Another day, another big-freaking-wad-of-dollars!

Another tax day has come and gone, and I find myself with a large, smoldering hole in my wallet yet again. I pay all of the normal Federal, state and local (city) taxes but, being self-employed, I also get dinged by the illustrious "self-employment tax".

Everyone pays FICA (Social Security). I've got no problem with that. Well... I do. But that is a whole other issue.

For anyone who works for someone else, their FICA bill gets split in half. You pay half and your employer pays half. For those of us who work for ourselves though, there is no employer to cover half the tab. Instead, we pay the entire thing (15.3% to be exact) ourselves. Nifty, huh? Just think about what you could do with another 7.65% of your annual income in your pocket, especially as a self-employed small business owner.

Man. I just can't wait until we get a Democrat in the oval office who will let those pesky "Bush Tax Cuts" expire! You know, the tax cuts he gave to "the rich"! Yeah! And we need to raise taxes some more so we can cover our new socialized medicine, finance the world via the "Global Poverty Act", fight global warming and expand our social services even more!

For those of you lefties who read that last paragraph and got all excited... It was SARCASM!

Since I'm kind of on the subject of the "Bush Tax Cuts", maybe someone can explain to me how they are considered tax cuts "for the wealthy". Let's break-down some of this tax data, shall we? Let's compare actual tax for a few different income ranges for both 1999 (Clinton) and 2008 (Bush).

• Single, making $30,000
  1999 Tax: $8,400
  2008 Tax: $4,500
  
• Single, making $50,000
  1999 Tax: $14,000
  2008 Tax: $12,500
  
• Single, making $75,000
  1999 Tax: $23,250
  2008 Tax: $18,750
  
• Married, making $60,000
  1999 Tax: $16,800
  2008 Tax: $9,000
  
• Married, making $75,000
  1999 Tax: $21,000
  2008 Tax: $18,750
  
• Married, making $125,000
  1999 Tax: $38,750
  2008 Tax: $31,250

A monkey could see that the Bush tax cuts were not just "for the wealthy", they were for everyone, at every income level. If you pay special attention, you'll also notice that the discounts get smaller as the incomes get bigger. Go figure. The "wealthy" actually get LESS of a break than the "poor" under Bush's plan. Huh.

Yeah. Those tax cuts are evil. We should do away with them ASAP! (More sarcasm!)

Cold + Rain + Chivas USA = Crew Win!

Sydney and I braved the cold and rain on Saturday night to go watch our team play, and we were not disappointed. It was probably one of the most exciting soccer matches I've seen in a long time. This week saw the hardest-working-team in Major League Soccer up against Chivas USA, a team that the Crew has never beaten at home... Ever.

The final tally was 4-3 in favor of the Black and Gold. The score in itself doesn't tell the whole story, though. There were two send-offs in the second half (both for Chivas USA) and the play was "spirited" to say the least.

The Crew won the season (and home) opener two weeks ago against Toronto FC (which we also attended), and then proceeded to suffer a loss on the road against the New York Red Bulls last week. This win keeps them in the top of the pack in the East, but can they keep it up? The season is still young, so only time will tell.

Sad Day in Hilliard

Earlier today my wife called to let me know that there was an accident at my daughter’s former elementary school. Apparently a dump truck failed to stop for a crossing guard and a couple of students in the crosswalk directly in front of the school. The crossing guard attempted to push one child out of the way of the truck and was hit, as was the child.

The guard, Diane Sharp was treated by paramedics on the scene before being air-lifted to the OSU Medical Center where she later died of her injuries. The child she was trying to save is also in the hospital, but he is reportedly “doing well”.

I live less than a mile from where this happened, and I drive through that exact same area every day. I’ve seen people fly through there during school hours, but usually there is a patrol car sitting there waiting to greet them. Evidently the cop wasn’t there this morning, and the dump truck driver said he was driving slow but “didn’t see them”. He must not have been paying much attention, though. You know… Bright yellow vest, big red stop sign and all…

Indentured Servitude: Nanny State Style!

Ohio State Representative Sandra Williams (Democrat... Go figure!) has introduced a bill (HB519) that would require Ohio parents to "volunteer" at their children's school at least 13 hours per school year. While that seems well-intentioned on the surface, the fine print is what interests me.

You see, if the parent(s) don't hit their 13 hours of "volunteer time" for the school year:

(F) Not later than the thirtieth day of June of each school year, the superintendent of each school district shall report to the department of education the name and address of each parent who, in that school year, did not complete the requirements of division (B) of this section. The department shall impose a fine of one hundred dollars on each parent reported under this division who does not show good cause as to why the parent was unable to complete the requirements. The department shall send the parent written notification of the fine. The notification shall inform the parent of the following:

So... If you don't put in enough "volunteer time" at your kid's school, you get fined $100. Don't worry, though. If you blow-off the fine the State will just deduct it from your income tax return!

Umm. What?!

While I am a firm believer that today's parents need to be more involved in their children's lives both in and out of school, having the government mandate it smells an awful lot like socialism to me.

First Blog Post

I have been blogging on my own sites for about 9 years now, but recent upgrades to my personal webserver have broken the CMS ("Blog") functionality. Since I am entirely too lazy to fix the functionality on my personal site, I decided it might be time to give this free blog thing a shot.

Maybe this will inspire me to keep things more up-to-date.