by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, TAXES
Yesterday the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, painted a picture of class warfare, claiming his side does not have any billionaires.
“The decisions by the Supreme Court have left the American people with the status quo in which one side’s billionaires are pitted against the other side’s billionaires,” he said this morning on the Senate floor. “Except one side doesn’t have any billionaires.”
Here’s the video:
Seems Harry Reid conveniently forgets:
George Soros
Tom Steyer
Ann Cox Chambers
Irwin Jacobs
Ron Burkle
Marc Benioff
Penny Pritzker
James Simons
David Shaw
Jon Stryker
Haim Saban
Who are we missing? Fill in the comments section below!
by | ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, TAXES
From Committee on Ways and Means Chairman, Dave Camp:
“Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame. The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices”.
This revelation comes a year after the IRS scandal broke. Commissioner Koskinen stated that he would turn over all documents pertaining to Lois Lerner. The time frame of the lost documents cover January 2009 – April 2011, a critical time relating to the scandal.
But wait. National Review Online reported just a few days ago that in October 2010, (squarely during the time frame of the lost emails),
“[the IRS] sent a database on 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups containing confidential taxpayer information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to documents obtained by a House panel. The information was transmitted in advance of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s meeting the same month with Justice Department officials about the possibility of using campaign-finance laws to prosecute certain nonprofit groups. E-mails between Lerner and Richard Pilger, the director of the Justice Department’s election-crimes branch, obtained through a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, show Lerner asking about the format in which the FBI preferred the data to be sent”.
.
Emails. Between Lerner and an outside agency. In 2010.
Additionally, last month, Katie Pavlich reported that, “According to new IRS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice in May 2013 about whether tax exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for “lying” about political activity”.
So we know Lerner communicated with an outside agency in 2013. Here’s another one in 2012:
It also came to light in April that “House Oversight Committee show staff working for Democratic Ranking Member Elijah Cummings communicated with the IRS multiple times between 2012 and 2013 about voter fraud prevention group True the Vote. True the Vote was targeted by the IRS after applying for tax exempt status more than two years ago. Further, information shows the IRS and Cummings’ staff asked for nearly identical information from True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht about her organization, indicating coordination and improper sharing of confidential taxpayer information”.
But we don’t know anything about 2009 – 2011. Except at some point, emails did exist. WHOOPS!
Flashback: Remember the TIGTA report? You can read the entire Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, (TIGTA) timeline report here. Incredibly, this report, released in May 2013, names “email” as the source for much of their timeline documenting events in 2010 and 2011, but possibly now, those emails are “lost”. 16 out of the 26 non-redacted events in that timeline refer to “email” as the source. Take a look. And, what was redacted? We don’t know.
Again, the IRS claims it only “has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame…it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.” The ability for an inbox to lose certain emails during the time frame — but not others — is incredible.
David Camp hits the nail on the head when he notes that, “because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone”.
See how it works? Since the IRS cannot produce any hardcopy evidence of corroboration, the Obama Administration and its agencies are conveniently spared.
by | ARTICLES, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE
Paul Krugman did it in 2011. Nicholas Kristof did in 2009. So did Ezra Klein. And Barack Obama did it in 2008. What did they do? They all praised the VA system as a model for health care.
Krugman: “Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine’…But it works, and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of US health care more broadly.”
Kristof: It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment.
Klein: the “VA is actually socialized medicine, where the government owns the hospitals and employs the doctors. If you ordered America’s different health systems worst-functioning to best, it would look like this: individual insurance market, employer-based insurance market, Medicare, Veterans Health Administration”
Obama: Make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible.
We all now know how laughable these statements are. At least they did get one thing right: The VA is a model for healthcare — government-run health care.
Money is not the problem. From 2007 to 2012, enrollment in VA services has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2012. At the same time, the VA budget went from $82 million to $125 million — a 53% increase, and the biggest jump in budget history since records go back from 1940. Yet the VA could not deliver quality services to our Veterans.
We see the same scenario with the other major government -run health program: Medicare. It is currently insolvent; Medicare spends roughly 3 times what it takes in and it is only getting worse. There are no cost controls. Even Obama acknowledged this in 2010 when he said, “The major drivers of our long-term liabilities as everyone knows are Medicare and Medicaid, and health care spending.”
Government should not be handling our health systems. The fact that secret waiting lists existed shows just how far the government went to hide their incompetency in running a health system at the very time that Obamacare was being debated both in Congress and then in the public square. If Congress and Americans had known the truth of the condition of the VA health system, it is likely that Obamacare would never have been allowed to become law.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS, TAXES
Many people this year are startled to find that the IRS is holding some or all of the portions of their tax return as a form of payment for old debt. Many so called debts are decades-old and often the debt is not even the debt of the taxpayer being targeted.
How did this happen? The first part of the process began in 2008, when Congress passed HR6124, The “Food, Conservation, and Energy Act 0f 2008”, commonly known as the “Farm Bill”. On page 594-594 of the 662 page document, Section 14219 reads. “Elimination of statute of limitations applicable to collection of debt by administrative offset”.
(a) ELIMINATION.—Section 3716(e) of title 31, United States
Code, is amended to read as follows: ‘‘(e)(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, regulation,
or administrative limitation, no limitation on the period within which an offset may be initiated or taken pursuant to this section shall be effective. (2) This section does not apply when a statute explicitly prohibits using administrative offset of setoff to collect the claim or type of claim involved.” (b) APPLICATION OF AMENDMENT — The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply to any debt outstanding on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.
As a result of this legislation, the Department of the Treasury issued 74 FR 68537: “OFFSET OF TAX REFUND PAYMENTS TO COLLECT PAST-DUE, LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE NONTAX DEBT” on December 28, 2009. The Department of the Treasury, Financial Management Service made changes to it how it dealt with non-tax debts owed by taxpayers. This rule allowed the “ offset of Federal tax refunds irrespective of the amount of time the debt has been outstanding”.
I. Background
“The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, Public Law 110–234,
Section 14219, 22 Stat. 923 (2008) (‘‘the Act’’) amended the Debt Collection Act
of 1982 (as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996) to
authorize the offset of Federal nontax payments (for example, contract and salary payments) to collect delinquent Federal debt without regard to the amount of time the debt has been delinquent. Prior to this change, nontax payments could be offset only to collect
debt that was delinquent for a period of less than ten years. There is no similar time limitation in the statutes authorizing offset of Federal tax refund payments to collect Federal
nontax debts (see 26 U.S.C. 6402(a) and 31 U.S.C. 3720A). However, Treasury had imposed a time limitation on collection of debts by tax refund offset in order to create uniformity in the way that it offset payments. Now that the ten-year limitation has been eliminated for the offset of nontax payments, the rationale for including a ten-year limitation for the offset of tax refund payments no longer applies.
Therefore, on June 11, 2009, Treasury issued a notice of proposed rulemaking proposing to remove the limitations period by explicitly stating that no time limitation shall apply. See 74 FR 27730. The proposed rule explained that by removing the time limitation, all Federal nontax debts, including debts that were ineligible for collection by offset prior to the removal of the limitations period, may now be collected by tax refund offset. Additionally, to avoid any undue hardship, Treasury proposed the addition of a notice requirement applicable to debts that were previously ineligible for collection by offset because they had been outstanding for more than ten years. For such debts, creditor agencies must certify to FMS that a notice of intent to offset was sent to the debtor after the debt became ten years delinquent. This notice of intent to offset is meant to alert the debtor that any debt the taxpayer owes to the United States may now be collected by offset, even if it is greater than ten years delinquent. It also allows the debtor additional opportunities to dispute the debt, enter into a repayment agreement or otherwise avoid offset. This requirement will apply even in a case where notice was sent prior to the debt becoming ten years old. This requirement applies only with respect to debts that were previously ineligible for collection by offset because of the previous time limitation. Accordingly, it does not apply with respect to debts that could be collected by offset without regard to any time limitation prior to this regulatory change—for example, Department of Education student loan debts.”
The ramifications of this rule change has been far reaching. One agency, the IRS, has used it to justify going after old debts by holding tax refunds. This is a growing problem, because the agency has begun going after relatives of the phantom debt, not the debt-holder themselves.
According to the Treasury rule, “For such debts, creditor agencies must certify to FMS
that a notice of intent to offset was sent to the debtor after the debt became ten years delinquent. This notice of intent to offset is meant to alert the debtor that any debt the taxpayer owes to the United States may now be collected by offset, even if it is greater than ten years delinquent”.
The rule does not state “relative of the debtor”. In several instances this year alone, the targeted person was a relative of the debt-holder, not the debt-holder themselves, and every one of them stated they received no notice or advance warning from the IRS before the IRS decided to withhold their refund. The IRS has no right to do so.
There exists a process called “transferee liability” where the IRS can go after the debts of a relative. It is a high burden process and is not done easily. Such a scenario might be if a person died with $100,000 in a bank account, which was bequeathed to a child. Then later, it was revealed that the original account holder owed the IRS, which really should have been discovered by the person doing the estate process, and thus the money received by bequeathment could be considered as being received under false pretenses. The IRS in this situation could make a case, under “transferee liability”, that it has a right to go after the relative for that money.
Obviously, this above scenario is much different than resurrecting decades-old debt via an obscure provision in a 662 page bill. Those affected by it should demand proof of debt as well as argue that the debt is not theirs. However, in the cases where the IRS merely held the tax refund, the “debtor” did not receive due process and is at the mercy of trying to deal with a convoluted, poorly run government agency. Most people do not have the time or means to fight back. This action taken by the IRS is legal plunder, plain and simple.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS
Oh, the hypocrisy!
In February, it was announced that retired hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer, has committed $100 million of his own money to “to make climate change a priority issue in this year’s midterm elections.”
How can this possibly be? First, Steyer made his millions as a hedge-fund operator — which is typically and universally denounced as a greedy profession. But if he spends his greedy millions on items considered tolerable and suitable to the political Left, it’s becomes okay.
That same political Left decries the Koch Brothers who are accused of funding groups with their obscene amounts of money to promote policy positions. The Koch Brothers made their money as businessmen, which clearly is repugnant. It begs the question: why does Harry Reid go after the Koch Brothers and turns a blind eye to Steyer’s tactics?
In reality, what Tom Steyer is doing is much worse. Steyer is essentially telling a political candidate, “if you take this position, I will give you money”. Isn’t this line of thinking exactly what the Supreme Court was trying to stop? How is this okay? Because it works for the Left.
Steyer’s game proved effective in 2013 when his NextGen Climate Action Super Pac spend $2.5 million to target conservative-leaning coal areas of Southwest Virginia on behalf of Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Coupled with Mayor Bloomberg’s Independence USA Super PAC which spent roughly $2 million on ads in Virginia to target Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli’s position on gun-rights, the two out-of-staters helped lead the Democrat to victory.
Steyer’s next plan is to influence the 2014 midterms. His money is planning on being spent on “attack ads during the election, including the Florida governor’s race and the Iowa Senate race.
Clearly, Steyer’s actions are appropriate for the 2014 elections, because political candidates with the “proper positions” are able to benefit from Steyer’s “generosity”. Yet in contrast, other organizations are called out for being “tainted” by the Koch Brothers for merely promoting various policies that the Left deems unacceptable. Either it’s okay for both, or for neither.
The double standard prevails.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, ECONOMY, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA
Can you believe it — a bigger lie than “you can keep your doctor”?
President Obama’s comments regarding the gender pay gap and discrimination are as vicious a lie as his statements that you can keep your doctor. The idea that women earn $.77 for every $1.00 that men earn, for equal work, has never been true, never in the slightest.
That $.77 comparison is not for equal work. It strictly represents the reality that women, more often than men, work at jobs that are lower paying. The reason for such jobs might include school and family situations, flexibility of schedule, and their desires to be able to be use work secondarily for their needs for their families or a source of discretionary income.
There is actually no evidence of any discrimination for women doing the same work an being paid less. If the world of labor could indeed pay women less (23% less) for equal work, why isn’t virtually every company hiring only women as a means to curb costs and increase profit?
A more full and excellently written description was put forth in the WSJ on April 7th. It is a must read.
The most incredible thing about Obama’s statements is that Obama appears to have his own “pay gap disparity” at the White House (women earn $.88 cents per $1.00 for men). Interestingly, the White House takes great pains to discuss the discrimination variables that cause this disparity.
“An analysis of staff salaries done last fall by the conservative American Enterprise Institute found the president’s female aides were paid 88 cents for every dollar paid to men, about $65,000 to $73,729 annually. On Monday, Carney argued the comparison is based on aggregate wages that include the lowest salaries at the White House “which may or may not be — depending on the institution — filled by more women than men.”
He said men and women in equivalent roles at the White House earn the same amount and that 10 of 16 department heads are women, earning the top White House salary of $172,200″.
Here we have the Obama administration admitting that more women are in jobs that include the lowest salaries at the White House.
So, it is not gender discrimination at the White House, which is what Obama has tried to claim in his “$.77 cents” missive and new Executive Order. He wants to apply that label when discussing the “gender pay gap” to all other businesses (as a means to appeal to his female base), but then when the spotlight is shined on the White House pay scale, Obama retreats from that rhetoric.
As he should. Because the gender pay gap is truly a myth. And Obama’s own White House data and discussion prove it.
by | ARTICLES, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
Bernie Sanders recently chose to test the waters of a possible Presidential campaign by weighing in on the deliberations regarding the Post Office. Thankfully, we have this Op-Ed so early on, because it reveals Sanders’ complete and utter inability to comprehend basic economics and accounting.
Bernie argues two main points: 1) the Post Office is not broke and 2) those who believe it is are “anti-government”, “wealthy special interest”, profit-seeking, or all of the above. These points rest entirely on his premise that pre-funding health benefits to postal workers is a very bad thing.
Sanders actually believes that planning for future promised benefits is not a fiscally sound practice. If he feels this way about the Post Office, surely he feels the same about Social Security and Medicare (two programs who have trillions in future liabilities). Does Sanders know that his type of accounting would land any business executive in jail?
Sanders says that if we didn’t have to pre-fund future benefits, than the Post Office would make a profit. Simple, right?
What he fails to mention that if we didn’t pre-fund benefits, the Post Office would merely be sloughing off paying its promises to some future nebulous day and time for some other taxpayers else to take care of –only when its liabilities were astronomical and the finances were on the edge of a precipice.
That result is precisely what we are facing programs like Social Security, Medicare, and many defined benefits plans across the country: politicians made future monetary promises without planning for them, and now the economic pressure has ballooned into severe fiscal instability. Sanders belongs to the ‘spend first, fix (maybe) later” group of bureaucrats who refuse to follow basic accounting practices like any business would be required to practice.
With the Post Office, we actually have an quasi-government entity following good, non-gimmick accounting so taxpayers can see first-hand the true financial picture (current and future) of the post-office. Pre-funding benefits to account for future and current liabilities is a proper and healthy way to do business. And if the Post Office cannot turn a profit while protecting its current and future liabilities, than it must make changes to its business operations
By repealing the legislation to pay for future liabilities, Bernie Sanders is ostensibly demanding someone in the future — your kids and grandkids — to clean up the mess of his government and his generation’s deliberately poor financial planning.
Which bring us two his second point. Bernie Sanders does what the Left does best, which is resort to name calling, straw-man arguments to build up his weak ideas. Sanders actually thinks that those who wish to pass on a health economic future while practice basic and principled accounting practices are anti-government, bought-and-paid-for, or profit-mongers. No, Mr. Sanders, we only wish for the government and its entities to practice the same kind of accounting standards that any other business or family is required to do.
Watch out, America — Bernie Sanders is just more of the same. Another bureaucratic imbecile who refuses to face economic and financial realities when it comes to the Post Office — or any big government program which deals with current and future liabilities. Sanders would rather pass the buck to the next generation in order to save a few union jobs.
by | ARTICLES, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE
Obama has lied to this country. Most recently and most memorably, he lied to when he told “you can keep your health plan” and “you can keep your doctor”. But charging that someone “lied” implies that they knew it was untrue when they said it, so how can anyone be sure?
Records dating back to 2010 discussed the fallout from ObamaCare implementation that would render most plans obsolete and doctor choices restricted. If Obama truly believed that individuals could keep their health plan and doctor under ObamaCare, this belief had to come from being lied to or intentionally misled by one or more advisors.
However, if he was lied to or misled by his advisor(s), the individual(s) responsible would have been immediately fired by President Obama. The President of the United States can never tolerate the Office having its integrity undermined by lesser staff.
Therefore there are no explanations for the President not firing a lying advisor on the spot other than 1) these individuals had information regarding what the President knew and when he knew it, which would be exposed if they were fired; or 2) in fact, the truth had been conveyed to the President (and the President lied to us anyway).
On the other hand, you can contrast Obama’s behavior with Chris Christie. Say what you will about Chris Christie, but consider this: upon learning that he had been misled in the George Washington Bridge lane closing matter, Christie immediately fired the several individuals involved. He did not tolerate his office being denigrated by staffers who were not forthcoming to their governor.
How could it be, then, that President Obama did not have the necessity or integrity to fire anybody because for lying about ObamaCare? Because they probably didn’t lie.
It is not a new thing for our President to intentionally misrepresent the truth on many issues regarding ObamaCare — he does so on almost a daily basis now because ObamaCare was his signature legislation and it is an unmitigated disaster.
One of the most oft-repeated distortions is his recurring theme that ObamaCare will result in a net reduction in the federal debt. At a Clinton Global Initiative recently, the President said “It is a net reduction of our deficit. The irony of those who are talking about repealing Obamacare because of, it’s so wildly expensive, is if they actually repealed the law, it would add to the deficit.” What a joke.
Everyone – including the President – full well knows that the original concept of reducing the deficit was based on underestimating costs and overstating revenues. On top of that, fiscal changes made both by Congress (such as repealing the 1099 initiative) and the President (implementation delays) have guaranteed that ObamaCare will seriously add to the National Debt. So, clearly, at the time of the Clinton Global Initiative, the President knew his comment was a lie.
What’s worse, the pathetic, anemic enrollment numbers (yet another item being played with loose and fast by the Administration) means that ObamaCare costs will soar in this country because not nearly enough people have wanted to enroll. ObamaCare, and President Obama, are rife with — not inconsistencies, not misstatements, but intentional lies.
The President certainly knows it. And we know it too.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS
As we get into blame season surrounding the extension of the debt ceiling, let’s make sure we remember – and remind anyone who will listen — what actually caused the government to shut down just a few short months ago.
The Democrats insisted that the Republicans accept a pure Continuing Resolution (CR) as a first and final offer with no negotiation along the way.
In contrast, the Republicans (after a number of initial offers were rebuffed and ignored with no discussion), made a final offer of 1) simply delaying the individual mandate for one year (which is effectively now happening) and 2) subjecting Congress to ObamaCare as the existing law actually requires anyway.
The Democrats refused even this more than reasonable –and in hindsight quite astute — offer causing the Government to shut down.
In what possible world can the shutdown be blamed directly on the Republicans?!
_______________________________
Now What?
Did you like what you read?
If you did, I hope you’ll join my Secret Tax Club.
It’s free, it’s via email, and it’s for you.
I periodically send out information such as tax tips, reading suggestions, articles and more, and the information is not always available anywhere else, even on my own website.
If you want to join, visit my Secret Tax Club page.
Thanks for visiting Tax Politix
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS
Today, the architect of Obamacare, Zeke Emanuel, modified another one of Obama’s promises. This time, he explained the “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” now actually means “if you want to, you can pay for it,”.
During Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace pressed Emanuel to whether the promise would be upheld. Here’s the exchange, courtesy of The Weekly Standard.
“The president never said you were going to have unlimited choice of any doctor in the country you want to go to,” said the Obamacare architect.
“No. He asked a question. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Did he not say that, sir?”
“He didn’t say you could have unlimited choice.”
“It’s a simple yes or no question. Did he say if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?”
“Yes. But look, if you want to pay more for an insurance company that covers your doctor, you can do that. This is a matter of choice. We know in all sorts of places you pay more for certain — for a wider range of choices or wider range of benefits….“
Here’s the problem. Right on the White House website, there is a document called “Health Insurance Reform Reality Check”. . There it states: “It’s never been more important to dispel these outlandish rumors and myths. Learn the facts and share them with your friends, family and neighbors.”
Then it has a “Reality Check” list. The very first bullet item says this:
“You Can Keep Your Own Insurance
Reform isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan”.
Notice that it doesn’t say, “if you like your doctor, you might have to pay more”
This isn’t the only place on whitehouse.gov that has the Doctor Promise. On the FAQ page entitled “Putting Americans In Charge of their Health Care”, it says:
“Q
: Will the government take my choice of doctor away?
A: No.
Nothing about the President’s proposal will interfere with the choice of doctors you have today. The legislation will not cause you to change the coverage you have at work today”
Here’s the screencap:
In fact, the Doctor Promise goes all the way back to at least 2009. On whitehouse.gov, you can find Obama’s weekly address from August 8th, 2009, where he states,
“So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true. This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. Under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
So, since at least 2009, we’ve been hearing the simple promise, “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”. Yet today we hear a modified version of that Promise, much like the recent caveat to the “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise”.
Now we find out the caveat to the Doctor Promise. Here’s the rest of the interview with Emanuel from earlier today. The exchange with Wallace finishes up:
“The president guaranteed me I could keep my doctor,” said Wallace.
“And if you want to, you can pay for it,” said Emanuel.
Caveat emptor, indeed.
