Crap! I Meant to Talk About Taxes

Friends, Whiggy has been neglectful of you all lately. For that, I am deeply sorry. I often travel for work and, between travel and a couple of projects I have been developing, I have been too swamped to write. For my liberal reader(s), work is a thing where you contribute to society and the greater economy by producing goods or services. In return for getting out of bed in the morning, getting dressed in clothes that don’t double as pajamas and producing goods and/or services while following the rules of an employer, you get a thing called a paycheck.

“But Whiggy,” my liberal reader (I’ll call her/him/it Libby) is thinking “I don’t have to get out of bed and I get to wear my hot pajamas that say ‘sexy’ on the ass all day and I still get a paycheck from the government.”

Oh, silly Libby. That’s not a paycheck. A paycheck is something exchanged for work. What you get is a handout from your fellow Americans. You get that because liberals need people to vote for them. By giving you money for contributing nothing to society, they have ensured that you cannot fend for yourself and, therefore, need the government to survive. In short, they have enslaved you. Go ahead, think about that for minute. (Begin calling me a racist in 10,9,8,7 …)

“I’m not a slave!” Libby the liberal screams through her Menthol Pall Malls. “Slaves do work for free. I do nothing for free money!”

Hmmm… I see what you are going for Libby. But, as with almost everything in the liberal world view, you are moronically wrong. You are a slave. The product you provide are votes and generations of new slave voters. Now, shut-up so I can get back to this blog!

Since we are talking about paychecks, I wanted to share an observation of my own paycheck. With all the talk of the new Republican tax plan, I was curious to see what I have paid in taxes thus far this year. How do I put this tactfully? Hmmm … I know! … I’m just glad I didn’t have tacos last night because I sh@t myself! Trust me, that’s the tactful version. I’m working on a theory that your own professional success can be measured in the amount of feces left in your pants after seeing your tax contributions. By that measure I have achieved a moderate amount of non-taco success.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do not mind paying my “fair share” of taxes. The fact of the matter is that the government needs money to operate and, whether we always recognize it, the government does do a lot of good and necessary things. They do a lot of superfluous and insanely expensive and wasteful crap as well but we’ll save that for a later post. No, I don’t mind paying a fair amount of taxes. What I do mind, is when my taxes are used to pay for those who choose not to contribute to society. Notice what I said there: who choose not to. I have always been a firm believer that the government should take care of those who CANNOT take care of themselves. They should not take care of those who CHOOSE NOT to take care of themselves.

“You are treading on dangerous ground Whigman” You are thinking right about now. “Your white privilege is showing”

Let me respond with …. Wait … “Whigman”? No. You may call me Whiggy or His Holiness the Whig, but you may not call me Whigman. I’m pretty sure that’s sexist! Let me illustrate my point with a real-life story. When I was a young Whiggy, well before my wig had grayed I worked as a Parent Aide not far from the town where I was born. Part of my job, at the age of 24, was to help parents develop parenting and basic household skills. I have always been a fiscal conservative but one of my clients, oh hell let’s call her Libby too, further cemented my conservatism. Libby was my age at the time and had 5 children all under the age of 7. They had 4 different fathers. That is no a judgement of her judgement. It is simply a verifiable fact. Budgeting was one of the things I worked on with Libby. In order to do that I needed to get a full accounting of all forms of income and assistance she received.

I know this will be shocking, but she did not work.

“Now, now, Whiggy!” you are saying “Be fair! Raising 5 kids is work. You can’t work and raise 5 young kids. Don’t be mean dude!”

First, “Dude”? Really? I expect more from my readers! Whiggy or His Holiness the Whig. Don’t make me say it again. I’ll let it go this time. Second, she didn’t stay home with her children. She had several hours of free daycare a week for each of her children. I don’t remember how much, but I think it was around 25 hours a week for each child.

Back to my story. Libby, received WIC, childcare, food stamps, fuel assistance, welfare and a few other forms of assistance. That’s not to mention her boyfriend, the father of two of the children, who sold pot out of her apartment, for which she received rent assistance. Here is what truly cemented my conservatism: When I added up the value of all her assistance (I left out pot sales) she made more than the first Mrs. Whiggy and I together. We both had college degrees, a full-time job and a part-time job. We had one child at the time because had a full understanding of birth control.

Let me sum that up for you. Pay attention Libby … as I talk about Libby. The first Mrs. Whiggy and I both had college degrees and multiple jobs (all in the helping profession, incidentally). Libby had no job, unless breeding with random lowlifes counts as a job and she … MADE MORE FRICKEN MONEY THAN WE DID!!!! My first response when I discovered this was to shout WHAT THE F@CK inside my head. While I was spending four years getting an education and deeper in debt so that I could make more money for my eventual family, she spent four years getting Fu … well you get the idea.

“But Whiggy” those of you with a heart are thinking “She needs all those services so that her children can have a life and possibly break the cycle of poverty.”

To that I say … SHUT IT, HIPPIE! Do you know what she did with all those services? Let me illustrate a few examples. She used her welfare money to rent Large Screen TVs, game systems and computers from Rent-a-Center. When she couldn’t pay anymore, they would come and get the stuff. When she had money, they’d rent it right back to her. She used her food stamps for food …no let me rephrase that…she used her foodstamps for munchies and cigarettes for when she was high. She used all that time her kids were in daycare to work hard … at getting high and pregnant again. When I learned of how she used all this money I said ARE YOU F@CKING KIDDING ME. This time out-loud.

She defended herself: She had a rough childhood. Her dad went to jail when she was 13. Her mother was disabled (i.e. too fat to work). She went to a bad school. She started smoking young and couldn’t quit. And, my favorite, no one taught her about birth control.

I responded with a deeply sincere and caring response. It went something like this:” Get the hell over yourself, get off your ass, stop making excuses and get a fricken life. I was born to a 15-year-old living in foster care in the next town over. I was taken away at 3 months for failure to thrive because I lost weight since birth. I lived in 6 different families before I was 6 years old. I experienced every kind of abuse you could imagine by multiple families. Without being pushed by anyone I went to college so that my children would never experience that. I don’t want to hear any of your BS.”

I got fired.

Wait. What was my point? Crap! I meant to talk about taxes. Next time I guess.