Not Enough Money

 

  It’s been a while since we’ve had a quiz, and now is as good a time as any.

Q: What tax is most hated by ANY politician?

I’ll wait a few minutes until you can look it up on the interweb or conjure up a correct answer on your own.

A: None. It was a trick question that was designed to lure you in to the smarmy world of pious politicians who love your money and think it belongs to them.

Using the WABAC (Wormhole Activating and Bridging Automatic Computer) to take a ride into the past to catch a glimpse of days gone by, we’re on our way to 2013 in the People’s Republic of Maryland.

Sandwiched between Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, this diminutive state prides itself on the Blue Crab, Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore Ravens, Chesapeake Bay, and excessive taxes.

Maryland is run by ultra-liberal Lefties who fancy themselves on seemingly competing with New York State, California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, for being the most intolerant place to live in America, and they are running neck-and-neck in this competition.

Finding themselves quickly running out of pockets containing any more constituent’s money, the overly creative Maryland politicians invoked a plan to create a new, innovative source of income through charging a “storm water management fee,” a polite way to say “yet another oppressive tax.”

This brilliant idea was designed “to generate revenue to fund remedial measures to limit the amount of pollutants entering the Chesapeake Bay,” per taxfoundation.org. How great is that?

Glad you asked.

In reality, this “rain tax” was a plan to extract blood from a stone, legally. As an example, if you live in a house, you get the privilege of paying the rain tax.

Most people see rain; politicians see money

According to Maryland officials, your house sits on land that, when it rains, prevents the rainwater from entering the ground beneath your house. Rather, it runs off into the Chesapeake Bay, along with copious chemicals, fertilizers, and other pollutants. If you also have a driveway, you earned the right to pay even more tax because the driveway also acts as a rainwater diverter. So, there!

Condominium owners get charged with a $15 tax, – uh, I mean fee, to help protect The Bay. Shopping centers, on the other hand, pay thousands of dollars because of their massive parking lots and rambling stores covering the earth below, according to taxfoundation.org.

This is an ideal exercise in civil engineering, as well as grifting a hapless populace who are happy to call themselves Marylanders. But the story actually begins here.

And so it was with interest that I read an equally brilliant story on a website, theconversation.com.

Climbing aboard the WABAC machine once again, we make our way to 2022. This fast forward action helps us get the information behind a story entitled, “France’s plan for solar panels on all car parks is just the start of an urban renewable revolution,” from theconversation.com.

Not wanting to steal their thunder, the above article is readily accessible and chock full of facts and ideas. Please have fun with it.

In any case, a number of other entities, to include Michigan State University, and Disneyland Paris, are running full steam ahead on these solar panel projects.

Which begs the question: what about runoff of rainwater that is clearly washing copious chemicals, fertilizers, and other pollutants into waterways putting local aquatic creatures and migratory birds at extreme peril?

The People’s Republic of Maryland clearly saw the dangers of rain runoff to severely financially penalize their taxpayers; France, Michigan State University, and Disneyland Paris, are blind to any dangers. Just who is right?

I dare say you need to ask the greedy politicians who will never repeal taxes under the guise of fees. After all, they realize money solves all problems, and even then, it’s not enough. Uh, huh.

Final Report Card

 

Although things have changed dramatically over time in the education system and scholastics, I dare say the powers-that-be still use report cards as a barometer to measure the effectiveness of both curricula, as well as students themselves.

This is where we find ourselves attempting to make sense of the recent past, plus making corrections to avoid future issues. At the same time, we can embrace the successes while deflecting failed practices.

As such, we are now able to look into the rearview mirror and grade both the successes and failures of the performance of our pupils. In this case, our one particular pupil is none other than Joseph Robinette Biden.

Our criteria for America is as follows: Geography, History, English, Math, Economics, Government operations, Camaraderie, Physical education, and Candor.

Let’s jump right in to see how Biden fared throughout his four-year position as President of the United States.

Geography: F Joe did a wonderful job of finding countless foreign countries around the globe to which he could send literally trillions of dollars in order to better allow those nations fight the systemic crisis: climate change. Lest we forget he discovered – not unlike Christopher Columbus – a new nation, Ukraine. To Ukraine, Joe has sent roughly $200,000,000,000, unaccounted for dollars.

History: F Recalling all the fatalistic missteps of years ago – under the failed James Earl Carter administration which punished America from 1976 until 1980 – Biden appeared to emulate Carter’s hapless stint whose asinine policies raised fuel, food, housing prices, and subsequently inflation by double digits. He also ignored the results of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift from Cuba that brought tens-of-thousands of criminals and mentally ill Cubans to America; this caused a genuine problem for our nation. For this subject he earned a “D” because Biden’s brain is too fragile to blame entirely.

English: F An F is in order for English largely due to the fact Biden had terrible difficulty expressing himself in his native tongue. With professional writers and reporters finding themselves at sea after listening to Biden give speeches and off-the-cuff remarks, his responses often wound-up being fodder for comedy routines rather than finding their place as official news.

Math: F This subject is a bit difficult to grade, largely because we are unsure as to whether his calculator batteries had any life left while ciphering. Yet, Biden seemed to feel math was something that had no rules or boundaries; for example, when financially helping foreign nations, he clearly felt American dollars could be used without limits. More about this under “Economics.”

Economics: F Biden, once again, failed to see the connection between printing money and spending money. He regularly printed more money that he needed for his hare-brained wild spending sprees causing out-of-control inflation unrealized since the Carter Era. All the while, Biden freely spent freshly printed money for vote pandering along with suspected kickbacks to line his Biden Organized Crime Family’s pockets. Additionally, Biden freely allowed upwards of 12,000,000 illegal aliens into our sovereign nation causing a serious drain on our already overburdened $34,000,000,000,000 debt.

Government Operations: D This is the crux of Biden’s job – not something unfamiliar during Biden’s 50-year government service career. throughout those five centuries, Biden should have learned about the mechanics of The House and The Senate, as well as the functions of the seemingly endless government agencies. Unfortunately, Biden regularly massaged “the system” to accommodate his desires and policies by circumventing the pre-structured, established rules.

Camaraderie: D Here is another sticky subject at which Biden was clever enough to use the ‘bully pulpit’ along with ‘the court of public opinion’ as he attempted to circumvent regulations, even the Supreme Court, to eliminate any legislative roadblocks in his sleazy effort to handily redistribute wealth through such initiatives as college loan forgiveness, in addition to renewable energy boondoggles and scams.

Physical Education: F Phys Ed is not an area in which Biden excelled. He has fallen off his bicycle, fallen up stairs to Air Force One, fallen on a national academy stage, and appeared to regularly shuffle – rather than walk in steps – readily visible on video. He actually had a contingency of aides surround him to prevent prying press eyes from capturing his unsteady gait.

Candor: F Under this subject, Biden earned a solid “F.” He willingly lied on countless occasions to create an atmosphere of untrustworthiness. From lying about driving a tractor-trailer, having a key to a train, to signing a trillion-dollar bill intentionally mislabeled as an inflation reduction tool, Biden repeatedly told one whopper after another with aplomb. In fact, his falsehoods about the COVID-19 debacle gripped a nation through fear and threats, all without any remorse.

There you have it. A long-awaited report card grading the outgoing President of the United States, who used his power to benefit him and his family at the expense of an entire nation has arrived in Biden’s final days of his ability to damage America and its hard-working taxpayers.

The only benefit of this evaluation is that hopefully Americans are now able to refer to this rating to as an aid to avoid future boneheaded elections.

Golden Fleece

 

  It’s been decades since American politics has seen someone with as much character as the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire (D).

Born in 1915, Proxmire’s formative years were based in the Great Depression of the 1920’s and ‘30’s. As with most people living during those times, Proxmire lived his life as though every penny was precious – and they were.

Newspapers cost 2¢, apples were 3¢, gasoline was roughly 18¢, cars went for a lofty $600, while a modest house could be had for $1200, in 1932. Those were Proxmire’s formative years when annual incomes were $1300 for a bus driver, $3100 for a college teacher, $2400 for a dentist, and just over $900 for a construction worker. Throughout the 1930’s, the federal tax rate – based on income – was about 5%.

Times were definitely different nearly 100-years ago, and those tough financial times were not unlike our lives today under a layer of manure called “Bidenomics.” With a complicit media and overly willing Democrat Party lying to the entire world about the economic state of America since 2021, we find ourselves mired waist deep in a stinky mess.

Senator William Proxmire brought something into the federal government during his term from 1975-1988. Throughout those thirteen years he became a celebrity of sorts by exposing unbelievable waste of guvment resources in the form of precious tax dollars.

Senator William Proxmire

Publicly handing out awards meant to shame the wasteful guvment agencies, Proxmire used his position to garner wide publicity for his Golden Fleece Awards.

He handed our 168 of those awards in an attempt to curtail his squandering fellow politicians’ carefree ways of pandering via financial redistribution. Taking scarce tax money from one person to appear beneficial to another is, at best, smarmy. And Proxmire led a campaign to help stop this folly.

In 1975, Proxmire gave a Golden Fleece Award to the Federal Aviation Administration for spending $57,800 ($289,209 inflation adjusted) to study the measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including the ‘distance from knee to knee while sitting’ and measuring the ‘length of the buttocks,’” per The Washington Post.

Further, The Post stated: “In 1978, The National Institute for Mental Health earned a Fleece award for its $97,000 ($400,489 inflation adjusted) study on the activities inside a Peruvian brothel, where the researchers said repeated visits were made in the interests of accuracy.” You betcha. Wink, wink.

Another look into the sleazy world of guvment via The Washington Post, “In 1977, Proxmire gave an award to the Justice Department for spending $27,000 (119,938 inflation adjusted) to determine ‘why prisoners want to get out of jail.’ In 1979, the Pentagon was recognized for a $3,000 study ($11,123 inflation adjusted) to determine ‘if members of the military should carry umbrellas in the rain.’”

All this sad truth brings us to early 2025, on the cusp of the swearing-in of President-elect Donald J. Trump. Making regular tours across the nation before and since his resounding election in November 2024, Trump has been touting his proposed agenda to help all people while reducing the monumental federal budget deficit and debt.

With critics laughing and giggling while Biden is currently attempting to hamstring Trump’s efforts to save our United States dollar, and subsequently our indebted nation by regaining control of our current economic abyss, America has suffered for the past four-years awaiting Biden’s guaranteed departure from office.

Joining “outside” (read: volunteer, unpaid) forces with brilliant, successful entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, these three are talking about creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take axes to reduce and/or eliminate waste á La Senator Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award shaming, although with teeth as well as public humiliation.

We’re very close to the reckoning of these plans, and innocent parties are excited. On the other hand, greasy politicians “on the take” are squirming in their oversized leather chairs awaiting their time to exit before their disgrace begins. Of course any public trials will only cement accusations before their prison terms.

There you have it. Senator William Proxmire, long-forgotten crusader for the “little guy” has his true character finally revealed just in time for DOGE and a new, more honest era. I hope he’s watching over Donald Trump, as well as his clean-up crew.