I have three separate issues to discuss in this post.
1. Another example of how refusing to pay taxes costs us all indirectly
Recently a local crime involving a convicted criminal who was sentenced to eight years in prison less than three years ago renewed questions about sentencing rules. The Nashville Chief of Police held a news conference during which he expressed his extreme disgust with the judicial system. The convicted criminal had been sentenced to eight years in prison for a violent crime, only to be released after only 30 percent of the sentence. The police chief said he had been told it was a money issue but he was convinced the justice system was at fault.
I see this as a money issue related to one of my favorite complaints. In our self-centered focus on taxes we continue to strangle our local governments. Local news reports are regularly populated with stories about the extreme efforts local school boards make to keep schools open with inadequate funding. Incarceration of state and local criminals is funded by state and local taxes just like the schools. Prison overcrowding forces early releases and we all know prisons rarely provide effective rehabilitation. The only way to protect citizens is to keep the criminals separated from law-abiding citizens as long as possible. The way to do this is to provide funding for prisons to keep these criminals away from us. Every time local voters vote down a legitimate tax increase the repercussions are broad and long lasting. Inadequate school funding creates more young people being unprepared for life. Unprepared young people are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. Underfunded prisons are forced to release un-rehabilitated criminals early into a society under-protected by under-funded police departments. The root cause is self-centered greed on the part of local taxpayers.
2: Discipline and punishment
As noted above, current punishments for criminal activity are largely ineffective and unnecessarily costly. I have a solution to propose: public flogging. This should be the second-level punishment for non-violent crimes like burglary. More serious crimes with violence against victims should get this as first-level punishment. The public aspect would serve as a graphic example of the consequences of doing a crime. It just might be a better incentive to obey the law than a few months in jail. To take this a bit further, we could provide for combination punishments where a weekly public flogging was part of a reduced prison sentence. Saves money and maybe reduces recidivism.
3: Why health care reform is in trouble
The heavily funded private insurance companies are using their “influence” to buy opposition to the public option in an effort to maintain their un-defensible profit margins. This protection of profits comes at the cost of some poor, uninsured sick people dying. The connection is unverifiable but the motive is certainly there. The Democrats who are apparently being paid off with some promise of wealth and power should be exposed. If you know the facts about why a Democrat opposed the public option, please let the world know. Maybe I’m wrong. If I am wrong I need to be corrected publicly. Do it here.
DRP
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6 comments:
Oh, you know that I will not let this one get by me. I, too, am so sick of officers putting their lives in danger to bring in criminals only to have them plea bargain down to a lesser crime or have their sentences reduced. Yes, I will agree that it is a money issue, but I will not vote for higher taxes, just so they can be mis-used.
If the beauracrats that control the money would actually stick to a budget, I do not believe that we would need any new taxes to fund prisons, schools, or put more officers on our streets. Abuse and mis-use of the tax dollars are the primary things that have angered people. Politicians and others in every different branch of government can spend our money that we pay in wheel tax, property tax, sales tax, and federal taxes in any manner that they see fit.
One of the main reasons that I respect Gov. Phil Breseden, whom you know was a banker, actually passed on getting his salary when he took office because TN. was in such a bad fiscal state. The previous governor flew to Memphis any time he or his wife had to go to the chiropractor, take the dog to the vet, give dinner parties in Memphis, whatever. I understand his home base was Memphis, but between Memphis and Nashville is about 3 hours by car. It sure would have beat firing up the state's jet and tying up a pilot and officers to escort them. There is just too much waste and if there was anyone to hold not the people, but the politicians, accountable for their spending, we would not be facing these problems. The people are going to pay their taxes. They have no choice, but my question to you is how do you make politicians accountable to the people?
I do agree that we need health care reform, but not a government-run national health care. I think that anyone that loses a job should not be expected to pay for a Cobra insurance which is totally out of the question because of the costs. I think the federal government should cover these people that have been working for years and paying their dues. One problem with the government giving out free health care and welfare is that a lot of people make it not as a helper, but as a lifestyle. Someone has to pay.
How do you think seniors feel when trying to choose between medicine and food because their social security checks will not cover the necessities of life? I am not talking about frivolous things. I am speaking of home insurance, property taxes, electricity, water, heat, food, medicine,and home phone, not cell phone. This does not include a car or tags or upkeep. A lot of seniors depend on family members to get them to and from the doctors or anywhere else they have to go. It makes me sick to think that you work all of your life to pay for a home and when you get old, and you have to go into a nursing home, well guess what.The nursing home forces it to be sold to pay for your stay in that establisment because medicare was not enough. There goes all of your years working to save a little bit to leave behind to family being grabbed by another greedy government entity.
The reason that the dems are laying low right now are because most Americans are already sick of Congress in general and this president. They know if they do not support the people who elected them and what those people want, right now, we all can still vote. Just give it time. Things will quieten down and you will have your public option or co-op and a government-run national healthcare system. Have you ever thought about why they would try to get this in now when such a large amount of Americans are losing jobs and homes? They thought that Americans would jump at this chance of insurance out of desperation.I guess the town hall folks let them know that some of us are still paying attention. Anything free never comes without strings. Read between the lines and think about when was the last time government did anything good for you?
Recent news stories about how difficult it has become to get local government budgets balanced should make you realize the people in charge are actually trying hard to make things work. Just as with the health care problem, it is easy to blindly oppose a solution. It is much more realistic to work toward a real solution. If there is verifiable waste of money - make sure it becomes known publicaly so we can work to correct it. Accusations are meaningless without proof. The people we elect to do this work (politicians)are rarely the best at doing the work so we need to help them, not accuse them. Are you willing to try to balance the budgets of the county and suffer the demands of every department? And the argument that you won't vote for taxes so they can be misused is lame. If everyone agreed on priorities this would be easy.
Make sure we have all the money we need to have the best schools in the state but we don't care about the roads. Make sure the roads are free of potholes but cut the police department employees by 75% to pay for the roads. Earmark as much money as we can for extra police but eliminate city-funded trash pickup to pay for it.
it is in reality always a compromise that boils down to money. The more money made available the less drastic the compromises. What do voters want? They want government services. Government services cost money. More money means better services as long as we keep our eyes on the purse-strings.
The example of the previous governor is one of finding waste and letting it be known. Bredesen made a major example by refuseing his salary (if that is true- first I've heard it) because he realized money was at the heart of the problem. Did you follow his example and donate to the general fund to help the state? Neither did I. I can, however, contribute a bit more in taxes to keep the services I expect. My minor sacrifice to reward the Governor for his.
We hold our politicians accountable by watching them and screaming when they do something wrong. Far too few people are actually watching and talking. If we were, abuses would be less likely. The lazy, uninformed American again.
We do not need the government running a healthcare system because the politicians cannot be trusted to keep their hands outof it. What we do need is a public insurance option to cover people who for whatever reason cannot get insurance from private insurance companies. This is not a competition for the private insurors, it is a complement to the services they provide. The government can take over coverage of the high-cost individuals that the private insurors don't want. The private insurors then lower their rates signifcantly for the average consumer. Everyone wins except the taxpayer who has a slight increase in taxes.
Do you actually believe that throwing more money into the school systems will get this nation a better educated child? If you do, then, you are naive. My acusation of the former governor was not unfounded. His wife even sold a rug that the Daughters of some historic group had to find and re-purchase to get it back.
Throwing more money in the pile is not helping any situation that I have seen so far. The banks have not loosened their lending practices that I know of; but, I have not tried to borrow any money. The car dealerships are still going out of business because they can not get their money from the feds. The Saturn plant right here in TN is going out of business, leaving how many more people unemployed.
Can you please tell me how much more in taxes are you willing to pay? As for us, we are about taxed out and we are not even middle of the road middle class people. We do not owe for anything but our home, and have no children at home;therefore, we have no deductions on our federal tax. City and County set our property taxes. The state or perhaps the county sets our wheel tax which was supposed to be used for education when it was enacted. What about all this lottery money for education? Where is that all going? Sales tax in our area is 9and 3/4%. Just exactly, what other tax do you want my great-grandchildren paying for long after I am gone?
If you think that the agenda is just to help older Americans, then why was Medicare cut by 600 billion dollars? That the very group that needs a good insurance. If you have access to AARP magazine this month, then I suggest that you read the article Health Reform:Make It Real and Right by Michael O. Leavitt. He hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. He states that "we need health care reform, but let's stick with what's real and right." He states in this article that the health care reform bills being proposed by the president and congressional leaders would let the federal government make health choices rather than consumers. He states that the bill would actually create a new federal beureaucracy, called Health Choices Administration, to choose what plans consumers can buy. He states that unfortunately, that's real, but it isn't he right thing to do.
What part of this do you not get or understand? Please, tell me one thing that our government sticks it's nose into that they do not mess up. Did you know that Social Security was never supposed to go into a general fund, but when the federal government needed it, that's where it went. On and on we go, and anyone that blindly trusts our government to do the right thing is totally ignorant.
Speaking of local governments, we live in small-town, USA. Our town got almost half a million dollars in grant money just to fix up the main downtown street which is one street. The only thing that I have seen done so far is a little paint and some awnings put on buildings that was purchased by the store owners, not grant money. We have no local doctor here in town and now the grocery store on main street that several of our elderly citizens walk to looks as if it is about to close. How sad is this? I, for one, do not know where the half-million dollars went. Maybe it is sitting in a general fund drawing interests or is it perhaps sitting in someone's pocket?
The point that I am trying to make is that there is so much corruption within each and every level of government, how can the common citizen and working stiff know where all their monies go. You are busy working and trying to keep a house up and the car going, so what do you do? We are not lazy Americans;but, just the opposite. We are tired Americans because we have been driven by society into a situation where both mom and dad have to work, so the kids are left to teachers, grandparents, churches, t.v., video games,etc. Mom and Dad do good to get done all that they do without having to worry how every tax they pay is going to be used. Get a reality check. This is not something we should have to be worrying about and that is the fact that the very people we put into office are the ones not managing the monies that they are collecting in all these taxes that we already pay. No sir, I will never vote for higher taxes, except, maybe a sales tax. The sales tax is the fairest tax that exists because it does not matter who you are or where you live, if you buy anything in our area, you will pay 10 cents on the dollar.Guess if I can not afford the rate of sales tax, I do not have to purchase big item things. That is one choice I can make.
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