Posted on 12/01/2012 9:25:31 PM PST by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column
Were all getting taken for a ride
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 2, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Angela Rowlings
Another week, another transportation-tax trial balloon. But look on the bright side. This time the advocates say its just a small tax, as opposed to the so-called robust tax hikes they were floating two weeks ago.
This time all these front groups with the funny names (is On the Move anything like On the Dole?) want a new .75 percent payroll tax on anybody making more than $100,000. But wait, you say, that would be a progressive income tax, which is forbidden by the state constitution.
Not to worry, the advocates double-talked at the State House. Theyve got a way around that. The taxes will be imposed on the employer, not the employee. Yeah, right.
They say the new income tax would just be the same system they have in New York to pay for transportation. And look how great thats working this morning the cash toll to use the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels increases from $12 to $13.
The last toll increase was last year. The next one is next year.
This latest trial balloon follows proposed increases in the gas tax, not to mention a tax on miles traveled per vehicle. But theyre not really taxes, you understand, theyre investments. Investments in the future, and in job creation. Hack job creation lots more assistant associate deputy senior commissioners for governmental regulations.
Stepping up to the public trough this week was something called the Green Justice Coalition, a name that should terrify anyone who works for a living.
You know what green means think Solyndra, or Evergreen, or A123, or the Volt. Crony capitalism. As for justice, that means somebody with a job gets stuck paying for another handout for somebody who doesnt havent a job.
They call it economic justice. I call it highway robbery.
This report was authored by another front with an ominous title, Public Transit Public Good.
A more accurate moniker might have been, Public Transit Massive Boondoggle or Hack Jobs for Tomorrow.
Another goo-goo group recently conducted a poll asking people in Massachusetts what they blamed the states continuing transportation red ink on. Waste and mismanagement, answered 71 percent. I assume thats the same 71 percent that has ridden the T in the last year.
According to The Associated Press, the moonbats want the proposed graduated income tax to provide a more equitable fare structure that would give breaks to low-income riders.
Is equity fairness what were looking for here? Then I have a solution. The people who use the MBTA, and all the other regional systems let them pay for the public transit instead of the people who dont use it. What could possibly be fairer than that?
After all, dont the hacks tell us that we have no right to complain about, say, tolls, or the gas tax, because those are merely user fees? If you dont want to use the Mass Pike, just take Route 9 to the New York state line.
Arent T fares user fees too? Why must T fares be endlessly subsidized by those who dont use the system, when Pike tolls arent? I remember during one such debate over the T deficits many years ago, when the House was debating whether to increase the assessments on the T communities.
An ancient Democrat from Worcester, Andrew Collaro, stood up and said:
Most of my constituents dont even know theyre paying for this, and as unhappy as theyre going to be when they find out, theyre going to be a lot angrier when they find out you people here in Boston want to double it.
Speaking of which, heres another proposal making the rounds. Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral of New Bedford wants to put a green fee on drivers. If you own a Prius, Rep. AFDC wants you to pay an extra $7.50. If you drive something thats Ram Tough, well, you can figure it out ...
Perhaps you remember Rep. AFDC. In 2005, the state Department of Revenue placed a lien on his home in New Bedford for non-payment of income taxes. Now this deadbeat who wouldnt pay his own taxes is trying to jack up yours.
Get used to it. Elections have consequences.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061178766
Imagine if you will that for the past 30 years Boston has been a one newspaper town. Only one. The Boston Globe. Thankfully that was not the case. 30 yrs ago Rupert Murdoch bought the Herald and the paper did NOT shut down. YOU BET WERE ALIVE!
Thank you Rupert, and Pat Purcell. See the article below and watch the video which has Howie (and yes Magpie Eagan too)
Imagine if you will that for the past 30 years Boston has been a one newspaper town. Only one. The Boston Globe. Thankfully that was not the case. 30 yrs ago Rupert Murdoch bought the Herald and the paper did NOT shut down. YOU BET WERE ALIVE!
Thank you Rupert, and Pat Purcell. See the article below and watch the video which has Howie (and yes Magpie Eagan too)
Wed column ping
One lucky uncle? Hell drink to that!
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, December 5, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
There are three chances that Barack Obamas illegal-alien Uncle Omar will be deported by his nephews government.
Slim, fat and none.
Hes 68, he will take a drink under extreme social pressure, and he has to wait until March before this OUI in Middlesex is erased from his record. Oh yeah, and when he was lugged in Framingham in August 2011, he said to the cops, I think I will call the White House.
In other words, do you know who I am?
Yes, Uncle Omar, we do know who are, only too well. You were the guy who was imported from Kenya to go to a nice school here, from which you quickly departed. Under U.S. law, you were supposed to have returned to your Third World hellhole by Dec. 24, 1970.
You were ordered deported in 1986. You were again ordered deported in 1989. You lost your appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals in 1992.
And yet, you remain here, unwelcome, unwanted, unlawful and, mostly, unafraid. If only we could say Uncle Omar is being given special treatment with yet another hearing, because hes the presidents uncle. But nowadays, illegal aliens are treated better in America than most Americans. Look at the illegals newest handout free tuition at state colleges.
In one regard, Uncle Omar is a different type of illegal. He actually works, at Contis Liquors in Framingham. Thats more than you say for the presidents aunt, Auntie Zeituni, who was living in a public housing project in Southie as an illegal alien on welfare.
Dont tell me illegals cant get on welfare. Auntie Zeituni went on TV and proudly stated she was on the dole. Now shes a political refugee. Some nights she has a takeout dinner delivered to her BHA apartment. Isnt America great?
Once Uncle Omar gets permanent residency sometime next year, do you suppose hell be able to get some ... assistance? After all, hes just one of the millions of people from around the world who want a chance to make a new life for themselves in the U.S.
A Democratic congressman said that last week. America, once the land of the free, now the land of the freeloaders and the freebies.
The Republicans in the U.S. House just passed a bill called the STEM Act. It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. It would have given preference in visas to foreigners with advanced STEM degrees in short, immigrants who will work, produce, pay taxes.
The Democrats went crazy.
If you support this bill, fumed Rep. Luis Gutierrez, you are saying one group of immigrants is better than another and one type of educated, degree-holding person and their work is more important than anothers. ... Talk about picking winners and losers.
Isnt that what an immigration policy is supposed to do? Isnt that what U.S. policy always was, until Ted Kennedy got the Immigration Reform Act through Congress in 1965?
Hows that one working out for you? Its working out great for Auntie Zeituni, Uncle Omar and millions of illegals. Laws? They dont need no stinkin laws.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061179598
Ah, yes, exactly, that's the way it should be, losers are not welcomed.
Fri column ping
Anecdotes continue to add up and multiply
By Howie Carr | Friday, December 7, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Anecdotes thats how Gov. Deval Patrick always dismisses stories about alleged criminals on welfare.
So this morning, Governor, Id like to introduce you to 11 more anecdotes. They are all from Haverhill. Ten of the anecdotes are accused of distribution of heroin and the 11th for sale of ammunition.
According to testimony last week in Haverhill District Court, all 11 are on welfare mostly SSI and SSDI. According to federal statistics, despite their relative youth (they range in age from 26 to 51), they have only a 1 percent chance of ever ... recovering. By which I mean, getting off welfare.
Despite their illnesses, which left them unable to work, the anecdotes were active enough to have come to the attention of not only the Haverhill police, but also the state police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Lets go down the list:
Benjamin Santos Jr., 36; Elisa Escalera, 26; Marcos Molina, 49; Luis Ledesma, 48; Luisaldo Ledesma, 51; John Rodriguez, 30; Domingo Banks-Burgos, 33; Edwin Oquendo, 39; Luis Rivera, 51; Heriberto Escalera, 43; and Jazlin Colon-Brito, 32.
Total bail for these 11 disabled individuals: $890,000.
How many of them do you suppose voted for Mitt Romney last month?
This story was originally broken in the Eagle-Tribune, formerly the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. Lawrence is only a few miles from Haverhill, which used to think of itself as a middle-class city. I can remember when Haverhill had a Republican mayor. Times have changed, and not for the better.
Attorney Lee Graham represents five of the anecdotes. I asked him about the nationalities of his clients.
Most of them are from Puerto Rico, he said. So, yes, they are American citizens.
And was there any one particular malady that drove these, uh, Americans, onto the dole?
They mostly filed for psychological issues Graham quickly caught himself. Alleged psychological issues.
Hey, Governor, I know these are just anecdotes. The reporter on the original story, Mike LaBella, is himself a collector of Haverhill anecdotes, a few more of which he emailed to me. One was about two alleged marijuana dealers, one of whom receives $875 a month from Social Security and (the other) is a ward of the state receiving $750 monthly from the state Division of Children and Families.
Heres a 55-year-old named Richard Chase. Hes 6-1 and weighs 355 pounds. In his car Haverhill police found 119 oxycodone pills. They then got a search warrant for his apartment and found 932 more oxys, $15,247 in cash and ... an EBT card, which he had just used to buy food at a convenience store.
Chases rap sheet ran to nine pages, but the judge asked the prosecutor about a decade-long gap during which no charges were filed against the rotund welfare recipient.
I just found out, the prosecutor answered, he spent 10 years in federal prison.
Another day, another anecdote.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061180084
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