Some can't stand it - sandwichh's Blog - Victoria Advocate http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh Being interested in politics, history, government, society changes, generational things, there is not much telling what will be coming up here. Some will agree, some will not, some will say I didn't know that, some will say "you @#$%&*^#$". Being interested in politics, history, government, society changes, generational things, there is not much telling what will be coming up here. Some will agree, some will not, some will say I didn't know that, some will say "you @#$%&*^#$". en-us Thank you Veterans.... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9466 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9466 <p>It is the soldier, not the reporter,<br /> Who has given us freedom of the press.</p> <p>It is the soldier, not the poet,<br /> Who has given us freedom of speech.</p> <p>It is the soldier, not the campus [or community] organizer,<br /> Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.</p> <p>It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,<br /> Who serves beneath the flag,<br /> And whose coffin is draped by the flag,<br /> Who allows the protester to burn the flag.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>THANK YOU!!!!!!</p>


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 08-46b.jpg sandwichh Put up time... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9411 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9411 <p>Well it's over. </p> <p>Now it is time they will HAVE TO take responsibility for what happens. The blame game is over, though I am sure it will still all be Bush's fault 4 years from now.</p> <p>But this is the same spot Bill Clinton and the congress was in his first term and they blew it. So we will see what happens this time. This group is far more radical than back in '92.</p> <p>So in the next year or two we will see. Hope I am&nbsp;wrong but I think it will be a big &quot;I TOLD YOU SO&quot; fest from us Conservatives. I also hope we don't suffer too bad.</p> <p>Okay lefty's, it's on you now. I am going to hide my money as best I can. My security doesn't feel too secure right now.</p> <p>It is mine after all, right? Well, not according to some...... <strong>;)</strong></p>


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 !cid_84897CF001124643B6897D903B7A3995@EchoComputer.jpg sandwichh This is the mad man.... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9404 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9404 <p>I am an old Saturday Night Live guy, Beloshi, Akrod, Curtain, etc...</p> <p>Usually say they are not as good as the old days of Land Shark, ConeHeads and such but this skit is good.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Out of the many well done take off's of people this political season, this is the best. Nails the guy to the tee.</p> <p>For those of you who have not seen this, Ben Affleck does a fantastic job doing MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.</p> <p>If you have never seen the MSNBC mad man Olbermann, this is him in all his glory......ROFL!!!!</p> Well, there you go again http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9367 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9367 <p>Never let it be said that the truth got in the way of putting out a Obama ad.</p> <p>Obama's latest has a whopper in it, Heritage.org has demanded twice that it be removed from the ad.</p>


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 !cid_84897CF001124643B6897D903B7A3995@EchoComputer.jpg sandwichh The shortages have hit California http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9345 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9345 <p>It's true, it must be. They finally admit that cable news is becoming more entertainment, a lot of mouthpieces.</p> <p>There must be a cool aide shortage in Hollywood. Has to be. They are actually talking down about MSNBC and blabber mouth Keith Olbermann. Some actually admitted they would have luch with Hannity over Keithy. I almost fell out of my chair. </p> <p>Some say things start in California and work their way out. Now it looks like something finally worked its way to the left coast, what&nbsp;WE who think for ourselves in regular USA have been saying&nbsp;for&nbsp;a long time. Especially that Southern women have always been smart.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h1>Hollywood insiders rip MSNBC, defend Palin</h1> <div class="timestamp">Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:58pm EDT</div> <p>By Paul Bond</p> <p>LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In a room full of television industry executives, no one seemed inclined to defend MSNBC on Monday for what some were calling its lopsidedly liberal coverage of the presidential election.</p> <p>The cable news channel is &quot;completely out of control,&quot; said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat.</p> <p>She added that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.</p> <p>Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday's luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers &amp; Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed &quot;Hollywood, America and Election '08.&quot;</p> <p>Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC -- and other media -- has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.</p> <p>&quot;We should stop the demonizing,&quot; she said, adding that Democrats have been worse than Republicans as far as personal attacks on candidates are concerned. &quot;It diminishes us,&quot; she said of her fellow Democrats.</p> <p>Bloodworth-Thomason even suggested a defense of Palin and her supporters should be written into TV programing, just as she went out of her way to portray Southern women as smart in her hit TV show &quot;Designing Women.&quot;</p> <p>Attendee Michael Reagan, the radio talk-show host and son of President Ronald Reagan, said he no longer will appear as a guest on MSNBC because &quot;I actually get death threats.&quot;</p> <p>&quot;I'll stop sending them,&quot; joked Larry Gelbart, the writer, producer and director best known for the &quot;M*A*S*H&quot; television series and such movie screenplays as &quot;Tootsie&quot; and &quot;Oh, God!&quot;</p> <p>Pollster Frank Luntz, a regular guest on the Fox News, joked that MSNBC is &quot;the only network with more letters in its name than viewers.&quot;</p> <p>On a more serious note, Luntz said it's a problem that the electorate chooses to watch news programs not for information but to confirm already-held beliefs, and that applies to viewers of CNN and Fox News as well.</p> <p>Luntz predicted a Barack Obama victory and said that one of the many reasons the Democrats have been more effective with their message is because, while Republicans dominate talk radio, Democrats have begun to dominate the Internet.</p> <p>&quot;I'd rather have the Internet,&quot; he said.</p> <p>Obama also gets credit because he's a better communicator than past Democrats, Luntz said, comparing the previous Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, to one of those trees that threw apples at Dorothy in &quot;The Wizard of Oz.&quot;</p> <p>Actress Patricia Heaton noted that Hollywood workers too often just assume everyone they work with is a like-minded liberal. When those around her belittle John McCain or Palin, the former &quot;Everybody Loves Raymond&quot; co-star politely reminds them that she's a Republican.</p> <p>&quot;That's what you have to do in our town,&quot; she said.</p> <p>Actor Beau Bridges lamented that there is &quot;too much entertainment&quot; in elections nowadays. &quot;Just put 'em in a room -- like we are now -- and let 'em talk about the issues,&quot; he said.</p> <p>Some of the most spirited debate came from the panel's moderator, outspoken conservative Lionel Chetwynd. The writer, director and producer passionately defended the Iraq War and Palin, whom he called &quot;the ideal Jeffersonian political figure.&quot;</p> <p>Chetwynd's performance prompted Gelbart to joke that Chetwynd was the most &quot;immoderate moderator&quot; he had ever seen.</p> <p>&quot;It's a liberal organization,&quot; Chetwynd said of the Caucus. &quot;But I'm trying.&quot;</p> <p>Reuters/Hollywood Reporter</p>


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 bg__stryker_convoy.jpg sandwichh Here they go..... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9333 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9333 <p>A mad, mad, mad, mad world.</p> <p>They want to take you 401 K away, tax it now, put it into a plan like social security, allow you to save from now on only 5% of you pay, EVERYONE will get a $600 payment into it a year even if they don't pay taxes and earn a mesely 3%. Everyone get the same.</p> <p>Now....What is that called???&nbsp;</p> <p>Here is your Democrat majority working for You the middle class?????<br /> </p> <!--MAIN COPY STARTS HERE--> <p><font face="arial,verdana" color="#660000" size="+2"><strong>From Workforce.com</strong></font></p> <p><font face="arial,verdana" color="#660000" size="+2"><strong>House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks</strong></font><br /> Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation&rsquo;s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <hr align="left" width="100%" color="#000000" noshade="noshade" size="1" /> <p>&nbsp;</p> <div style="MARGIN-TOP: 15px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: xx-small; COLOR: #111111; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">October 16, 2008 </span></div> <div style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 3px"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: #660000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks</span> </div> <div style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 3px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman">Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation&rsquo;s $3 trillion <a title="Click here to read more stories about 401(k)s." href="http://www.workforce.com/section/search_results.php?account=1005&amp;psel=all&amp;match=best&amp;sort_by=publish_date&amp;q=%22401%28k%29%22&amp;Go.x=12&amp;Go.y=8">401(k) system</a>, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a title="Click here to read more stories involving the congressman." href="http://www.workforce.com/section/search_results.php?account=1005&amp;psel=all&amp;match=best&amp;sort_by=publish_date&amp;q=%22George+Miller%22&amp;Go.x=18&amp;Go.y=6">House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller</a>, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee&rsquo;s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute. </p> <p>A plan by <a title="Click here to read more stories involving Teresa Ghilarducci." href="http://www.workforce.com/section/search_results.php?account=1005&amp;psel=all&amp;match=best&amp;sort_by=publish_date&amp;q=%22Teresa+Ghilarducci%22"><font color="#003399">Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis</font></a> at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Miller&rsquo;s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.&nbsp; </p> <p>At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months. </p> <p>Under Ghilarducci&rsquo;s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation. </p> <p>The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated. </p> <p>&ldquo;I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,&rdquo; Ghilarducci said in an interview. &ldquo;401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won&rsquo;t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.&rdquo; </p> <p>Under the current 401(k) system, investors are charged relatively high retail fees, Ghilarducci said. </p> <p>&ldquo;I want to spend our nation&rsquo;s dollar for retirement security better. Everybody would now be covered&rdquo; if the plan were adopted, Ghilarducci said. </p> <p>She has been in contact with Miller and McDermott about her plan, and they are interested in pursuing it, she said. </p> <p>&ldquo;This [plan] certainly is intriguing,&rdquo; said Mike DeCesare, press secretary for McDermott. </p> <p>&ldquo;That is part of the discussion,&rdquo; he said. </p> <p>While Miller stopped short of calling for Ghilarducci&rsquo;s plan at the hearing last week, he was clearly against continuing tax breaks as they currently exist.</p> <p><strong>Savings rate</strong><br /> &ldquo;The savings rate isn&rsquo;t going up for the investment of $80 billion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have to start to think about ... whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that&rsquo;s not generating what we now say it should.&rdquo; </p> <p>&ldquo;From where I sit that&rsquo;s just crazy,&rdquo; said John Belluardo, president of Stewardship Financial Services Inc. in Tarrytown, New York. &ldquo;A lot of people contribute to their 401(k)s because of the match of the employer,&rdquo; he said. Belluardo&rsquo;s firm does not manage assets directly. </p> <p>Higher-income employers provide matching funds to employee plans so that they can qualify for tax benefits for their own defined-contribution plans, he said. </p> <p>&ldquo;If the tax deferral goes away, the employers have no reason to do the matches, which primarily help people in the lower income brackets,&rdquo; Belluardo said. </p> <p>&ldquo;This is a battle between liberalism and conservatism,&rdquo; said Christopher Van Slyke, a partner in the La Jolla, California, advisory firm Trovena, which manages $400 million. &ldquo;People are afraid because their accounts are seeing some volatility, so Democrats will seize on the opportunity to attack a program where investors control their own destiny,&rdquo; he said. </p> <p><a title="Automatic Enrollment Boosting 401(k) Participation" href="http://www.workforce.com/archive/article/25/80/01.php">The Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America</a> in Chicago, which represents employers that sponsor defined-contribution plans, is &ldquo;staunchly committed to keeping the employee benefit system in America voluntary,&rdquo; said Ed Ferrigno, vice president in the Washington office. </p> <p>&ldquo;Some of the tenor [of the hearing last week] that the entire system should be based on the activities of the markets in the last 90 days is not the way to judge the system,&rdquo; he said. </p> <p>No legislative proposals have been introduced and Congress is out of session until next year. </p> <p>However, most political observers believe that Democrats are poised to gain seats in both the House and the Senate, so comments made by the mostly Democratic members who attended the hearing could be a harbinger of things to come.</p> <p><strong>Advice at issue</strong><br /> In addition to tax breaks for 401(k)s, the issue of allowing investment advisors to provide advice for 401(k) plans was also addressed at the hearing. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-New Jersey, was critical of Department of Labor proposals made in August that would allow advisors to give individual advice if the advice was generated using a computer model. </p> <p>Andrews characterized the proposals as &ldquo;loopholes&rdquo; and said that investment advice should not be given by advisors who have a direct interest in the sale of financial products. </p> <p><a title="Pension Protection Act Boosting 401(k) Participation, Survey Concludes" href="http://www.workforce.com/archive/article/25/28/10.php">The Pension Protection Act of 2006</a> contains provisions making it easier for investment advisors to give <a title="Market Mess Exposes Gaps in 401(k) Savers’ Knowledge" href="http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/82/49.php">individualized counseling to 401(k)</a> holders. </p> <p>&ldquo;In retrospect that doesn&rsquo;t seem like such a good idea to me,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;This is an issue I think we have to revisit. I frankly think that the compromise we struck in 2006 is not terribly workable or wise,&rdquo; he said. </p> <p>On Thursday, October 9, the Department of Labor hastily scheduled a public hearing on the issue in Washington for Tuesday, October 21. </p> <p>The agency does not frequently hold public hearings on its proposals. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </span><font face="Times New Roman">Filed by Sara Hansard of </font><a target="_blank" href="http://www.investmentnews.com/"><strong><em><font face="Times New Roman">Investment News</font></em></strong></a><font face="Times New Roman">, a sister publication of </font><a href="http://www.workforce.com/"><strong><em><font face="Times New Roman">Workforce Management</font></em></strong></a><font face="Times New Roman">.</font></div> Children, Children....Please http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9330 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9330 <p>When you ask the hard questions to the Obama people like the questions that&nbsp;are constantly asked of the McCain people you get....</p> <p>I don't like that and I am taking my ball and going home. I will never play with you again.</p> <p>These are legitimate questions asked of Joe Biden by a professional Orlando journalist, which means no bias. All he has to do is answer them. But what does he do? Well, lies about two things to start.</p> <p>He says Obama did not say share the wealth, or spread the wealth around which is the same. Yes he did, to the now popular Joe the plumber among others.&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;also lies about&nbsp;Obama and ACORN. The Obama campaign DID pay ACORN and its affiliates over $800,000 to go out and register voters.</p> <p>Well, this is a view of the Obama administration and the Fairness Doctrine. If you dare present questions that anger the messiah Obama or his people, they cut you off, take the ball go home. </p> <p><a href="http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html">http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Then another in Philly......</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Obama=(Jimmy Carter+Bill Clinton)...squared</p> No more denying..... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9325 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9325 <p>It's all over the place, the telling interview. This is Barack Obama at his telling all, he believes in the Marxist, socialist movement. He puts nice words on it but it is still the same. Like those who say they can cook liver and you won't know it. You may can hide the smell but when you bite into it, it's liver.</p> <p>No way he can place his hand on anything and take the oath to uphold the Constitution in good character or moral uprightness. He says it is not right so how can he uphold something he does not believe in....</p> <p>The Constitution is where law&nbsp;comes from, not the courts as much as liberal progressives want it. Be careful, that is where he wants to go. Acivist coursts which we have many of now.</p> <p>The main stream press has carried him along,...but now.....and he was a lot older than 8 years old.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Obama........................&quot;If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I&rsquo;d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn&rsquo;t that radical. It didn&rsquo;t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can&rsquo;t do to you. Says what the Federal government can&rsquo;t do to you, but doesn&rsquo;t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn&rsquo;t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.&quot;</p>


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 PiperObama.jpg sandwichh Want to send a soldier a card?.... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9316 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9316 <p>Do you want to send a Christmas card to the troops doing the job overseas but don't know for sure how to do it? I&nbsp;may be able to&nbsp;help if you want.</p> <p>My youngest son said that if I send him some cards simply to any soldier he will distribute them to the chow hall so anyone can pick one up. I will be more than happy to collect some and put them in the flat rate boxes and mail them with our care packages&nbsp;we send him.</p> <p>The son is a&nbsp;graduate of&nbsp;VHS and Texas&nbsp;State in San Marcos and is now &nbsp;with the 1/25 Stryker Brigade which consist of Infantry, Calvary, Field Artillery, Support, Intelligence. They are&nbsp;out of Fairbanks, Alaska. So they are having &quot;fun&quot; in the hot sandbox. Temp. in Fairbanks this morning is 1 degree F., it is a big change. They are at Forward Operating Base Warhorse which is near Baquba [Baqouba], about 40 miles northeast of Baghdad. </p> <p>So if you have a group or you just want to send a few cards out to the people doing the work for us, making sure we can agree and disagree openly on the upcoming elections send me an email and we will see how we can work out a pickup. I work shift work and the wife works M-F so we can probably work it out.&nbsp;&nbsp;Just send me an email. Of course this is in the Victoria area.</p> <p>Last suggested send of for packages to the troops over there is Nov. 13 to get there in time.</p> <p> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"> <tbody> <tr> <th valign="top" width="151"> <p>Military Mail Addressed To</p> </th> <th valign="top" width="96"> <p>Express Mail&reg; Military Service (EMMS)<u>1/</u> </p> </th> <th valign="top" width="96"> <p>First-Class Mail&reg; Letters/Cards </p> </th> <th valign="top" width="54"> <p>Priority Mail&reg; </p> </th> <th valign="top" width="78"> <p>Parcel Airlift Mail (PAL) <u>2/</u> </p> </th> <th valign="top" width="96"> <p>Space Available Mail (SAM) <u>3/</u></p> </th> <th valign="top" width="66"> <p>Parcel Post&reg; </p> </th> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="151"> <p>APO/FPO AE ZIPs 090-092 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 18 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="54"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="78"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Nov 27 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="66"> <p align="center">Nov 13 </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="151"> <p>APO/FPO AE ZIP 093 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">N/A </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="54"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="78"> <p align="center">Dec 1 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Nov 27 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="66"> <p align="center">Nov 13 </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="151"> <p>APO/FPO AE ZIPs 094-098 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 18 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="54"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="78"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Nov 27 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="66"> <p align="center">Nov 13 </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="151"> <p>APO/FPO AA ZIPs 340 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 18 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="54"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="78"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Nov 27 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="66"> <p align="center">Nov 13 </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="151"> <p>APO/FPO AP ZIPs 962-966 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 18 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="54"> <p align="center">Dec 11 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="78"> <p align="center">Dec 4 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="96"> <p align="center">Nov 27 </p> </td> <td valign="top" width="66"> <p align="center">Nov 13 </p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </p>


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 128207140_LrsrS-M.jpg sandwichh bg__stryker_c130_offload_2.jpg sandwichh bg__stryker_tactical_1.jpg sandwichh bg_strykerdismount.jpg sandwichh True words http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9241 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9241 <p>Well, got a phone call from son in Iraq. He has been doing 16, 18, 20 hour days since there. Traveling around Baghdad, meeting Iraqi's, checking out their new area of operations out of the FOB (Forward Operating Base). Dealing with the different types of food served by the locals. Like liver in a type of tomato sauce. He is his fathers son when it comes to liver.</p> <p>One of the first things he asks is how is the election looking. After telling what the polls are, all the BS of the candidates bailouts he is not happy. He is a young person who understands how it is going to affect his parents in retirement and his life and finances later.</p> <p>The thing he told me this time that says the most is about what he sees over there and what they have to deal with and comparing&nbsp;that to what we have to deal with over here. And he states Phil Gramm was right. John McCain fired him for telling the truth. We are a nation of whiners.</p> <p>Sure are a lot of liars being kept on the job. Tax cut....rriiigghhtt.</p>


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 56991_orig_crybaby.gif sandwichh More truth about the Nobama tax rape you tax plan.... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9233 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9233 <p class="articleSection first"><small><font color="#666666">Wall Street Journal.......OCTOBER 13, 2008</font></small> </p> <!-- ID: SB122385651698727257 --><!-- TYPE: Review &amp; Outlook (U.S.) --><!-- DISPLAY-NAME: Review &amp; Outlook --><!-- PUBLICATION: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition --><!-- DATE: 2008-10-13 00:01 --><!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones &amp; Company, Inc. --><!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --><!-- article start --><!--CODE=STATISTIC SYMBOL=FREECODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OPIN--> <h1>Obama's 95% Illusion </h1> <h2 class="subhead">It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is....</h2> <div class="mastertextCenter" id="articleTabs_panel_article"> <div class="col6wide colOverflowTruncated" id="article_story"> <div class="articlePagination" id="article_pagination_top"></div> <div class="article story" id="article_story_body"> <div class="articlePage"> <p>One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of &quot;working families.&quot; He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today.</p> <div class="insetContent embedType-image imageFormat-D"> <div class="insetTree"> <div class="insettipUnit">&nbsp;It's a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he's also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of &quot;tax cut.&quot;</div> </div> </div> <p>For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase &quot;tax credit.&quot; Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:</p> <div class="insetContent embedType-image imageFormat-arbitrary"> <div class="insetTree" style="WIDTH: 282px"> <div class="insettipUnit" style="WIDTH: 282px"><img height="336" alt="[Review &amp; Outlook]" width="282" border="0" src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AI343_1taxcr_NS_20081008232813.gif" /> </div> </div> </div> <p>- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to &quot;make work pay&quot; that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.</p> <p>- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.</p> <p>- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).</p> <p>- A &quot;savings&quot; tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.</p> <p>- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.</p> <p>- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.</p> <p>- A &quot;clean car&quot; tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.</p> <p>Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be &quot;refundable,&quot; which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this &quot;welfare,&quot; or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a &quot;Demogrant.&quot; Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.</p> <p>The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.</p> <p>The total annual expenditures on refundable &quot;tax credits&quot; would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as &quot;tax credits,&quot; the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.</p> <p>The political left defends &quot;refundability&quot; on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.</p> <p>It is also true that John McCain proposes a refundable tax credit -- his $5,000 to help individuals buy health insurance. <a class="" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122343823408914411.html"><font color="#093d72">We've written before that we prefer a tax deduction for individual health care, rather than a credit</font></a>. But the big difference with Mr. Obama is that Mr. McCain's proposal replaces the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance that individuals don't now receive if they buy on their own. It merely changes the nature of the tax subsidy; it doesn't create a new one.</p> <p>There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge &quot;marginal&quot; tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.</p> <p>Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of &quot;making work pay,&quot; but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div>


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 Faux-bama.png sandwichh Governmental regulation http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9200 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9200 <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span class="printableheadline1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Governmental regulation is when government tells you what to do. So our problem did not start with them&nbsp;not&nbsp;regulating the mortgages. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span class="printableheadline1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span class="printableheadline1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Boy, are we headed&nbsp;plum off the cliff. Wait and see.<strong>&nbsp;</strong></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span class="printableheadline1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><strong><font color="#003399"></font></strong></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span class="printableheadline1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><strong><font color="#003399">Democrats Behind CRA Cover-Up</font></strong></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font size="3"> <o:p></o:p></font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #666666; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">by <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Ernest++Istook"><span style="COLOR: #666666; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">Ernest Istook</span></a> <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Ernest%20+Istook"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000099; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">(more by this author)</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 12pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #666666; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Posted 10/15/2008 ET<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font size="3">&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 18pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia">As always, it&rsquo;s the cover-up that sinks people. Liberals are working overtime to cover up their role in the mortgage meltdown. Not only did they block attempts to reform Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before they could drag down our economy, but liberals also abused the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), turning it into a vehicle for directing loans to unqualified homebuyers. <br /> <br /> The left knows that whoever shapes public understanding of what caused today&rsquo;s economic crisis can shape America&rsquo;s politics -- and its future -- for a great many years to come. Thus, they&rsquo;re pushing the notion that too little government regulation was at fault. <br /> <br /> If the country buys this idea, liberals can enact a carbon-copy of FDR&rsquo;s response to the Great Depression, building a larger, more activist and ever-more-controlling federal government. They can exploit the mess by establishing a conventional wisdom that more government is the solution, rather than understanding how big government is a root cause of the current financial meltdown.<br /> <br /> Claiming it all sprung from a lack of regulation is a half-truth, and a Yiddish proverb says a half truth is a whole lie. Over-regulation opened the money spigot by requiring lenders to make poorly underwritten loans. Under-regulation then allowed politicians to exploit that. <br /> <br /> Although greed and dishonesty among both borrowers and lenders had major roles, the CRA and the GSEs were at the heart of what happened, setting up the now-toppled dominoes of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and others. <br /> <br /> Over-regulation through CRA, aided by HUD, became a huge problem and, alas, wasn&rsquo;t even addressed in the multi-billion dollar bailout. The Clinton Treasury Department&rsquo;s tough new regulations in 1995 compelled the banks to engage in far-riskier lending practices or receive a failing CRA grade. To avoid an &ldquo;F&rdquo; from the CRA, which could jeopardize their viability, the banks were pressured to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in high-risk mortgages to inner-city and low-income neighborhoods. Moreover, under CRA pressure, banks would &ldquo;hire&rdquo; radical, non-profit groups like ACORN to find them customers. Once trillions of dollars began to flow, politicians and lobbyists tapped into this stream, and so did left-wing activist groups. <br /> <br /> According to George Mason University&rsquo;s Russell Roberts, the CRA was buttressed by other new regulations during the Clinton Administration. As Roberts writes, &ldquo;For 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target -- 42 percent of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with income below the median in their area. The target increased to 50 percent in 2000 and 52 percent in 2005. <br /> <br /> For 1996, HUD required that 12 percent of all mortgage purchases by Fannie and Freddie be &ldquo;special affordable&rdquo; loans, typically to borrowers with income less than 60 percent of their area&rsquo;s median income. That number was increased to 20 percent in 2000 and 22 percent in 2005. The 2008 goal was to be 28 percent.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> The banks were kept from rebelling by using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac&rsquo;s deep pockets to buy these poor-quality loans and take them off the banks&rsquo; books.<br /> <br /> Under-regulation of the GSEs -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- allowed the money stream to widen and keep flowing. There has always been an implicit understanding that taxpayers would cover GSE losses and this enabled them to attract money and pour it into the CRA-induced sub-prime market. The Bush Administration had warned about this for years. Fannie and Freddie, however, could skim enough to pay for political protection, plus pay sky-high executive salaries and bonuses to well-connected political figures. <br /> <br /> Over the past decade, Fannie and Freddie combined to spend a reported $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. Now bailing them out may cost taxpayers $200 billion directly, and far more indirectly. <br /> <br /> The circle of political back-scratching centered around the theme of affordable housing, which the GSEs marketed heavily. Politicians wanted housing for low-income and poor credit risks, so they used Fannie and Freddie to further that objective, and the GSEs responded with campaign help for those politicians. <br /> <br /> In return, politicians resisted reforms. This was demonstrated at a 2004 House hearing, where Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.) denounced attempts to stiffen oversight and regulation of this duo &ldquo;so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish, from desktop underwriting to 100 percent loans.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> &ldquo;Desktop underwriting&rdquo; meant undocumented loans. No proof of income or credit history required. And zero down payment. <br /> <br /> Members of both parties were involved in protecting the system. But liberal Democrats were the dominant force. <br /> <br /> Recently, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told The Boston <em>Globe</em>, &ldquo;[Republicans&rsquo;] failure to regulate sensibly &hellip; endangered the economy and &hellip; burdened it with bad stuff.&hellip; Their own philosophy blew up in their face. They were so extreme in their insistence that there be no government intervention that they have wound up provoking far more government intervention than the Democrats ever would have.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> But Frank is covering up his own role because he sang a far different tune in 2003, when the Bush Administration and many Republicans (including Sen. John McCain) tried to require Fannie and Freddie to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and other additional oversight requirements. Treasury Secretary John Snow, in fact, had specifically warned Congress that Fannie and Freddie needed a new supervisory structure so that both institutions would &ldquo;maintain capital and reserves sufficient to support the risks that arise or exist in its business.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> Rep. Frank was unconcerned. He told a hearing, &ldquo;Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis.&rdquo; Rather, he said, they were &ldquo;fundamentally sound,&rdquo; and criticisms of them were unjustified exaggerations and &ldquo;disaster scenarios.&rdquo; Then he confirmed why: &ldquo;The more pressure there is [to regulate] then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing&rdquo; <br /> <br /> He wanted to continue both the giveaway train supplying mortgages to those who couldn&rsquo;t afford them and the gravy train for politicians. <br /> <br /> This appealed to liberals and in particular to the Congressional Black Caucus, which received six-figure support from both Fannie and Freddie in 2007. <br /> <br /> The GSEs&rsquo; major campaign largesse went to well-placed friends in key positions. The top six from 1998 thru 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics:<br /> <br /> Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.)&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; $165,400 <br /> Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.)&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; $126,349 <br /> Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.)&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; $111,000 <br /> Sen. Robert Bennett (R.-Utah)&nbsp; $107,999 <br /> Rep. Spencer Bachus (R.-Ala.) $103,300 <br /> Rep. Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.)&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; $ 96,950 <br /> <br /> And almost everyone in Congress got something. <br /> <br /> The GSEs lobbied hard, too. Their combined lobbying budget averaged $17 million a year. As described by Rep. Chris Shays (R.-Conn.), &ldquo;They hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire other people not to lobby so the opposition cannot hire them.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> But friends at the top were not enough. They needed them in every community, too. The Community Reinvestment Act guaranteed a steady stream of low-quality, but highly political, loans. <br /> <br /> Congress passed the CRA in 1977 to combat &ldquo;redlining,&rdquo; a lending practice that prevented loans to minority communities. <br /> <br /> Clinton Administration regulations in the &lsquo;90s added teeth to CRA, requiring banks to show compliance with meeting low-income loan targets or face civil actions that could assess a $500,000 penalty for each violation. Banks were &ldquo;encouraged&rdquo; to comply by hiring community groups (including ACORN) who contracted with financiers to steer low-income applicants to their institutions. <br /> <br /> As the Manhattan Institute&rsquo;s Howard Husock wrote in 2000: &ldquo;The Senate Banking Committee has estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion so far has gone to pay for services and salaries of the nonprofit groups involved.&rdquo; The left created the system that paid its community organizers very handsomely, thanks to the regulations on the financial community.<br /> <br /> As The Heritage Foundation&rsquo;s J.D. Foster recently noted, &ldquo;While a worthy cause, the net effect [of CRA] is often to encourage loans at lower credit standards and to encourage people to buy houses they really cannot afford.&rdquo; <br /> <br /> The net effect has also brought the economy to the brink of disaster. But unless the American public is told, re-told, and educated about how we got here, there won&rsquo;t be reform of the bailed-out-but-still-alive GSEs nor of the CRA. Then we would witness more big government, giving us far more help than we can afford. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></font></font></p> Note from the sand box http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9182 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9182 <p>Finally got a note from son recently deployed. Mom was getting worried&nbsp;about her &quot;baby&quot;. Geez, it never changes. I&nbsp;am the youngest and guess what my mom always called me, yes&nbsp;until she&nbsp;passed. </p> <p>&nbsp;He states he has been extremely busy.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&quot;Been on several patrols so far checking out our area of operations and this place is......well......different.&nbsp; Things are going well and I am learning a lot from these guys. I tell you what, Iraq has made A LOT of progress and it shows. Met several Iraqi Army commanders and some Iraqi police. Even had dinner and tea with some, you can tell some of them really want to make this works. But we shall see what the future brings.&quot; </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Notice he said a lot of progress......</p>


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 bg__stryker_convoy.jpg sandwichh My tax is better than yours, yada, yada, yada http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9174 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9174 <p>Let us take a look at some thought out, truthful, marginal, effective tax rate&nbsp;information from the TaxFoundation.org that sheds daylight in the hidden darkness.</p> <p>The Tax Foundation is holding to neither candidate. But remember that a minus tax rate is a non earned check from the taxpayer, ie Earned Income Tax Credit (welfare) paid for by increase taxes on Corporations that will charge more money for their products to recoup it from middle income consumers.</p> <p>Looks like I will have less to spend in the long run.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p class="dateline">October 6, 2008</p> <h3>How Do the Presidential Candidates&rsquo; Tax Plans Affect Taxpayers&rsquo; Marginal Tax Rates?</h3> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p class="byline">by <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/staff/show/134.html">Robert Carroll</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Fiscal Fact No. 150</strong></p> <p><strong>Summary</strong></p> <p>The Presidential candidates have proposed comprehensive tax plans that reshape tax policy in important ways. The two candidates have put forward two very different visions, with Senator Obama's tax plan emphasizing redistribution and Senator McCain's tax plan focusing more on economic growth. A perhaps neglected aspect of their tax plans is how they alter effective marginal tax rates, the amount of tax that people pay out of their <em>last</em> dollar of income.</p> <p>The concept of a marginal tax rate is important because it determines how much a taxpayer gets to keep when making various decisions, such as how much to work or save. High marginal tax rates can be economically harmful because some decisions may be based more on tax considerations than on economic merit.</p> <p>The analysis below summarizes some of the effects the candidates' tax plans would have on effective marginal tax rates. Calculations that capture the effects of changes related to both the income and payroll tax are presented for a hypothetical two-earner couple with two children. Although these calculations are for the couple depicted below, they provide a sense of how the plans would affect taxpayers' marginal tax rates in general.</p> <p>The major findings include:</p> <ul> <li>To the surprise of some, even though Senator Obama's tax plan lowers taxes for the bottom four quintiles, marginal tax rates would fall only for the very lowest-income couples. Taking both income and payroll taxes into account, those at the very bottom of the income distribution would see their effective marginal tax rates fall from 27.4 percent to minus 58.6 percent due to proposed changes to the earned income tax credit and Senator Obama's new &quot;Making Work Pay&quot; credit. </li> <li>Most low- and moderate-income couples would see their effective marginal tax rates rise, in some cases, significantly. Indeed, some low- and moderate-income taxpayers will see their marginal rates rise to more than 50 percent. </li> <li>High-income taxpayers can also expect their effective marginal tax rates to rise&mdash;to 47.2 percent-under Senator Obama's tax plan. This increase is caused by rolling back the 2001 and 2003 reductions in the top two tax rates, curtailing deductions and exemptions at high income levels, and potentially raising Social Security taxes. </li> <li>Senator McCain's tax plan also changes marginal tax rates. His proposal to replace the exclusion for employer-based health insurance with a new health tax credit boosts taxpayers' taxable incomes by their health insurance premiums which generally pushes taxpayers into higher tax brackets, but not to as great an extent as Senator Obama's tax plan.</li> </ul> <p><strong>A Taxpayer's Marginal Tax Rate</strong></p> <p>Each person's marginal tax rate is the amount that they pay in tax on their last dollar of income. The impact of the tax paid on that last dollar is important economically because it determines how much a taxpayer gets to keep when making important decisions such as how much to work or save. Consider, for example, a taxpayer deciding whether to work more, perhaps deciding whether to work more hours (i.e., overtime), accept a freelance assignment, work harder in anticipation of a larger raise, or accept a higher-paying job. The after-tax reward from these decisions is determined by a taxpayer's marginal tax rate. High tax rates reduce the after-tax reward and it becomes less worthwhile for the taxpayer to earn more money.</p> <p>Of course, work effort is just one decision affected by marginal tax rates. Marginal tax rates affect many other decisions made by households and businesses, including the choice between receiving compensation as taxable wages or fringe benefits, such as employer-based health insurance, how much to give to charity, how much to borrow when purchasing a home, how much to save, how much to invest, the composition of investment portfolios, and whether to start a business. Moreover, there is abundant academic research indicating that taxes play a role in all of these decisions, although the size of the effect is sometimes uncertain. High tax rates can be economically harmful because some decisions may be based more on tax considerations than economic merit.</p> <p>Many people may be surprised to learn that statutory tax rates&mdash;the ones listed in the tax tables that accompany their tax forms&mdash;can be so different from the marginal tax rates. The statutory tax rates are set to rise fairly gently as our incomes rise. See Figure 1 for a chart of the statutory rates on a two-earner couple earning up to $140,000 and filing a joint tax return next year<sup>.1</sup></p> <p><img height="403" alt="" width="575" border="0" src="http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/ff150figure1.jpg" /> </p> <p>Source: Computations by the Tax Foundation</p> <p><br /> But the schedule for a taxpayer's effective marginal tax rate&mdash;what he pays on his last dollar of income&mdash;tells a very different story. As shown in Figure 1A for the same couple, marginal tax rates careen up and down, veering well below zero and well above the statutory rates. They can be very high for taxpayers with modest income.<sup>2</sup></p> <p>What causes marginal tax rates to deviate so sharply from statutory tax rates? The tax code is cluttered with complex deductions, exemptions and credits that affect marginal tax rates. These provisions are often &quot;targeted&quot; to low- or moderate-income taxpayers. In some cases, such as under the earned income tax credit (EITC), the tax benefit initially goes up as a person's earnings rise. This income range is the so-called phase-in range where the marginal tax rate is below the statutory tax rate. Conversely, may find that they earn too much to qualify for the full benefit. As they earn more they begin to lose benefit. Eventually, the benefit may be completely eliminated. This income range is called the phase-out range, where the tax benefit is &quot;recaptured&quot; and the marginal tax rate rises above the statutory rate.</p> <p>These phase-ins and phase-outs cause marginal tax rates to deviate sharply from the statutory tax rate. As a result, charts of the marginal tax rate schedule have sometimes been likened to a major city's skyline where the skyscrapers represent the targeted tax benefits phasing in and out, causing taxpayers' marginal tax rates to fluctuate, sometimes wildly.</p> <p>Some of the largest gyrations in marginal tax rates occur at the lower end of the income spectrum due to the earned income tax credit (EITC). The credit initially increases in size as a taxpayer's earnings rise. Because these very low-income taxpayers have no taxable income or other income tax, the credit takes the form of a payment from the government&mdash;a negative income tax&mdash;and their effective marginal tax rates are negative (i.e., taxpayers with incomes below about $19,200 in Figure 1A). The rate drops as low as minus 40 percent. That is, for every additional dollar earned by these very low-income taxpayers, they receive 40 cents from the federal government.</p> <p>When the EITC is phased out, this phenomenon reverses. The taxpayer's liability increases as the credit is &quot;recaptured,&quot; and the effective marginal tax rate rises above the statutory tax rate for taxpayers with incomes between roughly $19,200 and $43,000, reaching as high as 21.6 percent.</p> <p>For people in the upper-income range, between roughly $100,000 and $130,000, different tax benefits are phased out-the child tax credit and the Hope and Lifetime Learning education credits-giving rise to marginal income tax rates as high as 34.5 percent.</p> <p>Other provisions in current law with similar effects include the savers credit and the child and dependent care credit. Still other provisions phase out the personal exemption (the personal exemption phase-out or PEP) and itemized deductions (the so-called &quot;Pease&quot; provision named after Congressman Pease), which increase effective marginal tax rates for higher-income taxpayers.</p> <p>How much the phase-in and phase-out of tax benefits affect a taxpayer's effective marginal tax rate depends on the generosity of the provision and the rate at which it is phased in and out. Also, some taxpayers are subject to the alternative minimum tax, which has its own tax base and tax rates of either 26 percent or 28 percent. Finally, there are also important interactions between the income and payroll tax as some income tax provisions have been designed to offset, in some manner, the payroll taxes that are paid (e.g., the earned income tax credit and aspects of the refundable portion of the child tax credit).</p> <p><img height="400" alt="" width="575" border="0" src="http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/ff150figure1A.jpg" /> </p> <p>Source: Computations by the Tax Foundation</p> <p><br /> When designing tax provisions that are targeted by income or earnings, tax writers typically pay careful attention to the ways in which they interact with other provisions and their implications for both the income and payroll tax. Generally, there is some attempt to strike a balance between a provision's policy objective and the broader concern that marginal effective tax rates not be allowed to rise too high.</p> <p><strong>How Do the Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans Affect Marginal Tax Rates?</strong></p> <p>Both Senator Obama's and Senator McCain's tax plans affect marginal tax rates, but for different reasons. Senator Obama's tax plan includes a number of proposals for new or expanded tax benefits that are generally targeted to low- and moderate-income taxpayers. Many of these additions to the &quot;skyline&quot; change taxpayers' effective marginal tax rates in important ways, lowering or raising them, sometimes significantly.</p> <p>Figure 2 takes another look at a married couple with two children and two jobs, earning between $10,000 and $140,000. While Figures 1 and 1A above refer only to income taxes, Figure 2 includes payroll taxes as well, providing a more complete picture of the tax plans' overall effects.<sup>3</sup> Two marginal tax rates for tax year 2009 are compared, one if current laws stay in place and one if Sen. Obama's tax plan becomes law.</p> <p><img height="413" alt="" width="575" border="0" src="http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/ff150figure2.jpg" /> </p> <p>Source: Computations by the Tax Foundation</p> <p><br /> Under Sen. Obama's plan, the already negative marginal tax rates for low-income taxpayers drop further, due to his proposals to expand the EITC and for a new &quot;Making Work Pay&quot; credit. The new credit would equal 6.2 percent of the first $8,100 of a worker's wages, and it would phase out for moderate-income taxpayers. Both of these provisions would sharply reduce marginal tax rates for taxpayers with the lowest earnings, reducing their combined income and payroll tax rates to minus 58.6 percent.<sup>4</sup></p> <p>However, these and other provisions are phased out in short order under both current law and Senator Obama's tax plan, which causes effective marginal tax rates to rise for moderate-income taxpayers. Senator Obama also expands the child and dependent care credit and begins to phase down this expansion at $30,000 of income. The combination of the phase-out of the EITC, the &quot;Making Work Pay&quot; credit, and the child and dependent care credit pushes the effective marginal tax rate to as high as 51.7 percent.<sup>5 </sup>That is, the taxpayer who benefits from all these provisions at a lower income discovers that he gets to keep less than one half of every additional dollar of earnings in the roughly $30,000-to-$43,000 range.</p> <p>As has been extensively reported, three components of the Obama plan would raise the marginal tax rates of higher-income taxpayers.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>1.</strong> Roll back the reduction in the top two tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2003. These changes would increase the top two tax rates from 33 percent to 36 percent and 35 percent to 39.6 percent.</p> <p><strong>2.</strong> Restore the phase out of the personal exemption for higher-income taxpayers (the so-called PEP provision) and the limitation of certain itemized deductions for higher-income taxpayers (the so-called Pease provision).</p> <p><strong>3.</strong> Increase Social Security taxes paid by higher-income taxpayers. It is unclear exactly what is being proposed by Senator Obama on Social Security taxes, and his proposal may not even take effect until 2018, outside of the ten-year budget window. Nevertheless, it is assumed here that he would increase Social Security taxes by 4 percent to illustrate the likely effects of his plan on marginal tax rates.<sup>6</sup></p> </blockquote> <p>Figure 3 shows how these tax increases would alter the effective marginal tax rate for a married couple with $250,000 or more in income. At incomes just over $250,000, the couple is subjected to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), with its broader tax base and separate tax rate schedule. Under the Obama tax plan, this couple moves off of the AMT when their income reaches $288,400. At that point, their effective marginal tax rate would rise to 43.7 percent, in large part due to the phase-out of personal exemptions and the limitation on itemized deductions. Once the taxpayer's personal exemptions are completely phased out, the effective marginal tax rate would drop down to 39.5 percent before increasing to 43.2 percent when they reach the 39.6 percent statutory income tax bracket. Finally, the couple's effective marginal tax rate would rise to 47.2 percent when the new 4-percent Social Security tax rate kicks in.</p> <p><img height="406" alt="" width="575" border="0" src="http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/ff150figure3.jpg" /> </p> <p>Source: Computations by the Tax Foundation</p> <p><br /> Senator McCain's tax plan also affects marginal rates, but for very different reasons. His tax plan includes only two individual tax proposals and only his health tax credit has a material effect on effective marginal tax rates. The McCain health tax credit&mdash;$5,000 for family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage&mdash;replaces the current income tax exclusion for employer-based health insurance. The repeal of this exclusion has the effect of increasing taxpayers' taxable incomes, which then pushes some taxpayers into higher income tax brackets. This effect is shown in Figure 4 which compares marginal tax rates under current law to those that would prevail if McCain's tax plan became law. Note the leftward shift of the marginal tax rate schedule. Some taxpayers' effective marginal tax rates go up and others go down.</p> <p><img height="413" alt="" width="575" border="0" src="http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/ff150figure4.jpg" />Source: Computations by the Tax Foundation</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Notes</strong></p> <p><strong>1.</strong> Figure 1 also accounts for the &quot;implicit zero tax bracket&quot; faced by low-income taxpayers. This is where taxpayers' income is completely offset by a combination of their personal exemption and standard deduction (or itemized deductions for the few low-income taxpayers who itemize) and they face a zero marginal tax rate. The joint filers depicted in Figure 1 are not subject to the 10-percent bracket until their income in 2009 reaches $26,100. </p> <p><strong>2. </strong>The effective marginal tax rates depicted in Figure 1A are calculated by adding $100 to earnings and calculating the additional tax the couple owes. Several provisions that phase out in steps have been &quot;smoothed&quot; to eliminate any discontinuities in the effective marginal tax rate schedule for purposes of the calculations that underlie Figure 1A.</p> <p><strong>3.</strong> The combined effective marginal income and payroll tax rates were calculated in the same fashion as above: by adding $100 to earnings and calculating the changes in the taxpayer's tax liability. It was assumed that both adults in the household had equal earnings that were subject to Social Security taxes up to the wage cap estimated to be $106,800 in 2009. It was also assumed that the taxpayer bears both the employee and employer share of payroll taxes. The calculations also account for the deductibility of payroll taxes for business tax purposes.</p> <p><strong>4.</strong> The combined income and payroll tax rate for the lowest income taxpayers, as depicted in Figure 2, is minus 27.4 percent under current law.</p> <p><strong>5. </strong>Senator Obama also proposes to reduce the rate at which the EITC is phased out, presumably to mitigate the harmful effects of the higher EITC credit on marginal tax rates. This aspect of his proposal seems to be a recognition of the balance between the policy objective of promoting work amongst the very low-income and avoiding the harmful effects of punitive marginal tax rates for those a bit further up the income scale.</p> <p><strong>6.</strong> Senator Obama's campaign has indicated that Social Security taxes might rise by 2 to 4 percent for taxpayers with earnings above $250,000. </p> What I've been saying for a while..... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9159 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/sandwichh/9159 <p><span class="articletitle">Excellent article from National Review. </span></p> <p><span class="articletitle">If nothing else moves you it should be character. Obama is an old time Chicago Democrat style of character.</span></p> <p><span class="articletitle"></span></p> <p><span class="articletitle">Questions of Character</span><br /> <span class="articlesubtitle">Obama's radical pals shed light on his cynicism, his ruthlessness, and his tolerance for the obscene.</span><br /> <br /> <span class="articlesubtitle">By Charles Krauthammer</span><br /> <br /> </p> <div class="article" align="justify"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "><span class="drop">C</span>onvicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.<br /> <br /> But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque, and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.<br /> <br /> McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama&rsquo;s associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.<br /> <br /> McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">New York Times</em> and other deep thinkers as racist. <br /> <br /> This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.<br /> <br /> Nonetheless, John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama&rsquo;s associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once. <br /> <br /> Obama&rsquo;s political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. If a Republican candidate had launched his political career at the home of an abortion-clinic bomber &mdash; even a repentant one &mdash; he would not have been able to run for dogcatcher in Podunk. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t do enough.&rdquo;<br /> <br /> Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright&rsquo;s angry racism or Ayers&rsquo; unreconstructed 1960s radicalism? <br /> <br /> No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.<br /> <br /> First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with &mdash; let alone serve on two boards with &mdash; an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?<br /> <br /> Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.<br /> <br /> Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the &ldquo;old politics&rdquo; &mdash; of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition. <br /> <br /> Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama&rsquo;s core beliefs. He doesn&rsquo;t share Rev. Wright&rsquo;s poisonous views of race nor Ayers&rsquo; views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale.</em> For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond. <br /> <br /> Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright&rsquo;s pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse. <br /> <br /> Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break" /> </span> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div>


Title: Faux-bama.png
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Credit: sandwichh


Title: Faux-bama.png
Caption:
Credit: sandwichh

 Faux-bama.png sandwichh