Bought, booked, incongruent

So yesterday I gave Ali the green light to go in and buy her bike.  I charged with trying to negotiate the price down as much as possible.  Although the bike shop owner didn’t move down from the discounted price he offered Ali last week he did give us credit for what we already paid for the rental, Ali’s bike fitting and is throwing in a set of SPD pedals as well.

Of course Ali is very excited.  I would expect the purchase should get Ali more excited about biking.  It better.

Yesterday I booked my flight to PA to play in the Pottstown Rumble.  I booked the flight on Southwest, despite their little problem with holes in the roof of their planes.  I’ve never flown Southwest before.  Mom and Ali have and both have had positive things to say about them.  I think I will be crashing at Todd’s place while I am up there.

The last time I played in the Rumble was 2008 with Randall where we had a disappointing showing in BB.  This time I am playing with Charlie whom I have played with twice at the Rumble.  Charlie has not been playing any volleyball at all for a few years so he is working hard to get back into fighting shape.  It should be a fun time.  I just hope for decent weather.

So now that the short term budget crisis has been averted, Obama has been setting his sights on the long term issues and how to break this insane cycle of debt.  He took a bold step and actually brought back up his original campaign promise to kill the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

“Raising taxes” is on a hair trigger with republicans.  They were all over Obama mentioning the subject like flies on shit.

Ok let’s take a look at a chart that illustrates what is behind the insane deficit spending.

You can see the various things that have snowballed into the financial hell we are in now.  Ok now look closely and you will see the largest hunk of this is because of the tax breaks Bush imposed for the rich being extended.

You will hear Republicans crying that more taxes on the rich will cripple the economy.  In my opinion this is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Let’s get real for a few minutes. The current tax rate on wealthy Americans is the lowest in history.  The tax rate on the wealthy in America is the lowest of all industrialized nations in the world. During this economic downturn where middle class Americans have gotten punched in the mouth, the rich actually have GROWN their pot of gold, increasing the disparity of wealth in our country to historic levels.

What Obama pledged during his campaign and what he is reviving again is simply rolling back the rate on wealthy Americans ($250k plus) to what they were during the Clinton years which if you recall, were very prosperous.  When you compare the Clinton taxation level to the level of the Republican godfather, Ronald Reagan, there is no comparison.  The tax rate on the rich was much higher in the 80’s. During the Clinton years the federal government actually had a budget SURPLUS (which Bush demolished immediately).

The republicans are playing a shell game where they try to direct your attention to higher taxes(for a few) but while you are ranting about that , they will turn their attention to  gutting domestic programs that help people of need in all sorts of areas. They are all about cutting the deficit as long as it doesn’t mean they have to sell one of their Mercedes to do it.

If you look closely for example at what the Republicans are proposing for Medicare you should be disgusted.  They want to turn it into a voucher system which would do two things, dramatically raise the out of pocket expenses for seniors who in most cases are already existing on a very limited income and inject even more cash into the pockets of insurance companies as this would get them into a segment of the population that they were generally excluded from.  It’s downright criminal.

Equally criminal is the general populace not thinking for themselves, instead allowing their opinions to be swayed by one liners and buzzwords.  These people that can’t be bothered to look at the big picture are unknowingly being herded like cattle to the slaughter.

I see this first hand with Florida state pension holders complaining about the policies Rick Scott is trying to jam through, even though they were ignorant enough to vote for him without really investigating what he was all about.

Ignorance has a price, stop being herded.