| Monday, October 06, 2008 |
| I Guess I am Just Confused |
Today we are in the biggest financial crisis of our history. Our brilliant and apparently underpaid Senate is going to save us from all of OUR bad doings (please refer to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the revision of 1992-1997). You will understand that my last statement is pure sarcasm. Because our initial government plan of a $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street was so poorly written in a three page document, our Senate has come to our rescue. The House rejected their horrible plan at the beginning of this week, so the Senate has apparently fixed it. Our Senate has “sweetened” it up a bit to make the bailout plan WORK!!
Now, as far as I can see the ONLY difference made to the original three page bailout plan was that the Senate raised the ceiling on federal insurance for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000 (which is good thing). However, the bailout plan grew slightly from three pages to 451 pages. Now, there has to be something good with all of that - right? Actually, this is earmarks and pork spending at its greatest. Here the economy is crashing and our Senate decided to help the economy by adding an additional $150,000,000,000 bill to the tax payer.
So, now our new bill is $850,000,000,000. To break this down so our simple pea-brains can understand this very advanced math (because we ain’t as smart as our government) that comes to $2,833.33 per person in the United States. So, basically because there are five people in my immediate family - my bill comes to $14,166.66 that I will have to pay back just break even. Now, I am thinking that if I (along with everybody else) put that money into the economy - that everybody would get a better result. But, I guess I am just too stupid to understand.
However, here are a few things that my tax dollars are going to help pay for (I am so excited):
(1) increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (I don’t even drink)
(2) extension of economic development credit for American Samoa (yea, I guess the tuna business is suffering - oh yea, from all the corn that our government insisted needed to be grown for fuel - read my article about corn being bad for the environment to fully understand this)
(3) a seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility (I guess the fastest growing sport in the country just isn’t making enough money.. oh yea, aren’t we TRYING to decrease oil / gas usage in America?)
(4) an extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds, extension of temporary duty reductions (all related to wool products) - I had no clue that I wore so much wool. I am going to have to try to cut down wearing it!!!
(5) exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children (I guess I will HAVE to buy wooden arrows for my children this year) exemption for certain wooden arrow shafts (I might as well get the shafts too) a tax break for windmills that general electricity (I didn’t know wind was so expensive)
(6) a tax break to spur employers in the region hit by hurricane Katrina (Good grief, when is enough enough for the Katrina folks??? Why don’t I just sign my freaking pay check to them? Apparently, they DESERVE it more than I do! When do we get to stop spoon feeding them? When will they do something for themselves?)
(7) a tax breaks for Hollywood film and television producers (I guess they are not all billionaires yet?)
These are just a few. So, why all the earmarks and pork spending - lobbyist need to get paid and then the lobbyist will pay our Senators. That’s simply economics 101. So, we are in the biggest financial crisis of modern time and our government still can not do the right thing. They have to pad their pockets first. However, economics 101 also states that somebody is going to have to pay the bill. And that my dear friend is US!!!
Do you remember the first of this week when I said that our government will screw this up? ....................... Point proven!! |
posted by Capt. C @ 7:07 AM  |
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