Screw Pay to Play, Let's Hold 'em Accountable

Ok, looks like today is a double whammy for blog posts. Same friend today I was talking to but this time it was about politics. Well, politicians, more accurately. The idea is this, why do politicians make so much money? I mean 400,000 dollars a year for the president? 100,000+ a year for senators and such? This is a bit excessive I think, my initial knee jerk reaction is to say 'Make em work for free'. But then I realized that this isn't quite the way to go.

Why exactly DO they get paid this much money, I think that they should work for minimum wage. This would encourage an 'appropriate' minimum wage for all. As well as even the playing field of politics. It is my take that money has corrupted our political system. Pay to play politics have turned our society in to one of extreme greed. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for paying someone based on their merits. As a matter of fact I think that the president's salary should be based upon our GDP as a nation. You know what... make it ALL elected officials salaries. They should DIRECTLY correspond to how our country is doing as a whole. When the country is doing good, they make more. Country doing bad? Dammit they should make less.

This would encourage them to actually do their JOB, as opposed to soaking up a paycheck regardless of how things are going. Because honestly as it stands now, the world of politics as I see it, has become so corrupted by greed, power and money that if someone has been deemed fit to hold office. This person is more than likely the last person that you want doing so. Just by virtue of having gotten to that point. You have to be so two-faced, and lack any scruples to get in to any position of political power. Yet, these are the people that we have chosen (or not chosen) to lead our country/legislature.

Death and Cigarette Taxes

Today I was having a conversation with a friend and the topic came up of the new cigarette tax. I personally think that it is total and complete bullshit. I am not a smoker, but I don't believe that the idea behind this tax is noble. Sure the money is going to help childrens healthcare, but on the same token they say that they want smokers to quit. And raising prices will assist in getting them to quit.

That makes no sense at all. They are making it darned near impossible to smoke ANYWHERE in public, and NOW they have a fairly hefty tax on it, that does NOTHING to help these smokers quit. If they REALLY wanted to help them quit then the money raised from taxes would go to funding programs to help smokers quit. Because as it stands now, most states are cutting funding to programs that do just that.

But really, when you think about it, getting the smokers to quit was never the governments intention. Do you really think that they would be financing a program with the funds from cigarettes if they thought that they would be making people quit? What would happen to that program if smokers actually DID quit? Will the government just say, oh well, tough titties, kids with health issues are just gonna have to suck it up cause the funding ran out?

NOPE, this notion of getting people to quit seems to be just a way to not 'look' bad, hiding their real agenda of fleecing these poor smokers for every last dime. And now that the FDA has been given permission to REGULATE tobacco products, expect to see further price hikes in the near future. I pity the person that smokes... as it soon will be unaffordable to do so.