"legislative heaven"!! WOO-HOO!!!

Frist say no min. wage increase unless Paris Hilton gets her tax cut
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/08/frist-say-no-min-wage-increase-unless.html
"The only road to legislative heaven in this Republican-dominated Congress is to repeal the estate tax," he (Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn) said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_TAXES?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_go_co/offshore_drilling;_ylt=AmccC3hNKQYQowoCNxsBw5CyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to open 8.3 million acres of federal waters in the central Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, setting up a confrontation with the House which wants even more drilling in waters now off-limits.

The estate tax taxes inherited assets over $600,000.

That's only 10 years of earnings for a family making a decent wage of $60,000 a year. Looked at another way: that's only half of what you should have going in to retirement. In today's economy, that's not really very much: a decent house in SoCal is worth more than that.


It's not about "tax breaks for the rich". It's about not taking away something that's already been paid for. A family's legacy to their children shouldn't be taxed - not one penny. I don't care if they're leaving their kids ten bucks or ten billion dollars. They earned it and paid taxes on it once. Taxing dead people just plain unfair.

Why is that people in China can live on something like $50 a month, and yet here in the US, we can't live on less than $100 a day? The problem isn't that the wages are too low - it's that prices are too high.

Half the problem is that the Demorats think the way to fix everything is to tax the people and then turn around and spend our money on stuff we don't need... like bridges to nowhere in Alaska, or multi-million toilet projects at the Pentagon. Start with cutting the billions of dollars wasted every year. Force government agencies to spend money responsibly instead of ballooning their budget every year. I can gon on for pages about the wasteful practices I've personally seen, and I'm just the average joe on the street.

The other half of the problem is that for years, Corporate America has been slowing raising the price of everything from french fries to deoderant, trying to make just a little more money. So today, instead of competition keeping prices down, we have just a few companies who buy out all the competition, and when there only two players left, start jockeying up the cost of living - which has gone up disporportinately since the minimum wage was first introduced.

Of course, California already has a higher minimum wage than most of the country, so it wouldn't make any difference to the people around here. We're already screwed with pretty much no way out.

wow. well frankly, that's about 30 years of income for me, average at best, at an average university income, from 'the middle of nowhere' (near 'the crossroads of america'). and that's about the best going so far for me, from 'the middle of nowhere.' (okay, i'll take -your- word for it... $600,000... that's not very much.)

yeah, you're right - sounds like 'nothin'. 'not very much.' (no, sorry - that was dripping with sarcasm. please bear with me; i like ya. just sounds like a very provincial soCal attitude, maybe. (and pardon me... you dare quote those living on $50 a week later?? but let's get on with it...)




ummmmmmmmm.... okay. don't know where your parent's home is... don't know how pretty it is... and definitely don't wish to make myself or anyone else sound like they are 'selfishly land-grabbing' from you.

i myself have no rights or legal reduxes back to my old 'family homesteads' (and we've gone thru four before i ever left for college). they had to sell them off, one by one, to make ends meet. pardon if i don't have much sympathy for your position... but this is what many of us, only one generation removed from family farming, have had to deal with. if you think the corporate farmers are gonna watch after you (if you had a farm in the first place)... well, good luck, and have fun.

googleEarth shows me now the 'barren wasteland' that once was my own grandparents' farmland. well... not 'barren', save that the house, trees, garden and driveway are removed. but hey... 'that's progress!'



-i understand that,- and i also woudn't think it's fair. but 1 million out of 2 million is still rich. sorry, but there's no way around that. if that's not your particular situation, sorry... please explain further. $250,000 left in the well is better than i, or -many, many- AMERICANS have ever had to deal with in -any- one year, every since WWII, and -that's a fact.- sorry if there's not much sympathy left in -that- well... that's always been ignored, save for 'farm-aid' to help gauge a lil' extra out of, to pay for corporate welfare.



prrrrr... i most certainly don't think our money's best spent on 'bridges to nowhere' (and many, many others don't either.) unless they've already presumed it leads to disneyland six (post france and china)...

multi-million toilet-seat projects?? waaaait a sec, waaaait a sec ... a democratic-party-ran pentagon?? LOL!!; really...) no, i -know- there were -ten-thousand- dollar toilet seats then... serious suckage, yes, but don't play upon people's very basic misunderstanding of the differnence between tens of thousands of dollars, versus millions, versus hundreds of millions, versus hundreds of billions of dollars.

POINT BEING... you're exaggerating, and it's not 'my', or even 'our', FAULT... DON'T BLAME US FOR WHAT IS NOT OURS.



ummmmm. usually ten a day myself, unless i gotta buy some fuel for the car. (i can't go and just 'make' myself my ideal car, soooooo...)

prices: agreed. and the price of -everything- depends upon the fuel costs for delivery. quote i read recently: OIL COS. ARE RICHER THAN GOD

Progress - Midnight Oil

Say yes to a real life ambition, say yes to our hopes and our plans
Forget about your indecision, let's get the beast off our land
A tree that can grow no longer, a beach that has got no sand
I would pay out a king's ransom, if we could just understand

Got your last meal, filled up with pesticide
Hamburger chain third world infanticide
Got robot car your jobs will disappear
It's the politics of a brand new year

Manhattanization is coming, open your eyes if you dare
Carry us on to the crossroads, come to your senses and care

16 million, I can't hear you at all

Some say that's progress
I say that's cruel

You may be safe in your hemisphere
But there's so much junk in the stratosphere
We got our eyes on the firmament, hands on the armaments
Heads full of arguments, and words for our monuments

I won't deny it, can we survive?

Some say that's progress
I say that's cruel.

(Moginie/Garrett)

(circa 1970: FOLLOW THE MONEY.)