Update from The Washington Post:
Just when we thought we’d seen it all from PETA — the animal rights organization known for high-profile celebrity ads — President Ingrid Newkirk has come up with this: George Clooney-flavored tofu.
I’m sorry but this is a pretty severe case of psychoses – a bunch of PETA whack jobs that if prodded might just be a danger to their fellow citizens.
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Ah yes, it’s time again for our elected representatives to tax us for our sins.
Why? Because we must share the burden, that’s why!
This system of auto-pilot pay raises really is offensive to the American people. – Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, on the Senate floor Monday.
It’s not offensive, it is obscene. Please, do all of us a favor and vote out every single congress-critter that opposes removing this automatic pay-raise from the books. Next election cycle, just run right out there and vote the damned incumbent out if they can’t get their shite together on this issue.
“There’s a really dumb idea,” Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution said of Vitter’s amendment. “It would ensure that the Senate has a knock-down, drag-out battle on pay raises every year.”
Doesn’t anyone get it yet? I don’t WANT congress-critters to get anything done. I want them to only pass more laws that are hard-fought-for and can stand the light of day – in other words, vetted thoroughly. I don’t want law after unusable law piling up on the books.
What they DO pass, I want them to be held totally accountable. It is almost like these folks try to snow the people back home under such a huge mass of legislature that there is no hope of making sense of it all. Pare it down to only a few things and it becomes easier to scrutinize.
Elsewhere…
In raising money to spend more and cut less, there is more than one way to skin a cat, or a stripper in this case.
A Brooklyn assemblyman introduced a bill yesterday that would require patrons to pay the state $10 every time they visit a strip club or topless joint.
Felix Ortiz, a Democrat, said the flesh fee could raise as much as $500 million for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and child prostitution.
Amazing thing about these kinds of taxes… rarely if ever are they used for the quoted purpose. If human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and child prostitution were really a top priority with these politicians they would have brought them up a long time before now. Instead, they come up only when there’s a crunch and the politicians need to steal from other accounts to pay for their soon-to-be-broken promises.
New York Governor/King Paterson has actually let go of his intended taxations, which is surprising, but only because they amounted to political suicide. But he wanted to do it, that’s the lesson to take home here…
“This morning the Maj. Leader and the Assembly Speaker and I have good news. That news is that we have been able to relieve $1.3 billion in taxes,” Paterson.
Paterson had planned to mandate a sales tax on numerous items including digital music and movie downloads; satellite television and radio; cable television; haircuts; entertainment venues such as theaters, race tracks, bowling alleys, swim clubs, golf clubs, movies, sporting events, and amusement parks.
Other proposed taxes included an 18 percent “fat tax” on soda, a tax on gasoline that costs more than $2, and he wanted to tax the full price of an item when a coupon is used.
Oh, and The Fed has increased it’s taxes on other sins as well. Tobacco and gas are biggies…
Funding S-CHIP to ensure the health of underprivileged children is a good use of resources, but sticking smokers with the bill isn’t the best method of paying for it. Low-income smokers need to be provided with better access to treatments that can help them quit smoking before their addiction can be taxed so heavily.
The increases are huge. And I’ve noticed that roll-your-own folks will see the worst:
…from a $1.10 per pound tax to a whopping $24.78 per pound tax.
This tells me that someone in your gov’t wants you to only buy through the big cig companies. Wonder why?
Now, keep your opinions about the evil-ness of tobacco to yourselves, because the simple fact is that it is legal. The bigger point is that taxing one subset of society to pay for things that support all of society is flat out wrong.
Oops. We already have something similar in a progressive tax. Damn.
Tax 10% on everybody. If there isn’t enough revenue, cut spending or breed more.
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Notice I haven’t invoked the Messiah’s name? Well, read all about our savior anyway.
Lemur King's Folly 