Monthly Archives: November 2013

Giving Thanks

Posted on by

Today is America’s primary pagan festival, celebrated to show love to the gods for a bountiful harvest on a New England day in which fields are now mostly covered in snow and which George Washington proclaimed as a day of thanks as a national remembrance.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’.”

While it is easy for this curmudgeonly writer to kvetch about the corruption and thievery stretching from here to Washington or to fret that my truck needs new brake lines and my little house needs new shingles, those are just everyday irritants and (thankfully) I know how to fix them.

I am thankful I have a white truck. Not to mention a (topless)(white) car. And that Anne has white car.

I am thankful my grandfather at age 94 decided to live out his very good life in the Keys.

I am thankful I started my life as an engineer and am now spending some of it as an artist.

I am thankful we will have friends here today.

I am thankful my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren are happy, healthy, and will be well fed again today.

I am thankful Anne is here today and will be here tomorrow.

I am thankful for Anne and for Nancy, two loving, caring, beautiful ladies. I am blessed.

And I have pah!

Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be America’s bird so I’m thankful to have found a big inflatable turkey in a local yard. The original Thanksgiving Perspective is here.

ahh, supper
 

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming…

Posted on by

Two more not so affordable parts of the Unaffordable Health Care Act:

1. You don’t qualify for a subsidy if your income is less than 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.

2. Likewise you don’t get a subsidy if your filing status is “married filing separately.” If you’re married, your tax filing status must be “married filing jointly” in order to qualify for a subsidy.

“So, the poor folk this is designed to cover can’t afford it?”

$11,490. That’s the 2013 Federal Poverty Guideline for one individual living anywhere in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia.
$11,491. That’s the minimum one individual living anywhere in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia can earn to qualify for an Obamacare subsidy
25,273,000. That’s the number of individuals living anywhere in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia who earn less than $11,490.
25,273,000. That’s the number of individuals living anywhere in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia who don’t qualify for Obamacare premium tax credits or cost-sharing subsidies.

That’s right, Pookie, if you are the poorest of the poor, you don’t get premium tax credits or cost-sharing subsidies. [Note to those who are counting, some but not all of those 25,273,000 do qualify for Medicaid.]

“And if you and your spouse don’t live together, you’re basically screwed.”

About 2,408,000 people filed separate returns in 2009, the most recent year the IRS has published. About 1,811,779 (One million, eight hundred eleven thousand, seven hundred seventy-nine) of those reported less that $49,960 in income, the cut-off for individual subsidies. One point eight million people left out by the Unaffordable Care Act.

Well, Pookie, you might not be getting screwed but, yeah, you are.

If you support Obamacare, this is what your crutch hath wrought.


Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy
 

Cluster Fudge

Posted on by

My second favorite fudge, layered of chocolate and Key lime, comes from Key Weird. This ain’t that.

Still, South Puffin is in about the geographic middle of Monroe County, the southernmost county in Florida, and home of that fudge. Cluster and otherwise.

Our county School District is $1.2 million in the hole again.

Regular readers might recall that the Monroe County School District has a history. A jury found former school superintendent Randy Acevedo guilty of three felonies for abetting his wife’s theft of public funds and off to jail he went. His wife, ousted Adult Education Coordinator Monique Acevedo, had pled guilty to six felony counts for stealing $413,000 from the district, although she blamed her crimes on an “undetected bipolar disorder made worse by an addiction to oxycodone.”

Alrighty then.

Enter Gov. Rick Scott who “gave” teachers a $2,500 raise this year; the boost was one of his priorities from the 2013 legislative session. So far, 17 Florida school districts have sorted out the pay raises and 50 have not.

Monroe County’s new school superintendent went a different route.

See, Mr. Acevedo and his successor, Jesus Jara, left district finances in the toilet. The unions refused to let the board reduce salaries. The electric company refused to waive the electric bills. The buses were already running on fumes. The board opted to furlough teachers, staff, and blue collar workers.

It was not a popular move among teachers, staff, and blue collar workers. They called the furloughs a “pay cut.”

“Randy and Jara spent your paychecks,” Superintendent Mark Porter told the teachers.

The furlough program has been in place since 2011 and has saved the district $1.7 million each of the past two years but it was a bad solution to a lousy problem and Mr. Porter wanted to end it.

The super tapped $1.4 million from Gov. Scott’s mandated teacher raise program to underwrite the cost of ending the furloughs.

Now state officials say the new’s plan to use the new state money is illegal. That means the state says we had to keep furloughing our employees to cover costs but we also have to give them raises while they are not being paid.

Huh?

Flag of the Conch Republic -- Motto: We Seceded Where Others FailedAs an aside, it’s mostly our (local) money. Because Monroe is considered “property-rich,” 90% of school funding is raised through local property taxes, with the remaining 10% coming from the state. That means of the $1.4 million earmarked for the raises, the state kicked in about twenty-seven cents.

There was a reason the Conch Republic seceded from the United States in 1982. It is time to remind Tallahassee we still have our flags.

Worth remembering: the word “Fudge” in this usage is not the chocolatey goodness that sticks to your fingers but rather a substitute for a fine, graphic, four-letter Anglo-Saxon term.