If you are talking about new taxes proposed in this new health bill, Angie, I have some figures.

In a news story from Sept 18, Sen. Baucus' bill proposes taxing "cadillac" health plans that you and I probably do not take part in.

If your employer provided plan costs more than $21,000 a year for a family of four or $8,000 per year for an individual it might be taxed. The same news story said this would primarily effect union retirees and workers. The proposed tax rate I saw was 35%.

However employers say this will have an effect on everybody (duh) as these costs will invariably be passed on.

The figures quoted for the average common insurance plans was $14,000 for a family of four and $7200 for an individual.

A lot of big name Dems don't like this idea. But in the same story Baucus said his committee worked for months trying to get some Republicans on board to be part and none came along.

Again - the party of "No".

Are you a PETA member too?

hey not to belittle those of you who give a rats butt about the air and the water but isn't it interesting that the people in congress who fly jet airplanes to meetings drive limo's to work drink bottled water get ALL their clothing dry cleaned r passing laws charging us more to do any of that (like any of us do any of that anyways) what a pile of crapola .  i think  just cutting all their budgets and limiting their waste and abuse of the atmosphere would be enough to give the rest of the middle class a year off paying taxes! its not that i don't think there is waste and abuse but from what i have seen watching congress on tv these people look like they are in the top percentage of abusers!the cap and trade bill was written to appease the conscience of the huge carbon footprints being left on the earth by these two faced double standard forked tonguers ! just my middle school educated middle class opinion.

mrbrownrn49 says ...

Personally I do not think that concern for our climate and atmosphere quite equates with PETA. Not claiming PETA has no purpose but we all breathe air.

Did you know that to amalgamate gold using the mercury technique releases huge amounts of mercury into the atmosphere? The mercury is heated to make the process more efficient and to reclaim every bit of gold possible. Mercury is a heavy metal and ingested heavy metals, for the most part, do not leave the human body.

They are accumulated in organs such as the liver and the brain where they wreak havoc on the nervous system. The effects are for a lifetime.

But it is easy to do and can be done over a campfire in a skillet. I know that for a fact as my buddy used to amalgamate our placer gold every night over a campfire over my protests. Our little mining claim downhill from the Spanish King gold mine in the San Juan mountains of Colorado produced some decent amounts of gold using that technique.

I was content to send it to a professional smelter and pay with a percentage of the reclaimed gold. Not Bob.

I'll guarantee you that 30 years later he is still doing it if his mind is together enough to do it. Right by the Animas River drainage. Running through Durango, Colorado. Where city drinking water is drawn out and the rest goes down to Navajo Lake in New Mexico. Then on into Utah and eventually draining into the Colorado River to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas and Los Angeles via drinking water.

Get my drift? There's a big difference between tree huggers and PETA  and then the rest of us who realize that poisoning of the air or water is not alright and is not easily cleaned up.

Many here howl about a monetary deficit left to their kids and grandkids to pay off but could not care less about the air they'll breathe or the water they'll drink while they do so.

I think the capitalists already have enough in trading carbon credits in exchange so they can continue to pollute OUR air and water.

Sorry......I was just being a butthead.

I am not a tree hugger, but I do think you both were right about air quality, and the WHOLE darn issue with the mess we are making of our planet. Here's what I think though. IT"S NEVER GOING TO CHANGE! To many people have the, "I'm only one person" attitude so they go ahead and throw away all that stuff that could be recycled. Etc. Etc.

The world is too reliant on the luxuries we have to cut back. I for one would love it to be the societal norm to have less and spend less. But.....it's not that way. And I really don't see that it ever will be.

Kelly you sound smarter every time I read your posts. Or rather you are letting it out, girl.

To wage wars AND cut taxes is absolutely stupid and makes moronic economic sense. It is the same as Kelly and Family going to every mall within a days driving distance, charging everything in sight and not making any more money than you do now to pay for it! The bill collectors would be knocking your doors down.

I was raised a dyed-in-the-wool Republican by a family that is Republican on both sides. I voted for Nixon and was rewarded when he started bringing us Gyrenes home from across the pond. My grandfather, God rest his soul, is spinning in his grave now knowing I voted Democrat last time. I VOTED FOR MR. OBAMA! I support him now in most of his endeavors including health care reform. I am not sure how the public option would pan out in the long run.

But the GOp has lost me, probably for life. I supported McCain when he was vying for the GOP nomination when GWB got it. But in all truth John McCain, while being a decent man and a "war hero", doesn't have the sense it takes to come in out of the rain when compared to Obama.

That said, remember I am the one who posted the Pete Townsend quote "Meet the new boss".

It is high time the US fielded more than 2 damned political parties. I think Ron Paul made more sense than any of the last candidates. But why waste a vote on him? There are not enough thinking voters at present to make the Libertarian Party a reality on the national scene.

Our taxes need to be raised even if there is not a single new program started anywhere. These "wars" have dragged on, making Blackwater and KBR and Halliburton richer at our expense and at our kids' expense.

Raise our taxes now and do it by raising the taxes on the rich to a fair amount. Get rid of the rich man's tax dodges. Abolish foreign tax credits for international corporations. Make it here - pay it here. Let's work to get rid of the deficit we have and are facing the rest of my natural life.

It doesn't just look like bass bait, it should be bass bait. But there are many more species involved than the delta smelt you mention. Chinook salmon and the Southern Resident killer whales that rely on them for their main food source are involved. As is a species of sturgeon which is one of the oldest surviving species of fish in the world going all the way back to the dinosaurs.

Overfarming in desert regions is something I do know about having grown up in the ranch and farm industry in the deserts of far West Texas and Southern New Mexico and southern Arizona. It's a major reason I went into nursing was so I could be sure I made money regardless of crap like this.

The water these farmers use come from snowsheds and river systems such as the Colorado and Rio Grande. Overuse of these water supplies in time of drought leads to permanent damage to the entire ecosystem. Las Vegas and Los Angeles use the majority of the water from the Colorado river system so blame them before you kick that smelt.

Don't worry about these farmers. Your government will make it up to them in farm subsidies, just like they have for the past bunch of decades.

You keep mentioning that public education. I, too, am a product of public schools. My high school was filled with poor Mexican kids from both sides of the border in a city forgotten about in far away Austin (the state capital of Texas and a long days drive away from El Paso). Our textbooks were standard Texas issue. I went to a 2 room school for 1st through 6th grade 120 miles from El Paso and 90 miles from the nearest school district junior high or high school.

I went to an old Catholic nursing school that is now closed. It was the first nursing school in the state of New Mexico and I think some of the sister's taught the first classes as well as mine. It was no Ivy League school. Far from it. It was definitely no Notre Dame and the Catholic church had not subsidized it in many years, preferring that the Sisters of St. Joseph of Assisi all retire and turn everything over to the state. I paid for my nursing school with the GI Bill I got being in the US Marine Corps.

So to be clear to everybody - I am not rich. I was raised in a family of hard scrabble west Texas cowboys who actually turned to the "profitable" occupation of farming and welding. I spent my summers working in my dad's blacksmith shop he opened when I started junior high school to avoid a 90 mile one way bus ride to the nearest junior high. The entire Rio Grande valley system is irrigated farmland. I have watched rich men turn desert into row crops irrigated by Rio Grande water - in the years it snowed good in Colorado the winter before.

The work was hot and hard and heavy. The old man valued education but never had the chance to get one. But he drilled it into his kids. The ones of us who actually attended advanced schools went to U of A (me) or New Mexico State University (my sisters).

But one does not need to attend the Ivy League schools to value education and the advanced principles of the humanities. I don't need to look too far to study or empathize with the poor.

Hey it's the snail darter or the spotted owl or something all the time. There used to be bumper stickers out here :

"Out of toilet paper? Wipe your a** with a spotted owl!"