Plays With Squirrels

I just saw a stereotypical Facebook picture of just the person. The caption/description was “YOLO, You only live once.” Because nothing says “living it up” like taking pictures of yourself.

To be fair though, taking a single picture should only take a few minutes, depending on how many retakes you want. Thus, my theory is as the number of self-taken Facebook pictures increases, the justification for claiming YOLO decreases.

“And I’m going to eliminate some programs that I think are duplicative and unnecessary…(such as) Amtrak subsidies, subsidies to PBS, subsidies to the endowment for the arts, to the endowment for the humanities. I’ve laid out eliminating Obamacare…and…reducing the federal payroll, linking pay to government, government workers.”

Mitt Romney said this to Time magazine.

Great jobs plan-terminate government jobs. Logically, it makes no sense- unless Romney wants to sabotage the American workforce. 

Let’s terminate jobs, thus eliminating income from families. Eliminating income means said family doesn’t have money to buy goods. Families with no money to buy goods means businesses can’t make money, because no one’s buying their products.  Less money for businesses means less money to pay or hire workers. Hi, cycle of unemployment. 

If people don’t have an income and can’t buy goods, that’s less revenue from sales tax. Eliminating income means less revenue for social security taxes and income taxes. Less revenue for social security and from income taxes means less money the government has. If the government has less money,then they have a smaller budget, thus greater debt. 

Common sense, right? Apparently not, at least to Romney and others crusading against public workers. Yes, more public workers means more government spending. Clearly it’s a good investment, considering the above. 

As for the rest of what Romney said, cutting those programs would barely scratch US national debt. The cost of PBS and NPR is $430 million a year. Amtrak received $1.56 billion in government funding in 2010.  ”Cultural services” cost less than one billion, according to usgovernmentspending.com. Exactly how much less? Not sure, there were no numbers provided on the aforementioned link. (to see this, go the the above link, click the [+] near other spending, then see “cultural services) Compare that to the $15.7 trillion national debt.  

Repealing the Affordable Care Act would mean a $813 billion loss of revenue, and increase the deficit by $119 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

If Mitt Romney were to follow through with his proposals from this one quote he would increase unemployment, lower GDI-thus national GDP, increase the national debt, and increase the deficit.

Sweet economic plan, bro.

I journey to the darkest depths/

Dashes, darts in less than secs/

Taken for your ear and the sound of harps connects/

My mind bolts like Usain, unclear which part is next/

Change of direction, here we have the optimistic section/

Pay no attention, due to mental misdirection what’s left in/

These shelves are shelved, we’ll see them at a later date/

Now we leave these depths before we become gator bait/ 

We can’t dwell, let’s head to the surface/

Hopefully here we’ll hear some purpose/

Shit, time to panic, all areas are flooded/

To your right you can see reality destructed/

Stay here, relax, a meditating mind makes buoyancy/

Soon you’ll ascend and be above the fray, royally/

This is where we wander when we worry/

So sit down, there’s no need to hurry/

If I were a Congressman*, these are some of the smaller things I’d want to make happen:

• A minimum wage for interns-make it lower than the working minimum wage. Usually people aren’t trying to live off an internship. Still, an internship is work and deserves compensation. Yes, a good amount of internships offer stipends, but it’s better to have money along the way rather than getting all of it at the end.

• Free birth control-people can often get condoms for free, so people should have access to free birth control. Birth control is free for those with insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. But what about people without insurance? I know this would mean a loss for pharmaceutical companies. However, by the same logic if there’s still a market for condoms, then there is a market for birth control, considering both can be attained at no cost. 

• Legalize marijuana-and tax it at rates comparable to tobacco. I’ve explained my stance and reasoning on this before. This would help the economy and help with crime. For example, drug cartels would have less or no power (“no power” assuming said drug cartel only sells marijuana, not other drugs) because marijuana would no longer be exclusively sold on the black market. By taking away a drug cartels market, their money is taken away, and their purchasing power for weapons. Therefore, legalizing marijuana would reduce street violence.

• Free college-Believe it or not, it’s within reach. There are 19.7 million college students in the United States, according to census.gov. The average cost of tuition, room and board at a four-year private college for one year is $40,633, according to the aforementioned Census source. That means to pay for everyone’s college for one year, assuming all students attend a four-year private college at $40,633 (which everyone doesn’t-you have your more expensive colleges, and your public universities and community colleges which are cheaper), it would cost $800.47 billion. Allowing the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% to expire would bring in $700 billion in revenue, according to an Aug. 4, 2010 CNN Money article. That still leaves $100.47 billion to pay for. Spending on national defense for 2012 is estimated to be $733 billion, according to Whitehouse.gov.  That’s compared to the second highest military spender in the world, China at $106 billion in 2012. Comparatively, the US can easily afford to take $100.47 billion from its massive military budget to pay student’s college cost. With no student loan debt, college graduates could buy goods from companies, thus stimulating the economy, rather than using the money they’d normally use to pay off their education.

Okay, so that last one wasn’t “smaller thing…to make happen.”

*obvs I’m not a Congressman, and I’m too young to run for Congress. The point is, these are practical solutions that I support but haven’t been addressed much.

I remember the thrill of the hunt. The sour taste of victory. Of finally getting what I so strongly desired.

As a child, it was my gold. Unlike the precious metal, it wasn’t advertised on Glenn Beck. The differences didn’t stop there; this gold was edible.

Edible gold. Yes, that’s what we used to call it. Nay, that was not its moniker. But it makes it sound cooler.

(That last paragraph sounded like a bad haiku.)

It didn’t serve as a sexual vice. Oh, dear reader, surely you are as fond of this little mass produced, pre-packaged gem as I. At this point you’re asking your self “Hey, I thought you were a socialist? How can you praise anything mass produced or pre-packaged?” A fair point, but this was not an opiate of the masses. This simple yet supreme subject did not contribute to the oppression of the proletariat. Rather, the proletariat and the bourgeois bathed in its excellence. An excellence so extraordinary it put the lakes of Minnetonka to shame.

Then my edible gold vanished. Or so I thought.

After years of great evasiveness, it made a grand re-entrance. 

Finally, after thinking my edible gold no longer existed, I felt the sour taste of victory. The taste that assaulted my tongue’s taste buds in the most pleasurable ways.

Warheads. Mmmm.