More On Stifling Dissent

Take a look at some rough numbers vis-à-vis the Frosts’.

And for purposes of the analysis, we’ll use some very conservative numbers.

Let’s assume that the $45,000 per year figure is net income. And further that the private school tuition is free.

Let us also assume that their $1200 monthly mortgage on their residence includes property taxes.

Yearly mortgage payments on the residence come to $14,400. Let’s call it $14,000. Subtracting the mortgage payments from their annual net income leaves $31,000.

Let’s assume that the property taxes due on the commercial property are $500 per month (probably on the low side for that area). The annual property taxes for the commercial property would come to $6000 per year. Subtracting the property taxes on the commercial property of $6000 from the remaining net income leaves $25,000.

Next,, let’s further assume that the utilities on both the commercial property and the residence (all utilities including phone) comes to $600 per month for the residence (3000 square feet) and $200 per month for the business property. That is $9,600 a year. Call it $9000. Taking $9000 off the remaining net income now leaves $14,000.

The Frosts have 3 relatively new vehicles. For insurance purposes. we will assume that their rates were not seriously impacted by the accident. Insuring those vehicles in that area would run, say, $3000 per year. So after factoring in car insurance, there is $11,000 of net income left.

Let’s assume that the Frosts own one of those vehicles, and lease or finance the two others. And we will assume the leases or loans are long term, and further assume a down payment of about 10% of the vehicle costs was made at the time of purchase or lease. So we will figure that the combined car financing/lease expense is in the neighborhood of $350 per month per vehicle. So annual car finance expenses run at $8400 per year. Call it $8000. When applied against the remaining $11,000 of net income, the Frosts have $3000.

Let’s also assume they drive those cars, and that they put gas in them. But we’ll assume they do not drive much, and only spend $100 per month on gas, and since they take great care of their cars, their monthly car maintenance expenses for all 3 cars are $50 per month. That is another $1800 in annual expense, that we’ll call $1500, just to be conservative. Well, that now leaves the Frost’s $1500 - annually.

$1500 a year breaks out to $125 per month. Or a little over $30 per week for clothing, food and other essentials for a family of 4 ($8.00 per person).

And the left does not understand why people have a problem with this?

Via the fine folks at Sadly, No! comes this comment from Michelle Malkin's blog (no I will not link to it directly because I don't want to spend all day scrubbing the comments) that to my mind just shows that the Frosts actually weren't rich and that yes indeed they would have had a hard time affording health insurance.

The spin that is being put on it in right wing whackjob land is that they obviously were cheating on their taxes since they couldn't possibly even afford to eat. The reality is probably something much more prosaic like.... They took full legal advantage of every tax savings that was available to them, fully used itemized deductions and , God forbid, even maybe hired an accountant to ensure that all of the expenses from his business were properly deducted.

This family is the frigging poster child for "The American Dream" and the right wing is all over them like ants on honey trying to destroy them. These are folks that any other time would be held up as the absolute epitome of hard working blue collar Americans. It shows just how far the Right is willing to go to destroy people and shows, once again, what I keep saying.

This is not about debate. This is not about politics as we have understood it. This is about stifling dissent through crushing the middle class and destroying the quality of life of anyone who dares to poke their head up and say "hey, this thing you are doing is wrong".

Now, it could be argued that this is just a bunch of stray wingnuts but you have to also note that there has not been one peep out of the Republicans decrying this behavior. Compare and contrast with the complete meltdown over the "General Betray Us" ad. Make no mistake that these loons are being, at minimum, tacitly endorsed by the Republican establishment.

If there are any people with a conscience left in the Republican party they will be out on the talk shows on Sunday morning saying how disgusted they are that the Frosts have been treated this way and that the people that have been doing it are not representative of the way that a Republican acts. Of course I am making the very large assumption that there are people of conscience left in the Republican party. Sadly, I see no evidence that it is true.

But remember, it is the left that is uncivil because we say "Fuck" and "Shit" and because we get pissed off when a pack of crazed weasels takes on a 12 year old kid and his family. What we don't do is just make shit up and then use it to attack people. But, they do it "politely" so I guess it is OK.