HAS THE GOVERNMENT STOLEN YOUR IDENTITY?

by j. wright


Readers, please bear with me whilst I indulge in some make believe.

Imagine that when your next credit card bill arrives, you open it and discover that you, your wife and two kids suddenly owe $180,000 more than you thought.

“This is not right!” you say and immediately get on the telephone and call your credit card company.

You get a responsible individual on the line and ask, “What’s the meaning of this $180,000 balance in new charges that I didn’t make?”

“Oh…” the individual responds, “those aren’t new charges, this has been going on for a number of years but we never showed it on your billings. Your Uncle made those charges. He has control of your account too.

“What? Which Uncle?”

“Sam. He said he had control of your family's credit card account and he needed to use your money to help some folks who are disadvantaged and to promote some of his favorite projects.”

“You must be kidding! I never gave him that kind of control!”

“Yes, you did. A long time ago.”

“That’s unbelievable. So what is he doing with our money?”

“Well… unfortunately he mishandles and wastes a lot of it. A lot goes to people who are out of work, or simply lazy, or ill, or dying. A lot of it he spends on himself too, but he hides that from our prying eyes. He says those folks he is helping don’t have a credit card so he uses your money. He says, ‘It’s only fair and you can afford it.’”

“I can’t believe this. How am I ever going to pay this off, or is he going to pay it off?”

“Unfortunately your Uncle doesn’t have any money of his own; he has to use yours. You can’t pay it off either because your Uncle will continue to keep charging to your account. He suggested to us that you could take a second job in order to make more money available to him. Even now he is asking for an increase in your credit limit and we have to give it to him. ”

“Why?”

“Because we always have and it appears now that we don’t have a choice.”

“Well, if I can’t ever pay this balance off, who will?”

“Your children will become responsible for the balance, along with their children, and their children and their children too… unfortunately it’s a never ending cycle.”

“Isn’t there some way to end it?”

“Sure, if you can find enough people willing to replace your respective Uncles. Everyone is in the same predicament; all of you have a spendthrift Uncle Sam.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Then you live with the fact that you and your children’s children will be in debt to us forever, and not just the $45,000 each that everyone in your household owes today. Your Uncle has made promises to a lot of people, financial promises that are as yet unpaid amounting to tens of thousands of dollars; about a half million dollars more that you and every other family are responsible for, okay?”

“Okay? You must be kidding.”

~ ~ ~

So what if you woke up one day and discovered yourself in that financial mess? You don’t need to wake up; you are already there. The reality is our National Debt has surpassed $14,440,900,000,000.00 and is growing (that’s about $46,000+ for every man, woman and child). Our annual government expense will exceed our revenues this year by more than $1.381 trillion and growing and eventually added to the National Debt.

Add to that the Unfunded Mandates as reported recently; promises made by our government to seniors, veterans, the disadvantaged, etc. that stand at a whopping $61.6 trillion.

Do you agree that it may be past time to replace Uncle and get the borrowing and spending under control?

jaq~

When is a Lie the Truth?

by j. wright

It's amazing the things one can discover from listening to a few minutes of talk radio or watching some sane TV news broadcasts... certainly little the famed mainstream media cares to divulge.

I "learned" today that our president, Barack H. Obama, believes that our current federal income tax rates are the lowest in recent history, lower even than the Ronald W. Reagan era, and in his opinion it's only fair to raise income taxes on couples making more than $250,000, or individuals making more tha $200,000 annually. This he told the Republican leaders who met with him earlier this week at the White House.

While most of the Republicans present rolled their eyes at this assertion regarding Reagan's tax rates it was explained to the president that Reagan era rates were actually lower. What is different today are the loop holes in place that Reagan previously abolished. What is also true is that tax revenues today ARE LOWER than in the Reagan era, all things taken into consideration.

In explanation, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was quick to counter the president's claim on low tax rates, saying, "...actually, our corporate tax rates are the highest in the world." President Obama acknowledged that U.S. corporate tax rates are higher than most other nations.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) explained "... that's a big deal. The high rates hurts American competitiveness and job creation - so the folks that are trying to earn money, get a job, so they can pay that 'low tax rate,' they can't even do that right now because we aren't competitive with the rest of the world."

It was reported too that President Obama is not interested in slowing or lowering the incessant government spending now in place, rather he wants more money to spend, ergo the request for an addional $2 trillion to be added to our national debt limit. With that, recall that two weeks ago he requested a "clean up or down vote" on raising the debt limit. The Republican led House gave it to him a day ago and it lost big time. Some eighty-two (82) Democrats voted no including Nancy Pelosi. Afterward the White House and the Democrat leaders claimed the vote was a fraud, a joke. That after giving them what they had asked for. One radio news commentator used the expression, "You give me that apple and I'll let you paint the fence white." Too damn funny IMO.

Later, on the Neil Cavuto financial program on FOX News television, Neil Cavuto exchanged views on the current jobless rate with a Democrat House member from California who repeated several times that in order to keep our economy "growing" we must maintain the same fiscal policies that have given us a net gain under Obama of 125 million new jobs.

Cavuto countered saying that they has been NO net gain in jobs. The Democrat kept smiling and maintained that Neil was wrong. What is true, Neil's staff, (along with Roger Hedgecock's of conservative talk radio using goverment stats available on line) found that under Obama, since January of 2009, the country has suffered a net LOSS of 2.5 million jobs; a 3.75 million swing from what the Democrat politician falsely claimed. My question: who informs these people?

A few weeks ago, Cavuto had a similar exchange with an Obama supporter who maintained over and over that thirty-one (31) new drilling permits had been issued for the Gulf since the BP spill, Cavuto said "No, only three (3) have been issued."

Cavuto was proven right (again using stats gleaned from .gov web sites.) My question remains; Who informs these people? Of is it their practice to lie, keep lying, and maybe convince enough folks that a lie is an actual fact?

If the financial crisis that caused this ongoing recession was brought about under President George W. Bush, it's also true that this "recovery" (or lack of same) belongs to Obama. It ain't working.

jaq~