Let's Talk Taxes

Seems to me, we need an overhaul of our tax code and strategy, not just a bump for the millionaire rate. Taxes, are just like the kitty in a poker game. Or they should be. You wanna play, you gotta pay. And it makes no difference what pile or lack thereof you are sitting on, you pay the kitty to participate in the possibility of winning.
Fair and simple taxation should be the order of the day. Certainly a progressive tax, in which the rate creeps up based on your overall earnings is the appropropriate method with the wide disparity of income levels we have in our cash rich country.

But I also agree that all, or nearly all should have a level they pay so no one can claim we simply let people off the hook. It seems to me that only those at the extreme low point on the income curve would escape paying anything. In my mind, this is somewhere between $5K and $10K annually. You, or your economist can pick the specific income point, beloe which you pay no taxes.

From there, we have a large number of hard working citizens, part timers, seniors, and unskilled labor that sits below $20K annually, but who can all pay something. It would seem an easy plan to come up with a flat pay scheme that would limit the pain, but ensure they pay into our collective American dream. Fix their tax at $200, or create a small scale, $8K, 12K, 15K 20K levels with $100, $200, $350, $500 flat payments. We should ensure they all pay something, but that it is fair and does not punish them as the low earners. Again, this would seem to be an easy task.

Over $20K annually, I think this becomes very easy. But first, we must fix the deduction merry-go-round and investment/capital gains fantasy. Two scenarios: 1) you are a bus driver in a major metropolitan area, working 48 hours per week, and barely breaking $50K annually. Your tax rate is 25%. 2) you are an investment banker who makes $250K salary plus commission and bonus income. As you have the ability to do so, you generally have $500K invested in the stock market, and you realize relatively large capital gains on this money each year. Your base tax rate is 34%, but you only pay 15% on your investment and capital gains income. The current rich guy/investor/congressman viewpoint is that if we don't give the investment banker a break on his investments, he and his other wealthy buddies won't invest and our economy will shrink. If this logic is correct, the bus driver wouldn't waste his time working his ass off only to make $50K a year, and our transportation system will come to a halt. Neither is true.

First, tell me where else will the banker find the kind of returns on his money that the stock market or other investment opportunites offer him? Putting it in his savings account at the bank? Buying baseball cards? No. if you look at the kind of money that can be made with large investment ability, even if his capital gains tax rate went up, it would still be the smart thing to invest it. And for those who want to shriek and wail that the money he used for his investment has already been taxed, how can we think of taxing it again at the same rate? Wow. Income from rich guy job, taxed at 34%, portion of income spent on stocks, which bring profit (income) from investment which is NEW INCOME, and should be taxed. Please, can we just for the moment deal in reality, and not a parallel universe where those with means make up new definitions for stuff we thought we knew about?

Now, what we are talking about is what is the goal of our tax system? Is it to provide a place for the fairly rich to get richer? Is it a big card game like Wall Street where those that play the game properly can make gazillion's of dollars because they had bazillions to start with? Is it an engine that can be aimed at varying industries or other endeavors to make them work better and oil the wheels of progress and profit to make things work better? No. No, and no.

Our tax system is a tangible payment that we as Americans make to ensure national security, a working infrastructure, court system, and political administration to run the workings of our government and ensure order. Once we started diddling the deductions, sheltering the income and providing tax dodges that were oh so legal, but maybe a little shady, we handed over our economy to the wealthy, powerful and politically connected. Do you really believe anyone making under $30K a year had a lot of pull with getting our current plethora of deductions and tax incentives implemented to cover his corporate jet? We must demand an end to this greedy profit grab which has severely damaged the middle class. And how do we do that, you ask?

I'll tell you how. We eliminate, that's right, eliminate — "that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that spells trouble," ALL DEDUCTONS save the mortgage on your primary home, and charitable deductions. And we put limits on those. Again, I hear the shrieking and gnashing of teeth that this will stall business development and profits and make us communist and the world will end and....bullshit! This will return the tax code to what it should be—a direct method of funding our government, shared by all but the lowest income individuals.

Now here is the good news — I refer you back to my comments, "I think this becomes very easy." Over $20K in income, without all the loopholes and tax havens and corporate Cayman Island Investment Schemes, we can now make three simple tax rate categories, and lower the overall percentage rate for each from what we pay now. If it were up to me, I would only lower it a little to bring the broadest amount of income, aimed at increasing it say, 20-25% over what it is now from these levels. So, again, get your own economist to work these percentages for you, but mine would be 15%, for income of $20K to $250K, 20% for $250K to $1M, and 25% over $1 Million. And remember, this would include all investment and capital gains income because it is, after all, income!

Now run along, get your friendly local economist, and work the numbers. This plan could work, and you could file your taxes on a post card at year end. And, it would have the lovely effect of raising tax revenues while lowering the percentages paid. Right now, we have these falsely inflated percentages, but if you are rich, your actual percentage is much lower than your tax bracket because you have all kinds of delicious ways of sheltering income. You know, so it will trickle down to us peons. What a load of shit. The American system of Capitalism is built on people having the freedom to build a business out of nothing, and with their hands and minds making it profiatble. We have for too long given in to the investment banker and wall street financier that what we really need is to float a few IPO's, grab some investment income, borrow some venture capital, sheiled oursleves from taxes, and watch our portfolio grow even if we have a mediocre product and lousy service. Greed is killing us, and if you wonder where that great American manufacturing engine went, it went up in smoke from the fire that companies like Bain Capitol built under American companies to squeeze profit from them as they disappeared. Our tax code rewards this kind of behavior, and it has to stop. We must learn again to compete on excellance, and conduct business with integrity.

In my mind, this is what Mr. Obama should be promoting; instead of leaving himself open to right-wing criticism that he is "re-distributing" wealth and stifling new business and jobs by raising taxes on the job makers. My plan doesn’t re-distribute" wealth, it cleans and simplifies the tax code for us all. How long have we heard about Romney's complaint from Republicans that "47% of Americans don't pay any tax?" Well let's fix that. Let's ensure that with the exception of under $5K in income, all Americans pay their fair share, and this includes those over $1 Million without sheltering them from the full tax that the rest of us are burdened with.

Isn't it better if we all pay, and all our tax brackets come down, the code is simplified, and we raise more income to fix our economy, our infrastructure, Medicare, Social Security and the deficit?

Now, lest you think I am naive, it will take the people of this great country, big and small, rich and poor, well known and obscure, to give this plan a chance of seeing the light of day. What I would like are concrete ideas of how to achieve this. Leave me a post and offer your thoughts.

Let the Mystery monkey go Free!

The monkey says it all. I have previously referred to the fact that none of us, myself included, are very far removed from our Simian roots. I recognize this fact every time I see one of those commercials where the guy is surrounded by chimps in a business office and they take nothing seriously. Or if I watch one of those "Trunk Monkey" videos on Youtube which leave me in tears from laughing so hard. But of course, that proves without doubt that I am laughing so hard because I identify with the monkeys, not the actors in the video. just recognizing this frees me to embrace the animal in me, and of course makes me want a banana or to go pee in the corner.

Now when I compare these revelations to the recent Political storm we just barely lived through, I feel much more like crying than laughing. It is all to clear that all of our so called "civilized" machinations are simply the same sentiments as those apes in "2001: A Space Odyssey" when they find the ability to pick up clubs and sticks and beat the other tribe silly, thereby winning the day.

Now don't misunderstand—I would have been happy to mimic this activity in the heat of the electorate battle and club people like Rush Limbaugh, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Michelle bachman and Anne Coulter. It is just that on reflection I see clearly that our system is no better than a bunch of mountain gorillas going at it to establish the pecking order. Once the dust settles, we pretty much revert to the "every mammal to them selves" stance for four more years and hope somebody takes care of the details while we go back to scrounging food, liquor, tail and a new iPhone. You know, seeking more monkey sex.

And yes, for those of you who have weathered my high and mighty diatribes on facebook, where I stylistically and with great literary poise eviscerate my Republican counterparts, and generally flip a finger at all opinions I deem narrow minded and moronic, I am certainly a fundamental part of the problem, and enjoy fresh fruit and maniacal laughing as much as the next ape. But in my defense, I also tried very hard to make logical, studied arguments that I had researched so I could back my opinions up with real facts and figures so I could attain Alpha male status in the facebook tribal order. Well, at least in my local tribe.

But now, the battle has been won, and my choice was victorius. I can now hope and pray for peace and prosperity to return, so that I can once again afford to subscribe to Modern Drummer Magazine, and buy new shoes whenever I want. And as I now turn to pushing the powers to be to revamp our tax system so it is able to be understood by mere mortals, built to favor none and be affordable to all, I can't help but offer up a little chuckle, completely out of character for a wild mountain ape who would be beating his chest and shrieking loudly, that America has come to a point in it's demographics that allowed it to re-elect a Black man–a Harvard graduated, family guy soft talking kind of Black man with a distinctly suspicious middle name to the highest office in the land when the white country club types can't even figure out how he got there in the first place! I feel certain that the day after voting day in 2008 there was a hue and cry from gated communities and golf courses everywhere that sounded very close to..."Are you fucking kidding me?" And now, these same people believed in their narrow little white, upper and way-the-fuck upper ruling class homes across the land that the Mittster could not possibly lose to this guy that the Donald claimed was not an American citizen, did not actually graduate from Harvard and was intent on converting us all to the Socialistic Muslim wing of the Communist Atheist party. So yesterday, there once again rose a chorus of sound that might have been..."You have got ot be kidding me! Get my broker on the phone, NOW!" Ain't democracy grand? Now I am off to scratch my nuts in public, and spit fruit seeds on the sidewalk while cackling like Cheetah as I sneak through the night to find the place where they are keeping the hillsborough County Mystery monkey caged and free him to the Central Florida jungle once again!

I am Thankful to be a Fishhead

Thanksgiving week is upon us once again, and at first glance, it appears the only thing to give thanks for is having a full day off with family to cook a real meal, watch football and generally loll around.
But there is much more I am thankful for...
I am thankful for finally electing someone as President who will tell the truth and work to better us all.
And I am thankful that I still have a job, even if I am not making enough money to pay all my bills in one month. Which of course makes me thankful for retirement accounts, and extra stuff I can sell to people who do make enough money to pay their bills, though I will miss that guitar.
And I am thankful that I have three other guitars to comfort me in these lean times, because they make me money, they look very cool in the living room, and they make me feel rich beyond belief.
And I am thankful that my brother is having us over to his house, and that he is doing all the cooking, so my kitchen won't be all screwed up for weeks afterward. And yes, I don't clean up real often, so I am also thankful that I could give a shit if you think that is slothfull.
And I am thankful that in fact my brother is buying a turkey that is fully prepared and cooked because he is an absolutely dreadful chef, so the meal will be good, and my kitchen will still be clean.
And I am thankful that I have some of the most talented and seriously twisted friends to play music with in no less than 4 different groups over the holidays which means I can actually buy some Christmas presents and get paid to party and jam and eat free food and drink free liquor and make really loud but bitching noise with three guitars, a drumset with my new Swiss Paiste cymbals, and of course my treasured congas. So to those of you who thought being in the band in high school was nerdy, go fuck yourself.
And I am thankful that I am a Fishhead. And not just any Fishhead, but one of the founding members of the "Joe Willy, Neckbone and the Fishheads" Fishhead! It means I am certified by the Guild of Working Blues Musicians to sing about dirty stuff, marital discord, drunken and disorderly behavior and jailtime in front of anyone I want, get paid for it, and do it over a microphone at loud volume so they cannot miss the nasty words I am singing.
And I am thankful that lately, the only time I have been in a courthouse was for jury duty.
And I am thankful that my dog Dizzy is absolutley ecstatic if I just come through the front door, regardless of what time or day it is, or what mood I am in. In fact, if I am drunk, he is even happier and thinks it is really funny and we must be paying a new game if I start knocking stuff over. Of course this game can turn really bad if he gets spooked by something I do and he bolts out the front door as it is ususlly late at night and very dark and he is pitch black and intent on being as far aaway from the house as he can be in a New York minute.
And I am thankful that I work for a Ford dealership and not a GM dealer so that there is some chance I will still have a job after the first of the year.
And I am thankful that Sarah Palin has continued to prove just how crazy funny she is by pardoning a turkey and then giving an interview while two of the freed turkey's friends and probable family members are butchered and exsanguinated by being crammed in large funnels covered in the blood of all those who preceeded them directly behind Sarah while she discussed how lucky she was to be there. Makes you wonder if she even wastes her time cooking the turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, or just rips the live bird apart with her bare hands and eats the entrails and heart while still warm and pulsing before she heads out on the tundra to beat some baby seals and have monkey sex with a grizzly bear. What a girl!
And I am thankful that the Swedes are such good engineers so that my two 1993 Volvo's with over 400K miles between them both run and I can flip the bird to anybody who has to make a car payment.
And I am thankful that I live in a country that allows me to write this drivel without immediately being run in for any number of trumped up charges only to have my head cut off like one of Sara's turkeys.
And I am supremely thankful that I am not conflicted with traditional religious values that would make me crazy with guilt and rancor and a phantasmagorical belief that something happens after I am gone, because I absolutely hate to leave a party and I would be very pissed to die expecting some nirvana only to find a complete void. Especially if I had been getting up and getting dressed to be social and nice at church on Sunday mornings with people I found to be shallow and hypocritical when I could have been sleeping in and watching Meet the Press before football.
So, thanks to my friends, thanks to most of my family, and thanks to me.

The Blue Willy Trio...smokin!

This week, a new chapter in the saga of the Joe Willy Band as we do an unplugged Blues thang with just three of us at the local Pub. A little Vino, a little blues and always a tab to pay.

We will call ourselves "The Blue Willy Trio."

We are looking forward to cutting it up a little free and unplanned. We are using our lead guitar player, the lead singer and his harmonicas, and me on congas, guitar and vocals. As always, we will pull out of our ass whatever you will remain seated and listen to. If you attempt to leave, we will grovel and spin like good jesters and charlatans seeking your approval and tips. Yes, we are whores.

But Whores with a heart of gold. Whores who can play more than mere sexual acts of wonder and desire. We are Blues musicians.

Years ago, I played almost exclusively Rock and Roll. I thought Blues guys were too dark and down for me. But I remember the wise words of an old friend who was an awesome guitar player and unapolegetic whoredog who taught me much about life as a musician—"I ain't playing to make money, I'm playing to get laid." And get laid he did. And he played the raunchiest Blues I had ever heard, even though we were a Rock band. He had my full attention.

So for the last 15 years or so, I have grown into a Blues man who plays some Rock and Roll. And it's all good. I have learned to love and embrace our national treasure in the down home idiom of the Delta players and their big city counterparts.

So come on down some night to Tanner's Pub in the little hamlet of Wiener Haven, and hang out with the boys on stage playing a little Statesboro Blues, or Louisiana Blues, or Sweet Home Chicago. We'll get ya going, and the Blues will set ya free! But bring cash, and don't approach the band too closely, they are dangerous mens!

And with that, here's some words I wrote in a previous post that seems appropriate:

The Night Rag
The tequila is cold, & the bar will be smoking',
the women so hot, they're red, raw & choking.
Don't mess with the band, 'cause they kick & they bite,
Their sound is thick and it's sweet, and they're on for the night.
I'm ready for whatever, bring it all, bring it now—
the bands got no name, and the night sings through them now—

Drink me, eat me, dance & play on me son,
Don't stop till I'm gone, don't ease up on the fun.
Nothings covered, no one's safe, we're all scared of the night,
feel the heat, make it steam, lose yourself it's alright.
I'm running, I'm gunning, jump this miracle feat.
watch it slip, watch me fight, It's my time on this beat—
time goes out like a light—when it’s lost, it’s not cheap.
Can’t go quietly, or go soft, back into that night.

A good friend of mine recently wrote about her feelings regarding race. How we got here, where we were, and where we may go. She was very personal about her personal journey through southern bigotry and our journey along the white and black path to equality.
Through this journey, she spoke of her guilt just by being white, and how we all filter the world in our own way that makes reality as we know it. i tried to assure her that that guilt was not hers, but an "oily film we all wear."
But her words made many connections for me, and instigated deep philosophical thoughts (okay, only in comparison to say, Monday Night Football which I also have been thinking about as I get ready to leave work this fine Monday evening) about filters and reality and the mind.
It occurred to me that mostly we feel that what we see is the filter we use on the world, but I think that is wrong, or at least naive and overly simplistic. I think our entire body, and the world all around us—our hands and feet and limbs and hair and eyes and ears and skin and dirt and air and people and everything combine to absorb the entire realm of existence and universe that we are aware of, as if we are an infinitesimally small sponge deep in the middle of an infinite ocean. All that we take is delivered to our personal filter, the mind.
In this mind, the filtering occurs which defines and identifies our world to each of us uniquely. In this way, reality is only the synapses and electrical activity in our mind. Our mind is just the final stage of the filter which creates our reality. So as each galaxy is made up of millions of individual stars and their associated wave structures, energy and gravity, so are the millions of synapses in each brain.
This makes me think that it isn't what is "out" there that is important or real, it is what ONLY happens as a brief chemical and electrical event deep inside us that is real. All else is handed to us by what has come before our newest thoughts.
Now if this seems inconsequential or silly, I submit it is only because your internal reality is not as real as mine, or you are Sarah Palin. but seriously folks... The thought that we are effecting change does not seem as real to me as the thought that we are only "witnessing" what our collective nerve impulses have already absorbed and processed. Our entire existence and the construct we know as the universe could easily be a mass fabrication of minds processing incorrect initil data that us brought us to the wrong current conclusions.
And this is where I found this thought process so interesting. True revelation may only come when the universe we have created actually hands us new data that we have not had, that does not fit theoretically or physically with what we think we know. Walla! We are all really just nodes in an energy field in a storm in the void. Or, we are frog like creatures with magical abilities, pink skin and outrageous musical talent that do nothing but play Beatles music through the millennium.
Needless to say, this is a long walk from the state of race relations in this country. And I promise, I have not been drinking or imbibing anything that set me into an Alice in Wonderland stupor. I'm just saying!
So here's to hoping change can come from within and without, just like Mighty Quinn the Eskimo. Now if you expect me to parse the meaning(s) of an early Bob Dylan song, forget it. These mysteries will remain until the end of days!

Goodbye Sarah...

Note to Sarah...your arrogance and ignorance are only surpassed by your ambition—a very dangerous situation. You have highlighted all that is wrong not only with Republicans, but with politics as usual in this country. When in doubt, lie, create innuendo, divide, make it someone else's fault (the press, the RNC, McCain, your Brother-in-law, your employees, etc). When one considers all the high points of your limited career, it is clear you are motivated purely by greed and the acquisition of power without any regard to your actual abilities or fair play. I think we have all underestimated the power of Barack Obama to effect change, even in the Republican Party. The RNC and their brightest new members (no, not you Sarah) will see from his example that dumbing down the populace (Joe the Plumber comes to mind) and working to foment hate through lies and innuendo does not win the day. I suspect even they will be positively affected by the Obama wave, and we will see an evolution even in the RNC that will be most welcome to lift all of our body politic up. You will be cast aside like a dead wolf missing a paw that some barbaric hunter hacked off to make a buck. Good-bye Sarah—go home, give the clothes back and SHUT-UP!

There is a dog howling somewhere...

It is a testament to the depth of our depravity and utter lack of a national intelligence beyond that of my faithful dog, "Dizzy," that in the midst of this war on terror, and the worst financial crisis since the great depression that we are discussing lipstick on pigs.
While the glimmering of acknowledgement that the world is leaving us behind, we stridently shriek, "but we are still the grewatest nation on earth," the best that the Republican party can sling is that Obama is too liberal, and he called Sarah Palin a pig. I say, if the lipstick matches, get a purse from that sow's ear! Quite frankly, John McCain and his entire election team can kiss my freaking ass! How does this man and his pet swine sleep at night after advertising complete fabrications and then insist they are the ones being wronged?
And lest we forget, the lowly swine offers itself up to our breakfast, lunch and dinner tables where we happily knosh up the entire animal, (at least in the south that is) without the blink of an eye. Arnold from Green Acres must be rolling in his little muddy grave. That is, if we didn't eat him and crush his bones up for some fertilzer or dog bones! I only hope Wilbur the pig is no longer around to bear this disrespect. But on to the McCain mud machine.
Lest we forget what it means to be a liberal, let me remind us of some of the glory we deserve. Women, which party and group of like thinkers fought with you to give you the vote? That's right, the Liberal Democrats. And who gave us Medicare and Medicaid so your parents could afford the small fortune in medication that their Republican Doctor prescribed for them so they could live AND eat? That's right, the Liberal Democrats. And why do we have National Forests, Wildlife Preserves, the Appalachian trail and millions of acres of protected forest and pristine lands? That's right, the Liberal Democrats, and oh yeah, that left of center liberal Republican Teddy Rosevelt. And who gave us Civil Rights and Social Security to show our respect and the value of our elderly? That's right, the Liberal Democrats. So you non-liberal Republicans can again, kiss my liberal, Democratic ass, beacuse I will not apologize for thinking that people, children, elderly and the infirm matter more than profit and greed. Liberal is NOT a bad word. Liberal, as in "Liberty" and the notion that to be free, we must be equal in our "liberties" is a concept that is the heart of our democracy. It is only in the hands of oil sucking, war mongering, greedy little pigs like Dick Cheney and George Bush that this concept could be bastardized beyond recognition. And as for John McCain, the latest incarnation of the worst of their party to claim ANYONE ELSE is a "tax and spend liberal" is hideous in light of the Bush administration handing us the largest budget deficit in our entire history. And therein lies the lipstick on the pig.
Now my dog "Dizzy" is thought to be named for the great Dizzy Gillespie, the jazz trumpeter with the bent horn. And in fact, Dizzy has one ear permanently bent over like Mr. Gillespie's trumpet bell. But no, one only needs to spend 30 seconds to a minute with my loving dog to understand that he was named "Dizzy" because he is, dizzy. As such, he would make a lousy Vice President. He does not support abortion rights for women, he does not support equal pay for equal work, and he generally is a chauvinist pig when it comes to women. But he would still be a far superior pick than Sarah Palin. I come to this conclusion because he is not ready to force his religious views on anyone; he would not think of shooting wildlife of any kind as guns scare the living shit out of him; he does not support drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else. And he is not a liar, a beauty queen or speak with a harsh midwestern twang that causes me to want to oil something or take a hammer to the TV. And besides, even with his limited native intelligence, he is a staunch supporter of Barack Obama.
So in closing, I feel it is important to point out one last time that John McCain, Sarah Palin and the entire Republican party can kiss my freaking ass, lipstick and all!