Dear Representative:

If I told you to jump off a cliff you wouldn't do it — so why are you willing to jump off a (fiscal) cliff when Donald Trump tells you to? The dollar's value has dropped this year to an extent not seen in over 50 years. This will greatly increase the cost and difficulty of servicing our enormous national debt. And yet Congress is considering a Bad Bullshit Bill that will increase the deficit by 3.3 trillion dollars. There's no hiding this no matter how much magical math is used.

And speaking of magic — you argued on three prior occasions that tax breaks for the wealthy get pissed down the social ladder to rain abundance on average Joes. It didn't happen then. It won't happen now. Maybe you should stick with facts and logic instead of misinformation when you argue your points. We've known this was a lie for 40 years. If you pass this bill your voters will know as well. And then you'll get voted out of office — perhaps even ridden out of town on a rail. Good luck with all that.

Sincerely,

Voters with open eyes.

If you don’t like how things are going, contact your Congress person and Senator.

Robin Hood and the King

Reverse Robin Hood
According to legend, Robin Hood robbed the wealthy and distributed booty to the poor. Robin Hood in reverse (RHR) works differently. This method is favored by kleptocrats and oligarchs and seeks to enhance the holdings of the wealthiest at the expense of the most impoverished. Let’s talk about the tax bill now approaching the Senate. Read to the end where I unveil its poison pill.

Like the tax bill of 2017, this one also holds out the promise that money will trickle down to those who can use it more. And also like that bill, it puts more money in the hands of those who don’t really need it.

The big difference this time around is that the national debt has ballooned since 2017. This time lawmakers are looking at offsets. They’re considering cuts in programs for people who need them to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

For years Republicans have complained about taxes while the government spent. Somebody needs to pay to run the government but magical thinkers believe that tax cuts pay for themselves by invoking some vague and implausible principal. It never happens.

Meanwhile the government continues to borrow as the cost of doing so is becoming unwieldy. Moody’s recently downgraded the country’s credit worthiness. This hurts our nations’s reputation and increases our borrowing costs.

During Eisenhower’s days the highest marginal tax rate was 91 percent. It’s much less now. If the wealthy could tolerate high taxes back then, why can’t they help lower the deficit now? Our current lawmakers will never willingly ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

The King
The tax bill contains a clause which reads: “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued.”

This is intended to prevent federal courts from from imposing consequences for contempt of court on top government officials. It would give Donald Trump king-like immunity for violating the Constitution. Though perhaps it's unreasonable to suggest that a twice impeached convicted felon would ever think about violating the Constitution.

If you don’t like how things are going contact your Congress person and Senator.

Two quick reads

Merge and Disciple: Two Short Novels (From Crosstown to Oblivion) Kindle Edition
Walter Mosley
Fiction 243 pages
Tor Books, 2012

Like Jumpnauts, these two short novels are concerned with what might occur if humans encountered an awarness greater than their own. In all three works the consequences are planet changing but the stories themselves are very different.

Walter Mosley is best known for his crime and detective fiction. His heroes, Easy Rawlins, King Oliver, and others walk the thin edge that separates morality from immorality. Mosley heroes are driven by moral considerations and behavior, and that’s just as true for the protagonists in Merge and Disciple. These two works, are science fiction in the best sense, but they also waft a bit of eau de detective noir. Mosley’s characters passage between mundane and enhanced consciousness is tempered with violence, pain and uncertainty. Fair warning: graphic sexual scenes may be disturbing to those more used to traditional vanilla science fiction.

Mosley writes in contemporary style, but  with sufficient lyricality to lift his prose above the commonplace. In his book, This Year You Write Your Novel, he stresses that those wanting to write prose fiction should first become familiar with poetry. “Of all writing, the discipline in poetry is the most demanding. You have to learn how to distill what you mean into the most economic and at the same time the most elegant and accurate language.” Mosley has the skills to use words with economy, fitness and purpose.

From Merge: “You killed me,” I said with no emotion, vibration, or intention. “That’s like a table complaining about being dusted,” she said, “a sheet worrying about being hung out to dry.”

From Disciple: Nothing is as it seems, friend Hogarth. Nothing in the world that human beings believe in is really what exists. There was no primal atom, no Big Bang. There is no space as such. Life is not unique. There is no Not God.