"The post office wants to increase the price of a stamp by 2 cents to 46 cents... Postal officials announced... proposed price increases Tuesday, averaging about 5 percent... " Originally, the article also included this: "Under the law, the post office is generally limited to increases no more than the rate of inflation -- 0.9 percent for the year ended in May." Now why did that get taken out? Why did the tone of the article change to sympathy for the USPS? "The rate increase is part of a series of money-saving plans announced in March." HUH??? I think I must have a different definition of "saving" than the one USPS is using!
"However, the agency is allowed to seek a larger increase in unusual circumstances. Potter said in March he planned to take that step." Well, yes, of course, no need for them to be on a restricted budget. So much better to tax all of us into abject poverty than them to share some of the pain! "The weak economy has sharply reduced mail volume... significant drop in lucrative first-class mail, with more and more people turning to the Internet to communicate with each other as well as to receive and pay bills." I'm sure that's true but it's also true that volume is down because the US Congress continues to put limits on what can be shipped through USPS. Cigarettes are but one of the items that was bringing income to USPS before Congress decided that was bad and stopped it under the Pact Act. Seriously, you should check out what's prohibited these days. No wonder the corkscrews disappeared from the holiday packages years back! No wonder so many companies have shifted completely to UPS and FedEx!!! Yep, bad to bring income to the USPS because Congress is more interested in dictating our behavior than balancing the budget.
"Local property taxes have become a defining issue in New Jersey politics, rising 70 percent in the last decade..." It's a fundamental of property rights and taxation that they aren't supposed to tax property to the level of effectively taxing one out of their property. Does it sound like New Jersey gets that? How about where you live? "Irby, proprietor of Variety Fair 5 & 10, a Rice Village staple since 1948, closed the business Wednesday." When property taxes continue to rise, people loose their homes, rents have to go up and more homes and businesses are lost. We've raised taxes across this country to the point where small businesses are constantly struggling and many are fading into the past now to the detriment of local economies as well as the national economy.
Red light camera taxes: "With most Texas cities charging civil fines of between $75 and $100 per violation, collections across the state have reached more than $103 million since a revised red-light camera law took effect in 2007. State figures show Houston has collected the largest amount: about $24 million through May... Paul Kubosh, a Houston traffic attorney who has led the Houston petition drive to repeal the cameras, accuses the city of 'selling the streets to the highest bidder. It's a voter revolt.' " I think we need to revolt a whole lot more about the revolting laws being passed!
Then there's what they do with the tax money. "The government is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants..." WTF??? It'll help the economy? What CRAP. It's just more spending gone wild in DC. California invokes minimum wage when the legislators jack around but, of course, it's actually going to send bankrupt California into even further debt. Isn't that amazing??? Put our freaking money back in OUR pockets and we'll get the economy fixed effectively and efficiently. You government bozos can't do jackshit correctly!
"For years, most people who worked for state or local governments accepted a fact of life: Their pay wasn't great. The job security was." More CRAP. Given the skill level of most government employees, their pay is fucking incredible! "State and local gov't employees' job security fades." YIPPEE!!! May I suggest we cut law enforcement forces by 50% so we can get rid of guys like this summarily?
"Queen Elizabeth II is worth an estimated £290 million ($446 million), making her the 245th richest person in the United Kingdom, according to The Sunday Times newspaper's annual rich list published in April." I realize that sounds like a lot and we'd all love to be in her place at first blush BUT she's taking the economic hit just as the British monarchy always does in modern times; they tighten their budgets just like their citizens have to do. "Her annual spending has fallen by 17 percent in real terms since 2001, the palace said." Too bad we can't say the same for how Congress has handled our money!
We desperately need to cut legislator benefit packages by 50% and then tie future increases directly to economic growth AND we need to cut what they spend on themselves by 80% and slap them every time they tried to up those slush funds. They NEED to come to us, their employers, when they want a pay raise rather than being able to write their own checks and sign off on their own pay raises.
Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss said in the Republican's weekly address that the country's $13 trillion debt is a national security issue that will leave the U.S. vulnerable and force future generations to "pay higher taxes to foot the bill for Democrats' out-of-control spending." Oh, please, everything's a "security issue" these days! Whatever!! $13 trillion dollars is damn sure an issue though and neither of the big 2 parties gets to weasel on the issue as they BOTH racked up this obscene debt for us and our progeny to pay off. I say chunk them ALL out of office. Maybe we should put an entire group of unknowns in office. They damned sure couldn't do any worse than these "professional" politicians have done.
It's way past time for some serious taxpayer revolting in this country, in these great United States, we the people need to slap back. What do we really have to loose that they haven't already taxed us out of or are trying to tax us out of?