An unnecessary and unjustifiable war at a cost of three trillion dollars; a crashing economy at a cost of trillions more; a degraded environment, a dissipated Earth…….priceless.

And people responsible for these nightmares want their 2008 bonuses……predictable.

Of course, in our state it takes a 2/3 vote to raise taxes and the Republicans have over 1/3 in the Senate so could block this move. Still, the Democrats propose to use irregular procedural moves to overcome the Republican opposition.

Minimize your productive activity for a while. Take a break. Sell absolutely every security you own that has a tax loss before 12/31/08 and don’t sell anything at a profit. Put your money in index funds, which rarely change their holdings and thus don’t generate taxable income. Figure out ways to barter that are not taxable as long as you keep your mouth shut (As your friend, I tutor your kid; as my friend, you fix my plumbing).

Do as much buying as you can over the Internet from non-taxable sources, while you can. Move to a lower-tax state if possible.

You do realize that when you buy in Pennsylvania, you are supposed to pay in sales tax (to NYS) the difference between what you pay in PA and what you would pay in NYS if you bought the item there.

You think I’m kidding?

In past years, NYS tax officials would go into parking malls in NEW JERSEY, take the license plates from New York, and send them letters warning them to pay that sales tax difference between New York and New Jersey (at one time the difference was much greater than it is now; with a 1.5% difference, they really don’t bother these days).

What’s just as idiotic is that New Jersey has upped its taxes to almost match New York’s, when any person with half an economic brain (which excludes our present Governor, even though he was a V-P at Goldman Sachs), would have tried to keep the taxes low compared to New York, to try and invite business over from the Empire State.

But both states are run by corrupt Socialist Democratic machines, with brainwashed, liberal-left populaces, and a biased left-wing news media in bed with the Democrats. So no matter how bad things get, they will not elect Republicans — not even if NY and NJ go bankrupt and have 10+% unemployment.

The only reason I feel sorry for NJ is that for family reasons, I have to live here and suffer a few more years. As for NYS, I see all their troubles and feel nothing but Schaudenfreude. They let themselves be ruled by the NY Times. Let them suffer for it.

Otherwise, the state will get exactly what its citizens want. The fact is, as some of the commentators above have suggested, the state policies are reflecting the predominantly socialist beliefs (even if they don’t recognize it as such) of most of NYC, Long Island, etc. Personally I think this in large part because they’ve yet to feel any effect from such policies, living, as they have been for a decade and a half, on exploding capital markets tax revenues (much of which has deflated or been shown to be fraudulent all along) and all the employment and ancillary benefits that brings. There’s a generation plus that just has absolutely no clue what’s coming.

Until the people have the courage to reserve for themselves the moral right of selfishness, i.e. to *choose for themselves* whether to help others or not according to their own standards, and where to draw the line — the burden of State will continue to grow.

That would constitute the overthrow of altruistic moral “duty”. Do you really expect such revolutionary cultural change to come from politicians? The abolition of literal slavery came from the people; the abolition of *moral* slavery must come from the people also.

Charity need not be ended. It is the concept of moral “duty”, whether identified openly as such, or dishonestly as an ersatz “right” (such as the “right” to health care), that must be jettisoned. You can start right now by telling anyone with a hand out who is demanding government or “society’s” help of any sort for any reason, be they lobbyists for some new pet project, or just some idiot whining “there ought to be a law”, no matter what it is: NO. The line is drawn here.

And if they don’t like it: TGDB. Break your moral chains, and a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2008/10/going-john-galt.html”>withdraw your fire — until the day the altruists withdraw their vultures.