Big Spenders

The Watermelon State

Have you ever wonder who comes up with these nutty ideas?

California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires

California firefighters are enlisting help from some unusual allies to prevent more deadly wildfires from ripping across the state — goats.

The Ventura County Fire Department is releasing hundreds of goats next week north of Los Angeles to eat dead brush that could become fuel for a fires.

“They’ll eat until we like the way the landscape looks, and then we move them to another area,” Captain Ken VanWig, who oversees the department’s vegetation management program, said in an interview. “They’re very effective.” [snip]

One might think that dispatching the enviro-nazis to do the work of the goats would be more efficacious.
After all there are far more of those Watermelons than goats. It too would give them the chance to actually DO something about the environment.

Another fraud

Idiot’s Corner

Here’s one who thinks she has built a better mousetrap and demanding America buy it.

Walls are only…

…for the Elite

Can’t have the hoi peloi believing that the peasantry deserves the same security.
Remember, Kings and Princes lived behind castle walls. The serfs were in mud huts OUTSIDE those walls.

Big Spenders

Like any other socialist idea, ‘FREE BASIC INCOME’ proves to be neither basic, income nor free.

Universal basic income had a rough 2018

Silicon Valley loves the idea of universal basic income. Many in the tech elites tout it as the answer to job losses caused by automation, if only people would give it a chance.

This minimum stipend can be supplemented with wages from work. Advocates say it will help fight poverty by giving people the flexibility to find work and strengthen their safety net, or that it offers a way to support people who might be negatively affected by automation.

Getting people on board with basic income requires data, which is what numerous tests have been trying to obtain. But this year, a number of experiments were cut short, delayed, or ended after a short time. That also means the possible data supply got cut off.

Back in June we declared, “Basic income could work—if you do it Canada style.” We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario’s 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.

We’ve been waiting for basic-income data for a while. In 2016, MIT Technology Review predicted that “in 2017, we will find out if basic income makes sense.” There were two main tests we were waiting on. First there was Finland’s promising basic-income program, which received a lot of hype when it was launched in 2017. Then, in 2018, it was revealed that the program would not yet be extended beyond its original trial period. Another experiment, from tech incubator Y Combinator, has also faced more delays, pushing the experiment into 2019. [snip]

Problem 2: Funding

As you might imagine, giving away free money is expensive. Private tests must rely on generous donors and often struggle to raise the cash they need. Y Combinator has had to raise $60 million from individuals, national foundations, and local philanthropic groups. It has said the test won’t start until all the funding is obtained. Government projects, on the other hand, have to get support from tax-paying citizens and politicians. Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s minister in charge of social services, cited the high cost of the project ($150 million in Canadian dollars) as the reason for the cuts and said it was “clearly not the answer for Ontario families.” [snip]

There are always some Lefty Loons who believe in giving away others money. And like all of these wonderful ideas run afoul of greedy people wishing to keep that which they worked hard to earn.
One of the problems is Liberals don’t like to give away THEIR money; yours is fine to hand out.

Big Spenders

The fools writing this mushwit stuff want YOU to give your money to them. That will make it equal.
Let them give their own money to the slugs, the downtrodden and to life’s maladroit.

Nearly half the world lives on less than $5.50 a day

Despite progress in reducing extreme poverty, nearly half the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 a day, with a rising share of the poor in wealthier economies, the World Bank said Wednesday.

In a twice-yearly report, the bank took a broader look at poverty to see where countries were lagging, even though the share of those living in extreme poverty—defined as earning less than $1.90 a day—has continued to come down in recent years.

Under the expanded criteria for poverty, the report found the number of poor worldwide was still “unacceptably high,” while the fruits of economic growth were “shared unevenly across regions and countries.” [snip]

Yeah, that is tough. Maybe they should change jobs. Rooting around for grubs and tubers with a pointy stick seems to be a limited job field. Perhaps a longer stick would help. Other than that they will need to learn how to say. “You want fries wit dat?”

Those words seem to work with the Snowflakes in their ascendancy to the pinnacle of success: Grill master.
And they want $15/hr for such skilled work They don’t even have to use a pointy stick.

Perspire to inspire and take a bath daily. It is called Capitalism.

Prevaricators

The warm fuzzy feeling for the goodness of Globalization dissipates rapidly when one gets to sniff the gift offered.

Big Spenders

How are your taxes? A posting found on Drudge noted that you pay more in taxes than on your monthly utility and all your house bills combined. This will get worse as time passes.
What happens when you cannot pay for the mortgage, that new car, all those neat electronic gizmos, food and insurance? Your income  doesn’t cover all your debt, so you make payments when the collectors call up and finally : Bankruptcy>

Interest on the national debt now exceeds our spending on the Military.
At the rate of spending by the government increases, the interest also rises; any interest rate increases will require your taxes to rise to cover this cost. Then the government tries to pay the interest on those T-Bills that other countries bought.
It is your problem on a grand scale and we take it in the shorts, like Venezuela. Think about this in the upcoming Mid-term elections.

This post was cut short for the sake of brevity. Read the rest for I left out the really nasty parts about your life with out ll that government money sloshing around.

As Debt Rises, the Government Will Soon Spend More on Interest Than on the Military

The federal government could soon pay more in interest on its debt than it spends on the military, Medicaid or children’s programs.

The run-up in borrowing costs is a one-two punch brought on by the need to finance a fast-growing budget deficit, worsened by tax cuts and steadily rising interest rates that will make the debt more expensive.

With less money coming in and more going toward interest, political leaders will find it harder to address pressing needs like fixing crumbling roads and bridges or to make emergency moves like pulling the economy out of future recessions.

Within a decade, more than $900 billion in interest payments will be due annually, easily outpacing spending on myriad other programs. Already the fastest-growing major government expense, the cost of interest is on track to hit $390 billion next year, nearly 50 percent more than in 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“It’s very much something to worry about,” said C. Eugene Steuerle, a fellow at the Urban Institute and a co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington. “Everything else is getting squeezed.”

Gradually rising interest rates would have made borrowing more expensive even without additional debt. But the tax cuts passed late last year have created a deeper hole, with the deficit increasing faster than expected. A budget bill approved in February that raised spending by $300 billion over two years will add to the financial pressure.

The deficit is expected to total nearly $1 trillion next year — the first time it has been that big since 2012, when the economy was still struggling to recover from the financial crisis and interest rates were near zero. [snip]

With this cost that MUST be serviced, money for programs to repair/replace infrastructure such as roads, bridges and government buildings.

What is never mentioned is the pressure to keep the fake entitlements and it will also crush the real entitlements: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Thanks to LBJ, he funded the Vietnam War with money from the Social Security Trust Fund by putting it into the General Fund. Congress loved it and cheerfully started spending this new “revenue”.

Tax’em until they can’t move

One ,but not the only, reason We left Vermont is their revenue policy of taxing Social Security and military pensions. The one item they can’t tax is disability. And that is only because the Federal government pays that and forbids attachments.

Why the Progressive legislature decided to give an exemption, is not known this side of sanity but probably to stop the taxpayer outflow.

Exemption making eligible Vermonters happy

Nearly 40,000 Vermonters receiving Social Security benefits will keep more of their income due to an income tax exemption. This change, included in Act 11 of the 2018 special session, created a personal income tax exemption for Social Security beneficiaries below certain income thresholds.

The law takes effect in calendar year 2018 for tax returns filed in 2019.

According to Vermont Commissioner of Taxes Kaj Samsom, “The governor and the department… have worked with the Vermont Legislature on an initiative that will help many Vermonters keep more of their Social Security benefits. With this change, Vermont joins the overwhelming majority of states, including all of our neighbors in the Northeast, in granting additional state-level exemptions to Social Security income, which is taxed federally.”

At the federal level, Social Security benefit exemptions range from fully exempt to 15 percent exempt, depending on income. Benefits that are federally taxable become part of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI). The new Vermont tax exemption allows eligible taxpayers to exempt all or some of these federally taxable Social Security benefits on their Vermont returns. [snip]

For singles, heads of household, married filing separate, and surviving spouse filers, Social Security benefits will be fully exempt if their AGI is less than $45,000 and partially exempt if their AGI is between $45,000-$55,000.

For married joint filers, Social Security benefits will be fully exempt if the AGI is less than $60,000 and partially exempt if their AGI is between $60,000-$70,000.

The federal tax on Social Security is the work of the liberal idiot Ted Kennedy who believed that money really wasn’t yours. It makes no difference if you worked all your life, paying into that Ponzi scheme; he wanted to give your money to people who never worked for it.

The Legislature in Vermont believes the same way. More than likely this new exemption is given because so many Vermonters who were being dunned heavily, moved out of state. The population in Vermont is now more welfare recipients and junkies that the Progs had to do something to stem the outflow.. Stay tuned; there will be more to this before long.