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VOTE 11/3/2012 5:16:00 AM
What does it all mean, Alfie? Having earned less than $250,000 so far in 2012, I apparently have not given the tax break extension the consideration I should. Even President Obama’s heartfelt plea to Congress to leave the middle class unscathed while taxing the wealthy has left me in a state of unabashed indifference — or, as they say, dumb, fat and happy.
So, what do I really care? I have lived undisturbed for many years as a retired senior citizen on a fixed income, and I have not paid a penny in income tax. To be sure, I have declared everything declarable from royalties to dividends, to Social Security and Medicare — even to gifts and contributions — yes, and even to that famous old godsend, Miscellaneous! — and not once has the IRS run a search and rescue mission to increase their vaults by taking even more ducats from me!
Assuming that luck and its kissing cousin ‘sheer happenstance’ become the dominant factors and I do take in more than $250,000 (stop laughing), will I become, like so many of my “rich” friends and relatives, a muckraking, disenfranchised, self-serving American with the base instincts of a guttersnipe on steroids? Pay additional taxes because I am well recompensed for my toil (or lack thereof)? Are you completely nuts!
If you are waiting for final instruction on what you should do inside the polling booth come the 6th of November, I can only explain it to you — I cannot comprehend it for you. I even signed up — my affliction notwithstanding — to be a volunteer ‘poll worker’, if they wanted me. Having heard nothing one way or the other, screw em. They had their chance.
In any event, my personal belief is that if I remain steadfast to the middle class (despite the Fox pundits), I will, as a patriot, be delighted to hand over to the government the pittance Mr. Obama has asked for — assuming circumstances took me to an eligible status (which, thanx be to God, is not about to happen!).
Already my unnamed wealthy counterparts complain they are paying through nose. What possible difference can it make to me, then, if that sum is increased by some tiny and phantom percentage?
America is a big country burdened by an enormous debt (the result of ancient foolishness examined in previous columns), and we, as citizens of the greatest country on Earth, should be proud to do whatever we can to assist Uncle Sam in his hour of need. Right?
Otherwise, America will go the way of the Roman Empire and disappear completely, which it will eventually do, anyway. If an increase in taxes can achieve even a slight equity, we should be delighted our leader has the foresight to see a remedy somewhere on the horizon (his adversary obviously cannot).
And in no sense should it be treated, or even thought of, as a ‘partisan’ exercise. But you know as well as I, it will be.
The GOP has made much of this, and well they should. They are, after all, the party of the rich. Democrats — or liberals, as they are often labeled —
is the party of the middle class, the people, the bourgeois, Socialists and Communists, Nazis, etc.; and if the House agrees with its Republican majority, the tax code extensions will apply to everyone regardless of income — and then where will we be? Right where are right now. Deeper in debt and no relief in sight.
Some say it would be a great opportunity to get rid of the tax code altogether and adopt such as the Fair Tax Plan, a Flat Tax, or even Herman Cain’s favorite toy, the 9-9-9 arrangement. Hmmmm. I wonder . . .
And, of course, there are those who say the status quo is best. But they are wrong — dead wrong. When has the status quo ever worked and been the American way?
Even during Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, not to mention the presidents after FDR, where would be if the status quo had been allowed to survive? Right. Slavery would still be a way of life, the Panama Canal would be simply a dream, TVA would look good only on paper, the Great Depression would still depress us, the Berlin Wall would still divide the German capitol between Russia and Democracy, and this ‘diese spalte würde in Deutsch oder Japanse geschrieben werden!’
We have only people like Barack Obama to thank for a plan we can now see for getting us out of the mess that was previously created. Although I am still deposed to sit out this election (for sound reasons I have dwelt on before), I am still confident the man deserves and will get a second term. I could be wrong. And if I am, God help us — we’ll know for sure once the votes are counted if, thanx to Sandy, they ever are.
If I am wrong, we will suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — with egregious and sad foreboding. A collapse similar to that of the Roman Empire will occur only that much sooner. Maybe even during the next millennium.
It would seem the only way left to extend the tax benefits for everyone (not to mention repealing the National Healthcare law) would be a total sweep of Congress and the White House by the GOP.
As Jay Leno prophetically said, “Only one thing stands in Mitt Romney’s way. Mitt Romney.”
Billy Graham was once asked if we should pray for the Senate? He answered his own question: “When I look at the senators, I pray for the country,” he said. In reality, he would do well to pray for all of us.
I am reminded of a time during my Boy Scout years when I was much maligned by the troop’s hierarchy because of an altercation with another scout (we were both major achievers and well-decorated with a full sheath of Merit Badges). I had inadvertently rankled everyone with an article I had written for the troop’s newspaper about a fellow scout.
In it, the scout claimed I had “belittled” him because I called attention to his dereliction of duty as a Cub Den Leader. A special meeting was eventually held where we both had an opportunity to air our views, and at the conclusion a vote was taken by the entire troop to determine who was right and who was wrong.
The outcome, which exonerated me, was 34 for to 1 against. Guess who cast the single vote.
Which reminds me, I never knew there were so many people who cared whether or not I vote in the Presidential Election. Ever since stating in a previous column I would rather sit out November 6 than give even a hint that my negative vote might indicate any knowledge or concern over something as ludicrous as the GOP ticket, ever since then I have received hundreds of emails decrying my ‘un-American attitude’.
“Don’t you know every vote counts?” was the gist of most communication. “How would feel if Mr. Obama loses because of you? . . . He needs you! . . . What makes you so sure Romney will not win?”
Get real.
Even my 94-year old mother-in-law beat me up. “If you don’t vote, Obama doesn’t deserve a second term, and he’ll never get one. My vote will wipe yours out, anyway.”
“Are going to get out to the polls on Election Day?”
“No. I will mail in a Republican absentee ballot. But that’s beside the point.”
If I should vote (and I am not saying I will, especially if I have to stand in line for an hour), I plan to take care of every other candidate and skip over the Presidential choices. I think I already stated I would alternate all the other viable entries right down the line and vote for as many Democrats as possible — just making sure there is a liberal majority in both the House and Senate, as well as every place else.
