We Can’t Wait – For November, 2012, To Get Here [Reader Post]
President Barack H. Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress. Obama and his advisers are beginning 2012 with a renewed sense of …
Unemployment Manipulation and Chicanery [Reader Post]
Ed Luce wrote in the Financial Times, “According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.” Remember that the unemployment rate is not how many people don’t have jobs (the U6 rate of 15.6%), but how many people don’t have jobs and are actively looking for a job (the U3 rate of 8.6%). Luce continued, “Last month, unemployment fell from 9 percent to 8.6 percent… more than half of the fall was accounted for by a decrease in the numbers ‘actively seeking’ work. The 315,000 who dropped out of the labour market far exceeded the 120,000 new jobs.”
End of Social Security As We Know It? [Reader Post]
The US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday (December 13, 2011) a bill that had in it a key Social Security tax component that Obama favors: it would keep 160 million workers from seeing their payroll tax go up on January 1, 2012, from this year’s 4.2% back to 6.2%. The bill ignores Democrat proposals to place a surtax on people earning more than $1 million annually to offset the payroll tax non-increase. BTW, because the bill also has a clause in it about the Keystone XL pipeline, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “It was dead before it got to the Senate. The Senate will not pass it.”
SSI: The New Welfare, Exempt From “Trigger” Cuts [Reader Post]
We have all heard lately about the “supercommittee,” its charge, and, if it isn’t successful, pulling the spending “trigger.” Defense has the most to lose from triggered cuts, as this source illustrates. Leon Panetta, head of the Department of Defense (DOD) and no bastion of conservatism, called the trigger “draconian” and “devastating” and said that it will “hollow out” the military. The worst thing, Panetta said, is that the cuts “invite aggression.”
FDR, Democrat Hero or Conservative? [Reader Post]
I just finished reading An American Life, the autobiography of Ronald Reagan. The book was given to me by my oldest daughter, and I enjoyed it very much.
What do Ronald Reagan’s autobiography and FDR have in common? After reading this, see if you agree with me.
At the end of page 66 and on page 67 of the (hardcover) book, Ronald Reagan is remembering FDR’s 1932 presidential campaign. Reagan says, “With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America.
Taxes versus Tax Rates [Reader Post]
While it is true, as the OWS gang claims, that the “rich” are making more of the income (20%), they are also paying most of the income taxes (38%). Since 1980 the rich’s share of income has doubled, but so have income taxes. Those making at least $114,000 in 2008 (the last complete year from the IRS), earned 45% of the nation’s income, and paid 70% of all taxes. The top 25% of earners, those earning at least $67,200, took in 67% of the income, and paid 86% of the income tax total. The average income tax rate paid by those in the bottom half of the income scale is only 2.6%. Couple those facts with the fact that, in 2010, 47% of households paid no income tax. In fact, some in that group will be getting money from the federal government.
U.N. – For What Are We Paying? [Reader Post]
Did you know that American taxpayers, through “assessed” dues, account for 22% of the United Nation‘s (U.N.) regular operating budget, and 27% of a separate peacekeeping budget? For comparison, China pays just 3%. The U.N. “proposes” an operating budget in 2012-2013 of $5.5 billion, and that currently employs 10,307 people. In 2010, U.S. payments totaled $3.35 billion, of which $2.67 billion was dedicated to the 16 peacekeeping operations worldwide. Additionally, the U.S. provides voluntarily billions of dollars in contributions for various U.N. agencies. Here is just one example.
Operation Wide Receiver: It Was Different [Reader Post]
By now everyone has heard of Operation Fast and Furious, and how the Congressional investigation of it is getting closer and closer to Attorney General Eric Holder. But did you know that Operation Fast and Furious was not the first such operation? Operation Wide Receiver, predecessor of Fast and Furious, was an operation during the George W. Bush administration.
“Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.” Ronald Reagan [Reader Post]
If the government does not tax you on something, is it giving you a subsidy? Many politicians and the general public often answers yes. The premise underlying this Marxist view is that government owns all wealth and property, and only through its benevolence may you be allowed to use some of it. Liberal politicians often imply that a tax break is the same as a subsidy. However, a tax break is an instance of government taking no action, when the government keeps its hands off your property. A subsidy, by contrast, occurs when the government actively distributes tax money. Subsidization is a positive and destructive action taken by government.
Is AMTRAK A Model Of How High Speed Rail Will Be Managed? [Reader Post]
President Barack Obama wants to “stimulate” the economy through infrastructure spending. High on his list is “high speed rail.” (HSR) He has even compared this country to China regarding lack of high speed rail. So, with Obama’s desire in mind, I thought a look at AMTRAK and the subsidies it receives might be in order. It can be argued that AMTRAK was not designed to be high speed rail, and that is true. However, I think that it can serve as a good model of how the government will manage high speed rail.