Oh goodness.

So much has happened economically in the past few months it's almost hard to keep up.  And now after the Republicans are upset that they didn't get to read the stimulus bill, some are thinking about refusing some of the stimulus plans money allocated to them.  Some Democratic governors think they are crazy and maybe they are, but it seems like this is all going to come back and bite us in the ass.  Or rather bite our children in the ass. Also, Obama is talking about taxing the wealthy more.  Hmm this sounds like a relatively bad idea.  On the surface it sounds good, except when you get to the part oh who is considered wealthy?  On top of that how much are the wealthy already paying?  I mean to really break it down, my mom was laid off a few weeks ago, and she is considered of the 'wealthy' being unemployed and she didn’t even make that much aka nobody wants to give me a dime to help pay for college, and I was told to get anything ever she would have to go completely broke first (where’s my stimulus?).  So my mom with no income, will still get taxed those higher rates.  On top of that how much are the wealthy paying already?  To put it in personal terms again, my best friend’s dad makes a lot of money.  And so does his son working in Aspen and taking extravagant vacations all over the world, and my best friend's day pays as much in taxes (with all of the nice tax breaks he gets) as his son made in a year.  If we continue to tax the wealthy with greater and greater rates, they're not going to be the wealthy any more, and there will be less incentive for people to work more, to go to college to get those higher paying jobs, to not be on unemployment or welfare.  Welfare is something people are proud of now, proud that they didn't have to work for their money, and they get to 'screw the government' as one man put it to me like 'the government is screwing us.'  Tax increases will work because people won't be willing to work more hours, and more people will need to be hired, which is good except you lower the incentive to work, along with work ethic, and the idea that people will probably be under paid on top of higher taxes.  The higher amount of unemployment assistance causing business taxes to rise?  Well we can kiss entrepreneurship goodbye.  Raise taxes on businesses, and a lot of them will go out of business.  I recently heard a speech on how in the Springs, small businesses can't pay the sales tax, so we're missing somewhere around 17 million dollars from their sales taxes (if I remember correctly).  Raise the business tax by 3% as an example, and if they still can't pay it you are merely increasing debt, not solving a problem.

            Ending the war in Iraq is also discussed as helping to get the bills paid, but lets face it, we'll be bringing all those soldiers home, and now those that were reserve units, what if their jobs are gone? I mean it's illegal to fire someone for serving their country but the jobs just aren't there anymore.  There's more unemployment for you, on top of all the aid that those men and women need to cope with coming back.  And the wars aren’t over yet, we may being pulling out of Iraq, but Afghanistan is the big hot spot now, so anything that we will be saving Iraq we'll be spending on Afghanistan, and maybe even Iran too from some rumors (again I say rumors) that I have heard.

            McConnell is right towards the end of this article, the companies aren't doing what they need to do to remain stable, but neither is the government.  Let's create more and more debt? I know it's supposed to stimulate the economy but in all seriousness, the little money that goes to the people is either paying off debt or being saved, while the money going to save these companies probably won't help because people can't buy their products nor do they have the confidence to do so.

            Arnold Schwarzenegger is also right, we need to work together on this, it seems as though it has been a little unfair from the start with the Republicans complaints about not being about to read the stimulus package.  Now there are Republicans out there talking about having Tea Parties?  I don't know exactly how that would affect our economy but I can tell you it would not be good.  People assume that stimulus plans are good, but if you can't get agreement on it, and you can't back it with logic?  Then it means nothing but debt.

            For the people things seem to be going downhill, we’re saving people from foreclosure, but what if that means foreclosure for other people? The people who made good choices but now that they have to pay higher taxes and such can’t afford it?  What about the businesses who are going to go out of business because we need more unemployment assistance?  Why are we screwing the little guys and the people to save big companies?