Red State
A Canadian Premier is coming to the U.S. for heart surgery. A Premier is like a Governor.
We keep hearing how terrible and awful the American health care system is compared to the Canadian one. So why is he coming here?
Daily Archives: February 2, 2010
3.8 Trillion for What?
The Red State
Despite President Obama’s feigned concern about sky high federal spending, escalating budget deficits and mounting government debt, all three are expected to grow much worse under his new budget proposals.
Overall spending will be approaching a record $4 trillion in fiscal 2011, which begins this October, the deficits will still be in the trillion dollar range by the end of this decade and the government’s national debt will continue to climb exponentially as a result of persistent overspending.
“Last year’s budget was historically irresponsible and yet this year’s budget would spend $1.7 trillion more and run deficits $2 trillion greater over the same 10-year period,” Heritage Foundation’s chief budget analyst Brian Riedl told Human Event.
Barack Obama to travel to Indonesia with family
US President Barack Obama and his family will retrace his childhood steps, travelling to Indonesia next month in a nostalgic return to the country where he lived with his late mother and Indonesian stepfather in the 1960s.
Telegraph.co.uk
Feb. 2, 2010
The trip, in the second half of March, has been greatly anticipated in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country since Mr Obama’s inauguration, which was welcomed in Indonesia as the start of a new era in US diplomacy.
Dino Patti Djalal, a spokesman for Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the visit was a chance for Mr Obama to set relations on a more equal footing.
“We want relations between Indonesia and the United States not only to cover one issue. There used to be an imbalance, only democracy and human rights,” he was quoted as saying by Antara state news agency.
He said Indonesia was eager to discuss trade, the economy, technology and heath, among other issues.
He also acknowledged that the visit would have a “sentimental” aspect for Obama, who went to primary school from 1967 to 1971 in the wealthy neighbourhood of Menteng, where a statue of the US president as a schoolboy was erected in December.
Mr Obama is also scheduled to visit Australia and US troops stationed in Guam during his trip
Fate of Obama’s aunt to be fought behind closed doors
The Boston Herald.com
The illegal alien aunt of President Obama could learn this week whether she can put down roots in Boston – or start packing her bags for a one-way trip back to Kenya.
And, save for U.S. Immigration Court Judge Leonard I. Shapiro, she’ll know before anyone else. Zeituni Polly Onyango has persuaded Shapiro to bar the public from her removal proceeding Thursday morning at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, though it’s unclear why.
“I assume (Shapiro) thought it would be a three-ring circus. She’s the aunt of the president of the United States – the most famous man in the world,” said Mike Rogers, spokesman for the Ohio law firm defending Onyango, 57, against the Department of Homeland Security.
Shapiro could not be reached for comment. However, Lauren Alder Reid of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which speaks for the court, said closed hearings are “not uncommon.”
Reid said removal proceedings are sometimes held behind closed doors in cases of political asylum – such as Onyango is requesting – domestic abuse and security.
“The immigration judge will hear the merits of the case from both parties,” Reid said yesterday. “The judge may make a ruling from the bench, but there’s no guarantee.”
Onyango, she said, can call witnesses if she likes.
Neither Reid nor Rogers claimed any knowledge of Obama meddling on behalf of his late father’s African half-sister, and Rogers said Onyango isn’t trying “to capitalize” on family favortism.
“Everyone knows she’s related to him,” Rogers said. “It’s a no-win situation for him. He can’t get involved in this. The law has got to run its course.”
Onyango, a computer programmer, has been in the country illegally since 2004, when Shapiro ordered her to leave. Recent attempts to reach her at the South Boston housing development where she’s been living since a December 2008 stay of her deportation have been unsuccessful.
Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
Yahoo News
By Terri Cullen
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NEW YORK (Reuters.com) –The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration’s Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 — though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a “patch” that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.
Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year’s levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy — the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.
Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
Obama Buys Prison
The Obama File
Lynn Sweet is reporting that Obama budget includes $237 million to buy an Illinois prison for Guantanamo detainees.
Obama’s proposed a $3.8-trillion fiscal 2011 federal budget that includes $237 million for the purchase and upgrading of a prison in Illinois to house detainees now at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
Obama sends his spending blueprint to Congress, with the money to buy the nearly vacant Thomson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois, 150 miles west of Chicago, in the Department of Justice funding request. The State of Illinois and the federal government are currently negotiating over the purchase price of Thomson.
Continue reading here . . .
And we have a perfect facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that functions perfectly well. This is nothing more than a $237 million kiss to Obama’s cronies in Illinois.
Socialism is not the Answer 
