Puffs

A belated “Happy Father’s Day” to all the fathers out there. Hope you had a nice day. Mine was quiet: attended Mass, had a nice late breakfast, a nap in the afternoon and did a little ‘garden’ activity and had a nice steak supper.

To someone my age, I’m guessing that is about as good as it can be.

A O

I get a quarterly magazine from the University of Nebraska Alumni Association. In the most recent issue they ask alumni to share memories. Their question in this issue was: “What is your favorite remembrance from Memorial Stadium?”

I felt required to answer this question with the short story of being one of a group of UNL students who helped carry Bob Brown off the field after the 1963 Nebraska-Oklahoma football game. Brown was an All American and this victory gave Nebraska its first Big Eight Conference championship in 23 years. In addition, the game was one of only five college games played that Saturday . . . the day after President Kennedy was killed.

Don’t know if they will think my story is good enough to print, but I think it is.

Then . . . this past weekend, I learned that Bob Brown died at the age of 81.

Life is interesting . . .

A O

Over the last several years, President Biden seems more and more eager to get more tax money to pay for the faults of others, not to mention his own wish to spend money we don’t have and the need to ‘borrow’ more money.

Mr. Jay Ambrose of the Heritage Foundation put together a few of the facts concerning our president’s wish to “tax the rich” scheme.

The president says that American billionaires have a tax rate of just 8 percent. That group is not large, maybe 750 to 1,000 people. He could tax them more and not lose many voters.

Mr. Ambrose notes the tax rate for these people is more like 25.6 percent. Then he reminds people that the top one percent of taxpayers deliver something like 43 percent of all federal taxes.

The president arrives at his deception by saying the billionaires pay nothing for the unrealized gains they have in their stock portfolios.

That part may be true as the laws limits the personal income tax to actual income a person has received, not something that might be converted into income some day in the future.

So, you might just wonder how this would work. It’s easy to understand that if you ‘invested’ in something, let’s say a $100 investment, and see that today that investment is worth $200, you could say you were $100 richer.

But you would not be that much richer until you actually sell that investment. What the president wants to do is to tax that $100 before you sell it.

Consider for example that Nebraska is considered a “farm state.” You purchased your farm at some time in the past and throughout your life time that land you paid for is now worth several times what you paid for it. Even though you have not sold the land, the president wants to make you pay taxes on its worth now, saying you are that much richer.

Doesn’t seem quite fair to me, or consider the problems you’d have to solve to even operate a tax system to take into account all the unrealized gains people have. Also, would they allow unrealized ‘losses’ to be taken into account?

I’ll never forget a conversation I had a number of years ago when the stock market took one of its hits and investments took quite a downward dip almost overnight. A woman was moaning and groaning that her retirement investment just lost so much value she didn’t know how she’d ever be able to retire as what she had saved was just reduced greatly.

I asked her if she “sold” any of her investment since it went down.

She said “no.”

I said you really didn’t lose anything yet, and you won’t unless you sell your investments at this lower price.

Since that time, the stock market has risen, fallen and risen again multiply times. A person doesn’t really lose anything unless he takes action to sell at a lower price than what he purchased the investments for.

I don’t know what the person did, but they are retired now and seem to be living “happily ever after.”

A O

To return to my feelings about Liberals and Conservatives, in the past week or so, a couple of item about the Liberals in California caught my attention.

First off was a news item that a California Bill in their Legislature would charge any parent who doesn’t affirm transgenderism with a child, with ‘Child Abuse.’

The Liberals out there seem to think they have a real issue that requires sympathy and a change.

So, if a parent doesn’t allow drugs and surgeries for a child they might be charged with child abuse.

As usual, Liberals have come up with an answer that certainly does not address the problem. From all I’ve read and heard about youngsters having what they call ‘gender dysphoria’ amount to about 0.06 percent of that population. So, we’re not talking about a whole lot of people here. I also read that of that 0.06 percent, around 75 percent of those people who use traditional counseling therapy seem to come through it without the need for drugs or surgeries.

California Liberals want to charge parents with ‘child abuse’? What a crock!

A O

Another California Liberal idea.

A lot of trains go into and out of California to ship all that cargo that comes into the ocean ports located there. The Liberals want the railroads to start using “electric locomotives” as soon as 2030 to cut down on the pollution problem out there.

I understand the desire to reduce pollution and all, but the railroad companies say that they have been experimenting with electric locomotives, but they don’t have a solution that works just yet. And, if they started building electric locomotive today, they could not build enough by 2030 to help solve the pollution problem.

A O

Liberals have an answer for most all “problems.” And, every once in a while they hit upon a solution that works. However, so very often, their answers just don’t do justice to any problem.

My experience in reading about much of this situation is that if a person objects to the Liberal idea, the Liberals attacks the person objecting.

For example, if you object to abortions you must hate women. Wrong.

If you object to the parents in California being charged with child abuse if they don’t allow drugs and surgeries for their children, you must hate people with gender dysphoria. Wrong.

If you object to the lack of a border in southwest United States that allows aliens from all over the world into the U. S., you must hate the immigrants. Wrong.

If you think the U. S. government is wrong in taking ‘legal’ action against former president Trump and not against similar issues with the current president, you must not respect law and order. Wrong.

So often conservatives just buckle under attacks such as these and Liberals get what they want.

However, maybe times are changing a little. But why did it take almost 50 years and the deaths of about 60,000,000 people to see a change in abortion laws.

A famous quote after WWII went something like this: “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.

I know the next elections are still a long way off and we all get tired with all the political “news” (if that is what you want to call it), but realize that the Liberal work at their success day and night, year in and year out.

I urge all of you to be on the watch for all that Liberals want to do. It’s difficult, confusing and at times dangerous, but it has to be done.

A O