Barb’s Blog » Entries tagged with "taxes"
ACORN Caught on Tape
ACORN Workers explain how ‘prostitute,’ ‘pimp’ can avoid taxes. … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Top Ten Reasons Obamacare is Wrong for America
According to The Heritage Foundation, the Top Ten Reasons Obamacare is Wrong for America: 1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear. 2. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you keep your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans will have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan “upgrades” will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums. 3. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a “public option” is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a healthcare plan that it controls and also sets … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Sinful and Tyrannical
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. ” Thomas Jefferson Some people quote the above this way: “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Misquote or not, to me, they say the same thing. Having said all that, now we have the Obama administration wishing to add unlimited access to abortion-on-demand to his Health Bill. This would dismiss the fact that in some states it is not legal and worst of all, make people who believe that abortion is MURDER, to pay through their taxes, for something they are against, it goes against all they whole dear. I think … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Commerce Secretary: America needs to pay for China’s emissions
As if Obama’s Cap and Trade Tax, further ruining our economy isn’t bad enough, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said something amazing—U.S. consumers should pay for part of Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions. So China is really smart, they refuse to join the west in what could be called economic suicide, then they allow us to pay for their emissions? China LOVES the idea! Brilliant! According to Hot Air: The US does not need to pay for China’s carbon emissions, even if the “greenhouse effect” presents a danger to the planet, a theory which increasingly looks suspect. This is yet another version of the blame-America impulse in the Obama administration, one that will hit us all in the wallet — and in our outlets and furnaces. Commerce sent this statement to WSJ “Secretary Locke has been very … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Missing: Maryland’s Millionaires
From the Wall Street Journal: Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.” One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Patriotic Retirement Plan
Chris and Jim sent me this today. This is from an article in the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on “How Would You Fix the Economy?” Dear Mr. President: Please find below my suggestion for fixing America ’s economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan: There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations: 1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed. 2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered – Auto … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Obama, Oh No.
Pledge Broken To be sure, Obama’s tax promises in last year’s campaign were most often made in the context of income taxes. Not always. “I can make a firm pledge,” he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. “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.” He repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.” Now in office, Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, to $1.01. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases. Blunder, Day One The normally savvy media mavens … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Middle Class Attack?
Reading an article today by Paul Craig Roberts, this line stood out, “The “free American” starts off with a 30% tax rate, the position of a medieval serf.” The premise of his article is to show that what the Obama administration is really doing is “taxing ordinary people in order to bail out the super rich.” The article starts off explaining the difference between rich…and well, RICH. For Obama, being “rich” begins with … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Obama’s Cabinet Circus
While on the campaign trail, more and more people in Obama’s past and present seemed dubious at best. Racist preachers and terrorist co-worker to mention two. Now that he is elected, and especially after promising ethics reform, (barring lobbyist from his administration), he would, usher in a new age of responsibility. Curious then, how he found at least three people for cabinet positions that didn’t pay their taxes over years, had illegal aliens in their employ, and a lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon. And there are the others brought into government from the influence industry even if not formally registered as lobbyists. I won’t even get started with Hillary Clinton and how she can perform with countries that have donated so much to her … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Confusing Contradictions
For some, news headlines must be very confusing. For those who didn’t know their own minds, they could spend a lot of time going around in circles… TAKE BIRTH CONTROL….or…NOT? Yesterday, a large headline appeared next to Nanny Pelosi’s image, where she insisted that part of the 800+ Billion stimulous package needed to be thrown at Family Planning, birth control, THAT, she was sure would help the economy. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.” Naturally that was met with a sensible, “How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives how does that stimulate the economy?” from House Republican Leader John Boehner. However, … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Obama’s Treasury Nominee Failed to Pay Taxes
My Way News Story President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to run the Treasury Department and lead the economic rescue effort disclosed to senators Tuesday that he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, a last-minute complication in an otherwise smooth path to confirmation. Timothy Geithner paid most of the past-due taxes days before Obama announced his nomination in November, an Obama transition official said. The unpaid taxes were discovered by Obama’s transition team while investigating Geithner’s background, the official said. The transition official requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to discuss Geithner’s situation. Obama reiterated his support Tuesday for Geithner as senators who are considering the appointment quizzed Geithner behind closed doors. “He’s dedicated his career to our country and served with honor, intelligence and distinction,” incoming White House spokesman Robert … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Yes We Can – Taxes!
Lifted from a very funny blogger, HockeyDino Obama just spent $650,000,000 to get a job that pays $400,000. Yes we want him to fix the economy! CAPITAL GAINS TAX MCCAIN 0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax. OBAMA 28% on profit from ALL home sales. (How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Wooden Arrows
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” ~ Ronald Reagan Congress continues to live up to its 10% approval rating and passed the Senate version of the bailout bill last night. The bill that started out as only 3 pages long (It’s now the length of a novel) has some interesting items attached to it: New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill. - Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502) - Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503) - 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504) Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill. - Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308) - American Samoa (Sec. 309) - Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310) - Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311) - Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312) - … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Pelosi Pork And Big Oil
While we consider big Oil and the price of gas (petrol)… Oh by the way, did you know that big oil companies DON’T control the majority of the oil, about 70 – 90% is owned by, guess what. GOVERNMENTS, depending how you count it. Now it all starts to make sense: Yet Big Oil is pretty small next to the industry’s true giants: the national oil companies (NOCs) owned or controlled by the governments of oil-rich countries, which manage over 90% of the world’s oil, depending on how you count. Of the 20 biggest oil firms, in terms of reserves of oil and gas, 16 are NOCs. Saudi Aramco, the biggest, has more than ten times the reserves that Exxon does. Those with misgivings about oil—that its price is too high, that reserves are … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Google Offshore
Google is considering taking its supercomputers on barges offshore. They would use wave power to cool and give electricity to their computers. Brilliant. Something tells me that isn’t the only benefit though, as offshore would mean not paying propery taxes. Google isn’t the only internet company looking for solutions and coming up with some odd locations for their data centers. The supercomputers housed in the data centres, which can be the size of football pitches, use massive amounts of electricity to ensure they do not overheat. As a result the internet is not very green. Data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005. By 2020 the carbon footprint of the computers that run the internet will be larger than that of air travel, a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy firm, … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Diplomatic Deadbeats
I saw on FoxNews this morning that the diplomats living in New York City repeatedly refuse to pay for parking tickets that they have received from illegal parking. Also, it goes beyond that, they buy property here in the U.S. and they also refuse to pay for their property taxes as well. This is where Diplomatic Immunity fares well for those who refuse to pay. No wonder NYC had to create a toll for those wanting to come into the city, it’s to cover for all these unpaid fines! It’s no small change like a quarter in the parking meter, either. The city is owed about $78 million in unpaid taxes–Egypt owes almost $2 million in diplomatic-related parking tickets and India owes upwards of $16 million in property taxes. Councilman Eric Gioia of Queens said yesterday … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
All Talk Pelosi
Apparently, “Nanny” Pelosi made a promise to reduce gas prices: In a press release dated April 24, 2006, Pelosi said, “Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.” I think it’s time that someone pointed out that the price of gasoline has spiked $1.18 since Democrats took over in January and stands at $3.51. Indeed someone has. House Republicans. House Republican leaders on Tuesday challenged Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to release a plan to lower gas prices that they say Democrats touted when they were in the minority. “Two years ago this week, you stated that House Democrats … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Chase It Down
It seems Hillary Clinton’s campaign is short of money, and while it seems to me that they could tighten up with the $6,000 a night at the Bellagio and the tremendous steak and lobster dinners, she was found out to have taken 5 million of her own money and put it to her campaign. Which had people asking, “Where did that money come from?” The Clintons have made some disclosures, which reveal only broad ranges of assets, place her and former President Clinton’s wealth between $10 million to $50 million. I really like how Obama handled the issue: Asked whether he would call on the Clintons to release their tax returns, Obama stopped short of saying they should. “I’ll just say that I’ve released my tax returns. That’s been a policy I’ve maintained consistently. I … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Marylanders Beware
Today I was in the rare position of being in the car alone, and with no teen in sight, I got to move the radio to AM Talk Radio. I heard the following warning: “In today’s State of the State Address, Martin O’Malley spoke of ‘protecting our priorities.’ Unfortunately, O’Malley’s priorities are not the priorities of Marylanders. While O’Malley continues down the path of out-of-control government spending, higher taxes, and according to today’s newspapers yet another hike in utility rates, Marylanders want fiscal discipline from our government, and they need tax relief now. “During the Special Session, Martin O’Malley increased government spending at unprecedented levels and signed into law $7 billion in new taxes. Martin O’Malley has now proposed the largest budget in Maryland history, increasing spending by yet another $2 billion in … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Washington Waste
This is not a new story, in fact it is rather nauseatingly old; government waste of our hard earned dollars. In light of how several of our presidential candidates would like government run health care, I read the following two headlines easily imagining how badly they could waste tax dollars in the name of medicine for all. D.C. officials got improper bonuses two dozen senior D.C. officials received more than $500,000 in cash bonuses, contrary to the rules, near the end of the administration of Mayor Anthony A. Williams, according to a report Friday by the D.C. auditor. Some in Fairfax Public Housing Make Six Figures Hundreds of families living in housing subsidized by Fairfax County taxpayers exceed income caps designed to ensure that only the neediest receive assistance, a review of … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
What’s the One Million For?
“Some men rob you with a six-gun, others with a fountain pen.” I am a little behind blogging on this news story. There are days our government can carry on antics with the speed of lightning, making it difficult for us bloggers to keep up. And these are only the antics we hear of. With the taxpayers money though, every little cent should be accountable, however recently, there was a million dollar spending bill on the floor and no … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Taxes
I just had to write a check along with sending my tax forms today. I don’t think I should have owed anything with the little I make, but heaven knows, Uncle Sam will find a way to waste it somehow, so there will be my contribution. I didn’t pass with flying colors Economics in school, but that wasn’t because it was so hard, it was more like Mr. Marcello, however old and sweet, was SO boring and the notes Donna … Read entire article »
Filed under: Personal
Where do your taxes go?
Did you know that, even in this day and age of technology and information at our fingertips, there is no single source of information explaining where federal money is spent? Small surprise there really. U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) have introduced the bi-partisan bill S. 2590, the “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act,” a bill that will create a Google-like search engine and database to track approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved S. 2590 unanimously this past week. “All Americans deserve to know where their money is being spent. ‘Googling’ the government will not only help expose and eliminate waste, but dispel misconceptions about the scope of our commitments. Many Americans, for example, … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
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