pasithea | Buying friends

Oh now this is just fucking sad. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18956496&ft=1&f=1001

It's like Bush is admitting he's a complete failure. He's trying to buy friends.

Or is he trying to bribe voters for November because otherwise his party doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell.

OOOOH and an extra 300 per child for breeders. Isn't that nice. Of course, it's a mere $152,000,000,000 in taxes, but WHO CARES! With interest, he's only going to steal $1,000 per person to give you $600 and most of that will be carried by people like me who'll pay closer to $2,000. But if you're working part time at Wal-Mart with no healthcare and you have a half dozen screaming larvae, you'll probably only end up paying back $500 of it or so. WHAT A GREAT GUY.

Oh. An also, here's a person message from the president:

BTW, poor people and fags. FUCK YOU. If you earn less than $3000/yr or you're a 'single' person who make more than 75K/year, you get dick. I make more than 75K/year but my partner made nothing last year. We've been together for 10 years but fuck that. We'll get dick. THANK YOU MISTER PRESIDENT.

So in addition to paying a couple thousand or so in extra taxes for the privilege of letting Bush try to buy friends, he won't even try to bribe me. Isn't that extra special.

Most of my neighbors who're good little breeders will be getting about $3,000 per family. I predict half of them will use it to buy big screen TVs so they can scream even louder at football games. (While I'm on the subject of heterosexuals, did I mention the jackass sitting in his living room last Sunday blowing an airhorn for the fucking super bowl?)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm a breeder and a heterosexual (*grin*) but distinctly unhappy about this "refund". The consumers in this country don't need this money (even if they think they do) -- it's not going to revitalize the economy, it's just a bandaid on top of smoke and mirrors. That money should be going to education and healthcare and scientific research, fer crying out loud, where it's really needed. You're right, the gluttonous fat slobs who have turned this country into a gigantic shopping mall will be giggling with glee when their fat fingers grasp that refund check as they waddle down to the bank while the drool drips from the mouths out of which they breathe.

You've got one child. I don't tend to have disdain for people with 2 or fewer children. My neighbors all have between 4 and 8, live in 2-3 bedroom apartments, and have SUVs and big screen TVs. Those are the people I'm referring to. The ones that pump out babies because it's God's Will. They have totally fucked up priorities. If they cared about the children at all, they'd be having fewer and living in better conditions for the kids.

Anyhow, I'm just irritated because Bush has found the perfect way to discriminate with this method of 'economic stimulus'. It doesn't help the very poor, or elderly and it's unfair to single parents, gays, and people who reject traditional marriage.

It's also really just another way to rob wealth out of states like California and New York (traditionally democratic strongholds) and give that money to trailer trash in Texas.

The part that really bugs me though is with interest and inflation it's more than likely that the US taxpayers will end up paying 300B for this 150B and 70% of that is going to come out of people like me who are not 'poor' by the technical definition of how much income we have if there's no account taken of our medical bills and cost of living due to location and things like that.

I mean. If you've got an annual income of 70K in Arkansas, you're living in a 4-5 bedroom house. Here, it's a 1-2 bedroom apartment. So... Though I've been with my partner 10 years, I'm technically 'single'. That means about 35-40% of my paycheck goes to taxes, SSI, etc. Let's be generous and say I end up with 50K/year in spendable money. Subtract out 15K for rent. (Which is just money pissed into the wind BTW) Car payments are maybe 3-4K/year. Power bill is 2K/year. Food runs around 3K/year My 'special' medical needs have continued to run me ~6K/year. there's another 2-5K/year in stuff like clothes, tires, software upgrades and other things that are just required maintenance and related to having a job. Not to mention say 1.5K/year for fuel (being very conservative) All in all, it works out to less than 5K/year for two people for 'luxury' items like eating out, movies, toys, etc.

Now.. To be fair, I make a little more than that, my car is paid off, my rent is slightly less, and I walk or bicycle more or less everywhere I can so I'm a little better off than this picture but I've been a lot WORSE off than this picture for many years and lots of people I know are in worse shape.

I don't trust this thing. I mean, yeah, I get some money back. And the other people in my apartment complex, maybe they get more money back for having popped out kids. But this is not going to make much of a dent I don't think. No matter what economic stimulus or relief is proposed, it's never intended to help people like me.

And trusting businesses to get cranking and expand and hire people? Yeah, that's a lot of trust. I don't think it's going to happen.

I love the way they are trying to stave off a recession which might happen. This country's been shafted since 2000, but I guess that wasn't a recession enough. I suspect our economic downturn will only be acknowledged as a recession when a Democrat is in office.

As for "his party doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell" - I have to disagree with you there. It would be nice if the past 8 years have left such an absolutely foul memory that nobody except a few fanatics will vote Republican, ever again... but I don't trust people. I thought it was painfully obvious how stupid and pathetic this was back in 2004, and you can see how that turned out. Now it's 2008 and they have McCain as a brilliant new champion. I think Americans are going to overwhelmingly vote for him. I hope I'm completely and utterly wrong about that.

I would like to believe that there's a way to be a parent without being a breeder - to just have kids without buying into the whole oversized consumeristic continuum.

Yeah, raising the damn minimum wage would do a LOT more to 'stimulate the economy'.

Or a WPA-like program. $150 billion could employ 3-5 million people to repair bridges, build highways, and upgrade infrastructure. That would not only stimulate the economy, but we'd actually get something useful out of it.

Or.. Crazy concept. Put 152B into public healthcare. People who aren't sick are more capable of working and therefor more capable of doing work which gives them money to buy things which creates more jobs because they're buying things.

They tried logic like that when they were trying to insure all the poor people in California. You know, that it's cheaper to have everybody get regular checkups than it is to let things go until people have to make expensive emergency room visits they can't pay for. It was shot down, of course. Can't reward people for being poor.

He's trying to buy friends.

And he's not even using his own money to do it.

Edited 2008-02-14 18:28 (UTC)

That's all he knows.

When's he ever had his own money? :)

According to an article provided by my stock broker, this stimulus package, which represents 1% of the GDP, will only provide a boost of about 0.3% to the GDP.

That means for every $1000 being dropped on taxpayers, only $333 will actually be spent. The rest will go into savings or paying off existing debts.

And anyone who passed Econ 101 should know this. Direct government spending provides more dollar worth per dollar spent... But money spent to private parties gives less value per dollar spent.

Where do people think 'profit' comes from, anyhow?

You make what a year? Is there some kind of form I could download to apply for the position of house boy?

Buying friends

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