On The Way Down The Cliff

I’ve been quiet lately… too quiet, I know.

I simply haven’t felt like writing and unlike many bloggers out there that when their muse is on vacation, reblog other’s work or write something irrelevant and completely different from what their followers are used to I rather not write at all. I think my followers prefer it that way, I write when I have something to say otherwise why would I waste your and my time with nothingness?

We are back to square one, this time even more ridiculous than before. Democrats won the elections, all of them. We got the White House back; we held our seats in the senate and gain a few more… we even managed to gain some seats in the House of Representatives. Yet, Republicans can’t accept defeat and truly think they still have the leverage to hold the economy hostage. Once more they are doing everything within their power to obstruct everything and blame their failures on the Democrats. They are deaf to the wishes of the American people that spoke loud and clear a month ago. They don’t care at all for their constituents, after all that is not why they are in office regardless of what people think. They think the only people that matter are the wealthy people, the new “people” on the block known as Citizens United; those are the only ones they’ll fight for and we must never forget this on November 2014, we must remember who needs to be kicked out and thrown to the curb.

We have to endure the crying orange man trying to justify their behavior on every channel that he can find. Has anyone noticed that anytime Boehner is lying he twitches the corner of his mouth? Next time he is on, which is almost on a daily basis, watch him and you’ll notice it too. I think he is trying to imitate the old gangster movies Bogart was so famous for!

Here we are, December 2012 and once more they want to negotiate the tax cuts. Once again they want to send to the butchers block all the “entitlements” meant to help the needy but not the entitlements for the very wealthy. The Bush tax cuts have cost the middle class, who ultimately are the ones that contribute with a larger portion of the government’s revenue, $1.224 trillion from it’s insertion back in 2001 and that amount does not include the interests we have to pay for that money. Then, we need to add $1.4 trillion and rising by the minute for the never-ending war on terror, that figure doesn’t include interest or medical costs for our injured soldiers. (http://costofwar.com)

Welfare is what the Republicans want to slash; it is the entitlement that they believe to be unnecessary. Welfare has cost us a total of $6.28 trillion from 2001 to date. We must remember that most soldiers that return home with injuries have some sort of welfare and in 2008 the financial crisis hit our country, creating thousands of unemployed citizens that in the long run had no choice but to ask the government for help, increasing by the thousands the number of Welfare recipients. The total welfare cost from 1991 to 2000 (before the war and before the economic crash) was of $1.650 trillion. Welfare for the year 2002 was a total of $0.23 trillion, which includes the injured soldiers that returned home on the first year of war. The economic crisis began in 2007 and we saw an increase of $0.06 trillion and by 2009 it had raised to $0.42 trillion, a difference of $0.16 trillion in just 2 years!

Now, the Republicans want to make cuts to the only means the unemployed and many veterans has to survive, but they want to extend the tax cuts to the rich. For them, it is the rich the ones that need help, not the needy. I think they believe that the help the government provides allows the poor to live in the lap of luxury!

The State that pays the highest unemployment compensation rate is Massachusetts. Massachusetts pay an average of $674 a week. But there are other states that don’t even come close to that and the cost of living are just as expensive as those in Massachusetts. Florida is the third worst State for unemployment compensation. For the last ten years, the maximum compensation paid in Florida is of $275 a week and the minimum is $38 a week. I wonder who on earth can survive in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale on $38 a week. The State that holds the #1 place as the worst is Mississippi with a whooping $235 a week. No wonder crime is on the raise in these cities!

I say let’s crash… Let’s go over the hump, hill, mountain, cliff or whatever you want to call it, the poor can’t afford to lose anymore and quite frankly, neither can we. If they push the poor to the brink, we will see an increase in crime and therefore an increment in the number of prisoners that will cost us much more than what the cost of welfare is. The average cost of incarceration for one year is $47,500 per prisoner and the average number of new prisoners is of 700 a week.

Don’t be lazy and do the math and ask yourself, which is cheaper and safer for all of us?

http://www.usfederalbudget.us
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=datool&surl=/arrests/index.cfm#
http://fileunemployment.org/unemployment-benefits-comparison-by-state