Marco Rubio Saves Olympic Athletes from Un-American American Taxes

If you thought the USA Olympic team's greatest foe was China, you're as wrong as communism. China is actually our greatest tailor. Besides, China taking our gold medals is preferable to them taking our gold reserves. The real foe is another country — USA! USA! USA!

Athletes who win a gold medal also earn a $25,000 honorarium — and with it an $8,986 tax bill to the IRS, according to Americans for Tax Reform, which crunched the numbers. That covers both the honorarium and the tax on the value of the gold in the medal itself.

The silver medal tax comes to $5,385, and the bronze medal tax is $3,502 — including $2 for the value of the bronze medal itself, and the $10,000 honorarium.

That could leave amateur athletes — in many cases still teenagers — facing stiff tax bills when they return to the U.S.

Just when all hope was lost, conservative dreamboat Marco Rubio comes to the rescue in sails made out of his own luxurious hair to achieve the impossible — making us agree with Marco Rubio on taxes…

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," the Florida Republican said.

Rubio introduced a bill on Wednesday exempting athletes from paying taxes on their wins. Kind of hard to argue against that. But can we all agree Olympic athletes should be taxed extra for any money made convincing out-of-shape Americans that eating at Subway counts as exercise?

Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Our Endorsements: Dr. Seuss vs. Uncle Sam

Tweet Untweet: Electrified Fencing

I bet Herman Cain will be closely watching the fencing match between U.S. and Mexico. #olympics

— Doug Lussenhop (@douggpound) July 31, 2012

Caption Challenge: Mitt Romney at the Olympics

Leave your caption in the comments section of this post.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Scoring Mitt Romney's Foreign Tour

In some ways a presidential campaign is a lot like Olympic gymnastics: There's lots of flip-flopping and someone always cries at the end. How does Mitt Romney's foreign trip stack up on the International Gymnastics Federation's scoring system?

Event: Special Relationship Still Rings

Degree of Difficulty: Medium

The Routine:  In a standard still ring routine, gymnasts are required to perform various skills while keeping the rings in an unchanging position. In the special relationship variant, candidates are required to adopt positions that have some relevance to the modern international order, while convincing our British allies that they are now and forever our very best and most important friends, even though this has no semblance to reality whatsoever.

The Execution: Romney went back in time to insult the British about their houses being the wrong height and size.

Score:  12.5, with high deductions for general instability.

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