Tag Archives: politics

Random Thoughts, 9/11/11

Posted on by
Comment

A few random thoughts that I don’t have the time — or perhaps desire — to blog more fully about.

It’s shameful the way the media has turned 9/11 into a day that requires viewers/listeners to relive every moment of 9/11/01. What’s even more shameful is the way advertisers are selling during this media circus. I’m not the only one who feels this way. There must be a better way to honor the people who died that day.

Not everyone who died on 9/11/01 was a “hero.” Some were victims. Think about it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The terrorists have won. They have changed our lifestyle, forced our government to take away many of our civil liberties (i.e., freedoms), and caused us to start costly wars that we simply cannot win. The only way we can defeat them is to restore our freedoms, abandon efforts in the Middle East, and protect our country from within, using smart intelligence tactics. Sadly, I don’t think we’re capable, as a people, of doing any of that.

Congress Has the Whole Tax Thing Wrong

Posted on by
7

According to Warren Buffett, higher taxes for the super rich doesn’t kill jobs.

This morning, I was very pleased to read the words written by a voice of reason: Warren Buffett. Buffett is one of the richest men in the world, a man who built his fortune through investing. This article in the New York Times, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” is his attempt to talk reason to the U.S. Congress using facts.

He writes:

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.

While this isn’t news, what’s refreshing about it is that it’s being stated by one of the “mega-rich,” a man who paid $6.9 million (not a typo) in taxes last year. He points out that while his 2010 tax bill was 17.4 percent of his taxable income, other people in his office paid 33% to 41% (with an average of 36%) of theirs.

Tax PictureIt’s the percentages that are important here. Imagine a taxable income of $100K. 17.4% is $17,400. But 36% is more than double that: $36,000. Is it fair that someone with a taxable income of $40 million like Mr. Buffett, who gets to keep about $33 million of that after taxes, should be paying a lower tax rate than someone making $100K who only gets to keep $64K after taxes?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, maybe the picture I provided here for you will help?

(By the way, I’m all for a flat tax and still can’t figure out why we can’t have one. The rate would likely be low enough that folks earning under $200K would save money. And wouldn’t it be nice to figure out your taxes by yourself in an hour instead of paying someone else to do it for you?)

Mr. Buffett goes on to tear apart the argument that higher taxes for the super-rich prevent them from investing or kill jobs:

I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

These are facts from history, not vague guesses based on economic theories. And since Mr. Buffett has a reputation as someone with financial prowess, I’d tend to take his word on the situation before the word of the self-serving morons we’ve elected to Congress — career politicians who would rather lie to the American people than do what’s right for all of us.

Of course, all this makes me wonder why Congress is so insistent that taxes not be raised, even for the wealthiest Americans — people like Buffett who wouldn’t mind a tax increase if it helped the country out of its financial woes. Whose bank accounts are the members of Congress protecting? Their own? Their friends in major corporations who fund their campaigns?

They’re obviously not interested in protecting the bank accounts of the majority of the American people. With unemployment hovering around 9% nationwide, millions of people are tapping into savings, losing their homes, and giving up on the “American Dream.” Yet the government continues to subsidize the oil industry, which continues to reap record profits, offer tax breaks to companies that send American jobs overseas, and enforce a tax code that gives tax breaks to the mega-rich. (By the way, is it a coincidence that the oil industry donates generously to political campaigns? I think not.)

As the Debt Ceiling debates of July 2011 proved, the American Congress is dysfunctional. I really believe that all incumbents should be voted out of office in the next few elections. Start again with a clean slate, hopefully with people who care about their constituents.

But what can we do until then? Contact your Representatives and Senators. Tell them that you think Warren Buffett is right: that the mega rich should be paying the same percentage of taxes as the rest of Americans. If you email them, link to the New York Times piece I quoted here. Tell them to read it and learn. Remind them that they’re working for all of the American people — not the corporations who fund their campaigns.

We need to turn this country around and it’s obviously not going to happen if we wait for our dysfunctional Congress to do it for us.

And in November 2012, remember to vote for someone who has the American people at the top of his or her agenda — not partisan politics.

Bin Laden May Be Dead, But He Won

Posted on by
10

He wanted to change our world for the worse — and he did.

I just finished reading a very accurate essay on the CBC Web site, “The Devil likely died happy” by Neil Macdonald. As my fellow countrymen rejoice in the streets — like Taliban members did when more than 3,000 Americans were killed on September 11, 2001 — it takes a Canadian to look at Osama bin Laden’s death with 20-20 vision. I urge you to read his essay, in its entirety. It’s a sobering look at reality.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m happy bin Laden is dead. To me, he’s the equivalent of Hitler, Stalin, or any other man who used the death of innocents to achieve his personal goals. While some people are claiming we should have captured him and put him on trial, I really don’t care that we didn’t. The news of his death gave the American people a much-needed shot in the arm. And I’m sure that on some level, it’ll bring closure to the the people who lost loved ones on 9/11.

But will it change anything? Will it bring back the pre-9/11 world that so many of us remember and miss?

What do you think?

So, as Mr. Macdonald pointed out with numerous examples in his excellent and thoughtful essay, bin Laden achieved his goals beyond his wildest dreams. He made us paranoid, he increased our hatreds, he divided us as a people. He caused our government to take away liberties and subject us to policies that were in direct conflict with our beloved Constitution. He caused us to start wars on two fronts, wars that burden the American economy and put our young service people at risk every single day.

He changed our way of life.

And isn’t that what he wanted all along?

The quote that hits home from Mr. Macdonald’s piece is this:

But bin Laden didn’t just prod Americans into disregarding their own laws and principles when dealing with their real and supposed enemies; he goaded them into turning on each other.

And so he has. And even in his death, the splits among Americans are drawn and widened. This morning, I read two essays by conservative pundits taking exception with our President’s speech last night, a speech in which they said that he took too much credit for bin Laden’s death. They can’t be satisfied that a national goal has been achieved. Instead, they need to turn it into a political argument over words in a speech announcing a true “Mission Accomplished” to the nation. As if Bush or McCain or anyone else from their side of our country would have done it differently.

One nation, indivisible? I wish.

No, I don’t think bin Laden’s death will change anything.

The TSA will still require us to get half undressed, dump our water bottles, and go without nail clippers when we fly. They’ll still subject us to unreasonable search using potentially dangerous and extremely intrusive X-ray devices or pat-downs.

The political pundits will still find fault with the other side. Conservatives and liberals will still disagree on everything. Media grabbing presidential wannabes will still go on-air spouting lies to sway public opinion.

We’ll still have thousands of troops in the middle east, fighting an enemy they can’t beat, coming home broken — mentally or physically (or both) — or in body bags. Government contractors will still be overpaid to support them while services the American public needs are cut to pay for our wars.

The hate will continue to spew out of the mouths of close-minded people who have nothing better to think about than how someone different from them has no right to be on American soil.

Nothing will change. Bin Laden may be dead, but his legacy continues to live in America.

And I cannot imagine anything sadder than that.

What Makes You Think You can Change My Political Views?

Posted on by

Don’t waste your time.

The other day, I got an extremely long e-mail message from someone I don’t know. I read the first paragraph and gathered that he read my blog, liked my articles about flying, but didn’t like my political views. A quick skim of the rest showed a lengthy discourse intended to correct my political viewpoint.

Although I was tempted to reply to his message, I knew it would only encourage him to try again.

So I deleted the message and got on with my day.

He likely spent at least an hour or composing his discourse on why my political views were so wrong. I spent less than 60 seconds deciding it wasn’t worth my time to read what he’d written.

The purpose of this post is to discourage other readers from similarly wasting their time. Seriously — you won’t change my mind, so why waste your time trying? Chances are, I won’t even read your message. If you get offensive, I’ll likely choose bits and pieces of it to ridicule publicly in this blog — as I’ve done in the past with other folks who get nasty with me. Is that what you want?

Aren’t there better ways to spend your time? Like perhaps educating yourself about the reality of today’s political environment? Or just spending time with your family and friends? Or maybe getting your ass off the sofa, turning off FoxNews, and going outside to breathe a little fresh air?

Don’t try to waste my time. You’ll just waste yours.

And if you don’t like what I have to say in this blog, don’t read it.

Hello? America?

Posted on by

Are you paying attention?

Great. We’ve just managed to vote in a bunch of Tea Party-backed talking heads. They keep talking tax cuts and reduced deficit spending, like they think that’s going to solve all of America’s financial woes.

I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. The guys who got voted out were completely ineffective. The government has been trying to run up the slope of a mudslide for the past two years — after the warmonger who was in office for eight years before that started the flow of “defense” spending that caused the mudslide in the first place.

Yes, I blame Bush and his government. They got us involved in two fucking wars. Wars we can’t win. Wars that cost a fortune — every single day. Wars that are killing and maiming our young people, warping their minds, and making us look like brutal colonialists to everyone else in the world.

It’s Viet Nam all over again — but worse.

When Bush took over (from Bill Clinton, in case you forgot), the U.S. had a record budget surplus. When he handed the reins to Obama, we had a record budget deficit. Looks like Junior Bush ran up the credit cards, huh? And who’s paying for it now? Taxpayers.

You want to know where the money is going? Take a look at the budget. The top six expenditures are going to:

  • $738 billion – Defense spending
  • $738 billion – Social Security
  • $567 billion – Income Security (including unemployment, federal employee disability, and military retirement)
  • $498 billion – Medicare
  • $381 billion – Health
  • $251 billion – Interest

Look at the numbers. Our total budget is $3.69 trillion dollars. 20% of that goes to defense spending. Another 33% goes to social welfare for the elderly. (Yes, I did say social welfare — isn’t that what social security and medicare are?) But what really kills me is that nearly 7% of our national budget goes to paying interest on accumulated debt. It’s the sixth highest expenditure! Remember those credit cards Junior Bush ran up?

Yet all the Republican Party and Tea Party people can chant is “lower taxes, lower taxes.” They somehow think that lowering taxes will create jobs and generate more income for the Federal government. My question: When you lower a rate, how does that bring in more money?

The Bush administration experimented with this years ago. They gave us all $300. I’m not sure what we were supposed to do with it, but I donated mine to the 9/11 Fund. Today, with 10% of Americans out of work and about the same percentage of Americans about to lose their homes, another $300 (or $600 or $1000) would likely go toward the mortgage or put food on the table. How is that going to create jobs?

Also, how is a tax cut going to help people who don’t have any income?

Worse yet, these supposed tax cutters are completely opposed to higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans — people with multiple homes and cars, people who send their kids to the best colleges, people who can afford health care, people who don’t need social security or medicare or unemployment. Somehow, the GOP and Tea Partiers equate these people with small business owners. Give them tax cuts and they’ll create more jobs. I call bullshit. The wealthiest Americans are not “small” business owners. They’re corporate executives and the upper management of investment firms, insurance companies, and banks. The same people the Bush administration bailed out before leaving Obama with the big credit card bills and expensive wars.

What the GOP and Tea Partiers fail to acknowledge is that the United States population has one of the lowest tax burdens in the world. Yes, we pay less taxes than most civilized nations.

When you pay less taxes, you have to accept less services. So what are we going to cut? Social Security and Medicare? It’s mostly that age bracket that voted in the supposed tax cutters, so I seriously doubt their services will be cut. We can’t cut defense spending with two wars on. We can’t cut interest spending because we don’t want the Chinese calling our debts due immediately. That leaves income security, health, education, veteran’s benefits, national parks, transportation. Do you really want to cut any of that?

For the record, I don’t mind paying more taxes if it means I get the services I need for a healthy and secure lifestyle. But I’ll be damned if I pay more taxes so big business can get tax breaks for sending jobs to China. Or so corporate executives earning $1 million + a year can buy another home or plane or boat.

Personally, I’m fed up with the whole thing. It’s all too clear to me that all parties want the same thing: to be in power so they can help their special interests. They say whatever they want to get in power. This year’s attack ads were completely out of control. The lies were outrageous.

And what do they want? The GOP want to help big business and the wealthy. The Dems want to help the poor and ecology. The Tea Partiers want to help themselves and their ultra-conservative, religious backers. No one seems to want to help all Americans. It’s us vs. them.

In the meantime, the taxpayers — who are paying the salaries and health care benefits for the morons we vote into office — are getting treated to an ineffective government unable to do the right thing for anyone.

The next two years should be interesting.