I find it hard to believe that Maquoketa spent all that money on an indoor swimming pool, when we needed a new fire station all along; now we have to go out and borrow more money for it. Lets make this clear -- I will vote for the fire station addition. The Maquoketa volunteer Fire Dept. saves many lives, not to mention the taxpayers loads of money, and they deserve a building that they would be happy with, do they need it or not? I don't know, but one thing is for sure -- we need it worse than an indoor swimming pool, thanks mayor Tom for showing the right priorities I am with you on this, and thanks fire dept you have my support.
Well, they are going to raise the minimum wage. At work this week i had a co worker who was happy he was expecting a $2.10 raise and i told him that we do not make minimum wage, and quite rightly our employer was not obligated to give us a raise since we do not have a collective bargaining agreement with him. The coworker was shocked, and I am too that the general public can't see that this is nothing more than a payoff to public employees, teachers, and other union workers. Let me make this clear -- I am not saying that the people I just mentioned are in the wrong and do not earn their money, I am only saying that the press has portrayed this as a increase to the working poor when people in the higher income brackets will benefit more at contract negotiation time. Very unfair, and deceptive on the part of the press. I wonder if Schueller Construction is going to voluntarily raise their employees $2.10 an hour, since Tom voted for this. I am not quite sure if Senator Stewart has anyone employed that this would effect.
Well, I did not see any celebrity birthdays this week for welcoming some one into the Medicare club. I guess we will take a week off, although I did receive my Social Security statement, it had an interesting line on it under the benefits section: YOUR ESTIMATED BENEFITS ARE BASED ON CURRENT LAW. CONGRESS HAS MADE CHANGES TO THE LAW IN THE PAST AND CAN DO SO AT ANY TIME. THE LAW GOVERNING BENEFIT AMOUNTS MAY CHANGE BECAUSE, BY 2040, THE PAYROLL TAXES COLLECTED WILL BE ENOUGH TO PAY ONLY ABOUT 74 PERCENT OF SCHEDULED BENEFITS. I thought that the press and the Democrats told us it was not going broke?
Tim Grover, the plain blunt guy
