20041031
mosh
ya, i saw the video as well. eminem always said he didn't care, but no one produces work of opinionated calibre without giving a damn, even if his sentiments were shoved way in the back of his mind.
the video nailed it allllllllll down. no one joins the military unless they had money to pay for college. the military makes college (public universities) free to get more kids to join.
it is with the tax cuts drama that i have trouble understanding. if i get it right, the couple thousand returned to my mother earlier this year is directly related to president bush's tax cut program. that's a couple thousand she returned back to the state anyways because of rising property taxes in the neighborhood where we live. while the money did pay for other things, eventually she still had to use most of her paycheck and part of mine to pay for regular things needed to keep a house going. so while we balanced out, i can see how other families might have to dig deeper to pay for taxes, property taxes especially.
property taxes are asked of neighborhood residents to pay for local schools, infrastructure (parks, roads and buildings) and city services (garbage collection, snow plowing, tree trimming, graffiti removal, fire and police patrol, clerk service for these things to be taken care of). ideally, the more money taxed out of you, the better your neighborhood will be.
president bush wants to give people a tax cut. that means more money in people's pockets... less to government services.
going back to the eminem video - there's this mother of two who got an eviction notice in the mail. so she lives in an apartment, and prolly doesn't earn that much to begin with. and then she turns to the tv with the president touting his tax cut. for weeks, that's all that he ever talked about. that means government will have to cut back on services because they'll be getting less from taxes. that funnels down to city officials being let go left and right because there's no money to pay them. that funnels down to the local public school, where the mother's two kids attend, where teachers being paid for by the government (or, if in a private school, part of their salaries are paid for by the government), who are prolly on strike because even though their ranks aren't depleted, they earn zilch and want an increase in wages and a new health care plan.
but tax cuts aren't just on government. in another roundabout way, tax cuts also mean that the mother will get less tax refund - you get incentives if you're a single mother with two dependents. so, even if you get more back per paycheck, you get less when refund time comes around. you're almost always sure to spend every cent in your paycheck anyways.
the president asked congress for more than $80 billion to fund the war. this is where all our money goes. this is what our military friends and family work on and die for currently. the democrats basically say that the war can still be fought, but at a much lesser cost in lives and money. the democrats are pushing more for diplomacy.
many argue that planning for the sept. 11 terror attacks all happened under a democrat's watch. that's why my mother went, "vote for bush! kerry will just sell us out again to the terrorists."
and then there are people like sasha, toronto resident and ardent democrat, who i met in a greyhound bus on the way back to chicago from toronto. she took a semester off from school and saved her money all summer so she can volunteer for the party in swing state michigan.
"and so, between the devil we know and the devil who never had a chance, i think we'd have the best chance of winning this war and starting over with the devil who never had a chance," she said after a debate with my cousin. she said kerry would give canada their best chances with regard to economic and political partnership with the u.s.
which is interesting because democrats seem to meddle more subtly in international affairs than republicans. kerry's been talking about giving jobs to americans, not outsourcing them overseas, the current standard businesses practice. a friend once told me that if the democrats win, they'd partner with china, and "china will gobble up the american economy in a heartbeat."
maybe. american economists are working to shake china's habit of following the dollar. it's daunting, negotiating with the most populous nation in the world, a dragon in the east, a nation whose cousins the chinese-americans in your own country you also barely know. i can see why foreign countries would want the president to win this election - it will be, as kerry debated, "more of the same."
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saturday golden nugget:this reporter is leaning democrat. whoever wrote this report with dana bash is leaning democrat for including this bit of info, and so early in an election year. - Bush hails 'growing' economy: President touts numbers on home ownership CNN, May 6 - New Mexico is a battleground state in the presidential race. In 2000, Al Gore won by 366 votes -- fewer than Bush won by in Florida. Forty percent of New Mexico residents are Hispanic, and Bush has been advertising heavily in both English and Spanish.
Kerry has the support of popular Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson.
Later, Bush traveled to Arizona to deliver a similar speech in Phoenix.
The speeches in the key Southwest states were billed as official White House events, not campaign stops, meaning they were paid for by taxpayers. [ more ]
===
saturday useless trivia: lake leaves when you kick around ankle-high piles of maple leaves yellow and wide as your palm, you hear surf breaking on rocks along the lakefront. that's what lake michigan sounds like in late summer, crashing on the rocks. ¶ 10/31/2004 01:10:00 AM
the video nailed it allllllllll down. no one joins the military unless they had money to pay for college. the military makes college (public universities) free to get more kids to join.
it is with the tax cuts drama that i have trouble understanding. if i get it right, the couple thousand returned to my mother earlier this year is directly related to president bush's tax cut program. that's a couple thousand she returned back to the state anyways because of rising property taxes in the neighborhood where we live. while the money did pay for other things, eventually she still had to use most of her paycheck and part of mine to pay for regular things needed to keep a house going. so while we balanced out, i can see how other families might have to dig deeper to pay for taxes, property taxes especially.
property taxes are asked of neighborhood residents to pay for local schools, infrastructure (parks, roads and buildings) and city services (garbage collection, snow plowing, tree trimming, graffiti removal, fire and police patrol, clerk service for these things to be taken care of). ideally, the more money taxed out of you, the better your neighborhood will be.
president bush wants to give people a tax cut. that means more money in people's pockets... less to government services.
going back to the eminem video - there's this mother of two who got an eviction notice in the mail. so she lives in an apartment, and prolly doesn't earn that much to begin with. and then she turns to the tv with the president touting his tax cut. for weeks, that's all that he ever talked about. that means government will have to cut back on services because they'll be getting less from taxes. that funnels down to city officials being let go left and right because there's no money to pay them. that funnels down to the local public school, where the mother's two kids attend, where teachers being paid for by the government (or, if in a private school, part of their salaries are paid for by the government), who are prolly on strike because even though their ranks aren't depleted, they earn zilch and want an increase in wages and a new health care plan.
but tax cuts aren't just on government. in another roundabout way, tax cuts also mean that the mother will get less tax refund - you get incentives if you're a single mother with two dependents. so, even if you get more back per paycheck, you get less when refund time comes around. you're almost always sure to spend every cent in your paycheck anyways.
the president asked congress for more than $80 billion to fund the war. this is where all our money goes. this is what our military friends and family work on and die for currently. the democrats basically say that the war can still be fought, but at a much lesser cost in lives and money. the democrats are pushing more for diplomacy.
many argue that planning for the sept. 11 terror attacks all happened under a democrat's watch. that's why my mother went, "vote for bush! kerry will just sell us out again to the terrorists."
and then there are people like sasha, toronto resident and ardent democrat, who i met in a greyhound bus on the way back to chicago from toronto. she took a semester off from school and saved her money all summer so she can volunteer for the party in swing state michigan.
"and so, between the devil we know and the devil who never had a chance, i think we'd have the best chance of winning this war and starting over with the devil who never had a chance," she said after a debate with my cousin. she said kerry would give canada their best chances with regard to economic and political partnership with the u.s.
which is interesting because democrats seem to meddle more subtly in international affairs than republicans. kerry's been talking about giving jobs to americans, not outsourcing them overseas, the current standard businesses practice. a friend once told me that if the democrats win, they'd partner with china, and "china will gobble up the american economy in a heartbeat."
maybe. american economists are working to shake china's habit of following the dollar. it's daunting, negotiating with the most populous nation in the world, a dragon in the east, a nation whose cousins the chinese-americans in your own country you also barely know. i can see why foreign countries would want the president to win this election - it will be, as kerry debated, "more of the same."
===
saturday golden nugget:this reporter is leaning democrat. whoever wrote this report with dana bash is leaning democrat for including this bit of info, and so early in an election year. - Bush hails 'growing' economy: President touts numbers on home ownership CNN, May 6 - New Mexico is a battleground state in the presidential race. In 2000, Al Gore won by 366 votes -- fewer than Bush won by in Florida. Forty percent of New Mexico residents are Hispanic, and Bush has been advertising heavily in both English and Spanish.
Kerry has the support of popular Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson.
Later, Bush traveled to Arizona to deliver a similar speech in Phoenix.
The speeches in the key Southwest states were billed as official White House events, not campaign stops, meaning they were paid for by taxpayers. [ more ]
===
saturday useless trivia: lake leaves when you kick around ankle-high piles of maple leaves yellow and wide as your palm, you hear surf breaking on rocks along the lakefront. that's what lake michigan sounds like in late summer, crashing on the rocks. ¶ 10/31/2004 01:10:00 AM
