A follow-up

I haven't posted in 4 months and now there's a twofer today.
I have an idea about a way to save money and apply it in a more useful way.

#1 Did you know that the US spends 5 times as much on the military budget ($711 billion) than its closest competitor (China at $143 billion)? Do you know how much of that is needless spending according to an old Cold War mentality? Yeah, billions.
So how about we only spend 4 times as much as China? Then we can use the rest of the money to help the soldiers that are coming back. We can give them job training. We can apply better funds to physical recovery. We can apply significantly more money to help soldiers recover mentally from the horrors they've seen. Maybe this way we can drastically cut back on the suicide/day rate that the military now has. We can apply money to stop the rampant sexual trauma that women--and not a few men--suffer in the military.
Could you imagine if we did that?

#2 (This is based off the previous post)
For people like the person that I mentioned that pay so very little in taxes yet have exorbitant wealth, how about we draw things a bit more close. This family friend of ours pays about 40% in overall taxes, referenced wealthy person pays 13.9% in federal on some of his money--not all of it--and pays maybe 1% or 2% more on some of his money for other state taxes. Considering his $250 million in overall wealth, and that he only pays taxes on some of it, makes you wonder. Anyway:
So how about we don't even make numbers match? How about we have this wealthy group of people pay their taxes, use their loop holes, pay state taxes, etc., AND THEN we have them pay up to 75% of what middle class America pays? So then these wealthy tax dodgers end up paying only 30% in overall taxes. And it's still less than my family friend.

Now with all of this money, we can easily afford things every year like money for education and teacher training, money for job creation, money for research to develop 21st century industries so that we can compete on a global scale like we used to back when this type of money was applied to research.


How about we start with these two ideas?
But, you know me, I'm just a 1980s Republican. Or, in modern parlance, a socialist.

It's gotta be said

Mild rant. yeehaw:

Someone posted an absolutely horrendous thing supporting the mandatory drug testing laws in a few US states for people that need welfare. Pass the test, you get money. Seems like a good idea until you realize a few things:
#1 People being tested have to pay up front. They'll most likely get reimbursed later. But people with no money have to pay for it up front.
#2 The only requirement for getting this tested is being poor, no suspicion other than poverty. This also happens to be against both the spirit and the literal law of the IV Amendment.
#3 People on welfare do drugs per capita the same as the rest of America. White America? The same. Black America? The same. Hispanic America? The same. In fact, drug use is at the same percent across the nation regardless of wealth, skin color, etc. etc.
But really, we should pick on the poor people.
#4 It COST Florida more than $45,000 in the end. It didn't save them money, it cost them money. It didn't save them any money on welfare, nothing changed.

So FB poster went off about how he earns money and his 40% after federal, state, gas, food taxes shouldn't be going to these leaches on society.

Here's the thing, and I pointed this out to him (and he ignored it), a certain wealthy man has about $250 million dollars of personal wealth and he paid about 13.9% on a fraction of that, not even on the $250 million. If you add the rest of his property, etc., taxes, he doesn't even come close to paying half of what this 40% man pays.

So why on earth are we attacking the poor? If we closed the loop holes in this one man's taxes, we cover welfare for how many people for how many years?

Yeah, exactly.
So we should totally attack poor people, because they're the problem.

All kinds of info

I ran across this website that has all kinds of amazingly interesting (and sometimes disheartening) information.
Here's one tidbit that was especially frustrating to me:

There's the average for the U.S. and Kansas is in the best position. Utah's in the absolute worst, and it's not even close.

The overall tax burden once everything's taken into account is rather fascinating as well.

There's a lot of other stuff on there that didn't get my dander up, but I thought I'd point out those two lovely bits of info.

Grandpa

I had this really sucky moment tonight where I wanted to call and talk to my Grandpa Pittsley, you know, just say hi. It took a couple of seconds for me to remember that he passed away a few years back.

It sucked. Big time.

WIMotW: Edict #3

When I'm Master of the World, my third declaration will be the healthy ceasing of cigarette smoking. We'll turn the area of the factories into reclaimed areas for after school learning and rec places where kids can explore their talents. All of the money whored up by the companies will become our funds for this process. Factory workers can be transitioned to different jobs created by the construction of the building.
I see this as a win-win-win-win for all involved. More wellness trips to the dr than the current alternative. Punishment would be tree or flower planting or something. Or maybe hugging trees... Something like that.
All's I know is that we gotta keep growing tobacco to help out those cows in some way.


Now, to make this WIMofW less boring, you should all want this.

Today it hit me

I realized why so many people in the LDS church are enamored with Ron Paul. This article illuminated my mind.
A quote:

“The Ron Paul brand is actually relatively intellectual,” Cassino says. It’s “A brand that’s about, ‘I’m smarter than you are.’ … ‘All the politicians are telling you one thing but I know better.’ ” This is the brand for those who feel different, who see themselves as a little bit brainier and more marginalized than everyone else.

Followed up by this one:

It’s also that those drawn to Ron Paul are narrowly self-selecting—they are attracted to the idea of being the rare voices of reason in a culture of foolishness.

So why the connection? Mormons pride** themselves on having a special truth, they're "in the know." Of course many Mormons would find this appealing--for all the wrong reasons. Ron Paul's stances are a cacophony to many of the actual teachings of the gospel. But it's more about a special secret than an actual truth that is appealing.

Ugh.


**word choice used  for many reasons...

A small-ish rant

because I can use my blog to complain about idiots on facebook.

It's stunning to see how many of my Mormon friends are madly in love with Ron Paul. If the U.S. had followed his cockamamie ideas of foreign policy, the Church would not have had access to make the inroads around the world in such a fast manner. We would not have the connections that we've had over the last 70 years.

A presence in Southeast Asia? not a chance
How about South Korea (and its temple)? not on your life
Official recognition in Romania (the only place in Eastern Europe)? not even. That was Sen. Reid's connection.
The list continues and continues.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of current members wouldn't have ever heard of the Church.


But hey, if you're in the mood for a return to a strongly patriarchal society that favors only upper middle class white males and sends us into civil non-rights with the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which Paul would repeal), vote for Ron Paul, he's a sexist, racist peach of a man hiding his beliefs under a banner of "liberty."

He's a prick.