8/20/2002: First Time Teenagers Shocked by Net !
Each summer we get a new load of teenagers going out and getting real jobs the first time in their sheltered lives. Of course, with greedy, imbecilic businesses hiring more and more lower paid illegal aliens, there are less and less jobs for USA born, English speaking, red blooded American kids. In any case, unlike the illegals, who are generally paid in cash (don't believe it when you hear, "Those illegals pay taxes, blah, blah, blah ..." bullshit) American teens receive actual paychecks displaying a "gross" amount and a "net" amount. The smaller "net" figure comes about after the employer, under threat of imprisonment, deducts such items as Federal Income Tax (which is at least 18% of your check) FICA (basically, Social Security taxes, 7.65%, of which the employer kicks in an identical 7.65% - remember: Every dollar your employer pays in taxes is one less dollar you could earn) Medicare, 1.45% (of which the employer again kicks in an identical 1.45% paid to you know who) state income taxes and finally any deductions for any employer offered benefits such as health, dental, or life insurance. I halt my usual ranting and raving and frothing at the mouth about how politicians will take every dollar every taxpayer makes if we would let them mode, to don a Cheshire Cat smile when a teenager comes to me with bewilderment in his or her eyes, waving their shriveled paystub and moaning, "What happened to all my money?" Of course, they are saying this to a man who once saw over $150,000 of his own hard earned cash evaporate into the black hole of congressional spending in one year via personal income taxes. I explain to them that the incredibly wise elected officials seated in far away Washington D.C., keep the promises they make to get elected (also known as 'buying votes') by confiscating, under law, a substantial portion of all wage-earner's paychecks and then, after spending some it on themselves (and funding an unbelievably generous pension plan and an occasional midnight pay raise) they spend the rest on individuals, organizations and corporations more deserving than the persons who actually earned the money. Sometimes the D.C. politicians will even use our tax dollars to fiscally bale out a foreign country whose head of state has a numbered Swiss bank account filled with hundreds of millions of dollars scooped from the national treasury. The same goes for the state they live in. The state politicians must keep their promises and they use your money to do it.  Isn't that only fair? (Speaking of federal and state governments, have you noticed that while corporate America has cut back by hundreds of thousands of employees, Federal and State governments continue to balloon like Elizabeth Taylor on a Kentucky Fried Chicken diet with an intravenous gravy drip?) The government withholds the Social Security taxes (7.65% from you and 7.65% from your employer) because we aren't smart enough to save our own money so they will save it for us. The only thing is, the trillions of dollars that have been paid into the imaginary Social Security Trust Fund over the past sixty years have already been spent by Washington (also known as 'off budget' spending) so the dollars we pour into the SS Trust Fund today are immediately paid out to retired workers who had their money withheld over the past six decades. I tell teens that Medicare, which will take 1.45% of their gross income is to provide $100 deductible health insurance coverage (far too premium coverage for anyone to purchase privately) for everyone over sixty five. They reply that "Well, 1.45% isn't that bad." To which I respond, "Wait until Shadegg tacks prescription drug coverage onto the existing Medicare program (he's doing this to buy the votes for the expanding, always voting, increasingly selfish sixty five and over crowd) you're likely to see that 1.45%, increase to 3%. Because the cost of prescriptions purchased by the over sixty five crowd amount to almost as much as the total spent on current Medicare coverage." So you see children the 'governments' lay claim to 18% + 7.65% + 3% + 1.45% or about 30% of every dollar you earn. And that's not all, because when you go to spend what's left of your paycheck, here in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, you give the city and state another 8% in sales taxes. (Understand they can never get enough of you money until they have it ALL and then that won't be enough!) That is why as soon as you are 18 you should register to vote and you should insist of your U.S. Congressmen and Senators that if 10% of the gross was good enough for the God of the universe, 10% should be more than sufficient for their needs. And remember, always, always, always, vote "no" on any proposals, no matter how grand sounding, that would, in any way increase any taxes for anyone. In a federal government, excluding the armed services, FBI, CIA, NSA, et al, where six out of ten employees are superfluous, it's about time that they do some cutting of their own rather than sawing off any more of our already too short paystubs.
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