House Passes Bill To Tax AIG bonuses by 90%

This is for people making over $250,000 a year and applies to all financial companies that have received over $5 billion in bail out money. This is becoming a frightening situation. The US government makes the tremendously awful decision to bail out companies that are supposedly "too big to fail" which in both theory and practice creates government-sponsored monopolies and now the government is trying to control decisions that these newly coronated monopolies are making. I think that by many definitions you may call this nationalization. Given enough time and power I am sure Pres. Obama will continue to move in this horrifying direction which will mean that small business owners like myself have a very dim future in this country.

The article can be found here.

Congress Passes Obama Initiative To Vastly Increase Service Programs

Congress just passed a legislation which is expanding government sponsored service programs by a huge margin. Americorps is going to have its positions tripled. And what is this going to cost us taxpayers considering that Americorps is a "volunteer" organization? $6 BILLION! That is billion with a "b". Why does the government try to compete with private nonprofits which are a lot more efficient and a lot less corrupt? It's easy, it's a ploy to help them get reelected. A feel good piece of legislation that will burn a bigger hole in everyone's pocket. The question that I would like to ask is if there is even a demand for that many volunteer positions. How many people applied last year to volunteer for Americorps? How many people are they projecting this year? Maybe I don't want to know the answer...

You can find the article here.

Obama Administration Ends Raids of Medical Mariuana Dispensaries

President Obama has finally done something right. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced yesterday that the Justice Department will no longer be raiding Medical Marijuana dispensaries. The bad news is that this is being done to focus more on other aspects of the drug war such as going after the dealers who are selling Marijuana illegally (as defined by state and federal law). Pres. Obama took a very small step in the right direction but for the wrong reason. He should not be stopping the raids because he needs to redirect his Justice Department resources but rather because it was a flawed policy to begin with.

You can find the article on this here.