Saturday, January 05, 2013

Fiscal Cliff...

The US is at an impasse in the life of it's finances. BOTH major parties are wrong on the whole issue!! There are ways of fixing our issues here in the US:

1. End all "Loopholes" in the US Tax system.
2. Set a flat rate of tax on all people, regardless of their income levels. Everyone pays the same level, say 10-15%, what ever level that makes the most sense for the US.
3. End the retirement program for our Senate and Congress, and install the money left in the program into the Social Security system. This needs to be immediate. This needs to include the retirement of those that only served for a term or so.
4. Don't allow the Senate and Congress be a life job, but a one term job in which THE PEOPLE fill the position for say 6 years. This this isn't done, make the job a FULL year long, and stop the long recesses, which were originally put in place for the purpose of allowing THE PEOPLE to go back to their farms, ranches and/or businesses and keep them in order. Since these folks "business" now IS government, they don't need the time off like they use to.
5. Stop "lending" money to other countries, and stop ending interest on the money owed to us. Many countries were loaned a LOT of money from us, but we forgave them the interest and then forgave the loans, to the tune of several BILLION dollars total. Look at Mexico, Japan, Germany and other countries, even as current as Iran/Afghanistan, etc.
6. Collect any and all monies, or at least start the process of aggressively collecting, owed us by other nations.
7. Begin reviewing all of our "entitlement" programs and start the process of reducing/removing these programs as is appropriate for the betterment of the Nation. Many programs need to be revamped, redone and removed in many cases.

These are just the beginning steps though. Much more must be done. First and foremost we must begin helping each other, paying attention to each other, and then we need to take care of ourselves as well, not wanting others to take care of us.

Have fun...

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Blog Title Change, Life Changes.

For those of you that read this blog pay any attention, you will notice that the name of this blog has changed from Don's Thoughts to Don's Thoughts III. This site was the first blog I every blog I started with to get to know things. I then transitioned to more than one self hosted WordPress blogs. For various reasons I am giving up self hosted (for the most part) blogs and am retiring Don's Thoughts II and re-starting my blogging here as Don's Thoughts III. With these changes, I am also advancing my "life changes". I am going to be spending more and more time reading theology books, studying the Bible, and doing my prayers, some of which I have been a bit slack on. I will be focusing most of my non-VA work related time in learning more about Christ and His life, and living a life as close to that as I can. This blogs focus will be going back to my "secular life" thoughts and actions, and you can read about my Christian Studies and life at "Friar Don and His Spiritual Life". From this day forward, barring more changes in life ;) , these will be my only two blogs. :) Looking forward to keeping you up to date with my life and life changes! In Christ, Friar Don