Real Government Waste

 

With all this rhetoric about cutting waste at the Federal level, I say we cut to the chase and get rid of one of the biggest wastes of federal tax dollars, namely, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, commonly referred to as Congress.

According to the U.S. Government website, “To ensure a separation of powers, the U.S. Federal Government is made up of three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. To ensure the government is effective and citizens’ rights are protected, each branch has its own powers and responsibilities, including working with the other branches. The legislative branch is made up of the House and Senate, known collectively as the Congress. Among other powers, the legislative branch makes all laws, declares war, regulates interstate and foreign commerce and controls taxing and spending policies. The Constitution puts Congress in charge of the budget, granting it the power to collect taxes, borrow money, and approve spending.”  In other words, it has “the power of the purse”

With President Trump’s establishment of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) headed by billionaire, Elon Musk, it is obvious that “the power of the purse” no longer resides with Congress. Now by a series of executive orders Congress spending mandates are being altered, and in some cases completely cancelled.

I am sure the authors of the U.S Constitution are turning over in their graves with this present Executive Branch (President) grasp of power, for they probably never imagined that such an action would, or could occur.  But, now thanks to a legislative gimmick known collectively as ‘executive orders,’ Congress’ control of spending allocations has evaporated. DOGE now has “the power of the purse” and makes the decisions about what agencies and departments of the U.S. government get funded and how much monies they receive.

Again, something never imagined by our Constitution authors. And, apparently our esteemed Republican government leaders in control of Congress have no problems with abdicating this power; quite possibly due to the lack of a spine to resist.

However, as a work colleague once told me when I was promoted to a supervisory position, once you give away power, you can never get it back.  So the future repercussions of this spineless action are yet to be known.

I rest my case. Let’s just send every member of Congress the same letter as other Federal employees are receiving which begins with, “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.” 

 

Elimination by Executive Order

 

With the stroke of a pen President Donald Trump has apparently attempted to wipe out the existence of an entire subculture in U.S. society, LGBTQ + folks.  His latest executive orders have banned any such reference or discussion of these individuals in all federal documents and online government websites. Last Friday, if one tried to view certain online government general information sites, they were greeted with the message “temporarily unavailable” across their respective screens.

These orders are consistent with Trump's election campaign, in which he pledged to "protect children” from, and I quote, “the left wing gender insanity.” 

He has further declared that there are only two sexes, males and females. Anything else no longer exists.

President Trump has also targeted the doctor/patient relationship regarding the health care for transgender youth by an executive order that any clinician who provides what he terms ‘trans heath care’ to these youth will be struck from the Medicare and Medicaid benefits system.

Trump also proposes enacting an executive order that would cut federal funding for any school which he deems as “pushing” any content for children which references gay or transgender individuals.

As is usually the case with our esteemed leader, these executive orders are legally vague and contain subjective terminology, which most likely will result in drawn out legal battles.

However, while all this wiping out of a subculture may be applauded and seem long overdue to many of his supporters, the facts of the matter are, according to the latest Gallup Poll, there are approximately 8 percent of these ‘banned’ folks in the U.S. population. They function in all walks of life in our society, from health care workers to auto mechanics, and the population continues to thrive and grow successfully.

So those of you, who want to facilitate the adoption of wearing horse blinders and pretend that by executive orders these folks have suddenly been exterminated from our society, need to get a grip because they ain’t going nowheres, in spite of your denial.  They deserve to be respected and loved.

Dubbed by Louisiana Legislators

Well folks I hope you don’t pass out when you get your next cable bill or video streaming service bill.

Apparently, Louisiana residents have been hooked winked by our Governor and legislators. The problem is I can’t figure out if it was deliberate or the result of 'mass confusion.'  During the last special legislative session our esteemed legislators, in an effort to fund Governor Landry’s so called ‘Louisiana Tax Overhaul,’ voted not only to keep the about to expire state 4.75% tax rate in place, but to increase it to 5% along with increasing the number of entities eligible for this taxation. 

Included in the increased taxation mix were video cable services like Cox, Spectrum, AT&T, etc., and streaming services like HBO Max, Disney, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount +, Amazon Prime, etc.

Something happen during the final passage of the legislation that resulted in specifying that these services be taxed at an additional 5%.  So instead of taxing these services at 5% as specified in the initial tax plan that included just more eligible items, the video services ended up being slapped with an additional 5% resulting in double taxation at a 10% rate.

The extent of this confusion was clearly on display when I called the Louisiana Department of Revenue and asked what the tax rate was on these services.  The initial reply by employees was 5%, the same figure as initially specified in the bill increasing the state sales tax from 4.75% to %5.

However, after I hung up the phone, I received an apologetic email saying that they misspoke because “upon further investigation” it was, in fact 10%.

I contacted, for obvious reasons, a nameless legislator’s office and was emphatically told the tax for the services in question was 5%. I then contacted my local rep, who was also surprised that streaming customers were paying a 10% sales tax rate

So, did Governor Landry cleverly plan this ‘bait and switch’ and hooked winked everyone in Baton Rouge, or were our esteem leaders simply ‘remiss’ for not knowing what was included in the Tax Reform legislative packages they were passing?

Guess it doesn’t really matter because their constituents have all been greatly harmed by their actions, resulting in double taxation on TV streaming services.  Good luck with

Ten Commandments

With all this push by Governor Landry, State Attorney General, Liz Murrill, and our state legislators on the importance of displaying the Ten Commandments in every public classroom; it is apparent by this action that these folks feel that Louisiana parents/guardians are not doing their job teaching religious values to their children.  Who gave them the right to make such a judgement?  And, why stop with just the display? 

Perhaps, these esteemed leaders should also require that each child be mandated to bring a note to school from a religious institution of their parents’ choosing attesting to the fact that they have been in attendance that week. After all then all these folks could be assured that the kids are receiving the ‘proper’ religious guidance to truly live by the message of the Ten Commandments.

Personally, I find this entire fiasco not only highly insulting, but also contrary to one of the Republican Party’s main mantras, “government mandated over-site infringing on an individual’s rights.”

How one desires to instill the moral and ethical values in their children to act responsibly in our society is none of Landry’s, Murrill’s, or our legislators’ business, and they all need to stop trying to hide the fact that they are quite blatantly mandating it.

Do you really think these same folks would accept a mandate that all governing officials swear allegiance to abide by the Ten Commandments and failure to do so could result in their removal from office?

Guess we wouldn’t have too many governing officials left; starting with the President of the U.S. on down. 

And God only knows who would be left in our beloved state!