Dear readers: Let's help Jonathan to a life of leisure.

Back here, in the comments section, Blogging Tory "Strong Conservative" Jonathan Strong very unwisely lets his emotions get the best of him as he snipes:

Just name one solution you have to any major issue and I'll quit my blogs...

Well, that sounds like a thrown-down gauntlet worth picking up (but make sure you read this entire post before wasting any time.)

So Jonathan appears to be promising to quit blogging if we can come up with a single solution to a major problem. OK, then. I'll start things off and readers are welcome to submit their own contributions -- then we'll see if Jonathan is a man of his word, shall we?

Since Jonathan lives down south, let's go there. Regarding environmental protection in the U.S., it turns out that there is a gaping loophole in the tax laws that allows massive write-offs of the purchase of monstrous, gaz-guzzling, environment-destroying SUVs:

"A 1997 provision in the U.S. tax code (Section 179) provided small businesses with a tax write-off of up to $25,000 for a vehicle weighing more than 6,000 pounds- used 50% of the time for work purposes. The original intent behind this provision was to encourage investments in pickup trucks, minivans, and other needed service vehicles. A far smaller incentive was provided for cars—less than $7,000 over two years.

Sounds like a reasonable idea. What could possibly go wrong?

Accountants, SUV dealers rush to capitalize

Around the country, auto dealers such as 'the Car Guy' Jerry Reynolds in Texas and hundreds of accountants and online tax management sites have been encouraging small business owners such as doctors, lawyers, and realtors to rush out and take advantage of this tax windfall. One advertisement from Dugan & Lopatka, an accounting firm in Wheaton, IL, reads, 'Write-Off 100% of Your New SUV? Yes, If It’s Under 100,000!'

Aye, there's the rub. While the law was meant to apply to "service vehicles," it represented an early Christmas present for pretty much anyone who wanted a honking big SUV -- all they had to do was claim that it was being used for, you know, "service" and, yippee, instant windfall! Which, of course, produced two immediate downsides.

First, an obvious increase in fuel consumption since people who had no legitimate need for these pigs ended up buying them anyway which, of course, led to a corresponding increase in pollution and damage to the environment. Secondly, all those tax write-offs obviously reduced federal revenues, which meant that the shortfall would have to be made up elsewhere. Two obvious problems. And the just-as-obvious solution? Repeal those write-offs (at least, the ones that are clearly not legitimately service-related), which would have the effect of reducing pollution and increasing federal revenues in one swell foop.

So there you have it, Jonathan. A "major" issue (actually two of them) for which I have provided a detailed and realistic solution. And does this mean Jonathan will now close up shop? Oh, don't be ridiculous, since Jonathan was very careful in his choice of words when he issued his challenge.

Note that Jonathan was asking for (emphasis added) "one solution ... to any major issue." Did I provide that? Well, technically, no. What I supplied was a partial solution. It's obvious that there is no single approach that will ever completely solve all of any major issue. Thus, no matter how detailed and effective your proposal, I'm guessing that Jonathan is just going to reject it since it doesn't resolve the issue totally and in its entirety. In short, Jonathan's alleged challenge is utterly bogus.

Tell me you're not surprised.

BY THE WAY, just so you know, bogus challenges are kind of par for the course for the residents of Wankerville.

THAT SCRAPING YOU HEAR ... is the sound of goalposts being moved, as "Strong Conservative" Jonathan conveniently redefines his challenge out from under us. Recall Jonathan's original words in an earlier comment, which I quote in their entirety, including the trailing ellipses:

Just name one solution you have to any major issue and I'll quit my blogs...

Note carefully that Jonathan never required that the "major issue" be any specific person's fault. And yet, when I describe the SUV tax loophole, its effect on both the environment and U.S. federal revenue, then suggest a simple solution, Jonathan snidely dismisses all of that with:

Wasn't Clinton President in 97 when this loophole began?

Try again.

Why should I try again, Jonathan? I accepted your challenge, and you weaseled out of it. I could, if I wanted to, point out how the Bush administration, in 2003, took that same loophole and made it noticeably worse (emphasis added):

"Allow me to introduce you to a fabulous opportunity," Chris Thorpe, a sales representative for Hummer of Alaska, writes in a promotion letter. "A tax 'loophole' so big you could drive a Hummer H2 through it! Imagine being able to purchase the #1 large luxury SUV in America today . . . and receive a deduction for the entire purchase amount from your taxes this year!"

"How is this possible?" Thorpe asks. "Thanks to the Bush administration's recent economic stimulus package, small businesses and the self-employed are eligible to deduct the entire purchase cost of new equipment up to $100,000 the year of the purchase." But these provisions are supposed to help farmers and small-business owners buy equipment to transport merchandise and haul stuff. No matter. "The Hummer H2 qualifies for this IRS Sec. 179 deduction by its gross vehicle weight of over 6,000 lbs. Cars and medium sized SUV's don't qualify for this deduction," Thorpe writes. "If you are seriously considering acquisition of a new vehicle, step up to the vehicle that can take you where you want to be, financially and otherwise."

So now I've provided an example that is clearly the responsibility of the Bush administration, but I'm sure you can predict what's coming -- Jonathan will find some excuse to toss this example out as well.

if there's one thing you can give conservatives credit for, it's predictability.

BY THE WAY, I can't believe that I, a Canadian, have to point this out to Jonathan, a resident of Florida, but recall Jonathan's childish dismissal of my submission above:

Wasn't Clinton President in 97 when this loophole began?

Why, yes, Jonathan ... yes, he was. But now that we've exhausted your keen-eyed investigative abilities, let's do the right thing and dig a little deeper, shall we? To, say, the actual breakdown of the 105th U.S. Congress at that time which, as most people can read, shows a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, which suggests that the GOP at that time was, at the very least, complicit in that earlier legislation, if not the outright instigator, regardless of who the president was. But this is getting tiring.

If you've learned anything from this lesson, it's that those of us on the Left actually take the time to research our arguments, while those on the Right perpetually act like 12-year-olds, whose only comeback rarely rises above the level of, "But, but, but ... Bill Clinton ..."

Here's a suggestion, Jonathan: Just go back to your own blog. Seriously. All you're doing is wasting everyone's time here -- ours and yours. Your entire contribution to any attempt at intelligent dialogue is pathetically predictable -- the same infantile, right-wing talking points we've heard for years, which long ago stopped being even remotely entertaining.

So do us all a favour and go away. In the end, we'll all be much happier.