Mr. Wonderful Explains Current Events
Mr.Wonderful |
Contents: 3/15/00: Phoenician's Railroaded into Light Rail 3/13/00: Pfizer's Rx Kills Fido 3/08/00: Katie Couric's Colon 3/05/00: Hate Crime Law Misfires 3/03/00: Gas Price Ignites Boycott |
March 15, 2000: Ignorant Masses Vote In Feel-Good Mass Transit !
Yesterday, 67,389 Phoenicians voted to raise City of Phoenix sales taxes by 'only' 4/10ths of one percent over the next 20 years. Quickly running through the numbers promoted by the Transit 2000 crowd, Mr. Wonderful notes that the total cost of the project at $4,939,000,000 is $1,239,000,000 shy of the federal funding 'promised' and the sales tax revenues projected. Mr. Wonderful also notes that the expenses outlined by the T2000 Cadillac Crowd do not include payroll. That indicates that the additional minimum of 396 bus-drivers and bus-mechanics costing $211,680,000 must somehow be handled. In reality we have voted in a project that must fund a calculated $1,450,680,000 shortfall from ongoing operations. Realizing that national statistics indicate that government sponsored mass transit only generates 15% of the income needed to fuel it, where is this additional money coming from?
This Transit 2000 is a boondoggle of stupendous dimensions. Why? Number one. Like an astronomical dark hole, to cover it's own fiscal short-falls, T2000 will suck in city revenues.
Funds designated for Police Protection, Sanitation Services, and Street Maintenance will spiral and disappear into it's rapacious craw. Number two. Only a very small percentage of Phoenicians will ever utilize the system on a regular basis. (Ask yourself, "Am I going to use Transit 2000, to commute to work or to go grocery shopping, or perhaps at 8:00PM, to visit Margaret Hance Park?) This already small percentage of riders will plummet by 30 to 50% during our June to September months when city temperatures soar into three digits. (Again, ask yourself, "In my dry-clean only outfit, am I willing to walk to a bus stop, or drive my car - remembering that cold internal combustion engines produce the majority of their emissions within the first five minutes of starting - and then wait 15 minutes in ambient temperatures of more than 100 degrees?") Wait to ride a public bus? Wait with many folks who are downright scary, fragrant (in non-department store ways) and who may beg for money or, as happened to Mrs.Wonderful, may even bark at you?
Number three. A major economic slowdown is coming. This major economic contraction will slam retail sales tax collections and crimp the promised river of silver from Washington. Number four. The construction of the street-train will take twenty, not sixteen years. During these two decades, for season after season, major streets will become parking lots and any retail businesses located on them will languish and perish. Number five. The national welfare network of ticks that survive by sucking off the goodness of the American heart will rush to Phoenix once the grapevine blossoms with the knowledge that comprehensive bus service and mobile refrigerated living quarters are available in the Valley of the Sun. Number six. Since illegal alien's cannot obtain driver's licenses, with more mass transit available their population will quadruple. Print this out for future reference, if only to prove me wrong!
Were you aware that the Federal Drug Administration also oversees pharmaceuticals developed for non-farm animals? (Can you see how the government can spend so much money, so easily, so quickly?) The FDA has discovered, via feedback from dog owner's, that the Pfizer drug Rimadyl that is marketed for canine arthritis, also dispatches to Doggy Heaven somewhere around 8% of the pets who slobber it down. (Aren't you glad that they didn't market this drug as it was originally intended? Intended for humans?) Recall the last prescription-only drug commercial you gazed at, stuffed in between scenes of NBC's Friend's or the other television tripe you ingest. Do you remember hearing, through the Zima induced haze, three verbal warnings near the end of the pill plug? Warnings such as, "may cause headaches, stroke, and constipation?" Those warnings are the top three unintended reactions the advertised drug can and does sometimes initiate. These are mandatory warnings forced on the drug companies by the FDA. Pfizer, when faced with the option of listing "death" as a 'top three' reaction to its doggy arthritis drug Rimadyl, instead, wisely withdrew all television promotion.
Thank God for Bill Clinton! Hell, if it wasn't for this slimy sleaze-ball getting his SlinkyŠ slopped in the Oval Office we could not pay a breakfast time visit to the bowels of Katie. Cheesh! When will all this self-revelation crap end? (By the way, Katie, Mrs. Wonderful noted that you do have a perky polyp in your poop-chute.)
On March 3rd, Ronald Taylor, an American of African heritage, was accused of, with hate aforethought, singling out and shooting and killing three white individuals. Mr. Wonderful's gut feeling is that to charge Mr. Taylor with a 'hate crime' is ridiculous. Understand the 'Federal Hate Crime Statues' were intended to protect 'minorities' and 'gays' from evil whites. Since Mr. Taylor is a member of a minority, the major liberal media quickly dropped the story and concentrated on the latest Martha Stewart flower arrangement. What this law was really intended to do is to give the federal government the ability to charge a person with the same basic offense twice - otherwise known as 'double jeopardy' - a Constitutionally insupportable situation. This 'hate-crime' legislation allows the Beltway Big Brother 2000 to second-guess every high-profile State murder jury verdict, and after consulting with their pollsters, either charge the individual with the additional 'hate-crime' felony or not filing charges.
Like all of you, I too received several email's the other day promoting an April 7th through April 9th GASOUT. A boycott on buying gasoline to protest the high price of 'go juice.' I would be willing to bet that many of these same people protesting high gasoline prices today were protesting our involvement (and the son of Mr.Wonderful) in the Persian Gulf War! According to my calculations, if the price of gasoline had escalated at the same pace as virtually all other commodities, a gallon of the cheapest grade, would in March of the year 2000, cost a minimum of $2.80. The highest price I witnessed today was for a gallon of Chevron Supreme at $1.59.
(To demonstrate the pace of inflation, Mr.Wonderful still has the window sticker from his 1981 BMW 528i that he purchased new. The price was $10,000! Today that same price is well over $45,000.) Please visit this web site to Find Out How Much Hidden Gasoline Tax You Pay. Here is my point. We are so gulled into believing that private industry is greedy and evil and bad, but we seem to forget that our federal government subtracts 25% to 45% of our paycheck before we even see it. We let the Fed's add a 30% tax to every gallon of gasoline sold and then protest high prices by boycotting the gasoline suppliers. How much does the proven carcinogen MTBE that is federally mandated to be added to every gallon of gasoline further increase our cost? No, the problem is government, not gasoline, and the answer is less government not a GASOUT.
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