Excerpts from my new Young Adult novel about a dystopian future that came about when we taxed the rich too much

CHAPTER 1

Sandy was strong, fast, and agile. The perfect candidate for The Races, an annual gathering that centers on a violent footrace in the hills of South Dakota.

This race takes place because society has fallen into disrepair. In the second decade of the 21st Century, America lost its way. Despite cries and warnings against it, the liberal elements in government started a second Civil War when they decided to tax the rich a little bit more than they had been the previous handful of years.

This grave injustice did not go unchallenged, but ultimately the forces of evil won. Because the personal income tax was raised by a single digit percentage point on the very richest individuals, they stopped hiring people. Others saw this and gave up on their dreams. Because what’s the point of getting rich if it means you have to pay just a little bit more in taxes even though it means you’re still rich? A person’s got to have their dignity.

The result was a bloody war that ended with everybody poor, America in shambles, and a post-apocalyptic landscape where people dressed in rags and cheered people who raced to the death.

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CHAPTER 4

Sandy crawled into the cave and approached The Gingrich.

“Who…who goes there?!” The Gingrich called out.

“My name is Sandy,” she replied. “My father told me you were a great and smart man. That you had a PhD, were an intellectual, and loved America so much it made you angry.”

“This is all true,” he replied.

“Well, I want to help you. I want to bring us back to a time when the very wealthiest people did not have to pay quite so much in taxes.”

“You…you mean it?” The Gingrich slowly clumped forward. A sliver of light shone through a crack in the ceiling, which revealed The Gingrich for what he truly was: an elderly man kept alive because he was now half a cyborg.

“I have not seen another person in a long, long time,” The Gingrich croaked. “Not since The Reckoning.”

Sandy put her hand out towards his, gently touching it.

“You were a war hero,” she replied. “You stood up for the rich when no one else would.”

The Gingrich squeezed her hand, then dropped to one knee and violently sobbed. “They could have been so much richer,” he cried out.

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CHAPTER 12

But when Sandy received her trophy, she did not do what so many others before her had done and remained silent. Instead, she spoke, and the attention of the masses were on her.

“We can be great again,” she told a bewildered audience. “And some of you can be rich again.”

An angry murmur arose from the crowd. “But what of us, the 99%?” screamed one of the members. Another yelled out “but the rich are evil!”

“No!” she cried. “The rich are good, and kind, and collectively they form companies that become good and kind people, too.”

The crowd fell deathly silent.

“It’s time for us to go back to the way things were. No more class warfare. No more socialism that makes everyone poor. Instead, some of us, a small handful, will be rich again. And even though paying a higher percentage of personal income tax would not burden us as much as a smaller percentage does to poor people, we will not be put in a higher tax bracket. Because doing so means that we will stop wanting to be rich, because it is an inconvenience to have to pay for things.”

“And jobs,” she said. “We will use the extra money to create jobs. We will take our personal income and personally pay people to work for our corporations, because that is how it works.”

The crowd broke out into wild applause as the screen behind her started flickering.

“NOOOOOO!” it cried, as the people rushed the stage and started taking down the screen. As it fell, the man behind it all was revealed: George Soros, who was now a cyborg.

“My father always told me you were behind it,” said Sandy.

“Well played,” the old Hungarian bellowed, his voice tinny and emitting from his iron jaw. “But the real race is not a sprint…it is a marathon!”

“Well, we will be there,” replied Sandy. “And we will be rich, and we will only pay what we want to pay in taxes because job creation and America.”

Soros’s half-computer brain started sparking as he screamed “CURSEEEEEEEEEEES!”

He exploded, and the crowd cheered.

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