It’s Time to Cut the Crap
October 14, 2011 2 Comments
Get your shovels ready.
Until we get a president in the White House and while BO is out playing with himself and passing the buck here is what I think should happen to kick-start the economy and downsize the national debt:
1. Stop government funding of public TV and radio immediately. I am not renouncing TV or radio. Instead, I am saying that these communication vehicles can be funded via commercials or donations from viewers/listeners who want what they put out.
2. Stop government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities immediately. I am an ardent fan of all the arts (except ballet, “Twinkles Down” *on that). Art, in all its forms, should be subsidized by those who want it. e.g., I support my local artists by buying their original art work.
3. Abolish all public education within the next five years. All schools should be privately owned and operated. Remove the NEA teacher’s unions from the classroom. The government can provide vouchers for the very poor. Aspirations are what people need to go forward and not the never-ending government hand outs.
4. Abolish all minimum wage laws and all other unfunded mandates immediately so people can go back to work.
5. Put a five-year moratorium on all EPA regulations. Then, dispose of the EPA altogether in the sixth year.
6. Create a personal income flat tax of across the board on two income levels. Below a yearly income of $40,000.00 (this is an arbitrary number up for discussion) the flat tax rate would be 5% (e.g., $2000.00 for a $40,000. income). For incomes of $40, 000.00 and above the tax rate is 15% (e.g., $6000.00 for a $40000.00 income).
Simplify the tax code to one or two sentences: “You shall pay 15 % of your income for the year XXXX” if you made $40,000.00 or more in that year.
State Sales taxes would be tied to the previous year’s income tax paid as one-ten thousandth of what you paid in income taxes the previous year. (e.g., you made $40,000 last year. You paid $6000.00 in taxes. You next year’s sales tax on any item is $0.60.) A card would be mailed by the government to show what your maximum sales tax would be on any item. (This amount is given that the state should no longer fund education or social programs).
(BTW: These are just some ideas about taxation. The tax code must be simplified. How many tax bureaucrats does the taxpayer pay for by using the current tax code nightmare? We have to think outside the box.)
7. Cut corporate taxes in half for three years and then abolish all corporation taxes. Corporations provide jobs and benefits for people.
8. Abolish all tariffs
9. Immediately repeal the onerous Obamacare and Dodd-Frank Acts and all over-reaching Federal and State regulations so that the economic engine of America can fire properly. Currently, Obamacare is an unfunded mandate.
10. Give each Congressman a six-year term and one term only. Doing this will make the Congressman concentrate on his job and not on creating populist programs that will win him re-election while costing the taxpayer mega-dollars. Term limits would also be devastating to any lobbyist trying to buy the Congressman’s power via re-election campaign monies.
(BTW: The only expertise that long-term Congressmen and Congresswomen receive is how to craft a re-election. Let’s not give power-hungry people more power.)
11. Did it say it already? Abolish the EPA.
12. Privatize the mail delivery system.
13. End social security in five years for those under fifty. Those people can use IRAs or 401k plans instead (These people will make more money and more secure retirement money with these financial vehicles).
14. Limit the use of FEMA to national security emergencies such as 9/11. People living in hazardous locations can buy flood insurance, hurricane insurance, etc or they can move to a safer location.
15. Illinois house cleaning: remove Pat Quinn (D-governor), Dick Durbin (D-senator, his wife is a lobbyist for Government Affairs Specialists, Inc.,in Springfield!), Mike Madigan (D-speaker of the house) and Rahm Emmanuel (D-Chicago mayor) from office ASAP.Illinois has the worst credit rating in the union thanks to the tax and spend Democrats. (And, the most felonious governors)
16. Drill our own natural resources for natural gas and oil.
17. Leave Afghanistan immediately and rebuild our own national fence.
18. Never send another dollar to Pakistan or to the UN, for that matter.
19. Get government out of the housing market. Tear down those Fannie and Freddie walls. (and, remove Democrat Senators Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi from office)
20. Tie government spending to 1.1 % of GDP or better, pass a balanced budget amendment.
21. Eliminate all Social/Economic Tinkering: all of the laws passed (using Stage One thinking*) in order to help Americans (e.g., Dick Durbin’s debit card price controls & the $5 BofA debit card charge) do not operate in isolation. These laws, in the aggregate, affect us negatively and hurt Americans more than they help. You will have to pay more for the use of your debit card in other ways. What goes around comes around, ipso facto.
(* as Thomas Sowell, economist, defines thinking that does look at all of the possible ramifications of a proposed law. Laws do not operate in a vacuum. I highly recommend his latest book, The Thomas Sowell Reader, copyright 2011.)
22. We need free trade agreements passed now.
23. Breakup the monopoly of the US government and Federal Reserve Bank. Better, get rid of most of government and shut down the Federal Reserve Bank.
24. Because lobbyists are voters with lots of campaign money attached and because we have a representative government we must make congress accountable to the people and not solely to lobbyists and special interests. I propose a full disclosure statement be written and posted online every time a representative interacts with a lobbyist. This statement would disclose the date and time of contact, the means of contact, the purpose of contact, the information exchanged and our representative’s disposition to said matter. This statement must be signed by both parties and posted online. This disclosure statement must be done every time – pre, post and during office, night and day, during working hours and during their free time. To not disclose interaction with a lobbyist (I will need legal language here to define lobbyists and special interests.) whether via phone, email, texting, in person or via a third-party would be considered a felony and would be punishable by a minimum of 30 years in prison. This law would affect aides and family, as well.
25. Elect Presidents with business savvy, leadership and management experience – “Twinkles Up”. Do not elect “buff” spoiled brats who spend most of their time looking in the mirror, blaming Bush and playing golf. That would be “Twinkles Down”.**
(**For everyone who is working and NOT a OWS protestor, “Twinkles Down” means “bad” in protestor speak.)
Cindy Wity 
Occupy Thanksgiving
November 24, 2011 Leave a comment
Words you will never see on a OWS or union protest placard: “THANK YOU”.
At the table this Thanksgiving there will be those who give thanks. There will also be those who pull up to the table demanding more. This latter group will echo Obama’s class warfare rhetoric griping about inequities and fairness.
There are those who do not give thanks. They will be waiting for their demands to be met. They will beg for “this, that or the other thing”, bemoaning their own situation as being intolerable. For them there is never a thought of thanksgiving even when their most dire needs have been met. I am reminded of the historical account of Jesus healing the Ten Lepers:
As this account reveals people will gladly seek benevolence from others but they will often do so out of the understanding that they deserve such gifts or benefits. This is especially true if government has become the benefactor. And because our government has deep pockets full of other people’s money these same people may certainly feel that they have “right” to demand things from the government bureaucrats who have set themselves up as demi-gods of benevolence. These people believe that they “justly” deserve government beneficence because they feel that they are victims of society and also because the politicians they have put in office promised them “hope and change”; “hope and change” outcomes promised in terms of benefits on the barrel head in exchange for their vote.
Our U.S. Constitution provides for the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The 5th Amendment offers protections to our “life, liberty, or property,” noting we cannot be deprived of any of them without due process of law. Our Constitution does not guarantee the end results under that protection.
In effect, you are promised a fence around the rose garden but not the roses themselves. I learned from my Dutch grandfather that roses require sun, rain, good soil, fertilizing, protection from frost and rabbits and substantial pruning. It takes lots of time and energy, lots of individual attention to create an American Beauty rose. Yet, some people don’t want to work that hard or to be so dedicated. So, they ask the government for the cut roses from someone else’s garden. They do this to make their lives just a little “nicer”, a little “richer”. But, these cut roses quickly whither and dry up and the same people are back asking for more of them.
Dismissing the U.S. Constitution’s accumulated knowledge, wisdom and Judeo-Christian roots as outmoded and not rational for today’s society, social justice advocates demand equal outcomes. They do so by demanding that others be deprived at any cost so that others will receive the benefits they so desire. They do not care about another’s personal property, property such as an accumulated wealth. They care solely about their own accumulated gain. They see inequity not as a summit to climb but as a lot of work and effort that can be easily circumscribed with political action.
These advocates make their demands through willing politicians like Obama, Reid , Pelosi, Barney Frank (MA), Dick Durbin (IL), etc. These politicians campaign with promises of changing the social landscape to favor their own version of utopian socialism. They usurp the black and white meaning of our U.S. Constitution by “intuitively” reading it so as to give the government the power to mandate social change via taxation, via the commerce clause and via the politician’s own self-interest of encapsulating power via re-election.
Speaking of self-interest, capitalism is a person who out of self-interest seeks to barter or sell a good or a service to another. The ‘other’, thinking he will benefit from the exchange, makes the trade-off. The exchange is made and both parties are happy, satisfying each their own self-interest.
Utopian socialism is a one-way exchange. It is taking from Peter to pay Paul. It is depriving Peter of what he has earned, grown, protected with his life, it is taking his savings and his wealth and then giving it to Paul for no other reason that Paul may need or want the same things. This is what is now being called “social justice” but it is not justice. It does not give Peter what is due him – the right to his property. It does not give Paul what is due him – the right to pursue happiness. This exchange is more accurately described as highway robbery.
These social justice advocates presume that the U.S. Constitution meant for them to have equal outcomes or perhaps even that the Constitution is outdated, archaic and without justice as they see it. The social justice protestors cry out “Have pity on us, government, give us what we think we need and what we so badly want. You have the means. We gave you the place of authority.”
In 1993, during a lecture titled “The Meaning of “Justice””, Russell Kirk of the Heritage Foundation said:
Today’s OWS protestors plead for pity from others using lawlessness. They are being urged on to political violence by men who should know better. They also do not seek God for their daily bread. That would require humility on their part.
Just as ten lepers were healed and only one returned to give thanks, nine out of ten of us may likely think that we deserve such a “gift” and just walk away, pleased with ourselves having pled for pity and receiving something in return for our “effort”. The exclusion of “Thank You” from the placards of men’s lives reveals the lifting up of “MY Rights” and the idolatrous nature behind most dissent and protest. The idea of justice, “to each his own”, is being replaced with “feed me and then ask of me virtue.”
The Greatest Disparity in our society is between those who with contentment give thanks to God and their neighbor and those who, like leeches, demand ever more and more from government and their neighbor.
It is time to Occupy Thanksgiving without asking for anything in return. And, let us give God what is due Him:
Rate this:
Filed under 2011, Christianity, Culture, Economics, essay, Liberalism, Life As I See It, Non-fiction, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, Writing Tagged with class warefare, Economics, OWS protest, politics, progressivism, social justice, Thanksgiving