The Maine State legislature hailed their latest tax reform policy as a lowering of the Maine tax burdenwith the passage of LD1495. I will not bore you with political rhetoric, I'm tired of it too, I don't get the confusing words either, I don't trust a single(well, most) politicians myself.
Here's the meat and potatoes, er potatos? Idk. I'll just break it down for you and let you decide what works and what doesn't.
The new bill aimed at lowering the Maine Income tax replaces the old way Augusta used to tax us Maine folk, which was a graduated scale based on income. For example, if you were low income, your Income Tax rate was 4%, middle income your were taxed at 6%, and higher income was taxed at 8%. (approximations are easier)
The proposed income tax is a "flat tax" of 6.5% for all families under $250,000. How does the Maine Legislature effectively lower the tax burden for all Mainers, yet still have a revenue stream to run the oversized government in Augusta? In a pretty tricky way actually, the are increasing the Sales Tax on EVERYTHING.
No, let me go one further, THEY ARE EXPANDING A SALES TAX TO EVERYTHING. Yes, activities such as canoeing, going to the movies, going to carnivals and water parks, aquariums and zoos and even to Haddlock Field to watch the Sea Dogs - IS NOW A TAXABLE EVENT. Just like buying a soda, where the clerk adds an extra 5% in sales tax, will the STATE OF MAINE be levying the same 5% to almost ANY ACTIVITY IN THIS STATE.
I'm not done yet, don't go back to Facebook before finishing this article!
Installation, repair and maintenance for services such as: vehicle, jewlery, clothing, computer furniture and much more are now asking for an extra 5% sales tax.
Wanna go white water rafting? Wanna hire a disc jockey for your wedding? Wanna hire a clown for your kid's birthday?...(just call me actually) Wanna go to the boat and garden shows? Wanna get your dry cleaning, laundry, car washed, pets cared for, or even, ready for this, CALL A TAXI?
Bring your SALES TAX WITH YOU......Mainer.
The proponents of this new bill LD 1495, will have you believe that they are lowering the overall tax burden for the middle to lower income families in Maine with this new tax code.
How can that be? How are we to view this as a progressive tax movement when the very thing for which Maine is known, RECREATION, is now being MONETIZED and TAXED?
Will an increase of hotel, lodging and car rentals taxes, on top of everything just mentioned, increase TOURISM and VACATIONING in a severe recession? While they're at it, why don't they just place a State Trooper at the Maine border offering a free kick in the crotch to all those vacationing Americans who come to this Great State every June through August?
Call this the ANTI RECREATION BILL. Call this absurd too. My bad, I promised not to be partisan on this one, well...I lied.
This type of "Tax Reform" is repugnant(contradictory, opposed) and IN NO WAY is offering a tax break to working class Maine citizens. This is one more hurdle and one more reason to close a small business and collect a monthly Welfare check. The Maine Government seems to want the small business entrepenuer to close shop and work for the next Super Walmart that comes to a town near you. In a CONSUMER RECESSION, where the government can't tax an Income that is not there or in decline, they are moving to the recreational activites that YOU participate in and have come to enjoy in a "Way life should be". This tax is predatory by definition.
How can a Maine business compete with our sister state New Hampshire? The NH sales tax is 0%!!!!
All hope is not lost. A people's veto may be coming this November as citizens are currently collecting signatures for petition to get a REPEAL OF LD1495 on the ballot.
Look for the nearest Martin Macisso to sign said petition. I won't be charging a sales tax on petition collecting. Not yet anyway, at this point. Grrrrrr.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Republican: What's in a word?
by Martin Macisso Jr
Just added to the endangered species list: The Republican.
The Republican: an evil, oil tycoon-looking, white, portly, balding man who enjoys in his spare time, over-throwing rogue states rich in natural resources in an effort to enrich his Ivy League cronnies, insider trading, organizing Pro-life rallies, mass genocide and long walks on the beach.
Yes, its easy to say that not many free minded people categorize themselves in the above group. The rise and fall of the Bush Empire has left the boat tipping, close to the point of capsizing, to the Left. If anyone in the Great State of Maine has any hopes to run for political office, you best consider yourself - time wasted - if you adopt the Republican party as your political home.
But what's in a word? Is the Republican, at a definitive level, the very ROOT of the word being - REPUBLIC, accurately portrayed by the Bush Administration? Let's put ideologies aside for a moment and agree on one fact: The political parties of 2009 are in no way any semblance of what the founding fathers designed over two hundred years ago. So what have the Democrat and Republican parties become? Or more importantly, what have they come to represent? (rhetorical question alert!)
Here's a very breif history lesson in a consolidated paragraph: The Democratic-Republicans were formed by the great Thomas Jefferson around 1792 as an opposition party to slimey British loyalist, Alexander Hamilton's new party - The Federalist Party. Quite simply, the Democratic-Republicans(The Republicans) did not like what they were seeing with Hamilton's new Federalist Party(The Democrat), you see, Jefferson just got done fighting a war of Indepandance against said British and he then authored the document outlining the American's Freedom from Tyranny that many call - The Constitution. The Federalist Alexander Hamilton wanted a very large and heavy handed government, and a Central Bank funded by the British, to lend money to the American people(basically), and Thomas Jefferson in his divine wisdom gathered patriotic Americans who cherish human liberty and dislike Kings and Queens, to form a dominant political party - the Democratic-Republican.
The United States of America is a "democratic republic" (for which is stands...), which in a nutshell means, it is a group of States, independant from Federal government control (sovereign) who come together only to defend against Tyranic Rule of Kings and Queens. So this blog begs to ask this question:
"Was George W. Bush really a Republican?" and maybe another question:
"Are the Republicans really Republicans?" Did George W. Bush truely represent the small government and maxium individual liberty ideology that the President Thomas Jefferson penned and possessed? Most humans agree - NOT.
....and maybe we'll ask another more important question: "What are you?"
....and perhaps you'll respond:
Who knows? Who really cares, because "words" are just that, and ideologies are not "words" and "we" are not as simple as a "word".
A great American engineer, Buckminster Fuller once said,"By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties." He was born in 1895 and died in 1983, but he was genius or just aware enough to predict the demise of the Free Society, to be replaced by the wheels of global commerce and capital merchants gambling away our middle-class freedoms.
And what has become of the American patriot? More importantly, what does it mean to be an American Patriot in 2009? In a global world, its not quite as clear as it was in 1776.
The true American patriot who wants justice and equality for ALL, cannot simply jump into a political group who claim a certain politcal ideology, in just name only. A truely "political" and "concerned" patriot does not jump into the hot topic of politics and government simply because its "that time of year again". (heated rant warning)
A REAL political person gets involved because they're PISSED OFF. A REAL political person runs for office because his/her government has become a TERRIBLE place to work. A REAL patriot does not become BLIND to reality and merely fights to support a political party. A REAL AMERICAN does not beat his/her chest and waive flags in victory over another. A REAL AMERICAN does not extend an empire of belief. A REAL AMERICAN just wants to be left alone, with his/her family, with his/her property, with his/her pursuit of happiness, the proverbial search for happiness, absolutely free from control, FREE to think, FREE to act , FREE to speak, FREE to choose, FREE will in general.
So come election season, perhaps its time to "write-in" your own affiliation. In the spirit of making up new words to really describe the nature of the party politics in 2009, here are some of mine:
Trustafarian = hippie Democrat with lots of money(I had to throw that in to assure you're still awake;)
Democa-lobby-acrat = Person who uses tax dollars to buy bills supporting liberal agenda.
Banking-apublican= Person on daddy's tab intent on using influence to keep Daddy's tab.
Anarcha-tarian= Person who wants to reduce government to rubble.
Green Party=Grow it, make it legal, but don't ask me where my car keys are.
Apatheitcrat=Absentee ballot voter who showed up 2 days early without reading up on a single candidate.
Hummer-apublican=Conservative A-hole who votes just to piss of a Trustafarian.
Thank you and sorry, I tend to get verby, but I am Undecided, so I'll just call myself an Independant. It has a nice ring to it. Or maybe I'm a verb?
One last quote from Bucky Fuller and its a doozy, in his 1970 book I Seem To Be a Verb, he wrote: "I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe."
Maybe I'm just a verb, but deffinitely not a word.
Just added to the endangered species list: The Republican.
The Republican: an evil, oil tycoon-looking, white, portly, balding man who enjoys in his spare time, over-throwing rogue states rich in natural resources in an effort to enrich his Ivy League cronnies, insider trading, organizing Pro-life rallies, mass genocide and long walks on the beach.
Yes, its easy to say that not many free minded people categorize themselves in the above group. The rise and fall of the Bush Empire has left the boat tipping, close to the point of capsizing, to the Left. If anyone in the Great State of Maine has any hopes to run for political office, you best consider yourself - time wasted - if you adopt the Republican party as your political home.
But what's in a word? Is the Republican, at a definitive level, the very ROOT of the word being - REPUBLIC, accurately portrayed by the Bush Administration? Let's put ideologies aside for a moment and agree on one fact: The political parties of 2009 are in no way any semblance of what the founding fathers designed over two hundred years ago. So what have the Democrat and Republican parties become? Or more importantly, what have they come to represent? (rhetorical question alert!)
Here's a very breif history lesson in a consolidated paragraph: The Democratic-Republicans were formed by the great Thomas Jefferson around 1792 as an opposition party to slimey British loyalist, Alexander Hamilton's new party - The Federalist Party. Quite simply, the Democratic-Republicans(The Republicans) did not like what they were seeing with Hamilton's new Federalist Party(The Democrat), you see, Jefferson just got done fighting a war of Indepandance against said British and he then authored the document outlining the American's Freedom from Tyranny that many call - The Constitution. The Federalist Alexander Hamilton wanted a very large and heavy handed government, and a Central Bank funded by the British, to lend money to the American people(basically), and Thomas Jefferson in his divine wisdom gathered patriotic Americans who cherish human liberty and dislike Kings and Queens, to form a dominant political party - the Democratic-Republican.
The United States of America is a "democratic republic" (for which is stands...), which in a nutshell means, it is a group of States, independant from Federal government control (sovereign) who come together only to defend against Tyranic Rule of Kings and Queens. So this blog begs to ask this question:
"Was George W. Bush really a Republican?" and maybe another question:
"Are the Republicans really Republicans?" Did George W. Bush truely represent the small government and maxium individual liberty ideology that the President Thomas Jefferson penned and possessed? Most humans agree - NOT.
....and maybe we'll ask another more important question: "What are you?"
....and perhaps you'll respond:
Who knows? Who really cares, because "words" are just that, and ideologies are not "words" and "we" are not as simple as a "word".
A great American engineer, Buckminster Fuller once said,"By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties." He was born in 1895 and died in 1983, but he was genius or just aware enough to predict the demise of the Free Society, to be replaced by the wheels of global commerce and capital merchants gambling away our middle-class freedoms.
And what has become of the American patriot? More importantly, what does it mean to be an American Patriot in 2009? In a global world, its not quite as clear as it was in 1776.
The true American patriot who wants justice and equality for ALL, cannot simply jump into a political group who claim a certain politcal ideology, in just name only. A truely "political" and "concerned" patriot does not jump into the hot topic of politics and government simply because its "that time of year again". (heated rant warning)
A REAL political person gets involved because they're PISSED OFF. A REAL political person runs for office because his/her government has become a TERRIBLE place to work. A REAL patriot does not become BLIND to reality and merely fights to support a political party. A REAL AMERICAN does not beat his/her chest and waive flags in victory over another. A REAL AMERICAN does not extend an empire of belief. A REAL AMERICAN just wants to be left alone, with his/her family, with his/her property, with his/her pursuit of happiness, the proverbial search for happiness, absolutely free from control, FREE to think, FREE to act , FREE to speak, FREE to choose, FREE will in general.
So come election season, perhaps its time to "write-in" your own affiliation. In the spirit of making up new words to really describe the nature of the party politics in 2009, here are some of mine:
Trustafarian = hippie Democrat with lots of money(I had to throw that in to assure you're still awake;)
Democa-lobby-acrat = Person who uses tax dollars to buy bills supporting liberal agenda.
Banking-apublican= Person on daddy's tab intent on using influence to keep Daddy's tab.
Anarcha-tarian= Person who wants to reduce government to rubble.
Green Party=Grow it, make it legal, but don't ask me where my car keys are.
Apatheitcrat=Absentee ballot voter who showed up 2 days early without reading up on a single candidate.
Hummer-apublican=Conservative A-hole who votes just to piss of a Trustafarian.
Thank you and sorry, I tend to get verby, but I am Undecided, so I'll just call myself an Independant. It has a nice ring to it. Or maybe I'm a verb?
One last quote from Bucky Fuller and its a doozy, in his 1970 book I Seem To Be a Verb, he wrote: "I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe."
Maybe I'm just a verb, but deffinitely not a word.
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