Love My Country, Loathe My Government: lebanon

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Saturday, March 23, 2024

We All Now Live On A Tax Farm

It is tax season and most of us are probably going through the annual tax preparation headache. As you go through this process, which can be quite expensive given how well or how poorly you do your tax planning, keep in mind the following few realities:

Reality Number 1 - I recently came across a concept that is quite appropriate for tax season. The concept maintains that we no longer live in a free society or free country where we are free to keep the vast majority of our earnings for use by ourselves and our families. It maintains that we are now nothing more than a “tax farm” in which politicians reap the result of our hard earned dollars via extensive taxation, to spend on usually wasteful, non-productive, and ways that have usually no direct or any benefit to ourselves and our families.

This “tax farm” theory hypothesizes that we have devolved into such a state in this country where we are now subservient to the tax burden that politicians increasingly seem to place on us. In other words, we are not free individuals any more, we are tools of the state and the politicians and government bureaucrats that operate that state.

Reality Number 2 - While your focus these days is probably on Federal and state income tax realities, those are just a few of the many, many taxes on the tax farm that the American political class imposes on all of us, as the following, non-comprehensive, list of taxes illustrates:

Federal Income Tax
State Income Tax
State Sales Tax
City Sales Tax
Property Tax
Unearned Income (interest and dividend) Taxes
Alternative Minimum Tax
Business Taxes
Social Security Tax
Medicare Tax
Estate Tax
Inheritance Tax
Lodging Tax
Capital Gains Tax
Unemployment Tax
Sin Taxes
Gas Tax
Gift Tax
Home Sale Tax
Drive License Fee (yes, a government “fee” is just another word for “tax”)
Fishing License Fee
Hunting License Fee
Boat License Fee
Gun Registration Fee
Tollway Tolls
Car Registration Fee
Obama Care Tax and Fees
Federal Telecommunication Taxes

Just to re-emphasize, this is probably not a comprehensive list of government taxes, fees, and licenses.

Reality Number 3 - On average, how do these taxes translate into how much money the average citizen pays to any form of American government? The big hitters are as follows:

Average effective Federal income tax burden - 10.6%
Average effective state and local tax burden including state income tax, property tax, and sales tax - 11.75%
Social Security and Medicare tax burden - 7.65%
Tax burden from just these three tax sources - 30%.

So, before you pay any taxes on your cigarette and alcohol consumption, the gas for your car, your fishing licenses, and the other twenty or so taxes listed above, you have already given the American political class 30% of your income. It is probably safe to say, depending on your life situation, upwards of 40% of all money you earn each year is taken away for government use.

Reality Number 4 - And where and how is this money spent? Consider just a very, very short list of examples of government expenditures:

$75 billion dollars sent to fight the Russians in Ukraine, a war that Biden/Washington has neither the intelligence, the skill, the desire, or the ability to resolve.
$170,221,103 sent to Egypt, a military dictatorship (fiscal 2022)
$187,797,256 sent to Lebanon, the home base of the terrorist group, Hezbelloah (fiscal 2022)
$18 billion sent to the United Nations (fiscal 2022), a dysfunctional, useless, and expensive waste of money with no track record of success.
$200 million sent to San Francisco to renovate the Presidio city park AND the Presidio Country Club, an exclusive, millionaire private golf country club, in Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district.
Biden’s State Department is going to spend $15 million to create “gender scholarship programs” at Egypt and Lebanon universities to promote gender studies.
The U.S. State Department has provided American taxpayer dollars to a “queer” Muslim organization in India to provide “LGBTQWI” people in the region with a online platform to write.
Untold billions of dollars have already been spent to feed, shelter, and service the 8 million or so illegal immigrants that have entered the country since Biden took office.

Reality Number 5 - While politicians are spending our tax wealth on golf courses, unwinnable wars, and foreign aid, consider the situation millions of Americans find themselves in right now:

About 600,000 Americans, including kids and veterans, are homeless today.
Studies show that upwards of 17 million Americans are having challenges feeding their families, given the food inflation reality of the Biden administration.
Probably close to 200,000 Americans will die of a drug overdose this year.
Millions of Americans still cannot afford health insurance which is likely restricting their medical and health options.

Reality Number 6 - So as you file your income taxes in the coming weeks, consider how a lot of your money will likely be spent and wasted by a greedy, inept and self enriching political class and how that money could have been so much better used if it stayed in your pocket or at least helped the millions of Americans in need.

Oh, also keep all of these realities in mind in November when you vote and decide if you want to continue to be part of this national “tax farm.”

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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:

https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom

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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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

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

Sunday, October 8, 2023

October, 2023, By The Numbers, Part 1: Wasteful Spending While Neglecting Americans In Need, A Washington Tradition

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political class tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. We look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.

1)Too many times we have discussed the reality that:

At any time there are about 600,000 homeless Americans living on the streets of America.
Millions of Americans are food stressed given the rapidly rising cost of food in this country.
Millions of Americans have unmet drug addiction and medical needs.

Yes, millions of Americans are suffering. Rather than help these folks, the Biden administration thinks it has a better use for taxpayer wealth:

Biden’s State Department is going to spend $15 million to create “gender scholarship programs” at Egypt and Lebanon universities to promote gender studies.
This money will be spent over a 5 year period.
This is in addition to the $170,221,103 that U.S taxpayers sent to Egypt in 2023 and the $187,797,256 that was sent to Lebanon.

Unbelievable, $15 million for gender studies halfway around the world while Americans go hungry and homeless. That $15 million could provide about 5.1 million meals to America’s homeless population of about 8-9 meals to everyone of those 600,000 homeless Americans. Getting even more atrocious, the $170 million sent to Egypt and the $188 million sent to Lebanon could have:

Provided almost 122 million meals to America’s homeless population or about 202 nutritious meals to every one of America’s homeless population.
That same amount of wealth could have provided a year’s worth of drug addiction treatment to about 55,000 American drug addicts which likely would save thousands of American lives every year.

Just another example where foreign aid and gender studies are more important to Washington politicians than the needs of Americans who are hungry, homeless and addicted. Disgusting priorities.

2)It is not just us who are disgusted and fed up with the horrid priorities of Washington politicians:

According to a recent Gallup poll, 63% of those polled agreed that a credible third political party was desired, given the continued failures of the current two dominant political parties.
This was a whopping 7% jump from the same poll that was conducted a year ago.
75% of independent voters think that a third party is needed.

No doubt that the current two dominant parties have earned this disrespect and the desire to get alternative choices out into the political arena.

3) During the COVID emergency, the country basically shut down. Factories were closed, government offices were shut down, people stayed at home and did their work remotely, both in the private sector and in government organizations. But as always, that did not stop the Federal government from wasting money on stupid expenditures during the shutdown period:

The Centers for Disease Control spent $237,960 to buy 30 solar powered picnic tables even though the vast majority of its workforce were working from home.
The State Department spent $117,250 for 40 high end Ethan Allen leather recliners for its embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, obviously raising the question on why are over three dozen leather recliners required in any embassy during the days of COVID or anytime?
FEMA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency combined spent $497,828 to spruce up empty conference rooms that were not used since most employees were still working at home.
In total, the Federal government spent $3.3 billion on new office furniture during the COVID years even though there were few Federal government employees around to use the new furniture.
The most outrageous expenditure was the $15 million the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. spent on new furniture, about $14,400 for EVERY one of its employees.
At least one member of Congress sees the insanity of this furniture and decorating spending, since House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told The Washington Post: “Excessive spending on luxurious furniture when more than half the federal workforce was teleworking is just symptomatic of a culture of wasteful spending that has plagued Washington, DC, for decades. The ‘use it or lose it’ policy encourages unnecessary spending because agencies are penalized, instead [of] rewarded, for not spending all their end-of-year funds. This is just one of the many perverse incentives that drive irresponsible spending in our nation’s Capital — and it has to stop.”

Every time you turn around, Washington is wasting our tax revenue on something stupid or unneeded and government furniture purchases are consistent with this tradition of waste. $14,400 in furniture expense for EVERY employee?! Give me a break.

4)We have previously discussed the following numbers in other posts but it is worthwhile to do so again:

In the past two years of the Biden Presidency overall inflation is up about 17%.
Grocery inflation is up around 20%.
Gasoline inflation is up about 50%.
And thus, not surprisingly, the U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that the poverty rate in this country has jumped to 12.4% in 2022, up from 7.8% in 2021.
This was the first increase in 13 years.

Way to go Joe, making the country poorer and poverty stricken every day.

That will do it for today’s numbers and it is obvious that the numbers under the current Washington politicians are not good: inflation, poverty, wasteful spending, neglecting Americans in need, and the desire for change via a third party political choice, the numbers do not lie…even though politicians do.

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