Sometimes the stuff I read is so awful, it makes me laugh instead of cry.
First up, we have a story from the New York Times’ Michael Cooper and Mary Williams Walsh on the ongoing Scranton, Pennsylvania debacle, where the mayor unilaterally cut the pay of city workers down to minimum wage. Let us ask ourselves, how is it that towns, cities, states, and the country is able to pay the bills for the services we as it’s citizenry demand? Through taxes.
We also have Wonkblog’s Suzy Khimm discussing the fallacy of reforming taxes by lowering rates and broadening the tax base.
And for the proverbial cherry on our crap sundae, we have New Jersey Governor Chris “Sandwiches” Christie whose unrealistic tax revenue projections have put New Jersey in a $1.3 billion hole in 2013. Moreover, Governor Sandwiches continues to push for a 10% tax cut, while Democrats call for a tax on millionaires.
Look folks, no one likes paying taxes. No one likes the idea of the government taking their money and spending it on “stuff”, and by “stuff” I mean “stuff I don’t personally think we should be spending money on”. However, taxes are the price we pay for a functional society. One of our political parties thinks taxes should be zero. That’s a valid point of view, other than the fact that it’s utterly insane. However, if that’s what they’re dead set on pursuing from a policy perspective, more power to them. Just don’t look at the rest of us when Scranton and New Jersey become models for the rest of the country.
And that concludes the Taxes portion of today’s Sausage.
Next up: Terrible People!
First up, we have a report from ThinkProgress’ Adam Peck on an NRA-backed group that scammed Chicago taxpayers into buying ammo and bolt-action rifles for kids, then gloated about it on a blog. I don’t have a problem with gun owners; the ones I know are smart and responsible with their firearms. I have a problem with morons and douchebags that would take old, rusted, and broken guns, as well as BB guns (which look like real guns), and turn them in to a program designed to reduce gun crime in inner city Chicago in exchange for taxpayer-funded gift cards to go buy new guns to give to children. So congratulations, Guns Save Life, you are all terrible fucking people, and give gun owners everywhere a bad name.
We also have the American Family Association now planning a boycott of Google products after Google announced its plan to promote safer conditions for LGBT individuals around the world. If the AFA keeps this up, they’re going to need to start their own industries, as they’d be boycotting a large number of major American corporations.
Romney will not discuss any of the other planks in his party’s platform aside from economics ones, because Mitt Romney knows that those are gonna be HUGE losers with minority voters.
That’s kind of a big problem for Mitt Romney, because once you take away his business experience, Mitt Romney is a one term Governor of a liberal state who now disagrees with literally everything he did as governor of that state, and that doesn’t get you elected president of the local homeowner’s association, much less President of the United States.
However, the world is not entirely overrun with terrible people.
We have Melinda Gates, who through the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the largest philanthropists in the world, predicting that women in Asia and Africa will begin giving the Catholic Church the proverbial finger and using birth control and contraception, as reported by The Guardian’s Joanna Moorhead.
We have the Episcopal Church, who have approved an official liturgy for blessing same-sex unions for priests in parishes where the bishops have bestowed the church’s blessing on same-sex marriage, as reported by the New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein. It’s not a full marriage liturgy, but it is a step in the right direction.
Finally, former GOP Rep. Bob Inglis, a Republican primaried by the Tea Party in 2010, is launching the Energy And Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University to push for conservative solutions to America’s energy and climate challenges, as reported by Rebecca Leber and Joe Romm of ThinkProgress. Rep. Inglis is “urging conservatives to stop denying that humans are contributing to global warming.” The primary focus of the initiative will be pushing a new tax on carbon pollution or gas consumption paired with a tax cut in the income or payroll tax. Also involved are Gregory Mankiw, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Art Laffer, and George Shultz, also known as the Four Stooges of the last thirty years of Republican economics.
As previously noted, I bag on Republicans a lot, mostly because they do a lot for me to bag on them for, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t praise them for doing something good. However, in my own defense, it’s the same level of praise I give to my cat when he vomits on the tile instead of the carpet.
