Gun Control II

Assuming today is a typical day in America, there have been 34 more people killed by gunfire since I posted my blog yesterday. That is more people than were killed last year in the Virginia Tech massacre. Remember how shocked you were that day. Well, you should be shocked everyday.

Send a letter to your congressman before one of your loved ones is a statistic.

Gun Control

First, I need to tell you where I am coming from. I was born the day that President Truman ordered 50,000 troops into Korea to stop the spread of communism and as a youngster, a hunter shot "Bambi's"(look it up) mother. Then, I grew up to the sounds of air raid sirens signaling the impending attack from the Cuban nuclear missiles in the '60's. Then, we spent our childhood shooting each other with our "tommy guns" and "Matel" (the same folks that created the "Barbie Doll")toy guns. But, we all lived to play another day.

Now, my contemporaries in the Supreme Court still seem to think(that's debatable) that we need to have guns to protect ourselves. Give me a freakin' break! They voted 5-4 to allow everyone in the U.S.A. the right to have a gun.

As a result, over a hundred people die in Indianapolis annually as a result of gunfire.

Anyone who wants to become President will be wary to even bring it up, but whoever has the courage to propose legislation to take guns out of the hands of everyone other than law enforcement and the military will earn my vote.

Nuf said.

My Reconciliation Tax Bill & Bart

For those of you who are out of the loop, the property taxes are whacked out in Indianapolis, especially downtown. My tax bill last year for the property I own nearly doubled from 2006 to 2007. However, when the you know what hit the fan, the governor told everyone to pay their 2006 tax bill in 2007 and that the state would bill us the difference in 2008. Confused? Most people are.

Well, I received my "2007 Reconciliation" bill today. The property taxes are still 50% to 80% higher than 2006 and this is after the state raised the sales tax by 1% and the city raised the restaurant tax by 1%.Then, they raised the local income tax an additional .65% while not allowing any debate from the public.

To put it another way, it is like buying a new car with cash and then walking out the door of the dealership and setting it on fire-every year.

So what does this have to do with Bart Peterson? In case you do not remember, he was the smiley face that spent all of the money which created the tax mess. Well, I decided to ease into my work day by having breakfast in one of my favorite haunts-Shapiro's Delicatessen and try to forget about my taxes while reading about my 401K going down the tubes in the Wall Street Journal. When, who should appear? Old smiley face Bart was back in town from his stint teaching government at Harvard. Hey, you need to teach the future leaders how to overspend while they're young.

Maybe I could spill some coffee on him. No, he was in the corner of the room and it would have been too obvious. Or, how about throwing my bagel at him. No, was I hungry. I could have just walked over and bitch-slapped him. No, I don't like lawyers or jails. I guess I just could have made him a deal on my new low-mileage burned out Chevy.

What Is Going On?

Who wants to guess where the price of oil is going to be? I thought I knew, but I was low. I thought people would wise-up around $2.50 per gallon of gasoline. Nope. Then, I thought things would grind to a halt at $3.50. Nope. Traffic was just as heavy as ever.
Now, we've passed $4.00 and they say demand is down a measly 4%. Wake up people! It's going higher. Now is not the time to cash in your 401K just so you can fill up your SUV to go to the mall. Demand has overtaken supply. If you don't understand that basic premise, it's too late for you.

Not to sound like an old fart, but I'm not so sure the little lady and I are going to start living a little like we did back when we got hitched. You don't need to be married to cut back, but it's always easier when you're a team. I can't tell you how seldom we had dinner out and how often we ate macaroni & cheese with crackers crumbled on top to make it look like a "dish". Moreover, I never bought tires for the old heap if you could still see the tread lines on the tires. It made driving in the rain more fun anyway. We had no A/C, no dishwasher, no cable(we did have a 15" color RCA, though), and could fit all of our clothes in a 4 ft. closet with room to spare.

So, what do you do? Live on what you make, live with the ones you love, and vote all of the knuckleheads in your local, state, and federal government out of office who messed up a pretty good thing,