The good news is that, according to the Obama administration

P. J. O’Rourke, the satirist whose tongue was sharper than many a sword, once quipped: “The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.” Though clothed in humor, these words unveil the eternal tension between government promises and personal burden. The rich, forever imagined as someone else, are revealed by O’Rourke to be none other than the ordinary citizen who suddenly finds the taxman’s gaze fixed upon him.

The origin of this jest lies in the debates of the Obama years, when reforms—particularly in health care—were declared to be funded by higher taxes on the wealthy. Yet O’Rourke, ever the skeptic of political speech, turned the claim on its head. To him, government’s definition of wealth often stretched downward, ensnaring not only the gilded elite but also the hardworking middle class. Thus, what was proclaimed as relief for the many became, in his satirical telling, a burden borne by those who never thought themselves rich at all.

History itself provides an echo. In the days of the French monarchy, kings assured their people that taxes fell only upon the nobility and the clergy shouldered the burden of spiritual care. But in truth, the peasantry bore the heaviest weight, crushed beneath levies that funded palaces and wars. They too might have laughed bitterly at O’Rourke’s words: the “rich” were always someone else, until suddenly the crown declared, “you are rich enough to pay.” And from that contradiction was born the fury of revolution.

So too in America’s own story, the income tax introduced in the early 20th century was promised as a levy only upon the wealthiest. But as decades passed, thresholds shifted, and millions who once thought themselves ordinary found themselves within the grasp of “the rich.” O’Rourke’s satire distills this reality: that definitions of wealth are elastic, and governments, in their hunger, stretch them ever farther.

Therefore, O seekers of truth, hear the lesson. Satire reveals what speeches conceal: that every promise of free provision must be paid for by someone, and oftentimes, that someone is you. The rich will pay for everything—but beware when rulers declare you to be rich. In laughter lies wisdom, for O’Rourke reminds us that vigilance, not trust, is the safeguard of liberty.