Did you catch the reporter's comment at the end, "This is not really family viewing"? I went to a TEA party. No one was being violent or using foul language. Typical of the MSM.
Lilliput, what really triggered it was the "stimulus package", dubbed the "Porkulus Package" by those of us who just see it as another way for congresscritters to buy elections by using federal funds for pet projects in their home districts.
Supposedly the "stimulus package" will just put federal money into ... I'm not sure what. Mostly it seems to be going to people, organizations, states, and localities that were really dumb with the money they already had, so we're giving them more to be dumb with.
So in memory of the Boston Tea Party, people got the idea, first to mail teabags to Washington. Then cooler heads pointed out that in the post-9/11 world, the teabags would be suspicious packages and get detonated by bomb squads instead of delivered. So people go the idea to hold local "tea parties". Somebody came up with the idea of saying "TEA" stands for "Taxed Enough Already".
Obama is promising that he will somehow reduce taxes while funding this massive spending increase. Which would mean that the tax hike gets passed on to the next generation? Gets collected in sneaky ways like raising cigarette tax and gas tax and so forth?
The money has to come from somewhere. And people are sick to death of only taking home 75% - 80% of their earnings. I about dropped my teeth when I saw the difference between my gross and net pay my first paycheck back in the US after living in Korea -- where I took home over 2.1 million of my 2.2 million won monthly pay.
We have an even higher tax rate in Britain ( I think) and of course I hate paying it - but in return I have healthcare, schooling, security, human rights aand the knowledge that no one in Britain is homeless or starving - so I guess i can't complain.
Obviously government is wasting our money - everyone knows it and next year I'm sure we will have a Conservative government that I hope will do a better job - though i don't hold much hope.
I'd rather have the money and give it to private charities to do needful things. And if the government was a private charity nobody in their right minds would donate a plug nickel, much less more than 20% of their income. I figure if you'd not give your money to them voluntarily because they're too wasteful, it's doubly wrong to make OTHER people give their money to them.
And I work for an agency that does government funded programs. The most hare-brained ideas. We'd get far better results if they just said, "Here are the goals. Do better than the way things were when we were dictating how to do it." Most of the time the regulations and rules just get in the way.
At our local TEA Party, the speaker said some of the similar things -- that we spend our money better than the government does, are lest wasteful, more charitable, etc. In light of the recent release of the Obamas' and Bidens' tax returns, which showed that the Obamas gave about 6.5% of their adjusted gross income to charity (and they only really started giving charitably when he decided to run for President and knew his tax returns would be scrutinized; and much of his charitable giving was to his church whose pastor called on God to damn America), while the Bidens gave approximately $379 per year for the past ten years (yes, that's less than $400/yr -- no typos!), as opposed to the Bushes who gave 20%+ of their income to charity.
A story the speaker told was of a local public (government-run and operated) school that needed a football stadium, and the people of the community got together and contributed voluntarily and built it -- some donated time, others gave money, and some donated their services (builders got together and built it, etc.). There were no taxes raised to pay for it. It was built entirely on volunteer labor. Perhaps if the government let us keep more of our money, we would be able to be even more charitable, and use our money more wisely than the bloated bureaucracy can even dream about.
You guys make excellent points and its something I've read a lot about. Prior to the welfare state, England had many Church based charities who ran schools and hospitals. I guess I can't understand why if things were working so well that way - did they change it?
Money and power have a lot to do with it. Not everybody has altruistic motives. And even those who do have the best intentions can have their work side-tracked or wrecked by the machinery they put into place.
My husband teaches 5th & 6th grade, and one of his students filled out a sort of "what do you want to be when you grow up" questionnaire by saying that she couldn't wait until she got old enough to "get her own check" -- that is, that she get a monthly stipend from the government. She sees her mother (and probably everyone else she knows) getting money from the government, and her big goal in life is to do the same. I think everyone can see the problem with that. I have less of a problem with people using Welfare and government assistance as a temporary crutch during hard times, but the goal should be for them to get off it. Unfortunately, we are raising a generation of people who have for a goal being perpetually on government assistance. That is sad. And, ultimately, unworkable.
There may have been some people that fell through the cracks of society, when there was no government assistance. I don't claim that charity is a perfect system. However, charities also had discretion when it came to who they helped, and quite frankly, there are a lot of people who don't need "help" because they're just moochers, and the best sort of help they can get is to get a swift kick in the pants and be made to work.
11 comments:
Hi Christina
Can you explain a little bit more of what this clip is about. I'm from London and don't know exactly whats going on.
Is it that the people want less taxes but Obama wants to raise taxes to give the money back to the state in the stimulus package?
Did you catch the reporter's comment at the end, "This is not really family viewing"? I went to a TEA party. No one was being violent or using foul language. Typical of the MSM.
That reporter might as well have said, "Just shut up and let me tell you what to think."
Lilliput, what really triggered it was the "stimulus package", dubbed the "Porkulus Package" by those of us who just see it as another way for congresscritters to buy elections by using federal funds for pet projects in their home districts.
Supposedly the "stimulus package" will just put federal money into ... I'm not sure what. Mostly it seems to be going to people, organizations, states, and localities that were really dumb with the money they already had, so we're giving them more to be dumb with.
So in memory of the Boston Tea Party, people got the idea, first to mail teabags to Washington. Then cooler heads pointed out that in the post-9/11 world, the teabags would be suspicious packages and get detonated by bomb squads instead of delivered. So people go the idea to hold local "tea parties". Somebody came up with the idea of saying "TEA" stands for "Taxed Enough Already".
Obama is promising that he will somehow reduce taxes while funding this massive spending increase. Which would mean that the tax hike gets passed on to the next generation? Gets collected in sneaky ways like raising cigarette tax and gas tax and so forth?
The money has to come from somewhere. And people are sick to death of only taking home 75% - 80% of their earnings. I about dropped my teeth when I saw the difference between my gross and net pay my first paycheck back in the US after living in Korea -- where I took home over 2.1 million of my 2.2 million won monthly pay.
We have an even higher tax rate in Britain ( I think) and of course I hate paying it - but in return I have healthcare, schooling, security, human rights aand the knowledge that no one in Britain is homeless or starving - so I guess i can't complain.
Obviously government is wasting our money - everyone knows it and next year I'm sure we will have a Conservative government that I hope will do a better job - though i don't hold much hope.
Is ther a better solution - I just don't know?
I'd rather have the money and give it to private charities to do needful things. And if the government was a private charity nobody in their right minds would donate a plug nickel, much less more than 20% of their income. I figure if you'd not give your money to them voluntarily because they're too wasteful, it's doubly wrong to make OTHER people give their money to them.
And I work for an agency that does government funded programs. The most hare-brained ideas. We'd get far better results if they just said, "Here are the goals. Do better than the way things were when we were dictating how to do it." Most of the time the regulations and rules just get in the way.
At our local TEA Party, the speaker said some of the similar things -- that we spend our money better than the government does, are lest wasteful, more charitable, etc. In light of the recent release of the Obamas' and Bidens' tax returns, which showed that the Obamas gave about 6.5% of their adjusted gross income to charity (and they only really started giving charitably when he decided to run for President and knew his tax returns would be scrutinized; and much of his charitable giving was to his church whose pastor called on God to damn America), while the Bidens gave approximately $379 per year for the past ten years (yes, that's less than $400/yr -- no typos!), as opposed to the Bushes who gave 20%+ of their income to charity.
A story the speaker told was of a local public (government-run and operated) school that needed a football stadium, and the people of the community got together and contributed voluntarily and built it -- some donated time, others gave money, and some donated their services (builders got together and built it, etc.). There were no taxes raised to pay for it. It was built entirely on volunteer labor. Perhaps if the government let us keep more of our money, we would be able to be even more charitable, and use our money more wisely than the bloated bureaucracy can even dream about.
You guys make excellent points and its something I've read a lot about. Prior to the welfare state, England had many Church based charities who ran schools and hospitals. I guess I can't understand why if things were working so well that way - did they change it?
It's easier to control a single centralized entity. You can't control a community deciding that they want something and doing it themselves.
Lilliput,
Money and power have a lot to do with it. Not everybody has altruistic motives. And even those who do have the best intentions can have their work side-tracked or wrecked by the machinery they put into place.
You've heard of the cliché "winning the battle but losing the war" -- I won't get into the historical arguments for or against the New Deal (followed by "The Great Society" of Lyndon Johnson, in the 1960s), but I think this is what happened. There may have been some short-term easing of pain, but it set up the long-term problems that we are seeing today. For instance, having the safety net in place made men and women less cautious about risky behavior. Currently, we see that very many men see nothing wrong with abandoning women they get pregnant, and even will say that she should just get an abortion if she doesn't want to be a single mom, rather than stepping up and being a man and a father rather than just a sperm donor and a chicken. Sixty years ago and beyond, men were generally forced by society to marry women they impregnated. No, not a perfect system, but look at the rates of illegitimate births and you'll see that they were low.
My husband teaches 5th & 6th grade, and one of his students filled out a sort of "what do you want to be when you grow up" questionnaire by saying that she couldn't wait until she got old enough to "get her own check" -- that is, that she get a monthly stipend from the government. She sees her mother (and probably everyone else she knows) getting money from the government, and her big goal in life is to do the same. I think everyone can see the problem with that. I have less of a problem with people using Welfare and government assistance as a temporary crutch during hard times, but the goal should be for them to get off it. Unfortunately, we are raising a generation of people who have for a goal being perpetually on government assistance. That is sad. And, ultimately, unworkable.
There may have been some people that fell through the cracks of society, when there was no government assistance. I don't claim that charity is a perfect system. However, charities also had discretion when it came to who they helped, and quite frankly, there are a lot of people who don't need "help" because they're just moochers, and the best sort of help they can get is to get a swift kick in the pants and be made to work.
I don't think "reporting" exists anymore.
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