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Paying your taxes
Two of President Obama’s nominees for his cabinet have had trouble paying taxes – not just some chump change here and there, but tens of thousands of dollars. Now-confirmed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had to pay about $34,000 in back taxes. The oversight, he said, was “unintentional.”
Tom Daschle, nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, hadn’t paid over $100,000 in taxes – again, “unintentional” – a revelation that came amid his confirmation hearing.
Does the Obama administration have a vetting problem? Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, Bill Richardson, withdrew his name when he came under federal investigation for corruption. Whatever the substance of the difficulties these nominees find themselves in, the image is at best unhelpful for an administration that opened by issuing executive orders on ethics and reform.
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Apparently, Daschle waited a whole month to tell the Obama people about his “problem.”
But do you hear the MSM making a real stink? Over and over again?
I’m thinkin’ no.
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The “forgetting” to pay taxes is irksome to me because we pay quarterly estimated taxes and those dates are marked in red on my calendar.
What kind of people are these they can’t remember to pay taxes, or seem to feel they don’t have to pay taxes–including taxes they wrote into law themselves? (see Daschle, though I don’t know this to be true, I’m just guessing; he was in the Senate a long time)
Every administration pledges to be different and ethical. Every one falls, though not usually in the first weeks. I guess the vetting crew just doesn’t get it. Just like I don’t understand why we can’t find honest people who pay their taxes to do these jobs.
How hard can that be? Of course, Lot had trouble in Sodom and Gomorrah himself . . .
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Anyone who has ever paid quarterly taxes is morphed into a low-tax conservative within a year, at least.
I say mandating that everyone pay taxes quarterly would be a much needed reform. It would most likely lead to a huge uptick in voter participation!
Some suggest moving election day or tax day so that we vote on April 14th or pay taxes in November.
Would that change things in the USA? Gotta wonder
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Everyone agrees that not paying taxes is wrong. I wonder about things that not everyone agrees are wrong. Are we told about such things?
This brings up a point about people in politics, is one party more prone to doing wrong than the other? Are there differences in sins that are more attractive to one party than to the other?
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The hypocrisy of big spending super-spending politicians flouting the laws they impose on the rest of us!!!
The fact that so many folks feel it necessary to hire legions of attorneys and tax lawyers for so basic a task as paying income taxes tells me that Steve Forbes, Neal Bortz, Congressman John Linder etc have a good idea. We need radical tax simplification.
What this brings to mind most is the episode of the late DC columnist Carl Rowan. He was a consistent supporter of tighter restrictions on private firearms ownership. But a few years prior to his death Carl made headlines when he shot an intruder breaking into his posh Georgetown home. The NRA gave him an award. I hope Americans for Tax Reform gives the OBama cabinet tax flouters some similar honor.
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Daschle as a Senator would have led the charge against such a nominee. However, now that he is the nominee and the Democrats play by a different set of rules he will be confirmed. “All pigs are equal, some are more equal than others.” – George Orwell in Animal Farm. And this will be an “ethical” administration. But already at least three top nominees have severe ethical problems.
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Change above first line to read “Big spending, super-taxing”
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If a lawmaker does not pay taxes themselves, then it becomes more necessary for them to use the force of law to raise taxes on others so that the lack of revenue will be recoverd.
Does Joe Biden think that Geithner and Daschle are unpatriotic?
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But do you hear the MSM making a real stink? Over and over again?
I’m thinkin’ no.
Do you people who are always trashing the media actually read the media? Time and I again I hear some self-assured righty on here proclaiming what “the media won’t cover,” promising us that “they would destroy a conservative for this but won’t touch a liberal.”
And 9 times out of 10 … maybe 10 out of 10 … those declarations are completely wrong.
Do what I did. Go to Google. Search on “Daschle” and “tax.” When the results page comes up, go to the top left side and click “news” to limit the results to just media outlets.
I get a report of 2,946 hits for these keywords from news organizations, including Fox, CBS, the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, USA Today and the International Herald Tribune … and that’s just on the first page of results.
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Yes, the media are covering the stories. Are they being reported the same way they would be if the other party were involved? Will they be denied confirmation? I think not.
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No. Democrats obviously do not believe that that evading taxes is wrong. Not paying them is esteemed highly by these thieves. They believe that you should be paying your taxes and their taxes too – and you do since 50% of American households pay virtually no income taxes at all and have their SS and Medicare payments refunded to them with earned income tax credits.
he vast majority of these people are Socialists and vote for any messiah who promises them they can live for free off of your largess and hard work. The few lefties that do pay taxes, do their best to evade them and pay less than they owe knowing that the left will do nothing to them except agree that it was an innocent oversight and your fault anyway. We see it oer and over again. It is a conspiracy of chronic, criminal corruption that they have created and defend at all costs to live large off of your dime. Non income tax payers and lefty tax cheats outnumber you by a wide margin now so get used to funding their existence forever. Soon you will be lucky to have a job to pay taxes on with the foxes living in the hen house once again.
Ask yourself why is that the bank executives are made out to be evil incarnate by the left for giving 18 billion in bonuses and and ordering a 50 million jet two years ago but the Democrats in congress that want to waste over a trillion dollars on this stupid bailout plan that is nothing more than a payback to every insane lefty extremist group and their laundry list of special interests – not one of which is in the national interest of this country much less even on the same planet with what would be considered an economic stimulus. It is actually a full 1.2 trillion dollars of pork if you attach the 375 Billion in interest on the 800 billion in debt.
They don’t even show any shame at all for this obvious massive wealth transfer and debt obligation of massive proportions. They could care less. The anti Christ would be better for the country instead of this messiah.
If these lefties had any shame al all and were Japanese they would all be committing Hari Kari.
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9. The MSM will cover it, but how will they spin it. When I googled Daschle Taxes, the first two headlines I saw referred to his lapse and his mistake. I thought failure to pay taxes was a crime.
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“They believe that you should be paying your taxes and their taxes too.”
Too true, Llama.
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KBells Deliberate failure to pay taxes is a crime. Even Democrats are innocent until proven guilty, hard as that is for some to accept.
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What I find interesting is that Obama’s answer is always the same, “He’s the right man for the job”. Hence the double standard.
The morality of the left for their own is pragmatic, for the right it is vein popping outrage for everything you do or stand for as the DNC chairman so eloquently put it. The peccadilloes of Democrats only matter if you are NOT useful right now or not a team player, like Blogo.
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Speaking of Democrats and taxes, have you seen the new kind of tax being proposed in Oregon? The governor wants to mandate that all cars be equipped with GPS so you can be taxed based on the number of miles you drive.
It also means the government will always know where you are. You will be taxed higher if you drive in more congested areas. Coming soon will be a green tax for those who drive a politically incorrect vehicle type.
And of course, illegals and terrorists will be exempt, because it would be unconscionable to infringe on their civil rights.
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#14 Steve G
“KBells Deliberate failure to pay taxes is a crime. Even Democrats are innocent until proven guilty, hard as that is for some to accept.”
Didn’t you forget to add in your sneer “…in a court of law.” This is the court of public opinion and Geithner reportedly had to sign a paper when asking for the extra money to pay his income taxes that he would, in fact, pay those same taxes. So, yes, he is in fact guilty in that court of public opinion.
I don’t blame his Democratic views for this breaking of the law. I don’t hold his mother culpable for his scofflaw ways. Since he signed a paper saying he would pay his taxes, I hold him responsible. He should be treated the same as I would be treated. He should pa any fines like everybody else has to and he should not be given a job running the IRS; Geithner was a tax cheat. He has not shown the moral character needed to hold such a position.
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If everyday American’s forget to pay their taxes, forget to file or forget to declare income, they are prosecuted. The powerful, regardless be they Democrat or Republican look after each other and write the laws to benefit them. I can hear a major shift coming in the midterm elections.
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Xion,
But of course, if you knew anything at all about transportation economics, you would know that congestion-based pricing of all roads is the fairest way there is to pay for road usage. Far more fair, and potentially less obtrusive than toll barriers, which only price some roads.
Under such a scheme, drivers face the true, marginal cost, of their routing decisions, rather than a time- and volume-based average. In other words, under present toll schemes (ie toll barriers) you pay just the average cost to you. You don’t pay for the fact that your usage of the road slows down everyone else on it, a small amount. (And of course vice-versa)
There is a rich literature on this going back to at least the 1970’s. I learned about this in graduate school classes in economics and urban geography, back in the late ’80s. At the time, it was primarily advocated by conservative economists.
The problem has always been technological – the inability to track road usage, adjust pricing for congestion, and send out bills. It sounds like finally the technology may have caught up with the theory.
And if you are worried about the government “knowing where you are”, I take the same position with regard to things like E-Z-Pass, where my car transponder monitors my entrances and exits from the thruway. My and your comings and goings really are not that interesting to the government. On the other hand, correct pricing of road usage is.
For more information, and to learn something rather than simply reacting, see the Congestion Pricing article at Wikipedia.
A comment from The Cato Institute
And finally, if you want a realy heavy-weight conservative economist weighing in, here is what Gary Becker has to say.
Sheesh!
Quit trying to frame everything you dislike or disagree with as some kind of Democratic or liberal scheme.
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XION,
Obama does beleive that Tax Evading and other Conspiratorial, Chronic Criminals of Corruption are the best the left can offer to fill these positions – and they probably are too.
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Thomas,
If we start charging for road usage I will then likely have packs of insane whack job socialists hopping over my low walls and traipsing through my property late at night instead of illegal aliens.
Will it be OK to shoot them just because they want to evade paying these road taxes?
If it is then I am all for these new taxes
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Perhaps we’re seeing one reason the Democrats are so happy to raise taxes: the base is largely people who don’t owe taxes, and the leadership doesn’t bother to pay them.
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President Obama must not think that his nominees should be subject to the same standards and obligations that he would force on the rest of us. How arrogant!
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The lapse is unintentional as in “I never intended to pay those taxes.”
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Thomas, it sounds like more tax burden on small businesses and people who have jobs they have to get to and kids they have to raise. Most people don’t have a choice about when they go to and from work.
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Thomas, “Quit trying to frame everything you dislike or disagree with as some kind of Democratic or liberal scheme.”
There are plenty of liberal ideas that I like. I have said so many, many times. However, liberals being all heart and no head, continuously oppose themselves and accomplish precisely the opposite of what they intend. So I try to help where I can.
Are you saying the Governor of Oregon is not liberal? Whether some conservatives support this is beside the point. Conservatism should be about less government (though Bush must not have gotten that memo).
The massive intrusion of government into our lives, regulating what we eat, what we wear while driving (seatbelts), devices we can use (cellphones) and now monitoring where we go is all coming from the left. Obama has said very little about terror in the last two weeks, but he has DECLARED WAR on obesity. Fat people are diving for cover.
Using government to regulate behavior to satisfy a politically correct agenda is clearly a matter of liberal policy, especially in Oregon!
What is fascinating is that liberals will jump up and down screaming about any attempt to monitor terrorist phone conversations, yet they press endlessly to give government more and more power to monitor and regulate every aspect of our lives.
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Democrats obviously do not believe that that evading taxes is wrong.
Democrats believe that compliance must be enforced to the full extent of the law. Sanctions must be imposed impartially on everyone, according to highly defined procedures as developed by vast experience of the IRS. All delinquent taxpayers must pay interest. Some of them must pay penalties in addition. Others must be prosecuted for criminal violations. The IRS knows what to do, and it must treat everyone the same.
It’s my understanding that neither Geithner nor Daschell did anything which subjects them to penalties.
Geithner and Daschell are self-reported delinquents. They and/or the Democrats detected the delinquencies, without IRS audit or investigation. They voluntarily paid restitution and exposed themselves to public shame and made apologies. That was a service to the country. Ordinary tax delinquents don’t volountarily repair their deficiencies, but Obama’s tax delinquents spend a week in the stocks.
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#25 KBells brings up a perfect case in point. Congestion pricing is a tax on the working class, precisely the people Democrats pretend to care about. This is up there with the state lottery idea, which becomes a tax on the poor. Good thinking!
The answer for taxes is a simple flat tax. It’s simple. Everyone pays including Democrats.
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They weren’t quite as noble as you imagine Scroop. They only fessed up when they got caught. Daschle knew about his tax issue last summer.
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“Even Democrats are innocent until proven guilty, hard as that is for some to accept.”
Unfortunately the people that say this are the same ones who acted like judge, jury, and executioner for President G.W. Bush all in one fell swoop.
All before he was proven guilty…. So far, I haven’t seen him convicted of any wrong doing.
Can you say “HYPOCRITE”?
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The senate must reject Daschell for the reason that his tax delinquency does terrible damage to the system of public welfare that he would oversee.
Public charity depends on poor people accurately stating their income to receive cash payments and other benefits. It is extremely difficult for the government to ensure perfect honesty. Consequently, the poor suffer from burdensome and humiliating paperwork, as well as from the derision of President Reagan and other Christians who have characterized them as “welfare queens” and so forth.
Christians are mostly hostile to public welfare anyway, and would enjoy any excuse to abolish it. The more social misery that results, the more turning to Jesus, and the more alms-giving from Christians. Thus, abolishing welfare serves the greater good, and is anything but cruel.
Daschell’s delinquency invites Christians to a demolition derby. That’s why Democrats must put him down quickly.
Geithner’s delinquency, as embarrassing as it is, doesn’t do nearly as much damage to Democratic governance. The reason this is true for the head of the IRS is counter-intuitive. Nobody seriously questions the capacity of the IRS to use cost-effective measures to detect delinquency and impartially enforce collection from the rich. The poor are otherwise. The poor have less to lose from dishonesty (other than their souls, I mean) and the government has no cost-effective way of verifying whether they deserve$79 in food stamps or $103.
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Xion, nobody claims Geithner’s and Daschell’s delinquency is noble. They must suffer interrogation about the full scope of their carelessness, negligence, bad faith, selfishness, arrogance, expedience, and so forth.
My point is that, delinquent as they were, they weren’t busted. Obama and his nominees detected and exposed the dereliction on their own, in the course of their own investigation. This may be one of the reasons the IRS didn’t charge them penalties.
Their restitution isn’t noble either. It’s merely a valuable service to governance, a service that the owe, and a service that we should be glad to receive, whether or not they are confirmed. I’m glad Geithner was confirmed, but I hope Daschell isn’t.
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#27 Scroopy,
They were only self reported after being caught by Obama’s vetting and they wanted to feed off the taxpayer as his feet. Otherwise tnhey would have never ever said a peep. Typical
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“My point is that, delinquent as they were, they weren’t busted. Obama and his nominees detected and exposed the dereliction on their own, in the course of their own investigation. This may be one of the reasons the IRS didn’t charge them penalties.”
So they are not busted because Obama found out first rather than us? Still busted to me.
When running for a position of leadership one should be held to a higher standard than the average man. If one can not abide by such simple rules as pay your taxes, why should they even be considered for such positions? What else will they forget to do, or not take responsibility for.
Every american citizen knows you owe taxes every year. Its not a hard concept.
Whether criminal evasion or simple ignorance, one is still responsible. If Geithner and Daschell cant be responsible with the little things, especially if it involves their area of expertise, then how can we trust them with much more?
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#31 Scroop, “Christians are mostly hostile to public welfare anyway, and would enjoy any excuse to abolish it. “
Christianity is specifically geared toward public welfare. Some people need a hand at times. But I see no virtue in multigenerational enslavement to government entitlements that reward malignant values that prevent these people from ever realizing the benefits of self-sufficiency simply for the purpose of locking in their vote.
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“Christians are mostly hostile to public welfare anyway, and would enjoy any excuse to abolish it.”
Stats please?
Tell me one time in American history where government welfare has worked effiecently?
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#27 – Scroop wrote; “It’s my understanding that neither Geithner nor Daschell did anything which subjects them to penalties.”
Like, register Republican?
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Flat taxes hurt those poorest among us. This is why the socialists say they are against flat taxes. But this is of course a lie like the rest of their ideology. If your base and nearly 80% of those that vote for you pay no taxes why would you support a tax that everyone would pay? Liberals are not anti tax in the least but they are anti any tax that they would have to pay.
The AMT is a perfect example. They are vehemently against this tax because it turns out that it is lefties that mainly have to pay it. Why? Because it affects those most who live in high tax states and cities like the east and west coasts – socialists strongholds. Since you can write off your state and local taxes and they are huge in those areas since socialists are in control there and tax everything possible (including the miles you drive one day), it turns out that the few lefties who do pay taxes wouldn’t have to pay taxes if not for the AMT that punishes the evil rich like them. So, if you wondered why the left is against the AMT and for all other taxes – this is why.
They will soon try to revoke the AMT somehow claiming that the evil rich lefties shouldn’t pay federal income taxes for some insane reason that is all Bush’s fault. When they try to do this, make sure they don’t get away with it since they really are the evil rich who want to evade taxes.. Few lefties pay any tax as it is and we have to carry their federal and now state freight since they have bankrupted all of their states they control too.
Next thing you know, they will make you pay to keep union workers on the Federal payroll. Never mind – they have already done that.
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“Liberals are not anti tax in the least but they are anti any tax that they would have to pay.”
That’s beautiful.
Even more beautiful is a flat tax that would prevent government from using the tax system for the latest political behavior modification fad. And it prevents Congressmen from creating tax laws that specifically benefit themselves.
The poorest of poor should also pay taxes, even if it is only a few bucks. Why? Because it removes them from the lower caste (or outcast) status and gives them a sense of contributing to the welfare of their country like the rest of us so. Not paying anything places them on the outside and makes it an entitlement.
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Lefties believe a hand out is better than a hand up because they create lifelong non tax paying non working slaves that are easily brainwashed and otherwise easily coerced to vote for socialists.
Charity and welfare have nothing to do with the left’s drive to make the government the sole producer, provider and distributor of all goods and services. That is what socialism and Marxism is. Just look at the industries the left has destroyed and taken over in government nationalization in the name of the entire world ending in just the last two years since they took over the financial purse strings of this country? The list too long to name but they have destroyed countless trillions of dollars of this countries private wealth with their mad power schemes. This is the only reason why they exist. You should know this by now and you haven’t seen anything yet. Destroying; the housing market, the mortgage market, the auto makers, the credit market, the banking system, the stock markets and most of your net worth, if you had any, isn’t enough for them.
You thought this stimulus plan was total and complete pork and the largest wealth transfer ever devised? Well, you are wrong. They will get it passed because there is no one to stop them now. Wait till they drop the cap and trade Ponzi scheme on you. It will make SS and Medicare look like fabulous financial successes worthy of a global warming Nobel Prize or something.
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Xion,
I get that the governor of Oregon is a liberal. But he is advocating an idea originated by conservative economists.
Roads need to be paid for. What is the fairest way to do that?
Every scheme you can come up with – gasoline tax, toll barriers, congestion based pricing – is going to involve some degree of intrusion, to collect the needed data, and set the tax.
What CBP tries to do, arguably better than a gas tax or toll barriers, is to match the tax with the actual costs of road usage. In effect, it is a market-based solution – when there’s more demand for road usage, the price goes up.
A gas tax can be, and often is used, for other purposes than funding road usage, for example to encourage adoption of cleaner-fueled vehicles, or mass transit, etc. While I think those are laudable goals, they muddy the waters.
Regardless of the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, infrastructure costs to build and maintain roads remain relatively the same.
So a better, and very conservative way to proceed, is to base costs more on actual usage.
If your goal is to use scarce resources (roads) as efficiently as possible, and to pay for them in an equitable manner, CBP is the way to go. No government mandates that you travel at off-peak or less congested hours, you simply face a more accurate price for your choice to travel at those hours.
Roads, of course, have to be built to handle peak congestion. By distributing the load more evenly, you reduce the amount of road capacity you need to add. In the long run, this holds down spending by delaying or eliminating the need to increase road capacity.
Kbells, you are of course right, that many people do not have choice of when they need to travel. However, increasingly, as Becker and Posner point out:
And in fact, we do find nowadays many more companies offering flex time and telecommuting options to their employees. So this rigidity of working hours would appear to be already being relaxed.
If your company does not have flex time or telecommuting, perhaps it is something you should suggest to them.
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Still busted to me.
Not at all. Geithner could have remained head of the Fed of NY or whatever he was doing, and Daschle could have gone back to making millions on K-Y Street, with none the wiser. They both said, “Search me, Oh Obama, try me and see if there is any wicked way in me.”
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“Roads need to be paid for. What is the fairest way to do that?”
Its simple, stop dumping money into special interest groups and programs, and you’ll have plenty of money for a necessary provision like infrastructure.
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In re: 42
So they are justified becaused they confessed to a democratic president/congress AFTER it was pointed out by a said democrat…I fail to see how this should make one feel better.
Further your putting at least one of them in charge of an agency that he cant keep track of in his own backyard.
Would you hire someone to your day care to work with kids, if they kept forgetting where they leave their own children?
I wouldnt hire them. I wouldnt hire anyone to head a tax agency that cant do his own taxes regardless of party affiliation.
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“Such congestion based tolls would, in addition, encourage some companies to stagger their opening and closing times to avoid the peak rush hours when fees were greater. It would encourage weekday shoppers to wait until rush hours were over before going into the central city, and to leave before traffic became heavy at the end of the working day.”
Since time is money most people do this anyway when it is practical. This would put more hardship on people who have no choice. The working class.
And wouldn’t the same principal apply to a voucher system. People who use public schools should pay more and people who home school or use private schools should get a break.
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Thorn: Tell me one time in American history where government welfare has worked effiecently?
For the most part, they all do. WIC is certainly a success, for one example.
It’s easy enough to say “well everybody knows the government can’t do anything right.” It’s very often just ignorant cynicism to do so, though. The government does quite a lot right.
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. . . I fail to see how this should make one feel better. . .
Your level of antipathy toward Geithner & Daschle is your business. However you feel, though, I think it’s rational to be more harsh toward conduct that requires IRS penalties, and still more harsh toward conduct that requires criminal prosecution. It’s reasonable to be less harsh toward people who take private steps to fix their problems and don’t continue to hide from discovery by the IRS, the media, or political opponents.
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Xion: Christianity is specifically geared toward public welfare. Some people need a hand at times. But I see no virtue in multigenerational enslavement to government entitlements that reward malignant values that prevent these people from ever realizing the benefits of self-sufficiency simply for the purpose of locking in their vote.
Then it’s a good thing such programs are the figments of fevered right-wing imaginations.
The two main problems with individual or church-based charity are (1) There is no way it can come close to meeting any but the most basic needs. Your church can, I am quite sure, help someone over a financial hurdle by buying some groceries or paying a power bill. And if it’s just someone having some temporary trouble, that’s probably the best way to address it.
But your church cannot, I am equally sure, buy enough food for an unemployed widow with three children month after month after month. Or if someone develops a chronic illness and needs $1,200 in medications a month — every month — how long can you keep that up?
(2) There are no private groups that have the national infrastructure and network to deliver benefits equitably. You can help a few in your community that you’re aware of, but not the many more than you’re not, even if you did have the resources to. The government does. And the government has the added benefit of being impersonal, so that the widow with three kids doesn’t have the shame of having to take charity from people she knows added on top of her financial struggle.
Private charity has a place, but it’s foolish to argue that government aid is no needed.
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#41 Thomas, it is easy to see why the economic efficiency would appeal to conservative engineers. But it is also easy to see why the opportunity to enforce politically correct behavior using the hammer of big government would appeal to social engineers. And that is the danger in Oregon.
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#38 SteveG – I wasn’t actually arguing for or against private charity or the public dole. I was arguing against the charge that Christians are hostile to the public good and would enjoy any excuse to abolish it in order to cause social misery for the purpose of saving souls. In other words, Christians are a cancer on society that take special pleasure in stealing food from starving children. I happen to disagree.
As for welfare, I am fine with using some taxpayer dollars to help those in need to give them a boost over hard times. That is quite different than paying for multigenerational votes through entitlements. Of course, you wouldn’t admit that there are multigenerational welfare families, but the facts are available.
I would prefer to actually address the problem. Clinton of all people actually helped many people get off the dole and I applaud him (and the Republican congress) for it. However, our massive illegal immigration problem is eventually going to swamp the boat. Yet, for Democrats, illegals are a welcome source of new votes to buy.
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Here is how Daschle’s apology sounds today:
“I am sorry.” “I am very sorry.” “I am very, very sorry.” “Can I go now?”
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Thorn: Tell me one time in American history where government welfare has worked effiecently?
For the most part, they all do. WIC is certainly a success, for one example.
LOLOLOLOLOL. Another example of why Government Electroshock treatments are needed before any stimulus of the economy, of any kind is considered.
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This thing with Daschle is really nothing at all – the media is falling all over itself assuring us that it was all just an honest mistake – why the AP has labeled his $120,000 theft of tax money a mere ‘glitch’ (I kid you not) and CNN is frantically trying to bury the story underneath a barrage of slanted ‘news’ about past Republican ‘problems’, and Obama, of course, fully agrees with it all.
Why nothing at all to see here, you ignorant cling-to-your-stupid-faith, gun-toting bitter middle Americans – just shut up and pay YOUR taxes so that Planned Parenthood can kill even more children and Obama can apologize even more profusely to terrorists all over the world for the bad horrible old USA actually daring to fight them for the past eight years.
And also – support this 1 trillion dollar ‘bailout’ of every Socialist/Statist cause ever dreamed up in the fevered mis-firing ‘brains’ of the Left, or be slandered into oblivion.
But remember above all that the Democrat elite need not pay any taxes. They are quite above THAT. They will steal your money and spend it on themselves and on bizarre social engineering experiments and use it to destroy everything you hold dear, but expect THEM to pay? Not a chance.
Best get used to living on their Global Plantation as a slave. It is their plan for you.
After all, Obama himself never paid any taxes on his crooked real estate deals with the Chicago mob, presumably, now did he? And if the Dear Leader can get away with it, why not the Party Elite?
The Obama administration has set a completely new standard in terms of lying, promise-breaking, corruption, and criminal behavior, and all in a matter of a few short days.
And the MSM, the kept prostitute of the Left, gushes on and on about how wonderful it, and he, is.
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Christians are mostly hostile to government welfare programs, if not to the entire Health and Human Services Department, and would love an excuse to abolish them (Daschle’s tax delinquency is as good an excuse as any). Ending government giveaways would cause some social misery, of course, but Evangelicals believe in tough love! The harder life got for some of the poor, the more desperately they would come to Jesus. Seeing the need, Christians would devote themselves to alms, which they cannot afford at present tax rates, which don’t allow them to keep their own money in their pockets. Thus, abolishing government welfare programs would promote the greater good, first and foremost the spiritual good, and would therefore provide the only realistic help that can be expected — in diesem Jammertal. Stimmt, XION?
Your #50 summary doesn’t sound right.
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A large part of the financial crisis is the blow to faith, trust, confidence in the financial system.
Appointing these guys does not help build faith in the system.
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Well, I know when SteveG uses the old “you people” he’s ticked off. Dear Steve, LISTEN to the news and start counting how many times they go after Daschle and catch the tone. You don’t here those thrilling “will this quash his nomination?” with feeling and gusto! They don’t demand that the nomination fail, nor do they add that sneer in there.
As noted above, there is spin — as Drill says “the media is falling all over itself assuring us that it was all just an honest mistake – why the AP has labeled his $120,000 theft of tax money a mere ‘glitch’ (I kid you not) and CNN is frantically trying to bury the story underneath a barrage of slanted ‘news’ about past Republican ‘problems’, and Obama, of course, fully agrees with it all.”
That’s what I’m talking about. The people do not hear the same words, the same tone, the same excuses. The MSM mitigates the problems Dems have; it skewers Republicans over and over.
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And then there’s:
“Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said Monday he’ll refinance two mortgages he received through a VIP program from Countrywide Financial Corp., which is accused of giving favorable loan terms to some lawmakers.” (from Fox)
Well, of course, he’s going to refinance — the rates are even lower now!
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And as we all know, the Republicans are pure as the driven snow when it comes to taxes and finances.
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Once again posters here are whining that the MSM is slanted. People on both sides complain constantly about the MSM, the left was upset that Bush’s lies to justify war were never given the exposure it deserves and now the right complains unpaid taxes are not getting the exposure they deserve. Something tells me that the MSM is probably trying to be even handed.
Road usage taxes do not target the working class; they target individuals who flee to exurbs and contribute to urban sprawl. With a good transit system (which these taxes should pay), the working class can avoid these taxes as well as any other urban dweller. And as Thomas points out, its conservative economics, the market dictates people’s behaviour not the gov’t.
Progressive taxation forces those who have the most to lose to pay the most. Taxes are essentially protection money, they pay for stability, contract enforcement and law and order.
As for welfare systems that work — since the material comforts of the working class and the unemployed is far higher than without a welfare state, I’d say the results speak for themselves. Thats the purpose of welfare, its not there to provide jobs but to provide a minimal level of comfort we deem necessary in a civilized society.
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Republicans, bless their little old mercenary hearts, are NOT all pure as the driven snow. It is just that Republicans who are even one tenth as corrupt and criminal as the average appointee of the Dear Leader, President B.O., invariably get put into prison or put out to pasture – and they and their families including children, pets, and ancestors out to the fifth generation are ALWAYS maligned in the press as enemies of humanity.
And just to be on the safe side, the press (the prostituted media, anyway) maligns EVERYONE regardless of their criminality or lack thereof, Republican or Independent, who does not kiss the Dear Leader’s abnormally long, weirdly articulated, skeletal and prehensile big toe.
Here, Daschle, the current darling of the Dear Leader (at least until the Dear Leader suddenly realizes that Daschle is a liability – when I expect he may become suddenly expendable), is NOT reported as CHEATING on his taxes – but, instead, as merely ‘having a glitch’, like he was afflicted with a lamentable and pitable malady, like indigestion. He burped or something, the pen slipped, and – presto – 140G of income went unreported, all unbeknownst to him.
I keep hearing about Obama’s ’success’ in these first halycon days since he first mangled the oath of office and had to do it over, late at night sans Bible, sans public, sans media (under the weird witching light of a bloated Halloween moon, with candles and torches flickering against the grim damp stones of the castle walls, and shadows gathering and groping, crawling and reaching ever about him, his ministers gathered about him in silent watchful conclave, hooded and hunched against the cold and the dark, eyes like burning rubies, unblinking in the gloom.)
Is success measured by how many criminals he can appoint to high office?
This guy is DEFINITELY from Chicago. Or Mordor. Whichever.
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What is odd is that the people who create and write the tax laws don’t follow them.
A few months ago it was discovered that the House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, head of the nation’s tax writing committee, failed to pay taxes on $75,000 of income from his beach side luxury condo. Both Geithner’s and Daschle’s “honest mistakes” made it past them and highly paid tax accountants.
The rest of us poor honest shlubs soldier on with Turbo Tax paying our mites and eking out a living without making the same mistakes as the “experts” who actually institute, write and interpret the tax code.
And since every one of them failed to come clean until they were caught, it appears that Obama is filling his cabinet with liars and cheats.
Once again, Obama’s character comes into question. He had no problem going to work with a terrorist, listening to racist hate speech at church for 20 years, hiring communists to run his web site and is now surrounding himself with cheats. Either he has no judge of character or he doesn’t care. I suspect the latter.
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More on media bias.
According to the left, the media favours the right by giving republicans twice as many appearances as Democrats on cable networks.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/28/cable-news-stimulus/
BTW Sarah Palin made a Washington appearance the other day making sure Alaska got its share of the federal cash. But she didn’t make time to see the House Republicans who invited her.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/671103.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/01/palin-stiffs-th.html
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At least some of Daschle’s problems should sound familiar: he took some deductions that were not documented. What I find interesting is that as big as the amount was ($15,000), his actual giving to charity was on the order of $276,000. Seen as a matter of scale, well perhaps you could make a mistake in your charitable giving, especially if you are giving out sums like this.
Second, also in Daschle’s defense, the more sizeable amount apparently came from errors on the client side, not his. He didn’t pay taxes initially because the income was not acknowledged on the 1099.
In both cases, I can’s see where there is the moral culpability of the sort that supports flying off in high dudgeon. Daschle’s problem was, as NJL noted at the beginning, that of not coming clean. And believe me, more than a few Democrats believe that to be a substantive failing, but a failing of a different sort.
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Daschle knew about the problem last summer. He only “came clean” when he got caught. Where is the “honest” part of the “honest mistake”?
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Corruption is found in both parties. The difference is that for Democrats, it is merely an inconvenience when you get caught.
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Also notice how Democratic corruption is called “honest”.
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#59 HRW
“Road usage taxes do not target the working class…”
Just a thought, if road usage taxes are levied, will all taxes be removed from gasoline and diesel? Or will the new road usage taxes be additional?
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HRW
If road usage taxes are a good and fair way to tax people for their use of roads, why should anyone get out of paying taxes? Shouldn’t everyone pay income taxes? And if people are all to be taxed at the same rate, then wouldn’t it also be fair to tax everyone’s income at the same rate?
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“This guy is DEFINITELY from Chicago. Or Mordor.”
Same difference… Politically speaking, that is.
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This just out. Daschle’s $142K isn’t all of it. There is another $90K that he earned without declaring. But Daschle blames the IRS for sending him the wrong form. Wow! Does that excuse actually work?
Cheating has become the new honesty.
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The most important issue for me is that if the people who write the tax laws cannot figure them out, then how can the ordinary citizen. They ought to get a clue that the tax code is complicated, confusing, and burdensome.
If Daschle thought that these items should not be taxed, then he and his fellow members of Congress should have made sure that they were not taxed for anyone.
If he thinks he is immune from paying all his taxes, then everyone else should get a pass.
—————————-
Tangentially:
It’s really pathetic when a nominee for a department secretary has to apologize and plead for the job. It’s kind of embarrassing for the country.
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XION: Where is the “honest” part of the “honest mistake”
From the UPI news story that XION links to above:
“While he was being vetted in preparation for his nomination as HHS secretary, Daschle paid $101,943 in back taxes plus interest, ABC reported. Daschle brought the matter to the attention of the Senate Finance Committee when he was nominated for HHS secretary.”
In other words, the truth came out because Daschle came forth and said, “Search me, Obama, try me and see if there is any wicked way in me.”
XION: Where is the “honest” part of the “honest mistake”
Daschle deliberately overpaid the delinquent taxes for his free car & driver, because he declared full-time usage instead of actual usage of the service. Daschle wanted to pay Uncle Sam too much so that accusers could not say he payed too little. Daschle paid in total for occasional use of the car & driver, and we all are better off than we were before.
XION, do you want the IRS to audit the limo meter and pay Daschle a refund on his overpayment, for honesty’s sake?
(The $90k was corrected with everything else, including Daschle’s ineligible charitable deductions.)
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Can we explode the myth that “coverage” equals “objectivity” or the the “amount of coverage” equals “no objectivity”?
It is ridiculous to posit, as our dear liberal friends have done excessive times, that the amount of coverage equals “objectivity” or “no objectivity”.
If all your coverage on a person or issue is slanted in one direction, it doesn’t matter how much ink or html you spilled on it. It’s still BIASED.
When there are hundreds of ways to say “he said”, then we KNOW that there are more ways than one to cover an issue or person.
Allow me to demonstrate for the more hardheaded individuals in our group:
“He said;”
“He laughed;”
“He sneered;”
“He muttered;”
“He chuckled;”
“He gritted;”
etc. etc.
OK?
So I don’t want to hear that you can Google something and so many “hits” come up. Right now the coverage of the news may be a bit more fair than when it was all in print, (more about that in a bit) because the internet tends to level the playing field a bit. Before the demise of newsprint, one could bury a story in the back pages of the paper, or, conversely, splash it on the front page. That’s just one way to “cover” something to the advantage of one’s agenda.
There is no mistaking the slobbering love affair that the media has with Obama. He can do no wrong. The media is so far from being objective that it’s sickening. Bernard Goldberg nails it in his new book.
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“And as we all know, the Republicans are pure as the driven snow when it comes to taxes and finances.”
No one said that. But the leftys are the party of “change.” Where’s the change?
The proper response is not to say “oh, you do it, too.”
Whatever happened to “no more drama?” Obama’s people can’t get through the nomination process — not that that means they won’t get the job. No change here, just the usual double standard. Leftys speak with forked tongue.
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Here’s what I would tell Daschle:
You are not an orc from Mordor, you are a good man. Your country needs you. Unfortunately, your country doesn’t want you, it wants the promised purity with regard to Washington Ways. The IRS doesn’t think your behavior is subject to penalties, much less prosecution, but Republicans need fresh outrages to celebrate. You know business. Do you want the bullet now or would you like the padre first?
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Hypocrisy. Double standards.
All the trumped up and over-strained condemnations of President Bush and Republicans by the left are coming home to roost.
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Scroop,
What Joel said. Sauce for the goose and all that. Like it yet?
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MAKE IT MAN: It is ridiculous to posit, as our dear liberal friends have done excessive times, that the amount of coverage equals “objectivity” or “no objectivity”.
JOEL MARK: Hypocrisy. Double standards.
The NYTimes editorial calls on Daschle to withdraw so Obama can choose a “less-blemished” nominee. The top news story on the front page reports that Obama is “willing to compromise” his campaign rhetoric about Washington ways.
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MAKE IT MAN — I started yesterday calling for Daschle’s rejection. It’s a hit, surely, but leftists can make some lemonade with the lemon by reinforcing the legitimacy of the welfare state by celebrating the virtue of reporting income accurately. See #31.
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#72 For Democrats, honesty means to “come clean” AFTER you get caught. And then give the obligatory apology and move on.
For everyone else, honesty is doing the right thing to start with or if you mess up to come clean BEFORE you get caught.
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P.S. Notice how virtuously impartial and principled yours truly, Scroop Moth, has been over Geithner and Daschle. I’m ideologically hostile to Geithner, whom I consider to be a concession to Republicans, and sympathetic to Daschle, who is a desperately needed progressive voice. Nevertheless, I’ve said that Geithner’s delinquency is far less serious than it looks (many others in his situation make the same mistake) and does not damage the system of tax collection. I’ve said that Daschle’s delinquency is worse and more destructive of governance.
Give me some love!
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I agree with Kyle A #71, “if the people who write the tax laws cannot figure them out, then how can the ordinary citizen.”
If you watch CSPAN just prior to Apr 15th, the cameras show Congressmen in the House and Senate with tussled hair and crooked ties, pacing and sweating as highly paid tax professionals help them fill out their tax forms.
Obviously they are aware that they’ve created a gigantic mess with the tax code. Americans waste over a billion hours a year trying to fill out their tax forms. And guess what, the tax code is about to get much worse.
The best government is a gridlocked government. I’d like to thank the Democrats for helping in that regard over the last 8 years. The gravest danger to America is that the gridlock is over.
Please join my cause: Americans United for Turning Off the Power In Washington.
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It is sort of moderately funny how Scroop Moth and HRW and the other hopeful apprentice slaves of the coming Global Plantation argue about the ‘objectivity’ of the media. (”Lordy, Jim – I does try the BESTEST I knows how to, to support the Massa NO MATTER WHAT, agin all his ‘noxious foes and enemas. So what thet all his house boys up thar are crooks and thiefs and no-accounts? He’s OUR Massa, dad burn it, and wharever HE leads, we will follow along, even if it leads right to Hell and damnation.”)
You guys don’t actually have to keep up the pretense about media objectivity anymore (if it’s any effort or strain for you, that is. Maybe it is no trouble at all for you. Maintaining an absurdity probably comes natural to you, given your slavish, panting devotion to whatever the Politburo and the Machine that squats upon the carcass of the Republic decrees.)
The media itself pretty much admits its ownership by the leftist goons in charge of the country.
You guys remind me of an experience I had long ago before the fall of the Soviet Union. We were in some useless ‘talks’ with a party of Soviet scientists and engineers, the memory of whose grim, pinched, dour and drawn countenances still excite compassion within my cold Capitalist heart even today ; in the course of socializing with them afterward, we got into a sort of discussion with them about freedom of the press.
Well, they all stoutly maintained that the Soviet Press was as free as a bird – that Pravda and the likes were utterly objective and gave all sides of the issue, a fair and balanced presentation of the news as one could wish for. We (the Westerners) were incredulous until later, when one of the poor Soviet souls confided privately that their responses were predicated by the presence of an informer in the group.
I remember the guy, a fat thick-jowled beady-eyed silent type who just watched everybody and obviously had no clue about the technical issues.
Anyway, are you guys just practicing slavishness, for when your Politburo gets around to policing thoughts here in this country?
Or do you have aspirations to be an informer, once the hammer really comes down?
Ever hear of the Emperor that had no clothes on? Ever wonder what the Emperor’s hanger-ons and lackies did after the little boy famously pointed out that said Emperor was exactly as naked as a Jaybird?
Bet I know what they did. They kept stoutly maintaining the fiction that the Emperor actually WAS dressed.
And probably had the little boy garroted, drawn and quartered, and his various bits and pieces hung from the city gates.
When I was a kid, I always did wonder what the real ending of that story was.
Pretty soon, we may find out.
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XION: For Democrats, honesty means to “come clean” AFTER you get caught.
Please stop this, XION. Daschle self-reported his delinquency. That’s a fact. He didn’t “get caught.” You can decide for yourself whether correction for the purpose of passing Obama’s vetting is good enough, and can make him qualified. Dashle’s delinquency is bad enough for what it is without saying he’s busted. That implies other degrees of conduct.
I’m hopeful that Daschle will withdraw today.
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Drill, you seem to look at life through the prism of Soviet history and I’m curious if your ancestors owned a castle in Bohemia?
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No. Not Bohemia.
Transylvania.
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No. Seriously. Do you have personal or family ties to the lands of the USSR?
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Cossack, through the maternal side.
But I don’t do the neat dance, so why do you care?
I am as mongrelized as they come, Scroop Moth. As I have mentioned, I am mostly Irish, with some Swiss, but with documented African (Black) three generations back, and with a dash of just about everything else, including Russian ties through my mothers people. Why do you care? The details of my DNA have little to do with my political thinking. I would hope.
Yeah, I am mostly a child of the mid-twentieth century, Scroop Moth. Which is why I hate to see our Republic spinning off into Socialism and Statism – fed by an increasingly easily-led populace, that is turning almost en masse to hedonism and bread and circuses and outright rejection of the qualities and character that have built their world.
The ideas that are espoused on the left are generally very VERY old – and very very bad – and have been shown over and over to lead to unimaginable suffering throughout human history. The Soviet Union is a leading and recent example. So I use it frequently to make the point – at least until someone puts an ice pick into my skull.
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#67 and 68 Bob Buckles
Road usage taxation is a neo-conservative idea since it fits with their pay as you go/use theory. And thus no one is responsible for the greater good and no one is their brother’s keeper. Hence, far be it from me to defend it. However, if it ever came to be I would strongly advocate the removal of gas taxes.
As for income tax — I’m in favour of progressive taxation as those who have the most to lose should pay a disproportionate share of the cost for stability, contract enforcement and law and order. However, a consistent neo-con arguing from the road usage point of view would also argue for user fees and private insurance for just about anything currently funded by income taxes.
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#73 MIM
Greater access to cable news programs generally means a greater change to get your message out without incurring advertising fees. Now if its incompetently presented or insufficiently defended, this is not the fault of the media but rather the presenter and/or his/her ideas.
The left/right can exchange stories about what news gets buried on p.27 right under the obits but the simple fact is MSM is lazy and easily pressured one way or an other. Easy access, pre-written news stories, a few pints, ratings, etc all influence media decisions. In the last few years, news has degraded to the point of tabloid culture giving Brittany Spears more coverage than Obama and McCain.
For the left’s version of suppressed stories see;
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/
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Stories may be suppressed, but the claim here isn’t about suppression — it’s about the tone and the intent of the speaker to support leftist positions and make excuses when things go wrong for the leftys when they pound on the right until it submits.
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Speaking of suppression:
According to former IRS Fraud Examiner Sherry Jackson (now supporting Tax Honesty), the working-age population of America presently includes an estimated 67 million non-filers.
We law-abiding Nontaxpayers believe that “everybody has to pay their taxes” but that’s an ambiguous statement.
I have to pay “my taxes” if that means every tax I owe by law. I do NOT have to pay “my taxes” if that means whatever the tax industry and ignorant* Taxpayers want me to fork over even if it’s nowhere found in the law.
(*By ‘ignorant’ I mean clueless about the Tax Code and Congress’ 96-year long misrepresentation of it in their IRS scam.)
The Congress and income tax industry continues to push the propaganda that the Tax Code reads as did the Revenue Act of 1894:
”There shall be assessed, levied, collected, and paid annually upon the gains, profits, and income received in the preceding calendar year by every citizen of the United States . . . from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatsoever, a tax.”
Can’t be more all-encompassing than that, right? And if that was the law today, the Tax Code would be one page long and there would be no tax law industry, no CPA industry, no college and university programs in accounting and taxation…no Intuit software, or H&R Block, or mom & pop tax preparation services…no leasing industry, and much more substantially no MORTGAGE industry.
There would be no tax-deferred investment industry, no financial advisor industry, and by far the biggest national scandal: no 501c3 parasite hanging over everything, for their “tax exempt” donations.
In other words, if Congress hadn’t incrementally made the Tax Code into a 10,000-page behemoth, MILLIONS of parasitic Americans would be out of work. No careers.
And so we see this little political theatre, wherein all the Taxpayers mewl and puke and whine “he didn’t pay his taxes!” while being ignorant of the fact that if they had done their due diligence as a free citizen, they’d have learned what 67 million other Americans have:
You do not self-assess, and sign returns under penalty of perjury unless you know what you’re saying is true. You do NOT know it’s true, because face it, you’ve never even SEEN the Tax Code, much less determined from its pages that you owe an income tax.
You’ve been defrauded, and you’re being terrorised. Face it! So you want to spit and cuss as Tom Daschle, when you have no idea what the law requires.
Remember that section I quoted above, from the Revenue Act of 1894, saying that EVERYBODY had to pay an income tax? It was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
As Rep. Phil Hart explains in his book, Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any? the present Tax Code was drafted by a very sneaky Congress after the Supreme Court ruled that the language above was unconstitutional. The high court even directed Congress to return all revenues collected under that unconstitutional 1894 Revenue Act language!
As I’ve demonstrated on this blog from a 90-year string of standing US Supreme Court rulings on taxation, Congress can’t make everybody owe a tax because the apportionment and uniformity clauses of the US Constitution disallow it.
So during World War I, Congress wrote a limited tax on the wealthiest Americans to attract envious citizens; let them believe that they were going to soak the rich and use the funds for all manner of social good, as the liberals on this blog believe should be done.
Little did the Taxpayers know that the rich knew the law; knew they would not have to pay unless their activities were specifically found in the law. Most activities are NOT.
During World War II, the crooks re-labeled their IRS scam, calling it a ‘Victory Tax’ and preying on citizens’ patriotism to the war effort. At the very bottom of my American Glasnost website, click on the link to the Walt Disney propaganda film for the IRS called “The Spirit of ‘43”. Disney uses a hilariously transparent fascist chant, “Beat the Axis; Pay Your Taxes!!” Even back then, Taxpayers were amazingly ignorant.
The high court has always struck down universal tax language (”everybody must pay”) yet the income tax industry repeats the lie thousands of times a day. It’s a popular lie due to the lifestyles it supports. It’s a ubiquitous lie because it’s backed by the idea that IRS can use armed coercion.
But tax collectors who might ever come to your home or business (a very, very, very rare occurrence) can’t wear ski masks. And they can’t carry firearms, either. IRC Section 7608 authorises IRS employees to carry firearms ONLY when involved in alcohol, tobacco, or firearms cases. Look up 26 USC 7608.
See? An IRS employee carrying a firearm to your home or business is equivalent under the law to a masked drug addict doing so. Yes, armed IRS raids occur a few times annually among the 110 million Taxpayers, for one reason only: to terrorise that population.
But back to the ethical nuances to paying taxes: “everyone owes their taxes” is true, while “everyone owes income taxes” is demonstrably false, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly.
To hide the fact that very few occupations actually trigger the Tax Code liability sections, crooks in Congress have made the Tax Code into a huge, Byzantine mess.
Then they helped create and grow a gargantuan inocme tax industry to assure you that “It’s the LAW!!” and so you assume the ‘professionals’ know what they’re talking about.
But no; this is known in jungle and marine biology as a symbiotic relationship. Several hunter species work together to trap, kill, and eat their prey species. It’s not limited to animals, either. Such symbiotic hunting tactics have been extremely popular throughout human history.
The truth is: beneath those tens of thousands of pages of gobbledygook and purposeful confusion, the Code is actually very limited in its scope – just as the framers meant internal taxation to be. It only applies to certain kinds of activities specifically called out in the law; to persons having taxable income. Persons made liable for an income tax in the Code are better known as taxpayers.
“The revenue laws apply to taxpayers, and NOT to nontaxpayers. No procedure is prescribed for nontaxpayers. Congress does not assume to deal with nontaxpayers, neither are they the subject of nor object of revenue laws.” Economy Plumbing & Heating v. U.S., 456 F.2d. 713
http://www.americanglasnost.blogspot.com
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It’s not by magic that an estimated 67 million Americans are now non-filers.
I don’t know Tom Daschle’s situation, but generally speaking, employees of federal government are made liable for a tax in the Code.
However, if a law doesn’t apply to you, you don’t worry about that law. Fraud is a terrible thing, but just because you’ve been defrauded since your first paycheck doesn’t mean you need to keep being stuck on stupid. Bernie Madoff finally got caught, but I’m sure all his “clients” over those decades really thought he was a straight-shooter with their “investments”.
The law is there in print; READ it! If I told you, “an estimated 299 million Americans do not file annual bulk pesticide disposal permits! They’re thieves and scofflaws!” you’d think I was off my chooch. That’s what you should think of those who say “everybody has to pay their taxes” without knowing what subjects (activities and domicile conditions) the Tax Code applies to.
If a law has no connection with one’s activities, one can disregard it. Or, as the federal appellate court has said,
“The taxpayer must be liable for the tax. Tax liability is a condition precedent to the demand. Merely demanding payment, even repeatedly, does not cause liability.” Boathe v. Terry, 713 F.2d 1405, at 1414 (1983)
On my site, I list (24) specific activites and domicile classes found in the Tax Code as taxable. Your job is likely not on that list.
I show that in Black’s Law Dictionary one can find the legal principle called inclusio unius est exclusio alterius which stipulates that:
“where law expressly describes a particular situation to which it shall apply, an irrefutable inference must be drawn that what is omitted or excluded was intended to be omitted or excluded.”
That makes sense, right?
Then, I list many sections of the Code describing particular situations “to which it shall apply”. But since I can find nothing showing that my activities are taxable, “an irrefutable inference must be drawn” that my income was never taxable. So I stopped filing and paying back in 1998, and have never looked back, except to banter with IRS employees every few months when they’d send hopeful invoices, like a spurned vinyl siding salesman.
Over the years, I requested a simple citation of the law making me liable for an income tax. I asked Michael Thomas and Nancy Sessions at IRS Austin; only got evasion. I asked Beverly Coogan and Aaron Hamor of IRS San Antonio; more evasion. I asked Dennis Parizek and Deborah Egan of IRS Ogden; same thing, no answer except “we haven’t completed our research”! I asked Teresa Webb of IRS Memphis: evasion again. I asked Stephanie Borop and Queen Vaughn of IRS Nashville…you got it. “Our dog ate my homework; we are sending your request to the office listed below.”
So do I pay “my taxes” if the income tax is a fat fraud? No indeed. Nor do I pay pesticide disposal taxes or nuclear plant operating fees. They don’t apply to me.
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees:
“Keeping in mind the well-settled rule that the citizen is exempt from taxation unless the same is imposed by clear and unequivocal language and that where the construction of a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.” Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain, 192 U.S. 297 (1904) [Emphasis added.]
“In the interpretation of statutes levying taxes it is the established rule not to extend their provisions, by implication, beyond the clear import of the language used, or to enlarge their operations so as to embrace matters not specifically pointed out. In case of doubt they are construed most strongly against the government, and in favor of the citizen.” Gould v. Gould , 245 U.S. 151 (1917) [Emphasis added.]
“In view of other settled rules of statutory construction, which teach that a law is presumed, in the absence of clear expression to the contrary, to operate prospectively; that, if doubt exists as to the construction of a taxing statute, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the taxpayer…” Hassett v. Welch., 303 US 303, 82 L Ed 858. (1938)
These Supreme Court rulings demand that in determining tax liability, government must apply the same rule used in every American court…the presumption of innocence. According to the high Court, one assumes nothing to be taxable until finding in law what is specifically indicated to be so.
Any one of those IRS employees I’ve asked over the past 11 years could have shown me where I missed it. But they haven’t, becaus they’re busted. The dog really didn’t eat their homework; they don’t need to do more research. Congress is busted in the largest financial fraud in history, so 67 million non-filers and law-abiding Nontaxpayers are out of the IRS gulag.
Corruption must be resisted and reduced if possible; the citizens’ first step is to turn off the supply valve to the fortress.
And don’t buy the lie that Tax Honesty will land you in jail. Obeying laws and telling the truth is still the best course. As of 2006, the IRS recommended for indictment EIGHT TIMES more filers, than non-filers. With about two filers for every non-filer, this means a filer has FOUR TIMES MORE likelihood of being harassed by the IRS, than a non-filer.
If the Tax Code doesn’t show my activities as the subject of a tax, then I am not a “Taxpayer” as 7701(a)14 defines “Taxpayer”. I have to see a section of law making me liable…like those other (24) taxable activities I can find in the Code. Otherwise, it doesn’t apply to me.
Incidentally, not only the US Supreme Court agrees with this; Sutherland’s does, too. Recognised as a core text on statutory construction by the American Bar Association, Sutherland’s Rules of Statutory Construction is a ten-volume exhaustive resource providing all the acknowledged principles of American statutory interpretation. In Sutherland 66:1 entitled Strict Construction of Statutes Creating Tax Liability we read the following, which is precisely in line with the rulings of the Supreme Court just noted:
“Notwithstanding the crucial importance of tax revenues for the support of governments and its services, it is a settled rule that tax laws are to be strictly construed against the state and in favor of the taxpayer. Where there is reasonable doubt of the meaning of a revenue statute, the doubt is resolved in favor of those taxed…”
Believe it or not, even the Internal Revenue Manual agrees. Did you know that even an unsigned, computer-generated demand for money can be extortion? When an IRS employee (or computer) demands money from a citizen and the citizen demands to see the law behind the demand, the IRS must obey its operations manual and show the law:
4.10.7.1 Overview. Examiners are responsible for determining the correct tax liability as prescribed by the Internal Revenue Code. It is imperative that examiners can identify the applicable law, correctly interpret its meaning in light of congressional intent, and, in a fair and impartial manner, correctly apply the law based on the facts and circumstances of the case.
4.10.7.2 Researching Tax Law. Conclusions reached by examiners must reflect correct application of the law, regulations, court cases, revenue rulings, etc. Examiners must correctly determine the meaning of statutory provisions and not adopt strained interpretation.
4.10.7.2.1.1 Authority of the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Code is generally binding on all courts of law. The courts give great importance to the literal language of the Code.
Their operations manual says they MUST show you the law. The Tax Code says that if they CAN’T show the law but make demandds anyway, they’re committing extortion and can land in prison:
7214(a) Offenses by officers and employees of the United States.
“Any officer or employee of the United States acting in connection with any revenue law of the United States (1) who is guilty of any extortion or willful oppression under color of law; or (2) who knowingly demands other or greater sums than are authorized by law … upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
So if the IRS can show no law being violated, the citizen is free to live in peace, and can stop acting like a grimy-faced groundling, angry at Tom Daschle and throwing his rubber chicken up into the cheap seats.
You can learn more in the Tax Honesty Primer at the American Glasnost website, link below.
http://www.americanglasnost.blogspot.com
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