Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Good morning crew,

It seems like the state of Illinois has found yet another temporary, stopgap solution to its catastrophic budget crisis. They have raised my taxes again. Twice.

Recently they reassessed the value of my property and discovered that it has gone up significantly. That was a surprise to me, considering there are over 200 homes for sale in my little neighborhood, and nobody can seem to sell anything.

But that means next year they can tax the higher 'apparent' value of the property, and not the real value which is about 5 percent lower than it was when I bought the place three years ago.

And then I got a fun little letter with my last paycheck announcing that Illinois withholdings have gone up. That means they have raised the state income tax. So now that I have to pay more for my property taxes, they have conveniently reduced my paycheck.

Oh, and a new penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages just went into effect this month too. Just to add insult to injury.

But I understand. There are thousands of crooked politicians and bureaucrats whose criminal careers have to be maintained, not to mention the tens of thousands of state and county employees who are collecting a pension on top of one or sometimes even two regular paychecks. That money's got to come from somewhere.

Why, oh why didn't I go into politics or municipal work 20 years ago? Then I could be on the gravy train right now, instead of paying for it.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"A school district in Florida is eliminating homework for all school students this year. Officials say it's fine because a lot of students are already reading at a fifth grade level. Unfortunately a lot of those students are in 10th grade." -James Corden

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"ABC is dropping plans for a live musical of 'The Little Mermaid' because of budget issues. Also, because nobody can hold their breath underwater for two hours." -Jimmy Fallon

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"The WWE has trademarked the Bible verse numbers 3:16. It refers to one of the Bible's most quoted verses, John 3:16: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that those who believe in him shall not die but have eternal life.' Or, as the WWE will now put it, 'Christ-a-mania is running wild! Woo, baby!'" -Stephen Colbert

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A Missouri farmer passed away and left 17 mules to his three sons. The instructions left in the will said that the oldest boy was to get one-half, the second oldest one-third, and the youngest one-ninth. The three sons, recognizing the difficulty of dividing 17 mules into these fractions, began to argue.

Their uncle heard about the argument, hitched up his mule and drove out to settle the matter. He added his mule to the 17, making 18. The oldest therefore got one-half, or nine, the second oldest got one-third, or six, and the youngest son got one-ninth, or two. Adding up 9, 6 and 2 equals 17. The uncle, having settled the argument, hitched up his mule and drove home.




*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
The personnel office received an email requesting a listing of the department staff broken down by age and sex. The personnel office sent this reply...

"Attached is a list of our staff. We currently have no one broken down by age or sex. However, we have a few alcoholics."