Obama Begins His Assault on Your Life Savings

Townhall

The welfare state and your life savings are two cars heading down a one-lane road in opposite directions. One must yield, or there will be a crash.

For Americans who believe in the old-fashioned virtues of hard work, self reliance and respect for private property, the solution is obvious. The welfare state must yield.

For politicians who believe in the welfare state and redistributing wealth, the solution is equally obvious. Your savings must yield.

Barack Obama is of the latter group. In the new health care proposal he outlined this week, he suggested a series of unprecedented tax increases that would extend the greedy hands of government into the life savings of hard-working Americans.

These new taxes would essentially construct a new fiscal pipeline capable of carrying money out of the savings of private citizens and dumping it into government coffers specifically for subsidizing Medicare under the new health care system Obama envisions. The White House summary of Obama’s proposal presents this would-be pipeline as a facilitator of economic justice.

“Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).”

There are, of course, multiple unanswered questions here. For starters, wouldn’t increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly” violate Obama’s pledge that, as his campaign literature put it, he would “not raise any tax rate on families making less than $250,000 per year, period.” Plenty of single Americans, who are raising children or taking care of other dependents, file their taxes claiming “head of household” status. Aren’t they “families” covered by Obama’s tax pledge?

Secondly, wouldn’t slapping these households with a new 2.9 percent tax on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents also violate Obama’s tax pledge?

But the most important question is this: Would allowing the government to tap into the savings of one group of Americans to pay entitlement benefits to another group create a system of taxation that could swiftly destroy the American dream?

Yes, it would. Here’s how:

When Obama took office, the federal government confronted a massive long-term fiscal problem. The nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation estimated that revenues expected under the current tax system would fall $56.4 trillion short of covering the current federal debt and the long-term costs of promised entitlement benefits. That $56.4 trillion equaled $184,000 for every living American and $435,000 for every full-time worker. Given the fiscal trajectory at the end of 2008, the government was headed toward spending 18 percent of gross domestic product by 2028 just to cover the annual costs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the debt.

To put that in perspective, the entire federal government cost only 18.2 percent of GDP in 2001 and only 19.6 percent as late as 2007. By 2028, if overall government expenditures were held at the 2001 level as a share of GDP, welfare-state entitlements would squeeze out all other federal spending — including maintaining an Army and a Navy.

The Mack truck of the welfare state was speeding down the one-lane road straight at the little compact car of your life savings.

How did Obama respond? He massively ramped up short-term spending, submitting a budget that will spend an average of 24.13 percent of GDP over the next four years — more than the average of 19.13 percent FDR spent during the Depression and World War II. For the long run, Obama is trying to establish a national health care system in which the federal government will subsidize health insurance not only for the elderly and the poor but also for the middle-aged and the middle class.

Redistributionist politicians like Obama see their core constituents as the net recipients of government benefits, not the net payers. Increasing the number of net recipients serves their ideology and political interests.

The new taxes Obama wants to impose on interest, dividends, annuities and rents to pay for his health care plan are in fact taxes on the life savings of the net payers — on their 401(k)s, savings accounts, paid-off mortgages and life insurance policies — to cover benefits for the net recipients. The redistributionists would ultimately need $435,000 from every full-time worker to cover the welfare state’s unfunded liabilities — even if Obama’s health care plan were never enacted.

Obama is pointing them down the road where they will find it.

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Jeb Bush: Obama Charts ‘Dangerous Course,’ His Policies ‘Not American’

Newsmax

By: Jim Meyers

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tells Newsmax that the Obama administration is charting a “dangerous course” as it pushes for a dramatic expansion of government that “imperils our future.”

Bush predicted that a “tsunami” of opposition to President Barack Obama’s redistributive policies will sweep away Democratic candidates this November, and a popular “uprising” is under way that will shake the pillars of Washington.

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Bush also said Obama is surrounded by “political hacks,” described Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts a “pivotal moment” in American history, and said Obama needs to be more aggressive in dealing with tyrants in Iran and Venezuela.

Bush was elected governor in 1998 and served two terms during a period of great economic growth in Florida.

A popular governor, he has been credited widely with spurring that growth by keeping taxes low and holding down spending. He won high praise for handling natural disasters, no less than six major hurricanes barreled into Florida’s coastlines during his tenure. He also spearheaded reforms that have led to tremendous improvements in the state’s education system.

Today, Bush is in private business and works with several charities and foundations. He told Newsmax he presently has no plans to run for president in 2012, although he has been touted as a candidate. He hinted that he might seek office at a later date if he and his family were financially secure.

Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella and Kathleen Walter pointed to high unemployment levels, a rising federal deficit and looming healthcare expansion, and asked Bush for his assessment of the situation in Washington.

“We’re on a dangerous course in Washington for sure,” he responded.

“The downturn was real and still a lot of people are suffering from the financial meltdown and the loss of jobs. It seems to me the Obama administration, instead of trying to solve that problem with common-sense American solutions, is trying to take advantage of it to redefine who we are as a nation.

“I’m very disturbed about this, and more importantly millions of Americans are. They are acting on their concerns in a way that gives me a lot of hope that we’re going to rebound economically, and also politically, to bring back the proper balance between the citizens of our country and the government that’s supposed to be serving them.”

Martella observed that Obama’s team seems intent on blaming his predecessor, Jeb’s brother George W., for virtually every problem the nation faces.

“From a political point of view, I don’t think that helps the president,” the former governor declared. “Pushing somebody down to make yourself look good was something my mother taught me didn’t work.

“At some point, the president needs to realize he’s no longer a candidate, he’s the leader of the greatest country on the face of the earth, and he has to begin to lead. I think a lot of people will follow him if he actually leads. But if everything’s political and everything’s about the past, then I think he’ll see declining poll numbers as we see today.”

Complete Story:

Read His Lips: Obama Calls for Increasing Payroll Taxes on ‘Households’ Earning Less Than $250,000 Per Year

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama presented a new health care plan on Monday that calls for raising the Medicare payroll tax on some households earning less than $250,000, an apparent breach of his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than that amount. The president’s plan also calls for increasing taxes on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.

In a Sept. 12, 2008 campaign speech in Dover, N.H, Obama said: “And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your  taxes.”

But the new health care plan released in summary form yesterday by the White House specifically calls for increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.”

Unless President Obama is prepared to say that the only type of “family” that qualifies as a “family” under his tax pledge is one that is formed around a “married couple filing jointly,” then his new health care proposal violates his 2008 tax pledge on its face. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, makes clear that the “head of household” tax filing status is for “unmarried” taxpayers. A definition of the term “head of household” on the IRS Web site says: “Generally, you may claim head of household filing status on your tax return only if you are unmarried and pay more than 50% of the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and your dependent(s) or other qualifying individuals.”

The White House posted the president’s tax increase proposal as part of the summary of the new health-care reform bill he is proposing.

“Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary of Title IX of the president’s proposal. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).”

Last August, after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers appeared on Sunday talk shows and seemed to float the possibility that Obama would violate his campaign promise by raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs repeatedly and emphatically said that they president had made a commitment not to do so. At that time, Gibbs did not speak of the president’s tax pledge as if it applied only to “families,” but said the president had made a commitment not to raise taxes on “those making less than $250,000 a year.”

“Let me be precise: The president’s clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year,” Gibbs said at the Aug. 3 White House press briefing.

When reporters pressed him on the issue, Gibbs said: “I am reiterating the president’s clear commitment in the clearest terms possible, that he’s not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.

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And So Does This Obama Appointee

The Obama File

Douglas J. Hagmann, Director of the Northeast Intelligence Network says that Barack Hussein Obama, catering to both Muslim and globalist agendas, is exposing his preference to Islamic and globalist agendas and placing yet another nail in America’s coffin by appointing Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.  To understand the extreme significance of this appointment, it is vital for Americans to understand the composition and objectives of the OIC, its global influence and potential impact on the U.S., and also be fully aware of the background of Rashad Hussain.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is the world’s largest Islamic entity with a membership of 57 Muslim states and a permanent delegation to the United Nations.  Aside from the United Nations, it is the largest international entity of any type.  It was formed on September 25, 1969 by the Islamic heads of state in Rabat, Morocco as an affront to Israel, with its primary objective to regain complete Muslim control and Islamic religious dominance over Jerusalem.  It is now based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Top PLO terrorist leader and Muslim Brotherhood descendent Yasser Arafat was given the honorary position of permanent deputy chairman of the OIC in the years following its establishment.  Unsurprisingly, the symbol of the OIC is a flag with a green background and an upward facing red crescent within a white circle.  Above the crescent are the words “Allahu Akbar” — Allah is the greatest — written in Arabic script.

Since its establishment, the OIC has been THE primary organization pushing for the global criminalization of any criticism of Islam, Muslims, Islamic Sharia law, and all cultural and religious aspects of Islam.  An early adherent to the use of the term Islamophobia, the OIC urged the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in 2005 to pass a resolution titled “Combating Defamation of Religions,” a relatively benign sounding objective until closer inspection of the resolution found that it applied only to criticism of Islam.  The “Combating Defamation of Religions” resolution was formally passed on March 30, 2007 by a vote of 24 to 14.

The OIC is engaged in an aggressive campaign to intimidate Western governments, including the U.S., into adopting hate speech laws that will effectively prohibit any form of criticism of Islam, including violent acts of Islamic jihad.  Its march toward criminalizing any negative speech against Islam is rapidly progressing.  In 2008, the OIC issued a 58-page report citing numerous allegations of Islamophobia, even identifying the state of Florida’s Attorney General’s decision to show the movie Obsession to his staff, a documentary that warned about the actions and objectives of “radical Islam,” as an example of hate speech and Islamophobia.  This comes from the same entity that, in early May 2002, during at a meeting of religious affairs ministers of the OIC in Kuala Lampur, a Saudi representative continud to justify “suicide bombings.”  Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Saleh Al al-Sheikh reportedly stated that suicide bombing are permitted and the (Islamic) victims are considered to have died a martyr’s death.  Their global influence is growing rapidly.

Now, Obama is appointing a new envoy — Rashad HUSSAIN, his associate deputy counsel to that position.  Who is Rashad HUSSAIN?  HUSSAIN was a Yale Law School student and from 2003-2005, an editor of the Yale Law Journal.  He eventually served as a Department of Justice trial attorney and in January 2009 was appointed White House deputy associate counsel.

At a Muslim Students Association (MSA) conference in Chicago on September 5, 2004 HUSSAIN was quoted as saying that the case against Sami al Arian, a University of South Florida professor, North American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, former chairman of the Islamic Academy of Florida, and the recipient of a 50-count indictment by a federal grand jury in February 2003, was politically motivated.  Al Arian was also involved in the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (AADC), the American Muslim Council (AMC), the American Muslim Alliance, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

According to investigative documents, al Arian had connections to the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and to Hamas official Mohammed Sakr and other high ranking terrorists, including Sudanese terrorist Hassan Turbai and Islamic Jihad co-founder Abdel Aziz-Odeh.

HUSSAIN reportedly stated that the prosecution of al Arian was being used “to squash dissent.”  HUSSAIN was also quoted telling a Muslim students’ event in Chicago that if U.S. Muslims did not speak out against the injustices taking place in America, then everyone’s rights would be in jeopardy.

In 2006, al Arian entered into a plea agreement to plead guilty to conspiracy to help a “specially designated terrorist” organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and was sentenced to serve 57 months in prison with credit to time served and face deportation.  In March 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed Al-Arian to testify before another grand jury.  He refused to do so and was cited for contempt in June of that year.  He is presently under house arrest and awaits trial on contempt charges.

After being selected as special envoy to the OIC, HUSSSAIN initially denied making any such statements, then stated that his statements were taken out of context, and as of last week, admits to making statements that were “ill-conceived or not well-formulated.”  According to recent reports, HUSSAIN’s statements were part of a much broader defense of suspected Islamic terrorists.

The events that happened next involving Rashad HUSSAIN are nothing less than a cover-up that can be traced back to the highest levels at the White House.  According to published reports, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs deleted two paragraphs from a 2004 article that quoted HUSSAIN, and then tried to further cover up the “cover up” by claiming that the web site Archive.org was lying “and implied that anyone who wonders what happened to the article is a bigot.

The White House stood behind HUSSAIN, who unsurprisingly, was named a Fellow to the Paul and Daisy SOROS Foundation in 2003.  Paul SOROS is the older brother of George SOROS, a financial supporter of Barack Hussein OBAMA and a virulent anti-capitalist and globalist.

Earlier, Fox News reported to have “unearthed tapes” telling an audience that he favors the imposition of Islamic Sharia law on a global scale.  What better position to hold than envoy to an organization with the very same objectives.  Despite the controversy involving HUSSAIN, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is standing firm on his appointment.

Is Sharia an Obama goal?  I don’t know, but he sure is appointing a lot of people that publicly call for the overthrow of the U. S. Constitution in favor of Sharia Law.  Based on the fact that Obama is violating Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U. S. Constitution on a daily basis, and appointing terrorists’ lawyers to the Justice Department, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

Source:

Obama Advisor Defends Sharia And The Overthrow Of The U.S. Constitution

The Obama File

Vijay Kumar, candidate for Congress, says that according to an article in the United Kingdom’s Telegraph, in October of 2009, Barack Obama’s adivsor on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, went on Islamic television with members of the radical Islamic group Hizb ut Tahrir and defended their blatant call for the overthrow of all “man-made law” — which includes the United States Constitution — and the adoption of Islamic Sharia law as “the source of legislation”:

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law,” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”.

They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”.

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.

…Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.”

I call for Dalia Mogahed’s immediate dismissal.  While our country’s men and women, sons and daughters, friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers are shedding their blood on foreign soil, being maimed and slaughtered while fighting to defend of our liberties, our rights, our freedom, our Constitution, and the very foundation of our way of life, an official connected to our own White House is sitting down next to known, vocal, avowed enemies of our Constitution and our nation, giving them aid and comfort, defending Sharia law as an overthrow of our Constitution, and having it broadcast all over the world on Islamic television.

It is an absolute outrage.  Neville Chamberlain’s fawning appeasement of a madman was nothing compared to such blatant, mutinous sedition, carried out over the imprimatur of the White House and under the auspices of our own Commander in Chief of our armed forces — who are dying under his direction at the hands of the enemies his “advisor” defends!

Where is the Justice Department?  Where is Congress?  Where are the investigations and hearings?  Their inaction makes a mockery of our Constitution and the highest laws of our land.

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White House Accused of Federal Crime in Specter, Bennet Races

Tips to Dancing Czars

The American Spectator: Additional sources below.

“Whoever solicits or receives … any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” – 18 USC Sec. 211 — Bribery, Graft and Conflicts of Interest: Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office

“In the face of a White House denial, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak stuck to his story yesterday that the Obama administration offered him a “high-ranking” government post if he would not run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary.”
– Philadelphia Inquirer
February 19, 2010

“D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff”
–Denver Post
September 27, 2009

A bombshell has just exploded in the 2010 elections.

For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused — by Democrats — of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.

The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet in Colorado.

On Friday, Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrat challenging Specter for re-nomination, launched the controversy by accusing the Obama White House of offering him a federal job in exchange for his agreeing to abandon his race against Specter.

In August of 2009, the Denver Post reported last September, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina “offered specific suggestions” for a job in the Obama Administration to Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, if Romanoff would agree to abandon a nomination challenge to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Bennet was appointed to the seat upon the resignation of then-Senator Ken Salazar after Salazar was appointed by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Interior. According to the Post, the specific job mentioned was in the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Post cited “several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.” Complete Story: