Do Over!!

Okay so I totally abandoned this blog for a while. I don't know what happened except that life and laziness got in the way. So I'm going to start fresh and get going again.

U.S. Income Tax 100 Years Old

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."     ~Albert Einstein, Super smart guy

" The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."

                       ~Barry Goldwater, U.S. Senator

" How about this one? "

"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."           ~Will Rogers, Humorist

Wouldn't it be nice if April 15, was just another nice spring day?

"You don't pay taxes. They take taxes."  ~Chris Rock, Comedian

Tax The Rich!

An IRS Tax Code Book

I was talking to a man, in McDonald's yesterday, when politics and taxes came up. In the conversation he said he was a 100 percent Socialist, and then said, "Tax the rich to feed the poor, until the rich are rich no more!"

I replied, "That sounds great, except for one little thing. When the poor are still poor, and the rich are now also poor, then who do we tax to feed all of us?"

His reply was, " Oh, I get it, you're one of those !&%#!*!, crazy, right wing, Republican NUT-JOBS!!" the last screamed at the top of his lungs, as he left.

The truth be told I think both the Republicans and the Democrats have strayed from their mission purposes, and beliefs. I refer to myself as a Fiercely Independent American. Part of the reason I support the Fair Tax.

The first income tax, in 1913, was four-hundred pages and "only" taxed the richest one percent. (sound familiar?) Soon everyone was being taxed because they could get more money from everyone than from just the top wealth earners. The tax-code has gone from four-hundred pages to 54,846 pages in 2003, to 73,608 pages in 2012.

I understand that our government needs money to operate, but so do I. I also believe our federal government has way overstepped its boundaries and needs to be knocked back into place. Their job is to; protect our borders, mint coinage, postal service, federal judicial system, and foreign diplomacy. The rest are states issues. I realize that going this far would be difficult, if not impossible, but the less thy have to deal with the better!

So, anyway, I got to thinking, instead of, "Tax the rich to feed the poor, until the rich are rich no more!" why don't we try pulling each other up instead of knocking each other down? How about a new mantra, "Let the rich teach the poor, until the poor are poor no more!" After all as Sophie Tucker once famously quipped, "I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better."

I encourage everyone in the US to take a look at the Fair Tax at fairtax.org.

Getting Healthy

     You know it's time to do something about your weight when your almost-four-year-old niece climbs up beside you on the couch, smooshes your gut like she's fluffing a pillow, then cuddles up to you! Actually, I've known I needed to lose weight for a long time. It's not like I'm blind or anything, but I felt fine, so I ignored the fact that I was getting...well, fluffy.

     Recently, however, I've been feeling sluggish and a bit achy, it's harder to get out of low chairs and sofas, and I'm running out of breath with very little physical exertion. First things first. I almost always have a soda pop in my hand. Big problem, number one. So instead of starting my day with a soda, I had water. With breakfast I had a mug of hot, green tea with a little honey and lemon in it. I'm drinking water the rest of the day except for lunch and dinner, I will allow myself one soda pop, eventually dropping them altogether. My next big problem is that I hardly move anymore. I used to be very active. I never "exercised" but I was constantly moving. I'd walk or ride my bike, I'd go to the park and shoot hoops, or go to a club and dance. I've gotta get moving. I'm getting up and moving for five minutes sometime during every hour that i'm sitting at my desk, just to get me started moving again. Big problem number three is not that I'm overeating, it's that I'm eating junk! I will never stick to a "diet", I know myself too well, but I can change my eating habits. I'm going to have one meatless meal a day, cut out the processed foods and eat real food, natural and organic when I can, and follow the healthy eating guidelines.