"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
Well, the state of New York sure picked the nations pockets. Think
derivatives.
Hey, that's good ol' conservative, free-market bidness, Wes! Hands off
'dem
businessmen! What kinda conservative are you, anyhow? d8-)
A thinking conservative.
Uh-oh. A RINO, eh? g
g Alaska is the real welfare queen. Besides getting almost $2 back
for every dollar they're taxed, that great free-market governor of
theirs
rigged things so they skim enough off of the oil companies to send a
nice,
fat, $4,000 welfare check to every crackpot and rug rat in the state. Of
course, we pay for all of it.
At least Alaska sends us oil and natural gas, something we need.
That's not Alaska. That's the oil companies that drill it and pipe it.
Alaska sends us blubber, frozen halibut, and crackpot politicians.
Barney Frank and Pelosi are not from Alaska.
Delaware, just sends
higher credit card bills.
More good ol'....bidness. It's a free market! You aren't a closet commie
now, are you? You can just switch to another, competitive credit-card
company. Competition guarentees that they always have the lowest possible
rates. g
Remember when Congress wanted to put limits on credit card interest an
administration ago?
Soon we were hearing it would cause the colapse of the financial industry
and the idea was
abandoned. Sounds like both parties are owned.
It started in 1980; the culprit in breaking down the old interest rate
limits was South Dakota, not Delaware; and Dan Quayle is the one who gave
the signal, in 1991, that the President (Bush I) would veto the bill if it
got through the House.
You may find this brief history of the credit card industry entertaining. It
doesn't go all the way back to the Sears Revolving Credit card, but it's a
good history of the past few decades:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...more/rise.html
Well, some of us, I pay my charges off inside of 20 days so I
don't get hit with interest.
Oh, I left out the govermental industry centered around Washingon DC,
that
one sure sucks
the cash out of the rest of the country.
Then they pass most of it out to the red states. Did you ever look at
which
states send tax money in, and how much each one gets back? Sheesh.
What is it, 45K private sector workers, 74K governmental sector workers.
Where are those
governmental sector workers bunched up at? Not a red state. Some one
pays them. Must be
trickle up.
There are just over 2 million federal employees (not counting 3 million
active and reserve military personnel). Approximately 85% of the 2 million
work *outside* of the D.C. metro area. So you're looking at around 300,000
federal employees in and around Washington, including the nearby areas of
Maryland and Virginia.
If they earn an average of $74k (it's just slightly less), that's $22
Billion. Federal tax revenue is $2.1 Trillion.
Wes, that's 1% of the tax revenue. I think you'll have to look elsewhere for
your scapegoat. g
(This agrees closely with the total federal nondefense civilian salaries and
wages of $163 Billion, nationwide).
If you want to see where all our tax money goes, in moderate detail and from
a variety of angles, see the government's Consolidated Federal Funds Report:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/cffr-08.pdf
What do you think they do with that money in Washington? Stuff it into
their
mattresses? It gets converted into pork and sent back out to the states --
mostly the ones with old Senators.
I'm not going to look up what amendment made direct election the rule but
I still like the
idea of the state legislature picking senators. Even if the legislature
isn't my party.
It would be a sure thing Levin would have been retired long ago. Some
states are going to
be pick your party strongholds but a lot of them change parties
periodically.
Okay, I looked it up 17th.
You have a lot of faith in state legislatures. As far as I can see, most of
them are second- or third-raters, and even more ideological and politically
polarized than Congress.
Retired congressmen have commented in several places lately that the
gerrymandering of districts has forced individual congressmen to reach for
the political poles, whereas they used to have to try to cover the center.
It makes sense to me. And that's a function of state governments. They set
the districts.
I hope you didn't get hit too hard with the snow.
sigh It's all over, for a while. We wound up with about another 12
inches.
I just finished shoveling the driveway an hour ago and my back is
recovering. If I was in shape for it, I'd get out my cross-country skiis
and
just say screw the driveway. I can ski to the train station in about three
minutes and the supermarket in ten -- or I could, 20 years ago.
I haven't broke out my skis once this year. Pretty pathetic on my end.
I gotta snow blow in the morning, nothing stopping me other than it is
hard to back up the
driveway without running off an edge when there isn't any sharp edges to
see.
Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller