Ik exactly how Maga Elvis feels. My family and I went through the same exact thing with my father who passed early April. FaceTime video right before they put him on the vent. My mom was in the hospital 2 days later. He survived 4 days on the vent my mom was notified of his passing by my brother in a hazmat suit
NYC taxes explained for people who don't pay attention:
Property tax. Income tax. Sales tax. Unincorporated business tax. Commercial rent tax. Hotel tax. Mortgage recording tax. Mansion tax. Utility tax. Congestion pricing. Twenty-plus taxes.
And the mayor wants more.
Let me show you what that actually feels like.
You're 26. First real job. $85,000. You feel rich.
Then you see your paycheck.
Federal takes a cut. Fine. Then New York State takes 6%. Then New York City takes another 3.5%. Then there's a "metropolitan commuter mobility tax" you've never heard of.
Your $85K is now $54K before rent.
You grab coffee. 8.875% sales tax. You take an Uber to the airport. Congestion pricing just added $9. Your landlord raised rent, he's passing along a property tax increase you'll never see on a bill but you're paying every month.
You're not rich. You're not even comfortable. You're just surviving. But fine. It's New York. You chose this.
Now here's the part nobody talks about.
In 2000, NYC's budget was $40 billion for 8 million people. That's about $5,000 per person.
Today it's $121 billion for 8.5 million people. $14,244 per person.
Population grew 6%. Inflation was 82%. Spending per person nearly tripled.
So things must be three times better, right?
In 2017, 51% of New Yorkers rated quality of life as good. Today it's 34%.
Only 12% think the city spends money wisely. Only 22% feel safe on the subway at night. Felony assaults hit a 24-year high.
They spend $31,000 per student on education. Less than half kids can read at grade level.
They tripled the spending. Everything got worse.
Where'd the money go?
Pensions up 115%. Outsourced contracts up $7 billion. A brand new $5 billion asylum seeker expense that didn't exist three years ago. Social services doubled. 302,000 city employees. Debt ballooning.
And the new mayor doesn't look at this and say "we need to spend better."
He says "we need to tax more."
A 2% income tax hike that would push the combined state and city rate to 16.8% -> the highest in the entire country. Tax increases that impact everyone.
His supporters chant "tax the rich" at rallies. The top 1% already pay 40% of the city's income tax. And they're leaving anyway. NYC's share of the nation's millionaires dropped from 7% to 4%. They have accountants. They have Florida.
You know who can't leave?
Your uncle with the restaurant. Your parents in that house. You, watching your paycheck disappear into twenty taxes before you can save a dollar.
You need to make $312,000 in New York to live the same lifestyle as someone making $125,000 in Houston.
Houston spends $2,850 per person. No state income tax. No city income tax. Population growing.
NYC spends five times more. Worse results.
NYC is a Netflix subscription that keeps raising the price while the product gets worse.
And you can't cancel.
$40 billion wasn't enough. $60 billion wasn't enough. $80 billion. $100 billion. Now $121 billion.
It will never be enough. Because the problem was never revenue.
There is enough money. There has always been enough money.
They don't need more of yours. They need to do better with what they already take.
I hope you understand what's at stake.
🚨 BREAKING: Greg Gutfeled NUKES FROM ORBIT Jessica Tarlov's rant that political violence is "both sides." HE JUST WENT OFF.
"Your rationalization of BOTH SIDES...you come and you say, 'This is a mentally ill loner.' Well, who do you think does this stuff? It's not Ben Affleck, it's not Tom Brady. People who do this stuff are always that way. The question is, WHO POINTS THEM IN THAT DIRECT? Why pick ICE? Why pick Charlie Kirk? Why put bombs under Fox trucks? Why vandalize memorials? Why kill kids in Catholic schools?"
"Two things can be true. A person can be mentally ill and you can be GUIDING HIM to that place in his life. That is how brainwashing works."
"You have to understand, since Kirk's death, there is NO BOTH SIDES anymore!"
TARLOV: "The DOJ take down the study that showed how much right-wing extremism!"
GUTFELD: "What study was that? Which one? The one in The Economist that was sponsored by a group run by a guy in ANTIFA!? You're walking down a really bad alley right now!"
"You label someone a fascist or a racist or a Nazi. It makes you free to attack them. And that has been the ideology from the start."
"The left calls Trump a hate monger. They've called me a hate monger because I ridicule the left. I ridicule protesters. I ridicule academia, Hollywood, the news media. I make fun of the view every day. I make fun of the UN. Guess what? No one acts on the things that I say because MY SIDE DOESN'T DO THAT!"
I am told that as a state representative this is the moment where I'm supposed to express my heartfelt condolences and then stand in solidarity with those on the other side of the aisle as we condemn political violence and stand unified as one people.
But we aren't "one people" are we?
The truth is we haven't been for some time now, and there is really no point in pretending anymore, if there ever was.
We are two very different peoples. We may occupy the same piece of geography, but that is where the similarities seem to abruptly end.
I convinced myself for a long time that whenever the left called me a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a fascist, a "threat to democracy" for even the most innocent of disagreements, that it was simply hyperbolic rhetoric done for effect.
And now the "effect" is a widow and two orphaned children, because the left couldn’t bear the thought of a peaceful man debating them and winning.
I don’t think they realize it yet, but murdering Charlie is going to be remembered as the day where we finally woke up to what this fight really is.
It’s not a civil dispute among fellow countrymen. It’s a war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist with one another. One side will win, and one side will lose.
Charlie tried to win that fight through argumentation, through discussion, through peaceful resolution of differences.
And the other side murdered him.
Not because he was “extreme” or “inciting violence” or any other hyperbolic slur they hurled at him. They murdered him because he was effective. Because he was unafraid. Because he inspired others and made them feel like they had a voice, that they were not alone. And he did it at the very institutions which have fomented so much hatred toward conservatives.
I don’t want to “stand in solidarity” with the other side of the aisle. I want to defeat you. I want to defeat the godless ideology that kills babies in the womb, sterilizes confused children, turns our cities into cesspools of degeneracy and lawlessness…and that murdered Charlie Kirk.
Social media is aflame right now with leftist celebration of Charlie’s death.
I wonder if any among them understand what has just happened. If there is a Yamamoto somewhere in their midst warning, that all they have done is awoken a sleeping giant.
I doubt it. I think they gave up such introspection and self-awareness long ago.
I don’t know exactly what will happen next. I just know that it won’t be the same as what has happened in the past.
There will be thoughts and prayers…Charlie would have wanted prayers. Not for himself but for those left behind and for the country that he loved.
But then there will be a reckoning.
My Christian faith requires me to love my enemies and pray for those who curse me. It does not require me to stand idly by in the midst of savagery and barbarism...quite the opposite.
So every time I feel tired, every time I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I am going to watch the video of a good man being murdered in Utah…I will force myself to watch it…and then I will return to the work of destroying the evil ideology responsible for that and so much more.
Rest with God Charlie, your fight is over.
Ours is just beginning.
If the person who charbroiled an innocent woman had been a White guy, and he did it to a Black woman, there’d be marches, protests, demonstrations, tears from Al Sharpton, speeches from BLM, and tons of White Liberals screeching about “muh supremacy.”
But… it was an illegal who did it. It goes against their narrative. So they’ve been eerily silent. Or in AOC’s case, doing gold medal mental gymnastics to try to blame it on Daniel Penny.
Liberalism is full on lunacy.
@WallStreetMav This was in fact correct when you tweeted it, but speaker Johnson flipped his decision after the meeting when he spoke to Hakeem Jeffries and realized he could get Democrat votes to pass all the legislation as one bill.
This is insane!!
How can we wait until 2024
Why is his family putting him out in public knowing that he has dementia he needs to get out now before he causes any more damage to this country
Every day, every hour, every minute we are being embarrassed on the world stage.