Sunday, April 5, 2009

This last week on Friday I noticed a wonderful part of the human mind. It seems that folks are just resistant to change on many of the basic fundamental levels of ones every day life. See, I was lucky enough to break two of our last 40 passenger buses and was forced to drive one of our smaller 15 passenger units for my route. So as I got the news I got the bus ready with putting on my sign on the side of the bus so that potential passengers could read the sign as I pulled up beside them. No to understand these little signs, they not only display the route that the bus is on but they are color coded as well for easy recognition. Needless to say there were several instances that folks just gave me a smile and a wave as I pulled up not realizing this is the bus that they are needing to board. It was so bad that once I had to honk the horn and point at the passengers that I pick up all the time to get them to realize that this is the bus they are actually needing to board. At times it was very humorous and at others I was ready to just drive by and leave them standing there for another five minutes in the cold and frigid weather. This was really insightful for me as to study how adverse we are when it comes to change.

Now this was something I couldn’t quite understand because of how many folks voted for our current President for nothing more than wanting change. But what change have we really gotten. We received more and more economic stimulus that influences big business and those with large amounts of money. Not so much for the working man that goes through life struggling paycheck to paycheck. Where is the relief to the working man and woman that are struggling to just stay afloat. The idea of giving the banks more money so that loans are more readily available is great and all. But, what good is it if the folks getting the loans can not really afford them any way. Why do we as a country continue to reward and support failure? I nearly choked the hell out of my computer when I saw that AIG was going to pay out 165 million bucks in bonuses when folks across this country are loosing their jobs left and right, but these top executives are going to get bonuses for sinking their ship. That would be the equivalent of the company you are working for to give out millions if you don’t show up for work, or if you do show up, play computer games all day and never do a piece of work. This is ludicrous, but yet this is the change that we can look forward to. I believe that it isn’t the idea of change that people have a hard time accepting but the lack of real change. We believe change is necessary to get things going on the right track but we are not seeing it so when some happens we don’t expect it, so we are not looking for it.

So in close when will this government really bring forth some real change. Address the need for health-care reform. Help every American to get the health care that they so desperately need to survive. It is not enough to give them health insurance at an affordable rate, but setting the rates that are truly fair for the help that they are receiving. Just as an example I have health insurance with a very low deductible. But the max out of pocket expenses are horrendous. The amount that we have to pay for major problems is more than my meager salary can even come close to afford. Or when will the government get the clue that income taxes are not working any more and go to a national sales tax. This is a tax that would move much faster than income taxes and this is one that the rich or the poor can not hide from. Think for a moment of what would happen if the feds came up with a national 6% sales tax on purchases, excluding food and gasoline. You go out and buy that $1500 flat screen television, you would have to pay $90 big ones. No take that amount and place it on all Americans the amounts coming in would be staggering. The idea of raising taxes on the wealthy sound great in theory but in practicality they will do more harm than good. If I had a couple hundred million in the bank and I knew you were going to tax the hell out of what I made that year I just wouldn’t work. Now you get less and less, and companies would slow down production and things would go from bad to worse. But things you can count on is that folks with money or without are not going to stop spending it. Can you imagine Paris Hilton stopping her frivolous purchases of thousand dollar handbags, or a movie star not buying a 100k car. No way, one thing you can always count on is that those folks that have money will all ways flaunt it. Flashy cars, expensive clothes, and big homes will never go away. With the use of a national sales tax, that makes it impossible for them to get off with big write offs and over payed accountants. It now creates an equal playing field, creating a you play, you pay economy that would move a hell of lot more money than the meager pay roll taxes that we are currently spending and receiving.

No comments:

Post a Comment