February, 2019, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: NYC Politicians Killing Amazon Deal, Virginia Political Circus Continues, and A Mean A Spirited Presidential Candidate

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) As most people know, Amazon sent over 200 cities in a tizzy over the past few years when they said they would be setting up new headquarters office complexes across the country to handle their ever growing business. These headquarters efforts would obviously be a big boost to local economic conditions, creating new and high paying jobs both inside the company and in outside businesses, e.g. restaurants, that would support this new, highly paid workforce.

Cities and local politicians jockeyed hard to be selected, given the obvious economic upside, and tried to outdo each other with tax abatements, economic incentives, and a myriad of other bribery gems to try and be one of the two locations.

Amazon eventually ended up choosing northern Virginia and Queens, New York as the sites of these two new headquarters locations. Local politicians were ecstatic….for a while until at least in New York, the whole thing started to fall apart when politicians started screwing up a good deal:

• According to CNBC, Amazon is likely at least taking a second look at whether or not the NYC locations is worth the hassle and grief it is getting from local politicians.
• According to CNBC, the announcement of NYC as one of the two locations “met almost immediately with protest by some New York officials and residents who feared Amazon would take over the Queens neighborhood, drive up prices and and push out existing residents.”
• In other words, Amazon may pull out of New York if the politicians hassle them too much and just go somewhere else, with over 200 cities more than happy to not hassle and hound the company.
• Just the Queens location would be home to 25,000 well paid employees, employees who pay taxes, eat in local restaurants, buy from local merchants, improve neighborhoods with home purchases, and generate a whole lot of economic growth.
• Of course, the newest and most out of touch and economically ignorant member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, put her two cents in, objecting that Amazon selected Queens for their location, proving that it is a great idea if she thinks it stinks.
• She issued the following, most ignorant tweet: “Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world’s biggest corporations?”
• So, in her world and reality, creeping overreach is good, high paying jobs, economic revival of all aspects of the local economy, and lower unemployment.
• The governor, Andrew Cuomo, is besides himself in frustration that a deal that took so long to to is possibly falling apart because of politicians like Ocasi-Cortez: "We have to make Amazon a reality. For the state Senate to oppose Amazon was governmental malpractice. And if they stop Amazon from coming to New York, they're going to have the people of New York state to explain it to. It is irresponsible to allow political opposition to overcome sound government policy. You're not there to play politics. You're there to do what's right for the people of New York, and what they did here was wrong."

I love it when the political class eats its own, they are so inept at anything they do. Over 200 cities saw this Amazon opportunity as a good thing and now some politicians in New York want to kill the golden goose of economic growth.

Now, look, I thought what Amazon did to these 200 cities was disgusting, economic blackmail. In New York, for example, the local politicians agreed to give Amazon a tax rebate of $3 billion if Amazon generated $27 billion in revenue for the state. Similar offers were made in the over 200 cities as well. As I said, economic blackmail.

But it is still so funny to see incompetent politicians trip over themselves trying to screw up a deal of a lifetime to the detriment of the people they serve. But that should not surprise anyone, these people screw up just about anything they touch.

2) Let’s review the Virginia political situation, or circus, that we have previously discussed in recent posts:

• It came to light that the medical school yearbook page of the current governor had a picture of two guys at a costume party, one dressed in a KKK costume and one dressed in black face in addition to listing the governor’s nickname as “Coonman,” certainly a racial slur.
• The governor first admitted that he was one of the guys in the picture and a day later contradicted himself and said he was NOT one of those in the picture, making himself look like a liar.
• Then the lieutenant governor was accused of a sexual predator attack years ago.
• Then the lieutenant governor implied that the governor had released the sex attack story to take the pressure off of him. 
• Then the state’s attorney general admitted that he had dressed up in blackface long ago.
• Then a member of the state government admitted that he knew of the sexual attack by the lieutenant governor for over a year.

So every day, the situation got worse and worse, and more comical. But just when you thought you it could not get any worse: 

• A second woman has now come forward to accuse the lieutenant governor of a sexual attack.
• Now he wants the FBI to investigate the charges.
• And many of his peers/politician friends are calling for him to resign but he says he will not.

Makes you wonder what insanity will unfold tomorrow in Virginia.

3) Okay, we talked about politicians fighting among themselves to screw up a once in a lifetime economic opportunity, we talked about Virginia politicians screwing up their public offices, and now let’s talk about a Washington politician possibly screwing up her Presidential run before it if got underway:

• Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar recently announced she was going to run for President.
• But according to the Washington Examiner she has a very nasty temperament and personality.
• Apparently she has a reputation for mistreating staff.
• At least three potential campaign aides withdrew their names from being considered to be on her Presidential campaign.
• According to the Huffington Post. the Senator cultivates a nasty work environment.
• She allegedly made staffers cry if they were late, constantly describing staff work efforts as “the worst,” sharing criticism in public emails, and giving staff tasks that were in conflict with Senate ethics rules.
• No surprise that she has had trouble filling her chief of staff position.

Sounds like she has a great temperament to unite the country and get everyone working together….not! If she cannot even get a small staff to function coherently and positively it is highly doubtful that she will be able to get the country to function coherently and positively.

That will do it for today, the insanity just keeps on coming.

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:


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

The Horrors and Destruction that Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 4

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump.
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life.

A year ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millenials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual that felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and/or our democracy. For the past year they fretted, and worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for a year and we are at the end of that calendar year, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just one short. Of course, this previous statement is dripping in sarcasm. Over the past month or so we have listed out over 100 good things that have happened to America and Americans as a result of the Trump Presidency. Those good things can be read at the following three links:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_31.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

So for those of you that feared the end of the world with Trump’s election, here are 9 additional accomplishments, in addition to that previous list of 53 accomplishments, he has imposed on the country. Let’s be honest Trump haters, he has done a pretty good job in just the first twelve months of his term.

1) Home Depot has decided to put its tax savings as a result of the Trump tax cuts to help its employees:

• According to CNBC, Home Depot’s hourly employees will get a one time cash bonus as high as $1,000 as a result of the Trump tax changes.
• The amount of the bonus will be based on length of employment service with new employees getting $200 and more tenured employees getting $1,000.
• According to Home Depot CEO, Craig Menear: "This incremental investment in our associates was made possible by the new tax reform bill. We are pleased to be able to provide this additional reward to our associates."

2) According to another CNBC report:

• 125,000 Disney employees will get $1,000 bonus payments as a result of the Trump tax cut.
• The company will also donate $50 million into a new employee education program.
• According to CEO Bob Iger: “"We are directing approximately $125 million to our cast members and employees across the country and making higher education more accessible with the launch of this new program." 
• The bonus applies to both full time and part time employees but excludes executive level employees.

3)According to a recent report on the American Liberty Report website:

• CNBC reported that Apple will make a $350 billion “contribution” to the U.S. economy over the next five years.
• $30 billion will be invested into capital expenditures which would result in 20,000 new domestic jobs and a new headquarters building and campus.
• According to Apple CEO Tim Cook: “We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible.”
• Apple released the following good news press release: “Combining new investments and Apple’s current pace of spending with domestic suppliers and manufacturers — an estimated $55 billion for 2018 — Apple’s direct contribution to the US economy will be more than $350 billion over the next five years, not including Apple’s ongoing tax payments, the tax revenues generated from employees’ wages and the sale of Apple products… Planned capital expenditures in the US, investments in American manufacturing over five years and a record tax payment upon repatriation of overseas profits will account for approximately $75 billion of Apple’s direct contribution …Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law. A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made.”

4) Let’s move away from the employees across the country are are seeing great initial benefits from the Trump tax cuts to how the entire economy is doing at a macros level:

• According to Reuters, the national economy added 2.1 million jobs in Trump’s first year as President.
• The 2.1 million jobs created is more than enough to cover the growth in the working age population.
• Average hourly earnings were up 9 cents/.3% in December, 2017, after rising only .1% the month before, bringing the entire year’s increase to a healthy 2.5%.
• Unemployment finished the year at 4.1%, close to what economists would call full employment.
• The economy grew a health 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 12017 despite trying to recover from massive disruptions caused by major hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

5) Much like its main competitor, AT&T, Verizon has decided to share its tax savings with its employees. Every employee will receive about $2,500 in Verizon stock, the company will increase its contributions to charities by $200 to $300 million, and pay down some of its debt with the windfall from the Trump tax cuts.

6) New home sales in the country were up almost 9% in 2017, Trump's first year, hitting an annual level of 608,000. This is the highest level since 2007.

7) And one last point of success for today, consider the following video that lists out dozens and dozens of other companies that are giving their employees hefty bonuses as a result of the Trump tax cuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW5AHGYaAPA&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=IWV+Opens&utm_campaign=7fa3d2c73c-House_Tax_Bill_CTA12_11_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_57fb36a6ae-7fa3d2c73c-55284199

So for those of you that feared the end of the world with Trump’s election, here is a list of more 49 Trump benefits and accomplishments to go with the list of 62 accomplishments we published a few days ago. Let’s be honest Trump haters, he has done a pretty good job in just the first twelve months of his term.

Given your gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 100 accomplishments in less than a year is not too shabby despite many of wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

P.S. After this post was first published, it has come to our attention that 54,000 Ford workers will receive bonuses of about $7,500 this year based on the great sales year that Ford had in 2017. Another instance where at the very least, Trump did not screw things up.

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:


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

May, 2016, Bonus Post, Political Class Insanity: Obama The War President, Apple Invests in China, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

This is our 12th post this month on America’s political class insanity. It sets a record for this blog on covering such disgusting behavior from our nation’s politicians. It is a sad commentary on the state of the country and those that are supposed to be leaders. 

I thought we were done with this month's insanity yesterday but as quickly as we review and discuss their insanity and idiocy, more insanity comes raining down on us. Thus, today's insnaity bonus post which is definitely our final look at this month’s insanity:

1) We have often reported on how poorly the Obama Presidency has handled economic strategy and the dismal results it has produced. Tens of millions of Americans needing Federal food assistance every month, millions of people who cannot find a full time job, settling for no job or only a part time job, the labor participation rate at 45 year old lows, etc. And as bad as the total, national results are, segments of the population are seeing far worse results, Minority unemployment and youth unemployment are much higher than the dismal national results we just reviewed.

Thus, one would think and hope that if the Federal government had some job creation money set aside they would use it for these sub-segments of the population, especially kids, to try and help them get at least summer jobs. Well, the good news is that the Feds do have a pot of money for such an effort. The bad news, is the Obama administration has set aside $2 million of it to help refugee kids, 400 hundred of them, get a summer job in Utica, New York under the so-called Summer Opportunity Project. Not American citizens' kids getting job help, not American kids stuck in American ghettos in cities like Chicago and Detroit getting job help. No, refugee kids in a single upstate New York city. 

In addition to getting summer jobs, these refugee kids will also get tutoring in math and English while, again, disadvantaged American citizens' kids will get nothing. Am I the only one who sees the insanity of using taxpayer dollars for programs like this, while ignoring our own kids, or am I a racist?

2) Apple recently announced that it was investing $1 billion in a Chinese car service that will compete directly with Uber in China. I have no problem with this, it is Apple's money, they are certainly free to invest it anywhere where it will maximize shareholder and company value the most. I do lament the fact that they found a better opportunity to invest $1 billion in China vs. the United States though, all because of the very, very high tax rates that the Federal government has in place for businesses.

Wouldn't it have been so much better for Americans if Apple found it easier and cheaper to invest $1 billion in America rather than China? How many jobs could a $1 billion investment create in this country? How much more in tax revenue would the Federal government have received if those jobs, that would be created by the $1 billion invested here, tax revenue that would recur year after year? Instead, Washington continues to not address a broken tax system and insanely high set of tax rates that forces companies to invest billions and billions of dollars in other countries. 

As a result, the Federal government gets no revenue from billions and billions of dollars kept and stranded overseas, American workers lose out on job opportunities that those stranded dollars could afford them, and the Federal government never sees the recurring revenue from jobs created domestically if those stranded dollars were spent here rather than in places like China.

But this $1 billion China investment is really small fish relative to the bigger picture. According to a recent article on the Personal Liberty website, if Apple brought back all of the money it has stranded over sees, it would pay a whopping $50 billion in taxes on it. Instead of cutting Apple a break and getting a smaller piece of this stranded money, but billions and billions of dollars invested in our economy, the political class refuses to reform our tax code and ends up getting $0 from that $50 billion. Imagine the economic boost our economy would get if Apple was allowed to bring tens of billions of dollars back home and invest it here and not get whacked with a $50 billion tax bill?

And Apple is just one of many large companies that could bring back tens or hundreds of billions of dollars back into this country for investment if we had a tax code that incentivized investment and economic growth rather than taxation. Tax code insanity, economic idiocy.

3) Remember how earlier in this month's political class insanity we pointed out that the Washington political class, Congress and Obama were working on legislation that would make the American bison the country's official mammal? At that time we pointed out how petty and stupid their priorities were, worrying about what should be the country's official mammal when tens of millions of Americans were either hungry, homeless, unemployed, under employed, dying from drug addiction or having their kids get under educated from failing schools. 

According to a recent Associated Press report, their priorities are still petty and stupid. The House of Representatives recently spent legislative time to ban the display of Confederate flags on flagpoles at Veterans Administration cemeteries. The legislation would ban descendants, family members, and others seeking to commemorate veterans of the Confederate States of America from flying the Confederate Battle Flag over mass graves, even on days that flag displays are permitted. 

Not surprising, a Congressman from the land of fruits and nuts, California, sponsored the legislation. I am assuming that there are no hungry, homeless, unemployed or drug addicts in his state, otherwise her would not have proposed such useless legislation that will impact virtually no one in the whole country. Insanely bad priorities.

4) Remember back or a year or so ago on how everyone was worried that the so-called PIGS of Europe, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, were going to go bankrupt because their central government debt burden had gotten so out of control? European politicians were falling all over themselves to try and come up with debt relief and debt solutions before the debt crushed their economies and their nations. 

According to CNBC, Spain has not improved their debt solution much since, as of a week or so ago, the central government of Spain had a national debt burden of $1.23 TRILLION at the end of the first quarter. This enormous debt burden represents 101% of the country's GDP in 2015. In other words, the debt burden is so high that it represents over 100% of all the goods and services produced by every Spanish citizen last year. 

Oh, by the way, the U.S. national debt level is higher than Spain's 101%, putting the U.S. Federal government financials on a par, or worse, than the PIGS of Europe. All thanks to an Obama administration that doubled the debt load in eight short years, incurring more debt than EVERY Presidential administration before him.

5) Although Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, the New York Times recently ran an article proving Obama will go down in history as the only two term President that was actively involved in war and military activities the ENTIRE length of his Presidency. From prematurely withdrawing U.S. troops in Iraq in order to win a second term only to reinsert troops later to a failed military effort in Afghanistan over the past eight years to drone attacks that have killed hundreds of innocent civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to an illegal and un-Constitutional entry into the Libyan civil war to the illegal meddling in Syria which led to the the deaths, wounding, and homelessness of millions of Syrians, to putting "boots on the ground" in Syria after saying numerous times he would never to such a thing to bombings in Yemen, he will go down in history as the longest war President ever.

And to this infamous record, we add the latest bit of military forays from a CNN report. CNN reported that Obama has, probably illegally, inserted U.S. Special Forces troops into the country of Libya in an effort to contain the influence of ISIS, the worst terrorist group to ever exist that arose out of the Obama administration's meddling in Syria. The Special Forces are operating out of a base in Misrata, Libya. The Pentagon has acknowledged the new presence of our military presence in that country.

As usual with most of Obama's unilateral actions, Congress and the American people have had no input to his wild and often reckless military misadventures and the strategy behind them. And that assumes there is a military and political strategy to Obama using military forces and might in at least six countries. Our military actions have killed and wounded thousands of civilians, hundreds of our own troops, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, with no measurable or apparent return benefit. That is certainly insanity of the nth degree.

That will do it for this month's record breaking review of political class insanity. Unfortunately, this might be a short term record, given the accelerating rate of political class insanity.

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

February, 2016, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Millionaires Get Tax Credits, Illegal Immigrants Get Tax Credits and Small Businesses Get The Shaft

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements it rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Yesterday and today we are reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) We often write about the disaster that Obama Care has been for American households and families. But it also has been a disaster for small businesses, the business segment that often produces the most new jobs in our economy and which sometimes create the biggest companies in the world, e.g., Facebook, Apple, etc. all started as small businesses. 

This reality was driven home by a recent article by Justin Haskins for Heartlander Magazine:

• Haskins: “Although numerous groups are facing difficulties related to ACA, few are struggling as significantly as U.S. small businesses.”
• 87% of that offer group health care insurance for their employees saw their insurance premiums go up 25% since 2014 despite Obama’s promises that healthcare costs would go down as a result of the legislation.
• 12% say their premiums went up over 50% in a survey by LevelFunded Health, an insurance agency.
• The legislation is particularly onerous for small businesses since larger businesses have a larger revenue and employee base to spread the legislative and regulatory costs and overhead of Obama Care over: “This has led numerous small businesses to cancel their health insurance benefits completely, dumping an unknown number of employees into Obamacare exchanges. This is not only bad for the employees, it’s horrible for the businesses, who are now losing quality job applicants to large corporations that offer better benefits.”
• The LevelFunded found that 56% of the 2,500 small businesses they surveyed said they are losing quality employee candidates because of the rising costs associated with employer-provided health care plans under Obama Care. 
• The Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) under Obama Care was supposed to make it easy for small businesses to handle the Obama Care legislation requirements but like most aspects of Obama Care, it also failed: only 85,000 people from 11,000 small businesses had coverage through SHOP, according to Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News. 
• According to Haskins: “This is significantly less than the 1 million people the Congressional Budget Office expected to be enrolled in SHOP by the end of 2015.” 

The whole mess has caused many pains for small businesses including losing top employee talent, forcing companies to drop healthcare insurance for their employees, causing small businesses to downsize to avoid Obama Care small business penalties, causing employers to cut hours of permanent employees to turn them into part time employees, or raising prices to cope with the increased costs.

Thus, when small business owners have to focus on how to stay afloat and be financially viable in the face of Obama Care’s demanding and often stupid requirements, these owners cannot devote more time to growing their businesses which results in a growing economy and growing employment opportunities. 

2) Sean Hackbarth, writing for the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce, continues the storyline from above on how Obama Care is making it so expensive and difficult for small businesses to grow their businesses and take care of their employees under Obama Care:

• Filling out complex Obama Care business tax forms is a major time destroyer for small business owners, time that could be better spent on growing their businesses. 
• Businesses have to provide great detail on how they are or are not providing health insurance coverage to their employees.
• The tax reporting requirements are so complex that many businesses now have to go to professionals to do their taxes, costing them time and money.
• The New York Times confirmed the complexity and time wasting processes of Obama Care tax filings in an article about the problem: “These are some of the most complex informational returns we’ve ever seen,” said Roger Prince, a tax lawyer with the consulting firm Berry Dunn in Portland, Me.
• Dunn claims that some of his small business clients “have spent months reconfiguring their human resources and financial systems to track the information that the new forms demand. The health care law defines a full-time-equivalent employee as someone who works an average of 30 or more hours a week — and the hours worked by some part-time employees count toward the calculation. For businesses that use many seasonal, variable-hour or temporary workers, like those in the hospitality industry, simply figuring out how many qualifying employees they have can be a challenge.” Again, more wasted time dealing with government bureaucracy than expanding and improving their businesses.

And all of this extra, useless work has been for no gain to themselves or their businesses since according to a 2015 National Small Business Association poll, 95% of the businesses polled have seen their health care insurance plan costs rise in the past five years, 90% saw their health care costs rise in 2015, and 84% expect those costs to increase in 2016, i.e. a lot of tax prep work for no gain.

3) A recent article from the Free Patriot Post website confirmed another Presidential lie about Obama Care. During a State of The Union address, Obama stood up in front of the whole country and boldly stated that only citizens of this country would get the benefit of Obama Care, its benefits would not be available to illegal immigrants. Congressman Joe Wilson blurted out that the President was a liar in the middle of the State Of The Union speech, for which he was vilified by Democrats and the liberal press.

But now it appears that Wilson was right. According to a new Senate report form the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: “The report, produced by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, examined Affordable Care Act tax credits meant to defray the cost of insurance premiums. It found that as of June 2015, ‘the Administration awarded approximately $750 million in tax credits on behalf of individuals who were later determined to be ineligible because they failed to verify their citizenship, status as a national, or legal presence.’”

The report and analysis found that a whopping 500,000 illegal immigrants received that $750 million in Obama Care tax credits. The Centers For Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) did confirm that 471,000 people failed to prove they were citizens but still got the credits. CMS claimed that some of those 471,000 may have actually been entitled to the credits but that still proves that those credits were given out by the Feds without due diligence being done before hand.

The report also concluded that the administration has no real plan on how to claw back the money that was given out as tax credits even though that money was given out illegally. This idiotic way of paying out to people before checking them out is derisively called “pay and chase,” i.e. we will give you taxpayer wealth today even though you have not given us the documentation you are supposed to give us and maybe we will chase you later to get it back.

What a mess and half ass way of doing business.

4) One last Obama Care fail for this month and it is a doozy. According to Melissa Quinn, writing for the Heritage Foundation on February 9, 2016, loopholes within the Obama Care wording allows certain types of millionaires to qualify for taxpayer subsidized health care under Obama Care rules. Specifically:

• Under Obama Care, people whose annual income falls under 138% of the poverty level, about $16,000 per person, can get subsidized medical care under Medicaid.
• This is because Obama Care changed the Medicaid criteria for being eligible to strictly annual income and took away any use of net worth to determine who gets subsidized insurance coverage under Medicaid.
• As a result, people with many assets but low annual incomes can get taxpayer support. 
• The article quotes an insurance broker in Iowa who has a lot of clients with net worth between $2 million and $5 million, wealth and assets they have in the form of farmland or assets they received from divorce settlements but have low annual income levels.
• Thus, according to Obama Care, you can be worth millions of dollars in assets but still get taxpayer subsidized Medicaid benefits: “It [Medicaid] was designed to help the lower-income population. But without the asset test, there are folks that have the financial means and assets there that are good at figuring out how to work the system and capture a benefit they’re entitled to.”
• The Iowa insurance agent tells the story of an Iowa woman who received $1.5 million in land and received another $500,000 from a divorce settlement, both assets of which went into a trust and thus, is not reportable as income. This enabled her to get taxpayer subsidized Medicaid insurance coverage.
• CNBC reported earlier this year on the subject, citing a Florida financial advisor who was helping millionaire clients to get Medicaid coverage including one client who had a net worth in assets totally millions of dollars but was still able to get a monthly subsidy of $423 a month, courtesy of the taxpayers of America.

Just when you think you have found out of the possible ways Obama Care could screw things up, a new, original one springs to life. Taxpayer subsidies for millionaires, who would have thought that the legislation could be written that badly? 

That will do it for this month as the disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written just keep oncoming.More disasters next month, for sure.

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

January, 2016, Part 3, By The Numbers: Gun Control Is Not A Priority, Raising Tax Rates Reduces Tax Collections and More

This is the first post this month in our continuing theme of “by the numbers.” We do this theme occasionally where we look at the reality of the numbers in the world and not the lies, deceptions, and spin of the American political class. I used to work for a boss whose favorite quote was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” By looking at the statistics, trends, and numbers in our world we can cut through the politicians’ smoke screen to truly understand what is going on and hopefully, remedy the issues of the day.

And there will be a lot of smoke to cut through in these posts. Always believe the numbers before you believe our politicians, numbers do not lie but politicians do.

1) We have often shown that when politicians raise taxes in order to get more tax revenue, the overall level of tax revenue received usually drops. For instance, we once reported how the state government of Maryland raised the state income tax level on millionaires residing in Maryland. Within a short amount of time, the total amount of tax revenue collected from state millionaires actually dropped even though the tax rate was higher. The details of this insanity can be seen at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/12/day-7-eight-days-of-logic-and-sanity.html

The reason for this apparently wrong reality is that people are not stupid. They want to keep as much of their wealth as possible. Thus, when the state of Maryland raised taxes on rich people those rich people simply moved away, resulting in fewer Maryland millionaires and less tax revenue from state millionaires. It is that simple.

And cigarette smokers are not stupid either. Put too much tax on their cigarette purchases and overall tax revenue goes down rather than up, as a recent Daily Caller article by Guy Bentley shows. According to Bentley:

• New York lost $400 million in taxes from cigarettes after imposing the highest cigarette tax in the nation on sales of packs in the state.
• The tax resulted in an average cost of $10.66 per pack of cigarettes in the state.
• Cigarette taxes in the state are up 190% in the past decade or so.
• Despite the 190% increase in taxes, the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimates that the state government has lost $400 million in cigarette revenue over the past five years.
• A separate study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine estimates that the state lost far more in tax revenue, namely $1.3 billion each YEAR, because smokers switched to less expensive alternatives.
• These cheaper alternatives included turning to black market and organized crime criminal enterprises to buy cigarettes, crossing state lines to buy them, or buying less expensive brands of cigarettes from Native American outlets.
• The number of cigarette packs bought paying the full tax has also dropped by 62%.
• And as always, increased taxation always hits the poorest in our society the hardest with smoker households earning less than $30,000 a year spending a whopping 23.6% of their annual household income on cigarettes in 2010-2011, up from only 11.6% in 2003-2004, according to the New York State Department of Health. 
• Smoker households earning over $60,000 spend on average 2.2% of their annual income on cigarettes. 

As with most government actions, the numbers prove again that their action never resolves the original problem (in this case stopping people from smoking since they just go to other sources for their nicotine), raising taxes results in LESS government revenue, and criminal enterprises are given an opportunity to make obscene profits.

2) According to a January 5, 2016 article on the Political Outcast website, a recent Gallup poll shows that only 2% of Americans think that gun control is the major issue in their lives despite the fact that Obama and his administration are fixated on imposing illegal and un-Constitutional gun controls on the nation. The most important problems facing the country today according to the Gallup study is:

1. Politics/Congress/Government - 16%
2. Economy in general - 13%
3. Jobs/employment - 8%
4. Immigration - 8%
5. Healthcare - 6%
6. Ethics/Moral decline - 5%
7. Race Relations/Racism - 5%
8. Terrorism - 5%
9. Federal budget deficit/national debt - 5%
10. Education - 3%
11. Poverty/homelessness/hunger - 3%
12. National Security - 3%
13. Gap between rich and poor - 3%
14. Crime/violence - 3%
15. Foreign aid/focus on overseas - 3%
16. Situation on Iraq/ISIS - 3%
17. Seven other issues tied with 2% including gun control

Thus, there are at least sixteen issues that Americans rank as more important than gun control. And yet, Obama continues to fixate on an issue that is so minor in most Americans lives. Probably because he has no clue on how to fix the sixteen issues ranked more important than gun control.

What I find particularly ironic is that the number one issue in Americans’ ranking the major issues is government and politicians. So, Obama is trying to fix a problem that is minor in Americans’ eyes even though he is part of the largest perceived issue of our times.

3) CNBC recently reported that mortgage applications have dropped a whopping 27% during the past two weeks after the Fed’s first rate hike in almost ten years, a further indication that the economy is on the verge of a slowdown. 

4) In another number indicating an economic slowdown, the cost of a barrel of oil recently hit $35, the lowest price in the past 11 years. The price dipped 6% in just one day recently because of any number of world wide factors.

5) Throughout the life of this blog we have lamented the reality that the Washington political class has no ability or intention to get the nation’s runaway national debt under control. The debt level is now over $18.3 TRILLION with an amazing and depressing $8 TRILLION of that debt coming during the Obama administration. This comes out to about $160,000 per U.S. family.

According to a recent MoneyNews article, the U.S. Federal government will have to refinance about $3.5 TRILLION in 2016 to pay off expiring debt. This is equivalent to every American family writing a check for about $30,000 just to tread water with current debt. As these numbers make it so clear, at some point the debt burden in this country will crush the economy, our democracy, and our futures.

Oh, and by the way, if you had $18.3 TRILLION single dollar bills and laid them end to end, they would circle the earth about 70,000 times. If you laid them end to end and pointed them to the moon, you would have over 7,000 strings of dollar bills hitting the moon. That is a lot of debt.

6) The Obama administration via mostly his Justice Department has said that it will vigorously investigate and prosecute real and imagined attacks, slurs, and affronts against Muslims throughout the country that are religion based. While this attitude has the potential of sending government agents out on witch hunts looking for Americans who were simply expressing an opinion, that is not the biggest problem with this “protect Muslims from religious persecution” attitude, as the numbers show.

First of all, if the President wants to protect people based on their religion, as the President of ALL Americans he should not be restricting his government agents and Justice Department to attacks solely against Muslims. Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc. should also get this same type of protection, not just Muslims. In reality, if any religion should be protected it should be Jewish Americans. According to a recent FBI investigation and report, in 2014 more than half of all hate crimes based on religion were against Jews, 56.8%, despite the fact that Jews represent less than 2% of the American population.

In 2014, 16% of religion based hate crimes were against Muslims. Since Muslims and Jews account for about the same percentage of the American population, Jews are about three and a half times more likely to be subjected to a hate crime based on religion than Muslims. And yet the President ignores these numbers to give very special protection and attention to Muslims.

That will do it for today's by the numbers. Today we learned that raising taxes actually can reduce tax revenue, that gun control is way down the list of Americans’ concerns, the economy might be tanking if we measure it by falling mortgage volumes and falling oil prices, and our debt load is still stifling. The  numbers are in and the numbers are not good, as we have shown over the past three days. Term limits anyone:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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