Bam! Just Like That!: The 1st cut is the deepest?

Yippee, Skippy!
Another tax cut is practically on its way!
This one's geared toward people who can afford to invest in more than a mortgage, utilities, food and gas each month.
("I ain't sayin'. I'm just sayin'. Know what I'm sayin'?")
For the person or household that makes $50 thou a year, this could mean $46 bucks a year. That's a whopping 88.4 cents a week…cold cash!
Of course the banner hung over our dugout still reads "Loser Circle" because these little cuts every now and again that amount to nickel and dime cash in hand for the majority of everyone… are creating a cash deficit for the systems, both federal and local that we as tax payers have to make good on in the form of real folding money.
While we continue to still choke up the taxes for often, even basic government services such as record keeping, issuing licenses, educating the children, putting out a house fire and police response, now we get to pay even higher prices for filing fees, use permits, public area usage fees and higher state/local/property and general taxes demanded for over the counter sales and for the privilege of working and having any income at all.
I figure just the announcement of this latest "cut" is going to have them salivating in the state capitals and city halls across America.
That $46 bucks a year is going to look a lot like more increased fees for local government services on the very real street level. And with an even greater cost than local gov't could have ever asked or hoped for originally from the "pollies" on Capital Hill. You see "We the people" have no recourse but to accept and pay a tax notice, while bills for funding before congress can be vetoed and defeated by our illustrious, always looking out for us, "representatives".
The food chain looks something like this:
The feds hide behind these tax cuts and give less to the states. The states then have less to give to the counties. As a result the counties then have no choice but to give less for basic operational funding to the cities… The money has got to come from somewhere, folks. And it "trickles down" on us.
Thus, a lousy $46 bucks, that appears to be a win for the little guy (that can invest)turns into at least that much being asked for basic services, individually, from all three of the above mentioned sources, turning that $46 windfall into a $150 to $200 deficit in most mid to low income homes.
People making $20,000…$30,000 or $40,000 per year aren't even in the running for this "tax cut". Yet they will surely have to foot the bill asked by state and local authorities for the dwindling funding.
People who are millionaires will retain approximately what any two of these households will live on, (before taxes) for a year.
If no one has noticed the rises in state/local government taxes and fees for services since the first "tax cut" went into effect some 3 or 4 years ago that yielded on average a dollar per day to the median household in America, then maybe my house is the exception to the rule and I'm making a point about nothing at all here but a very isolated and individual problem. The law of averages is against that being the case however; and you must know that.
And so, in this instance the deepest cut is hardly limited to the first, as the song and old adage would suggest. Each and every "cut" that meets legislative approval is akin to the death of 1000 cuts for the average home in this country and a benefit to the affluent.
But the myth will continue that we all have taxation with representation.
Some of us may gain some small amount of pocket change…less per week than what could get you on public transportation for a day, …in return everyone will be shelling out 3 to 4 times that amount once again for the exaggerated figures needed to make up for the diminishing federal funding for our local government services.
Yippee, Skippy!
Another tax cut is practically on its way!

"May I take your (natural) order? Or What Really Seperates Man from Animals...(maybe)

Slowly but surely time heals all wounds . . . and wounds all heels. As such, as the President's approval rating would imply, he and his posse are edging ever closer to getting their comeuppance.
Now that the message seems to be out there, I'm finding the means to back away from my angry obsession with the state of the union and it's leadership, just enough to get back to allowing the gray matter to meander into more philosophical pastures.
Of late I've been pondering just what sets mankind apart from our animal brethren.
There was a time I'd have told you that it was our ability to laugh. But I have a Lab-mix at home that actually smiles at us in our family. Kind of a sly, Elvis curling of the upper lip that was spooky until we confirmed that he only did this when he was glad to see one of us rather than when he wanted us to leave him be. And ok, it's a smile and not a laugh, but I figure if he can go that far, he probably has his moments where he secretly gets a chuckle or two outta stuff.
I've seen film footage too of dolphins and chimpanzees who, in their own fashion seemed to be sharing a guffaw or two. So maybe laughing isn't the thing that sets us apart.
Later I'd have contended that perhaps the difference between the species was that mankind could laugh at itself. But I've seen so little of that, that I've become either too jaded or cynical to put much weight behind that theory anymore.
Then it occurred to me that maybe what set us apart from them was our ability to actually comprehend that there are other species and such.
In all fairness however; I could never be so self aggrandizing as to think for a moment that I had any idea what goes on in, say an iguana's head, let alone share any real insight into what he or she can or could not comprehend.
Then recently a genuinely viable possibility was presented to me in a book I was reading. The author, by way of telling his tale proposed that mankind, at least modern mankind…say within the last 10,000 years of our approximately 3 million year (widely accepted) earthly existence was different from all the other animals on the planet because we are the only species who willingly (yet inexplicably) make it a practice to lock our food away from each other and all other of God's creatures and force our selves to find a means to win it back from storage through labor.
While this difference is cultural as opposed to organic, genetic or biological it does stand, along with other probable reasons as at least a part of the answer to my ponderence.
Figure. For the better part of 3 million years, man existed in a forage/hunt and gather mode and much like any species on the planet, food was basically anyone's for the taking. Plant a few seeds here, pull up a root there, hunt some game over there, catch a fish over here. Thankfully with better living through tool use, man as well as all other species were presented with a planet that yielded free food to everything and everyone.
Fast forward to the last 10,000 years and as a result of the agrarian revolution, you can't get a meal without a paycheck or a meal check of some sort anymore…anywhere. The millennia of the "free lunch" is over.
How did we get here? How did we come to believe that this was the better way to live rather than the means proven effective since our time began?
Because we're the more intelligent species? "The smartest monkeys"?
Well, while the rest of creation simply goes their way and eats off the fruit of the land without a care or a cost, we on the other hand spend 8, 10, 12 or more hours each day in voluntary bondage to other people in order that we might buy back a product that the earth has been producing and supplying all life forms with, since the day it cooled down from a fiery furnace for free. We've decided to depend and become reliant on others to provide our very nourishment, then we simply shake our heads and excuse it with a resigned "that's just the way it is!".
That's not the way it is, folks. That's what we accepted and choose to do, contrary to the natural laws that existed before the last 10,000 years. That's what we, unlike every and any other species on the planet have made of our existence on planet earth.
And for me, it goes a long way towards pointing out just what makes mankind different from the rest of the residents here on "God's little half acre".
We got to a point where we felt bold enough to mess with the natural order of things. And now we have little option but to work all week for "the man" in order to buy back the very food that the earth once gave us all for free as a birthright.
Why? As stated, For some reason or many, the culture of modern man agreed to let someone lock it all up!
Enjoy the weekend.
Monday and returning to the treadmill are just around the corner.