95164074

You’re Poor = Pay Up

Last week I went off on a rant on the 2003 Bush budget, but, it turns out the temper tantrum was a bit premature. The effects of the $350 billion dollar tax cut are worse than originally reported.
In closed rooms at the midnight hour, just before the budget bill was signed, representatives of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate hammered out the details on how to pay for this preposterous bit of vote buying.
And in the end it is a damn travesty!
It seems that in order to give huge tax breaks to the upper 1 percent of the population, in order to make sure that the upper class and upper middle class do not have to experience any discomfort in this weak economy through the removal of marriage tax penalties, estate taxes, dividend taxes and huge capital gains tax cuts, we will lower the earned income tax credit on the lowest income bracket.
That’s corrrect. The lowest income bracket, those folks who can barely get by when things are good, not just when times are bad, will have their earned income tax credit reduced! Families (not individuals, families, meaning a household of people) that have an income of $10,500 to $26,625 a year (apparently a liveable wage, according to your government) will not receive the earned income tax credit benefit. That is the equivalent of raising the taxes on the poorest to pay for a tax break for the richest.This measure effects less then one percent of the Bush budget but also effects 12 million children – 12 million who would have received an additional $400.00 a year stipend.
It fucking sickens me!
To the rich, $400.00 is the equvalent of a few neckties, but to a family making 20,000 a year and rasing children, 400 is more than a week’s pay!
The earned income tax credit is a Reagan era tax break that allows the poor with families to in effect, get into higher adjusted income class, kind of a permanent tax break, and thus pay less money to the government because they are supporting their children.
That kind of “largesse” just doesn’t help the economy, apparently. Why give money to families who are barely getting by when you can dish it out to the rich who need more “walking around money” to pay for their new poolside bar-be-que.
This fake budget was already a sham, with many of the mechanisms designed to pay for it to come from future yet-to-be-determined revenue increases (we pay for a tax cut today with a tax increase tomorrow – that’s the plan to help the economy.)
I probably missed a ton of stuff explaining this – but the whole idea makes me so God Damned Angry. What makes me even angrier is that this clause was in the tax bill all along but no reporters took the time to write about it, until the tax bill was signed and became law. The reporters and the “liberal” media waited until the bill was signed before they read the damned thing to the tell the public what is going on.

Lazy media = bad government.

Let Salon, Time and The Washington Post and others explain it so much better than me:

  • It’s still the economy, stupid!
  • Poor get shafted
  • What the tax cuts could have bought
  • A tax cut, and then what?
  • Blessed Are the Poor — They Don’t Get Tax Cuts
  • Friday Fives

    Friday Fives

    1. What do you most want to be remembered for?
    Being a good, reliable guy who can always make you laugh.

    2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?
    “There are many little details to life, and most them can be stored in a little drawer in the kitchen and forgotten. But don’t forget where you put them. You may want them later.”

    3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?
    It sounds so unprecise, but honestly, just getting through these last couple of years (deaths in the family, lay offs and significant family changes) without major therapy is a major acccomplishment.

    4. What about the past ten years?
    Graduating college. I was the first one on either of my parents’ sides to earn a bachelor’s degree and I am pretty proud of that.

    5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?
    Learn the value of money early on and learn the skills to managed it and invest it without being stingy and cheap.

    95037759

    “The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum”

    The usually very conservative Financial Times of London is lashing out at the Bush budget. Professional Bush Berater Paul Krugman is lashing out at the Bush budget. It seems that a lot of folks are condemning the budget, everyone but the taxpayers who have been hoodwinked again by the Bush budget flim flam. Married couples with children with get one of those tax advance checks, like those issued two years ago as part of the budget cut. Remember that? The tax advance? Bush “cut” the budget by issuing everyone an early refund and then took the refund back when the April tax bill came.
    Well, essentially, that is how Congress decided to pay for the $350 billion tax cut , by putting in the cuts for this year and next and then writing into to the budget that the tax cuts will be paid for by raising taxes (according to some estimates, fairly substantially) in the next five to ten years from now.
    Raise your hand if you believe Congress is brave enough to raise taxes rather substantially in an unaccountable future budget.
    A bit of Enron/Worldcom accounting is going on and our lame brained public, still high on the fresh feelings of a war victory, is, as usual, numb to the scam.
    Krugman charges that the budget is part of an elaborate scheme to significantly cut social spending – Social Security, medicaide, medicare, welfare, education, child and women’s health programs, college tuition programs, environmental cleanup and protection programs, among others – the logic being that the money is no longer in the budget and decisions had to be made. The president will trumpet Iraq and 9/11 and logically use those events to beef up Defense spending and to beef up Homeland Security spending. He will point to long held Republican beliefs of state controlled spending and block grants and turn his back and let the states fend for themselves as they try to fill the void left with little to no federal funding.
    All the while he has quietly signed into law a bill to raise the national debt ceiling to $7.4 trillion.

    Let me repeat that number, because it is huge and bigger than Reagan budget deficits $7.4 trillion.

    Bush says signing the bill doesn’t mean it will go that high, just that the law allows it. As Bill Cosby says, “Rrrriiiiiighttttt.”
    If you have paid attention to your own finances and budget woes, you know that borrowing your way out of debt, that living on credit cards when you no longer have the income to support your lifestyle, doesn’t work. It is the foolish folly of 20 year old recent college grads with a shiny new Mastercard, and now, apparently, the official policy of the federal budget process.
    And of course, these bills will come due and that is when the choices will be made.
    It is sickening to think what cuts will be made or where existing money is going to go.

    94990211

    Sweet mornings, predawn

    So, the air conditioning in the apartment went out this week. The maintenance guys will put in a new unit on Thursday, but in the meantime it is a bit sweltering and stuffy here at the farm.
    The hottest few days of the year so far and the house is hot. Sleeping with the windows open when your bedroom overlooks a parking lot and a wharehouse district doesn’t make for the best night’s sleep. We have a very nocturnal set of dwellers here in the apartment complex. Folks coming and going at all hours of the night.
    Apparently talking on the cell phone while either leaving the house or returning is the modus operandi. By five a.m. no one talks anymore, they whisper as they go about their morning chores – but having been up all night, I can still hear their whispers.
    The trash trucks take about an hour and a half to make the rounds around the industrial park on the other side of the parking lot. They start at 6 a.m. Much clanking of metal and beeping of trucks as they back out of parking lots can be heard. I imagine it could be heard even in Paker.
    When the windows of the house are opened up for some cool air and a breeze, the cat gets very excited. He runs from room to room, perching at each of the windows in search of some hidden pray that only he can see.
    This searching and hunting involves jumping up on the bed full force, as if he were a puma.

    Did I mention I didn’t get much sleep last night?

    94899523

    Insert Appropriate Birthday Song Here

    John Wayne? Miles Davis? Stevie Nicks? Hank Williams Junior? Queen Mary?
    And Me!
    via Any Day In History
    Birthdates which occurred on your SELECTED date of May 26:
    1478 Clement VII [Giulio de’ Medici], Italy, Pope (1523-34)
    1566 Mohammed III sultan of Turkey (1595-1603)
    1591 Dirck Janszoon Sweelinck composer
    1667 Abraham De Moivre French mathematician (De Moivre’s theorem)
    1689 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu English essayist, feminist, eccentric
    1700 Nikolaus L earl von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf German evangelist
    1759 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin writer/mother of Mary Shelley
    1771 Rahel Varnhagen von Ense-Levin German saloon owner/author
    1773 Hans Georg Nageli composer
    1782 Joseph Drechsler composer
    1788 ? Clark England, baby of Mary Clark born without a brain
    1799 Alexander S Pushkin Russia, writer (Eugene Onegin)
    1799 August Kopisch German writer (Die Heinzelm�nnchen von K�ln)
    1806 Henry Knox Thatcher Commander (Union Navy), died in 1880
    1822 E de Goncourt writer
    1825 Felipe Gutierrez y Espinoza composer
    1835 Edward Porter Alexander Brigadier General of artillery (Confederate Army)
    1846 Arthur Coquard composer
    1850 Christine [Elizabeth C] Poolman Dutch actress (Stupid force)
    1853 Monroe A Althouse composer
    1856 George Templeton Strong composer
    1859 Alfred Edward Housman Bromsgrove England, poet (A Buried Life)
    1865 Akseli V Gallen-Kallela Finnish painter/graphic artist/illustrator
    1866 John Eigenhuis writer (Tough Workers)
    1867 Mary queen of Great Britain/North Ireland
    1871 Camille Huysmans Belgian premier (1946-47)
    1873 Cornelis G N de Vooys translator/founder (New Taalgids)
    1874 Henry Farman French aviation pioneer (double decker)
    1876 Jack Root boxing’s 1st light heavyweight champion
    1877 Isadora Duncan San Fransisco CA, free form/interpretative dancer
    1877 Jean Schlumberger French writer (La Mort de Sparte)
    1877 Sadao Araki Japanese general/minister of War (1931-34)
    1884 Charles Winninger Athens WI, actor (Charlie Farrell Show)
    1886 Al Jolson [Asa Yoelson] jazz singer/silent film actor (Mamie, Swanee)
    1890 Kurt Edzard German sculptor (nudes/portraits)
    1893 Norma Talmadge Jersey City NJ, actress (Sign on the Door, Camille)
    1893 Sir Eugene Goossens London England, conductor/composer (Perseus)
    1895 Dorothea Lange US documentary photographer
    1895 Paul Lukas Budapest Hungary, actor (Watch on the Rhine, Sphynx)
    1898 Ernst Bacon composer
    1898 Gerard Bertouille composer
    1899 Otto E Neugebauer Austrian/US math historian
    1899 Pieter Menten Dutch war criminal
    19– Robyn Bernard singer/actress (Terry-General Hospital)
    1903 Estes Kefauver (Senator-D-TN)
    1905 Hans Holewa composer
    1907 Carleton Young New York NY, actor (Reefer Madness, Pride of the Bowery)
    1907 John “Duke” Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] Winterset IA, actor (True Grit)
    1908 Malando [Arie Maasland] composer/orchestra leader (Ol� Guapa)
    1908 Robert Morley Semley Wiltshire England, actor (High Road to China, African Queen)
    1909 Matt Busby Scottish soccer coach (Manchester United)
    1909 Richard Maibaum New York NY, screenwriter (Goldfinger)
    1910 Adolfo Lopez Mateos President of M�xico
    1910 Laurence S Rockefeller New York NY, CEO (Chase Manhattan Bank)
    1911 Ben Alexander Goldfield NV, actor (Dragnet, Outer Gate, Mr Doodles Kicks Off)
    1912 J�nos K�d�r premier Hungary (1956-58)
    1913 Fred Bertrand Belgian politician
    1913 Peter Cushing Kenley Surrey England, actor (Hound of the Baskervilles, Dracula, Star Wars, Dr Who)
    1913 Robert Shaw town planner
    1914 Archie Duncan Glasgow Scotland, actor (Sherlock Holmes)
    1919 Jay Silverheels actor (Tonto-Lone Ranger)
    1919 Peter Malcolm Gordon Raleigh journalist
    1920 Jack Cheetham cricketer (South African batsman, Test captain early 50’s)
    1920 Peggy Lee [Norma Egstrom] Jamestown ND, singer (Fever, Why Don’t You Do Right)
    1921 Frank Mooney cricketer (dependable wicket-keeper for New Zealand in 13 Tests)
    1923 Horst Tapper German director/actor (Derrick)
    1923 James Arness Minneapolis MN, actor (Matt Dillon-Gunsmoke, Thing)
    1923 Oren Lee Staley 1st president of National Farmers Organization (1955-79)
    1923 Roy Dotrice Guernsey Channel Island, actor (The Wizard)
    1924 Cooper Evans (Representative-R-IA, 1981-87)
    1924 Victor Herbert Irish/US composer (Kiss in Dark)
    1925 Alec McCowen Turnbridge Wells Kent England, actor (Never Say Never Again, Frenzy, Hanover Street, Stevie)
    1926 Maria de Lourdes Martins composer
    1926 Miles Davis Alton IL, jazz trumpeter/pioneered cool jazz (Porgy & Bess)
    1927 Jacques Bergerac Biarritz Pyr�n�es-Atlantiques France, actor (Gigi, Les Girls, Thunder in the Sun)
    1929 Hugo Raes Flemish writer (Horses Jump & Fresh Sea)
    1934 Abdulah M “Dulah” Omar South African attorney/UDF-leader
    1937 Yehuda Yannay composer
    1938 Jackie Liebesit rocker (Can)
    1938 Teresa Stratas [Anastasia Stratakis] Toronto Ontario Canada, soprano (Salome)
    1938 William Elden Bolcom Seattle WA, composer (Oracles)
    1939 Brent Musburger sportscaster (CBS-TV)
    1939 Gerald Ronson English multi-millionaire
    1941 Imants Kalnins composer
    1942 Levon Helm drummer/singer (Band)
    1942 Ray Ennis England, guitar (Swinging Blue Jeans-You’re No Good)
    1943 Erica G Terpstra Olympic swimmer/Dutch MP (VVD)
    1944 Verden “Phally” Allen keyboardist (Mott the Hoople)
    1945 Garry Peterson rocker (Guess Who)
    1947 Glenn Turner cricketer (masterful New Zealand opening batsman)
    1947 Piers Gray critic/writer
    1947 Sherry Bain Redlands CA, actress (Pipe Dreams)
    1948 Geoff Greenidge cricketer (no relation to Gordon, West Indies opener 1972-74)
    1948 Stevie [Stephanie Lynn] Nicks Phoenix AZ, rocker (Fleetwood Mac-Bella Donna)
    1949 Dan Pastorini NFL quarterback (Houston Oilers, Oakland Raiders)
    1949 Dayle Haddon Montr�al Qu�bec Canada, actress (Bedroom Eyes)
    1949 Hank Williams Jr Shreveport LA, country singer (All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin’ Over Tonight, There’s A Tear In My Beer)
    1949 Pam Grier Winston-Salem NC, actress (Big Bird Cage, Tough Enough)
    1949 Philip Michael Thomas Columbus OH, actor (Miami Vice)
    1950 ? 1st whooping crane hatched in captivity
    1951 Muhammed Ahmad Faris Syria, cosmonaut (Soyuz TM-3)
    1951 Sally Kristen Ride Los Angeles CA, 1st US woman astronaut (STS-7, STS 41G)
    1955 Candace L Collins Dupo IL, playmate (December 1979)
    1956 Barbara Stock Downers Grove IL, actress (Susan-Spenser For Hire)
    1956 Joe Penny actor (Jake & the Fatman)
    1957 Candace L Collins Dupo IL, playmate (December 1979)
    1957 Margaret Colin actress (Now and Again, Independence Day, Three Men & a Baby)
    1959 Beverly Lee rocker
    1959 Brian Peaker London Ontario, rower (Olympics-96)
    1959 Nancy White-Brophy Montague Prince Edward Island, LPGA golfer (1994 McCall’s-25th)
    1959 Wayne Hussey rocker (Mission-Lover for Life)
    1961 Stephen Robert Pate Ventura CA, PGA golfer (1987 Southwest Classic)
    1962 Bob[cat] Goldthwait Syracuse NY, comedian (Police Academy, Scrooged)
    1962 Colin Vearncombe rocker (Black-Wonderful Like)
    1962 Genie Francis Englewood NJ, actress (General Hospital, Bare Essence)
    1963 Charles Van Eman Pittsburgh PA, actor (Charlie-All My Children, Dynasty II)
    1963 Eddie Martin Jr jockey
    1964 Kevin Kennedy baseball manager (Texas Rangers)
    1964 Lenny Kravitz singer/guitar (911 is a Joke, Are You Gonna Go My Way?)
    1965 Greg Lloyd NFL linebacker (Pittsburgh Steelers)
    1965 Jacqueline Mary Nelson Upper Hutt New Zealand, points race cyclist (Olympics-96)
    1966 Anthony Edwards NFL wide receiver (Arizona Cardinals)
    1966 Billy Downes Camden NJ, Nike golfer (1994 New England Classic)
    1966 Grant Bradburn cricketer (son of Wynne New Zealand off-spinner 1990- )
    1966 Zola Budd Pieterse Bloemfontein South Africa, track star (Olympics-1988)
    1967 Igor Zemlyanoy hockey defenseman (Team Kazakhstan Olympics-1998)
    1967 Jean Bartholomew Queens NY, LPGA golfer (1989 Duke University Champion)
    1968 Frederik Heir Apparent Crown Prince of Denmark
    1968 Rachael Sporn Australian basketball forward (Olympics-bronze-96)
    1970 Sam Mack NBA forward/guard (Houston Rockets, Vancouver Grizzlies)
    1970 Sebastian Barrie NFL defensive tackle (San Diego Chargers)
    1971 Darwin Ireland NFL linebacker (Chicago Bears)
    1971 Lewis Capes WLAF defensive tackle (London Monarchs)
    1971 Steven Rice Kitchener, NHL right wing (Hartford Whalers)
    1975 Christopher Lindsey Donaldson Dunedin New Zealand, 100 meter/200 meter runner (Olympics-96)
    1975 Travis Lee San Diego CA, baseball 1st baseman (Olympics-bronze-96)
    1976 Benji Gregory Encino CA, actor (Brian Tanner-Alf)
    1976 Markus Wieland hockey defenseman (Team Germany 1998)
    1976 Scott Humphries Greely CO, tennis star (1995 doubles Binghampton)
    1990 Zenouska Mowatt granddaughter of English princess Alexandra
    1996 Austin Michael Luciano actor (Dante Carlino-Another World)

    94868073

    Birthday Blog

    I’m just sayin’ . . .
    Tomorrow I turn 39. 39! Wow. It went by so fast. And life is full of so many changes. Lots to report. Lots to update but today and tomorrow are about celebration and bbq. Talk to you later.

    Friday Fives

    Friday Fives

    1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
    Crest. I’m a Crest kid, baby!

    2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
    Quilted Northern – the softest you can buy.

    3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
    Bass, usually, or what ever is on the discount rack and DSW.

    4. What brand of soda do you drink?
    Usually a Coke, but have been drinking less and less soda everyday. More of an ice tea person.

    5. What brand of gum do you chew?
    Wrigley Spearmint Ice – Wow, there is a lot going on there.

    94692480

    Next Stop, FotoBlog

    I bought myself a birthday present this week. The good people of eBay were nice enough to bring the price down on the Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera. The $700.00 beauty was delivered yesterday for the wonderful price of $290.00 Battery is charged, CF Memory card installed and I am ready to roll. Well, that is as soon I get through the manual on this dauntingly cool camera.
    Don’t be surprised to see a link to a fotolog or an upgrade here to blogspot and blogger pro in order show off some photography. The great part about this camera is that has the ability to go from full automatic to fully manual with spot metering (hello zone system!) and depth of field aperture control.
    And it is a Nikon, which means accessories and expandability.
    Yea! for me.

    94632235

    Adieu, Buffy

    Tonight is the series finale for Buffy, in which the series ends with Sarah Michelle Geller running off to the bank and the unemployment line.
    Some Buffy fun follows, for she will always be around in re-runs:

  • Season finale spoilers – what will happen
  • ‘Buffy’- licious links
  • Hellmouth Blog
  • Buffsmut – gossip
  • Buffysearch.com
  • Bye Bye Buffy

    (Salon.com’s cover story on the series’ finale)

  • 94603670

    Ari Fleisher Leaves

    Ari is leaving the White House. There are few details about this departure so far, but in my world of nefarious back story crafting, it all has to do with his new wife.