What's Up This Friday Morning
Clear skies here at the horse camp in the mountains of Southern California, but frost on the ground is so thick it looks like snow. I think the cougar that was lurking in the rocks up the hill for the last five days has moved on. Zeekia, my friendly coyote, was back begging for supper at sundown yesterday, and this morning a multitude of rabbits and quail are cavorting all over the place.
The news people are rehashing the Republican candidate's debate that took place in Florida last night. I watched it and although they all were very eloquent, I thought Mitt Romney did the best for himself. I was interested to hear Huckabee's explanation of how his plan for a sales tax would replace the IRS and the current income tax. I think it's worth studying. He has a plan to ease the pain for people with lower incomes.
In news of the world, people are still blowing each up in the middle east, and a farmer in Britain has built a castle that is contrary to the local zoning laws. He built a small castle with towers and turrets, and kept it completely hidden by bales of hay for four years. His family could see only hay when they looked out the windows. The law stated that if an illegally built house had no complaints against it for four years, it could stand. So now that the four year period is up, the farmer removed the hay, but the officials are crying foul.
That is almost as good a story as the one that came out last week about a little boy in Mexico who glued his hand to his bed so that he wouldn't have to go to school. His parents tried nail polish remover, paint thinner and everything else they could think of to no avail. At last they called the fire department, or some other savvy agency that succeeded in freeing the boy. Poor kid, he had to go to school anyway.
Now, how did this happen? What did I click that made red underlined print? I guess I'll quit while I'm ahead. Better luck next time.
Now that this blurb has been published, the text is no longer red and underlined. I don't even know how it happened. Oh well.
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Comments: 17
Re Huck's tax plan. As I understand it, he wants to collect all this sales tax, which is an extremely regressive tax, since poor people spend a much higher proportion of their income on taxable goods than wealthy, or even middle class people. Then, give,the poor people a "rebate." In effect, this is a huge welfare program for the poor, larger than anything we have now, with all of its administrative problems of waste, fraud and abuse. I am surprised no other Republicans have called him on this, and pointed out what his program really means.
But Huckabee's other ideas put him in the class of crackpot, in my opinion. He has stated that he wants to replace the Constitution with "Biblical laws." That is, laws based solely on the Bible. I don't know if that means he wants to kill all the gay people as Leviticus requires. And of course, anybody who blasphemes the Bible.
It goes without saying that he is against a woman's right to choose.
Fortunately, I don't think he is electable. His ideas are on the lunatic fringe of American political thought.
Ruth, I am so envious of you and where you live. Well, maybe not the cougar. :-) On the thirteen acres where we lived before, we had deer, red fox, rabbits and hawks. I loved watching the hawks. We had been told there were lots of coyotes, but I only saw one in the two years we were there. I think he had his eye on our cat, Mama Cass. He became interested in something in the trees when I came out on the deck. LOL
I'm afraid I have dire thoughts about sales tax on everything and 25% or more at that.
Think of what that would add to groceries, paper necessities, fuel oil, clothing, diapers, blankets and coats. etc. etc. etc. I never am in favor of the government taking something and then promising to give it back as a rebate. Why take it in the first place? Income tax is the easier place to give sliding scale according to income. Once, some time ago I decided to test out the theory of flat tax being fair and less complicated. I took that year's income tax form and figured what I would have paid at 5% of my gross income with nothing deducted before the tax was figured. It was way more than I paid on my income on the sliding scale and as a divorced mother with three children. Almost 4 times as much. Ever since then I do not believe that flat tax is fair to the lower income people.
In this election I won't vote for any Republican candidate, although I will always like McCain just because I do, but that doesn't mean that I, or anybody else, shouldn't be looking for any seed of a good idea no matter who it comes from. A really good idea can be studied and discussed and altered to become something both sides can agree upon. I think doing away with the IRS is a good idea that makes a place to start improving our tax system.
If you want a laugh, you ought to read Dave Barry's account of the woman who accidentally got stuck to her kitchen floor while putting down new tiles. I'd look it up on the Internet but I'm too...tired. Maybe later.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to comment on my article about life's passages and rites of transition. The comments were great! I loved yours and I agree wholeheartedly. I don't like the term "honey" either.
P.S. Someone asked me how the dog got on the roof and why it fell off. I answered. Kind of strange story.