The Ideological Deficit

The Democrats have found a new “religion”.
Complain about spending too much, only if it’s against their ideology.
And for no other reason.
Take the “Bush” Tax cuts.
The democrats know that the tax increases from this will hurt the economy badly, but because it’s Bush, they can’t stomach extending them so they play the “deficit” card which is hilarious since they just spent weeks bashing the Republicans for being “mean” and “heartless” because they wanted the unemployment benefits extension paid for instead of adding to the deficit!
In the end, the Democrats just passed it anyhow.
So they can raise the deficit for unemployment benefits (now going over 100 weeks straight with the average being 37) but keeping a tax cut with Satan’s name attached to it is not worth adding to their massive spending.
New estimates from the White House on Friday predict the budget deficit will reach a record $1.47 trillion this year. The government is borrowing 41 cents of every dollar it spends.
That’s taking partisan ideologicial politics to a new low.
The Democrats are effectively saying, if it doesn’t benefit them politically it’s not worth doing.
I also think they want to saddle the Republicans with it.
They know they are going to lose massively in November so what better way to play it than stick your opponent with the mess and then when the 2012 tax season rolls around and people are hit full-on in the face with the 2011 income tax increases you can have “sympathy” for them in the 2012 Presidential election and make it look like it was all the Republicans fault.
Or Bush’s fault.
Now is that too cynical?  I think not.

Fiscal Policy: Many voters are looking forward to 2011, hoping a new Congress will put the country back on the right track. But unless something’s done soon, the new year will also come with a raft of tax hikes — including a return of the death tax — that will be real killers.
Through the end of this year, the federal estate tax rate is zero — thanks to the package of broad-based tax cuts that President Bush pushed through to get the economy going earlier in the decade.
But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.
Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn’t the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it’s not just the rich who will pay.
The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.
Yes, it raises taxes on anyone who pays taxes, Period. Even the “poor”. So I guess he wants  to pander to the 47% who don’t pay taxes, women, and minorities in his apparatchik class and everyone else can just screw themselves…
But the damage doesn’t stop there.
The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase.
Both the cap-gains and dividend taxes will go up further in 2013 as the health care reform adds a 3.8% Medicare levy for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000. Other tax hikes include: halving the child tax credit to $500 from $1,000 and fixing the standard deduction for couples at the same level as it is for single filers.
Letting the Bush cuts expire will cost taxpayers $115 billion next year alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and $2.6 trillion through 2020.
But even more tax headaches lie ahead. This “second wave” of hikes, as Americans for Tax Reform puts it, are designed to pay for ObamaCare and include:
The Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans, says ATR, “will no longer be able to use health savings account, flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).”
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. “This provision of ObamaCare,” according to ATR, “increases the additional tax on nonmedical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10% to 20%, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10%.”
Brand Name Drug Tax. Makers and importers of brand-name drugs will be liable for a tax of $2.5 billion in 2011. The tax goes to $3 billion a year from 2012 to 2016, then $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018. Beginning in 2019 it falls to $2.8 billion and stays there. And who pays the new drug tax? Patients, in the form of higher prices.
Economic Substance Doctrine. ATR reports that “The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks ‘economic substance.’”
A third and final (for now) wave, says ATR, consists of the alternative minimum tax’s widening net, tax hikes on employers and the loss of deductions for tuition:
• The Tax Policy Center, no right-wing group, says that the failure to index the AMT will subject 28.5 million families to the tax when they file next year, up from 4 million this year.
• “Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly deduct, or ‘depreciate’) equipment purchases up to $250,000,” says ATR. “This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be ‘depreciated.’”
• According to ATR, there are “literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place,” plus the loss of some tax credits. The research and experimentation tax credit will be the biggest loss, “but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.”
• The deduction for tuition and fees will no longer be available and there will be limits placed on education tax credits. Teachers won’t be able to deduct their classroom expenses and employer-provided educational aid will be restricted. Thousands of families will no longer be allowed to deduct student loan interest.
Then there’s the tax on Americans who decline to buy health care insurance (the tax the administration initially said wasn’t a tax but now argues in court that it is) plus a 3.8% Medicare tax beginning in 2013 on profits made in real estate transactions by wealthier Americans.
Not all Americans may fully realize what’s in store come Jan. 1. But they should have a pretty good idea by the mid-term elections, and members of Congress might take note of our latest IBD/TIPP Poll (summarized above).
Fifty-one percent of respondents favored making the Bush cuts permanent vs. 28% who didn’t. Republicans were more than 4 to 1 and Independents more than 2 to 1 in favor. Only Democrats were opposed, but only by 40%-38%.
The cuts also proved popular among all income groups — despite the Democrats’ oft-heard assertion that Bush merely provided “tax breaks for the wealthy.” Fact is, Bush cut taxes for everyone who paid them, and the cuts helped the nation recover from a recession and the worst stock-market crash since 1929.
Maybe, just maybe, Americans remember that — and will not forget come Nov. 2. (IBD)


And there’s always the Tax that isn’t a Tax because it’s a “penalty” but in court it’s a Tax– The Health Care Mandate.


After all, known communist and fired “green Jobs czar” Van Jones recently said:
While the federal government sinks deeper into debt than any time since World War II, former White House “green jobs” adviser Anthony Van Jones said it was time to stop worrying about budget deficits and pressure Washington to take more money from American businesses to fund larger social and infrastructure projects.
“This is a rich country. We have plenty of money, and if you don’t believe me, ask Haliburton,” Jones told a group of progressive bloggers and activists at the Netroots Nation (Think Far Left Hatefest) convention Friday. “There’s plenty of money out there; don’t fall into the trap of this whole deficit argument.”
“The only question is how to spend it,” he added.

Speaking of spending remember TARP, that bailout that was supposed to save the universe and create jobs?
Well, not so much.
How’s that Troubled Asset Relief Program going? Not so well. A review of TARP found that homeowners aren’t avoiding foreclosure and the decisions to close car dealerships were politically based.
The Home Affordable Modification Program, infused last year with $50 billion in TARP money by the Obama administration, was supposed to help 3 million to 4 million mortgage holders with their problem loans.
But according to a government audit, it has failed to “put an appreciable dent in the foreclosure filings.”
Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the $787 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, told Congress on Wednesday that fewer than 400,000 homeowners have had their mortgages permanently modified under the program.
“It’s just not a program that’s working for homeowners,” Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of a panel charged with overseeing the bailout, also told Congress on Wednesday.
“It’s not a program in some cases that’s working for investors. And most importantly, it’s not a program that’s working for the economy over all.”
Warren, who resides on the other side of the idea spectrum from us, said the problem with the program is “It’s too slow. It’s too small.”
But at least we have $20 Billion dollars in signs touting how great it is (each sign cost $10,000 a piece).
Her position is based on a faulty assumption: that the federal government, which is rife with fraud, waste and corruption, is able to effectively implement even a small program. She is expecting an unwieldy bureaucracy to do something that it cannot — and should not — do.
Another function of TARP, the auto dealership closing program, also took criticism in the review. More than 2,000 dealerships were closed as a cost-cutting measure in Washington’s bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. But the closings weren’t business decisions. They were political.
And they cost jobs.
“Treasury made a series of decisions that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses and thereby potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls — all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions’ broader economic impact,” said Barofsky’s 45-page report.
According to the audit, the Treasury Department, which administers TARP, simply failed to show how the dealership closings were “either necessary for the sake of the companies’ economic survival or prudent for the sake of the nation’s economic recovery.”
The Barofsky report says some GM “dealerships were retained because they were recently appointed, were key wholesale parts dealers, or were minority- or woman-owned dealerships.”
Further underscoring TARP’s institutional problems is Barofsky’s finding that the government has been throwing taxpayers’ money at the country’s financial system that it wasn’t authorized to spend.
“Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall federal support for the nation’s financial system has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3 trillion to $3.7 trillion — the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program,” says the report.
The money has been allocated “largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases.” Worse, much of the unauthorized expenditures was doled out to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government mortgage institutions that are largely responsible for the 2007-08 financial meltdown.
Fannie and Freddie were explicitly excluded from the “financial reform” package.
It’s no coincidence that TARP has been a big part of one of the ugliest economic eras in American history.
We wouldn’t be surprised if historians one day look back and find that TARP was a significant contributor to the depth and length of the current slump.
Unless you’re a Journo-List Media biased ideological “journalists” or historian that distorts the facts to suit Big Brother’s Ideological Agenda that is.

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Poisoning The Well With Lame Duck

The Democrats are expected to lose big, especially in the House, in November.
Their hierarchy is made  up of very petty partisans who will do anything for their agenda.
They are the ones who have total disrespect for everyone who disagrees with them.
So faced with nearly inevitable annihilation that even they think is coming.
What can they do in the less than 4 months left before their power is diminished before the rampaging hoardes of barbarian Tea Partiers and Satan’s army incarnate, The Republicans,  storm the gates of their rightful power.
What any villager or Military in olden times did.
POISON THE WELL.
Do as much damage in a short amount of time as to make the incoming Congress’s job as tough as possible.
Likely, so in 2012′s Presidential Campaign Obama can claim that “well we tried it their way but it hasn’t gotten any better” because you know that if the House goes Republican (and possibly the Senate) that the Democrats who have been yelling about Republican “Obstructionism” for the last 18 months will now pivot and become the champion of  “No”.
And “NO!” will become a virtue again. And you know the Mainstream Media will be on the “Hell No!” bandwagon.
Meanwhile, their Health care provisions and taxes and the 2011 taxes will, of course, be “republican’s fault” after all they were in power when they hit. So it has to be their fault, doesn’t it.
The Democrats aren’t petty.
And the Mainstream Media isn’t in bed with them and won’t go from kiss-ass to a pack of veracious 24/7  raptors overnight.
No, that would never happen.
Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they’re leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won’t return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal’s Charlie Cook, the Beltway’s leading political handicapper, predicted last month “the House is gone,” meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.
The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That’s why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don’t want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.\
“I’ve got lots of things I want to do” in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota’s Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama’s deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. “It could be a huge deal,” he told Roll Call last month. “We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path.” By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.
Mind you, the commission recommendation is a forgone conclusion. Higher Taxes,  even the VAT tax is not unlikely.
After all, it’s job is to deflect blame away from Obama and Congress to begin with.
Why not, they have nothing to lose.
And Democrats, especially Progressive Socialist Democrats, aren’t petty and vindictive now are they…:)
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like “card check”—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—”the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future.”
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that “to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again.” He told Mr. Press “we’re still trying to maneuver” a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws (got to have even more potential for Democrats to foster voter fraud in 2012), and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending. (poison the well) Deficits, we’ll show you deficits!
Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that “some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending.” Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress’s “favor factory,” such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. “Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session,” Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.
But these are they guys who rammed Health Care down your throat even if to this day a majority are against it.
They are suing the State of Arizona for their own Open Borders mentality even though a majority of Americans are against it.
They continue to spend like drugged-out addicts.
Why wouldn’t they take one final shot of that pork heroin.
The Democrats have the chance to push as much of their Agenda without consequence to them personally as possible. Why wouldn’t they do it?
I wouldn’t even put Amnesty off the table.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.), one of the GOP’s staunchest opponents of illegal immigration, warned that President Barack Obama might seek immigration reform after this fall’s elections, and urged lawmakers running for reelection to pledge not to move such legislation during a lame-duck Congress.

“If you listen to the debate, since the president’s speech, and now you look at this action by his Justice Department, what we can expect is that after the next elections, in between before the next Congress is sworn in, they will move and try to do something dramatic in the area of illegal immigration,” Rohrabacher said during an interview with a conservative radio syndicate.
So we have initiatives to create even more voter fraud, we have Amnesty for new Democrat voters.
They wouldn’t be trying to steal 2012 and future elections now would they?
Nah, they aren’t that cynical and power mad now are they.
Got a Global Warming PR problem, no problem a Lame Duck can’t fix.
“Last night President Obama reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. Next week he will be reaching out to senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward.”
There’s that word “comprehensive” again….
“The tragedy in the gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the president is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year.”
Never Let a crisis go to waste, or a Lame Duck for that matter.
Under this scenario, the final product of any House-Senate conference could come up for a final vote in a lame-duck session after lawmakers have faced voters in November, thereby cushioning the vote’s political impact. (WP)

It’s been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn’t faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.
Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate “Blue Dogs” in the House would support on the campaign trail. “We have a lot of wiggle room in conference,” a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.
Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn’t be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate. (John Fund, WSJ)

DAMN THE TORPEDOES! FULL STEAM AHEAD!
And of course, it’s all George W Bush and The Republican’s Fault.
What we really need is to have Lame Duck declared a  Major Health Hazard, because it’s potentially very, very TOXIC and  potential lethal to us all.

Get Your Exemption Card Here!!

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
So it’s time for a little something this president understands, Quid Pro Quo.

“This card a tangible reminder that Obama has deliberately broken his central campaign promise not to raise any form of taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000. The last President to break his tax pledge – Bush 41 – served only one term.” – Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform


You may have noticed that President Obama has broken his central campaign promise – a “firm pledge” that Americans making less than $250,000 would not see “any form of tax increase.” He first broke this pledge sixteen days into his presidency when he signed a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco. And Obamacare contains 21 tax increases – several of which violate his “firm pledge”.
To protect you from these tax hikes, Americans for Tax Reform presents the “Obama Tax Hike Exemption Card”. The card fits neatly in your wallet and contains a list of the tax hikes signed into law by President Obama that violate his tax pledge, as well as a few other taxes that have been threatened: a European-style Value-Added Tax, Cap and Trade taxes, and even a federal soda tax.
Fill out the form below to get your Obama Tax Hike Exemption Card
How to use the card:
Step 1: Present the card to merchants, employers, and tax authorities.
Step 2: If challenged, pleasantly ask: “Are you calling President Obama a liar?”

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
–Candidate Barack Obama, Sept. 12, 2008
“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

Read more: https://www.atr.org/obama-tax-hike-exemption-card-a5140##ixzz0sLFjN4tF
TheTax on Indoor Tanning Services takes effect July 1, 2010: This provision of Obamacare imposes a new 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons.  The tax was tucked into the bill behind closed doors at the last minute, replacing the previous “Bo-Tax” – a proposed tax on plastic surgery.  The 30 million Americans who visit tanning facilities are getting a lesson in the petty, nanny-state nature of Obamacare – every time they walk through the door.  Not to mention the business owners and employees who are threatened by the tax.  (Page 373 of Manager’s amendment/$2.7 billion)
The “Medicine Cabinet Tax” takes effect Jan. 1, 2011: Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be 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).  (Page 1997/Sec. 9003/$5 billion)
The “Special Needs Kids Tax” takes effect Jan. 1, 2011: This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit).  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.  (Page 1999/Sec. 9005/$14 billion)
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike takes effect Jan. 1, 2011: This provision of Obamacare increases the 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.  (Page 1998/Sec. 9004/$1.3 billion)
TheMedical Itemized Deductions Cap takes effect Jan. 1, 2013: Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction if the total cost if the expenses reduces the filer’s income by 7.5%.  This provision of Obamacare imposes a threshold of 10%.  This new tax will most adversely affect early retirees and the catastrophically ill.  (Page 2034/Sec. 9013/$15.2 billion)
The Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax takes effect Jan. 1, 2014: Anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following (page 71 of manager’s amendment updates Reid bill): (Page 324/Sec. 1501)

	Single	2 People	3+ People
2014	$95/1.0% AGI	$190/1.0% AGI	$285/1.0% AGI
2015	$325/2.0% AGI	$650/2.0% AGI	$975/2.0% AGI
2016+	$695/2.5% AGI	$1390/2.0% AGI	$2085/2.5%/AGI

The Obamacare Medical Prosthetics and Devices Tax took effect in January of 2010:
This Obamacare tax raises the price of all medical prosthetic devices, such as pacemakers and artificial limbs. Consumers of these devices will end up paying more for these life-saving items.  ($20 billion)
The Obama Tobacco Tax Hike took effect April 1, 2009
Obama first broke his tax pledge sixteen days into his presidency when he signed into law a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco.  At that time, Obama was rightly called out by Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press in a piece titled “Promises, Promises: Obama Tax Pledge Up in Smoke” Use your Obama Tax Hike Exemption Card – or else be prepared to pony up an extra 62 cents per pack of cigarettes.
Potential Obama Tax Hike to Watch Out For:  A Federal Soda Tax
In an interview with Men’s Health published in September of 2009, President Obama said that a tax on soda and sugar-laden beverages was “an idea that we should be exploring.”  So, keep your Obama Tax Hike Exemption Card handy at all times!  With this President, you never know when the other shoe will drop!

And we haven’t included the Bank Tax (that you’ll end up paying)  in the now troubled, but ultimately will pass-I believe-Financial Reform Bill.
Then we Have the Cap & Trade Bill with it’s 19th Century outrage for the Industrial Revolution which will now be the “We Hate BP” bill.
The 2011 Tax increase (previously outlined) in my blog “2011“
The whole salt thing and what about taxing foods that are bad for you?
The moratorium on drilling that the President is fighting, so gas prices can skyrocket and INCREASE our dependency on foreign Oil because all the 60′s pie-in-sky bovine fecal matter will not change reality.
So you have to use the card as a discount for that $7.00 gas you may get saddled with.
So you may need multiple copies!