December, 2014, Part 3, By The Numbers: Millenials Getting Poorer, Tax Code Getting More Inefficient, and Politicians Still Out Of Step With America

On a semi-regular basis we do a series of posts with the theme: “by the numbers.” As we all know, we can really never trust any politician to tell us the truth, especially if it does not fit their selfish needs and strategies. However, while they can lie, deceive, and skew their message, the realities of actual numbers always give us the truth of the situation. 

I used to work for a boss whose favorite saying was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the right number.” By looking at the raw numbers of a situation, we can look past the political spin and other BS that politicians constantly rain down us to divide us, trick, us, and insure their continued time in office. We try to dispel these myths and travesties by looking at the reality numbers to devastate the politicians’ opinions.

We thought yesterday would be our last update to the "by the numbers" stream but we uncovered enough numbers to add one final post to the “by the numbers” series.

1) In our first update to this series we quoted a recent President Obama quote on how well he has managed the economy during his tenure: "Since I have come into office, there's almost no economic metric by which you couldn't say that the U.S. economy is better," as quoted in a recent interview with the Economist. 

We have debunked that boast over the past two days and today we debunk it further. According to an article written by Ali meter for the website, cnsnews.com on December 15, 2014, one out of every five so-called millennials, young Americans aged 18 to 34 years old, live in poverty in this country, according to Census Bureau data. 

The Census data analysis and numbers found that: “More millennials are living in poverty today, and they have lower rates of employment, compared with their counterparts in 1980. One in five young adults lives in poverty (13.5 million people), up from one in seven (8.4 million people) in 1980.”

According to Census analysis, in 1980 14.1% of those Americans aged 18 to 34 were living in poverty while in 1990, the percentage of millennials in poverty increased slightly to 14.3%. In 2000, it climbed to 15.3 percent but by 2013 it reached the highest level ever recorded, jumping up significantly to 19.7%.

A lot of this poverty increase is due to the fact that today’s millenials have found it more difficult to find work. 1980, 69% of millennial were employee while that levels has decrease to 65% in 2013, the lowest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau.

So, two days ago we found out that the numbers told us that Obama administration economic policies have been bad for African-Americans and Hispanics. Today we learned that those same policies were bad for millennials. Does not seem that the President’s boast is working well for major segments of the population.

2) David Allen, recently writing for the Heritage Foundation, found some interesting numbers analyses to identify the hidden costs of our complex and ineffective tax code. The cost of our tax system is not just the taxes we pay via the Federal income tax, there are some hidden costs that end up taxing us in other, hidden ways and which inhibit economic growth.

Mr. Allen showed how analysis by Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union; Jason Fichtner, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; and Dan Mastromarco, a partner at the Mastromarco Firm quantified these additional economic burdens:

- Accounting Costs. Since the Federal tax system requires Americans to compile, write, and submit their tax returns, there are additional costs beyond the bottom line tax payment. These additional costs in time come out to about 6.1 billion hours every year for the nation to fill out their tax forms, as estimated by a 2013 study by the Mercatus Center. 

These are 6.1 billion hours that cannot be spent on starting or expanding a business, finding a second job, working extra hours at a current job, etc., all of which impose an economic costs on every American who files a tax return. The monetary costs of these 6.1 billion hours according to the Mercatus study range from $67 billion to $378 billion, depending on what the assumption set is. These are billions of dollars that cannot be used to spike economic growth and expand the economy, it is stranded effort and costs just to feed an antiquated tax system. 

- Tax Gap (revenue loss). Talk about complex. According to the Taxpayer Advocate Servicer report, the Federal tax code is nearly 4 million words long. When printed, the IRS’ guidance explaining the income tax stands more than 1 foot tall.

The complexity of the tax code leads to predictable results: American taxpayers often fail to file returns on time, fail to pay reported taxes on time, or underreport the amount of tax they owe. This causes a major disconnect between taxes owed and taxes paid on time, creating a form of revenue loss known as the tax gap. The size of the net tax gap is roughly $452 billion (in 2012 dollars).

- Deadweight loss (economic cost). I will let Mr. Allen explain what deadwieght loss is: “Taxes further impose costs by distorting economic decision making, namely how individuals choose to spend and save. Economists call this deadweight loss. It can be thought of as all of the foregone economic transactions that would have occurred in the absence of the tax. This includes all of the products and services not purchased and investments not made. 

Deadweight loss is an implicit cost of taxation that slows economic growth. Although it is more difficult to calculate, estimates of this lost economic growth range from $148 billion to $609 billion.” 

The article goes on to estimate the combined cost to the country of these hidden tax system burdens. Using the lower end estimates from the three burdens above, the total burden from these three sources is still a whopping $667 billion. This is almost an additional $6,000 tax burden on every American household every year.

Since the IRS collected $2.855 trillion in taxes in 2013, this number analysis indicates for every $100 the IRS collected, over $23 was lost. If the higher end estimates of the three burdens above are used, the higher-end estimates, the additional total burden jumps to an incredible $1.439 trillion, or about $50 being lost for every $100 collected, an incredibly inefficient tax process. Additionally, this $1.439 trillion burden comes out to over $12,000 for every U.S. household.

The bottom line: our tax system is complex, expensive to operate, inefficient, and contrary to sound economic theory, resulting in numbers that are onerous to say the least on every American.

3) Often the numbers from reputable polling organizations such as Gallup and Pew show that the political class is often out of step with what Americans want done. For example:

• The majority of Americans have long disapproved of the entire Obama Care legislation and mess but it still lives on. 
• The majority of Americans have long indicated that Congress and the entire political class is broken and ineffective but the political process continues to become even more broken over time.
• The majority of Americans want government’s wasteful spending to be brought under control but the wasteful spending grows unimpeded, reaching a devastating level of $18 TRILLION at the Federal levels.

Americans want this and the politicians in Washington want to deliver that. The latest example of such a disconnect is when the Democrats in the Senate recently released a report that was critical of the CIA interrogation tactics that were used immediately after the 9-11 attacks.

But while the Democrats in the Senate were critical of the methods, the majority of Americans were not, according to Pew Research:

• Only 29% of those Americans polled said the interrogation methods were unjustified.
• A majority of 51% say those methods were justified.
• 56% of those polled feel that the intelligence gathered on terrorists’ plans stopped future attacks while only 28% disagreed that future attacks were thwarted.

Another issue and another example where the numbers show that the politicians in their constant need to satisfy their objectives are out of touch with what America thinks and wants. 

Now, some of you in the 29% might want to claim the high ground and believe that America should never resort to torture. I actually believe that also but that view is not consistent with what the majority of Americans believe. Plus, releasing the report now, more than ten years after the fact serves no purpose whatsoever:

• No one is going to be prosecuted for the methods so there is not a criminal reason for releasing the report.
• Our terrorist enemies will use the report as propaganda even though it is a highly skewed, highly politicized, and incomplete view of what happened.
• The report is taken out of context and the situation at the time. Much like when FDR locked up Japanese nationals in Word War II, the actions have to be considered in the context of the situation. Immediately after 9-11, it was unknown if other terror attacks were imminent. That question had to be answered as soon as possible in the context of the situation and the time frame.
• And one other thing to keep in mind. Those terrorists that were subject to the interrogation methods are still alive. How does a supporter of this report reconcile the fact that the Obama administration actually kills terrorists, with hundreds if not thousands of collateral deaths including hundreds of children, with its drone program? At least no one died with the CIA program, unlike the indiscriminant drone program of Obama.

That will do it for this update to the “by the numbers” series. Today we found out that millennials are getting poorer according to the numbers, taxpayers are paying a much higher burden for the antiquated IRS and tax code processes in place as the numbers show, and the country generally supports the fact that the CIA used unconventional interrogation methods to avoid a 9-11 follow up attack, as the numbers show. 

Too bad politicians do not understand what the numbers mean or choose to ignore the numbers for their own selfish gains and objectives.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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http://www.reason.com
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http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

By The Numbers, Part 1: What Is The Reality Of America Today - Afghanistan, Millenials Pessisim, Obama's Approval Numbers Plummet and More

We have done the following analysis, “by the numbers,” on a semi-regular basis in the past, an effort to take a look at the current state of the world, the country, and our government using the latest polling and reputable statistics that come across our desk. I used to work for a boss whose favorite saying was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the right number.” Numbers help us define reality and are much more reliable than opinions and emotions that are often based more on personal prejudices than stark realities.

Unfortunately, as with today’s numbers, the analyses and numbers and graphs we have looked at in the past are almost always not favorable to our nation’s health, no matter how you measure health (e.g. financial, hope for the future, etc.). I attribute this constantly negative outlook and reality to the lousy job that our current set of politicians due in their capacity of being so-called leaders, a title that they fail to uphold in almost all of their actions.

On an annual basis we send trillions and trillions of tax dollars to our politicians and the government entities they overlord. But we are constantly shortchanged on the services they fail to provide efficiently and effectively due to their incompetencies, their lack of ability and intelligence, and their lack of will to often not even try to be effective.

Take a look at the current set of numbers and see if you do not agree, that the numbers, graphs, and realities of our political class performance is still severely lacking and deficient, if not downright embarrassing.

1) If the so-called “millennials” are the future of this country, then their attitudes and outlook do not bode well for both their futures and the future health and vitality of America: 

• According to a recent poll conducted by CNN and ORC International, a whopping 63 percent of Millennials, aged between 18 and 34, now say the American Dream is impossible to achieve.
• More than 480,000 people under the age of 25 left the workforce in April, frustrated in their inability to land a decent job.
• About 40% of college graduates are unable to find work.
• At least 29 percent of Millennials have chosen to stay home and live with their parents.

And these attitudes and realities have occurred during the so-called economic recovery from the Great Recession. Wait until the next recession hits, one that is overdue by historical standards, and the pessimism of our young people will take an even greater hit. 

Which raises an interesting question: if the American Dream ceases to exist as shown by these nunbers, especially in the eyes of our kids, does America cease to exist?

2) When Barack Obama became President backing early 2009, his approval ratings were very high, usually in the 70-80% range depending on what study or poll you looked at. He had sol America on his vision of improving life in America and the vast majority of Americans bought his line.

Over five years later, those lofty approval ratings have been replaced by some pretty abysmal ratings once America saw what this President was incapable of doing. According to a very recent CNN poll:

• In the latest poll across a wide range of issues, the President failed to get at least 50% approval rating on all of the major issues reviewed.
• "Environmental policy" was the only issue where more people approved than disapproved of Obama's performance nut even here is approval rating was less than 50%.
• Terrorism: 49% approve, 49% disapprove
• Environmental policy: 49% approve, 45% disapprove
• The situation in Afghanistan: 42% approve, 56% disapprove
• Foreign affairs: 40% approve, 57% disapprove
• Helping the middle class: 40%, approve, 58% disapprove.
• The economy: 38% approve, 61% disapprove.
• The situation in Ukraine: 38% approve, 53% disapprove.
• The situation in Veterans' Affairs hospitals and medical facilities: 37% approve, 58% disapprove
• Health care policy: 36% approve, 63% disapprove.
• Illegal immigration: 35% approve, 61% disapprove.
• Gun policy: 33% approve, 64% disapprove.
• The federal budget deficit: 31% approve, 67% disapprove.

Basically, in no major area that affects a large number of Americans do people think that Obama is doing a good job. Given that he has been doing this job for about five and a half years but has seen his once high approval ratings slip down so far, it is doubtful that he will be able to come up with the right strategies, plans, and energy to turn around any of these issues in his remaining time in office.

Now, two things might have happened. Some liberals will probably declare that 30-40% of American became racists form the time Obama’s ratings were in the 70-80% range vs. the 30-40% range they are in now. Or. More likely, he stinks at being President and the numbers do not lie.

3) One of the President’s main campaign callouts in 2012 was that terrorism was declining and that we were winning the war on terror, all because of his policies. Well, according to the numbers, that may have been another gross deception on his part. According to a study recently published by the RAND Corporation the number of jihadist terrorist groups around the world are not on the run and declining, their numbers have actually increased 58% over the recent past.

Not only are the number of terror groups increasing rapidly, the number of terror groups fighting numbers have also increase by over 50%. These trends have resulted in a tripling of terrorist attacks around the world. More troubling was the doubling of jihadist fighters, a drastic increase. Finally, the report notes a tripling of jihadist-related attacks worldwide.

If you believe RAND’s numbers, then the Obama campaign claim that terrorism was declining is really not true. Not only are the number of terrorist groups, fighters, and attacks increasing significantly, the whole Islamic terror effort has splintered into at least four major groups, making its abolishment even more difficult:

“Control is diffused among four tiers: (1) core al Qa'ida in Pakistan, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri; (2) formal affiliates that have sworn allegiance to core al Qa'ida, located in Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and North Africa; (3) a panoply of Salafi-jihadist groups that have not sworn allegiance to al Qa'ida but are committed to establishing an extremist Islamic emirate; and (4) inspired individuals and networks.”

Thus, while campaign victor Obama might brag about his successes in the war on terror, the numbers, again, do not back him up and given this President, the numbers are probably less likely lying then he is.

4) Another false victory on terror claimed by the President is that he is getting us out of Afghanistan. He is trying to position himself as the one that solved the crisis, not Bush.

However, what a lot of people do not realize is that much more money and many more U.S. soldiers died under Obama’s Afghan watch than under Bush’s watch. If the military excursion into Afghanistan was so bad, as claimed by Obama and his political friends, why was so much damage to lives and the U.S. Treasury done under Obama? He could have gotten us out of the country five years ago, why didn’t he? 

According to a recent Associated press story:

• 86% of the U.S. troops who have been wounded in the war in Afghanistan incurred their injuries after the start of 2009 when Obama became President.
• This compares to the eight years when Bush oversaw the war effort vs. only five years when Obama was in charge.
• 1,629 U.S. military personnel, or 74.1%, of all U.S. servicemen deaths have died since Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009.

I am not defending Bush by any stretch of the imagination. I believe that history will sow that our full fledged incursion into Afghanistan was much too expensive in wealth and blood for the negligible returns we are likely to see. I just want to point out how the numbers show that much more financial and physical damage was done under the Obama regime than the Bush regime and both regimes bungled the job badly.

That will do it for today. The numbers do not lie:

• Our kids are pessimistic about their futures and the future of the country. 
• Americans do not think Obama is doing any kind of a good job on any major issue, giving him negatives ratings that are low and trending lower.
• Terrorism is accelerating under the Obama administration.
• And much more dmage has been done to America as a result of Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush.

Not saying who is right and who is wrong and who has been given a bad deal, just giving the the numbers and the realities of what the Washington political class, both in Congress and in the White House, has done to the country.

And the saddest part, is that we will have more numbers tomorrow and they are not good either.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w