Better Misinformation Proposal #44

FICTION WRITERS FOR BETTER MISINFORMATION SEEKS TO USE MISINFORMATION TO GET VOTERS MORE ENGAGED IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS. WE WELCOME PROPOSALS FOR BOOKS, MOVIES, PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGNS, REALITY TV SHOWS.

Romney vs. Obama: Who will actually make your life better?

The Problem: People have trouble translating abstract policy proposals into the effects those policies will have on their own lives.

The Proposal: Through a custom-designed FBMisin website, people will be able to enter some basic demographic information and get a clear print-out of how the aspects of their lives they care about most will change under either candidate. Below are a few samples based on randomly chosen voters.

Male, 34 years old, tech support provider, $72,000 annual income

	Under Obama	Under Romney
How much money will I make?	$69,000 per year.	$77,000 per year.
What will I pay in taxes?	$8,000 per year.	$6,000 per year.
How many times will I get laid?	345	2
How much hair will I lose?	70%	72%
Will Community get cancelled?	Yes.	No.
Will I die?	Yes.	Yes.
Ouch. What will be the cause?	Asphyxia during kinky sex.	Major industrial pollutant spill.

Female, 24 years old, food service worker, 8 credits remaining to complete her college degree

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will I finish college?	Yes, the Pell Grant program will be continued.	Yes, through a combination of religious charity and private donations, you will fund your education at a four-year for-profit college.
Will I have a job?	Yes.	Yes.
Doing what?	Hairdresser.	Foot masseuse.
Not what I expected. Where will I be living?	Beijing. After Obama bankrupts the country with his plan to give every homeless person a limousine, the Chinese foreclose, and force US citizens to vacate the premises.	Beijing. Mitt Romney outsources the service, manufacturing, and education sectors (everything except finance), forcing US citizens looking for jobs to move to China.
Will I be happy?	You must always remember to say you are.	You must always remember to say you are.

Male, 78 years old, retired janitor, severe emphysema.

	Under Obama	Under Romney
How much will I receive in Social Security?	$998.71 per month.	$998.71 per month.
Will I still have Medicare coverage?	Yes, through the government.	Yes, through a private company that you pay with a voucher.
How many days will I spend in the hospital?	223	17
Will my lung function improve?	No.	No.
Can’t anyone find a cure for this terrible disease?	Actually, yes, but under socialized medicine, researchers and doctors have no incentive to innovate.	Actually, yes, but to maximize profits, the drugs cost more than your lifetime earnings per month. Supply and demand is the law.
How will I spend my days?	Gasping, retching, and writhing in a grimy bed. If you had enough lung capacity, you would beg for someone to end your misery, but, no, you can barely breathe.	Gasping, retching, and writhing in a grimy bed. If you had enough lung capacity, you would beg for someone to end your misery, but, no, you can barely breathe.
Will I have any reason for hope? Any reason at all?	No.	No.

Female, 34 years old, mother of three with one more on the way, part-time realtor

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will the child and dependent tax credit be retained?	Yes.	Yes.
How many diapers will I change?	3,479	4,994 (increase due to bouts of dysentery that sweep the country after the CDC is turned into a for-profit biotech consulting firm)
Will I have any more children?	Yes. Though you don’t want more, the habit of relying on government handouts will keep you from thinking for yourself and, shall we say, controlling your base urges.	Yes. Though you don’t want more, God and the Republican Party want more children.
How can I handle it all?	Under a post-racial, post-feminist president, your husband will be inspired to do the laundry three times in four years.	Under the new feudalism-lite that is called Romneyism, your local job creator will send his or her servants out to help others one day a year.
Good god. Tell me that at least I’ll have my evening glass, or two, of Campari to get me through….	Since alcohol-related diseases are a burden on the universal health care system, a tax of $199 per four ounce serving of beer, wine, and other alcoholic beverages will be introduced.	Alcoholic beverages costing less than $200 per four ounce serving will be banned as contributing to moral turpitude.

Male, 44 years old, insurance salesman, with two teenage daughters

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will I be able to maintain my family’s standard of living?	Your income will stay nearly constant.	Your income will stay nearly constant.
So, we’ll still be able to take our family trips to Six Flags. That’s a relief.	Not exactly.	Not exactly.
What do you mean?	After Obama replaces Federal Reserve chair Bernanke with a “liberal” economist, inflation will run out of control, meaning you won’t be able to buy those little luxuries, like floating lounge chairs for your pool, or chlorine for the pool, or enough food for three meals a day.	Most goods and services will remain cheap and plentiful. However, when Romney deregulates the energy market, prices for electricity and gas go through the roof, and eat up 90% of your income. You’ll find it easy to lose weight when you can’t afford food, though.
How will he help me keep boys away from my daughters?	Sadly, this will not be a priority in Obama’s second term. In fact, after he appoints Bill Clinton director of homeland security, you won’t be able to count on the security of your home, if you know what we mean.	Romney’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program will escalate into all-out war. This will trap a good proportion of eligible young males in long combat rotations—and, of course, kill off a good number. You will have fewer to worry about. But, of course, then you have to consider what girls think of a boy in uniform.
But we’ll have each other. That’s ultimately all I care about.	Until 2015, when Obama signs the Population Rationing for Price Stability Act, which fights inflation by lowering demand through a requirement that each household be reduced by one member. You get to choose who goes.	Until 2015, when, with oil prices through the roof, Romney secretly invests in a start-up company that has developed a technology to tap the greatest unused source of carbon-based energy: the population itself. He manipulates friendly lawmakers into passing a bill that mandates one member of each household be used for fuel. You get to choose who goes.

Male, 54 years old, plastic surgeon, recently divorced after serial infidelities

	Under Obama	Under Romney
I’ve heard the Republicans even want to get rid of birth control. Is that true?	Yes. But President Obama will hold off the cultural reactionaries and preserve your liberty to shoot your load without consequences.	Yes. President Romney will ensure that lax sexual mores don’t end up eroding the foundations of our great nation.
This is about female things, isn’t it? Condoms will still be okay, right?	Yes.	No.
Do you know where I can make a bulk order?	N/A	Talk to me afterwards.
I’m a free man again. God it feels good. How many women will I score with in four years?	2	76
Why so different?	The continuing availability of birth control will delude you into thinking you have a chance with every beautiful young woman you encounter. You’ll spend countless hours chasing after them, asking them to fancy dinners, shopping for gaudy presents, and carefully grooming yourself. But none of this will overcome the fact that you now have that old man smell.	Without birth control, you turn your attention to women you know won’t get pregnant—women your own age. Despite initial reluctance, you’ll develop a taste for sagging breasts and well worn faces. More than anything, you’ll learn to love manipulating lonely women who are just desperate for a little companionship as they face what should have been their golden years.

Female, 56 years old, homemaker, devout Evangelical Christian

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will I still see the words “In God we trust” on all of my coins, so I know God is with me, even as I participate in the marketplace?	No. Obama will secularize the money system, hypocritically citing Mark 12:17 “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”	Yes. But you will still worry that coins minted under a Mormon president somehow refer to a different “God” and you will have to whisper a little prayer to the real God every time you take out your change purse.
Will I be able to pray in public without feeling persecuted?	No. Hypocritically citing the First Amendment, Obama will appoint Supreme Court Justices who overturn state laws requiring people to mouth prayers at public gatherings, even if they don’t believe the words.	Yes. Romney agrees that freedom of religion means freedom for you to impose your beliefs on everyone. Anything else is heresy.
Will it become clear that the Antichrist is moving in the world, signalling the beginning of the Rapture?	Yes.	Yes.
Goodness. Will there be a great earthquake, and the sun become black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon become as blood, and the stars of heaven fall unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind?	Yes.	Yes.
Oh my God, I can hardly believe this, I’m so excited. Will there fall a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, upon the third part of the waters and will many men die of the waters, because they were made bitter?	Yes.	Yes.
Will the locusts come, like unto horses prepared unto battle—on their heads crowns like gold, and their faces as the faces of men, and the hair of women, and their teeth as the teeth of lions, and the sound of their wings as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle—and will they kill many men?	Yes.	Yes.
Hallelujah! And will the Lamb be victorious in the end?	No.	No.

Female, 64 years old, married (via marriage-broker to a multi-millionaire), marginally successful social climber

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will my wine fall prey to a vice tax?	Yes.	Yes. Neo-Prohibition will be passed in the summer of 2013.
Will I finally be able to take a tax-write-off for clothing purchases given I wear them to charity events?	No.	Absolutely. But be sure writing off your charitable wardrobe costs doesn’t push you into paying less than 13% in taxes—you’ll look like you’re working the system!!
Will the Affordable Health Care Plan cover the cost of my oxycodone?	Yes. If doctor-ordered, all prescriptions will be covered.	Yes. You can stop stealing pills from your dying mother.
Will the ADA law still allow me to bring my Cavalier King Charles spaniel into Nordstrom?	Yes. The disabled will continue to have all their rights. The Obama administration has even expanded them. You can now bring a miniature horse or a pot-bellied pig into stores, should these animals perform a specific task for you.	Yes. And, under Romney, Nordstrom will come to you.
Can I write off the remodel of our Manhattan pied-a-terre as a business expense for my husband’s hedge fund?	If your husband uses the p-a-t for legitimate business, a portion of the remodel can be written off. Pied-a-terre or no, you and your husband will face about a 6 percentage point increase in your tax rate.	Of course, and if they’re not already, make your children and step-children employees of the company and write off their college tuition and expenses; write off your CKC spaniel as a security expense; and deduct the cost of your rooftop Endless® pool as an on-site gym facility.

Mexican-American male, married, 39 years old, laid-off construction foreman, two kids, walked away from a house during the financial crisis, currently living rent-free in a one-bedroom barrio apartment owned by father-in-law

	Under Obama	Under Romney
Will I be able to buy a house again in the next 4 years.	No.	No.
Will I be able to buy a second car for my wife so she can drive my children where they need to be and stop taking public transit?	No.	Possibly, if you’d quit wasting your money on LeBron Nikes, the latest iPhones, iPads, iPods, designer sunglasses, etc. quit eating out every night; cancel your premium cable; and take your kids out of the traveling soccer league you have them in.
Would I and my family do better in Mexico living with my grandparents?	No. Under Obama, you will do better staying in the United States. While the GDP growth will be about the same in both countries, factoring in the cost and time of relocating, your chances of economic advancement are better in the US. The US economy is improving. Jobs are on the rise. Housing starts are up.	Yes. Under Romney, you would do better in Mexico. because of cuts to medicaid, social programs and the reduction in the EITC. You won’t however be able to come back to the United States because you and your children’s citizenship will be questioned ad infinitum.