I am absolutely fed up with the bait and switch rebate scams that seem to now be the norm rather than the exception these days when you go shopping for items. You know what I am talking about. You see a computer advertised for let’s say $999.00. You go to buy the computer; only to find out that the in-store price is actually $2,000.00 with a rebate of $1001.00.

They then tell you to look at the fine print of the ad for the rebate verbiage. You have just been sucked into their store by a bait and switch scam.

At this point at least in California, it is legal for stores and companies to advertise in this way. I think it is time for the California State Legislature to enact laws which prevent the bait and switch rebate scams that are going on.

The advertisers know full well that you are looking at the big price of the item when you look at their ad. They purposefully make their ads this way so that you will get in your car, and waste your gas to go to the store, only to find out that the actual price of the item is not what is advertised.

Technically, if the rebate companies (discussed below) actually honor the rebate, than the price ends up months later to be what was advertised, however you are still paying sales tax on the full price of the item, and not the advertised price.

What the retailer or the manufacturer that pushes these rebate scams do not tell you is that they ordinarily outsource the actual rebate process to 3rd party companies. These 3rd party companies do everything in their power to not honor the rebate. I have personally been screwed by these rebate companies. I did everything that they said to do; cut off the original bar code from the product; send the original receipt by a certain date, etc., only to have the company come up with some bullshit excuse not to honor the rebate. Then to make matters worse there is no way to actually communicate with the rebate company to dispute their rejection of the rebate.

Furthermore, once they have your original receipt and barcode cut-off, they can then turnaround and state; “well we need the original receipt and barcode cut-off to give you a rebate.” Since you already gave it to them, they then deny your claim for a rebate using this scam as well.

Another issue related to rebate scams is that the manufacturers who play the rebate games count on a large percentage of people not actually jumping through hoops to get the rebate, or the 3rd party companies that they use to find ways to not pay the rebates. The manufacturer gets your money in their account, and earns interest on it, while you do not get the product for the price that was advertised in the first place.

Here is my solution; boycott retail outfits that use the rebate scams! Do not shop at their stores. Make complaints to management and their corporate offices that you will not shop at their stores unless they give you a discount price without having to play a rebate game. If enough people boycott the stores that sucker people in, with false and misleading advertisements than they will change their ways.

Another solution is to write your State Legislature and complain about the false and misleading advertising, and request that they do something about it!

As for me, I am not playing rebate games anymore. I will refuse to shop at any store that uses this deceptive form of advertising, and if for some reason I am offered a rebate and do not get the rebate, I will file a lawsuit against the manufacturer.

As consumers, and voters, we have much more power than the normal person realizes. It’s a matter of us all getting together and saying in a loud and clear voice that we refuse to be suckers no more!

Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq. ,© 2007

By: Norman Fernandez
Norman Gregory Fernandez is a California lawyer who handles many types of legal matters. You can reach him through his website at http://www.norman-law.com.

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Already the liberal-democrat Presidential candidates are showing their lust to loot “the rich” to pay for more big government. John Edwards wants to increase taxes on the rich to pay for socialized medicine. Hillary Clinton also lusts for socialized medicine. She is also setting her sights on the “greedy” oil companies. She said in a recent speech, “I want to take those [oil company] profits and put them into an alternative energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy alternatives that will actually begin to move us toward the direction of independence.”

Notice the word “take,” as in loot or steal from oil companies through confiscatory taxes. I’m sure millions of oil-company shareholders will appreciate government simply stealing their company’s profits in the liberal’s version of the “land of the free.”

What’s the moral premise here?—that government has the right to loot “the rich” to help the not-rich or middle class. It is the sick communist notion of “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.”

Do “rich” people have a moral duty to submit to this legalized theft? Will the middle-class benefit from this looting? No, they will not. If you are middle-class, look over your shoulder, because the same government looters will soon come after you.

If it’s true that helping others is a moral duty rather than a personal choice, then it’s reasonable to loot the rich. They have more money and therefore should “give” their money to people who have less. But progressive income taxes hurt the middle class more than the rich. The middle class is the bulk of our population, and they pay most of the taxes.

To balance the budget on the backs of the top-earning two percent of Americans, we would have to tax 100 percent of the income of everyone who made over $300,000 a year. If this outright expropriation is too extreme even for liberals, we would have to double the income taxes of households earning over $85,000 a year.

Stealing from “the rich” won’t prop up our exploding welfare-entitlement state much longer. But it does satisfy liberals’ secret desire to punish people who are rich. It helps satisfy that green monster called envy. The progressive income tax rears it’s ugly head from liberals’ malicious envy and their desire to feel morally superior, with other people’s money.

Middle-income taxpayers might think the progressive income tax gets them something for nothing. But looting the rich only sets them up for slaughter by the same scheme. Why? Because everyone below the middle class on the economic totem pole will be looting them.

To poor people, the middle class seems rich, though the middle class is struggling to keep its head above water. Since only about two percent of taxpayers make over $300,000 a year (my arbitrary definition of rich), welfare-entitlement beneficiaries (including big farmers and corporations who get subsidies) have to knock on the middle class’s door for their “benefits.” After the rich, the middle class is next in line for the guillotine because it pays almost 80 percent of the taxes that support the welfare-entitlement State.

If you’re middle class and support higher income taxes for the rich, look over your shoulder. Someone poorer than you is breathing down your neck. If you support government’s right to loot the rich, you support government’s right to loot you. You can’t have your cake and eat it too—either we respect each other’s rights and property, or government loots us all in the end. Once government loots one person’s property with progressive income taxes, then we all become victims in the end.

You may think that looting the rich is moral because we have a duty to help others less fortunate than us. But if you believe this, you become vulnerable to the liberals’ propaganda. Your conscience shames you into helping others.

However, if you were consistent, you would feel morally obligated to give all your surplus income to the poor. You would feel immoral spending money on your children’s future while people are starving in Appalachia. Too bad that your kids can’t go to college now after you give all your money away.

But “compassion” can’t stop there. Many poor people in America are rich by comparison to the poor in underdeveloped countries. Mexican illegal aliens who sneak across the Rio Grande at night to work for minimum wages in the fields of California know this. If helping others is a moral duty (forced down out throats by tax collectors), it would be immoral to stop at America’s borders. We would then have to tax America’s poor to feed the rest of the world. After all, America’s poor are rich compared to millions of starving people in Africa.

So there’s no end to it. If giving to those “in need” is our moral and political duty, then no one has a right to one penny of extra income or savings while another human being is worse off than we are. Each of us would be morally and financially responsible for human suffering in every miserable hellhole on Earth.

But if you believe that your life and paycheck are not other people’s property, then the progressive income tax is a moral obscenity. The progressive income tax becomes a burden and a punishment you don’t deserve and shouldn’t tolerate.

To reject the welfare-entitlement State, and the liberal looters who demand your hard-earned money, ask yourself these questions: Why is helping others a moral and political duty, instead of a personal choice? Why should government rob you for the sake of others? Why is their life more important than yours? Does government have the right to punish you because you work hard and are successful? Do your elected “representatives,” whose salary you pay, have the right to turn you into a sacrificial animal?

If you think that looting the rich is moral and “practical,” look over your shoulder.

By: Joel Turtel
Joel Turtel is an education policy analyst and syndicated columnist. He is also the author of “Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children" and “The Welfare State: No Mercy For the Middle Class.” Contact Information: Website: http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com/tws. Email: lbooksusa@aol.com Article Copyrighted © 2007 by Joel Turtel.

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The Dixie Chicks, featured on the Grammy's 2007, are still getting the cold shoulder from conservative Southern Radio for mouthing a political opinion. Actually it was a personal attack on President Bush. They still haven't learned.

Martin Sheen (remember his duct taped mouth?) has been relegated into the shadows. He appears in the new movie - The Departed - but you only see him for 2 seconds in the commercials for the flick and he is not mentioned in a starring role. Director Martin Scorsese has hidden Sheen in the shadows. Does he hope that conservatives will be tricked into spending their money on the movie, or buy or rent the DVD?

I could go on about the financial backlash each of these people is feeling and how they should not be penalized for exercising free speech but that is not the issue here.

Actor Richard Widmark said it best. When asked about politics he said - "Performers should perform and then shut up". I believe that he understood his obligation to not use his position and popularity as a pulpit to express his political views. I believe that he understood that he could easily sway the opinions of gullible star-struck fans towards a political position that he favored or decried. Richard Widmark performed and then kept his mouth shut about politics.

As a former working journalist, paid by my station and network, I delivered the news and "shut up" about my personal political views. No one knew whether I was Republican, Democrat, Independent. I voted in nearly every election and I had friends in the political parties because I reported the news and "shut up". All politicians got equal time on every issue. My job was to give them a pulpit because each was recognized as a political expert.

Those of you of my generation will remember Walter Cronkite. He was called - "The Most Trusted Man in America". Why? He earned that designation because no one knew his politics. He never tilted a story, hiding his political opinion, as is the practice among many TV anchors today. He stepped out of his neutral role only once. He went to Viet Nam and saw the carnage for himself and spoke out against the war. It was done in a way that was thoughtful and fact-based. It was not a shoot-from-the-hip opinion.

Actors and musicians are hardly recognized as having the credibility of a Walter Cronkite. They perform and entertain for a living. Yes, they have a political opinion. Most of us do. But, expert opinion? I think not. Just because Mainstream Media gives them a bully pulpit does not validate their opinion in the slightest. In fact, it should make you question the motives of Media. Why would they put these people on-air and in print? Why not give my plumber or garbage man the same visibility? Their opinion is just as valid isn't it?

Where do I personally stand on this? I will make this admission - I do not pay to view, own, rent, or listen to any performer who publicly states a political opinion, regardless of that opinion. I really don't care about their opinion. I only care about their misuse of their position and my wife and I have decided we will not support them with our money. If their name is mentioned in the credits of a film or on a CD cover - sorry.

Now, I am not proposing a blacklist. Far from it. I don't like blacklisting in any form. I don't like boycotts or protest marches either. I believe in changing things through the political system through the power of the ballot box and the power of money.

If you agree with the performers, you have every right to spend your money to support them. If you do not agree with them, you have every right to reject them.

For me - performers should perform and then shut up.

By: Jim DeSantis
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David M. Walker is Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Mr. Walker is "talking to anybody who will listen, about the fiscal black hole Washington has dug itself."

He states "If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America" —…


How Much Is Outright Waste Each Year?

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has been tracking wasteful government programs since 1984. This watchdog group's latest yearly figure of how much is unnecessary is $232 billion dollars. Remember this gets piggybacked every year. Over 5 years, it amounts to more than $1 trillion dollars-yes that is trillion with a t.

For decades we have waited as congress tells us what it will do. With the means of communications now available to millions of voters we should attempt to work at the grass roots to tell congress our limitations on spending.

We should also seek 25-30 year old men and women to run for congress. Studies have proven that overall, members of congress change spending habits, as they stay longer and gain more seniority. Unfortunately that change is for more spending.

Every year congress spends above the rate of inflation. Millions of Americans don't have that luxury.

The president's latest budget proposal calls for $118 billion of new spending that begins on October 1, 2008. Let's tell congress and the president, we would like the spending increase to be held to the rate of inflation.

The past federal budget spent $2.78 trillion. Let's allow for an inflation rate of three percent for the fiscal year-a number probably generous to the government. This would reduce the $118 billion dollar increase to $80 billion dollars, saving about $38 billion dollars from the proposal-a good start.

Long range, we should target spending as a percent of GDP. The federal government is spending 20.3% of GDP. If we can restrict congressional spending to the rate of inflation over say 3 congressional terms, it would almost certainly:

1. Grow the economy because that $38 billion dollars would be efficient in the private sector creating more jobs.

2. Increase per capita income, because of a tighter job market.

3. Increase revenues to the government because of a broader work-base.

This would be a true win, win, win.

A suggested longer range target for federal spending would be 18% of GDP at the end of the third congressional session-2012, followed by a target of 17% by 2016.

Keeping a higher percentage of GDP in the private sector creates "net wealth". Giving it to government shrinks "net wealth."

There are 200 million Americans of voting age. There are only 535 in congress, plus the president.

Americans of both major parties, believe, almost unanimously, the government spends too much. If we restrict the total amount to be spent, the two parties would be forced into a power struggle over which waste must be sacrificed. Both parties would have some victims, but America would be the winner.

Let's set the above goals and start discussing how we join forces to bring federal spending down to a reasonable level. It is anything but reasonable now.

Platitudes suggesting we already have the power every two years are a proven failure.

Congress will never do it on its own; it must come from us. We must be active.

Hello 25-30 year olds. Are you out there?

By: Mick McNesby
Mick McNesby is a former tax advisor, consultant and negotiator. He was a frequent guest on political talk shows in Atlantic City, N.J., discussing the benefits of the lower cost of government. He can be visited at http://conservative-politics-infofind.com.

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