Who wouldn’t want to read a book subtitled How Government & Politics REALLY Affect The Ordinary Joe. Author Robert Wickes has created something fabulously funny. Though, anyone with any political leanings will probably be mortified as much by the content as well as his recommendations. This book may provide some rare common ground that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on: they won’t like The Myth America Pageant.

Mr. Wickes does not like Big Government and inspects many aspects of modern society where government imposes its will upon the often unwilling masses. Health care, commerce, welfare, education, foreign policy and a whole host of other hot topics are analyzed at some length, and it is all done in high humor. The root of the problem he espouses was the invention of air conditioning! Almost everything wrong with the modern government and political system can be blamed on this demon of the 20th century.

Mr. Wickes explains that The Founding Fathers were a pretty smart group of guys, and having just left the tyranny of England to create a new and better life on this side of the pond, they wanted to make sure that they were not trading one set of problems for a whole new set of grief and pain. The Constitution they created was well thought out, but they knew that future generations would want to create mischief. The best way to limit it would be to locate the seat of government in the most inhospitable place available.

They selected Washington. They reasoned that Washington is a terrible place to live in during the winter months, and even worse in the summer. This would mean that the politicians would want to spend as little time as possible there, thus restricting their opportunities to create mischief. The advent of air conditioning, of course, changed everything. Now we are confronted with year- round mischief makers.

On the serious side, The Myth America Pageant contains some very disturbing facts and figures that most of us ‘regular Joes’ are not aware of. A great example is our educational system: the approximate expenditure on a child emerging from K-12 is an astounding $100,000. Yet 25% of college entrants require remedial courses in reading or some other very basic discipline. The discussions about ‘pork’ are also very entertaining: he cites some excellent stories about how our ‘tax dollars’ get used by the politicos.

On foreign policy (in Mr. Wickes’ eyes, read ‘war’) he has a fascinating table showing that between 1890 and 2004 we have been involved in 120 adventures in other countries. War, he argues, is just another way that big government extracts yet more tax dollars from us regular Joes. Being the world’s police comes at a steep price for taxpayers.The last part of the book offers some solutions. Again, I suspect that if you are a politician, lobbyist, or union member, you may not endorse his ideas.

All in all, an hilarious and informed read.