The Perfect Window Dical

Here's a great window decal from Woodlands, CA...via LegalInsurrection.

It Worked!

Obama claimed that his economy policies have worked...but you must wonder just what he intended them to do!



If keeping unemployment high, with a higher level of dependency upon government handouts than ever before.  If pushing electric power prices to unprecedented levels was the goal; if crony capitalism with billions upon billions funneled to campaign donors who were invested in solar and wind projects that failed was the goal...

Then yes, it worked.

(Social) Democrats On Record: We Want To Kill The Economy

With today's vote  to increase taxes across the board on small business, the (Social) Democratic Party is now on record as wanting to kill the economy to justify the state's take over of all economic activity. 

The Democrat-controlled Senate passed this by a 51-48 margin Wednesday, voting to raise marginal income-tax rates from 33% to 36% for individuals making more than $200,000 and from 35% to 39.6% for couples making

On top of that body blow to the economy, which the House is sure to block, the Senate Democrats' vote would also increase the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends from 15% to 20% — which, as Forbes' Donald Marron recently noted, will actually reach 25% in 2013 thanks to ObamaCare and the reinstatement of the "Pease provision" that limits deductions.

There can now be no pretense of distance between Senate Democrats and Obama; this was his tax policy being voted on, with Vice President Joseph Biden himself presiding to break any possible tie. Every Democratic senator except the retiring Jim Webb and retiring "independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman voted for it, apparently to avoid embarrassing the president.more than $250,000, some 2.5 million households.

If this (on the very slim chance) makes it though the House of Representatives, this will have the unfortunate effect of forcing an already slowing economy back into recession, just as FDR's Keynesian economic policies of 1934-5 pitched the then recovering national economic outlook back into a more severe recession in 1937.

Outside the Currie report, another factor involved was the uncertainty the business community felt concerning New Deal policy. The combination of repeated budget deficits, increasing regulatory obstacles, higher labor costs due to the Wagner Act, and the threat of higher taxes contributed to the reduction of business and investor confidence. New investment had dropped, causing FDR to speculate that there was a "capital strike" designed to oust him from office.

This "capital strike" was caused by the terrifying effect that the New Deal's random targeting of business had on the general economy, according to 1940 Republican presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie. If investors thought the government would take over a certain industry, they would withhold their money from that industry.

The targeting of business and corporations was very evident in the new undistributed profits tax. Companies had cut their dividend distributions in the face of lower earnings, reducing the revenue the federal government received from dividend taxes. Therefore, a tax bill was passed to get at those undistributed funds. According to the August 1937 New York Times article, "Levy on Profits Halts Expansion," the undistributed profits tax decreased companies' financial reserves, which prevented them from retaining their employees and investing in new equipment.

If you see parallels to what is happening today, you'd be correct.  Today, businesses all over the country have refrained from spending money, have hesitated from hiring new employees, and have kept production down because they are uncertain of what will happen.  Recent economic forcasts have shown with enemic 1.9% growth for the 2nd Qtr 2012, will probably be corrected down from that dismal number as new unemployment figures have risen for the 3rd month in a row.
In this sort of economic climate, with a Federal government that has implemented choking regulatory standards, its no wonder that business have  so far refused to increase either spending or production.  There is far too much uncertainly during an election year for any business to being betting on an economic recovery.

WIth this in mind, any GOP/Libertarian candidate for the US Senate would be wise to hammer their opponent for voting to raise taxes.  They would also be smart to use this video as well:



And she idiotically doubles down on her statement:



Then they would hit them with this video from the Romney Campaign:


Now, this is the policy of the (Social) Democratic Party...tax business into the ground!

You Didn't Build That

Mr. Obama would have you believe that the government is responsible for your success.



I hate to tell you, sir, that the several million small business men and women did build their business, INSPITE of governmental interference...not because of government's assistance.

Surgery...

Late yesterday, my wife Cheri had emergency surgery.  It was successful.  Hopefully this will resolve all of her severe pain issues.  Unfortunately, she missed a job interview because of it.  The job was for full-time.  It would have been nice if she'd been able to get it as for the first time  in 4 years, we'd be able to make ends meet without having to worry about how we were going to pay all of our bills...

Guess it wasn't meant to be...

Emergency Surgery

Cheri was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, last night for emergency surgery today at noon.  Our insurance will cover some of the costs, but not all...any help would be deeply appreciated.

It's Not My Fault, I didn't Do It: Or...it's all Bush's fault dammit

via Ed Driscoll:

The President says, “most people would acknowledge that I’ve tried real hard”.
—The same President that for nearly four years has blamed his own trackless failures and protracted ineffectiveness on his predecessor, President Bush, when for his first two years in office his party had majorities and control of both the House and the Senate as well as the White House.
When that started to wear thin, he blamed a “particularly harsh Winter”.
When it wasn’t the snow anymore, he then blamed the Arab Spring, the uprisings in Egypt and the shortages of oil from Libya to Europe.

Then we were led to believe that his economic recovery plans of hundreds of billions in deficit spending could not withstand the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tsunami in Japan, floods in the mid-west, and finally an earthquake and a tropical storm both within a week.

The President tells us that the villains are mother nature, big oil, wall street, corporations, the bankers, the insurance industry, the coal miners, the millionaires and billionaires, congress, global warming, and the Texas wild fires.

How are we are going to get back on track with an administration whose policies work contrary to an expanding private sector from which all of our prosperity comes —the creators of real sustaining jobs within organizations that have essential private risk taking and recourse to keep them going concerns with recurring and regular payrolls.
Dump this creed of redistributive wealth by government ration including a Secretary of Agriculture who sees his primary job as increasing participants in the SNAP Food Stamp program that now number 46 million Americans and is now spending $20 million in an advertising campaign seeking even more participants.

Dump this administration that believes in the folly of telling Americans that the collective will well provide for their individual healthcare.

Dump this administration that sees the federal government on a street corner handing out a $1,000 a second and thinks the line will someday get shorter, instead of bringing restraints on federal appropriations that are clearly unsustainable with a public debt nearing $16 trillion, that is now more than GDP, and 40 cents of every dollar spent by government today is borrowed.

There shall be consequences to this President’s legacy of multiple trillions of deficit spending —more than any other administration of government in the history of the world.
How easy it is to govern when you just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend without restraint, instead of rising to the occasion, taking responsibility and making hard decisions like the rest of us outside of Washington are having to do during these hard times —and we’re told, “I’ve tried real hard”.

At what ?

Just last week at a high school in Durham, New Hampshire this President told an audience of high school students,

“You can decide that instead of restricting access to birth control or defunding Planned Parenthood, we should make sure that in this country, women control their own health care choices. That’s up to you”.

—equating the failure of public funding of contraceptive birth controls and abortions the same as restricting access to the same.

Again, this is a President who chooses the venue of a high school to say all this.
This is the same President who rewards Sandra Fluke and her outspoken college behavior at Georgetown University with a telephone call from the White House last March.

At every opportunity this President repeatedly tells our young people at commencement how our Constitution is a “fundamentally flawed document” as he seeks to disassociate our young from the founding fathers of our republic and inculcates a huge false sense of entitlement in our young with his own revisionist account of American history.
Just what message is this to our young people from the President of the United States, and just what business does he have in doing this at all ?

This, together with seeking more and more on food stamps shows us that what you’ve tried so real hard at is to further the demoralization and debasement of American society.
I conclude the “fundamental change” of this collectivist President is a willful and deliberate attempt to separate our young people from their own parents, grandparents and any religious instruction, disassociate them from America’s founding and its noble history, and to undermine and destroy our American culture altogether with this spineless rhetoric of impotence and mendacity.

It is this depravity, degeneracy, and decadence of a secular creed that simply must be defeated.

This man, due to the victim blanket of the Progressive Liberal Left, has never, ever had to take responsibility for any damn thing in his life.  He has gone to great lengths to deny his culpability for what we are undergoing.  What ever happened to the Democratic Party of Harry "The Buck Stops Here" Truman?

Passing Laws...

Most laws are passed in secrecy...not sure that's right...actually, I'm very sure that' wrong...



We shouldn't do as Nancy Pelosi urged "we have to pass this bill, to see what's in it..." That's exactly the wrong way to approach the problem.

Warning Shots Will Not Be Fired

Steve Barton of Newsalert has a link to a very troubling article.  The article is about an army field manual for US Army military police forces on how to respond to rioting.  First produced in 2006, CIVIL DISTURBANCE OPERATIONS, as a guide for MP's. 

What's troubling about the whole thing is that its to be used within the bounds of the United States...

The document (PDF), which is dated 2006 and was used for a self-learning course at the U.S. Army Military Police School at Fort McClellan, makes it clear that the operations described in the manual apply to both “CONUS and OCONUS,” meaning inside the Continental United States and outside the Continental United States.

...and therein lies the real problem.  Here's a quote from the course,

(2) Prior to committing any federal forces in the quailing of civil disturbance whether in CONUS or OCONUS commanders should train and continually brief the control force on the rule of engagement (ROE). The commander is responsible for drafting, interpreting, disseminating, and training the control force on the ROE. The staff Judge Advocate (SJA) should be included in the ROE development to ensure that it will not improperly constrain actions, but still will remain consistent with domestic international laws, polices, and orders of the chain of command.

Our military has never really been used to put down riots in any systematic way.  When I was a young Marine, back in the early '80's, I don't think that I would have been able to follow through with orders to fire into a crowd of American citizens...and I'm not sure if the men and women in the military today would either.  Here's one of the points that disturbs me,

(4) In addition, the following policies regarding the use of deadly force will be observed:

(a) Give an order to halt.
(b) Warning shot will not be fired; Because it purports to be, and prides itself to be, apolitical, the US Military being prepared to set interment camps to house political prisoners is...not good.

Furthermore, it gives instruction on setting up interment camps...

The manual also describes how prisoners will be processed through temporary internment camps under the guidance of U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operations, which as we reported earlier this year, outlines how internees would be “re-educated” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States.

The only time those have been used was during WW2 when the Federal Government disgracefully, and illegally locked up US citizen of Japanese dissent...but to purposely set up camps in which US citizens will be help is, unconscionable.  The very idea that our government is getting ready to suppress dissent is, not very palatable to most Americans.  But, it is.

With many Americans now becoming “pre-revolutionary” as a result of their fury at the Obama administration and equally unpopular lawmakers in Washington, potential civil unrest could spring not just from a poverty-stricken underclass, but also the shrinking middle class.

Perhaps that’s why the Department of Homeland Security is increasingly focusing its anti-terror apparatus on white middle class Americans, portraying them as domestic terrorists in a series of PSA videos. In addition, ‘Occupy’ protesters are also now being characterized as terrorists.

That, I think, is the sign of a political class that has begun to lose their grip on reality.  But as the BlogFather, Glenn Reynolds has repeatedly said, we're being served by the worse political class in our history.

Via Newsalert

3 Big Takeaways From ObamaCare Ruling

Via Reason Magazine...
1. Government is still unlimited.
2. Mitt Romney is still lame.
3. Health care costs will still soar.

ObamaCare Tax Hikes

Via Newsalert, here's a full list of the tax hikes that the the Democratically controlled Congress has foisted on the country.

Obamacare law contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses
WASHINGTON, DC -- Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses. Arranged by their respective sizes according to CBO scores, below is the total list of all $500 billion-plus in tax hikes (over the next ten years) in Obamacare, their effective dates, and where to find them in the bill.
$123 Billion: Surtax on Investment Income (Takes effect Jan. 2013): A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:

	Capital Gains	Dividends	Other*
2012	15%	15%	35%
2013+	23.8%	43.4%	43.4%

*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8% surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens. (Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93)
$86 Billion: Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Current law and changes:

	First $200,000 ($250,000 Married) Employer/Employee	All Remaining Wages Employer/Employee
Current Law	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed
Obamacare Tax Hike	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/2.35% 3.8% self-employed

Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2000-2003; 87-93

$65 Billion: Individual Mandate Excise Tax and Employer Mandate Tax (Both taxes take effect Jan. 2014):
Individual: Anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance as defined by Obama-appointed HHS bureaucrats must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following

	1 Adult	2 Adults	3+ Adults
2014	1% AGI/$95	1% AGI/$190	1% AGI/$285
2015	2% AGI/$325	2% AGI/$650	2% AGI/$975
2016 +	2.5% AGI/$695	2.5% AGI/$1390	2.5% AGI/$2085

Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS). Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337

Employer: If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346

(Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion)

$60.1 Billion: Tax on Health Insurers (Takes effect Jan. 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993

$32 Billion: Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Takes effect Jan. 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956

$23.6 Billion: “Black liquor” tax hike (Took effect in 2010) This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105

$22.2 Billion: Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Took effect in 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980

$20 Billion: Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986

$15.2 Billion: High Medical Bills Tax (Takes effect Jan 1. 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995

$13.2 Billion: Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389

$5 Billion: Medicine Cabinet Tax (Took effect Jan. 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957-1,959

$4.5 Billion: Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Takes effect Jan. 2013) Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994

$4.5 Billion: Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Took effect in 2010): This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113

$2.7 Billion: Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (Took effect July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399

$1.4 Billion: HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Took effect Jan. 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,959

$0.6 Billion: $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,995-2,000
                                                                                                               
$0.4 Billion: Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Took effect in 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004

$ Negligible: Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Took effect in 2010): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971

$ Negligible: Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Took effect in Jan. 2012): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957

75% of these taxes will be imposed upon those making less than $120k per year. That just goes to show tthat Obama was lying when he said that taxes upon the middle class wouldn't be part of the bill.



The hypocrisy of the Obama administration is shown here...his chief of staff is claiming that ObamaCare's mandate isn't a tax...only to be shown that Obama's attorneys said that it was before the Supreme Court.



We've been screwed by Congress for that last time.  If the GOP controlled House of Reprentatives doesn't present a bill repealing this abortion of a law BEFORE the November elections, they'll merely be showing us they are tools...