A Preview of Taxation

We live in a world where the only two things in life that are guaranteed are death and taxes. We have very little input about how or when we die, but we the people very much have input in the way and amount we are taxed. This great nation was formed on the foundation of limited taxation of it’s people, yet we are only a few short years away from seeing some of our fellow Americans taxed out of 70% of their incomes. Now these are individuals that are in the highest tax bracket, but is there any question that these people worked hard for their positions? Is there any question that they sacrificed many things to get where they’re at now? Isn’t this very thing the “American Dream” that so many of us are trying to realize? Who would be willing to work so hard and make so many sacrifices just to keep 30% of what they earn? Is it so unreasonable to believe that such an environment would deter many from trying to achieve the American Dream?

President Obama has promised the people that he would not raise taxes on 95% of Americans during his term in the office, yet we are beginning to see the deception of such a promise. First, The Bush Tax Cuts. The Bush Tax Cuts cut taxes for ALL taxpayers both rich and poor, but they are set to expire at the end of this year and Obama does not plan on extending them. Case in point, everyone who pays taxes will be paying higher taxes starting in January. Is this not a tax raise? Obama has maintained that it’s not, but we know better. Second, the Health Care Reform Bill. We were told time and time again that the Health Care Reform Bill would not include any more taxes for taxpayers to bear. In fact, those on the Left characterized any effort to suggest that the passing of the Bill would increase taxes as a political hit job. The Bill was passed with such haste that the Speaker of the House herself admitted that we had to pass the bill before we finally found what was in it. With this logic there’s no wonder America finds itself some 13 Trillion dollars in debt. Shortly after the passing of the Bill some 20 states filed a law suit against the Federal Government. Their argument was that the government could not force Americans to buy a product simply because they are an American (During debate of the bill it was decided that those who willingly chose to not carry health coverage would be fined). The government’s argument in court, which was recently made public, was that the Federal Government has the right to tax the people. This was their argument! All this rhetoric about the Health Care Reform Bill not increasing taxes, only to have the government’s sole argument in fighting this several state lawsuit was that the Federal Government has the right to tax? If that doesn’t have the underpinnings of deceit and dishonesty than I don’t know what does. It should only add to frustration that this is coming from one who’s platform before taking office was transparency and accountability. Mr. President, where’s the transparency? Where’s the Accountability? In closing, my father’s employer estimates that the Health Care Reform Bill will cost the company $30 Million. To recoup these costs my father’s employer is increasing health plan premiums to it’s employees by 11%. While this may not be a direct tax, it’s certainly an indirect one as it taxes money right out of my family’s wallet. Mr. President, you assured us you would run a house that would be rooted in accountability. Please let me know when that starts.

The Post Office and Health Care

The Post Office. Unless the mail comes late, or your expecting something in the mail, you probably don't think too much about the Post Office. In light of the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill, perhaps you should. What happens to the one is likely a reflection of what will eventually happen to the other. When we think of the word "monopoly," what comes to mind? Big oil companies? Railroads? Microsoft? If you thought of any of things you would indeed be right. All these have at one time or another been labeled as monopolies, but have you ever connected the word "monopoly" to the United States Post Office? In fact, "according to the government, no other system for delivering mail - public or private - can be established absent Congress's consent. Congress has delegated to the Postal Service the power to decide whether others may compete with it." This is why you cannot send a letter though FedEx or UPS, because it is illegal to do so. A monopoly literally means that you an unfair advantage over the competition. Having an unfair advantage over the competition, one would come to the conclusion that business would be good for the Post Office, but such is not the case. Like all things government, there is no incentive within the organization to turn a profit. Why become more efficient when saving money isn't a primary concern? There is no reward or incentive for anyone who saves the company money. Why improve your product or service when you have a monopoly over the competition? With this attitude spending often exceeds income, as it does in the case of the Post Office. And when this happens, the taxpayers bear the financial burden. The path the Post Office has taken is unsustainable, even for itself. In an attempt to reduce the Post Office's budget deficit it is anticipating the closing of hundreds of Post Office locations, the reduction of service from 6 to 5 days (No more Saturday mail), and raising the price of stamps by two cents (something we've become all too familiar with). To put it quite simply, we're paying more for less.

Despite what the Obama administration has said about the Health Care Reform Bill, health care costs will go up and health care services will go down. First the costs. AT&T has projected that it is expecting the bill will cost them $1 Billion, or $1,000,000,000. Caterpillar is projecting it will cost them $300 million. 3M projects it will cost them $90 million. Even my father's company, ConWay Transportation, projects a $30 million cost. There are only a handful of ways company's can deal with these extra costs. 1)They pass these costs to the consumer. 2)They pass these costs to the employees. AT&T is looking into dropping some benefits to retirees. In my dad's case, ConWay Transportation is raising health care premiums to employees by 11%. 3)The company's drop health care altogether which would require the company to pay a penalty (but would still save money), and it would drop the employees into government health care. Now to the services. A simple truth many fail to consider is that our health care resources are already stretched to the limit. We're adding coverage to nearly a hundred million individuals, but are not doing anything to add nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc. If that were not enough, taxes have been placed on medical devices and other services. Medicaid and Medicare are already paying so much less than other insurance carriers for services that many doctors are choosing to not accept it anymore. This means more patients for less doctors in an already overloaded system.

Nothing the government does is efficient in any way. Anyone who has served in the military can attest to that. The government run Post Office has a monopoly on their services and they can't even break even, but then again when was the last time any government program has come at or under budget? It's never happened! Not once! What is it that leads us to believe that Health Care will be the first? The implementation of the bill is already behind schedule, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already determined the bill will cost $150 Billion more than what was projected. Just as the Post Office has proven that to stay viable it must raise prices and reduce services, so too will the Health Care Bill prove to raise our costs and reduce our services.


Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/02/postal-service-lose-billion-official-says/
Wikipedia.org

The War at Our Borders

The above sign is not located in Iraq. The above sign isn’t located in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, this sign isn’t located in any distant war torn country. No, it’s located right here in the United States, the greatest nation on Earth, and within an hour away from one of our state capitals. I see this sign as a white flag of defeat. I’d like to know what local residents think of this literal waving of the white flag in the war of illegal immigration in their backyards. I know if I saw that sign anywhere near where I lived I would wonder aloud, I thought we were in America! I thought we had the right to go outside our homes and have a reasonable expectation of safety!

Immigration is a gigantic problem facing this nation, and it goes well beyond a mere safety issue. It’s an issue that won’t go away on its own. It’s a difficult issue that does far more dividing than it does uniting, but it’s a problem that needs solving nonetheless. Some administrations have battled it, while others have done little more than to pass it off to the next guy, but doing nothing is still far better than doing the wrong thing. Ronald Reagan, the icon of conservatism, himself advocated and signed into law a bill that instantly turned the estimated 2 million illegal immigrants in the country at the time into full fledged citizens. The bill Reagan signed included measures to secure the border, but these inclusions in the bill never materialized. What it effectively did was give an estimated 2 million law breakers a presidential pardon, while encouraging more people to break that very same law. After all, if the president says it’s ok then isn’t it ok? Is that really the message we should have sent? The law that Reagan passed failed, and only created a larger problem, yet lawmakers are considering a similar bill today. Again, is this the message we want to be sending?

The first priority of the US government should be to secure the border. We are the greatest nation on Earth, and to have signs like this being posted is a slap in the face to American exceptionalism. We the people deserve more than to be steered away from places within the United States because our government fails to do it’s job. Don’t put up signs! Secure the border and do whatever it takes to make putting up such signs unnecessary. In addition, dealing with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country is immaterial until the influx of illegal immigrants is brought down to nearly zero. To further this logic I use the example of the current Gulf oil spill. Would it be prudent to ignore the oil leak itself and instead place all our efforts cleaning up our shores? Of course not. Doing so doesn’t remedy that real problem. Stopping the leak of oil is the most pressing task, and so too is stopping the leak of illegal immigration the most pressing of tasks. There is more than one way to do that. Completing the border fence would be a great physical barrier, but getting rid of the very reasons that so many people break our laws by entering this country would be a far greater barrier than any fence. The two biggest reasons for illegal immigration: Jobs and childbirth.

Denying illegal immigrants access to American jobs and services (ie welfare) would make great strides to curbing the “leak.” To make this happen governments must incentivize employers to cease their practices of hiring illegal workers at near slave labor rates. Arizona passed such an “incentive” a couple of years ago. Simply put, if an employer is found to have knowingly hired illegal workers, the company’s business license is suspended for the period of a couple of weeks, during which time the business cannot operate. The company is then allowed to open back up for business under a probationary status, during which time the business can be checked for any additional illegal worker violations at any time. If further violations are found during this probationary period, the company’s business license is permanently revoked. There are two more points I’d like to make with respect to jobs. The first is that many will say, “Illegal immigrants do the work that Americans refuse to do.” Unfortunately, this myth is just that: a myth. According to Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, the highest percentage of immigrants in any job category, including both legal and illegal immigrants, involves farming, fish and forestry, in which 44.7% of workers are immigrants. The next highest proportion is construction. Yet even there, only 26.1% of the workers are immigrants. Camarota concludes, “It’s simply incorrect to say that immigrants only do jobs natives don’t want. If that were so, then there should be occupations comprised almost entirely of immigrants.” In such a case, not only are illegal immigrants not doing jobs Americans refuse to do, they are effectively taking jobs from them. Secondly, why do we seem so unconcerned with the near slave labor wages illegal immigrants are being paid for a full day’s work? If we continue to allow more and more illegal immigrants to come into the country without some real barriers, this slave labor will only grow more out of control than it already is. If allowing more people to come into this country to work at a slave’s price is compassion, than please consider me uncompassionate.

The second largest reason for entering the United States illegally is to give child birth. Doing so allows the birthed child automatic full citizenship status without any connection to the country, other than having simply been born within the borders. In fact, there are countless birthing centers across the US that function for this purpose, and for this purpose alone. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution allows this, but the framers of this amendment could have never foreseen it’s current use. The 14th Amendment was framed after the Civil War during the Reconstruction period. Before passage of this amendment, Blacks were not legally citizens of the United States. The 14th Amendment formally granted citizenship to Blacks. The intent of the amendment is commendable, but the perversion of it’s current unintended use is deplorable. The Supreme Court has never ruled on such an issue, but I believe it will.

After our border is secure we can then begin, and only then, begin to deal with the illegal immigrants that are already here (an estimated 10% of Mexico’s population). The fact of the matter is this: Breaking the law, whether you agree or disagree with the law, is and always will be breaking the law, and illegal immigration is just that. For that breaking of the law there needs to be some form of consequence. For this I offer my solution: Because it is a legal issue it needs to be dealt with in court. Make the crime for living in the United States a misdemeanor that illegal immigrants can come to court and plead guilty to. No jail time, but pay a fine. After paying such a fine they are put on a probationary status, which requires the now former illegal immigrant to learn English (and after 5 years be able to pass a 5th grade level English test) and work on a continual basis for the period of 5 years within the United States while paying full taxes. While on probationary status the former illegal immigrant is not allowed access to any public service with the exception of public education for any children. At the conclusion of 5 years the former illegal immigrant can stand before an immigration court and request full citizenship. So long as the terms of the probationary status have been met, full citizenship status is granted. If the probationary status has not been met, an extension may be granted or simply deportation if little or no attempt has been made to comply. A similar process should likewise be given for those foreigners who wish to become citizens who are not in the country illegally, with the exception of pleading to a misdemeanor and paying a fine since they broke no law. Participants in this “guest worker program” can remain in the country on a probationary basis and can apply for citizenship after 3 years of continuous employment. This effectively punishes those that have broken the law, while providing a pathway toward citizenship. This country was founded on the principle of immigration. Immigration can be a great thing. It just needs to be done correctly.

Source:
"America For Sale" -Jerome R. Corsi

A 35 hour drive, 5 hour energy and welfare

A few weeks ago a friend and I made the drive from northeast Tennessee to California. We left in the evening and drove straight through the night, the entire next day and half way through the following night before finally making it to our destination. We didn’t make any stops aside from filling up with gas. I took over the last leg of the trip in Kingman, Arizona just as the sun had gone down. We were 4.5 hours away from our destination and I had only gotten a few minutes of sleep during the day. Needless to say I was tired, but I really wanted to make it without having to stop. I was able to drive for about two hours before I could no longer make it on my own. I needed some outside help. Enter 5 hour energy. After taking a 5 hour energy I caught my second wind and was able to make it all the way without having to stop, but it’s important to note that after I took the 5 hour energy I was still the one that had to drive. There was no government official that appeared out of thin air to make the drive for me. I needed help, but I was still the one who needed to see to it that we get to our destination. I was ultimately responsible for us getting to our desired destination

Our welfare system was created to be a stepping stone for those that could not make it on their own and needed some “outside help.” It was intended to be a stepping stone to help people achieve what they were not able to achieve through their own power and will. Much like a 5 hour energy, welfare was created with the intent that the individual was still ultimately responsible for arriving at the desired destination in life. Unfortunately, our welfare system is no longer being used as a stepping stone. Instead of being used as a means to an end, it is now being used as simply a means. It has become a way of life. Where people used to be on welfare temporarily, it is now common place for strings of generations to permanently be on it. Rather than expanding the possibilities that people could achieve, it is now preventing people from reaching their full potentials. Welfare has indeed become a literal form of bondage. People that could otherwise be achieving so much, have been caught in the trap of contentment. Content in working a minimum wage job. Content that their families will forever be aided by those that work hard and aspire for greater things. Content that their children don’t deserve better. Content to the terms of their self imposed bondage. The welfare system has done nothing to disallow or even discourage this behavior, but something must be done. These people deserve more than having the government dictate the terms of their lives. These people deserve better than handing over their futures for a bag of mere dimes and nickels. These people deserve better, and our nation deserves better.

A Battle of Ideologies

I find myself immersed in politics. It’s not so much that I find it interesting as much as I find it necessary to be aware of. America finds itself as a world superpower. Superpowers are nations that find themselves virtually unmatched within any realm it enters. While America finds itself “virtually unmatched,” there have been others that have come before as superpowers, and yet are no longer. With that knowledge, one is led to ask a simple yet important question: What was it that caused these former superpowers to lose their unbridled power? It’s important to know that not a single superpower has fallen solely by the sword. The sword has certainly hastened the fall of nations, but the sword has never been the sole cause of such destruction. Superpowers, I argue, can never be brought down but by itself. This usually occurs by giving up positions of strength for positions of weakness.

I have often looked back and tried to pinpoint when I became enthralled with politics, and one such occasion especially comes to mind. A day after the Virginia Tech shooting I was watching a news program that mentioned that several students in the particular building that the shooting occurred in had concealed weapons permits, but because of state law they were not allowed to bring their weapons on campus and were instead left in their automobiles. I vividly remember naively thinking to myself, “If only those concealed weapon permit holders were allowed to bring their weapons on campus, far fewer people would have been killed.” I continued my thought, “This event will give plenty of reasons for the 2nd amendment to be reaffirmed.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. The following day I learned that the massacre had been politicized into a push to increase gun control and thereby limiting the 2nd amendment. Now, one is free to agree or disagree with me on this issue, but this is when I first discovered there was a battle of differing ideologies being fought in this country. A battle I was willing to take sides and fight for. A battle that, I believe if lost, will take us from our position of strength to a position of weakness.