Your Tax Dollars At Work
Feb. 26th, 2010 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stLet's just start with the alarming news. Unemployment benefits are due to end over this coming weekend...thanks to one man blocking the vote. I think everyone who is left destitute by this decision should know that man's name.
Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky
Read the article about his obstructionism here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100226/ap_on_go_co/us_unemployment_benefits
Go under this link for my rant against the clown posse in Washington.
And here I don't just mean the Republican party. But, let's face it, by their very definition they are blocking progress of any kind. At the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) meeting last week, Glenn Beck actually took a stand against Progressivism and Evolution. <<--not the sort that results in Monkey Trials...the sort that allows a society to evolve and grow. This is what we have here, people who don't want to progress. So, they obstruct. It's not that they have better ideas. They have no ideas. They want to stop everything--progress, growth, evolution, the government. They want us to all just stop.
Glenn also made the usual mistake that many well meaning people make when supporting just stopping. He thinks everything is free. He thinks complex problems are easy to solve if we all just do whatever it is that he wants us to do. He thinks that the government doing what it is supposed to do...spend the collective money on the collective good...is wasting your tax dollars. But most of all the thinks HE shouldn't have to give any of his money to the collective. People think that because they believe libraries and schools and roads are free. They believe that because, thanks to our tax dollars at work, we don't have to pay money every time we go to the library or take our kids to school or drive on the roads. If the neocons get their way and we "privatize" schools, fireman and libraries...then, guess what? You WOULD have to pay. The reason we don't have to, now, is because we give our money to the government via taxes...and then the government arranges for libraries, schools, clean water, food transportation, roads and Medicare and Social Security and National Defence.
Let me tell you this...Glenn Beck might make enough money to pay for teachers, roads, firemen and doctors on staff for him...just like any aristocrat of old. But YOU my readers, you don't make that sort of money. Also, Glenn doesn't realize how much money taxation saves him. Solutions to complex problems are never as easy as standing still and admiring your piles of money.
What we need our representatives to do is spend the money we collect wisely. It is OUR money. Spending it on US is the right thing to do. Spending it on anything to better the welfare of the people as a whole...is what the money is for...so...health care (aka MEDICARE), schools, firefighters, roads, social security or unemployment benefits...are all GOOD uses of the money.
Sure you should try to get the most bang for the buck. Oh, and the other thing is you should collect the money from the people you are actually representing...the rich. I have been in the process of applying for Social Security. I have worked 30 years, which is more than a lot of people collecting it have done. So, I feel I've paid my dues to society in all those years of social security taxation. And, had I not become disabled, I would have gone on paying in good faith to support the sick, old and infirm of society.
However, I was appalled to discover that while I was paying my fair share, many of the more well off citizens were getting a free ride. Only the first 105,000 dollars of your income is taxed for Social Security. WHAT THE HELL? Year after year the clown posse we call Congress trots out their "reform Social Security", threating the old, the infirm, the poor with a loss of benefits. Benefits, I might add, that are freely given to rich people once they reach retirement age, yet often denied to those who cannot work. And now I learn that rich people aren't even PAYING for them? Well, no wonder they don't want the rest of us to eat.
So, Mr. Jim Bunning of Kentucky...my answer to your concern about the extra 10 billion dollars that will go to the unemployment benefits bill is two fold. 1) Pay your fair share. Ten percent of your income and no excuses. Because, guess what? Nobody using unemployment benefits gets out of being taxed. 2) Remember that you are there to support the PUBLIC GOOD...not to obstruct it. 3) I do hope you are doing everything in your power to support the recovery stimulas and jobs bills...because you certainly seem to want people to go back to work. Maybe you could offer something other than a free ride and no taxes to the companies laying all these workers off? What I'm saying here, sir...is get off of your obstructionist ASS and do something. PROGRESS! Because the last ten years, sir, have sucked!
Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky
Read the article about his obstructionism here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100226/ap_on_go_co/us_unemployment_benefits
Go under this link for my rant against the clown posse in Washington.
And here I don't just mean the Republican party. But, let's face it, by their very definition they are blocking progress of any kind. At the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) meeting last week, Glenn Beck actually took a stand against Progressivism and Evolution. <<--not the sort that results in Monkey Trials...the sort that allows a society to evolve and grow. This is what we have here, people who don't want to progress. So, they obstruct. It's not that they have better ideas. They have no ideas. They want to stop everything--progress, growth, evolution, the government. They want us to all just stop.
Glenn also made the usual mistake that many well meaning people make when supporting just stopping. He thinks everything is free. He thinks complex problems are easy to solve if we all just do whatever it is that he wants us to do. He thinks that the government doing what it is supposed to do...spend the collective money on the collective good...is wasting your tax dollars. But most of all the thinks HE shouldn't have to give any of his money to the collective. People think that because they believe libraries and schools and roads are free. They believe that because, thanks to our tax dollars at work, we don't have to pay money every time we go to the library or take our kids to school or drive on the roads. If the neocons get their way and we "privatize" schools, fireman and libraries...then, guess what? You WOULD have to pay. The reason we don't have to, now, is because we give our money to the government via taxes...and then the government arranges for libraries, schools, clean water, food transportation, roads and Medicare and Social Security and National Defence.
Let me tell you this...Glenn Beck might make enough money to pay for teachers, roads, firemen and doctors on staff for him...just like any aristocrat of old. But YOU my readers, you don't make that sort of money. Also, Glenn doesn't realize how much money taxation saves him. Solutions to complex problems are never as easy as standing still and admiring your piles of money.
What we need our representatives to do is spend the money we collect wisely. It is OUR money. Spending it on US is the right thing to do. Spending it on anything to better the welfare of the people as a whole...is what the money is for...so...health care (aka MEDICARE), schools, firefighters, roads, social security or unemployment benefits...are all GOOD uses of the money.
Sure you should try to get the most bang for the buck. Oh, and the other thing is you should collect the money from the people you are actually representing...the rich. I have been in the process of applying for Social Security. I have worked 30 years, which is more than a lot of people collecting it have done. So, I feel I've paid my dues to society in all those years of social security taxation. And, had I not become disabled, I would have gone on paying in good faith to support the sick, old and infirm of society.
However, I was appalled to discover that while I was paying my fair share, many of the more well off citizens were getting a free ride. Only the first 105,000 dollars of your income is taxed for Social Security. WHAT THE HELL? Year after year the clown posse we call Congress trots out their "reform Social Security", threating the old, the infirm, the poor with a loss of benefits. Benefits, I might add, that are freely given to rich people once they reach retirement age, yet often denied to those who cannot work. And now I learn that rich people aren't even PAYING for them? Well, no wonder they don't want the rest of us to eat.
So, Mr. Jim Bunning of Kentucky...my answer to your concern about the extra 10 billion dollars that will go to the unemployment benefits bill is two fold. 1) Pay your fair share. Ten percent of your income and no excuses. Because, guess what? Nobody using unemployment benefits gets out of being taxed. 2) Remember that you are there to support the PUBLIC GOOD...not to obstruct it. 3) I do hope you are doing everything in your power to support the recovery stimulas and jobs bills...because you certainly seem to want people to go back to work. Maybe you could offer something other than a free ride and no taxes to the companies laying all these workers off? What I'm saying here, sir...is get off of your obstructionist ASS and do something. PROGRESS! Because the last ten years, sir, have sucked!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-26 07:24 pm (UTC)Well said.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-26 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-26 07:41 pm (UTC)Really???? I had no idea. That is utterly ridiculous! Here we are, scraping around to meet our tithe while these guys are being let off for pennies. TAX THOSE PEOPLE. And I promise, when I make my millions (*snort*), I will not complain about paying my fair share. ;)
And last time I checked, progress was a good thing. Why the F would anyone want to block that? Certainly not for any *good* reason. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-26 09:23 pm (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 12:41 am (UTC)Liberals need to grow some balls too and get louder than tea parties and collectivly say "The party is over fucktards, now pay your damn taxes or get the fuck out!"
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 01:33 am (UTC)Liberals need to grow some balls too and get louder than tea parties and collectivly say "The party is over fucktards, now pay your damn taxes or get the fuck out!"
My view is people can hate whomever they want, but they still need to do the job we elected them to do. And really, we need to go in there and start over on something...basically...the exact role of government officials. They are supposed to represent the needs of the public, not the needs of big business.
And I do not think that it is a matter of debate. Big business has NOT been good for this country for at least two decades. If they want to stay in business, they need to start employing some people. Or we need to start plugging some of their tax loopholes. Fox says "Oh, they will take their business overseas!" Well...good luck selling to those people you are paying 6 cents an hour, because we won't be letting you sell your products HERE.
We need certain things and the first thing we need is to stop supporting the corporate feudalism that has led us like sheep to this financial precise and that NOW expects us to just jump off so the profits continue to climb. People think slavery is gone, but most of us are bought and sold on paper via "credit scores." They have us working for years to own anything. And if corporate America has its way, we will owe our continued existance to the company store and get nothing at all in return for our years of invested labor.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 06:48 pm (UTC)Also, I assume that you're familiar with the old line about CONgress being the opposite of PROgress?
P.S. - my understanding of the SS cap as regards the taxation of income is that it is there due to the fact that there is a proportionate cap on the return on investment (i.e., a maximum draw down of payouts from SS to any citizen). Is this not so?