Tax Target: Washington

Washington

Tax Target: Washington, by Gary Allen, Seal Beach, Calif.: '76 Press, 1979, 156 pp., $2.45 (paper).

It's a pity that an entertaining and informative little paperback like Tax Target: Washington is going to be largely dismissed. But dismissed and ignored it will be, and by many of the people who most need to read it, to be sure.

The problem isn't that the book is poorly written. On the contrary, author Gary Allen makes the parade of horrors about taxation, government spending, inflation, welfare, bureaucracy, regulation, and so on almost fun—if it weren't so disgusting.

Nor is the book boring. On the contrary, this breast-thumping tome is succinct enough to be enjoyed with a six-pack of beer on a rainy afternoon. Not that the author always tells us things we didn't already know, or at least suspect—it's just that the horror tales are presented in a very readable and sometimes laughable way.

The catch comes in the tone of the book: author Gary Allen uses that shrill, right-wing delivery throughout that turns off the general public like a bureaucrat stomping on productivity. Not even an introduction by Howard Jarvis of Proposition 13 fame can rescue it from that. Which is too bad, because Allen is dead-accurate about every enemy of the productive that he excoriates, and his analyses are standard wisdom among those who oppose the State behemoth.

Nevertheless, for those of us who relish giving back to the government spendaholics, welfreeloaders, and low-down swine as much as they throw at us, Allen's will be a welcome addition to the book rack.