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Serious Humor

THE TRUTH LIESWITHIN

March 1, 2003 Volume I Issue 184

Environmentally friendly since late 1999

Made entirely of recycled bits & words

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Commentary

"No taxation without representation" was the rallying cry two-and-a-quarter centuries ago which turned off our collective teakettles and ultimately led to the American revolution. That in turn led to present day America, where we have the best established illusion of democracy of any nation in history. You may ask why I say "illusion of democracy" when we all have the vote, don’t we? That is true but, as you may have noticed, very few of us ever bother to vote. Even in a heated presidential election, if we can get 52% of the eligible voters (36% of whom still drink tea, by the way) off of their collective duffs to vote, it is considered a good turnout. Personally, I think it is a horrendous turnout and it is partly responsible for the so-called leaders we have today. You see, the politicians have it down to a science and they know how to manipulate the votes to their advantage. Back in the late 1970s, when I lived in Brooklyn, I got involved with the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club, one of the most legendary political machines in the country. The leaders, at that time, were Stanley Steingut and Meade Esposito, who later served jail time for political corruption further proving the Club to be an excellent political training facility.

Being young and naive, I thought that I could work to make my area of Brooklyn a better place to live. How wrong I was. My burning drive to improve the status quo began to sputter and ping like a worn out engine as I quickly caught on as to how things were done. My job was to be an election captain. One of my responsibilities was to help get out the vote but, only when they wanted the vote gotten out. You see, my district was Starrett City, a huge Brooklyn middle-income housing development. We had about 25,000 registered Democrats and maybe five registered Republicans. I understand that there were actually five times that amount, but the other twenty didn’t have the guts to register as Republicans. Let us just say that the Democrats greatly outflanked the Republicans in that district. The club used some fairly sophisticated techniques for determining how people would vote. They were among the first to make wide use of automated telephone equipment to poll people on their voting preferences. If they wanted the Democratic candidate to win an election, they needed a heavy voter turnout. So they would turn us loose on a get-out-the-vote campaign. We would each be assigned to a group of buildings and had to go floor by floor and door to door, talking to voters and cajoling them into voting if they had not already done so. Whatever excuse they would have, we had a solution. We were to baby-sit their children, if that was what they needed. We had a fleet of taxicabs standing by, who donated their time and services for free, ready to take them to the polling place if they had no transportation. In other words, we did whatever it took to get them out to the polls. But, and here is the interesting part, if the party had wanted the Republican candidate to win, then they needed a light voter turnout, so we were kept in the club on election day.

"Wait a minute," you say. If the Democrats wanted the Republican to win?? Yes, my friends, strange as it may seem, that is sometimes the case...all part of the bigger plan. Just last year prior to the local primary, I was receiving tons of negative campaign material in the mail outlining the multitude of reasons not to vote for our well-known incumbent congressman, Mike Forbes, who was running against the relatively unheard of and inexperienced woman, Regina Seltzer, for the Democratic slot on the primary ballot. In examining the extra-fine print on the literature for this Democratic primary, I was surprised to find out that it was being sent out by the Republican Party. That baffled me until CheyAnna pointed out that most likely the Republicans were trying to engineer their competition for the up-coming election. They would prefer to run their candidate, the fireworks king, Felix Grucci, against the unknown (and easier to beat) Seltzer than against the well-known Forbes, and so they were trying to help Regina win. Ironically, Forbes had recently switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party and they were criticizing him for taking positions that a year ago, they were lauding him for. Voila! It worked just as planned. The previously unknown Seltzer beat Forbes by a slim margin of 39 votes, and won the Democratic spot on the ballot. She was easily defeated by Grucci and the Republicans got their congressional seat back. Clever, eh? But was it really the will of the people?? We may never know!

In the two or three elections that I was involved in, they never failed to get the guy in office that they wanted. Curiously though, the loser was always given a very high paying New York City job, such as planning commissioner or housing Czar, that typically paid $50,000 per year. Compared to the $14,000 that I was making as a State investigator, it was a king’s ransom.

In one election, a man was running for reelection as a judge and the Party did not want him to run, so they did not support him. They promised the job to the Republican candidate. The judge decided to run anyway, without the party support as an independent candidate. The party countered that by running a Jewish candidate with a very Jewish name, since the judge was also Jewish. The area had a high concentration of Jewish voters. The idea was to split the Jewish vote between the two candidates figuring they would vote for someone with a Jewish name over the Republican, who had an Irish sounding name. The strategy worked and the Republican got the judgeship. The judge was never heard from again. He didn’t get the cushy consolation prize job because he was not a team player. If this sounds a lot like the way Don Corleone ran his family, you are correct and that is why I left. My colleagues all worked for the Party so they could curry favors on their jobs or in their lives. I thought I was working for my community and never sought out or received any favors. So, I left, a sadder but wiser lad.

When I worked for the State of New York as a supervising investigator, there came a time when we had hired eighty new investigators in one shot. They were all political hacks, mostly young people that were sent to us by the clubs. I had thirteen investigators under me, ten new guys and three experienced older men. Some of these new people were recent college graduates who never held a job before. They had to be led by the hand in everything. They couldn’t tie their own shoes without asking my advice. I thought to myself, "Wow, so this is what the club does. It gets people my job that I already have. That doesn’t seem like much of an advantage to me." Perhaps that was another reason I left but I prefer to think that I had some sort of integrity.

When I moved to Long Island, it was the exact opposite of Brooklyn with the Republicans in the majority and the Democrats hiding in the closets. One thing I miss from my city days is the plethora of oddball and non-mainstream parties that would be represented on the ballots. Sure, we have Liberal, Independence, and Right-to-Life party candidates out here, but you never see Communist or Socialist-Worker Party candidates on our ballots. One time, I think we even had a candidate in Brooklyn from the Justice League of America. I think it was the Green Arrow, but I can’t be certain about that. For about twenty years, the Communist Party always ran the same guy, Norman Thomas, for president. I used to wonder about these guys, which you knew nothing about, as they never actually campaigned. I mean, I thought it would be cool and a real ice-breaker at parties to have on your resume that you ran for president four times, even if you didn’t actually win. Just to make a run for it sets you apart from the ordinary folks. Though I don’t think it would be a real great opening line at a gathering to say, "Hi. I’m Norman Thomas. I was the unsuccessful Communist Party candidate for president four times in a row. Perhaps you voted for me?" Of course, there was a time in the fifties when you wouldn’t want to make a big deal out of that. Back then, there was this sort of you were either "with us or against us" type of mentality. Thank God we will never see those days again.

Now that you have some idea of how we actually get these politicians in office, let us talk about some of the consequences. My peeve today is about hidden taxes that are taxes that we have to pay that we do not realize are actually taxes. There is talk in Washington about enacting the president’s plan to eliminate the tax on stock dividends because it is unfair to tax that same money twice. That is very nice for rich people who depend on stock dividends for income. I say, what about the rest of us who are double taxed, triple taxed, quadrupled taxed, etc., on the same money over and over again? Why not start by eliminating the tax on bank interest? Reagan took away our deductions on loan interest, which at least offset the tax on earned interest. Why not take care of the working person and encourage him or her to save? After all, you taxed our money when we earned it in the form of income tax, did you not? So we can either spend it or save it. We see that if we save it, we end up being taxed on the lousy half a per cent interest that the bank is giving us. If we spend it, we have to pay sales tax on most items we buy. In high tax states like New York, that sales tax is 8.5%. If you don’t think that is a lot, try figuring out what it adds up to when you buy a modest automobile, which today will run you about $25,000. It comes to $2,125 if you don’t have a calculator. Now, speaking of double taxation, if you go to sell that car a few years later, or trade it in, it is taxed again at 8.5%, surely double taxation, if ever there was any. Every time that car is sold, it is taxed again. If you sell it privately, you must pay the sales tax to the state when you go to register the vehicle. Uncle Sam and his fifty nephews have many ways to help you part with your money. If you plan to use the vehicle on public roads, you must license it periodically, in most states annually. Another tax on the car? Will you drive it yourself? Can you say "Driver’s license?" Just one more tax. By the way, here in New York, they vary the fees for license plates and driver’s licenses, raising them in non-election years and lowering them when an election is up coming. I had to turn in my $48, two-year license plates when I bought a new car and the dealer obtained new plates for me. I had a year and half left on the old plates and I asked the motor vehicle people, "How about a refund on my unused portion of the plates? I was told that I missed it by two weeks as they just passed a law that did away with such refunds. A year later, when our beloved governor George Pataki was up for reelection, I received a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles asking me if I was still interested in receiving a refund on part of my unused portion of the plates. Not being an idiot, I answered, "Of course." A week later I got a check for $24. Strange how that works, isn’t it? How about gasoline? Does it ever end?

Let us look at some other ways you are subtly taxed without you necessarily noticing it. When my parents moved to Florida in 1992, they had to pay a registration fee of $450 to register their old car in the state for the first time. That was almost as much as the car was worth at the time. Several years later, the state refunded about half of the fee when it was determined that it was not a nice thing to do to people. I guess the partial refund made it half nice. Florida has no state income tax or death tax, but they have found other ways to get money from you, like an annual tax on your investment holdings. Some states charge an annual property tax on items such as cars and boats based on the value of the property. I believe that Virginia imposes such a tax. New York City used to make you buy a sticker for your car’s windshield every year that cost $18 when last I lived there in 1978. I don’t know if they still impose that but they get around the tax thing by calling it an auto use fee rather than an auto tax, which is what it really is. Then there is the inspection fee that you have to pay every year, which currently runs $35 in New York State. When you buy gasoline, they tack on about 60 cents per gallon in federal and state taxes and then they charge the sales tax on top of that, which means that they are actually taxing you on tax. Why shouldn’t the sales tax be figured on the price of the gasoline without the extra taxes on it? I’ll bet that would eat into revenues. Then, if you are unfortunate enough to get a traffic ticket, New York State has a surcharge on top of the fine. As if $55 to $250 or more is not enough to charge for a speeding ticket, they tack on an extra $25 or so for the surcharge. What is a surcharge for? The cost of the ticket? Did paper prices go up so much that they can no longer afford to give us these tickets for free?

Now, if you own a home, you have to pay property taxes. If you rent, the taxes are passed on to you in the rent but in many states you don’t get to deduct them off of your income tax the way an owner does. And never on your Federal tax returns. (Note-Michigan renters do get to deduct some of the tax, maybe other states allow that as well.) In my neighborhood of Manorville, Long Island, New York, the average taxes on a three-bedroom ranch, such as mine, run from about $5,500 per year to more than $8,000. In Nassau County, which is the part of Long Island that is closer to New York City, the taxes are even higher. My neighbor bought a brand new five bedroom colonial house last year, just up the street and he is paying more than $13,000 per year. That is a lot of moola. Besides school taxes, (mine were a bit more than $2,000 last year and they generally make up about 65% of the total bill), we have to pay library district taxes, county taxes, county police taxes, town general taxes, highway taxes, $300 went for the clean water bond act, fire district, refuse district, lighting district, ambulance district taxes, and finally, Real Property tax law AR 7.7 tax, (whatever the hell that is). It really adds up, you know.

Now, after we get that out of the way, we may have some items in the home such as a telephone that are hidden tax traps. Here is a place where they really hide some stuff on you. The editor of our local paper wrote an editorial about his phone bill for last month. Apparently he did not use the phone during that month for some reason, (perhaps he was away), yet his bill was $17.43. Most people pay these bills without questioning or even looking at them. His actual phone bill was about $8 for the basic service but the other $9.47($1.47 more than the actual phone bill) was for surcharges and taxes. The phone company in Long Island adds seven different charges to the monthly phone bill. We have Federal, state, and local sales taxes. Then there is FCC line charges, a local number portability charge, (as opposed to keeping your local number stationary?) a 911 surcharge(not to be confused with the 9-11 surcharge of an airline ticket which has something to do with security or is it the lack of?) and a Federal USF surcharge. Lastly, there is an item that is merely labeled "surcharge." I take that is an overall surcharge and they must have run out of clever names for it. As you can see in this example, the taxes and surcharges more than doubled the actual phone bill. To me, that is a substantial amount of money. My cable bill contains similar charges such as franchise fee, regulatory fee, additional outlet premium fee, and sales taxes.

These fees have been enacted and added to your phone and utility bills with little fanfare and publicity. I’m afraid that they represent the tip of the iceberg in hidden fees and taxes. They dig deep into your pocket and you did not elect to have these charges eat into your cost of living. It is time that we let the so-called elected officials know that we are sick and tired of them sticking their hands into our pockets and picking them clean. Making your voices heard by the powers that be is much easier these days than it was for our ancestors.

Instead of dumping tea in the Boston harbor and going to all the trouble of dressing up like Indians, you can sit down with a cup of tea while you send an e-mail to your elected officials in Washington. Written correspondence is taking up to sixty days to process due to the Anthrax scare so an e-mail would be more effective. Also let your state and local representatives know that you are "mad as hell and not going to take it any more." If they get enough crank mail, they may begin to think we are on to them and may actually go and vote them out office next time around. It’s worth a try. After all, it requires a great deal less effort than actually voting. Don’t you think?

And THAT, was my two-cents plain!

Irvmeister

the artist formerly known as

Meisterzingers

"You know, saving and spending, holding back and letting go start very early in our lives. Stingy people have often been forced to give when they were very young, when they weren't ready. Generous people have often been really appreciated when they were very young. You know, I think it is so important to remember that every one has something to give." -- Mister Rogers

Farewell to "Mister" Fred Rogers, who will be entering a new neighborhood as he passed away this week at the age of 74. We will miss the sneakers and the sweaters.

In the past three years, I have made approximately eleven road trips back and forth between my home in Long Island, NY and CheyAnna’s in Saginaw, MI. I have noticed one curious fact. The trip to her house is exactly 800 miles from my front door to hers, yet on the way back, it always clocks in at 790 miles. The only logical conclusion that I can come to is that I live ten miles closer to her than she lives from me. How’s that for logic?

Letters to the Editor

Re:- Snow- blind

Irv!
James Coburn has assumed Room Temperature !!!!
:-) Claude Rock :-)

I didn't know. Thanks for telling me. I never heard it put so eloquently. That’s what happens when you stop watching Entertainment Tonight.
At least they won’t have to thaw him out. I wish I could say the same. (-Ed.)

"In the midst of the of the blizzard that held New York and the surrounding areas tightly in it's frozen grasp, I was suddenly snow-blinded by a terrible thought! Could it be?? Is it possible?? Our government prepared us for the coming attack, but they never imagined that Saddam and his buddies at Al Qaeda might have managed to commandeer the weather machine stored on a Hollywood movie lot..."

Actually Irvmeister, the culprit was my Cuzzin ED in Maryland. He hired a snow machine last weekend for the town of Hancock and I guess he got a bit carried away . . .
Best regards,
Woofie

Thanks Woofie. My Sicilian brother-in-law will be paying Cuzzin Ed a visit. He was in the mood for a New England boiled dinner anyway. (-Ed.)

Hey Irv,

I happened to hear about you from a friend in West Virginia who sent me a link. He knows I have an obsession with Long Island even though I have never been there in my life!!! I have since showed the site to my boss and we have been spending our lunch hours the past 2 days reading the archives and laughing like lunatics. Keep up the good work!!!!!
Sarah
p.s. Would it hurt to throw in a few scraps of news pertaining to Long Island once in a while??? Inquiring minds want to know....... :-)

Dear Sarah,

Thanks for the nice compliment. We do get many subscribers from referrals, which we appreciate. I am glad you brought your boss into it so you don't get into trouble for laughing like lunatics.

To answer your query, I have written many articles about Long Island, especially the ones that take place in Florida. (-Ed.)

Webmaster's Corner

This image just sent in by my daughter, Patty. I guess it's still cold in Michigan. I am not sure, but rumor has it that this might be her ex. Perhaps we will find out in the spring.

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