can’t tell the players without a scorecard
Two Americas? Just who are we talking about, here?
As Roberts noted in his opinion for the court in NFIB v. Sebelius, “It does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income taxes because their household income is less than the filing threshold in the Internal Revenue Code. For taxpayers who do owe the payment, its amount is determined by such familiar factors as taxable income, number of dependents, and joint filing status.”
So what’s that mean?
“It’s less a tax or a penalty than it is a principle–which is you can’t be a freeloader on other folks when it comes to your health care, if you can afford it,” [Obama said]
Ah. …So who’s a “freeloader”?
Because transfer payments are, in effect, the opposite of taxes, it makes sense to look not just at taxes paid, but at taxes paid minus transfers received. For 2009, the most recent year available, here are taxes less transfers as a percentage of market income (income that households earned from their work and savings):
Bottom quintile: -301 percent
Second quintile: -42 percent
Middle quintile: -5 percent
Fourth quintile: 10 percent
Highest quintile: 22 percentTop one percent: 28 percent
The negative 301 percent means that a typical family in the bottom quintile receives about $3 in transfer payments for every dollar earned.
It is a divided America. But the Us -vs- Them is not the classic “haves tryin’ to keep the have-nots from having what the haves have,” it’s not the Poor Victimz -vs- the Evil Oppressors, it’s not even the RedTeam -vs- BlueTeam. The division is between The People and Teh Gov’t.
Obobo told us that in his “you didn’t build that” moment.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
["Truth Team" (formerly Attack Watch) ] then explains: “The President’s full remarks show that the ‘that’ in ‘you didn’t build that’ clearly refers to roads and bridges–public infrastructure we count on the government to build and maintain.”
So if it wasn’t the businesses and the taxpayers who built “that” — the roads and infrastructure upon which our Economy and Civilization depends — Whoinhell do you think it was ?
And what about the gal who made your coffee and the fella who put a cap on your aching molar and the guy who dry cleans your suits and …and …and?
The Point of this country has always been We The People, who hire individuals among us to do particular jobs — gov’t jobs — to be the sheriff and keep the rowdy cowboys under control and scare the bad guys away. Fire crews to be always at the ready in the wood-built towns. A road crew to put stones down and keep the dust and the mud to a minimum in town — an to make trading between towns faster and easier. And sheriffs with bigger territories to keep down the highway banditry. An Army to defend the borders and Marines to defend trade from mauraders. We The People got together, pooled our resources and decided to hire someone to handle these jobs. Not that we were incapable of handling those jobs; but that it is more efficient to have one person in handle the issue instead of each individual spending time and resources redundantly.
No, Sir: The People built those bridges and roads, hired those teachers — to further their own Common Good.
Unfortunately, The People spent too much time pursuing their own happiness and not enough time keeping a watchful, employer’s eye on our hirelings.
Now those hirelings seem to think they are an entity unto themselves, independent of The People from whom they derive their power and their very sustenance.
They seem to think that they are smarter and wiser than their Bosses. They seem to think that — “for Our Own Good” — they must tell We The People how to live, how to conduct our Pursuit of Happiness, even what to eat.
No doubt they’ve got the bit in their teeth and are running amok. It ain’t a’gonna be easy to fire them — each and every one — especially those in the Shadow/Regulatory part of the Gov’t.
And the best place to start is locally.
As a man I admire has said: November is Coming.
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18 Comments!
With the upcoming tax “penalty” for those who won’t or can’t join the Obamacare debacle, how man will lose their homes, bank accounts and assets because of IRS compounded tax penalties and interest?
Revolt?
There had damn well better be, beginning right now.
[ahem] The gubbmint didn’t invent the internet… Al Gore did.
Oh wait, no he didn’t, but in any case, it wasn’t invented “so that all the companies could make money off the Internet” It was invented, back in the 1950′s so that the SAC (Strategic Air Command) could still communicate with each other even after a massive ‘nucular’ attack. Geez.
And they said Dubya was dumb?
And Joe’s Garage, Sam ‘n Ellas Eggs, and a million other businesses don’t make any money off the internet. It’s even reported that Hog Whitman has sold more CD’s out of the trunk of his car, or in displays at the local bar or the Stop ‘n Go than he has off the gd internet. It’s twue!
[heh... like that 3rd person dealie?]
There is truth lurking in what the president said. Take a look at the great companies this country has built, Lockheed,Ford,yes GM in its day,Honeywell,IBM, and on and on and on.
Could they have come about and contributed to so much beginning in Bulgaria or France or the Soviet Union?
Soldiers safegaurded their liberties , farmers fed the men in the factories.
There is a debt owed. Not to Obama. Maybe not to this weird medical insurance scam. But we do owe a debt to our countrymen who came before us.
Yes maybe we might consider joyfully laying off our fellow americans so we can build sweat shops filled with child labor in countries that could never have founded these great companies them selves and would never employ Americans if they can help it anyhow.
See that highway? See that dam? See that Moon rocket?
The government didn’t build that.
They paid a private company to build it using money from the private sector.
Heck, even when work is actually done by a gov’t entity (e.g. Corps of Engineers), they hire individuals and pay them out of the private-sector’s pocket.
His point is just silly.
Or, as some Gyrene fighter pilot stood up and announced at a Tea Party board meeting, “The fucking Tea Party is Forever!”
(…several female board members proposed it be our motto, but in 5 words; not 6?…) I deferred, as grammar ain`t my strong suit…..
If Obumble had a business it would look like Solyndra.
Or GM.
So pissed i can’t stay on topic, and my semicolon is flaring up again.
Time to go to the range.
If government had “run” aviation like it has run spaceflight, you would be making your cross-country trip in a cattle car (coach-on-rails).
Fifty years after Orville & Wilbur, we had commercial Jet transport.
Fifty years after Alan Shepard, we can’t even put people in low-earth orbit (without doing that outsourcing thing.)
I say nutting I just read.
See that highway? See that dam? See that Moon rocket?
The government didn’t build that.
They paid a private company to build it using money from the private sector.
- DougM
I can only thing of one thing in all of history that was developed, tested, brought into production, and used, exclusively by government.
Nuclear weapons.
’nuff said.
So…ah….well….what about the roads and bridges in….say….
North Korea…or…ah….Cuba? What a putz.
The ‘Lympian… it is strong with this one.
^Lord of the Fleas (11) Nuclear weapons.
True enough, but they aren’t very marketable, and there sure as hell wasn’t any profit in them. I’ve wanted a couple for ages for Rodger’s B-52, but they never show up on eBay.
Seriously,
Claire that was wonderfully put. Once upon a time, a man and his family in an agrarian environment knew how to do most everything needed to survive in a minimal way, but then as civil societies began, there came a little light bulb called specialization, where the best potato grower paid a glazier to fix his broken window, the glazier traded some potatoes for bread at the baker’s, etc., and then they all got together and formed a militia, a volunteer fire dept. and a police force to handle group problems like crime, fires and invasions. Because of the efficiency of specialization and the expertise that came with it, society became more prosperous, living better and longer. However, even with the cooperation and specialization, all the activity was still for the enlightened self interest of the individual, and some individuals, either by working harder or having rarer skills, prospered more than others, and that’s what the socialists cannot stand. Their religion says a few elites in goverment can run a command economy better than all these millions of individuals looking after their own interests, and that experiment has failed in every instance it was tried, beginning in America with the Jamestown settlement, which started as a commune and everybody starved. Literally. After a wise man allowed individual gardens, the colony thrived, and that result has been the norm in this country until the Progressives came along, nudging an inch at a time off the design margin, or safety factor, for a hundred years now.
Well, Uhbama and Co. have used up all the safety factor, and if we don’t ground him very soon, the wings are going to come off our airplane.
Something smelled wrong with those transfer numbers, so I followed the link, and found
Also, I think the supposition there is in error: that the middle quintile is Negative. No, no it’s not. Not fully. Yes, it says -5 percent, but if the bottom quintile at -301 means they get back $3.01 for every $1 they put in, then the middle’s -5 means they get back a NICKEL for every dollar they put in. So it’s still positive, 95 cents in, as is even the 2nd quintile’s -42%. -100 would be a draw, $1 out for every $1 in.
in other words, anybody who makes anything more than rock bottom is paying in more than they’re getting out.
A good day on the range.
Even shot a Mosin-Nagant.
And a .44 Mag.
I think I’ll stick to .357 and .38.
You mean that HalfFast Train?
–
Thanks for doin the maths, Drew458.
And ain’t that the point after all? Obobo says that going into debt up to our grand-children’s eyeballs is “worth it” for all the “benefits” we receive. So here’s a nickel’s worth of “benefits” you can see in your hand — cuz yer too dumb to “get” the “whole picture.”
I think not so much.
Col. J Sir am I forgiven for my foe paw or should I just go quietly into the night?