The Check Is In The Mail
Nov 23, 2009 Political
The federal government is running a huge deficit and the national debt is more than 12 trillion dollars. The interest on that debt is expected to exceed 700 billion dollars a year or 500 billion more than last year. The interest on our debt is half a trillion dollars more than a year ago.
To put this in perspective, the NYT points out:
In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our interest on debt is more than several budget items including both wars. When liberals tell you how much money there would be without the wars remind them how much more there would be if we did not have to pay nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars in interest (half a trillion more than last year).
The government is about to have a triple whammy in the not too distant future as Democrats under Obama rack up tremendous new debt, short term borrowing that comes due in the next few months and interest rates that will go up after this fabricated emergency passes.
Obama said he will halve the deficit by the end of his first (and I hope only) term but this will be nearly impossible. Look for him to blame Bush.
Americans are saving more but are still saddled with a lot of personal debt from years of care free credit buying. Many were devastated because they foolishly bought houses they could not afford and are now in real financial trouble. Unfortunately, the people with these kinds of problems are no different than our government which continues to spend as if there is no tomorrow.
Might not be if they don’t get a handle on it.
But that will mean raising taxes on everyone not just those who already pay almost all the taxes. Yes, as hard as it is to believe the so called tax cuts for the rich better helped those in the middle class as the wealthy already pay nearly all the taxes in this country.
But that will change if Obama wants to reduce the debt because there is simply not enough money available from the rich to take care of the problem. If we took 100% of their money we would still not be out of trouble. The money will have to come from everyone so those of you who believed Hopenchange when he said he would not tax you, you are in for a surprise.
He cannot reduce the debt without taxing you so he either lied about reducing it or he lied about taxing you.
Either way, he ran up the debt and the bill will come due.
How’s that Hope and Change working out for you now?
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Liberal Doesn’t Mean Legal
Oct 10, 2009 Political
Well, you can tell whose party is who’s- Republicans, when they are caught in illegal shenanigans, are prosecuted- and leave office. When liberals, or Democrats, or socialists are caught in some nefarious scheme, they double down on the bad behavior. Such is the case of Charlie Rangel, the head of the committee that writes the tax code- the patron saint of CPAs.
Apparently he can’t read his own tax code, or even hire anyone to help his decrepit butt to do so. As a result, he finds himself embroiled in a mysterious “ethics investigation” that was supposed to be over and done a year ago, but as usual, the Libs are dragging their feet.
Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) sat stone-faced as the House chamber buzzed around him, preparing to vote on a measure that could partly undo his almost four decades of work in Congress.
As Republicans pressed their attempt to remove him from his perch as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Democrats stood by Rangel — who is under investigation for a series of alleged violations that include improperly occupying several rent-controlled New York City apartments and not disclosing a laundry list of income and assets — and deflected the measure to committee.
washingtonpost.com
Of course Dems stood by him- they do not want to lose such an accomplished crook- they still have so much to learn at the feet of a master scam artist. His range is so exquisite- from apartments that are rent- controlled, to a slew of automobiles, to vacation paradises he claims he “knew nothing about”. Yeah- right!
The Republican-sponsored resolution said Rangel was unfit to serve as the chairman of the powerful committee that writes tax laws while he remains under investigation. Democrats blocked the move, sending the resolution by Rep. John Carter(Tex.) to the ethics committee and saying Congress should not act until that panel completes its investigation.
The resolution was the fourth attempt by Republicans in the past 16 months to censure Rangel or strip him of his committee chairmanship. House Republican leaders pushed their members to back the resolution against the Harlem lawmaker, arguing that his conduct violated pledges from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2006 to oversee the “most ethical Congress in history” and end what she called “the culture of corruption” when Republicans ruled the House.
washingtonpost.com
Oh Snap! You didn’t think that Nanny Pelosi actually meant what she said, did you? You silly wabbit! Tricks are for libs.
Republicans keep trying to make Demmies do the right thing, something apparently very permissive and negligent parents never taught these people- morality- but these libs are resistant to doing the right thing. If they were a horse I was trying to make ridable, well, I would have given up by now and sent these to the slaughterhouse, because that would be all they would be good for- dog food.
In an occurrence rarely seen on the House floor, Carter read his resolution — nine pages and more than 2,000 words. While other members talked to aides or read, Rangel sat silent and expressionless in the first row on the Democratic side of the aisle, eyes fixed on Carter.
“We can already hear the defense of the next tax deadbeat called into court. ‘If Charlie Rangel doesn’t have to pay his taxes, why should I?’ ” Carter said, quoting from an editorial in the New Haven Register.
Carter listed nearly every allegation against Rangel, who himself called for the ethics committee to examine his conduct last year. Rangel admitted last month that he failed to report more than $500,000 in assets on his 2007 federal disclosure forms. Last year, he acknowledged failing to disclose and pay taxes on at least $75,000 in rental income from a villa in the Dominican Republic that he has owned.
He has been accused of improperly using congressional stationery to solicit donations for an academic center bearing his name at the City College of New York and attending a conference last year in St. Martin that was paid for by donors who employ lobbyists, a violation of House rules.
washingtonpost.com
He has flouted House rules with seeming abandon, and apparent glee- the rules do not apply to him- he has stolen money from the Federal government, plain and simple, and if it was you or I, we would already be behind bars, worrying about picking up the soap in the showers. Not Good Time Charlie. The rest of his posse, all as guilty as he, rally behind the Head of the Ways and Means Committee. Yep he has both the ways AND the means, and the rest of the Dems (and some Republican turncoats too) protect him.
On a list of reasons why people do not trust their government, Charlie Rangel has to be real close to the top, with John Murtha close behind.
And a whole bunch of libs bringing up the rear- their preferred position.
They will always be behind you- 100%.
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Tags: crook, fraud, liberal enablers, rangel, taxes
Get Insurance Or Go To Jail
Sep 26, 2009 Political
During the campaign, then candidate Obama poo-pooed the idea of compulsory insurance. He told Hillary Clinton, who had proposed the idea, that he did not think it was wise and that controlling costs would allow people to get insurance. In my previous post I stated that no one expects a politician to keep a campaign promise but this was not a promise, this was Obama’s position on an aspect of an opponent’s cure for the problems in health care.
Obama said that he did not think it was good to force people to buy insurance.
Now that he has won the election he has more positions than the Karma Sutra and he changes them often. Interestingly, he intends to do to America what the Karma Sutra instructs people to do to each other.
Barack Obama is touting Obamacare as the only way to fix the problem. We have heard from him and his surrogates that there are only two options, his way or what we have. This is blatantly false and misleading and designed to push through an agenda that is about controlling our lives.
Under Obamacare, those who fail to buy health insurance (and subsequently do not pay the imposed tax for failing to do so) may be sent to jail for a year, fined $25,000, or both. Senator John Ensign requested confirmation of this from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold. Ensign received a handwritten note confirming the information.
I previously wrote that the Obamacare plan would impose a tax increase on the middle class and this is nothing more than a tax increase an the penalty for failing to pay that tax increase. If people pay for the insurance they have paid a tax increase, and if they pay the penalty, they have paid a tax increase. The penalties are for failing to pay what the bill clearly states is a tax.
As Lauri Regan of the American Thinker stated:
Last week, Obama provided us with the untruth that the individual mandate penalty of $1900 is not a tax increase. But if it is not a tax increase, how can the IRS enforce it with the threat of jail or fine? In Obama’s world of fun and games, I suppose anything goes, but I for one have no desire to take my “Chance.”
This, of course, is in addition to all the tax increases that will be hidden in various other aspects of the bill so as to deceive people into thinking that Obama did not raise their taxes. Sometime in the future there will be unhidden tax increases as Obama tries to tackle the huge debt he is racking up. That will probably be after the 2012 election, should he win.
This is America. How can they fine or jail people for not buying health insurance? What will they mandate next that forces us to pay more of our money? Will they require that we all buy a gym membership? Will we all be required to buy subscriptions to a local newspaper to help bail them out? Where will it end?
Will it end with the USA being renamed the USSA?
The Democrats are adding to this bill and they are pushing for government run health care so they can control that part of the economy and have nearly complete control over our lives.
The note from Barthold makes it pretty clear they intend to take over our lives with the use of force.
Good. Force gets force in return and though many politicians think the protests and opposition will die down, they will soon find out that they were wrong.
In 2010, we need to add all of them to the rolls of the unemployed.
Others:
Gateway Pundit
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Tags: barthold, ensign, force, jail, lies, Obama, penalties, taxes
Obama Lies (Again)
Sep 18, 2009 Political
As Ronald Reagan would have said, “well, there he goes again”, as our Resident lies blatantly in our face, apparently forgetting that Google is just a click away, and checking on anyone’s words is just too easy. And crosschecking with other members of his party reveals that they just do not care how blatantly they insult the American people with outright lies.
Recently, (within the last two months), we have had both Henry Waxman and the Resident come out and lie about the true costs of the Cap and Trade Bill passed by the House of Representatives. First, the head of the Energy Committee, Henry Waxman says that the cost to the consumer (that would be you and me) would be about “40 cents a day”- Really?
And then you had the Liar in Chief (there- I said it- am I a racist, too?) claim that the cost of this legislation was “… about the cost of a stamp…” per day. Oooohhh, not so fast here.
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
~ snip~
The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.
These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats’ cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June — the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to “no” — and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.
One reason the bill faces an uncertain future is concern about its cost. House Republican Leader John Boehner hasestimated the additional tax bill would be at $366 billion a year, or $3,100 a year per family. Democrats have pointed to estimates from MIT’s John Reilly, who put the cost at $800 a year per family, and noted that tax credits to low income households could offset part of the bite. The Heritage Foundation says that, by 2035, “the typical family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by over $1,500 per year.”
cbsnews.com
Even though figures vary, depending on who’s ox is being gored, the low end, MIT’s estimate of $800 per year is still way above either of the estimates postulated by Waxman or the Resident- by about a factor of around 500%– a rather egregious error, wouldn’t you agree? Other estimates are considerably more- and if it hits the upper end, (1200%), families that are having trouble making ends meet are in for a world of hurt. Do the Liberal progressives care? Obviously not, or they would say, “Perhaps we should hold off until people can absorb the costs,” but nooooooo.
“Heritage is saying publicly what the administration is saying to itself privately,” says Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who filed the FOIA request. “It’s nice to see they’re not spinning each other behind closed doors.”
“They’re not telling you the cost — they’re not telling you the benefit,” says Horner, who wrote the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. “If they don’t tell you the cost, and they don’t tell you the benefit, what are they telling you? They’re just talking about global salvation.”
cbsnews.com
“Global salvation”- oh goody- yeah right, like that will work, what with China and India, who supply us with their smog on a daily basis (it takes two to three days for their air to become ours) NOT signing on to any treaty that inhibits their economic growth. All the Climate bill that was passed by the Democrats in the House- (Republicans were a little smarter than that; they want the Dems to “own” this FUBAR bill) will do is to make us poorer, and give the progressives the excuse to insinuate themselves in our lives, burying themselves deep like the blood-sucking ticks they resemble, but without the good points.
Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15 percent increase a year. A $100 billion additional tax would represent a 7 or 8 percent increase a year.
One odd point: The document written by Jaffee includes this line: “It will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.” The Treasury Department redacted the rest of the sentence with a thick black line.
The Freedom of Information Act, of course, contains no this-might-embarrass-the-president exemption (nor, for that matter, should federal agencies be in the business of possibly suppressing dissenting climate change voices). You’d hope the presidential administration that boasts of being the “most open and transparent in history” would be more forthcoming than this.
cbsnews.com
Yeah- transparent this Resident is not- (note the “blacked out”, or x’ed out section the Treasury Department redacted from the FOIA document )- liar he definitely is, and complicit in defrauding the American people- think of it- can you afford another 8- 15 % rise in your income taxes, just on the energy bill? This does not take into account the Health care bill, or any other legislation they are considering. All total, we could be looking at a 25% increase in our taxes- for what? So they, the government, could dictate the way we live our lives? How cool or warm we want our living area to be, the amount of water we use,the way we live our lives? How or what we drive?
This is an administration built literally on lie after lie – I truly do not think they are physically or mentally capable of telling the truth, and between the new Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, who can impose restrictive regulations that will rule your lives and make you poorer, and the Resident’s Science Czar, John Holdren, who first believed in Global Cooling and a new “Ice Age”– then reversed course and hyped Global Warming with Al “I’m a HUGE hypocrite” Gore, we will be forced to do what the government wants, and thus our liberties shrink some more. We don’t need this.
Cass Sunstein thinks “free speech” is overrated, and should be restricted anyway, and that expectations of personal privacy are unreasonable. He also believes hunting should be banned, not realizing that hunting is actually a good and necessary thing in controlling wildlife populations, but since he just thinks and has never actually studied the cause and effects of hunting as population control, this position is not unexpected.
John Holdren- ( the Science Czar, for God’s sake), thinks that the government should force people to have abortions and be sterilized, if their genetics are not “preferred” by the government “elites”. Isn’t that just peachy? These are the people the Resident thinks are good for the country-
And you just hoped “Change” would be a good thing-
Silly Goose.
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Tags: climate, czars, lies, taxes, third-world status
DID I SAY THAT?
Sep 10, 2009 Political
The Resident gave a speech to a Joint Session of Congress last night, during which he decided to change his talking points- which may or may not have been what prompted Rep. Joe Wilson R-SC to yell out what he did- an impromptu shout of “You Lie” directed at the Resident- something many of us at the Town Halls just wish we could do. Joe Wilson is a hero- was he rude? Yes, yes he was; did it need to be said? Yes it did, and should have been said more, even as Hussein began moving the “facts” he uses, going from 47 million people to 30 million people- where did 17 million people go, Mr. Resident?
Or was that also a lie?
In his speech tonight, the president introduced a new number in the health care debate. Remember all those statements from Democrats, including Barack Obama himself, that 47 million Americans are without health insurance? That’s no longer the operative number. “There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage,” the president said in tonight’s speech.
But on August 10, at a town hall meeting, Obama referred to the “46, 47 million people without health insurance in our country…” And on July 23, he said, “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance at all…”
What’s the difference? Obama appears to be choosing his words carefully. There is a difference between Americans who “cannot get coverage” and Americans who “don’t have any health insurance at all.” The interesting question is why Obama has chosen to downgrade the number from 47 million to 30 million. Look for Democrats to begin using the new figure in making the case for Obamacare.
washingtonexaminer.com
Yea, it’s getting down to the nitty- gritty now, and Hussein needs to begin using some real facts here if he wants to make the case- he spent a bunch of his speech “de- bunking” the alleged lies spread by opponents of his little government “make-over”, the death panel stuff, and the abortion stuff, and the illegal alien stuff- none of which he was able to debunk successfully.
OBAMA: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”
THE FACTS: Though there’s no final plan yet, the White House and congressional Democrats already have shown they’re ready to skirt the no-new-deficits pledge.
House Democrats offered a bill that the Congressional Budget Officesaid would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years. But Democrats and Obama administration officials claimed the bill actually was deficit-neutral. They said they simply didn’t have to count $245 billion of it — the cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don’t face big annual pay cuts.
Their reasoning was that they already had decided to exempt this “doc fix” from congressional rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn’t have to be paid for because they decided it doesn’t have to be paid for.
The administration also said that since Obama already had included the doctor payment in his 10-year budget proposal, it didn’t have to be counted again.
That aside, the long-term prognosis for costs of the health care legislation has not been good.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf had this to say in July: “We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.
OBAMA: “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”
THE FACTS: Obama time and again has referred to the number of uninsured as 46 million, a figure based on year-old Census data. The new number is based on an analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, which concluded that about two-thirds of Americans without insurance are poor or near poor. “These individuals are less likely to be offered employer-sponsored coverage or to be able to afford to purchase their own coverage,” the report said. By using the new figure, Obama avoids criticism that he is including individuals, particularly healthy young people, who choose not to obtain health insurance.
OBAMA: “If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage.”
THE FACTS: It’s not just a matter of being able to get coverage. Most people would have to get coverage under the law, if his plan is adopted.
In his speech, Obama endorsed mandatory coverage for individuals, an approach he did not embrace as a candidate.
He proposed during the campaign — as he does now — that larger businesses be required to offer insurance to workers or else pay into a fund. But he rejected the idea of requiring individuals to obtain insurance. He said people would get insurance without being forced to do so by the law, if coverage were made affordable. And he repeatedly criticized his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for proposing to mandate coverage.
“To force people to get health insurance, you’ve got to have a very harsh penalty,” he said in a February 2008debate.
Now, he says, “individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.”
OBAMA: Requiring insurance companies to cover preventive care like mammograms and colonoscopies “makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.”
THE FACTS: Studies have shown that much preventive care — particularly tests like the ones Obama mentions — actually costs money instead of saving it. That’s because detecting acute diseases like breast cancer in their early stages involves testing many people who would never end up developing the disease. The costs of a large number of tests, even if they’re relatively cheap, will outweigh the costs of caring for the minority of people who would have ended up getting sick without the testing.
The Congressional Budget Office wrote in August: “The evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.”
news.yahoo.com
Yes, folks, gather around see the Magnificent Prevaricator, the man who can change his speeches to suit his audience, and change his facts to suit himself.
Gee- wonder if that’s why Joe Wilson felt compelled to shout “You Lie!”, as the Resident gave the speech where the facts became “flexible” things, malleable, able to become anything the Won wanted them to be.
You go Joe- I wish it had been me- I wouldn’t have been as polite.
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