{"id":80,"date":"2005-07-22T12:14:37","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T18:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/?p=80"},"modified":"2007-06-03T17:03:48","modified_gmt":"2007-06-03T23:03:48","slug":"ma-bell-and-the-spanish-american-war%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/22\/ma-bell-and-the-spanish-american-war%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6\/","title":{"rendered":"Ma Bell and the Spanish-American War&#8230;&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What does the telephone company and the Spanish-American War have in common?&#8230;&#8230;  The Spanish-American War ended 107 year ago&#8230;&#8230;  Alexander&#8217;s company was then just emerging&#8230;..  So-o-o, where&#8217;s the connection? (Pun intended)&#8230;&#8230;  Our fabulous government&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In order to pay for the Spanish-American War, our government levied an excise tax on telephone usage as it was then considered a luxury to own a phone&#8230;..  So-o-o, what&#8217;s the problem?&#8230;&#8230;  THE TAX IS STILL THERE!&#8230;.. YES, 107 years after the fact, you are still paying for the Spanish-American War every time you pay your phone bill!&#8230;&#8230;  That must have been a Hell&#8217;va expensive war!&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I saw this on the news and they are considering repealing the excise tax, but what about all the money they&#8217;ve collected over the 107 years?&#8230;..  I don&#8217;t think the American taxpayer will ever see any of it again&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>We need to get more involved in the politics of this country or we are going to lose it&#8230;&#8230;  There are plenty of other countries that would love the U.S. to fail&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>My hint for when you go to the polls: &#8220;Incumbent means incompetent&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;  The only exception to this rule is if vast and sweeping changes to the good occurred during the incumbent&#8217;s term&#8230;..  And, this just doesn&#8217;t happen, although the &#8220;Governator&#8221; of California is making a good showing so far&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does the telephone company and the Spanish-American War have in common?&#8230;&#8230; The Spanish-American War ended 107 year ago&#8230;&#8230; Alexander&#8217;s company was then just emerging&#8230;.. So-o-o, where&#8217;s the connection? (Pun intended)&#8230;&#8230; Our fabulous government&#8230;&#8230; In order to pay for the Spanish-American War, our government levied an excise tax on telephone usage as it was then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}