Tag Archives: government

Happy Tax Slave Day, 2017

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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Just a reminder that your 1040 is due today. Normally the joyous day of imperial compliance falls of the 15th of April. This year, as some, that date fell on the weekend. Thus, the magnanimous government gave you a few extra days to file. And, if you owe more than you’ve already paid, remember to pay that balance too.

Some don’t pay at all:

In tax year 2014, according to a report published by the Internal Revenue Service, the federal government hauled in a then-record $1,377,797,136,000 in individual income taxes.

Nonetheless, of the 148,606,578 individual income tax return filers that year, 52,062,499 filed what the IRS calls “nontaxable returns,” which means they paid no net individual income taxes.

Among these 52,062,499 filers who did not pay income taxes in 2014, according to Table 3.3 in the report, were 31,129,405 filers who also received $90,276,007,000 in payments from the federal government for “refundable” tax credits.

“In total, taxpayers claimed $105.6 billion in refundable tax credits,” said the IRS report. “Of this, $5.5 billion was applied against income taxes and $9.8 billion against all other taxes. The remaining $90.3 billion in refundable tax credits was refunded to taxpayers.”

“Tax credits are use to offset taxes,” the report explains. “Certain tax credits are also refundable in that if the credit exceeds the total tax owed, the excess can be refunded to the taxpayer.”

One example of a refundable tax credit is the “Earned Income Tax Credit.” “The Earned Income Tax Credit for 2014,” the IRS explains, “was a maximum of $496 for taxpayers with no qualifying children, $3,305 for one qualifying child, $5,460 for two qualifying children, and $6,143 for taxpayers with three or more qualifying children.”

For a married couple filing jointly to be eligible for the EIC in 2014, said the IRS, “earned income and adjusted gross income had to be less than $43,941 for one child, $49,186 for two children and $52,427 for three children or more.”

A married couple with two children earning $50,000 or more would not qualify for this refundable credit.

Thirty-five percent of workers pay no taxes at all. Add in those who could work, but don’t, and we have something approaching half the population paying nothing, no skin in the game. They still vote, however. Their votes cancel out those of the people who actually pay for the government.

All of this was envisioned back in 1913, when the income tax was federally instituted, and earlier when the communists plotted the downfall of the West. The plans are working seamlessly.

Oddly, the country somehow managed to exist and to grow, wildly, without any income taxes. In reality, as in history, it should be 100% paying no taxes.

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If you can believe it, there was a time when only one was guaranteed. Sovereign Man.

But, here we are. Pay up!

So Complex It’s Simple

15 Saturday Apr 2017

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Only the U.S. government could rake in mind-boggling, record tax revenues and still run a deficit.

Despite collecting record amounts of individual income taxes and payroll taxes, the Treasury still ran a deficit of $526,855,000,000 in the first six months of fiscal 2017.

Also, even with record revenues from individual income taxes and payroll taxes in the first six months of fiscal 2017, overall federal tax collections were slightly down.

In the first six months of fiscal 2016, the federal government collected $1,513,124,070,000 (in constant 2017 dollars) in total taxes. In the first six months of this fiscal year, total federal tax collections have dropped to $1,473,137,000,000—a decline of about $39,987,070,000 from total tax collections in the first six months of fiscal 2016.

So much money and it’s still not enough. Thus, the debt grows apace.

The solution is simple: stop spending so much. Then again, as this cartoon, today, illustrates, the simple doesn’t always go over so well addressing the needlessly complex:

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Dustin / Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker.

The Topsy Turvy World of American Political Theater

13 Thursday Apr 2017

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Where to start? Where to start????

Mike Pompeo, new head of the secret police CIA came out with guns blazing today, hot after Wikileaks and their agency revelations.

Pompeo has in the past called for Snowden to receive the death penalty.

He said people at the CIA found praise for WikiLeaks “both perplexing and deeply troubling.”

“As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security,” Pompeo said. “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors, like Russia.”

During the question and answer portion of the event, Pompeo said because Assange was not a US citizen and lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, he “has no First Amendment freedoms.”

Odd. Odd. Odd. Odd. Very perplexing. Very odd, because, as the article explains, Pompeo was praising Wiki just last fall. Things change. No freedom of speech outside the U.S. Constitution? Shows a lack of understanding of the Constitution.

Elsewhere Pompeo (maybe on TeeVee) also claimed that U.S. citizens have nothing to fear from all the spying because the spy agencies do not spy on them. Well, they spied on Pompeo’s Boss, Donald J. Trump, and associates – the President and all … but you!, you little people have nothing to worry about….

Trump has pretty much dropped the spying allegations – even as more and more evidence comes forward to irrufutably prove them. Very odd. The media and the Democrats are a little quiet too – not so odd. Just after the Rice revelations surfaced, the Guardian presented evidence of British Intel involvement.

You read about that, here, last month, because I’m faster than the Guardian. Not as fast as Judge Napolitano, however. He blew the whistle first – and Fox fired him for it. I’ve heard no word of an apology from the Legs Network…

I supposed the “America First” White House has been preoccupied lately – what with bombing Syria, bombing Afghanistan, and preparing to bomb North Korea – all vital to Americans and their interests… All… Oops! Some of the bombs went a little off target. Not that anyone really knows what the target is. The important thing is that Raytheon, General Dynamics, and the banksters make money.

Healthcare reform has been slightly delayed. Tax cuts can wait a while. The wall can wait. Hilary’s still walking (stumbling?) free. Yeah… But Raytheon stock is up and the Goldman grip grows stronger by the day! There’s that.

The GOP is doing it’s part for the Big Club.

For their part,the Democrats are … doing something. I’ve got to give them a little blame here.

From the above, one might gather that now would be the time for the opposition party to strike back. If we had opposition, that might happen. We don’t.

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Considerably better looking than the previous alternative … and no email issues. NBC News.

The Dems have in their party a brilliant young female politician, one Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI). Female and minority – all the things they say they like. She’s a veteran. She knows what she’s talking about. She makes sense. She is 100% against foreign meddling and needless wars. And she’s pretty easy on the eyes too. Perfect, right? Sane, young, patriotic new blood, hottie in 2020?? No…

Naturally, the Donkey Party wants her kicked out of office, maybe locked away in an asylum or something.

As Carlin said, “this is the best we can do”.

State by State Guide to Tax Theft Rates

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

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Too often I focus on the criminal insanity emanating from Washington, D.C. The Empire also has 50 accomplices in the constant looting of your wallet. Martin Armstrong ran the numbers and came up with some informative maps.

Now filter in the State Income Taxes and what emerges is human nature. For all the people who complain about multinational companies moving offshore and then deny that it is tax related and try to characterize that as simply labor is cheaper, need to look more closely. The multinational companies I restructured we looked at the whole picture. Wages were a small part and only one component. What was the amount of social taxation on top of the wages, property taxes in a region, and then the corporate tax. Gee – it looks like the individual is making the same analysis.

The net migration of people within the United States mirrors the same thing taking place corporately on a global scale. They are leaving the highest taxed states and moving to the lower taxed states. Taxes are more than just what you pay, they push up the cost of living because everyone is paying a higher tax rate and raises all consumer goods. I took a friend out with his family down from NJ and they bought ice cream cones here in Florida. The bill was about half that of what they pay at the Jersey shore. I said see: high taxes ripple through everything within the economy raising the price of everything you buy. The net bottom line – taxes rob much more of your disposable income than anyone actually attributes to the government directly.

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Armstrong Economics / Attom Data.

This report focuses on the combined effects of property and income taxes. There’s an overlay map of the two: red for higher taxes, green for lower. Go for the green, if you want to keep your own.

Note: In some few of the states with positive income tax rates, said taxes do not kick in before a certain income level is reached, or they apply to certain types of income. For example: NH has no tax on “wages” but they tax investment incomes (while taxing the fire out of property).

The Empire Falters

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

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John Whitehead muses over the new, emerging wars of stupidity in conjunction with all the other wars, programs, policies, debts, and expenditures which are pushing the U.S. closer and closer towards fifth-century Rome.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. — James Madison

Waging endless wars abroad (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Syria) isn’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, it’s certainly not making America great again, and it’s undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

In fact, it’s a wonder the economy hasn’t collapsed yet.

Indeed, even if we were to put an end to all of the government’s military meddling and bring all of the troops home today, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs. Even then, government spending would have to be slashed dramatically and taxes raised.

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The government is $19 trillion in debt: War spending has ratcheted up the nation’s debt. The debt has now exceeded a staggering $19 trillion and is growing at an alarming rate of $35 million/hour and $2 billion every 24 hours. Yet while defense contractors are getting richer than their wildest dreams, we’re in hock to foreign nations such as Japan and China (our two largest foreign holders at $1.13 trillion and $1.12 trillion respectively).

The Pentagon’s annual budget consumes almost 100% of individual income tax revenue. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off, especially when it comes to paying the tab for America’s attempts to police the globe. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million per hour.

…

The U.S. government spends more on wars (and military occupations) abroad every year than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. In fact, the U.S. spends more on its military than the eight highest-ranking nations with big defense budgets combined. The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As investigative journalist David Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”

…

Add in the cost of waging war in Syria (with or without congressional approval), and the burden on taxpayers soars to more than $11.5 million a day. Ironically, while presidential candidate Trump was vehemently opposed to the U.S. use of force in Syria, as well as harboring Syrian refugees within the U.S., he had no problem retaliating against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on behalf of Syrian children killed in a chemical attack. The cost of launching a 59 Tomahawk missile-strike against Syria? It’s estimated that the missiles alone cost $60 million. Mind you, this is the same man, while campaigning for president, who warned that fighting Syria would signal the start of World War III against a united Syria, Russia and Iran. Already oil prices have started to climb as investors anticipate an extended conflict.

Clearly, war has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

Yet what most Americans—brainwashed into believing that patriotism means supporting the war machine—fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

These facts and figures are staggering and Whitehead shoots on the low side of the costs involved. But he nails it that, whatever the cost, there benefits are nonexistent. Of course,the usual suspects are cleaning up. The rest of us are fleeced, lie to, and in some cases, maimed or killed.

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Not sure what these numbers refer to, if anything. Symbolism, this. Pagun View.

It’s always the internal affairs that bring down great nations and empires. We are no different. The problem is repeated throughout history: government’s run wild; the people are willfully blind. I can’t and won’t give any date as accurate as, say, 476 for the default – even that is speculative. But it’s coming, happening now, been happening…

“America first” would have gone a long way to “make America great again”. Make it just American again. Sadly, these slogans were empty as any and didn’t even remotely materialize.

The good news is that, eventually, life will go on. The average man in the Italian Alps circa 550 lived essentially the same life as his counterpart from 450. The getting there, getting through the end game, will require a little stamina and preparation. If you didn’t pay much attention to the recent past, at least give a little thought to the near future.

 

Yeah, About that Constitution Thing…

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

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Butler Shaffer explains the painfully obvious about the “rule of law” and the Constitution in America:

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

In case any reader still clings to the platitude that the American political system is based on the proposition that ours is “a society of laws, and not of men,” I urge you to pay close attention to the events of recent years. Political behavior does not exist in abstractions, such as the “state,” or the “government,” or a “constitution,” but is activity engaged in by such men and women who find the machinery of state power a useful device for accomplishing ends that they value. Those who desire to control others through access to the tools of violence that define the state, have rationales to convince their intended victims of the “rightness” of their rule. From explanations such as “God’s will” to the “divine right of kings,” the authority of some to enjoy coercive power over others – along with their subjects’ duty of obedience – is so engrained into the minds of people as to seem as self-evident as the forces of gravity.

…

The Constitution, itself, should remind us that “laws” do not exist in a vacuum, but are the products of human action which, in turn, is behavior driven by people pursuing their self-interests. With legislation created by a political system that enjoys a monopoly on the legal use of force, it is clear that laws are but the means by which some people pursue their ends at the expense of others.

From the very creation of the national government, to how its different branches would act, there has always been a fuzziness as to the meaning of words used in the Constitution. This is due to the fundamental nature of all words. Being abstractions, their application to real-world events inherently depends upon their interpretation. When the Supreme Court tells us that it will have such authority, it is telling us that the government thus created by this document will be the interpreter of its own supposed “limited powers.”

…

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Tommy Kaye.

Some lament that “we should just get back to ” the system as originally established by the Constitution. I agree that would be preferable to the way things are now. However, it was that Constitution, that stronger central government model, that set in motion what we currently endure. It was a monster designed to grow and concur. And it did.

Spooner observed, long ago: “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Sad but true. And, at this time, it’s all a moot point.

 

Is This 1986? Let’s Hope Not

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

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I love the 80’s. I live in the past. Duran Duran, the A-team, etc. There are, however, some things I would prefer to leave in the past. Political “compromise” for instance.

Here’s a doubtful article about the relationship between Trump’s tax cuts, today, versus Reagan’s in 1986.

The fundamentals of tax overhaul were strong some 30 years ago.

A popular president, Republican Ronald Reagan, pushed the landmark 1986 measure. Powerful and experienced congressional leaders shepherded the legislation with bipartisan support. Key players had established, trusting relationships.

The situation facing President Donald Trump features none of those advantages. His party is divided and his congressional leadership is weakened after the health care debacle. Key players are inexperienced. Trump has record low approval ratings. Republicans who control all of Washington are planning on going it alone, without help from Democrats.

Now, there isn’t even basic agreement on what revising the tax code is. Trump is promising “massive tax relief for the middle class.” Congressional leaders are pushing an overhaul that would keep gross tax revenues roughly the same – “revenue neutral” in Washington-speak – while clearing away many tax breaks and using the resulting savings to lower rates, with the top brackets getting most of the benefit.

So much is different; so much the same. 50% or 40% – any tax rate above 0% is too high for my tastes. I may be alone in that thought.

Reagan had been in office five years, a veteran at that point. Congress was run by, whatever else they were, professionals. Other than that, things were pretty much the same: in 1986:

Conservatives claimed and agenda they either didn’t believe in or didn’t understand.

Liberals wanted more government in your life and knew how to get it there.

Millions of illegals wanted to stay for a variety of reasons, most the ancient English would not understand.

Terrorists were just starting to think of America as a target. (Back then OBL was a CIA contract employee….).

Ordinary people loved guns; liberals hated and feared them.

Aside from loving guns (and Duran Duran and Alf) the people were largely asleep.

Nothing much has changed. Therein lies the danger of a repeat of history. We could end up with; a little tax reform (some cuts and some increases); amnesty (never to happen again – just like in 1986), and some more gun control.

Ronald Reagan

1986: Reagan: cuts taxes, raises taxes, bans guns, and legalizes illegals. Yay. AP.

Or, given this generation of the GOP, we could see nothing. And, sadly, nothing would be preferable to the awful, historical alternatives.

Okay, back to sleep…

The Colossal (Predictable) Failure of the GOP

26 Sunday Mar 2017

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Glenn Harlan Reynolds accurately details the incomprehensible Republican failure and stupidity last week in D.C.

The plan to replace Obamacare with a new bill crafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan has failed, and embarrassingly so. And that failure is part and parcel of a larger failure of the Republican-led Congress to push an agenda in the new administration.

Talking to a friend at lunch not long ago, he expressed his amazement that the House and Senate leadership didn’t have bills “lined up like airplanes on a runway” ready to take off in the new year. I was surprised, too.

It’s not like the need to do something about Obamacare was a surprise. Republicans have been promising to repeal it for most of a decade. And it’s not like Obamacare was popular or successful. Premiums are rising, providers are dropping out, and costs are going up. It’s true that the Obamacare bill, pushed through on a procedural technicality that avoided a filibuster but left it impossible to fix at the time, was a mess. It’s also true that the legislation was drafted, and the regulations implementing it were designed, in part to make it hard to undo.

Nonetheless, the Republican inability to deliver a bill that could get a majority in the GOP-led House is a colossal failure, and pretty much undercuts its entire reason for being. For years the congressional GOP leadership failed to deliver on promises to constituents, and offered the excuse that it couldn’t do anything without control of the White House. Well, they’ve got that, so what’s their excuse now? And where are the bills on infrastructure, on tax reform, on free speech?

The congressional GOP’s failure to deliver on its promises is one of the things that led to the election of President Trump. Now they’re still failing. What comes next?

If history has taught us anything about Republicans, then “what comes next” is more failure. The Atlanta Falcons of politics.

Last night I caught a few minutes of Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox – I could not turn away as she utterly skewered Paul Ryan:

Paul Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House.

The reason? He failed to deliver the votes on his health care bill. The one trumpeted to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The one that he had seven years to work on. The one he hid under lock and key in the basement of Congress. The one that had to be pulled to prevent the embarrassment of not having enough votes to pass.

But this bill didn’t just fail — it failed when Republicans had the House, the Senate, the White House.

And the timing? It failed within the first 70 days of President Donald Trump’s administration. A president who made replacement of ObamaCare the hallmark of his campaign. And then used valuable political capital to accomplish it.

Americans elected the one man they believed could do it. A complete outsider. Someone beholden to no one — but them.

And Speaker Ryan, you come in, with all your swagger and experience, and you sell him a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure. And you allow our president, in his first one hundred days, to come out of the box like that? Based on what? Your legislative expertise? Your knowledge of the arcane ins and outs of the bill writing process? Your relationships? What? Your drinks at the Hay-Adams with your pals?

Folks, I want to be clear: this is NOT on President Trump. No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process. How would he know which individuals upon whom he would be able to rely? Many of them, friends and establishment colleagues of Speaker Ryan.

You, on the other hand, Speaker Ryan, know very well who the 15 hard liners, the 10 moderates, and all the other ones.

Amen. No, this one is not on Trump. This one and this one alone. No more passes in the future. He’s a smart enough man to learn how the jellyfish sting. Whether he’s willing to use what he learns and whether that is enough remains to be seen.

The whole 61st (61st!!) failure to repeal ObamaCare boiled down to not getting conservative Republicans on board. Hell, as Pirro says, they were physically locked out of the process. How could anyone have expected their support? The Bill could have been passed with their help and without a single Democrat vote in favor. This is strictly a GOP problem.

Their “solution” is strict GOP stupidity. The conservatives in the “conservative” party were not consulted, then. Now, instead on trying to get them on board, the GOP and Trump are opening to the idea of bringing Democrats into the fold. I wonder what their suggestions might entail?

And the GOP is splintering. Blaming those fellow conservatives who were never invited to participate, Rep. Ted Poe is abandoning the House Freedom Caucus.

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Ted Poe / Twitter.

Despite decades of jading, I had high hopes for Trump’s Presidency. I still do though that old shade of green is creeping back into my views. If he cannot marshal this band of derelicts and losers into a solid party, then there isn’t much faith in his (their?) agenda. If that happens, one can expect similar failures on: the debt ceiling (a given no matter what); tax cuts; immigration; etc.

The whole thing starts to look like the Contract with America. Remember that stellar GOP success? Neither do I.

On that note, I will leave you with Carlin:

Government Healthcare History

23 Thursday Mar 2017

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With all the fuss about TrumpCare and ObamaCare it is important to remember that the government has been iinterfering with medical care for over 100 years. Each law and every step increases costs and hassles while decreasing freedom and choices.

Since 1910, when Republican William Taft gave in to the American Medical Association’s lobbying efforts, most administrations have passed new healthcare regulations. With each new law or set of new regulations, restrictions on the healthcare market went further, until, at some point in the 1980s, people began to notice the cost of healthcare had skyrocketed.

This is not an accident. It’s by design.

As regulators allowed special interests to help design policy, everything from medical education to drugs became dominated by virtual monopolies that wouldn’t have otherwise existed if not for government’s notion that intervening in people’s lives is part of their job.

Current Prices on popular forms of Gold Bullion

But how did costs go up, and why didn’t this happen overnight?

It wasn’t until 1972 that President Richard Nixon restricted the supply of hospitals by requiring institutions to provide a certificate-of-need.

Just a couple years later, in 1974, the president also strengthened unions for hospital workers by boosting pension protections, which raise the cost for both those who run hospitals and taxpayers in cases of institutions that rely on government subsidies. This move also helped force doctors who once owned and ran their own hospitals to merge into provider monopolies. These, in turn, are often only able to keep their doors open with the help of government subsidies.

This artificial restriction on healthcare access had yet another harsh consequence: overworked doctors.

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The caduceus.Quora.

And on and on and on… Maybe, just maybe, it might be time to return to the free system that worked so well for so long (so cheaply). Just a thought.

* The Caduceus was the staff carried by Hermes while he conducted departed souls to the Underworld. A strangely fitting symbol.

Of Course There Was Surveillance

22 Wednesday Mar 2017

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There’s always surveillance in a police state. Against everyone. Even a President-elect. It’s starting to come out:

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes declared Wednesday that members of Donald Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November’s presidential election.

The White House and Trump’s allies immediately seized on the statement as vindication of the president’s much-maligned claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones — even though Nunes himself said that’s not what his new information shows.

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“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” the California Republican told reporters. “It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing.” He said the information he had seen was not related to the FBI’s Russia investigation.

Nunes said intelligence reports discussed “high-level people in the Trump transition.” He also said he was not in possession of the new evidence, but that he hoped the intelligence agencies would provide it to his panel through official means and that other committee members would be able to review it.

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More will keep coming out. And the deniers will keep denying. (They’re in denial).

In a way the Russia-obsessed nuts will kind of be vindicated here. Trump tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. The loonies will hold him to the semantics. And I really doubt there’s any footage of BHO manually tapping in with a toolbox or something (too much like a real job, that).

So, no, Obama did not wiretap Trump. He just instructed his agents to use existing open-air intercepts and other investigations to gather raw data on Trump, data possibly processed in the UK and sent back to D.C.for illegal dissemination.

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Donald Trump / Twitter.

Nothing at all to see here. Speaking of “UK” – squeaky ball is on!