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Feds say states can't opt out of ObamaCare.
Here's an interesting point: the "federally mandated" 55 MPH speed limit was not actually a law; it was a guideline. States did not have to adhere to it. If they didn't, they would not get federal highway funds, and that's how the federal government enforced its will on the states in spite of the Tenth Amendment: holding money over their heads.
They had to do it that way. The federal government has no real authority over speed limits (among a great many other things), not constitutionally; but the federal government has a lot of money. (Okay: these days it prints a lot of money.)
The Obama Regime doesn't give a rat's ass about constitutionality.
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The taxpayers may prefer spending cuts but taxpayers are, by and large, not Democrat voters. Democrat voters are the people who are taking money from the system.
...some of the richest people are Democrats, though, which mystifies me. It's beyond comprehension why someone like Warren Buffet would be a Democrat...except, of course, that Warren Buffet is so damn rich he doesn't have to pay anything like the taxes paid by the "ordinarily rich".
His tax bill is huge, no doubt, but as a percentage of his income it's smaller than the guy who makes $500,000 per year. The top 1% income bracket has tax shelters and tax-free investments which are simply not available to people at the bottom of the top 10%.
That's why Warren Buffet can be a Democrat: he simply does not pay the kind of taxes which most people do. Not as a percentage of income; he doesn't have to worry about what his tax bill will do to his ability to pay his bills. He pays people to ensure his tax bill is as small as possible.
Okay, if you're Joe Middleclass and you earn $100,000 per year, you're going to be sending half of it to the government in one way or another. (Income tax, property tax, sales tax, tax tax, and the horse he rode in on.) That means that after it's all said and done, Joe's got a bit more than $4,000 per month to live on--to pay bills, buy food, gas for the truck, etc.
If you're Bill Richguy and you earn $1,000,000 per year, you've got options. The government seizes about 30% of your income right off the top, and the other taxes you have to pay sap more out of your paycheck. Figure that after it's all said and done, you've got $600,000 of income left to pay bills etc. You can live the high life on $50,000 per month, or you can save and invest and live on less. $20,000 per month of disposable income gives you $30,000 per month in investments; and given time you can ease back from working hard for that $1,000,000 per year at your job, and instead let your investments do the work. Or you can keep on earning money while letting the investments accrue. Either way, you can move your money around into investments which either are tax-deferred or tax-free, letting you control how much tax you pay. (You can place a significant portion of your pretax earnings into tax-deferred investments and lower your initial income tax bill--so maybe you don't pay about 30% income tax after all.)
But if you're Warren Buffet, there are all kinds of things you can do. Limbaugh (who is not as rich as Buffet, but who is in the same category of income) once discussed how people in his bracket can "hide" income, perfectly legally, and pay very little tax on it. I'm sure the laws have changed since then, but the very rich still pay less tax as a percentage than the average person does.
I don't have a problem with this. I think when you earn money, it belongs to you, not the government. My point is, the super-rich Democrats don't understand the tax burden of the average person because they never see those kinds of taxes and never have to worry about having enough money, after taxes, to pay the bills and live a reasonably comfortable life.
So the super-rich Democrats think, "Ehh, if we need to raise taxes, it's just the way it has to be." They don't think, "How are the people going to pay for this and still be able to save, and send the kids to college?"
No one in government ever asks, "How will the people afford this?" Why should they worry about that? When you can legally point a gun at someone and say, "Give me 30% of your income," and not get in any trouble for it, why should you worry about how much money the victim has afterwards?
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But the party cannot continue forever and anyone who thinks the defict is not a problem now is living in a fantasy world.
We could grow past a $150 billion per year deficit. We could even--given enough time--grow past the occasional $455 billion per year deficit. But the Democrat Regime has set things up such that they're spending $1,000 billion per year more than the government is taking in, for the forseeable future--and they're trying to pile on yet more spending.
"Over the past decade," the article intones, but the crisis in debt only got its legs after the 2008 fiscal year--that $455 billion deficit I mentioned, which came to us courtesy of the Democrat Regime in Congress.
Small deficits aren't really a problem. $150 billion is pocket change compared to a $2,000 billion federal budget. Small deficits can be eliminated virtually overnight simply by freezing government spending: you take a year off from the traditional practice of bumping every line item by 10%.
And you stop referring to a reduction in the rate of growth as a "cut". Okay? When a line item is slated to go up 10% but you decide that it's only going to go up 5%, that is not a cut. A "cut" is when a line item gets smaller, not larger.
Stopping the growth of spending allows the economy to grow to the point that it can support the amount you are currently spending. It takes only a modicum of political will.
...and that has certainly been lacking in Washington, D.C. No one cuts spending, ever. That's got to change. We can't sustain this kind of spending, and we can't sustain this kind of taxation--and taxation which will support a budget like the 2010 budget will crush the economy like an empty beer can.
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I am saying it again:
I've just about made up my mind that the United States needs to put up a serious barrier on the US-Mexico border. I'm talking about razor wire, electrified fences, trenches, moats, and mine fields. Put up signs every 50 yards which say, in English and Spanish, "IF YOU PASS THIS FENCE YOU WILL DIE." Have guards posted in towers with night vision goggles and rifles with orders to shoot at anything human-shaped which attempts to cross. If someone tries to cross and gets blown up, shot, or electrocuted, he's left there.And why am I saying it again? This Michelle Malkin piece, that's why.
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Warning Signs: "A Whiff of Revolution". This is a good post.
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The caption for this "There I Fixed It" post reads:
The plastic around the emergency exit came loose, they sent a technician on board to duct tape it back in place before we took off… yes, they let the plane take off this way..It's a piece of plastic trim. It's not like they duct-taped the wing on or something, you freaking idiots.
I’m aware that this is most likely that super airplane tape. But you can’t tell me this wouldn’t make even the most stalwart flyer wary. I almost need a Valium just looking at it. – Ms. Fix-It
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Oh, speaking of freaking idiots:
This is actually also a Venn diagram. There isn't a callout for it, but the entire graph represents a set with total overlap of the set "people who are stupid".