Curtis Dahlgren
The President's "tax cut": This is the 'GREAT Society'? Or Grinch City?
By Curtis Dahlgren
The President's "tax cut": This is the 'GREAT Society'? Or Grinch City?
"As I see it, everyone's troubles began because of the tax cut the President instituted. Before he started talking cuts, most Americans were so numb paying taxes that they didn't even think about it. Every time their wives said they wanted to buy something, the husbands would bark, 'You can't' . . . [but the bill's] ink was hardly dry on the paper when American wives went berserk . . " — satirist Art Buchwald in "Son of the Great Society"; Sect. I, "This is the Great Society?" (1965)
'TIS THE SEASON FOR POLITICAL FLIP-FLOPS (I guess). Reagan haters always told us that his tax cuts created deficits and threatened Social Security. In 2011, the Democrats reduced input to "Social Security" with a "payroll tax holiday" while accusing Republicans of opposing a "tax cut"! [I thought Soc. Sec. was an "Insurance" payment.]
I think it's a bad sign when the government forces you to buy "health insurance" but not pay your Social Security premiums. Do they know something we don't know? Maybe Zero Population Growth is the long-speculated "shadow government"?
Art Buchwald would have a hard time ascertaining which party today wants gramma to eat dog food; you can't tell the Grinch without a scorecard. Buchwald was an equal-opportunity needler, and here are a couple of excerpts from the column "This is the Great Society?":
" . . . with the [1964] election coming along, the President [LBJ] in an impassioned plea asked Congress to give the American people tax 'relief.' He said that if taxes were reduced the economy would be given a great impetus . . .
"But no one ever bothered to check how much the tax cut would mean to each individual. All we kept reading about was an $11,500,000 tax cut, and so every wife in America thought each husband was entitled to the $11,500,000.
"No one bothered to prorate it. When they finally did, they discovered their tax cut came to about $18.90."
Art's punch line was that the wives had spent that money already many times over. But things are coming full-circle AGAIN. Looking at the payroll tax "holiday" while looking back at history and looking forward to America's fiscal situation is enough to make Buchwald roll over in his grave (it's that hard to sleep these days).
The current Administration talked about trying to find one hundred million in spending cuts, or in mathematical terms, 33 cents per American citizen. Shoot, the First Family's first 100 trips will cost more than $100 million.
Do you think that such spenders ought to be entrusted with your money? No way! Not even if you're a millionaire. Maybe even less if you're a billionaire.
Your wife might want to go to Hawaii too someday, you know. They say it's very nice at this time of the year (I wouldn't know because I worked for a living). The President's press secretary said that a cut of 100 million was big money where he came from (but he didn't mention where he came from!).
America's "working" (tax-paying) families should be more like the cautious spinsters who are still waiting for Mr. Right to come along. If they're ever asked out, they usually go like "I would, but I don't want to be indebted."
Too many Americans have gone to the opposite extreme and JUMP at the chance to be dependent upon the Government (which is NOT immortal or infallible!).
Well, sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying.
P.S. Seriously "folks," I'm so old that I remember the pre-Great Society. We called it the Happy Days (that wasn't just a figure of speech, you know). We'll never know now how things would have turned out if Goldwater had won in 1964.
BUT: Here's an excerpt from "The Corruption of America" by Porter Stansberry (for the whole article try — www.fedupusa.org ]
"We also know from decades of experience that little of the government's funding for the poor will ever reach those who are actually in need. Instead, these kinds of socialist policies end up sending billions of dollars into the hands of unions, "community organizers," and other sponsors of the Democratic Party. This tightens their political control of America's inner cities, which have become the source of our country's most intractable social problems.
"Believe me, I have reams of data and decades of case studies for these conclusions. But before we get to my proof, I want you to simply assume that what I'm saying is 100% correct. Assume most of the government's social spending ends up corrupting the politics of the inner city. Assume these efforts actually make the "wealth gap" larger. Assume these policies and the politicians who sponsor them are actually creating a society of complete dependence, where the spread of ignorance has created entire generations of people who aren't educated enough to know they've been enslaved by their own leaders . . .
"It has now been almost 50 years since the start of the War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson's program to radically increase domestic welfare spending. These programs and their various spinoffs have been at the center of Democratic politics ever since . . . But besides the soaring rhetoric, besides the promise of a "chicken in every pot," what have these programs actually achieved? The wholesale destruction of urban communities across America, communities that are overwhelmingly African American.
[see the Detroit Free Press, December 21, 2011, page 1 for more info; re Pontiac and Detroit]
[>>] "If the intention of these programs had been to destroy black communities, you could have hardly done more damage than the last 50 years of [the Great Society].
"I don't think most Americans realize how dangerous these communities have become or the toll they take on our country as a whole. That's primarily because talking about this problem is seen as racist. That's complete nonsense. The victims of these policies are primarily black people . . . "
NO KIDDING, EH?
© Curtis Dahlgren
December 23, 2011
The President's "tax cut": This is the 'GREAT Society'? Or Grinch City?
"As I see it, everyone's troubles began because of the tax cut the President instituted. Before he started talking cuts, most Americans were so numb paying taxes that they didn't even think about it. Every time their wives said they wanted to buy something, the husbands would bark, 'You can't' . . . [but the bill's] ink was hardly dry on the paper when American wives went berserk . . " — satirist Art Buchwald in "Son of the Great Society"; Sect. I, "This is the Great Society?" (1965)
'TIS THE SEASON FOR POLITICAL FLIP-FLOPS (I guess). Reagan haters always told us that his tax cuts created deficits and threatened Social Security. In 2011, the Democrats reduced input to "Social Security" with a "payroll tax holiday" while accusing Republicans of opposing a "tax cut"! [I thought Soc. Sec. was an "Insurance" payment.]
I think it's a bad sign when the government forces you to buy "health insurance" but not pay your Social Security premiums. Do they know something we don't know? Maybe Zero Population Growth is the long-speculated "shadow government"?
Art Buchwald would have a hard time ascertaining which party today wants gramma to eat dog food; you can't tell the Grinch without a scorecard. Buchwald was an equal-opportunity needler, and here are a couple of excerpts from the column "This is the Great Society?":
" . . . with the [1964] election coming along, the President [LBJ] in an impassioned plea asked Congress to give the American people tax 'relief.' He said that if taxes were reduced the economy would be given a great impetus . . .
"But no one ever bothered to check how much the tax cut would mean to each individual. All we kept reading about was an $11,500,000 tax cut, and so every wife in America thought each husband was entitled to the $11,500,000.
"No one bothered to prorate it. When they finally did, they discovered their tax cut came to about $18.90."
Art's punch line was that the wives had spent that money already many times over. But things are coming full-circle AGAIN. Looking at the payroll tax "holiday" while looking back at history and looking forward to America's fiscal situation is enough to make Buchwald roll over in his grave (it's that hard to sleep these days).
The current Administration talked about trying to find one hundred million in spending cuts, or in mathematical terms, 33 cents per American citizen. Shoot, the First Family's first 100 trips will cost more than $100 million.
Do you think that such spenders ought to be entrusted with your money? No way! Not even if you're a millionaire. Maybe even less if you're a billionaire.
Your wife might want to go to Hawaii too someday, you know. They say it's very nice at this time of the year (I wouldn't know because I worked for a living). The President's press secretary said that a cut of 100 million was big money where he came from (but he didn't mention where he came from!).
America's "working" (tax-paying) families should be more like the cautious spinsters who are still waiting for Mr. Right to come along. If they're ever asked out, they usually go like "I would, but I don't want to be indebted."
Too many Americans have gone to the opposite extreme and JUMP at the chance to be dependent upon the Government (which is NOT immortal or infallible!).
Well, sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying.
P.S. Seriously "folks," I'm so old that I remember the pre-Great Society. We called it the Happy Days (that wasn't just a figure of speech, you know). We'll never know now how things would have turned out if Goldwater had won in 1964.
BUT: Here's an excerpt from "The Corruption of America" by Porter Stansberry (for the whole article try — www.fedupusa.org ]
"We also know from decades of experience that little of the government's funding for the poor will ever reach those who are actually in need. Instead, these kinds of socialist policies end up sending billions of dollars into the hands of unions, "community organizers," and other sponsors of the Democratic Party. This tightens their political control of America's inner cities, which have become the source of our country's most intractable social problems.
"Believe me, I have reams of data and decades of case studies for these conclusions. But before we get to my proof, I want you to simply assume that what I'm saying is 100% correct. Assume most of the government's social spending ends up corrupting the politics of the inner city. Assume these efforts actually make the "wealth gap" larger. Assume these policies and the politicians who sponsor them are actually creating a society of complete dependence, where the spread of ignorance has created entire generations of people who aren't educated enough to know they've been enslaved by their own leaders . . .
"It has now been almost 50 years since the start of the War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson's program to radically increase domestic welfare spending. These programs and their various spinoffs have been at the center of Democratic politics ever since . . . But besides the soaring rhetoric, besides the promise of a "chicken in every pot," what have these programs actually achieved? The wholesale destruction of urban communities across America, communities that are overwhelmingly African American.
[see the Detroit Free Press, December 21, 2011, page 1 for more info; re Pontiac and Detroit]
[>>] "If the intention of these programs had been to destroy black communities, you could have hardly done more damage than the last 50 years of [the Great Society].
"I don't think most Americans realize how dangerous these communities have become or the toll they take on our country as a whole. That's primarily because talking about this problem is seen as racist. That's complete nonsense. The victims of these policies are primarily black people . . . "
NO KIDDING, EH?
© Curtis Dahlgren
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