Time & Perspective Quote by Art Buchwald

“Tax reform” arrives here not as policy but as a magic trick: the hand that distracts you with a noble-sounding banner while the other quietly moves money around. Buchwald’s line works because it punctures a cherished Washington illusion - that there is a clean, technocratic category called reform, separate from the grubby business of winners and losers. He reduces the phrase to its mechanical core: taxation doesn’t disappear; it migrates.

The intent is classic Buchwald: a deadpan demolition of official language. “Taking the taxes off” has the breezy, benevolent rhythm of a campaign promise, then he swivels to the reality underneath - “putting taxes on things” - the part politicians prefer to treat as an unfortunate footnote. The comedy is structural: two parallel clauses that sound like progress until you notice they cancel each other out. Reform becomes redistribution with better branding.

Subtext: the fight isn’t about whether you pay, but how you pay and who gets to claim relief. The line anticipates the modern cycle where every “simplification” is a new labyrinth of carve-outs, and every “broadening the base” is a search for fresh pockets to pick with minimal backlash. It also hints at a media and voter appetite for slogans over specifics; “reform” is the linguistic equivalent of a clean bill of health.

Context matters: Buchwald wrote in an era when bipartisan tax overhauls and shifting burdens (from income to payroll, from corporations to individuals, from visible levies to hidden fees) were sold as modernization. His joke survives because the sales pitch hasn’t evolved - only the targets.