Just What You Needed: Higher Taxes

So, do you people out there really believe that its the republicans and the conservatives that want to kill grandma and take her medicare away and make her eat cat food???
Then read this, and keep in mind that barack obama is president and that his mandates are dictating financial policies...


While you hear a lot about the federal income tax, you don't hear much about the Social Security tax. That's odd because for many folks especially the self-employed Social Security tax can be the bigger hit. Here are some little-known truths about how the Social Security tax works and how much it can amount to.

As an employee, your wages are hit with the 12.4% Social Security tax up to the annual wage ceiling. Half the Social Security tax bill (equal to 6.2%) is withheld from your paychecks. The other half is paid by your employer. Unless you understand how the tax works and closely examine your pay stubs, you may be blissfully unaware of how much the Social Security tax actually costs.

The Social Security tax wage ceiling for both 2010 and 2011 is $106,800. If you made that much or more last year, the Social Security tax hit on your 2010 wages was a whopping $13,243 (12.4% x $106,800). Half came out of your paycheck. Your employer paid the other half.

For 2011, the tax hit is less, thanks to a one-year 2 percentage-point reduction in the Social Security tax withholding rate on wages -- from the normal 6.2% to 4.2% (your employer's 6.2% rate is unchanged). For 2012 and beyond, however, Social Security tax withholding on your wages will jump back to the standard 6.2% rate.

While many employees may not realize the magnitude of the Social Security tax, self-employed folks know it all too well. That's because the self-employed must pay the entire 12.4% tax rate out of their own pockets, based on the amount of their net self-employment income. This is one big reason why companies often prefer to treat workers as self-employed independent contractors rather than employees. Companies don't owe any Social Security tax on amounts paid to independent contractors.

For both 2010 and 2011, the Social Security tax self-employment income ceiling is $106,800 (same as the wage ceiling for employees). So if your 2010 self-employment income was $106,800 or more, you paid the Social Security tax maximum of $13,243 last year (12.4% x $106,800 = $13,243).

In 2011, the hit will be less thanks to a one-year 2 percentage-point reduction in the Social Security tax rate on self-employment income -- from the normal 12.4% to 10.4%. For 2012 and beyond, however, the Social Security tax on self-employment income is scheduled to return to the standard 12.4% rate.

To give you an idea of how the Social Security tax can add up over your working life, consider my personal situation. In 35 years behind the grindstone (about half as an employee and the other half self-employed), I've paid $219,000 in Social Security tax. My employers paid another $41,000. That amounts to $260,000 in total. During my time as a self-employed guy, I've had some years where my Social Tax bill exceeded my combined federal and state income tax bills.

Believe me, if I could get the $260,000 back, stop paying the tax, and forego receiving any benefits, I would do it in a heartbeat. In fact, if I could just stop paying the tax in exchange for walking away from any future benefits, I would do that too. Why? Because I have big doubts I will actually receive the promised level of benefits when the time comes.

And thanks to the government's official contention that there has been little to no inflation over the past few years, the Social Security tax ceiling has been stuck at $106,800 since 2009. However, the latest Social Security Administration projection says it will start rising again in 2012 and beyond. The projected ceilings for the next nine years are as follows.

If these numbers pan out, the maximum Social Security tax hit in 2020 would be $19,009 (12.4% x $153,300). That's assuming Congress doesn't increase the tax rate, which could easily happen. There's also a chance the ceiling will be increased beyond what you see here or even entirely removed in an attempt to put the system on a sounder financial footing. If there's no ceiling, you would owe Social Security tax on wages and self-employment income on every dollar you earn.

Another misunderstanding about Social Security: Some people think the government has set up an account with their name on it to hold the money to pay for their future Social Security benefits. After all, that must be where all the Social Security taxes on people's wages and self-employment income go, right? Wrong. There are no individual accounts. In fact, when the Social Security system runs a surplus (which it has in most years until now), the federal government sucks out the excess cash and issues the system an IOU. But the only way those IOUs will ever be paid is through future taxes. Meanwhile, the system is now projected to run out of money (including those nebulous IOUs) in 2036 unless taxes are raised or benefits are cut.

Notice that no one is even speaking about this in the main stream media...lets worry about giving billions to the rest of the world, or lets give billions in subsidies to illegals then to do whats right and take care of our own...





by Bill Bischoff
Friday, May 27, 2011

Is the Sun Setting on America?

Everything is not about economics. I know we’re taught to believe that everything has something to do with economics. Things don’t matter unless they have something to do with economics. Everything must pass through the economic lens. We view everything through the economic lens. We’re taught to view everything through the economic lens. We’re reared, we’re bred to view things through the economic lens. But not all things are economic. And Russell Kirk, one of the few conservatives in the last century that understood this – I think Ronald Reagan at some level understood this, too. And Kirk wrote this:

“Men read and write only because they are convinced that certain great subjects are worth reading and writing about. Four great themes, it seems to me, have been the inspiration of most important imaginative literature from the dawn of Greek civilization down to our age. The first of these is religion: the description of the relation between divine nature and human nature, as in Hesiod and Dante and Milton. The second is heroism: the nobility of strong and earnest men, as in Homer or Virgil or Mallory. The third is love: the devotion beyond mere appetite, as in classical legend or medieval romance. The fourth is the intricacy of character and class, ranging all the way from Chaucer to Conrad.

“Now, a society which has lost its religious convictions and its society denies itself the first theme. A society which denies the right to greatness and to distinctions among men deprives itself of the second theme.” We’re two for two so far, folks. “A society which takes love for no more than the carnal appetite cannot attach real significance even to the novel of adultery.” Three for three now. And finally, “A society which looks upon men as mere production and consumption units of interchangeable value cannot understand the subtle shadings of personality and rank of a different sort of age.” That’s four for four. “The springs of the imagination thus are dried up. For a time, satire can exist by pointing out the decay of faith and heroism and love and variety; but when even the memory of these themes fade, then satire, too, comes to an end. Then boredom triumphs in life and art.”

Spot on. That is just spot on. Could not be more spot on. And the interesting thing here is, what do you do about it? I mean, the interesting question is what do you do about it? How are you going to fix that? You have teachers that don’t even know who Dante is. Who in the hell reads Dante? Here, here’s a good question for the average reader out there. And I don’t mean to vilify; I don’t mean to impugn. Simply demonstrating – and maybe I’m selling you guys short because you guys are smart......

Finish the title of the work: “Dante’s blank.” And how many stages were there? Can you answer that question, well can you???





We got “Inferno.” But I’m not sure of the stages.....Right???

Hmm. Hmm. I’m not even sure that I’ve read some of it. The point is we don’t read these classics anymore. We’re immune. Why, we read John Grisham and Stephen King now. They're our heroes. And they all deal in adulterated rubbish. It’s all rubbish. We’re obsessed with the decay of great men, like Johnny Cash. We don’t want to hear about how good Johnny Cash was. We want to hear about him popping pills. We don’t want to hear about how great any artist was or any man was. We want to know the dirty underbelly. We want to know who he was screwing on the side. We want to know about his adulterous, illicit affairs. We’re not allowed to have heroes anymore, is the point. A hero is an adulterer who admits it. That’s a hero.

Maybe this is why many people turn and see men like Navy Seals as modern-day heroes.


Like Ilana Mercer was saying the other day, if you’re a big, manly kind of man, and you have all those virtues that once made men great, but there’s no market for those things anymore, you know, we ostracize manly men in society.





There’s not a man on television that knows how to screw in a light bulb these days. We have to have women do it. You watch a television show, the biggest, most badass cops on that Chicago police show, what is the name of that, the one with...

Yeah, yeah, “Chicago Code.” Yeah, Jennifer Beals is the hero.

Do you guys love that show??? Of course you guys do...

Well, sure, you got a chick hero. Watch “CSI,” the women are heroes. They're running the damn show. We’re not allowed to have male heroes. We’ve so feminized our society, Gal Qaeda has brainwashed everyone. Everyone’s equal. We don’t need women in the – women have expanded beyond doing this and that and the other. And women don’t – man, you’ve just taken one of the most beautiful things in human existence, which is the female form, and the feminine spirit, the mothering, maternal instinct, you’ve just taken it, you’ve just pooped on it. You want women to go out there and kill people? Really? Oh, God. Seriously? Where’s the goodness? Where’s the goodness. Where is the good nurturing, the motherly part? Where does that come in? “We don’t need that. We have government programs, you idiot.”

Do you not see the point? In this incessant suicidal drive to make everyone numerically equal, everyone equal in all things, you destroy the beauty that made them different. People don’t – you know what, there are not enough men and women on TV and radio and in print that say things like I just said and I was inspired to say by reading Birzer’s essay, posted at the Imaginative Conservative website. Not enough. Doesn’t happen enough.

You know one of the things that really pisses me off, ladies and gentlemen? And ladies, don’t take this wrong. It pisses me off, it angers me for what I think are all the right reasons. When I hear politicians and talking heads, dunderheads, droning on about our brave men and women in uniform. Pardon me, call me old-fashioned, I don’t care, I don’t want brave women in uniform. I don’t think that there are – I happen to believe that there are certain things I don’t want for my daughters, and picking up a rifle and having them go fight a war is one of them. Being enlisted and wearing a uniform is one other. Now, some of you are, “Chris, Chris, they have every....” Well, look, there is a role. But it’s not being the brave man or woman. It’s being the brave woman because men don`t count anymore.....

Obama Finally Visits U.S.-Mexico Border

The president is leading the progressive charge in forcing environmental conscientiousness upon the masses. He has made it his presidential mission to implement "green energy" and "clean jobs" into the American economy, market signals be damned. Obama believes that the accomplishment of such a wildly noble, unquestioningly beneficial goal must be solely the duty of the federal government, but if he were to examine past governmental efforts to intervene in environmental affairs, he might notice that those experiments did far more harm than good. President Obama laid out his plan for (amnesty) comprehensive immigration reform today in El Paso, Texas, saying (illegal immigrants make good democrat voters) immigrants are the way to expand the middle class, make America more competitive on a global level and said immigration reform is an economic imperative, which it is considering illegal immigration costs Arizona and California over $12 billion per year.

The President did what was expected by lumping all immigrants together and failed to distinguish the difference between the two, in fact, Obama went out of his way to make sure Americans believed their was no difference as he referenced immigrants from different countries coming to America and seeing Lady Liberty.


It was a reminder of a simple idea, as old as America itself.
E pluribus, unum. Out of many, one.
We define ourselves as a nation of immigrants - a nation that welcomes those willing to embrace America's precepts. That's why millions of people, ancestors to most of us, braved hardship and great risk to come here - so they could be free to work and worship and live their lives in peace. The Asian immigrants who made their way to California's Angel Island. The Germans and Scandinavians who settled across the Midwest. The waves of the Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Jewish immigrants who leaned against the railing to catch that first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

President Obama said the fence was now "basically complete." This declaration is completely false. The fence along the southern border in total equals 670 miles. The entire southern border is 2000 miles long, which is nowhere near, "basically complete." On top of a meager border fence, the February 2011, Government Accountability Office report shows "1120 southwest border miles have not yet achieved operational control." Also, according to Sheriffs working and living on the U.S.-Mexico border, Obama's assertion that his administration has done it's part to enforce the border is laughable.


Well, over the past two years we have answered those concerns. Under Secretary Napolitano's leadership, we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible. They wanted more agents on the border. Well, we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history. The Border Patrol has 20,000 agents more than twice as many as there were in 2004, a build up that began under President Bush and that we have continued.


They wanted a fence. Well, that fence is now basically complete.


So, we have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement.

Obama took credit for confiscating 64 percent more weapons than ever before. Well, that's what happens when the federal government sends thousands of guns into Mexico in the first place through Operation Fast and Furious under the Obama Justice Department and ATF, of course it becomes easier to confiscate more guns when you put more into an area to begin with.

Obama also called again for the passing of the DREAM Act which failed in the Senate during the previous lame duck session. As a refresher, the DREAM Act if passed would allow children of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship if they go to college or join the military. Or as Obama put it, "Stop punishing children for their parents' mistakes."

Obama asked both sides to avoid playing politics with the issue in order to get to the next election, which was ironic considering the odds of completing immigration reform in the short time remaining during his first term are slim, making his speech today look solely like a political move.


That's one reason it's been so difficult to reform our broken immigration system. When an issue is this complex and raises such strong feelings, it's easier for politicians to defer the problem until after the next election. And there's always a next election. So we've seen a lot blame and politics and ugly rhetoric. We've seen good faith efforts - from leaders of both parties - fall prey to the usual Washington games.


On another note, Obama asked the audience if he needed to build a moat on the border to make republicans happy. There is already a moat on the border Mr. President, it's called the Rio Grande. This was the first visit by Obama to the U.S.-Mexico border despite being invited numerous times by local officials in border states to do so.

Unemployment is Up. Worse News: Economists Unaffected

There is an old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day, well that phrase does NOT seem to apply to our mighty, central, economic planner overlords in Washington DC. We know this because they are always, shocked or surprised by the “unexpected rise” in first time unemployment benefit claims like they are today; as 474,000 souls trudged off to the unemployment line last week in defiance of Obama and company’s best laid plans.







So, I keep wondering when the economic and social engineers in Mordor on the Potomac are going to create a better economist? With all of their magical powers it would seem to me that Congress, the Commerce Department and the White House should be able to conjure up stable, predictable, job growth every week, alas, our Wizards of Work seem to be able to do only one thing consistently: spend Other People’s Money.

I am also kept wondering when will the beauty of simple economics as a fix dawn on the American shoeple? Here is a simple, 4 step plan to grow the economy:

1.Stop printing more money and start recalling what you have printed
2.Stop hiring federal workers and start firing most of those you have hired
3.Stop running health care systems and start repealing health care acts (all of them)
4.End all our wars, invasions and occupations and bring the army home to honorable discharges.
The only problem with my plan is it WILL create massive unemployment…. for economists.





A special shout out to my friend Mike Church...