Bailing Like Mad

Oh! How I wish I had a single shred of artistic talent for drawing. If I did, I have the vision of a perfect political jab.

After hearing the news this morning, I can clearly visualize the Cruz ship with Ted directing John to move the deck chairs over there while flailing madly with the bailing bucket and staring down the looming Trump iceberg.

There is nothing more pathetic than desperation, and that's what the latest bid by Cruz and Kasich clearly shows.

When Cruz took Carson aside into the closet before one of the debates a while back, he was probably trying to build the same kind of coalition.

Carson, man that he is, had none of it. He was dignified and gentlemanly and, so far as I've heard, has kept that conversation entirely to himself. That was a couple of months ago and word hasn't leaked, so he's a good and honorable man. Unlike the individual who attempted to importune him in that closet.

Now Cruz is probably dangling the Vice Presidency in front of Kasich's nose. That, of course, demands that Kasich is as completely delusional and naive as he appears.

Come on, man! You have won one state out of thirty-eight that have voted so far, and that by a narrow margin, and you really think you're going to pull this off and become Pres? Yeah, there's a sign of intelligence and savvy.

Even at the convention he's not going to stand a chance. According to current rules he cannot even have his name entered for consideration on the first ballot because he hasn't won the requisite number of state contests. To think this guy, as clueless as this seems, might be president is even scarier than the prospect of Hilliary or Bernie.

On the other hand, maybe his colluding with the Slime Master shows he has woken up to reality, sees he has no possible path to the nomination and is hitching his wagon to the one guy who will have him.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past Cruz to make all sorts of early morning promises ("of course I respect you") and then kick Kasich to the curb once the nomination is his.

However, when I went to school, 0 + 0 = 0 and that's what I'm seeing. Although, in this case, I think the equation could be re-written as Loser + Loser = Loser.

I am delighted that Trump is again leading in all of the polls leading into tomorrow's primaries. Even Indiana which just last week most of the pundits were saying would be a Cruz state. Now Trump is up by about six points, so I have hope. According to the specific state polls, Trump is trouncing the competition - and I don't think the desperate grasping at straws by Cruz is going to help him. It makes him look weak and sleazy.

Well, whatever else happens in the next forty-eight hours, I hope it's good news.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

A 'New Day in America'?

Who woulda thunk? For nearly two weeks the talking heads across the networks have been predicting a Cruz victory in South Carolina because of his standing in the Tea Party and his strong Christian background. They swore the Evangelicals would all go for him. His daddy is a pastor who has been standing in front of congregation after congregation, preaching the Word and pumping for his son.

When Trump called Bush II a liar during the GOP debate and got into an exchange of words with the Pope, all the talking heads predicted a Trump implosion.

In the end, none of that mattered. In fact, it didn’t matter in a big way.

Yesterday, Trump swept all but two of the forty-six counties in the entire state, garnering all of the delegates.

Cruz got zero delegates, lost all counties across the board, and came in third behind Rubio who lost to Trump by ten full percentage points.

The most shocking event of the moment was that Jeb! announced the suspension of his campaign. Three states in and he’s quit. Yet he was the one who, just a few months ago, all of the pundits said would be the front runner and ultimate nominee. He was made out to be the Republican's darling boy and now he's out.

So what is going on in American politics? Why is this bombastic loud mouthed boor walking away with everything? Well, because…

I’ll stop there. I can’t and I won’t attempt to speak for anyone else. I can only speak for myself but I do have specific reasons for hoping Trump wins.

First, I am sick of and disgusted by the buying and selling of favor in Washington. While candidates run for office they swear up and down that they’re going to do this, that and the other – all the things they know the folks back home want to hear. They repeat the lies so often I think they start to believe them. Then they get elected. They get to Washington and start learning the ropes. Sooner or later, the phone rings. It’s Warren (Buffet) or George (Soros) or David (Koch) or Bill (Gates) or Larry (Ellison) or one of the many lawyer lobbyists. “Hey, you know that bill you’re working on? We’d really appreciate it if you’d…”  And there goes that campaign promise. It doesn’t matter one jot what’s best for the country or the folks back home. Money talks and at that level it screams and the politicians listen. They have to if they hope to get re-elected when their term ends.

Second, I live in California and I am sick and tired of feeling, as an American, that I live in Norte Mexico. Mexico ceded California to the United States in 1848 - 160 years ago. Since 1850 it has been one of America’s fifty states yet it feels like we live in Mexico. We have ads on television in Spanish. We have billboards selling beer and McDonald's hamburgers in Spanish. There are announcements in stores in Spanish. Walking down the street there are signs for 'carcinerias' and 'tiendas'. I hear conversations in Spanish – and I wonder 'where the hell am I'?

I wonder if all of these Spanish speaking people are:

a) here legally;

b) if they are here legally, why aren’t they making more of an effort to assimilate; and,

c) if they’re not here legally, why are we accommodating them by offering ads and announcements and all the rest of it in Spanish?

If I were to emigrate to a non-English speaking country, I would not expect that country to make accommodation for me. I would understand and accept that if I want to be a part of that society, it’s on me to learn the language and customs. It is not on the new country to make me feel “welcome”. That is bullshit and it annoys the hell out of me.

Third, I lost my healthcare when I was laid off in 2012. Before that, I had a great employer-paid plan but, because of the fucking around with the economy by Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich when they repealed Glass-Steagall which then allowed the banks to become real estate brokers, and by George Bush and Hank Paulson when the housing bubble burst and the economy imploded, I lost my job. I could no longer afford insurance.

Then Obamacare came in. I researched my options but I couldn’t afford the premiums under that, either. It would take too big a chunk out of my earnings - twenty percent of my after-tax income. That would mean that I would have to stop eating or move out of my house into my car or a box under a freeway overpass. So, I’m a criminal. I don’t have insurance even though, legally, I’m supposed to have insurance.

So on just these three points I am a HUGE Trump supporter.

First, I believe that Trump means what he says. He rarely thinks before he speaks and he often suffers from foot in mouth syndrome, but I do think his heart is in the right place. I believe that he genuinely does want to make America great again and will by rebuilding the economy and by creating an environment where businesses can thrive. If he can get Congress into a room and negotiate the repatriation of those trillions of dollars off-shore, that will be a good indicator that we're heading in the right direction.

Because he has not taken anything in campaign donations, he is not going to be the recipient of a loaded phone call. Yes, he will get the calls, but he will be under zero obligation to do what the caller wants him to do. They will have no hold over him, and I like that idea. A lot.

Second, I also believe that he will build the wall, and that he will get Mexico to pay for it. Not directly, obviously, but certainly through various round-about means. Nothing illegal or underhand, but if he implements trade tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, that’s one way. If he prevents at least some of the money earned by illegals here from being sent to Mexico, that’s another way. There are other means, too.

Third, we have got to get Obamacare repealed. We absolutely have got to eliminate the restrictions on cross-state line purchases of health insurance. As things stand now we have fifty different insurance monopolies. That is fact, absolute fact because, as a resident of California I cannot purchase insurance from a company in Louisiana or Maine or Montana or anywhere else even if some provider in one of those states offers a plan I can afford with the services I want. Instead, I am stuck with whatever the insurance companies licensed in the State of California say I can have.

This means there is zero competition. It means that these insurance companies can collude and set whatever rates they see fit. They can offer only those services they feel like offering. And, they can keep the rates too high for many of the working not-quite-poor who don’t qualify for government subsidies. People like me who don't make enough to comfortably afford the premiums and deductibles but make too much to qualify for subsidies - which I wouldn't want, anyway.

Along with that, we have got to have meaningful tort reform. Doctors should not be seeing each patient as a potential lawsuit. That’s why doctors order slews of tests that end up pushing the cost of a visit to the doctor’s office into the exosphere. Around here going to the doctor costs a minimum of $180 for a ten minute or less office visit. That’s the equivalent of a billing rate of more than $1,000 per hour. Who can afford that? And the reason it’s so expensive is because the malpractice insurance premiums are wildly expensive.

If doctors didn’t fear being sued because some patient develops a hangnail two days after an office visit, the costs would start to come down. If doctors didn’t have to pay their insurers through the nose to protect them against frivolous lawsuits because an outcome wasn’t what a patient liked or expected, they could lower their charges to something affordable. They could go back to being doctors again.

We need to replace Obamacare with something new and much better. We need real portability – which Obie-One promised but which doesn’t exist. Right now if you live in Michigan and have an insurance plan you really like, but your company transfers you to South Carolina or Florida or Texas or anywhere else, you cannot take your insurance with you. You have to sign-up for whatever insurance providers are licensed in that state and pay those premiums.

Beyond these things, we have got to get the tax code fixed and made more equitable. Right now about forty percent of working age people pay zero tax. They live here. They use the roads, the schools, all of the public services, but pay nothing for them. How is that right or fair? I don’t think it is and that is why I would like to see a point-of-sale flat tax.

Everyone buys stuff so why not have everyone pay their income tax at the point of sale? If everyone paid a fifteen percent flat tax on every single thing they buy, two percent could go to the local jurisdiction, five percent could go to the state, six percent would go do the feds for government spending, and two percent would go directly to Social Security and Medicaid.

The best part of this system is that all of the illegals that are here would also contribute to paying for the roads and schools and hospitals and all the rest of it. That would be another huge boost.

This would just about eliminate the IRS because there would be no tax returns, no tax filings except for death taxes and some of the other off the beaten path stuff. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be saved just in that.

It would improve cash flow because it would be steady stream – every day there would be tax collected and disbursed to the various jurisdictions. With three-hundred million people chipping in fifteen cents of every single dollar they spend on food, on gas, on clothes and goods and services, that would be one heck of a lot of money and would go a long way toward solving the insolvency problem with the huge entitlement programs we all know are about to fail. Everyone chips in; everyone carries their share of the load.

Poor people who use state issued EBT cards for either food stamp programs or unemployment benefits would not be charged. Naturally, rigorous screening and steps would have to be defined and instituted to prevent fraud, but that would shelter those people from taxation. The rest of us would pay tax on everything we buy. Since I pay for basic stuff – nothing like the things wealthier people buy, I would be taxed on what I buy. People who buy luxury items would be taxed at the same rate on the high ticket stuff they buy. It would be fair because everyone would pay based on their buying habits.

As for how do we prevent fraud? It’s as simple as day.

Each state takes responsibility for issuing Social Security cards. These cards are linked to a national database for Social Security payout purposes, but are issued, managed and tracked at the state level. California is the most populous state with approximately thirty-nine million people. Tracking and managing thirty-nine of anything is far easier than tracking and managing three-hundred fifty of the same thing.

The state boards of equalization already get all employment data – payroll information and can identify who is working and who is receiving benefits of some sort. When someone files an application for unemployment benefits, it goes into the state database, just as it does now. It shows the individual isn’t working and qualifies for benefits. They are issued a benefit card – and it’s set so that no tax is taken from their benefits.

Each state is responsible for managing its system, each is accountable to the federal government, and each is responsible for investigating cases of fraud and abuse – instead of sending that responsibility and power to Washington. Because the states are each responsible, they have a vested interest in making sure that fraud is found and quashed post haste.

Aside from these things, I hope Trump already has staff working on assessing governmental departments and agencies – how many times do we have to pay tax to support multiple departments offering the same services? Why not eliminate duplicative functions, jobs, and services – streamline government and make it more efficient and cost effective?

If we did that – if we reduced the size of government from what it is now to one-half or one-third of its current size and cost by eliminating duplicative services – we would save enormous amounts of money. Salaries, benefits, office space, consumables like copy paper, toner, pens, everything anyone uses in the course of business would be eliminated, saving millions upon millions of dollars every year.

There is so much room for improvement and all it takes is one man with vision and determination and the ability to negotiate and work with people from all parts of the spectrum. I think Donald Trump might just be that man. He is certainly more qualified to do these things than party hacks and socialists who want to perpetuate the current system.

I'm looking forward to the coming weeks - to Super Tuesday on March 1st and the subsequent primaries.

I am looking forward to a Trump run against the perpetual liar.

I do not see a path to the White House for Sanders, but Trump would have no trouble with him either.

Still, though, all of the pundits are out there again, lining up and saying that Trump won't carry the country, but we'll see. They've been wrong before and I think they will be wrong again. As Trump's underlying messages get out, I think they will resonate and I think he will gain more support and reach 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January.

Sit up and pay attention - and have a wonderful week.

Best~

Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories