Archive for February 13th, 2012
The Obama Budget Plan
February 13, 2012 - Obama’s new budget plan for Fiscal Year 2013 doesn’t even come close to balancing the budget but does repeat a number of new tax plans on high income earners. The fact is that Obama’s budget will increase the deficit. The cost for his budget? Deficit spending coming in at $1.33 trillion.
Obama wants another $500 billion in stimulus money … apparently the first $800 billion wasn’t enough … for more transportation projects! FYI – Transportation projects are union-dominated construction projects. Obama will also make his “changes to the tax code” to make it “fair” so that millionaires will be required to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes.
Here are just a few of the items found in the massive four phone book sized documents.
Individual departments, here’s some examples of what’s in the Obama budget:
- Agriculture – budget cuts almost 3% or $700 million
- Commerce – $8 billion budget is increase of 5%
- Defense – military budget goes down 1%, $5.1 billion
- Education – almost $70 billion, up 2.5%
- Energy – $27.2 billion budget is up 3.2%
- HHS – Health & Human Services up 0.3% to $76.4 billion
- Interior – $11.4 billion budget up about 1%
- Justice – $27.1 billion, down 0.4%
- Labor – $12 billion is slightly down from 2012
- State Department – $51.6 billion up 1.6%
- Transportation – $74 billion is up 2%
- Treasury – up 6.9% to $14 billion; mainly IRS money
- Veterans – $64 billion is up 4.5%
- NASA – $17.7 billion is down $59 million
- Army Corps of Engineers – down 5.4% to $4.7 billion
- EPA – $8.3 billion, a decrease of 1.2%
Tax increases on the wealthy, list of “Upper-income tax provisions” included in the budget:
- Sunset the Bush tax cuts for those with income in excess of $250,000 ($200,000 if single)
- Reinstate the limitation on itemized deductions for upper-income taxpayers
- Reinstate the personal exemption phaseout for upper-income taxpayers
- Reinstate the 36-percent and 39.6-percent rates for upper-income taxpayers
- Tax qualified dividends as ordinary income for upper-income taxpayers
- Tax net long-term capital gains at a 20-percent rate for upper-income taxpayers
Tax cuts, list of items for “families and individuals” in the Obama budget:
- Extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit
- Provide for automatic enrollment in IRAs, including a small employer tax credit, and doubling of the tax credit for small employer plan start-up costs
- Expand EITC for larger families
- Expand child and dependent care tax credit
- Extend exclusion from income for cancellation of certain home mortgage debt
As for the deficit, this budget predicts higher deficits this year than expected, and then lower in the years ahead, but nothing even close to a balanced budget.
- 2012 deficit estimate – $1.33 trillion
- 2013 deficit estimate – $901 billion
- 2014 deficit estimate – $668 billion
- 2015 deficit estimate – $609 billion
- 2016 deficit estimate – $648 billion
- 2017 deficit estimate – $612 billion
An Urgent Call For Help For Little Owen
HELP IS NEEDED FROM MY GENERAL AVIATION FRIENDS
By Neal Boortz
UPDATE: We have a ride for Owen to and from his surgery. Thank you to Cox Enterprises, Greg Greenbaum and Atlantic Aviation. And thanks everyone that helped spread this around.
KMLB TO KCLE
That’s right. I’m going to ask someone to step forward and provide a ride for a three-year-old from Melbourne, Florida to The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
You heard me talk about this a bit last week. Here’s the story. It was July 1, 2011. David and Susie Johnson were vacationing in Blue Ridge, Georgia from their home in Palm Bay, Florida. They were waiting at a red light when a car driven by a local 16-year-old hit them traveling at over 70mph. The teens had reportedly been huffing some propellants from an aerosol can. Homicide by vehicle charges have been brought against the driver. I’ve had plenty to say about him and the efforts of his parents to keep him from being tried as an adult .. but that’s not the purpose of this narrative – I’m looking for help for the family.
David and Susie’s four children were in the car. One, Hannah, did not survive the crash. The other three children, Brooke, Kathryn and Owen were badly hurt. Susie was pregnant at the time of the crash and has since given birth to a healthy baby girl, Renee.
This plea is on behalf of Owen.
The wreck severed Owen’s spinal cord. He is paralyzed and will be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. Owen is badly in need of an operation so that he can breathe without danger of suffocation. More on the operation in a moment … but here’s a description of how this past Friday night for Owen’s parents from Caringbridge.org. (You can read Susie’s journal – a really heart-wrenching tale – by clicking on that link.)
Last night, we started to finally go to bed at 4am when we heard the tell-tale signs of distress from Owen’s room. He was crying. Chomping his teeth. Alarms started going off. And within a few minutes the house was filled with the all too familiar sounds of the obnoxious beep of the oxygen concentrator being turned on, the loud gurgle of the suction, and the screaming of the cough assist. Followed by the yells of my sweet little boy, in between forced breaths as David worked to clear his lungs. At 4:30am the machinery was all finally turned off. Kathryn, who popped her head out to ask if Owen was ok, returned to bed. Renee, who was startled awake, had settled back down. Hopefully, my poor mom didn’t get woken up this time. Owen’s heart rate was still raised and so David squeezed in next to him in his small bed and fell asleep.
There’s an operation scheduled for Owen at the end of the month at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland Ohio. The operation is to implant the breathing version of a pacemaker. Here’s an explanation from Owen’s father:
| We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the diaphragm pacer over the last week or so (especially after the last post), so I wanted to explain it a little better…The Diaphragm Pacing System (DPS) is similar in some ways and easy to compare to a pacemaker for your heart. The major differences are that the pacemaker itself is not implanted (like a heart pacemaker is) as it is too large (3″x5″ or so), the batteries require changing much more frequently, and it has more external settings that can be adjusted. It is used in patients with cervical spine injuries (like Owen), ALS, etc. who suffer from chronic respiratory failure (where the diaphragms are not working on their own).What’s actually implanted are the leads into the diaphragm muscles. There are 5 wires then that basically protrude through the skin and connect to a small wiring harness type connector, which mates with the cable from the pacemaker when it’s being used. More wires and stuff to care for, but that’s definitely a price worth paying.Once the leads are implanted, the DPS can be connected and used…but…since Owen’s diaphragms haven’t moved in what will be about 8 months, he’ll need to undergo a “training program” to rebuild strength and endurance in his diaphragm muscles. The common misconception is that he’ll come home without a ventilator. This is not true. While it’s true that while using the diaphragm pacer you are not connected to the ventilator, he may be only using the DPS for 1 minute every hour at first, working his way up to as much as he will tolerate. In time, he’ll be able to use it for an hour, then two, then more… The goal is to be “paced” 24×7, without ventilation. Some people can tolerate that, others can’t, it will just depend on how his body responds. Some people can’t even be paced, due to the level of their injury. Owen’s injury is close to the area of concern, but there’s no reason to believe the surgery will not be successful. Testing ahead of time is not performed on children his age, so we won’t know whether it works or not until he’s in the OR. So please pray for a positive outcome!The procedure was somewhat made “famous” when Christopher Reeves, Superman, had one of the first DPS implantations before FDA approval. His surgeon, Dr. Raymond Onders in Cleveland, OH, will actually be doing Owen’s surgery as well. He’s the only surgeon who’s performed this procedure several times on young kids in the US, but Owen will be one of the youngest ever!Surgery has been scheduled for the end of the month so we’re now having to work double-time to get our travel arrangements ironed-out. - David |
The problem here is that the Johnson’s have no way to get Owen to Cleveland for the surgery. They simply cannot afford the cost of a private aircraft to make the trip. Owen, as you can see, has his head in a halo and has a breathing tube in his neck. We looked into making the trip in my Mooney, but there isn’t sufficient room or load-carrying capacity for medical personnel and equipment. For now my wife’s foundation is covering the mortgage payments for the Johnsons so they don’t lose their home, and I asking you here to help get Owen to his surgical appointment.
Yes — we’ve called Angel Flight, but their rules would apparently call for three aircraft changes from Melbourne to Cleveland. Not good. So I’m asking someone to step forward … someone or some company with an airplane capable of getting Owen, his nurse, a good bit of medical equipment and his parents to Cleveland. If you, your company, or a friend has a (preferably) turbine powered pressurized aircraft – King Air, TBM 700, light jet – and if you would be willing to donate the aircraft and crew, plus no small amount of kerosene, to the effort …. well, let’s just say that would be a wonderful thing.
Time’s running out here, and they really need to know that transportation to the Cleveland Clinic has been arranged. If someone doesn’t step up Owen is simply not going to be able to have this potential life-saving surgery done by the most qualified physician.
If you can help please send us a note at RideForOwen@gmail.com. We’re monitoring that email address continually and will coordinate any offers with Owen’s family.
I’ll keep you posted and let you know if we manage to arrange the ride for Owen Johnson to Cleveland.
