Lower Social Security Taxes Harm Everyone

Surveys tell us that congress has a favorable rating by about 9% of the population. That is significantly worse than the president’s rating that is about 45%. In spite of that the congress continues to behave as if they had public support.

The most recent outrageous decision was the vote by the Senate to extend the reduced Social Security tax for two months rather than the one year requested by the president. To add to this foolish political dance the House refuses to confirm the Senate’s regulation. The consequence is that there may not be an extension of the lower tax regulation.

The idea of reducing the Social Security tax is a bit of political nonsense. The law puts $20 a week more into the hands of those earning $50,000 per year. This is not a consequential tax reduction. It is enough to buy a half a tank of gasoline for most cars (not SUVs). The effect of the first year of this lower tax has been reported to be zero.

So why is the president pushing so hard for this lower rate? He will win the political argument no matter how the congress votes. If the law is not passed he will blame the Republicans and point out that they only favor tax cuts for the rich. If the law is passed he will point out that it was he who triumphantly won a tax cut for the average man despite the efforts of the Republicans to block fairness.

The worst part of this law is that it lowers tax collections needed to support the Social Security trust fund.

This entire tax battle is another example of politicians legislating short term benefits at the expense of long term financial needs of the nation.

Mitt Romney is Out of Touch with Working Americans

Let’s be clear about this situation. I know some people who really have no concept of living in a 1200 square foot home. Worse yet they have no idea what it is like to go without a meal. Mitt Romney is one of those people.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa—Mitt Romney opened himself up to criticism Friday by saying he didn’t understand Medicaid until he started working in government. The Republican presidential candidate later tried to clarify the comment, but Democrats had already pounced, saying his words were further proof that the multimillionaire businessman is out of touch.

“You wonder what Medicaid is, those that aren’t into all this government stuff. You know, I have to admit. I didn’t know all the differences between these things before I got into government,” Romney told voters at a campaign event. “Then I got into it and understood that Medicaid is the health care program for the poor, by and large.”

Medicaid is a federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled.

Romney tried later to clarify what he meant, telling reporters traveling with him to South Carolina that he understood the program but didn’t quite grasp how it was funded. He called his earlier comment a “self-deprecating understatement.”

Democrats said the comment showed Romney doesn’t understand working-class people.

“One has to wonder how Mitt Romney thinks he can represent American workers, their families and seniors when his concern for the poor and the middle class comes across like an afterthought,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

Romney, who was in his late 40s when he ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1994, told reporters that his prior work for a health care consulting company taught him how important Medicaid and Medicare, a health care program for seniors, are to hospitals.

Los Angeles River as a free-flowing waterway

The Los Angeles River was encased in a concrete channel to protect lives and property. Councilman Dennis Zine’s idea of “bike paths, walkways and restaurants” will work out well as long as there is no flooding. We weren’t here then but the river has a history of flooding adjoining land. Here are some examples provided by The City of Los Angeles, Department of Public Works web site.

1815–The original Plaza is washed away as the river overflows and changes course at Alameda and Fourth Street

1861-62–Heavy flooding. Fifty inches of rain falls during December and January. Much of San Fernando Valley is under water.

1884–Heavy flooding causes the river to change course again, turning east to Vernon and then southward to San Pedro. The Downtown section of the river is channelized.

1914–Heavy flooding. Great damage to the harbor. Public called for creation of the L.A. County Flood Control District and discussion of channelizing the river begins.

1934–Moderate flood starting January 1. Forty dead in La Canada.

1938–Great County-wide flood with 4 days of rain. Most rain on day 4. Red Cross said this was the 5th largest flood in history at that time with 113 lives lost, $40 million in damage ($360 million in 1994 dollars). Recorded as a 50 year storm. Public demands action. Army Corps of Engineers begins channelizing the river with 10,000 workers applying 3,000,000 barrels of concrete by hand.

1941 to 44–L.A.River floods five times.

1983–Flooding kills six people.

1994–Heavy flooding. Estimates range from a 15 to over a 100 year flood.

Lack of Presidential Leadership

The Keystone XL oil pipeline extension was proposed in 2008. The build application was filed in the beginning of 2009. On November 10, 2011 President Obama announced “the decision on the pipeline permit would be delayed until at least 2013, pending further environmental review.”

The Obama administration’s top health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, on Wednesday overruled the Food and Drug commissioner to block the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill from becoming available to young teens without a prescription. When President Obama lifted federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research early in his administration, he set a markedly different tone from that of the Bush years, declaring that scientific decisions should be “based on facts, not ideology.”

Deficit reduction committees and proposals have been numerous during the Obama administration:

– The Super Committee of 12 required a mere majority but could not persuade anyone to change sides.

– Republican Alan Simpson, a former U.S. senator from Wyoming, and Democrat Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Clinton, chaired the president’s bipartisan deficit commission that voted 11-7 last December in favor of a plan to save $4 trillion over 10 years. Unfortunately, a supermajority of 14 votes was needed to move the package to Congress.

– Rep. Paul Ryan (R) has proposed the Roadmap for America’s Future, which is a series of budgetary reforms. His January 2010 version of the plan includes partial privatization of Social Security, the transition of Medicare to a voucher system, discretionary spending cuts and freezes, and tax reform. It was considered too radical by members of both political parties.

What do all of these issues have in common? The president has been absent. No one knows what his ideas are. We all know that he has judiciously avoided taking a position. All evidence of a lack of leadership.

The Fourth Branch of American Government

This is the reason we need to defend America’s free press.

Sometimes called the “fourth estate”; the press has become the real watchdog that helps ensure the government really does the people’s will.

Just two weeks ago there was an item on 60 Minutes about a proposed law titled the Stock Act. The proposed law would outlaw the right of congressmen and senators the right to legally act on insider information that would send the rest of us to jail. The law was originally introduced in the 109th session of the House of Representatives on Mar. 28, 2006 by Brian Baird (D-WA) but it received no support at all until it was part of the television program on November 13, 2011. As of December 2, 2011, it has 153 co-sponsors. This never would have happened without the reporting on television.

Last night Steve Kroft, again on 60 Minutes, interviewed two people who were fired from big financial companies (one from Countrywide Mortgage and one from Citi-Group) because they tried to intervene in fraudulent activities.

It was the Los Angeles Times that provided the expose revealing the theft of city funds from the small city of Bell, California. That has resulted in criminal charge against the city manager and city council members.

Between 1972 and 1976, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporting for the Washington Post, emerged as two of the most famous journalists in the Watergate affair that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Supercommittee Failure is no Surprise

U. S. government deficit reduction has a failed history.

In 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (GRH) began the process by establishing deficit targets and a sequestration process requiring cuts if the limits were exceeded. As the Senate Budget Committee’s history of the budget process recounts, GRH is widely viewed as unsuccessful because it failed to reduce the deficit. While the law was intended to balance the budget by FY 1991, during FY 1986-1990 the actual deficit exceeded the target in every year. The sequestration process was also criticized after Congress proceeded to add a long list of exemptions and other gimmicks.

In November 2010 The White House’s fiscal commission’s co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and former-Senator Alan Simpson drafted their recommendations for deficit reduction. No action taken based upon their recommendations.

More recently President Obama pinned his hopes on avoiding an unprecedented government default on a new bipartisan compromise that would raise the debt limit as part of a $3.7trillion package of spending cuts and tax changes. The compromise resulted in no spending cuts.

This latest committee was staffed with some of the most strident member of Congress. Senator John Kyle (R) ofArizona and Senator John Kerry (D) ofMassachusetts are two of the best examples of “my way or the highway” attitude. We all know their positions. This new committee was doomed from day 1.

It is sad to say they cannot look across the Atlantic to see what their no compromise philosophy will bring. Today’s stock market collapse ought to send a message but it won’t be heard.

99% of us Want our Nation Back!

Many people point out that one half the nation pays no income tax. This is not a surprise when you consider the following facts.

The official unemployment rate provided by the BLS remains at 9.1%. There is no indication that the rate will be dropping in the next year or two. The actual rate is closer to double that figure when the under employed and the discouraged are included.

A total of 46.2 million Americans now live in poverty, according to the latest Census Bureau data, the highest figure in the half century the bureau has been publishing such numbers. Last year, 1 in 6 Americans lived below the poverty line-defined as an income of $22,314 for a family of four-and the median household income dropped for the third year in a row. A typical American family brought home $49,445 in 2010, a 2.3 percent drop from the previous year and a level last seen in 1996. The number of Americans without health insurance climbed to 49.9 million, equal to the populations, New York,Alabama, and Vermont combined. “We’re risking a new underclass,” said Timothy Smeeding, a poverty researcher at the University of Wisconsin.

“Your Money” guest on CNN, Lakshman Achuthan, who predicted the last official recession, now predicts we are either in a new recession or heading for one right now. Guest Ken Rogoff says many feel the recession never ended.

Now we have sit-ins in most major cities by a leaderless group called OccupyWallStreet. Their goal appears to be sending a message that the richest people in America must pay for the mistakes made that have impacted the nation’s economy. Just last night Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, told Lesley Stahl he had done the right thing for his company when he moved thousands of jobs overseas. Immelt offered no apologies.

I predicted these demonstrations before anyone else. When congress wakes up perhaps we will have justice. Then again, we all know who they answer to.

Social Security Is Looking Like a Ponzi Scheme

Is Rick Perry correct? Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

I pulled out the last statement that Social Security sends to each of us annually. It lists my annual contribution all the way back to the jobs I had in college. I listed all of those contributions in an Excel spreadsheet. Then I calculated the future value of each year’s contribution earning 3% compound interest.

The results were wonderful for me but not for the Social Security Administration. Based upon the results, my contributions along with interest earned, I will be withdrawing money I did not contribute ten years after my retirement.

This assumes I am alive ten years after I have retired. Given the fact that many seniors are now living into their eighties, and beyond, this is not an unrealistic projection.

We have a social problem. You see I could have worked longer than 67 but no one wants to hire senior citizens. Oh, I know, I should work at Walmart as a Greeter. Will we have to pass laws forbidding the layoff of senior citizens that can still do their job? Perhaps we will simply tell senior citizens the Social Security benefit is only for a maximum of ten years. If you live longer we will not provide you with any assistance.

Then again perhaps we could tax the very wealthy to keep the system going. I like George W. Bush’s private accounts idea.

Our national problem is that the politicians don’t like to deal with difficult problems. They want someone else to deal with the hard stuff.