Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts

Leo Pusateri, MAD AS HELL...
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11:23 AM | Posted in ,
SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you that local right wing blogger, Leo Pusateri, is mad as hell about something! Usually he is so calm and rational and never prone to rhetorical outbursts that his LTE in the St. Cloud Times comes as a complete surprise. Yet, a couple items caught my eye in this heralding of the recent tea parties held across the country.

Yes, the Tea Party was about confiscatory taxes and spending, but it was so much more than that.More so, the April 15 Tea Parties held across the nation were a collective “mad-as-hell-and-we’re-not gonna-take-it-anymore” reaction to the abuses of individual liberty that have taken this nation by storm within the past two decades.

Let us accept for a moment that there have been "abuses of individual liberty" over the past twenty years. It seems to me that 12 of those past 20 years saw Republicans controlling one or more of the branches of government. So, it would stand to reason that Republicans share more than 50% of the responsibility for these abuses, right? That's strange, because from a brief overview of images and video from these tea parties you would think that Barack Obama had been in power over these last two decades. It was apparently he, and not the 12 years of Republican leadership, that caused this abuse of liberty. So, you have to wonder why Mr. Pusateri doesn't just come out and say that it has been these past weeks of the Obama Administration that have brought about the OUTRAGE by conservatives. Furthermore, if this has been going on for 20 years, what took them so long to finally organize protests?

Confiscatory taxes and regressive tax codes used to fuel unbridled spending have by default placed restrictions on behavior, and are thus instrumental in stealing one’s individual economic, and by extension personal freedoms.


Regressive tax codes? Well now you are starting to sound like a Democrat, Leo. I imagine you will be heralding the new and improved progressive tax code being put forward by Democrats at the state capitol.

Let me get this straight, taxation with representation has "stolen" your economic liberty and has also "stolen" your personal freedom?

While I support the right of Leo and his conservative brethren to protest and demand lower taxation, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that their freedom has been taken away. We held an election in November and your ideology lost. If voters decide in the coming election that they are not satisfied with decisions made by the Democratic majorities, then they will vote them out. Until then, it is highly disingenuous to claim that you are losing some freedom. The fact is that the only thing you lost is an election.

Given that Leo decided to invoke the founders of this country, I would remind him that our first President put down a rebellion over the direct taxation of whiskey.

On September 25th, the President issued a proclamation declaring that he would not allow "a small portion of the United States [to] dictate to the whole union," and called on all persons "not to abet, aid, or comfort the Insurgents."

Washington understood something which apparently today's conservatives do not. Once you are given the right to vote on representation, the proper method of protest is to use that vote and not invoke uprising and revolution.
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Study: Benefits Of Public Spending
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9:40 PM | Posted in
A study done by a group called the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finds that the benefits of public spending far outweigh the effects that come from various tax cutting measures.

From the Press Release:

The majority of Canadian households enjoy a higher quality of life because the public services their taxes fund come at a solid bargain, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending responds to incessant calls for tax cuts and concludes public services make a significant contribution to the majority of Canadians’ standard of living – worth at least 50% of their income.

“What passes for a tax cut debate in Canada is really only half a debate,” says economist Hugh Mackenzie, the study’s co-author and CCPA research associate.

“Our taxes pay for services that are extremely valuable to Canadians. The suggestion we often hear, that taxes are a burden, hides the reality that our taxes fund public services that make Canada’s standard of living among the very best.”

The study shows middle-income Canadian families enjoy public services worth about $41,000 – or 63% of their income. Even households earning $80,000-$90,000 a year enjoy public services benefits equivalent to about half of their income.

The study also shows 80% of Canadians would be better off if the federal government hadn’t cut the GST; 75% would be better off if their provincial governments invested in public services instead of broad-based income tax cuts; and 88% would be better off without federal cuts to capital gains taxes.

“Tax cuts are always made to sound like they’re free money to middle-income Canadians – they are anything but,” says Mackenzie. “We’re far better off with the public services our taxes fund than we are with tax cuts.”

While this study focuses solely on the benefits reaped by Canadians, it is not unrealistic to believe that similar results would be found here in the United States. I can understand the views of individualists wanting to just be able to do all of this themselves. However, here in the world of reality we need to work together and help each other succeed because it is simply unrealistic to live in a purely individualist society. There must be a balance in all things...
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Protesting Taxes? Use Taxpayer Resources...
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8:43 PM | Posted in ,
Larry Schumacher has an article up in the St. Cloud Times about the Tax Day Tea Party held in St. Cloud today. Just a couple clips of interest here:

George Stanley drove 50 miles from Hutchinson to stand outside the St. Cloud Public Library at noon today with his fellow Central Minnesota Tea Partiers. [Emphasis mine]


After the rally, many of those assembled marched with their signs to Minnesota Highway 23 to attract supportive honks from motorists passing by on the under-construction roadway. [Emphasis Mine]


So let's review: The folks that are out protesting taxes have chosen a taxpayer built venue on which to hold this event. Furthermore, they stood along taxpayer funded highways (ironically, one which is currently being improved using taxpayer money) to rant about taxes...
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ARRA And Green Remodeling...
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7:23 PM | Posted in , ,
While some choose to protest the various measures taken by this administration to stimulate the sluggish economy, it may be time to look at some of the "egregious" measures found within that stimulus package.

Within the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that was signed into law in February there are several tax INCENTIVES for people who would like to remodel their homes. In fact, some incentives are add ons to the Energy Efficiency Tax Incentives first enacted in 2005.

Some of the measures eligible for tax credits are:

Replacing windows and skylights, and exterior doors which are equal to or below a 0.30 U factor and a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) of 0.30.

Sealing cracks in the building shell and ducts to reduce infiltration and heat loss - these should be sealed so as to be consistent with the 2009 IECC.

Window films certified by the manufacturer that the product meets the requirements of a "qualifying insulation system."

Pigmented metal roofs, or an asphalt roof with cooling granules must meet Energy Star requirements.

Adding insulation to walls, ceilings, or other part of the building envelope that meets the 2009 IECC (& supplements) specifications.

Notice that each of these incentives has the dual purpose of stimulating the economy and creating the sustainable green economy of the future. The energy savings that could potentially be had from these remodels is in the neighborhood of 25-35% each and every year. So, in addition to the tax incentive that comes with making these improvements you will see additional energy savings every year thereafter.

In the process of doing this green remodeling you have the potential to improve your health as well. One of the features of most homes built throughout the last century is asbestos which has been shown to cause Pleural mesothelioma. With these new tax incentives, you may be able to remove this material once and for all from the place in which you live.

From Asbestos.com (via Mesothelioma symptoms):

Mesothelioma has earned a reputation as a cancer that is very difficult to treat effectively. This reputation is partly due to the fact that in early stages, mesothelioma symptoms are quite non-specific, making early diagnosis very difficult. In addition, the disease usually lays dormant for 15 to 50 years and symptoms do not appear until the cancer has reached its late stages.


Check out the United States Department of Energy for some insulation tips...

So with tax incentives that can save you money in the long term and potentially even improve your health, you have to wonder what exactly people are up in arms about.
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