Mind Boggling Suggestions From A Government

 Yes, the culture of Japan is different than that here in the USA. For instance, I could not for a second imagine the government of the United States of America - whether red or blue or in between - to make the suggestion, via a contest, that the Japanese government has reportedly made; then again - yes I could imagine the democrats doing it. That it is that the Japanese government has reportedly started a contest to determine ways to encourage young Japanese people to start drinking more alcohol! They did so in the hope of raising more tax revenue - revenue that the Japanese government has said was greatly reduced due to COVID-19 shutdowns. More at the source. 

 

If the politicians (aka: the fools) in government over there, like the politicians (aka: the fools) in government here, had had any sense at all, they seriously would have thought beforehand of the possible terrible consequences of shutting down businesses due to, in my opinion, purely reactionary fears & seemingly unscientific methodology during the pandemic. We, the Japanese and those in many other countries have suffered great financial, social & psychological and quite possibly physical distress because of the morons in government or so I think!

 

All the best,

Glenn B

Why Does Even A Single Public Health Clinic Remain...

...open within the United States of America? Think about that. We now have Obamacare, aka: the Affordable Health Care Act, in full force. Every American citizen (with few exceptions like the president and Congress) and every legal resident alien within our borders is supposed to have health insurance - in fact is legally bound to have it. So why in Hades are we the tax payers still paying to maintain the facilities, pay salaries for the doctors, nurses and for other medical, administrative, and maintenance personnel who work in them or run them and pay for drugs and other medical equipment and supplies for them? If we still want to hand out free condoms, let's just open some street corner stands and kiosks at malls to get that job done and hire some crack whores to man them to dispense the government approved rubbers. 

The whole idea of maintaining and paying for a very expensive public health care system is not only the antithesis of Obummercare, it is or should be abhorrent to the taxpayer. It is also unethical now that we have the Messiah's health care plan in full effect and may be criminal. The bottom line is that when a public health care clinic now gives free medical exams, treatments or advice to patients, who are not covered by a health insurance plan, they are in fact facilitating people breaking the law by making it easy for them to get medical treatment (and thus giving incentive to folks who refuse to sign up for Obummercare) even though they effuse to sign up for an insurance plan. The only way anyone in this country, except a visiting foreigner (or a member of Congress - remember they excluded themselves) should be getting health care should be through their insurance plan. Foreigner's should be getting it through whatever insurance they had at home. Illegal aliens should not be here in the first place so screw them, they should go to their home countries for health care.

We, as in We The People, really need to start inquiring about why public health care systems still exist and about what our legislators and other elected officials plan to do to close them down without delay. All the money we save can help defray the average tax paying citizen's (or resident alien's) cost for health insurance.

All the best,
Glenn B

One Victory For Taxpayers

That victory would be that the alleged tax cheat Daschle is out! Good riddance. Hopefully he will also resign his seat in Congress (edited: My mistake, I guess he is no longer in Congress having lost his last election). As I see him he is probably a crook and a tax cheat, and does not deserve to be in a seat of authority. I heard a democrat senator today saying how wonderful is Tom Daschle's integrity - I guess that means whoever was saying that just has absolutely no clue as to the meaning of integrity!

My bet is that the calls placed to elected officials had a lot to do with this. I tried calling my senators today and got a busy signal about 30 times each. I also tried to write to the White House but the email would not go through. is that because the new President has changed things and doe snot allow The People to send emails, or maybe because they were so inundated by them today that the systems could not handle all of them.

If you contacted a senator, representative or the president's office to oppose the appointment of Tom Daschle - good for you. We won a small victory today.

All the best,
Glenn B

My Mortgage - A Little Personal Yesterday In History Sort of Thing

Today is the first day of the solar new year, the day on which daylight hours start to again get longer after yesterday having been the Winter Solstice with the shortest day and longest night of the year. It seems a fitting day for a new beginning and so it will be for me. Today I am sending in a change of billing form to my local town, and to my local village relative to my property taxes. My tax and insurance payments had previously come out of my escrow account; however, since my mortgage was recently payed off - exactly one year and one month early - it was time for me to make this change. It was a 15 year mortgage. We paid it off in one month under 14 years as the payment schedule stood.

Here is an event that is a funny coincidence, certainly not at all a planned event. As I sat here going through my papers, it became apparent to me that my wife and I took out our mortgage on December 21, 1994 - the Winter Solstice - or maybe the day before the Winter Solstice that year (info I have found varies on the date for that year between the 21st and 22nd). Whichever, it was darned close to the the shortest day/longest night of the year, a good time for things to end (such as being without our own home) and a good time to look forward to new beginnings. If it was the 22 back in 94 then what a coincidence that today, exactly 14 years later, our mortgage already has been paid off (done on the 1st), and I am making the change in the tax billing today. If it was the 21st back then, then it is still a pretty nifty coincidence that we got our mortgage at the end of the solar year, and we changed our taxes today on the commencement of a new solar year all by chance. Oh well, just thought it was an amusing thing to mention.

I had better remember to play the lottery today!

All the best,
GB

Monday Night Already...

...where in Hades did Sunday go? Well I spent some of yesterday finalizing my taxes, and trying to get my daughter's taxes done. Alas she complained when I claimed her as a dependent, as was my right to do, we had an argument, the wife chimed in on her side, we had more of an argument, and I stopped doing the taxes.

Today I had to see my doc for some bad aches and pains and other things that have been bothering me for the past month and a half; for some reason they were worse this morning - go figure. Doc says: "Maybe a virus" - when have I heard that catch all before? Then I went home to finalize my taxes; this time one dependent less. In all I had to pay $2,799 for state and federal combined. A bit less than I previously had thought which was $3,008. Well that is over and done with, and paid for electronically, or will be once the feds and state approve my tax filings. After getting the taxes done I was back at the doc's office for a echo-cardiogram or sonogram of the heart. Just testing she had told told me in the earlier visit of today, but best to get it done today based on my symptoms of the past month and a half (funny how she had not mentioned the EKG she took that morning). When I got there a technician took the sonogram, not my doc. Did not even see the doc again. Tomorrow is another day. I will be off to the cardiologist for a stress test. Oh well, as I have been heard to say: Another day in Paradise"!

(The above has been abridged, content was removed that was too personal. If you read it already, oh well...)

All the best,
Glenn B

I Surely Cannot Afford One...

...but I sure as heck want one. Its an H&K P2000SK. See: http://www.hk-usa.com/le_p2000sk_general.html for more eye candy. There has got to be some way that I can wrangle myself into picking up one of these, especially since I can purchase one direct from H&K through my employer at an incredible price (that for some reason eludes me right now, but I was told it is a great price.

It would be a great pistol, especially one in .40 S&W caliber, to carry after I retire; and I will probably retire at the end of this year. I may just have to get a second job snow shoveling (oh let it snow tonight baby), or start collecting bottles and cans for rebates, or begging (no not by way of this site, but maybe panhandling in the Bowery), or saving my lunch money, or hitting up the super seKrit stash I have in the credit union in California (which of course is already earmarked for the tax man, and what I have stashed out there is just less than half of what I owe in taxes). Woe is me right now, but you can bet I am going to try to think of something. I do have a reptile show coming up on March 2nd, and I have a few lizards and snakes to sell. I could potentially make a few hundred to five hundred bucks or so, and then invest that into one of these beauties. Then I still need to worry about the tax man and what I owe him. Who knows - maybe I can pay off my taxes on a timed interest free plan.

I want one, I want one, I want one, I want one, I want one. Where in Hades is Donald Trump when I am throwing a fit and could use a handout (or even a few days work)! Oh well, I just had to get that out of me. Nope, you guessed right, it is not out of me quite yet. So I will be scheming because there has got to be some way for me to be able to afford one of these in the direct sales H&K offers to me because of my job. Anybody wanna buy a bridge (yep in Brooklyn no less).

All the best,

Glenn B

The Employee Personal Page...

...is part of the national Finance Center's web site; and it allows me to access such things as my pay statement, tax withholding forms, Thrift Savings Plan, financial allotments, my life insurance (obtained through my employer), and so on. It is a good thing because I get to see and adjust many of the financial deductions taken from my pay online. It is not such a good thin though when a knucklehead like me makes the wrong adjustments to some of those deductions, and then winds up short until next pay check. I just did that, and I wound up hitting myself for an additional $279.00 this paycheck (actually direct deposit). That stinks big-time, especially since a lot of extra bills are due We just shelled out about $750 for some needed and long overdue electrical work for our house, need to have a tree cut down for 2 grand (I need to get more estimates, that seem outrageous to me), paid about a grand for new bedroom furniture for my son (or maybe are still paying, I'll have to ask the other half), and got hit with a 2 grand Visa bill; and I have not yet seen American Distress Express. Add to that a tax bill of over $3,000.00 and my head is spinning as I am sinking into debt for the first time in a long time.

Oh well, I just went back into the NFC’s Employee Personal Page, and I again adjusted my tax withholding, y thrift savings, and a bank deposit, so next paycheck I'll only be down about $80 from the last one I received two weeks ago. That will be much more livable than being down almost $280 each pay period. As it turns out, I'll pay about $3,500 more in taxes this year from withholding than I did last year, and hopefully at the end of this year I will not owe a dime. Scraping together the $3,000 plus I owe right now is going to be a pain in the pocketbook. I don't need a repeat next year. Oh well, maybe I'll hit the lotto.

All the best,
Glenn B

As If In Answer To The Question...

...that I posed here, I saw this headline tonight: Pelosi, Boehner say econ bill won't benefit illegal immigrants. Could they be getting the message, or is it just going to be this way because it is an election year, and them arranging tax rebates for illegal aliens would guarantee an ultra leftist demoncrat Democrat not getting into The Whitehouse. Heck, I am no lib on this issue for sure, but I could almost see giving tax rebates to illegal aliens who actually paid taxes before giving rebates to citizens who paid no taxes because they did not earn enough money. But then again, if we did give rebates to illegal aliens, then I think the law should be written that said money immediately must go to pay for their air or bus tickets to facilitate their deportations. Of course,, that is just my personal opinion, and not my government employee opinion; and in no way does my opinion - quite obviously - reflect the opinion of the United States Government, the President, The Vice president, The Head of ICE which is my agency, or any political candiadte likely to win their party'snomination. If only my opinion did reflect theirs though (or should I say that theirs should be reflective of mine), things might be better in this country for her citizens and legal resident aliens.

All the best,
Glenn B

Taxes Suck...

...and will apparently suck big time for me this year. I have all my necessary tax records except the W2 from one of my wife's two jobs. Since that job is roughly the same amount of hours as her other one, and the pay will work out the same, I am assuming that the same amount of tax was deducted from each job. My wife has them take out too little, not by my advice mind you. I was all ready to take her on a 6 day Caribbean cruise in April for our 22nd year married, but that looks as if it about to sink. From my best estimation, to my worst, we will owe between $2,500 and $3,300 in state and federal taxes. Being that on just my salary alone we would have been owed over $3,000 in refunds you can figure they took way too little out of her pay. She does not make all that much in a year, but when added to my salary, it gets to the point where we lose some very nice deductions (such as the deduction for college loan interest). Subtract from our deductions/credits because Brendan turned 18, so we lost the child credit, we no longer have our daughter listed as a dependent (well we can, but it may be much more advantageous for her to claim herself instead of me claiming her as she can get a great credit for her college tuition, and we cannot claim it even if she is listed as our dependent) and we wind up getting raked over the taxman's coals this year.

I am a little bit, no let me say a whole lot, pissed off that the wife did not put in new withholding forms last year! Hell, I had filed my withholding last year so a set amount of extra cash would be taken from each of my paychecks, and I also claimed 'married, but withhold at the higher single rate', all hoping that would do the trick. It surely did not. Now the money has to come from somewhere. So we probably have to tap the savings account which is not a whole heck of a lot. Our bank account probably has about 2.5 times, or less, of the amount we will owe in taxes. I hate to do that to our savings, but I sure hope the wife learns a lesson from this. Some of the money we have in the bank was marked for a tree removal (they want $2,000 to chop it down and haul it away - a big oak tree), and more for my son's bedroom furniture (his set was literally falling apart) and more for needed electrical work in our house. If we pay off the taxes with the savings, it will leave very little after those other expenses are also subtracted from it, and then up pops the question of the cruise. No cruise for us, not if I am right about how much we will owe in taxes, and how diminished our savings are about to become.

Oh well, life goes on, and is pretty good without the cruise; but it sure would have been a nice boost to the morale of the marriage. As it is now, we have to tighten our belts a bit, and start saving to boost up the funds, not go on the cruise, and keep grating on each others' nerves. Maybe a nice vacation to Hoboken this year (if you ever lived in Brooklyn, you have probably heard that line before)! It, that is the belt tightening, will not be easy with the bills as they are now, but it definitely is something we can and will have to do in the upcoming year if I am really to retire at the end of it. Taxes suck. Maybe I can sell some guns at the gun show this weekend, although I hate to even consider it. Then again, maybe I can avoid that if I strike it rich - ha ha. Still, I have definitely got to get some time out with my metal detector. Really though, the way it looks now, I should not have bought the metal detector even though the money I paid for it all came from Christmas presents. Now I see I should have put that money to better use now that I realize my probable tax liability - 20/20 hindsight. Did I say taxes suck!

All the best,
Glenn B

Tax Rebates Like This Are Why Ultra Leftist Democrats Often Sicken Me

No I am not upset about there being a bailout plan, but nor am I thrilled by it. I think it would make better sense to let the economy, the banks, the other lenders, and the idiots who took out ridiculous mortgages to have to bail themselves out through use of a somewhat lost good trait - that of hard work. Foolish people who do foolish things with money should not be rewarded, and sometime should have to stew in the vile sludge of their own making so their eyes will be opened about making sound judgements in the future. I will accept though that the economy is in dire straits. I saw it coming and pulled my thrift savings money (sort of a government employee's 401K plan) out of the funds with risky investments and put them into government securities. Not much interest for sure, but much safer. Why others could not see this is beyond me as I am certainly no money guru, I tend to play it safe. Maybe others did not see it for whatever reason, and now they are socked down with bad debt; and now their bad judgements will ripple over to us and we will be effected negatively by a bad economy too. They need some help, and we need some help. Okay that could make sense. Both sides of the House and the President went with that way of thinking, now for the full House vote, then for the Senate.

If they all vote in the TAX REBATES I can say okay fine, someone who was a tax payer needs help, and if you are going to bail out the taxpayer who screwed up his finances, then you ought to reward the taxpayer who handled his or her finances without messing them up. The economy is getting tough on all them, so okay give all the TAX PAYERS a REBATE. Of course, that is not what the Democrats in the House of Representatives wanted, and demanded, in order for them to agree with the President's national economic bailout plan. They wanted more. They wanted not only to help out the TAX PAYER with a REBATE but they demanded that the REBATE of TAXES also be given to those who did not make enough to pay taxes! Here is what the Associated Press reported on this point:

"In a key concession to Democrats, 35 million families who make at least $3,000 but don't pay taxes would get $300 rebates." (see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22782454?GT1=10755).

Now correct me if I am wrong, but that will be a lot of money just for those who DID NOT PAY TAXES. Also correct me if I am wrong about this: a REBATE is pretty much money paid back to someone usually because they OVERPAID, or because they are in some way entitled to a REFUND of money that they PAID. I mean here it is in black and white from the dictionary at Encarta:

"re·bate [ r bàyt ]
noun (plural re·bates)
Definition:
money paid back: money that is paid back, e.g. because somebody has overpaid a tax or is entitled to a refund"

So what I need to ask, what every taxpayer in this country should need to ask, both of the President, and of the Congress, is just how in hell are people who did not pay any taxes, because their income was too low to have them do so, going to receive a REBATE of their taxes? Only a liberal minded politician with political interests in mind could demand something like this, and only a liberal left leaning RINO (Republican In Name Only) like George W. Bush could have said okay to it.

I am not big on the concept of public relief, but I do realize that sometimes people need it. If these people, who earned up to $3,000 but yet did not earn enough to pay taxes need help in these fiscally tough times, then give them fucking public assistance and call it just that. Do not disguise it as a REBATE of taxes when in fact they paid no taxes, and therefore it would be impossible to give them a rebate of taxes. I predict that somehow, in some sneaky manner that is now in the works, those same demoncrats who demanded this so called concession by the president in order to pass this bailout package, will in the future try to give these same people tax rebate after rebate, even when they have decided to cease giving rebates to those who actually worked for a living and paid their taxes. So, I will be writing to my Congressional representatives (in the House and the Senate) to pitch a bitch about this, and I'll write to the president, and vice president (is he still alive - have not heard a peep out of him in a long time - have we). I am going to demand, as a citizen, working member of society, tax payer, and voter, that at least this one part of the plan - the SO CALLED REBATE TO THOSE WHO DID NOT PAY TAXES - be taken out of the bailout plan. If they want a friggin rebate - then they should work like the rest of us, and pay taxes on their incomes like the rest of us - and therefore be eligible for a REBATE in the first place - like the rest of us. If they do not earn enough money to pay taxes, then no rebates for them, at least not until they start to pay for them like the rest of us. If they need welfare or food stamps or other forms of public assistance - and can prove they NEED it, then give it to them - but do not reward the millions in that 35 million who always expect to get something for nothing - and expect we taxpayers to foot the bill. Yes folks that is exactly what we taxpayers will have done should this bailout measure actually be voted in. We will have paid for those rebates - by virtue of having paid our taxes. Those other folks - they did nothing to pay for anything, and yet the democrats want to give them a reward for just that - for doing nothing! It makes me want to puke all over Nancy Pelosi and her whole entourage.

Am I pissed off - you bet - and if you are a regular reader of my stuff you know I am because I usually do not blog using the type of foul language that is peppered throughout my rant above (don't get me wrong, I use foul language regularly, just not here all that much); but you know what - I paid my taxes and am entitled to be mad about this, as are you if you are a taxpayer. Friggin Democrats who are like Pelosi and twist everything to their unreal way of seeing things are, in my personal taxpaying opinion, assholes!

All the best to my fellow taxpayers,
Glenn B

H.R. 1022 - A New Assault Weapons Ban...

...has been proposed and put forth by Representative Carolyn McCarthy. My understanding is that in it she proposes to resurrect the old assault weapons ban, add on numerous types of firearms (that are sportsmans' guns and really have nothing to do with being assault weapons - not that weapon type matters under the 2nd amendment, I am just mentioning what she wants to do), and add a 10% tax on ammunition by each round sold. Yes folks you read that right, a 10% tax on each and every bullet that is sold. Maybe someone ought to remind Rep. McCarthy about the founding of this nation, and the Declaration of Independence. Said document was penned for various reasons, and one of them was because of the excessive taxes imposed upon the colonists by the tyrannical government at the time.

Wake up folks, not simply by buying ammunition now before this bill can pass, but to take action and call the elected officials in Washington so they know we oppose any such legislation. Call to voice, write and then send by mail or email, your opinion to the elected officials in Washington, D.D.. Let them know you oppose such a law, and believe it to be an outrageous attempt to infringe upon your liberties and rights. Get it done folks, do it like you mean it. Write and call weekly until this thing is defeated. If they get an avalanche of mail and calls, you can be sure that passage of such a law will never come about. If you say, 'hey, my one letter cannot do anything, neither can a bunch of them' well then think what a few hundred thousand might do.

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Edited 02/27/2007 to add:

Greybeard got in touch by way of a comment and asked for the info on the bill so that folks can write to their politicos and say which bill they oppose. Brainfart alert on my part in that I forgot to include such in the post originally. So I am now editing it (02/27/2007) to include that info along with some informative and helpful links. If you go to Representative McCarthy’s website @ http://carolynmccarthy.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=686&ParentID=0&SectionID=32&SectionTree=32&lnk=b&ItemID=675, she writes about her wanting to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, but I did not see an obvious link to the bill, not even under her legislation link.

I was able to find the bill on the Library of Congress website at this address: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:8:./temp/~c110VcFgc2:: but for some reason when I try to click on the link for that address I get noting. You can go to the home page for the site and do a search for H.R. 1022, or simply for the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)[H.R.1022.IH] (oh lookee they just supplied a link in the title of the bill, how nice).

If you would like, you can go to the site at this link http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/409898348?ltl=1172617322 to file an online petition as your first step in opposition to said bill. Please note that the effectiveness of online petitions is highly questionable, so you must follow that up with emails, letters and or phone calls to your elected officials to oppose this bill.

End of edit
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My blog certainly does not get an awful lot of hits, so please spread the word about getting the message to Washington that we oppose such legislation. Let other bloggers know that they ought to put something on their sites about this if not already done, put something into your own blog, put it onto online forums, talk to it with folks at the gun range or club, talk to your neighbors about it, do whatever you can legally do to help defeat this tyrannical piece of legislation from ever becoming law.

Keep up the good fight to keep and bear arms without infringement of your rights and liberties, otherwise tyranny in democracy's clothing may rule us yet.

All the best,
Glenn B