As most to all of you should know, I am a resident of Oregon. A “blue” state. We always vote for the democrat in presidential elections, we are known for our “liberal” and “progressive” stance on many things. We’re the home of the bottle bill, and FPEP… we have medical marijuana, doctor assisted suicide, one of the (if not the) highest minimum wages in the country ($7.05/hr), and many other ideals that are WAY out there in the political scale. But like the rest of America… someone mentions “taxes” and we all turn into tight assed, hypocritical, heartless assholes. Today was polling day for a temporary $800 million dollar tax bill. Why did it go to the polls? Because a few years back a man named Bill Sizemore (all you Oregonians know him) got a measure passed that made it so Tax Increases had to be voted on if they didn’t receive a 2/3 majority in the State House. So basically, they always go to the voters. And what do voters do? They vote on shit they know very little about. All they see is “tax increase” and go “HOLY SHIT! The man wants to take more of MY money to waste on worthless shit”. Yeah, worthless shit like state health care, education, roads, police, firemen, etc etc etc. I even saw a sign that said “No on 30. 30 means more Unemployment.” Riiiiight… anyone have a clue how many state workers are going to be laid off because of this? Or how many people will suddently not have state healthcare?
We claim to be an evolved species… we have computers, machines, we talk, read, etc… but we’re no better than any other animal when it comes to helping another? Sure, we’ll stop and maybe see if they’re okay… but when it comes to actually putting effort into helping them… very few people can pull it off.
You may be saying, “sure, what do you care? you make very little… the tax increase wouldn’t have hurt you (much)…” and you’re right… it would have ment MAYBE $20 a month. But you know what… I work for the government. I attend a state school… I have no healthcare because my mom’s employer is a hospital and doesn’t believe that her son deserves healthcare because he’s 23. But hey… we care about people… we’re in Iraq because we wanted to free the people from Saddam…
So yeah… welcome to the new Idaho. We are being pushed further and further down the ranking in lowest taxed states… soon our freeways will be nothing but chunks of asphalt, and the unemployment lines will be many times longer with former government employees in the lines, and fewer people at the counter to help them.
On the plus side… it does look like the country is fed up with Bush, and as of tonight, it seems like 9 of the 50 states in the country want Kerry to be the Democratic Running in 2004… and Lieberman bowed out. Wow… if I were living in another state today might have been a really good day. Bush’s approval rating keeps falling… I believe it’s now at something like 48% (from the Garner Group). While that number still seems high, it’s nice to see that even conservative numbers place him as an unpopular president. If it does turn out to be Kerry running (which I must say, I like him much better than Dean), I hope he can really keep the momentum going and whoop Bush’s ass back to Texas just like Clinton whooped his daddy.
Well… it’s almost 0400… I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow I hope to make a post I’ve been wanting to for over a week now dealing with a shitty anime con that should be completely blacklisted from the listing of all anime cons.