Tax the Rich, Tax the Poor, and Lie About It

President Obama who promised only to tax the "rich" (as he defines it) is now dictating the largest federal tobacco tax increase ever. Everyone knows that such a tax hits poorer people far more than the middle class or rich people. New York Times, do you care that poor people are taxed much more than rich people? At least his tobacco tax won't go into the hands of trial lawyers. Now get this, Obama's "stimulative" Make Work Pay gives eight bucks a week to workers (and CEOs alike I guess) which will be burned up in a two packs a day smoker's lungs. So Mr. Obama thanks for stimulative cigarette smoking and burning the poor guy, ince slightly more than half of today's smokers (53%) earn less than $36,000 per year.
(Article in The Wall Street Journal, Monday, March 30, 2009, page B5:)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- Tobacco users are facing a big financial hit as the largest federal tobacco tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday.
Tobacco companies and public-health advocates, longtime foes in the nicotine battles, are each trying to turn the situation to their advantage. Major cigarette makers raised prices in recent weeks, partly to offset any drop in profits once the per-pack tax climbs from 39 cents to $1.01. Medical groups, meanwhile, see a tax increase in the middle of a recession as a great incentive for smokers to quit.
President Barack Obama signed a health initiative soon after taking office to increase the tobacco taxes to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children. Other tobacco products, from cigars to pipes and smokeless tobacco, will also see similarly large tax increases. For example, the tax on chewing tobacco will go from 19.5 cents per pound to 50 cents. The total expected to be raised over the 4½ year health-insurance expansion is nearly $33 billion.
Separately, Congress is considering legislation to empower the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. That could lead to reformulated cigarettes. President Obama, who has struggled with his own cigarette habit, said he would sign such a bill.
Prospects for reducing the harm from smoking are better than they have been in years, said Dr. Timothy Gardner, president of the American Heart Association. "Every time that the tax on tobacco goes up, the use of cigarettes goes down," he said.

And speaking of taxes. Today is April 15, 2009. Tax Day. Let's see I have, of course, read the 70,320 pages (up 2-1/2 times, or 44,020 pages from 1984) that is almost 4 million words (up from 1.4 million in 2001!) and spent nearly the average 24 hours on the 1040 and related schedules...well, no, as with 60% of Americans I hired it out. The total cost: $90 billion a year. No, that's not just me, it's everyone. Now simplification so the average person knows what he is paying on, how much and where it goes. The flat-rate tax? The consumption tax? No so fast, say the politicians. Now I can reap campaign cash for making or only threatening to change the tax code. Why should I change that gravy train? And they don't. Extortion, you say?

Nero Hero of the Week III

NERO HERO OF THE WEEK III

(Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus)
While it may not be fact, it is a belief that has lasted over two thousand years: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Well, that is what is happening in Washington, District of Columbia, right now. Especially in the White House and Halls of Congress. I feel it incumbent upon me to laud one person each week for fiddling while the United States of America burns. Some might argue that the burn is intentional and set by liberals and Democrats beginning with the inauguration Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Others might simply state that the Chief Executive Officer, newly elected, of the United States of America (hereinafter defined as "US&A) is laughably and predictably acting as a neophite. In other words, with no experience in running anything and no experience in hiring exceptional -- or even unexceptional -- executives to report to him, he's floundering and with his fishy behavior the nation is going belly-up. And he seems to be copying a recent whale: former president George Bush, Junior.

While I stated that I would designate one person as Nero Hero of the Week each week, circumstances have caused me to designate a gaggle of geese: Congress and the Obama Administration for railing against legally-contracted bonuses to hard-working employees of the American International Group (AIG). These AIG people, including administration-appointed CEO Edward Liddy who is working for $1 a year, have been demonized by those who have caused this whole fiasco: Congressional Democrats and President Obama and his team of Keystone Kops...or is it the Three Stooges? OK, House of Representatives financial king-pin, Barney Frank, as far as I can see has never held a job other than political (including teaching at Harvard). Beginning in 1968 as Boston mayor Kevin White's Chief Assistant, Frank has suckled at the teat of the taxpayers since then. Frank was a steller, moral arbiter in 1990, when the House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Steve Gobie's parking tickets. Frank confirmed that he paid Gobie for sex, hired him with personal funds as an aide and wrote letters on congressional stationery on his behalf to Virginia probation officials. September 2003, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to a new agency that would be created within the Treasury Department. In addition, Frank's former partner, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie from 1991 to 1998, where Moses helped develop many of Fannie’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs. In 1991, Frank pushed for reduced restrictions on two- and three-family home mortgages. Frank and Moses' relationship ended around the same time Moses left the company. Oh, did I mention, Frank is a homosexual who has used his power to pass laws favoring the homosexual affinity group. He also has been the recipient of substantial Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions. (And I don't know about Frank and Fannies, so to speak.)

Christopher John Dodd graduated in 1972, Dodd earning a Juris Doctor at the University of Louisville, one of the best known law schools in Louisville. (He is from Connecticut.) He dated at different times Bianca Jagger and Carrie Fisher and got suckle from taxpayers starting in 1975. He must have started practicing law in 1972 and certainly still is practicing because he hasn't gotten anything right so far, except being re-elected. Being a member of the so-called "Watergate class of '74, Dodd obviously learned from President Nixon when in June 2008 he stated: "I don't believe I did anything wrong" ["I am not a crook"] in being given a couple of below-market mortgages as a Friend of Angelo, CEO of Countrywide Financial Services, prime suspect in the meltdown of sub-prime mortgages, most of which were purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the prodding of Barney Fife (oops, I mean Frank) and Dodd. Sen. Dodd received more campaign contributions from AIG than any other candidate in 2008!

I don't know if it's the corruption (both Barney and Chrissie took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the financial industry they were laughably "regulating" -- Dodd is Chairman of the Senate Banking and Extortion Committee) or the complete lack of real-world experience in anything, that is most troubling about these two. Add President Obama, who, except for a brief unsuccessful stint at IBM (affirmative action? I don't know) has also been on the public dole all of his adult life.

Perhaps the rules of Congress that gives committee and sub-committee to those with seniority, not knowledge and experience should be to blame. In companies (a term the above three don't regard seriously) generally board of directors members are those with some experience and knowledge, especially in committees, such as audit. That Congress doesn't do this is disgraceful and I would submit one of the reasons the economic meltdown has occurred. To counter, inexperienced President Obama is mindlessly shovelling out future tax dollars to any squeeky, compaign contributing wheel in our country.

And Congress and the Administration are attempting to deflect blame by demonizing bonuses, those that approved them, except Congress and the Administration who did, and those who received them ("fiddling"or "playing the fiddle") while this economy, this country and the economies around the world burn. Burn to the ground. Yes Dictator Barack Nero and Congresspeople Barney and Chris Nero would be proud.