Taxation

Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care – WSJ.com

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The party of the left owns the White House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a 70-seat House majority. As one House Republican aide quipped: “We could have every GOP congressman and their parents vote against a Democratic bill, and still not stop it.” All Democrats have to do is agree on something.

You can’t blame the GOP when you own every Washington institution.

That they can’t is testimony to Team Obama’s mismanagement of its first big legislative project. The president is a skilled politician and orator, but the real test of a new administration is whether it can shepherd a high-stakes bill through Congress. In retrospect, the mistakes are growing clear.

via Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care – WSJ.com.

Urine Test for Welfare Recipients – There Oughtta Be a Law

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Here’s a good common sense email going around…

THE JOB – URINE TEST

Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay  me.. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don’t have to pass a urine test.

So here is my Question.  Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?

Understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their rump–doing drugs, while I work. . . . Can you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

We could title that program, ‘Urine or You’re Out’.

A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com

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The level of anger should be rising. These clowns need to be out before this goes through. Call your senators.

Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.

via A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com.

A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com

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Mr. Obama’s February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren’t nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.

via A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com.

Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Long-Term Budget Outlook

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Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy. The following chart shows our projection of federal debt relative to GDP under the two scenarios we modeled.

via Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Long-Term Budget Outlook.

CBO: The Long-Term Budget Outlook

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Measured relative to GDP, almost all of the projected growth in federal spending other than interest payments on the debt stems from the three largest entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

via Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Long-Term Budget Outlook.

Foreclosures at record high in first half 2009 despite aid – Yahoo! News

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U.S. home foreclosure activity galloped to a record in the first half of the year, overwhelming broad efforts to remedy failing loans while job losses escalated.

Foreclosure filings jumped to a record 1.9 million on more than 1.5 million properties in the first six months of the year, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

The number of properties drawing filings, which include notices of default and auctions, jumped 9.0 percent from the second half of 2008 and almost 15 percent from the first half of last year.

“Despite everybody’s best efforts to date we’re not really making any headway against the problem,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

via Foreclosures at record high in first half 2009 despite aid – Yahoo! News.

DEM HEALTH RX A POI$ON PILL IN NY – New York Post

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Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state’s top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

via DEM HEALTH RX A POI$ON PILL IN NY – New York Post.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor’s Business Daily — It’s Not An Option

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The healthcare (or lack thereof) must be defeated! Call your senators.

It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

via IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor’s Business Daily — It’s Not An Option.

Democrats want to impose “surtax” to finance health care – WSJ.com

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A new study by the Kaufman Foundation finds that small business entrepreneurs have led America out of its last seven post-World War II recessions. They also generate about two of every three new jobs during a recovery. The more the Obama Democrats reveal of their policies, the more it’s clear that they prize income redistribution above all else, including job creation and economic growth.

via Democrats want to impose “surtax” to finance health care – WSJ.com.