Hope and Change

So here's Joe Biden telling those that make over $250,000 it's time to buck up and show a little patriotism.

I recall a certain tea party in American history. Were they proposing patriotism the same way Joe Biden proposes it?

Our ancestors chased their dreams. They wanted a better life for their children, and their children's children. They were frustrated with a government that told them how to worship, and a government that took what they earned to give it to others.

We often imagine that the Kings that enjoy taking the citizens money and just sitting on it. Throwing the gold into the vault somewhere so that they can run it through their fingers with an evil laugh. That's not what they did with their revenues. The Kings took peoples money and gave it to their staff, their jesters, the peasants. They did the things that they thought would best serve the people.

Our ancestors took a great risk and crossed the Atlantic to chase their dreams here in America. What was it that sustained them when faced with such adverse conditions? How much did they have when they arrived? Was it the wealthy that left the comforts of home back in Europe that were making such a long treacherous journey here?

NO, it was those that had little in Europe, and even less in America. They had nothing more than "Hope and Change." Is it the "Hope and Change" that we are promised now in 2008?

What sustained these diehards with little more than a dream and a few cloths on their back? Was it the government run programs? Was it the universal health care? Or the food stamp programs? Was it the goverment housing programs? Was there a federal minimum wage?

It must have been a patriotic government program right? One that helped the poor enter teh ranks of the middle class? Higher taxes must have been imposed on those that made more than $25 a year. Those tea party folks must have felt it was more patriotic to pay some higher taxes, right?

Our ancestors came here with ambition. They came with real hope, and real change. They didn't have any government mandated programs to give them a leg up. There was no mandated ladder from the government to help them out of poverty and into the middle class.

They may have had some family to come to that helped them survive. But mostly they had neighbors. Friends from their mother country. They didn't have social services to go to when they needed help, they had churches to go.

NOW Check out Joe Biden's tax returns.

Ten years of tax returns. His family never made less than $210,797. That year he donated a whopping $120 to charity. Maybe it was just a bad year right?

His best year shows an income of $321,379. They generously donated $380 that year.

The most charitable donations in the last ten years that Joe Biden shows on his tax returns is $995.

The average American donates approximately 2.5% of his income to charity. Joe Biden donates about a tenth....a tenth of one percent.

The CBS headline reads: "Biden's Tax Returns Show Modest Wealth"

It should have read: "Biden's Tax Returns Show Financial Ignorance"

Joe Biden's income adjusted for inflation has been over $100,000 since he started in the Senate back in the 70's. A person with any financial intelligence making over $100,000 a year for the last 30 years should easily be worth over $1M.

Joe just doesn't get it. Neither does Barack Obama. That's why they want to take it away from those that can, and give it to people like themselves, those that can't.

It's their version of Hope and Change. I suppose that 232 years of freedom and independance is just too much. It's time for "Real Change!"