Your health care costs, or the price of your health insurance? Assuming you meant the latter, why don't you go get a Health Savings Account and manage your own health care finances instead of allowing your employer to do it? If you're like me and rarely go to the doctor, the money you save will be significant. As long as you stay in an old fashioned PPO/HMO/Copay plan, you are only going to see increases in prices, cutbacks in services and more and more out of pocket expenses whenever you actually do use it.
Do that, and then write Dubya a letter thanking him for the tax and savings benefits you'll also be getting from your new HSA...
Next, contact your local elected officials and express your interest in the Fair Tax proposal. That is the single most important issue facing our country today. You want a better government? Fair Tax. You want more money? Fair Tax. You want a better economy? How about one that attracts foreign business instead of repelling our own corporations? How about setting the tax standard for a globalized economy that actually benefits emerging economies instead of allowing your country to retain it's destructive, regressive system that only keeps it's economic power through backhanded manipulation of... well, everybody on the planet.
Wait... skip that last suggestion. You live in Massachussetts.
Well, if everybody else does that, maybe it will help you even though you live in such a screwed up place.
Economics isn't that difficult to understand as long as you can accept that truly free markets and empowerment of individual choices are good things. It gets complicated when you try to factor in for
everybody's viewpoints, regardless of their flaws and misconceptions. You can't say you want free markets but only if we can guarantee that nobody from our country ever loses their job or that some other uncomfortable thing happens. It's life. Uncomfortable things happen. We learn from them and grow.
Instead of waiting around for someone to fix the economy, you have made other arrangements to increase your income. Unfortunately, your net increase has only helped stabilize your financial picture at the expense of your sleep. You need to maximize your income while increasing your sleepy time now, right? But, it sounds as if you are saying the only way that's gonna happen is if somebody fixes the economy for you... You are a riddle wrapped in a contradiction. Drizzled with chipotle mustard and dipped in wild honey.
Money is not a religion. Stop listening to economists and figure it out for yourself. Pick up
"The Lexus and the Olive Tree." It's a quick read and pretty informative. It was written before 9/11, so it's likely a purer picture of globalization than anything written since the WOT began.
The main thing to remember is that no government can make you strong if you are not willing to do the majority of the work yourself. I know that you were just trying to be a cynical bastard with your initial post, and please understand this "advice" isn't meant in any way other than an argumentative one... just in a nice way. See, I figure while you are distracted with your new toy, I might be able to talk some sense to you...[/url]