I'm struggling on my $174K a year job

 Watch Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin say that he is struggling to get by on $174,000 a year salary. He says so after he voices support for what Governor Scott Walker is doing to unionized public workers in Wisconsin who, on average, make 1/3 of his current salary.  Of course as a public worker himself, who certainly understands the evils of a federal budget deficit, even in these extreme economic times, he refuses to say he would be willing to take a pay cut. You see, he’s struggling and that’s not fair. 

  Big man on campus Sean Duffy defends cuts to modest wage Wisconsin public workers, but whines about his plight on $174K.   Note that the guy who asked the question has a family where both he and his wife work, and when his job in home building was not sufficient (because of a tough economy), he took a job as a bus driver.  Sean Duffy - Wanker!

The Big Lie!

  The budget deficit that seems to be important except for when $750 billion of temporary tax cut were to expire at the end of 2010, is becoming important again.  What you can be sure of, because it is fact, is that exactly $0 of the current deficit is the result of Social Security.  The exact opposite is true.  If not for Congress adding the Social Security Trust Fund into the budget, the actual deficit would be worse.  The worst recession since the Great Depression, 2 unfunded wars, 2 unfunded tax cuts, and an unfunded Medicare Drug benefit, blew a giant hole in the budget.  The stimulus, which was needed, added to the deficit as well. 

  Social Security is not part of the problem.  Current projections show Social Security to be 100% solvent for the next 30 years without making a single change.  Somehow the term "entitlements" has become the catch phrase that encompasses Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  Social Security is not an "entitlement", but rather a defined benefit that is earned through payment into the system.  Everyone who pays into Social Security receives a  Social Security Statement.  The statement shows exactly how much has been paid in and how much is earned.  As the name of this long-standing and extremely successful program says, it is all about the security of our society. 

  On the other hand, what we should be concerned about, and demand action on, is the cost of medical care.  Our system is broken.  When 30% of every dollar is used to pay the overhead of insurance companies (including their profits), we are wasting dollars that could pay for actual care.  The explosion in the cost to provide medical care to our retired and poor population is a cause for concern, but the state of Social Security in 30, 40, or 50 years from now is not a concern when looking at the current budget deficit.  Anybody who tells you it is, is part of The Big Lie.

A witty recap of Meet The Press and This Week

The Bobblespeak Translations provide a concise recap of each Sunday's Meet the Press and This Week.  The recap cuts through the spin and tells you what people are really saying and meaning behind their often unclear language and misdirected answers.  It's good for a laugh but with a lot of truth.

Mar 27th Meet the Press - http://moonshinepatriot.blogspot.com/2011/03/meet-press-march-27-2011.html


This Week - http://moonshinepatriot.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-week-with-christiane-amanpour_27.html

Miss Clare Remembers - Enya

Checkpoint

9 posts in 14 days.  Not as prolific as I had hoped to be, but a start none the less.  Writing is a good exercise.  I can't ever imagine writing a book because I don't believe I would have enough to say, nor a story interesting enough to tell.  Beyond just the content that any writing project would require, I know that the writing process itself - putting thoughts into written word, is a skill I think I lack.  The selection of specific words (and not others), the structure of phrases, constructions of sentenaces, and the sequence of ideas takes thought, and skill.  The same story written by someone with craft, versus written by me would have the ability to affect the reader much more strongly.  As much as I want to use this spot to simply get my strongly held opinions made public and to entertain, I now see that it will be a vehicle build a basic skill that is really not so easy - the ability to write clearly, articulately, and interestingly.

  The choice of topics to write about has not been easy.  Each day I reflect on things that have happened to me, I have read about, or heard, looking for things that resonate in me.  Some days, I just don't come up with anything I feel is worth sharing.  If it doesn't strike a cord in me, then why waste my time and yours.  If boring is all I have to offer here, then better not to post as that would be counter to my goal of getting more people to stop here.  So far, I have offered a mix of political/social and personal.  I'm not sure what type of topics will get heavier emphasis as time goes on  I suppose it will depend on the events of the days and weeks ahead.

Today, I continue.  

Is zero too high of a corporate tax rate?

Next time you hear that corporate taxes are too high in the US, remember this.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?_r=1&hp

Enjoy Today!

    Enjoy today!  That’s what I told my daughter as she left the house for school this morning.  I hate school was her reply.  Perhaps it’s just getting older that make a person realize each morning, that today, this day, should be enjoyed.  Perhaps it’s just me.  I’m very lucky to have a job that I really enjoy nearly all the time.  Doing something you like to do goes a long way towards feeling good at the start of each day.  I guess getting older makes a person more cognizant that, for a myriad of reason, today could be their last day.  I don’t want to sound morbid, but it’s when you think of the alternative to starting another new day that you realize that no matter what happens, good or bad, there is joy in just experiencing life.

      My Facebook page recently had two posts right above each other that brought into focus for me how the emotions of life-being-lived are a gift unto itself.  My Mother-in-law’s father passed away unexpectedly and she posted about how very sad she was.  Just below this was a posting showing my niece’s new baby boy born only hours before.   The circle of life.  Our time on Earth is really too short to not approach each day with anticipation of what will come our way.  I hope that you will enjoy today!

Rebels or Insurgents?

  It seems that the naming of anti-government forces is wholly dependant upon view point.  The anti-government group in Libya is being called the Rebels; while in Iraq they are the Insurgents, and in Egypt just protesters.  Palestine is way off the charts with the general term Palestinian Gunmen – seems they lack sufficient numbers to earn a title that denotes a larger group.

  In Iraq, before insurgents were insurgents, they were just Iraqis who welcomed the US soldiers as liberators.  In Egypt, Protesters will become the Muslim Brotherhood pushing for an Islamic State.  Palestinian Gunmen still just want a home country.  You can be sure that the Rebels in Libya today are going to be called something else tomorrow.  And what they will be called will be born out of the instability that will grip that country if Gaddafi is ousted.

  Meanwhile, the US now has military operations in a third Muslim country.  Yet more of our treasure not focused on America and its people.  Over 120 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles fired at about $1 million each, and a $35 million jet crashed.  I thought the US was broke.  As Jon Stewart said, “you can’t fire teachers and cruise missiles”.

Where did my Social Security Trust Fund go?

    I am not interested in hearing anything about a "grand budget compromise” being considered between Dems and GOPers in Congress that includes changes to Social Security.  I have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund with deductions from every pay check I have earned since I was 16 years old – that would now be 33 years of payments  The gov’t has irresponsibly not kept the trust fund segregated from the general fund.  For those of you that immediately think of “tax and spend liberals” – take a deep breath.  It hasn’t mattered if it was Republicans or Democrats in control of one, or both, houses of Congress, or the White House.  Both political parties have used budget trick the same exact way to use the enormous surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund to make the overall government budget appear to be in better shape.

  I own US Savings Bonds.  These were purchased many years ago and have reached maturity.  I can now cash these in if I so choose.  Whenever I do decide I want to redeem them, there is no doubt that the gov’t will have the money to make the payout to me.  Same goes for the US debt that China or any other entity holds.  The Social Security Trust Fund is no different.  In essence what happened is that the gov’t borrowed from my “gov’t sponsored IRA” – Social Security.  When they did they placed into the trust fund special versions of United States Treasury Bonds. They chose to do this to pay for other things that included military hardware, roads and bridges, tax breaks to individuals and corporations, subsidies to countless industries – those that needed them to grow and expand, and many that didn’t.  Now is the time to settle up and redeem the bonds and put the money back into Social Security to make it whole.  Once this is put back and the canard of Social Security being broke is eliminated, there can be a conversation about how to move forward with the debt of the general fund.  

   The discussion about the debt in the US needs to occur without it including Social Security changes like raising the retirement age, or slashing benefits.  The long-term funding concerns for Social Security (meaning beyond 2050) can be addressed by making small adjustments like raising the income cap on which the tax is paid, or making a small increase in the tax rate.  No immediate changes are needed, and no major changes are needed in the long term.  Just as the GOP will argue against discussing energy policy changes in wake of a disasterous oil spill in the Gulf, or multiple nuclear meltdowns in Japan, Social Security changes should not be debated in wake of the worst resession since the Great Depression and its related debt, or two unfunded wars.

    To address the debt of our country we should focus on the health care system in the US – the most expensive in the world (without corresponding #1 ranked outcomes) and the military-industrial complex.  How is paying a public school teacher, or a police officer, any different than taking those same tax dollars and giving them to the Defense Department to give to General Electric to buy fighter jet engines?  One buys educated children and safe neighborhoods, and the other buys more jet fighters than our country needs.  How can there be a serious discussion about the debt of country when the focus is on teacher pay and benefits, and not the enormous amount of tax money eaten up by defense and a terribly inefficient and wasteful healthcare deliver system.  I am not suggesting that we lower our defenses to a dangerous point. But rather, we pay for defense and health care, but not on the back of Social Security or teachers or police officers and firefighters.  If the amount of money we want to spend on defense is causing a deficit, then raise the taxes to porperly fund it.

Attacking Social Security is not the answer, or any part of it.  Remember years ago when Al Gore talked about a Social Security Lock Box and the GOP laughed?  The man knew what he was talking about.  Let you Congressional Representatives and Senators (both Democratic and Republican) know this.  Call or write them today.

Our fuel

  If we turned away from oil to fuel our passenger cars, how much more electricity would we need in the US, and how would we generate it?  Would our country build more coal-fired electricity plants? Would we need 3 times as many nuclear powered electricity plants as we have today?  I don’t know the answer, but do believe it isn’t found in coal or nuclear,  The really smart people in our country need to think this out.

   I don’t believe the answer will be born out of an oil company or a mining company.  I do believe our government must play a part to provide funding to spur on the research needed to find the answer.  I believe our tax code needs to be used to provide an advantage during ramp up to firms that are pushing advances in solar and wind generated electricity, and long-life batteries.  No government subsidies should go to coal and oil companies.  Our bets need to be placed on new technologies, not old ones that keep us dependant upon a natural resource that our country does not have enough of, or one that fouls the air and kills our planet.

Worst case scenario

In the last 6 year I have seen 3 events that were made worse by man believing that the worst case scenario would not be possible.  

New Orleans took a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina.  The storm was a category 3 when it made landfall, certainly not the most powerful of storms.  However, the storm surge is what really caused the damage.  The levee systems were not designed to handle what the designers believed would not be possible to actually happen

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill became a disaster because of the failure of the blowout preventer.  The safety system on this deep water drilling rig was not designed to handle what the designers believed would not be possible to happen.

Now, in Japan we see the concern over the destruction caused by an earth quake, quickly give way to the horrors of possible multiple nuclear meltdowns.  The systems designed to keep nuclear reactors cool, and their backup systems, have failed.  What is the next level of backup?  There is none because the design of the safety system did not account for what the designers believed would not be possible to happen.

I’m reminded of the line from the movie Princess Bride where, yet one more time, Vizzini utters the word “inconceivable” and Inigo Montoya tells him, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”.

It seems that safety systems on some of our most dangerous ventures are designed more with an eye on “economic outcomes” instead of worst case scenarios.  Of course, a worst case scenario depends on what is conceivable in the minds of the designers.

A booth at the front windows

  I went out to dinner at Red Lobster with my father the other evening.   This has been my   Dad’s favorite restaurant for several years.  Before my mom died in September of 09, they used to come here pretty often.   I think they would come for a late lunch after the business crowd headed back to their offices and shops.  

  It was good to be able to spend some time together, just the two of us.  We talked about lots of stuff, including politics and current events.  I think the person in my family with the closest political and social view to me is my Dad.   He gave me an update on his progress, or lack thereof, on a 2000 piece puzzle he’s been working on for a few weeks.  He complained that all the pieces were the same shape and the picture had a ton of the same color, which both combined to make progress a challenge.

  We arrived at the restaurant early, not quite “early bird” early, but still before 5;00pm. When the hostess asked where we wanted to sit, Dad was quick with a request to get a booth at the front windows.  My Dad is not someone who seems very particular about most things, so I was a bit amused by him having a preference.  As we worked our way through our meals and cold draft beers, we noticed out the window that the pace of the rain had picked up causing incoming diners to make a mad dash from their cars to the restaurant door.  As he looked out the window Dad told me that my Mom used to like to sit in the booths at the front windows so she could watch the world outside pass by and enjoy the sun light.  With a lump in my throat, I understood my Dad’s quick choice of the booth we were sitting in.

I love my Dad and miss my Mom.

The cost of a No-Fly Zone

It seems that I am hearing more and more of the smart people in and around Washington talk about the need for the US to setup a no-fly zone over Libya.  My immediate reaction to these calls is to say that it would cost a whole heck of a lot of money, and remind those calling for action of their other belief - namely that "we are broke".  A call for a no-fly zone should be met with a proposal to enact a tax to pay for its setup and continuing operation.  To a large extent our nation finds itself in the budget deficit we are in becasuse of two on-going unfunded wars.  The cost of maintaining military actions in the Middle East is driving up the deficit, yet actions to reduce it by the GOP are focused solely cutting domestic programs.

Simply put, you want a no-fly zone in Libya - pay for it now with tax increases to cover the cost.  I'm not interested in adding to a deficit that will then be eliminated on the backs of only working class, middle income Americans.

Today I start

I watch the events in the US and the wider world and emotions and questions within me rise up.  I’ve never written on a public basis before, and have never had the discipline to write something each day.  This is my first attempt to catalog, and share, why I think what I think.

Some initial background:

I’m white, married with kids, and college educated.
I have a professional job and am lucky enough to be in the top 10% of income
I’m a progressive Democrat.
I’m a cradle Catholic.
My father was a unionized sheet metal worker.

I can not understand why the people in the bottom 90% of income appear to be duped and vote for politicians who favor policies that allow those at the top to get further ahead while the middle class falls further behind.  How can our politicians continually vote to shift the tax burden onto the middle class and the vast majority of the people be OK with this?