What Am I Missing?
It’s a Rhetorical Question, Just So You Know
I’ve been around for a long time, but there’s still a lot in life I do not understand. Whether it is politics, or relationships, or sports, or why things have to be the way they are, I often feel as though I am missing something.
By sharing the following examples, I hope to explain what I mean.
So, let’s see if I have this right. In America, it is not unusual for rich folks to declare bankruptcy and still remain rich and keep the fancy mansions and fancy cars and fancy jewels and the big piles of cash in offshore bank accounts. They can run a business into the ground, declare it bankrupt, stiff their business’s creditors without much of a hit to their personal fortunes, then start a new business venture, like nothing had ever happened.
However, a non-wealthy person who misses a few payments on an predatory student loan because of having to provide food and shelter for a family, is in big financial trouble. Do those who cannot afford to protect their assets with a high-powered, high-priced law firm deserve to lose everything, no matter the circumstances? That hardly seems fair.
I am all for personal responsibility. Make mistakes? Fix them. Run up a debt? Pay it. Say or do the wrong thing? Apologize. Make a mess? Clean it up. However, to many of us in the 99%, it seems the wealthy are unencumbered by such a concept as personal responsibility.
What am I missing?
Bashing wealthy, welfare-seeking sports team owners is something I have done several times and, guess what? I’m going to do it again. Why in the world are taxpayers subsidizing the construction of sports arenas? In most cases, sports teams are owned by billionaires, why can’t they use their own goddamn money and credit?
Actually, private financing of sports facilities has been done in a few locations around the country. SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home to the NFL’s Rams and Chargers was built with private funds. As was the New England Patriots home, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Also, Chase Center in San Francisco was built for the Golden State Warriors with private financing. And, there are some others.
So, it can be done. Why then, do all these other sports-loving billionaires who own teams, have their hands in the pockets of the local taxpayers? Why are they begging for a generous welfare package to finance a new palace for the benefit of their private business? Why are local elected officials falling all over themselves to give generous tax incentives and sweetheart land deals to these greedy vultures?
They don’t need the money, for Chrissakes! They’re fucking billionaires!
To the billionaires I say this: You want my tax dollars to help finance your private business? Fine. But in return, I want a seat at the table. I want a say in how the franchise is run. Okay, maybe not me specifically, but someone who will represent the interests of the taxpayers whose hard-earned money will be on the line. And, I want a fair percentage of the profits to go to the taxpayers.
These seem like reasonable requests to me.
But, that’s not how it works, is it? Cities all over the country are clamoring for major league sports franchises, yet study after study has shown that the economic impact of sports franchises to their local areas is consistently smaller than anticipated. I would ask the elected officials in communities who are so willing to throw tax dollars at sports team-owning billionaires: Why not invest the money in local schools or libraries? Why not improve your city’s crumbling infrastructure?
Why not support feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and treating the sick in your area? Actually, I know the answer to that one. It’s because all the fiscal conservatives out there would be screaming about their tax dollars propping up the welfare state.
Well then, why aren’t all the fiscal conservatives in these locales protesting in the streets over these obvious examples of welfare for the rich? Why do cities and counties acquiesce to the exorbitant extortion demands from sports teams?
What am I missing?
Almost 90% of children in the USA attend public schools. Why anyone would support the pillaging of public school budgets to fund private school vouchers is beyond me. Since most children go to public schools, shouldn’t improving public schools be the priority?
Skepticism of the notion that these vouchers will go to help send poor inner city and poor rural kids to private schools, would be justified. Research indicates that wealthier families are far more likely to take advantage of vouchers than poor families. So, private school vouchers overwhelmingly benefit those who already have access to private schools. What a surprise.
Obviously, too much of the money siphoned off from public school budgets benefits the one-percenters. It seems ridiculous that any middle class or poor people would support such a scheme.
One of the best Substacks out there is The View From Rural Missouri by Jess Piper. Jess is a former teacher, and has written eloquently on many issues in her state, including education. Rural schools in Missouri have been hit especially hard by the Regressive Party’s drive to defund public schools and funnel taxpayer money to private schools.
Missouri consistently ranks among the bottom feeders in funding for public schools. For example, to cut costs, many of Missouri’s rural schools have had to go to a four day school week.
Yet, the state is running a budget surplus. The entrenched Republican supermajority in the state legislature thinks they’re doing a great job because they have a budget surplus, while Missouri schools struggle to stay open and their rural hospitals are closing and their roads are terrible and their poor people are pretty much left to fend for themselves.
In the previous section, I railed against welfare to billionaire sports team owners. Well, it should come as no surprise that the Missouri legislature has approved a plan to pay for 50% of a $1.15 billion overhaul of the Kansas City Chiefs football stadium. Because, the legislature has its priorities. And, educating Missouri children is not one of them.
What in the hell am I missing?
Add Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst to the list of Regressive nitwits who have embarrassed themselves in public with their stupidity. Recently, at a town hall meeting with her constituents, during a discussion about the Medicaid cuts she supports, an audience member called out, ”People will die!” Ernst responded, “Well, we’re all going to die.”
Let the callous stupidity of that sink in for a moment.
I mean, yes, obviously we’re all going to leave this life sooner or later. However, following the logic of her stupid comment, why should a drunk driver be held responsible for killing someone in a crash? We’re all going to die, anyway. Or why should we bother to take someone who is ill or injured to a hospital? We’re all going to die, anyway. Or why should we care if our food is contaminated with deadly pesticides, or harmful bacteria, or animal feces? We’re all going to die, anyway.
What Joni Ernst is saying is, we should not spend money on “government handouts” like Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for people with limited income and resources, perhaps in some cases delaying for those folks the inevitable deaths that await us all. In Joni’s world, instead of helping those who need help, we should give the rich and powerful yet another break on their taxes.
Of course, Ernst and her family benefit from having a fantastic health insurance plan that comes with her job as a United States Senator. Maybe she thinks people without health insurance should do what she did - become a United States Senator so they won’t have to worry about it anymore.
What is wrong with this woman? If this is an example of the way her little pea-brain works, how did she ever get elected to the United States Senate?
What am I missing?
Okay, at the risk of even more subscribers than usual cancelling their subscriptions, I’ll close with something really controversial.
Pineapple on pizza is an abomination. It is gross in the extreme. What’s next, anchovies on chocolate cake? Yeah, that sounds ridiculous, but no more so than pineapple on pizza.
For anyone who is wondering, yes, I have tried what was called a Hawaiian pizza. I did not like it at all, but I admit it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. So, who knows, maybe there’s a slight chance that anchovies on chocolate cake would be a surprisingly delightful culinary combination. I won’t be trying it though, because anchovies on chocolate cake just sounds terrible. I feel the same way about pineapple on pizza.
To each their own, I guess, but I have never understood the reasoning behind this unfortunate combination. Just because something can be done, doesn’t mean it should be done. It amazes me that otherwise intelligent, reasonable people love this horrible thing.
What am I missing?
To my perceptive subscribers, thank you for your support.
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Do you have something to say about What Am I Missing? Well, then . . .
Hi Norm,
I agree with your observation about cities falling all over themselves to cater to the billionaires who want new sports arenas. They have so much money and could easily pay for these stadiums themselves.
I'd like to add to that list of companies like Walmart, Amazon, and others who get huge tax incentives. People who work for Walmart and Amazon are on public assistance including Medicaid and SNAP because these companies don't pay a livable wage or offer health care. And in most cases, they are the largest employer in the communities where they set up shop. This is how the obscenely rich continue to get richer. There should be laws against this type of pillaging of our tax dollars.
But as we know, the powers that be have always been in the pocket of large corporations because they are the same people who fund their campaigns. That is why so many politicians are corrupt. The fact is, Citizen's United has made it legal for billionaires to rig the system.
We are seeing this effect on steroids with this current administration. Billionaires make up the majority of the cabinet and it should be alarming to anybody who has to work for a living and are having difficulty making ends meet.
By the way, I don't mind pineapple on pizza. But, then again, there is some mental illness in my family. That may be the reason, LOL.
Have a great weekend!
Sounds about right to me. I think this has been true for all of American history. The landowners and wealthy held all the political power from the beginning. The whole point of the Electoral college was based on the premise that commoners weren't knowledgeable enough to choose a president.
To be honest, I don't understand the motivation by people like Trump or Musk to change the current system. They wouldn't have attained the wealth they currently have without it being what it is.
And wrecking the system by supercharging taking from the poor to give to the rich is going to mean a working class that can't afford to buy anything, which means less money going to businesses. So the wealthy is cutting off their own future supply of money.