Posts Tagged ‘Federal Government’
381 TSA Officers Have Been Fired For Stealing Your Stuff
September 28, 2012 – According to the TSA, 381 TSA officers have been fired for theft between 2003 and 2012, including 11 so far in this year. We can safely bet that number will continue to rise because TSA will hire anyone with a pulse to fondle you, your kids, and snoop through your personal property.
By the way, this does not include the officers who have been convicted of child porn, child molestation, rape and kidnapping.
This is the group of fake Federal Agents who are hired to protect you. They are not law enforcement officers. They are dime a dozen security guards who probably couldn’t qualify for a job flipping burgers or washing dishes. The TSA appears to be nothing more than a federal jobs program for people who can’t get a job anywhere else.
Read Story HERE
Government Outrages That Should Make Your Blood Boil
September 2, 2011 – It takes only a few minutes on the internet to find these stories of outrageous government spending and government abuse of power over citizens and small business owners. Here are a few stories that should really get your blood boiling. – J Roycroft
Environmental Enforcement Leaves Gibson Guitar Makers in Fear
Feds Give 4 States $5.8 Million to Protect Insect Habitat
USDA Gives $73,824 Grant To Connect Food With Bed And Breakfasts
DHS Giving $2.1B in ‘Preparedness Grants’ to Cities, Indian Tribes, Non-Profits, Etc.
Postal Service spent $4.3 million on union employees who did “nothing”
$500,000 for a windmill in Milwaukee
Pentagon pays $720M in late fees for storage containers
Gov’t Paying Farmers, Ranchers $112M to Protect Bird Too Numerous to be Threatened
HIV/AIDS group charged with diverting tax dollars to strip club
Taxpayer-Funded App Makes You Look Like a Neanderthal
Taxpayers Foot Bill For an App To Tell Workers It’s Hot Outside
Related articles
- Government Waste: The Reason We Are In Debt (theroycroftreport.wordpress.com)
Obama Played His Hand Well In The Debt Ceiling Debate
Image via Wikipedia
This article will open your eyes a bit and give you something else to think about in regards to the tiring debt ceiling debate. Obama played his hand quite well leaving nothing on his back until after the election. Never giving his own ideas or his own plan, he just sat there with his mouth shut while both sides took the heat. – John Roycroft
This isn’t Monday-morning quarterbacking. For one thing, it’s not football season yet. For another, the game wasn’t played on Sunday afternoon. It’s been going on for weeks, with twists and turns more reminiscent of comic opera than football.
Even so, today’s media game has been all about deciding who got the better deal. Many of the partisans think they came up short, and are looking to blame their guys. In the media (which sees any legislation as an achievement, no matter how hollow, cynical, or ultimately ineffectual), many are scoring this as a win for both sides. (That’s to say, all of the parties will be able to go back to their respective bases with something to brag about.)
Around the middle of last week, I lost track of the specific content of the deals, which was in constant flux. And the media lost track of it too! The only reporting, it seemed, was about who was up (Boehner, Reid, Obama) and who was down at any point in time. That tells you all you need to know about how cynical and empty this whole process has been.
I’ve given some of my views on the deal that was struck in Coffee & Markets. Suffice to say that the deal is substance-lite. Conservatives will find (or have found) that tax increases and defense cuts are indeed on the table as the fiscal debate continues. Liberals are dismayed that the sacred status of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid was not enshrined in first-order language. They fear that cuts may be made to these programs. (Of course, they need not worry, but they will.)
The leadership in Congress, on both sides and in both houses, comes out of this in varying shades of black-and-blue. But ALL of them, even Pelosi, are black-and-blue. This episode won’t go down in history as Congress’s finest hour.
But while the economic and policy objectives of the fight may be clear enough to partisans outside of Congress (and might even be somewhat meaningful to ordinary people), this ultimately was a fight about politics.
And in the political analysis, there is only one player who came out of this with everything he wanted: Barack Obama.
Obama wasn’t trying to advance a policy objective. Not even once did he let the articulation of such a thing pass his lips. Rather he had two specific objectives that he had to get at all costs:
1) To get Republicans to propose specific spending cuts that Democrats can use against them in the coming elections, while not making any such proposals himself; and
2) To silence the fiscal debate until after his election in 2012.
The president won on both counts. Everything else that was at stake in the negotiation was a nice-to-have for him, not a need-to-have.
No one else got their must-have objectives. The Republicans have to face the prospect of tax increases combined with spending cuts that will be phony at best. And the Democrats will have to keep justifying entitlement programs that we can no longer afford.
The downside for conservatives is clear: We’ve lost our last chance for a meaningful discussion on fiscal reform, until there’s another financial or economic crisis.
But liberals have lost even more. It turns out that Obama was only willing to fight hard for his own political objectives. If liberals choose to be honest with themselves, they’ll see that both they and the media made the mistake of conflating their policy interests with Obama’s personal interests.
Obama himself never made that mistake for a second. - By Francis Cianfrocca (Profile)
Related articles
- The Democrats May Have Lost Now, But They Can Win Later (Unless They Also Lose Later) (huffingtonpost.com)
- Final Push to Pass Debt Deal (online.wsj.com)
- Obama And The Debt Deal: A Failure Of Leadership? (outsidethebeltway.com)
- US debt crisis: Barack Obama looks like a winner (telegraph.co.uk)
- It’s Not A Compromise (ken_ashford.typepad.com)
- Debt Deal Postmortem (outsidethebeltway.com)
The Same As It Ever Was – An Obama Video
It’s Friday and I thought you might enjoy this little video.
The Marxist, Barack Obama
This is me being completely honest with you. My disgust with and contempt for Barack Obama grows every time I hear that dangerous man speak. Obama’s press conference yesterday was little more than an exercise in class warfare, big government rhetoric. His remarks were aimed almost exclusively at the massive numbers of dumb masses who actually buy into his “us vs. them” class warfare rhetoric. Idiots who spend their days wallowing in self-pity brought on by their belief that all those disgusting rich people have the things they have because they’ve spent their lives exploiting the poor, cheating on their income taxes and engaging in various other types of immoral and illegal behavior.
Obama painted a picture of Americans who want a “fair” society, college education for their children, meat inspections, tornado warnings, and medical research for the sick versus the evil Republicans who want to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires buzzing around on their corporate jets! Here’s just one example from yesterday’s presser:
“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships,” Obama said. “[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means that food inspection might be compromised. I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”
Again, why the focus on these corporate jets? Spending by our federal government is set to grow well over $46 trillion over the next ten years. This jet tax break that we are talking about would gain us $3 billion over the next ten years. $3 billion. Does anyone find it frustrating that we are focusing on such a tiny blip on the Richter scale of government spending?
Well you know why Obama is focusing on private jets, don’t you? That would be because private jets might be the number-one really visible of wealth in this country. Probably about 80% of the population will see a small jet in the sky on any given day. This is especially true in urban areas – where the airports are and, and, coincidentally, where many of the poor that Obama is courting live. Perhaps the hope is that by casting the patina of evil on the people riding in those jets a certain reaction can be promoted every time one flies overhead. “Yeah – there’s another private jet. I’ll be there’s some CEO in that jet who doesn’t pay his fair share in taxes; and he probably is earning thousands of times more than the people who work for him and made him rich. Bastard!”
There’s another aspect to making people who fly on private jets the focus of evil. Airport security. You have 95-year-old women dying of cancer having to remove their Depends. You can’t get on an airplane carrying more than 3oz of sunscreen. You junk gets manhandled every time you fly somewhere. The Obama comes along and talks about these CEOs (it’s always CEOs) getting in his private jet without having to go through any security and carrying anything he wants to carry. That whole riff is designed to do nothing less than create a sense of resentment in those who fly commercial.
Let me share something else with you about these corporate jets. It’s not always CEOs. In fact, it’s not usually CEOs. Let’s take a company in New Jersey with a production facility in Arkansas. Something goes wrong with the automation on the Arkansas production line. If it is not fixed quickly a few hundred Arkansas workers will be told that the plant will not be operating for a few days. Production lost. Income lost. So an IT automation expert is loaded on the corporate jet at Newark and flown to the small Arkansas town where the production line is located – a town with no commercial air service. The problem is fixed overnight, and the production line opens on schedule.
Then there’s the Corporate Angel Network. Click on the link to see their website. Here’s the slogan: “Cancer Patients Fly Free In Empty Seats on Corporate Jets.” In 2010 the Corporate Angel Network flew 3.021 cancer patients for free to and from treatment centers. Tell me – do cancer patients fly free in empty seats on commercial carriers? The answer is NO.
And another thing about these corporate jet tax breaks. What Barack Obama failed to tell us is that this “accelerated depreciation” tax credit is something that was included …… in his own stimulus plan! The great Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed by an all-Democrat Congress and championed by Barack Obama himself, included these very tax breaks that he is now demonizing. The Associated Press ran this story in February of 2009:
Just a few months after lawmakers scolded auto executives for flying to Washington in private jets, Congress approved a tax break in the stimulus package to help businesses buy their own planes.
The incentive — first used to help plane makers recover from the 2001 terror attacks — sharply reduces the up front tax bill for companies who buy assets like business planes.
The aviation industry, which is cutting jobs as it suffers from declining shipments and canceled orders, hopes the tax break in the economic-stimulus bill just signed by President Barack Obama will persuade more companies to buy planes and snap a slump in general aviation that began last year.
“This is exactly the type of financial incentive that should be included in a stimulus bill,” said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., in an interview. His state lost at least 6,900 jobs at Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, both based in Wichita.…
The incentive — known as accelerated depreciation — lets companies take a larger deduction in the early years of the life of an asset such as a plane.
Companies will have to place orders by the end of 2009, and those planes will need to be delivered by the end of 2010 to take advantage of the tax benefit.
First used in the months following 9/11, an industry study found accelerated depreciation helped boost sales by 43 percent, and later contributed an additional $2 billion in sales when implemented again in 2003.
Another asinine claim in Obama’s presser included this falsehood about taxes being lower now than they have ever been. Here’s what he said in his presser … and, again, notice the disdain in his voice in referencing corporate jets:
If you are a wealthy CEO or hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s. And you can afford it. You’ll still be able to ride on your corporate jet. You’ll just have to pay a little more…
Anybody who will simply look at a chart of federal tax income rates and determine that taxes were higher in the 50s must have been educated in government schools. Income tax rates only tell part of the story: According to the Tax Foundation, more than two-thirds of all taxes paid by Americans in 2010 will be something other than income taxes. We must also consider payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, deductions, all of which play a role in the amount of money government collects and the burden it places on its citizens. So PolitiFact found a way to analyze our tax burden …
There is another way — calculating all taxes paid by Americans and dividing the sum by the nation’s total income. To make this calculation, we turned to the Tax Foundation’s annual “Tax Freedom Day” report, which offers calculations of total tax burden going back to 1900. (There was no federal income tax then, but there were state and other taxes.)
The foundation’s expected tax burden for 2010 is 26.9 percent, up slightly from the 2009 tax burden of 26.6 percent. (This is not unusual: The tax burden typically falls during recessions, as taxpayers move to lower tax brackets.)
Under Eisenhower, that figure ranged from 24.8 percent to 27.7 percent, with the figure lower than 26.9 percent for seven out of eight years. So by this measurement, the tax burden was lower most of the time under Eisenhower.
Now that we have our facts straight, let’s talk about the fact that Barack Obama is standing up there at his podium telling you what you can and cannot afford. He said that taxes are “lower than they’ve been since the 1950s. And you can afford it.” That’s Obama channeling Karl Marx: “From each according to their ability. To each according to their need.”
We have a Marxist in the White House.
By Neal Boortz
Obama Blames Those Mean Old ATM’s For Stalling Our Economy
June 15, 2011 - Obama thinks ATM’s are stalling our economy. Are we to fear the ATM now? What if they decide to go on strike or unionize? What will we do then Mr President?
This presidential hack never ceases to amaze me.
From the Community Organizer -
“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
Most of the “structural” issues with our economy have to do with government – regulation, red-tape, taxes. Ann Curry in this interview with Obama cited a New York Times article : “Since the recovery began, business spending on employees has grown 2 percent as equipment and software spending has swelled 26 percent, according to the Commerce Department.” Obama won’t admit this fact as to why – labor costs. “Indeed, equipment and software prices have dipped 2.4 percent since the recovery began, thanks largely to foreign manufacturing. Labor costs, on the other hand, have risen 6.7 percent, according to the Labor Department. The rising compensation costs are driven in large part by costlier health care benefits.”
Michael P. Fleischer, the president of a small telecom firm in New Jersey, helps explain how the government plays a part in increasing the cost of hiring workers -
She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That’s the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She’s lucky she doesn’t live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers’ comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally’s Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally’s pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally’s job each year.
Related articles
- Obama Blames ATMs and the Internet for High Unemployment (treeofmamre.wordpress.com)
- Obama Blames ATMs for High Unemployment – Fox Nation (via PUMABydesign001′s Blog) (wdednh.wordpress.com)
- Obama Ban ATMs to Create Jobs ??? (2012patriot.wordpress.com)
- UPDATED: Obama FINALLY discovers reasons behind high unemployment: ATM’s and airport kiosks! (crushliberalism.com)
The Washington Post Exposes Obama’s Lies About Automotive Industry Bail Outs
Image by SS&SS via Flickr
The Washington Post, of all news agencies, has exposed the misleading statements and outright lies our Marxist Ruler has fed to the American public in his recent statement on radio and during his Ohio visit last week.
This come as no surprise to me. After all, with the Democrats, it’s all about how good you can tell a lie, and how long you can get away with it. Just keep lying about it. It’s to be expected.
Ask Anthony Weiner – Hell, that piece of crap will lie, lie, lie to the world, and then when he gets caught, he refuses to quit. Why? Because he is an arrogant, liberal asshole, and he knows that nothing of substance is going to happen to him. Just like Bill Clinton. Just like Ted Kennedy. Just like Obama. LIE LIE LIE.
Actually I hope that Weiner doesn’t leave his position. As long as he is there, he means nothing to anyone. He’s just a big fat Zero to everyone. This actually works out better for the Republicans – Because if he quits or is removed, the Democrats will replace him with someone more powerful and more in tune with the idiots that want to keep the Marxist Community Organizer in office. So I say leave the little weiner right where he is. It’s a seat we won’t have to worry about.
Am I upset today? Nope. Just a little PISSED OFF!
44.5 Million Americans Are Now Receiving Food Stamps
June 1, 2011 - The number of people depending on the government is increasing at a dramatic rate. More than
44.5 million Americans, nearly 21 million households, are now receiving food stamps. This is an increase of 11% from one year ago and a 61% increase from just four years ago.
Here is just another example of a government program that has grown out of control. When established in 1964, the Food Stamp Act appropriated $75 million to 350,000 individuals in 40 counties and three cities. At the time, the Agriculture Department estimated that participation in the program would eventually reach 4 million, at a cost of $360 million annually. By 2010, it reached over 40 million Americans costing $68 billion in one year.
And you put these people in charge of your healthcare after they promised to bring down the costs of medical care??
But here we go again. Last week it was Medicare, this week it is food stamps. What I’m talking about are ways for Democrats and the ObamaMedia to make Republicans look like the evil out-of-touch poverty mongers who want people to go hungry while giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. Republicans are reviewing the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture that includes $71 billion for food stamps. The problem is that this is $2 billion less than what Obama has requested for the program. But also keep in mind that this $71 billion is STILL a 9% increase from 2011. But immediately, the line from the Democrats and the ObamaMedia is that the Republicans are making cuts on the backs of poor Americans. Here are the two directions for the future of food stamps as per ABC:
- The Republicans’ 2012 budget plan proposes changing SNAP from an entitlement to a block-grant program that would be tailored for each individual state, much like their proposal for Medicaid. States would no longer receive open-ended subsidies and the aid would be contingent on work or job training. It would also limit funding for the program.
- The president’s 2012 budget, however, goes in a completely opposite direction. It aims to make requirements less stringent by temporarily suspending for one year the time limit for certain age groups without dependents. The president also suggested restoring benefit cuts that were included in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill last year.
Which future for America would you choose? – Neal Boortz
