Chuck's Blog

OUR LIGHTER SIDE 3/26/2010

Please tell your friends about Chuck’s blog and OLS

As You Slide Down the Banister of Life,….’Remember’

Complete set of  Encyclopedia Britannica

Let me get this straight

Splash & cool trick
Read more »

Should Taxpayers Vote for Barack Obama?

Refrigerator Door Magnet

REMINDER FOR THE FRIDGE DOOR

OUR LIGHTER SIDE 3/25/2010

Please tell your friends about Chuck’s blog and OLS

How many Women have you slept with?

Ten Marriage Quips!

Throw Paper
Read more »

Message from the president

OUR LIGHTER SIDE 3/24/2010

Please tell your friends about Chuck’s blog and OLS

Heated Seats

Bubba, a furniture dealer…

Handyman work of art!
Read more »

Health Bill — Let the Repeal Process Begin and Arguments for the Fair Tax!

Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Member of Congress

THE DEMOCRATS’ HEALTH BILL DOES WHAT?!!?!
ELEVEN ALARMING TAX ISSUES

1. Creates a special deal for union members. Starting in 2018, a single union worker in a multiemployer health plan would be completely exempt from the “Cadillac tax” (a 40% tax on high-cost plans) unless the price of that plan exceeds $27,500. In contrast, a single, non-union worker living right next door would start paying that Cadillac tax as soon as the value of her health plan exceeds $10,200.

2. Makes a bad surtax worse. Twenty-two House Democrats opposed a surtax contained in an earlier version of the Democrats’ health care bill. That surtax would have started at a rate of 2% and would have applied to Americans earning over $280,000 for singles and $350,000 for couples. Under the current version of the bill, however, the Medicare surtaxes on both earned income (imposed at a rate of 0.9%) and investment income (imposed at a higher rate of 3.8%) feature far lower thresholds – $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples.

3. Increases taxes on real estate investments. The 3.8% Medicare surtax would hit average, middle-class investors in real estate. A middle-class taxpayer who happens to sell real estate for a significant gain in a particular year would be liable for this new tax, regardless of how low her income might be in other, more typical years. The National Association of Realtors wrote to Speaker Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Levin urging that Congress reject this unfair tax increase, especially given the flagging economy.

4. Vastly expands IRS powers. According to a new report, the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service and would strengthen the IRS’s heavy hand in dealing with ordinary taxpayers who play by the rules. If this bill becomes law, the IRS may have to hire up to 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employees just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties. The bill would empower the IRS to: (1) verify that Americans have “acceptable” health care coverage; (2) fine Americans up to $2,085 or 2 percent of income (whichever is greater) for the failure to purchase “minimum essential coverage”; (3) confiscate tax refunds; and (4) increase audits.

5. Imposes new marriage penalties. Because the Democrats’ subsidies for health insurance are solely based on the federal poverty level, if two people make $32,000 per year, they would pay between $6,000 and $10,000 more for health insurance than before they said “I do.” This is because as singles they were poor enough to receive health care subsidies, but as a married couple, these Americans are too rich for federal assistance. A discussion of how a prior version of the bill would have imposed these marriage penalties can be accessed here.

6. Breaks the President’s pledge on not taxing the middle class in at least a dozen ways. The Democrats’ health care bill contains at least a dozen direct and indirect tax increases that would break President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples. These include: (1) a “Cadillac tax” on high-cost plans, (2) an individual mandate tax on Americans who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, (3) an increase in the 7.5% AGI floor for medical expense deductions to 10%, (4) limits on Flexible Spending Accounts in cafeteria plans, (5) increased penalties for nonqualified HSA distributions, (6) other restrictions on Health Savings Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts, and Flexible Spending Accounts, (7) a tax on tanning services, (8) an employer mandate tax, (9) a sales tax on medical devices, (10) a tax on health insurance premiums, (11) a tax on prescription drugs, and (12) a tax on insured and self-insured health plans.

7. Ensnares a growing number of people in the Cadillac tax. The Cadillac tax in the Democrats’ health care bill would not keep pace with medical inflation after it comes into effect in 2018, meaning a larger and larger tax hit over time. Beginning in 2020, this tax would be indexed by only the consumer price index. Given that health insurance premiums will likely increase faster than CPI, the Cadillac tax would hit more and more plans each year and take a bigger bite from those already covered

8. Repeats the mistakes of the AMT. Instead of learning the lesson of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which hits more and more Americans every year because the exemption level is not indexed for inflation, the Democrats’ bill repeats this mistake by failing to index the exemption threshold for the Medicare surtaxes on both earned and unearned income.

9. Forces those with catastrophic costs to pay even more. Current law provides important tax relief to Americans who suffer catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenses, permitting a deduction for costs above 7.5% of income. The Democrats’ bill would raise that threshold to 10% of income in 2012 (2016 for seniors and the disabled). This is a particularly hard hit on those with the highest medical costs who can least afford to pay more taxes. And, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 95% of the revenue generated from this tax increase would come from taxpayers earning less than $200,000.

10. Punishes investment in our economy. Under the Democrats’ bill, the Medicare tax would, for the very first time, apply to capital gains, dividends, interest, rents, royalties, and other investment income of singles earning over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000. Currently, capital gains and dividends are taxed at a top rate of 15%, but those rates are already scheduled to rise in 2011 to 20% and 39.6%, respectively. When the expansion of the Medicare tax is coupled with the already scheduled rate increase, capital gains rates on these types of investment income, long-term capital gains rates would rise by almost 60% next year – from 15% to 23.8% – and the top tax rate on dividends would nearly triple – from 15% to 43.4%.

11. Robs Peter and leaves Paul broke. The Senate-passed Tax Extenders bill (H.R. 4213, as amended) includes one-year extensions of important tax relief policies for both individuals and businesses that expired on December 31, 2009. These include the deduction for state and local sales taxes, the R&D tax credit, and numerous energy-related incentives. Just weeks ago, the Senate decided to “pay for” those provisions by making “black liquor” ineligible for the cellulosic biofuel producer credit and by codifying the economic substance doctrine into law. Yet Democrats have now chosen to steal those very same revenue offsets – totaling $28.1 billion – to help finance their trillion dollar health bill instead. This begs the question: To the extent Democratic Leaders decide to adhere to PAYGO on Tax Extenders, what new taxes will they raise to replace all that lost revenue?

Health Care Takeover by the Numbers

I have compiled a list of important numbers relevant to Democrats’ Senate bill combined with the proposed reconciliation bill.

$1.2 trillion: The total cost of the bill between 2010 and 2020 (though the real costs do not start until 2014), including $940 billion in coverage subsidies, $144.2 billion in additional mandatory spending, $70 billion in discretionary spending in the Senate bill, and $41.6 billion in unrelated education spending.

$208 billion: The cost of a ten year patch for the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) to prevent reduction in Medicare physician payments. This cost is hidden because it was included in the earlier Democrat bill, but was dropped to provide a better cost estimate. It is expected to move separately and would bring the true cost of the takeover to $1.4 trillion.

$569.2 billion: Tax increases in the legislation, including $48.9 billion in new tax increases in the reconciliation bill alone.

$52 billion: The amount of new taxes on employers who cannot afford to pay their employees health care, imposed at a time when unemployment is 9.7 percent.

12: The number of new tax increases in the bill that violate President Obama’s pledge that, “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”

46%: The percentage of families making less than $66,150 who will be forced to pay the individual mandate tax.

16,500: The estimated number of IRS auditors, agents and other employees that may be needed to collect the hundreds of billions in new taxes levied on the American people.

$20 billion: The estimated amount of money that the IRS and HHS will need for the cost of additional regulations, bureaucracy, and red tape over the next ten years. This spending is not included in CBO’s cost estimate of H.R. 4872.

$53 billion: The amount of revenue this bill raids from Social Security to appear as if it actually reduces the deficit.

$202.3 billion: The amount of money cut from the Medicare Advantage program for seniors to help offset the costs of a new entitlement.

$436 billion: The amount of federal subsidies in the bill that will go directly to insurance companies to provide health care in the exchange.

1 out of 22: The number of times the Senate has not somehow amended a reconciliation bill passed by the House, and thus required further House action.
63%: The percentage of physicians surveyed who feel that health reform is needed, but are opposed to this sweeping overhaul legislation.

$9 billion: The amount that the Ways and Means Committee estimated Medicare would spend annually after 25 years when it was passed in 1965. In reality, Medicare spent $67 billion in 1990, or seven times the initial cost estimate.

$1.55 trillion: The projected FY 2010 deficit—11 times the ten year “savings” Democrats claim the bill will produce by spending more than $1 trillion for this government takeover of health care.

GERMAN FLOAT

This float was in a parade in Berlin , You’ve Got to Love those Germans………They have A Great sense of humor!

Is that Hillary… ?? What is she hanging on to?
Answer: His stimulus package

One Light Bulb at a Time

I received this as an email and it made sense so I’m passing it on to you!

A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn’t slow a train very much, a billion of them would. With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American ..

Good idea .. . one light bulb at a time . . . .

Check this out . I can verify this because I was in Lowes the other day for some reason and just for the heck of it I was looking at the hose attachments . They were all made in China . The next day I was in Ace Hardware and just for the heck of it I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in USA . Start looking ..

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else – even their job . So, after reading this email, I think this lady is on the right track . Let’s get behind her!

My grandson likes Hershey’s candy . I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now.. I do not buy it any more.
My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico … now I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything ..

This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed 60 W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets . I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off-brand labeled, “Everyday Value . ” I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats – they were the same except for the price .. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in – get ready for this – the USA ina company in Cleveland , Ohio .

So throw out the myth that you cannot find products you use every day that are made right here ..

So on to another aisle – Bounce Dryer Sheets . .. . yep, you guessed it, bounce cost more money and is made in Canada . The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA ! I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA – the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!

(We should have awakened a decade ago .. . .. . . . )

Let’s get with the program . . . .. help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the U . S . A ..

I Passed this on ……… will you ???????

OUR LIGHTER SIDE 3/23/2010

Please tell your friends about Chuck’s blog and OLS

The Devil decided he just wasn’t suffering sufficiently.

Widdle  Wabbit   

Water Drop
Read more »