Taxes are for the little people to pay

Senators don’t like being asked questions about paying their own taxes. This should come as no surprise. The Obama cabinet picks have looked amateurish and bad because of this issue, but those from the GOP are not lilly white in comparison.

Last week, Politico asked the offices of all 99 sitting senators to say who prepares their taxes, whether they or the Internal Revenue Service has ever discovered an error on returns they’ve filed, and whether they’ve ever had to pay back taxes.

Of the 56 senators who have responded to the survey, eight said that mistakes have been made on their tax returns, and six said they have paid back taxes. Thirty senators said that no mistakes have been discovered on their returns and that they’ve never paid back taxes — at least to the best of their recollection.

The offices of two senators — Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — told Politico that they would not answer the survey questions. The offices of Kyl and 42 other senators — 17 Republicans, 24 Democrats and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) — failed to respond at all.

Some Senate offices took issue with the line of questioning, saying it was either unfair or an invasion of privacy. Aides to one senator told Politico that they considered the survey “presumptuous and intrusive.” Some Senate press secretaries encouraged others not to respond to the survey.

It amuses me that some of these “leaders” got all huffy at the question. They must not realize that the citizenry holds the lowest approval ratings ever toward Congress and more and more of us are becoming distrustful of our government (I arrived at that point quite some time ago). Their hubris is telling. Never trust the government!

Common sense lacking in D.C.

Though we have little in common I very much respect Camile Paglia’s point of view on things. Her latest column in Slate speaks (in part) toward what is going on in D.C.

Surely common sense would dictate that when Congress is doling out fat dollops of taxpayers’ money, due time should be delegated for sober consideration and debate. The administration’s coercive rush toward instant action, accompanied by apocalyptic pronouncements of imminent catastrophe, has put its own credibility on the line.

Amen! Why the hasty rush to spend trillions? Even the people pushing these disasters say they cannot promise that they will work, so why are they doing this? They have to know that the actions being taken now will place a crushing debt upon the nation (and its tax-paying citizens) in the near future and still they push forward with spending plans that the candidly admit may or may not work. And even if they do work they will only do so in the immediate short-term, leaving us to figure out what to do down the road. When we will still have none of our own money to spend and an enormous wall of debt to deal with.

The best thing that President Obama, Secretary Geithner, and Grand Poobah Larry Summers can do, at this point, is judiciously allocate the remaining $350 billion where it is most needed and let the cleansing process run its course, as calmly and as peacefully as possible.

Then get out of the way.

That quote is from William D. Cohan, and it makes more sense than what we are doing. I fail to see the wisdom or logic in proceeding to spend trillions in a questionable attempt to stop economic collapse when, if the spending fails, collapse comes anyway and we’re left with no money and more debt. Even if we win we lose.

And atop the dubious rationale for this spending the stimulus contains earmarks (i.e. pork), such as $300 million for the government purchase of electric golf carts and $5 million for new TSA uniforms. This after President Obama promised us that the stimulus would be free of earmarks and stated as much in his first televised presser.

Insanity

Conventional wisdom states that insanity is repeating the same behavior despite the same results over and over again. That sounds more like stupidity to me. True insanity is behaving in a way that defies common sense, norms and known outcomes. Insanity is doing something that makes no sense and having no logical explanation for why you did it.

The government programs for TARP, bailouts and the stimulus are all insane. They will not bring us out of the economic crisis and therefore defy logic and common sense. To be sure, I hope I am entirely wrong about that but I doubt that I will be. Moreover, even if they work they will leave us with a legacy of debt that has never before been seen by this nation. It will be a yoke that rests upon the necks of future generations, and which they would no doubt curse us for leaving them.

I predict the following:

1. That these government financial interventions will not work

2. That by the end of his first term in office the public will feel betrayed by President Obama, whose presidency will be seen as an enormous failure.

3. That there will be a huge backlash against the Democrats, who control Congress and the Oval Office.

4. That the GOP will become inept and unable to respond with any power to the epic failure of the Democrats.

I wish that this would result in the rise of a third party with libertarian views who would come forth and state that they had been trying to warn us that what we faced would happen for a long time, but no one would listen. That party would then ask, “Have you had enough of the Democrats and Republicans? Are you ready for true change? Will you give us a shot at genuine leadership now?”

Alas, my final prediction is that the nation will be too far gone for any resurrection to occur. The so-called “Great Experiment” is about to end by going down in flames. All of you who trusted in your government are culpable in this too.

Thank you, President Obama, for proving my point

The overall intention of this blog is to show that the government is not trustworthy. In his presentation last night President Obama helped bolster my claim. He stated early on that the stimulus bill contains no earmarks or pork, but that is a distortion of the truth. This article shows that earmarks are indeed present in the stimulus plan. It also addresses the President’s claims that his administration has high standards (wrong again Mr. President).

PolitiFact agrees that there are earmarks in the stimulus and gives the claim that they are not a false rating. Here is yet another site that comes to the same conclusion.

Of course, none of this apparently matters to any of us, or so says Sen. Chuck Schumer:

Chuck Schumer also proves the point of this blog, along with the fact that he’s an arrogant idiot who is obviously too far separated and insulated from the average tax-paying U.S. citizen. Let’s not lose sight of the main issue with the stimulus plan, the matter of earmarks aside. Will it actually work? I don’t believe it will accomplish what it intends to, nor will the bailouts. And whether I am right or wrong about that there can be no dispute that the end result of this spending mania will be a larger government that has a controlling interest in major corporations, a recipe for future disaster. So too, the resulting debt from having borrowed all of this money will be a yoke around the neck of future generations. I am legitimately fearful for what lay ahead for my two young sons.

First link added

Actually it’s the second link, but these pages come with WordPress.com already listed. The new link is to a site called Read The Stimulus. It proves that the stimulus bill is a crap sandwich. That site links to a graphic published by WaPo that illustrates the stimulus plan. It’s mind blowing.

The “hope and change” that you voted for

Jack Kelly has written an excellent opinion piece in the Washington Times.

When in the last election Democrats spoke of a “culture of corruption” in Washington, few realized they were making a campaign promise.

I truly desire that a huge number of Americans who voted for Barak Obama (and/or other Democrats, because they bought into the angle that the Dems were the party of forthrightness) see clearly just how corrupt our government is. And I truly hope they become jaded and disillusioned by what they see. Why? So they will stop trusting in these people to run their lives and fix their problems. I want Americans to be distrustful of their government and to fear it, not betroth themselves to it. This is what the founders wanted as well and it’s what made this nation great. Sadly, we are throwing it all away as we worship at the altar of our government god. Just listen to the last comments made by this woman, who clearly has bought into the notion that government knows best.

You don’t really want nationalized health care

Take it from a Canadian who lives with it…we don’t want to go down that road.

Canadians often wait months or even years for necessary care. For some, the status quo has become so dire that they have turned to the courts for recourse. Several cases currently before provincial courts provide studies in what Americans could expect from government-run health insurance.

Not only is the care worse, but it is yet one more intrusion upon liberty.

The cases find their footing in a landmark ruling on Quebec health insurance in 2005. The Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadians suffer physically and psychologically while waiting for treatment in the public health-care system, and that the government monopoly on essential health services imposes a risk of death and irreparable harm. The Supreme Court ruled that Quebec’s prohibition on private health insurance violates citizen rights as guaranteed by that province’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

In the wake of the 2005 ruling, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have tried unsuccessfully to fix the long wait times by introducing selective benchmarks and guarantees along with large increases in funding. The benchmarks and the guarantees aren’t ambitious: four to eight weeks for radiation therapy; 16 to 26 weeks for cataract surgery; 26 weeks for hip and knee replacements and lower-urgency cardiac bypass surgery.

Swell. Notice that the Canadian government has the same mindset as our own: there is a problem so let’s increase funding. That response isn’t working, but then it never does. So if you want nationalized health care (and apparently the masses have been brainwashed to believe we do) here is a glimpse of what you are in for. Do you want to wait 1-2 months for radiation therapy if you are battling cancer? Six or more months for cardiac bypass surgery? And who determines whether your cardiac case is low or high urgency? Do you have any recourse if you disagree with that ruling? Can you seek a second opinion?

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Arlen Specter ‘splains himself

He wrote a piece at WaPo stating why he supports the stimulus plan. You can read it here if you wish, but I can sum it up succinctly and spare you the time. Specter, and seemingly the rest of Congress, believes two falsehoods: that government creates jobs and that the proper reaction to any economic problem is to throw gobs of money at it.

The only jobs government can create are government jobs, which necessarily increases the size and expense of government. Those jobs are funded by taxpayer dollars, whereas private sector jobs are funded by business. So unless we are going to put millions on the government payroll and have all of us fund their salaries and benefits, the government will NOT create jobs. And it should have become apparent to everyone in the past 30 years that simply throwing money at a problem doesn’t help at all. We’ve done that with our education system and it’s gotten progressively worse, as but one example.

Arlen Specter and those who think like him are bad for our economy and bad for the United States.

How big is the stimulus bill? No one knows.

Wonderful. And it’s not as if our “leaders” are being transparent with the information either so chances are good we will never know. What we do know is that it’s enormous, that the bill is over 700 pages long and that those who will be voting for it have precious little time to actually read it and understand what they will be voting for.

Congress continues to heavily mortgage our future and lay at the feet of future generations a massive and intolerable debt.

Someone took the time to examine the stimulus plan…

…and found quite an embarassing ingredient within. I mentioned already that those that want this stimulus plan to pass are trying to rush it through via fearmongering. Our “leaders” would do well to give careful consideration to what this plan will bring.

You have to wind your way through it (it is a government bill after all) but if you do you’ll find that embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blogojevich has a hand in a $2 billion earmark within the stimulus. National Review Online did what our “leaders” will not do (or they are corrupt and simply don’t care) and discovered this nugget within the stimulus package. Not only is their a tie-in with Blogojevich, the money is supposed to go toward something that A) doesn’t exist and B) won’t come to exist any time in the forseeable future. And as NRO points out, the amount involved here is 9 times greater than the much-maligned “bridge to nowhere”.