With all due respect, let me tell you why your plan to get Michigan working and growing again is skewed. Your plan asks those of us who have been sacrificing for quite a while now, to take another hit. Many of the people you are targeting, and you are targeting us, have spouses who have been laid off, so we are the sole support; cutting our wages, or toying with our benefits will get Michigan working and growing again? I encourage you to elaborate, please give me concrete details that will explain how. I am a school teacher. I make a wage that requires me to think about how I spend my money. When I was raising my family it was important to budget, and now that my spouse is retired, budgeting is still very much a part of our life. We do not live elaborately, but we do live comfortably. I should be okay with not living comfortably when I have done everything the government is telling students today to do; excel in high school, go to college, get a job, continue your education, and work really hard? I have paid taxes all of my working life, as has my husband. We have paid a lot of taxes. The people who run the government have not always made smart decisions with how taxpayers' money should be spent. I'm sorry Governor Snyder, I am focused on what went wrong, and I am not willing to let you, a very wealthy man, tell me that I should not focus on who is to blame for the mess Michigan is in, and just start looking to the future! You are determining a very bleak future for me. Of course reducing health care benefits for public employees is huge in your plan, could you please start with all of those legislators who no longer work for the government but continue to receive free health care even if they only worked for six years? Do you not recognize that what you are proposing, these reforms that you have said will be painful, will not be painful for you and yours? These reforms will not be painful for many of our elected officials because they are not dependent on only their government salary and expense account, yet they will vote to drastically alter my life. You and your buddies in the house and the senate will not be taking the hit, people like me will. Now here's what you don't get; cut my pay, reduce my health benefits, and I won't be spending any money! How exactly is that helping the economy? It makes me sick just to think about it, but now I won't be able to afford to go to the doctor in time to save my life, so I will die and then I will be just one more working American that my government didn't care about at all.
Rosemary
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Random Thoughts
Well Happy Birthday to me, and here's a little potpourri of I don't gets;
1. Sarah Palin went to Haiti on a humanitarian trip and stated "I've really enjoyed meeting this community...They are so full of joy." What? The people of Haiti are dirt poor, are in the midst of a cholera epidemic, are still reeling from the earthquake of one year ago, and are immersed in violence due to rioting. What about this looked like joy to her?
2. Prayer vigils by the people of Detroit for Aretha Franklin; people, pray she pays her taxes so you can have the services you deserve. Just what exactly has Aretha done lately for the city and the people who are rallying around her?
3. Mike Bishop said on many days in the Senate he felt his leadership was merely to stop policy proposals initiated by the governor and House. He then stated that he knows Governor Granholm didn't cause all of Michigan's problems but he doesn't think she ever developed a relationship with the Legislature. What? Let's see, I want to try and have a relationship with a group of people who I need to work with, but at every attempt this group's leader says NO! Relationships take two, two sides working in tandem Mike. But Mike doesn't get this.
4. Dan Akerson wants execs' pay rules eased. He is worried about losing top talent to other companies. So just forget about the guidelines that were put in place when the government gave GM the money that saved them, and just go back to doing what you were doing and let it happen all over again. Apparently he makes $9 million, but walked away from much more because he WANTED to work for GM, and he says "There's more to life than money." Does anyone else see the contradiction in all of this? Oh, and I just love when the filthy rich talk about how money is so unimportant! The reason there is more to their life than money is because they have the money to have a nice life! Idiots.
5. Mattel has created "Barbie Video Girl." The Barbie doll has an LCD screen on its back and shoots video through a lens hidden in the doll's necklace. Why?
So that's it for tonight. Happy Birthday to me.
Rosemary
1. Sarah Palin went to Haiti on a humanitarian trip and stated "I've really enjoyed meeting this community...They are so full of joy." What? The people of Haiti are dirt poor, are in the midst of a cholera epidemic, are still reeling from the earthquake of one year ago, and are immersed in violence due to rioting. What about this looked like joy to her?
2. Prayer vigils by the people of Detroit for Aretha Franklin; people, pray she pays her taxes so you can have the services you deserve. Just what exactly has Aretha done lately for the city and the people who are rallying around her?
3. Mike Bishop said on many days in the Senate he felt his leadership was merely to stop policy proposals initiated by the governor and House. He then stated that he knows Governor Granholm didn't cause all of Michigan's problems but he doesn't think she ever developed a relationship with the Legislature. What? Let's see, I want to try and have a relationship with a group of people who I need to work with, but at every attempt this group's leader says NO! Relationships take two, two sides working in tandem Mike. But Mike doesn't get this.
4. Dan Akerson wants execs' pay rules eased. He is worried about losing top talent to other companies. So just forget about the guidelines that were put in place when the government gave GM the money that saved them, and just go back to doing what you were doing and let it happen all over again. Apparently he makes $9 million, but walked away from much more because he WANTED to work for GM, and he says "There's more to life than money." Does anyone else see the contradiction in all of this? Oh, and I just love when the filthy rich talk about how money is so unimportant! The reason there is more to their life than money is because they have the money to have a nice life! Idiots.
5. Mattel has created "Barbie Video Girl." The Barbie doll has an LCD screen on its back and shoots video through a lens hidden in the doll's necklace. Why?
So that's it for tonight. Happy Birthday to me.
Rosemary
Monday, December 6, 2010
Deficit Commission
According to the Our Editorial section in the Detroit News, this is what "attacking the deficit looks like:"
1. Higher Social Security retirement age. Now I ask you, who needs social security? Not the very wealthy, they have managed to squirrel away a large portion of their earnings for their retirement, at any age. No, social security is needed by those of us who are not wealthy. Those who have, would like those of us that do not, to work longer to get what we have been paying into all of our working lives. Perhaps we will die first from the stress of worrying about how we will manage when we can no longer work.
2. Reduce or eliminate the child care tax credit. Who does this hurt? Those who need to pay for child care so that they can go to work to pay for their home, their food, their utilities, oh and child care.
3. Reduce or eliminate the tax on mortgage interest. So here is another tax increase that those of us in the middle, and those less fortunate, will feel far more seriously than those in the higher tax brackets.
4. Hike the gasoline tax by 15%. Yes we will all pay the same for gas, but those with no financial worries will still gas up for pleasure trips, most of us will gas up to go to work and then park the car in the driveway, if lucky enough to have a driveway.
So let's see, put the burden on the elderly, work longer to be able to reap your rewards; and the young who are trying to make ends meet raising a family and keeping a home. The editorial states, "America has dug itself into a huge hole with runaway spending. Getting out will require widespread sacrifice." So I ask you, who's being asked to sacrifice? Oh, and I just love this paragraph, "The problem has gone way beyond what can be solved with simple adjustments. A serious deficit reduction plan will demand deep cuts in entitlement spending, (social security), and quite possibly some tax increase in places least likely to harm economic growth, (our mortgages).
Makes it sound so sane, but it's crazy because look who's paying? You are crazy if you don't get this.
Rosemary
1. Higher Social Security retirement age. Now I ask you, who needs social security? Not the very wealthy, they have managed to squirrel away a large portion of their earnings for their retirement, at any age. No, social security is needed by those of us who are not wealthy. Those who have, would like those of us that do not, to work longer to get what we have been paying into all of our working lives. Perhaps we will die first from the stress of worrying about how we will manage when we can no longer work.
2. Reduce or eliminate the child care tax credit. Who does this hurt? Those who need to pay for child care so that they can go to work to pay for their home, their food, their utilities, oh and child care.
3. Reduce or eliminate the tax on mortgage interest. So here is another tax increase that those of us in the middle, and those less fortunate, will feel far more seriously than those in the higher tax brackets.
4. Hike the gasoline tax by 15%. Yes we will all pay the same for gas, but those with no financial worries will still gas up for pleasure trips, most of us will gas up to go to work and then park the car in the driveway, if lucky enough to have a driveway.
So let's see, put the burden on the elderly, work longer to be able to reap your rewards; and the young who are trying to make ends meet raising a family and keeping a home. The editorial states, "America has dug itself into a huge hole with runaway spending. Getting out will require widespread sacrifice." So I ask you, who's being asked to sacrifice? Oh, and I just love this paragraph, "The problem has gone way beyond what can be solved with simple adjustments. A serious deficit reduction plan will demand deep cuts in entitlement spending, (social security), and quite possibly some tax increase in places least likely to harm economic growth, (our mortgages).
Makes it sound so sane, but it's crazy because look who's paying? You are crazy if you don't get this.
Rosemary
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