OBAMA’S LATEST BUDGET WOULD TAX YOU MORE THAN EVER IN U.S. HISTORY

April 30, 2015

IJReview: By Michael Hausam

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot: “The good news? None of the Obama’s budget proposals have ever come close to passing Congress, including when the Democrats held the House and Senate during Obama’s first two years.

So it’s incredibly improbable that this one will, either. But it does give insight into what he wants to happen. Thank God, the Constitution doesn’t allow presidents to use their pens to simply sign budgets into law.”

IJReview

By Michael Hausam

Warning: This contains a bunch of mind-boggling gigantic numbers that we’ll try to make understandable!

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just released its analysis of the budget proposal that President Obama presented last month. The result: it would yield the highest level of sustained taxation in the history of the country. Over the next 10 years, taxes would grow from 17.6% of gross domestic product to 18.7%. As current GDP is just under $17 trillion, that means annual taxes would be $3.1 trillion, or $9,804 for every American.

Here’s a graph showing taxes as a percentage of GDP since 1930:

In addition, the federal debt would increase by $7.2 trillion over that time. That’s like saying the debt will increase by $82.2 million per hour for 3,650 days or $22,831 per second, over the next 315 million seconds.

This graph shows what the debt increases would look like over the next ten years:

Some historical perspective:

• From 1930 to 1941 (preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor) taxes averaged 5.3% of GDP

• During World War 2 the average was 16.1%

• From 1946 through 2013 taxes averaged 17.1%

• From 1992 through 2013 taxes averaged 18.3% (note that the federal budget was balanced from 1998 – 2001)*This was the direct result of Hillary Clinton’s failed attempt to push forward her socialized medicine plan at the time dubbed, “Hillary Care.”

• As a result the Republicans took back the House of Representatives, the first time in over forty years, turning it over to Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House. His contract with America forced Bill Clinton to move toward the center, taxes were cut and predictably economic growth followed.

• Revisionist historians  like Howard Zinn, would have you believe that the balanced budget was the result of William Jefferson’s policies when nothing could have been further from the truth.

There is a classic scene in Dinesh Souza’s movie “America.”  Tony Soprano’s son is reading out loud from the history book by Howard Zinn and Tony isn’t buying anything the son is telling him. 

The son said, “It’s true, it says so in my history book and my teacher is teaching us the same.

If you haven’t seen the Soprano’s it’s a serious comedy about the mob with Tony Soprano being the mob boss.

One get’s the distinct impression, the elder soprano is about to grab a baseball bat, go down to the school board in set the historical record as he knows it straight by crushing some skulls. 

***FBI Files revealed Howard Zinn to be a member of the communist party.***

Nothing much seems to have changed among the so-called academics in our universities.

More at IJReview

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.

Happy Tax Day: Here Are 5 Outrageous Ways Washington Is Spending YOUR Money…

April 15, 2015

Rare: by Jonathan Bydlak

Today is Tax Day, and all across America, people are taking a deep breath and signing over hundreds or even thousands of their hard-earned dollars to the U.S. government. It would be difficult enough if the entity we were all donating to were known for its wise spending practices.

We know, though, that this is hardly the case. So on this Tax Day, I thought it would be helpful to review some instances of just how broken government spending truly is. Some have been going on since the beginning of this tax year – or longer – while others, we’re just finding out about. The government, it seems, never runs out of ways to waste your money. Here are just five of the most egregious examples.

1. Nearly $1 Trillion on Broken Planes

It’s hard to make a list of wasteful spending without mentioning the disastrous F-35, which has been called “exceptionally dumb.” At times almost resembling satire from The Onion, these planes are so bad they sometimes catch fire when trying to take off and can’t even maneuver in combat because of major design flaws. It’s no surprise that other aircraft are being used in current military missions against ISIS. The F-35 system is simultaneously way behind schedule and already outdated.

What should surprise fiscal conservatives, though, is how much it’s costing us. This system is the most expensive in history, racking up at least twice as much as it did to put a man on the moon. It counts for an eye-popping 38 percent of Pentagon procurement spending and is expected to cost one-and-a-half trillion dollars over its lifetime. But, helped along by hefty campaign donations, Congress just keeps buying broken planes.

If you’re asking how it’s possible for such a culture of waste to exist, look no further than…

2. The $20,000 Lawnmowers

You read that right.

Earlier this year, the Coalition to Reduce Spending came across a startling official Army contract in which the U.S. Army dropped $39,800.00 for two “4 wheel drive lawnmowers.”

This isn’t the first time the Pentagon has paid questionable prices for everyday items. For example, the Department of Defense famously paid $8,000 per piece on helicopter parts that were worth only about $500. And let’s not forget the time U.S. taxpayers paid contractors $1,000 each – for $7 control switches used on buildings in Iraq.

The overspending at the Pentagon is so problematic that it has begun to cause other issues, such as the well-documented civil rights controversy after small local police departments were gifted leftover high-grade military equipment.

These instances – and many more – should give fiscal conservatives ample reason to raise an eyebrow next time someone claims that keeping us safe means we just have to hike spending.

But I should be clear: the Pentagon is hardly an anomaly when it comes to wasteful spending.

Consider for example…

3. $17 Million on Overpriced Homes for Border Agents

Last September, news broke that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been paying, well, luxuriously on homes for agents.

An Inspector General report found that officials wasted around $680,000 each on homes that had sold for less than $100,000 the previous year. Meanwhile, around $2.4 million more in taxpayer money went to buy 20 mobile homes –18 of which sat empty.

Speaking of homes, we shouldn’t forget…

4. Farm Subsidies to Wealthy Penthouse-Owning Manhattanites

Problems with the Farm Bill are well-documented, but last year, the system hit perhaps a new low when it was revealed that wealthy New Yorker – and Bachelor star – Chris Soules had raked in nearly $400,000 in farm subsidies.

Although the USDA set out to fix this issue of city slicker farm welfare, the problems are hardly over. Rich corporate farmers continue to rake in the vast majority of subsidies originally intended to help struggling family farms. Meanwhile, you and I pay for it.

If the government were a business, it would be a bankrupt one. But unlike businesses, government agencies don’t operate with regular standards of accountability. We found out yesterday that…

5. Federal Employees Can’t Really Be Fired After Sex Parties

Yesterday, Representative Mick Mulvaney questioned Drug Enforcement Agency Commissioner Michele Leonhart about why she was unable to fire employees caught up in prostitution scandals. As the uncomfortable exchange revealed, Commissioner Leonhart does not appear confident which “deciding agents” could fire employees and how the complicated process would be carried out.

In fact, as reports show, it is nearly impossible to fire bad federal workers.

The problems with government spending are complicated and diverse. This list is just a small snapshot of the true scope of the problem. Watchdogs and activists on both sides of the political aisle point out that government money is too often spent very poorly.

The kicker, though, as we’re reminded every April 15, is that it’s not “government money” in the first place. It’s our money.

More at Rare

Disclosure: This article was not written by Lorra B.

Here Are 8 Good Reasons We Should Abolish The IRS

(Screenshot Credit, Rare)

April 7, 2015

Rare: by Merrill Matthews

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen recently told The Hill that Congress can’t abolish the IRS.

But looking at the long list of IRS abuses, something needs to be done. Consider some of the revelations that have emerged just over the past few years.

Many IRS employees haven’t paid their taxes.

Even as the IRS demands you pay your taxes, the Washington Post reported a year ago:

The [Inspector General] report said more than 1,100 employees who failed to pay their taxes received discretionary awards of more than $1 million in cash bonuses and more than 10,000 hours in extra paid vacation.

At least five employees received performance awards after being disciplined for intentionally under-reporting their tax liabilities for multiples years, paying taxes late and under-reporting income.

So IRS employees can cheat on their taxes and be financially rewarded for it. What rank hypocrisy! Question: If I fail to pay my taxes will the IRS give me a bonus—or jail time?

They wasted money making Star Trek videos.

Remember when we found out two years ago that IRS employees had spent at least $60,000 making Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island “training videos”?

Those videos hinted at the problem of the agency’s willingness to have a good time on the taxpayers’ dime. Another IG report found, “In all, the agency spent nearly $50 million on employee conferences from 2010 through 2012.”

They’re stealing from taxpayers.

At least the misspending mentioned above was lawful, if inappropriate. But the New York Post’s headline regarding a 2013 IG report said it all: “IRS employees used company credit cards to buy close to $500,000 in wine, internet porn, diet pills and more.”

To be sure, the IG found the vast majority of credit card uses were appropriate. But many weren’t. And I’ll bet none of them were severely reprimanded.

They rehire questionable employees.

But at least if these problematic IRS employees leave, or get fired, they’re gone for good, right? Um…from Forbes:

The Inspector General identified hundreds of rehires despite prior substantiated conduct or performance issues. Some were serious. They ranged from unpaid taxes, unauthorized access to taxpayer information, leave abuse, falsification of official forms, unacceptable performance, misuse of IRS property, and off-duty misconduct.

Agents often abuse the public.

Congress passed legislation in 1998 that prohibited IRS supervisors from using quotas such as property seizures as a way of evaluating agent performance. So how’s that working out?

But the TIGTA [Inspector General] report said some IRS supervisors still use such records when evaluating their workers, while others have used the amount of money or property seizures their employees collected as an alternative means of establishing quotas.

They’re unionized liberals.

NewsMax points out that 96 percent of IRS employees’ PAC contributions go to Democrats:

TEPAC [Treasury Dept. union’s PAC, which includes IRS], which receives voluntary contributions from IRS employees who are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union, gave a total of $583,912 to federal candidates, only 4 percent of which went to Republicans, according to a syndicated column written by Jeff Bergner, a former federal official.

And they are doing union work on the taxpayers’ dollar.

The NewsMax article continues:

Meanwhile, there are 200 union representatives employed by the IRS who are paid salaries by the taxpayer, not through union dues. Some earn in excess of $100,000 per year to exclusively focus on union work, according to Bergner.

In total, the cost to taxpayers for IRS union work in 2013 was $23.5 million, and added up to 573,319 man hours.

So they use your tax dollars to pay themselves to work to elect Democrats who will give them more of your tax dollars.

Some employees target conservatives.

So maybe it’s clearer now why partisans like former IRS manager Lois Lerner harassed, slow-walked, and ignored conservative-leaning organizations’ tax-exempt applications. Oh, and the Justice Department just announced it won’t be prosecuting her.

The IRS has some 87,000 employees, and many if not most are dedicated civil servants who do their best to serve the public. While none of these eight transgressions—though there are many more—individually would be enough to scrap the IRS, it’s clear the agency is beset with problems that won’t be solved quickly or easily—especially by smirking, condescending, and dishonest commissioners, and we’ve see a bunch of that lately.

So even if the government needs some agency to handle the task of collecting taxes, it doesn’t have to be the current IRS. It’s time to wipe the slate clean and start over with a new, much smaller agency with limited duties and an equally limited budget.

In other words, Congress should take Koskinen up on his challenge and abolish the IRS.

More at Rare

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.

IRS Admits They Will Pay Refunds To Illegal Aliens Who Never Paid Taxes….

(Screenshot Credit, The Last Refuge)

February 13, 2015

The Last Refuge:

WASHINGTON DC – IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty.

The revelation — which contradicts what he told Congress last week — comes as lawmakers also raised concerns Mr. Obama’s amnesty could open a window to illegal immigrants finding ways to vote, despite it being against the law.

“While we may disagree about whether your deferred action programs were lawfully created and implemented, we are confident that we can all agree that these programs cannot be permitted to impair the integrity of our elections,” Republican members of Congress from Ohio wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama Wednesday, ahead of a hearing on the issue in the House on Thursday.

Mr. Obama’s new deportation policies, which carve most illegal immigrants out of danger of being removed, and could proactively grant as many as 4 million illegal immigrants work permits and Social Security numbers, are increasingly under fire for ancillary consequences such as tax credits and competition for jobs. (read more)

Whoot…..”lucky day, lucky day”!!!

More at The Last Refuge:

Taxes Based On BODY WEIGHT—Another Jonathan Gruber Proposal

February 5, 2015

By Lorra B.

Jonathan Gruber is back in the news with another idea to which most Americans will likely not react kindly. I will go out on a limb and say this may be the most insulting statement Gruber has made as he suggests a health care tax based on body weight.

Gruber stated, “Ultimately, what may be needed to address the obesity problem are direct taxes on body weight. While it is hard to conceive of this approach being a common public policy tool in the near term, such taxation may be happening indirectly through health insurance surcharges. Currently, employers may charge up to 20 percent higher health insurance premiums for employees who fail to meet certain health-related standards, such as attaining a healthy BMI. The new health reform legislation increases this differential to 30 percent, with the possibility of rising to 50 percent. Results of programs that use differential premiums to impose direct financial penalties for obesity will bear watching in the future.

How will this look exactly? Will be have a end-of-year mass weigh in with certified weighers? Or, will it be a twice a year thing with flags throw for encroachments as the obese take up a bit too much space and, therefore, penalties then given?

Will these new taxes apply to illegal aliens or minorities or will they be let off the hook because they have discrimination issues that have caused their obesity? No seriously, states FrontPage Mag.

This idea has been suggested before and according to Rare, “there are more attractive variations of the idea. Dubai, for instance, pays citizens a gram of gold for every 2.2 pounds they lose. The program paid out more than $700,000 worth of gold in 2013.”

You can read the piece in full here.

Is Gruber’s idea of higher taxation on the obese a good idea or does it go too far and press a bit against our civil liberties?
 

[Watch] OBAMA AMNESTY QUALIFIES 2 MILLION ILLEGALS FOR TAX BREAKS, BENEFITS

image Credits: Joe Crimmings / Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 16, 2015

Christian Patriots: by Daniel Crane

More than 2 million illegal immigrants will be approved for President Obama’s deportation amnesty over the next few years, and they will be eligible to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as claim a special tax break for low-income families, the Congressional Budget Office said in an analysis Thursday.

Mr. Obama predicted that up to 5 million illegal immigrants could be eligible for his amnesties, but the CBO numbers predict only 2.25 million will have signed up and been approved by 2017.

The estimate was released as the administration defended the law in a federal court in Texas on Thursday, asking a judge to reject a request by Texas and two dozen other states to halt the program even before it gets started.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen, sitting in Brownsville, said he won’t rule before the end of the month. Applications for the first part of the amnesty are scheduled to begin in the middle of February.

 

 

“There aren’t any bad guys in this,” Judge Hanen told attorneys for both sides, according to The Brownsville Herald. He gave no indication of which way he is leaning in the thorny case, which is likely to determine Mr. Obama’s legacy on immigration.

Texas and its allies argue that Mr. Obama overstepped his legal bounds in November when he announced a program to halt deportations for illegal immigrant parents who have legal resident or U.S. citizen children, and to expand a 2012 amnesty for illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

To win, the states first must prove that they were injured by the amnesty, which would give them “standing” to sue. Then they must prove that Mr. Obama’s actions are either unconstitutional because they try to rewrite the laws, which is Congress’ job, or else they are official policies that should have been submitted to the public for comment and revisions before they were enacted.

Administration attorneys told Judge Hanen that Mr. Obama isn’t rewriting law, but rather deciding whom to prosecute under it based on his powers of prosecutorial discretion. The attorneys say presidents going back to the 1950s have used similar powers to halt deportations, albeit on smaller scales.

The Obama administration said if it declares most illegal immigrants off limits for deportation, it will be easier to pursue the recent illegal immigrants and the serious felons who won’t qualify for the leniency
Written by STEPHEN DINAN | THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Read more at THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Image Credits: Joe Crimmings / Flickr

 

Jonathan Gruber claims that if you like single-payer Obamacare has to succeed

December 2, 2014

America’s Watchtower:

 Jonathan Gruber has been out of the news for a few weeks now but he’s back because another video has surfaced. This video shows clips of him at two different events–one from 2012 and one from 2014–and I think they are quite interesting to say the least.

  In the 2012 clip Jonathan Gruber basically states that if Obamacare fails we will have to revisit single-payer but in the 2014 clip he seems to reverse himself when he claims that is actually backwards and “if you like single-payer then Obamacare has to succeed.”

Many of us believe that Obamacare was designed to eventually lead the nation into a single-payer system and this appears to prove what we have been saying all along. The deception continues…

Here is the video:

SHOCKER: U.S. Tax-break Package To Get One-year Extension: Representative Ryan

December 2, 2014

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.

In a stunning move by the White House, Obama has apparently agreed to hold tax rates down for one year.

                                                                                          The Marx Brothers

Making them permanent of course would go against his Marxist mentality of continued crippling of the United States’ economy.

“To each according to his need,” shared misery for all.

Reuters

By Emily Stephenson

Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) walks from a Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that lawmakers plan to extend special business tax breaks for one year after Barack Obama threatened to veto a longer-term proposal that was in bipartisan negotiations.

“The president blew it up, so we’re just going to do a clean, one-year deal,” said Ryan, a Republican who will lead the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee next year.

####

Obamacare: The cost of the most popular plans to RISE 10% in 2015

NOVEMBER 24, 2014

 America’s Watchtower:

 We all know that there is nothing in Obamacare which addressed the issue about cost despite Barack Obama’s promise that the average family of four would save about $2,500 once his plan was passed.

Now it is being reported in this story that the cost of the most popular Obamacare plans is going to rise about 10% in 2015.

Here is more:

The rate hike may come as a surprise to many Obamacare customers whose plans will automatically be renewed if they fail to make changes.

“Many plans that priced attractively last year are playing catch up for 2015,” said Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson. “Consumers who care about costs need to shop.”

  With the plans playing “catch up” (almost makes you think the rates were kept artificially lower in order to draw people into Obamacare, doesn’t it?) people who have chosen to auto-renew their policies will see an increase they did not expect when the bill comes due.

However, if you are one of the people who chose the auto-renewal option have no fear because the Department of Health and Human Services has a plan to help you keep your costs down, and no it does not include additional subsidies but it does include another deception.

The HHS is drawing up new rules which would allow them to auto-renew you into a different, lower cost plan without telling you. Of course this lower cost insurance comes with higher out of pocket costs. When it comes down to a choice of higher costs or inferior insurance it is a choice between the lesser of two evils, but by taking away this choice by hiding it in the aut0-renewal they are banking once again on the “stupidity of the American voter” and hoping that nobody will notice yet another Obamacare deception.

Is it time for a national sales tax?

November 22, 2014

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.

I’ve noticed that the critics have the common characteristic of being at best ill-informed and at worst ignorant.

That is, their complaints are invalid and result from their misunderstanding.

(Steve Forbes is the poster-child for this group)

The main way to eradicate the IRS would be to write it into the law and have congress unfund any vestiges of said agency.

The IRS’s motto: “You are guilty because we say so until you prove yourselves innocent.

 

Published on Nov 18, 2014

The FairTax would replace the income tax and payroll taxes with a national sales tax and provide a rebate ensuring that no American pays tax on spending up to the poverty level.

 

It would simplify the tax code, promote economic growth and improve the international competitiveness of U.S. businesses. The FairTax currently has 75 cosponsors in the House.

The FairTax has been criticized for being insufficiently progressive. Others are concerned that a sales tax and an income tax could coexist, allowing politicians to grow government.

Still others believe it is too dramatic a change to be politically feasible. Join us as Representative Woodall makes the case for the FairTax and a panel of experts provides their view.