Tag Archives: Taxes

News

CBO: 20 million Americans could lose employer-provided health coverage under Obamacare

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From The Hill:

As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage because of President Obama’s healthcare reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Thursday.

The figure represents the worst-case scenario, CBO says, and the law could just as well increase the number of people with employer-based coverage by 3 million in 2019.

The best estimate, subject to a “tremendous amount of uncertainty,” is that about 3 million to 5 million fewer people will obtain coverage through their employer each year from 2019 through 2022.

The new report adds more detail to this week’s update of the law’s coverage provisions, which CBO released Tuesday. Compared to a year ago, the law is now anticipated to cover 2 million fewer people but cost $50 billion less over 10 years, after factoring penalties paid by individuals and businesses that don’t get or provide healthcare coverage.

Republicans immediately pounced after the new numbers came out because they appear to violate Obama’s pledge that people who like their health plans will be able to keep them. Last year, CBO’s best estimate was that only 1 million people would lose employer-sponsored coverage.

“President Obama’s string of empty promises is quickly becoming a disappointing trail of broken promises,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. “He promised Americans that his overhaul of the health care sector would not jeopardize the health coverage of those who liked what they had. As nonpartisan analysts made clear today, millions of Americans will soon learn the hard way that Washington’s overreach into their health care decisions will result in sharp disruptions to their coverage and their care.”

I think this is important because conservatives are constantly being portrayed as “mean” in the media because we don’t embrace big government health care solutions. Everyone agrees on the problems, and everyone wants to help. The difference is that we conservatives think that health care is better when it is run profitably and is responsive to consumers and offers choice, low prices and high quality – like Amazon. We want privatized, market-driven health care with vouchers given to each citizen to purchase what they need, and to encourage them to save the rest for their old age while making healthier choices now.

The alternative is Department of Motor Vehicles health care – long lines, huge budget overruns, one-size-fits-all, lousy service and nowhere else to go for better better service. Why think that government is better at anything than the private sector? The private sector does everything better and cheaper and with better quality. So what if people get rich providing goods and services? As long as the customers are happy, and the children of the customers don’t get stuck paying for huge trillion dollar cost overruns.

Here are a few articles that I have been using lately to inform people about the problems with Obamacare:

Commentary

Happy Independence Day 2012!

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The Stars and Stripes
The Stars and Stripes

The Declaration of Independence

Here’s the complete text of the Declaration of Independence here.

The best book to read about the Revolutionary War is David McCullough’s “1776”, which I highly recommend. The audio book version is awesome.

George Washington and the American Revolution

Washington Crossing the Delaware
Washington Crossing the Delaware

To really understand the founding of the United States, you should read about the story of Washington crossing the Delaware. At this point in the Revolutionary War, the British commanders had achieved a stunning series of victories against the Americans. They had even sent word home to the King that the war was over, and that the Americans would be forced to surrender. But Washington did not give up. He attacked the British forces and took them by surprise – and he won the Battle of Trenton! That was the turning point of the war. There almost never was a United States of America – that’s how close the revolution came to failing.

Ronald Reagan vision of America

Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan

Here is a portion of Ronald Reagan’s farewell speech:

Excerpt:

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stand the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

This is no ordinary nation.

Songs of America

Whenever I drive on long trips, I always practice singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful”.

Even if you are not an American, you can be an honorary American, just for today, if you sing the songs below. God knows that there are other people in the world that love freedom and look to the United States as the model.

If we fall now, then you other freedom-loving people abroad must be ready to pick up the torch!

United States Air Force
United States Air Force

The Star Spangled Banner

Lyrics:

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

America the Beautiful

Lyrics:

“O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!”

Here is my favorite version of America the Beautiful, sung by Ray Charles. This is the same version you hear on the Mark Levin show on Friday. Perfection.

Remember to be grateful for the Founding Fathers, and other patriots, who risked everything for liberty in the Revolutionary war. Be grateful to those men and women still fighting abroad to keep those freedoms safe from evil. And most of all, be grateful to God that America is still the beacon of liberty.

Happy Independence Day!

News

75% of the costs of Obamacare will be paid by those making $120,000 or less

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The video shows the chief economist of the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore, making the claim that nearly 75% of Obamacare costs will fall on the backs of those Americans making less than $120,000 a year. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

The Heritage Foundation explains more, using the official numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. (H/T Bad Blue)

Excerpt:

President Obama repeatedly promised not to raise taxes on middle-class families. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that he already has.

Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the President’s health care law on the grounds that the “individual mandate” is a constitutionally permissible tax increase. This violates Obama’s pledge. Middle-class families will pay the vast majority of these new taxes.

Obamacare imposes a penalty—or tax increase—on Americans who do not purchase health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that most of those paying these taxes are middle-class individuals and families making less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level: $59,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a family of four. Three million lower-income and middle-class Americans will pay an estimated $2 billion in these “mandate taxes.”

The Supreme Court’s interpretation puts the President in a peculiar situation. In 2008, he promised not to raise taxes on the middle class and accused Republican nominee John McCain of wanting to tax health benefits: “And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase…not any of your taxes. My opponent can’t make that pledge.… [H]e wants to tax your health benefits.” Who could have predicted that Obama would raise taxes on millions of Americans who do not have health insurance?

Obama grossly mischaracterized his health care plan, and now American citizens will pay the price. He has both attacked individual freedom and burdened millions in the middle class.

I thought that Obama said that he would raise taxes on the middle class? For a full list of the taxes in Obamacare, click here.