Attacks in Iraq Continue to Decline

(November 19, 2007) – Like I was sayin… if we don’t pull out soon, things will continue to get better.

 Today I was reading an article in the NYT indicating how the attacks in Iraq continue to decline.

According to the article, since the “surge”, Iraqi forces casualties are down 40% and civilian fatalities are down 75% over the last few months.  Other news stories point to a continued decline in U.S. caualties.  I for one would like to see this continue.  The sooner things become stable in Iraq, the sooner our troops can come home.  I am shocked by the number of people who get upset by good news from Iraq (see my post about Clyburn).

I would imagine however, with this news, you will begin to see further calls for U.S. forces to pull out now from the”please don’t let this thing work out” crowd in congress who would rather see America fail and gain a political win for THE PARTY than see things improve.

Question: How much money is ‘too much’?

(Nov 17, 2007) – Like I was sayin’… you can shave my head, but it won’t cure your baldness.

 I haven’t seen it in a while, but every now and then, one of the Dem candidates talks about those “greedy CEOs” who make so much more money than YOU do.

I brought the topic up the other day at lunch and was shocked at the number of people felt that “some” people make too much money and something needs to be done about it.

In America, do we want or need our government to decide how much is too much?  When I hear that some CEOs earn 400 times the average worker, I ask myself “how do I become a CEO?” and not”what can be done to put a stop that?”.  A couple of people at lunch indicated that people shouldn’t be “allowed” to make that much as it isn’t fair.

 Granted, some CEOs do a terrible job, but is it up to the federal government to step in and ensure the bad CEOs make less?  I am not talking about the corrupt CEOs at Eron, Tyco, and other places, but rather leaders at companies that either lead well or don’t.

And why is this only aimed at CEOs?  Why not actors or sports starts?  Mel Gibson made at least 100 million on “The Passion”, but the guy that brings him his coffee or one of the stunt men probably didn’t make anything like that.  How many millions does Tom Cruise make to act in a move while the person that picks out his clothes for the film makes tens or hundreds of times less?  What about the guy that hands Lebron James a Gatorade?  Shouldn’t he share in the millions?

I believe that we should be able to make what somebody is willing to pay us, regardless of how much more we make than somebody else.  In America for now, you can earn as much as you can without the government stepping in when you make “too much”.  Why would we want to change that?

Incidentally, if you would like to pay me 100 times what I am making now, I can arrange my schedule for interviews….

Mass. Boy Scouts Stopped from Supporting the Troops

(Nov. 16, 2007)  Like I was sayin… for it or against it, you have to support the troops.

 According to an article I saw today, a troop of boy scouts were stopped from supporting the troops in Cambridge.

 Apparently, the boy scouts had put collection boxes at 33 of the city’s polling stations on election day in the hopes of collecting candy, magazines, toiletries, etc… for the troops.

Apparently, when somebody complained that the boxes represented a political statement, the collection boxes were removed.

 It seems to me that the scouts were collecting for the troops and not a ’support the war’ drive or a candidate running for office.

Seems that the city of Cambridge allowed 1 person to make their own political statement by having the collection boxes removed.  But like I was saying… you can’t afford to offend even 1 person anymore.

Do we need the “Mother of all Tax Hikes”?

(Nov 9, 2007) - Like I was sayin… you have to be nuts to think that taking more money from people somehow helps the country.

 Chuck Rangle (D!) is hoping to raise taxes on some people in the near future.  Not to mention allowing the current tax cuts to expire which would return the top tax rate to 45%.  Do people really believe that taking 45% of somebodies income is fair?

Rangle calls his plan ‘reform’ as it would make the tax system more fair by having some people pay less and having others pay more.  This is a new meaning of fair.

Another thing that we are supposed to believe is that by taxing high earners we are all much better off some how.  Just the other day at work, somebody was indicating that people should only be allowed to make so much as nobody needs to earn more than a certain amount.  I am so worried about the future of America when Americans begin to believe that we should begin putting caps on how successful anyone could become.

Here is a great article that talks about flat taxes (although I am personally a fan of the national sales tax).

It seems that so many people are on the ‘tax the rich’ bandwagon (which got us into this mess in 1913), but don’t understand how the economy works.

Don’t get me wrong, some people shouldn’t have to pay taxes based upon their income.  However, the top 50% of earners now pay something like 97% of all the income tax.  At some point, the majority of Americans will end up paying no income tax.  Add that to the fact that there are people who pay NO tax, but receive a refund.  Some people see this as fair also.

What we need to do is cut spending more AND reduce taxes.  We waste so much money on bloated social programs that fail not to mention earmarks like Hillary Clinton’s 1 millon dollar Woodstock Museum.

The question is, are we going to sit back and let the government take more and more of our money to throw away or do we demand that they cut our taxes and their spending?