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A Conservative solution to our health care problems is what is needed now I have heard people say. Well there has been this Conservative solution since before Obamacare was forced thru the Congress by the Democrats who were in control of both houses and the Presidency. These same Democrats who refused to allow any Republican input at all during the drafting of this bill. the same Democrats who refused to be bothered reading the 2000+ page bill that they passed without one Republican vote for it. If you check back on this blog site you will see the Republican plans and proposals that were submitted in both the House and the Senate that were never allowed by the Democrat leaders to see the light of day. They were trash canned. What we got stuck with is a so-called Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) that we are now finding out is not at all affordable for the few people who have been able to get a look at the available plans on a web site set up to show these plans to people and allow them to enroll in and purchase insurance. There were, we are now being told, all of 6 people in the entire country who managed to enroll in Obamacare and purchase an insurance policy the first day before the site crashed and burned. The same web site that cost $6 billion and three years to get up and running but isn’t running at all. The web site that was built by a Canadian company but is now being fixed by what the President assures us are experts, or this same Canadian company. Funny I thought the “experts” on the Internet and building programs for the Internet would be the very Americans who built the Internet in the first place. Guess none of these people had a friend in the White House. Or maybe they were willing to take less time and cost less money to build a web site that probably would have worked almost as well as the Internet they built in the first place. Ya think?? But no “friend” in the WH gets no contract.
The following letter is from Jim DeMint who outlines the Republicans and Conservatives Healthcare Plan that is affordable and available and more important, Constitutional. Please check it out. BB
The Conservative Alternative to Obamacare11/01/13Dear friends,We’ve been very critical of Obamacare because it’s hurting Americans. But that has caused some to ask, “What’s your alternative?” The truth is, we’ve always had alternatives, but our critics weren’t ready to listen. Now, the disastrous rollout of Obamacare has a lot of people asking for alternatives to government-run health care. And conservatives are ready.
With each passing day, it becomes clearer that Obamacare will not reduce premiums for average American families, bring down health care spending, or truly improve health care in this country. Instead, people are receiving notices from their insurance companies that their policies are being canceled or their premiums are skyrocketing.
At The Heritage Foundation, we are envisioning a health care system where you and your family come first.
What if you could choose and control your own health insurance? What if you could buy the insurance and health care services you want and need? What if your health insurance didn’t go away when you changed jobs?
The good news is, all of these things are possible. There can be life after Obamacare—and it doesn’t mean going back to the status quo that we had before. We can move ahead, taking the best health care system in the world and making it even better.
Our experts in the Center for Health Policy Studies have put together a new paper that explains how these conservative ideas work. It includes:
- How we will help people with pre-existing conditions
- How we will help you keep your health insurance when you change jobs
- How we can lower costs and improve health care quality—no matter what your income is
- How we can honor people’s faith and protect the right of conscience in health care
We are excited to share this set of commonsense solutions with you—not just because they are good public policy solutions, but because they bring hope. We have hope for life after Obamacare, and these policies would give you back control over your own health care.
Now that’s worth working toward. I hope you’ll join us.
Jim DeMint
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Could have seen this one coming: Chicago and Detroit both Obama strongholds are using Obamacare to help bail them out of their fiscal woes by using Obamacare exchanges to dump theri public sector employeees into the Obamacare exchanges and off of their gold plated health care policies. Look for more big cities to do the same and dump their profligate spending off on the federal tax payers to bail them out. Ironically the public employees of these cities don’t care for what their leaders are planning and just may be the instrument that will finally put an end to Obamacare. Wouldn’t that be just dandy. The very unions who put and kept this abomination in office to turn against him and his signature piece of destruction of the American way of life!
Washington has always been a city filled with crooks but never to the extent it has now risen to under Barack Obama with his Chicago style governing. At this point with any other President doing what Obama has done to our laws and Constitution the President would have been thrown out of office by election if not impeached, but the first Black President and his entire administration and departments have a pass for any thing he wants done. I hope We the People come to our senses before too much more damage is done. Obama and his Chicago gangland thugs are responsible for all the scandals now hitting Washington. and People stay tuned because the Pandora’s Box has just been opened and there are many more to come! The following article explains just one more. BB
The Obamacare Big City Bailout
Newscom
Bloomberg reports this week on the latest Obamacare trend sweeping across the country: Cities and states may soon attempt to unload unsustainable health costs on the federal government by dumping employees and retirees onto exchanges.
Both Chicago and Detroit have explored using the exchanges to reduce massive budget shortfalls, and it could set an example for others. Bloomberg quotes one expert from the Rockefeller Institute of Government: “We can expect other cities to pick up on this.… I expect [employee dumping] to mushroom.”
The incentives for cities—or even states—to dump their workers onto exchanges are significant. Bloomberg notes that reducing retiree health costs could save Detroit approximately $150 million per year—at a time when the city faces a $386 million budget deficit and $17 billion in long-term debt.
Of course, these budgetary maneuvers aren’t really “savings”—they merely represent a shift of unsustainable costs from cities and states onto the backs of federal taxpayers. If more individuals than expected—particularly retirees, who are likely to be older and sicker than the population as a whole—require federal exchange subsidies, the cost of Obamacare could rise by trillions. And if cities and even states set an example by dumping their health care obligations on the federal government, private-sector employers could well follow suit.
The spokesman for Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel called the city’s retiree health system “fiscally unsustainable,” but merely shifting that responsibility to Washington may be about as effective as moving deck chairs on a budgetary Titanic.
Meanwhile, like other Americans losing their coverage due to Obamacare, retirees themselves appear none too keen on getting dumped onto the exchanges. Bloomberg quotes one retired Detroit police officer expressing his outrage:
Imagine if they said tomorrow your Social Security, your Medicare is going away and you’re going on Obamacare.… How would you feel?
Many Americans may soon find out.
Obamacare puts the IRS on Steroids!
Posted on: June 7, 2013
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I sincerely hope my readers have been watching FOXNEWS and the revelations coming out about our current government. Not that some of what is happening hasn’t been done before but this President has made making the United States a police state a major goal of his administration and I am sooo happy the stuff has finally hit the fan. I especially enjoy the outrage of my sister-in-law who voted for him because “Romney hates poor people!”. Obama so loves poor people that he wants to gather them all under his benevolent arms and tell them exactly what to wear, eat, speak and especially vote. And to ensure that they do all these things as he directs he puts his dogs on them when they refuse to listen to papa. Do read the following article to bring yourself up to date on the agency that will implement and control Obamacare and is now under the gun for doing their part to make sure that Obama was elected in 2012. BB
The IRS and Obamacare, by the Numbers
06/05/2013
Chilling new details emerged yesterday about the IRS targeting scandal, as representatives from six conservative groups testified before Congress about the scrutiny and demands they faced from Obama administration bureaucrats.
Yesterday’s testimony reminded us once again why Washington bureaucrats cannot be trusted, and why Americans should be so concerned about the new powers granted to the IRS as a result of Obamacare.
These powers are so vast, in fact, they’re difficult to put into words. So instead, we decided to give you the numbers:
18—New taxes in Obamacare, including 12 that directly violate then-Senator Barack Obama’s “firm pledge” to those making under $250,000 per year that he would not “raise any of your taxes.”
47—New provisions Obamacare charges the IRS with implementing, according to the Government Accountability Office.
$695—Tax for not buying “government-approved” health insurance the IRS will be charged with enforcing on all Americans.
1,954—Full-time bureaucrats the IRS wants to devote to Obamacare implementation and enforcement in the upcoming fiscal year.
60,000,000—Medical records the IRS has been charged with improperly seizing, raising concerns about whether the agency can handle the personal health insurance information all Americans will be required to submit to the IRS.
$439,584,000—The IRS’s request for new spending on Obamacare implementation in the upcoming fiscal year; the request did not specify how much of those funds the IRS will spend on the “Cupid shuffle.”
6,100,000,000—Man-hours Americans already devote to tax compliance, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate, a burden that will rise significantly thanks to Obamacare.
$1,000,000,000,000—New revenue raised by Obamacare in its first 10 years alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office, sums that will only rise in future decades.
If ever there were an argument as to why Obamacare should be repealed and defunded, these numbers—coupled with the IRS revelations of recent weeks—tell the tale.
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Quick Hits:
- One of the witnesses at yesterday’s IRS hearing was Kevin Kookogey, a Heritage Action Sentinel. His organization, Linchpins of Liberty, was asked to turn over the names of students whom it trains.
- Four of the most memorable moments from the IRS hearing, courtesy of The Blaze.
- President Obama’s Christmas tree tax is back, revived by House Republicans.
- The food stamp program shouldn’t be part of the farm bill, write Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham.
- A debate over the libertarian populist agenda.
- Individual citizens can now “cosponsor” bills, thanks to an initiative from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).
- Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) wants to know why HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius won’t use her authority to save the life of a 10-year-old child dying of cystic fibrosis.
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When Americans choose to live off the backs of others instead of taking care of themselves it is a national disgrace. i am NOT talking about the poor, I am talking about dead-beats and just plain thieves who see a chance to get something for nothing and therefore they do. Anyone who wants to can now get food stamps because a program that was to help the poor is so easy to qualify for. Why is this program so full of fraud and abuse? One reason is that it is administered by the Department of Agriculture and the funding is always a part of the farm bills (This outrageous rip-off for another day!!). Anyhow since the funding for food stamps is part of the farm bill the city representatives vote for it to keep the food stamps for their inner city poor and the rural representatives vote for it in order for their city colleagues to vote for farm subsidies. Each group pats the others back! Time is long overdue for We the People to take both groups in hand and shake some sense into the programs they give each other. Under Obama the food stamp programs has doubled!! YES MORE THAN DOUBLED! The following article exp[lains very well what the problem is and how we need to fix it. BB
The Facts about Food Stamps Everyone Should Hear
Newscom
A recent US News & World Report article set out to unveil the “facts” about food stamps.
What are the so-called “facts”?
For one, the article claims that the food stamps program is not “bloated,” but rather, the surge in participation and spending is a result of the program “doing what it’s supposed to do.”
But what is it “supposed to do”?
Food stamps (or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as it is now called) were designed to ensure that Americans without the ability to provide for themselves are able to receive basic nutrition. However, application loopholes and policy changes over the past decade or so have allowed recipients to bypass income and asset tests, meaning many people are receiving food stamps who would not have been eligible under the program’s original purposes.
One of the changes in eligibility requirements is “broad-based categorical eligibility.” This type of eligibility means that an individual who receives any service under another welfare program, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—even something as small as a TANF brochure—can be deemed eligible for food stamps. A full 50 percent of all food stamp recipients now enroll in the program through this broad-based categorical eligibility procedure. As Heritage welfare experts Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley write:
In states using this loophole, a middle-class family with one earner who becomes unemployed for one or two months can receive $668 per month in food stamps even if the family has $20,000 in cash sitting in the bank. Because of this, food stamps has been transformed from a program for the truly needy to a routine bonus payment stacked on top of conventional unemployment benefits.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has operated substantial outreach programs to pull more people onto the food stamp rolls. Some states have gone so far as tohire food stamp recruiters, tasked with filling a monthly quota of new food stamp enrollees.
Another “fact,” according to the author, is that much of the growth in food stamp costs is due to the recession and is temporary.
That’s partially true. Food stamp spending has roughly doubled in the past four years, and part of this is clearly due to the recession. However, food stamp spending has been on an upward climb since the program began back in the 1960s. In the decade prior to the recession, total government food stamp spending nearly doubled, from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 trillion in 2007.
Moreover, according to Obama’s budget plans, food stamp spending will not return to pre-recession levels when the economy improves. “For most of the next decade, food stamp spending, adjusted for inflation and population growth, would remain at nearly twice the levels seen during the non-recessionary periods under President Bill Clinton,” note Rector and Bradley.
What’s more, food stamps are just one of roughly 80 federally funded means-tested welfare programs. The total cost of government welfare spending has been on a nearly continual climb over the past five decades and has increased 16-fold, to nearly $1 trillion annually, since the 1960s. Welfare is the fastest growing part of government spending, and under Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget, total welfare spending will permanently increase from 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 6 percent of GDP.
US News & World Report also suggests as a “fact” that most food stamp recipients work.
However, a significant portion of able-bodied recipients of food stamps perform little to no work. Of the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps containing an able-bodied, non-elderly adult (there are approximately 20 million households receiving food stamps total), more than half—5.5 million—performed no work during a given month in 2010. Another 1.5 million to 2 million performed fewer than 30 hours of work per week. This isn’t unique to the recession, but is typical even during good economic times.
The food stamp program is just one of dozens that comprise the complex system of federal means-tested welfare programs. Instead of continuing to pour more dollars into these programs, which have failed to promote self-sufficiency, policymakers should roll back aggregate spending on means-tested welfare to pre-recession levels when employment recovers. Likewise, programs like food stamps should be reformed to promote self-reliance through work, empowering individuals and families to become free from government dependence.
Posted in Family and Religion [slideshow_deploy]Rachel Sheffield
T. Elliot Gaiser
Tags: Department of Agriculture, food stamps, government dependence, SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, USDA, welfareRelated Posts
Setting Biden Straight on Obamacare’s Anti-Conscience MandateGuest Post: State Legislators Unite to Defend American Religious FreedomHeritage Experts’ Reaction to Senate Continuing ResolutionComments
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This article from The American Thinker is a good overview of the IRS scandal in case you need to get the facts straight or understand just what it all means to you. The Internal Revenue Service is the most powerful department in the government. No one, but NO ONE dares to go up against the IRS. This being the case it is a powerful weapon for any congressman or President to use to get back at anyone they don’t like. This is what has happened with the conservatives in our country who dared to oppose the Democrats and Obama: The IRS was notified to “look into the activities” of any groups who applied for tax exempt status with certain words in their names. Words like “Tea Party, “Conservative”, “Constitution”. The Treasury Department Inspector General (Treasury oversees the IRS) sat right beside the IRS Director in the Congressional hearing Friday and refuted every lie the IRS Director told! The Inspector General stated without a doubt that certain groups were “targeted” by the IRS deliberately. The Inspector General also stated that he told members of the Obama White House of his findings last summer well before the elections and yet Obama is playing deaf and dumb!
Inspectors General are people who have no political affiliation and whose job it is to police the departments in the government. These people are the public’s watch dogs and are chosen for their high standards and integrity. Many of them have been denigrated by this administration in the past four years when they have dared to speak up so I expect this one (Mr. George) to be vilified also in the next week or so.
Anyhow, the following article may be useful to you when trying to argue the points while some bone head or other damned fool. 🙂 BB
May 18, 2013
The IRS Scandal — a Basic Primer
Confusion about the IRS scandal is distracting from its importance, so that thinking conservatives should be prepared to debate the issue. Some basics matter. Conservatives may need to share a summary such as this article to help convince moderate friends.Callers to C-SPAN badly misunderstood these details when Jenny Beth Martin, Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, appeared on C-SPAN television last week. I interviewed Keli Carender of Tea Party Patriots on the radio on May15, who helped clarify some of the pushback and distractions from liberals.
First, don’t let people forget: the IRS scandal is not about conservative accusations. The Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury issued a report finding that the Internal Revenue Service sharply discriminated against conservative organizations. This is confirmed by Treasury’s Inspector General.
Second, a group’s political beliefs and positions ought to be totally irrelevant. Tax exemption must be based on what an organization does, not what it believes or what positions it supports. Whether a group teaches the Constitution or teaches union tactics doesn’t matter, it is educating either way. Therefore, the IRS should not have been looking at the name of the organization, whether liberal or conservative, but on the substance of the organization.
Third, many people don’t realize that nearly all liberal political organizations are tax exempt. There has been a lot of distraction and diversion focused on whether or not the IRS should have scrutinized tea party groups. However, MoveOn.org, NARAL Pro-Choice America, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood (which has been active in partisan election campaigns), Media Matters, etc., are all tax exempt. Organizations on the Left similar to tea party groups have had tax exempt status forever.
Fourth, don’t allow people to wander away from the central point that the scandal is about a double standard — not whether people believe political organizations should be tax exempt. Conservatives seeking tax exempt status were treated very differently from similarly-situated liberal organizations. Sure, some liberal groups were scrutinized. But conservatives were treated differently.
IRS official Lois Lerner fast-walked the tax-exempt application of Barack Obama’s half-brother, the best man at President Obama’s wedding. Abon’go “Roy’ Malik Obama got tax-exempt status in a bureaucratic breakneck speed, in only 30 days, in May 2011, even though it is unclear what if anything the Barack H. Obama Foundation actually does or has done since being approved.
When a conservative organization Media Trackers couldn’t get approved after 8 months, it changed its project to the liberal-sounding name “Greenhouse Solutions.” With the new name, the exact same project was approved within 3 weeks.
Liberal groups — even with very political activities — were systematically approved, and quickly, with relatively little burden or scrutiny, as reported by USA Today.
Groups supporting Israel were discriminated against. In August 2010, a pro-Israel group “Z Street” filed a Federal lawsuit when an IRS staff member admitted that all Israel-related groups were singled out by the IRS for extra scrutiny. There will be a hearing this July 2013, after the case was transferred to the Federal district in Washington, D.C.
The IRS demanded that a Pro-Life group promote abortion in order to get tax-exempt status. No liberal group has such a requirement. NARAL and Planned Parenthood are not required to promote abstinence, adoption, or Pro-Life Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
It is the law that the IRS must answer within 270 days for 501(c)(3) organizations, yet the IRS delayed conservative organizations for more than 540 days.
Fifth, there are many different types of tea party organizations. Some tea party organizations are Political Action Committees (PAC’s) which are directly involved in election campaigns. Others focus purely on training tea party organizers and members on how to be effective in organizing events and lobbying on legislation. Some purely educate about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, etc. Others lobby on pending legislation.
So when the public hears about tea party organizations applying for tax exempt status, they often imagine only campaigning for or against a candidate. That is not tax exempt. Some tea party groups qualify. Some don’t.
Sixth, many have questioned whether the IRS wasn’t doing the job it should have done by asking questions of tea party groups seeking tax exempt status. No one objects to the IRS obtaining basic information and asking reasonable questions. The problem is that the IRS bombarded tea party and conservative groups with multiple waves of a huge number of very intrusive questions. And the wave after wave of questions seemed aimed at never getting around to finishing the process or persuading groups to simply give up and abandon their application.
Seventh, many don’t recognize what ‘tax exempt’ means. It means that if someone donates to a tea party group, the donations are not taxed as income. Otherwise, any political organization would have to pay income taxes on donations.
A tax-exempt organization may still have to pay taxes on other income, such as sales of products or services. Some C-SPAN callers imagined that people in such groups don’t pay income taxes. Of course, people running or working in tax-exempt groups pay income taxes on their salary the same as everyone else.
There are four important categories:
1. A 501(c)(4) organization is tax-exempt (they don’t pay income taxes on donations). A 501(c)(4) organization is allowed to lobby for or against legislation, but is not allowed to advocate for or against a candidate. A 501(c)(4) also can do anything a 501(c)(3) can do.
2. A 501(c)(3) organization is both tax-exempt and tax-deductible. That is, contributors can deduct their donations from their income taxes. It is much more difficult to qualify for 501(c)(3) status. A 501(c)(3) cannot lobby for or against legislation (except to an insignificant extent) and may not engage in any partisan’ (campaign) activity. A 501(c)(3) can educate the public on policy, issues, the advantages and disadvantages of various political policies and topics like the Constitution, concepts of our Founding Fathers, etc. or train citizens.
3. A Political Action Committee (PAC or Super-PAC) intervenes directly in partisan campaigns and does not qualify as tax exempt.
4. A 527 organization is a recent development, which also intervenes directly in partisan campaigns and does not qualify as tax exempt.
Eighth, many are not aware of the difference between ‘political’ and ‘partisan.’ Tax exempt organizations are allowed to engage in public discussion and lobbying of ‘political’ issues affecting society. That is very different from ‘partisan’ activity. ‘Partisan’ means influencing a campaign — that is, advocating for or against a candidate in an election (not necessarily just discussing policy or issues).
An example is the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). CREW is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, tax deductible foundation. Its head Melanie Sloan earns $230,000 per year. CREW does nothing but slander conservative Republicans and a few Democrats who get out of line with mostly false accusations.
Christine O’Donnell won the Republican primary for United States Senate from Delaware. This was learned at 8:00 PM on September 14, 2010. By about 11:00 AM on September 15, 2010, CREW started attacking Christine O’Donnell and publicly declaring that Christine belongs in jail not in the Senate.
Advocating for or against a candidate is the test of ‘partisan’ (campaign) activity that is prohibited for a tax-exempt organization. CREW ignored Christine until she won the GOP Primary. But within hours CREW started attacking her. CREW explicitly referenced her status as a candidate, and specifically that she does not belong in the Senate. Melanie Sloan explicitly said that the voters should know all this when they go to vote in November 2010.
I noticed this pattern and conceived, developed, planned, and drafted the complaint against CREW to the IRS, which ChristinePAC later filed with the IRS in July 2011. Yet two years later, the IRS has done nothing. Melanie Sloan’s parents are big donors to former Delaware Senator Joe Biden and CREW attacks conservatives. Don’t expect the IRS to hold liberals responsible for anything.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/the_irs_scandal__a_basic_primer.html#ixzz2TgoNNdjy
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Americans were told in the early 1960’s by a funny looking short chubby Russian leader named Khrushchev that America would be defeated by Communism and not a shot would be fired. If you care to go to my right side column you will find a series of videos made in the 1980’s by a former KGB (Russia’s top spy agency) agent explaining exactly how the Communist planned to overthrow America (Subverting America by Uri Bezmenov). I am 72 years old and I watched it happen exactly as Bezmenov said it would happen and exactly as Khrushchev claimed as he banged his shoe on the podium. Many laughed and said it would never happen but here we are fifty years later and it is happening. the last brick in the wall of our American prison is being put in place with the federal CORE Curriculum that the government is forcing on states. The text books of the CORE Curriculum have completely rewritten history! Beware!
Do read carefully this article from the Cato Instutute. Then check carefuylllly and keep an eye on your own schools and what is being fed to your children. BB
May 4, 2013
The Great Education Power-Grab
Did you know that reformers intent on implementing the Core Curriculum (National Standards) have invaded public education? They do not care about kids or about individuals. Armed with statistics and vast software systems, their intent is to establish one-size-fits-all curricula and success parameters in public education nationwide. The scope of their ambitions leads this educator to the conclusion that their underlying impulse is totalitarian.
These reformers are driving toward the six- or seven-class-a-day high school teaching load, the 9-5 schedule for the schools (or longer), school provided free and compulsory for ages 2 to 22 (or 26), the six- or seven-day school week, and the 12-month school year (with two- or three-week vacation breaks scattered throughout the school year), all controlled by a vast bureaucracy nationwide and justified by the implementation of “national standards.” A database of answers to 400 questions by all U.S. students K-20 will be compiled and maintained at a tremendous cost to the public. Forty-six states are already on board. This 20-plus years of control and indoctrination will, if implemented, become a cornerstone of statist control.mic
Who’s doing it? These reforms are led by Bill Ayers, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, and Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City. They are also led by educational publishers such as Cengage, Pearson, McGraw Hill, and McDougal Littel. They have a host of supporters including, but not limited to, the Coalition of Essential Schools, New Visions, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and other NGOs that want to bring equality and progress [sic] to institutions supposedly failing to their very core. These “reformers” are being abetted by their so-called adversaries, the education unions: UFT, AFT, NEA, and NYSUT. Claiming to object to some of the teacher hostility expressed by the “reformers,” these unions actually are 100% in tune with the political and social agenda of those reformers. Why? Because the movement toward “national standards” by these reformers means increased membership and dues for the unions, consolidation of power, and national promotion of their left-wing agenda. The education unions become junior partners in one of the greatest power plays in the history of this country.
The key to their vision, if one can call this Brave New World and 1984 nightmare a “vision,” is to bring in a whole new class of school administrators. These administrators do not have teaching experience. Teaching experience tends to breed respect for the individual. Instead, the drive of national standards is to collectivize, to standardize, and to establish one-size-fits-all educational benchmarks, goals, and curricula. The new mandarins of education are people in their twenties or early thirties who are to come in and uproot the supposed garbage of the past. Likewise, pressures are being brought to bear on older teachers and experienced administrators to get out of the way of the “agenda of change.”
A few years ago, this writer attended a meeting to recruit teachers into the New York City Department of Education Leadership Academy for prospective principals, and the sophisticated and attractive hostess of the program was asked, “When reviewing applications to the program, do you take into account whether the applicant has written and published any articles of books?” Without hesitation, the woman answered firmly that she does not. Connection with the world of books is not part of leadership in education. On another occasion, this writer even heard one principal in the New York City Department of Education say that he is not interested in having libraries where books just gather a lot of dust; rather, he wants to replace all books with much cheaper and less space-consuming CDs. He added that students do not need literature in high school; they need only skill-sets for proper English usage. Under the Common Core, literature is being de-emphasized in favor of nonfiction, and excerpts will replace the reading of entire texts.
The thrust during Bloomberg’s years as mayor of New York City has been to recruit people with little or no experience in education to teach and to run the schools. This supposedly is to refresh a profession that has been too insulated from accountability and new ideas for too long. We saw this in Chicago, when Arne Duncan was the head of the schools. He had only had a little tutoring experience, but his goal was to renovate and revamp the failing system. As far as anyone knows, the system there is still failing.
What, then, do we find? From top to bottom, the NYC Dept. of Education is replete with administrators with little teaching experience. Often selected because they are inexperienced and willing to be as insensitive as a cactus in order to please their superiors, they come to impose themselves as “leaders” on those who are already making great sacrifices as teachers.
Then there are teaching fellows and other “career change” types who have decided they want to begin a new career path in education. They soon learn the realities of life in the schools, and many leave. Many teaching fellows are also brilliant and idealistic, and they come into education to make a difference in the lives of individuals and society as a whole. However, they find that they not only have to deal with incredibly complex and difficult classroom and building situations, but many times are being badgered by clueless administrators who are the “new breed” as described above. This author recently heard a highly regarded principal of a New York City high school say that he considered “classroom management” overestimated in importance. Right. Who needs an attentive, orderly classroom? Let students have a watered down curriculum, let them talk during class, and then give them inflated grades to support their self-esteem. This is to be the new formula for national “progress.”
We find people coming into education from facilities management, the petroleum industry, pharmaceutical sales, and lobster wholesaling and delivery backgrounds. This writer has met these people, and the likelihood that they read even one book a year is remote. Are non-readers and non-teachers suited to be educational leaders?
Many, be it for money, security, ideals, or some combination of the above seek administrative positions that they are not ready for. Why aren’t they ready? They are not ready because they have not been mentored and inculcated with core educational values that include, but are not limited to, focus on service and on educational values such as curricular innovation, creativity, knowledge, teacher morale, school tone, the family of man, student character-building, and caring/love of all for all (said list can be summed up as “the pursuit of happiness”).
The above changes are gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) being implemented in various school districts throughout the country, but national standards (Core Curriculum) are the connecting mechanism whereby the philosophy of education outlined above can be managed at the federal level. The rationale for this is that students in China, Japan, and Singapore regularly do better than U.S. students on international tests of math and science. Therefore, a more comprehensive approach (standards) needs to be taken if we are to remain competitive in the world economy.
Even accepting the highly dubious assumption that we are falling behind those countries, should our schools become as authoritarian as those schools? Are not the Judeo-Christian ideals of love and compassion still valid? Do we want the drones we find in these other cultures?
About 46 states have already signed onto “national standards.” There is movement in that direction. There are not many articles in the conservative media and blogs challenging this direction. Nevertheless, the danger to culture, to rationality (substituting what to think for how to think), to individuality, and to the tried and true is palpable.
My question to the reader: Do you want American public education to become even more of an ideological monolith than it is at present?
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/the_great_education_power_grab.html#ixzz2SME2uDEr
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Entitlement Spending Is America’s Biggest Fiscal Challenge, but Discretionary Spending Is Still Far too High
Posted on: April 16, 2013
- In: Communism in America | Economy/Money | Health Care | Ineffective Government Programs | national deficit, taxes, national budget | Obama admistration | Obama and ethics | Obamanation | Obamcare repeal and replace | Progressives Movement to Destroy America | Redistributing wealth | Regaining our moral standards | Social Security | Social Security, Medicare, taxes | Taxes | Unfunded liabilities | Unfunded liabilities | Unfunded liabilities | United States taxes
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Yesterday I* posted on just where each of your tax dollars go. The largest outlays were for our Senior Citizens in the form of Medicare and Social Security. And yes dear reader I went into my usual rant about the reason for Social Security and is oldsters living much longer than we should and therefore getting years and years more than we put into the Social Security program thru our payroll deductions while we were working. In fact, we each get back every cent we put into our account within two and one half years after retirement!! After that People we are on WELFARE and living off the backs of the young!! Social security needs to be means tested and should go only to those who need it to live a decent life. That does not mean paying for Grandma and Grandpa to spend lovely warm winters in Florida in their fancy RV’s. And yes, I spent eleven years as a full time RVer so I know well what I am talking about. I also lived for 19 years in Florida before retirement and know how populations in some towns in Florida go from 7000 in the summer to 70,000 in the winter. People who can afford to own RVs do not need Social Security. They should not be living on the backs of the young or getting money that is becoming a national debt that their great grandchildren will have to pay back.
Of course next on the Greedy Geezer list are those who are well able to buy their own health insurance but who take Medicare. At the grand old age of 24 in 1965 i was so much against this Medicare scam that President Johnson and the Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) were in on with the insurance companies. At that time only an estimated 40% of seniors needed some help paying for their health insurance. And instead of putting these people on Medicaid or some type of stipend to help them purchase their own health insurance the ENTIRE elderly population 65 and over no matter their income was put on Medicare. It was a disaster in the making just as Obamacare is going to be the devastation of our country as we know it. ALL the estimates of costs of the Medicare program in 1965 were 2000% (that is two THOUSAND percent) under the actual costs of Medicare in 2010. Again we Seniors are being kept healthy and alive on the backs of our current working young and by putting our great grandchildren in debt for life. Our great grandchildren in effect will have no life because they will be slaves to paying for the lives we are living now.
How can Americans bear to live with what we are allowing to happen? I grieve for my country and for my great grandchildren yet to be born.
Anyhow, no more ranting from me. The following article from Cato Institute explains better than I can why we must stop the madness of our entitlement programs and put them on a course that will help those who truly need help but take those who can do for themselves off the programs. It really grates me when wealthy Americans are using Medicare.
Be sure to go to the referred sites for additional information. Sincerely, Brenda Bowers (BB)
APRIL 16, 2013 8:40AM
Entitlement Spending Is America’s Biggest Fiscal Challenge, but Discretionary Spending Is Still Far too High
If America descends into Greek-style fiscal chaos, there’s no doubt that entitlement programs will be the main factor. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Disability are all fiscal train wrecks today, and the long-run outlook for these programs is frightful.
Just look at these numbers from the Bank for International Settlements and OECD to see how our fiscal future is bleaker than many of Europe’s welfare states.
Simply stated, if we don’t implement the right kind of entitlement reform, our children and grandchildren at some point will curse our memory.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about other parts of the budget, including the so-called discretionary programs that also have been getting bigger and bigger budgets over time.
That’s why I want to add some additional analysis to Veronique de Rugy’s recent piece inNational Review Online, which might lead some to mistakenly conclude that these programs are “shrinking” and being subject to a “Big Squeeze.”
…there is another number to look at in that budget. It’s the shrinking share of the budget consumed by discretionary spending (spending on things like defense and infrastructure) to make space for mandatory spending and interest. This is the Big Squeeze. …in FY 2014 mandatory spending plus interest will eat up 67 percent of the budget, leaving discretionary spending with 33 percent of the budget (down from 36 percent in FY 2012). Now by FY 2023, mandatory and interest spending will consume 77 percent of the total budget. Discretionary spending will be left with 23 percent of the budget.
She’s right that discretionary spending is becoming a smaller share of the budget, but it’s important to realize that this is solely because entitlement outlays are growing faster than discretionary spending.
Here’s some data from the Historical Tables of the Budget, showing what is happening to spending for both defense discretionary and domestic discretionary. And these are inflation-adjusted numbers, so the we’re looking at genuine increases in spending.
As you can see, defense outlays have climbed by about $100 billion over the past 50 years, while outlays for domestic discretionary programs have more than tripled.
If that’s a “Big Squeeze,” I’m hoping that my household budget experiences a similar degree of “shrinking”!
Veronique obviously understands these numbers, of course, and is simply making the point that politicians presumably should have an incentive to restrain entitlement programs so they have more leeway to also buy votes with discretionary spending.
But I’d hate to think that an uninformed reader would jump to the wrong conclusion and decide we need more discretionary spending.
Particularly since the federal government shouldn’t be spending even one penny for many of the programs and department that are part of the domestic discretionary category. Should there be a federal Department of Transportation? A federal Department of Housing and Urban Development? A federal Department of Agriculture?
No, NO, and Hell NO. I could continue, but you get the idea.
The burden of federal government spending in the United States is far too high and it should be reduced. That includes discretionary spending and entitlement spending.
P.S. For those who don’t have the misfortune of following the federal budget, “entitlements” are programs that are “permanently appropriated,” which simply means that spending automatically changes in response to factors such as eligibility rules, demographic shifts, inflation, and program expansions. Sometimes these programs (such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) are referred to as “mandatory spending.”
The other big part of the budget is “discretionary spending” or “appropriations.” These are programs funded by annual spending bills from the Appropriations Committees, often divided into the two big categories of “defense discretionary” and “nondefense discretionary.”
Where Did Your Tax Dollar Go?
Posted on: April 15, 2013
- In: Economy/Money | Health Care | Ineffective Government Programs | Ineffective Government Programs | national deficit, taxes, national budget | Obama admistration | Obama Against America | Obama and ethics | Obama Executive Decress | Obamanation | Obamcare repeal and replace | Politics 2012 | Progressives Movement to Destroy America | Redistributing wealth | Social Security | Social Security, Medicare, taxes | Taxes | Unfunded liabilities | Unfunded liabilities
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You are required by law to pay taxes on your income today. This income tax became law when the states ratified the 16th. Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in 1913. Our forefathers when writing the Constitution specifically denied the government from taxing the people or what was called a “direct tax”. The states however were to be taxed to support the costs of the federal government in direct proportion to the number of people living in the state. Our forefathers saw the power an individual income tax would give governments over the people and the power to hand out favors and manipulate the system to favor those who could bribe the Congress to write the laws in their favor. This is why and how our own President paid only 18.5% taxes on his income. How much did you pay?
Anyhow, just for your information this is what your tax dollars are paying for. You will notice I sincerely hope that the largest part of your tax dollar is being paid out to senior citizens thru Medicare and Social Security! Time and again I have explained on this site how we Seniors are getting from Social Security and Medicare so much more than we ever paid into these programs. It is beyond me that we as a people insist on paying for millionaires medical expenses and paying them a pension simply because they got old. In fact, even the fact that we are paying these government handouts to anyone whose income is such that they can afford their own health insurance is beyond me. It is long past time that Social Security and Medicare be means tested an only for the poor. And with Medicare and Medicaid taking up 19% of your tax dollar now you can bet that Obamacare will triple that amount. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that Obamacare would cost 1.9 trillion dollars over ten years but have since readjusted this estimate to 5.4 trillion dollars over the next ten years. You might also remember that the government has always vastly underestimated the costs of its programs. But have been on this soap box before Dear Reader so will jump off now and get back to the point of the expenses paid by your tax dollar.
Defense takes a large portion also. BUT, defense of our country was the one duty given to the federal government. We have the finest military in the world and have been fortunate enough to have been free of a war on our shores by an invasion of a foreign power since 1812. Somehow during the 20th. century the United States became the police force of the entire world which was not envisioned by our founders and certainly should not be our role now in my opinion.
Another large portion of your tax dollar is the 6% that is going for interest payments. THAT IS THE PAYMENT OF INTEREST ON OUR NATIONAL DEBT! A national debt that took two hundred years to amount to 9 trillion dollars but on 4 more years to amount to 16 trillion dollars!! So at this rate in just 5 years the percentage of your tax dollar that goes to just the interest on the national debt will be more than any other expense! Keep that in mind when you go to the polls and elect a person who believes the federal government should put more and more people on medicaid or on food stamps or on disability. All of these give away programs have doubled under our current president in just 4 years!
So read this article carefully and understand. An plesase do go to the sites referred in the article . BB
Where Did Your Tax Dollar Go?
Americans are waking up today to the worst “case of the Mondays” they’ll have all year: It’s Tax Day.
Most Americans dread Tax Day, and for good reasons. Beyond the huge tab Americans pay to the government, the tax code is so complex that it’s difficult to figure out what we owe to the IRS. This is a pain for taxpayers and a huge drain on the economy.
According to the federal Taxpayer Advocate in its 2012 report, Americans’ cost of complying with today’s complex tax code totaled $168 billion in 2010. That’s almost as large as the impact of the Obama tax hikes in fiscal year 2013, and twice the size of sequestration this year [see chart].
It takes taxpayers 6.1 billion hours—or 51 hours per household—to complete all the required filings. That’s more than six full eight-hour working days per household!
The compliance burden comes on top of the direct financial cost of $3.5 trillion in federal spending. In 2012, Washington collected $20,000 in taxes for every household in America. But Washington spent nearly $30,000 per household.
Americans pay high taxes as it is, and with the 13 tax increases that hit this year, tax revenue is growing beyond its historical average as a share of the economy. But Washington’s deficits continue, because spending keeps going up.
Future Tax Days promise to be even worse because of the tax increases from the fiscal cliff deal and from Obamacare. Taxpayers will start seeing these costs when they do their tax returns next April and in future years.
Too much taxing and spending is bad for the nation. Americans are right to be concerned about how the President and Congress allocate their hard-earned money. As the above infographic shows, 45 percent or almost half of all spending went toward paying for Social Security and health care entitlements. Without reforming these massive and growing programs, Washington will have to borrow increasing amounts of money, piling debt onto younger generations and putting the nation on a dangerous economic course.
Growing government spending threatens current and future taxpayers with higher taxes. Congress should reduce spending and prevent any more tax increases. Congress also needs toreform the tax code so it is less of a burden on the American people.
Tax day is a real drag, but it doesn’t have to be this bad. Learn more at savingthedream.org.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day atHeritage Libertad.
And So I Go: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 
Facts you really should know about what your government is doing and how to take action against this tyranny NOW.
Posted by: Brenda Bowers on: June 20, 2013
I thought I was pretty well up on what is happening in our country because I really try hard to keep up and do a lot of reading, but now way was I even close to knowing what is happening to everyday people just like me and you. This article from the Heritage Foundation is an eye opener and a blood pressure raiser. Be sure and go to all the referred sites for all the information. The time for We the People to act is now when we have the momentum with the Tea Party and other groups up and moving. Time for you to get involved too before it has gone too far for the United States and Americans to turn the tide towards tyranny around and defeat those who would imprison us in a country no American wants to live in. Sincerely, Brenda Bowers BB