More Taxes, Big Brother

Just when you’re wondering, in only the first month of the Obama Administration, how your life could get any worse, any more taxed, any more programmed, any more monitored, how government could be any more intrusive — ?
Well, here’s how:

The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.

Obama’s new Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to tax drivers predicated upon how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they use. He said on Friday:

We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,” the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.

Who would pay for this mandatory equipment? You would. But that’s simply the tip of the iceberg. Do what BZ calls The Logical Extension. Always do The Logical Extension.
Consider that this is wonderful for our government in any number of glorious ways:
– It would increase taxes on drivers. More money for government to spend foolishly;
– It would tend to keep some people out of their cars for two reasons:
* To avoid extra cash paid
* To help keep their individual privacy
– It would begin to accomplish true Enviro Social Engineering:
* To “help” people think their cars were the source of their problems than their answers to transportation;
– Furthermore, with GPS your very activities could be tracked;
– Your driving habits, locations, tendencies would be archived;
– Technologically, you could easily be aurally monitored;
– Automobile insurance companies would skyrocket your rates;
* Your speeds would be monitored;
* Do you accelerate too quickly?
* Do you brake too suddenly?
* Does this result in more abuse to the car your insurance company is covering?
* Do you even remotely roll through any stop sign?
* Do you tailgate? Correlations could be made between your vehicle and any so-equipped vehicle surrounding you;
* Do you drive in dangerous areas? Times? Tendencies? Higher rates;
* Do you drive in congested areas? Higher rates;
* Are you wearing your seat belt at every second? Higher rates;
* Now, very easy for your insurance company to completely cancel you;
* Information to be shared between companies;
– Police jurisdictions:
* Now, very easy to document you running a stop sign, a red light, one MPH over the limit;
* ANY violation of any vehicle code in your state;
* Money generation for each and every police agency you happen to visit, instantly;
– Even further, information from this system shared from government to:
* Your automobile insurance company: easy to be canceled;
* Your Life insurance company: determined by Risk Managers that you are a risk;
* Your Health insurance company: determined by their Risk Managers that you are a risk;
And, of course, it would be easy to track you, 24/7, by way of your vehicle. Your routes, your routines, where you stop, do you consistently roll through a Jack-In-The-Box? Ah, that would mean your lifestyle is compromised — time to jack up your Health insurance.
Think about this, ladies and gentlemen. I am not a loon, for if I can think of these things now, various other entities — governmental and private — are already rubbing their hands with glee, pondering the potentials of this new technology. You would be a true Sheeple, used only for two things:
1. A source of revenue from many directions;
2. A way for companies — mostly of the insurance variety — to divest themselves from you.
Government considers you, the producer, the provider, the person of sufficient affluence to own a vehicle (oh my God, do you own more than one vehicle?) as nothing more than a vein to tap, to monitor, to use like a Kleenex. No privacy. None. If government can do a thing, it will do a thing. And anything government does is seldom if ever reversible.
To Big Government, a new and budding Socialist Government, you are nothing more than a cow. If we chip your car, you will be chipped next. You. Your person.
You let this go, you just bend over, plans for Phase II Chipping procedures will commence.
I can hear you say: BZ, now you’re the Moonbat.
Oh really? Well, just sit back, relax and do nothing. Government willtake care” of you.
We’ll see, won’t we?
BZ

Fornicalia GOP Sacks Up

The Demorats are holding the Fornicalia budget hostage. In a recession, they want to spend spend spend spend. Fornicalia’s budget is more than six months overdue. The proposed budget, locked by Demorats, includes $15 billion dollars in tax increases which averages out to a toll of $1,500 per Fornicalia family.

If you’re a Fornicalia resident, you can calculate your tax hit here. Here is the budget proposal as of last Saturday.

The budget is at an impasse. Left Wing Liberal Governor Schwarzenegger wants the Forniculus budget (replete with the above taxes) passed — despite the fact that Schwarzo himself acquired the Guv’s chair on the back of exorbitant VLF (vehicle licensing fund) rates via vehicle registration fees proposed during the tenure of Gray Davis in 2003. Why yes, that’s correct, registration fees in this new budget would double current fees.

That was enough to kick Gray Davis out of the Sacramento comfy chair. But not Schwarzo?

A heaping helping of hypocrisy, anyone? Bueller?

On Wednesday, Fornicalia Republicans had had enough when their GOP leader did not oppose the new taxes in the proposed budget. They sacked his ass. From SacBee.com:

Senate Republicans ousted their leader early this morning as other lawmakers continued searching for one more GOP vote in the upper house to break the state’s budget deadlock.

In a contentious meeting that lasted through the midnight hour, Senate Republicans removed Sen. Dave Cogdill as leader and replaced him with Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, who opposes the budget deal Cogdill negotiated for his caucus because it contains new taxes.

Apparently Fornicalia Republicans are beginning to coalesce.
Most everything was included in the budget with the exception, I understand, of the 12-cent per gallon tax on gasoline. Not much to be proud of, not much about which to be jubilant.

Leaders also agreed to Maldonado’s demand to eliminate the 12-cent additional gas tax, which was estimated to bring in $2.1 billion through June 2010, and up to a 5 percent surcharge on income tax liability. The money will be replaced with a 0.25 percent increase in the state income tax rate, federal stimulus dollars and more than $600 million in line-item vetoes.

With the changes made today, the deal totals $15 billion in state spending reductions, $12.8 billion in temporary tax increases, $11.4 billion in borrowing and a $1 billion reserve.

Republican Abel Maldonado held out, then finally voted for the package as delineated above. Here are the “concessions” Maldonado allegedly acquired. Please note this, however:

But legislative leaders refused to grant him his proposal to eliminate legislative pay altogether when the budget is late.

Politicians actually penalized when a budget is late? We can’t have that! cried the legislators.
What a damnable abortion.

BZ

Is This True?

Lawmakers in 20 states move to reclaim sovereigntyObama’s $1 trillion deficit-spending ‘stimulus plan’ seen as last straw
Posted: February 06,
200911:50 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi© 2009 WorldNetDaily

NEW YORK – As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level.

So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

“What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state’s business,” Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Randy Brogdon told WND.

Verifiable? Is there some actual hope?
BZ

Obama & The Fairness Doctrine

An actual official statement by the Obama Administration:

President Obama opposes any move to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a spokesman told FOXNews.com Wednesday.

The statement is the first definitive stance the administration has taken since an aide told an industry publication last summer that Obama opposes the doctrine — a long-abolished policy that would require broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.

“As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.

This, apparently, in direct contravention of what The American Spectator wrote about a very recent meeting involving the FCC and influential Demorat Henry Waxman. From the article:

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. “It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. “Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them.”

The article continues by writing that “both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal of licensing as a means of enforcing “Fairness Doctrine” type policies without actually using the hot-button term “Fairness Doctrine.”

I’ll not be jubilant yet. With this administration, it’s about visible deeds and not words. Plus, as indicated above, might there likely be a variant proposed cleverly not entitled “Fairness Doctrine”? I say the chances are good, with the end game being the same: quashing Conservative free speech.

BZ

Insanity

Isn’t Albert Einstein’s rough definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results“?

Apply this to government and liberal politicians. Government and liberal politicians got us into this exquisitely horrible predicament. Now we are told we need more government, more money thrown at the issue. What else can be concluded?

BZ