American Republic Online

That’s right since leaving the White House the Clintons have sure found a lot of GREEN. They couple’s recently released tax returns show that they have made $109,200,000.00 since 2007. That’s an average of $15.6 Million per year. Which makes you wonder if Hillary has her fingers crossed when gives campaign speeches about how she’s going to stop the evil rich or when she explains how she can empathize with the poor and downtrodden in this country.

Something I’ve always wondered: if the Big Wig Democrats actually believed the things told to the adoring masses, why don’t they donate their own money to the government? I mean it’s a widely held democratic belief that the rich are “bad” and can “afford” to give more of their wealth to the government… so where is the leading by example? I think this question could be asked of any multi-millionaire Democrat, (I’m looking at you Hollywood) but particularly a leader of said political movement. If the government is the best method to more justly/correctly/fairly distribute the money that the rich don’t need to help those that do need…. doesn’t it follow that wealthy politicians (that claim such beliefs) should just give the portion of wealth that they don’t need to the government? I mean sure raise taxes as soon as you can, but you don’t have to wait to help the masses with your money - right? Right?
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The Bush administration is going to propose new regulations in the financial markets, and propose consolidation of regulatory power.  It is dressed in an “effort to limit Washington’s role in the market.”  But I’m not so sure.  The idea of consolidating power is, not surprisingly, unappealing to me.  This is especially true for an organization such as the Fed that has remained somewhat politically independent to this point.  Indeed, the Fed must be as politically independent as possible.   Can you imagine a room full of politicians deciding (even discussing) the issues faced by the Fed?

Well, what about a Fed that must answer to political posturing?  A Fed that must answer to Congress’ every whim and fancy.  In fact, the Fed is facing this very issue.  John Mauldin fills us in:

Basically, there are two vacant seats on the Fed. President Bush has nominated two very qualified people with distinguished records and backgrounds who have hands-on experience in real-world banking, as opposed to being academicians. These are not political appointments, but serious economists.

[Senator Chris] Dodd refuses to allow these nominations, or any others, to move forward…

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Hillary’s husband, Bill, recently stated that

“We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

And you know what? He’s right. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (at least to the magical 1990 level everyone favors for some reason), our economy would suffer a serious set-back. Less transportation, less industry, etc. Few have been willing to admit this. Others shrug it off willingly as an easy sacrifice. Although I doubt the majority of people would agree. You see, environmental-consciousness is a luxury of developed societies. When one is struggling to survive for a week, or even a day, issues that might face future generations are pretty low on the to-do list. It’s rather easy to tell someone to live a salt-of-the-earth lifestyle while sitting in air conditioned rooms, next to refrigerators, down the road from grocery stores, benefiting from formal education, etc. Oh wait, the Kyoto Treaty doesn’t force itself on developing countries, only those who can afford the changes. Why not? Because of the harm it would do to their economies. Do the “struggling middle class families that have been walked over by the Republicans” mind if his wife “slows down our economy” to fight global warming? Hmmm….

Tennessee’s very own Senator Corker stands up to Bush’s stimulus package (sorry):

“What I see in this package is nothing but a political stimulus,” said Corker. “It’s a stimulus to make the American people think that we, as a body, are doing something to actually cause the economy to be stronger. “

He’s right. Fiscal stimulus such as that being considered in the Senate have not been proven to help the economy. The only thing they help is re-election campaigns. It’s good to hear some sanity coming from Washington.

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In a shocking defeat to the world’s friendliest Dictator President, the people of Venezuela voted down Hugo Chavez’s brave new socialistic world. The reforms included:

• ending presidential term limits
• appointing local leaders under a redrawn political map
• ending the central bank’s autonomy
• reduction in the working day to six hours
• creating a social fund for informal workers
• further establishing community councils where residents can decide how to spend government money

Isn’t it great how socialism can promise reduced work and increased spending? It’s magic! The best part, of course, was the brilliant speech by Hugo himself as he provided the political analysis from the state-run TV networks:

“Perhaps I made a mistake in the timing of my proposals, that could be, that we (the people of Venezuela) are not politically mature enough,” he said.

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The demographic reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new “party of the rich”. More and more Democrats represent areas with a high concentration of wealthy households. Using Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation identified two categories of taxpayers – single filers with incomes of more than $100,000 and married filers with incomes of more than $200,000 – and combined them to discern where the wealthiest Americans live and who represents them.

Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

This new political demography holds true in the House of Representatives, where the leadership of each party hails from different worlds. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, represents one of America’s wealthiest regions. Her San Francisco district has more than 43,700 high-end households. Fewer than 7,000 households in the western Ohio district of House Republican leader John Boehner enjoy this level of affluence…

It should be noted that income and wealth are often confused. Due to the IRS, income data is much easier to come by, but not a reflection of “wealth” or net worth. For instance, you could make $120,000 in southern California and be financially unable to purchase a house. You could also have a net worth north $100 MILLION dollars, but show an IRS income of less than $100k. (Which is actually how we got saddled with the AMT).

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Disguised as a “fix” for the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Dems have proposed a 4% surcharge on anyone making over $150k ($200k for couples). This coupled with the decision to let the tax cuts that spurred our economy to new records expire (an easy way to raise taxes) means the top bracket for individuals will become 44% in the US. For comparison, the average for developed countries is 35.7%.

Now some of you may say that such wealthy people can afford to give us all their money. Unfortunately, small businesses owners and farmers, often pay taxes as individuals not as businesses (like corporations do). So if you’re out to screw the rich - remember that when the family loses their farm, or the small business down the street has slow customer service because they had to lay off some help to pay the new 9% of taxes.

And it’s actually even worse: the 4% increase is a surcharge not a rate hike. The difference? Surcharges are applied before tax deductions. Got a kid in college? Paying all that mortgage interest? Gave a large donation to Katrina relief? Doesn’t matter… 4% on it ALL.

So on top of punishing the successful, we’re now going to take away their incentive to give money to charity? Though, I guess if we just take even more of their money away it won’t matter if they give to charity ’cause the government can fill that void as well. Well at least until they rich take their money & income to another country to avoid the taxes. 50%, 70%, even 100% of nothing is less that 35% of something. Read the rest of this entry »

So the tax implications of Barry Bonds’ 756th home run ball has been discussed by several “experts” and all have failed to see the obvious: this is utterly ridiculous. I can’t think of something more American than eating a hot dog, drinking a beer and catching a home run ball while enjoying America’s past time: baseball.

And I can’t think of a better example of how deranged our tax code has become that we have made it economically infeasible to keep said memento. Seriously, you go to a game, you catch a ball, you suddenly owe the government $250,000+!!! Why is no one else objecting to the seer lunacy of this? “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” (Mugatu)

If poor Matt Murphy had decided not to sell his souvenir he would still owe 35% of whatever the IRS guess-ti mated it’s worth. The fair market value of a one of a kind ball (until the record is again broken) mixed with the taint of an asterisk? We’re talking a range of hundreds of thousands of dollars here. So who picks the worth?

Now I’ve heard several people argue that the ball’s value IS that so high because a few people would be willing to pay an exorbitant amount for it. But lets take that logic and apply it else where - like Real Estate. The South, lately, has been getting an influx of people retiring from the North East. These people are paying 2 to 3 times the normal rate per sq ft for homes marketed to them because they’re idiots their cost of living comparison is such that those homes still seem cheap to them. Does the fact that some people are paying 3 as much for a house down the street from mine triple the value of my house? Did clever distance marketing just triple my property taxes?

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Another year means another cost of living adjustment for those on Social Security. Since inflation has been quite low lately (even including gas gouging by Big Oil) the raise SS recipients will receive is 2.3%. How much was your raise this year?

In any event, here are the numbers behind the increase. There are currently 49,633,000 on Social Security (not including the 4+ Million receiving Supplemental Security Income) as of August 2007 according to the Social Sec. Administration. Taking the average increase of $24 per month and doing the math gives you the following:

$14,294,304,000. That’s just the increase. How much longer can we continue to ignore this problem?

Or look at the problem another way:  In 2008 the average SS check will be for $984.84 and that burden will be split between 4 workers, or $246.21 per worker per month.  As the baby boomers retire the ratio of workers will drop to 3:1.  Even with modest cost of living adjustmentsthe average check will hit $1211.22 in 2015 but only be split to three workers.  That’s right, you can look forward to $403.74 out of each month’s paycheck.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have that money for yourself?

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