It’s been a very long week. Between working and commuting and running and talking with a conservative who seems to think that liberal = evil and Barack Obama and the democrats are somehow personally responsible for his business sucking, it’s been hard to get even a few minutes away with the wife and the cats. And I haven’t blogged in what feels like an a dogs age. I missed the Sotomayor hearings. A whole lot went on in the market, and I missed most of it.
Sixty Five hours between work and commute this week, and it looks like it’s gonna be another long one next week. A quick piece of personal news here. The job of 2nd shift supervisor of the place i work at, where I’ve been temping for something approaching 
3 months, likes me, enough where it looks like I’m going to get that position on or around August 17th. Nothing official, as I have yet to talk to anyone “officially” yet, but the word coming from the bosses in the office is that it is set in stone. I’m thinking the only thing that would keep me from accepting is a lowball figure. I’ve been working for over 2 decades at this point, and I am, not only one hell of an operator, I am good with the people there, I get the job done, and everyone likes what I’ve done around the place. I deserve something commensurate with that level of expertise and proper handling of the work and people. I’m sure I’ll get it.
No worries. They’re good. I’m good. The combination fits.
But work isn’t what really took it out of me this week. My previous post, seemingly a million moons ago, told the story of a man who seemed both dyslexic and drunk, talking crap about conservatism and… to be honest i don’t remember exactly. It has evolved. And the story has turned around a lot. He started able to write and spell… like a seven year old, and now he can not only spell, but conjugate verbs, create proper paragraphs, and make valid points. Methinks this is a separate person writing now, the difference is so vast.
But the point is the same. I am a socialist who doesn’t understand how taxes and business works, and who has it wrong ideologically. But to Me, he is the right wing nut, hell bent on defending rich people against the interests of the little guy. I have invited him on several occasions to tell me, after he called all poor people Mooches, what programs he would get rid of? Who would he throw under the bus. He keeps saying government is too large, so I give him the scalpel and say, “Cut”, if you have a compliant, show me a solution.
And he refuses, and rants a bit more about taxes and how small business is getting screwed by Obama. He claimed that anyone making more than $1,000,000 during this tax year in New York will pay 58% in taxes. I figured he meant federal, so I said no. 35%, he said all taxes, including city and local tax, and did the math.
His math was shitty. I pointed it out to him. He was off, on the high end by by over 11%. He didn’t respond, except to call me a socialist, and to yet again explain how small businesses are taxed like personal income, how 40% of your capital is gone before you turn on a light and other such grandiose statements. He had said earlier that he FELT that he would have to work till September before he any of his income was his, to which I said Bullshit. He did not respond back to that rather subtle point. Felt. The day “Felt” means damn thing to as far as income is truly concerned has yet to dawn on this earth.
The one thing that I feel very uncomfortable about here is that I am almost took on the role of defender of taxation, but adroitly avoided that when I realized that is what he was trying to get me to do. Now he has become little more than a politically motivated tax law instructor.
I’m waiting for him to mention the laffer curve and supply side economics so i can flatten him. He has yet to jump in front of that Bus.
No one likes taxes, but the government has the right to tax us, it’s in the constitution, article one, § 8, clause one. It’s in the sixteenth amendment. It’s in, to my knowledge, the constitution of every state in some way, shape, or form. And there are no legal boundaries that have to be adhered to, according to what I know. At one point the top tax bracket was taxable at a rate up to 91%. A mere 25 years ago the number was at 50%. And now I am hearing bitching about the rich being taxed an additional 7 cents on the dollar.
The poor don’t have the means to pay for government, the middle class is already overburdened, as is small business (and i don’t say that just because I’ve read this yammerhead writing about it ad nauseum for the past week) It must come from somewhere. Government has not once, in any meaningful way, shrunk in the lifetime of anyone who will read this, and as government grows, so too must the cost of that growth be paid for.
What would I give to make that cost less? anything. But I don’t have the means to make that come about. The Democrats have had their shots at it, and so have the Republicans, and both have failed miserably, so shrinking government is not an feasible realistic option. What to do?
Tax the rich. There is no other way. The problem comes when the laws are passed and tax codes are made in such a way that those in the upper middle class, like our conservative friend, the insurance sales company owner, are hit as hard as the top .1% of all wage earners in America.
Luckily we have a democrat in the White House. We’ll avoid that trap. Yes taxes will go up, but that was, and has been inevitable, since the day the Bush tax cuts ripped a major hole in the tax base of this nation, which is what pays our debt and pays for the services this nation and it’s people need. Douglas Holtz Eakin, McCain’s #1 economic advisor undertook a study of tax rates at the head of the CBO back then, which found that any new revenue that tax cuts brought in paled in comparison with their cost.
That’s about it from here, except a second viddy from the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.
Catch Ya Later!
Today’s Nuggets, By Andrew Jackson, Via Wikiquote: I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have 
had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.
As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending.
The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.
