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My first job paid $4.35/ hr. I was a “detailer” for Avis Rental Cars. That’s a fancy word for Window Washer.

That’s what I did all day.

After 18 months of that I decided to go back to College and get a degree.Which I did.

Then after college, got my first job in a Call Center. At 5.35/hr. But then I started moving up.

You don’t move up from a Window Washer. And at least one guy I worked with at that job wasn’t looking to move up from it.

It was slow. It was hard. It wasn’t glamorous or profitable. But eventually I made enough to buy this house. But it was hardly overnight. And I’m hardly set for life. I still have to perform or else.

You wanna know what the punch line to this is?

Adjusted for inflation that $4.35/hr would now be $8.82 because of inflation caused by the government and other entities.

So Obama wants to raise the minimum wage to be effectively the same as that was all those years ago.

So it’s about the politics of “caring” not about the actual problem – inflation. Especially inflation from devaluing the currency because of all the spending and borrowing.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The unemployment rate for teens is at 23%, and the rate for unskilled workers is at 12%. Why does President Obama propose raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour and indexing it for inflation, as he stated in his State of the Union Address?

Obama and his advisors seem to believe that if the minimum wage were raised and then indexed, all workers would retain their jobs. But this is not the case.

Between 2007 and 2009, the federal hourly minimum wage rose to $7.25 in three steps from the $5.15 rate that had prevailed for a decade. If the wage were raised to $9 and then indexed for inflation, it would rise every year.

It sounds compassionate to alleviate poverty by mandating that employers raise wages, but employers often replace low-skill workers with machines. Think self-checkout machines in supermarkets, or computerized call centers.

Or, try a thought experiment — would you have your job if the minimum wage were $50 an hour? Probably not.

At its current level, the minimum wage disproportionately affects teens and low-skill workers, many of whom qualify only for entry-level slots.

University of California (Irvine) economists David Neumark and J.M. Ian Salas, together with Federal Reserve Board economist William Wascher, have written extensively on the effects of the minimum wage on employment. In a National Bureau of Economic Research paper published in January, they conclude that “minimum wages pose a tradeoff of higher wages for some against job losses for others.”

They specifically mention that a higher minimum wage results in more unemployment for teens and low-skill workers.

Why is it that some studies, such as those by Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman Alan Krueger, have found that increases in the minimum wage do not affect employment in the restaurant industry?

Two reasons, according to Neumark and his coauthors. First, many restaurant workers are paid above minimum wage. Second, a higher minimum wage can encourage employers to substitute more-skilled employees for less-skilled employees, so that total unemployment in that industry does not decline substantially.

Minimum wage workers are overwhelmingly young and work part-time. See the Labor Department’s Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers.

Two-thirds of minimum wage earners worked part-time in 2011, the latest year available. Only 3% of hourly wage earners earn minimum wage or less.

Workers under the age of 25 made up about half of the 3.8 million workers who earned at or below the minimum wage in 2011. Employed teenagers are seven times more likely to be among the minimum wage earners than workers older than 25.

Another 11 million workers earned between $7.26 and $8.99. Some will be in danger of losing their jobs if the minimum wage is increased.

In his State of the Union Address, Obama said that a full-time minimum-wage worker makes $14,500 a year. That’s 1.3 million workers, in a labor force of 156 million, about eight-tenths of 1%. But this understates actual income, because it does not include transfer payments.

As Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute has shown, the Earned Income Tax Credit adds to the minimum wage. Read Michael Saltsman.

Then you also add in your Obama Phone, Your Obama Internet….

In addition to the EITC, the value of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly food stamps, has risen over the past 20 years, increasing the resources of low-income workers. (See chart.)

In 1992, the hourly minimum wage was $4.25. For a family with one parent and two children, the value of the earned income tax credit was 69 cents, and the value of food stamps was just over a dollar, for total income of $5.96 an hour. (Other possible benefits include housing and Medicaid, depending on the state.)

Fast forward to 2012. The minimum wage was $7.25 an hour. For the same family, the EITC rose to $2.62, and the food stamps program added $1.67, for a total of $11.54. Assuming 2,000 hours of work annually, and including the EITC, the family makes not $14,500, but $19,736. This family also qualified for food stamps, bringing the total family income to $23,072.

Unlike increases in the minimum wage, these government transfers do not discourage employers from hiring.

The minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, plus the mandatory employer’s share of social security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation taxes, brings the hourly employer cost to $8, even without benefits. Raising the hourly minimum wage to $9 will bring the cost to employers to about $10.

And in 2014, employers with more than 49 workers who do not offer the right kind of health insurance will have to pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker per year, further increasing costs and discouraging hiring. Many are already cutting back or reducing workers’ hours, because no penalty is owed on those working less than 30 hours weekly.

Unemployment rates for teens and low-skill workers rose faster than others in the recession. The adult unemployment rate stood at 7.3% in January 2012. That’s over 3 percentage points higher than the 3.8% rate in December 2007, five years earlier, at the start of the recession. But the January 2012 unemployment rate for teens was about 6 percentage points higher than December 2007, at 23%.

Employers now only employ workers who can produce $8 an hour or more of goods or services. Under Obama’s proposal, they would employ only those who could produce $10 an hour, an amount that would rise every year. The government can mandate steadily rising minimum wages, but not steadily rising teen skills and productivity.

As minimum wages rise, employers change technologies or hire more skilled workers.

Forbidding employment of those whose skills aren’t worth $10 an hour prevents workers getting their foot on the bottom of the career ladder. Obama is essentially proposing to take away the right to work for low-skill workers.

Most American employers have to pay more than minimum wage just to attract and hold the workers they need. Almost 140 million workers now earn above minimum wage, not because of federal or state law, but because that is the only way that firms can attract and keep employees with skills.

Instead of more money for youth employment, why not expand the federal minimum wage exception for teens? Under federal law, employers are allowed to pay teens $4.25 an hour for 90 consecutive calendar days, or until their 20th birthday, at which point the wage has to revert to $7.25 an hour.

The law is not simple. Employers have to show that teen workers don’t displace others. If the state minimum laws don’t specifically include the teen exception, then teens have to be paid the regular minimum — and the large states, such as California and New York, don’t mention teens. Ninety calendar days might cover a summer job, but if teens want to continue the job during the school year, employers have to pay them the standard wage.

Youth unemployment is a serious social problem in some European countries, such as France (27%), Spain (55%), and Italy (37%). These governments have taken every possible step to discourage the young from working short of criminalizing work: wages are regulated to be high, and it is costly to hire a new worker and even more costly to let one go. In these countries, young people have a much harder time getting started up the career ladder than their American counterparts.

America does not want to go down this road. Working at an early age teaches useful skills, transferable to future jobs, such as getting to work on time, staying the whole day, and putting up with unpleasant colleagues.

Increasing the hourly minimum wage to $9 and indexing it for inflation is bad news for teens and low-skill workers who deserve a better opportunity, and it is bad news for America where we cannot afford to further cripple our economy. (Market Watch)

But because he “cares” he will make your boss fire you because he can’t afford you any longer and that is your Boss’s fault because he’s just a greedy capitalist pig.

But at least now you have 2 years+ of unemployment, Food Stamps, you could move back in with your parents, Your Obama Phone and Internet so Life is good… 🙂

Trapped

Tell Me, this isn’t the same here and one reason why we have such an increase in “disability” and people just giving up looking.

And the new “dependent” voter.

The Sun (London UK): A SKIVING couple told last night how they claim £17,680 a year in benefits — and don’t even bother looking for work because it would leave them worse off.

FYI: Skiving is British for lay about gold-bricking person, aka Lazy.

Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat.

I looked it up, the average apparently for a 47″ flat screen is about £1900-2000 British pounds.

1.00 British Pound = 1.57 U.S. Dollars currently

Do the Math.

It is all funded by the taxpayer, yet the couple say they deserve sympathy because they are “trapped”.

They even claim they are entitled to their generous handouts because their hard-working parents have been paying tax for years.

 

The couple, who have a four-month-old daughter Tullulah-Rose, say they can’t go out to work as they could not survive on less than their £1,473-a-month benefits.

1.00 British Pound = 1.57 U.S. Dollars currently

So that’s $2,312,61. Per month or $27,751.32 a year. That”s well above minimum wage in this country. Of course, they have a flat 17.5% VAT tax on everything and Inland Revenue (think IRS) but still I have had many jobs that paid less than that.

The pair left school with no qualifications, and say there is no point looking for jobs because they will never be able to earn as much as they get in handouts.

Gina admits: “We could easily get a job but why would we want to work — we would be worse off.”

Tell Me, Liberals aren’t thinking the same thing!

Danny’s father, 46, even offered him a job with his bowling alley servicing company — but could not pay him enough.

Danny’s mum, 45, works as a carer, while Gina’s mum, 46, is a teacher and her dad, 53, is a manager with a security company.

Yet their parents’ work ethic has not rubbed off on Danny and Gina. Instead, they claim they are entitled to benefits because of their parents’ tax contributions — and even complain they should be given MORE.

Gina, flaunting fake tan and perfectly manicured nails, said: “I don’t see that we’re living off the taxpayers, we’re entitled to the money our parents paid all their lives.

“They’ve worked so hard since they left school and I’m sure they’d rather it went to us than see us struggle. They pay a lot of tax, and although they’d rather we weren’t in this situation and one of us had a job, they understand why we are where we are. We can’t help it, we’re stuck like it.”

Danny, who quit his job as a supermarket shelf-stacker after eight months, admitted: “I could easily go and work for my dad. He’s got a job for me, but could only afford to pay for my travel and accommodation because I’d be going around the country.

“After that he wouldn’t be able to afford to pay me a wage, so I’d be worse off.

“The same would happen if I was to work somewhere like a supermarket. If I was earning less than £26,000 a year, there wouldn’t be any point. I’d be no better off. Who in their right mind would do that?” The pair spoke after we revealed last Sunday that Lithuanian Natalija Belova, 33, branded Britain “a soft touch” for giving her £14,408 annual benefits. Mum-of-one Belova told how she lives a life of luxury in Watford, Herts, thanks to our “strange system”, adding: “I am not going to work like a dog on minimum wage.”

British Minimum wage : £6.08 to £6.19 an hour on October 1 2012

And yesterday Gina agreed. She said: “The only way we’d ever be better off is by both working. But then childcare would probably be one of our wages gone, and put us back in a more difficult position.

“We don’t feel ashamed for being on benefits. Neither of us have the slightest bit of guilt towards the taxpayers as both of our parents have been paying into the tax system for the last 30 years.

“So we are just getting back our parents’ huge contributions. My dad earns £65,000 a year so he’s paid more than his fair share of tax, so I don’t see what the problem is. The fault lies with the system, not us. There’s just no incentive to find work when we’ve got a better lifestyle than if we were to go out and work for 35-40 hours every week. Why would we give this up?”

The couple, who live in Hants (Southern England), receive £340 a week, made up of £150 housing benefit, £60 child tax credit, £20 child benefit and £110 in Job Seeker’s Allowance. They pay just £25 towards their spacious £625-a-month home.

Their lounge is dominated by the huge TV and a leather sofa. A laptop and Tullulah-Rose’s toys are scattered around the room.

The couple’s monthly outgoings are £240 on food, £40 phone bill for their shared Nokia and an £80 payment towards their TV. They spend the same on tobacco as they do on their daughter’s milk and nappies.

The pair, who want another child, say they would need to earn at least £2,200 a month before tax to make working worth their while.

Danny said: “We’ve thought about a lot of things we wouldn’t normally have considered. Gina looked up escorting and saw you can make £110 an hour, but we decided we wouldn’t go down that route.

“We simply want the best for our daughter, which means even shoplifting becomes a temptation. We’d never do it, but being in this situation and feeling trapped changes you.

“We would work, but it’s just not worth our while because without qualifications we’ll only earn about £14,000 a year. That’s a lot less than what we get now. We need more money so we can maintain the way we live now but have a few extras, like holidays.

“People don’t understand — we’re actually stuck on benefits. In fact, we feel trapped.” Danny and Gina thought about going to college, but could not decide which course to take.

Gina said: “We have discussed getting more qualifications but just thought there’s no point when we don’t know what we want to do in the future. We wouldn’t know where to start.”

The couple are adamant that whatever they do in future, they want to enjoy the same luxuries as now. Gina said: “We spend £40 a month on clothes for Tullulah-Rose. It’s important she looks nice.

“We like a takeaway (Take out) too, Why shouldn’t we? It isn’t like I’m some scrounging single mum trying to cash in. It’s silly to think I’d actually be better off financially if Danny walked out on me and my daughter than if one of us got a job.

“Anyone else would do exactly the same if they were in our shoes. It’s actually really hard for us. We’re in a lose-lose situation here.”

And with reports out that the Birth rate in the US has been falling just as the largest population is retiring is going to make this kind of “trapped” dependence very, very, very costly to everyone.

But, he it’s better than working hard. 🙂

Every job in the last 25+ years I’ve had prior to my current one has paid me less than this a year. And I’m still not “rich”.

Makes you wonder I even bother…But at least I’m not “trapped”…Yet… 🙂

 

Rhetorical Reality

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” —  Ben Franklin

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” — Ben Franklin.

Then Liberals want to attack him for being a greedy, selfish, SOB. 🙂

“A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.“– Ben Franklin

And ignorance is much prized by the Left.

“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”— Ben Franklin

USDA has an agreement with Mexico to promote American food assistance programs, including food stamps, among Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals and migrant communities in America.

The goal, for USDA, is to get rid of what they see as enrollment obstacles and increase access among potentially eligible populations by working with arms of the Mexican government in America. Benefits are not guaranteed or provided under the program — the purpose is outreach and education.

Some of the materials the USDA encourages the Mexican government to use to educate and promote the benefit programs are available free online for order and download. A partial list of materials include English and Spanish brochures titled “Five Easy Steps To Snap Benefits,” “How To Get Food Help — A Consumer’s Guide to FNCS Programs,” “Ending Hunger Improving Nutrition Combating Obesity,” and posters with slogans like “Food Stamps Make America Stronger.”

When asked for details and to elaborate on the program, USDA stressed it was established in 2004 and not meant for illegal immigrants.

Aka, “It’s Bush’s Fault so don’t blame me” and “oh, no, we aren’t targeting Illegal immigrants (at the same time that Obama is wanting to close 9 border crossing stations).

So advertising free food in Mexico is NOT going to encourage more illegals. 🙂

“If you talk to economists, they will tell you there are two things that are the most stimulative that you can do — one’s unemployment insurance, the other’s food stamps, okay?”

“Why is that?” he said. “Because those folks who receive those resources must spend them. And they’ll spend them almost upon receipt. Most economists with whom I talk believe that those with significant discretionary income, that that’s not the case.”–House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)

Unemployment and Food Stamps stimulate the economy. So obviously we need even more of it. 🙂

And the persistent 8%+ unemployment and 1/7 of the US population on Food Stamps is good for us. We should be happy.

Government is here for you. 🙂

“USDA does not perform outreach to immigrants that are undocumented, and therefore not eligible for SNAP.” (RELATED: USDA buckles, removes Spanish food stamp soap operas from website)

Tell, me another fairy story, grandma…

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families bill incentivized states to create welfare-to-work programs, trying to transition Americans from government dependency to financial solvency.

In 1996, Republicans forced through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill, also known as welfare reform (and embraced by President Clinton for political reasons). It incentivized states to create welfare-to-work programs, trying to transition Americans from government dependency to financial solvency. But states quickly acted to poke holes in that legislation, calling the following activities “work” for purposes of the statute: bed rest, personal care activities, massage, exercise, journaling, motivational reading, smoking cessation, weight loss promotion, participation in parent-teacher meetings, or helping friends or family with household tasks and errands.

This was idiotic. So in 2005, Congress closed the loophole, over the objections of then-Senator Obama.

Now, Obama has walked back the 2005 legislation, using his Department of Health and Human Services to unilaterally waive those work requirements. “This Administration is unbelievable,” said Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “Green-lighting new regulations to change bipartisan welfare reform without consultation from Congress is an outright abuse of the federal government’s system of checks and balances and an insult to American taxpayers.”

A high-ranking Republican staffer commented, “Only someone with a religious faith in government would change the rules such that ‘journaling’ now qualifies you for welfare assistance.”

But this is Obama’s new definition of work: anything that allows you to receive government assistance. After all, welfare, unemployment benefits, and all other payouts forward the economy, according to our magnificent president.  (Ben Shapiro)

Being on the Government dole stimulates the economy. And boy is it over-stimulated!

More people go on SSI disability than get hired for jobs. So the “private sector is doing fine” 🙂

Thomas Sowell: There was a time, within living memory, when the achievements of others were not only admired but often taken as an inspiration for imitation of the same qualities that had served these achievers well, even if we were not in the same field of endeavor and were not expecting to achieve on the same scale.

The perseverance of Thomas Edison, as he tried scores of materials before finally trying tungsten as the filament for the light bulb he was inventing; the dedication of Abraham Lincoln as he studied law on his own while struggling to make a living — these were things young people were taught to admire, even if they had no intention of becoming inventors or lawyers, much less president.

Somewhere along the way, all that changed. Today, the very concept of achievement is de-emphasized and sometimes attacked. Following in the footsteps of Barack Obama, Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard has made the downgrading of high achievers the centerpiece of her campaign against Sen. Scott Brown.

To cheering audiences, Professor Warren says, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You build a factory out there, good for you, but I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate.”

Do the people who cheer this kind of talk bother to stop and think through what she is saying? Or is heady rhetoric enough for them? People who run businesses are benefitting from things paid for by others? Since when are people in business, or high-income earners in general, exempt from paying taxes like everybody else?

At a time when a small fraction of high-income taxpayers pay the vast majority of all the taxes collected, it is sheer chutzpah to depict high-income earners as somehow being subsidized by “the rest of us,” whether in paying for roads or the educating the young.

Since everybody else uses the roads and the schools, why should high achievers be expected to feel like free loaders who owe still more to the government, because schools and roads are among the things that facilitate their work? According to Elizabeth Warren, because it is part of an “underlying social contract.”

Conjuring up some mythical agreement that nobody saw, much less signed, is an old ploy on the left — one that goes back at least a century, when Herbert Croly, the first editor of The New Republic magazine, wrote a book titled “The Promise of American Life.”

Whatever policy Herbert Croly happened to favor was magically transformed by rhetoric into a “promise” that American society was supposed to have made — and, implicitly, that American taxpayers should be forced to pay for. This pious hokum was so successful politically that all sorts of “social contracts” began to appear magically in the rhetoric of the left.

If talking in this mystical way is enough to get you control of billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, why not?

Certainly someone who claimed to be part Indian, as Warren did when applying for academic appointments in an affirmative action environment, is unlikely to be squeamish about using imaginative words in a campaign.

Sadly, this kind of cute use of words is not confined to one political candidate or to this election year. The very concept of achievement is a threat to the vision of the left, and has long been attacked by those on the left.

People who succeed — whether in business or anywhere else — are often said to be “privileged,” even if they started out poor and worked their way up the hard way.

Outcome differences are called “class” differences. Thus when two white women, who came from families in very similar social and economic circumstances, made different decisions and got different results, this was the basis for a front-page story titled “Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do'” in the New York Times.

Personal responsibility, whether for achievement or failure, is a threat to the whole vision of the left, and a threat the left goes all-out to combat, using rhetoric uninhibited by reality.

AMEN

Yea, because hearing both sides of a presidential campaign is unnecessary when Obama is running for a second term.

That’s political discourse in AMERICA 2012.

NOVEMBER IS COMING

 

Togetherness

“America’s not just looking out for yourself, it’s not just about greed, it’s not just about trying to climb to the very top and keep everybody else down,” (say the guy who has had 100 fundraisers since declaring his re-election bid – Twice as many as the Evil Bush did in 2004) Obama said at the UAW’s annual National Community Action Program Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.

Instead, Obama – who climbed to the very top of American politics just three years ago – said that instead America was about being “all in it together,” and giving people “a hand up.”

“When our assembly lines grind to a halt, we work together, and we get them going again,” he said. “When somebody else falters, we try to give them a hand up, because we know [that] we’re all in it together.”

So when the UAW goes on strike because they just wanna screw GM (and the others) for more money it’s not about “greed” it’s about “being together”.

So in 1976, when the UAW in Michigan (where I grew up) went on strike because they were only making $28/hr back then and stay out  until they got paid even more, it wasn’t about “greed” and power. It was about “togetherness”. 🙂

Obama also attacked critics of his bailout policies who say that saving failed companies does not reflect traditional American values.

Bailing out The UAW (in the guise of GM who now has a Obama kiss ass for a boss – “Jobs Czar” Jeffrey Imhelt – who is not an evil rich Corporate CEO even though GM paid no taxes in the US last year) was essential to his “togetherness”.

Bailing out the Big Banks with their evil rich CEOs that the left hates was “togetherness”.

Solyndra , Abound Solar, Light Squared and other “green” companies being given almost a Trillion in government grants only to go belly up a year later is “togetherness” not agenda politics.

The Over 8% unemployment for MORE THAN 3 years is an “improving economy” that we all shared in.

And 3 different Obama Administration have said unemployment is a “stimulus” for the economy so all those people out of work are all in it “together”.

“I keep on hearing these same folks talk about values all the time. You want to talk about values? Hard work, that’s a value. (just don’t work TOO HARD or you’ll be “greedy” and “rich” and thus an evil SOB- unless you’re donating $38,500 a person to Obama’s Re-election campaign that is) Looking out for one another, that’s a value. The idea that we’re all in it together and [that] I’m my brother’s keeper and [my] sister’s keeper, that’s a value,” Obama declared.

Yes, Comrade, it is a value. 🙂

Wall Streeters are evil according to the left’s favorite sons- The Occupoopers. But when the Dow (aka Wall Street) hits 13,000 and the “rich” on Wall Street get richer that’s a good thing for everyone and not a massive hypocrisy and double standard for your Class Warfare rhetoric.

Forget the modest 3.1 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, the government’s widely used measure of inflation. Everyday prices are up some 8 percent over the past year, according to the American Institute for Economic Research.

Forget the $4 and $5 gas prices that made the Democrats scream Armageddon is coming when Bush was President. Now, we share in the knowledge that it’s not the President’s fault when he’s a Democrat. 🙂

And saying no to virtually everything else other than Solyndra and it’s kin, including the Keystone XL pipeline and the degree of oil independence and jobs it would have brought is a shared sacrifice to environmentalist fringe “good”.

Motor fuel and transportation costs are up 21.06 percent from year-ago levels. The cost of food, prescription drugs, and tobacco also have increased faster than the government’s inflation measure, rising 3.56 percent, 4.21 percent, and 3.4 percent, respectively.

On the bright side, prices of household fuel (natural gas and electricity) and supplies have increased only 2.74 percent; recreation and personal care products are up less than 1 percent; and telephone or Internet services are down 0.66 percent.

Just one month from today, Japan will lower their corporate income tax rate from 39.5 to 35 percent . When they do so, the United States will officially have the dubious distinction of possessing the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, a federal/state integrated rate of 39.2 percent.

To put that in perspective, the average in the developed world is only 25 percent. Our six major trading partners–Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and France–will all have a lower rate than we will have. As a result, capital and jobs will continue to flow overseas, rather than staying here to create jobs, increase wages, fund pensions, invest in new business, or grow nest eggs.

President Obama last month proposed a plan to raise net taxes, but in the process lower the U.S. corporate rate to about 32 percent. That simply isn’t worth it. In exchange for a jobs-killing net tax hike, the Obama plan would still leave us with a tax rate higher than the OECD average, and higher than all our major trading partners except Japan and France.(KFYI)

So the Federal government isn’t “greedy” (wanting higher taxes than anyone) they just want everyone to suffer TOGETHER. 🙂

And ObamaCare:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House panel Thursday that a reduction in the number of human beings born in the United States will compensate employers and insurers for the cost of complying with  the new HHS mandate that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is “down not up.”

So to keep costs down, stop having babies!!

During the subcommittee hearing, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said that contraception provided by insurance companies to people employed by religious organizations under the future form of the rule Sebelius described would not be was not free.

“Who pays for it? There’s no such thing as a free service,” Murphy asked.

Sebelius responded that that is not the case with insurance.

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for cost of contraception,” Sebelius answered.

Murphy expressed surprise by the answer.

“So you are saying, by not having babies born, we are going to save money on health care?” Murphy asked.

Sebelius replied, “Providing contraception is a critical preventive health benefit for women and for their children.”

Murphy again sought clarification.

“Not having babies born is a critical benefit. This is absolutely amazing to me. I yield back,” he said.

Sebelius responded, “Family planning is a critical health benefit in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine.”

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), a member of the subcommittee, said after the hearing that if mandating contraception saves money there shouldn’t be a need for a mandate.

“Their argument is this: Health insurance companies will offer it for free because they make money. You reduce the number of people getting pregnant therefore you reduce the cost of pregnancy, or low birth weight pregnancies or other kind of pregnancies,” Guthrie told CNSNews.com.

“If you think about it, why don’t health insurance companies provide it now if the argument is health insurance companies are going to make a lot of money? If the health insurance companies were really acting in their own best interest, they would be giving these pills out for free, if it really saved money,” Guthrie added.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Nov. 14, 2011 that $1 billion in health care grants were a way of ‘sparking’ the U.S. economy.

So to keep costs down, stop having kids! (thus having less people to take over from you and to pork you when you get old and demand your “free” ObamaCare).

Anyone see the problem??

Returning to bully business as usual, the Obama campaign launched a brazen salvo against two prominent conservative critics and their legions of private citizen donors.

Let’s be clear (to use Obama’s favorite phrase): This is not just the politics of personal destruction. It’s a vendetta of campaign finance destruction. Under the guise of “disclosure,” Team Obama is exploiting the power of high government office to intimidate lawful, peaceful contributors who support limited-government causes.

In a scathing fundraising e-mail appeal, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina name-checked wealthy free-market philanthropists Charles and David Koch — along with a growing movement of grassroots conservatives who have freely, voluntarily and legally given money to the Koch-founded nonprofit activist group Americans for Prosperity and its sister foundation. As a speaker at several AFP events over the past three years, I’ve met thousands of like-minded, hardworking Americans who support their work at the local, state and federal levels.

“When you attempt to drown out (Americans’) voices through unlimited, secret contributions to pursue a special-interest agenda that conflicts with what’s best for our nation, you must expect some scrutiny of your actions,” Messina railed. (Unlike the Ministry of Truth and his 100+ fundraisers) The threat of scrutiny was backed by Obama himself, whose official campaign Twitter account directed 12 million-plus followers this week to “add your name to demand that the Koch brothers make their donors public.”

But Obama’s own former top officials run a so-called super PAC (Priorities USA) that also maintains nonprofit status and subsidizes advocacy ads while protecting its donor base. The White House, of course, is mum on the unlimited, secret contributions that Obama is now encouraging wealthy liberals and lobbyists to make in pursuit of his own special-interest agenda — i.e., re-election.

The president’s flapping lips are also sealed when it comes to applying his disclosure standards to the shadowy, George Soros-backed Center for American Progress, which has supplied the Obama administration with countless top policy staffers, including special Department of Health and Human Services assistant Michael Halle and HHS Director Jeanne Lambrew, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. CAP founder John Podesta was Obama’s transition chief, overseeing the backroom process of rewarding friends and allies with plum positions. CAP flacks shrugged off conflict-of-interest questions: “We respect the privacy of supporters who have chosen not to make their donations public,” CAP spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.

As for respecting the privacy rights of Obama’s foes? Not so much.

It seems to me no small coincidence that this disclosure charade comes just as numerous tea party organizations are reporting that the Internal Revenue Service has targeted them for audits. According to Colleen Owens of the Richmond (Va.) Tea Party, several fiscal-conservative activist groups in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas have received a spate of IRS letters. The missives demand extensive requests to identity volunteers, board members and … donors.

This is B.O.’s M.O. His bully brigade did the same to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its donors during the November 2010 midterms as payback for the organization’s ads opposing the federal health care takeover. And in 2008, Obama’s allies at a Soros-tied outfit sent out “warning” letters to 10,000 top GOP givers “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” Witch hunt leader Tom Matzzie, formerly of Soros-funded MoveOn.org, bragged of “going for the jugular” and said the warning letter was just the first step, “alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.”

Matzzie also advertised a $100,000 bounty for dirt on conservative political groups “to create a sense of scandal around the groups” and dissuade donors from giving money. The effort was cheered by Accountable America adviser Judd Legum, founder of Think Progress — the same group that led the attack on the Chamber of Commerce and is run by Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Just as with the Obama super PAC led by former White House officials, Matzzie’s group “Accountable America” was a 501(c)(4) nonprofit entity that shielded the identity of its donors.

Oh, and remember this? In 2008, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, both Obama promoters, threatened to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who spread what they considered “false criticisms” of their Dear Leader.

It is no small exaggeration to conclude that Team Obama’s dead aim is to chill conservative speech and criminalize conservative dissent. All Americans for prosperity must push back with one voice: No, you can’t. (Michelle Malkin)

I guess Hilary was right, It does “take a Village” 🙂

 

 

The Shell Game

President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget will forecast a $901 billion deficit for next year, falling far short of his goal to halve the deficit in four years.

The budget, an outline of which was released by the White House Friday night, will show a higher deficit this year than in 2011, up from $1.3 trillion to $1.33 trillion.

So that’s 3 strikes and hopefully he’s out! What a Turkey!

Wonder if this one will go down 96-0 like last years.

Mind you the US Senate that hasn’t passed a Budget in 1, 018 days has already telegraphed that it has no intention of passing a budget this year anyhow.

So this is largely an exercise in campaign BS. Which is all we’ve gotten since January 20th, 2009 anyhow.

The full blown still-born cow of a budget comes out Monday. I’m sure it will bloated, class envious, have lots of flashy fake or useless “cuts”, and totally political. What else would you expect.

“We will talk more before the end of the month on what corporate tax reform would look like,” the official said on Friday, confirming that it would include a call for “lower rates.”

Facing a potentially tough presidential re-election challenge this November, Obama will propose cutting the rate following the release of his 2013 budget plan on Monday, February 13, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record.

While he spent a big part of his January speech to Congress criticizing businesses for moving jobs overseas, Obama said that “companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world.”

So what do you wanna bet it’s going to be very selective and very “democratic”. 🙂

You do it my way or else. Or he’ll propose all new taxes to make up for it, disguised as something else or some other Orwellian turn of phrase.

Typically with this White House “tax reform” means bend over you’re about to get a massive enema!

Gene Sperling, director of Obama’s National Economic Council, has told reporters that the president will be laying out “principles” for corporate tax reform close to the budget release.

Obama’s corporate plan will also include a new minimum tax on foreign profits earned in low tax countries – an unpopular idea in the corporate community. (yahoo)

“principles” eh…This should be good… 😦

Ann Coulter:Having given up on pillorying Mitt Romney for plundering his way to vast wealth — because, unfortunately, it isn’t true — the Non-Fox Media seem to have settled on denouncing him as a rich jerk.

Liberals are disgusted by people who made their own money, as Romney did at Bain Capital. But they admire ill-gotten gains, which is how John Kerry, John Edwards, Jon Corzine, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and innumerable other spokesmen for the downtrodden amassed their fortunes.

Democrats are very proud of the rich, patrician FDR — who inherited all of his money and then launched a series of federal entitlements designed to bankrupt America 60 years later.

JFK also inherited his wealth, from a father who made his money as a bootlegger and stock manipulator. (In their defense, both went on to create jobs for bartenders and prostitutes.)

Kerry is in a special category of the gigolo. He acquired his fortune by marrying someone, who married someone, who inherited the money — leading Kerry’s children to refer to Teresa Heinz Kerry as their “step-money.” In what can only be described as luck, Kerry’s first wife was also an heiress.

I’ve been diligently searching for the shrieks of horror from the media over John Kerry’s tax returns when he ran for president eight years ago, but I can’t find anything. (Although I did find a reference to Kerry’s having served in Vietnam. Anybody else hear about that?)

Even when Kerry refused to release his wife’s tax returns in order to avoid the humiliation of revealing his allowance, the press was demurely silent.

John Edwards made well over $50 million by shaking down hardworking doctors with junk science lawsuits — as the New York Times has since admitted. The highlight of his sideshows was when he channeled unborn children in front of illiterate jurors.

(In the Democrats’ moral universe, the unborn have no right to life, but they’re perfectly acceptable as witnesses for the plaintiff in a malpractice suit.)

Democrats were overjoyed with Wall Street financier-turned Democratic politician Jon Corzine. It was just three years ago, in 2009, when President Obama was hailing Corzine as one of the “best partners I have in the White House.” Today, prosecutors are trying to find out what Corzine did with hundreds of millions of his customers’ money.

The media do everything they can to avoid looking into these mountebanks when they are active politicians. Then, when they’re out of office, the NFM summarily announce that they always knew the Democrats were sleazeballs, and why are we still talking about them?
It’s never a good time to talk about Democrat plutocrats until it’s way too late to talk about them. With Corzine, we’ll have a window of three seconds to talk about his financial shenanigans. He’s innocent until proved gui — Convicted! — What? You’re still burbling about that guy?

Liberals will be carrying on about Richard Nixon until we’re all long dead. Why has the time passed for them to really examine the man who was their vice presidential candidate only eight years ago and was desperately seeking the presidential slot four years ago?

Until we hear ferocious denunciations of FDR, JFK, Kerry, Edwards and Corzine, liberals have no business criticizing Bain Capital.

Maybe some people are irrationally offended by the rich, but Democrats aren’t. It’s the party of George Soros, Goldman Sachs and Nancy Pelosi!

The six wealthiest senators are all Democrats, half of whom married or inherited their money. Some other multimillionaire Democrats are:

• Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the second-richest senator after Kerry, who inherited his money.

• Dianne Feinstein of California, the sixth-richest senator, who married her money.

• Maria Cantwell of Washington, a bogus dot-com multimillionaire who cashed out before the stock crashed.

• Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the ninth-richest senator, who failed to pay taxes on her private plane until she was caught last year, and who married her money.

Meanwhile, with few exceptions, Republicans either made money on their own or they don’t have it. It’s no accident Democrats oppose a tax on wealth, of which they have boatloads, but strongly support taxes on income, which they typically do not have.

Democrats don’t hate the rich; they are the rich, luxuriating in fortunes acquired by inheritance or marriage, fleecing the taxpayer, trial lawyer hucksterism or disreputable money manipulation. Their contempt is reserved for those who engage in honest work for a living, whom they accuse of “greed” for wanting to pay the government a little less.

As I have said many times before, I believe the greediest people in this country are Liberals. Period.

See: https://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/greed/

So get out your Salt Mine, because here comes another Budget from Dear Leader! Can you take it?

 

Inspiring Dreams

Harrison Solow, National Post · Monday, Nov. 15, 2010

Everywhere you turn today, our children are urged to “follow your dream.” It seems like a harmless, even inspiring bromide to motivate children to achievement.

It isn’t.A lot of damage is being done to young minds by how this rampant (and particularly nauseating) philosophy is interpreted. There seems to be an air of entitlement in it, which encourages people to expect rewards for simply having a dream and not working toward it with blood, sweat and tears.Somewhere along the line, responsibility has been discarded in favour of infantilism. Scream loud enough from the cradle or the American Idol stage and mama/nanny/Simon Cowell will come running. And when in the latter case, this does not happen, many people are bewildered and angry.Wanting something, they have been told, is the only requirement needed to get it. This is, of course, absolute nonsense.The simple fact is that people who achieve excellence in their fields didn’t just have a dream. They got up at 4:00 a.m. to practice on parallel bars or had to forego other desirable activities and paths in order to get in six hours of violin practice a day, or stayed off the several million absurd writing advice blogs with their overheated little cliques that dispense useless regurgitated maxims and empty praise and decide to actually confront their thoughts on a page. Or they read Beowulf and Dante carefully and deeply when they didn’t see any point, since all they were interested in was Sylvia Plath, because someone of more experience and wisdom told them to do so. I don’t know whether we’re overly lazy, stupid, or childish these days. But the idea of preparing oneself for excellence has somehow disappeared.Case in point: I was Writer in Residence and an English professor at a British university some years ago. In my second year there, when one of my students actually lifted, word for word, two pages off a website and handed it in as his own work, I ended up being the one reprimanded!I had given him a zero for the paper, of course. But the policy then was that I wasn’t allowed to give him a zero. Instead, the entire English faculty met to go over his paper and give him credit for all the things he didn’t plagiarize. This, to me, is akin to a criminal breaking into your house and stealing your jewelry, silver and art, and when appearing in court for indictment after pleading guilty, being given credit by the judge for not stealing your television or computer.I was both disillusioned and livid at this so, contrary to university policy at that time, I called “Trevor” into my office and asked him why he had done this despicable thing. He responded that he had always had a dream to have a degree. ( “Have” not “earn”!) I said to him, “Trevor, you will never have a degree if you keep on doing this. Oh — someone may hand one to you one day, but you will always know that it isn’t yours. It will never be yours. It will always belong to all those from whom you stole it. Never you.” And he started to cry. I was glad to see those tears, which were, in the end, the only entity in the university acknowledging responsibility for such an unworthy act.My friend James Strauss, a talented novelist and writer for the television show, House, among other things, found a similar situation in his recent (and brief ) foray into teaching.”Our public almost never understands what it takes to put a production on, or the vital necessity of good writing,” he wrote to me. “Everybody thinks they can ‘at least’ write. I taught a screenwriting class last year and was amazed that almost all my students thought they had a screenplay in them. I assigned them a one-hour, fifty-page, screenplay by next week’s class. I said I’d do the same. The following week we met (only 11 of the 16 showed) and there was one screenplay written. Mine. Not one page of any other work was available, although the excuses were endless and complex.”This is worrying. Even our universities are filled with people who have dreams but no plans; desires but no talent; talent but no work ethic, and because the few people who could make a difference in their lives will not step up to the plate and say “You can’t have this until you earn it,” I am concerned that there is no end in sight.So — my advice to dreamers: Don’t just follow your dream. Do what it takes to earn it. To achieve it. To be worthy of it. Because if you don’t, it will never, ever, really be yours.

But don’t worry, you have the government and “compassionate” people like Rev Al Sharpton to guide you along the path of victimization where you can be taught that it’s not your fault, it’s cracker’s fault, or Corporations, Corporate America, “The Rich”, the Jews, anyone BUT YOU. They are all conspiring to hoard you out of your dreams and if you just follow these “wise men” blindly they and they alone will lead you to the Promised Land!!

Not having to work, being paid to sit on your ass, and being a victim all at the same time.

Liberal Nirvana!

It’s not your Fault! It’s “THEM!!!”

THEY are Evil. THEY ARE CORRUPT.

It’s Not your Fault!

Get the Point.