First off, I have no idea what is in the stimulus bill.  I’ve heard wildly varying accounts, mostly from the Drudge Report, about mice in California and Tax Credits for illegal immigrants.  Since the final version isn’t finished yet, I’m not going to dig too deeply.  I did find this easily accessible text of the house bill.

I did find, through the graces of the Washington Post, this wonderful little video that a spokesman for Congressmen Eric Cantor sent to a reporter in response to his overlord’s position on the stimulus bill.  It may be safe to say ‘ex-spokesman’ at this point.

As I’ve noted before Florida’s claim to “The Sunshine State” is spurious at best.  The past couple of weeks has been a roller coaster of mid-70’s to low 20’s that has been anything less then comfortable.  Also quite windy, which I thought I had left behind in the Heartland.  You can tell, however, who is a native Floridian when you have a cold snap like that.  My boss referred to my scarf and coat as “You and your Northerner bullshit.", which I think to all native Oklahomans is probably the funniest thing that has been said. Ever.

The climate appears to righted itself to a comfortable 60’s, and the ‘Arthritis Warning’ has disappeared from the local news for now.  I finally got around to buying a bike pump the other day, and even figured out how to to pump the tire correctly (Bear with me folks, Presta valves can be kinda tricky).  Thus, today was perfect weather for a little bike ride up to the library, to read the NY Times and pick up some tax forms.

Speaking of taxes, anybody notice how everyone in the Democratic party can’t do their flippin’ taxes?  Now, I’m sensitive to this issue, since there was a year that my taxes were a little…late (*ahem*).   And true, the tax system is quite wonky in this country.  I’ve never really understood why there are so many credits, deductions, and general divvying of wealth into separate categories besides the simple fact that it provides loopholes.  Of the Annoying Things Everyone Has To Deal With, it seems like we should have pulled together enough political will in this country to make a simple and fair tax system. And no, I don’t mean THE FairTax plan that was touted in the last election.  While in principle it seems to have some advantages the whole issue of taxing people based on consumption undermines the entire point that the US economy (used to?) spins on.  And also, I understand the European VAT tax (which is essentially what the FairTax folks propose) has a list of exceptions on things such as groceries so that it alleviates some of the burden on the poor.  If we can’t do an income tax system that doesn’t overly burden the bottom 50-75% of wage earners in this country I doubt we would get a fair head tax.  Further, the proposal seems to cost an exorbitant amount of money, with a overly complicated rebates system that would likely be abused similarly to our current systems loopholes.

The point being, I think we could at least take a little bit more care into trying to reform the system.  I’m a big fan of taxing the hell out of people who make bunches of money.  Now, some people will call this socialist, but I think it’s really more of a realist standpoint.  Because realistically, the number of people you’ve crushed and ruined to get to the top of your huge stack of money is proportionately greater then someone whose pile of money is much smaller.  Thus, you are responsible for a greater amount of destruction to the citizens of this country.  So, yes, you should pay for college educations, roads, schools, national defense etc.  Especially national defense, considering how much the wealthy appear to benefit from the Defense Department’s particular brand of services

Interestingly, at the park in front of the library, there was a group of young black men who were espousing some sort of black Judeo-Rastafarianism.  The details were a little hazy, but there were awesome poster boards showing some sort of African geneology of Jewish tribes, as well as some depictions of Barack Obama as satan.  Not sure what that’s about…I took pictures, but my usb cable for my camera appears to be MIA at the moment.  I’d also like to give a shout to Matt Steenson, who has begun his second tour in the desert.  Hopefully Obama can put aside his apparently satanic qualities for the moment and bring him home sooner rather then later