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President Obama’s Deceitful And Relentless Sisyphean Type Punishment Of The Middle Class

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In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a deceitful king who was punished after death by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever. He deserved the graphic punishment. Middle class Americans are being subjected to a different type of Sisyphean punishment as a result of our government’s failed policies which prevents them, despite a lifetime of hard work and achievement, from being able to earn and save enough to pay for their children’s education, purchase a home, or build a fund for retirement. The middle class is the back bone of American capitalism. They produce our products and services and their spending is vital to GDP growth. It is no wonder that the US economy is sputtering. This article will examine how from the start of his presidency, President Obama’s fiscal, healthcare and immigration policies have exacerbated the undeserved and increasingly severe Sisyphean punishment of the middle class. It will also explore the various actions our federal government can take to improve our economy and our safety and at the same time alleviate the punishment of the middle class.

President Obama calls the socialist economic system developed by liberal Democrat entitlementists, his “Middle Class Economics”. His intent is to deceive voters into believing he cares about the middle class. He talks about creating middle class jobs, but, except for favoritism toward destructive unions that support him and other Democrats, has shown a total disregard of the middle class. We know that the compensation problems of the middle class began before the election of President Obama who inherited a deep recession, but despite a continuing series of stimulus programs from the Fed that reversed the decline, his fiscal policies, or “Obamanomics”, have failed to grow the US economy sufficiently to generate middle class wage increases. In fact, his policies have extended the decline in middle class wages during his presidency. Unemployment is down as a result of the growth of low-paying jobs and people leaving the work force. But, under Obamanomics we have too many middle class or former middle class Americans who are underpaid, unemployed, under-employed or have given up looking for work.

President Obama has raised federal income taxes on many of the middle class by eliminating their Bush tax cuts and imposing a Obamacare income tax on their capital gains income. He talks of spending on transportation infrastructure to grow the economy and create middle class jobs but he failed to do so when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and he had the opportunity. Nor did he promote adequate spending on defense to maintain our military superiority that also would have created middle class tax-paying jobs. Instead he squandered trillions of dollars on predictably ineffective fiscal stimulus programs that included unsound loans to green energy companies and supported expansion of unproductive welfare programs, including Obamacare which is harming the economy. His claimed Keynesian stimulus programs failed because they were not aimed at creating tax-paying jobs that would have stimulated further economic growth and generated substantial tax revenues. Increased spending on food stamps increases the GDP and provides a short-term benefit to the recipients, but has a low multiplier effect because it leads to the creation of mostly part-time minimum-wage jobs. It increases the National Debt because it fails to generate increased tax revenues.

For decades members of the middle class enjoyed more financial success than their parents. With the decimation of the middle class that is no longer true. The most significant economic problem in the US today is not the growing income of the wealthy who are living the American dream, but the elimination of the gap in discretionary after-tax income after spending on food shelter, transportation, education and healthcare, between the unproductive poor and the productive middle class. The Obamacare subsidies, whether they are intended to do so or not, have narrowed or eliminated the gap. They have even made it possible for families who become skilled at maximizing welfare benefits, legally or illegally, to have higher discretionary income than the hard-working middle class achievers whose wages are declining. A family living of four in New York City can qualify for welfare benefits exceeding $70,000 per annum. Why haven’t more voters recognized that liberal Democrat entitlementists have created a welfare state that makes it financially desirable for many Americans to have children out-of-wedlock to be able to maximize benefits from the wide variety of available welfare programs than to get married, form a family unit and work hard to support it? That situation is unlikely to change as long as a Democrat occupies the White House.

Defining the middle class and the upper-middle class is difficult. Reasonable people can disagree as to what constitutes middle class and upper-middle class income. It varies greatly from city to city. In many cities pre-tax incomes of $70,000 to $100,000 before deducting healthcare, housing and transportation costs might be considered as middle class and $125,000 to $150,000 as upper-middle class. Others like New York, LA and Dallas require much higher income levels like $150,000 or $250,000 for an individual to be considered middle-class or upper middle class and an additional $30,000 to $50,000 for a family of four. Since the cost of living is higher in cities where middle class and upper-middle class incomes are higher, the Sisyphean type punishment applies to virtually all middle class and upper-middle class families. It also applies to many upper income families living in high cost areas.

Middle class and upper-middle class families generally encourage their children to work hard in school to get into the colleges of their choice. Unlike children from poor families who generally get full tuition scholarships if they get accepted at a college, middle class children generally do not qualify for need scholarships and have to bear a large part of the cost of college. Accumulating savings to pay for college has become more difficult during the past decade as the cost of tuition has soared due to government guaranteed loans and middle class incomes have declined. The problem became exacerbated because the savings of many middle class families was decimated when their home and other investments declined in value during the Great Recession. Students and their families have been relegated to taking out college loans in ever-increasing amounts at excessive rates of non-deductible interest. Upon graduation most of the students, except for those graduating college with the most desired skills or who are athletes or entertainers, even if they are hired in good tax-paying jobs that qualify them to be immediately counted in the middle class or upper-middle class, find themselves living with their parents, unable to repay their college loans or form a family unit. Many college graduates are unemployed or under-employed and unless substantially modified many of the current student loans are likely to be defaulted.

President Obama chose Obamacare as his most important Obamanomics initiative. He knew when he proposed Obamacare that it would place a yoke on the shoulders of the middle class and make them pay excessive premiums and deductibles. Although he knew the truth about Obamacare when it was first proposed, he disgracefully lied repeatedly for political gain about the cost reduction of $2500 per year for Obamacare plans and about keeping your doctor and your plan. He also claimed Obamacare would reduce the use of ERs as doctors for the poor. However, many poor people are expanding their demand for free treatment at hospital ERs. Where else can they find a doctor who will immediately treat them or their children 24 hours a day? He lied because he knew that if he told the truth about Obamacare, it would not have passed in Congress. President Obama’s long-term objective is clear. He is an entitlementist who wants to secure votes for Democrats from the people who benefit from Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid and who receive premium subsidies, the new entitlements. As a socialist he wants the federal government to control healthcare which represents more than 15% of the GDP. Socialists believe that government can provide healthcare better and more efficiently than the private sector. We are already seeing strong evidence to the contrary.

President Obama’s lies also succeeded in preventing most voters from learning prior to his re-election and even to this day that Obamacare requires the middle class to pay grossly excessive premiums and deductibles to help pay for the enhanced mandated benefits given to the poor, the sick and the low-income workers whose coverage is free or highly subsidized. He also failed to disclose that young taxpayers are required to pay even higher premiums to help keep down the rise in costs for the older middle class individuals whose healthcare costs are predictably higher. He deliberately concealed the future rise in premiums and deductibles for the middle class, who are not eligible for subsidies. Such a rise is inevitable as a result of the increase in Obamacare insurers’ outlays as their statutory protection is phased out over a three-year period and as the sick learn how to make greater use of their Obamacare policies that can be purchased without regard to pre-existing conditions, but offer up to $2 Million in benefits. Helping people with pre-existing conditions to obtain improved healthcare is a desirable goal that was being pursued prior to Obamacare. Offering them a Rolls Royce healthcare plan at substantially below cost and requiring the middle class to pay for it, is outrageously unfair. Prior to Obamacare many middle-income families, unless their children qualified for large scholarships, used most or all of their life savings to pay for their children’s college tuition and related costs. After Obamacare they are likely to have little or no savings to pay for education.

Employers, many of whom offer healthcare benefits, are also subjected to the horrors of Obamacare mandates and rising premiums. To avoid Obamacare burdens, many employers are converting full-time to part-time jobs and will pay penalties rather than Obamacare premiums, while encouraging their low-income employees to seek subsidies under Obamacare. Corporate executives facing a long-time stagnant economy and obsessed with increasing profits to please shareholders and to justify their excessive compensation will continue using increasing healthcare costs as an excuse for limiting wage increases.

President Obama is now claiming Obamacare is a success because an increased percentage of Americans have healthcare coverage. The increase results from people taking advantage of Obamacare’s new welfare entitlements that give coverage for free or at below cost to (i) poor people signing up for expanded free Medicaid, (ii) sick people, who couldn’t previously obtain coverage, taking advantage of the opportunity to purchase insurance at standard rates which pay for only a small fraction of their high-cost care and (iii) low-income people buying expensive Obamacare policies because they are offered discounts in the form of subsidized premiums and deductibles. President Obama ignores the evils of Obamacare, which include the hundreds of billions of dollars of costs to offer these new entitlements or the harm to doctors and other healthcare providers and the reduction in the quality of care resulting from attempts to limit cost increases for those who pay. Some healthy middle class people have been tricked by Obamacare ads into signing up for insurance to avoid paying a penalty. They are not told that the penalty is less than the over-priced premium for a Obamacare policy that may be worthless to them because of the exorbitant deductibles. He considers it a success because more people have coverage and once you give an entitlement it is difficult to take it away. He obviously doesn’t care about the spiraling cost of Obamacare premiums for the unsubsidized middle class, the damage to the healthcare system, or the size of the National Debt. That’s for the next president to worry about.

President Obama believes that even if the Supreme Court rules that a major portion of the subsidies are being paid illegally, Republicans will be afraid to enforce the law and will grant a waiver to those receiving subsidies. Republicans in Congress should go to the aid of the middle class by voting to eliminate all the Obamacare subsidies and mandates regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision and  immediately propose a replacement for Obamacare even though they know it will be vetoed by President Obama. Republicans should make the repeal of Obamacare a major 2016 campaign issue. Republican control of the White House may be required to appeal Obamacare.

Obamacare and the skyrocketing costs of other welfare entitlements are likely to prevent most of the middle class from ever again accumulating meaningful wealth despite a lifetime of hard-earned achievements. They virtually guaranty that the Sisyphean punishment of the middle class will persist from generation to generation unless we find a way to grow the GDP at more than 5% per annum and Congress (i) reins in welfare spending as a percent of the GDP, (ii) modifies welfare benefit rules to discourage bearing children out-of-wedlock and encourage family formations or at least identification of fathers, (iii) creates incentives to work, (iv) repeals Obamacare, or at least its subsidies and mandates, (v) deals with future unfunded Medicare obligations and (vi) modifies and enforces our immigration laws. The horrendous growth of the National Debt resulting from welfare costs, including Obamacare subsidies, has to date gone almost unnoticed because, due to Fed low-interest rate policies, it has not yet significantly impacted taxpayers. The people who qualify for the Obamacare subsidies pay little or no federal income tax and many receive negative income tax payments, another form of welfare for the poor paid for by tax-payers.

Most Americans are oblivious to the dangers posed by the National Debt which exceeds $18 trillion. They know that we are a rich country. They observe our amazing technology, the continuous growth in stock market indexes and the financial success of many Americans and the top 1% in particular. The number of millionaires and billionaires is skyrocketing. They do not understand that if the National Debt continues to grow much faster than the GDP (as it has during the entire term of the Obama presidency) which is likely because our government faces tens of trillions of dollars of unfunded entitlement liabilities, and if interest rates return to prior levels, a time will come when our government has to raise taxes, confiscate wealth or print large amounts of dollars to pay the annual interest charges. Since the tax burden of middle class taxpayers is already excessive, socialist entitlementists are beginning to make demands to substantially increase the tax rates on the upper class and the wealthy and eventually will demand confiscation of wealth. Such tax increases or confiscation of wealth inevitably will likely lead to an economic decline further harming the middle class and jeopardizing the survival of American capitalism. Our country’s financial condition could change suddenly if the National Debt spirals upward and the US dollar is abandoned as the world’s exchange currency and collapses in value.

President Obama argues for a higher minimum wage, which is of questionable overall benefit. It will help some workers working for the minimum wage and hurt others and does not help the middle class. Walmart and others have recently increased wages of their mostly low-income employees, but middle class wages are unlikely to rise significantly unless we have much stronger economic growth that spurs demand for labor or corporations elect to treat their non-executive employees more favorably. Henry Ford believed that raising the wages of his employees would enable them to purchase cars. President Obama has made no meaningful effort to convince corporations to share a portion of their increasing cash flow with middle class employees rather than using it to pay grossly excessive executive compensation and giving it to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and stock buy-backs. He could have tried to encourage voluntary middle class wage increases or proposed changes in the federal corporate tax laws to give tax credits to entities giving salary increases to middle class and other non-executive employees. He might also have proposed legislation to give workers a voice in management by requiring the election of an employee representative to the board of directors.

Socialism has a long history of failure. Some might argue it is beneficial in countries with an educated and motivated work force and only a limited number of people in need of welfare benefits. However, it becomes destructive as the number of families relying on welfare grows to unsustainable levels.

The middle class is not the only group to suffer from excessive welfare entitlements. Although poor families (a large number of whom are single parent families) are singled out for preferential treatment by President Obama’s socialistic policies, quality of life for welfare dependent families has declined. Children from poor families often fail to achieve in school for any number of reasons despite trillions of dollars of government funding provided for food, housing, education and other benefits. Too few of them learn about personal responsibility and self-reliance from a parent, grand-parent or from religious training. Only a limited number of them achieve in school and become eligible for available fully paid college scholarships. Some, whether or not they finish high school, achieve the American dream by working part-time (or full-time) beginning at low pay and with effort advance up the jobs ladder to achieve middle class status or higher. However, under our failing system, a large number of people in our inner cities have turned to the welfare system as their principal means of support. Young girls often become un-wed mothers and live off the wide assortment of welfare benefits which they maximize by avoiding marriage and having additional children with the same or another unidentified father. Too many young men find a way to share the welfare benefits given to women who bear their children out-of-wedlock. Others, relieved of the obligation of supporting a family, are satisfied with part-time dead-end jobs. Many turn to joining gangs and selling drugs as their main source of income.

Recent developments have reminded us of the problems faced by many of our largest cities and how unsuccessful our efforts to improve the lives of the most needy Americans have been. Socialists do not understand that a poor person is better off being given a fishing pole than a handout of a few fish. We are learning from inner city unrest that people can’t live with dignity on welfare by choice or because there are no available tax-paying jobs. Our long list of well-intended housing programs, costing more than a trillion dollars over a more than 50 year period, have often temporarily improved housing conditions for the poor, but have over time destroyed more communities than they have helped. Instead of recognizing the negative effects of our socialistic welfare system on the lives of the poor, President Obama and other Democrat liberal entitlementists are now attempting to expand welfare benefits and shift the blame for their failed leadership on alleged police racism. They have promoted hatred of, and attempted to criminalize the efforts of, the men and women in blue who risk their lives daily to attempt to prevent crime in our inner cities. Almost every incident involving a killing of an unarmed person of color by the police becomes a sensationalized national news event prompting a large protest, whether or not justified. Too often the protests are provoked and get out of control leading to looting and arson because the police are told by local politicians and police chiefs to stand down. The inner city destruction that results leads to a demand for increased welfare to clean up the damage and rebuild. Most of the cost of rebuilding will fall on middle class taxpayers. Crime and murder rates are now on the rise in the areas inhabited by the poor in many cities where the police, prevented from performing their job and facing the risk of being personally attacked or unfairly charged with wrongdoing, become less confrontational to protect their own safety.

The middle class and the poor have also suffered from President Obama’s wanton failure to enforce US immigration laws which has enabled illegal immigrants to work at millions of jobs at below the minimum wage. Many of such jobs had previously been tax-paying middle class jobs available for legal residents. Liberals argue that these are jobs that Americans do no want. That is true in some cases, but is clearly not true for many desirable jobs involving manual labor where language and mechanical kills can be learned on the job. The long list of jobs includes building, improving, repairing and maintaining homes, apartments, sidewalks, driveways, landscaping and pools. Although employers benefit from the cheap source of labor, these are the types of potentially tax-paying jobs we need to rehabitate the middle class and lift the inner-city poor out of poverty and reduce the number of people needing welfare.

The illegal immigrants entering into the US across our borders or overstaying their visas are using their children born in the US and eligible for food stamps and other welfare benefits as their anchor to remain in the US and as their personal ATM to fund their family’s basic financial needs. Illegal immigrants are able to further improve their way of life by working at or even below the minimum wage without paying withholding taxes or receiving healthcare benefits. They get free healthcare for their families at the hospital ERs which causes crowding and adds tens of billions of dollars to the annual cost of operating the ERs. The costs, borne by tax-payers are a further burden on the middle class. We do not know the aggregate cost of providing welfare benefits to illegal immigrants and their US born children. We do know that there has been an enormous rise in the number of people receiving food stamps during the Obama presidency to approximately 50,000,000 at an aggregate cost of about $80 billion per year. A significant portion of that amount is paid to illegal immigrants families.

Unless President Obama’s current blatantly unconstitutional effort to change the immigration laws is stopped by the Supreme Court, it will result in the elimination of even more middle class jobs to the tens of millions of illegal immigrants who are already in our country. Why aren’t voters and the press demanding to know why President Obama is enabling illegal immigrants to take jobs from Americans workers? Although we are a land of immigrants and welcome more than a million people into the US as legal residents annually, as long as we recognize children born in the US to illegal immigrants as citizens eligible for welfare benefits, we will not be able to stem the flood of illegal immigrants. Nor will we prevent people overstaying their visas and going into hiding until we issue everyone an US identification card (“USID”) of a type as described in my book entitled Homeland Security and Economic Prosperity published in 2003. A USID would enable us to track illegal immigrants and serve the even more important purpose of identifying, preventing entry and limiting the movement of Islamist terrorists within our country.

Upper-income individuals and the wealthy are generally able to bear the costs of our welfare entitlements including Obamacare. However, we are already hearing almost daily from socialist entitlementists about the excessive income and assets of the top 1%. It is not the growth in the income of the top 1% that is the problem. The industrial revolution, that created wealthy industrialists, generated the middle class and made it possible for almost all Americans to have the opportunity to achieve a comfortable way of life. We should appreciate the important role now played by our most financially successful individuals who have amassed multi-billion dollar fortunes that are beyond the amounts their descendants will ever need. They currently pay a significant portion of all federal income taxes. Their capital investments are spawning new entities and their personal spending on homes, yachts, jets, cars and other luxury items propel economic growth. They and the entities they own are responsible for the creation of many millions of tax-paying jobs. Their charitable foundations are feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and finding cures for diseases worldwide. We should note that much of the income growth of the 1% results from the asset bubble caused in large part by the Fed stimulus programs that have lasted for over five years because of the failed Obama fiscal policies.

Socialists demands for confiscatory tax policies are not the answer, but changes in the tax laws to make them fair should always be under consideration. Without making income tax rates excessive, unfair and counterproductive we might consider higher, but not confiscatory, marginal rates for people earning in excess of $5,000,000, $10,000,000 or $20,000,000 per year averaged over a 3-5 year period. Investment bankers should pay ordinary income tax not capital gains taxes on disposing of their carried interest. We might also change our estate tax laws to take into account that many of the great fortunes accumulated in recent years came in the form of capital appreciation of assets that has for good reasons never been subject to income taxation until it is sold. That is why Warren Buffett pays a lower-income tax rate than his secretary. The Federal Estate Tax is designed to collect a death tax on such appreciated property. However, permitting the wealthy to donate all of their assets to charitable foundations prevents the US government from ever collecting taxes on such capital appreciation. Federal estate and gift tax laws can be changed to enable the US Treasury to recover such previously untaxed income with the remainder of the estate available to be given to a charity.

Economic growth in the US has been feeble. We need more than a trillion dollars to be spent on transportation infrastructure and increases in defense and homeland security expenditures to generate economic growth and create millions of tax-paying jobs. Many conservatives argue that only the private sector and not government creates jobs. How wrong they are. Adequate spending on infrastructure and defense by governments can lead to the creation of millions of tax-paying jobs and substantially increased tax revenues to enable the GDP to grow at a higher percentage rate than the National Debt. However, many Republican Congressman, who have for six years been unfairly abused by President Obama at every opportunity, are obsessed with the size of the National Debt and have good reasons to dislike the president. They have made no attempt to impeach him for his outrageous conduct, but we should not expect them to cooperate with him during the remainder of his term. However, the Sequester and other forms of austerity pushed by conservative Republicans are not the answer. Our goal should be to grow the GDP at 7 to 10 percent yearly while reducing welfare as a percent of the GDP. A decaying infrastructure coupled with defense and homeland security needs, available raw materials and technology and an underemployed work-force give us the opportunity to do so.

Many Republicans favor tax cuts for corporations which might help to stimulate investment. But, corporations have strong balance sheets and are not investing because they do not see a need to increase their productive capacity. They might just use the tax savings to increase dividends, stock buybacks and executive compensation. They have strong balance sheets and will begin to spend when they see the increased government spending. We should look to the wealthy and our cash rich multi-national corporations to partner with our federal and state governments and invest in and help jump-start our economy by financing transportation infrastructure construction. It can be accomplished by changes in the federal tax laws which permit corporations to bring home the trillions of dollars of cash deposited overseas if they invest it in expanding production capacity or to partner with states to finance transportation infrastructure. We could give a fair return, financial guarantees and naming rights to entities investing in America.

Republicans should take the lead in immediately promoting increased defense and homeland security spending. They should pass legislation to do so even if it is vetoed by President Obama. Although the US remains as the world’s leading military superpower, China is closing the gap and will soon equal the US militarily. China like Russia will continue to seize territory unless we take deterrent actions to prevent it or are prepared to confront them. However, they are unlikely to attack our homeland because of fear we will retaliate. A majority of Americans are war-weary and don’t want to fight to protect the citizens or territory of other nations. But, that is no excuse for decreasing and not materially increasing our military strength and preparedness. President Obama’s inept foreign policy has created a new urgent need to be prepared to defend our homeland from immediate and rapidly expanding security threats.

Throughout his presidency he has failed to recognize the threat of Shiite Islamic terrorism supported by Iran. He falsely claimed that Al Qaeda’s Sunni Islamic terrorists were on the run and diddled when they re-appeared on the scene as ISIS, savagely killed tens of thousands of people and in record time established a rapidly expanding caliphate in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Although Iran and ISIS have each made it clear that their goal is to rule the world, our president has downplayed the danger to our allies and our homeland and failed to develop a military strategy to deal with the threat of either Iran or ISIS. He stubbornly refuses to use US troops on the ground, even special forces to stem the rise of ISIS. It is no longer a question of trying to build democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must prevent ISIS from using its caliphate to train Islamic terrorists to attack our allies and our homeland. We must also prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb and from gaining control of most of the Middle East. Fortunately President Obama appears to be listening to Congress and public opinion relating to verification of Iran’s current capability and delay in removing sanctions prior to such verification in negotiating his Iran nuclear deal. Our president is placing unjustifiable reliance on ill-equipped countries to retake the territory seized by ISIS and paying lip service to the Iranian risk. Apparently he is prepared to allow Iran to assume control of defeating ISIS and, if it succeeds, become the major political force in the Middle East to the chagrin of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni dominated countries who are taking actions to prevent it and to confront the danger a nuclear Iran will cause.

Meanwhile ISIS is using social media to encourage a significant number of US residents to join its cause. There are potential domestic terrorists who might commit horrendous and financially devastating damage within our country. Our constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but that does not include the right to participate in an Islamic terrorist conspiracy of the type currently being orchestrated by ISIS. The necessary evidence to prosecute the conspirators is available from their Internet communications.

We greatly improved homeland security after the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 and occasionally prevent a terrorist act. But when we examine the terrorist attacks around the globe and listen to daily news reports, it is clear that our anti-terrorist preparedness is woefully inadequate. Incompetence is rife and ignored at most government agencies. Our borders have not been sealed because our President doesn’t want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants to gain votes for Democrats. We must not wait for events that disrupt our economy or cause the death of large numbers of Americans. We must immediately recognize the danger and greatly expand the effort needed to prevent any type of domestic terrorism anywhere in the US and to respond in the event of a catastrophic event caused by a weapon of mass destruction or an attack on the Internet, our power grid or our banks. That will include hiring, training and equipping a large number of additional anti-terrorist specialists to work with current anti-terrorism forces and within local police units. We should increase the number of our military personnel so that we are prepared to fight on three fronts if necessary. Hopefully it will serve as a deterrent so that we will never have to call upon them to do so. We should address our doctor shortage and strengthen homeland security by offering free medical school to military enlistees who agree to serve as military doctors for five years after graduation. Just as the extraordinary World War II military build-up strengthened our economy and enabled us to escape the Great Depression, the effort to upgrade our military strength and to protect our homeland against terrorism, if undertaken, will enable us to jump-start the American economy and re-establish a strong middle class and permit others to escape poverty.

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Republicans Must Take Immediate Control Of The Economy

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Early in his presidency, President Obama introduced and the Democrat controlled Congress adopted what they believed was an $850 billion Keynesian stimulus plan. However, it predictably failed to grow the US economy as he expected. There are multiple reasons for its failure. Not enough was directed to infrastructure construction spending. Taxpayers struggling with excess debt used the extended tax reductions to pay off credit card balances. Giving away many billions of dollars in the form of food stamps and other welfare payments and as loans (which later defaulted) to reward green energy companies rewarded his political base. Although almost all welfare payments are spent, they have an insignificant multiplier effect. They grow the National Debt because they stimulate the creation of mostly non-tax-paying jobs and do not generate significant tax revenues for the federal government or the states to offset the expenditures.

His stimulus program should have been designed exclusively for projects that would have generated hundreds of thousands of tax-paying jobs and income for the tax-paying entities receiving the contracts. One way to do so would have been to use a large percentage of the stimulus to subsidize shovel-ready state infrastructure projects to repair and improve our decaying highways, bridges, tunnels and airports.

Despite the failure of his stimulus plan, the Obama administration continues its unprecedented expansion of welfare benefits for the poor leading to the unending rise in the National Debt. His main effort after adopting the stimulus plan went into adopting Obamacare which is an abomination. It is not only destroying the healthcare industry, and causing the conversion of forty hour per week jobs to part-time jobs, but also creates new types of welfare subsidies for people with pre-existing conditions, the poor, and low-income workers that have to be paid for. Obamacare was passed and President Obama was reelected based on an elaborate series of lies which were intended to, and with the aid of a politicized press, succeeded in preventing the American voters from learning the truth about the required major changes in healthcare policies and the outrageous excessive Obamacare premiums and deductibles required to be paid by the young and healthy middle class and businesses to fund the cost of the Obamacare subsidies.

Fortunately, while the president’s economic policies were failing, the low-interest rates maintained by the Fed over many years promoted a rise in stock prices that promoted spending that grew the GDP and generated tax revenues that contributed to the reduction in the deficit. A major stimulus to our economy was also supplied by fracking. Although conducted only on private land and impeded by President Obama because of his generally unfounded environmental concerns, fracking generated enormous revenues and created millions of tax-paying jobs in the oil and gas, steel, pipe-line, auto and railroad industries. Fracking grew the GDP and limited the rise in the deficit because it produced a multiplier effect on our GDP that the president’s stimulus program failed to achieve.

We now face a serious danger that our economic growth will stagnate because the increases in oil and natural gas production from fracking in a stagnating world economy has caused a temporary glut of supply and a precipitous drop in oil and natural gas prices. The expected large economic benefit from increased consumer spending and reduced costs to business resulting from hundreds of billions of dollars of reduced energy costs may be more that offset by reduced capital expenditures for drilling new wells, employee layoffs and debt defaults in the oil and gas industry, reduced demand for steel pipe and pipeline and rail services and trucks.

Now, after his inept policies have added many trillions of dollars to and doubled the size of our federal debt, President Obama is proposing a true Keynesian stimulus by seeking funding for transportation infrastructure. He blames Republicans in Congress, whom he has refused to negotiate with on most issues and consistently mocked and abused throughout his presidency, for creating grid lock and being the cause the government shutdown that he encouraged and exacerbated for political reasons. Looking back, we see that President Obama has repeatedly violated the Constitution and acted like a “banana republic” dictator while dangerously steering our economy toward socialism and communism.

The Republican controlled Congress will have the opportunity to take control of and stimulate the economy by (i) funding the repair and upgrading of our decaying transportation infrastructure, (ii) strengthening our military, (iii) improving homeland security and (iv) eliminating the Obamacare mandates. Despite his veto threats, President Obama will find it difficult to prevent passage of spending to improve our economy and our safety. However, if Republicans listen to the inept economists who insist on austerity to reduce the budget deficit and the National Debt or if they politicize the spending as the Obama administration does, they will fail.

Even though the spending programs proposed above will provide a Keynesian stimulus to our economy, we will need enormous amounts of capital to pay for the needed transportation construction projects across the country. Instead of complaining repeatedly as President Obama does about growing wealth discrepancies we should be seeking ways to encourage privately held wealth to partner with government to finance infrastructure construction projects. Our safety, domestic production and quality of life will clearly benefit from the improved infrastructure.

I attempted to address the financing problem in my book published in March 2013 entitled “Perpetuating American Greatness After The Fiscal Cliff”. I proposed changing our tax laws to enable the creation of “Jump Start America Bonds” to encourage American corporations with trillions of dollars parked overseas to finance domestic transportation infrastructure construction projects. Perpetuating American greatness is at issue.

A Proposed Tax Law Change To Encourage Our International Corporations To Bring Home Cash Held Overseas To Invest In Transporatation Infrastructure Projects

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Our transportation infrastructure is a national disgrace. We are the richest country in the world and yet we fail to upgrade, or even maintain, the vital paths of commerce. The main reason is that our states and cities, which are primarily responsible for infrastructure projects, are saddled with ever-growing welfare and employment obligations and excessive debt. We must find a way to supplement transportation infrastructure funding.

President Obama, as he has every time an important election nears, is attempting to promote a plan for HUD funding of infrastructure spending. Why should Congress approve the president’s request for funding? A large portion of previously approved infrastructure funding has not been used by the Obama administration for shovel ready projects, but to promote Democrat candidates and to reward friends. Republican Congressmen don’t trust or like President Obama who disregards Congress and abuses Republicans at every opportunity. They are unlikely to approve the funding he seeks.

This writer in his book entitled “Perpetuating American Greatness After The Fiscal Cliff”, published in March 2013, has proposed changes in the corporate income tax laws to encourage the creation of “Jump Start America Bonds”. Such bonds would be sold offshore by states and their transportation agencies to our international corporations to finance transportation infrastructure construction projects. Jump Start America Bonds would have properties to make them a win, win, win for the investing corporations, the states and the federal government. The corporations would receive a fair return and be protected against loss of principal resulting from default or interest rate risk. They would also be able to repatriate the funds over a term of years at favorable tax rates. The states would get transportation infrastructure construction funding on reasonable terms. The federal government would collect outstanding taxes on overseas profits at reduced rates and would benefit from dynamic economic growth leading to middle class job creation and increased income tax revenues. See my previous article on this blog entitled “Jump Start America Bonds Represent the Perfect Economic Stimulus”.

OBAMACARE IS A WELFARE PROGRAM THAT IS REDUCING THE QUALITY AND AVAILABILIITY OF HEALTHCARE AND HARMING BUSINESS AND THE MIDDLE-CLASS

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Obamacare is a multi-trillion dollar welfare program that makes health insurance available to 30 million previously uninsured Americans. It requires insurance companies to disregard pre-existing conditions. The inevitable affect is to raise the rates of required Obamacare policies. Most importantly, it makes Medicaid available for free to the poor and offers large premium subsidies to lower income individuals. It also offers other benefits to selected individuals, such as, allowing students to stay on their parents healthcare plan until age 26 and elimination of the doughnut hole in Medicare drug plans.

Why do Americans not like Obamacare if it helps so many people? Americans are discovering what the draftsmen of Obamacare knew, or should have known, that businesses, middle-class and healthy individuals are going to have to pay, directly or indirectly, for a substantial portion of the increased costs mandated by Obamacare. They will not be paying for improved insurance coverage for themselves, but to provide free coverage for the poor and reduced or subsidized premium costs for people with pre-existing conditions and low income individuals. Obamacare is designed to advance liberal Democrats acknowledged goal of improving the lot of the poor by taking money from the rich individuals and businesses who they think have more income than they need. To make matters worse it is destroying the availability and quality of healthcare and is giving too much responsibility to bureaucrats at the IRS.

Liberal Democrats do not seem to care that it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year to make such insurance benefits available. They fraudulently claimed, that when Obamacare was adopted and became effective it would enable everyone with insurance to keep their policy and receive the same benefits from the same doctors and healthcare providers, at reduced costs. We are only beginning to recognize how fraudulent those claims were. The draftsmen hid the true cost of purchasing healthcare under Obamacare by including large deductibles and co-pays that significantly raise aggregate healthcare costs. The availability and quality of care are declining. Doctors are leaving the profession and hospitals are reducing staffs. Medicare benefits are being reduced. President Obama repeated the false claims about Obamacare during the re-election campaign and now unashamedly claims that voters supported his views on Obamacare. The Obamacare discussion during the 2012 campaign focused on women’s rights issues, not the disastrous financial consequences of Obamacare.

Democrats, who rammed through the passage of Obamacare withhout a single Republican vote, knew that because our country was in the midst of the Great Recession, the federal and state governments couldn’t afford to pay for a new gigantic welfare program. They therefore devised an extremely complicated plan relying on a hodge-podge of new taxes and rules and regulations applicable to Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance to provide for funding the costs of Obamacare and to limit benefits and payments to providers. They gave it the misleading name of “The Affordable Care Act”. They didn’t care, or negligently failed to realize, the secondary affects of the new taxes including the negative impact they would have on young people looking for jobs and the middle-class who are losing good full-time, tax-paying jobs and existing insurance coverage.

Businesses seek to maximize profits. They have for years been seeking ways to limit increases in employee healthcare expenses. Outrageous Obamacare requirements encourage businesses to rethink their providing of healthcare benefits for employees. They are modifying business plans in ways to minimize or eliminate their health insurance costs. Some employers will save money by requiring their employees to purchase their own insurance from the state exchanges. Some will pay penalties to avoid paying for expensive Obamacare policies. Aggregate payrolls are being controlled by not hiring or laying off full-time employees and hiring additional part-time employees. Retired employees and spouses are losing healthcare coverage.

Obamacare is based on tens of thousands of pages of laws and regulations which are extremely difficult to understand and interpret. It requires the filling out of forms that make the practice of medicine and the delivery of healthcare more stressful and less profitable. Liberal Democrats who proposed Obamacare deliberately ignored pleas of doctors about the outrageous cost of purchasing malpractice insurance because of out of control claims and excessive jury awards. Why would we expect them to do otherwise? Tort lawyers are major contributors to Democrats. Obamacare was promoted to gain votes for Democrats. It is turning into a train wreck which may cost them votes.

The draftsmen of Obamacare tried to hide the cost of giving the new benefits by adopting a variety of new taxes on the middle-class and the rich and requiring businesses and individuals to purchase insurance. They knew that taxes on medical products and drugs, not only drive business off-shore and reduce research and development efforts to produce new products, but also, are inevitably passed on to the consumer. They knew that, if they told the truth about Obamacare, young people, middle-class workers and their employers would object to paying larger insurance premiums or penalties to pay for the new welfare benefit for the poor and those with pre-existing conditions. That is the reason they adopted penalties for businesses and individuals if they failed to buy insurance. They did not anticipate many of the adverse consequences that have surfaced as businesses and individuals have learned about the requirements of Obamacare. Now they are trying to get people to purchase Obamacare policies by claiming it is the patriotic thing to do to help your fellow Americans. Why should young people, strapped with student loans or working in part-time jobs as a result of Obamacare, do so?

DEMOCRATS WANT A SHORT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

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A federal government shutdown for a few days will do little damage to the US economy, but will inconvenience and scare many Americans. Democrants  want the shutdown to enhance their chances of gaining control of the House in the 2014 elections. They are goading Republicans into a fight over the funding of Obamacare to give President Obama the opportunity to claim Republicans have forced a shutdown. Polls show that any shutdown will cause great political harm to Republicans who are being wrongfully attacked by President Obama as extortionists. 

Regardless of whether it was adopted based on false promises, Obamacare is the law of the land. Like it or not, many of its provisions will become operative on October 1, with, or without, US government funding.  It is irrelevant that Obamacare is a new welfare program that is causing great damage to our economy. The poor and low-income people it is designed to help  will line up to enroll for the free or highly subsidized insurance policies, with no pre-existing conditions. President Obama has committed to spend billions of marketing dollars to convince Americans that they will love Obamacare in a few years after we make some corrections and to get young people to purchase policies.

Republicans, led by Senators Cruz and Lee, are publicizing many of the negative aspects of Obamacare. They should continue to make their case before the Senate over the next few days.  However, it is inevitable that the Senate bill will be passed without the provision to de-fund Obamacare. When it returns to the House, Republicans should permit the Democrats to prevail. The best that Republicans can accomplish is to get an agreement for the appointment of a joint Congressional committee to consider the modification or repeal of Obamacare. Any attempt to de-fund or delay the effectiveness of Obamacare merely runs time off  the clock before the potential government shutdown.  Republicans will have an opportunity to expose the terrible consequences of Obamacare, including the harm to the middle-class, in the 2014 Congressional campaigns.

Obamacare, even if further modified, will remain a horrible law and hodge-podge of regulations rammed through Congress, without a Republican vote, during the Great Recession. It changes Medicare, Medicaid and almost every aspect of healthcare. It mandates federally approved insurance to be purchased by or for everyone. The poor and low-income taxpayers get free or highly subsidized coverage. To expand the class of beneficiaries, they threw in benefits for children living at home until age 26 and eliminated the doughnut hole from the Medicare drug plan. Our federal and state governments couldn’t afford to pay for it. They, therefore, adopted all kinds of new taxes and penalties on businesses and individuals to pay for their new welfare program.  Our economy, businesses and the middle-class are suffering from the confusion and increased costs. Obamacare is slowing hiring and capital investment and Is is leading to an increase in undesirable part-time  jobs, while causing the loss of full-time, tax-paying jobs.  It is increasing insurance premiums and causing the loss of coverage for many who had insurance. It is harming doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers and reducing the availability and quality of healthcare. It taxes the gross sales of medical equipment suppliers and drug companies. Such taxes
(unless passed on as increased healthcare costs that will add to the burden being placed on the middle-class) will confiscate the cash needed to support research and development efforts that have placed the US in the forefront of life saving and enhancing equipment and medications. Some of the manufacturers will become unprofitable or will be unable to raise capital, and go out of business. It puts the IRS in control of major healthcare decisions.  Based on recent experience this assures that healthcare subsidies and availability will become politicized and allocated unfairly.  It is so complex that years after its adoption our governments are not prepared for it to become effective.

Why does President Obama like it? It gives the government greater control of our lives and  takes from businesses and individuals who have and gives to those who have not. It adds to his base of people who benefit from handouts. It is unlikely that President Obama and his liberal cronies realized, when it was adopted, how much damage it would do to the economy and the middle-class. As the problems have surfaced, he has made changes in the law and granted waivers without Congressional approval. He talks of further adjustments in the law to work out the kinks. He may not have yet realized that  Obamacare is so conceptually flawed that it is irreparable and should be repealed so that we can go back to a free market solution. Of course that would require taking away or reducing the new welfare benefit. Why should the poor expect to get the same or better healthcare benefits for free than will be available for middle-class people who work to earn the insurance or who may lose their benefits or have to pay for them? Why should we harm business and eliminate or prevent the creation of middle-class jobs, to create another welfare benefit, while the economy remains in a weakened state?

With all the hull-a ballo over Obamacare and the  potential government shutdown, it has gone virtually un-noticed that the disastrous Sequester cuts are retained in the proposed government funding proposal. President Obama and the liberal financial press have been effective in misleading  voters into thinking that the economy is improving  because unemployment is falling and the federal deficit is shrinking. They disregard the large number of people who have left the work-force, the great increase in the number of part-time jobs (largely as the result of Obamacare),  the reduced government spending as a result of the Sequester and the increased revenues from the 2013 tax increases. As a result, and because he refuses to discuss un-funded long-term entitlement (largely Medicare) liabilities, he is in no position to be insisting on necessary increases in defense and infrastructure construction spending to stimulate the economy, provide homeland security  and create full-time, tax-paying jobs. The Obamacare mess makes it highly unlikely that our economy will grow satisfactorily during the remainder of the Obama term. 

We Must Repeal Obamacare Because It Is Destroying The Middle Class

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Obamacare is an extremely complex, highly flawed, law that was designed by President Obama’s appointees and Democratic liberals. They claimed that by controlling costs, taxing the rich and healthcare product suppliers, and forcing everyone to have coverage, we could afford to offer healthcare insurance to everyone, including 30 million people previously uninsured, and despite eliminating consideration of pre-existing conditions, without increasing premiums. They knew that middle class Americans would object to Obamacare if they were forced to pay to subsidize the poor or those with pre-existing conditions. They concocted a scenario designed to mislead the public into thinking that everyone would be better off after the passage of Obamacare.

Obamacare was passed based on promises, all of which are proving to be untrue, that included:

* It would be revenue positive for federal and state governments;
* If you liked your insurance policy you could keep it;
* The cost of your insurance would not be increased; and
* If you were on Medicare you could keep your relationship with your own doctor and continue to receive the medical care which your doctor recommended.

Providing coverage for everyone including those with pre-existing conditions sounded like a good idea to most people. The poor liked it because they were not going to have to pay for the insurance coverage that would supplement their Medicaid and hospital emergency room benefits they were already getting without having to pay. Most working people with tax-paying jobs believed President Obama when he promised them it wasn’t going to cost them anything. Hospitals liked it because they would be paid by the insurance companies for the emergency room treatment of the poor instead of having to pass on emergency room losses to others. The most likely reason that unions supported Obamacare is they didn’t understand the consequences and support almost everything the Democrats and President Obama propose. They have recently awakened and voiced objections to Obamacare.

How could they have expected Obamacare to be revenue positive without increasing everyone’s insurance policy cost, if they were generously going to provide healthcare insurance coverage to 30 million additional people and ignore pre-existing conditions? The true insurance cost of providing healthcare to individuals under age 65 with pre-existing conditions varies in each case, but can be 50 or 100 times more expensive than providing coverage for people without pre-existing conditions.

Democrats and President Obama claimed it would be cost positive by (i) adopting new sales taxes to be paid by medical equipment manufacturers and drug companies (ii) adding a new tax (which unfairly taxed families) of up to 3.8% of income on taxpayers President Obama called rich, but who were really middle class and above in most large cities, (iii) requiring businesses with 50 or more full-time employees (those working more than 30 hours per week) to provide qualifying insurance, (iv) requiring everyone, who does not otherwise have insurance, to purchase insurance, including young people, who will be required to pay an excessive price for their age, or pay a penalty, and (v) reducing Medicare benefits by $700 billion (which Democrats defended by claiming it was a Republican idea).

Moreover, in an outrageously fraudulent attempt to make Obamacare appear to be cost-effective, they included a provision offering long-term care insurance that they claimed would be highly profitable in the first ten years. In doing so they were ignoring a standard insurance business requirement that they establish reserves from the premiums collected for the very large claims expected in later years as some of the insured became incapacitated. After the fraudulent claim of the long-term care profitability was exposed, the long-term care provisions were repealed, before any policies were sold, but after Obamacare was passed. The ten-year cost of Obamacare has since been recalculated numerous times by the Congressional Budget Office and has gone from a profit to a loss that will exceed $2 trillion.

Even that amount may prove to be much too low. Taxpayers have begun to realize they were being misled and they or their employer will have to pay much more for their insurance coverage in most states to subsidize the poor and those with pre-existing conditions.

One group after another has been requesting relief from the onerous provisions of Obamacare. As was predictable, requiring employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide insurance coverage is causing disastrous consequences. Some employers will be forced to close their doors. Other employers are laying off full-time employees and hiring part-time employees to avoid Obamacare. The middle class which has been decimated by the Great Recession are losing good tax-paying jobs with healthcare benefits as employers seek to avoid the cost of providing the healthcare coverage required by Obamacare. President Obama recently, without fanfare, on a Friday afternoon, postponed the effective date of the employer mandate until 2015 so as not to effect his attempts to get control of the House of Representatives at the mid-term elections. It is questionable as to whether he had the legal right to change a law passed by Congress. If successful in getting control of the House, he will probably repeal the employer mandate and leave Obamacare with a large revenue shortfall.

Although the business insurance mandate has been postponed for a year until January 2015, businessmen will continue to plan ahead. Millions of individuals forced to accept 30 hours per week jobs will become eligible for welfare benefits.

Obamacare has stirred the pot. Businesses faced with rising insurance costs have studied the law and will weigh their options. Some, particularly those whose employees will qualify for substantial premium subsidies if they purchase their own insurance, will prefer to offer their employees a raise and pay a $2000 per employee penalty. Other businesses, that currently provide healthcare coverage, will be able to eliminate healthcare benefits for part-time employees since most of them will qualify for 100% or substantial subsidies if they purchase their own insurance.

Unless the employer mandate is modified or repealed many businesses will keep their head-count of full-time employees below 50 to avoid the purchase of insurance or paying the penalty. Such actions, coupled with young people electing to pay the small penalty rather than overpay for insurance they don’t need, is going to cause revenues to be received by insurance companies to cover low risk beneficiaries to be much less than anticipated. The penalties are payable to the US Treasury and not the insurance companies. They will be left with a higher risk group that purchases insurance and will have to raise their rates.

Although attempts are being made (including the planned spending of hundreds of millions of dollars) to trick healthy young people to overpay for insurance, it does not make economic sense for them to do so. To reduce the cost of purchasing insurance there are little known co-pays and deductibles if you buy insurance. For example. CA’s insurance exchange silver-level coverage requires a $45 co-payment for each office visit, $250 co-payment for each emergency room visit, and has a $2000 annual deductible. The cheapest plan has a $5000 deductible. Those who receive highly or fully subsidized policies will go to the emergency rooms, as in the past, and claim they are unable to pay the co-pay or deductible.

Many young people, who have jobs, will pay the small penalty (which will increase over a three-year period, but probably not enough to change one’s decision) and get by without coverage. The can buy the insurance when they need it without fear of a pre-existing condition. Many of these young people are saddled with college loans and unable to get good jobs. President Obama is travelling the country trying to convince them that if Obamacare succeeds they will be better off in the long run. His problem is that he is promoting a law which contains unfair and unsound financial provisions. He will try to convince young people that they will be violating the law if they fail to purchase insurance, but the pre-determined penalty makes it look more like an option.

Even the formulas for determining the portion of one’s premium that will be subsidized are carelessly drafted and highly flawed. Like all Obama tax proposals, the subsidies are calculated in a manner which is extremely unfair to families and the middle class. A married couple may pay thousands of dollars more for insurance than if they were unmarried and living together. Obamacare provides reduced subsidies as individual or family income rises. As expected, the poor get a free ride. The subsidies phase out at family income levels around $90,000. The middle class must bear the brunt of the increased premiums of Obamacare insurance so that the poor and those with pre-existing conditions can be subsidized. One commentator points out that, in calculating the subsidy under one exchange’s formula, there is even a point in the subsidy formula, where, if your family income goes up by $1000, your annual insurance cost goes up by more than $8000. You have to refuse a raise or a bonus or your net take home pay will decline.

We cannot be certain of the extent that Obamacare has contributed to President Obama’s failed fiscal policies which have encouraged the Fed to extend QE. Obamacare by inducing the reduced hiring of full-time employees and the hiring of more part-time employees is creating an illusion of job creation. Despite the increase in part-time jobs and reduced participation rate during recent quarters, the top line rate of unemployment has remained around 7.5%. U6, a better measure of unemployment, paints a much worse picture, showing a 14% level of unemployment. We have more than 2 million less full-time jobs than in 2008. Not enough middle class jobs are being created. Nevertheless, we hear repeatedly from the financial press and Obama supporters of the jobs created by the Obama stimulus programs (which created few good jobs, if any) and the reduced rate of unemployment. They cheer the reduced top-line unemployment number each month. There is nothing to cheer about. Full-time employment has stagnated. The middle class is suffering.

Before Obamacare, most large businesses provided health insurance coverage for their employees. If the cost of insurance coverage increases as a result of the requirement that pre-existing conditions be ignored, or if the economy stagnates and profits decline, expect some businesses to begin to eliminate health insurance coverage and to pay the Obamacare penalty. Employees might be given a raise to cover their individual purchase of insurance, but the after tax benefit of such raise may cover only a fraction of the cost of purchasing an individual or family policy. Of course since pre-existing conditions will not pose a risk, the employees may elect to go without coverage and pay the individual penalty. As a result the poor, who had no coverage before Obamacare will have coverage, and many working people, who had coverage, will wind up paying a penalty and having no coverage.

Some of them will purchase annual healthcare plans, with limited coverage, being put forth by groups of physicians. This will give them access to a family doctor who can advise them and treat most of their problems. If a family member develops a serious illness, that is not covered by the plan, they can then purchase a policy which qualifies under Obamacare.

The excess of middle class workers take home pay over that of welfare recipients who work part-time and collect negative income taxes was being reduced prior to the adoption of Obamacare. Since President Obama was elected there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of Americans receiving food stamps and other types of welfare payments. This has resulted in large part from the effects of the Great Recession that resulted in the loss of millions of good tax-paying jobs and from politically motivated federal government efforts to encourage people to seek benefits. There are a growing number of individuals who have decided that receiving a broad range of welfare benefits supplemented by the income from a part-time or low-paying job that is increased by the negative income tax, will give them a better quality of life than if they found and accepted a tax-paying job and lost their eligibility for welfare benefits. Almost 73% of black children are born out-of-wedlock. In many cases the father sneaks in and out of the home so that they can collect maximum welfare benefits.

There has also been a large increase in the number of people on disability many of whom would work if they could find a good job.

Obamacare is going to greatly reduce the incentive for young people to stay in school or to seek full-time tax-paying jobs. It is going to encourage settling for part-time employment and seeking ways to maximize welfare benefits. Teenagers will be further encouraged to have out-of-wedlock babies, and the inner city education and crime problems will be exacerbated. Young people of all races, growing up in inner city areas across the country, will, with the exception of the scholarship student, athlete or performer, have little incentive for self improvement or to seek a good tax-paying job with an opportunity for advancement. They will choose to settle for lives in a ghetto with minimum comforts and little self-esteem. They will vote for candidates who promise to give them greater welfare benefits. Obamacare is accelerating the conversion of American capitalism into a terrible form of socialism.

We should question whether this is the type of America we want or whether American capitalism will be sustainable.

Liberals refuse to acknowledge that Obamacare is fatally flawed and currently unaffordable because of the current weakness in our economy. They argue that the problems that Obamacare is facing are caused by Republicans who want Obamacare to fail. They argue that conservatives predicted doom and gloom for Medicare when it was adopted and now almost everyone likes it. They ignore Medicare’s unfunded liabilities. They argue that when Obamacare is fully in force it will accomplish its objectives.

However, Obamacare is not funded like Medicare is. Medicare is funded by a payroll tax paid by all working people prior to retirement and an annual supplemental payment for the coverage after reaching age 65. Unless you become disabled, you must work and pay taxes for years before you get benefits. Obamacare is funded by a variety of new taxes (a portion of which will be passed on to consumers) and the mandatory purchase of insurance coverage by corporations and individuals. Obamacare is in large part a welfare benefit for the sick and the poor to be paid for, in large part, by middle class working people.

There is talk about means testing Medicare. This means that those considered rich, who pay the most in Medicare withholding taxes and the new Obamacare tax based on income, will lose some or all of their benefits. Their payments will effectively become additional income tax payments.

We are the world’s richest nation and have the best healthcare system. We can afford to and should provide a reasonable level of healthcare to all of our citizens, regardless of their ability to pay. Every child needs pre-natal care, required preventive shots and antibiotics from time-to-time. We can afford to treat those who acquire leukemia and can cure or ameliorate most children’s cancers and many other inherited or acquired diseases. Prior to Obamacare we were doing all these things under existing insurance coverages and without cost to those who did not have insurance and couldn’t afford to pay. We needed to control costs (particularly, those at health insurance companies) and were working on it. A significant portion of family care can be provided more cost effectively at a clinic by a technician or nurse.

We cannot afford to give each person every high cost heart, liver, kidney, bone, retina, hip, knee or shoulder transplant or replacement they want, without a charge, whether or not they have insurance. We must have life-time limits, co-pays or deductibles for these expensive procedures.

Since most of these procedures are needed by people after reaching age 65, they were creating Medicare cost problems as our population aged and new expensive procedures became available before Obamacare was introduced. We needed to bring aggregate Medicare costs under control. Obamacare’s expanded healthcare benefits, that are provided for free for the poor under Medicaid, are exacerbating the problem of affordability.

Even though one has contributed to the cost of obtaining Medicare benefits in the form of withholding taxes for years and pays to purchase Medicare coverage, the benefits to be received by Medicaid beneficiaries, who will pay nothing, may be the same. This makes no economic sense. Either the Medicare benefits, or the payments to healthcare providers will be reduced or someone is going to have to pay for our generosity.

The onerous reporting provisions and limited fees payable by Medicare and Medicaid under Obamacare, when added to excessive malpractice costs, are driving doctors out of private practice and reducing the availability and quality of care.

The IRS, which is under investigation for unfairly targeting conservative groups for political purposes, is going to decide what healthcare benefits and premium subsidies you will be eligible for under Obamacare. They will be acting as death panels when determining who is eligible for and in what order a patient receives a transplant or treatment. Because President Obama has politicized the IRS, people paying for insurance may find that they receive lesser benefits than others whose vote is being sought or rewarded. We have heard it before. To the victor will belong the spoils.

Health insurance companies are required by Obamacare to offer benefits through qualifying policies. In an attempt to keep premium costs down our governments may use their insurance exchanges being established under Obamacare to undercut price. If insurance companies are driven out of business by Obamacare, we may end up with a one party payor system run by our inefficient federal and state governments that can be expected to further squeeze healthcare providers and reduce or delay service to limit the cost of providing coverage.

 

 

The IRS Scandals Are Expanding Daily And Harming The Economy

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The criminal targeting of conservative organizations and their members and contributors by the IRS is an outrageous abuse of power for political gain. The crimes have been compounded by permitting the practices to continue for years after they were exposed. The Obama Administration, although acknowledging that a wrong has been committed, has permitted a cover-up of the wrongdoings and made no attempt to punish the wrongdoers. New scandals relating to IRS spending irregularities are being exposed on a weekly basis. They are causing a rapid decline in President Obama’s approval rating.

The actions of the IRS have raised serious concerns as to whether its role in the administration of Obamacare will also be politicized and result in wasteful spending.

 Part-time and low-income jobs have enabled Obama supporters to claim that unemployment is declining, but the long-term unemployed and college graduates are not finding an adequate number of good tax-paying job opportunities. The healthcare turmoil and uncertainty being caused by pending Obamacare requirements has discouraged both the offering of good tax-paying jobs and the making of capital investments by large and small businesses. The IRS scandals, together with the Benghazi, journalism and NSA scandals, are proving to be a distraction preventing the stimulus spending necessary to generate infrastructure construction projects needed to create middle class, tax-paying jobs.

The IRS Scandal Continues Unabated

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Months ago President Obama acknowledged wrongful actions by the IRS in reviewing requests of organizations for tax exempt status. He replaced the head of the IRS and promised an investigation. He never acknowledged whether he or his advisors knew that the practice had continued for years before he acted. We soon heard the first fraudulent attempt at a cover-up from Democratic apologists claiming that the wrongdoing was perpetrated by a few rogue agents in the Cincinnati office. It is now clear that the complex illegal practices designed to silence and financially punish political adversaries of the Obama administration were traced to officials in the Washington office, including an attorney appointed by the president. Next deliberately misleading statements were floated claiming that liberal sponsored entities received the same treatment. An examination of the facts soon showed that more than ten times as many conservative groups were harassed and that some of the liberal sponsored entities, but not one of the conservative sponsored entities, received IRS approval.

The continued unjustified and relentless investigations by the IRS on conservative organizations and their members and contributors is a horrific and illegal abuse of power. It is impinging on freedom of speech and causing great financial hardship for adversaries of the Obama administration.

President Obama has conveniently forgotten that he acknowledged wrongdoing by the IRS. He appointed a new IRS Chairman who conducted a white-washed investigation. The IRS and President Obama are stonewalling the ongoing investigation by House of Representative Republicans. Permitting the practice to continue for years, followed by a cover-up and failure to punish the wrongdoers, compounds the crimes.The failure to end the continuing the investigations, even by issuing a denial of the requested tax exemptions, is impeding the entities from going to court to seek appropriate relief. What happened to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The scandal has been expanded by the exposure of outrageous IRS spending.

The IRS role in administering Obamacare virtually assures that Obamacare will be corrupted for political purposes and that its costs will get out of control.

The rapid loss of confidence in the Obama Administration as a result of the IRS and other outrageous scandals is making it impossible to get Congress to act on a needed fiscal stimulus plan to generate tax-paying jobs to jump-start the economy.

The pro-Obama press fails to express outrage.