Geoff Simpson has assaulted his ex-wife. If Geoff doesn’t like Anderson, then that means Anderson is good people.

Politicians are always ready to cut spending, right after they get past the current urgent spending needs. Just like dopers who promise to quit right after they get done shooting the extra big bag of crank they just bought.

We all know that the spending has to stop. The problem is that stopping the spending means cutting off old people, the sick, and the very young and poor, from benefits they are getting right now. It also means cutting the oil companies and multi-national corporations off the public teat they’ve been sucking dry for decades now, along with other subsidies too (corporate farming comes to mind). It means doling out harsh punishment (old Testament style) to companies that use taxpayer dollars to off-shore our jobs.

Both parties are scared of retaliation by their core constituencies over these cuts. Neither party is willing to gore their own ox, and just wants to slaughter the other guy’s animal instead. This is why our current governmental system fails to address the needs of anyone but major campaign contributors.

In spite of the colossal damage being done, I see no real hope for meaningful change. Our infrastructure continues to crumble, our schools are pathetically underfunded, we are about to risk losing police support for any but the most violent crimes, etc., etc., etc.

Changing leadership from one party to the other has been totally ineffective at getting results. What the answer is, I don’t know. It will take some new kind of political thinking that we don’t seem to have right now.

I wrote three tongue and cheek initiatives that in spite of the initial humor have a serious message. My most popular was Initiative 1069 to change the state seal to a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached the rectum of the tax payer. Around the vignette the words, “ Committed to Sucking the Life Blood Out of Each and Every Tax Payer.”

My second initiative is a rebuttal to Bill Gates Sr. Initiative 1098. Ask yourself the following questions before you vote yes for Initiative 1098.

1. Why would Bill Gates Sr. sponsor an initiative that would tax the rich?
2. Does it have anything to do with the fact the legislature is preparing to give Microsoft a $100 million tax break and amnesty for $1 BILLION in tax evasion?
3. After two years do you believe that the legislature would change the law to tax everyone?
4. After reading section 1. below, do you believe our state is any different than Connecticut?

Panhandling and Pick Pocket Tax For State Legislatures In Lieu of a State Income Tax

Sec. 1. Whereas Initiative 960 was approved by the voters to prevent the following:

In 1991, Connecticut was facing a revenue shortfall of about $2.7 Billion. Using that crisis, Connecticut’s governor pushed hard for a state income tax. The bill eventually passed. At the signing ceremony, Governor Lowell Weicker sounded optimistic. “When I sign this budget, Connecticut will be closing the book on its past and it’ll be facing toward the future.”

17 years later, we have a good idea of what that future looks like: The income tax that was passed to close a $2.7 Billion deficit has been raised several times and now brings in over $7.5 billion a year. Add in the $350 million a year that the state currently receives from Indian Casinos, and Connecticut now collects nearly $8 billion more in revenue than it did in 1991.

Despite all of those extra billions, Connecticut is still facing massive deficits $1.2 Billion this year and another $6 to $8 Billion over the next two years. How could this happen? In Connecticut’s case, out-of-control spending was the culprit. The point is that government knows how to get bigger. Try as they might to slim down, the natural order of things will always take over and ensure they grow larger than anyone thought possible. The only way to stop that, or at least slow it down, is by taking away their source of food: money and power. For this very reason the voters of Washington State passed Initiative 960 in an attempt to remove the tapeworm that is attached to the lower intestine of the taxpayers.