Huzzah, Dammit, for Santiago Montoya!

From what I read in a Reuters story the other morning, Argentine Tax Official Santiago Montoya is the kind of guy I want in my cabinet when I am President. Mr. Montoya will be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service, GSA and quite possibly the FCC.

The story, which is severely excellent, is this: Mr. Montoya is the “top tax man in Buenos Aires province” and it is his job to “curb rampant tax evasion….” One recent morning, his office got a report about some deadbeat who owes $2000 in back taxes. So in swoops Santiago Montoya (possibly wearing the tights, cape and boots borrowed—he will have a receipt, will Santiago Montoya—from that pizza-delivery guy in Minneapolis a little while back), demanding payment:

“Pay up, unnamed tax criminal!” Montoya cries triumphantly, arms akimbo, his cape flapping in the Argentine breeze.

“¡Hablo solamente español!” the man snarls. A recidivist, no doubt.

Our man Montoya, he’s not swayed in the slightest. With a subtle flick of his hand, he summons two burly Ray-Banned men who walk in without so much as a word or a sidelong glance and take the man’s plasma TV—two days before the World Cup quarterfinal match between Germany and, duh, Argentina.

This is just the kind of tough-minded and creative law enforcement America needs.

On my watch, with Mr. Montoya in charge of such things, the white-collar criminal element would no longer face mere fines and prison time. Montoya, he’s beyond such pedestrian penalties. He knows how to hit ‘em where it hurts. We wouldn’t restrict ol’ Santiago to tax thieves, either. I’m sure that if we had been running the country, Montoya would have—this is just one example—confiscated Criminal Mastermind Martha Stewart’s entire wall stencil collection.

In the fine documentary film “Shaft,” Bumpy Jonas (Harlem’s Mr. Big, played by Moses Gunn) says to Shaft: “I can always get more money.” This has always been the problem with the shadier members of society, such as the aforementioned Ms. Stewart and the nouveau riche. They can always get more money because, failing all else, they simply print their own, sometimes in a delicately charming floral pattern. At least that’s what the federal government does. Until, that is, I become President.

Don’t get me wrong: Of course the federal government will continue to print money once I’m tugging vainly at the reins of power; there are lobbyists to be paid, for God’s sakes. But with Montoya handling things, my feeling is we’ll be spending a lot less on what I believe the tax folks call capital equipment.

While we’re on the subject, more or less, of my government, I have also found the people I want to run the FBI. They will have to come forward since I don’t know their names.

(One of the legacies, incidentally, of the Bush Administration will no doubt be that “Anonymous Officials” will become a legally recognized minority group; the Democrats will see to that. I may well hire a few, since they evidently know where all the bodies are buried, to keep our man Montoya abreast of fiscally nefarious goings-on. If we’d had such a system in place a few years ago, Criminal Mastermind Martha Stewart might have been brought to justice much, much sooner.)

Anyway, the guys I want running the FBI are a couple of anonymous narcotics detectives from Buffalo, New York. They recently arrested two morons named Charles Morris and Gregory Quick (a misnomer if ever there was one) for smoking pot in the drive-thru lane of a KFC. According to the cops, when Morris and Quick pulled up to the drive-thru window to pick up their Wednesday Special (cholesterol), a huge, fragrant cloud of smoke wafted into the restaurant, where the cops were waiting in line. It pretty much goes without saying that they (Chuck ‘n’ Greg) were arrested and—if you’ve ever been stoned, you realize that this alone is a punishment worthy of Argentine Tax Official Santiago Montoya—never got their food.

The arrest itself, while funny, is not the point. One of the police officers made sure, it says in the AP story, that Morris and Quick’s money was refunded. You have to admire someone who realizes that the cold blue steel of law is best tempered in the fires of justice, out of which the Phoenix of compassion (“hey, stupid people have rights, too”) can rise.

It bodes well, I think, that I have already found people to fill some key law enforcement posts, and I’m feeling good about my upcoming run for the Presidency. And yes, I realize that there’s a lot of work to be done before I can take office—I at least need a campaign manager, for one thing. Personally, I’m leaning to Criminal Mastermind Martha Stewart. You know, as soon as she gets her stencils back.