We're Being Taxed to Death

For decades the federal government has decreased taxes on the wealthiest, and increased taxes for the rest of us. During the Bush reign the tax codes were changed even more drastically, to redistribute wealth upwards, so that a billionaire hedge fund manager pays less in taxes than the janitor or secretary working in the same office building. Is that socialism or concentration of wealth?

Federal funding for expanded S-Chip health insurance for low income children was passed this year with an increased tax on cigarettes. In Massachusetts a mandatory health insurance pool was funded in part by an increased tax on cigarettes.

And it’s going well beyond just cigarettes. Here in Massachusetts the governor wants to raise gas tax with an increase yearly on top of the Feds raising the gas tax. They’re all raising the gas tax.

The state of California has an economy that is eighth in the world, larger than some countries and they’re withholding state income tax return checks. The state has also imposed forced furloughs on workers by shutting down the state offices twice a month.

President Reagan increased payroll taxes on the middle class now the Republicans said the payroll tax decrease in the stimulus bill would cost too much, so they reduced it from five hundred per individual and one thousand per couple to four hundred per individual and eight hundred per couple.

On the one hand they give us a miniscule tax break in our pay checks, but then they take it back with two hands by raising taxes on everything else we purchase, including food.

Under the guise of the “urgent” need for increased state or federal revenue they will find creative new names for taxing us, the current “recession” has created a band wagon for tax increases. Haven’t they heard “you can’t get blood from a stone”?…and they blame it on the “economic crisis“. Once taxes go up they never come down again.

Here in Massachusetts the governor is looking to increase state revenue by taxing candy, flavored drinks, alcohol and implementing tolls at the state borders.

Whatever happened to no taxation without representation? Must’ve gotten lost in the translation somehow, because all we have now IS taxation without representation.

Come and See the Show, Republicans Dig In

Weeks ago Senator Jon Kyl said no Republican would vote for the economic stimulus bill, so that in six months when it fails the Republicans can say they had no input. Not one Republican House vote was cast on this legislation and only three Senators voted to push the bill through.

It’s as if the Republicans are digging in their heels just to be on the opposing side. After the stimulus bill was passed Republican House leader John Boehner said “you can’t blame us” (meaning the Republicans). They really can’t say anything about the spending on this bill when under their watch trucks full of cash and weapons vanished in Iraq.

Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire withdrew his willingness to be the Commerce Secretary because he couldn’t be true to his Republican fiscal conservatism in an administration controlled by Democrats. Why didn’t he announce this before the wheels for his appointment had been greased by the governor of New Hampshire pledging to appoint a Republican Senator to replace Senator Gregg? His actions are striking in that they put party ideology before country.

When the Federalist party dissolved, members who had also been founders said that it was good so then they could put country above party.

Today’s politicians use party loyalty to trick us with the illusion of being a self governing nation, their arguments over spending are all for show. After all, the Republicans take your money and keep it, the Democrats take your money and give it away, otherwise they’re interchangeable, beholden to the same large campaign contributors.

JFK said the “common enemies of all mankind are tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself”. The one thing we all hold in common irregardless of party, is that we are all in hot water, the world is roiling over oil, globalization, concentration of wealth and wars.

We're So Sorry

Senator Chris Dodd apologized for his involvement with Angelo Mozilo’s crooked sub prime loan company; Countrywide. The Senator and his wife (a banker) apologized for refinancing their mortgages with Countrywide. They were dismayed as to how they came to be on the list known as “Friends of Angelo” as they “hadn‘t been informed they were on the list and it’s a lie”… they‘re not friends of Angelo. Riiiight.

The president also apologized, saying he “screwed up” on his choice of Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services, after the Senator’s tax troubles came to light. Then David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, apologized for bringing trouble to Mr. Obama.

Maybe they should stop apologizing. Once they apologize the discretion or double standard is swept under the rug where it doesn’t belong. MLK said America is a ten day nation. If they would stop apologizing perhaps there’d be more accountability and a longer public memory.

Mistakes Were Made

While it is not clear if this ‘economic stimulus bill” will work to “save our economy“, what is clear is that we have a very broken political system when they spend trillions for War and Wall Street but have to slow down when it comes to domestic spending.

Senator Arlen Specter said “we passed the TARP bill, $700 billion, without having a chance to study it. It was a rushed matter, and we made a lot of mistakes. There were provisions there that no one really understood.”

Fifty one billion was lost due to mismanagement in Iraq reconstruction according to a recent report and they mistakenly gave out seven hundred billion in misunderstood provisions.

That’s 751 billion given away before any stimulus bill is passed, but now Republicans are concerned about their Constitutional responsibilities to take a good look at this bill because there is too much money being thrown around. The Republicans weren‘t too concerned about their duties when it came to throwing money around in Iraq or “losing” 51 billion in reconstruction aid. (As for where the money went don’t let them kid you, it wasn’t mismanaged, the few who were in control managed to steal it very well.)

Get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and end this perpetual “war on terror” and there’s the money for the economic stimulus bill. But with all the “misunderstandings” in our deliberative bodies of government along with a president who does not want to look back, it is clear these wars will continue well into the future.

Patrick Henry said “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way judging the future but by my past”.

The past warns us that all warring empires crumble from within, does the need for an economic stimulus bill signify we’re on the verge of crumbling?

When that happens, who’s going to pay the price? Certainly not the few, the bailed out greedy who along with their political puppets got us into these wars and economic disaster in the first place.

Death by Fire or Death by Unemployment

America used to be a country where we had choices but thanks to the politics of the utopian anarchists for the past 30 years we now have an ‘either or society’, where we have no choices.

We’re in a war for a lie costing us trillions because the previous president and his neo con cronies told us if we didn’t attack Iraq we’d have a mushroom cloud over New York City. This fear tactic is not new. LBJ told the country if we didn’t attack the Communists in Vietnam then we’d be fighting them off the coast of California. Both situations were completely absurd but these falsehoods worked to get this country mired into unwinnable wars, based on the premise of either we attack “them” or “they’ll” attack us.

We were blackmailed into bailing out Wall Street with this either or scenario. We were told either we IMMEDIATELY bail out the greedy bankers on Wall Street with no questions asked, or our whole financial system would collapse. We bailed them out and has anything changed?

Some economists are continuing this either or scenario by saying if the government puts caps on the salaries of the companies we’ve bailed out then we won’t have the talent needed to run these large companies. Even with all this “high priced” talent, these same companies need trillions of tax payer money, so how talented are they? They’re talented in bilking us out of trillions with no strings attached!

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is getting in on this either or scenario. Just this week Secretary Gates said if President Obama institutes a ban on torture and institutes new rules in the Pentagon then it’ll be hard to get talented people to work in the Pentagon. Secretary Gates is just carrying on the former vice president’s out going threat when Cheney said “if President Obama stops torturing people then he’ll be putting our nation at risk of another terrorist attack.” The implication is that either we torture people or we’ll be attacked, we have no choice.

Chief Justice John Roberts has joined this either or scenario by saying we have to raise the salary of the justices or else we won’t be able to bring ‘talent’ to the bench. In every previous case, Justice Roberts always found in favor of government and corporations over the little guy, so how many ‘talents’, rupees, or ’pieces of silver’ does it take to vote in favor of the rich and powerful over the citizens?

President Obama and the Democrats are also telling us that either we let them spend trillions and put future generations in debt or the economy will get a lot worse.

President George Bush led us to a war against “weapons of mass destruction” now we have President Barack Obama who will lead us in the war of “weapons of mass deficit”.

What’s our choice, death by fire or death by unemployment?