Our National Debt Passes $13 Trillion--90% of GDP

For the first time in our history, the U.S. National Debt has now reached $13 Trillion and there is no stopping in sight.

The Obama Administration and the crazies that control Washington D.C. have proven they do not care about the future of our country and only care about getting their wacko agenda passed through Congress. They brush aside the idea that the United States will bankrupt, and instead they fatten their check book from contributions that will keep them in office and retain their power hold over the American people...


The House and Senate "spendulous" bills this last week include:

--$23 billion in a public school teacher bailout

--Extension of unemployment benefits through November

--Billions of dollars for more Medicare funding(doc fix)

--$4 billion in foreign aid to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan

--$5.1 billion for Haiti

--$1.7 billion for police and firefighters

--$5.7 billion for Pell Grants

All we citizens can do is Say "NO" to unfunded spending, but then the DEMS aren't listening...they are just hellbent on bringing the USA and us down to the level of the other big nations that are in big,BIG,big financial trouble. The main plan is to enter into the global Union of the new world order on an equally fubared statis with no longer a 'free choice'...or Constitution either.

What happens when you TAX the masses.....

.....they get creative.
Politicians make the mistake of not hearing the people, they spend the peoples money, and then they increase taxes.

For those who have or think they have alot of money, adjusting will be a slow, slow painful process.
The so-called middle class have been adjusting for quite some time.
The Prepared have a much different approach and that is to Unplug from the system.

No matter, sooner or later, Vat or Flat, high taxes will change the profile and proclivities of the American people.

Americans by nature are pretty savvy, creative and inventive people. We could all just not pay taxes period and teach them a big lesson, because afterall, they can't put us ALL in jail, right? Nah... but there are options that hit politicians and municipalities in the pocket book and it's also completely legal and ethical.

* They say you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, so if you are living a lifestyle that allows you to work for minimum wage, then do it. Remember it's something like 40% of Americans who actually pay taxes in this country...Become one of the 60% who don't, and increase those numbers to 80% or more. If you are financially stable then work less whenever you possibly can and stay home.

* Drive as little as possible so you don't pay as much in fuel taxes.(Store some fuel,if you can,before the price goes up). If you can ride a bike, do it...not to go green, but to hit them in the pocket book. Walk more.

* Do you need that new TV, that new video, or that new whatever toy? Don't buy it. Avoid the sales tax every way that you can. Remember after 9/11 Bush told us to go out and spend our money for the economy? What good did that do for us? Hit them in the pocket book and refuse to contribute to anything that generates sales tax revenue. Shop at garage sales whenever possible..that's how you can help your local economy and keep money flowing to your friends and neighbors who need it most. Buy from them, not the big chain stores, tax free.

* Food. Many states impose sales tax on food...don't contribute. Grow your own, Can your own, Store your own. Keep the money at home. Start a garden or go to farmers markets. Barter with neighbors.
Shop LOCAL and support local. At least the taxes that do get paid stay local. Then there's classifieds, craigslist, internet sites, ebay and other taxfree outlets.

* Don't die. If you don't want your family to share your assets with the Gov's death tax, distribute or enjoy it now.

* Family - Staycations or local weekend outings...spend time with your family. Family fun comes cheap with local parades & backyard BBQ's, Arts in the Park and festivals, camping or day hikes. Become a tourist in your own state, just do it in ways that don't contribute to the tax base.

* Quit drinking if you can...or make your own. As far as I know you can legally make wine or brew your own beer most places in this country. Remember, don't let them get the tax revenue.
Quit smoking if you possibly can. (there's a reason they don't want to outright ban tobacco...it makes them too much tax money)

* If you can, live small, rent or think RV lifestyle. Don't pay the outrageous property taxes. If you feel the need to own a home, then own as cheap and small of a home as possible...they assess taxes based on property value. If you do intend to keep your home and plan to never sell, then do whatever you legally and ethically can to drive your property value down. Do you really need that addition or even fresh coat of paint? The inside can be as luxurious as possible but the exterior should be modest and plain....sound counter productive? I think not, not if it saves you money. Housing has gone down in value from 5 years ago, so have your property assessment readjusted at courthouse.

* Do you have extra vehicles that don't get used much? Boats, atv's, snowmobiles,etc. If you can sell them, then do, or at least park them and let the tags expire. Vehicle registrations are a big tax hole. Drive older cars especially if you live in a state that bases registration costs on the value of the car.

* Credit cards. Cut them up. Pay cash. Don't let the credit card companies profiteer off you. Get your finances off the grid so Federal Government can't get MORE income taxes.

* Utilities? Your call, since you will be spending more time at home, so enjoy. Phone and cable? Just look at that statement and see all the taxes added to the bottom line. Maybe you can do away with the landline and just use your cell phone.

When you start to pay attention to ALL the taxes, you will see that you have a bigger stake in the decision of VAT vs. Flat tax.
Unplug yourself from the system, at least as much as you possibly can, because you and everyone else will be doing it SOON anyway. Don't feed their system...starve it. It will suffer and they'll be forced to make real change.

Will the VAT Lady Sing?

President Obama's press secretary considers the idea that the president is considering giving some consideration to the idea of a value added tax to be completely inconsiderable. Another White House flack considers the whole thing beyond consideration, From AP's Charles Babington:

For days, White House spokesmen have said the president has not proposed and is not considering a VAT.

"I think I directly answered this the other day by saying that it wasn't something that the president had under consideration", White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters shortly before Obama spoke with CNBC.

After the interview, White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said nothing has changed and the White House is "not considering" a VAT.

Now consider this considerably more considerate comment from the President, who told CNBC he considers the VAT a considerable idea:

When asked if he could see a potential VAT in this nation, the president said: "I know that there's been a lot of talk around town lately about the value-added tax. That is something that has worked for some countries. It's something that would be novel for the United States."

"And before, you know, I start saying 'this makes sense or that makes sense,' I want to get a better picture of what our options are," Obama said.

He said his first priority "is to figure out how can we reduce wasteful spending so that, you know, we have a baseline of the core services that we need and the government should provide. And then we decide how do we pay for that."

So which is it?
I would hope 'a better picture' would mean a study or think-tank at least...hell they spend millions to study frogs, why not have it fully researced by the best in economics to do a study of VAT vs. Flat Tax. This would be a MAJOR path and change in America! We can't have a president who is wishey-washey and playing monopoly with our futures!

The Hidden Untapped Source of Revenue in ObamaCare

Right off the bat this week, the news on healthcare reform is that, the major corporations are discovering they will be losing stunning amounts to taxes as a result of Obamacare.

Caterpillar, the first to speak out before the vote, reported it will take a one-time write-down of $100 million in order to account for the elimination of a federal tax refund it has been receiving for providing drug benefits to its retired employees.

In the following days, AT&T, Verizon, 3M, Deer & Co., and AK Steel Holdings announced they would take similar write downs. AT&T's new tax bill will come to over $1 billion. The news is a body blow to major companies hoping to recover profitability and add jobs.

If all this sounds familiar, it should. It is exactly what Republicans predicted would happen if Obamacare became law. If existing employee benefits were taxed or made more expensive, the GOP argued, employers would either have to absorb the loss or start pushing their employees into whatever "government option" became available.

When the Bush Administration adopted Medicare Part D in 2003, companies threatened to do just that, dropping their coverage and letting retirees buy into the federal program. The government offered a tax refund of about $650 per retiree in order to keep Part D costs down. Now the Obama Administration has decided to eliminate the tax refund in order to pay for the larger entitlements in the new bill.

The complaints were too much for Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He demanded that CEOs from the major companies appear before him on April 21 to explain just what's going on. "These assertions appear to conflict with independent analyses," said the chairman, "which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs."
"When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, no more, no less," says Humpty-Dumpty in Alice and Wonderland. "When we pass a law, it will do exactly what we want it to do," say the Democrats in Congress. Never mind economics, never mind common sense. "Our analysis said premiums should go down, not up!" That will bring a call for federal price controls. This melodrama is already being played out in Massachusetts, where an identical reform has produced the highest insurance rates in the country. At some point here, the voice of Rep. Dennis Kucinich will begin to echo through the land: "Why not just turn the whole thing over to the federal government?"

This is typical of Washington -- too many lawyers, too few people who understand business or energy or insurance or medicine or whatever the government has decided to regulate.

But I would add one caveat to all this. Take another look at those Caterpillar/AT&T/3M numbers. Caterpillar's $100 million represents only one small portion of the health benefits the company is now conveying to its retired employees. Imagine the value of all the health benefits passing to all its employees, working and retired. It obviously exceeds $1 billion. And that's just one company.

What the Caterpillar/AT&T/3M numbers reveal is that employee healthcare benefits have become a huge 'underground economy' operating outside the conventional system. Remember, all these benefits are tax-free. Because the government doesn't take a share, both employers and employees have come to prefer expanded health and retirement benefits to ordinary compensation. (How many people are holding jobs "just for the benefits"?) This distortion is what is ailing the healthcare economy and the reason it has not been policed by the people. It is also an untapped source of revenue for the government (much like the 'death tax') and they are going after it!

TAXES, More Taxes and Trickle up Poverty

...the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America.

But don't you dare call it socialism!

President Obama campaigned on the promise that any tax increases proposed by his Administration would be imposed only on the highest five percent of the population and that taxes for the rest of the people would not go up by a dime. His cutoff point is often said to be $250,000 per annum....later changed to $200,000.

Our annual deficit, now running close to $2 trillion, it's obvious that annual income tax collections are not sufficient to support the level of government we have, nor the debt service on the accumulated debt, which we have already incurred.

So what can we do? Here's the Obama solution. We can service our debt and provide government services either by rolling over and expanding the nation’s debt, print new money, thereby cheapening our currency and risking massive inflation, and find more and more sources to tax, thereby taking more money from the private sector. Sadly, cutting spending is not part of the solution. Congress recently passed a program into law, which requires that each new expenditure be accompanied by a corresponding expenditure cut or a new source of revenue. A step in the right direction, you might think. Not more than three weeks later, however, they passed an $80 billion spending bill and waived the pay-as-you-go requirement.

We all know, tax increases reduce incentives, drive business to cut costs or move outside the United States and reduce research and development expenses and innovative risk taking.
This country evolved from a standing start in the 18th century with a puny population, to an international economic engine, which lifted millions of people worldwide out of poverty as a result of private effort, private capital and private risk taking. We created industry after industry and millions of jobs, yet the 'left' focuses on the successes of the few and those they employ. They get targeted to share their wealth with everyone. Where's the Incentive?
Risk + Success = Tax More.

Then there's the estate tax (or as conservatives call it “the death tax”). Prior to the Bush tax cuts the government taxed (confiscated some might say) 55 percent of a decedent’s taxable estate over $1 million. Under the Bush program the estate tax was to be phased out until there was no such tax in 2010 … only to spring back to life, just like the Bush income tax cuts, in 2011 at the 2001 rate. Everyone believed a compromise would be reached by Congress, not only to prevent the expiration of the tax in 2010, but also to have a lower rate and a higher exemption amount thereafter. Since Congress rarely misses an opportunity to be irresponsible, that hasn’t happened. This clumsy handling of tax policy regarding residual wealth, the net of all taxes paid during someone’s working life, has cost the public billions of dollars in legal fees trying to adjust wills, trusts and marital deductions to this unresolved matter.

Summary: After having one’s income taxed at rates up to 39.6 percent, paying Social Security tax of 6.2% if you are an employee (or 12.4% if you are self employed) on the first $106,800 of earnings, state income taxes of up to 12 percent in some states, Medicare tax of 1.45 percent on total taxable income (2.9% if you are self employed going up to 3.8% on ALL income, including interest, dividends and capital gains, which the left refers to as “unearned income,” under Obamacare), sales taxes up to ten percent in some cities and states, the government under this most hideous of taxes would take 55% of anything you might have left over, from the children or grandchildren.

Like the Picture so far?

Essentially the United States is heading toward what might be called a tipping point. The more we have a society where substantial numbers of people pay no taxes (now close to 40%), the more we create a voting bloc of citizens who will inevitably support new programs for which they don’t have to pay. Business people have a term for this. It is called having “skin in the game” another way of saying that we all need to give up something of value. Are you a morally bad person if you do not want to shoulder an ever-increasing government appetite to provide more and more benefits to a segment of the population who view these benefits as if they are birthrights?

Should we be a nation that looks to government to provide more and more of what people need or desire OR are we Americans that depend on our personal efforts and family support systems and our own labor and intelligence. THAT is the question. What the current adninistration is hellbent on doing is growing the government to the point that we will not recognize our country that immigrants once declared, that in America your work is your reward and you have the freedom to be anything you want to be.
Instead, Obamanomics = Trickle up poverty.

TAXMAN, Obama version of Beatles Song

If you try to sit i will tax your sit
if you drive a car i will tax main street
if you take a walk i will tax your feet
If you die I will tax the pennys in your eyes!

Taxation without Representation: TODAY

History is largely the story of men's constant efforts to get the wealth produced by other men, with politics and the state as the main means of acquisition. It's amazing that this ever-present dimension has been so slighted in most history books. Men have fought for power for many reasons, but the strongest has always been their own enrichment. It's hardly too much to say that the story of taxation is the story of mankind.

"Look at the law, and see if it does for one man at the expense of another what it would be a crime for the one to do to the other himself." Wow, think about this statement for a minute or longer until it sinks in.

The government, beyond the strictest limits of justice, becomes "organized plunder," a device by which "everyone seeks to enrich some at the expense of everyone else." Today, Obama and progressives want to take from the rich that have produced so they can redistribute it to those who don't produce. In other words, government itself tends to become the very evil it is supposed to prevent: crime. Government sets the rates, exempts certain people, gives entitlements, creates the intities to spend the tax dollars on and today, it spends the tax revenues of future generations. But it confuses people because it enacts criminal acts under the forms of law. I say, 'To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did." So,....
How much is enough? What is the limit? At what point, short of taking 100 per cent of our earnings, do our rulers feel they are taking too much from us?

The obvious answer is that they recognize no limit. The subject never comes up. They view the taxpayer as an inexhaustible resource. As long as people work and have more babies, immigration (legal or otherwise) brings in more workers to tax, people seek to have food, clothing and real property and now, wish to live healthy...then the Gov has a way to impose and create spendable tax revenues to spend.

And why shouldn't they? The sad fact is that the American taxpayer is a remarkably passive creature. He merely grumbles at conditions far more oppressive than the tyranny that drove his ancestors to rebel against British rule in 1776.

One of the chief complaints of the American colonist was that he was taxed without his consent. Yet by today's standards, his taxes were amazingly low. Precise figures are hard to come by, but in 1764, for example, the average American was taxed by the Crown at the rate of sixpence per year. That is not a misprint. Six pennies per year. One penny every two months. Even adjusting for inflation, that is a pretty light tax burden. Today's children pay more than that in sales taxes for candy.

And the British were cautious about raising taxes. Even a slight tax increase, as on a commodity like tea, could bring the colonies to a boil. The Americans knew that a principle was at stake. Unlimited taxation could mean slavery. That is why they tried, at every turn, to nip it in the bud.

Under slogans like "No taxation without representation," Americans fought for independence and established their own governments. They thought self-government was their bulwark against tyranny and overtaxation.

The Lincoln administration imposed the first Federal income tax to meet the costs of the Civil War. But again, by our standards the rates were amazingly low: the basic rate was 3 per cent, with a top rate of 5 per cent. Even so, after the war the U. S. Supreme Court soon ruled that a Federal levy on incomes was unconstitutional.

In 1913 the Federal Government surmounted this obstacle by winning a constitutional amendment authorizing taxes on incomes. No upper limit was set, but most Americans were unaffected. "Incomes" were narrowly defined; an unmarried taxpayer had to make about $50,000 (in today's money) to pay the tax at all; and the top rate, a mere 7 per cent, reached only the very rich. It wasn't until after World War II that most Americans paid income taxes, but then the rates rose to their current punishing levels. And in recent decades most states have imposed income taxes too. Other taxes have also increased at dizzying rates.

At nearly every step, the government has had its way. Taxpayers have mounted only sporadic resistance, in what are often called "tax revolts." The phrase is significant. If our rulers are really our "servants," as self-government implies, why are the wishes of the ruled considered "revolts"? Can we "revolt" against our own servants? Or have they really become our masters?

Corrupt is "Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, bailouts for some banks and closing others, ignoring illegals yet give them 1st priority in HHS handouts, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, jeapordizing the value of the dollar, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, requiring intruding questions on US Census, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama's 'ethics' record – and that's just the first year of his presidency." At what point do we shut this all down? At what point does 'treason' kick in?

At what point does taxation become confiscation, theft, and even involuntary servitude? Our rulers -- we may as well say our masters -- never address this point. The Ruler of the universe asks only 10 per cent of our wealth. Our earthly rulers won't settle for such a modest share. They consider us "greedy" for wanting to keep more of our own money; they consider themselves "compassionate" for wanting to take more of it -- 20 per cent, 40 per cent, why not 80 per cent?

Taxation has always been big business, the biggest business of government.
If the politicians had any respect for our rights, our property, our liberty, even our dignity, they would impose taxes only reluctantly, and they would acknowledge some just limit. They would act as if the money they take and spend is *our* money, to be used for the common good of all, and not for buying the votes of special interests and government dependents. In short, they would recognize that taxation is a *moral* issue, not a mere political convenience to be exercised arbitrarily and irresponsibly.

Take just one politician as an example: Taxpayers pay $101,000 for in-flight 'food & booze' on the jet provided to Nancy Pelosi, plus expenses of $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets for travel just in this first 2 years of her 4 yr term. Sweet girl that she is, she also spends $8,000 per month to florists for "like me now" bouquets, at her discretion.

Only one country has gotten it right: Switzerland. The Swiss have kept their government under control pretty well, in great part because they have had the wisdom to keep the taxing power and the spending power under separate agencies. The U. S. Congress taxes *and* spends. So we lack checks and balances where we most need them. Moreover, the Swiss federal government can't raise taxes without a popular majority, which is usually denied. The Swiss taxpayer, unlike the American, has learned to defend himself.

We can talk a lot about what's wrong, it's time to start focusing on what WE CAN DO to fix it, because nobody else is going to. Short of a RealTeaParty or Shots Heard Around the World, We can hit them where it hurts the most. Pay less taxes. We have to give them only 'one choice' and that is fiscal responsibility. Unemployment has already put a big dent in tax revenues. If the IRS can only send them so many dollars to play with, eventually they will have to come up with tax cuts to stimulate more jobs and a reason for us to even seek one. The more people who become self-reliant by any means and go off the grid financially, the bigger the impact we can make on how things are done in Washington.
(but, that's a whole new topic, so be watching)

Think TAX REFORM

TAX REFORM. Great concept! A complete overhaul of the system so that ALL federal funding for ALL their "initiatives" will be transparent. They want to raise the TAX...then it effects EVERYONE and the PEOPLE can decide if the program is really worth it. Bye, bye special interest groups...you had a good run, but we the people are taking our country back!!!