I have investigated nothing financially since the last post.  I am still reeling from the fact that the governments take 29% of the money I earn.   What do they do with it?  Is there a published general ledger somewhere?  I don’t think so.  Maybe the politicians are just laundering the money.  They start social programs and raise taxes for the revenue but then when it comes down to it no one qualifies for any of the social programs so they just funnel the money around and around until it ends up in their pockets.

When the politicians say they are going to raise taxes to start some social programs for the “poor” and that they will only be taxing the “rich”, their definition of rich and poor is very different from that definition of rich and poor we have in our minds.  In the eyes of the government if you have a job earning any kind of wage at all then you meet their definition of rich.  You have money eligible to be taxed.  A great question to ask your politicians is not how the program will benefit but who will qualify, SPECIFICALLY, and how do they plan to PAY FOR IT.  SHOW US THE NUMBERS, ITS OUR MONEY.  Because, really, I am all about them taking taxes out and providing financial aid to college students working their butts off, paying teachers a descent living wage for having an advanced degree, paying to fix the potholes, and I could go on and state all of the great things the tax revenue could go towards but we all know it doesn’t.  The money gets lost in the “shuffle”. 

Most days we are squashed between big government and big business.  None of these margins benefit John Q. Public (documented or undocumented).  We need to ask the hard financial questions of ourselves, our government and our “Enrons”.