Articles tagged as

Taxes

So, Mike Kitch – is the evidence starting to add up fer ya yet?

That would be Mike Kitch of the Laconia Daily Sun who took great exception to a Notable Quote I put up some time ago:

"A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship."

-Lord Thomas MacCauley

At the time, we "had words", because of his absolute assumption that because it had never happened in the past, it was impossible to see that happen in the future. Well, dude, start reaching for your salt, because unless something drastic happens, you will be eating your words.  With Obama doubling the level of where poverty benefits kick in (from 100% to 200% of the poverty level, more and more will come to be more dependent upon government – and that will turn into entitlement.  As I have said before, Kitch is fine with the taking of money from the prudent and giving it to the profligate – after all, they NEED it more than we do (shades of Atlas Shrugs!).

But it is not just those in poverty that can vote and vote for more and more benefits (and with the US at the tipping point of almost 50% of the population receiving some sort of public dole) – there is another growing constituency that is aligned with that group.

It seems that others have recognized that special interests, in a coordinated fashion, of plundering the public treasuries (city, state, and national), as this article from the Washington Examiner points out:

Obama’s ascendance was no anomaly, but testament to the rise of a powerful political coalition in America made up of those who benefit from expanding government, including public-sector employees and their unions; activists at organizations that survive on government money; and recipients of government benefits.

Obama’s election in 2008 was merely the clearest indicator of the extent to which this coalition has successfully amassed power in the last 50 years.

Indeed. And I watched that here in Belknap County when the Commissioners, trying to be frugal, cut the budgets of these "outside agencies" – and holy hell descended upon those Commissioners at a meeting where the "gimme groups" all gnashed and wailed.  Result: the feckless Republicans who controlled the "County Delegation" made sure that the money was put back in.  Way to go for the brand, duds!

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What About Union Campaign Ethics

Bill O’Brien, the next speaker of the New Hampshire House, has drafted a bill for next session meant to resolve the conflict of interest that exists when state employees campaign for state politicians.  Mr. O’Brien’s motivation, as reported in an article in the morning UL by John DiStaso, is Pam Walsh who  collected thousands in political consulting fees from Teflon John Lynch while employed by the state.

The State Union objects to the bill on the grounds that the language in the proposed bill is too broad, that no state employee would be able to work for anyone running for office in the state.  But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

When you boil it down, there really isn’t any difference between a lobbyist and a public service union member who draws a taxpayer funded paycheck.  These folks have an immediate financial interest in who is elected to office.  They actually pay an entity (the union) to represent them in negotiations with the very government for whom they work, for the purpose of expanding their share of taxpayer patronage, a goal that is directly affected by who is elected to office.  Their natural inclination will be to support politicians who will reward them with financial remuneration and/or expand union access or power to achieve similar gains.  Not only is it a conflict of interest, it is a home field advantage that no other voter or taxpayer can hope to compete with, paid for by the taxpayers themselves from the dues paid out of taxpayer funded paychecks.

Why is this even legal? 

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Data point – So, Hodes and Shea-Porter, not giving Obama his desired tax hikes will result in utter despair?

The only gnashing of teeth will come from the Socialist Progressives / Statists that will be denied what is essentially a dime more for spending and more control.  Remember, the Bush tax cuts were back in 2001 and 2003 – once again, the Progressives are trying to redefine our vocabulary – at what point does "repeal" no longer apply?  Obama wants to raise marginal tax rates, he raises taxes for ALL of us.  But does it really matter – or is this Obama further fundamentally transforming America "for fairness"?

(H/T: The American)

Veronique de Rugy is becoming one of my favorite folks online – she does what I would love to do – the research of data set and presentation by visualization techniques (translations for simple Democrats: make hard stuff easy to understand).  In the post, she explains the back ground AND WHY OBAMA IS BEING MISLEADING.  Her conclusion?

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Lunch for Lynch

Mike Hoefer is skipping his Lunch for Lynch and he’s asking the folks at Boo Hoo Hampshire to do the same.  He figures, rather than spend $9.68 at Panera bread he’s donating that money to Lynch for Governor to help fight back against the attacks by NOM. Well Mike, I have a few thoughts. Panera … Read more

Lynch Lies Some More

He lied about the confab being for campaign contributions, he lied about the deficit and spending, he lied about balancing the budget, the "surplus" meme is a lie in the context with which he’s applied it, he stood for parental rights then shot them down, he said he was against broad based taxes but signed … Read more

Wrong Way

Wrong-Way_Goffstown_Democrats

In the long and undistinguished line of left wing rubber stamps milling about the State House like zombies, you can find Kevin Hodges of Hillsborough 7, perhaps better known as Kevin "Awesome Cool" Hodges, among the undead.  Kevin garnered a small measure of fame after an encounter with a young lady in his district who took umbrage with his casual use of vulgar language and his insults of experienced Republican legislators. 

One editorial (and this blog post) later and Kevin was destined for a followup–so here it is.

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What Tax is Fair?

The Granite State Fair Tax folks are back trolling for a broad based tax on the idea that it is more fair?  Fair to whom?  That’s always the question but it never tries to address why we need a tax, and why we need to control how much of it the government can collect, or how easily they can grow it.

And back in May of 2010 I once again tried to make the case for property taxes as better way to control the flow of revenue into the government.  It may or may not be my most persuasive but it is my most recent.

 

May 25 2010 ‘Why Property Taxes’

I have argued at great length on why relying primarily on local property taxes is the best mechanism for keeping government small.  But no matter how often I bring it up someone always tries to make the point that it’s not fair.  Why should the people who actually own the physical land in the state have to bear the burden of the costs associated with the governance of that land and the people who live on it? (That’s not exactly how they say it, I’m just translating it into common sense.) 

I happen to think that question answers itself, and as I’ve stated before should act as a necessary mechanism for filtering out unnecessary spending and over aggressive revenue seeking by busy bodies at every level of government.  Yet I am still confronted with the issue of New Hampshire’s unfair property tax burden–to which I now respond, what burden?

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Let’s put the taking of Federal Income taxes from you into an absurd scenario

I normally do not put up entire posts from other folks, but Neal Boortz has this one down pat.  In it, he demonstrates the absurdity of the what Federal Govt does by taking away, via taxes, that is a good sum of money that for most middle class Americans.  It demonstrates the angst of the phrase:

"Do you REALLY think that Government can spend YOUR money better than YOU can?"

Boortz (emphasis mine):

OK so this is a miniscule example, but hear me out. The average family tax burden in America is $10,000. Now imagine that Barack Obama gathered you and five of your neighbors into a backyard, sat you down and said: OK, folks. Now I know that the tax burden for each of your families was probably around $10,000 this year. That means that collectively, you as neighbors have contributed about $60,000 to mandatory federal collection plate. I understand that you probably have a few ideas of what you could do with this $10,000 that my imperial federal government has now taken from you at the point of a gun. But as your ruler, I have decided that I am going to take this $60,000 and give it to some students at the University of Southern California. No, no no .. just hear me out! Look, these kids came up with some really cool

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Now That’s Progress(ivism)

Capital Briefs in this weeks edition of Human Events, reminds us that it took over 200 years for the US government to accumulate a national debt of 2.19 Trillion. Mr Obama exceeded that sum in just 19 months by adding another 2.56 Trillion to the national debt….and neither Paul Hodes, nor Carol SEIU-Porter, did anything … Read more

Let’s Play Ball

If you believe the rhetoric Carol Seiu-Porter and Paul ‘Hot Dog’ Hodes are bulwarks of the middle class lifestyle and protectors of the elderly.  So what would they make of this, from a letter sent to Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday?

A number of tax cuts enacted in the past decade are due to expire at the end of this year. Our fiscal policy should be one that maximizes economic growth and private sector job creation. That is why we strongly believe that Congress should extend the current tax rates for dividend and long-term capital gains taxes…We [] have a responsibility to protect middle class families and seniors from harmful tax increases and their economic impact…

Many seniors depend on this income to supplement their fixed retirement income. A recent study found that in 2007 over 27 million tax returns had dividends qualifying for the reduced tax rate reduction. Of those returns, 61 percent were from taxpayers age 50 and older and 30 percent were from taxpayers age 65 and older.

Would they say it’s just a ploy by the authors to excuse an extension on tax cuts for the wealthy?   Could we expect promises to fix it, whatever it was that needed fixing, after the fact?  Or would they simply dismiss it and ignore the consequences to the elderly and those nearing retirement like they did with health insurance reform?

So what would they say if the letter was sent to Nancy Pelosi by 47 House democrats?

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The Lynch Budget Lie

Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory 

A balanced budget is a technical term for making the numbers add up.  The amount you say you have to spend simply matches what you claim to have spent.  So if you borrowed some millions that you would later have to pay back, and you found a few hundred million more on the sidewalk (maybe in Washington DC), if it added up far enough to cover how much you spent, you could claim to have a balanced budget.

The difference is that being at zero, and owing tens of millions you never had is not balanced.  Add to that the reality that you now have a larger bill to pay every year but can’t expect to just find a few hundred million laying around every year, and you have what is called a structural deficit.  Your political lifestyle vastly exceeds your expected revenue.  Call it a state wide mortgage that exceeds our ability to pay it by hundreds of millions annually.

This is called incompetent.  It is also the Lynch budget.  And even though an account or two may have pulled in more revenue than expected, there is still a massive debt due in the next budget, created by democrats, and signed off on by John Lynch, with no money to pay for it..

Why else proceed in contradiction to the supreme court, on the politically poisonous path of robbing $110 million in private property unless you really need that 110 million to start stuffing the sink hole of a massive structural deficit.  And even if you get this one time money, where’s the line of suckers you plan to screw after you are done with them?

If we had a real surplus they wouldn’t need to rob the JUA fund.  They would drop the idea of selling off 60 million in state land.  In fact, they’d stop all the hand-wringing about the budget.  They have not.  The deficit is real.  And the democrats are to blame, and John Lynch and it is one more reason why John Lynch has been the governor for too long.

 

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Another New Hampshire Myth Busted!

Thirty nine democrats voted with republicans to hold off the adjournment, but the vote fell short, leaving the tax hikes on the books as the House leaves to defend two years of excessive spending, massive debt, the democrats unpopular health care plan, the failure to utilize Pay-Go as promised, the inability to even try and form a budget, repeated ethical lapses by liberal law makers, and a host of other ills that have driven their approval rating to historical lows.

Tax Cuts For The “Insert name here”

Don’t expect ShaHodeSheaPorter to wrestle with this conundrum; while running for office in 2008 they insisted that the Bush Tax cuts were "for the rich," or "the wealthiest Americans."  The class warfare rhetoric made the case that Republicans didn’t provide tax relief for anyone else, and the democrats promised to remedy this the moment they were elected.  The result was to embark on a multi-trillion dollar spending binge that cannot possibly be paid for without taxes on everyone and everything–though they still insist otherwise.

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I say Go Ahead–Run on that.

Democrats are trying to frighten people by insisting that we can’t go back to how things were when Republicans were running things.  And I can see their point.  They will certainly need to do better. But how wise is it to frighten people with the risk of 5% unemployment and budget deficits under 500 Billion … Read more

New Hampshire On The Potomac

Paul Hodes is trying desperately to change his image to that of a fiscal hawk and independent voice, but Paul has some monumental hurdles to get that line past the party base and into the general populace.  First, if he want’s anyone without Kool aid stained lips to buy into the fiscal song and dance … Read more

Where You Gonna Run?

Tidy Bowl Man get's his Union Bail outSeparation of powers was meant to divide the authority so that a process of checks and balances was created to protect the people from abuses of power.  This simple reality makes two things the democrats want you to believe impossible.

 

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