Government Corruption and Treason

Voters Reject Notion That “Government Can Do Anything It Likes”

August 6, 2010

Infowars.com - A Rasmussen poll indicates that an overwhelming eighty-six percent (86%) of voters nationwide say there should be “limits on what the federal government can do,” in response to recent comments from pro-Obamacare Congressman Pete Stark.

Following criticism surrounding the constitutional basis of government run health care, Stark told an audience at a town hall meeting in Hayward California that the federal government had the power to do anything.

An attendee asked Stark to explain his claim that health care was now a right rather than a privilege in light of the fact that government imposed Obamacare “infringes the inalienable rights of other people” under the Constitution. The attendee pointed out that to mandate others to provide a service was a form of slavery and therefore violated the 13th amendment to the Constitution.

“The federal government – yes – can do most anything in this country,” responded Stark, a statement that prompted a loud chorus of dissent from the crowd.

Watch the clip:

The Rasmussen poll reveals, however, that just nine percent (9%) of people across virtually all partisan and demographic lines share this view.

The poll clearly shows that Stark was voicing a view shared only by the Political Class of the country, who voted 54% to 43% that the government should be allowed do anything it likes.

Further Rasmussen polls indicate that most voters nationwide continue to favor repeal of the health care law.

While 72% of mainstream voters oppose the health insurance mandate, 83% of the Political Class think it’s a good idea.

The Health Care Bill Is Great for American Taxpayers - If You Like Being Punched in the Groin

March 27, 2010

EndOfTheAmericanDream.com - Thanks to the health care "reform" bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Barack Obama, American taxpayers are about to be hit with the largest tax increase in the history of the United States. According to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the health care bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019. But there are also heavy fines for those who refuse to buy the health insurance mandated by the bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the health care bill imposes approximately $69 billion in penalties for individuals and businesses who don’t meet mandates to purchase health insurance.

This will be the first time in the history of the United States that the federal government has ordered Americans citizens to buy a good or service. But it is not just a small amount of money that the U.S. government is requiring all of us to spend. In fact, the federal government will be mandating that ordinary Americans pay almost as much to private insurance companies as they do in federal taxes.

Just think about how bizarre that is.

It is a total government takeover of the health care system, and it is an absolute windfall for the health insurance companies.

No wonder their stocks have been heading into the stratosphere.

Before we take a look at all the taxes the American people will soon be paying, we should consider how much our health insurance premiums are about to go up.

According to one analysis, a middle class family of four making $66,370 will initially be forced to pay $5,243 per year for health insurance under the new system.

That would be bad enough. But once more of the provisions contained in the health care bill start kicking in that figure is going to go up significantly.

How significantly?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, by 2016, the average family health care plan will cost $15,200 per year.

Can you afford to pay that?

Well, whether you like it or not, the U.S. government will now be forcing you to shell out cash for health insurance.

And we all get to be taxed like crazy at the same time.

Oh joy!

Let's take a look at some of the taxes:

• Section 9001 of the health care bill contains an excise tax on "Cadillac" health insurance plans. In other words, if you have provided your family with the very best in health insurance coverage you get to be taxed extra. This tax is particularly harsh. It imposes a 40 percent tax rate on the portion of insurance premiums exceeding $8,500 a year for individuals and $23,000 a year for family plans. In an attempt to hide this tax, Democrats have imposed it on the employers who provide these plans to their employees.

  What do you think the odds are that employers will simply quit offering these really good health plans to their employees now?

  Also, keep in mind the the levels at which this 40 percent tax kick in will be indexed to inflation. Since inflation typically grows at a much slower rate than the cost of health care, an increasing number of employers will be confronted with this tax as the years go by.

• Section 9004 contains a very interesting provision. Taxes on money in a health savings account not used for qualified medical expenses will increase from 10% to 20%. For "Archer" medical savings accounts, taxes on money not used for qualified medical expenses will increase from 15% to 20%.
• Section 9008 of the health care bill imposes a $2.3 billion excise tax on the pharmaceutical industry. This tax is distributed throughout the entire pharmaceutical industry and it is not based on the income of the individual firms. Instead, the tax will solely be based on market share. So even if a pharmaceutical company is losing hundreds of millions of dollars it will still have to pay this tax.
• Section 9009 of the health care bill imposes an "annual fee" on medical device manufacturers and importers. Just like the tax imposed on the pharmaceutical industry, this tax on medical device manufacturers and importers will be based on market share and not on income.
• Section 9010 of the health care bill imposes an "annual fee" on health insurance providers. This harsh $6.7 billion tax would also be allocated based on market share.

  Perhaps you don't think that some of these taxes will impact you personally.

  But just think about it for a moment.

  Do you actually believe that the health insurance firms, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers will not pass the cost of these taxes on to consumers?

  The truth is that American taxpayers will end up paying for all of these taxes one way or another.

• Section 9015 of the health care bill imposes an extra 0.5% tax on wages over $200,000 for those who file a single return and on wages over $250,000 for those who file a joint return.
• Section 9017 of the health care bill imposes an excise tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures. Any voluntary cosmetic procedures will now be subjected to a 5 percent tax. So now all of those nose jobs and boob enhancements are about to get a whole lot more expensive.

But as bad as all of those taxes are, that is just the first wave.

The second wave is in the reconciliation act that the House has already passed and is now in the Senate.

We encourage all of you to read H.R. 4872 - it is really a frightening bill.

The following are just some of the new taxes contained in that bill:

• A 2.5% income tax (more like a fine) on anyone who does not purchase health care insurance. This tax will be limited to an amount less than the average national health care insurance premium.
• A 1% tax increase on those making between $350,000 and $500,000.
• A 1.5% tax increase on those making between $500,000 and $1 million.
• A 5.4% tax increase on those making more than $1 million per year.
• For firms that do not provide health insurance for their employees, and yet do not qualify for exclusions, an 8% tax on wages will be applied.

Are you starting to get the picture?

When you add all of these taxes together, you get the biggest tax increase in the history of the United States.

That is going to make it really hard for the American people to try to live the American Dream.

In fact, these "reforms" are a whole lot more about money than they are about health care.

Under the new health care regime, the Internal Revenue Service will function as the government’s chief enforcer for health care reform.

Isn't that lovely?

The U.S. government has taken over the entire health care system, and they are about to make a gigantic financial mess of it.

What in the world has happened to the United States of America?

Another Senate Charade: Financial Reform Rigged

July 19, 2010

Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) - This note comes courtesy of my friend David Sirota out in Colorado. This is a classic example of how the Senate works. If the public understood better how rigged this game is, and how few issues are actually left to an honest vote in the legislature, I'm pretty sure the pitchfork factor would be twice even what it is now.

The short version of this story: Bernie Sanders had put forth a proposal in the Senate to put a 15 percent cap on credit-card interest. Who isn't in favor of this kind of legislation? The only difference between credit card companies and loan sharks at this point is that you can choose to not patronize a loan shark. As an adult professional in this country one has to have a credit card -- it's impossible to rent a car, buy a hotel room, shop online or do countless other things without one.

But all the credit card companies use the same insane formulae based on FICO scores to charge exorbitant interest rates for anyone who slips up -- and they don't exactly make it easy to not slip up. (I'm doing research on this subject so anyone who has a particularly egregious story about being ripped off by credit card companies, please write in). Almost everyone has horror stories about consumer credit, and my guess is that if put to a national referendum, something like the Sanders 15% cap would pass pretty easily.

In Washington, of course, it's another story. Finance/Credit companies spent well over $30 million in lobbying in each of the last two years. If you take a look at contributions to Banking Committee members, you always find Finance and Credit companies at or near the top of the list. The credit card companies' dominance of Congress was never more apparent than in the Bankruptcy Bill back in 2005, which essentially made it impossible for people with credit card debt to file for bankruptcy to keep their houses.

So when something like this Sanders thing comes up, the outcome is usually pretty predictable. The measure got beat pretty soundly, but the Colorado delegation provided a comic asterisk to the defeat. Both of the state's Democratic Senators, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, initially voted "no." But right before the vote, i.e. once it became clear that the bill had no chance of passing, they both switched sides and joined 31 other Senators in voting "yes."

Right after it happened, Bennet was accused of changing his vote so that he could seem like he was for the measure, even though he had no intention of voting "yes" if the bill had any chance of passing.

This sort of thing is so common in the Senate, nobody even blinks anymore. One of my favorite examples was Alabama Republican Richard Shelby's decision to cast a "yea" vote for the doomed Brown-Levin amendment mandating the breakup of "too big to fail" companies.

Obviously there's no proof that this is what went on with Udall and Bennet, but it's not hard to draw conclusions. Very little is left to chance on the Senate floor. The leadership does a careful head count before every vote, and it's rare that the outcome of any important vote is a surprise. I've even been told that sometimes members will get the blessing of the leadership to cast "populist" votes once it's been determined that the measure will fall short.

P.S Here's Sirota's video on the issue P.P.S. Watch the video closely. You can see Udall and Bennet initially vote "no." Then you see them conferring with Chuck Schumer, at which point they're probably learning that the vote will lose. At 3:07:57 Bennet switches his vote, and 15 seconds later Udall does the same.