Ted Cruz: How To Reform The Tax Code For Economic Growth

 

This is Ted Cruz's Plan for reforming the tax code for economic growth. Let's look at it:


Imagine 4.9 million new jobs. Imagine, instead of President Obama’s income stagnation, average wages rising 12.2% over the next decade. Capital investment rising 43.9%. And Americans at every level of the economy enjoying double-digit increases in after-tax income.

Imagine exports and manufacturing jobs booming. The trade deficit falling as the tax bias against American-made goods is eliminated. Imagine a 10% income tax. Every American filing his or her taxes on a postcard or an iPhone app. And abolishing the IRS as we know it.

All of this is possible if we learn from the past and follow the example of what works.

In July 1981, Democrat Tip O’Neill, who was then House Speaker, drew a line in the sand: He was going to stop the Reagan tax cut, and he had enough Democrats to do it, with a 20-vote cushion. But President Reagan took his case to the people. Calls and letters flooded Congress, the speaker’s 20 Democrats jumped ship, and Reagan signed the tax cut into law.

President Reagan knew that after years of economic stagnation the country was ready for a big change, and he knew that he would win if the people had their say.
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And the people were right. The Reagan tax cut led to what the late Robert Bartley, then editor of The Wall Street Journal, dubbed “The Seven Fat Years”—the period from 1983-89 when the economy soared by an average of 4.4% a year, including one year by 7.3%. The economy grew by nearly a third, disposable income increased 20%, and 18 million new jobs were created.

Meanwhile, despite lower tax rates, government revenue in the 1980s increased 27%, and the share of federal taxes paid by the top 10% rose to 56%, from 49%.

Now we’re living through the Eight Lean Years. From 2008 to today, the economy has grown 1.2% a year on average, with the weakest postrecession recovery in 75 years. The Joint Economic Committee estimates Americans are almost $3 trillion poorer today than we would be if the economy had grown as quickly as during the Reagan years.

American workers are the most creative and dynamic people in the world, if they aren’t shackled by Washington. As President Reagan showed—and before him, President Kennedy in the 1960s (average annual growth of 5.3%) and Presidents Harding and Coolidge in the 1920s (4.7% growth)—tax reform is a powerful lever for spurring economic expansion. Along with reducing red tape on business and restoring sound money, it can make the U.S. economy boom again.

That’s why I’m proposing the Simple Flat Tax as the cornerstone of my economic agenda.

In constructing my plan, I had several requirements. The plan should: spur robust economic growth and job creation, while raising after-tax income for all Americans; be dramatically simpler, to allow working people to file their taxes with a postcard or phone app; and shrink Washington by getting rid of the rat’s nest of complex tax requirements, credits and loopholes.

With these goals in mind, based on a structure suggested by President Reagan’s tax adviser, Arthur Laffer, my Simple Flat Tax plan features the following:

• For a family of four, no taxes whatsoever (income or payroll) on the first $36,000 of income.

• Above that level, a 10% flat tax on all individual income from wages and investment.

• No death tax, alternative minimum tax or ObamaCare taxes.

• Elimination of the payroll tax and the corporate income tax, to be replaced by a 16% Business Flat Tax. This would tax companies’ gross receipts from sales of goods and services, less purchases from other businesses, including capital investment. Simple, efficient, fair.

• A Universal Savings Account, which would allow every American to save up to $25,000 annually on a tax-deferred basis for any purpose.

Today, the U.S. taxes American producers that export goods, but it imposes no burden on imports. My business tax is border-adjusted, so exports are free of tax and imports pay the same business-flat-tax rate as U.S.-produced goods. By shifting to a territorial tax system that doesn’t tax income earned overseas twice, my plan will reverse the incentive for U.S. companies to relocate overseas. Instead, businesses will be relocating to America.

Giant corporations will lose their loopholes and instead pay the exact same Business Flat Tax as small businesses. And billionaire hedge-fund managers will no longer pay a lower rate than working men and women.

To keep the tax burden fair, my plan includes a $10,000 standard deduction and a $4,000 personal exemption, which means a family of four pays nothing on their first $36,000 of income. It ends the payroll tax altogether (while maintaining full funding for Social Security and Medicare). It maintains the current child tax credit and expands and modernizes the earned-income tax credit, with greater reforms to prevent fraud and encourage marriage.

The Simple Flat Tax also keeps the current deduction for all charitable giving, and includes a deduction for home-mortgage interest on the first $500,000 in principal.

The 10% income tax covers ordinary income and investment of all varieties. The virtue of a single tax rate is that the rate doesn’t rise as people work more and invest more. This means better incentives to increase output, and fewer distortions. Compliance costs are minimized and capital flows to where it is most efficient—creating the most jobs—rather than where the tax burden is minimized.

To get companies investing in worker productivity again, the Simple Flat Tax allows full and immediate expensing of business equipment, which will especially benefit heavy industry, mining, energy, farming, ranching and manufacturing.

My plan also improves treatment of savings by creating Universal Savings Accounts. Any adult can save $25,000 a year with taxes deferred, like in an IRA, and savers can use those funds at any time, for any purpose. This will help create the next generation of capitalists by encouraging younger workers to save and invest.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, my tax plan would boost the size of the economy above current projections by 13.9% over a decade, add 4.9 million jobs and increase average wages by 12.2%. Every income group would get a double-digit wage increase.

Along with other pro-growth policies—repealing ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, rolling back burdensome regulations, restoring sound money and restraining spending—the Simple Flat Tax will help the economy soar again.

Reagan did it in 1981, and we can do it again. I intend to take it to the people: a simple flat tax, to benefit every American.

A lot of this makes excellent sense.

I personally was never a flat tax advocate until recently, when it became apparent that an awful lot of Americans as well as many here illegally pay no taxes whatsoever. There's an inherent problem in that.What you don't pay for, you don't value. And if it's not coming out of your wallet, you ordinarily have little or no interest in government waste or corruption.

On the other hand,when you do pay for something, you value it immensely and you want your money's worth. There's no more casual attitude about waste and corruption.

So, let's look at the plan itself.

The first thing that pops out in my mind is that unless there's border control coupled with a solution to America's illegal migrant problem and H1B visa abuse, wages are unlikely to go up and the job growth isn't likely to be as robust as Senator Cruz thinks. Unless these problems are dealt with, employers will simply hire from the stream of cheaper labor available from outside America, which will negate some of the growth. It will improve, but not nearly as much as Senator Cruz says it will unless this problem is solved, and solved now.

I also wonder if it would be better to allow businesses to expense equipment or to depreciate them over time. Every business is different, and rather than mandating expensing, I'd probably lean towards allowing a choice.

I'd also be interested in what Senator Cruz's plans are for entitlement reform. That's the 5,000 lb gorilla no one wants to tame, although I have to give credit to former President George W. Bush for at least trying to raise the issue. A certain amount of the problem can be solved by real crackdowns on Medicare, SSI and Social Security fraud, which account for literally billions of dollars. But the system still isn't taking in enough, and that dates back to when President Johnson and the majority Democrat congress first raided the Social Security trust fund to pay for the War on Poverty.

Social Security was originally a sound idea when FDR created it during the Great Depression. The banks had failed, and the country had 13 million seniors who had lost all of their retirement savings and were destitute, as well as a number of widows with dependent children in the same fix. Giving them some money was not only humane but sound economic policy because as they spent it, it helped the economy somewhat.

At that time there was no other way to make it work but as a Ponzi scheme of sorts, but that wasn't the problem it is now because there were a lot more workers per recipient. Now, the system is paying out more than it's taking in.

The obvious answer to me is grandfathering people above a certain age whom have paid into the system for years and allowing other American below that age to either stay in the existing system or to use all or part of their contributions to fund private retirement accounts, which is something like what Cruz is proposing with the $25,000 tax deferred accounts he mentions. Among other things, this would be a tangible asset that people could leave to their heirs if they desired.

All in all though, a sound plan. Tweaked a bit here and there, I think it would definitely help restore American prosperity provided action is also taken on some of the other issues I mentioned.



Like I've said before, the man is scary smart.

- Selah -

Income Tax When It Began...And Today, In 2015 Dollars

Courtesy of Against Crony Capitalism.Org

How Obama Will Pay For 'Free' Community College - By Screwing The Middle Class

 


In tomorrow nights State of the Union speech, President Obama is supposed to announce his latest gimmee, two years of free community college for whomever wants it. Aside from the fact that this will cause community colleges to raise their tuition and fees dramatically ('hey, the government's paying!') just like most 4 year institutions, there's the question of how the Feds are going to pay for this.

Do I really need to tell you that the president plans to screw the middle class again? Over the holiday weekend, when no one was paying attention, the White House leaked its new plan for $320 billion in new taxes  including a major capital gains hike (particularly immoral since this money has already been taxed once as income) and a 20% increase in the death tax rate. But wait,there's more:

A new 7 basis point (0.07%) tax on the liabilities (not assets) of the 100 or so U.S. firms with assets over $50 billion. This will obviously be passed along to these firms' customers and employees, since businesses don't pay taxes--people do.

There would be a new cap in the amount one could accumulate in the aggregate in all IRA and 401(k) type accounts of $3.4 million. After that, you can't save any more new dollars. The idea is that this is enough to secure a $210,000 annual distribution in retirement, which the government apparently deems "enough" for a retiree.

So of course, no real incentive to save, as well as no accounting for inflation.

And of course, if you're an ex-president $210,00 isn't deemed to be nearly enough. Then your pension is $200,000, but it is the same the salary of a Cabinet secretary and geared to inflation..so it rises accordingly. And that's without figuring in free medical care , Secret Service protection, and reimbursements for staff, travel, mail, and office expenses for life.

And then there's this gem. A number of families have been taking advantage of what are called 529 plans, in order to save money for their children's college education. Under the current law, 529 plans work a lot like Roth IRAs: you put money in, the money grows tax-free for college and withdrawals and distributions are tax-free provided they are to pay for college. So that encourages people to save for their children's education.

Ah, but now this president wants to extend hope and change to this area.  Under the Obama plan, earnings growth in a 529 plan would no longer be tax-free. Instead, earnings would face taxation upon withdrawal, even if the withdrawal is to pay for college.

So what we have is yet another instance of the government changing the rules once people have already committed their money to these plans... to rob the productive and thrifty who have sacrificed for their children's education in order to 'redistribute' this money to those who couldn't be bothered.

40 Percent of What You Pay for Beer Goes to Taxes!

Yes, 40%. And that's just an average. In high tax Blue states ( and especially in Democrat run big cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) it's even higher:

The next time you pour yourself a cold one, give yourself a pat on the back in the name of patriotism. On average, 40 percent of the price you paid for that beer is going straight to Uncle Sam and the state.

Lobbyists in Washington are pushing to reduce those taxes, at least by a few cents. The Beer Institute is supporting legislation cleverly titled the BEER Act, which would reduce the federal excise tax from $18 per 31-gallon barrel (an amount that doesn't actually exist; a keg is 15.5 gallons) to $9 for large brewers. Smaller operations would pay nothing in excise taxes on the first 15,000 barrels they produce, while kicking in a mere $3.50 through 60,000 barrels.

Passing the bill would not only (slightly) reduce the cost of beer, but could also lead to an uptick in the number of breweries in the United States. The industry, which the Institute has tracked since 1887, has been growing rapidly in the last two decades, thanks in part to tax breaks for small brewers.

The original excise tax on beer was levied by the Feds as a small, temporary tax to help pay for the cost of the Civil War. Needless to say, it wasn't removed after the war and has been a reliable 'sin tax' for politicians to plunder ever since.

Lobbyists for the brewers who want the tax lowered are arguing that it would allow them to grow their operations and create jobs, which would actually provide more tax revenues.

While the BEER Act seems pretty much destined to die in committee, it's largely a push back by the industry to prevent even more tax hikes,which have already been proposed at the federal and state levels as well as various municipal levels.

The result, as with most regressive taxes is that people simply buy less. In California, for example, politicians in state and municipal governments raised taxes on tobacco products and then spent the money they anticipated making from those awful smokers feeding their habit. They then passed laws severely limiting where the people they anticipated plundering could smoke.

Caught between massive price hikes and limited areas to smoke, guess what? Tobacco sales plummeted as people either quit, moved to roll your own or to electronic cigarettes and the anticipated tax revenues never materialized.

While that may have been a good thing health-wise (full disclosure, I'm a non-smoker) it turned out to be lousy fiscal policy. And higher taxes on beer would be even a worse idea, since it's comparatively easy to make at home.

In fact, now that you know this, I suggest that every American who enjoys a cold beer on occasion avoid being ripped off by unreasonable taxation that I'm sure you never voted for. Save a ton of money and extend a raised digit to the greedy politicians by making your own at home. It's what our forefathers who founded our beloved Republic did faced with the same situation.

California Democrats Preparing A Boatload Of New Taxes.

California is a Democrat-ruled state, with super majorities in the Assembly and the state Senate, and control of all other major state offices including the governor's mansion.

That's already resulted in the highest taxes in America, defacto amnesty for illegal aliens including driver's licenses, the strictest anti-Second Amendment laws outside of New York's, and the imposition of same sex marriage in spite of state laws, among other things.

Here's what they have planned for the coming year.

New taxes on oil are on the agenda, in spite of the fact that the oil companies already pay half a billion dollars to the state of California each year. Spearheading the drive is billionaire activist
Tom Steyer, a global warming advocate who has poured millions into issues like opposition to the Keystone Pipeline and carbon taxes...in other words, he's opposed to oil, period.

The wealthy Steyer could obviously care less, but California already has some of the highest gas prices in America thanks to California's high sales taxes, fees on energy companies, property taxes and business levies. While the oil extraction tax he wants might pass the legislature and give Sacramento a few dollars to spend, it will simply result in less revenue as even higher gas prices result in people simply cutting back on useage and oil companies ramping down their production in California and transferring it elsewhere. That will end up causing a loss to what California now collects from the industry, and a loss of high paying blue collar jobs.

The state is planning try to to more than double car license fees, including a 1% 'value' levy each year. That will have to go on the ballot, but California's Democrats have something planned for that too.Just as a coincidence, also want to legislate how propositions relating to taxation can be passed. Right now, it takes a 2/3 majority of the voters. The new proposal is to make it a simple majority.

And that relates to yet another huge tax increase.

The last time Democrats had this kind of control of the Golden State back in the 1970's, they pushed property taxes to the absolute limit. Elderly people were literally being forced out of homes they'd lived in for decades, and the housing market had taken a major dip as new home buyers looked, aghast, at what they would be expected to pony up.

In response, there was literally a tax payers revolt that culminated in the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 , which limited the amount property taxes could be raised annually and set a high bar for how government can raise them.

Democrats have always singled out Proposition 13 for special hatred,because it limited increases to 'special assessments' rather than the wholesale plundering they wanted. Now that they have control of the state again, they want to gut Prop 13 and get their hands on one of the last sources of wealth remaining to the middle class and the elderly.

Right now, the way this is being pushed is as a way to rob from corporately owned properties...something that will simply do wonders for California's double digit unemployment and skyrocket rents, something the politicians backing this aren't mentioning. Rest assured once Prop 13 is breached, residential properties won't be far behind.

It would take a two thirds majority in both Houses and governor Browns signature to push this through, which is a no brainer right now.It will bring about the same misery and destruction of the housing market it did back in the 1970's.

Thinking of moving to California because of the weather? Take a tip from Woody Guthrie..even commies get it right sometimes:




Or better yet, just do a little research and see where California's middle class, jobseekers and retirees are moving.

The New ObamaCare Taxes And Fees Coming In2014

 

Come the New Year, our Dear Leader has a number of taxes and fees hidden deep in the ObamaCare law and the accompanying HHS regulations scheduled to affect your insurance premiums and income-tax bills.

Here are just a few of the things our president has planned for you:

The new taxes and fees have a 2 percent levy on every health plan, whether you have a waiver or not or whether you're one of the lucky ones with employer provided healthcare. That's expected to net about $8 billion for ObamaCare in 2014 and increase to $14.3 billion by 2018.

Then there’s also a $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Your insurer is going to pass that on to you in the form of higher premiums,deductibles and co-pays.

Then there's this beauty. Under ObamaCare, An individual taxpayer earning more than $200,000 and a married couple earning more than $250,000 will get hit for an added 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on top of the existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax. They’ll also pay an extra 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income, such as investment dividends, rental income and capital gains. That term 'unearned income' is a real insult, since this money was already taxed once as income before it was invested. What we're talking about here is double taxation.

But wait, there's more. There's no threshold on these taxes for inflation. This means that unless there's a fix of some kind or ObamaCare's repealed, more and more people will be subject to these taxes as inflation boosts incomes.

Starting in 2014, your employer (and, of course, that means you since it will be passed onin one form or another) will begin paying a fresh new $63 annual ObamaCare fee, to cover the extra cost of insuring other people’s pre-existing conditions.The money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department and is supposed to be used to cushion health insurance companies from the costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

Since the president has now torpedoed the individual mandate, expect both the amount of people waiting until they get sick to apply for insurance as well as the amount of this fee to skyrocket.

Things as diverse as your kid's braces, hip and knee replacements and even veterinary bills are going to be affected by a brand spankin' new 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices. Lefties don;t realize that businesses don't pay taxes and fees, they simply build them into the prices they charge consumers.

Of course, when it comes to prostheses and hip and knee replacements, you may not be able to get them at any price if you're not deemed worthy by the The Independent Payment Advisory Boards, AKA Death Panels.

The threshold for Medical Itemized Deductions gets raised from 7.5% to 10% of AGI. Currently, those of you who paid high medical expenses not reimbursed by your insurance are allowed a deduction if those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI.

And by the way, the HHS regulations allow Secretary Sebelius to raise most of these fees and taxes 'at the secretary's discretion.'

The results of ObamaCare are going to be pretty self evident unless it's totally repealed fairly quickly.We're already seeing the signs.

Healthcare is going to be rationed extensively, especially on the middle class who don't qualify for subsidies.Do not be surprised if, ultimately,it is used as a political weapon against th eregimes's perceived 'enemies' just as the IRS was.

The 28 hour work week will slowly become the standard work week (four 7 hour days), as people settle into more government dependency and lower expectations and income for themselves and their children. In fact, birth rates will lower, especially among people with the middle class idea of actually being able to support their own offspring before having them.I've already seen examples in my own life of married couples who simply decided they couldn't afford to have children and maintain even a lower middle class lifestyle. Often, it amounted to a series of postponements that ended when the woman involved simply became too old for childbirth.

Businesses will be increasingly more difficult to start, and a lot less people will have the ambition or be able to raise the capital to do so.That will affect both employment and income.  Most small businesses get their start up money not from bank loans, but from an individual's savings or personal credit line. Less income means less business startups.

Expect a Soviet-style 'black market'  economy based on barter, off th ebooks employment and under the table cash sales to develop as well.

Working two or more jobs to pay the bills will become extremely common for many people with families to support or any ambitions for themselves or their children. Others will happily fall into what amounts to a permanent dependent class. The massive increases in people on what amounts to permanent disability and in food stamp payouts are indicators of what will become a growing trend. After all, if it's a choice between becoming the payer or the payee, the screwed or the beneficiary, a lot of people are gong to opt for that second option.

Unless it's repealed, ObamaCare is going to transform our national character into something very different. We can still turn things around, but the hour gets late.

Jane Fonda Foundation Revealed As A Scam

Ah, 'progressives'..they always have great ideas on how everybody should pay their fair share. Except them, of course.

Multimillionaire Actress Jane Fonda's charitable foundation is an interesting example of this principle.

According to the IRS records, with nearly $800K in the bank as of 2011, the last fiscal year covered by their 2012 return, Jane Fonda's private charitable foundation hasn't hasn't donated a dime since 2006. According to the IRS's own rules, a private charitable foundation has to donate at least five percent of its assets, or face stiff financial penalties.This was designed to stop people from misusing charitable foundations as a tax dodge and a parking place for tax free income:

While Fonda’s foundation has not been making donations, the group has tried to grow its stash via the stock market. For example, the foundation’s last tax return lists 166 separate trades--involving thousands of stock shares--that netted about $2200.

The Fonda foundation’s returns show that most of its assets were provided years ago by the performer herself, though more than $320,000 came from a Connecticut firm that has booked speaking engagements for the two-time Academy Award winner.

In other words, Fonda shielded taxable income and the firm that booked her speaking engagements got a nice tax deduction.

The Jane Fonda Foundation lists Fonda on its tax filing as the foundation’s president and chairman of the board, and reports that she devotes 10 hours a week to the charitable foundation. This is important, because IRS rules allow someone like a celebrity to take a charitable deduction for time spent working for a charity based on their 'usual fee'. In Fonda's case, that's 520 hours or 22 days if we consider 24 hours a full work day. If we base it on a more normal 8 hour work day, Jane Fonda is able to take a deduction for 'charitable work' at her normal rate for something like 65 days, over two months.

Even more interesting, this has been going on since 2007, and the IRS, busy targeting conservative donors and sabotaging attempts by conservative groups to obtain 501c status has prosecuted her at all.

The rules, you see, are for the little people who vote wrong and donate wrong.

Some people never change.

The Left Wants To Track Where And How Much You Drive - And Tax You On It

Here's a statist bureaucrat's wet dream - a black box in your car that tracks where you drive and how far, and then sends you a tax bill.

Both members of congress and state legislatures in Blue states are salivating over imposing this on every car driven in America.

The rationale is that funds are needed to maintain and fund improvements in the highway systems, and the money isn't there. Apparently the hefty sales and excise taxes,which in  high tax states like California can average almost 25% of the retail price of a gallon of gasoline at the pump  either aren't enough or are being used elsewhere.

The Left is also seeing the results of som eof its favorite crusades,  the push for hybrid electric cars (which use less gas at the pump but run on electricity generated by plants that run on fossil fuels or coal for the most part unless you're in a location where hydroelectric is available) and the constant war on domestic energy creation which has resulted in high fuel prices that have people simply driving less as a personal economy measure.

So they want to go to the black boxes.There's no mention, of course about exactly where the taxes collected at the pump are actually going.

As an added bonus, they will also be used to track where you drive and even whether you're exceeding the speed limit...so an electronic ticket can be generated and automatically mailed to you. It's a lot cheaper and more inclusive for them than those little radar guns and the overhead cameras.

Needless to say, the Ruling Class will almost certainly receive waivers if this goes into effect.

Wonks call it a mileage-based user fee. It is no surprise that the idea appeals to urban liberals, as the taxes could be rigged to change driving patterns in ways that could help reduce congestion and greenhouse gases, for example. California planners are looking to the system as they devise strategies to meet the goals laid out in the state's ambitious global warming laws.

Of course they are.The idea is control, and ideally forcing people to primarily use public transportation by making private cars very expensive propositions to use.

At one point, the article refers to the proposed black box imposed levy as a ' mileage-based user fee'.

User fees, like the registration fees you pay to your local Department of Motor Vehicles are currently a tax deductible item. Anyone want to bet this 'user fee' won't be?

Your IRS At Work - Billions In Tax Credits to Illegal Aliens

This is an old story to regular readers of Joshuapundit, but a new survey from the Center for Immigration Studies puts into perspective on how widespread and costly the bilking of the U.S. treasury via bogus tax credits give to illegal aliens is:

The report, written by CIS fellow David North, says the Internal Revenue Service doled out $4.2 billion in what is known as the “additional child tax credit” in 2010 to those using an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, which is usually a signal of an illegal immigrant.

The issue has been known for some time. But Mr. North went deep into the data to try to look at why it’s happening, and said it’s a story of a tax credit expanding beyond its initial scope, and midlevel IRS managers twisting the law, leaving billions of dollars going to illegal immigrants.{...}

Nobody was answering the phones at the IRS during the government shutdown, which began Oct. 1.

But the agency in the past repeatedly has said it doesn’t believe the law allows it to deny illegal immigrants the tax credit, and also disputes that it has the legal authority to deny claims even when they aren’t backed up by documents showing that the children actually live in the U.S.

“The IRS does not have the legal authority to deny credits during processing when documentation is not provided,” the agency told its inspector general in 2011.

The “additional child tax credit” was created to help out those who make too little to qualify for the full child tax credit. The ACTC is refundable, meaning that even if the taxpayer doesn’t owe income tax, he or she could get a payout the IRS.

That becomes an avenue for fraud, particularly when combined with illegal immigrant workers, whose use of the tax credit has jumped from 796,000 filers in 2005 to 1.5 million in 2008 and 2.3 million in 2010, according to the IRS‘ official auditor.

Investigators identified one address in Atlanta where 23,994 ITIN-related tax refunds were sent — including 8,393 refunds deposited to a single bank account. Mr. North said those were pretty good indications of fraud.

He said the IRS should also look for cases where an ITIN filer goes from claiming no dependents to claiming four or five dependents the next year.

Mr. North used an auditor’s report to identify a town in Delaware and another on Virginia’s Eastern Shore with large concentrations of ITIN filers.

Frankford, Del., had one address where 627 ITINs were registered — despite the town having a population of just 862. Parksley, Va., had a single address with 100 ITINs registered, in a town of 847 residents.



Why people with no legal right to be in America should even be able to get Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) or ITINs is something no one want to talk about.

And it's not just bogus child credits. Another widespread fraud that is practiced by illegal aliens aside from bogus child credits is bogus filing for the earned income credit, another billion dollar giveaway.You see, a lot of illegal migrants do 'pay' taxes of a sort.

After obtaining an ITIN (individual tax ID number) from the IRS, once known as an EIN (employer identification number) and limited to business owners with employees but now available to anyone for the asking, all an illegal alien needs to do is to use a bogus social security number for work purposes. When tax time comes along he or she  simply tell his tax preparer to write a letter stating that all earnings credited to the social security number in question actually refer to the ITIN, and then apply for an Earned Income credit.  Fraud is rampant.

I disagree with the report's conclusion that this is merely the work of some mid-level bureaucrats. Anyone who has worked in government knows people at that level don't originate policy but simply carry out the orders of higher ups.

All this, of course, reveals another dirty little secret - that the IRS knows exactly where a lot of the illegal migrants can be found, but are choosing (or more likely being ordered) not to cooperate with ICE in enforcing U.S. immigration laws.

Instead, they're busy persecuting the Obama Administration's political enemies and denying 501c status to conservative political groups.

IRS Caught Red Handed - Admits It Targeted Conservative Groups

After lying about it for months, the Internal Revenue Service has finally admitted that it deliberately targeted 'conservative' and 'Tea Party' groups for special audits and reviews during the 2012 election season.

The IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner, said in a telephone press conference that between 2010 and 2012, about 75 conservative groups were 'inappropriately treated' and received extra scrutiny when seeking tax exempt status. The IRS routinely flagged groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, she said.

Ms. Lerner didn't mention it because no one brought it up at the press conference, but the IRS also targeted pro Israel advocacy groups as well. My friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney and the president of Z Street could tell you a few things about that.

The IRS is a federal agency under White House control. Many groups whose politics or positions didn't agree with the Obama Administration's were repeatedly harassed and received lengthy forms to fill out asking for their list of donors and demanding information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.Many were ending up dropping their attempt to seek tax exempt status because it simply was made too onerous a process by the IRS - which was exactly what was intended. Needless to say, this is not only against federal law but against the IRS's own stated policies.

Ms. Lerner's press conference was, well, ludicrous. She and her surrogates were actually hit with real questions by the usually servile press corps, many of which they unable or unwilling to answer.

For instance, after Ms. Lerner asserted that there were Left wing groups targeted too, she was asked to name one. Ummm, she couldn't.

She contradicted herself repeatedly when she was asked if anyone at the IRS is being disciplined for breaking the agency's own rules, then said there was no disciplinary action, and finally ended up saying she wouldn’t comment.

She admitted that the only reason the IRS finally came clean was because 'someone told me' ( she wouldn't say who- that the story was going to break anyway on Friday morning.

"The Ways and Means Committee has persistently pushed the IRS to explain why it appeared to be unfairly targeting some political groups over others — a charge they repeatedly denied," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.

"The IRS's 'too little too late' response is unacceptable, and I will continue to work to ensure there are protections in place so no American, regardless of political affiliation, has their right to free speech threatened by the IRS," Boustany said.

“I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday. “An apology won’t put this issue to rest.”

The Tea Party Patriots, one of the groups targeted and one of th elargest groups of its kind issued a statement rejecting the IRS’s explanation and demanded the resignations of the officials involved, as well as calling on President Obama to apologize for ignoring the continued complaints of the targeted groups.

“The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach.”

It does, but just like President Obama's illegal campaign donations and his suppression of the active duty military vote, nothing much is going to come of this. The regime got away with it, and the election's over now. As Hillary Clinton might say, 'what does it matter?'

But this demonstrated contempt for American citizens is a continuing theme with this president and his administration, and that's something that bears remembering in 2014 and 2016.

Middle Class Reacts With Surprise as New Obama Taxes Hit Their First 2013 Paychecks

Ignorance is bliss, and knowledge is, well, truth hitting you between the eyes.

When Obama signed the fiscal cliff bill into law he said, “Under this law, more than 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses will not see their income taxes go up.”

*chuckle*

Nathan Wurtzel @NathanWurtzel

And now, time to write checks to my employees for less take-home pay than they got two weeks ago. #thanksobama #thanksdemocrats

about 20 hours ago 

 

 

HollOnHeels  @hollonheels

The gild is off the lily. My employees were genuinely perplexed by the higher taxes reflected on their pay checks today. Seriously?

about 22 hours ago 

 

Stan Darke @VintageStan

just noticed ALL my employees, part time, hourly, etc, will have more tax $ taken out of their checks, contrary to president's promise. LIAR

 

 

Jenny Wang @imneverfull

Late night payroll. I dread explaining to my employees why their checks are smaller tomorrow. That tax cut was nice while it lasted.

1 Jan 13

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Amy Brachmann @AmyBrachmann

Did new taxes go info effect today? Something I don't understand about the fiscal cliff? I got a raise, and yet my paycheck got smaller 

 

Craig @CraigGradin

First paycheck of the new year.... What the hell happened to taxes not going up on the middle class?

11:36 AM Jan 3rd

 

 

3 Jan 13

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Americas Sweetheart @OMG_itsDestiny

Totally reflected on todays paycheck :( -->Social security tax withholding will increase from 4.2 to 6.2 percent on earnings up to $113,700.

3 Jan 13

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melissareagan @melissareagan

My first paycheck of 2013 is $45 short. Thanks new taxes!

3 Jan 13

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Mandy Mullinix @mandymullinix

Just checked my pay stub... My taxes went up $25 a paycheck in 2013. That's $650 more a year. Ouch!

  

3 Jan 13

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SPG @shawnglancy

Obama promised not to increase taxes on families making less than $250,000. Why do I have $30 less in my paycheck Mr. President?

 

Welcome to what you voted for America!

 

 

 

(H/T, Twitchy )

The Latest OnThe Fiscal Cliff - And The Real Tax Horrors To Come You're Not Hearing About

 

The fiscal cliff negotiations are going down to the wire, and the word in Washington is that the outlines of a deal have been struck, although President Obama took a stab at sabotaging it.

House Majority Leader John Boehner isn't even involved in this one. After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Boehner the Senate wasn't even going to discuss anything the House came up with and derisively sent the Senate home, Boehner threw up his hands and said that the House would wait for the Senate to act.

It's fairly well known in DC that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid are not exactly on good terms to put it mildly, something fairly rare in the collegial Senate club even in these fairly partisan times. A huge problem in any negotiations has been simply getting Reid to deign to sit down with McConnell, as you can imagine.

So a great deal of the progress that's been made behind the scenes has been between McConnell and Vice President Biden, who served together in the Senate for years.

The tentative deal right now would raise tax rates to to 39.6 percent from the current 35 percent on family incomes over $450,000, $400,000 for individuals per year. This is yet another penalty for married couples, since if you live with your partner sans marriage the two of you have a threshold of $800,000 combined for your household.

It will also fix the Alternative Minimum Tax glitch from expanding to affect an estimated 28 million households for the first time in 2013, with an average increase of more than $3,000. And it increase the estate tax rate on estates valued over $5 million to 40 percent(!) and extend unemployment benefits for one year.The Democrats also reportedly agreed stop, for now, a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients mandated under ObamaCare.

Where they're still deadlocked is on spending cuts. And how to pay for things like the unemployment extension, the AMT fix and the Medicare fix.

The sequestration deal McConnell foolishly agreed to calls for around Still left outstanding is how Congress will modify the $109 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect in the new year. President Obama and the Democrats want no spending cuts at all for a full year, and want to just pay for it with a combination of new taxes and later spending cuts where they prefer them to be, like defense.

McConnell wants to vote on the tax deal immediately to avoid the fiscal cliff and try later to reverse the automatic spending cuts in a separate deal.

That's not how Senate Democrats and the White House want it. They want an agreement covering everything now.

Still, it looked fairly promising until President Obama decided to do what he usually does in these situations...make a speech. He was not in a good mood, perhaps because for appearances he had to cut short his Hawaiian vacation.

The president slammed Congress for not getting things done faster, and made angry remarks about the emerging deal, which would net $600 billion in new taxes, or 'revenues' as Democrats like to call them.The President wanted $1.3 trillion, saying:

"I have to say that ever since I took office, throughout the campaign, and through the last couple of months, my preference would have been to solve all these problems in the context of a larger agreement.

"A bigger deal, a grand bargain, whatever you want to call it--that solves our deficit problems in a balanced and responsible way that doesn't just deal with the taxes but deals with the spending in a balanced way so that we can put all this behind us and just focus on growing our economy."

"But with this Congress that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time," said Obama.

Obama mainly blamed Republicans. "Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans," he said, laying the blame on Republicans.

"Now, if Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone — and you hear that sometimes coming from them ... then they've got another think coming. ... That's not how it's going to work at least as long as I'm president," he said.

"And I'm going to be president for the next four years, I think," he added.

Exactly the kind of tone you want to take during a delicate negotiation, no? And needless to say, Republicans in the House and Senate didn't react well, especially as this was a signal that whatever happens now, President Obama is going to fight any future spending cuts tooth and nail.

This drama is entertaining, but hardly scratches the surface of the real tax horrors Americans will face that aren't even being debated, because regardless of what happens or doesn't happen with the fiscal cliff, Americans are going to be facing a one trillion Obamacare tax hike.And the president knows it.

There are five major ObamaCare taxes coming into effect January 1st that are definitely going to affect most of us:

1) There's the ObamaCare Medical device tax, a a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales. Do you or your loved ones use or need a wheelchair, a hearing aid, walker, a stent, eyeglasses, an artificial hip or a prostheses or literally anything that comes under this category? Your healthcare costs are going up.

2)There are between 30 and 35 Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA)to pay for anticipated medical expenses, say for a handicapped or ill spouse or child. No more. Thanks to ObamaCare, the new ceiling on these accounts is a measly $2,500, which won't exactly buy you very much at today's healthcare costs.

3)Brand new ObamaCare surtaxes on all investment income. Capital Gains is climbing from 15% to 23.8%, Dividends from 15% to a whopping 43.4%, and other investment income (zero coupons, etc.) from 35.4% to 43.4%. If you're a retiree living off your investments, you are going to be hosed royally.

4)ObamaCare's new limits on medical itemized deductions. It used to be that you could deduct all medical expenses not paid for by your insurance that exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).

President Obama and his friends didn't cut it out, they simply made it relatively useless.The new 'haircut' establishes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI, which means a lot of people are going to have to just eat medical expenses they used to be able to deduct.

5) I saved the best for last, the wonderful ObamaCare Medicare payroll tax hike. It was 1.45% for both employer and employee on the first $200,000 of wage income, $250,000 for a married couple.If you were self employed and owned your own business, it went up to 2.9%.It stayed the same no matter how much you made.

The new ObamaCare law hits anything over a $200/250K threshhold with a 2.35% hit if you're an employee, and if your self-employed it goers up to 3.8%.

These taxes are going to slap you upside the wallet regardless of what happens in Washington. And that's in addition to your other federal income taxes, local sales taxes, state taxes, excise taxes on things like gasoline, county property and service taxes and in some jurisdictions, local city tax.

Obviously, the media isn't pushing this, and the president certainly isn't with his cynical rants about 'trying to help to middle class'. What he and the Democrats are doing is helping themselves to your wallet.

Ummm, Happy New Year, I think.This is the change you voted for, America, and change is what a lot of you are going have to scramble for when this president and his friends are through with you.

Meltdown - Boehner's 'Plan B' Implodes As Conservatives Say No

In spite of Majority Leader Reid essentially flipping him the middle digit yesterday, Republican Speaker John Boehner still didn't get the message.

He insisted on getting his 'Plan B' passed by the House, a rehash of former Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plan from last May - tax increases on gross incomes of $1 million and up, no mention of spending or the debt ceiling.

His idea was that this was somehow going to force President Obama and the Democrats to deal.

But to his surprise, the Republican caucus refused to go along:

At a quarter to 8 p.m. on Thursday night, House Republicans gathered in the Capitol basement for an urgent, closed-door conference meeting. The scene was hushed and confused. Instead of huddling in a windowless room, members thought they’d spend the evening on the House floor, voting on “Plan B,” Speaker John Boehner’s fiscal-cliff proposal. But as they took their seats and looked at Boehner’s face, the reason for the gathering became clear: The speaker didn’t have the votes. The whipping was over. “Plan B” was dead.

Boehner’s speech to the group was short and curt: He said his plan didn’t have enough support, and that the House would adjourn until after Christmas, perhaps even later. But it was Boehner’s tone and body language that caught most Republicans off guard. The speaker looked defeated, unhappy, and exhausted after hours of wrangling. He didn’t want to fight. There was no name-calling. As a devout Roman Catholic, Boehner wanted to pray. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” he told the crowd, according to attendees.

The Serenity Prayer is about all Boehner has left.

He and his friends in the GOP establishment have spent the last few weeks dissing the Tea party and conservatives in general, kicking members associated with those movements off committee seats, and threatening suspected dissidents with similar retaliation.

Did Boehner think that would go unnoticed? Is he really that clueless?

Plan B was a stunningly futile and bad idea anyway. Most of the GOP caucus obviously didn't like the idea of going home and explaining it to the constituents who elected them.

Harry Reid has said he's not going to consider any plan that comes out of the House and already sent the Senate home for Christmas, and the president is already preparing for his $4 million Hawaiian vacay at the taxpayer's expense, so even if it had passed it would have been meaningless.

And the Plan itself was ridiculous.

Boehner and anyone else that thinks like him need to get a clue - President Obama and the Democrats have no intention of negotiating anything. Why should they?

Taxes are going to go up, there will be no meaningful spending cuts and our defense budget is going to be scaled back to pre WWI levels. That's what this president and the Democrats wanted all along, and they'll get it, either by doing nothing and letting sequestration take effect or by making Boehner and the House cave on everything they want. And the men who put them in this comfortable position were none other than Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

He champions them now, but President Obama has constantly demonized the Bush tax cuts since 2008, something no Republican of any stature has had the stones to remark on publicly. They were supposed to sunset on January 1st, 2012, but they were extended for an additional year because of the ridiculous deal Boehner and McConnell made with the president last year in exchange for raising the debt ceiling and giving the president a higher credit card limit.They could have refused to increase the debt limit and forced the president to live within a 2.3 trillion dollar budget. Instead, they expected the president to negotiate with them in good faith a year down the road to pass meaningful spending cuts.

Now, how bad a deal that was is finally starting to become readily apparent to them.I use the word 'starting' advisedly, based on Boehner's recent antics.Having been screwed once, he's apparently anxious for a repeat performance.

Again some simple truth. This president and his minions were always going to raise taxes and strangle the defense budget. The Bush Era Tax Cuts are going up on people making more than $250K, and that number will be go south fairly quickly, using the AMT calculation, bogus stimulus programs, and more 'reforms' in Congress to $100,000 and lower. It's open season on the Kulaks, because elections do matter. And as the American people are going to discover, who is labelled as 'the rich is going to be a lot more elastic and inclusive then they imagined.

What Boehner could do, providing he gets someone to help him find his lost testicles is to use the power of the House to prevent the worst of the excesses. Congress holds the purse strings.There's nothing stopping them from simply refusing to raise the debt ceiling past its already obscene limits.If that involves shutting the government down, fine.

There's nothing stopping them from refusing to fund President Obama's agenda and making it clear that any spending he does will come with a price tag of spending cuts attached.There's nothing stopping them from addressing the country and explaining clearly and eloquently that this poresident has no intention of negotiasting anything in good faith, exactly why President Obama's fiscal policies are leading us to ruin, and why they oppose them. And there's nothing stopping them from attacking this president and his policies forcefully.

They're going to be demonized either way by the president and his media lackeys, but at least they're providing an honest, principled alternative, and one more and more people will understand as the Obama economy unravels.

Will they do it? I doubt it. Especially with John Boehner in charge.

But it needs to be done, and if the Republicans can't or won't, someone else will. Depend on it.

The Fiscal Cliff Farce - Time To Fire John Boehner, Seriously

 

I say this with regret, because I actually think that GOP House Speaker John Boehner is, in his own way, a dedicated public servant.

But it's apparent that he has no idea whom he's dealing with in negotiations with this president and the Democrats, and even less courage. It's like watching someone take a stroll in New York's Central Park at 2 AM and seeing him react with surprise and shock when he gets mugged and beaten to a bloody pulp.

In the latest from the saga of the fiscal cliff, Boehner advanced what he thought was at least a reasonable starting point - he took any talk of a debt ceiling limit off the table and essentially endorsed the exact proposal Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put out back in May of this year, for tax hikes on gross incomes over $1 million.

No sooner did he do that when the Democrats (laughing hysterically among themselves I'm sure) responded that it simply wasn't good enough, and that it was all just a 'political ploy' anyway by Pelosi.

The White House quickly agreed, saying it doesn't go far enough and wouldn't pass the Democrat majority Senate anyway.

The truth is that President Obama and the Democrats don't need or want a deal. The President has no problem with raising taxes on everyone or with the drastic sequestration cuts that will come mostly at the expense of the military.

Last year, when Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell made a last minute deal with President Obama to raise his credit card limit (AKA, the debt ceiling) and Boehner quickly endorsed it and rammed it through the House, I predicted this would happen.

The way this was set up it's a win-win for the president.

If a desperate Boehner completely caves, President Obama need only agree if he gets everything he wants with no concessions.At best, there will be some smoke and mirrors nonsense that means nothing to make the surrender compatible, like there was last year.

If there is no deal, the president gets the tax hikes and cuts in the defense budget he wants anyway, and will just sing the same old song about 'obstructionist Republicans, trying to protect the wealthy' while his media lackeys sing backup.That's what he's holding over Boehner's head and why Boehner is behaving so cravenly trying to stave off the inevitable.

The only way to deal with this kind of blackmail is for the Republicans to go public. It should have happened last year. They need to find someone ( NOT Boehner)to speak to the nation, inform them simply and directly of exactly why the president's policies are leading the country to fiscal ruin. And explain that since President Obama is unwilling to negotiate in good faith, the Republicans are going to let him do what he wants, but that every Republican legislator will vote 'present' in protest.

It would then become Obama's economy and Obama's policies, with no Republican fingerprints on it. When the house of cards collapses, President Obama will no longer have someone else to blame.

At this point, I think Rep. Boehner has to look back on his tenure as Speaker and simply admit that he failed, utterly. The decent thing for him to do would be to resign as Speaker, but with a little over a month left in his term the least he should do is announce that he will not be a candidate for Speaker in the next Congress, to give someone more able a chance to begin campaigning for the job.


Tiempo passado, y también los hombres.

'Oooh, The Taxes We'll Raise' - Democrats In California Salivate Over Their 2/3 Majority

Democrats have controlled California's legislature for some time, but the election last November saw Democrats in California's legislature get something they've been lusting after for decades - a two thirds, veto-proof supermajority in both the Assembly and the State Senate.

The Republicans, who have been able to block at least some of the more outlandish proposals might as well not even show up in Sacramento anymore.

The linked article farcically talks about California 'emerging from a prolonged recession'. The writer, Adam Nagourney obviously considers a U-1 10.1 unemployment rate (more like 14.7 in real U-6 unemployment terms), a $16 billion deficit, a large exodus of the state's companies, entrepreneurs and skilled professionals fleeing the high taxes in the country and massive over regulation to be signs of an emerging recovery.

And it's about to get far worse.

Aside from the new, higher sales and income taxes the voters approved after a massive campaign mostly funded by California's public employee unions, the next target is California's Proposition 13, a law passed back in the 1970's that requires a 2/3 majority to raise property taxes beyond a certain level:

Many Democrats said a top priority was figuring out a way to remove deep spending cuts made to education and other state services, which could mean finding new revenue.

“We do need to take stock,” said Ellen M. Corbett, the Senate Democratic leader. “We do need to take a look at things we have cut that may impact our ability to grow the economy.”

Senator Mark Leno, a Democrat, proposed putting on the ballot an initiative that would allow school districts and cities to pass a parcel tax increase with 55 percent of voters, down from the two-thirds requirement in Proposition 13. Lawmakers said they were also reviewing business tax exemptions they agreed to in order to win Republican votes.

Another Democrat, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, said, “What we want is to look carefully to see what kind of tax do we have like that, that are costing our schools, costing our taxpayers and not benefiting our economy.” {...}

Now that the Democrats have a supermajority, there has been a growing call for lawmakers to put an initiative before voters to revise Proposition 13, either by eliminating the two-thirds requirement or creating a split tax roll, which would protect residential property owners but remove protection from commercial and industrial properties.

Given the state's current demographics, getting 55% of the voters to approve massive taxation on those who own property would not be a very difficult bar to get over.

Proposition 13 came about because the Democrat-dominated legislature arbitrarily raised property taxes through the roof back in the 1970's, devastating the housing market as people decided not to buy and kicking existing homeowners, especially retirees, out of their homes because they could no longer afford the taxes. Most people are smart enough to realize that once the firewall of proposition 13 is breached, it's only going to be a matter of time until we return to those days, especially with a Democrat supermajority.

California's already devastated real estate market would collapse as people rush to sell their homes while they still might be able to find a buyer...not an easy thing as it is today with the Obama economy. Corporations will simply sell their commercial property and move out adding to the already prevalent 'for rent' signs.

The Golden State, happily killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

Senator Rand Paul: 'We Should Let Dems Raise Taxes And Then Let Them Own It'

 

On one of the Sunday shows:

SEN. RAND PAUL: I have yet another thought on how we can fix this. Why don't we let the Democrats pass whatever they want? If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise them, let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes, let the president sign it and then make them own the tax increase. And when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes. Let's don't be the party of just almost as high taxes.

LARRY KUDLOW, CNBC: Some people have called that the doomsday scenario. Others have said, 'Look, it's a strategic retreat on the Republicans' behalf.' WWould you vote present for that in the Senate if that came up?

RAND PAUL: Yes, I don't think we have to in the Senate. In the House, they have to because the Democrats don't have the majority. In the Senate, I'm happy not to filibuster it, and I will announce tonight on your show that I will work with Harry Reid to let him pass his big old tax hike with a simple majority if that's what Harry Reid wants, because then they will become the party of high taxes and they can own it.


I totally concur.

The latest idiocy being touted by certain establishment Republicans is to offer the president his tax hikes because then, we can get to entitlement reform and close tax loopholes.

That's exactly the way to put Republican fingerprints on what's coming.

I can just hear the media and the Democrats now..'you Republicans want to take healthcare and social security away from people.. Why? What's wrong with you?'

And if the GOP has any hand in new tax regulations, do the Republican congressmen really think that the media is going to blame Obama and not them when things cave? At best, the talking point will be that it was bipartisan and thus can't be blamed on Obama and the Democrats. If any one doubts that, look at how the insane  spending in the last two years of the Bush presidency when the Democrats controlled both houses of congress became 'Bush's fault'.

The GOP should make a strong, very public and well publicized statement disagreeing with every aspect of this, make sure the American people know that President Obama owns this and vote present.

Just do it, and have some courage for once.

Were Mitt Romney's Tax Returns Stolen?

There's a story circulating the outskirts of the internet that an anonymous group says that it stole copies of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax records and is threatening to release them publicly unless they're paid $1 million in a Bitcoin (Internet currency) account.

The local Democratic and Republican parties in Williamson County, Tennessee where the PricewaterhouseCoopers office is located both received packages from the hackers containing a thumb drive and a letter outlining a competitive-bidding ransom scheme to start a bidding war against each other over the release of Romney’s taxes.

"Using your office" in Franklin, Tennessee, the group tells PricewaterhouseCoopers in an online posting, "we were able to gain access to your network file servers and copy over the tax documents for one Willard M Romney and Ann D Romney."

It threatens to send encrypted copies to "all major news outlets" and warns, "If the parties interested do not want the encrypted key released to the public to unlock these documents on September 28 of this year then payment will be necessary."

If the money is not received, "the entire world will be allowed to view the documents with a publicly released key to unlock everything," the group warns.

The website Pastebin has a piece up that allegedly describes the supposed caper:

Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.

According to Williamson County Democratic Party Chairman Peter Burr, who received one of the packages, the letter states the Democrats have the option of outbidding PricewaterhouseCoopers or the GOP in order to ensure publication.

For its part, PricewaterhouseCoopers has said that they are working with the U.S. Secret Service and that there is no evidence that any of their data was compromised or that there was any unauthorized access.In fact, it would be very difficult to do this electronically without leaving footprints.And a 'scanned copy' of Mitt Romney's signature can be found on the net in maybe 2 minutes, tops.

But of course, this all might be nothing more than an elaborate story cooked up by the Obama Administration to cover the real crime.

Remember that the IRS is a federal agency under President Obama's direct control, and if he and his campaign wants copies of Mitt and Ann Romney's tax returns, all he has to do is shoot a memo over to Tim Geithner to get their hands on them.I would almost guarantee they already have, and that the misleading attack ads are ready to roll.

And what better way to cover the sudden onslaught than to come up with the story of an anonymous hacker group?

But of course, the president would never be a part of such a dishonorable, illegal and dishonest scheme just to win an election, right?

Would he ever. Just ask former Illinois Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan, who was beating a certain Democrat named Barack Obama back in 2004 until somebody went judge shopping and got a Democrat appointed judge in Los Angeles to issue a court order making Ryan's sealed records from an acrimonious divorce and custody battle public. Ryan subsequently left the race.

If I'm right (and obviously, I hope I'm not), I still don't think this is going to be a game changer,with everything else that's going on.If nothing else, Governor Romney, who's not stupid, has to have considered the possibility that his tax records would be illegally leaked and prepared certain counter measures.

We'll see...

Why Would Romney Believe Anything Obama's Campaign Manager Promises?

Much is being made today over a letter Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote to GOP candidate Mitt Romney asking him to release five years worth of tax returns. And such a deal:

"I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more--neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign."

Notice Messina says that "we" - meaning the Obama campaign - will refrain from criticism. Given the Obama campaign's close relations with a whole slew of media lackeys and what already appears to be illegal coordination with the primary pro-Obama super PAC, that 'commitment' is meaningless.

'Hey, wasn't us Mitt. T'was the boys and girls at ABC, MSNBC, Media Matters, Huffington Post, PBS, CNN, The New York Times....'

Aside from having no reason to believer anything the Obama campaign says or promises, notice that there's no real quid pro quo here. Governor Romney gives up something he doesn't have to that the Obama campaign wants in exchange for a 'promise' not to ask for more!

Again the arrogance of these people is astounding. They think everyone's stupid but them.

Except Mitt Romney isn't stupid, and turned them down flat:

"It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney's tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending," Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades wrote.

Actually, if I were Romney's campaign manager, I might have offered to release some additional tax returns in exchange for the following releases by Barack Obama:

A release allowing public viewing of his complete college transcripts

Any and all documents pertaining to the 2010 Democrat party Senate primaries in Colorado and Pennsylvania, where two Senate candidates publicly said they were offered something by the White House not to primary incumbents, a felony under 18 USC 600, 8 USC 211, and 8 USC 595.

The removal from executive privilege of all documents relating to Fast and Furious, the scandal that involved the Department of Justice overseeing th epurchase of weapons by straw buyers here in America and their subsequent sale to Mexican drug cartels that resulted in the death of at least 300 people, including a US border patrol agent named Brian Terry..

A formal request that the Los Angeles Times release the tapes they continue to hold of Obama's speech at a pro-Palestinian event set up by his long time associate Rashid Khalidi. And a statement by the president defending those views.

A full and complete statement by the president detailing his association with Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan, Khalid al-Mansour, and academic plagiarist and terrorist apologist Edward Said.

To address why his campaign disabled the default VISA identification software on his campaign website, allowing campaign donations to be submitted under aliases and fake addresses.

Full disclosure on exactly why Michelle Obama's law license was revoked by the Illinois bar, and a statement by the president addressing what connection, if any, there was between his obtaining an earmark of over $1 million for University Of Chicago Hospital and the employment of Mrs Obama as 'vice president of community relations' at an exorbitant salary in what essentially was a no show job.

There's plenty more, but in the interest of full disclosure and playing fair with the American people, I think this would be a good start. I'm sure the president's mother, were she alive, would be ashamed of him for refusing to do so. Just ask Harry Reid.

Of course, President Obama is never going to release any of this. The most secretive of presidents we've ever had has an incredible amount of nerve asking anyone else to come clean.