Dear Public Serpent:

I am real corn-fused bout this here infernal revenuer stuff. There is too much of this stuff for me ta understand. I work as a mechanic at John's fix it shop, rite cheer in Crabapple, Arkansas, and I make $10 a hour. I ain't got no investments. Heck, I even rent whar I live and I only own half my car -- the bank owns the other half. All I got is some clothes, Salvation Army Store furniture and two semi-automatic rifles with laser sites I keep for protection from the grissly bears you congress critters were kind enough to release into my back yard.

You bein' one of them their edumacated college gradiates and a lawster, please look over all that stuff in that USC 26 thang and have yore sexytary just copy whut done applied to me. Since the law has to be what you call it implenterated (or somethin like that) please send me the implementeration regumulations that done been writ for these laws so I can see xactly what I need to pay on and where it says I have to send my money to a private trust owned by people too afeared to let us find out who they wuz.

Oh, I understand that most folks think you get paid to much, specially with tha way the guvmint wastes so much money. I don't thank they's rite. I bet you have to work up a sweat findin ways to spend all that money and then a thankin up reasons you can splain it to us common folks. Like them dern $500,000 toilet seats. Couldn't they hold it til they could find a public restroom?

Knowin how hard you work and how much it costs to live in that dern District of Criminals, I thought you could use some extrie money. So I gots me here a deal fer ya. When you send that stuff to me, I kin send a copy to this here William Conklin feller. He ain't got no congress critter like you. He has been trying fer years to git the answers to two little bitty ole questions. They are:

What statute makes me liable to file an income tax return?

and

What statute requires me to waive my Fifth Amendment Rights?

He says his congress critters won't tell him. He has tried to ask every body he kin thank of. Heck, he has been offerin people $50,000 if they kin anser them two simple little bitty old questions.

It ain't like nobody tried. A lot of folks did but they just could not do it. Must be hid sommers in all them big fancy lawyster words. Heck for fifty big ones, I figured I would give it a shot. I went down to my lie-berry and got that there law book it was supposed to be in. I couldn't make heads or tails out of that stuff.

Shoot fire, that big time lawster, Melvin Belli, even tried and he done give up. I guess tha only people who kin figure it out are you congress critters who done wrote down all that stuff down in that lawster lingo.

Here's my deal. You send that stuff to me and I'll drive it out west to that Conklin feller's house. I kin show him the stuff and tell him my congress critter done told me here it is. I'll get him to make out two checks for $25,000 each. One fer you and one fer me. That should help you take care of all them extrie expenses of being a congress critter for a while.

I am lookin forwerd to gettin this stuff so I kin get started. OH! I just membered. This dern revenuer feller cum to see me tha other day. He did some cypherin and said I dun owed him $25,000. I'll tell you what I'm a gonna do. Why don't you just send that stuff dye-rect to that Conklin feller and then he can send you the whole $50,000. I kin jis write a note to that reverner feller and tell him that you gone git my $25,000 and send it dye-rect to him. Thataway, I ain't got to try to come up with no $25,000. I ain'ta never see a heap o' money that big in all my daze.

Thanks for dun helpin me out of a spot.

Sincerely,

Jeb Clampett

By the by: There is this other feller who sez he'll pay $10,000 more for that same information. Make an extrie copy and send it to that feller. I would give you his address but while I was writin this here letter, that dern revenuer came in and took my Salvation Army furniture whilst I was writin this here letter. I see they dun brought a wrecker fur ma car. He was nice enough to let me keep my clothes. He tried to take away this here pen I was writin with. But when I told him I was writin to my congress critter, he said I could keep it until you ansered.

He was a nice young man. Too bad he and his crew have to kerry them big guns with them. I guess they are feared of one of them radicals what done said they studied that Constimatution thang and that them revenuers can't take peoples stuff like that. Now that's about as dumb as anythang I ever heered of. I told them dang patriot fellers to stop all that non-sense. Heck if one of them revenuers took somebody's stuff without followin the law, all that poor sucker would have to do is write them a letter to their congress critter and they would make them dern revenuers give it back pronto. Now ain't that the truth!

Oh, sense them dern revenuers dun took all my stuff and since you are gonna use that $25,000 to pay them whut I dun owed that no one could tell me why, call that revenuer and have him bring my stuff back. I need my TV fore night time so I kin watch them news fellers tell me how good it is in this country. I specially like it when that Klinton feller gets on and says we gotta take away some rights and my squirrel rifle so them patriots don't get out of hand or someone shoots one of them revenuer fellers.

Oh, my nephew (who's in tha gyrines) helped that Klinton feller git off the helicopter the other day. He said he was gittin of that thang and he had him a fine little piglet under each arm. My nephew said them shore was some fine pigs and Klinton told my nephew that them was gen-u-ine Arkansas razerbacks. He said that Klinton feller said he got the one under his left arm for Hillary and the one under his right arm for that ugly dern kid of his. That's why he's our leader. He shore knows how to make a good deal!