Our taxes have skyrocketed -- thanks to George Bush

"Bridge toll goes up one dollar," the headlines read. Now we have to pay one dollar more just to cross the freaking bridge?

"Local school bonds pass," says the news. Great. Now every house in town coughs up $100 a year more to educate our kids.

"FBI asks police to step up local patrols," said the radio this morning. How is this paid for? How do you think? More local taxes.

"Sales tax goes up" is followed by "Property tax increase" and "State income tax rate change announced." Not to mention all the interest on the two trillion dollars worth of loans we co-signed for so that Bush could purchase The Simple Life for Enron, Halliburton and Carlyle.

George Bush claims that he has lowered our taxes? Bull dookie! He just serves them up to us in a different form. Sure we get $400 back from the IRS. And then we pay thousands more at the pump, in college tuition hikes, health care costs and wage loss.

Also factor in the sad fact that WE are the ones who pay most of the taxes now. Corporations no longer help us out. In 1950, U.S. corporations paid 40% of all taxes (and despite this so-called tax burden, business and commerce flourished too. For them, the right to do business in a healthy American economy was worth every cent!) Now corporations only pay SEVEN PERCENT. And guess who pays the rest? You. Me. The bus driver. The small farmer. The postman. The night clerk at the convenience store.

What can we do? For starters, let's balance the federal budget. How?

* Let's tax corporations (foreign ones too -- including all the corporations located in that vast center of industry, the Caymen Islands) as the price they have to pay for gaining access to American markets.

* Let's kick those corporate welfare queens off the gravey train. Two Bentleys should be enough! And a corporation is NOT a person.

* Let's make sure that our elected representivies represent US. Let's put a cap on election funds. Let's make it a criteria that ALL judges have to serve two years working in the field of legal aid before they will be considered for the bench. Let's allow media to only own one or two things (let's start by sending Rupert Murdoch back to Australia from whence he came). And let's stop hiring industry regulators who only represent the interests of the industry they are supposed to regulate.

* Let's stop giving tax breaks to churches who use Christ for political gain and have turned God into just another money-making Ponzi scheme.

* Let's stop buying government items that we don't need. For instance, we do NOT need Air Force One to schlep George Bush around the countryside speaking at campaign fundraisers. And we don't need to keep supporting the likes of Kenny-Boy Lay either. And who needs the new missile defence system or Star Wars? They are pure pork. And they don't even work.

And last but not least, let's remember what Christ taught and that war is bad for children and other living things. Let's stop squandering 60% of our tax money on buying shoddy-quality over-priced falsely-advertised knock-off "designer" wars.