WELFARE

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GOV'T MANDATED SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAM THAT DID NOT ALLOW,EVEN ENCOURAGE,ITS BENEFICIARIES TO USE THE TAXPAYERS'MONEY TO BUY BOOZE,TOBACCO,LOTTERY TICKETS,AND OTHER NON-ESSENTIAL,EVEN HARMFUL,CONSUMER GOODS AND SERVICES (THE STATE OF VA. SELLS BOOZE AND LOTTERY TICKETS FOR WELFARE DOLLARS!). THE ONLY PROPER FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT IS TO MAINTAIN LAW AND ORDER,AND NOT TO IMPROVE,REFORM,FEED,SUCCOR,SHELTER, EDUCATE OR EQUALIZE PEOPLE OR SOCIETY. HORACE MCCOWAN, 1600 WESTBROOK AVE. # 853, RICHMOND, VA. 23227, 804 264 6340

MY FAVORITE QUOTES AND APHORISMS

"THE GRAVEYARDS ARE FULL OF INDISPENSABLE MEN."-- GEN. de GAULLE. "MEN, WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES, WANT ANOTHER ONE THAT LASTS FOREVER." --ANATOLE FRANCE. "TO SAVE YOUR WORLD, YOU ASKED THIS MAN TO DIE. W'D THIS MAN, COULD HE SEE YOU NOW, ASK WHY?"--W.H.AUDEN. "IT'S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD." --ANON. "I WAS THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE CABINET, AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WITH, WELL, YOU KNOW, AND I LOVED IT."-- GOLDA MEIR. "THE PEOPLE OF NEBRASKA," SAID THE ARCHETYPAL POPULIST WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, "ARE FOR FREE SILVER AND I AM FOR FREE SILVER. I WILL LOOK UP THE ARGUMENTS LATER." "IT IS THE COCK THAT CROWS, BUT THE HEN THAT LAYS THE EGGS."--MARGARET THATCHER. "CIVILIZATIONS DIE FROM SUICIDE, NOT MURDER."--ARNOLD TOYNBEE. "THE PEOPLE IN HELL WANT ICE WATER."--JOE MULDOWNEY. MARGARET THATCHER AT THE UNVEILING OF HER STATUE, "I MIGHT HAVE PREFERRED IRON, BUT BRONZE WILL DO." "THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH."--MILTON FRIEDMAN. "YOU DON'T LEARN WHO IS SWIMMING NAKED UNTIL THE TIDE GOES OUT."--WARREN BUFFET.. MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE.--ANON."POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC." [AFTER THIS THEREFOR BECAUSE OF THIS.]--ANON. "A MAN WHO DARES WASTE ONE HOUR OF TIME HAS NOT DISCOVERED THE VALUE OF LIFE."--CHARLES DARWIN. "POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY."--LORD ACTON. "TWICE IN THE 20th CENTURY,EUROPE CAME CLOSE TO COMMITTING SUICIDE BY WARS THAT IN RETROSPECT SEEM SENSELESS."--PAUL JOHNSON. "DON'T KEEP YOUR BREAD AND YOUR MEAT IN THE SAME PLACE."--HAL NUGENT." "NEITHER BLAME,COMPLAIN, NOR EXPLAIN."--HM. "THE WIND IS TEMPERED TO THE SH0RN LAMB."--ANON."KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT, YOUR BOWELS OPEN, AND DON'T VOLUNTEER."--ADVICE FROM OLD SALTS TO RECRUITS. "ACT WELL YOUR PART/THERE ALL THE HONOUR LIES."--A.POPE. "NO TICKY, NO LAUNDRY."--CHINESE LAUNDRY. EVERYTHING IS DYNAMIC, EVERYTHING IS SUBJECTIVE.--HM. "RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE."--MARX."TOO LATE."--MacARTHER'S TWO WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ALL MILITARY CATASTROPHES. "PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH."--ANON."THIS SOUP WAS MADE OF THE SHADOW OF A CROW WHO WAS STARVING TO DEATH."--LINCOLN. "YOU CAN MAKE MORE MONEY SELLING ADVICE THAN YOU CAN FOLLOWING IT."--B.C.FORBES. "OBEDIENCE TO THE UNENFORCEABLE."(GOOD MANNERS)--JOHN SILBER,PRES.,BOSTON UNIVERSITY."Trying to paint the lily has been my lifelong curse."--HMC."NO HANDS, NO MOUTH."--LAW IN SUBSISTENCE ECONOMIES."ANY STIGMA WILL DO TO BEAT A DOGMA.--CHESTERTON. "CAPITALISM W/O BANKRUPTCY IS LIKE CHRISTIANITY W/O HELL."--FRANK BORMAN.

HEALTH CARE

HEALTH CARE, PROPERLY LABELED, IS WHAT WE DO OR DON'T DO TO AND/OR FOR OURSELVES FOR OUR OWN HEALTH, SUCH AS CHOOSING HEALTHY NUTRITION AND LIFE SYLES. MEDICAL/DENTAL CARE IS WHAT WE PAY PROFESSIONALS TO DO TO AND/OR FOR US."EVERY AMERICAN HAS ACCESS TO ADEQUATE MEDICAL CARE."--MARTIN FELDSTEIN.

Primary election

Is Sen. Obama elitist? On 4/29 he said: "He [Rev. Wright] married Michelle and I." Give I a break!

Answer to Report of President's Commission on Tax Reform

This is supposed to be simplification? Let's start over, with a federal tax system that doesn't encourage or discourage anything or anybody or any particular behavior, but simply imposes and collects the optimum amount of revenue with the optimum amount of efficiency and drag on the economy, and which allows every actor in the economy to save or dispose of what he, she, or it owns as he, she, or it chooses. That's the way it's supposed to be, and that is the way it used to be before we turned our lives over to our permanent political masters. We already have a flat tax, i.e. the payroll tax, and we already have a consumption tax, i.e. the corporate income tax, to the extent it is paid by consumers. All we need to do is repeal the Individual and Corporate Income Taxes ( including the nefarious AMT), and extend the flat tax to all individual and corporate income at whatever modest rate might be needed without credits, deductions, exemptions, tax free accounts or entities. Unconstitutional federal social programs would be devolved to the states, where they could be constitutional and could take advantage of subsidiarity, and be funded by user fees and per capita taxation rather than income and real estate taxes. Everybody and everything would pay a little, so little that everybody would think it's fair and pay willingly! [Published by the WALL ST. Journal.]

hm

THE TATTLE TALES of WC (where the buck never stops, and where new ideas are DOA)

1) a. Is WC still changing oil in its vehicles every 3k/miles when "owners manuals prescribe every 5k-7.5k, with the lower figure applying to vehicles subject to harsh weather or use"? b. When will WC discover that there is a better way to manage personal transportation than individual ownership and parking of cars? When will we have a rental fleet on-site so that a resident can sell or give away her car and never again have to park it or walk to it or insure it or maintain it or fuel it or have it inspected or fixed or washed, but only pay for her actual use of it? c. When will Security monitor parking and alert owners of cars with obsolete plates and decals and that don't move? d. When will Security patrol the campus on inexpensive, environment-friendly bicycles instead of in expensive, climate controlled, polluting, near-blind cocoons? e. When will WC pave with porous paving so rain can filter into the groundwater instead of running off into storm sewers? f. When will WC pipe in-house shows and movies to residents' monitors? G. WHEN WILL WE PLANT OUR EXPENSIVE, USELESS LAWNS WITH VEGGIES? H. WHEN WILL WE GIVE PRIORITY TO LOCALLY GROWN OR PRODUCED PRODUCE/PRODUCTS? 2) Is WC's vaunted waiting list dependent on an inflated real estate mkt? If it disappears, will the shrinking roster of residents have to carry the entire campus plus debt service thru ever increasing rents? And when we can no longer do so, will WC's creditors take over and vacate the entire campus, as they are entitled to do? What will happen to the residents then? Many have their life's savings invested in their entrance fees. Some are totally dependent on continuous, intensive care. Are such contingencies being adequately disclosed and provided for by our management and auditors? ARE WE RESIDENTS PERSONAL COLLATERAL FOR WC'S BONDS-$100 MILLION?) Why are people who enter at age 62 charged the same entrance fee as people who enter at age 85? Are the latter being unfairly obliged to subsidize the former? 4) At Jill's retirement party, did I hear Don say "..Therapy prepared Jill for Bob and I"? GIVE I A BREAK! a) When will management learn to tolerate criticism?

Federal Tax Reform

Of all the flaws in our tax system, the worst is its arbitrariness . The line dividing the tax producers from the tax consumers is simply the result of politicians buying the votes of the tax consumers with the taxes of the tax producers. It totally ignores any consideration of services consumed, jobs created, or global competiveness. The only fair, moral, rational, and constitutional way for government to raise revenue is through user fees for individual goods and services, and per capita taxes for public goods and services, imposed and collected in the least destructive and most efficient way. The cost of government must be reduced to a level that everyone can afford, rather than extorting unequal shares from some for transfer to others, which is not authorized in the body of the Constitution, nor by the 16th Amendment, and is forbidden by the 5th,10th, and 14th. Furthermore, progressive tax'n is the engine of the Welfare-Warfare state. If everybody had to pay his own way, there w'd be no more wars. Can it be done? If it must be done, it can be done. First, all unconstitutional powers which have been arrogated by the federal government, such as the authority to create and fund social programs and education, should be devolved to the states, where they w'd enjoy both constitutionality and subsidiarity. Second: All foreign military interventions, aid, policing and nation building should cease. Third: Defense spending should be limited to our share of the cost of defending the Western Hemisphere. Fourth: People who still cannot pay their share or are otherwise in default in their obligations of citizenship would be given, not a pass but a deferment, and as long as they were on deferment they would not be able to purchase booze, tobacco, lottery tickets, pets and pet food, and other nonessentials, nor vote. This w'd be enforced by smart card, which w'd contain each person's family, civic, medical, and employment info and status. The tax producers have a moral and constitutional right not to lose their freedom and property at the polls to tyranny of the majority!