Filed under: bailout, bank bailout, Barack Obama, Big Banks, chris dodd, Dictatorship, dodd bill, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, Economy, Empire, Goldman Sachs, government regulation, Great Depression, job market, obama, obama deception, SEC, small business, Taxpayers, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: bailout authority, brad sherman, David Vitter, small business, startups, venture capital investing
Dodd Bill KILLS Jobs, Creates Permanent Bailout
NoWorldSystem.com
April 21, 2010
Today, Obama promoted another government takeover bill, this time the financial sector is the target. The bill is basically a sweetheart deal for the banking industry, much like how ObamaCare was a bailout for the insurance companies. The 1,408 page bill includes many provisions like the creation of a permanent and unlimited bailout authority for Wall Street and has the potential for making it difficult for small businesses to succeed.
Obama claims the bill will “put a stop to tax-payer-funded bailouts” when in reality the bill will create a permanent and unlimited bailout mechanism for the big banks and companies that are ‘too big to fail’. “If you liked the bailouts in 2008, you’ll love the Dodd bill,” said Republican Senator David Vitter. “Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration want to create a permanent bailout mechanism all while spouting their rhetoric of getting tough on Wall Street, but if you look at who is already lining up to support their ‘reform’ measure it’s a who’s who of the big banks that have already received the taxpayer bailout the first time.”
Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman agrees: “There are serious problems with the Dodd bill. The Dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. That’s something Wall Street desperately wants but doesn’t dare ask for.”
The rhetoric by Obama today is just another example of how he slaps the hands of Wall Street to only make sure they prosper on tax-payer-funded bailouts by giving them complete authority. Not only that, but this bill will break the back of small business by placing restrictions on venture capital investing making it harder for small startup businesses to succeed.
Here are a few quotes from a Venture Beat article:
- “First, Dodd’s bill would require startups raising funding to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then wait 120 days for the SEC to review their filing. A second provision raises the wealth requirements for an “accredited investor” who can invest in startups – if the bill passes, investors would need assets of more than $2.3 million (up from $1 million) or income of more than $450,000 (up from $250,000). The third restriction removes the federal pre-emption allowing angel and venture financing in the United States to follow federal regulations, rather than face different rules between states.”
“Obviously, I’m deeply concerned about Senator Dodd’s proposal to place these restrictions on angel investing. I think angel investing is undeniably one of the largest engines for job creation as well as innovation and competitiveness on the global scale for the United States. There’s no doubt about it that the restrictions that he’s proposing would absolutely chill investing.
“Specifically, one of the things we need to take into account is while 10 years ago it may have taken years to build a company, companies are now built in a matter of weeks. So this 120-day waiting period is frankly ridiculous. I have companies with tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of users that are built in a matter of weeks. They’re generating actual dollars of revenue, creating jobs, investing in real estate office space, capital equipment, etc. If they had to wait 120 days to actually apply for the ability to obtain financing it would absolutely just crush that market.”
Obama is one of the biggest puppets for Wall Street, despite all the rhetoric he uses against them. Obama’s greatest allies are the big banks and most of his important constituents are wall street financiers. In 2008, Obama’s campaign was mostly funded by Wall Street, banks like AIG, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs all played a major financial role for his presidency taking in $15 million from securities and investment firms, $3 million from commercial banks, and $6 million from other financial institutions.
Obama and the Democrats in Congress will try to rush this bill in before the American people have the chance to find out what’s in it. Just like ObamaCare, they will use non-transparent and secretive tactics to make sure it becomes law. The bill is likely to hit the floor of the Senate as early as next week.
Why The Dodd Finance Bill Is Bad For America
Is Goldman Obama’s Enron? No, it’s worse
Will Obama Return $994,795 In Goldman Sachs Campaign Contributions?
Obama Now Pushing Sneaky Wall Street Bailout
Obama-Dodd financial bill would further enrich Goldman Sachs
Filed under: Al Gore, Big Banks, cap-and-trade, carbon credit system, carbon dioxide, carbon rationing, Carbon Tax, Co2, Congress, Dictatorship, Economic Collapse, Economy, Empire, environmental taxation, global warming hoax, global warming scam, Hoax, House, scam, Senate, Taxpayers, US Economy
Cap and Trade Carbon Tax Coming Next Month
Filed under: DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, Economy, federal spending, Great Depression, Income Tax, middle class, MSNBC, new zealand, obama, obama taxes, Paul Volcker, Senate, slavery, Taxpayers, tea party, US Economy, White House | Tags: The Other 95%
The Other 95% Thanks Obama For All The Taxes!
“The Other 95%” Group Crashes Tea Party
Networks Fail to Report on VAT Tax Since Volcker Call for Tax Increases
Business & Media Institute
April 15, 2010
As procrastinators rush to beat the April 15 tax deadline and thousands rally at Tea Parties to oppose out of control government spending, politicians and the national news media are mulling the possibility of a new European-style national sales tax.
On April 6, former Federal Reserve chairman and current White House economic adviser Paul Volcker revealed the Obama administration’s possible strategy to tame massive deficits with a value-added tax (VAT).
“Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax ‘was not as toxic an idea’ as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary,” Reuters reported.
“If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,” Volcker added that day. In Europe, VAT taxes range from about 16 percent to 25 percent with an average of roughly 20 percent, according to Olivier Garret of Casey Research. Garrett, who grew up in France, called the VAT “a license to steal without people knowing it.”
A VAT is a consumption tax “levied along stages of production,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In contrast to Garret, Fortune called it an “extremely efficient, virtually fraud-free way to collect money.” But it is also a regressive tax that hits the poor and middle-class and would contradict Obama’s pledge to protect taxpayers.
Despite the huge news that the White House was leaving the door open to additional taxes that would hit the poor and middle class especially hard, the three broadcast networks haven’t mentioned a VAT tax at all since Volcker’s speech. In the previous three months, only NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show” has even brought up the issue.
In contrast to the networks’ silence, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network have brought up the VAT in more than a dozen programs since Volcker’s speech. But some print and online news media, including Reuter’s columnist Christopher Swann and Fortune’s Shawn Tully, actually promoted the idea of a VAT.
On Feb. 10, Tully wrote, “America is hurtling towards a fiscal trap that is forcing us into the only option we’ll have to restore budgetary sanity: A Value-Added Tax.”
CNN.com also supported VAT on April 13 suggesting the U.S. “can learn from New Zealand when it comes to taxes.” The article cited New Zealand as the “best” example of a VAT.
“So who does it best? Tax experts and economists point to New Zealand, where a 12.5 percent goods and services tax applies uniformly to nearly everything with very limited exceptions – only rent paid for a private home, charitable contributions and interest earned are exempted. (The government offers clear details, too, on its website.),” wrote CNN’s Dody Tsiantar.
But according to Dan Mitchell, a CATO Institute senior fellow and Business & Media Institute adviser, a value-added tax would be “an economy-killer.”
“Don’t get me wrong: The VAT – on top of all the other taxes Washington imposes – is a terrible idea. Imposing it would pretty well finish the transformation of our country into a European-style slow-growth nation. The right way to close Uncle Sam’s gaping deficits is to reverse the continued explosion of federal spending,” Mitchell wrote in a New York Post op-ed.
Mitchell explained that a VAT has the “virtues” of simplicity and less economic distortion, but ONLY if it were to replace the Internal Revenue code. That, however, is not what Volcker or Sen. Kent Conrad and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have suggested.
In Mitchell’s opinion, the end result would be a huge expansion of government, rather than deficit reduction.
Liberals Predict, Promote VAT Tax
Especially after Volcker’s comments, the mainstream media should have been examining value-added taxes, talking to tax experts and publicizing the fact that this sort of a tax would be yet another violation of Obama’s pledge to protect the middle-class from tax increases. But they weren’t.
In the past three months, a value-added tax has only been mentioned on one network program: NBC’s weekend talk show “The Chris Matthews Show.”
Matthews casually mentioned the options for reducing deficits on his April 4 program, saying, “You know, cutting deficits comes down to two decisions: you’ve got to raise taxes somewhere with a value-added tax or something, or you’re going to cut benefits. Neither one are pleasant for politicians.”
Guest David Ignatius of The Washington Post joined the discussion predicting that Obama would “build a case for a value-added tax, which gets us out of the – out of this mess.”
The tax was mentioned on CNN during a special called “I.O.U.S.A. Solutions” April 11. That special hosted by Christine Romans aired video clips from the documentary and then discussed the proposals with several panelists.
Panelist Maya MacGuineas, who was in the documentary, told viewers that even with necessary spending cuts there is no way to fix the deficit without raising taxes.
Robert D. Reischauer, former director of CBO and President of the Urban Institute, claimed in the video: “We’re going to have to look at consumption taxes like a value added tax or some form of national sales tax as a mechanism for maintaining some of the benefits that we are promised through our entitlement programs.”
But in the panel discussion that followed no one pointed out the flaws of VAT or mentioned any of the harm it could do to the American economy.
On April 8, the overwhelmingly liberal cable network MSNBC mentioned the problem liberals have with a VAT.
“There is a problem. A value-added tax tends to be regressive. There are ways to deal with that – one way is to provide an income tax credit to offset the regressivity at the bottom. That might sound like a radical liberal proposal, but it’s basically the same thing the national retail sales tax or FairTax people have been proposing,” Leonard Burman of Syracuse University told Ed Schultz.
Burman was correct about the regressive nature of a value-added tax, but not about its similarity to the FairTax.
FairTax proponents would like to see the entire federal taxation system replaced with a progressive national retail sales tax. It would include a “prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.” The recent calls for a VAT have been for additional taxation, not reforming the confusing current system.
I Wanna Be Like Europe (or New Zealand)
Proponents of a VAT often lament that the U.S. is only developed nation that doesn’t have one.
That was Alice Rivlin’s argument for a VAT in the film I.O.U.S.A. Solutions. Rivlin, senior fellow for the liberal Brookings Institution, said “all the industrialized countries have a national sales tax of some sort.”
CNBC guest co-host Mark Olson, Corporate Risk Advisors co-chairman, praised the success of value-added taxes in Europe.
“A VAT makes a little bit more sense … But the value-added tax, I don’t think there’s a chance that’s gonna happen this year. But it’s gonna be something – it seems to work well in Europe.” Olson said on “Squawk Box” April 12.
In response, “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen groaned that “We’re turning into, we’re turning into” Europe.
Reuters economic columnist Christopher Swann supported the creation of a VAT tax. He called it a “money machine,” and said “America is alone among rich nations in not charging a VAT, and its continued unwillingness to do so will make it harder to cope with the fiscal challenges ahead.”
Instead of suggesting we emulate Europe, CNN.com highlighted New Zealand’s example calling it the “best.”
“In New Zealand, it [VAT] contributes about 25 percent to the government’s bottom line, and the Tax Policy Center in December projected that a 5 percent VAT tax here would generate over $3 trillion in revenue by 2019. That’s not enough to cover America’s huge debt obligations, of course, but it’s a start,” CNN said.
But conservative and libertarian tax experts like Dan Mitchell oppose following in the footsteps of Europe or New Zealand and warn that such a taxation plan will lead to bigger government, more spending and make it easier to raise taxes in the future.
Mitchell explained that “real-world evidence shows that VATs are strongly linked with both higher overall tax burdens and more government spending. In 1965, before the VAT swept across Europe, the average tax burden for advanced European economies (the EU-15) was 27.7 percent of economic output, versus 24.7 percent of GDP in the United States.”
Then Europe instituted VATs (and the European Union requires its member to impose VATs of at least 15 percent) and the tax burden of EU-15 nations rose to nearly 40 percent, compared to 28 percent in the U.S. According to Mitchell, government spending rose in Europe along with the VATs: from 30.1 percent of GDP to 47.1 percent of GDP.
Another CATO expert, Chris Edwards opposes adding to the tax burden and would prefer spending cuts. “I think America has prospered because the general level of taxation has been lower than Europe,” Edwards told CBSNews.com.
But even tax experts who “loathe” the idea of a VAT think the U.S. will head in that direction. Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, told CBSNews.com “I think it’s coming, in the next five to 10 years certainly.”
Filed under: halliburton, Income Tax, middle class, Military Industrial Complex, military spending, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Taxpayers, Troops, u.s. soldiers, US Economy, War On Terror
Tax Day 2010: 53% of your Tax Dollar goes to the Military
Examiner
April 13, 2010
Health care? Social Security? An economic stimulus bill? Wars? Bailing out Wall Street banks? Education? Our nation’s infrastructure? Each may be a good guess based on the issues that get attention in the mainstream media.
The correct answer may be that 53% of the federal tax being collected in 2010 has already been allocated for defense spending.
According to Philadelphia investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, writing for OpEdNews:
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.
That would mean the military’s share of the approximately $3 trillion 2011 budget is about $1.6 trillion.
On the other hand, anyone can find a handy fact sheet posted on the white house’s web site that puts the department of defense’s share of the budget at a “mere” $708 billion, seemingly bringing the cost down to about 24 cents on the tax dollar.
So, who’s telling the truth? The answer is that both are, depending on how one looks at federal budget allocations.
Just like banks, airlines or a sleazy car dealer, the pentagon and white house’s initial invoice does not include hidden costs and amenities, but the final bill does. One of those add-ons is called supplemental spending.
A war appropriations bill to supplementally finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for an additional $106 billion was signed by President Obama last year. The administration is already poised to ask congress for another $35 billion this year, which they will surely get. There are estimates that supplemental war funding could reach $300 billion by the end of 2010. You can view a cost of war counter here. If supplemental war spending is based on what was spent last year, that brings the defense portion of the check to $814 billion.
A closer look reveals that the 2011 defense budget also does not include: spending on veterans affairs – that means VA hospitals, benefits, etc., for any ex-military personnel that are no longer on active or reserve status. The bill for that is $60 billion. That $60 billion does not include any public funds spent on veterans or immediate family that collect public benefits, such as social security.
Homeland security, judging by the title, can be added to the defense part of the check for approximately another $4.3 billion, bringing the bill to approximately $878.3 billion. So can NASA, for another $19 billion, since their primary function is deploying military satellites. And the National Intelligence Program for another (classified) amount, estimated at about $75 billion. Even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gets billed separately at about $5 billion.
Without even considering the costs of foreign military aid to nations such as Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Columbia, or the costs of purchasing services from private contractors such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) to provide security in occupied countries, or Halliburton to rebuild them, defense spending is already well over $900 billion. There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and not including Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 255,000 service members stationed abroad. There are 116,000 in Europe and nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Like all government spending, of course, the defense portion has to be financed, so when money is borrowed from whomever or wherever to pay for the $900+ billion tab, add more interest to the approximately $250-400 billion in interest already owed through debt created by defense spending. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion.
Having trouble keeping up with your bill yet? That’s because it is designed that way. It gets even more complicated when you have to consider that Social Security expenditures are included in the overall budget, even though it is a trust that is raised and spent seperately from income taxes. What you pay by April 15, 2010 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. That makes military spending seem smaller in comparison to overall government spending. That also easily puts the figure at about 53 percent.
No matter which figure you want to believe – the $1.6 trillion or the $708 billion, it may be enlightening to put that in two other perspectives.
One is that, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. accounted for 48% of global military spending in 2008, compared to 5% for Russia, 8% for China, and 20% for all our European allies combined.
The second is that, according to the non-profit National Priorities Project, less than half of the $708 billion estimate – $300 billion, could have paid for health care for 131,780,734 American children for a year, or for 53,872,201 students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550, or for the salaries and benefits of 4,911,552 elementary school teachers for that same year. Restoring roads and bridges in this country to the condition of past decades and keeping them in decent repair so that they do not fall apart would cost $166 billion a year for the next five years.
Tax day is almost here, and whether 24 cents of your hard-earned dollars, 53 cents, or something in between goes toward military spending, there may be a few things to think about. Do we really need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on “defense?” Could investing our tax $’s to improve our country within our borders provide a better return of investment than occupying countries halfway around the world? If U.S. taxpayers knew how much they are paying for defense and the wars through direct taxes instead of bookkeeping fraud, how long would this continue?
Let’s not forget the human costs of war either…
Filed under: bankruptcy, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, federal spending, Great Depression, greece, Income Tax, italy, middle class, Paul Volcker, pelosi, Senate, slavery, Taxpayers, tea party, US Economy, VAT, White House | Tags: tax strike
Spend It Now! A Huge New Tax Is Coming…
Daily Wealth
April 9, 2010
Everything you buy is about to become 20% more expensive…
I’m not kidding. The latest idea out of Washington is to pay for its insatiable appetite for spending with what’s called a “Value-Added Tax.”
It’s like a huge new national sales tax, on everything. In simple terms, the difference is that with a sales tax, the consumer pays it. With a “VAT,” the manufacturer pays it. The consumer won’t see it in the price on the shelf or on their receipt.
Politicians love this tax because it’s a stealth tax… You can’t see it when you buy something, but they still get their money. And unless you make your voice known, chances are excellent we’ll eventually have a Value-Added Tax here.
The thing is, making things 20% more expensive here and giving that money to politicians won’t save America. It’ll make us less competitive. For Exhibit A, consider the state of European governments right now…
Greece, for example, has a VAT of 21%. Its government is bankrupt. The Value-Added Tax didn’t save Greece.
Italy and Portugal have a VAT of 20%, and they’re only a little less bankrupt than Greece.
Astoundingly to me, the Value-Added Tax in France has now crept up to a full 50% of France’s government revenues. So how are things going in France with a Value-Added Tax?
France is unable to compete in the world. Unemployment is terminally high. The unemployment rate is now 10% in France. In 2005, the unemployment rate was 10%. And back in 2000, unemployment stood at 11%. Like I said, it’s terminal…
Clearly, the system is not working. So why is the U.S. government in such a hurry to adopt it?
The Wall Street Journal explained it yesterday: “Taxes on the rich can’t begin to finance the levels of new spending that the current government has unleashed… ”
And foreign governments have been less willing to buy our government bonds lately. So the government needs a new source of a lot of money.
At first, a Value-Added Tax will be offered up by politicians as a small tax – just a temporary fix to get us over the hump on our current budget woes. But we know how it will go… Like all taxes (and parasites), it will become permanent in our lives and it will steadily grow. Remember, the VAT in France is now 50% of government revenue.
All we can do right now is let our politicians know we’re against more taxes… because we know down in our toes that governments spend every dollar that comes in… and then some.
Think about it this way: When your child has overspent on the credit card, you don’t hand over a new card to spend on.
We don’t want to give our politicians a new credit card to ring up charges. Reject their request for another massive credit card, in the form of a Value-Added Tax.
Oh, the other thing you can do is make all your big purchases soon, before a Value-Added Tax comes along and adds 10%-20% to the price of everything you buy…
VAT attack: Beware: ‘Value-added tax’ is an economy-killer
New York Post
April 12, 2010
 Paul Volcker |
One of President Obama’s top economic advisers, former Fed chief Paul Volcker, suggested this week that it’s time for America to adopt a VAT, or value-added tax. The White House yesterday downplayed the idea — but it’s sure to resurface: It’s an inevitable consequence of a government that’s too big now and likely to grow even bigger thanks to Washington’s reckless spending spree.
Don’t get me wrong: The VAT — on top of all the other taxes Washington imposes — is a terrible idea. Imposing it would pretty well finish the transformation of our country into a European-style slow-growth nation. The right way to close Uncle Sam’s gaping deficits is to reverse the continued explosion of federal spending.
The VAT is a type of national sales tax, levied on the value-added at each stage of production. Consider a piece of furniture: The VAT would be imposed when the raw timber is sold, when the sawmill produces lumber, when the manufacturer builds a chair, a tax at the wholesaler level and then when a retailer sells the chair to a consumer.
To avoid double taxation, each seller along the way gets a credit for taxes paid at earlier stages of the production process. So the final tax to the consumer, at least in theory, is the same as a retail sales tax of the same amount.
The VAT has its virtues: As a single-rate, consumption-based system, much like the flat tax or national sales tax, it would introduce far fewer economic distortions than today’s income tax — and a heckuva lot less paperwork.
That would be a persuasive argument — if proponents wanted a VAT to replace the Internal Revenue code. But that’s not what’s intended by Volcker — or Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who’ve also been chatting up the VAT.
The politicians want a VAT, and they want to keep the income tax. (To be more accurate, they want a VAT and to raise other taxes as well.)
They want the cash, of course, so they can continue buying votes by spending other people’s money.
This decade already has seen a huge expansion of government. In the Bush years, federal spending rose from $1.8 trillion in 2001 to $3.5 trillion in the last Bush budget. Now President Obama is well on the way to doubling outlays yet again.
He has already saddled the economy with $800 billion of “stimulus” and a giant new health-care entitlement, and his proposals for next year will push the federal budget even higher.
Meanwhile, our aging population and the built-in growth in federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has a dramatic expansion in the size of government set to occur automatically in coming decades.
Simply stated, there’s no way to finance all this new spending without an added broad-based tax. But this is exactly why we should vigorously resist a VAT.
Blocking a VAT may not be sufficient to control the size of government, but it’s necessary. Handing Washington a whole new source of revenue would be akin to giving keys to a liquor store to a bunch of alcoholics.
Chuck Norris: More Tyranny Plus More Taxes Equals More Protests
Filed under: bank bailout, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, civil unrest, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, government bureaucracy, government control, human rights, Income Tax, insurance company bailout, main street, medical industrial complex, middle class, non compliance, Police State, Protest, strike, tax, tax strike, Taxpayers, tea party, US Constitution
Great American Tax Strike April 15-18th
Filed under: Barack Obama, civil war, Communism, Congress, Dictatorship, Economy, Empire, Fascism, fines, government bureaucracy, government bureaucrats, government control, government terrorism, health care mandate, health care reform, Healthcare, House, insurance company bailout, IRS, IRS enforcement, irs terrorism, mandatory detention, mandatory health insurance, middle class, nanny state, Neolibs, New World Order, NWO, obama, obama deception, obama fines, obama tax, obamacare, Oppression, pelosi, Police State, Senate, socialism, Taxpayers | Tags: irs shotguns
IRS to Force Americans to Buy Health Insurance
NoWorldSystem.com
March 23, 2010
$10 Billion dollars will be used to create 16,500 new IRS agent jobs to force all Americans to buy health insurance according to the bill that has been recently signed into law by Barack H. Obama. That’s right, expect IRS thugs armed with shotguns knocking at your door and being fined $740 per month ($2,250 per household) for not buying government approved health insurance. Failure to pay fines could mean the maximum penalty of $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years according to a Joint Committee on Taxation letter released by Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI).
The Cost Of Defying Obamacare: $2,250 a Month And IRS Goons Pointing Guns At Your Family
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
March 23, 2010
The cost of defying Obamacare by withholding compliance on your income tax return will not be for the faint hearted – families will be forced to cough up $2,250 a month while being closely scrutinized by an army of new IRS agents with fresh “combat training,” armed to the teeth with 12 gauge pump action shotguns.
“The Internal Revenue Service will function as the government’s chief enforcer for health care reform, should President Obama sign the bill into law as expected, monitoring both businesses and individuals to certify whether they have the insurance coverage the government requires,” writes Matt Cover of CNS News.
The penalties associated with defying mandatory health care are staggering. From 2014 onwards, for every month that individuals or businesses with over 50 employees fail to carry a minimum level of health insurance, they will be hit with fines of up to $750 a month for individuals and $750 per uncovered employee for businesses. For a family of four, this could amount to a whopping $27,000 a year ($2250 a month for each household).
“Because these new mandates and taxes are under the purview of the IRS, taxpayers and businesses could incur additional penalties normally reserved for normal income tax cheats, paying fees over and above those for not complying with Congress’ new mandates,” writes Cover.
The health care bill requires the IRS to monitor individuals and businesses via mandatory reporting on income tax returns. If you don’t pay up, the IRS will let loose one of their estimated 16,500 new agents, armed with shotguns and fresh “combat training,” to convince you otherwise.
The increasing transformation of tax collectors into heavily armed SWAT-like goons coincides with the passage of Obamacare, legislation which will rest entirely on its aggressive enforcement by thousands of new IRS agents sent out to harass individuals and small businesses.
Many people raised an eyebrow or two last month when the Drudge Report posted a request for quotes from suppliers for 12 gauge pump action shotguns to be submitted to the IRS. The request also mentioned the fact that IRS agents now receive “combat training”.
It seems that the increasing militarization of IRS agents isn’t simply to prepare for fleecing the many Americans who would undoubtedly stop paying their taxes should draconian austerity measures be imposed to deal with a deepening economic decline, but also to physically enforce the reality behind Obamacare – the fact that if you don’t comply with it then you’ll be treated as a tax cheat and a criminal.
When Obama’s own policy czars, people like Ron Bloom, say things like, “We kinda agree with Mao (Tse Tung) that political power comes largely from a gun,” as the federal government – even the Department of Education – arms itself to the teeth in order to enforce blatantly unconstitutional policies – is it any wonder that American citizens are purchasing firearms at record levels to defend their families from a government gone wild?
Not only will the IRS be tasked with enforcing penalties against Obamacare resistors, but they’ll also be kept busy monitoring over a dozen new taxes that will be created by the bill.
“The bill is littered with tax increases in order to fund the expansion of health coverage for Americans,” points out Business Insider, who identified 15 such increases, things like an excise tax on high cost employer-sponsored health coverage, tax surcharges on people making over $350,000 a year, as well as control freak measures like a 10% tax on payments for indoor tanning treatments.
Ron Paul: If Obamacare Was A Good Program It Wouldn’t Need To Be Enforced By Armed Thugs
IRS demands 4 cents from carwash owner
Filed under: California, Dictatorship, Empire, government bureaucracy, IRS, middle class, Oppression, slavery, Taxpayers
IRS demands 4 cents from carwash owner
Sacramento Bee
March 13, 2010
It was every businessperson’s nightmare.
Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.
The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.
Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.
Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.
“It’s hilarious,” he says, “that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities.”
Now he’s trying to figure out how penalties and interest could climb so high on such a small debt. He says he’s never been told he owes any taxes or that he’s ever incurred any late-payment penalties in the four years he’s owned Harv’s.
In fact, he provided us with an Oct. 22, 2009, letter from the IRS that states Harv’s “has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due.”
IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn’t commenting “due to privacy and disclosure laws.”
Zeff says he’s as offended as much as anything else by what he considers rude behavior by the IRS guys. While at Harv’s, he sniffs, “they didn’t even get a car wash.”
Filed under: AIG, Al Gore, bank bailout, bernanke, Big Banks, cap-and-trade, carbon credit system, carbon credits, carbon dioxide, carbon rationing, Carbon Tax, citigroup, climategate, Co2, corruption, deception, Dictatorship, dotcom bubble, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, Economy, Empire, enron, environmental taxation, Federal Reserve, geithner, Global Warming, global warming hoax, global warming scam, Goldman Sachs, government crimes, henry paulson, Hoax, housing bubble, housing market, IPOs, ken lay, mafia, main street, mortgage, Robert Rubin, robert steele, scam, scandal, subprime lending, tarp, Taxpayers, US Economy, Wachovia, Wall Street | Tags: Ed Liddy, Gary Gensler, John thain, Joshua Bolten, mark patterson, Neel Kashkari, stephen friedman, william dudley
Goldman Sachs Next Scam: Carbon Credits
Cap and Trade is a Goldman Sachs and Enron Scam
Filed under: carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, climate change, CNN, Co2, Congress, copenhagen, Copenhagen treaty, corruption, DEBT, economic crisis, Economy, environmental taxation, global tax, global treaty, Global Warming, House, Jack Cafferty, main street, middle class, Nancy Pelosi, pelosi, scandal, Taxpayers, u.s. economy, world tax, world treaty
Pelosi spent $1 million taxpayer money on Copenhagen trip
Jack Cafferty
CNN
January 26, 2010
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That’s how much it cost for a delegation of 59 people – led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi along with members of Congress, staff and in some cases spouses and kids – to go to Copenhagen, site of the Climate Summit, just before Christmas.
House Speaker Pelosi attends a press conference at the Copenhagen Climate Summit.
CBS News reports that for 21 Congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,400; and the Total hotel bill – including meeting rooms – was more than $400,000.
Pelosi used two military jets for herself and her party at a cost of more than $100,000 dollars in flight time.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. This has nothing to do with the Obama administration officials who went to Denmark to actually attend the summit.
Pelosi filed the required expense report – but so far has failed to explain why it was necessary for her and her colleagues to make the trip to Copenhagen in the first place. Her arrogance is absolutely breathtaking. As for the high hotel charges, Pelosi’s office says those who stayed two nights were charged a six-night minimum at the five-star Marriott. Information that was probably available before Pelosi and the freeloaders made their vacation plans.
Note to the House Speaker: We have skyrocketing deficits and national debt in this country. The President is talking about reigning in discretionary spending. I wonder if that would have included this junket by Pelosi and her colleagues. I would be curious to know where Nancy Pelosi gets her sense of entitlement to simply blow hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money at Christmas time so she and her colleagues can take a little trip to Copenhagen.
Filed under: aristocrats, bailout, bank bailout, Bank of England, bankruptcy, bernanke, Big Banks, Carbon Tax, Co2, co2 tax, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depopulation, depression, despotism, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Empire, environmental taxation, Eugenics, Fascism, Federal Reserve, GDP, global currency, global economy, global elite, global government, Global Warming, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Inflation, internationalist, main street, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, middle class, New World Order, NWO, obama deception, oligarchy, One World Government, Population Control, Propaganda, ruling class, SDRs, single currency, slavery, Stock Market, Taxpayers, third world, US Economy, Wall Street, webster tarpley, World Bank, world currency, world government
America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship
cryptogon.com
January 23, 2010
Holy shit, this one will scorch your eyeballs!
Forget my excerpts. Click through and read the whole thing. Highly recommended.
Via: Kitco:
Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.
…
It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.
If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books. (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)
If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.
…
These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.
When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.
The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.
The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.
Know Your Enemy-The Oligarchs
Filed under: avian flu shot, baxter, big pharma, conflicts of interest, cui bono, drug companies, drug pandemic, Europe, false pandemic, federal crimes, flu shot, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, h1n1, h1n1 clinic, h1n1 vaccine, health and environment, Hoax, Human Experiments, influenza, influenza vaccine, innoculation, Media Fear, medical Experiments, medical industrial complex, Pandemic Influenza, Problem Reaction Solution, Propaganda, scam, scandal, swine flu, swine flu hoax, swine flu pandemic, swine flu scam, swine flu vaccine, Taxpayers, toxicity, vaccinations, Vaccine, virus pandemic, WHO, Wolfgang Wodarg | Tags: Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, SAGE, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
More than half the scientists fighting H1N1 ‘pandemic’ have ties to drug companies
UK Daily Mail
January 14, 2010
More than half the scientists on the swine flu taskforce advising the Government have ties to drug companies.
Eleven of the 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have done work for the pharmaceutical industry or are linked to it through their universities.
Many have declared interests in GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine maker expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic.
The disclosure of the register of interests comes just days after a health expert branded the swine flu outbreak a ‘false pandemic’ driven by the drug companies which stood to profit.
The Government is now trying to offload up to £1billion worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine.
Last July, the Department of Health warned of up 65,000 deaths, with 350 a day at the pandemic’s peak. But the death toll now stands at just 251.
SAGE was created to give Ministers recommendations on how to control and treat the virus.
Official documents show some members are linked to vaccine manufacturer Baxter and to Roche, which makes Tamiflu.
GSK, Baxter and Roche stand to make up to £1.5billion between them from Government contracts related to swine flu.
Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg: WHO and drug companies made ‘false H1N1 claims’
Council of Europe to investigate Drugmakers’ links to fake H1N1 pandemic hoax
Filed under: Barack Obama, big pharma, conflict of interest, corporatism, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, forced health care, forced health insurance, government bureaucracy, government control, government regulation, health care, health insurance companies, health insurance mandate, Healthcare, IRS, main street, mandatory health care, mandatory health insurance, medical care, medical industrial complex, middle class, Nancy Pelosi, Nazi, Neolibs, obama, obama care, obama deception, obama fines, obama tax, obamacare, Oppression, Taxpayers
Obama Campaign Received $20 Million From Insurance Companies
Raw Story
January 12, 2010
While some sunlight has been shed on the hefty sums shoveled into congressional campaign coffers in an effort to influence the Democrats’ massive healthcare bill, little attention has been focused on the far larger sums received by President Barack Obama while he was a candidate in 2008.
A new figure, based on an exclusive analysis created for Raw Story by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that President Obama received a staggering $20,175,303 from the healthcare industry during the 2008 election cycle, nearly three times the amount of his presidential rival John McCain. McCain took in $7,758,289, the Center found.
The new figure, obtained by Raw Story through an independent custom research request performed by the Center for Responsive Politics — a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics — is the most comprehensive breakdown yet available of healthcare industry contributions to Obama during the 2008 election cycle.
Michael Moore says Democrats’ healthcare bill is giveaway to insurance industry
Howard Dean: ‘Obama-Care is a Insurance Company Bailout’
Filed under: AIG, bailout, bank bailout, bankergate, Big Banks, central bank, corruption, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, despotism, Deutsche Bank, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, end the fed, Federal Reserve, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, main street, Merrill Lynch, middle class, obama bailout, obama deception, scandal, SEC, Société Générale, Taxpayers, Tim Geithner, Wall Street
SEC Orders AIG Info Sealed Until November… 2018!
Business Insider
January 12, 2010
Good news. It looks as though we’ll be getting access to secret data on the bailout of AIG and its counterparties.
The bad news: We’re going to have to wait until November of 2018, according to Matthew Goldstein at Reuters.
- In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.” More
By then, Wall Street will have significantly recycled many people (and probably some more firms) and perhaps the American public just won’t care about how Tim Geithner helped bail out a gigantic black hole of a firm, upon which so many ostensibly rock solid firms had their foundation.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Communism, Congress, corporatism, Dictatorship, Economy, Empire, Fascism, fines, forced health insurance, government bureaucracy, government control, government regulation, health care, health care companies, health care insurance, health care mandate, health care reform, Healthcare, Income Tax, IRS, mandatory health care, mandatory health insurance, medical care, medical industrial complex, nanny state, Nazi, Neolibs, new taxes, obama, obama care, obama deception, obama fines, obamacare, obamacare fines, Oppression, Police State, Senate, tax, tax returns, Taxpayers, US Economy | Tags: tax returns
Proposed Legislation: IRS to Make Sure Americans Are Buying Health Insurance
cryptogon.com
January 4, 2010
Via: USA Today
Internal Revenue Service agents already try to catch tax cheats and moonshiners. Under the proposed health care legislation, they would get another assignment: checking to see whether Americans have health insurance.
The legislation would require most Americans to have health insurance and to prove it on their federal tax returns. Those who don’t would pay a penalty to the IRS.
That’s one of several key duties the IRS would assume under the bills that have been approved by the House of Representatives and Senate and will be merged by negotiators from both chambers.
The agency also would distribute as much as $140 billion a year in new government subsidies to help small employers and as many as 19 million lower-income people buy coverage.
Filed under: bailout, bank bailout, Barney Frank, Big Banks, Congress, corruption, DEBT, deception, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, H.R. 4173, House, hypocrisy, main street, middle class, Senate, Taxpayers, Too Big to Fail, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank
Cryptogon
December 30, 2009
Via: Bloomberg:
I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)
The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.
If you’re a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises.
Nuggets Gleaned
Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank’s handiwork:
– For all its heft, the bill doesn’t once mention the words “too-big-to-fail,” the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery.
– Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.
noworldsystem.com 