Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
First, the clip, which Mike Simone put under my explanation of the Morgan Ten Dollar plan. It’s got bad words & junk in it so don’t play it at work or in front of your sweet old auntie…
What’s the ten dollar plan? We take a breather from this nonsense about “make the millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share” — and we go the other way. That’s supposed to be heartless and cruel and unrealistic because people down at the lean end don’t have anything to spare…so…we settle for ten bones a year. From everyone save for those who really don’t have a livelihood. The sick and infirm who lie in hospital beds waiting to be cared for, kids who aren’t old enough to make any loot. But if you’re sashaying on in to a grocery store on a regular basis (or riding your little taxpayer-funded electric scoooter) and exchanging some kind of liquid asset for food items, you pay the ten dollars & up. It’s a guaranteed minimum.
That’s net. So these so-called “credits” that, oopsie oh my lookie here, end up crediting more than the so-called “tax liability” of the “taxpayer” so we have all these people getting a check just for breathing air, by implication, those are gone.
That would make the plan hard to sell. So what. Gay marriage is pretty hard to sell — we don’t want it. But it’s a reality because some advocacy groups have been working very hard at it. It’s much more worthwhile to work hard at getting everyone truly involved, with skin in the game, than to re-define marriage.
I would expect the payroll departments of the employers would come up with some higher level of annual pay, beneath which they would not withhold anything…let’s say, fifteen thousand a year. So you make less than that, it’s still a progressive tax scheme, nothing’s been withheld so here comes a bill from Uncle Sam — ten dollars. Sit down and write a check. You heard President Obama, we all need to sacrifice…so whip it out. This study makes mention of some 46% of households paying zero income tax, or expecting a refund…some 76 million “units.” So we have a new revenue stream of 760 million dollars, plus whatever’s being spent currently on “refunds” or checks sent out to settle a negative federal tax liability.
Yeah yeah, I know. They neeeeeeeeeed the refund and/or the ten dollars. Bollocks, I say. This country neeeeeeeeeeeds to do whatever is necessary to avoid what now, with our present course unaltered, is a certain destiny: A statistical majority, someday soon, paying nothing into the kitty and therefore given no incentive at all to vote against yet more gimme programs. Which means dictatorial control by the moocher class, cloaked by a phony-baloney fig leaf “voting” process…the outcome of that process absolutely certain…just like playing a game of poker with a stacked deck.
We can’t afford it.
The fact of the matter is, there would be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Page B1 of every newspaper in every metropolitan area with a quarter million people living in it, or more…some sad sack snivelling into a microphone about what dreadful shape their household is gonna be in when that awful Morgan Freeberg plan hits. And the media will play it up — some of the pain will be genuine — but you know what? That makes for a good argument against additional spending.
And that argument will have always been applicable — it will just be a different class of people feeling the pain. There will not be any arguments about why or how this would be inappropriate…there will be lots of people wanting to make such an argument, but the argument is not there to be made, so they’ll just talk a lot about pain, pain, pain.
Well, we have pain from the government spending too much money. Look at Greece. We’re headed there. Does that look pain-free to you?
These babies being born today, who owe thousands and thousands of dollars the second their cords are cut, cannot be interviewed.
My plan raises less than a billion dollars. That’s about a tenth of a percent of a one-year Barack Obama deficit. So it doesn’t cure that…but that is not the point. Sound engineering has to do with going to the root of the problem, and the root of this problem is people having a say about our spending policies without having skin in the game. So — if we don’t want to disenfranchise people from voting, which is a more than decent alternative solution if we don’t like this plan, we go the other way and make sure everyone has skin in the game.
One, or the other. Or certain economic disaster. Those are your three choices, there is no fourth…and I didn’t make it that way.
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