Well, 11:11 A.M. 12/21/12 has come and gone; I showed a film and offered ten easy points to my students who showed up on the last day before Winter Break, and missed the end of the world. Well, I'm being facetious. I've always taken Jesus' admonition about the future events being known only to God the Father quite seriously, so I suppose I had very good reasons for figuring that the day would go like any other.
However, maybe our political world will be in for a shakeup now that The Most Brilliant POTUS Ever has decided to kick the can of ballooning national debt and unfunded entitlements down the road to another generation. We're probably going over the fiscal cliff as I write. Maybe we will be seeing the end of Politics as Usual in Washington
While driving in to work today, I heard the local news station interviewing a professor of economics from the U of Maryland. The learned gentleman said that if we are going to cover the commitments our wise, virtuous, and humane leaders have made [adjectives mine], all of us--rich, poor, and middle class-- will have to accept at least a 40% rise in taxes. Uncle Cephas thinks he understands that the good professor was underscoring the seriousness of America's fiscal mess; but as a teacher, he doubts that there are many other people in America who can see that, too.
Uncle Cephas also observes that given the President's media cheering section, nobody will be reminded of the O's "no middle class tax hike" promises or his passing another major entitlement in the midst of a deep economic crisis, and when our modest little recovery gets derailed, it will all be the fault of the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. Our partisan politics will then get uglier and uglier.
Showing posts with label fiscal cliff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiscal cliff. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Random Thoughts on the Fiscal Cliff
This is a post about evil capitalists, swindling America's young, and the looming fiscal cliff. People better at memorizing and crunching numbers than Uncle Cephas have warned us right and left of the dire consequences of going over the Fiscal Cliff, and I have no reason to doubt that such pundits know what they're talaking about. However, Uncle Cephas sees a silver lining in this cloud.
Yes, I will get hurt if we go over the fiscal cliff. Already, slightly less than half of the few thousands I take in from freelance translating get chiseled at by differing levels of national, state, and local government, since with the "self-employed" translator's hat on my head, I'm supposedly an evil, blood-sucking, capitalist parasite leeching off the blood of society's poor unfortunates. As a professional swindler of the young--oops, high school social studies teacher--I'm already in a tax bracket that's too high to be missed.
But, just maybe, this event will give the American people an important lesson: that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Every year that I have taught local, state, and national government, I give a simple mini-lesson that sometimes succeeds in making at least a few teens serious about owning their educations. I ask the class if they've ever been told that they're getting a free education. About half of the hands in the room will go up. I then tell these teens that they've been lied to, for their educations are being paid for by all the property owners in the county, including their own parents (if they're homeowners), landlords (if the kids are renters), the people who own the stores where they like to hang out, etc.
Perhaps the lesson learned will be the wrong one. There's a good likelihood that the Communists and their ilk will get a new lease on life by blaming the rich and calling for that class (everyone in a tax bracket higher than mine) to be "eaten". And we'll probably have riots of those resentful over seeing their entitlements cut.
But I'm praying (and I am a believer) that God will be merciful and Americans will stop and consider that when the government gives, it also takes. I pray that the country will wake up and realize that if society's poor unfortunates are to be supported out of public funds, the rest of society needs to produce in order to be open-handed to those in need. And, perhaps, some will wake up to realize that maybe it would be better for those who actually know individual poor people in question take up responsibility for providing help, rather than expecting a distant bureaucrat to have the answers.
Maybe we're too far gone. Maybe what will happen to the USA after hitting the fiscal cliff will be God recognizing that he now owes an apology to Sodom, Gomorrah, Egypt, Babylon, and the corrupt kings of ancient Israel and Judah. But, just maybe, the USA will realize that it needs to heed the hard lesson it is getting.
Yes, I will get hurt if we go over the fiscal cliff. Already, slightly less than half of the few thousands I take in from freelance translating get chiseled at by differing levels of national, state, and local government, since with the "self-employed" translator's hat on my head, I'm supposedly an evil, blood-sucking, capitalist parasite leeching off the blood of society's poor unfortunates. As a professional swindler of the young--oops, high school social studies teacher--I'm already in a tax bracket that's too high to be missed.
But, just maybe, this event will give the American people an important lesson: that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Every year that I have taught local, state, and national government, I give a simple mini-lesson that sometimes succeeds in making at least a few teens serious about owning their educations. I ask the class if they've ever been told that they're getting a free education. About half of the hands in the room will go up. I then tell these teens that they've been lied to, for their educations are being paid for by all the property owners in the county, including their own parents (if they're homeowners), landlords (if the kids are renters), the people who own the stores where they like to hang out, etc.
Perhaps the lesson learned will be the wrong one. There's a good likelihood that the Communists and their ilk will get a new lease on life by blaming the rich and calling for that class (everyone in a tax bracket higher than mine) to be "eaten". And we'll probably have riots of those resentful over seeing their entitlements cut.
But I'm praying (and I am a believer) that God will be merciful and Americans will stop and consider that when the government gives, it also takes. I pray that the country will wake up and realize that if society's poor unfortunates are to be supported out of public funds, the rest of society needs to produce in order to be open-handed to those in need. And, perhaps, some will wake up to realize that maybe it would be better for those who actually know individual poor people in question take up responsibility for providing help, rather than expecting a distant bureaucrat to have the answers.
Maybe we're too far gone. Maybe what will happen to the USA after hitting the fiscal cliff will be God recognizing that he now owes an apology to Sodom, Gomorrah, Egypt, Babylon, and the corrupt kings of ancient Israel and Judah. But, just maybe, the USA will realize that it needs to heed the hard lesson it is getting.
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