Tag Archives: Socialism

News

Redistribution of wealth: 2362 millionaires collecting unemployment

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How well does government redistribute the money that they take from job creators and workers?

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

There were 2,362 people who earned a million dollars or more in taxable income in 2009 and who also received federal unemployment benefits that year, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

In fact, these millionaires collectively raked in more than $20 million in unemployment benefits.

The Congressional Research Service report–Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by Higher-Income Unemployed Workers (“Millionaires”)–was published on Aug. 2 and was based on the most recent data available from the Internal Revenue Service.

“Among tax filers with AGI [Adjusted Gross Income] of $1 million or more, 2,840 reported receipt of unemployment benefit income in 2008 and 2,362 tax filers reported receipt of unemployment benefit income in 2009,” the CRS reported.

The CRS reported that millionaires received $20.8 million in federal unemployment benefits in 2009, up from $18.6 million in 2008. That averages out to $8,806 in unemployment benefits per millionaire.

Unemployment insurance is a joint federal-state program and is funded by a payroll tax assessed against all workers. In the four years preceding 2012,according to the Tax Foundation, the unemployment insurance system was in the red. “Between 2008 and 2011, $174 billion was paid in unemployment taxes while $450 billion was paid out in benefits, a gap of $276 billion,” the Tax Foundation said.

[…]In addition to the 2,362 people with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more who got unemployment benefits in 2009, there were also 8,335 people with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million who received benefits and 120,227 with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 who received benefits.

The money that is paid out for unemployed people is taxed from all workers. That means that my unemployed insurance payments are funding unemployed millionaires. I’ve also had to pay Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and I’ve never taken a dollar back from that.

According to this Senate report, millionaires collected $9 billion in Social Security payments from the government from 2004-2009. I’ll never collect a dime of Social Security, but I’m paying for theirs. There is no reason for me to be paying into Social Security – it’s not a good deal for younger workers.

News

New CBO study: lifting drilling restrictions would increase U.S. energy reserves by 30%

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

 A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that lifting the ban on federal oil drilling in certain areas could increase U.S. petroleum reserves by 30 percent, including an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Using estimates from the Department of the Interior (DOI), CBO said that lifting federal drilling restrictions could bring billions more barrels of oil and gas to market.

“CBO estimates that about 175 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) exists in undiscovered oil and gas reserves on federal lands (excluding most of the natural gas reserves in Alaska)—nearly half of it in the central and western parts of the Gulf of Mexico,” CBO said.

“About 70 percent of the undiscovered oil and gas is under federal control on lands that are currently open to leasing; thus, additional receipts would come from opening the other 30 percent to leasing and production.”

Thus, by lifting federal drilling bans in place in areas like ANWR and areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, oil-producing companies could gain access to an additional 30 percent of U.S. reserves – 52.5 billion barrels.

While the reserves are technically recoverable – meaning oil companies could extract the oil and gas — legal restrictions and current administration policies prohibit oil companies from doing so.

CBO excluded most of Alaska’s gas reserves because there is no infrastructure in place to transport the gas to market, a fact CBO said made them unlikely to be tapped.

The figures come from an August 9 CBO report examining the benefits the federal government would receive if it lifted all current drilling bans on federal lands, including ANWAR.

All that oil would create a lot of jobs, too. But we know from the last four years that the Obama administration has no interest in either producing more energy or creating jobs. Otherwise, they would have built the Keystone XL pipeline and lifted these restrictions on drilling.

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Democrats join Republicans in demanding probe into Delphi pension scandal

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From the Daily Caller.

Excerpt:

Twelve lawmakers wrote to House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman asking that they expand current probes into a Department of Treasury scandal that left 20,000 non-union Delphi retirees without their pensions after the 2009 General Motors bailout.

The members — Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Reps. Pat Tiberi of Ohio, Steve Stivers of Ohio, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, Dan Burton of Indiana, Bill Johnson of Ohio, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Gregg Harper of Mississippi — are led by Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner.

“We are writing to request that the committees which you chair submit additional requests for documents from the Department of the Treasury and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on matters pertaining to the unjust termination of Delphi salaried retiree pensions in the federal government’s bailout of General Motors,” the lawmakers wrote. “As you may know, the pensions of Delphi salaried retirees were significantly reduced in the aftermath of the bailout, while their union counterparts were made whole. These retirees, regardless of labor affiliation or not, spent their careers working alongside one another and should not be treated differently in their retirement. This decision of the Auto Task Force, Treasury, and the PBGC continues to affect roughly 20,000 current and future retirees across the nation.”

The bipartisan support for this renewed investigation call — Kaptur is a Democrat — undercuts the Obama campaign’s accusations that his GOP rival, Mitt Romney, and Turner are trying to “politicize” this scandal.

Portman, who’s widely considered to be on Romney’s short list of potential vice presidential candidates, said in a statement that he has “met with these hard-working Ohioans who lost a significant portion of their pension benefits while other retirees from the same company received far better treatment.”

“The idea that the administration played politics with their pensions is beyond disappointing, and it deserves answers,” Portman said. “The administration’s decisions have caused pain and loss to thousands of workers and their families as a result of their reduced benefits. This matter deserves continued scrutiny from Congress, and the administration must be called upon to account for its decisions.”

Remember way back in 2009 about how the auto bailouts favored the unions over the private sector creditors who would normally be paid more of whatever could be saved? This isn’t the first time that the private sector – which funds the government –  was screwed by the government. But “the private sector is fine”.