There’s always been a lot of talk by American politicians about “the taxpayers” and “the American people” and, if the politician is feeling especially frisky during a speech – perhaps having just had sex with an intern after passing morality-based legislation – “the American taxpayers.”

We tend to hear it more during election years and we tend to be hearing much more of it now with the $700B bailout proposal, but politicians have never been shy bandying those phrases about.

Which is a bit worrying.

When politicians say “the taxpayers” and “the American people” they make themselves seem separate from both the taxpayers and the American people.

It’s as if politicians are a bunch (What do you call a group of politicians? A prowl of politicians? A power of politicians? A pain of politicians? A pompous of politicians?) of power suit wearing, lawmaking, safari-hatted lepidopterists stalking through the wild jungle followed closely by aides and assistants carrying butterfly nets and camping gear – by day tracking the elusive, bright-wing’ed Taxpayerian Americanus and by night eating S’mores around the campfire while honing their oratorical skills by telling ghost stories about constituents who won’t stop calling, campaign finance reform and social security.

When politicians do find and catch Taxpayerian Americanus they do what all good lepidopterists do, they commence bleeding the specimen dry and keeping it well preserved between the pages of a nice thick book – such as the 7500+ page Internal Revenue Code (United States Code (26 U.S.C.)) – before once again renewing the hunt for another example of this rare, exotic species.

Or maybe that’s leaves.

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