Thanks to Republicans – this winter – 20% of Americans will have to make a choice – stay warm at home – or put food on the table
By louisehartmann
This winter – the poor are screwed. According to forecasts by the U.S. Energy Information Administration – the price of heating the average home with oil this winter is expected to spike 10% to $2,500 for the whole season. That’s a 45% increase from just two years ago. There are more than 8 million homes in America that rely on oil for heating purposes – and roughly 1-in-4 in the Northeast. Unrest in the Middle East – and rampant speculation on Wall Street are to blame for the oil price spike.
At the same time – thanks to Republicans demanding spending cuts – the LiHEAP program – or the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program – saw it’s budget nearly cut in half this year – meaning more and more poor people won’t be able stay warm in America during the winter. Currently 1-in-5 Americans are economically insecure – meaning they can’t afford to pay for the essential to live.
So thanks to Republicans – this winter – 20% of the country will have to make a choice – stay warm at home – or put food on the table. A disgraceful reality for the richest nation on the planet.
Comments
#2
Re: Report shows fewer traffic fatalities after states pass medical-pot laws
Report shows fewer traffic fatalities after states pass medical-pot laws - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_19437417#ixzz1fJG5nAbT
But the government will not legalize pot because, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told Mexican reporters, drugs like marijuana can never be legalized because "there is just too much money in it."
#3
It continues to amaze me that the tea party wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity when they cut aid to the poor, complain about the poor not paying more taxes, I wonder how or where they expect the poor to come up with more money. Do they want to bring back indentured servitude? Bring back Debtor’s prisons? Do they want the world that Dickens described in “A Christmas Carol” Have they forgotten Matthew 25:31-46? Or have they taken Jonathan Swifts “A Modest Proposal“.
I am truly saddened especially at this time of year that there is such a lack of charity for our fellow man. Why are we not asking how do we improve conditions for everyone? Why are we praising personal greed at the expense of the well being of others?
We have just past Thanksgiving and wonder didn’t folks appreciate the gifts they have received to be free from fear because of our EMT’s, Police, Fireman, Soldiers, and Sailors who protect our freedom and make us safe at home; the gift of knowledge coming from our teachers, schools, and universities; the gift of the ability to freely move across the country because of roads, and traffic control system both on air, land, and sea. I am thankful for all the gifts that I receive because I am fortunately to be born in this country.
Yes, I still grumble when I fill up at the pump and pay gas tax, I still grumble about the sales tax on everything I buy, and I grumble when I look at pay statement and see how much money doesn’t reach my bank, and grumble about all the other taxes and fees that I pay but.
At the end of the day even on April 15th, I am thankful for things that this country provides. For those that think the poor have too much please go to your nearest Indian Reservation, villages and towns in the Appalachians, the bayous of Louisiana. Go into the homes and tell the people what piece of food, or mattress they can do without. Also help them understand why their children must have a sub standard education since they can’t afford a computer or the internet so they are always behind their class mates who have those things.
#4
Now let's keep it honest...Yes, the pugnacious Republicans are mostly irresponsible. But let's keep the light shining on the Democrats as well. People might get the impression that the Democrats had nothing to do with our current economic disaster. Some Democrats get paid off by the wealthy as well. Let's not deflect the reality that the majority of Americans have been shafted by both Republicans and Democrats. The two party system is corrupt and will no longer represent the majority of Americans. We do have other choices in 2012 than the two major parties.
And just to make it clear...Americans Elect is not an alternative because I believe they wear a facade of supporting the disenfranchised voters but, in reality, support extreme right wing views. It is very difficult to tell who will truly represent your views because the right wing have gotten so sneaky and conniving that they will create a group or organization that looks and appears to be left but, in reality, is extremely right wing.
#5
This is mostly a reply from the comments of some from yesterday's blog...
So what is wrong with the basic idea "the more you make the more you are taxed"? Progressive taxation as it should be. Everyone wants to wiggle out of their taxes. The upper middle class is not much different than the rich...and they will be just like the rich in trying to make anyone else pay the taxes but themselves. And since the "lower classes" don't have as much clout, monetarily, and less of their income is available for expressing that clout, they will get stepped on, as usual, and the upper classes will continue to squeeze what little the masses have left.
Grow up, people! Quit being so selfish and hateful of those who have not been so lucky. Greed and irresponsibility are obviously very progressive. The more you have...the more selfish, greedy, and irresponsible you are.
If you value stability and being able to sleep at night, not having to worry about the rampant crime that will ensue by those desperate to survive, or living in a police state then you should be happy to give up a little more..then you should be willing to give up a little more of that discretionary loot you have sitting around in some derivatives somewhere.
The rich have the most to lose, in a chaotic and violent state, and so should share most of the burden for maintaining peace and integrity. Why should the masses care who the ruling elite are, capitalist or communist, if they have nothing themselves and if the ruling elite from either of those structures are piggish and repressive. In other words, why should the masses favor one excessively exploitative and hypocritical and pretentious and arrogant ruling system over another? Why defend the lying, greedy, backstabbers against the others. "You have nothing to lose but your chains!"
The French Revolution showed us what could happen when those hoity-toity, rich, or upwardly mobile on their way to becoming rich (at least in their minds) were too good to pay their share of the taxes. Which is more important...your accumulated wealth or your heads? Your wealth won't do you any good without a head. You can't take it with you. But your selfish demeanor will last in the memories of anyone who survives the coming revolution.
Look what happened in Russia when the Czars and opulent ruling elite got too selfish and spit on the masses. You don't think it can happen here? You think the poor will continue to take it? How would you rich people like it if the new People's Communist Government of the United States of America sent in their police to force rich people to share their mansions with homeless people.... (Remember Doctor Zhivago? )...confiscate your investments and banking accounts and all means of production...your factories...whatever...would become property of the new People's government? No more "private ownership" of real estate?
So why should the downtrodden masses that exist today, and the future, in our corrupted "capitalist" bastion favor that system over one run by a bunch of People's bureaucrats? Cheaper toilet paper..many varieties of toilet paper? Funny that we get most of our products, now, from Communist China. How is that capitalism working out for ya' in the good old US...now that the capitalist pigs have hogged all the wealth?
I think we managed to get, covertly, all that we were propagandized to abhor in the characteristics of the Communist system..and some of what we abhor in the Nazi and Fascist systems....but with the facade of a democratic capitalist system. Police state, secret prisons, torture, special renditions, a ruling elite that dictates everything, masses of poor, spying on the people, infiltrations of dissident groups, prisons full of victimless "criminals", no true political representation, and they are working real hard on taking away any last bit of "freedom of speech".
The poor, all over the world, are beginning to look violently revolutionary, which has worked to get rid of their dictators, and so far, the US has held out and not resorted to violence (except for the police). And the more wealth inequality you create, the more chance a massive violent revolution will happen here.
People start out hoping that peaceful oppositions and rallies or demonstrations will work. But when the police continue to use violence, and the people continue to get crushed, there is only one thing left that history has shown to be necessary to effect change. The rest of the world is showing us how it is done. And our affectatious politicians blather on about how these people are demanding democracy to replace the dictatorships they endured while hypocritically ignoring the corruption and abuses here in the US.
I just hope that these spoiled brat rich people, including some in the upper middle class who don't want to pay their fair share of the progressive taxes and want to force that burden on those with the least ability to pay them will come to their senses, take some responsibility, earn some respect, before things really gets violent. No one wants violence but even wild animals, that normally tries to avoid confrontation, will stand and fight to the death when cornered.
#6
Recovering Conservative2:
"It continues to amaze me that the tea party wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity when they cut aid to the poor, complain about the poor not paying more taxes, I wonder how or where they expect the poor to come up with more money."
Well said! It's amazing how these wealthy people expect to "push that camel through the eye of a needle". They obviously don't believe that they should "give unto Caesar...what belongs to Caesar." And what happened to those tables of the money-changers?
It is amazing how hypocritical some wealthy people can get.
#7
Re: "It continues to amaze me that the tea party wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity...
It seems to me that people use their religion to justify & re-enforce their belief system, whatever it may be. Because the Bible was written by many different people with many different beliefs/opinions, it is easy to pick and choose pretty much what ever one wants.
#8
One of the greatest failures of Christians in this country is when they don’t think and act as Christians first. Instead, they think first as Americans, consumers, partisans, and sometimes even as Red Sox fans. This leads to bending over backward to justify un-Christian behavior and attitudes to fit these other identities. The biblical name for this behavior is idolatry...
Evangelical Consistency and the 2012 Electionsby Jim WallisUnfortunately, many people who go to church on Sunday are more influenced by what they see on cable TV than by the Bible. I hear that lament from pastors all the time. Too many of their congregant’s political priorities are determined by a party or ideology – not the Word of God. http://www.sojo.net/
#9
I did a rough calculation. Assuming the government taxed the 1% escess wealth at 100%, that would only come to about $3 trillion dollars, which would be one assessment with nothing following. That also assumes, that the 1% are really worth that. What they have is a lot of stock, and the wealth calculation is based on the price at any given moment, but that is dependent on supply and demand at that point. It is really much higher than the value of the stock being held reducing the supply available..
#10
the "money changers" took Ceasar's money and converted to temple money keeping a percentage, because offerings had to be bought with temple money. I'm not sure how that applies here.
#11
"When does the greed stop?!!"
Ted Kennedy, Jan 25, 2007
Those words never rang so true than today, and will probably continue to be true long after we are all gone.
Left of center independent political cartoons
#12
rebumblicans, demoquacks? whats the dif? they all sold us out, and if not, then as far as I'm concerned that certain % whom have not ought to be on every radio and TV show as often if not more then they can and "inform" the public of those usurping the needed changes to our social "co-op". Personally? I'm kind of sick of having "serfed" profession after profession all in an effort to make one more $ a year and then to turn around and be told by the boss they can't give me the pay increase they "word and a hand shaked on", (my mistake) yet continue to increase thier own quality of life and all in the same breath cry about how broke they are? The American busniess model of days long past is a dead, dead, thing. We are, as working class, truly just indentured. worst yet, for example is the stupid stuf going on like in california...jacking up college tuition on the students who's working class parents have to borrow more money for, ,just to turn around and pay the UC system for all the raises they just gave to upper administration! the sickest thing was when the news man said they will be giving a grip of fat cat lawyers in upwards of a "22%" increase? Did I hear that guy right? 22 f@$king percent? The reason? ...as the news man said, "it is in an effort to keep the best of the best..." what a bunch of bull shit!!!! in the meantime? because my wife and i, while not poor (combined AGI 124k), but very far from the 1% (AGI 300-400K), make to much money such that my 4.5 gpa AP national honors student can't get any of the free money they will be offering the underprivileged, under GPA, mediocre...uhh..."illegals". Talk about screwing the working class! give the money to the kids of illegal aliens before you give it to the kids that worked thier asses off for 4 years maintaining honor roll status not to mention did it taking AP courses. dam straight i'm mad! The only prayer in H E double toothpicks my kid has now is to try to get some scholarship money to add to the new debt load her mom and i will likely take on. And who can i bitch at? the pigs of government? you mean those wallowing self indulged bought and sold sows that profess to work for the people all when its election time but then forget them once they've been re-elected? You know kind of like what Mr. O did for the first 2 years. They all suck! They all shafted us and the tragedy of it all, i believe, it is now irrreversable. what a pisser....Hey Thom do look see into the tuition hike thing and spend a week or so on that. Me? short of marching on sacramanto I can't do much...uh...i'd probably lose my job henca that stipend i need to pay down the debt i will likely be aquirin in the near future!lolol PEACE!
#13
I was listening to David Selig, Conservative Commentator on your show tonight talking about the churches, etc., picking up the slack on helping people with their utility bills this winter. I could not believe his lack of compassion for families going through hard times. I worked with the LIHEAP program in Missouri this past year (got laid off when funds were cut) and when funds ran out for LIHEAP, we had to suggest to people to check with the Ministerial Alliance (local churches) for assistance. The local churches could only provide $40 for a family for utility assistance in the county. When you are dealing with utility bills of $200 or more for heat, $40 means nothing to the utility companies. They want a good percentage of the bill paid. I shudder to think how many families will be without heat this winter.
#14
I say arrest the dirty, lazy, Wall Street oil price manipulators and seize their assets.... might have to use some pepper spray. Funnel the money directly into the LiHEAP program.
Sad thing is...... I wonder how many of those 20% were convinced by FOX to vote for the very republicans responsible for cutting the LiHEAP program to begin with?
#15
bewildered 1: Thanks for setting me straight...I'm sure, out of everything else I said, that was probably the most important..so thanks for setting me straight. What do I know? I'm just an atheist who thought Cannibal Mary (Roman Jewish Wars*) was quite a bizarre parallel to what a lot of people believe. I'm sure the Romans got a few snickers out of that one as well...which is why Josephus and the Flavians were so creative. But then without Josephus' literary skills and gift of manipulating dates and other things, which would have been the case had he had the guts and convictions of his fellow rebels of actually committing suicide along with the others just before being captured by the Romans, we may very well have a much different Christian Religion today. But, of course, he went on to totally sell out his own fellow Jews to the Romans. But we certainly don't want to misquote "the bible"...we know how inerrant every jot and tittle, despite all of the glaring non-sequiturs and circular inanities not to mention all the porn, is in that book don't we...because it is the word of God...right? ;-}
*Josephus-The Wars of the Jews-Book 6-ch4
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48493626/Cannibal-Mary
#16
Three cheers for Ron Wyden!!!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Washington, D.C. – As the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) a former member of the House of Representatives, included a statement into the hearing record warning of the dangers SOPA will pose to a free and open Internet. Wyden has put a hold on similar legislation in the Senate known as PROTECT IP and has vowed to “fight this every step of the way.”
http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=cdb3104b-cd55-4d7f-82...
Steve Gibson (Security Now Podcast)(www.grc.com)
Steve: Lamar Smith, who is the Texas Republican representative who's one of the sponsors of this bill, the SOPA, Stop Online Privacy Act bill, he said, "Well, you know, I'm not technical." Well, okay. And this is the problem, is that one of the many things this does is it breaks DNSSEC. That is, DNSSEC is all about preventing DNS spoofing, which is essentially what this is, is legislated, government-backed DNS spoofing. And so many of the people have been concerned because essentially it means we can't have DNS security if we're going to have a mandated, legislated, deliberate breakage of DNS.
Steve:......Now, I wanted to give our listeners who care about this, as you and I do, a URL, because this is being organized around www.AmericanCensorship.org is the website. And at the top of their website they mention, essentially, distill it down to three bullet points that I thought were worth sharing. So under "Website Blocking" they explain that the government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users. And they said "Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users." They explain, "It becomes a felony with a potential five-year sentence to stream a copyrighted work, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, for example, singing a pop song on Facebook."
Steve: And remember, it's certainly possible for people to take the position, oh, well, yeah, but that would never happen to a regular user. But let's remind everyone of thecase of the innocent mom of, like, I think her kids were, like, three and four years old, who was attacked by and sued by the MPAA for movies that were found on her machine which were loaded and being redistributed by malware that she had no idea was there. And some huge, tens of thousands, for some reason the number $64,000, I mean, literally, the courts were coming down with cash judgments against her, requiring her to pay this money. So this kind of thing does, I mean, and can happen, and apparently will.
Steve: Yup. And finally, the last bullet point on AmericanCensorship.org explains, under
"Chaos for the Internet," they said, "Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA" - which I already have big problems with because it prevents, for example, researchers from being able to reverse-engineer crypto technology in order to research it - "would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the Internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system." So it's just - it's bad. And I think the point you make, Leo, is I don't know if we're going to win this, ultimately. There is such continuous pressure from the powers that be, that do not want the Internet to be free
and open, that want control over it, I don't know. I mean, I'm glad everyone's putting up a fight.
http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
show #131
Here is a pretty good and fairly non-technical explanation of what dns spoofing is (in case you wanted to know)..by the way "cert" is mentioned which means "certificate of authority" and there have been a number of providers of "certs" that have been hacked and compromised the "certs" (like the company DigiNotar which provided "certs" has gone out of business because of their reckless use of simple passwords on their systems.) Another reason why on-line banking is not safe...another is that the courts have ruled in the banks favor when the depositor tries to get the bank to make good on the hacked accounts...the electronic fund transfers wiping out people's accounts. Over a million accounts were victim last year in the US. The banks don't want you to know about this.
http://talideon.com/weblog/2007/03/dns-spoofing.cfm
Beware of on-line banking...but if you must...it may be safer to use an Apple Mac which is Linux based..the Windows based computers are not safe...unless you use a Live CD with a Linux OS like Ubuntu to temporarily boot your computer up to Ubuntu which would not write anything to your hard drive nor will Windows OS even be in use at that time...then after you boot up with your Live CD you do your banking..then reboot without the LiveCD to go back to Windows OS which is on your hard drive.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/avoid_windows_malwa...
#17
Thank you. It is good that you remind us of Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus gave us no choice. He said in Matthew 25:40, Whatever you do for the least of these you do for me. And in Matthew 25:45 Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.
#18
Just reading the Republican presidential candidates stance on the mortgage scandal should be enough to jar any voter. Absiolutely no attempt at following 1000 year old protocol is advised by any Republican. Any mortgage servicer can foreclose on any property, whether they hold the title or deed, or not.
The bank's signature, committment to contract is absolutely worthless.
#19
the question presented on the mother jones page was 'how do YOU cope'?
um...move to holland? like, after bush stole the election the FIRST time...? colder than berkeley, but no problem paying for the oil...amazingly civilized country...guns are illegal. very few homeless/hungry... good example for the rest of the world, imo...good luck to y'all. seriously.
#20
WHAT IS YOUR STATE DOING TO HELP THE POOR EITHER STAY WARM OR PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE?
I am writing to you as one of the "poor" in America today. I live in New Hampshire, a State that boasts its economy is doing well and only has a 5.3% unemployment rate. Yet the Government of New Hampshire and its citizens could care less about those that are less fortunate. I question its impressive unemployment rate as I know many people out of work or have had to take poorer paying jobs because outsourcing to India.
I am one of the Poor in New Hampshire. I am one of the "unable to work" people who Republicans look at in digust, I am one of the people that is raining on their great parade.
My story is simple. I'm a cancer survivor with many health problems. I am still married to a guy who made enough money where we could live comfortably, except after 36 years of marriage he decided he needed to do a Gingrich. Abandon the old lady of 36 years with cancer and go for the one that is 20 years younger. So he left me, took all the money, the valuables, left me with no heating fuel, money or food, just left.
I thought the Courts will surely be fair. After all they can't let me just die or can they? The court awarded me a whole $750 per month to live on. At that time heating fuel was 2.89 per gallon and our marital home used about 180 gallons per month so that doesn't leave me with much now does it?
So I received a Food Stamp Stipend of $200 per month and a medicaid card for my health needs.
I applied to the Community Fuel Assistance Program which gets money from the Federal Government to help keep the poor warm...yeah right. At my appointment, I was told that the application would go to a central office where an agent would reveiw my application and depending upon the way that particular agent felt on that day would determine whether I received any fuel allotment. I couldn' t believe my ears, but this is a true story.
From the date of the court order for my husband to pay me my $750 dollars per month. He did not. Instead he woowed his newly found lover, took her to expensive dinners, bought her flowers, etc and every month I might get $400 or maybe even a whole $600. Still not enought to pay for fuel or necessary prescription drugs, or other necessities like gas for a car since there is no public transportation.
Also through all of this I applied for Social Security Disability Benefits....You know you pay for them threw your paycheck. I applied online and two days later (No Lie) I received a letter telling me I was denied. I'd have to reapply.
I called my attorney several times in January and told her of the dire straits I was in. She said she'd ask for a hearing which means it takes weeks. She didn't seem to care one way or another.
So I tried to endure and in February I ran out of heating fuel and the temperature was to go below zero that evening. New Hampshire is so cutting edge...it has this hotline to help people like me....its called the New Hampshire 211. I knew they weren't going to let me Live FREEZE and DIE or would they? Well apparently they would. When I called the line the person on the other end told me to get a hold of the Town Hall where I live and that they should be able to give me some fuel as they also get Federal Money for just this situation. So I called the Town Hall and spoke to an ever so unfriendly person who flatly informed me that "The State Can't Tell Us What to Do" "We don't give out heating oil to anybody" "Sorry but you are out of luck". Oh well Okay. So I'm going to go to bed tonight and freeze to death.
I think people have the wrong idea about freezing to death. I think people who haven't experienced it think you just fall asleep and its not painful or anything. WRONG! Its very painful. In fact its so painful, if you had a gun you'd probably want to put the gun to your head and blow your brains out before you "Fall Asleep Freezing to Death".
I again called the people from the Community Fuel Assistant Center and got a recording. I left my name on the emergency line, the emergency line said they would get back to you within 24 hours, they finally got back to me 5 days later and informed me my application had been denied and no I wasn't getting any fuel from them either.
You might ask where was your family? Couldn't they help you? Divorce does really weird things to family. Especially when the marriage has been a long one and the family was at one time a tight one. Its like a Nuclear Holocost, everything blows up, everyone is upset, no one wants to speak to one another and the entire family unit no longer exists.
So....I looked around the house, with tears in my eyes...a cancer survivor, a wife of 36 years, a mother who took very good care of her children, a person who worked for most of her life, and I said to myself, no one gives a damn. Itsn't it funny? When I had cancer everyone did everything they could to save me....save me for what? Being thrown away and freezing to death in my own home.
So I tried to commit suicide and botched the job. I didn't take enough pills and it looked like yep it was going to be freezing to death. Then I called my doctor and told him what I had done and all of a sudden I had an ambulance at my door, along with the police department. Because in New Hampshire its against the law to commit suicide, but its not against the law to freeze to death. I ended up in a place for people like me, at the end of their rope. They kept me for 5 days and let me go and in the interim I got 100 gallons of fuel oil. Not from the State, or the Town or the Community Heating Oil outreach, but from my 85 year old mother who only lives on Social Security. I was thankful, but how pitiful. She only gets 1,000 per month but has a place to live in Florida.
The next month I went back to court and even though my husband didn't pay the amounts the court had ordered him to pay me, the Judge (male), decided that my husband wasn't really in contempt of court....he just needed a stern warning. UNBELIEVEABLE.
I'm still married to this wonderful man who lives in bliss with his newly found partner. He does pay me the 750 per month because that is all I am worth to a court in the State of New Hampshire. I'm waiting to be rid of him.....In a state that says its the fastest and easiest place to get a divorce, I beg to differ with them. It will be over a year and in that time I have not been given an increase in my alimony. What has happened is that my Food Stamp Stipend has been cut by $50 per month. So now I can buy 2.5 weeks of food instead of 4 weeks of food because the price of food has also gone up. And whereas the price of heating fuel at the beginning of the heating season last year was only 2.89 per gallon, it is $3.80 per gallon at the beginning of this year so my money goes to pay the heating bill. My car's registration will expire at the end of this month, another $116, and of course the all encompassing New Hampshire Vehicle Inspection which costs if your lucky a minimum of $43, but since you have to take your car to a guy who repairs cars to get the inspection done, they always seem to find a way to have to make a very expensive repair to your car before you get the coveted sticker. And if you don't pay you have no other form of transportation, so basically you are screwed.
Oh and I want everyone to know that I tried to find another place to live. I tried HUD housing, but they said I was too low income....and my wait time to get into the much too low income housing would be 3 yo 5 years....so I asked what do I do when the mortgage people come to take the house away. They just looked at me like a deer in the headlights with no recommendations. Oh well, you know Sh*t happens.
So here I am still in the house, no money for anything but heating fuel, with my food stamps cut and I forgot my medicaid taken away, if you make $750 a month in income in New Hampshire you can get a medicaide card it will just cost you $146 per month to maintain it.
This is how the poor live and die in New Hampshire.
When I worked, I figured I would give back to my community, I didn't live in New Hampshire then, I lived in Vermont. I would go shopping once a week at the grocery store and buy nutrious food for the food bank in my community. I use to spend around $100 a week for the food bank (If my husband knew of this he would have had my head then). I would also donate new items like flannel shirts, jeans, blankets, because I thought Its hard enough being poor but it must be worse to have no self esteem. I knew there were people having a hard time, but I never experienced it. And until you experience it, you can't comment on it. Its obscene what our Federal State and Local Government is doing to the citizens of this country. You get sick, you can't work, let's save you, then let's throw you away. Why on earth did I move to New Hampshire.... God Bless America! and Live Freeze and Die!
#21
OH HERE'S ANOTHER SIDEBAR TO THE GREAT STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE AND ITS UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Today my daughter who has worked for a very prestigious health care institution for many years in the State of New Hampshire, who receives obscene amounts of money in endowments, laid her off today. They gave her less than two weeks notice. I wonder how that will affect the unemployment rate?
Merry Christmas, Happy Haunnakah, and Have a Great New Year!
#22
She is absolutely correct. The reason why drugs are illegal in this country is precisely what she said. Just think about the billions of untaxed dollars that float the waves of many people in many walks of life to include politics. Why on earth would they want to make it legal?
#23
Finally. Someone stating that it is the liberal democrats fault as well. Why do all the libs think Obama is so great? Talk about cronie capitalism. He likes giving money to all his buddies in the green energy arena, hanging out with the CEO of G.E., etc. They are all ignorant, corrupt people so quit just saying it is all conservatives. 99 percent of the republicans are not even conservative or care about the Constitution. Love all the headlinefathom about how the repubs are making people chose between heat and food. Like it is all the repubs fault. Give me a break. Besides, what is your solution? We as a society have become lazy and think we are entitled to everything. I am not saying there are not poor people who have just been beaten down by life and had bad luck, but many people are just plain lazy because they get entitlements.
#24
Stop drinking the Fox News Cool Aid. Go meet the poor. "For those that think the poor have too much please go to your nearest Indian Reservation, villages and towns in the Appalachians, the bayous of Louisiana. Go into the homes and tell the people what piece of food, or mattress they can do without. Also help them understand why their children must have a sub standard education since they can’t afford a computer or the internet so they are always behind their class mates who have those things." I know too many people that are working as much as they can. The only lazy folks I know were born into the money. They don't understand how much time is representative by that dollar. If you get 100,000 a month from your investments, you don't understand that a dollar represents after all the local, state, and Social security taxes are taken out 15 minutes of some one's life. It is economic slavery. From 1980 when I was working min. wages jobs to make it through college, the wage was $3.35, in 2011; it is now $7.25 an hour. Fortunately, I finished Veterinary College and make more than min. wage now but I also remember what was like to live on min. wage pay for school. I think the kids of the tea party and top 1% should live for a year on min. wage to understand what it is like to be poor. So they will learn some compassion for their fellow man. I am sick of these greedy so-so's trying to justify taking what little support we provide for the poor away from them while they order $100 bottles of wine. Why would you pay that much anyway. It sounds like you don't have good sense to pay that much for grape juice
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was it Hoover? Harding? that decided he was the 'business' president and dropped the taxes on capital gains. this separated the rate from income - establishing 2 tiers. Essentially, we have the 'poor' mans tax on income and the 'rich' man's tax on capital gains. so the rich get lower rates then the 'workers'. Now I know this has fluctuated over the years, but it seems to me that these taxes have allowed special treatment for the 'rich'. It seems to be that there should be a base level - $50,000? if no other income or SSI that is exempt - then it is taxed. Also, the income tax never be allowed to be greater then the capital gains. that would fix a lot of problems in revenue.
Please feel free to correct any errors I have made and offer alternatives. thanks!