Howdy, All ~~

/Rant/

I haven’t posted or commented here in a while; a significant part of that is because as a federal employee, I didn’t want to actively be involved in criticizing the President. While I certainly didn’t support him (perhaps one or two of the long-term Lizards might remember those semi-incoherent “Letters To Donald” I wrote a couple years ago, which I don’t think you’d mistake for something written by a MAGAt), there’s the oath of office, for good or bad. Short of impeachment, he *is* the President.

I came back specifically to talk (bitch) about something that just annoys the living fuck out of me; a thread about the President’s hair seems to be a good place to dump it. I thought about posting it under my real name on Facebook, but I’d potentially open myself up to “facebook fallout” for not only myself by my also my extended family. I’ve got a number of friends back home who are high school-educated white males, and they love *exactly* who you would suspect a high school-educated white male would love.

I don’t make a lot of money. I get by. I’m not so poor that I can’t afford the occasional vacation, but I do have to chop the entertainment budget to near-zero levels for at least a couple months in order to do so.

So I crunched my Uncle Fed numbers recently, and I think that based on my income I’m taking home an extra $15-ish per week. Thank you, Mr. Tax Bill. Good times; gonna paint the whole town grey. Might be as much as $20, I guess. Personally, I’d much rather see that money go to feed a few kids or help get some folks off the street. I know. Fucking hippie.

Meanwhile, it’s been reported that Randolph and Mortimer Koch could get as much as $1.4 billion. Wow.

Now, here’s the flip side of this story:

My mom lives on Social Security. She’ll be 88 years old this year. She raised three kids two of whom turned out pretty good and one who turned out me. She did that with little worthwhile help for years from my dad. There’s some hero worship there when it comes to mom.

Mom lives in a small, clean, one-bedroom apartment in a senior community and pays 30% of her income in rent. She lives on about $1,400 a month, which includes a small pension from her years as a small-town hospital admin. Whatever the number, it’s less than $1,500.

30% of $1,400 is $420. That means after paying her rent — and *before* other basic living expenses such as food are considered — she’s left with about $1,000 a month.
If I’m not mistaken, there’s a bit in the President’s budget that calls for people using subsidized housing increase their share of the rental cost from 30 to 35%. Mom falls into that class.

35% of $1,400 = $490.

She’ll need to pay an extra $70 per month in rent.

Put it together yet?

Yep.

Essentially, my 88-year-old mom, who has all of $1,000 a month to live on and will now be asked to pony up an additional $70 of that per month in rent…is paying for my tax cut.

That’s not how it’s supposed to work. And if it is, it shouldn’t be.

Further: If the numbers I read are accurate, there are some 900,000 seniors in subsidized housing. Using my mom’s income as a baseline (which may not be accurate, but you could adjust the numbers up and down as necessary), the rent increases of every senior mandated by this jump from 30% to 35% would barely pay for half of the Koch brothers will gain.

As an equation, it might go something like this:

Koch tax cut = (900,000 seniors x $70 per month x 12 months) x2

I’ll gladly admit to being a fuck up; it would have been nice to have been able to take care of mom in her advancing years but that ship sailed a long time ago. She doesn’t have a bad life, but she is dependent on the wherewithal of the state. But taking money from people with virtually nothing in order to give it back to people who seem to have no fucking idea of what to do with it (see, e.g., Americans For Prosperity. -ed.)
is just a dick move to end all fucking dick moves.

I continue to feel ill at ease actively participating in discussions about the President. But short of impeachment, a fatal cheeseburger, a comet hitting Earth or God Almighty himself descending from the heavens and being the spitting image of Donald J. Trump, I hope to be *first* in line at my local polling station on November 3, 2020 to vote him out of office.

Thank you,

Bong

/Rant