The Nome Nugget

CANDY IS DANDY, BUT

Open up those pearly gates. Millions of eager citizens, their fists bulging with gold pieces, are pursuing the tax collector!

This may sound like the opening scene for a TV spectacular, yet it's not as far-fetched as it appears.

For taxes are about to be made popular.

We've just read a banner-headlined news story in the Indianapolis Star which reports that Indiana's Gov. Harold W. Handley has obtained the services of an advertising agency "to take the 'fantastic' label off the state budget."

The agency's reported function will be "to dramatize taxes in a way that will make the people eager for more of them, like children for candy."

New York's Gov. Averell Harriman, meanwhile, is quoted by the Associated Press as stating: "People need to be educated to the satisfaction of paying taxes."

If this thing spreads, there's no telling where it may end. We can almost hear the commercials now.

This one might be especially popular with filling station operators faced with dramatizing the 40 percent or so tax on gasoline:

Our gasoline is best / For it's coated with taxes.

They're a cinch to digest / If the patient relaxes.

Eventually the nation's business would come to a standstill as consumers discovered it is more fun to pay taxes than buy goods. Tax ration stamps would be issued for the bread line, while bigger and better ad agencies struggled to pull the country out of depression by "undramatizing" taxes and again making them unpopular.