In the last year there has been a number bullsh*t ideas that have been offered to the people as solutions to problems…..to me they are just what they smell like….MANURE!
Here are some of the more smelly of the lot…….
The new idea (pause here for laughter) of giving the shareholders the vote on whether CEOs can get a bonus….sounds like a good idea…correct? try agin it is BS! Why? Most of the shares held are held by funds of some sort and they will decide who gets the cash…YOU have very little to say about it…..it is crap!
Next is the inevitable idea of privatizing Social Security….yet again…this is a continuous thing for the Repus….they have hated SS since the beginning and eventually they will get their way and the seniors in the U S will be f*cked! If they had their way every accdount for retirement would have been wiped out inn the latest economic thing….but they try and try….and soon they will get their way….
Now on to one of my favs…the health savings Acount (HSA)…..a proposal to let people have a health account instead of real reform….this helps NO one but the banks and funds….futhermore the next economic crisis will wioe these accounts out just like the one now wiped out many 401ks…..another Repub idea to destroy the middle class (my opinion)….
Allowing corporations to fully fund political campaigns…the conservs on the Supreme Court is allowing this….the Congress is attempting to lessen this but time will tell…..for now corporations have it all….
Finally, I recently heard yet another inevtiable proposal…..Conservs say that lowering the corporation taxes will create jobs…..the figure they use is corporate tax is a bout 30-35% in the US…one of the highest in the world….but the proponents of this fail to mention all the tax breaks and incentives that corporations already get from the government…in reality the “real” tax is much much lower…but yet it is proposed everytime the word deficit is mentioned…….
As usual there is always more and more BS proposals….this one is yet another GOP stand-by…..reduce the payroll taxes…..you know what that means, right? Cut payroll taxes and the government will have less money to spend of pet projects from the Congress….it would also mean less deductions for FICA….which would make it even less solvent than now….which would make it easier to kill the program altogether….this may well be the plan all along……
Most of these BS ideas are inevitable….especially from the GOP….but yet they have very little validity when working on real solutions to real problems….just your typical slogans, talking points and lies….but what’s new?
Why should there be ANY taxes? It’s stealing – demanding money with menaces – they try (and mostly fail) to put the Mafia in jail for that, don’t they?
Yes, we have to pay to run the country, but value added tax (purchase tax of a sort if you don’t have that in the US) is by far and away the fairest (the rich buy the most goods and services by a long way). In the UK VAT is on everything (goods AND services) except food and kids’ clothing and that strikes me as about the one thing the Brits have got right (if only they’d kept it simple and not pissed about with it. There should be NO OTHER TAX ALLOWED! If what the people are prepared (able) to pay on their purchases is not enough to run the current governments then they should wind their necks in and live within THEIR means! That would pretty certainly stop wars, most bureaucracy and so much else of the shit we currently put up with.
I’m not ENTIRELY with you on the healthcare thing. I understand the theory and (again in theory) I agree with the principle, but all this idea that the medics can keep us alive “forever” (but with what QUALITY of life I seriously question) is just bullshit. It’s an industry like any other and we most of us don’t actually need it much of the time. We ALL die sooner or later – it’s simply a fact and there isn’t much that a doctor can do for us about anything except the most serious conditions that we couldn’t do for ourselves with a bit of help from our friends.
To maintain the best quality of life we can for ourselves should be OUR responsibility first. I don’t mean by that that we should allow poor people, or kids, or whoever to die or suffer, but our belief in the medical profession needs to be seriously cutailed first and there should be MUCH more concentration on QUALITY of life for all rather than on quantity, as at present.
That’s just my personal view and (though I can’t be sure how I would react unless it happened) it’s always been my view that I have no problem with dying (even now I’m much older and it’s becoming steadily more likely) if my quality of life were to be seriously damaged – but that’s just me and my view!
What I AM convinced of though, for all of us, is that we should take charge of OUR OWN lives and cut out government and the system WHEREVER possible! It’s the ONLY way forward!
Personally, I like the VAT…..the healthcare thing…..I somewhat agree with you…..my prob is that the ideas for health care that the Repubs have help few other than stockbrokers, bankers and such…….if people cannot afford bread they sure as hellk cannot put cash into a HSA….the social security….I have paid into it my whole working life…they owe me for my financial support over the years……donors? I am NOT a organ donor…..not because I am a prick, but rather…they want my organs for free and the hospitals and docs get paid for using my free organs….when the whole process is free then they may have anything on me that is still working when I crap out…..
If everyone has free healthcare for all their basic needs, then that’s fine, but I object to the idea I may be paying for fanciful and frequently unrealistic procedures, or ones that EVERYONE does not have equal access to and that are carried out in a first class manner.
To put it another way, I object to paying for speculative work and treatments carried out largely for the benefit of medics and drug companies.
I suppose I’m the same as you about the donor thing – mainly because I plan to have NOTHING left that is not thoroughly worn out by the time I go. I’m working hard on that in case it’s sooner than I think! 😆
I am with you on the organs…..I want to use them for they are worth……I get grief about the donor thing…..There is a list of people waiting for organs and if they do not have all the cash then they can be passed over for the next person….to me that is just sick…they want free organs so they can make a profit….not with mine!
This is such a excellent article. I look forward to reading more of your writing.