), but Denise was fantastic in what had to be one of the roughest moments of her life. We held Chad (Chad!), helped wash his hair, made a series of phone calls from a pay phone and floated through the morning, exhausted.

We were too tired to drive, so we got a cheap hotel in San Jose and collapsed for a few hours, then returned to the hospital. That night, we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Denny's (turkey!), then returned to the hospital before finally going back to the hotel. And collapsing. Again.

A day later, we drove home, worried all the way that baby Chad might need something we couldn't do. Did we know how to be parents? We weren't sure, but we knew one thing for sure: Our lives were changed. And we loved our son.

That was 27 years ago Wednesday.

Now he's married and expecting his first child (!). We've lived through the childhoods and teen years of him and his younger brother (born on April Fools Day, 1993). We celebrated Christmases and birthday parties and Fourth of July celebrations and, yes, 26 Thanksgiving dinners.

I love holidays. I love celebrations. I love getting together with loved ones.

But every Thanksgiving reminds me of 1990, when we ate at Denny's, slept in a cheap hotel and met our son.

We're still thankful.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Why I like chasing cats, napping and . . . sit!

Editor's note: Brad Stanhope is on vacation. Per usual, his dog Brandy is sitting in for him this week.

I'm sitting in for Brad.

Get it? Sit?

Sit!

Hah hah hah hah hah hooowwwwl! That's a good one!

Let's reacquaint ourselves. I'm a dog and even though I can't really sniff you from here (and for some reason, humans get upset when we try to sniff them, so maybe I'll sit this one out. Get it? Sit!), I presume you're a reading human.

Lucky dog (no pun intended). Because that's one of the things I wish I could do: Read. Sometimes I get bored with just sitting around. And napping.

Not really! I love napping! It's one of the best things about being a dog.

You know what else is great about being a dog? Let me count the things . . . or better yet, bark the things:

• We can poop anywhere, not just in that small, confining room with the scary rushing water. Although it is fun to play with that roll of paper you keep there.
• Napping.
• Getting scratched.
• Chasing cats.
• Napping.
• The fun of barking at each other through the fence while you yell at us.
• Sit!

Hah hah hah hah hah hooowwwwl!

Anyhoo, I live in Brad's backyard. And house. And sometimes the garage when someone comes to the front door and Brad gets mad at me for warning him that it could be dangerous. Especially when it's the guy in the big brown truck who brings those interesting boxes.

Do they hold bones? Cats? Cats' bones? That would be great.

I don't like cats.

Sit!

Hah hah hah hah hah hooowwwwl!

Dog jokes are the best. Here's one: What do you get if you cross a cat, a giraffe and a can of food?

I don't know, but it has a cat, so I'd chase it. Get it?

My neighbor Scruff likes that joke. He's the one who told me the one about the tree: Why did the cat run from the tree? Because it was afraid of the bark!

That's a great one, although I have never heard a tree bark. It would be funny if it happened, though.

Which reminds me of a story. I don't know why, because I don't know what "reminds" means, but I just thought of a story that you might enjoy.

Sit!

Hah hah hah hah hah hooowwwwl!

Anyhoo, I was patrolling the backyard one day while Brad and Mrs. Brad were both gone and suddenly I heard Scruff trying to escape. He does that every once in a while.

So I ran over and barked encouragement to him. While we were barking at each other ("Go Scruff, go!" "I'm almost out, Brandy" "Here comes a cat . . . just kidding" "What?"), suddenly I heard a weird noise.

So I barked at it instead.

Great story, right? Scruff thinks I'm a good storyteller, although I think he's better. He's the one who told me that the desert lion is everyone's favorite at Christmas. Because he has sandy claws.

I don't know what that means, but Scruff thought it was great.

Sit!

Hah hah hah hah hah hooowwwwl!

Anyway, here comes Brad to pick up my poop. I don't know why he does that, I just want to bury it.

Sit!

Get it?

Reach Brandy Stanhope's human, Brad Stanhope, at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Irrational war on germs a form of self-hatred

We all know, "it takes a village to raise a child." But how about this: "It takes 14,000 times the world's population to create a body."

Because that's literally true. Not a population of humans, but (and germophobes, please grab a paper bag into which to breathe to avoid hyperventilating), microbes. The average human has more than 100 trillion microbes in and on his or her (let's face it: His) body. Put another way, we're 90 percent microbial, 10 percent human, according to several studies.

We're more microbe than human!

Even if those statistics are slightly off, they're close. According to another study, we're made up of 40 trillion bacteria and 30 trillion human cells – still more bacteria than human, but closer. It's a 40-30 split, favoring bacteria. (And in the spirit of transparency, microbes and bacteria may not be the same thing. In fact, they're probably different. But they're both germy.)

The main takeaway? Quit worrying about touching the restroom door at work. Those aren't your enemies, they're your brothers!

Consider this fact, shared by the leader of the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project: Each of us carries around 3 to 5 pounds of bacteria. Three to 5 pounds! That's like a bag of sugar, but filled with bacteria!

Think about that the next time you're squirting Purell on your hands. Or eating a bag of sugar.

The extreme battle against germs has long been confounding to those of us who are rational. Germs are impossible to avoid (again: you have more bacteria cells than human cells in what constitutes "you"). Exposure to germs helps build up your immune system (unless your immune system is compromised to the extent of the character played by John Travolta in the 1976 TV movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble"). Your ancestors lived in dirt hovels, bathed monthly and ate food with filthy hands – and survived to create the next generation.

But this new information (at least it's new to me) changes everything. It confirms that I'm right when I make fun of people who refuse to touch the door handle while leaving a public restroom or who shriek when I pick up food off the floor and eat it.

Because the fact is we're somewhere between 57 percent and 90 percent germs (or microbes, in case they're different). Those little fellas in public restrooms are really our cousins.

You could make the case that if we eliminated all the bacteria/microbes in our body, we'd be better off if for no other reason than we'd be about 5 pounds lighter.

But you could also make the case that by proclaiming our disgust with germs, we're practicing a form of self-hatred.

I agree with the second approach.

Science tells what the wise already knew: When we stress out about a few germs, it's the same thing as spiraling into distress because we'll never be back at our high school weight or because our hairline is rising. We're disliking ourselves.

I, for one, welcome the germs.

To the bacteria and microbes that make up between 57 percent and 90 percent of my body, I quote the opening lyrics from the Doobie Brothers' iconic 1976 (Hey! Two references to 1976 in the same column!) hit, "Takin' It To the Streets": "You don't know me, but I'm your brother."

My brother and sister germs, I just want to be a good host.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.