What a relief that Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoed two meritless Bills from the Legislature ostensibly controlled by an insane cabal of Republicans, Tea-Partiers and worshippers of perpetual tax-cutting guru Grover Norquist. The two proposed measures were the new strict requirements for Presidential candidates to get on the Arizona Ballot (The “Birther” Bill) and the proposal to permit people to carry firearms on specific University locations (The “Guns on Campus” Bill). It is a relief they both were rejected by a conservative who finally drew a line in the Arizona desert that some ideas from the far right are just too nasty, stupid, and outrageous to be enacted into law.
Fortunately the part-time Arizona legislature is now out of session until next year so they can’t override the vetoes (they might find the votes since the House and Senate are overwhelmingly Republican). It is a relief that the legislature can’t pass any other crazy bills for the balance of 2011.
This past session, the legislature was able to cut enough from primary, secondary and university educational funding, plus gut Medicaid and other programs for the poor, to balance the State Budget (with a few more accounting tricks and hidden borrowing thrown in for good measure). Arizonans never have to worry that state taxes will go up when the legislature is in session. They just dump public programs and mandates onto cities and counties (many of them controlled by Democrats) who must determine how to pay for needed public programs.
In prior years and budgets the state legislature simply absconded with various “rainy day” or saved funds belonging to most local taxing districts to balance the state budget. Even after the public voted to raise the sales tax by a penny with the understanding the new funds would prevent educational cuts, the legislature gutted educational funding anyway. So much for following what the general public wants when Republicans are completely beholden to their wealthy benefactors and to Grover Norquist and his anti-government, anti-tax minions. A plurality of Arizona’s electorate voted these morons into office though why everyone must suffer these nasty results is beyond comprehension. No nation or state can long survive if its principle policy is to eat its own children.
I won’t go into why these two vetoed bills deserved rejection as I have discussed these matters in various prior posts on TMV. At this point in the decline of the American Empire, the best we can hope for is “it could have been worse.” The Birthers and Gun-Nuts will now go after Governor Brewer via recall and primary challenges. (Don’t these people have jobs and other meaningful things to occupy themselves?) However, complete imbeciles, morons and jackasses never give up. They believe their false facts, conspiracy theories and immutable worldviews. (Some may also suffer from small male genitalia and even smaller cerebral cortexes.) Fortunately (it could be worse) they only constitute about 20% of the U.S. population and still a minority in any electorate. They can influence the outcome of some elections but even our ruling Oligarchy/Plutocracy/Kleptocracy doesn’t takes them too seriously. They are just another lunatic fringe in the ever-worsening American political landscape.
It’s nice to know all those massive tax cuts over the past few decades for wealthy Americans and large global corporations have worked out so well. They stash their ill-gotten trillions in off-shore tax haven nations and move funds between various foreign subsidiaries. They continue to fire Americans and greatly expand their overseas payrolls – not only in low-skill jobs but now in many high-skill fields – all of whom are paid fractions of what Americans would expect to be paid. They claim that they must go where the growing markets are – and yet the 300 million plus people in the U.S. are not considered part of that elite group for future favors and preferences. The trillions produced by free trade and tax cuts are going everywhere but here in the U.S. Who would invest in White Star Lines when the Titanic is sinking?
Yet this nation spends trillions on military defense and offense around the globe to protect the economic interests of these manipulative corrupt crony capitalists. Somehow no one has ever adequately explained how hundreds of military bases and trillions of wasted dollars in unwinnable wars and endless procurements of expensive armaments fit any logical and limited constitutional definition of “Common Defense” of the nation. To placate the masses we’ll get 50,000 more crummy low-paying part-time jobs at McDonald’s to employ all those unemployed college graduates who are captives of non-dischargeable student loan debt. What a great f**ck**g country we have become thanks to our oligarchy! It has been a bi-partisan effort but most of the credit over the past 30 years belongs to conservatives and republicans and the enabling stupid, shallow, and willfully ignorant American electorate for which I hold no respect – only contempt.
We really need to impose some huge tax increases on wealthy individuals and corporations (including one-time large confiscations of wealth and cash sitting around unproductively). If these measures drives them out of the country – “so be it” in the immortal words of U.S. House Speaker Boehner. Of course taxing those who own our politicians and who benefit from massive public bailouts, low interest charges, lack of meaningful regulations, hidden financial gifts from the Federal Reserve, and our huge global military, will never occur – but us poor Plebeians can dream. Our oligarchs don’t give a damn about the best long term interests of this nation or the vast majority of Americans – so let’s just f**k them before they completely f**k us – but then we’re probably too late for that.
Do you think our top 1% wealthy citizens and our large (nominally headquartered) global corporations deserve anything better since most of them through their greed, hubris, corruption, fraud, and myriad of outright illegal, immoral and unethical actions crashed this country, its economy and our very democracy? No criminal prosecutions and no likelihood of such prosecutions ever since we must not unduly upset our overlords. We live in a land of complete injustice and legalized fraud, and it’s every man for himself. Fortunately guillotines are easily-assembled low-tech devices that could prove to be highly effective in changing minds and behavior without ever being used. I still repeat my prior TMV admonition for citizens to just stop paying their mortgages, credit cards, student loans, medical bills and everything else that enriches our corrupt oligarchy.
I was busy for the past month trying to find more consulting work and doing taxes – for myself and about a dozen small clients. (I’ll get paid when they get refunds.) I am happy to say that my family and half of my clients did not contribute any federal income taxes to our corrupt national government. Even what we paid in social security and Medicare taxes were all refunded thanks to the earned income tax credit dating from the Reagan years. (We’ll never see those benefits paid out in our lifetimes so why pay them now?) I’m glad my family has not contributed much of anything over the past several years to this corrupt, dysfunctional, immoral, unjust and declining American Imperium.
Back in the 1990’s when I made relatively good money, I contributed my fair share of taxes to all levels of government – and the nation was not involved in any useless wars. However the needed national infrastructure investments were not being made but I had hope that would change. At this point in our history, rebuilding our transportation, educational, energy and communication systems are really a waste of time considering the imminent collapse of our nation – politically and economically – during the next decade. Let some other occupying power shell out the money and reorganize parts of this country after we must admit failure and completely give up for lack of money, willpower and intelligence.
Someone please tell me why anyone should give a damn about the U.S. anymore.
Submitted 4/20/11 by Marc Pascal ranting from sunny and warm Phoenix, Arizona – who is far from feeling “moderate” today and is instead angry as hell. For those readers who might complain that I should have split this 1,400-word post into 2 or 3 separate ones – I really don’t care because I’m an arrogant prick who happens to be much smarter than you. I urge you to go to the many shallow Internet sites that appeal to those with short attention spans and limited cerebral cortexes.