Have you ever noticed how casually politicians sling around the word “billions” when referring to spending your tax dollars?
Listening to one of the nauseatingly redundant talking heads on one of the never-ending televised tongue flappin’ sessions recently (for background noise only) I heard one of your career politicians use the word “billions” no less than four times in one minute.
He said we need several billion here, several billion there… geez! Here a stack, there a stack, everywhere a fat stack! And most of the money—your taxes—that this particular butt merchant was blubbering about was headed to some obscure projects beyond our shores of course. NO surprise there.
What IS a “billion?”
What is a “billion?” To some, like myself, whose math skills are less than impressive, a billion can be a hard number to comprehend. But one advertising agency put the number into some prospective for us.
a billion seconds ago it was 1959. (a very good year, thank you)
a billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
a billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.
a billion days ago no one walked the Earth.
a billion dollars ago was only eight hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government is spending it.
And within the eight hour and 20 minute period of reckless dispersal of your hard earned money there isn’t any doubt a degree of eely transactions such as the world has never imagined is being perpetrated on an industrialized society.
What don’t you do with it?
You just don’t dispose of that kind of money unless you do so with a wanton and reckless abandon of the wishes of the people who generated it via taxes. Congress is running amok.
It’s comparable to giving a pack of crack-heads all of your credit cards and expecting a favorable outcome.
Randomly pulling a page out of my hard copy file labeled: “U.S. Gov. YHGTSM” (You Have Got To Be Sh… well, you know), I give you for an example the case of New Orleans, post-Katrina.
Fifty Shades of Grey Goose Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) asked congress for 250 billion dollars to rebuild New Orleans.
Of course the folks down there needed help, as would most people eventually who opt to live on the coast and build their homes five feet below sea level, but I digress.
What one has to wonder is do congressmen and women just blurt out a number when they are “blessed” with a disaster much like the women at the VFW hall when they hit a Bingo? “YO! Right here! Bring it, 250 billion, shake loose, drop it off – don’t get sassy now!”
Because there is a serious collision of math, logic and allocation of funds in virtually every case.
The New Orleans case is a prime example. The $250 billion that the ragin’ cajun senator claimed she needed for a rebuild came to $516,528 for every man, woman and child in New Orleans.
If you had one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans you would get $1,329,787 for that home.
I saw the majority of those homes and it would be safe to say that 1.3 mil for any one of them would be quite the come up. Yes, there is of course the phenomenon of the “cost overrun,” which if not invented by, at least perfected by government contractors. But seriously, that would be nearly the equivalent of receiving $50,000 for a ruined pup-tent.
Droppin’ deuces in the hallway
Another example of wallet rape of the taxpayer on a smaller scale recently: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) office in Denver, Colo. An employee was routinely defecating (droppin’ deuces) in the hallway of the EPA office building. Disturbing enough on its own, but, we ARE talking about federal government employees here; semi-acceptable behavior in most branches.
So what does the EPA do (hopefully after the pooper-scooper thing) but hire a “WORKPLACE VIOLATION SPECIALIST” with thousands of your federal tax dollars to come in, evaluate, and give the professional assessment that “there is definitely some workplace hostility in the office!” Son-of-a… really? I could’ve told them that for a roll of quarters!
It never stops. Look upstate to Des Plains, Illinois. Former police commander Timothy Veit, 57, padding DUI arrests records in order to get federal STEP grants (Sustained Traffic Enforcement Program grants).
The grants are from the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Safety Administration and administered by the state Department of Transportation.
Veit’s embezzlement and theft of money carries a maximum sentence of five years and a fine of $250,000.
The department received $184,000 in grants (your money) for non-existing arrests and the commander personally received $32,000 in bogus overtime.
Of course in a plea bargain he is required to pay back the IDOT $2,533 of the $184,000 and you, well, you get to eat the remaining $181,467. Hmm… without a kiss.
If it makes it go down any easier Veit has agreed to a six-month prison term and 200 hours of community service.
Send home 50 percent
And on and on it goes, first your money and then your clothes. Taxes; would it not be easier—and more fair—just to abolish all but sales tax?
It has become obvious that the IRS is little more than a band of lying thugs; henchmen for any sitting president who feels threatened by the democratic process or just wakes up with his panties in a wad.
They know, sadly, a flat sales tax couldn’t possibly sustain the billion dollar every eight hours hellified frignosis, unless we eliminated 50 percent of the federal workforce… send them home to shit on their own carpets, not yours.
But before you completely disregard the notion of a disbanded IRS and/or a flat sales tax ponder this: Accounts Receivable Tax. Building Permit Tax, CDL License Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax, Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax), IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Tax, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service charge taxes, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax (truckers), Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax, Telephone federal excise tax, Telephone federal Universal Service fee tax, Telephone; Federal; State, and local surcharge tax, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage charge tax (phone taxes applied either to Illinois or Indiana readership)… uhm, Utility Tax, Vehicle Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit tax, Workers Compensation Tax… this is a PARTIAL list.
And I’ll leave you with this: Not a one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and we were undisputedly the most prosperous nation in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, we had the largest middle class in the world… and mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened? Entirely too many fat-cat politicians ensconced in office for far too long with their bullshit “Hoorah for ME, and FxxK EVERYBODY else” attitudes seems to be where all evidence points!