The Northeast and west coast are subsidizing the south and heartland

On ajc blog:

Re: Not Going To Use My Usual Name
"The Southern states take WAY MORE than they pay as a percentage of federal taxes. The Northeast and west coast are subsidizing the south and heartland"

Well, that's true and false, meaning you've made a generalization that has some truth in it, but is not the whole story.

It is also true that Alabama ($1.66), Mississippi ($2.02), Louisiana ($1.78), and Arkansas ($1.41) receive more than they pay (at least in 2005). But Georgia ($1.01) basically breaks even, North Carolina ($1.08) is a little on the plus side, and Texas ($0.94) pays in more than it takes out. On the other hand, we can look at New Mexico ($2.08), North and South Dakota ($1.68, $1.53 respectively) being big consumers of tax dollars, while Vermont ($1.08) shows that not all Northeastern states are paying in.

Some of the biggest dollars go to Maryland ($1.30) and Virginia ($1.51), proving that the government likes to spend money on itself. And the king of all the tax dollar money pits is D.C. ($5.55).

California ($0.78) and New York ($0.79) do payout much more than they receive, on the other hand they have by far more millionaires residing there than anywhere else (excepting Florida ($(0.97) and Texas ($0.94)) so maybe there's something to the whole "tax the rich" scheme----if all the evil millionaires live in California and New York, and you want to tax the rich, then it follows that those states (and their evil population) will be net payers to fund the desires of the government.

Which is what I thought Democrats want. So stop complaining about it.

Tyranny of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi

[My wife sent me a chain-email (see below) with a question: "So much of this internet email stuff is total crap - do you know anything about this?? D". This is my response...]

Go to this CNN link to download the document (http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/11/18/hcbill.pdf) which shows up in an CNN article http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/18/health.care/index.html. Once you have the PDF go to page 1020 in the PDF, starting on Line 7 that text indeed appears. This is the House bill that passed (HR3590). The Senate bill was essentially the same bill with 350+ pages of amendments (link to download http://democrats.senate.gov/reform/managers-amendment.pdf). It's somewhat harder figure out what the final bill looks like until you piece together the various snippets, but I see no amendments to Section 3403 that change this language. However, as I read it starting on page 184 in the amendment PDF file on line 20, the subsection (d) of Section 3403 has only minor tweaks that do not affect the language in question. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that this is indeed language in the bill.

I've copied the text in question and the amendments to it

HR3590 Section 1304 subsection (d)

‘‘(d) CONGRESSIONAL CONSIDERATION.—
‘‘(1) INTRODUCTION.—
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—On the day on which
a proposal is submitted by the President to the
...[snip 3 pages of text]...
‘‘(B) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE
BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS IN OTHER LEGISLA
TION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or
the House of Representatives to consider any
bill, resolution, amendment, or conference re
port (other than pursuant to this section) that
would repeal or otherwise change the rec
ommendations of the Board if that change
would fail to satisfy the requirements of sub
paragraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2).
‘‘(C) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS
SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the
Senate or the House of Representatives to con
sider any bill, resolution, amendment, or con
ference report that would repeal or otherwise
change this subsection.

(Senate) Amendments to Section 1304 subsection (d)

(2) in subsection (d)—
(A) in paragraph (1)(A)—
(i) by inserting ‘‘the Board or’’ after
‘‘a proposal is submitted by’’; and
(ii) by inserting ‘‘subsection
(c)(3)(A)(i) or’’ after ‘‘the Senate under’’;
and
(B) in paragraph (2)(A), by inserting ‘‘the
Board or’’ after ‘‘a proposal is submitted by’’;

"Be excellent to each other."
The most non-heinous of all golden rules.

---

From:
To:
Sent: Fri, January 15, 2010 7:56:10 AM
Subject: Fw: tyranny of Sen. Harry Reid - This scares me

So much of this internet email stuff is total crap - do you know anything about this??

D

----- Forwarded Message ----
From:
To:
Sent: Thu, January 14, 2010 8:59:50 PM
Subject: FW: tyranny of Sen. Harry Reid - This scares me

From:
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 1:53 PM
To: Uncle Myral
Subject: tyranny of Sen. Harry Reid - This scares me

All - Read this, then contact your federal representative (thanks, Pablo). What they are doing is unconstitutional. where the hell is the Supreme Court now? Dan T. SAN FRANCISCO Examiner Editorial: The impudent tyranny of Sen. Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light. Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid’s anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation. Beginning on page 1,000 of the measure, Section 3403 reads in part: “… it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” In other words, if President Barack Obama signs this measure into law, no future Senate or House will be able to change a single word of Section 3403, regardless whether future Americans or their representatives in Congress wish otherwise. Note that the subsection at issue here concerns the regulatory power of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB) to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.” That is precisely the kind of open-ended grant of regulatory power that effectively establishes the IMAB as the ultimate arbiter of the cost, quality and quantity of health care to be made available to the American people. And Reid wants the decisions of this group of unelected federal bureaucrats to be untouchable for all time. No wonder the majority leader tossed aside assurances that senators and the public would have at least 72 hours to study the text of the final Senate version of Obamacare before the critical vote on cloture. And no wonder Reid was so desperate to rush his amendment through the Senate, even scheduling the key tally on it at 1 a.m., while America slept. True to form, Reid wanted to keep his Section 3403 poison pill secret for as long as possible, just as he negotiated his bribes for the votes of Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bernie Sanders of Vermont behind closed doors. The final Orwellian touch in this subversion of democratic procedure is found in the ruling of the Reid-controlled Senate Parliamentarian that the anti-repeal provision is not a change in Senate rules, but rather of Senate “procedures.” Why is that significant? Because for 200 years, changes in the Senate’s standing rules have required approval by two-thirds of those voting, or 67 votes rather than the 60 Reid’s amendment received. Reid has flouted two centuries of standing Senate rules to pass a measure in the dead of night that no senator has read, and part of which can never be changed. If this is not tyranny, then what is?

More impudent thoughts on health care

• Pres. Obama is claiming to anyone who'll listen that the Democrat's health plan will squeeze hundreds of millions of dollars of waste and inefficiency out of the Medicare & Medicaid systems ("I've also proposed saving another $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending in several other ways."). How about you start with that. Make those changes and only those changes. Once you've saved $300B (materially, not just as an accounting trick) maybe we can talk. Don't promise me you'll save that money *after* you spend it on something else -- that's just a great way for you to screw me twice.
• I need to do some research and some math, but everyone on the other side loves tossing numbers around that are refutable. Like 50M uninsured, and U.K has better health care because they have longer life expectancies. 20M of the 50M are illegal immigrants, let's start with that. Life expectencies are very close, about 1 year difference. Are homicides and car accidents health care failures? In the USA, we drive much farther on average than they do in the UK, you can get statistics on vehicle deaths per 1000 miles driven, and you can work out how many additional deaths per year are due simply to more fatal car accidents per capita due to more miles per capita. Similar math for homicides.
  

Impudent thoughts on health care

• Why not simply expand Medicaid to cover more of these "poor" people who can't afford health insurance?

• Why not build some hospitals, hire some doctors & nurses, then open the doors to anyone who wants "free" health care?
• Why are so many of the same people who are crying about our carbon footprints and how humans are killing the earth also trying to get health care for everyone? Wouldn't it be better if fewer people survived to continue to rape the planet?
  
• If health care is a basic human right, where was my right to an MRI fifty years ago?
• There's a name for forcing other people to provide for your wants and (so-called) needs...starts with an 's'...
• Why is there a plan to tax soda and other junk food, ostensibly to fight obesity and reduce health care costs when it's made with corn syrup, which we subsidize farmers to grow?
• Health care as we know it is a recent invention (see MRI above) and heavily dependent on technology. If a "fundamental human right" can attach to something that was invented last decade that we've decided is simply too important to live without, what's next? Public option iPhone?
• If it is a "fundamental human right" don't we have a duty, responsibility, obligation to render this to all humans? There's more than 6B people outside the US that we owe this to, too?
• If I can force others to provide me with health care, as is my "right", can I force others to pay for my arms--as in right to keep and bear? Please deliver my taxpayer funded M-16 and supply of ammunition.
• Everyone dies. It's folly to expend resources in a sky's-the-limit attempt to get each and every person a few more minutes, hours, days, months or even years.
• Presumably, a "fundamental human right" comes without limits, so my "free" health care will be all-I-can-eat. So maybe I'll be able to eat all-I-can-eat and smoke and drink all I can too, after all, the financial consequences of doing so will not be mine to bear. Once you admit to some limits, we're just arguing over degrees*.
  
• If technology someday soon provides a pill that will provide 100% cure for and prevatative against contracting cancer, HIV, hep, and a slew of other diseases but costs $500,000 each dose (say it's made from comet dust, just that it costs that much even with the manufacturer making zero profit), will it be covered? For everyone? What if the pill is only good for one year, and you need a booster every year at another $500k per?
• The phrase is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"...
• If a) Congress's new plan will not force me to buy insurance and b) will forbid any insurance company from denying me coverage for a preexisting condition, why shouldn't I wait until I got sick or hurt before signing up and paying premiums?

* There's an old joke:
He: "Would have sex with me for $1 million?"
She: "Yes."
He: "Would have sex with me for $10?"
She: "No way! What do you think I am?"
He: "Oh, we've already established what you are, now we're just haggling over the price."

Democrat predictions were correct!

A post I am copying from a WSJ blog, with the original "author unknown" attribution:

(posted to an SKF board, author unknown)

Much as it pains me to say this, I have to admit it - my Democrat friends were right.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation's hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and now, tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan .

My Democrat Party friends told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and sure enough unemployment is approaching double digits and the new stimulus packages implemented recently have sent the stock market lower than at any time since the Islamic Terrorists attacks of 9-11.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "crooks" in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent cabinet nominees and Senate appointments revealed resumes of scandal, bribery and tax fraud.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "Pork at the trough" in Federal government and sure enough, 17,500 "Pork Bills" showed up in Congress since January 2009...

I was also told by my Democrat friends that if I voted for McCain, we would see more deficit spending in Washington D.C. , and sure enough, Obama has spent more in just 30 days than all other Presidents together - in the entire history of the good ole USA ...

Well I voted for McCain in November and my Democrat friends were right... all of their predictions have come true!

Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion.

Government health care, public housing?

If you ask someone if they want "free health care", they're likely to say yes.

Just like if you ask someone if they want a free home, they'll say yes. But not many people want to live in public housing.

Taxes:politicians as ?:?

Taxes are to politicians what crack is to an addict; they never can stop and too much is just right.

Joe Boccuzzi

link