Shame on the American Government

Last December, President Obama and a cadre of Republican leaders negotiated a deal where the the current Obama administration extended George W. Bush's tax cuts. The Republicans threatened the Obama administration with a parliamentary action that would suspend the government until the administration would extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone in America, including people who make over 200,000 dollars a year. The Democrats wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts except for the 1% of people in the country who make 200,000 dollars a year. The rate would have gone from 36% to 39%.

Obama caved to the pressure from the right, and as a concession was able to get many important bills through congress and signed. A nuclear arms treaty was ratified with Russia. Gay people can now serve openly in the U.S. military. A fund for 9/11 first responders was set up so that they can get medical treatment for illnesses that have developed due to inhaling toxic fumes at ground zero. (Side note, you fuckers who held that shit up and voted against that deserved to get slapped. I intend to write a letter to my congressman Fred Upton, urging him to draft legislation to make a public congressional cock punch day for for the cunts who voted against the 9/11 first responders bill. These are the same cunts who overturned Washington D.C.'s gun ban. The same cunts who who love small local government, but won't let the citizens of Washington D.C. govern themselves. Fuck you guys)

Sorry to get carried away.

Well last November saw the Tea Party come to power. The Tea Party loved wailing against government debt, and loved to point to the unemployment rate when trying to prove their point, but the first thing that they did when they got into power was to try to overturn the health care bill, and they tried to make it illegal for rape victims to get abortions. (I'm not interested in having an abortion discussion on this blog, anybody writes anything pro-choice or pro-life will have their comments deleted.) All of this instead of trying to draft legislation to create more jobs and, there was absolutely no word from these people when the Republican leadership and the Obama administration decided to ad an extra trillion dollars to the deficit by not raising taxes on rich people.

Recently the Wisconsin state legislature decided to make public employees contribute about twelve hundred more dollars per year to their pensions and health benefits. This is twelve hundred dollars per year on salaries that average at about forty-eight thousand. These people are police officers, fire fighters, teachers, and other government workers. I understand that that these contributions are necessary in order to balance the budget, but what I don't understand is how people in Wisconsin let their government get away with this bullshit. I mean millionaires and billionaires could have tried biting the bullet for the country, while middle class service employees have to get shit on.

And this was in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is usually a pretty awesome Midwestern state that stands up for the middle class, but not recently. Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin got voted out of office, after he took the high road and didn't take corporate contributions to his re-election campaign. Russ Feingold was one of the guys who helped pass the McCain Feingold act that tried to get big money out of electoral campaigns. (The McCain Feingold act got repealed so now it's much easier to buy elections.)

I guess that I'm a little pissed at this issue because something similar happened to me in Korea. It was a factor that helped me to make the decision to change jobs.

I had worked at a middle school for three and a half years. I got up to an EPIK 1+ level which meant that I was supposed to get a raise from 2.5 million won to 2.7 million won. It turned out that the local education office and my school could only afford to give me 2.4 million won. I accepted that offer, but when I started to get the checks I realized the mistake that I had made. This cut would end up costing me 1.2 million won on the year. With a baby on the way I couldn't afford that. I ended up taking a job that actually pays less than 2.4 million won, but the new job gives me a lot more freedom to go find part time work (By moonlighting I might be able to double my salary some months F visa in the house.)

So yeah that's about all I have to say. Taking a pay cut hurts. It especially hurts if you don't make much money, if middle class people in America have to start paying more into their pensions, and have to start paying more for health care, then why the fuck can't millionaires and billionaires open their wallets a bit? Hell, the two richest men in the world, Gates and Buffet are all for the restoration of the rich people tax rate. Bill Gates's foundation is trying to help kids in poor countries get schools and immunizations, but it's also trying to help kids in America. How fucking sad is it that shit has hit the fan so hard in America that kids in America need charity support that would otherwise go to third world countries? Think about it. Sorry for the rant, I haven't had anything to do for the past few days so I've been letting myself get angry at shit I can't control. Goodnight.