by | ARTICLES, BLOG, CONSTITUTION, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
From Scotusblog:
Decision of the Fourth Circuit is affirmed in King v. Burwell. 6-3.
This means that individuals who get their health insurance through an exchange established by the federal government will be eligible for tax subsidies.
Chief Justice writes for the Court. Six are the Chief, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Dissent by Scalia, joined by Alito and Thomas.
Court refused to apply Chevron deference — that is, to find that the statute is ambiguous and that the federal government’s interpretation was reasonable.
From Scalia’s dissent: “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” From the intro to Scalia’s dissent: the majority’s reading of the text “is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
From the majority opinion: “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.”
The majority also acknowledges that the challengers’ “arguments about the plain meaning . . . are strong.”
‘In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase’…
The opinion is here
Justice Scalia’s dissent, via the WSJ:
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, RETIREMENT, SOCIAL SECURITY, TAXES
I recently read a letter to the editor about Social Security in the Wall Street Journal that irritated me. Not the letter writer per se, but more by the Wall Street Journal choosing to print a letter that perpetuates a widely perceived myth about Social Security.
The letter was simply this: “Oh, please don’t blame older Americans for “eating up the budget” through payments of Social Security and Medicare benefits. It is the federal government that raided the Social Security Trust Fund. Older Americans have contributed to this for years. Where is the money now?”
The problem with this letter writer is that they really just don’t understand the truth that people who have paid into Social Security are getting many, many more times the actuarial value than what they put into it. It’s not a simple misunderstanding on this. It really, truly is just a flat-out lie that people who put 30-40 years worth of payments are merely getting back just what they put in.
The politicians need this lie to survive because they risk alienating a large voting bloc of older Americans if they merely even suggest that Social Security needs reform. But it does; the egregious state that Social Security is hidden by the way the federal government accounts for it. They even have a special name for it. Social Security is repeatedly described as a pay-as-you-go (“PAYGO”) system, which gives credence to something that is terribly incorrect. PAYGO is not a system at all; rather it is a method of reporting that hides earned realities, making it totally unacceptable to accounting professions, the SEC, and virtually everybody outside the government.
Calling it PAYGO helps to perpetuate the fallacy that beneficiaries are merely receiving what they paid into to. I don’t want to pick on the poor letter writer, as she doesn’t seem to really know how Social Security works (or hasn’t worked). But the Wall Street Journal should know better.
I suppose it is fitting that the 1936 Bulletin announcing Social Security ends like this: “What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.”
This is why we have accrued trillions in unfunded liabilities such as Social Security. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
The upcoming Presidential Election Cycle is beginning to get crowded already. Since I’m undecided right now, I’ve chosen to do a scorecard of sorts of each of the major candidates in four policy areas:
*Taxes
*Immigration
*Free Trade
*Entitlement Reform
These issues are among the most crucial for me. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting about what I believe is the best, most optimal policy in each of these four areas, and then I’ll score the candidates on their positions.
I’ll also post when I have decided to eliminate a candidate, and why. I welcome your thoughts on these particular issues too. The scorecard will be up soon.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
Earlier this year, John Koskinen, the IRS Commissioner, complained about the IRS budget given to him by Congress. It was reduced by nearly $350 million for this fiscal year. Commissioner Koskinen claimed the “agency’s $10.9 billion budget is its lowest since 2008. When adjusted for inflation, the budget hasn’t been this low since 1998.”
Due to budget cuts, the IRS warned that customer service would be reduced. The Taxpayer Advocate, (the IRS watchdog of sorts) recently gave her semi-annual report to Congress and discussed this issue at length. Among her findings were 1) if you call, it is likely that only half of the estimated 100 million people will ever reach an IRS agent on the other end; 2) hold times will exceed 30 minutes or more; and 3) the IRS is mandated to provide callers with the option to speak to a live person on its helplines, but would not even clarify to the Taxpayer Advocate which lines are designated helplines when calling in.
Now it seems that the dire, reduced customer service has already been happening for the past year and was orchestrated by the IRS itself. A new House Ways and Means report shows that, “while congressional funding for the IRS remained flat from 2014 to 2015, the IRS diverted $134 million away from customer service to other activities. In addition to the $11 billion appropriated by Congress, the IRS takes in more than $400 million in user fees and may allocate that money as it sees fit. In 2014, the IRS allocated $183 million in user fees to its customer service budget, but allocated just $49 million in 2015–a 76 percent cut.” How much more will they cut for FY2016? How much worse will customer service get?
Just as Obama dared to close national parks and monuments and cut off treatment for cancer kids during the government shutdown, in order to inflict pain on ordinary citizens, the IRS decided follow the same tactic and abrogate its basic responsibility to help taxpayers with compliance. Reducing the ability to provide customer service is particularly shameless.
For all the complaints about lack of budget funds, the Weekly Standard made note of a particular irony: “The IRS’s total annual $11 billion budget is dwarfed by the amount of improper tax payments it makes each year. According to the report, the IRS paid out $17.7 billion in improper Earned Income Tax Credit payments (which are supposed to help poor and low-income individuals) and an additional $6 to $7 billion in improper child tax credit payments.”
That’s double the amount of the entire IRS budget paid out to taxpayers incorrectly. Perhaps if the same amount of diligence the IRS took when targeting conservatives was paid to processing tax returns properly, there wouldn’t be such whining from the IRS Commissioner. And maybe some more phone calls would be answered.
by | BLOG, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
The vote to confirm Loretta Lynch might happen as early as this week. The process has been stretched out under the auspices of being contingent on passing a human trafficking bill in the Senate, but it is just as likely that the vote was put quietly on hold in a “logjam” until 51 votes were clinched for certain. It has been a struggle to get enough votes throughout the process, with the 51 vote only been secured at the beginning of April. 5 Senate Republicans that were needed are: Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) — all members of the Judiciary Committee — and moderate Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Susan Collins (Maine).
Lynch’s opponents have been painted as racist and anti-immigrant. But the most abhorrent reason for nominating Lynch is truly in the realm of civil rights, with the media turning a blind eye to her antics, specifically related to civil asset forfeiture.
The most ironic about the matter is that “Ten civil and human rights organizations, including the National Action Network, which is headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the NAACP wrote a letter to McConnell [last] Friday urging a vote on Lynch.
A couple of months ago, I wrote an open letter decrying the nomination of Loretta Lynch and spelled out her egregious record on the issue of civil rights, which should be chilling for anyone considering her nomination. I will repost it here below, since the media has failed to give any real scrutiny to her time in New York.
The nomination of Loretta Lynch to the position of Attorney General is before you. Although her intelligence, experience, and poise may appear to make her a superb candidate, it is clear now that she would be an extremely poor – even dangerous — choice due to her strong position on civil asset forfeiture.
The need to safeguard civil liberties and individual rights is a priority for all Americans. Do you really want to consider confirming a person who has been exceedingly proud of her record of taking property without due process…of practicing guilty until proven innocent? This is a very serious issue, not to be taken lightly.
Civil asset forfeiture is a particularly egregious abuse of power, allowing the government to seize property and cash if it merely suspects wrongdoing, even with no evidence and no charging of a crime.
Loretta Lynch was particularly lucrative in this regard as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Between 2011 and 2013, the forfeiture operations under her management netted more than $113 million in civil actions. Lynch’s division was among the top in the country for its collections. But this is not something to be proud of.
In one particularly appalling case, Loretta Lynch’s office seized nearly a half-million dollars from two businessman in 2012 and sat on it for more than two years without a court hearing or appearance before a judge. In fact, no crime had been committed. These men were denied due process and deprived of their assets without warning or criminal charges. Lynch suddenly returned the money just weeks ago on January 20, 2015 — on the eve of her confirmation hearings, having found no wrongdoing by the men either.
During Lynch’s confirmation hearing testimony pertaining to civil asset forfeiture, Lynch stated that “civil and criminal forfeiture are very important tools of the Department of Justice as well as our state and local counterparts.” She further argued that forfeiture is “ done pursuant to court order, and I believe the protections are there.” This is, in fact, not true. In the case mentioned above, there was not only no court order, but also no hearing at any time in nearly three years. That is unconscionable. And this is only one of many similar, well-documented, incidents.
The problem of civil asset forfeiture is that the government can confiscate money or property under the mere suspicion of a crime without ever actually charging someone. The person must prove his innocence to reclaim what was seized, which is a burden of time and money and readily seems to go against our staunch American belief of “innocent until proven guilty.” What’s more, besides the obvious threat to civil liberties, those most likely to be victims are poor and minority citizens.
Thankfully, in recent months, individuals and organizations on both sides of the political aisle have come together to demand reform to this unjust practice. Bipartisan legislation has been proposed in Congress; groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union have been increasingly critical of civil asset forfeiture practices. Even Eric Holder has called for changes and the IRS has recently and publicly pledged to reduce its involvement as well.
Loretta Lynch and her record on civil asset forfeiture represents the worst of this “tool for law enforcement”. A vote for her confirmation is a vote you will never be able to walk back. Do you really want to confirm a person who is so deeply committed to civil asset forfeiture at the very same time in America that there is strong bipartisan support for protecting civil liberties and walking back the laws pertaining to this practice? It makes no sense to proceed down this path.
Loretta Lynch may arguably be the most successful forfeiture agent in government today. This is not a positive quality for an Attorney General. The practice is abusive and her tactics even more so. Voting to confirm a person with such an atrocious civil liberties record is certain to cause problems for you down the road when you have to answer for your support. Therefore, on behalf of all Americans, I urge you to vote no for her confirmation.
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA
I’ve been pondering the recent Harry Reid episode, where Harry Reid discussed the incident from 2012 when he openly lied about Mitt Romney not filing tax returns for 10 years. Harry Reid completely justified his behavior by stating to CNN’s Dana Bash, “”I don’t regret that at all. Romney didn’t win did he?”
How utterly different would the story be if a Republican Senator had lied in this fashion? It is absolutely incredible that Harry Reid wasn’t called out for his shameful lies. What’s more, when Romney did release his taxes shortly thereafter, disproving Harry Reid, no one issued any retraction for the blatant falsehoods.
Reid egregiously lied about the matter on three separate occasions during the 2012 Presidential election season. First, he stated in July of 2012, that Romney “didn’t pay taxes for 10 years. Now do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain, but obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”
A few days later, he spoke on the floor of the Senate, saying, “”If a person coming before this body wanted to be a Cabinet officer, he couldn’t be if he had the same refusal Mitt Romney does about tax returns. So the word is out that he has not paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove he has paid taxes, because he has not.”
And shortly thereafter, he referred to a unnamed, “extremely credible source” who told Reid that Romney had not paid his taxes for a decade.
This was no offhanded remark. It was a deliberate, intentional, conscious campaign to speak falsely about Mitt Romney in an effort to discredit him.
What could be considered more of an outright criminal activity than a Senator who chose to willfully lie in an attempt to influence a federal election? For someone in his position in the United States Congress, his action is an outrage. Where is the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission when you need them!
It’s equally distressing to consider that so many people heard Harry Reid’s accusations and just blindly accepted it. It speaks to their own bias that when they found out they had been lied to, no one was really infuriated that they were openly, blatantly manipulated.
For people to know that Harry Reid is a cheat and a liar, and yet accept his actions because the ends justified the means — what does this say about their integrity? About the credibility of this country? Have we become so cynical that we just accept this level of lying now as “politics as usual?” How can anyone actually be okay with any person, even and especially a US Senator, outright lying in order to manipulate the outcome of an election?
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
The nomination of Loretta Lynch to the position of Attorney General is before you. Although her intelligence, experience, and poise may appear to make her a superb candidate, it is clear now that she would be an extremely poor – even dangerous — choice due to her strong position on civil asset forfeiture.
The need to safeguard civil liberties and individual rights is a priority for all Americans. Do you really want to consider confirming a person who has been exceedingly proud of her record of taking property without due process…of practicing guilty until proven innocent? This is a very serious issue, not to be taken lightly.
Civil asset forfeiture is a particularly egregious abuse of power, allowing the government to seize property and cash if it merely suspects wrongdoing, even with no evidence and no charging of a crime.
Loretta Lynch was particularly lucrative in this regard as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Between 2011 and 2013, the forfeiture operations under her management netted more than $113 million in civil actions. Lynch’s division was among the top in the country for its collections. But this is not something to be proud of.
In one particularly appalling case, Loretta Lynch’s office seized nearly a half-million dollars from two businessman in 2012 and sat on it for more than two years without a court hearing or appearance before a judge. In fact, no crime had been committed. These men were denied due process and deprived of their assets without warning or criminal charges. Lynch suddenly returned the money just weeks ago on January 20, 2015 — on the eve of her confirmation hearings, having found no wrongdoing by the men either.
During Lynch’s confirmation hearing testimony pertaining to civil asset forfeiture, Lynch stated that “civil and criminal forfeiture are very important tools of the Department of Justice as well as our state and local counterparts.” She further argued that forfeiture is “ done pursuant to court order, and I believe the protections are there.” This is, in fact, not true. In the case mentioned above, there was not only no court order, but also no hearing at any time in nearly three years. That is unconscionable. And this is only one of many similar, well-documented, incidents.
The problem of civil asset forfeiture is that the government can confiscate money or property under the mere suspicion of a crime without ever actually charging someone. The person must prove his innocence to reclaim what was seized, which is a burden of time and money and readily seems to go against our staunch American belief of “innocent until proven guilty.” What’s more, besides the obvious threat to civil liberties, those most likely to be victims are poor and minority citizens.
Thankfully, in recent months, individuals and organizations on both sides of the political aisle have come together to demand reform to this unjust practice. Bipartisan legislation has been proposed in Congress; groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union have been increasingly critical of civil asset forfeiture practices. Even Eric Holder has called for changes and the IRS has recently and publicly pledged to reduce its involvement as well.
Loretta Lynch and her record on civil asset forfeiture represents the worst of this “tool for law enforcement”. A vote for her confirmation is a vote you will never be able to walk back. Do you really want to confirm a person who is so deeply committed to civil asset forfeiture at the very same time in America that there is strong bipartisan support for protecting civil liberties and walking back the laws pertaining to this practice? It makes no sense to proceed down this path.
Loretta Lynch may arguably be the most successful forfeiture agent in government today. This is not a positive quality for an Attorney General. The practice is abusive and her tactics even more so. Voting to confirm a person with such an atrocious civil liberties record is certain to cause problems for you down the road when you have to answer for your support. Therefore, on behalf of all Americans, I urge you to vote no for her confirmation.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, BUSINESS, CONSTITUTION, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, QUICKLY NOTED, TAXES
Bernie Sanders recently advocated for President Obama to raise $100 billion in taxes by the old “closing corporate loopholes” schtick. The difference this time, is that Obama is actively exploring his abilities to do so via Executive Order. Townhall has the scoop:
“White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action.
“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.
“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.
Sanders sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday identifying a number of executive actions he believes the IRS could take, without any input from Congress, that would close loopholes currently used by corporations. In the past, IRS lawyers have been hesitant to use executive actions to raise significant amounts of revenue, but that same calculation has change in other federal agencies since Obama became president.
Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.
Those immigration actions, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will raise federal deficits by $8.8 billion over the next ten years.”
by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
Ben Casselman penned a piece a year ago in the Wall Street Journal, which documented the decline of risk-taking in business ventures. Hard data showed that both the number of new companies and the use of venture capital is waning. He rightfully suggested that this downward trend is a major contributor to the fact that the recovery from the recent recession is so painfully slow and anemic.
Casselman went on to explain that economists aren’t entirely sure what is behind the decline and gave some potential causes: health care costs, licensing requirements, an aging population, and an increase in large corporations are among some of the suggestions. While these factors do contribute, Casselman missed the glaring elephant in the room: the government, and her anti-business policies, do more to stifle free business activity than any other than any other single mitigating circumstance. Looking at the article a year later, the situation has continued to decline. Here’s how.
This administration has been exceedingly heavy-handed in its efforts to demonize businesses, while promising that businesses will be highly taxed and regulated. Whether it is labor regulation by the NRLB or environmental regulation by the EPA, government interference has been overreaching and restrictive.
Additionally, there have been huge increases in both criminal rules and regulations about what businesses are allowed and not allowed to do — from nitpicky labor rules, to dictating employee minutiae, to minimum wage requirements, all which restrict business hiring — and even employee firing. The EEOC has joined in with several lawsuits against private businesses, deemed by one judge as “laughable”, “based on unreliable data”, and “rife with analytical error”.
More unfortunately, Obama has provided the background for a litigation-friendly environment. If a larger, more financially stable company wants to steal something from a smaller company, they can sue them or just threaten with a costly legal battle. Or, if labor doesn’t like them, they can force them to shut them down as an alternative to litigation. What’s worse, Obama’s Labor Secretary, Thomas Perez, particularly favors the use of “disparate impact” theory with business labor disputes, because, as NRO noted, it “sets a very low bar for proving discrimination. Under it, prosecutors need not prove intent, merely that minorities have suffered a disparate impact from some action”. This man very nearly became the next Attorney General nominee.
More recently, the Obama Administration has decided to wage war on business inversions, by declaring companies who wish to move their headquarters abroad to be “unpatriotic”, and “tax dodgers”. Instead of fixing the root problem — which is that the United States is the only major nation to tax American companies on foreign profits as well as domestic — he instead suddenly tightens the rules for companies and calls the perfectly legal process of inversion to be a “loophole”. Couple that with the fact that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and its no wonder that the United States recently ranked 32 out of 34 countries in the new “International Tax Competitiveness Index”.
Of course, there will be some successes. It just now takes a higher level of skill, ideas, and money to exercise your entrepreneurial spirit. It’s not like there won’t be the Jeffrey Bezos or the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs. They’ll still come through everything despite the immense impediments. The problem is that it is the middle entrepreneurs who are having a hard time getting started, and even when they do, they will likely get discouraged in the mess. Yet it is precisely this middle group, the bread-and-butter of small businesses, that have made this country great. That future is threatened, as we are seeing now in subtle shifts within the realm of business making.
The future of this country will continue to decline if the anti-business sentiment that Obama has unleashed is allowed to continue. The middle entrepreneurs, the mom-and-pops, the family businesses are the ones that make up the difference between the very tepid growth that we are seeing and the strong growth and recovery that could be better if businesses actually had better opportunity.
Businesses go into business not to comply with government dictates, but to provide a product, a service, to make things. The very liberty for Americans to have the opportunity to succeed and fail, to take risk, to survive, and to thrive is under siege.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
The Daily Caller did a great job uncovering more of the information surrounding the writing and passage of Obamacare. Going back to 2009, the chief architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, made two very specific points about the bill: 1) it is unaffordable because there are no cost controls; 2) in order to control costs, treatment would have to be denied.
Below are highlights from the 2009 policy brief:
* “The problem is it starts to go hand in hand with the mandate; you can’t mandate insurance that’s not affordable. This is going to be a major issue.”
* “So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”
* “The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’”
* “There’s no reason the American health care system can’t be, ‘You can have whatever you want, you just have to pay for it.’ That’s what we do in other walks of life. We don’t say everyone has to have a large screen TV. If you want a large screen TV, you have to pay for it. Basically the notion would be to move to a level where everyone has a solid basic insurance level of coverage. Above that people pay on their own, without tax-subsidized dollars, to buy a higher level of coverage.”
However, what the American public was told by Obama is that Obamacare would lower the cost of insurance by $2500. Now we know, even more than ever, that we were told whatever was necessary in order to make the bill palatable enough to eke out passage in Congress despite protestations from much of around the country.
You can read the entire policy brief here.
For more on Jonathan Gruber and Obamacare, go here
How “Obamacare Was Sold on a Pack of Lies”, go here
