Seriously? I'm not poor enough?

Allow me to explain. If you've been reading for a while you may recall that I am not a rich person. In fact, I continue to astound myself by not going broke. Yet, despite living well below the poverty line for the entirety of my adult life thus far (which is only a few years, yes, but I'm sure that if someone told you you had to live on between $10,000 and $13,000 a year for a few years you'd find it a daunting prospect) I've also managed to continue to be surprised when I find out that I'm not poor enough. The first shock was when I applied for Mainecare (the local version of Medicare) a few years ago and despite making less than two hundred dollars a week (at the time) I was denied coverage not for age restrictions (being nineteen at the time I was under the twenty-one year age limit imposed on 'people like me') but because my 'head of household' (which was myself) made too much money for me to qualify for Mainecare. I don't know how poor you have to be to qualify for Mainecare as a single person under the age of twenty-one but I think it would be hard to work at all (I was working part time for minimum wage and wasn't poor enough) and manage to qualify.

I got my second shock when I did my 2010 tax return. A few factoids before the big reveal: I had never made more than ten thousand dollars in a year before 2010. I never claimed myself as a dependent before 2010. I never lived with anyone but my parents before 2010. I never tried to balance paying rent and buying food and going to work (not to mention finding work during that tough economic time) and everything else but I managed it somehow. And in 2010 I made a whopping $10,044 for the entire year. I would like to point out that this is significantly less than, say, a Senator might get for a speaking engagement at a college graduation just for comparison. On that ten thousand dollars I paid over six hundred dollars in taxes to state and federal government. On my tax return I claimed myself as a dependent and nothing else because I don't own a house or vehicle, have any other dependents, and though I had qualified medical expenses I might have deducted (two visits to a eye doctor and a year's worth of prescription contact lenses) that I paid for out-of-pocket they didn't add up to a large enough percentage of my income to count (in fact, if I had medical expenses that were a large enough percentage of my income to qualify I wouldn't have enough money to pay them so that they would qualify). I was shocked to discover that making that extra $45 that put me over $10,000 had cost me literally hundreds of dollars in tax returns.

One of my roommates at the time, filing singly, with herself as her only dependent (she had a child but he was claimed as a dependent by his other parent) and no other deduction claims than the ones I made in that year earned a little less than ten thousand dollars and got back every bit of her tax money. Up until this point in time I had as well. In fact, one year even though I was a dependent, after filing my tax return (which I have done myself every year since I started working on my sixteenth birthday) I received not only everything I had paid in taxes back to me but also a additional 'stimulus' check of three hundred dollars courtesy of former President Bush's stimulus package. I was not impressed that even though I was living well below the poverty line for a single person (to the tune of several thousand dollars below) and had only just nudged above ten thousand dollars I still paid in hundreds of dollars I did not get back.

Last year around this time of year I heard that the government was changing tax law so that rather than the involuntary savings program it is now for a lot of poor adults and minors those same people would be receiving a 'little more in every paycheck' because they would be paying 2% less (I will admit I do not know whether they meant 2% less of their gross income or 2% less than the amount they would have otherwise paid) toward Social Security. I think at the time I thought that sounded sort of reasonable (especially as I do not believe in the Social Security system as it stands and possibly not even if it was given the massive overhaul many people think it desperately needs) since having taxes act as an involuntary savings plan for the poor is not only silly but likely it is costly to those taxpayers who foot the bill for all the bureaucracy involved. However, after having done my taxes this year I am entirely unimpressed by the '2% less' plan.

When I did my 2011 taxes I got my latest shock. I made $12,660 last year (a significant increase if you do 'percentage of increase' math but if you instead make it a percentage of, say, how much money some congress-person spent remodeling the bathroom of their office at taxpayer expense it is quite a small percentage) and paid about $1,252 between state and local taxes. After getting done doing my taxes and looking at what the website calculated that my expected tax return would be I literally thought 'there must be some mistake'. I contacted the website's help service via instant messenger and asked them to give me a reason that my expected tax return was so much less than the previous year even though I only made a little more money and paid about twice as much in total taxes. I was informed that actually in 2010 I qualified for and received a tax credit called 'Making Work Pay' which was available to anyone that had earned over $3,000 in that year and that this year the program had been discontinued in favor of the '2% less' plan. I was doubly astounded by the implications of this. Because not only did this mean that I was really only getting back $25 (no, there are not meant to be any zeroes after the numeral '5' in case you were wondering) of the $1,058 I paid the federal government in taxes but that if I hadn't qualified for the 'Making Work Pay' tax credit in 2010 I would have received hundreds of dollars less in tax returns. I don't know how much less I would have received in tax returns but according to the IRS website as a single person I was eligible for up to $400 in tax credits and the total amount I got back was less than that so... I'm sure you can do the math.

The state of Maine government, unlike the federal government, was nice enough to refund me $115 of the $195 total I paid in state income tax. The state of Maine government also nicely asked me if I would like $3 of the money they were already keeping (not additionally) to go directly toward the state's clean election fund (I would because not only am I in favor of clean elections but also because that's three dollars less money that could potentially be used on a frivolous taxpayer-funded project like remodeling someone's never-to-be-seen-by-the-public bathroom). I don't really know why the state of Maine government refunded me over half my income tax money (though I assume it must be because of my total income level) but there was no gimicky tax credit or '2% less' plan that was touted to 'stimulate' the economy involved. It was sheerly 'this is how much you paid us and this is how much we feel you deserve to get back'. I am OK with that state of Maine the only thing that would make me happier is if you allowed me to tick little boxes to let you know where I want all of the money you deign to keep to go. Yes, I'd like to check the 'education' box, the 'infrastructure' box, and the 'tourism advocacy' box but count me out for the 'administrative overhead' (ie 'potential bathroom remodeling fund') and 'welfare benefits for unwed mothers who-moved-to-the-state-just-to-get-'free'-money' boxes.

Speaking of 'where my taxes are going' I decided to look at the breakdown of what I was paying in taxes between state and local income tax as well as social security and medicare. I had never looked before because I had never particularly cared but since I was already so worked up over the fact that I wasn't poor enough to get even a significant amount (roughly 2.4% of what I paid the federal government is simply not 'significant') of the money I paid in back I wanted to know who was getting that money. To the state of Maine I paid (as I mentioned previously) $195 in income tax. To the federal government I paid $342 in income tax. I want to state now that income tax is actually the thing to which I object the least (even though that money could be spent on a cushy toilet seat for some already well-padded govermental behind) because there is the possibility (however slight) that some of that money will contribute to education or improving roads or some other worthy project. I admit, again, that I would like to be able to tell the government what kinds of things they are allowed to spend my tax money on (or even just 50% of it- I would be happy knowing that 50% of my tax money is definitely going toward education and clean elections and they can spend the other 50% on 'administrative overhead' or blowing people up if they want) but overall income tax is the least objectionable portion of the taxes I paid.

If you add up my income tax amounts you'll find they come out to $537. Now, let me remind you that I paid a total of $1,252 which means I paid less than 43% of my taxes in income taxes. If you're like me you might be wondering 'what the fuck did that other 57% go toward'? I apologize for the expletive but I swear a lot inside my head especially at things which do not seem to be rational in any way. About 15% of my taxes ($183) went toward Medicare which I am not poor enough to qualify for. I'm too poor to get my own health insurance, I obviously (obvious because if I did get a benefit like that I would get paid more than minimum wage) do not work for a company which provides it, I literally could not spend a high enough percentage of my income to deduct medical expenses from my taxes, I could very well have used that $183 toward a visit to the dentist (or an eye doctor, neurologist, or chiropractor any of whom provide a service I might have liked to purchase but could not in the last year) and yet instead I subsidized someone else's visit to the dentist. But I'm young and in relatively good health so the $183 toward Medicare is not the part that makes me the most upset. The part that makes me the most upset is that I paid  42% of my total taxes toward Social Security. In fact, I only paid $5 less toward Social Security than I did in total income taxes and if we're only talking about federal taxes Social Security ate up just over half my taxes.

I already mentioned that I don't like the Social Security system. The only good thing it's ever done for this country is make people happier about being assigned a identification number but I think we can all agree that public goodwill toward the government about something as little as that isn't worth the money. I don't think the Social Security system should have been implemented to begin with. It obviously wasn't cooked up by anyone with a basic grasp of math because the lack of sustainability in such a system is glaringly obvious after a couple quick calculations. Yes, I understand that you only get it if you pay into it but people that receive it usually (with the exception of those who die in a timely manner) get more money out of it (even considering inflation) than they ever paid into it. Most people receiving social security now are likely to receive benefits for longer than they were a part of the taxpaying workforce. The only way the Social Security system could ever be sustainable is if the taxpaying population increased exponentially forever and since that obviously is not sustainable the Social Security system cannot and should not be sustained. I don't care if we abolish it now because I'm never going to receive Social Security benefits anyway. It simply isn't going to happen. I would be more than happy to sign a special government waiver stating that I will never collect Social Security and in the event that I am incapacitated to the point that they would be forced to spend it on me the government is welcome to save the taxpayers some money and pull the plug on me. But only if that meant I wouldn't have to pay into it. In fact, the prospect of having to pay into social security my whole life (or even the next two decades of it before the amount of social security/pensions/medicare/medicaid that the government pays out becomes equal to the whole amount of taxes that everyone pays in) depresses me so much that if I had proof of the afterlife I'd break out the ol' shotgun right now and kill myself in grand irony so that not only will Social Security not get my earnings but also so that some taxpayer funded criminal investigation service has to use resources looking into the 'suspicious nature' of my death.

Even though I seriously live well below the poverty line I still managed to pay rent to live somewhere (I live in an apartment mind you and not with some caring relative), I still managed to pay for all my own food (though I could have qualified for and received food stamp benefits), I still managed to pay for electricity, I still managed to pay for my cellphone service, I still managed to pay for 'premium' cable internet, I still managed to bring my bank balance up from three digits to four in the last year, I still managed to buy people Christmas and birthday presents, and I even managed to have a little fun while remaining completely debt-free and financially-independent of my parents and the government. I managed all of that with thousands of dollars less than what is considered 'poverty'. Yet despite the fact that I made thousands of dollars less than 'poverty' I also managed to pay about 10% of my income in taxes. And despite the fact that I made thousands of dollars less than 'poverty' I am seriously not poor enough to qualify for health insurance which I could not get any other way and I'm seriously not poor enough to get back a significant portion of the taxes which I pay yet I seriously subsidized someone else's healthcare and I seriously subsidized someone else's retirement and I seriously paid money that could well go to purchase a toilet seat to cushion some bureaucratic governmental behind. Apparently I am a very serious person- but not seriously poor enough.

Oxygen "Therapy"

If you had an interesting chemistry teacher or even an interesting general science teacher you may have heard the rhyme: "Little Billy is gone from earth, his face you'll see no more- because what he thought was H2O was H2SO4." H2SO4 being colorless and liquid at room temperature, it has no apparent smell and if still is indistinguishable from water by sight alone. The implication of the rhyme is that poor little Billy was thirsty and accidentally drank some sulfuric acid (H2SO4) instead of water. While it's unlikely you'll ever come across a glass of sulfuric acid and drink it thinking it's water there is another colorless, ordorless liquid you could potentially fall victim to- especially if the wool has been pulled over your eyes by a proponent of so-called "oxygen therapy". This third clear liquid I refer to is H2O2- otherwise known as hydrogen peroxide.

Now, I'm not exactly knocking hydrogen peroxide here. I use both tooth paste and mouth wash that contain hydrogen peroxide and I keep a bottle of it to use as a disinfectant or to clean clogged ears or an ear infection. In fact, hydrogen peroxide has many safe as well as beneficial uses. You can use it to disinfect your counter tops and cutting boards, remove tough organic stains from clothing (be cautioned that it may also remove the dye) or organic residue from other surfaces, sanitize your toothbrush, clean small cuts or abrasions, and many, many more things. However, keep in mind that the hydrogen peroxide you buy in a drug store in that brown bottle or what is used in products like mouthwash is actually an incredibly low concentration of hydrogen peroxide and the label on that brown bottle explicitly warns you that it is intended for external use only. Both my mouthwash and toothpaste also state that they should not be swallowed and if they are swallowed to contact the nearest poison control center.

What I do intend to knock is something called "oxygen therapy". Oxygen therapy does not recommend, as you might expect, heading out to the nearest California-style oxygen bar and inhaling green apple flavored concentrated oxygen for an hour while you facebook on your netbook and pay exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege. The oxygen therapy guidelines don't even recommend deep breathing or quitting smoking or, in fact, any activity that increases the amount of oxygen in your blood stream beyond a single mentioning in a disconnected statement with no follow-up, that deep breathing, fresh air, and exercise are also 'very important'. Instead the proponents of oxygen therapy tout the manifold and seemingly miraculous medicinal benefits of hydrogen peroxide. Not the kind of medical benefits I was referring to before such as disinfecting cuts or unclogging cerumen-filled ears but outrageous claims like killing cancer cells or preventing cancer from forming as well as helping people suffering from AIDs, flu, asthma, heart disease, and gangrene among a long list of medical maladies.

The "science" behind their theory is based on two main things. One, that every cell in your body can produce H2O2 in order to fight bacterial infection and viruses so obviously ingested or injected hydrogen peroxide absolutely must have wonderful medical benefits for your body. After all if a little hydrogen peroxide breaks down a single bacterium that wormed into a cell surely a lot of hydrogen peroxide ought to break down cancer, get rid of gangrene, help people with AIDs, Multiple Sclerosis and even people with Alzheimer's disease. Two, hydrogen peroxide is a fairly unstable molecule and will quickly break down into water and oxygen. 30 ml of 35% hydrogen peroxide breaks down into 3.5 liters of oxygen. Since we as human beings need oxygen to survive surely getting more of it must be good for us. Really? Then why is it that there's also the wildly-popular antioxidant health craze? Perhaps because oxygen is what breaks down our cells (indeed, just like ferric metals people rust or more truthfully oxidize, too) and causes us to age? Right? So, why would you want to flood your system with it when you're already getting enough to survive (after all if you weren't you'd be dead)?

I first learned about "oxygen therapy" from a regular customer at the store I work in who comes in each day to buy a newspaper. This man is eighty years old (something that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't seen his birth certificate once the day he was renewing his driver's license) but I'd say he looks more like he could be in his sixties. He still works, seems to have energy and rarely seems to get sick. He talks up the "oxygen therapy" he's been doing every chance he gets. He claims that his original hair color is coming back in in his hair because of it and while to me it still looks totally gray he does have a lot of hair for a eighty-year-old man. He talks about the power of oxygen fighting cancer and just the other day was telling me a new one about how the arthritis in his hands the last couple of months has felt so much improved because of it.

Despite the fact that he's been doing this thing for a while I never thought much about it because the way he described ingesting it seemed bizarre. Basically, according to him and the website he told me I should check out (drinkh2o2.com) you have so many drops each day of "food grade" hydrogen peroxide. I, at first, assumed he was crazy because you can't have "grades" of a molecule. You can have solutions of a chemical but what they actually mean is that this hydrogen peroxide does not contain the normal stabilizing agents in typical drug store style hydrogen peroxide that are known to be harmful if ingested. And if he is doing so many drops in so much water that means he's drinking the kind that comes in a molarity that is 35% hydrogen peroxide. Not the few drops of the 3% kind I have in my cupboard that probably wouldn't cause too many problems but a concentration more than ten times higher? Even in relatively small amounts that can kill you. Hell, even in "relatively small" amounts 3% hydrogen peroxide can kill you. And proponents of "oxygen therapy" don't just recommend that you drink it they also suggest shooting up the stuff as a method of delivery.

When you use 3% hydrogen peroxide in a normal way and you get it on your skin it's recommended that you flush the area thoroughly with water. When you ingest it you can cause chemical burns and ulcers in your gastrointestinal tract as well as a dangerous build-up of gas in the stomach among other symptoms. If injected hydrogen peroxide will create bubbles in your blood stream and much like the clots and plaque they recommend you use it to destroy those bubbles can cause cardiac arrest with equal effectiveness. But that's not all you can win by ingesting or injecting hydrogen peroxide! All those claims about getting rid of gangrene and helping asthma and AIDs patients? All based on the fact that your cells produce hydrogen peroxide in order to help destroy bacteria and things like that. And that is a fact but the theory that ingesting or injecting it will have the same or greater effect inside your body is shaky at best. After all, hydrogen peroxide is produced in the cells in response to bacterium or viruses but hydrogen peroxide introduced into the body all the time does not have a specific purpose and can destroy your tissue as well as viruses and bacteria. Oh, and lest we not forget that claim about curing and preventing cancer it is completely and totally unsubstantiated. It even says that on the website (as per FDA regulations).

So if the bottom line is that it doesn't actually do what it claims and it can seriously harm or even kill you then why in the world would you do it? Aside from typical human irrationality there's the fact that their website trails into related and unrelated biological technical jargon mixed with complete bullshit and outright lies. Most of it sounds more or less legitimate because it's couched in scientific language but it only takes a little knowledge of highschool-level biology (if that) to start unraveling the supposedly scientific basis for believing their loads of crap. The rest you can easily turn up as lies through a few quick google searches that reveal actual scientific definitions and the context for facts and real data on the subject.

So if you've been considering (or encouraged to use) so called "oxygen therapy" I strongly recommend you do not do it. A good diet and exercising will be far more beneficial (and certainly not detrimental) to your health than hydrogen peroxide. And if you still don't believe me just read the FDA required disclaimer, the list of lovely potential side-effects, or google something like "poison control ingestion of h2o2". Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to run up and down the stairs a few times to get some actual health benefits from increased oxygen.