I Want To Pay Higher Taxes

I want to pay higher taxes because the people who pay the highest taxes are in the higher income brackets. When I arrive in a higher income bracket (see that's Positive Thinking, I say "When," not "If") then I will ENJOY being in that bracket, and I will pay the higher taxes gladly and never complain.

The people complaining about high taxes --
a) have it made, and
b) are full of baloney.
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A flurry of thoughts and Trying To FIGURE THINGS OUT --
read in NY Times: "The End Of The Tunnel" --
an editorial --
the story, and many of the accompanying Comments from Times readers were sort of --
relating to thoughts and
things I'd been wondering about for
some time

One of the most conservative Republicans I ever knew (and loved, as a friend) said when Pres. Bush (first one) was going to lift tax on windfall profits, "That's wrong. The best time to pay taxes is when you've just made some money."
He said it with emphasis.

Since that time it seems like -- appears -- that our government is pretty much engaged in just shoveling more and more Money toward, and onto, some of the people and corporations that already have it.
I am not typing this with a bunch of anger or psyched-up"ness" -- I'm just saying what it looks like. Just saying.

I read these comments on the editorial and found myself making notes -- stuff I've thought of before...I have never in all my life really ever thought our country would or could "collapse" -- always felt like people who spoke of that were either a little too radical and emotional, or simply engaging in hyperbole.

In the present, I now -- wonder.
"Collapse"
Or -- "slow decline."
Collapse -- scary.
Long slow decline -- depressing.

Notes made from the editorial and Comments --
---------------------------------------
"collapse" "the madness will pass"
The Big Money (whomever that is -- the corporations? Rupert Murdoch (owner of much media)? Insurance -- NRA -- Medical (the three Biggest Lobbiest in Washington)? --
The Big Money is paying for two things:
1) the politicians to do their bidding -- low taxes, low regulation (oil spills etc. resulting);
and 2) big chunk of media (cable and possibly networks too) to fool us and control us -- to get us mad at the wrong people, about the wrong stuff

people not voting -- my hairstylist says it's generational -- that people in "my" generation voted, but the next generation doesn't, as much -- they don't participate because -- Why? No hope? A sense that the game is played at a higher level and they're really getting nothing out of it...?

My "generation" -- the ones who Vote -- were steeped in the recent history of our parents' generation, then only a few decades behind us -- FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" (why doesn't Pres. O say that now??) and the idea that America was Good, we were lucky to live here and it was our Obligation and Duty to vote, (and even to become involved -- stuff envelopes, etc.) -- and we were supposed to be Grateful and Happy to have that obligation and to -- you know -- not live in Russia or some other communist country.

Fair play. What happened to that? After Tonya Harding's crew had Nancy Kerrigan's knees bashed before the skating competition in (when was it, 1994 or so??) -- did that become the new standard, or was that indicative of an attitude creeping into our national psyche of "win-at-all-costs" instead of the "Fair play" which we used to all grow up with?

Business -- the new priority of using money to make more money for -- I don't know who, definitely not for an awful lot of us -- and the point is to churn the Money around and create large bank accounts for somebody somewhere but to de-emphasizing producing Goods and Services that are excellent and people want to buy -- the producing has been and continues to be (it sounds like) moved overseas.

And then we're like, "Where are the jobs?" Well duh -- the corp.'s sent them away. On purpose, apparently.

win-at-all-costs
a winning formula
BIG MONEY manipulating and controlling what people think, through the media
reasonable -- want it
rational -- (want it)
short-term thinking (don't want it)
the public good (want it) -- and very few politicians are working for it, now
people attacking the Government: (Stupid! The government is US, hello?!) It's OURS.

The infrastructure is being allowed to decay
The LYING -- in the media and everywhere -- just plain untruths and "political" (in my view, "unreasonable, irrational, and borderline insane") commentators lying right to us with angry, attacking language, really not political, just Show Business, ramming Stupidity down the throats of the public and if some people don't know better they believe it -- it plays to the worst in human nature, if the listener isn't guarded, and Really Thinking for himself --

(Remember "It's the economy, stupid"? Now the phrase should be -- "It's the lying, silly!"
people saying America is becoming like a third world country.
I can remember having it explained to me when I was a child that the reason America was a prosperous and comparatively wealthy country was because we have a strong middle class, not just A Few Rich and A Lot of Poor.

Now -- statistics and some people tell us we are headed that direction -- toward being a society with a much diminished middle class. I'm no economic expert, or historian, or whatever -- and I'd like to be wrong about this, but I feel that I DO know that if we aren't the middle class-type society that we were in the 50s and 60s and even the 70s, it isn't going to be the same country that most of us in my age group grew up in and really expected to last forever, as long as we were good citizens, voted, Worked Hard, loved our Country, and didn't listen to the communists.

But maybe newer generations won't miss the Middle-Class, American-Dream-minded, Hopeful and Optimistic Lifestyle which was given to us because they -- don't remember it. There's a blues song -- "You can't lose what you never had." This would be like, "You can't miss what you never had."
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Any readers of this blog, hope you can forgive the form of this post -- just throwing it down because -- well, for 2 reasons --
1. am out of time; and
2. I haven't figured all this out -- it's an ongoing process.
If you (anyone) reads this, I Love ya for it -- thanks!

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