Some Absolutely Idiotic Ideas

This Obama debt commission has come out with some of the stupidest ideas you’ve ever come across to eliminate the deficit. Do they want to raise the 100,000 ceiling on FICA payments? No. Do they want to eliminate the Bush tax cuts? No. Do they want us to end the war in Afghanistan? No. Do they want protective terrifs on foreign goods? No. Instead what they want to do is Lower taxes on businesses by ten percent and eliminate the Mortgage deduction the average person has to pay on his house. And they want to raise the retirement age to seventy, which will hurt the unemployment picture, and they want to cut Social Security payments. Bill Handel was saying yesterday how government is soaking the rich and the middle class, who used to pay income tax, doesn't any more. That's the way people like Bill Handel and Larry Elder see it. Some on the right want that 23% value added tax on everything we buy. Clearly this debt comission was dominated by conservatives. I don't even recall a half percent stock trade tax, that would slow down the stock trading frenzy. Did the comission recomend changing our tax laws so that corporations can't so easily relocate overseas? I don't think so. How about raising money by buying massive ammounts of Gold and then dumping it at a high price after speculative fever has run its course? That's what a rich person would do. If the government had any imagination they could raise money without sticking it to the comon person. But the screwiest idea the government has now is these graphic depictions on cigarette packages. First of all cigarette consumption is way down. They act as if it's a growing crisis or something. To spend any money "investigating" this problem at all seems to me another waste of money. It's like building that border fence when imigration from Mexico is way down now. That's the government for you. They want to show terminal patients with horrible diseases taking up half of both the front and back of a pack of cigarettes. I’m surprised they don’t mandate every Free Clinic have a fetus in a jar you have to bow down to as you enter. The government is not thinking. Of course Obama is a horrible leader and has marketed his ideas very poorly. What the Sixty Minutes interview showed was that the President has no real ideals he’s willing to put on the line and fight for. Basically the only difference between this President and George W Bush is that Obama will occasionally make a speech about health care or else he will go overseas and tell people under Islam that America isn’t that great of a country to live in. Otherwise his administration is just a continuation of the Bush administration. People seem to think they can do without government altogether and the Republicans; chief pledge is to shut government down and then to make President Obama a one term president. They have no other ideas. If I were the President talking to CBS I would have told them that I do have core beliefs I’m willing to fight for like Bring Scudder Libby and Karl Rove and Dick Chaney to justice. And also that I completely revamp our foreign war policy and stop renditions and stop covering up secrets that our people are entitled to know. I would mention these “Christmas tree” appropriations bills voted on by congress. I would argue for an open air policy and not legislate in secret. There is nothing that the President is doing now that inspires any confidence in me. And if the President should suddenly vanish tomorrow into thin air, few would miss him. The people have indicated they really don’t care about health care reform despite what earlier polls indicated. The people seem bent only on halting all forward governmental progress. Since Obama has no principles he willing to fight for and not sell out on completely, I’m not even sure why we even need a president these next two years. Is it to move more US jobs to India like he did last week? I don’t know. What on earth is he going to talk about in his next State of the Union speech in January? I can’t imagine... Of course I wouldn’t waste time and taxpayer’s money trying to impeach this president because he’s already been rendered impotent. It’s just a two year waiting game now. I honestly can’t remember the last time this president showed either uncompromised principles or anything he’s willing to go to the mat for. If the president hadn’t betrayed his supporters we’d have a democratic congress in January. Only four liberals were voted out of office and 24 blue dog house democrats were voted out of power, according to the Stephanie Miller show. If you must sacrifice, a blue dog will do fine.

I don’t understand how that cruise ship could be “out of food” and has to be given Span to prevent starvation or whatever. People don’t starve in one day. There is such a thing as freezers and ice, and food doesn’t thaw out instantaneously. Foods don’t go bad instantaneously. Meat will last at least a day after thawing. Produce and fruits will keep several days. Candy bars and canned drinks and alcohol will keep indefinitely, as will dry goods like spaghetti. They say that many toilets don’t work. The laws of gravity haven’t been done awsay with, have they? Do they or don’t they have ways of pumping water? The pipes don’t leak and the toilets still work. What about butane lanterns for lights? Why do people have to sleep out on the deck? That makes no sense. The only real problem would be for dairy products such as milk and ice cream. They say this ship is twice the size of the Titanic, but I guess that must be in volume, since it's under a thousand feet long and the Titanic was just over. They had 4,000 people aboard. We are told the Star Ship Enterprise held just over one thousand at one point. But we know they had 36 decks, which is puzzling. But if you picture them in concentric circles in the "saucer" section it makes a little sense. Because they can rotate the wheel and in this way obtain gravity.

I've thought a little about it and have come to the conclusion that the national deficet can be easily handeled if we do but one thing. We raise the tax on stock dividends from fifteen to thirty five percent to match income. I would make it an absolutely flat fax lest the people on the right get their knickers in a twist over it. No matter if it was a one share gift from your grandfather on your birthday or you're a milti-millionaire, you pay the same constant 35% rate. No one need complain about that. This will encourage, hopefully, people in the corporation to reinvest earnings and not let the bulk of the money go to the biggest of stock holders. It also addresses the problem of the rich millionaire "sitting around the pool waiting for the dividend check to arrive. I would not raise the capital gains tax now for two reasons. Number one if you're poor and need to sell a long held family business I believe you're entitled to every penny you can get. Secondly a jump in capital gains to 28% or whatever right now would cause a massive sell-off of the stock market and that we don't need right now. In exchange for this I would let the republicans have their 35% rate for billionaires. They can get rid of the entire experation and keep ALL of the Bush tax cuts the way President Obama seems to want, and has been hinting at for a long time now. To risk a republican filibuster over this issue would be risky because you know given the addeled nature of the American population, they would blame the democrats for the hold up of this tax relief bill. And the Republicans would only need to come back and pass the bill in the next session when they reign supreme.

Something funny struck me while I was watching the soap opera today that was kind of a tangental thought. There are two types of people. One type like me when they see a good thing or discover something that will benefit mankind or come upon an enlightened thought, they want to tell the world about it. Other personality types think "How can I keep this good thing to myself and use it to manipulate my enemies. You know, I believe that Neil Savadra alias Jesus Christ, wants to shrink Christianity down small enough to where you're able to drown it in the bath tub like Andrea Yates or people want to do with government. I remember Judy's exclamation against universal salvation when she said "What would be the point?" Salvation seems to be no fun unless you can lord it over someone or else keep people out of your exclusive club. You want a god who is small enough to keep in your back pocket, accross from your wallet, and if need be you can do away with it alltogether if you can no longer control it. Neil's consistent message is "Your God is too big" and you see this sentament manifest in manifold ways. You see it when he says "Don't be too eager to share the gospell with others. Be picky about it and make that person see you as the center of their focus rather than God, and have it be your life they lust after rather than some abstract principles from the Bible. They have to see in you that you have a good thing going in your life" You know I was looking at that map on ABC news the other night and noticing that California and New York alike are two fairly non religious states. As you make your way tword the deep South faith becomes more concentrated. I can't help think their must be something racial in this and white supremicy. I don't know how Orange County feels about these statistics. They think they are the religious center of the world. But a week ago Tuesday California proved that it was one state that wasn't in the grip of the tea party. I also remember those people who say that this is the first generation where the young people are not joining churches once they get married and "settled down". To me this is a sign that indeed and at long last, Christianity is dying on the vine. If Southern churches have so much money they want to ship a Cathedral from Buffalo down 900 miles south piece by piece it means they are bereft of impulses to spend their copious funds in more edifying ways to both God and humanity.