Mixed Message

I read an article on FoxNews.com this morning on how recipients of the BP oil spill money may have to pay taxes on it. As is to be expected when a disaster of this proportion occurs, emotions are high and the politicians are using them to further their agenda (never waste a crisis, right?). This kind of issue typically turns in to a tangled mess via the perfect storm of victims pleading for help, media sensationalism to grab ratings, and politicians trying to channel energy into popularity increases and maneuvering room for their greater plans.

Let's look at them one at a time.

"If they're going to pay you a lump sum, like for a year, then bam, take the taxes out of the check," said Pellegal, of Boothville, La. "But a little bit at a time, they shouldn't."

There are many individuals who will be impacted by the oil spill. All those you would think of (and the media is focused on), such as oil workers, shrimpers, and deep sea fishing charters, and many more you would not think of. I am not indifferent to this, but neither am I consumed by it. We all have to be aware of our vulnerabilities and WE should be responsible for our own preparedness. If you live along the Mississippi, you need to be prepared for the likelihood of floods. If you live in the Midwest's Tornado Alley, you should prepare for tornados. Upstate New York, heavy snow. California, earth quakes. Gulf coast, hurricanes, and obviously oil spills. It is a simple concept, yet so many don't get it. Why don't they get it? That is a long story, but basically they have been taught to not get it for generations now. We have been taught to make decisions about our life assuming that the future will be what we want it to be. Good examples of this idea and the potential harm of subscribing to it are seen all the time if you look (bankruptcy, the mortgage crisis, the dot com bubble, social security, most debt). The only problem is how we are encouraged to interpret what we see when we look, which brings us to the media and the politicians (not much difference anymore).

President Barack Obama said BP would create a $20 billion disaster fund and provide another $100 million for oil workers who lose their jobs because of the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The media wants a scoop, a hook, a headline, an exclusive, something to make you choose them over their competitors. This isn't all bad, I am a big fan of competition, but I am a bigger fan of not being a fool, and anyone who watches ANY of the media and accepts it as fact is a fool (yes, that includes FoxNews). The media wants you to accept them as an exclusive source of the truth, but it is rarely so. I don't claim to know why it is so, but these days the media seems to be nothing but progressive liberals. The media can still ask the hard questions, they do it all the time for conservatives (just like they should), but they have forgotten how to ask a progressive liberal a hard question (they are too busy experiencing a thrill up their leg I guess). This wouldn't be so bad except that the masses of dumbed down "useful idiots" believe everything they see on TV, then they turn around and regurgitate it as if they figured something out. Question the benefit of their favorite entitlement and they will quickly brand you with one of the slurs taught to them by the media. Entitlement mentality is the polar opposite of being responsible for yourself, which brings us to the politicians.

"I haven't even thought about taxes. Wow. That makes me mad," said Edwards, who has one child in college and another in high school. "I'm already losing money, and now I've got to figure out how to hold back money to pay taxes?"

Now I know what you are probably thinking, progressives are Democrats and conservatives are Republicans, but that is just not so. Both parties have done their share of increasing the public addiction to the opiate of entitlements. Many Republicans will pay lip service to reducing entitlements, but when faced with the prospect of an electorate irate from withdraw, they soon abandon the notion in favor of their own, "more restrained" entitlements. This is one good reason for strict term limits, to help end the cycle of "re-elect me so I can give you even more!" That must be why they can't believe that their progressive saviors want their cut of the BP payments, but this is just too big of a win to let them keep it when there is SO MUCH MORE the progressives need to fund. Not to worry, according to the article, the same happened in 2007 for folks who received money after Katrina. Once the complaining got loud enough congress disallowed the tax, so crank up that temper tantrum about how unfair it is to pay taxes on your...err...income.