Personal view here, however, this is a personal site...
The problem with spoon feeding people is that at the end of the day all they know is the contour of the spoon. Giving government bail out money in the form of directly produced government jobs (like roads and bridges) is not a terrible idea, however it makes me reflect back to the idea of simultaneously preparing for and preventing war. More on this later.
The Gulliver Economic Stimulus Plan would forego giving money to those who have proven by past performance that they not only are adept at mismanaging those funds, but are also completely inept in the fine art of learning a lesson. If my kid is given a nice grand (ten bens, as it were) and he blows it on candy and Star Wars trading cards, I am surely not going to give him another grand to blow. And yet, this is exactly what our government has done with the automakers. Have you ever looked at a Pontiac Aztek? In addition, we are talking about people who do not want to make wage concessions or cut their hours –in reference to the original discussions with the unions. Instead, they would rather suck on the hind teat of John Q. Public. Well, enough. My nipples are sore.
From another viewpoint, isn’t it time we stop and ask “Who” exactly is handing out the bailouts? Yeah, very good. You’re right. It is the same miscreants who deregulated banking –opening the sub-prime door, the people who actually lived through the late ‘80s banking mess and learned nothing, the fools that comprise the largest group of working stiffs that have never held a real job, and the people who are now getting ready to lay down another trillion or so bucks on the debt ridden back of the public. Ladies and Gentlemen I give to you your ELECTED OFFICIALS. Shouldn’t we hold them to a similar standard like the one that we hold up for ourselves? Can you ignore your checkbook balance for oh, say a year of five and then ask for a “bailout?” Perhaps if the elected people of this nation were receiving the same retirement that the rest of us will receive from social insecurity, they may be a little more down with getting this crap right.
So, what is the Gulliver Economic Stimulus Plan? Or GESP or, if you prefer, G –ESP? Simple.
Give a tax moratorium for three years to small businesses… say under 10 million in revenues. Continue to tax the larger corporations and use the tax year BEFORE the stimulus tax break as the benchmark. In other words, don’t let people come in and say, “Hey! I’m a company under ten million dollars in revenue, too. Even though, granted, I was brining in 22 mil in revenue per year as of a week ago. You see, I restructured my business into three smaller businesses…” Sound familiar Mr. or Mrs. Banker? (The Bank of G announcements will follow this rant.)
Give a tax moratorium to the working and middle class for three years. I don’t necessarily need a new pretty bridge. I would like to keep more of what I earn, though. I promise, with all these flippin’ kids running around the Gulliver ranch and hacienda (five at last count), I will be spending that extra money. Enough said.
Keep the personal taxes on the wealthy and the “better-off” where they are at. Afterall, Mr. and Mrs. No Real Job Elected Official, these are the people that create jobs and WHOA!, pay the majority of the taxes. They are not going to be creating jobs when you tax the ever loving living piss out of them. They can go to Canada if they want that kind of a gig. They are going to be buying gold with whatever money they have left and hedging their bets against you driving this country deeper into bankruptcy, though. I promise you that. (Can I deposit bullion in a foreign safety deposit box?) Again, how much is the currently debated economic stimulus plan worth? Are we taking in a trillion dollars a year in taxes?
After three years gently start to phase in the tax structure and lift the moratoriums. Not a new, higher, brighter, tax structure, but the old one or, even better, a lower one. And, pay attention, tell people up front at Moratorium time that this is coming, what the phase in will be, how long, etc. Nothing pisses people off more than being lied to. I realize that elected officials get elected by living the complete antithesis of this premise, but I think that they can try really, really hard and get it right just once.
How do we pay for it all? Cut the fat.
When I was in the Navy Reserve, the US Government sent me and fifteen of my good buddies by DELTA FRICKIN’ AIRLINES to Japan for two weeks. I dug Japan, but come on, $1500 bucks a pop back then to fly commercial? WTH? When we got there, I was astounded to find a whole battalion of US Navy Seabees (Construction Battalions) on base sitting on, of all things, their thumbs. Yep, that’s right. They had their thumbs up their rectums and had nothing to do. We, my friends and I, spent two weeks making a nice new parking lot on base, cleaning up an old storage building, and touring Japan. (Ground zero at Nagasaki humbled me like nothing else.) We did not like the seating arrangements on base and opted in lieu of the rectal thumb thermometer for some work and sightseeing. The point being, I could have saved the public tax payers twenty-two grand and change in two weeks on airfare alone. And, I wouldn’t have had to try too hard at all on that one. I am going to go way out on a limb here and guess that this isn’t an isolated incident AND things have not changed since the early ‘90’s. I would guess that these types of incidents happen every day and are exponential. Let’s just guess a thousand times per day on the old Navy Seabee scale. That would be $22,500,000 dollars per day.
At any rate or scale, there are millions and billions in waste, corruption and graft going out the windows of various buildings all around Washington, D.C. –not to mention this once great country of ours. I would bet your social security check on it.
Please write, call or email your elected official and ask them to apply both the brakes and their brains. Ask them if they have ever heard of G-ESP. Urge them to spend less time with their conceited egos and more time with their dried and withered minds. After all, the problem with Washington, I think, comes back to the spoon and that old, well worn and very familiar contour. It's time to stop the feeding.
Disclosure: The Bank of G would like a bailout for the funds that I (er, I mean, we) have yet to receive. Thank you.
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