BluntPolitics.com

This weekend on the pundit shows (except FOX) President Obama pitched the same spiel on health care reform which is chalk full of inaccuracies. For example, a revenue neutral bill. How can you give 30-50 million people health insurance or health care without it costing money? The neutral part comes in taxes or mandates.  A tax is defined as: noun

–verb (used with object)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tax

Thus, forcing people to purchase insurance is a tax. These type of taxes are referred to as mandates. Mandates are the same as forcing someone to purchase insurance and thus is a tax.

On Sunday George Stephanopolus ask President Obama about forcing people who  don’t want to buy insurance if they were being taxed. The President was caught off guard and in typical socialistic fashion debated whether this was a tax or not!!! When you force people to pay for something they don’t choose it is a tax.

Huge middle-class tax increase:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgBzmoo9izw

How can we trust this president?

Technorati Tags: barack obama,spying on americans,whitehouse,collecting americans data on social network sites

(Folks this is an amazing article)

EXCLUSIVE:

Audrey Hudson (Contact)

EXCLUSIVE:

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House signaled that it would insist on open dealings with Internet users and, in fact, should feel obliged to disclose that it is collecting such information.

“The White House has not been adequately transparent, particularly on how it makes use of new social media techniques, such as this example,” he said.

Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to “crawl and archive” all such material. Nicholas Shapiro, a White House spokesman, declined to say when the practice began or how much the new contract would cost.

Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for National Archives and Records Administration, said the presidential records law applies to “social media” and to public comments “received by the president or immediate staff.”

Mr. Obama signed a memo in January stating that his efforts to maintain an open government would be “unprecedented” and “ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration.”

An Obama campaign document on technology pledged that, as president, Mr. Obama “will strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and will harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy.”

In a June 5, 2008, article in PC Magazine, Mr. Obama said, “The open information platforms of the 21st century can also tempt institutions to violate the privacy of citizens. We need sensible safeguards that protect privacy in this dynamic new world.”

The National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, said archiving the sites would have a “chilling effect” on Web site users who might wish to leave comments critical of the administration.

Ken Boehm, a lawyer and chairman of the center, also disputed that the presidential records law applies, because the comments are pasted onto a third-party Web page and not official correspondence with the president.

“If the White House has nothing to hide, why is this cloaked in secrecy? Why won’t they make the dollar amount this is going to cost public?” Mr. Boehm asked. “I don’t think there is an expectation that this is being captured by the government and saved.”

But Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, called the proposal “a positive development because it demonstrates a commitment from the Obama administration to meet its obligations under the Presidential Records Act.”

“Additionally, I am encouraged to see the administration recognizing that it must find a way to handle the ever-expanding amount of data generated electronically. I hope the rest of the executive branch will learn from the president’s leadership on this issue,” Ms. McDermott said.

Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, called for congressional oversight of the practice of collecting data.

“Given the administration’s disappointing secrecy in other contexts, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee encourages Congress to conduct oversight to ensure compliance with the law, maximize transparency and protect individual privacy,” Mr. Buttar said.

According to the law, the term “presidential records” means documentary materials “created or received by the president, his immediate staff or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise and assist the president, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.”

“It includes any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the president or members of his staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President,” the law says.

David Almacy, who served as President George W. Bush’s Internet director, said the Bush administration did not use the then-fledgling social-networking sites in the same manner as the Obama White House, except to upload presidential speeches onto iTunes. The White House, however, did archive comments posted to its official Web site.

The proposal issued Aug. 21 calls for a contractor to “crawl and archive” social-networking Web sites where the White House maintains an official presence on seven networks: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and Slideshare.

The collection will include the comments, tags, graphics, audio and video posted by users who don’t work for the White House.

The White House has more than 333,000 fans on Facebook, and posts updates several times a day that draw hundreds of thousands of comments, both positive and negative. The White House has more than 1 million followers on Twitter and more than 87,000 subscribers on YouTube, where more than 400 videos of the president and White House briefings are posted.

Folks,

The left wing of the democrat party is on the attack. Obama certainly falls into this category even though he ran in the middle. Last week in his several conferences, President Obama mentioned that doctors were theives by just giving people tests to protect their backsides! Next he spoke about the insurance carriers and how they “ration” care by getting in the way of you and the doctor etc. When I was in Canada on the drive last week with some agent friends I said that you will see the democrats now attempting to demonize the insurance carriers and then agents. Today Nancy Pelosi attacked the carriers outright saying the carrier control of health care was almost immoral. Well guess you are next since you deliver insurance policies thus are you immoral? I hope you are offended and call your Representative and complain about this treatment.

They are desperate folks and the new tobacco is the rich (defined as those who create jobs), insurance carriers and then the agent!

We called our Representatives and asked them to stop by our office and “meet the folks they are going to put out of business” and they did! You can do the same. If you don’t call, write, get involved and let others carry the fight you deserve to lose your job, career and retirement if the “left wing” gets their way of having a government run program.

This fight goes deeper than control of health care. The left wing believes in fairness for all. The problem is that in America where we have individual choices over our destiny (Judge Sotomayer proves this) fairness is impossible unless you force everyone into a government run program. Then fairness can be achieved however, the loss is our freedoms. Freedom of choice, freedom to choose the doctor, freedom to go to the doctor without rationing and others telling me what they will pay for! If you read the book 1776 you will clearly see that this country rebelled from government control in the lives of people because it translates into limiting choices. This fight is about freedom and individual choice versus fairness. Fairness is like persuing the elusive happiness because happiness is usually defined by those who are in control and so is fairness.

Speak up

By Ric Joyner, CEBS, GBA, CFCI

Inside the beltway information is showing the Democrats are up against the wall with rising unemployment, cap and trade (tax on energy), health care and a deficit that is the biggest in history. Their constituents are speaking up against the “change” agenda that could stop job growth. With that said, the House came out with today with their version of Health Care Reform. A synopsis of the bill from Kilpatrick Stockton follows.

—————————————————————————————–

Mark Stember, JD

While the Senate committees have been bogged down with discussions over taxing employer provided health coverage, the House Ways and Means Committee has been furiously working on a draft health care bill that uses a different funding source.  Today, the House Ways and Means Committee released a draft health care reform bill that is projected to cost approximately $1 Trillion over 10 years.  The main funding source for this draft bill is a surtax on high income individuals.  The graduated surtax starts at 1% for married couples with incomes over $350,000 and tops out at 5.4% for married couples with incomes greater than $1 Million.  The surtax is expected to raise slightly over half of the cost of the legislation.  

Other highlights of the draft bill include the following:

•  
  • Individuals will be required to purchase health coverage, or pay an income tax penalty.
  • Employers will be required to either provide health insurance coverage that meets certain minimum benefit and contribution requirements, or pay a penalty based on 8% of their payroll.  The minimum employer contribution would be 72.5% for individual coverage and 65% for family coverage.  The minimum benefits include preventive care with no cost sharing, as well as dental and vision coverage for children.  Annual out of pocket maximums are also capped.
  • The legislation would create a public health insurance option.
  • Pre-ex exclusions would be prohibited.
  • Changes are made to Medicare and the Medicare Part D benefit is improved.

While the draft bill is comprehensive in both size and scope (dropping in at over 1,000 pages), it is only a starting point.  The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a mark-up for later this week, and it must be voted on by the entire committee, and then the full House.  Afterwards, it would need to be reconciled with whatever bill is voted out of committee and then approved by the full Senate.  We are still hearing that the leadership would like to have the full House and Senate have their respective bills done by the August recess.  However, even with today’s release, that timeline still appears to be aggressive.

The employee benefits committee of KS has a summary of the bill at this link.

By Ric Joyner

eflex employees were told in meetings of the Senate Finance Committees plans to eliminate or cap employer tax breaks on employee benefits. After sharing this information with employees, and the impact that the cuts would have on them, they immediately asked what they could do to let help. Then we let them know that flex plans (FSAs) could lose its tax savings and eliminate our industry! Of course they were upset and began to let their voices be known to their Congressional Representatives.  www.house.gov and www.senate.gov

Here is the video the staff put together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFOrHR637Qo&feature=channel_page

Please consider writing your representative. Here is a step by step guide.

http://napba.org/Flexplan.html

For a survey that you can send to your clients and they can pass on to their employees: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229BAUR6MBC We are including this survey on each of our emails to customers and to clients. We will collect the data and send along to Congress.

Thanks again and pass this information along to clients, friends, and colleagues!

June 19, 2009

By DAVID HOGBERG
Investor’s Business Daily

Even as health care reform slows in the Senate over huge program costs, House Democrats doubled down Friday, betting on a more-expansive plan while offering few clues on how to pay for it.

Members from the House Ways and Means; Education and Labor; and Energy and Commerce committees released a “discussion draft” bill that reads like a reform wish list that will appeal to the Democrats’ base. It includes a public plan, a Medicaid expansion, subsidies for those up to 400% of the federal poverty level, and individual and employer mandates. Democrats expect it to cover about 95% of Americans.

It also might prove more costly than those of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that those bills would each cost over $1 trillion, while leaving tens of millions of people without coverage.

That sent Baucus back to the drawing board, announcing his Finance Committee would delay its hearings until after July 4.

He isn’t the only one pushing dates back. President Obama has backed off his July 31 deadline for getting a reform bill to his desk.

“I don’t think it’s a surprise that this is going to take some time to do. It’s an issue that we’ve been discussing for 40 years,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “The president isn’t pessimistic about being able to get this through Congress this year.”

House Bill’s Cost Unknown

The CBO has yet to score the cost of a public plan or increasing Medicaid eligibility to 133% of the federal poverty level, as the House Democrat plan proposes.

Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said, “We’re going to pay for this bill. We’re going to pay for it by cutting down on expenditures in public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and by reforms in the system that will hold down costs for everyone. And we’re going to pay for it with revenues.”

On the latter point, Ways and Means and other House panels are mulling a variety of tax hikes to pay for health care, including a value-added tax and a soda levy.

Tax hikes could be politically poisonous and cut the legs out from a tentative economic recovery. But the public also is increasingly worried about soaring budget deficits.

Also, a health plan would need 51 Senate votes if it’s fully paid for — but 60 if it’s not.

A previous CBO report concluded that some Democrat reforms would save money. The employer mandate and community rating would increase federal revenues by $48 billion and $5 billion, respectively, over 10 years. Requiring drugmakers to give the same rebate to Medicare Part D that they give to Medicaid would save $110 billion.

But the Democrats’ plan increases costs by closing the “donut hole” in Medicare Part D and eliminating annual Medicare physician payment cuts. CBO estimated that doing the latter would cost at least $318 billion over 10 years.

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., chairman of the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, was noncommittal on the cost of reform.

“We haven’t figured out exactly where we want that line to be,” he said when asked if the House would have to keep the cost at about $1 trillion. “A lot may depend on the level of cuts and savings. We don’t have CBO scores, so we really can’t say at this point.”

Baucus Balks

CBO scoring compelled Sen. Baucus to rework his plan. A new draft leaked to the media showed he had cut subsidies from 400% of poverty to 300% and Medicaid’s expansion from 150% of poverty to 133%.

Liberal Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein took the CBO score of the Baucus plan as a bad sign. “(H)ealth reform has just gotten harder. The hope that we could expand the current system while holding costs down appears to have been just that: a hope.”

At least one key House lawmaker seems unfazed.

“Everything is on the table. Nothing is locked in cement,” said Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. “I’ve been here a long time. We’ve got momentum.”

First, what did Barack say regarding “state-ism” and second what is state-ism? Barack said (paraphrase) “that rich people did very well and could afford to be taxed more on their giving because they gained from the economy”.The problem with this thinking is that these people gained in a good economy because of right choices and their individual circumstance. Not because the “state” gave this to them. These people don’t owe the government anything more than a small obligation. This leads into statism. State-ism is where liberal left wing progressives (backwards) want everyone to get their “sustenance” from the state. Healthcare, money, jobs everything. This type of thinking destroys invidual achievement and dignity. Yes dignity. When people are faced with hardship they change and have two choices. Either they make right choices or make wrong choices. State-ism wants to stop people from making wrong choices thus crippling their growth.

This thinking is leads directly to socialism (state welfare society) and then to communism. God help us.

Yes. He hopes that by taxing the rich, and corporations that the job loss will trickle down to the rest of the country putting thousands out of work. Then he can put those people to work building bridges and roads thus keeping them enslaved to the government. Sound sarcastic? It is not meant to be because fear of Obama’s taxes and capitol gains increases is driving away investors to the market. These fears are only making a bad economy worse.

Read the article by Investors Business Daily today:

VIEWPOINT

Stocks Pay Price Of Coming Tax Increases

GROVER G. NORQUIST

   Some Americans are concerned that if Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, his plans for higher taxes on personal income, capital gains, dividends and corporations will damage the economy.
   It is a little late to be worrying about this. We are already in the midst of the Obama recession. But to be fair, we should give House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at least equal billing.
   Why has the stock market collapsed? Why wouldn’t it?
   In 2003, the Dow stood at about 8000. The then-Republican Congress and President Bush reduced the capital gains tax to 15% from 20% and the tax on dividends to 15% from 35%. In the next three years, the Dow rose 50% to 12,000, and household net worth rose to $56 trillion from $40 trillion.
   This is the “wealth effect” of taxation. If you own stock in a company and the tax on earnings by that company is reduced, the value of the stock increases. If taxation on the company is increased, you would pay less for the same stock.
   Microsoft stock is worth less if you attach the boat anchor of higher capital gains taxes, higher corporate income taxes and higher dividend taxes. But this is not what will happen if Obama is elected. It’s what already happened on Nov. 7, 2006, when Democrats won the majorities in the House and Senate.
   The tax cuts of 2003 that sparked the increase in national wealth are scheduled to end on Jan. 1, 2011. It does not require a President Obama to make those taxes increase. All it requires is for the Democrats to control either the House or the Senate with enough votes to stop legislation to extend the tax cuts.
   And the top individual tax rate, now at 35% but also paid by many small businesses, will snap back up to Bill Clinton’s 39.6% on Jan. 1, 2011.
   Pelosi and Reid both voted against the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. We know where they stand. Every Democrat in the House and Senate has voted repeatedly for higher taxes since that party became the majority in January 2007, and House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel has unveiled his “mother of all tax hikes” to increase taxes by $38 billion over 10 years.
   Presidents don’t cut taxes or raise taxes. They sign the bills sent to them by Congress.
   Obama originally campaigned for raising the dividend tax to 39.6% from 15%. Then, when his contributors from Wall Street pointed out how devastating that would be to the stock market, he changed his rhetoric to calling for an increase to “only” 20%. But if Congress does nothing, the dividend tax increases to 39.6% on Jan. 1, 2011.
   Americans for Tax Reform worked with John Rutledge to calculate how Obama’s and McCain’s tax policies would affect the stock market. The calculator appears at ATR’s Web site, www.atr.org.
   You can enter the size of your 401(k), and it will calculate its value under four different scenarios: if Obama’s tax increases pass; if McCain’s tax cuts are enacted; if Congress’ plans are enacted; and if Americans for Tax Reform’s fantasy tax cuts, including abolishing the capital gains tax, were made law.
   The Obama tax plan will reduce the value of the stock market and your 401(k) by 6%. The House Democrat plan will drop the market by 16%. Remember, Obama cannot impose his tax plan — he has to sign what Congress sends him, so Congress’ tax plans are more important than Obama’s campaign speeches.
   If Republicans won the House and Senate and McCain’s tax plans were enacted, the market and your 401(k) would increase by 46%. And if you pass the McCain plan and add ATR’s abolition of the capital gains and dividends tax, the market and your 401(k) would increase by 58%.
   But the market can read the newspapers and is aware that the Democrats control the House and Senate now and likely will for the next two years. This means the market gains since 2003 due to lower capital gains and dividend taxes will disappear.
   The market has already begun to drop in anticipation of the coming tax increases. The Pelosi-Reid-Obama recession has already started.
   Of course, if Obama and the Democrat leaders in Congress have tax hikes and regulatory burdens planned that they haven’t shared publicly, the market will drop even further. It can get worse.
   
Norquist

is president of Americans for Tax Reform and author of “Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.”

I remember when conservatives were deemed by the left… neo-cons. I had to research what this meant.

What do neoconservatives believe?

“Neo-cons” believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action. Source Christian Science Monitor downloaded today at 10:03pm http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html

I have come up with the left wing Democrats version of neo con. Neo Comms aka Neo Communists.

What do Neo Comms believe:

“We want our country to be liked by Europe, and thus we want to model our society after the government-run societies of Europe which are built on fairness. Since Americans don’t really understand socialism we can create government programs that will “take care of people”, and make them beholden to us thus Americans will elect our philosophies, and thus move American toward communism instead of consumerism”.  Our tag line is: “You deserve more taxes because we say so.”

Scary…

By Ric Joyner

Yes. How? By giving a tax break to people who don’t pay taxes now. This is buying votes. This is putting people on welfare. This is socialism.

McCain has it right. Give businesses a tax break and they will put people to work. Smart.

Barack gives money away which isn’t his to give.

I found this comment on the web which is funny and sad:

The Democratic Party: We do everything for the children, including aborting them

The Democratic Party - We’re so compassionate, we give YOUR money to the poor (er, whatever’s left)!

The Democrat Party - Give us your tired, your weak, and your poor, we’ll make ‘em worse off.