*Breathe* HAHAHAHAHA *gasp for MORE breath* HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… *breathe* HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA….HAHAHA

Feb 15 2012 Published by under salt

Obama’s new, green, budget director, Mr. Zeints, looks like he wishes took that offer from H&R Block. Watch him SHRINK as this GOP Rep just NAILS him into undercutting the VERY ARGUMENT the Obama Administration is making to the SUPREME COURT in support of ObamaCare, never mind their whole 2012 campaign of class warfare! OMG. It’s BEAUTIFUL.  Really. I need to go have a glass of water and a little nap it made me so happy.

 

No responses yet

Can Someone Explain?

Jan 25 2012 Published by under salt

UPDATE, THU JAN 26, 2012, EARLY AM:

My goodness but we have lots of cranky libs!  This is not a surprise, per se, but a bit of a surprise that they are so free flowing with their crankitude on my itty-bitty corner of cyberspace.  PLEASE see my SOURCED replies in comments below, in my years long effort to correct lib myths.

Help me, some wicked smaht lib, will ya?

How do you reconcile these seemingly opposing memes from Our Dear Leader:

We don’t want to “punish” success. We simply want to see to it that everyone gets a “fair opportunity at the American Dream” which we describe, in part, as being able to “pay for your children to go to college” and to have the “dignity” of a “secure retirement.”

BUT, this will cost boatloads of money, which, if you “hoard” it, makes you a selfish pr*ck and I will tax your ass back to the stone age… which sounds an awful lot like “punishing” you, right?

So how to make the math work with the rhetoric?  Let’s give it a whack:

Okay - Let’s use the Obamas as an example, since it is a President with the last name Obama who is setting the standard. After all, he wouldn’t be so kingly as to presume that others have less of a dreamy dream than him, right?

Tuition for Malia and Sasha to attend what they regard as the best possible school for them (something the President has said, repeatedly, publicly, is every American child’s “right.”) is $40k per year.

Four years for 2 kids at Sidwell Friends will be $320,000.

If they want to go to Princeton, Columbia, and Harvard like Mom & Dad, all the way, for a J.D. or M.D., that’s another $1,000,000. (Just trust me on this.  I’ve done the math.)

Let’s just round that up to $1.5M because you know that by the time your children actually get there, it’s going to be at least that much. Now, maybe you aren’t the kind of parent who would pay for your child to go all the way to an M.D. or J.D. I know in my own case, my father was not willing to pay for a Masters’ degree for me (I degreed in Professional Writing & Film. Why not become an expert in bat snot on the bottom of Ugg boots in Manhattan in the springtime when the wind blows from the west and go make a living, right?), so not on a professional track and I was just so friggin’ grateful he paid for me to get my B.F.A. it never occurred to me then, nor since, to ever be unhappy about that, but, hey… If you’ve got a kid who can go all the way to be a Harvard M.D. or lawyer, who WOULDN’T want to see that happen, right? So let’s go with it.

Median income in this country is about $60k, give or take, depending on who you talk to or what metric you consult, but let’s just go with it, because it’s a nice easy number to work with.

That’s $5k per month, gross. In order to save $1.5M from the time your little snowflakes are born (let’s say they are twins) until the day they turn 18, you would – EVERY MONTH – have to save (absent compound interest, obviously):

$6,950

($1.5M / 18 years = $83 333.33 / 12 months = $6,944.44)

Oops.

I’m just a knucke-dragging neanderthal conservative, but last time I checked, $7k is more than $5k.

Okay. Let’s say you earn that much. Let’s say you earn TWICE that so you can do something other than live in a box while you save for college.

$14k per month is your income, let’s say.

That’s $168,000 per year. You would have to meticulously save 1/2 your income every month for 18 consecutive years to do that. This is not realistic, eh, mon chere?

So, let’s double THAT to $336,000 so we can get your required monthly savings down to a more reasonable 25% of your income. This is still hard, but at least it’s approaching earth.

Ooops.

That would put you WELL over the magic, evil $250k per couple threshold.

Obama wants to tax you Satans-among-us much, Much, MUCH more.

How we gonna send our little snowflakes to Harvard without having to go to the federal government for a handout like Oliver Twist asking “Please sir, may I have some more” unless we get to keep our money without getting it up the wazoo in taxes? Because, remember, the President was kind enough to criminalize private sector school loans when he got the health care bill passed.

And we haven’t even TOUCHED retirement yet.  JUST TUITION.

Libs?

Bueller?

Anyone?

How does this work?

28 responses so far

GOP Candidates MUST Paint the Picture!

Aug 26 2011 Published by under salt

Why isn’t American business hiring?  

Because I have to look someone in the eye and shake their hand.  I take my responsibility to pay very seriously.  I’ve got a President swearing up and down he’s going to tax people like me more.  I’ve got a President who said, very matter of factly, that my utilities costs to keep the lights on in my business will ‘necessarily skyrocket.’  He’s a threat to my business.  Until the threat is gone, I’m not going to risk everything I’ve busted my ass for by inviting another man (or woman) to join me on the Titanic if it all sinks in ObAmerica.  No. I’m in survival mode right now.  I’m treading water.

Somebody needs to say that – OVER & OVER AGAIN.

No responses yet

Redistribution’s Fatal Flaw

Jul 16 2011 Published by under salt

Redistributionists literally bank on wealth producers continuing to produce at the same rate when their philanthropy turns from voluntary to state taxation but it never, ever works and here’s why; using Barack Obama’s own words:

It’s not a balanced approach.

Quite apart from greed, which is the Socialist term for the drive to accumulate wealth, it’s not quite so nefarious. It’s quite simple, really, and it’s taught to us from childhood (one hopes): Do good and good things will happen. Risk & reward. Work & reward. Capitalism’s system is set up such that your reward can equal your talent. Some people are very, VERY talented.

I celebrate them.

So that’s the REWARD part STAGE ONE: taking care of one’s self & family. IT FEELS GOOD.

The REWARD part STAGE TWO is the satisfaction of knowing you can help your fellow man. Many, MANY men of means give VERY generously. You know why?

BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD. There are, of course, obvious tax advantages, but IT FEELS GOOD.

If the same amount is given over to taxation, THAT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD, therefore the work production of the wealth producer is dampened and less satisfying. They are very nearly FORCED by such a system to be selfish (so-called) and take care of only themselves and not others because the discretionary income normally given over to that is taken from them.

Obama will go to his grave never, ever understanding that.

3 responses so far

NO REPRESENTATION without TAXATION!

May 24 2011 Published by under salt

It’s time to revisit the phrase that founded this nation – in reverse. We’ve got 53% makers & 47% takers in this country. That’s too close to a tipping point, gang. Way, way too close. Obama likes to talk about having a ‘stake in this country’ and ‘equalling the playing field.’ How about everyone having some skin in the game, too? A couple of other prominent Americans had thoughts on the security of our Republic, too:

‘A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other.’

~Thomas Jefferson

‘When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.’

~Benjamin Franklin

From The New York Times:

Is the Fair Tax Herman Cain’s Ace in the Hole?

Today's Economist

Bruce Bartlett has served as an economic adviser in the White House, Treasury and Congress.

Herman Cain, who announced Saturday that he was seeking the Republican nomination for president, spoke in March at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines.Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

On Saturday, the pizza magnate Herman Cain announced that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination. While he has to be considered a long shot, he has something going for him that could make him surprisingly viable: his strong support for the so-called Fair Tax.

The Fair Tax is a proposal that has been kicking around for at least 20 years. It would replace all federal taxes, including income and payroll taxes, with a national retail sales tax similar to those levied by the states. Indeed, a prime virtue of the Fair Tax, in the eyes of its supporters, is that it would be collected by the states, thus allowing for abolition of the hated Internal Revenue Service and an end to filing tax returns or keeping financial records.

No responses yet

Useful Idiots

May 21 2011 Published by under salt

Why is this so hard to understand?

Rich people have money. They are rich. They got rich by knowing how to keep/save/invest/protect their money. Because they have money they can afford lawyers & accountants to shelter their money no matter how onerous the regulation or tax law. If this is done in a business environment, the cost to shelter it (paying the lawyers & accountants) is passed on to the consumer.

DUH.

Every time Washington comes a’gunnin’ for the ‘fat cats’ the fat cats just call their tax attorney.

DUH.

Bam-Bam is poised to push them over the edge, however. Frickin’ ESTONIA is booming for crying out loud. Know why? They CUT taxes on the wealth/job creators and, shockingly, wealth went to Estonia and lifted all boats.

Jesus. This is NOT HARD AMERICA. Hello???? It’s simple friggin’ human goddamned nature. You can’t legislate utopia. You CAN’T.

There’s will ALWAYS be poor people among us. ALWAYS. Life will ALWAYS be unfair. ALWAYS. Didn’t democrats have mothers who told them this?

47% of America pays no federal income taxes. Of the $3+ Trillion this country spent last year over $2 Trillion were DIRECT PAYMENTS TO INDIVIDUALS.

Hello????

It’s NOT capitalism that’s failed. It’s being a ‘little bit pregnant’ with SOCIALISM GODDAMMIT. WAKE THE FRIG UP. It’s not CAPITALISM that caused our CRUSHING DEBT.

Capitalism is the ONLY GODDAMNED THING KEEPING US AFLOAT YOU STUPID FRIGGING MORONS.

You know what else rich people have? THE MEANS TO FLEE. If you’re not getting a government check, that means you are working for an ‘evil rich’ guy. If the ‘evil rich’ guy LEAVES, who you gonna work for? A POOR GUY? REALLY?

THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND, okay? HE’S POOR. P-O-O-R. Hello???

So, ALL the ‘evil rich’ guys LEAVE AMERICA. All you got left is government check, but GOVERNMENT is FUNDED BY THE RICH GUYS.

YOU’RE SCREWED.

Progressives… HAVE YOU EVER, ONCE, IN YOUR WHOLE STUPID, PROPAGANDIZED LIVES, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER EXTRAPOLATED THIS OUT YOURSELVES? EVER?

…I feel better now.

No responses yet

$25 Million OBL/UBL Reward

May 18 2011 Published by under salt

 

I’m up in the middle of the night, listening to Phil Hendrie, who, quite apart from having a red sea of flags about his psychiatric health, is a uniquely gifted radio performer. Having spent 20 years on the air, not doing any heavy lifting at all (music) I really, really respect genuine talent in talkers. Wow.

He’s having one of his fake phone call things he does with himself debating the disposition of the $25 million dollar reward for the capture/killing of Osama Bin Laden. Rep. Weiner is set to propose a bill giving it to first responders. My understanding was that they were taken care of in previous legislation. The families have all been compensated by now as well.

Set up college funds for the children of the Seals and call it a day. This was a uniquely dangerous mission, and from what I understand, they did not know what ‘high value target’ they were getting until it was time to go. I have no idea how this would impact the paradigm of payment to our men & women in uniform, so there may be some unintended consequence of this I just haven’t thought through. I don’t care. Give it to their children so they can afford $40k per year like Bam-Bam does x2 for the girls at Sidwell Friends. From what I understand, top level pay for these guys is only around $58k, so, krymannee.

‘Lil Seal College Fund is my vote.

One response so far

Krug-a-Chug-Chug

May 09 2011 Published by under salt

Sigh… Krugs is at it again. Chuggin’ that Bush-Evil Train around and around… It’s yet more proof of why they call economics the miserable science, or something to that effect.  In liberal-land Bush is responsible for all evils in the world, from recession to warm salad forks.

Yawn…

I submitted the comment below to his column’s (The Unwisdom of Elites) assertion that $2T of the $14T on America’s balance sheet is due to the Bush tax cuts. Kryst… Does he not realize people have Google ferkryssakes!

I’d LOVE to know where you got your $2T Bush tax cut number, big guy, because TWO of your favorite sources for data say YOU ARE WRONG, The Tax Policy Foundation an the CBO:

TPF QUOTE -> MYTH 4. The Bush tax cuts are the main cause of the budget deficit. — …They are NOT the main cause of the sizable deficit that exists today. In 2007, well after the tax cuts took effect, the budget deficit stood at 1.2 percent of GDP. By 2009, it had increased to 9.9 percent of the economy. The Bush tax cuts DIDN’T CHANGE between 2007 and 2009, (‘the last three years’) SO CLEARLY SOMETHING ELSE IS TO BLAME.

TPF SOURCE -> August 3, 2010 50 The Tax Policy Center Five Myths about the Bush Tax Cut ~ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=1001423

CBO QUOTE -> There is NO WAY to precisely identify the actual effects of those tax changes from budget data. Measuring the actual impact of the legislation would require gauging what revenues an economic performance WOULD HAVE BEEN in the absence of the legislation then comparing those outcomes to those that occurred with the legislation. SUCH COMPARISONS ARE IMPOSSIBLE to do with any precision

CBO SOURCE -> The above excerpt was taken from a May 11, 2010 letter from Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director of the C.B.O. to Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and you can find it here -> http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/114xx/doc11492/HincheyLtr.pdf

http://www.anniefields.com/blog

7 responses so far

Don’t Bother Me with FACTS, Charlie!

May 07 2011 Published by under salt


A funny thing happened on the way to the debt ceiling.

Little Timothy Geithner, of the planet Vulcan.gov, found “stronger than expected revenue” had materialized, even in this crappy economy.  Huh…  The never-reported excerpt from his May 2, 2011 letter to the Speaker of the House attesting to this is below:

geithner receipts

You’d think Bam-Bam would want to take a victory lap for bringing in more green to the Treasury (since he loves all green of any kind, especially other people’s), but since it came in the wake of extending the Bush tax cuts to the rich, it doesn’t fit the narrative, does it?  Of course, neither does the unilateral-executive-ordered-assassination-based-on-intel-from-waterboarding-and-Gitmo, but that was this week’s victory lap, and, I digress…

It’s certainly, undoubtedly, totally & completely unrelated to the extension of the Bush era tax cuts… That’s what the liberals will tell you. I consign this bump to the Kenny G Circular Breathing Category where the failed stimulus lives.  It’s a distant cousin to “The patient is dead but the operation was a complete success.” Category... but it goes on & on until the mere witnessing of it puts you into diabetic shock and you drop dead.

Much like Kenny G’s circular breathing, (and the failed stimulus) it’s a head-fake. Private-sector hiring is the only thing that is really curative and that aint’ happening.  That’s right, the 2 year extension of the Bush tax cuts producing a positive, like this bump in revenue is a nice reminder that it’s nothing but liberal propaganda that tax cuts decrease revenue, but it’s not a cure. A 10 year renewal? Or better yet, a “permanent” (as permanent as anything can be in government)?  Yeah.  But only a two year stretch with BamBam telling you (again – really-really this time) he’s gonna axe ‘em?  No.  Just think it through like a regular person for a second and it’s really, really clear:

1. Unless you work for or rely on the federal government for income, D.C. is where money goes to die.  You ain’t gettin’ it & you don’t want their crappy standard of living anyway.

2. If you’re a business owner & you know your tax rates might go up in 2 years, are you going to use that “cash” to hire someone?  A million people just applied for 64,000 jobs at McDonald’s a week ago.  Are you honestly going to sift through all those desperate job-applicants to fill a position being paid out of the difference between one tax rate and another that may disappear in two years?  Really?  And with ObamaCare on top of that?  Really, really?  McD’s is a global corporation, but if you’re Joe’s Hamburger Hut, are you going to hire some guy knowing you’re facing better than even odds you’ll have to fire him in two years?  Are you going to look him in the eye, and say “Buddy, you’ve got a job to support your family but I might have to fire you in 24 months?”  Or are you going to hire him and not warn him?  Or are you going to explain to this perfect stranger the intimate, private details of your company’s finances? Because those are you choices.  Be a prick and hire the guy knowing you’ll likely fire him, or tell a perfect stranger your profit margin & balance sheet are razor-friggin’ thin and risk letting that information get to your regular customers who might decide upon hearing this previously confidential info about you to find a more reliable person to do business with?  Please… You’re going to hold off until you have some certainty, right?  Because you don’t want to be a pr*ck to some poor guy who is just trying to support himself & his family and you don’t want to explain your entire fiscal life to a stranger and have it blow up in your face.

3. You’re going to take that money from the extension of the Bush tax rates and save it until you feel some certainty… Probably in the form of a Republican president being elected in November 2012.  Because unless you’re a F.O.B. (used to be “Friend of Bill” in the Clinton days.  Now it’s “Friend of Barack”) you’re not borrowing money from the Fed at 0% and profiting from your interest bearing investments (Parenthetically:  Any A**HOLE can invest free money and make a profit, okay?  You big Wall Street types strutting your peacock feathers just calm the frig down about your bad-bad selves, okay?  My 12 year old daughter could do what you are doing right now.) Which leads me to point four…

4.  Obama is not business friendly, despite the stock market, despite the liberal propaganda, for reasons I just made plain.  Unless you’re big enough to fund a union payroll, Bam-Bam ain’t doing you any favors, and 90% of business in America is not union or ever will be union (God willing).

The revenue is good, but it’s like a sugar-high, or an adrenaline shot to the heart of someone who is clinicallyy brain-dead but the doctor is trying keep them alive long enough for his loved ones to reach his bedside.  It’s a ruse, meant to just keep us our attention long enough until we remember we hate Kenny G, crash, realize it’s a scam, can’t take it anymore, or get to 2012, whichever comes first.

But, the bump is real.  Real enough so that, of course, nobody in the mainstream media could be bothered to link “stronger than expected revenue” after tax cuts, with this gem from the Robin-Hood-in-Chief:

 

April 16, 2008 ABC “News” Presidential Debate, Charile Gibson & his Pompous-ass-Glasses-on-his-Nose, Moderating. Excerpt below via page 3 of the transcript.  I just cut & pasted it below.  Added underline emphasis is mine.  Errors are theirs.

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton,” which was 28 percent. It’s now 15 percent. That’s almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.


Continue Reading »

4 responses so far

24 April 2011 • Ben & Jane and What Jill Saw

Apr 24 2011 Published by under salt

It takes only 5 or 6 swings of the ax to knock down this morning’s New York Times OpEd by Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose scholarship I have more regard for than her politics. I actually watched her give a lecture on CSPAN over the winter; learned from it, and enjoyed her manner very much. Then she lost me with the slobbering mess below. The liberal drivel in “Poor Jane’s Alamanc” is so easily wiped up, I debated whether or not to spend a minute with it never mind an hour, but here it is. In short, Mizzzz Lepore laments Ben Franklin’s cherished sister’s life as a pitious example of what will happen to you if those evil-doers, the Republicans, get their way with the Ryan budget.

April 23, 2011 • Poor Jane’s Almanac • By JILL LEPORE • Cambridge, Mass. 

THE House Budget Committee chairman, Paul D. Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, announced his party’s new economic plan this month. It’s called “The Path to Prosperity,” a nod to an essay Benjamin Franklin once wrote, called “The Way to Wealth.” Franklin, who’s on the $100 bill, was the youngest of 10 sons. Nowhere on any legal tender is his sister Jane, the youngest of seven daughters; she never traveled the way to wealth. He was born in 1706, she in 1712. Their father was a Boston candle-maker, scraping by. Massachusetts’ Poor Law required teaching boys to write; the mandate for girls ended at reading. Benny went to school for just two years; Jenny never went at all.

AF: Mizz Lepore, ‘Tis true. Women were not burning bras in the 18th, or even 19th century.  Colonial America was inhospitable to women’s freedom, yes, but if applying contemporary standards to society in centuries past is the underlying structure of your thesis to follow, what’s next?   A blistering essay on how evil Lincoln was for not inviting openly gay soldiers to fight in the Civil War?  C’mon.

Their lives tell an 18th-century tale of two Americas. Against poverty and ignorance, Franklin prevailed; his sister did not. At 17, he ran away from home. At 15, she married: she was probably pregnant, as were, at the time, a third of all brides.

Continue Reading »

4 responses so far