The Right Lane 1.07.13

In pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Obama: “We Don’t Have a Spending Problem” by Greg Campbell
The gloves are coming off for the left as Democrats, led by President Obama, have seemingly crafted an even firmer stance against Republican efforts to cut spending. At a time when America has, for the last four years, continually run a budget deficit in excess of one-trillion dollars, Obama’s unwillingness to address even a fraction of what needs to be cut from government spending signals a complete unwillingness to embrace the realities of an economy that is rapidly becoming more and more unsustainable. Recently, Speaker of the House John Boehner sat down with Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal and discussed his tense back-and-forth meetings with Obama. Boehner shockingly admitted that in the course of their meetings, Obama actually proclaimed that “We don’t have a spending problem.” “What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, ‘the president said to me, “We don’t have a spending problem.”’… The president’s insistence that Washington doesn’t have a spending problem, Mr. Boehner says, is predicated on the belief that massive federal deficits stem from what Mr. Obama called ‘a health-care problem.’ Mr. Boehner says that after he recovered from his astonishment—‘They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system’—he replied: ‘Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with ObamaCare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.’ He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: ‘I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.’” It is said that admitting one has a problem is the first step towards recovery for those with an addiction. Clearly, Obama is still in the “denial” phase. However, while Obama doddles on coming to terms with the inarguable conclusion that government spends too much money, Americans are on the hook for a national debt that hovers around the ceiling of $16.4 trillion and running trillion dollar deficits will only continue to make this situation worse. “Mr. Boehner confirms that at one critical juncture he asked Mr. Obama, after conceding on $800 billion in new taxes, ‘What am I getting?’ and the president replied: ‘You don’t get anything for it. I’m taking that anyway.’” America has already reached the debt ceiling. Through manipulation of funds, Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner has created some headroom that is expected to last until February. Democrats have already solidified their position and many, including President Obama, have claimed that they will not entertain the notion of not raising the debt ceiling. Saying that that he “won’t play that game,” Obama has geared up for what will certainly be a tense exchange with the GOP next month.

~~~~~~

The Obama Tax Bill Comes Due By David A. Patten

A growing chorus of economists is warning that Congress’s last-minute fix to dodge the fiscal cliff could drain much more cash from the taxpayers’ wallets than generally recognized – as much as $2.2 trillion over 10 years – and may significantly slow economic growth.  The full effects of the new tax laws jammed through the 112th Congress just before it dissolved are only gradually emerging. Reflecting the progressive nature of the new tax structure, the Tax Policy Center estimates that workers earning between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an about $822 more in taxes this year. Compare that to a taxpayer with an income of $1 million, who is expected to shell out an additional $170,000.  Perhaps the biggest surprise for taxpayers: Despite both parties’ promises during the campaign that taxes would not go up for middle-income wage earners, The Tax Policy Center reports taxes will rise for over 77 percent of American households. Most of this stems from the expiration of the so-called payroll tax holiday.  While the number crunching continues in earnest, the tax wallop of the 157-page American Taxpayer Relief Tax Act of 2012 that Congress passed last week is gradually emerging [ is was passed 3 minutes after it hit the floor, no one read it or did the math]. It includes:

• About $160 billion of revenue this year due to the expiration of the payroll tax “holiday,” which increases the payroll tax that helps fund Social Security from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent. According to the Tax Policy Center, this increase will actually hit lower- and middle-income taxpayers harder, in percentage terms.
• $62 billion annually due to hiking the top marginal income-tax rate paid by the wealthy from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. This applies to the less than 1 percent of American households who earn $450,000 annually, and to single filers earning $400,000.
• $15 billion a year from limiting, via a “personal exemption phase out,” or PEP, the exemptions and deductions that wealthier families can claim. For a couple earning $400,000 that averages about $50,000 in deductions each year, the tax bill would rise by about $1,000 according to a Wall Street Journal calculation.
• $5.5 billion garnered by increasing the tax rate for capital gains and dividends from 15 percent to 20 percent (in addition to the 3.8 percent surcharge on investment income for the wealthy, which will kick to help defray the cost of Obamacare).
• Another $2 billion annually will be collected by increasing the top rate for gift and estate taxes from 35 to 40 percent.

The bottom line of the new taxation: Less economic growth. “Compared to what the economy would have been had we extended all tax policies,” Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst and tax expert Curtis S. Dubay tells Newsmax, “we’re going to have a slower growing economy, we’re going to have fewer jobs, less opportunity for Americans of all income levels.”

But the fiscal-cliff taxes are only part of the story. That’s because the taxes that Congress approved as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, are also kicking in this year as well. They include:

• A nine-tenths of 1 percent increase in the hospital-insurance (Medicare) payroll tax paid by couples earning more than $250,000 a year, or $200,000 per year for single filers [raising $21 billion in additional 2013 tax revenue].
• A 3.8 percent surcharge in the tax rate for capital gains and dividends -- in addition to the “fiscal cliff” compromise that hiked taxes on capital gains and dividends from 15 to 20 percent – that will apply to married couples earning more than $250,000 per year, or single filers earning $200,000 [approximately $11 billion, estimated].
• Elimination of corporate deductions for retirees’ prescriptions, raising tax costs to employers [$4.5 billion].
• A 2.3 percent excise tax on manufacturers and importers of medical devices, which is expected to be passed along in higher costs to consumers [$2 billion].
• A reduction in the amount that middle-class families facing high medical expenses can deduct from their income taxes if they incur high medical expenses [$2 billion annually].
• A $2,500 limit on tax-free flexible spending accounts, which employees use to help defray medical expenses [$1.3 billion].

Combine the tax hike stemming from health-care reform, the post-holiday increase in the payroll tax, and the tax increases stemming from the fiscal-cliff bill, and the drain on the economy could exceed $2.5 trillion over the next decade.

~~~~~~

Reality Check! Obama Supporters Shocked, Angry at New Tax Increases

Sometimes, watching a Democrat learn something is wonderful, like seeing the family dog finally sit and stay at your command. With President Obama back in office and his life-saving “fiscal cliff” bill jammed through Congress, the new year has brought a surprising turn of events for his sycophantic supporters. “What happened that my Social Security withholding’s in my paycheck just went up?” a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?” Shocker. Democrats who supported the president’s re-election just had NO idea that his steadfast pledge to raise taxes meant that he was really going to raise taxes. They thought he planned to just hit those filthy “1 percenters,” you know, the ones who earned fortunes through their inventiveness and hard work. They thought the free ride would continue forever. So this week, as taxes went up for millions of Americans — which Republicans predicted throughout the campaign would happen — it was fun to watch the agoggery of the left.  “I know to expect between $93 and $94 less in my paycheck on the 15th,” wrote the ironically named “RomneyLies.” “My boyfriend has had a lot of expenses and is feeling squeezed right now, and having his paycheck shrink really didn’t help,” wrote “DemocratToTheEnd.” “BlueIndyBlue” added: “Many of my friends didn’t realize it, either. Our payroll department didn’t do a good job of explaining the coming changes.” [yes, blame HR] So let’s explain something to our ill-informed Democratic friends. In 2009, Mr. Obama enacted a “holiday” on the payroll tax deduction from employees’ paychecks, dropping the rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. But like the holidays, the drop ended, and like New Year’s, the revelers woke up the next morning with a massive hangover and a pounding head. “Bake,” who may have been trolling the site, jumped into the thread posted Friday. “My paycheck just went down. So did my wife’s. This hurts us. But everybody says it’s a good thing, so I guess we just suck it up and get used to it. I call it a tax increase on the middle class. I wonder what they call it. Somebody on this thread called it a ‘premium.’ Nope. It’s a tax, and it just went up.” Some in the thread argued that the new tax — or the end of the “holiday,” which makes it a new tax — wouldn’t really amount to much. One calculated it would cost about $86 a month for most people. “Honeycombe8,” though, said that amount is nothing to sneeze at. “$86 a month is a lot. That would pay for … Groceries for a week, as someone said. More than what I pay for parking every month, after my employer’s contribution to that. A new computer after a year. A new quality pair of shoes … every month. Months of my copay for my hormones. A new thick coat (on sale or at discount place). It would pay for what I spend on my dogs every month … food, vitamins, treats.”  There is more "shock" that these low-information voters will wake up to....hope they can survive it.

~~~~~~~

Pelosi, Van Hollen, Durban: Americans Still Not Taxed Enough By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) - Are Democrats done raising taxes on the American people? "No," says House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).  "We can raise more revenue," says Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).  And Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) says "there are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code which ought to be looked at very carefully." The three Democrats took similar questions about additional tax hikes on different Sunday talk shows. Interviewed Friday by Bob Schieffer, host of CBS's "Face the Nation," Pelosi was asked if the "revenue side" of the fiscal cliff is finished. Revenue means higher taxes to Democrats. "No, no, it is not," Pelosi replied. "I mean, the president had said originally he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue. He took it down to $1.2 as a compromise. In this legislation (fiscal cliff) we had $620 billion, very significant, high-end tax -- changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent. But that is not enough on the revenue side." "Are you talking about more taxes?" Schieffer asked Pelosi. "We're talking about looking at the tax code, putting everything on the table from the standpoint of closing loopholes -- and we know that we can do that -- special subsidies for big oil, for example, $38 billion right there. "But again, not to take things in isolation, just to say, OK, well, how much more revenue can we get as we go forward?" Would Democrats eliminate tax deductions, Schieffer asked Pelosi.  "My idea of tax reform is to have a comprehensive view," she replied. "We've talked about tax simplification and fairness as something that we should be engaged in all along -- long before these fights came along. And now we have a chance to do that with I'd say a heightened awareness by the public on why we need to do certain things. "So let's, you know, put on the table what it is that we can, in order to increase revenue. We've changed the rate, the high-end tax rate, (to) 39.6 percent, a very important step. And again, there's much more that we can do by just subjecting it to the scrutiny of what is bringing in revenue, what is creating growth. And we don't want to hurt that if there's some tax provisions that create growth. We want to support that." If there was any doubt, the "tax and spend" Liberal left sees no wrong nor an end to where taxes cannot be raised, think again.

~~~~~~

Pelosi on Raising Debt Ceiling Unilaterally: ‘I Would Do It in a Second' By Elizabeth Harrington

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that she would raise the debt limit unilaterally “in a second” if she were president of the United States. Pelosi and other Democrats have suggested that the president could bypass Congress and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.”

~~~~~

FLASHBACK: Obama: I Will NOT Take Your Guns Away By Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr.

At a campaign event in Lebanon, Virginia in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama said that he will not take Americans' guns away. "When you all go home and you're talking to your buddies and you say, ah 'He wants to take my gun away.'  You've heard it here,  I'm on television so everybody knows it.  I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away."

~~~~~~

Obama Blueprint for Disarming Americans

The blueprint for how Americans would be disarmed during a declared civil emergency is contained in an Army manual that outlines a plan to confiscate firearms to prevent them falling into the hands of rioters or dissidents. Given the imminent introduction of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s draconian gun control legislation, which would instantly criminalize millions of gun owners in the United States if passed, concerns that the Obama administration could launch a massive gun confiscation effort have never been greater. In July 2012, the process by which this could take place was made clear in a leaked US Army Military Police training manual for “Civil Disturbance Operations” (PDF) dating from 2006. Similar plans were also outlined in an updated manual released in 2010 entitled FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations.

~~~~~~

Buchanan: “There Would Be A Revolution” If Government Confiscated Weapons

PAT BUCHANAN: There are three million ArmaLite rifles — those Bushmaster types — out there right now, and people are buying them like hotcakes. Every gun show, the sales are up enormously. Forty-one percent, they were up in December — for last December — which was a record year. John, what is common though, Eleanor [Clift] is correct, the push is going to come on three things: grandfather in the assault weapons that are here now; to try to outlaw assault weapons, outlaw magazines that carry more than 11 or 12 bullets; and also background checks at gun shows.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: With no Second Amendment, Congress could pass a law, as limited as this: banning assault rifles or as sweeping as prohibiting all private firearm ownership and requiring the surrender of all privately held firearms.

BUCHANAN: There would be a revolution in this country!

MCLAUGHLIN: Baloney! That doesn’t mean you can’t own one, but you have to put it in first and then go try –

BUCHANAN: There are 270 million guns in this country right now, John, and they’re adding to them at a rate of 16 million a year. (The McLaughlin Group, weekend of January 5, 2013)

~~~~~~

Gun Shows and Gun Buying Breaking Records by Gary DeMar

Americans are becoming even more distrustful of their government. They are also fearful of a segment of society that is hell-bent on taking our lives and property. It’s bad enough that our legislators vote to steal our money. If it’s OK for politicians to act illegally, dismissing their oath to uphold the Constitution that they swore to obey, so why is it wrong for others to break into our homes and take the money directly? The Constitution doesn’t give elected officials the authority to take our money in ever greater amounts, and yet they do it every election cycle. Street-walking thieves are using the same logic. “If Congress can violate the law, why can’t we?” What’s different about a thief dressed in a suit and tie who votes to use the power of the State to take our money and some guy dressed in black Hoodie who creeps around in the dark to do it? At least we can protect ourselves against the creeping thieves, but not if the government passes laws that make it illegal to buy and own guns for protection. A woman in Georgia protected herself and her children after a man broke into the house with a crowbar and began ransacking the house. The woman hid in a closet with her twin daughters but not before getting a .38-caliber revolver she kept in the house. When the intruder opened the closet door, the protective mother shot the suspect five times in the face and neck. Since Congress and the President may try to pass laws to make us defenseless, Americans are stocking up on weapons as insurance against thieves, rapists, and murderers. That’s why we’re seeing evidence of record gun buying from Florida to California.

~~~~~~

Sen. Ted Cruz: Conservative Policies 'Improve Opportunity' By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) - Ted Cruz, the new U.S. senator from Texas, says he's a conservative because conservative policies work. "The reason I am a conservative is because conservative policies work, and they improve opportunity. They are the avenue for climbing the economic dream. And what I have been talking about for many years is opportunity conservatism, that every policy should focus like a laser on easing the means of ascent of the economic ladder that we should be championing the 47 percent, to take that now infamous comment.  Look, the great thing about Americans -- Americans don't want to be dependent on government. Dependency zaps the spirit. It doesn't work," Cruz told "Fox News Sunday."

"Americans want to stand on their own two feet. And the best way to do that is have policies that allow entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive and to create jobs and advance the American Dream." Fox News Sunday substitute host John Roberts asked Cruz, "What's to prevent you from becoming a spineless jellyfish here in the climate of Washington?" Cruz said he's coming into office "surrounded by and lifted up by those grassroots conservatives who I am happy to stand with over and over again." "If we can stand strong and insist on, number one, structural reforms to fix the problems, and number two, pro-growth policies so we can grow the economy, we can get jobs back; we can get people back to work, I think we can win that debate and win that argument.

"I don't think what Washington needs is more compromise. I think what Washington needs is more common sense and more principle." "You know, and this whole debate about the fiscal cliff, we've been talking about taxes, we've been talking about spending -- noticeably absent from this equation has been growth. And the biggest economic problem of the last four years has been the dismal economic growth." It's not a popularity contest, Cruz said: "This is about fixing the problems that are affecting millions of Americans." "If we can get GDP up to 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent, that will dramatically (raise) more revenue to pay off the deficit and debt. But the way to do it is through pro-growth policies, not new and additional taxes."

~~~~~~

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of." --James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

~~~~~~

Live a Joy-filled, Generous Life by Rick Warren

“These instructions are not empty words — they are your life! By obeying them you will enjoy a long life …” (Deuteronomy 32:47 NLT)

Many people think the Bible is only filled with commands labeled “Thou shalt not …” They assume the Bible is all about restrictions and making you lead a boring life. But God wants you to live a joy-filled, healthy life. The last two factors for good health that I want to share with you should put a smile on your face. Giving generously is good for your health. Every time you are generous, every time you are giving, it improves your health. You know, there are more promises in the Bible about giving than anything else, because God wants you to be like him. God is a giver. Everything you have is a gift from God. He’s generous, and he wants you to be generous, too. The Bible says, “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed” (Proverbs 11:25 NIV). Doesn’t that verse just make you smile? There’s a reason why it always feels good to help others, whether you’re giving financially, giving materially, or giving of your time. Having fun is good for your health. God tells us in his Word that life is meant to be enjoyed, not just endured. “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22 NIV). I like to put it this way: “He who laughs, lasts.” Learn to laugh at yourself, put some play in every day, relax, chill out, and have some fun. Talk About It:

• How can you be more giving with your money and time?

• How can you add more play to your days?