The Great Polarisation

[Haruo]

[Tim Bonney]

[Matto]

[ET]

[KeithE]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

Let's see....how much am I taxed?

Social Security 15.3% (since ministers are self-employed)
Federal Income Tax 10%
State Income Tax 6%
Real and Personal Property Taxes 4%
State Sales Tax, Gas Taxes, Utility Taxes 7%

That's 42.3%, and I don't get half the benefits of Sweeden. I think we've been robbed.

[Haruo]

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

I see Dave. So more calculation when into your percentages than I was seeing. Sorry, I've seen a lot of fuzzy tax math over the years.

I agree with you that we should get more from our money. But also we ought to look at those expenses that we aren't paying as tax that we'd actually be better off if we did. For example, the insurance costs that my church and all UMC churches pay is a limiting factor on employment. Churches which would have more staff or churches that would have a full time pastor now don't because insuring just the pastor is up around $12,000 per year now. I remember when $4,000 would insure me and my entire family. But I'm paying an additional $4,000 for my wife and daughter. I believe if we had a single payer system that healthcare would be much less expensive in the long run. But many Americans are so adverse to giving the money to the government that they would rather insurances companies charge them much more rather than paying the money in taxes for healthcare.

[KeithE]

[Matto]

A sobering poem on abortion that Spike Milligan penned.

Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother —my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Matto that Poem starts with a misconception (pun intended) when it says;
Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!

No! tiny one there was no commitment to you.