Posts Tagged ‘Taxes’
« Older Entries |Is Health Care a Right?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Most politicians, and probably most Americans, see health care as a right. Thus, whether a person has the means to pay for medical services or not, he is nonetheless entitled to them. Let’s ask ourselves a few questions about this vision.
Say a person, let’s call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab’s and Dr. Jones’ services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care?
You say, “Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay.” You’re right. Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another? There would be one important strategic difference, that of concealment. Most Americans, I would hope, would be offended by the notion of directly and visibly forcing one person to serve the purposes of another. Congress’ use of the tax system to invisibly accomplish the same end is more palatable to the average American.
True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of non-interference. If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.
For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else’s rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
To argue that people have a right that imposes obligations on another is an absurd concept. A better term for new-fangled rights to health care, decent housing and food is wishes. If we called them wishes, I would be in agreement with most other Americans for I, too, wish that everyone had adequate health care, decent housing and nutritious meals. However, if we called them human wishes, instead of human rights, there would be confusion and cognitive dissonance. The average American would cringe at the thought of government punishing one person because he refused to be pressed into making someone else’s wish come true.
None of my argument is to argue against charity. Reaching into one’s own pockets to assist his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else’s pockets to do so is despicable and deserves condemnation.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2010, Houston Voters, national healthcare, personal responsibility, socialized medicine, Taxes
Posted in National Issues, The U.S. Government, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Hydrogen Barackside
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Tags: economy, Election 2010, government control, Taxes, unemployment
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An Unbridgeable Philosophical Divide?
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
One quickly realizes the major philosophical and principle divide between liberals and conservatives when they painfully deconstruct and analyze their respective rhetoric. Conservatives and liberals are worlds apart in their ideology; an ideology that is now more than ever serving as the impetus for bold and endlessly complex legislation foisted on the already burdened American people. Conservative cling to the power of equality of opportunity and unfettered freedom; while liberals, on the other hand, are fearfully willing to sacrifice the hard earned dollars of honest Americans for the freedom of equal outcomes.
To illustrate the point, let’s examine some of the more recent contentious political issues to better test and illuminate this hypothesis.
Healthcare: The Left was willing to sacrifice individual freedom to choose doctors, opting instead to impose a state-run monopoly on medical care at the expense of a market driven health system. They unabashedly didn’t care that they were redistributing income from the more productive to the less productive; from the young to the old; from the healthy to the less healthy. In contrast, conservatives looked towards market solutions to resolve many of the existing health care issues, one that operated within a framework of the invisible hand of rational behaviors and the proper incentives. If cost is a factor in health care as liberals would argue, then why not ensure the solution has a price-based fixture?
Cap and Trade: Under the Democratic plan, income derived from a cap and trade scheme would be redistributed from productive carbon producing enterprises to non-carbon emitting enterprises. In effect, jobs would be lost, shifting from the USA to less responsible, emerging countries. Wealth would also shift from America to non- compliant nations; for what reason? Because of spotty, inconclusive scientific evidence that reduced carbon emissions would prevent global warming. Conservatives questioned that science. Not because they were Neanderthals. But when you ask the average American to pay $5 for a gallon of gas to save an iceberg in a remote part of the north he may never see when that same person is struggling to pay that month’s mortgage or he himself will be out in the cold, you better be damn sure of the consequences of “global warming.” Frankly, the Left failed in that argument.
Union Card Check: Democrats were willing to sacrifice the sanctity of a secret ballot to insure that Unions could fleece more American workers. With members (and clout) dissipating at record rates, it’s evident union bosses are feeling their grip on power lifting. It was easy to see this political exercise for what it was – a desperate bid to win at all costs, even if it meant cooking the ballot box at union halls. Here again, conservatives stood on an obvious side – the one for more freedom and more individualism.
McCain-Feingold: Democrats howled when the Supreme Court recently overturned corporate prohibitions in the landmark McCain-Feingold law. Here again, they’re willing to sacrifice the constitutionally-protected free speech of corporations and their shareholders. This has the long term effect of preventing this segment of society from spending their corporate dollars on political issues that are or are not in their best interest. The beauty of our First Amendment is captured best in its simplicity – when you abridge someone’s right to speak out for causes he/she believes in, no amount of demagoguing will cover that injustice. Continued…
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Tags: Congress, economy, Election 2010, government control, Houston, Houston Voters, personal responsibility, Taxes
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It turned out that the country’s problems were not problems of structure but of leadership
Friday, February 19th, 2010
WASHINGTON — In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president’s own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.
The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O’Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.
A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board — and fueled two decades of economic growth.
Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.
It turned out that the country’s problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn’t. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.
It’s 2010 and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama’s two signature initiatives — cap-and-trade and health care reform — lie in ruins.
Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: “America the Ungovernable.” So declared Newsweek. “Is America Ungovernable?” coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer. Continued…
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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2010, Houston Voters, Social Security, socialism, Taxes
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The Washington, D.C., Disconnect
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Townhall.com
The disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country has never been greater. Why can’t the political class in D.C. produce a fiscal product that voters, taxpayers, and investors are willing to consume?
According to the Washington Post, voters want smaller government and fewer government services by a large 58 to 38 percent margin. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reveals that 61 percent of voters believe tax cuts help the economy, that 59 percent think tax cuts are a better job-creation tool than increased government spending, and that another 59 percent believe higher deficits hurt the economy. Rasmussen also reports that a full 83 percent of Americans blame the deficit on the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending. And get this: In a whopper of a poll result, the New York Times reports that 75 percent of Americans dislike Congress.
This is why there’s a political revolt out there. Washington just doesn’t get it.
Inside the Beltway, Democrats are sending a profoundly pessimistic message that only government knows best. But out there in the heartland there is an optimistic message that We the People know best. And that heartland optimism will not be stopped.
The future of the U.S. economy — including jobs, growth, and the stock market — hangs in the balance. Government-controlled health care, with Senate vote-purchasing and union special-interest loopholes, is not the answer. Nor is a $2 trillion tax hike on banks, multinational corporations, capital gains, inheritance, and successful upper-income earners. Nor is a doubling of the publicly held federal debt to $19 trillion, or nearly 80 percent of GDP. Nor is a federal spending ratio of 25 percent of the economy. Nor is a budget deficit at a 10 percent share of GDP for as far as the eye can see.
Again, Washington doesn’t get it. Politicians are delivering a fiscal product that no one in America wants. It’s no wonder small businesses aren’t hiring. Yes, there is a cyclical recovery going on, but it is incomplete without the jobs.
The so-called $85 billion jobs program is not a jobs program at all. It is a spending bill. Temporary tax credits to hire new workers have virtually no permanent job-creating effect. In budget terms, these kinds of temporary tax credits are scored as tax expenditures, i.e. spending. Only a permanent reduction in the marginal business tax rate has the incentive effect for long-run job creation. Reducing the business tax rate makes firms more profitable after-tax. And it gives them more cash flow. Those incentives will work to expand investment and jobs.
And taxing capital is the worst idea of all. That’s why the capital-gains tax must not be increased. Plus, raising the top two income-tax brackets from 33 to 35 percent, and then from 35 to 40 percent, thereby penalizing those who own about half of the small-business income, is a job destroyer.
Why Republicans are flirting with this terrible temporary small-business tax credit is beyond me. This is a moment for the GOP to send a message that they are the party of growth through across-the-board reductions in marginal tax rates — for everyone. That includes large and small businesses, along with all individuals and families. All producers and investors should get lower tax rates. At a bare minimum, Republicans should be fighting hard to extend the Bush tax cuts on the way to a longer-term goal of low-rate, flat-tax reform. Continued…
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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, economy, Election 2010, government control, Houston, Houston Voters, Taxes, unemployment
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The real ’state of the union’
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Politically Direct Jane Chastain
The national debt, now stands at $12,300,000,000,000 and change, and it’s growing by the second. That’s about $40,000 for every American. More important, it represents $113,000 for each and every taxpayer.
The Congressional Budget Office predicts the deficit for 2010 will be $1.35 trillion and drop to $980 billion in 2011, which is based on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts, which ended the last recession, will be allowed to expire. In other words, taxes will be raised on almost everyone.
When this happens, it most certainly will have a depressing effect on the overall economy and will discourage job creation.
Nevertheless, based on the current numbers, the CBO is predicting that economic growth this year will be an anemic 2 percent with unemployment remaining in the 10.1 percent rage, easing slightly to 9.5 percent the following year. Loosely translated: more pain; little gain.
In his State of the Union speech last night, President Obama proposed a three-year freeze on domestic agency budgets
. Bear in mind, this is after the 10 percent raise he gave them this year. It’s like shutting the door just after you’ve raided the refrigerator.
It is also important to understand that this freeze only affects the $477 billion of discretionary spending that must be approved by Congress each and every year. In reality, it represents only a tiny portion of the federal budget because Congress routinely creates “entitlements” for the things members consider to be important.
Now, when “we the people” hear the word “entitlement,” we immediately think about Social Security and Medicare, programs we have paid into – and we feel “entitled” to have that money returned. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Social Security and Medicare are two of the largest entitlements, most entitlements simply represent the whims of the various members of Congress. New entitlement programs are set up each and every year. They are like individual spaceships that are put on automatic pilot and launched into the spending stratosphere.
The proposed freeze by President Obama is tantamount to taking a teaspoon of water out of the Atlantic Ocean.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf put it this way: “U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path to an extent that cannot be solved by minor tinkering.”
Under current law, if everything remains the same, the CBO’s new estimate states that the Treasury will need to borrow another $6 trillion between 2011 and 2020, and, believe it or not, that’s the really good news. Once the baseline is scrubbed of several unrealistic assumptions that Congress demands CBO use, the deficit returns to $1.4 trillion in 2010 and balloons to $1.9 trillion by 2020. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation ran the numbers for us and came up with another $7 trillion in debt over the next decade or an additional $13 trillion in new red ink.
Last night, in his report to Congress, Obama threw out a few fig leafs to the middle class, promising easier repayment terms for student loans, tax credits for families who pay for day care or care for elderly relatives and, of course, more government programs to create jobs, jobs, jobs.
Meanwhile, the public seems to understand that the first $787 billion stimulus resulted in a net job loss and that most of the jobs that were saved or created were government jobs. Bigger government will not save us, never has and never will.
Last night, Obama accepted responsibility for failing to deliver swiftly on some of the changes he promised a year ago, but he never admitted that his priorities are out of step with the nation’s and have been counterproductive. For starters, the president needs a new Cabinet, one with a lot of real-world private-sector business experience.
Despite all the lofty rhetoric we just heard from the president, Barack Obama is viewed as a weak leader here and abroad. On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled Senate voted down his proposal to create a bipartisan commission to reign in those out-of-control entitlement programs, even though the measure had more than enough Republicans on board to break a filibuster and get down to the question.
Internationally, the president had little success with his “apology tour.” However, the American people are forgiving. He could get the country back on the right track and save his presidency if he simply could admit he has been wrong and apologize to the people here at home.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, economy, Election 2010, Houston, Houston Voters, Taxes, unemployment
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My Interpretation of the Events Causing the Housing Bust
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
The Community Reinvestment Act was passed by Congress in 1977 to encourage bankers to lend to people who were acknowledged poor credit risks due to low incomes. Banks needed cash to lend since these borrowers increased the demand for cash from banks. Bankers normally lend money held in savings accounts and CD’s, etc. In order for banks to make the high risk loans they needed both cash and some kind of guarantee to minimize the risks.
The government agencies Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC) were created to insure the mortgages in the event of default and provide cash to community banks. The cash was obtained by grouping residential mortgages into bundles and selling the bundles to Wall Street investment houses where institutional investors and very wealthy people have their money. They too needed a guarantee against default on the mortgages so FNMA and FHLMC provided the guarantee.
A key issue was where to get more cash as the number of borrowers increased over the years after 1977. In 1933 because of “The Great Depression” Wall St investment houses were prohibited from accepting too many risks and entering too many markets by The Glass-Steagall Act.
The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and/or an insurance company. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, passed in 1999, allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms and insurance companies to consolidate. This made larger quantities of money available to buy the packages of residential mortgages.
As the quantity of high risk mortgages grew naturally the exposure to risk of default grew. Well it started hitting critical mass when too many mortgagors stopped paying.
The current crisis is rooted in the poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2005 and 2007. Here is a source if you want more detail:
- Did the CRA cause the mortgage market meltdown? -
An aggravating factor was speculation. Because the demand had been pushed up for houses, the prices were pushed up. So speculators bought houses believing the prices would go up and they could sell them at huge profits. Some made huge profits. Those that owned houses at the bust lost.
So the whole thing occurred over a couple decades. It was not necessarily a bad idea. It was thought that the pride of ownership would improve peoples lives and their self -respect. They would have an investment in their own home instead of paying money to landlords forever.
When so many mortgages defaulted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac couldn’t cover the losses the government had to step in with huge amounts of money to lend to them to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with Wall St investment houses from going into bankruptcy. Where did the Federal Government get the money? It borrowed it with a plan for the taxpayers (you) to pay it back over future years by increased taxes.
[I deliberately tried to keep this short and simple. You can read more by clicking on the links or doing internet searches.]
Tags: Congress, Election 2010, fannie mae, Houston, Houston Voters, Mortgage Crisis, Taxes
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CNSNews.com Hoyer: It’s Good for People to Make Money Because Then They Can Pay Taxes
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) (AP Photo)
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D.-Md.) said today in his weekly press briefing that it is good that Americans are making money again because it means they can pay taxes. -
“We also had some good news for the first time in approximately two years,” said Hoyer at his weekly press briefing. “The projection of revenues has stabilized, not decreased. That is a very good sign because it is a sign that people are in fact making money and will be in a position, because they’re making money, to pay a portion of that in revenues to the federal government.” -
Tags: Congress, economy, Election 2010, Houston, Houston Voters, Taxes
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Middle Class Relief
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson -
Today’s Political Cartoon
Tags: Barack Obama, economy, Election 2010, Houston, Houston Voters, Taxes, unemployment
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