Get out your check books
Actually, no need to even do that thanks to the scam known as withholding.
Check it out America: Obama is looking at raising your taxes to pay for the “explosion” in the budget deficit. Let’s be honest. To pay for all the bailouts, “Cash for Clunkers” money and health care reform your taxes will have to go up. There is simply no other source of revenue for the government that is as easy to tap and as easy to increase as the income tax. And Obama’s administration is not just taxing the rich. No sir. He’s going to hit middle class America with tax increases. That’s you and that’s me.
The bottom line is that Obama has taken full advantage of a Democratic Congress and spineless Republican leadership to move America even closer to socialism. He’s done it by spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Thailand. The good news is that now middle-class America will finally take its head out of its ass and realize that when Democrats will take only the rich, they are talking about middle-class America. The bad news is that it may be too late to stop what is already in motion. Let this be a lesson to you America. Pay attention to what your government is doing.
(Side note: I think my favorite line in the article is this one “If we want an economy that’s going to grow in the future, people have to understand we have to bring those deficits down. And it’s going to be difficult, hard for us to do. And the path to that is through health care reform,” Geithner said. How does SPENDING BILLIONS on health care reform bring down a deficit? It doesn’t!!!! This is probably the worst attempt at working the party line into an answer in the history of politics. It’s hard to believe that Geithner is the best person to head up the Treasury if he doesn’t understand simple economic concepts. Spending creates deficits; it doesn’t bring them down. I totally agree that deficits need to be eliminated for the economy to achieve robust growth. But I disagree with the idea that spending outrageous amounts of money to make health care worse is the way to do it.)
Where does a trillion dollars go?
So how many of you are actually budget oriented in your house? Do you sit down at the beginning of the month and spend every dollar you have “On paper On purpose” as Dave Ramsey says? Ok, so maybe you do. Do you think that you could do that for a trillion dollars? I doubt it. Any budget that contained that much money to be allocated is certain to have a few “leaks”. You know, where people try to allocate some of the money to an organization or company for a “good” reason… Sooner or later (usually later) we find out that the organization in question has ties back to the progenitor of the disbursement.
In today’s episode, we are looking at the little reported ‘coincidence’ that Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-Cal.) husband and his firm were recently hired by a firm that strangely enough got a $25 Billion, taxpayer-funded chunk of cash… courtesy of legislation introduced by Senator Feinstein herself. Hmmm…
Now, when you’re looking at a budget (this year) of a trillion dollars (that’s a thousand-billion dollars by the way) 25 billion isn’t really that big of a number. I mean, it’s only 2.5% of the budget, so no big deal. Right?
Well, the story from the Washington Times says that the Senator’s husband Richard Blum sits as a Board Charmain for CB Richard Ellis. CBRE won a contract to sell FDIC insured properties from failed banks. The $25 Billion comes in as a hand-out to the FDIC to pay someone to sell off these properties.
Now, there is always the possibility that this is actually all ‘above-board’ and CBRE really is the best company for the job. I mean, look at some of the no-bid contracts that Halliburton won. They were, without a doubt, the best company for some of the jobs that needed to be done. The stink comes in when the fact that the Senator doesn’t sit on the comittee that oversees the banking industry. It wasn’t really ‘her place’ to be offering this type of legislation.
I was always taught to ‘avoid even the appearance of impropriety’. Sound advice for sure. It doesn’t look like it was applied here, however. I’ll let you be the judge.
Economic Growth
The common theme we’ve been hearing every day since the economy started its downward spiral is: get the economy back on track. Basically, we need to economy to stop shrinking and start growing again.
Many people have offered their ideas as to how we can right the ship again. Let the bad companies fail. Set up the bad bank corporation, similar to the S&L struggles of the 80′s. Government has even thrown its hat into the ring by passing out billions of our tax dollars in bailout money and promising to pass out billions more with their spending…er, stimulus bill.
And none of these will work. They are all band-aids designed to merely stop the bleeding, but not cauterize the wound. I ask you – what good does a band aid do when you’ve cut open your leg with a chainsaw? Nothing.
But I do have a solution. It’s pretty simple and it will be FAIR to everyone.
What is this magical solution I speak of? The FairTax. That’s right the way to solve our economic crisis is through the complete reform of our current tax system.
The reasons why the FairTax would get our economy growing again are to lengthy to post in one sitting, so I’ll be covering the FairTax, piece by piece in a series of posts over the next few weeks. If you don’t know anything about the FairTax or THINK you know all there is to know, I encourage you to stay tuned and learn more about what I consider the greatest idea to come from a Congressman in a long time.
Mmmm… Barbeque
Well, it’s time to trot on down to the “Omnibus Barbeque Pit” for a healthy dose of government pork. Who’s comin with me? It’s all you can eat, all the time! I mean, seriously folks, how else would they dispose of all the extra pork in that place?
Well, now we know. Attached hereto is a list of the top 20 “Porkers” in the senate, taken from a database compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense. I have modified the list slightly (added party and state) and deleted empty columns, but have not altered or skewed the raw data in any way.
You will see that the pork is actualy spread around both the left and right side of the table, and has been generously dished out all the way around. Does this surprise us? No, probably not. Should it concern us? Yer damn right it should. What is all this money paying for? Do we as citizens get to look at any of this before we get to pay for it? Well, I suppose we can wait for the media to tell us what all these earmarks are… nevermind. Most of us won’t live that long. I guess we could go look it up, or even call your congressman to see what’s in it. Of course, all of that is fairly reactionary in nature. How about a proactive path?
Here’s a thought: How about a constitutional ammendment that prohibits any expenditure in a Federal Budget or Spending bill that is not vital to the function of the federal government? WHAT??! Slow down the pork? You betcha. Slow down the whole system? Absolutely. Cut the federal budget in half? Amen.
Would it not be much more pallatable to the citizenry of the United States to have every expenditure of Federally collected money (note I said collected, since it is actually YOUR money) individually approved by our representatives so that we have a much more valid expression of OUR will in congress? Remember that ‘Bridge to Nowhere’? How do you think that would have fared as an idividual bill? Probably never would have seen it’s way out of committee… which is how it SHOULD be. If every one of these bills had to be individually approved, most of this garbage would disappear overnight simply because there isn’t enough time to look at all of it. The very fact that irrelevant line items can be added to whatever legislation happens to be running through the congress at the time is an affront to the very idea of tranparency of governance. Don’t put a million dollar line item for a museum in a veterans affairs bill just so that it will HAVE to be passed. That is deceitful at best (I use the above listed scenario merely as an illustration of what usually happens).
Nowhere in the constitution does it describe the far-reaching role that our national government has taken (again, note I said ‘taken’, not ‘been given’). Of course, most of this garbage would be stuffed into the ‘general welfare’ clause. Not that any of it ‘promotes the general welfare’ as the preamble to the Constitution states. Most of it encourages the disbursement of even more ‘welfare’ to the dependent class, or merely affects the ‘welfare’ of a politician’s chances at re-election. Why do you think that the government assistance program is called “Welfare”? Could it have been an underhanded way of justifying it under the constitution? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Our government is nothing more than a game. It has been that way for a long time, and I doubt very much that it will change, so long as our nation stands. Should we the people, though, not continue to show our outrage at this type of irresponsible behavior? It is your duty to be outraged. My Senators are #66 and #79 on the full list, which is still higher than #99 and #100, where they should be.
Until Federal spending is brought under strict control, nothing will change and this nation will continue on its downward path to irrelevance and weakness. Any pork is too much. The government of this country owes us an explanation and a full accounting of every dime that they take from us. Anything less is a failure to uphold the confidence of the citizenry. Successful and responsible leadership depends on men and women of character and integrity. If that were the case, none of this under the table spending would even be an issue. That is why elections matter. Only the best, brightest and most upstanding should be given the mantle of governance. It is, short of joining the Armed Forces, the best way to defend the Constitution of the United States.
Oh and for all you government types out there… If I want pork in my neighborhood, I’ll head to Williamson Bros.
Now or Never? I’ll take Never, thanks…with a side of ‘stop lying’.
So Barack says that it’s now or never on the bailout? Horsecrap. That’s what they said about the first one. It was “We have to act this week or the economy will collapse!” (Um, it didn’t) Then it was… “We have to act this week or the economy will collapse!” (yeah, two weeks in a row no less). Again, no total collapse, no riots, no nation-wide mass economic system failures. So here we are again: Now, or catastrophe. I beg to differ, it’s “Catastrophe or not”. This ‘stimulus’ bill is a total scam. Tell me how rebuilding libraries is going to do ANYTHING for the economy… The craziest part is that Prez O says that there aren’t any earmarks in the bill. THE WHOLE DANG THING IS AN EARMARK!!!!! Infrastructure? How about a tax cut? I don’t give one sweet rats rear how nice the roads look if I DON’T HAVE A JOB TO DRIVE TO!!!!!! FDR did this before and it FAILED miserably. Let’s try the other option, shall we? By the way, the real reason that this HAS to happen is that the American public (even the ones that don’t pay attention) are starting to hear about what’s actually IN this bill. That’s why public support of the bill has dropped a few points in the last week. Even the liberal mouths are talking about it openly… This bill MUST die in the senate. I don’t want my great grandkids paying off a tab so big that it can’t ever be repaid.
By the way, divide 1 trillion by 31,557,600… that gives you the number of years that it would take to pay off the stimulus at the rate of one dollar per second. Don’t want to do the math? Here’s the answer: 31,688.08 years. Yes, that’s right, 32 THOUSAND years. Now, does this still sound like a good idea? How is it that these idiots that get elected to lead our nation get to make decisions on how much we spend using numbers that are so large that they may as well be theoretical? This goes beyond fiscal policy. This is insanity. I intend to write my senators a very terse letter about this. How about you?
Caught Looking…
Richardson, Daschle and Killefer. Well, that’s call strike three for Prez O. Does he even vet these people before he puts them up for cabinet level positions? Ok, Killefer was only to be “Chief Performance Officer”, but she still can’t seem to pay her taxes… A better question for the prez is this: Why are all the people that you are choosing turning out to be sleezebags and tax cheats? I have to admit that I am licking my chops for interesting morsels on the rest of his… well, can we call it a cabinet? It’s missing three major components due to ‘rotten wood’. I guess it’s his “shelf” at this point. Obama’s been in there for less than a month and already he has signed an executive order that defies a logical supreme court opinion, appointed three tax cheats, allowed three former lobbyists in his administation (which he said wouldn’t happen), and made a former first lady who has been investigated for having FBI files hidden in the private quarters of the White House his Secretary of State. This is like the front end of an ethics seminar… you know, the part where they show a video of a “broken” system to the audience. Off the blocks with a mighty stumble! (It would have been a false start if he hadn’t kept his mouth shut on foreign affairs prior to his inauguration.) Let’s see how he fares down the stretch. Frankly, it looks like a typical Clinton-style administration without the brain at the top. Obama will NEVER be able to ‘feel anyone’s pain’ or ask what the definition of ‘is’ is. He can keep this up if he wants to, but it will result in another crippled democrat administration that barely limps up to the next election. Here’s to hoping.
Something To Be Proud Of
During the lengthy time between my posts, I have found some things in our country to be proud of and I thought I’d share them with you.
I should start off by saying that I have been adamantly against any sort of taxpayer bailout of the big 3 American auto makers. That being said, Ford made me very proud today. Instead of seeking aid from the government (and by extension, Joe Taxpayer), they have made some tough cuts in their expenses and tapped into available credit lines in order to dig in for the rough times in 2009. I applaud Ford for going against the grain and NOT taking our money to keep themselves afloat. It is not the responsibility of the government or the taxpayer to keep poorly managed companies above water. Ford has taken the stance that they are going to take the consequences that come with the sub-par management decisions they’ve made in the past. I will be keeping my eye on Ford to see if they can turn the ship around or if they end up flushing our money down the toilet like Chrysler and GM.
The other item I’ve found that makes me proud comes from our new President. For the most part, Obama’s politics don’t align with mine. But today, I’ve found an issue on which he and I see eye to eye. Obama issued a critique today of what can only be described as outlandish bonuses for CEO’s on Wall Street in these dire financial times. And I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with him on this. It is despicable that these Wall Street fat cats needed taxpayer money to keep their companies from ceasing to exist only a few months ago and now they are raking in billions of dollars in bonuses. The most disgusting piece of it all is that these Gordon Gecko’s of the world are getting billions of dollars in bonuses after RUINING THE COMPANIES THEY LEAD!!!! If you were to perform your job at such a level that it completely ruined your department/unit/whatever, you’d be fired. These douche bags are getting rich by running companies into the ground then having you and I pay to fix their mistakes. UNACCEPTABLE.
I really hope that Obama finds a way to combat problems like these in the future. There is no doubt in my mind that 2009 will bring more taxpayer funded bailouts of companies and there need to be measures in place to prevent these CEO’s from receiving a billion dollar pat on the back for a job poorly done.
Loony toons… every last one of ‘em.
Filed under: Economy, Education, Foreign Policy, Politics, Taxes, Uncategorized, Waste
A couple of subject are under my microscope today. Each of them is appaling in it’s own right. First, we have Gov. Blagojevich in Illinois. Is there anyone on the planet that actually believes this guy to be innocent? Now in all fairness, I must give this man his due process.
Evidence toward his guilt: Audio recordings of the man saying that he is trying to profit off of the appointment and may actually appoint himself if nobody wants to pay him what he thinks the senate seat is worth.
Evidence of his innocence: He says that he hasn’t done anything wrong and that ‘they’ are out to get him in order to make it easier for the democrats in Illinois to raise taxes.
Verdict: Guilty as the day is long.
Now, what makes this amusing is that he is making the rounds today on all the lefty morning shows protesting his innocence and demanding that this is some sort of unfair ‘witch hunt’. Then he says that he is being denied due process and makes the case that his being “railroaded” legally speaking is dangerous to all the rest of us because if the government can deny him his due process then they can do it to us. As far as answering to the tapes:
“I can’t address what is on those tapes”.
Does anyone hear a tinge of “I don’t recall senator” in there? In order to believe this guy you have to:
a) Disregard audio recordings of the man describing his intent to commit a crime and conspiring with someone else to do so.
b) Believe that he has a witness (any witness) that will be able to put any of that ‘back in context’ so that we can all understand what he really meant by “this think is f*ing golden, you don’t just give it away for nothing”.
c) Intentionally ignore the fact that he immediately shifts focus to this being a personal vendetta against him when he is directly questioned about any of it.
Blago has to be clinically insane. Egomania and an ability to disregard the obvious truth on this scale is a sickness. I think he honestly believes that he has done nothing wrong. Either that, or he is working hard on a basis for a book deal later. When the democrats are throwing their own under the bus, there’s a good chance that they are pruning ‘obviously diseased’ branches off the vine. I say ‘obviously diseased’ because the whole liberal vine is infected with ignorance and arrogance on a lethal scale. Kinda like a tapeworm. Yeah, that’s a good analogy.
On to more lunacy!
Nancy Pelosi is at it again, opening her skeletal maw to spew forth stupidity on a grand scale. Now we are being informed by her highness that government provided contraceptives will stimulate the economy. Uh, well I suppose if we were all prostitutes that might be true. The long and the short of this is that she is trying to cut costs on wards of the state by making less of them. Good plan. While your at it, why don’t we just put all of our seasoned citizens on old rusted out freighters that have no more use in the fleet, run them out in the deep water and sink em! That would mean less Medicaid payments, less Medicare part ‘B’ costs, less stress on the medical industry, less frustration for the younger drivers in florida… the list goes on and on…
This type of idiocy is beyond words. Almost. I actually wonder why Nancy is trying to cut down on her voting base. Poor, stupid, dependedent people vote for democrats. It’s a fact. The more dependent people there are, the better off the democrats are in terms of keeping power in DC. So this seems a little counter intuitive. I suppose that we have to consider the long-term effects of this program. First, just because you hand ‘em out doesn’t mean that they’ll be used. Second, if you give something to the dependent class and get them used to it, then you can use it as a threat in future elections. “If you vote for them, they’ll take away your *insert entitlement here*. Heck, they’ve been doing that for years with the old folks and medicare (Which is probably why the frieghter thing I mentioned is a no-go). None of what they have listed in the stimulus bill will to the first thing to lift the economy. In fact, most of it will damage it further. We’re talking about state and county-level projects that ought not be funded on that level by government, much less by FEDERAL government. Art Programs? Money for schools to teach Native American language classes? How the heck does that help? How about a tax cut, you idiots? Here, check this out:
If congress sends ME the money, then I use it to buy things. If they send me enough money for long enough (or let me keep my own money in the first place) then I am more likely to buy things like cars, televisions, movie tickets, dinner out… you get the picture. All of those things are (guess what) part of the American economy!!!! Giving money to local governments to build their pet projects does little to nothing for anyone but the contractor who gets the job. But then again, he’s being taxed through the floor so that it can be built. What I would LOVE to see is a local county or state government apply for a big chunk of the money (but not disproportionately large) and allocate it for a big fat tax cut to the taxpayers of that municipality. Could you imagine the positive repercussions if, say, the State of Georgia did that? Suddenly, there would be a flash of monetary input for the market and the lending institutions as people pay down debt. Either way, that helps my personal economy. If we all do better, then so will the economy. If the engine requires gas, why don’t they give us all a little gas and let us get the engine started again? Well, that makes a little sense, so I guess that won’t be happening. Perhaps I could get a billion or so in the meantimeto do a study on why my cat is snoring right now. Loudly, in fact. Yeah, a billion should cover it. I mean, some of that has to buy earplugs for me and the dog… and buying earplugs stimulates the economy, right?
The Truth About the FairTax
Like my cohort mentioned in his last post, Democrats in Georgia (and likely in other states as well) are using inaccurate or incomplete information regarding the FairTax to misrepresent their opponents position regarding taxes. Since many Americans simply don’t bother to educate themselves on the issues in an election, most will see this ad and think that Saxby Chambliss wants to increases taxes by increasing the sales tax. And that’s not the case. Here’s a brief explanation of the FairTax. Eventually, I’ll do a detailed post (maybe around April 15th), but for now, here’s the basics.
The first thing you should know is our current tax code is incredibly complex. If you don’t believe me, try doing your taxes by hand next year (using Turbo Tax doesn’t count as “by hand”). The code is written in several thousand pages and can be confusing even for the smartest CPA’s to follow and know all the ins and outs of the code. The FairTax would eliminate all those complexities. It’s very simple to understand and easy to follow. When signed into law, the FairTax would repeal the: individual income tax, the alternative minimum tax (AMT), corporate and business income taxes, capital gains taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, the self-employment tax, estate taxes and gift taxes. All of those taxes (and the associated tax codes) would be replaced by a simple consumption tax – a single-rate sales tax on new goods and services.
This single-rate tax will be about 23%. Consumers will pay an embedded personal consumption tax (the 23%) at the retail level (it will not be imposed on the sale of used goods). Now you are probably saying “So the price of goods will go up 23% – how is this good?” Well, that’s not the case. Under the current tax code, companies are required to pay a corporate income tax. I hate to break it to you, but companies don’t pay income taxes – you pay them for the company. Companies embed their taxes in the price of the goods they sell (much like your trash pick-up company passed along the increased cost of gas to you by raising rates), so they are able to pass along their tax burden to you.
Under the FairTax, companies would no longer pay corporate income taxes. If they aren’t paying those taxes, then they have nothing to pass along to the consumer (you and I). By not having these corporate taxes (and some other stuff) embedded in the price of the goods you buy, the price of goods would drop by roughly 23%. Now where have we heard 23% before? That’s right! The tax rate of the FairTax is 23%. So, while you would see a 23% sales tax on goods, the price of goods would not increase (they would most likely drop slightly) under the FairTax plan.
Now, I haven’t gone through the full FairTax plan, but that’s by design. I just wanted to address the incomplete information in Jim Martin’s campaign ad. Jim Martin is correct that the FairTax plan supported by Saxby Chambliss will implement a 23% increase on everything we buy. What it leaves out is that this same plan will abolish the income tax burden on corporations – a burden they pass along to you and I. By eliminating this, the prices of goods and services will drop by roughly 23% (if not more). So the 23% would be a wash in terms of the price you will be charged for retail goods.
Be on the aware America – politicians are trying to deceive you. They will use your ignorance against you by passing off lies and half-truths as fact. Don’t let them get away with this – be informed about the issues. Time to educate yourself, America.
(PS – I’ll do my best to educate you, so check back later for a complete break down on the FairTax. In the mean time, check out www.fairtax.org or The FairTax Book by John Linder and Neal Boortz.)