by | ARTICLES, BLOG, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, TAXES
One of the major sticking points regarding the free trade talks is a portion known as TAA, or “Trade Adjustment Assistance”. “The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program is a federal program that provides a path for employment growth and opportunity through aid to US workers who have lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade,” and this program is slated to expire at the end of September, unless Congress reauthorizes is. The funding source for the new TAA bill, as passed by the Senate last month, is a $700 million reduction to Medicare funding. But the vote neared, the pressure to change the funding source and spare Medicare reached a crescendo.
An alternative funding solution was prepared, one that is particularly odious. TAA, if passed, will be financed by “raising the penalties for misfiled taxes”.
Here’s how it would work. As it stands now, small businesses who pay independent contractor/freelancers are supposed to report that income to the IRS using a 1099 form. Another copy of that form goes to the contractor/freelancer. If a small business files all their forms past the deadline or not at all, it receives a fine. The new proposal, “would double and triple these fines.”
This merely serves to empower the IRS, who frankly, is the last arm of the government who deserves increased power right now. Because this measure specifically creates an incentive to raise revenue for the express purpose of funding another government program, you can be sure the IRS will be incentivized to pay closer attention to our small businesses and pounce on paperwork error.
This proposal is reminiscent of the program that was approved as a revenue raiser for Obamacare a few years ago. Congress initially voted to increase the fines meted out for small businesses who did not file a 1099 for anyone paid a mere $600 or more in a calendar year, but the backlash was so great, that Congress appealed it before the law took effect. Though this new gimmick is not quite the same, it is equally abhorrent.
The underlying assumption is that there are enough businesses who don’t file, or misfile all their forms, so they deserved to be penalized even more by substantially increasing compliance fines – all for the express purpose of funding something else by the government. Instead of the government making spending cuts to existing programs in order the TAA program alive, it chooses to target the private sector again for more money.
Congress has a deadline of July 30th to re-vote on the TAA bill. If it plans to re-authorize the program, perhaps it will find a better way to fund it than off of the backs of small businesses.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, NEW YORK, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
I have written on this subject before, and now the effects of high taxes and population migration are playing out in a substantial, political way: the decline of about 40% of Congressional seats in the northeast.
According to the Census Bureau, high taxpayers are moving south. It notes that in the 11 states that comprise the Northeast, population grew at a rate of only 15% over the thirty year span from 1983-2013, while the rest of the nation grew at roughly 41%. The key factor is high taxes. The result is a loss of Congressional seats there.
The American Legislative Exchange Council recently did a comprehensive study on House representation in 1950 from Maine to Pennsylvania, and compared it to current House seats. In 1950, there were 141 House members, but today there are only 85. Remember House seats are based on population — so this change is a 40% loss of power.
Need a dramatic comparison? Texas and California combined together now have more House seats than the Northeast conglomerate. For an area that used to be a political powerhouse, it is becoming increasingly marginalized due to excessive taxes and the ensuing population shift.
In 2011, Reuters had a lengthy article detailing how northern residents were fleeing massive state and local tax hikes. I wrote about the impact of high taxes on New York population loss here in 2012. And the NYTimes reported in December 2013 that Florida was soon to pass New York in population.
High taxes are a major factor in this population and political change, and it will be interesting to watch in the next few election cycles. As the report notes above, “This result is one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in American history. This migration is shifting the power center of America right before our very eyes. The movement isn’t random or even about weather or resources. Economic freedom is the magnet and states ignore this force at their own peril.”
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS
The Washington Post reports that a vote to sue President Obama for overreach of powers passed in the House. No Democrats supported the measure as well as 5 Republicans who also voted no.
Here’s where the mess begins. Most Americans are unaware of how the government actually works. Here’s all the nuances pertaining to Congressional and Executive power.
The Legislative branch, Congress, has the power to pass laws.
The Constitution does not grant specific permission for the Executive branch to issue executive orders.
Presidents have used Executive Orders to assist the officers of the Executive Branch (federal agencies) to carry out their duties.
In a court case in 1952, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 the Supreme Court ruled that an Executive Order issued by President Truman, which placed all steel mills in the country under federal authority, was “not valid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution”.
And more:
“The Youngstown decision was critical because it established a standard for the exercise of executive power. In his concurring opinion, Justice Robert H. Jackson described three different situations and three corresponding levels of presidential authority:
The president acts with the most authority when he has the “express or implied” consent of Congress
The president has uncertain authority in situations where Congress has not imposed its authority — either by inaction or indifference — and the president takes advantage of this “zone of twilight” to make an executive decision
The president acts with the least authority when he issues an executive order that is “incompatible” with the expressed or implied will of Congress. Such an act, wrote Justice Jackson, threatens the “equilibrium established by our Constitutional system” [source: Contrubis]”
Executive Orders are not meant to create new laws. Nevertheless, Presidents have, in recent years, pushed the envelope in this matter, using “the executive order as an increasingly powerful political weapon, pushing through programs and regulations — often controversial in nature — without Congressional or judicial oversight [source: Savage]. Executive orders can be overruled by the courts or nullified by legislators after the fact, but until then they carry the full weight of federal and state law [source: Contrubis]”
Obama’s response to the lawsuit vote was this:
“They’re going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people. So they’re mad I’m doing my job. And by the way, I’ve told them I’d be happy to do it with you. The only reason I’m doing it on my own is because you’re [Congress] not doing anything,”
One could argue that Obama’s response magnifies the problem. Obama’s job is not to take “executive actions to help people”. His job, per the Constitution, is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. If Congress isn’t doing anything, that doesn’t mean the power to make laws, the Legislative Branch, is abrogated to the Executive Branch.
If Congress does not create and pass a particular law, it is because the people don’t will it. That is a free expression of Congress’s Constitutional power.
When the President says, “I have to act because Congress does not”, it can be argued that he violates the will of the people with a gross overreach of Executive authority.
Legal scholars have weighed in, suggesting that if Congress acts as one body with this lawsuit — in this case, the House passing the measure to sue — they will have decent Congressional standing from a legal perspective. Here’s more on how that works
Because this really has not been done before, it will likely take a long time to settle the matter. Stay tuned.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, OBAMA, POLITICS
Four years without a budget — it’s delicious!
April 29, 2013 marks four years without a true operating budget for our country. 1461 days and running. In the realm of budget history, April 29 is an historic day.
First, an interesting juxtaposition exists between April 29, 1909 and April 29, 2009. On April 29, 1909, the world’s biggest Superpower — Great Britain — introduced the “People’s Budget”, which is famously noted for being the first budget in the history of Britain with the “expressed intent of redistributing wealth” among the British people. A century later, on April 29, 2009, the world’s biggest Superpower — the United States — passed its last operating budget, the first budget in the history of the United States with the expressed intent to run a trillion dollar deficit.
Back in Great Britain, it took both a full year and the threat of adding additional Liberal “peers” (seats) in Parliament by the British King to garner enough votes in Britain to actually pass the “People’s Budget”. This ultimately succeeded exactly a year later on April 29, 2010. Winston Churchill’s biographer observed that this budget, which Churchill supported, was a “revolutionary concept”.
Here in the United States, it has taken Congress a full four years of continuing resolutions, Supercommittees, Fiscal Cliffs, Sequestrations and trillion dollar deficit spending, and still we have failed to pass a new budget for the people of the United States.
Of course, there have been budget attempts. President Obama, for his part, submitted a budget late to Congress every year except for 2010. His last two budgets prior to this year’s submission, however, were so outrageous that not even one Democrat from his own Party either year would sponsor or vote for his budget proposals.
In 2010, the Democrat-led Senate chose not to offer their budget plan on the Senate floor. The GOP-led House of Republicans passed a budget for $1.2 trillion.
In 2011, the GOP-lead House passed a budget for FY2012, cutting $6 trillion in comparison to Obama’s budget, which failed 0-97 in the Senate. The Senate did not offer their own budget that year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that would be “foolish”, while Senator Schumer remarked ““To put other budgets out there is not the point.”
In 2012, the GOP-lead House passed a budget for FY2013, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced in February that the Senate would not consider a budget yet again. The House this time voted on President Obama’s $3.2 trillion budget, which failed 0-414.
Now in 2013, both the GOP-lead House and the Democrat- led Senate passed their own budgets for FY2014 (the first for the Democrats in four years) President Obama presented his budget 2 months late on April 10, totaling $46.5 trillion over the next 10 years without ever balancing. It is also noted for even more taxes on the wealthy to pay for more social programs, a generous helping of wealth redistribution. But nothing has been agreed upon by Congress.
This past Saturday, President Obama described the “pain” of the current operating scenario from sequestration, and further urged,
“There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage…A couple weeks ago, I put forward a budget that replaces the next several years of these dumb cuts with smarter cuts; reforms our tax code to close wasteful special interest loopholes; and invests in things like education, research, and manufacturing that will create new jobs right now.”
Sounds similar to the threats of the British King used to pass the “People’s Budget”.
So here we are, 4 years without an operating budget for our nation. We also now consistently have yearly, trillion dollar deficits on top of the additional, higher taxes. Many will likely observe that — to borrow from their UK counterparts a century ago — this budget status, this new modus operandi for the United States is also a “revolutionary concept” for the land of the free and the home of the brave.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS
I last posted on the budget when we went 1000 days without one.
Now we’re about to pass another milestone. This Sunday, April 29th, is the three-year anniversary since the last time we passed a budget.
Not that we haven’t tried…
- Obama’s budget proposal in 2011, based on ideas espoused in his State of the Union address, failed 0-97 in the Senate.
- Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal in 2012 was defeated 0-414 in the House.
And what are others saying about this significant event?
Human Events is reporting that
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) was seriously thinking about getting a budget on the table, but according to The Hill, he “bowed to pressure from fellow Democrats on Tuesday and postponed a committee vote on a 2013 budget resolution, most likely until after the November elections
PJMedia notes that
the last time Senate Democrats passed a budget, a gallon of gas cost about half what it does now, the debt was $4.5 trillion dollars less than it is today, and ObamaCare was just a twinkle in the president’s eye,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Meanwhile, Katherine Revello over at Conservative Ntaews Daily, shared a picture from 4/18/12 from the Twitter account of the GOP Senate Budget Committee (@BudgetGOP) . The empty chairs at that meeting belong to the Democrat members of the Committee. Hard to get much done, I would think.
So, as of Sunday, April 29th, we will be officially 1096 days without a budget. 3 full years. Trillions more in debt.
