Entitlement States of America

There's plenty of blame to go around. We know the rich as well as the poor are leaching off the government . . . i.e., whoever is "stupid" enough actually to pay taxes.

I didn't realize it was quite this bad, however.

From the August 5 Sovereign Digest published by The Sovereign Society:

Maybe this is Just a Conspiracy Theory, But . . . Have you ever wondered whether the government – both Democrats and Republicans – secretly wants a nation addicted to welfare? Sure would make for a more-compliant bunch of voters when the bulk of Americans are dependent on Uncle Sam for their bread and tuna.

I tucked away a report earlier this year that tracks a dependency index, and among the latest findings it showed that those who take from the government (let’s call them Thy Brothers) received benefits of about $32,700 from the government in 2010. Those who earn money and pay taxes in America (let’s call them Thy Brothers’ Keepers) earned on average about $32,400.

Is it just me, or is there a terminal flaw in the system when Thy Brothers are living larger than Thy Brothers’ Keepers?

If you want to see the true impact of this addiction to dependency, look no further than the $1 trillion Farm Bill the House passed last month. A huge chunk of the spending has nothing to do with farms or farmers. It’s earmarked for food stamps.

We, Thy Brothers’ Keepers, now spend about $80 billion a year on food stamps.

In the 1970s, one in 50 Americans received food assistance from the government. Today, it’s a stunning one in 7. But to see just how broken the system really is, dig a bit deeper. Half of all the folks receiving food assistance have been on the program for more than eight years. That, dear reader, is a sign of dependency.

In all, more than 67 million Americans – about 22% of the country – depend on the government for their livelihood. That number will only grow as more Boomers fall into Social Security, as Obamacare lassos more Americans into a government health network, and as failed economic policies create more Americans who are (wink wink) permanently disabled.

Sooner or later, we reach a point where the Entitlement States of America runs out of other people’s money. Then what?

"I'm just a bill" - traditional and modern versions

I first saw "I'm just a bill" about a year ago.



I thought at the time: "Yeah. If only. That's not the way things work nowadays."

You get SOME idea of what I was thinking about if you see what I just wrote to Blaise Ingoglia, of Government Gone Wild!, whose videos Land of the Freebies, Home of the Enslaved and Special Interests...Exposed! I watched this morning:

Blaise:

I've enjoyed the videos I have seen. However, I would VERY MUCH appreciate seeing you handle the "other" form of welfare that various viewers have mentioned: the CORPORATE welfare so completely embedded in our federal government . . . from Monsanto's headlock on the USDA (http://bit.ly/NY6BGt; look for "revolving door"), to FDA's control by and doing the bidding of Big Pharma (http://bit.ly/QT7Sv4), to--of course--the (formerly unbelievable) bailouts of the "too-big-to-fail" banks and their bankster managers . . .

You've done a great job on the "little guys" who have been co-opted by Big Government. I appreciate your video about the growing number of government employees who make obscene amounts of money. But I'd like to see you do a similarly wonderful expose on the "big guys" who are (not being co-opted BY the government, but who are) co-opting the government.

WOW! If you were to make a similarly powerful video on THAT, I think all the liberals would have to acknowledge: "This guy is the real deal!"

Thanks.

Well . . . now I've found a catchy video that explains how at least SOME of the "new" government works. It's a modern version of I'm just a bill. . . . Please excuse the few relatively minor profanities. . . .

Corruption in high places

I saw this in the December 2 edition of The Week. Quoting from Woman Gets Jail For Food-Stamp Fraud; Wall Street Fraudsters Get Bailouts:

You get busted for drugs in this country, and it turns out you can make yourself ineligible to receive food stamps.

But you can be a serial fraud offender like Citigroup, which has repeatedly been dragged into court for the same offenses and has repeatedly ignored court injunctions to abstain from fraud, and this does not make you ineligible to receive $45 billion in bailouts and other forms of federal assistance. . . .

A normal person, once he gets a felony conviction, immediately begins to lose his rights as a citizen.

But white-collar criminals of the type we’ve seen in recent years on Wall Street – both the individuals and the corporate "citizens" – do not suffer these ramifications. They commit crimes without real consequence, allowing them to retain access to the full smorgasbord of subsidies and financial welfare programs that, let’s face it, are the source of most of their profits.

I urge you to read the whole story because the contrast between how Citigroup and Anita McLemore have been treated is far bigger than what the few words I have quoted could signify.

The injustice of the U.S. federal government is beyond imagination.

U.S. government against U.S. citizens

I received the following email from Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com (see US Constitution repealed by traitorous Senators, Senate bill 1867 would allow U.S. military to detain and murder anti-government protesters in American cities for further coverage):

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill [the National Defense Authorization Act] that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America [see Sections 1031 and 1032--JAH].

This bill, passed late [Wednesday] night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a "battleground" upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.

It's being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to."

Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:

...the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/

The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!

If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America -- no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.

Read my red alert warning on this urgent development at:
www.naturalnews.com/034291_SB_1867_war_on_terror.html

... and watch this urgent interview with Alex Jones of InfoWars.com at:
www.infowars.com/stewart-rhodes-crossroads-ndaa-bill-is-pure-treason/

The mainstream media is engaged in a shameful and conspiratorial news blackout of this entire issue:
www.businessinsider.com/the-medias-blackout-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act-is-shameful-2011-12

... and even the ACLU is outraged about this potential law:
[Mike points you to this post; I think Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window does a better job of summarizing what this is all about--JAH]

Are you getting all this? Do you realize America is about to be overrun by our own military?

He sounds shrill. But maybe there is good reason for it. Read the links.

Simon Black wrote in last month's Sovereign Man: Confidential:

[I]f you want to know what’s going to happen, pick up any number of books that detail the decline of empire.

I suggest William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as it is probably the most well-documented account ever recorded. It becomes painfully obvious throughout the book that Germans and Jews alike should have picked up and left Germany in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The warning signs were all there, and reading the book is like watching characters in a bad horror movie walk right into the killer’s trap.

Are we reading such a script right now in this, our beloved "Land of the Free" and "Home of the Brave"?

Perhaps I should restate that. Are we merely going to read such a script? Or will we--will you--do something about it? At least write to your senators and congressperson?

Or will this (see below) be coming soon to a town near you?

Brilliant suggestion to balance the budget . . .

Received this from my dad's wife. I tracked it down to ICanHasCheezburger.com's PunditKitchen.

Apparently, Warren Buffett was on CNBC back on July 8th when he said he could end the federal government deficit in five minutes. I'm afraid even he didn't quite get it right, but he definitely suggested the way. His brilliant idea:

You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

Good luck getting Congresspeople to agree to such a law! But, hey!

But how did he go wrong? you ask.

Three percent of GDP is still a deficit. Indeed, it is a rather severe deficit. In a $15 trillion economy, that's a $450 billion deficit. And, as one of my previous posts noted, it's not even touching the larger problem of debt. The size of the debt itself--on which interest must be paid--is continuing to rise.

Still, as I say, I think Buffett has pointed the way: There must be significant negative (painful) consequences for those "public servants" who are unwilling to do their duty to ensure fiscal responsibility.

While I'm at it, I thought I would offer an update on my July 30 post about The difference between debt and deficit. At the time I said that Senator Mark Udall of Colorado either didn't understand the difference between a deficit and a debt, or he was cynically playing upon the lazy thinking of his constituents when he suggested that "The President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, came up with a set of recommendations that would reduce the debt by over $4 trillion over the next decade."

Well, he wants credit for coming back with a proposal for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, "the first Democratic senator in many years to introduce [a] balanced budget amendment."

Key components:

• Requires that the federal budget be balanced each year unless 3/5ths of each House (60 votes in the Senate) vote to waive.
   
• Requires the President to submit a budget each year that is balanced.
   
• The provision would be waived when the U.S. is in a declared time of war.
   
• It would create a Social Security lockbox that protects the revenue and outlays of Social Security from any balanced budget requirement.
   
• It would prohibit Congress from providing income tax breaks for people earning over $1,000,000 a year, unless we are running surpluses (those surpluses must also not be eliminated if such a tax break were enacted).
  

My comments:

The first three points make eminently good sense.

The last one, too, seems reasonable. I'm not sure how it can possibly go into effect without massive court battles. For instance, what is an "income tax break"? If Congress at some point decides to raise taxes on those earning over $1,000,000 a year so that they must pay, say, 70% of their marginal dollars in income tax (while persons whose income is $999,999 must pay, say, "only" 50% of their marginal dollars in income tax), if someone subsequently suggests the top marginal rate should be reduced to 60%, is that an income tax break?

What if someone who makes more than $1 million wants to take advantage of a tax write-off, say, available to those who invest in green energy. Will such a write-off be disallowed because it would "provide an income tax break" to that wealthy individual?

But the one proposal that really bothers me is the fourth one: to "create a Social Security lockbox that protects the revenue and outlays of Social Security from any balanced budget requirement."

What is that supposed to mean?

It is the case, already, that Social Security is "off-budget" and treated separately in certain ways from other Federal spending, and other trust funds of the Federal Government.

EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL SECURITY FROM ALL BUDGETS
Pub. L. 101-508, title XIII, Sec. 13301(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104
Stat. 1388-623, provided that: "Notwithstanding any other provision
of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal Old-Age and
Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance
Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays,
receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of -
"(1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by
the President,
"(2) the congressional budget, or
"(3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of
1985 [see Short Title note set out under section 900 of this
title]."

Congress has been raiding Social Security for just about "forever"--using all funds brought into the Social Security system to fund current government expenses. I.e., the approximately $2.6 trillion Social Security trust fund consists solely of federal government IOUs--sorry: debt.

So the only way any Social Security obligations will be paid is by taxing current and future taxpayers to cover the outstanding obligations. Same kind of thing with Medicaid and Medicare. They are not pre-funded. There are no assets sitting around waiting to be utilized to cover future expenses. Same thing with all the mandatory spending programs of the federal government (expenditures in the U.S. budget that are mandated by programs outside of the budgetary process, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid as well as Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition and Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the Disabled, Student Loans, and Veterans Retirement programs.)

According to Kimberly Amadeo of About.com, mandatory spending is slated to total $2.109 trillion in FY 2012--in other words, very nearly 100% of real income of the federal government.

Forget defense. Forget Health, Education and Welfare. Forget EPA, OSHA, FAA, FDA, USDA, and so on and so forth. You could cut out 100% of all the "optional" programs of the federal government, and you still couldn't balance the budget . . . unless you make massive changes in the enabling laws--the basic rules--surrounding all of these social programs.

It can't be done.

Well, finally, this.

My sister sent me a summary of something Dave Ramsey said:

If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, and are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing big spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget and debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.

I replied:

That was interesting, Miriam. I really appreciate your sharing that. It puts things into a more manageable perspective.

But something didn't seem right about the numbers. The spending seemed too low. So I did a little checking.

Based on what I can find—from the 2010 federal budget (see charts on the right hand side of the page; data from the Congressional Budget Office Historical Tables) . . .

If we start with a family income of $58,000 and multiply by the proportion of spending as compared to income of the federal government (divide by 2,162, then multiply by 3,456): you've got a proportional annual spend of $92,714!

Oh. And when it comes to “cuts”? Supposing Congress actually follows up on them all, we're looking at a reduction in annual spend from approximately $93,000 to $82,000 ($93,000 * (3,056/3,456)). So that’s nice. The family is proposing “only” to go into further debt at a rate of $24,000 a year instead of its former $35,000 a year!

Finally. It’s probably unfair to call it “credit card debt,” since credit cards are generally considered short-term debt and are charged at a much higher rate than the federal government. But that’s a relatively minor quibble. With an acknowledged debt of about $15 trillion and an income of $2.2 trillion (approximately), we find ourselves with a debt multiple of 6.8 [15/2.2]). Multiply $58,000 by 6.8 and you come up with the proportional total debt of this family: about $395,000.

Families with annual incomes of $58,000 generally aren't permitted to purchase $395,000 homes . . . or to wrack up $395,000 debts. Not normally, anyway! They can't pay their debts back. Especially not when their standard and expected annual expenditure--for years and years--is and has been significantly more than their income. (Even--to use Buffett's example--a "modest" 3% deficit for a family with annual income of $58,000 is $1,740. But when the family is borrowing--and seems intent on continuing to borrow $24,000 more every year for the next 10 years, at least?)

And Steve Forbes, Larry Summers and others see the S&P downgrade of American credit worthiness as an "outrage"?!? Would you want to lend to a family with this kind of credit profile?

The one that got away

I was shocked. One of my newsletters (Sovereign Digest from the Sovereign Society) answered a question one of their subscribers asked about privacy when it comes to the purchase of gold coins from dealers: "Do they report the purchase to the federal government?" asked the subscriber.

"There is considerable confusion about U.S. reporting requirements for precious-metals sales and purchases," wrote the expert respondent.

This issue was highlighted last year when the Obama Health Care law imposed an onerous requirement that all sales exceeding $600 – not just sales of gold – be reported to the IRS on Form 1099. Fortunately, that little ray of misguided sunshine was extinguished in a rare Congressional act of reason.

What?!?

The Health Care law required all sales exceeding $600 be reported to the IRS on Form 1099? --What's that all about? I never heard of that!

I decided to do some research. I looked up purchase $600 report on Google. I thought I'd find something on the issue.

Not much. Just one article titled $600 Sale? Get Ready for Tax Form. --Strange: It's from June 2010 and originally appeared in a numismatic (coin collecting) magazine. And it didn't seem to clarify much of anything.

Passage by Congress of the national health care legislation has had an unintended consequence to the nation’s coin collectors, vest-pocket dealers who buy and sell coins, and larger dealers who are frequent buyers of coins that collectors periodically liquidate as they trade up their collections for better coins, or simply sell to take a small profit or loss.

What has happened is that effective Jan. 1, 2012, the whole system of giving and receiving Internal Revenue Service 1099 forms will be turned on its head and all persons (including corporations) who are in business will now have to give 1099 tax reporting forms for coins and other goods that they sell as well as buy.

A little bit later in the same article:

Form 1099 is used to report independent contractor income, income from dividends, income from other things – and is one of the reasons why children receive tax bills for work or labor or services performed.

Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148 . . .) turns 1099 forms into reporting forms not only for independent contractor’s income – what they have long been used for – but also to show sales, gains and losses on purchases and sales of goods as part of a trade or business.

The section reads (in relevant part) “SEC. 9006. EXPANSION OF INFORMATION REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (a) IN GENERAL. – Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new subsections:

"(h) APPLICATION TO CORPORATIONS. – . . . for purposes of this section the term ‘person’ includes any corporation that is not an organization exempt from tax under section 501(a). . . ."

(b) PAYMENTS FOR PROPERTY AND OTHER GROSS PROCEEDS. –

Subsection (a) of section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended –

(1) by inserting ‘‘amounts in consideration for property,’’ after ‘‘wages,’’
(2) by inserting ‘‘gross proceeds,’’ after ‘‘emoluments, or other’’, and
(3) by inserting ‘‘gross proceeds,’’ after ‘‘setting forth the amount of such.’’

??? Whoa! Now, wait a minute!

We have a lady come and help clean our house every week. We pay her more than $600 a year for her services. And, as a result, we have been told, we have to give her a 1099 for her services. We have been doing that for years. And we are not a company. That's a private transaction. And we have had to issue 1099s.

By any chance, was this new rule supposed to force us to issue 1099s to anyone from whom we purchased $600 or more worth of goods in a year? And what about that susection (h) where it says, "‘person’ includes any corporation that is not an organization exempt from tax under section 501(a)"? Any corporation that is not exempt from tax under section 501(a) means any for-profit corporation! So . . . ???!!!??? Does that really mean what I think it says?!?!

The article mentions a bill introduced by Rep. Dan Lungren (H.R. 5141) that is (or was) intended to repeal that particular section of the Health Care bill. So I thought I would look that up.

I found little bits and snatches that confirmed the worst of what I could possibly imagine. And it is truly unimaginable.

Forget small businesses only having to report; we ourselves would be required to turn in 1099s to all vendors from whom we make "purchases totaling $600 or more during a calendar year."

I read comments by others and sense my interpretation is not too far off:

I don't see the sense in filing 1099's to companies I do business with such as Amazon.com, Costco, American Airlines, Marriott and Comcast. These are large corporations that I would trust would not be hiding income. If the IRS believes this to be so, why don't they audit these companies instead of overloading us with forms? I don't see how the IRS will make more money. I do see how they will cost everyone more dealing with these forms. As for my reaction, I will try to limit my purchases from any company to be less than $600 a year to avoid this or only use one provider to avoid multiple forms. Could this also be an incentive for some companies to buy from foreign companies?

--Mary Taylor, June 20, 2010

I sure do not want to fill out a 1099 form to Walmart and all the other stores that we shop at. We would definitely have to keep track of receipts and try to find out all the tax payer ids for all the businesses we shop at all year. What a nightmare. What if I can't remember who I bought $600.00 worth of stuff from? . . .

I'm an American customer. If this bill to stop 1099's does not pass, does that mean that we will have to send a 1099 form for our electric bill, gas, water, house, food and clothing, etc.? All these things add up in a year's time to way over $600.00.

--Diane P, July 19, 2010

Sadly, the bill to repeal, I found, "is no longer current." And, apparently, never passed. So then what?

Well, there was S. 3578, The Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act. But that never passed and that went defunct, too. And S. 3946, The Small Business Paperwork Relief Act. Same result. Nothing happened. And then, finally, I read an article dated April 5, 2011 and titled, Senate Votes to Repeal 1099 Information Reporting Requirement--and there was an "Update": "On April 14, 2011, President Obama signed this measure into law." And as double reassurance, there was Small biz applauds 1099 repeal. The article concludes:

Nancy Ploeger, president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, said some members wondered why the provision was inserted into the health care bill at all.

“The fact that it was buried in the health care bill was bizarre enough, and then it was yet another burden on the backs of business owners, more paperwork,” she said.

“Also, what is the point of it?” she asked. “You issue a 1099 to an outside contractor, which is understood because the government wants to keep track of the income of outside contractors. But any major corporation you're making purchases from already has a reporting requirement.”

I am unable to answer the last question. But the earlier one, about why it was in the health care bill?

Check out what CNN discovered when it pursued the story in May of 2010:

The idea seems to be that using 1099 forms to capture unreported income will generate more government revenue and help offset the cost of the health bill.

A Democratic aide for the Senate Finance Committee, which authored the changes, defended the move.

"Information reporting improves tax compliance without raising taxes on small businesses," the aide said. "Health care reform includes more than $35 billion in tax cuts for small businesses ... indicating that during these tough economic times, Congress is delivering the tax breaks small businesses need to thrive."

The new rules could drastically alter the tax-reporting landscape by spotlighting payments that previously went unreported. Freelancers and other independent operators typically write off stacks of business expenses; having to issue tax paperwork documenting each of them could cut down on fraudulent deductions.

More significantly, the 1099 trail would expose payments to small operators that might now be going unreported. If you buy a computer for your business from a major chain retailer, the seller almost certainly documents the revenue. But if you buy it from Tim's Computer Shack down the street, Tim might not report and pay taxes on his income from the sale.

The IRS estimates that the federal government loses more than $300 billion each year in tax revenue on income that goes unreported. Using 1099s to document millions of transactions that now go untracked is one way to begin to close the gap.

Wow! The (minimum) 5 minutes you would have to spend each year filling out a 1099 for each of the people and corporations from whom you purchase $600 or more worth of goods in a year, not to mention the postage required to send these forms to all the companies with whom you deal--and to send the reports to the IRS: this is less onerous than an additional tax?

I guess there is one last thing going on here that niggled at the back of my mind: "What about privacy? --And what about privacy when, in another two or three years, when the government-sponsored monetary inflation begins to show up in more dramatic price increases--the purchases you make today that cost, say, $50, suddenly become denominated as $600?"

The government isn't going to suddenly come back and say, "Oh, let's alter the threshold of reporting requirements as specified in Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986."

I'm glad that section "got away."

But I am upset

1. That Congress would have passed such legislation in the first place. And,
    
2. That such legislation would have been on the books for so long--almost a full year!--with so few Americans even being aware of its existence.

Are we really aware of what "our" legislators are proposing in our behalf?

Big brother doing his job . . . or pushing toward tyranny?

Sounds reasonable enough: biometric Social Security cards to ensure that only legal residents of the United States can get jobs here.

But then you hear the other side--from Texas Representative Ron Paul and John Tate, president of Campaign for Liberty. Tate, in an email I received this afternoon, writes:

This is getting to be like a bad movie.

You know the ones where the villain, dead and buried more times than you can count, somehow mysteriously reappears in a place you don’t expect him?

Well, here comes... a new fight over a biometric national ID card -- and if you don’t have the card, you can’t work.

Right now, . . . Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), banding together with other statists from both parties, are scheming to sneak a massive power grab into a new “immigration reform” bill.

This bill [offers] “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and a biometric ID card for virtually everyone else.

That’s right. Instead of controlling the border and enforcing the rule of law, these statists want to control you. . . .

You see, a National ID scheme -- complete with biometric tracking technology -- is embedded in the new “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” being pushed by Senators Graham and Schumer, as well as other Big Government members from both parties.

And if passed, the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” would require a new National ID card that would:

*** Include biometric identification information such as fingerprints, retinal scans or scans of veins on the back of hands. Depending on the technology used, the ID card could easily be used as a tracking device [though Schumer and Graham explicitly say, "The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices." --Can we trust the government? In case you can't remember, government leaders also promised (1913) that the income tax was solely to be levied on only those making "very great incomes" and even they by "never more than three or four percent of their net incomes." --Within three years of ratification, however (1916), the top marginal rate was 15 percent; the next year, 67 percent; by 1918: 77 percent (on all income above $1 million--which was a lot money in those days); by 1922: 58 percent of everything above $200,000; 1942: 88 percent of everything above $200,000; 1944: 94 percent of everything above $200,000. In 1948 and '49, the government mercifully placed a cap on its avarice: no taxpayer would have to pay more than 77% of statutory "net income" . . . See the TruthAndPolitics "Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates, 1913-2003" for the full story. --Do you need more examples of the government's trustworthiness in these kinds of things? How about the RICO legislation that was supposed to be directed solely against mafia-style organizations but was soon turned to use against peaceful anti-abortion protesters? Social Security (which was, originally, conceived as a true form of insurance to be paid out of reserves but that was very soon shifted into a pay-as-you-go system [i.e., as critics say, a Ponzi scheme]? --JAH)

*** Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, and make it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn't obtain the ID card;

*** Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know -- and you can bet it’s only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to make even routine purchases, as well.

Of course, the most dangerous part of the bill is the biometric tracking technology which would allow federal bureaucrats to track our every move.

Allowing our government to have this much “prying power” in our lives will ultimately result in the TOTAL loss of freedom.

This is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free, or continues down a slide toward tyranny.

Government goon squads with all our personal information -– information they do not need and constitutionally should not have –- is a recipe for disaster for our nation.

You see, once “well-meaning” government bureaucrats know exactly how we live our lives, it won’t be long until they try to run them.

In fact, it will only be a matter of time until they spend their workdays making sure you and I don’t go anywhere we “shouldn’t,” buy anything we “shouldn’t,” read anything we “shouldn’t,” eat anything we “shouldn’t” or smoke anything we “shouldn’t.” . . .

[With all the anger being expressed against the federal government's recent power grabs,] the statists are [now] trying a bipartisan “backdoor” scheme to impose more control on American citizens.

They’re hoping that after months of Big Media mouthpieces decrying the “poisonous and partisan politics” in Washington, the American people will jump for joy at the sight of a Democrat from liberal New York and a Republican from conservative South Carolina “working together to solve our immigration mess.”

[Don't buy it!] . . .

Tate concludes his letter by urging us to sign a petition and make a contribution to help stop the Schumer-Graham legislation.

What do you think?

*******
For a relatively balanced presentation on the issues, see this article in The Wall Street Journal online.

And then there's this more recent update--that suggests immigration reform is "dead" for the remainder of this year.

Reality begins to make itself known . . .

Since the passage of the new health care legislation, several major U.S. companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M, have announced that they expect the law will cost them billions of dollars in higher health care expenses and so they have announced they are taking one-time charges on their first-quarter balance sheets. Democrat leaders accuse them of politicking and have said they would hold hearings in late April to investigate "claims by Caterpillar, Verizon, and Deere that provisions in the new health care reform law could adversely affect their company's ability to provide health insurance to their employees."

I hope they do hold the hearings . . . and that the CEOs will be well-prepared with detailed answers--far more detailed, I expect, than any of their congressional inquisitors might be expected to have!

One corporate lobbyist said the CEO of the firm he represents had attempted to forewarn the president and lawmakers.

My CEO sat with the president over lunch with two other CEOs, and each of them tried to explain to the president what this bill would do to our companies and the economy in general. First the president didn't understand what they were talking about. Then he basically told my boss he was lying.

It will be interesting to see what comes from the hearings!

I expect they will be quite revealing.

Neither Waxman or Stupak . . . had anything more than a cursory understanding of how the many sections of the bill would impact business or even individual citizens before they voted on the bill, says House Energy Democrat staff. "We had memos on these issues, but none of our people, we think, looked at them," says a staffer. "When they saw the stories last week about the charges some of the companies were taking, they were genuinely surprised and assumed that the companies were just doing this to embarrass them. They really believed this bill would immediately lower costs. They just didn't understand what they were voting on."

Do these guys really believe that they and their staff members are able--even in a 3,000-page document--to put together something in a couple of years that is more efficient and effective than what thousands of companies working independently for dozens of years have put together?

These stories are just now beginning to leak.

• Deere announcement;
   
• Caterpillar press release;
   
• Wall Street Journal article;
   
• Editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal;
   
• Article in The American Spectator.

Good for the goose, good for the gander?

You heard about the business owner who was visited earlier this month by two rather officious IRS agents over a supposed failure to pay four cents in income tax back in 2006. They demanded $202.35 to cover the four cents plus penalties and interest over the intervening years. (Crazy!)

And you've heard about President Obama's concern to ensure that no businesses that are delinquent in tax payments should receive federal contracts. (Good.)

Why is it, then, that Tim Geithner was approved as Secretary of the Treasury (yes, Treasury!) when he messed up on his taxes and permitted a woman to work for him illegally? When caught, he paid the taxes, but "the IRS waived the related penalties." (How nice for him! But how completely two-faced.)

And, though he eventually withdrew his name from the process for consideration, why does it seem that former Senator Tom Daschle was perfectly acceptable to the president as a candidate to become Secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services--despite his failure to pay $146,000 in back taxes? (!!!!)

And why was it only after massive pressure that Charlie Rangel finally--at least temporarily--stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (the committee responsible for writing tax legislation and bills affecting Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs), despite well-documented problems with his fundraising, major known tax evasion on property he owns in the Dominican Republic, and improper use of four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan?

But this one seems to take the cake: Earlier this month it comes out that nearly 100,000 federal employees (including 678 congressional staff members) owe just shy of a billion dollars in back taxes--and yet they can't be fired. (Include retirees and military service members, the numbers go from nearly 100,000 up to 276,000 current or former workers who owe $3 billion in taxes.)

So not only do federal employees, on average, make significantly more than their private economy peers (see also here), but, apparently, they are also permitted to steal from their employer, the federal government (and we the people who actually pay our taxes) without repercussions.

All those stimulus dollars: where are they going?

I was astonished, dismayed, and pleased to find an article that talked about where all the federal economic "stimulus" dollars are going.

Any surprise?

Proportionately, Washington, DC, is swimming in dough. It's having one of its best years ever.

First, in case you didn't know, the government is being at least somewhat transparent about its shenanigans. Check out www.recovery.gov. As someone said, "If this is the stuff they're willing to talk about, I'd hate to know what they're hiding!"

But the data is pretty raw.

So then I found out about the nonprofit investigative news outlet ProPublica. It has organized and reported the "stimulus"/"recovery" data per capita by state and county as of December 2009.

Very interesting.

In most states, the numbers aren't particularly remarkable. Thirty-five states are in the upper hundreds of dollars per person, most between $700 and $900 a person. Though Florida is at the bottom, with just under $650 per person. (Interesting, however, Florida is tied with Kentucky for 8th worst unemployment in the country (as of October last year)!)

There are 15 states with more than $1,000 per person in stimulus spending. One of those received well over $2,000 per person.

Guess which one?

Alaska! ($2,147.27 per capita.)

And then . . . there is Washington, DC.

$5,276.84 per capita in stimulus spending.

Poor Washington, DC!

As the guy who brought this to my attention commented, "The bureaucrats aren't helping the average American; they're feeding themselves from the taxpayer trough."

While we're on the subject, perhaps I should mention payscales. USA Today reports that "[f]ederal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% . . . during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. . . ."

Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

And the federal government dares to wag its fingers at the banks?

Look at this: The average employee of the federal government makes $71,206. And in the private sector? $40,331.

Do we really need government employees to be paid so much so they can serve us so . . . ahem! . . . poorly?

As the same guy who brought these things to my attention commented, concerning a trip he took out of Bozeman, MT (the third largest city in Montana; the metropolitan area population is less than 100,000; the entire state has a population of slightly less than a million!):

I watched 14 Transportation Security Agency (TSA) workers stand around at the security gates to process a plane of only 40 or so passengers. . . .

For my flight, three ladies stood at the gate entrance. One checked my driver's license, while talking loudly to the other two next to her about the weekend. I'm certain I could have handed her someone else's library card and gotten through.

Next up was the guy at the front of the conveyor belt. He was pushing the plastic bins down the belt and into the chemical/electronic detector, repeatedly saying: "Are your liquids and gels out?"

What a farce! I've walked on board with mouthwash and juice bottles accidentally stuffed in jacket pockets or carry-on bag pouches.

We're paying these people to sit around and do nothing. It's embarrassing that anyone thinks this group can protect us from anything.

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--For another take on the stimulus programs, see Do Direct Stimulus Jobs Really Cost $533,000 Apiece?!