Happy New Year!

Wondering why your head hurts even though you didn't drink much last night?  Tax season approaches...

"The tax code is 10 times longer than the Bible, without the good news." 
-- Congressman Dave Camp (R-Michigan), as quoted by George Will


"I used to do my own taxes," Camp says, "until I got on Ways and Means." No more. The tax code is so complex that the chairman of the tax-writing committee, like many millions of Americans, cannot be confident he can properly perform, unassisted, the duty of paying taxes.(George Will)

The W-2's will be rolling in with the new year and tax season will soon be upon us.  It is estimated that 7.6 billion hours are dedicated to tax compliance in America.  Can government resolve to make our taxes flatter and simpler?

The Answer is:  0.  What is the question?

By now we've all heard of the pilot's home that was raided.  He had the temerity to point out that pilots are screened, but baggage handlers and other workers have unimpeded access to the tarmac.  This is a problem.  It is much easier for a prospective bomber to get hired as a baggage handler than as a pilot or air crew member.

There's also the story of rape victim Claire Hirschkind panicking at a TSA checkpoint and being dragged off in handcuffs.  There was very little sympathy from the baaing sheep being herded through the airport...

"I understand her side of it, and their side as well, but it is for our protection so I have no problems with it," said Gwen Washington, who lives in Killeen.

"It's unfortunate that that happened and she didn't get to fly home, but it makes me feel a little safer," said Emily Protine.

It doesn't matter to these mindless subjects that government lies to them, so long as the TSA fairy tales make them "feel better."  

Answer:  0
Question:  How many terrorist attacks has the TSA thwarted in its 9-year history?

http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=114138&catid=2

My Town: Liberals Hate Us

Liberals Hate Colorado Springs
I live in the beautiful city of Colorado Springs, home to five military installations, Focus on the Family and the lesser-known Cook Ministries.

For a religiousrightwing redoubt, we have a lot of diversity here as well, including liberal politicians, a famous liberal arts college, and the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.  We even boast a thriving gay community that tends more towards quiet domestic partnerships than the bathhouse flamer lifestyle.


How we handled the homeless problem
Liberals screamed and tore their hair out over the callousness of the conservatives who advocated shutting down the homeless Obamavilles that had sprung up in the wooded areas of our fair city.  It had gotten out of hand, and it wasn't doing these people any favors to let them "camp" on city property.  The county followed suit with its own camping ban.

So, one year later, what is the result?

"We've reached out to over 600 homeless campers, all the people that were down there camping at that time, and we've managed to help 470 some. About 71 percent of the population," Holmes said.

He said some of the campers were placed on buses to reunite with family, some joined substance abuse programs, and some are back in the workforce. (Colorado Connection)

See? Nothing a firm hand up and a little tough love can't remedy.

How we handled the tax problem
The Denver hopium smokers got all giddy back in January when the city of Colorado Springs announced severe cutbacks due to us greedy tea party extremists voting down all proposed tax hikes.

Left Blogistan is still abuzz with excited tales of the decline and fall of the hated rightwing bastion known as Colorado Springs.  Dark, potholed streets, houses burning out of control, rampant crime...  In the fevered imaginings of the left.  They spin these fantasies and pass them along, never realizing they are actually describing failed liberal projects like Detroit or Chicago.




Every breathless blog posting can be traced back to a piece of liberal conjecture disguised as news in the Denver Post:

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled. (Denver Post)

This is my favorite part:

"If a playground burns down, I can't replace it," Schroeder said. Park fans' only hope is the possibility of a new ballot tax pledged to recreation spending that might win over skeptical voters.

I ran into a bovine herd of naive lefties in Left Blogistan who bought all this propaganda hook, line and sinker.  They tried to tell me I was wrong, about my own city!  I live here, they don't.  They finally shut up, a rare opportunity where a lib realizes they are wrong and the propaganda may be mistaken.  We had a good back and forth, here is a summary of what I told them.

The dire liberal predictions have not come true

Playgrounds and parks are green, and not one of them has burned down, believe it or not. Citizens pack out their trash and pitch in to clean up neighborhoods and common areas, which is to be expected from responsible conservatives.

Some street lights are dark, but can be turned on if you pay for it. A few weeds are growing up here and there, but we're forcing our politicians to live within our means!

Finally, contrary to what the liberal morons in the media tell you, Colorado Springs is very diverse. We've got head shops ("medical" marijuana dispensaries) all over town and we are home to Colorado College, a venerable bastion of unbridled liberalism.

We also have a thriving gay community. Gay couples actually shop, hike and generally enjoy themselves in broad daylight right here in in James Dobson's Godly kingdom! And there has never been any intolerant attacks!

This should teach you a lesson to not to believe the bullshit spewed from people with an agenda. 

Believe it or not, that shut the lefties up. 

I wrote about our tax beatdown last November. The city officials who had been threatening us with certain calamity ended up finding money to keep cops and firemen on the payroll.  Imagine that...  I guess nobody notified Left Blogistan.

Read it here: Western Hero - It Takes a Village of Angry Taxpayers

Government Bubble

The end of the Clinton era saw the bursting of the dot com bubble. Rampant speculation drove tech stock prices to unsustainable levels, and what went up came crashing back down.

We just witnessed the housing bubble's big bang, with resulting downsizing of irresponsible lifestyles. There is talk of bulldozing entire vacant neighborhoods in some failed cities like Detroit.




Big Government Bubbles
Unfortunately, government gamblers who are incapable of learning anything continue to pump hot air into the increasingly unstable big government bubble.  President Obama, fresh from blowing trillions, brazenly says we are borrowing too much money from China, we're broke, and the irresponsible spending must stop. Oh, and he also wants to fund windmills and free health care for everybody.

California is Exhibit A
Paul Krugman can always be relied upon for liberal doses of economic advice.  Like practically all liberals, he stubbornly pins California's fiscal disaster to proposition 13, the conservative ballot measure that capped property taxes.

William Voegeli exposes Krugman's gross ignorance:

Property-tax revenues in the state have increased from $4.9 billion to $47 billion in the 30 years since Proposition 13. Adjust those figures for inflation and population growth, and property-tax revenues in California were 87 percent higher in 2009 than they were in 1979, chiefly because of rising property values.

Heedless of facts, Krugman goes a step further, predicting the same disaster for the US for the same reason: Those angry, stingy conservatives are blocking "responsible" tax increases that would pay for all this spending.

For Statist Progressives like Krugman, it's always too little taxation; never too much spending.

We all want something for nothing and the politicians are too cowardly to tell us no, so we end up with more government than we can afford.

China and the US are in a Mexican standoff: We can't stop irresponsible borrowing, they can't stop irresponsible lending, and the negative synergy has us on a mutual downward spiral.

Why doesn't it occur to anyone to downsize our overleveraged government?

Liberal Lies about Taxes

What is it with liberals and taxes?  
Despite all real-world evidence to the contrary, liberals see higher taxes as the solution to every fiscal problem.  The chart at the bottom of the post refutes this.  States with the highest levels of taxation have the worst economies and the greatest debt.  Low taxation states have healthier economies and less debt.

It Takes a Crime-Ridden Village...
The New York Times, in detailing Illinois’s budget crisis, steers clear of facts and instead plucks the liberal heartstrings by focusing on community organizer agencies...

...holding together poor and working-class neighborhoods. With an annual budget of $16 million, the agency tends to families torn by crime and violence as well as people who are psychologically stressed and abusing drugs.

Jail the violent criminals and the drug pushers and you won’t have “families torn by crime” and “people psychologically stressed and abusing drugs.”  There you go!  $16 million saved, and these counselors and their helpless wards are now free to pursue real jobs!

Of course, you need a good business climate in order to put people to work.  Last time I checked, businesses and the rich people who own them are where the jobs come from, and the data shows that a low tax environment creates jobs.  

New York Times:  Fueling Liberal Ignorance
The Times ignores all reality and repeats that tired liberal refrain that calls for more taxes.  They state:

“The state’s income tax burden is not terribly high — Illinois ranks in the bottom half of states”   

True statement.  Personal Income Taxes are not terribly high, but every other conceivable tax is!!! ranking Illinois right around the 14th highest in the nation for overall tax burden.

News articles like this serve only to confuse the issue and add to the economic ignorance of the liberal reader.    

Here is the overall taxation chart, courtesy of The Tax Foundation.  Higher number means more taxation, lower number less.

Governments Make More on Oil than "Big Oil" Does

The gulf is an environmental disaster and gas prices are going up.  Big Oil is girding its loins against Obama's Plouffian onslaught



As the president dodges and lectures tonight, here's a little perspective on Big Oil's "obscene" profits. 


$  Profit from a gallon of gas:  Around 10%
$ Average tax on a gallon of gas:  15% - 20%

Profit is shared between the oil company, transporter, and gas station.  The gas station gets almost no profit at all, which is why they have all morphed into convenience stores.  Free market innovation!  Tax is federal, state and local.

The Tax Foundation points out that Big Oil is paying record taxes as well. What the demagogic politicians don't tell us is that Uncle Sam's cut of those record profits is almost 50%! Add in all taxes big oil paid to all governments, and one sees that governments are making more money off of petroleum than the oil companies are!

Here's the chart from the tax foundation. My HTML skills aren't the best, so if the chart is unreadable just go to the tax foundation's web site:

"Big Oil" made $20 Billion in net profits in the first quarter of 2008. "Big Government" made $47 Billion. Who's calling who obscene?

* I originally wrote this during the gas price spike of '08, but the basic facts have not changed.

Tax Time

This is the time of year my anger at the federal bureaucracy reaches the boiling point, as I do my taxes.  They decreased everyone's withholding last year so we'd feel richer; that is until it's time to pay it back.  Government treating me like a child and jacking with my paycheck was just one more brick in the wall.  I was working so much overtime I didn't notice until it was too late.

It's not even the money so much as it is the complexity and time spent trying to get it right.  We all live in dread of an "invitation" from The IRS.

George Will sums it up beautifully:

Today's tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice:

Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest.

Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times -- more than once a day.

He's written a 2012 fantasy piece where Mitch Daniels had just been elected president and Paul Ryan is his VP.  Will's look into the future is a brilliant explanation of Ryan's roadmap in story form.

He then invites readers to...

 "Compare Ryan's lucid map to the Democrats' impenetrable labyrinth of health care legislation."

The Democrats are driving a decrepit, politburo-centric agenda that produces impenetrable, backwards-looking bureaucratic sludge.    Go read Ryan's Roadmap and you'll see why Republicans own the future with their forward-looking agenda.