Cap and Trade Is Bad for You and Your Family

Go read this article from the Wall Street Journal on the Cap and Trade legislation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

Cap and Trade is a hidden tax that will drive up the price of energy for you, me, and every other person out there. It's all done in the name of the environment, but in all actuality it just hurts the economy. The U.S. is not polluting this world near to the extent that China and India are. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do our part to keep our part of the world clean. But putting more stress on an already stressed economy does not clean up the earth. It just stresses the economy further which discourages people from updating their old junky car to something that doesn't pollute nearly as much and that's more fuel efficient as one example.

What can you do? Call and write your senators and representatives and tell then to vote against this. Let them know their job depends on it. Supposedly they may be voting on this as early as tomorrow, so don't wait. Call and write NOW!!!
http://www.senate.gov/ for your senators
http://www.house.gov/ for your representatives

The House Passes a 90% Tax Rate...Are You Concerned Yet?

Check out the following Time article.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1886748,00.html?xid=rss-politics-cnn

Thursday after little debate the House passed a bill which would impose a 90% tax rate not only on the AIG bonuses that everyone is furious about, but on the majority of bonuses paid from the beginning of the year on bonuses to all employees making more than $250,000 a year working for companies that received more than $5 billion in TAR money.

Do any of you have a problem with this? What's to stop them from just imposing the same rate on every other company that didn't receive TARP money? What do you think would happen? Are you thinking that since you don't make $250,000 you don't care?

The article goes on to say that it will likely be modified in the senate to 70% on bonuses of $50,000 or more to companies that received $100 million. So this potentially broadens the number of people they will get but lowers the tax rate. I don't really know which is worse.

Here's my first problem. Everyone is so focused on these bonuses and how outrageous they are. Where is the outrage at congress for passing these bailouts to begin with that didn't exclude the bonuses. Where is the outrage that they didn't bother to read the whole bill before voting on it? Now that the country is on the hook for this money against the will of at least half of the people, maybe more, don't we need AIG and all these other companies that got TARP money to make money so they can "pay us back?" Or do we expect them to turn things around with executives and people that are worthless? What's to keep the people with the ability and know how to turn things around from going to another company that will pay them for their talent? You can't expect them to work for free. You wouldn't.

Of course the people that are part of the problem in these companies should be let go, but do you know which ones they are? I surely don't.

Are you concerned at all that congress would pass a 90% or 70% tax rate? Both sides of the aisle are on board with this. Are you? Are you aware that people that make over $250,000 a year generally employ other people through purchasing more services that they don't want to do themselves. They help keep those of us making anywhere from $15,000-$100,000 or more employed. Do you care? What happens to our salaries if theirs suddenly get sucked up in taxes? Do you think they'll stop paying for those services that they used to pay for? I do. But what do I know? I'm just a dog.

Are you upset? Do you care? And if you don't care, my question is Why Not? Do you think we should keep throwing good money after bad?

Term Limits - Not Such a Bad Idea

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - (Alexander Tyler is given credit for writing this in regards to the fall of the Athenian Republic but snopes.com can't validate this. It really doesn't matter who wrote, the sentiment and caution is a good one)

For those of you that think America is a true democracy, let me correct you. We are a republic that operates under a representative democracy. Simply put, we don't vote on policy and law, we elect senators and representatives to represent us in Washington and vote "on our behalf." So those of us that voted for them are represented and the rest of us are SOL Don't believe me, look it up. So I guess that's not really a representative democracy either.

Here's the problem with that. There aren't any term limits for Senators and Representatives. Why is that when the office of the president now has a two term limit, it isn't deemed necessary for our other elected officials? Whatever happened to the concept of public service? I'm sure many of them go in with the best of intentions but it seems like after term one or two they start enjoying the power they have and they make votes based on what they feel like making rather than how their constituents would prefer they vote. They could impose term limits on themselves, but they'd have to vote on it and why would anyone vote themselves out of a job? Hence where voting for themselves rather than with constituents' preferences. They vote themselves raises and all kinds of benefits. Why not? If I could vote myself a raise I certainly would.

And this is why we have complacency in this country for how our country is run. The power should be in the hands of the people not in the government. People think they can't change things so they don't educate themselves about candidates, don't bother to vote, or just vote for the name they know. What good does that do? We could essentially kick these people out of office and yet we don't. We keep electing the same ones over and over without bothering to check their voting record while in office. Not one of them ever seems to be held accountable unless they are caught in some "scandal." We have a responsibility to hold them accountable. Just like we have a responsibility to write or call them to voice our opinions to them.

I love how many politicians are "in favor" of term limits and then when that time comes they revise their position to "well if there was a bill to come up I'd vote for it, otherwise I can't do any good if I step down now." Well why haven't you written that bill?

If you limit the amount of time they are allowed to spend representing us there maybe they will actually stick to their original intentions rather than wasting their time trying to buy our votes every election. Which is another trick they get involved in. They will vote a certain way in an attempt to essentially buy votes with your tax dollars. Why do we let them do this? Again, term limits might help put a stop to this practice.