New Rule #26

New Rule #26: If you forward e-mails out of political sympathy with the orientation of the sender, at least read them to be sure what you're endorsing!

I responded to an e-mail from a dear friend which was a video of a woman stridently questioning "who's gonna pay for my fifteen kids?"

below the link was this message:

" I  will be interested to hear how many more children you think the taxpayer should support. You always offer clever and innovative ideas. Looking forward to your observations"

My first response: Their fathers need to pay for their fifteen kids and she needs a hysterectomy!

My follow on a couple of minutes later:         Something else occurred to me after my original response, and that is: Why now? This shitty situation has existed for the last 50 years at least. Why not post this during the Reagan administration? There were at least as many shiftless baby makers like the one shown then too. Again, the statement "This is what our country is coming to" is really this person's (the original sender, not my friend) not even close to subtle attempt to blame this, too, on the current resident of the White House. He, as I recall has two children, neither of whom, I will guess, are receiving public assistance of any kind. Unless he fathered this woman's kids, he's blameless.

          There has been no significant change to welfare laws during the Obama administration  and I must have  missed the Public Service Announcement where he urged all single women to get pregnant on his dime. So what was the purpose of this "post."   Another racist trying to hide his sheet?  Blaming the President for this woman and her situation makes about as much sense as blaming me for the Orlando Magic having a bad season.  This isn't even subtle, and it isn't rocket science to see through the intent, so why forward and perpetuate this trash?

original sender's response:   I see your point and it's probably been more than 50 years. Actually, I really hadn't connected this to this WH. But, this administration wants to give away money it doesn't have. If there are no consequence for this behavior what's going to ever changing it?

My final response: Again, this administration "wants to give away money it doesn't have"?????  If you truly believe that, and think it relates to welfare, cite the instance. The welfare rules are tighter now than in the Bush (Sr.) administration, thanks to Clinton's "workfare" initiative, which has remained largely intact since. This administration wants to spend what it thinks needs to be spent to keep the economy afloat. Closing many tax loopholes would help hugely, but the opposition has rejected the idea. So who really has America's welfare in mind? The truth is that the guy in the White House has far more concern for persons in our income bracket than the House leadership.

           In an interesting aside, a newly elected Congresswoman  was complaining about the difficulty of maintaining her lifestyle on a "mere"  $174,000 annually. She doesn't get much sympathy from her peers, however, since the average net worth of members of Congress is $3.8 million, and surprisingly, that is up 23% between 2008 and 2010. Moreover, 78% of the wealth in the House is controlled by....wait for it...Republicans!  This makes it a bit easier to  understand why they oppose closing tax loopholes the rest of us don't even have. If Republicans were sincere about debt reduction (without crashing the economy, which would actually be in their favor for 2016!) they'd agree to both revenue streams. (increased taxes on the upper brackets, which they did, and closing huge tax advantages for "their kind of people" which they won't)

           I close with a reminder that a top marginal tax bracket of 39% in 2013  is less than half of some previous years. In 1982, the top bracket was 50% with a Republican President, in 1970, the top bracket was 79% with a Republican President. in 1965, the top rate was 90% with a Democratic President, and in 1956, Ike and a Republican majority presided over a 91% top bracket. In none of those cases am I castigating the president or the party for keeping tax rates high, since we were spending more on defense and foreign aid. I am , however very critical of those moderns (Tea Partiers, especially) with short memories who fail to recognize that the current situation traces its roots back to the massive marginal tax rate cuts of  1987-88, when in two years the marginal rate dropped from 50% to 38.5% and then to 28%. This was the gift handed Bush Sr. by his predecessor. Ronald Reagan, on the way out the door, and fully aware he would be long gone,  lowered marginal tax rates to the lowest since WWII. We are still reaping the results and paying the price.