Wealth in the Wrong Hands

Best thing I can do is write.

I have incredibly vivid dreams in color these days. I didn’t dream in color until the last year. At least as far as I remember. If I had stayed closer in my walk with God, maybe I’d even have dreams about things to come, or the angels? Not now, but in the past 10 years since leaving the church I’ve had dreams that conveyed my feelings toward the church and the people: walls, unbelief, and rejection. I wasn’t always this way, but if I described how life was like before I decided against a walk with God, you would think I was mad.

Many  people these days are having visions and dreams, even near death experiences, and the description sounds so reasonable and right. The angel, the light, the people, the bigger light and being drawn into the light. Honestly, I see myself pulling away from the light, that’s how much my life has changed. In my dreams I always pull away or reject people from the church. I believe this determines your place in heaven, how you react to the presence of God in that light. I look at all that now and decide it’s impossible to revitalize a lifestyle that involved waiting on the Lord, reading the Word and the Lliving Word sermons, prophesying. I’ve cut myself off, both physically and spiritually.

That was something John Stevens would address with me when I was getting ministry, that a spirit of division was trying to cut me off from the church. I now think that same spirit is cutting me off from other humans altogether, at least to those with whom I might feel an obligation to act.

I abhor parties and people assembled in large groups for a particular purpose, like attending church. Yes, I’m friendly with everyone and, yes, I have a knack for conversation, but deep inside me I’m constantly crying out that I would prefer being alone. Oh, I’m okay at work because it is situational in that I’ve learned (not always smoothly) how to relate to customers and other colleagues. In any case, I get tongue tied talking to men, or carrying on more than a minute conversation, unless there is something  in common between us that provokes various topics. For example, yesterday I was intrigued in a conversation I was having with a male customer when I found out we had so much in common. We were recalling the day President Kennedy was shot and where we were, he in 7^th grade being told over the intercom and me in sixth grade watching Mrs. Sagabiel crying as she wrote the news on a chalkboard. I broke into tears, as many others in my class did, and he remembers doing the same. There were other things of which I cannot recall the topic, but I spoke with him so long that I had to pull myself away to go back to work, or as I say, “go back to looking like I’m working.”

I’ve been looking at my 2013 taxes and realizing I will probably owe close to $2 k in taxes this year, primarily because I haven’t had adequate taxes withdrawn with any investment disbursements I have had this year, about $ 5k worth, and a number of other things. But it’s incredible to me that with a $21k a year income I would still owe a tenth of that in taxes is downright absurd. There are wealthy people and corporations, with lawyers hired who study ways to keep the entity from paying  any taxes on millions of dollars of income. And then those same entities initiate programs – wars, imprisonment are two of the worst offenders – using my little bit of taxes, multiplied by 200 million people.

The US budget doesn’t balance and we’re ten billion in debt, primarily because the wealthy don’t pay taxes. It’s laughable if it weren’t such a personal issue. Anyone with a job is being having their salaries syphoned in order to support the very programs the wealthy employ.

How’s this for absurdity? There are 1.5 million Americans who have been receiving unemployment benefits, which are set to expire this weekend. Rep. Paul Ryan and others are vehement in their belief that such benefits actually discourage the worker from looking for a job. So there are that many people now left destitute because of a spokesman for the wealthy (is it any other way in federal government?) blaming payments to the jobless as the reason they can’t find jobs. But Mr. Ryan, there are no jobs to get. Companies with the highest profits in history are laying off people because they found they could make even more money with fewer employees, or have initiated robotic answers to human toil.

Mr. Ryan speaks from his pinnacle of power, blind to the sufferings caused by those who serve as guardians of the people’s interest, showing no empathy, despite the dozens and hundreds of stories in the press and all around us of people not being able to find jobs, unable to pay mortgage or rent on an apartment, unable to provide for their families…while the Senators and Representatives all draw $135k in annual salary. This is in spite of the huge gridlock facing both branches, and the lack of real action from President Obama.

These people are incapable of the kind of empathy that is desperately needed to begin turning this country and the corporations around. People without empathy show one of the key signs of being sociopaths. Here’s the official definitition: a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

At the same time funds are being pulled from the pockets of the poor and middle class, there are billions being spent on weapons to fight senseless wars. Okay, here’s one The total cost of the Trident program thus far came to $39.546 billion in 2011, with a cost of $70 million per missile. Every US submarine is loaded with at least 10 of these missiles, which has a main purpose of destroying the populations of countries who are unfavorable to those who govern the US. 

·       The United States Navy has a stockpile of around 3,500 Tomahawk cruise missiles of all variants, with a combined worth of approximately US $2.6 billion. According to Wikipedia, the US used 74 of these warheads in their pursuit of enemy forces in Iraq.

Here’s another heartbreak statistic regarding the incarceration rate in the US. Of all the developed countries, this has the highest number of prisoners per capita than any other. Many prisons are privately owned by companies that lobbied for the three strikes law in effect in several states. After the third federal crime, prisoners are required to serve a 20 year sentence.  Latest statistic is that it costs $32,000 a year to house those inmates. Some criminals are purposefully committing crimes so they can return to the prison where they have a place live and food to eat.

Contrast that with what is spent in California for each student: $7000 a year. Doesn’t it make more sense to put that money going into prisons into an educational system that teaches social values that would keep people out of prisons?

There’s nothing your or I can do about this because the decisions are made by wealthy corporations interested in making more money. Yes, residents have voted in the three strikes law, but as I mentioned earlier those laws are promoted by the very groups that will benefit from expanded populations.

All this to say I want to cheat on my taxes. I don’t want to pay the government $2,000 when the money is used in these ways, which are only a couple of the malfeasance issues facing the United States. Why should I have to pay that money, when the rich get by tax free or, at most, a 15 percent tax rate, compared to my 25. The IRS might find out about this, but not this year and probably not next, but I would always live with the thought that I could get nailed and not only owe that money, but pay interest on it from the time it was due. The IRS tends to review tax returns listing little money, rather than corporations that have created a tidal wave of paperwork, compared to the two page tax return that I provide. I’m seriously considering not reporting my investment withdrawals, or reporting only enough that I don’t owe anything or only a little . Last year I was expecting my withdrawals to wash with my medical expenses, but this did not happen, and I still owed money. I withdrew $4k untaxed but payed $4k for hearing aids, which were taxed.

The only other response would be to pay the money, but in such small increments that the state and feds don’t get it for months and months. A payment plan can be established so you still owe the money, but you can pay it off in increments. Doesn’t it seem unfair about all this, with the way the government is spending money using funds eked from citizens like me. It is truly maddening, but there is nothing you or I can do to change any of this. It’s disgusting.

I could claim more dependents, report less income, put my tax status as 3 instead of 1 (this is primarily each taxpayer’s decision for more or less money taken from the paycheck.) I am seriously going to do some research on Google: how to cheat on your taxes. Having that in the search box might be a red flag, though, do you think. Better yet, how to pay less taxes…a little less noticeable.