Bed and Breakfasts and a Radical Proposition

I have yet to figure out why people stay at Bed & Breakfast’s.  I have several friends who love these places.  They gush over the quaint houses, the delicate gardens, the antiques and wonderful hosts with their never ending supply of quiches and herbal teas.  The truth is that a Bed and Breakfast is really just a boarding house.  That’s it.  Ma Bailey is, “letting” out rooms to try to make the bank note.  She has dressed the place up with old furniture, more chintz that my sainted Aunt Esther, and lavender scented soaps, but it is still just a boarding house.

            The B & B is a depression era concept made new.  While Ma Bailey would include three square meals of bland, starchy and simple fare–the original, “three hots and a cot”—the modern B & B offers something that is both less and more.  They lend themselves to small portions, high on presentation, low on carbs, and with enough thyme to make Satan sneeze.  For all of this they charge top dollar.  You could spend the same amount on a motel room from an honest innkeeper who admits he is selling a bed, instead of pedaling cachet.

            So, the next time you are simpering over a cucumber sandwich in a room of used furniture and hanging plants, just remember that any traveling salesman from the 1930’s would take one look, known exactly where he was, and recommend a boarding house down the block that serves a good, thick stew. 

            A bed and breakfast is a boarding house, no matter how many adjectives or antiques you add. But the intelligent among you have already figured out that this column is not about B & B’s, at least not entirely.  [Spoiler alert, there are some waaaaaay right, Tea Party young vampires and other Republican fringe players that aren’t going to like what they are going to hear next.] 

            There has been no end of attention (deserved) and anger (earned) over the IRS’s illegal and immoral targeting of groups whom this inept, dysfunctional and foolish administration considers their enemies.   The Obama team decided to warp the IRS into a tactical arm of the Democratic National Committee.  It is the height of corruption and I can’t wait for our legal system to grab a bunch of people by the nape of the neck and shake them until their teeth start falling like manna.  But that doesn’t change my attitude toward these tax breaks as a whole. 

            Just like a B & B is just a boarding house with a patina of pretentiousness, so these non-profits are just lobbyists with a snoot full of self-righteousness.  I don’t care if they support my cause, your cause or nobody’s cause.  In my opinion (and here is the radical proposition) they should all pay taxes.  Yup, there, I’ve said it.  I would eliminate all tax exemptions.  I am including churches, the Red Cross, the YMCA, every group and every person on the tax exempt list.  No person would be so poor, and no organization so charitable as to escape taxation.  This is a great country and someone has to pay for it.  I say we all do.  I would set the rate low (let’s say 3%, but that is open to negotiation), but everybody pays.  No tax exempt groups, no where, no how, no way.  Everybody has a dog in the fight.  Let the Democrats try to manipulate that!

            Pay the freight and keep the faith.