My dear Sir Elton John,

Congratulations on a successful appearance on your part, by all accounts, before my United States Senate last week, during which you demanded "the richest nation" immediately end the AIDS epidemic.

I’d like to discuss with you your purpose in doing this, whether it was to make impassioned arguments that would resonate with the American people, or force our hands by using your celebrity status to pressure our lawmakers. You appear to have thought you were meeting with a slice of Americana under the Capitol Dome. Nothing could be further from the truth. Generally, when a senator is re-elected, he has convinced his constituents that their problems are caused by some among the other ninety-nine senators; he himself is blameless. We have a tough time relating to senators. No senator has successfully completed a presidential election campaign since 1968.

No, you did not see Americana at our nation’s capitol. Americana is what you are reading now. If you are interested in explaining to us why we should spend more money on AIDS, instead of simply forcing us to do so, you should keep reading.

America is the most generous nation on earth. We believe in charity by choice, not by mandate. To our way of thinking, the height of human existence is to willingly sacrifice what we have salted away, to help someone less fortunate. Simultaneously, the nadir of human failure is to require such a thing through statute. To Americans, charity is voluntary, or it is nothing.

Must we prove our generosity? While Ground Zero was burning in Manhattan, America flew over to the country from where the attack originated, and dropped – food! Food and money! Have you ever heard the like? If I were you, I wouldn’t bother checking English history for a precedent.

To your credit, before asking us to eradicate AIDS, you established a $35 million foundation to do likewise. Some American celebrities could learn a thing or two from this. I respect that. At the same time, examples abound of your penchant for lavish and frivolous spending. They are not consistent with someone overly concerned about funding a health crisis: £293,000 for flowers, £357,353 for a picture, £120,000 for your own birthday. "I could find a shop in the Sahara desert," you boasted in a BBC Times article.

When you sued your former manager and accountants a year-and-a-half ago, it was revealed that you whittled through $43 million in 20 months from 1996 to 1997. That works out to half a million every week of lavish, needless, excessive personal spending. You seem to be cognizant that this is your right. You were quoted as saying, "I have no one to leave the money to. I’m a single man. I like spending my money."

Sir Elton, the spirit of America champions your defiant defense. It is the one place on earth where such an argument will enjoy the greatest momentum. In our culture, individual choice is what life is all about. People here are expected to prosper and to suffer from the efforts they put out, and the decisions that they make.

My beef with you concerns your inconsistency. You emerged from your mountain of clothes, jewels, flowers – and lawsuits you started once you belatedly realized your purse was getting light. Living large by personal choice, you came to the place where personal choice is most-treasured, and evacuated your bowels on that concept of personal choice. You infer we have these obligations because we’re so "rich," "nobody else comes close," etc. Well, that offends the hell out of me.

Where is all this money? Our state governments are, with few exceptions, awash in red ink year after year. Our federal government would be bankrupt, were it not exempt from accounting standards incumbent on everyone else. Some say if you want to get technical about it, our country has been voluntarily bankrupt since March 9, 1933.

Do our richest citizens possess this money? We have the most generous rich people on the planet. They set up foundations just like you do. They donate to AIDS research, Cancer research, at-risk youth programs. They "gave at the office," as it were. Do you know of any wealthy Americans who do not contribute to charity? Point them out. I’d be interested in seeing such a "miser" list, but I doubt it will be very long.

I hope you don’t have the cojones to infer that this wealth is in the standard-of-living of our more modest citizens. If you do, I must be part of this; there are more Americans making less than me, than those who make more. My head spins when I compare my weekly personal expenses to your $537 thousand. What I spent in the seven days before you showed up at my nation’s capitol, is dwarfed by your own weekly budget by a factor of, oh, where’s my calculator – Twenty-Three Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Eight Times! No flowers or pictures that week. A little gas to get to work, some Kleenex and eye-drops, a co-pay for my doctor’s visit, that’s about it.

America spends enough money on AIDS, as it is, to match 500 Elton John clones shopping ’til they drop. On a per-patient basis, that blows all other disease research away. I believe more lives could be saved, not with more cash, but with better oversight from your new friends in the Senate regarding where the money goes. Seminars on masturbation, flirting classes for gay men, tickets to Disneyland, luxurious hotel rooms at $329 apiece – it sounds more like a page from Elton John’s diary than extirpation of an epidemic.

Your speech came days before American tax returns were due. Could you enlighten me on the mindset? Brighter minds than mine have already pounced on you for spending half a mil a week on bull-squeeze, boasting about it, and then haughtily intoning to my country that it’s our job to end AIDS because we’re rich. Did you not see the criticism coming or did you simply not care?

Regards,

Morgan K Freeberg

AMERICAN TAXPAYER