Mommy, there's an unfunded obligation under my bed!

In my last blog entry I promised to bring forth a measure of objectivity to the right-wing scare tactic of each household in America being hugely indebted to the federal government.

Tuesday, June 7 of this year, the nation’s newspaper, USA Today, featured a front-page piece of fiscal panic journalism that warned a naïve and uninformed readership that the U.S. government was sinking under a mountain of  $61.6 trillion in ‘unfunded obligations’ and that your household owed $534,000 as your share of those obligations.

The Spartanburg Herald Journal, never missing an opportunity to frighten it’s readership at the expense of the democrats, quickly published a follow-up piece by the Colorado Springs Gazette that regurgitated the USA Today politicized modern-day Revere ride, “the unfunded obligations are coming, the unfunded obligations are coming”. The write-up was featured on the June 10 editorial page.  Considering the Gazette editorial page has generally featured such far right luminaries as Michelle Malkin, George Will, John Stossel, Thomas Sowell and the head of a Texas Free-Market Research Institute, Ronald L. Trowbridge, the article was a natural for the SHJ.

This little dance is not new to USA Today. They ran essentially the same type of scare tactic in May of ’07. The numbers then were $59 trillion and $516,348 per household. Needless to say every right-wing think tank on the planet has embraced (and mostly likely initiated) the issue.

The unfunded obligations, also referred to as liabilities, have been a right-wing ‘sky is falling’ ploy for years. YouTube appears to figure heavily in pushing some of these myths. A comely former CATO Institute Intern, Kelly McDonough, narrates a 4:19 minute piece on the debt and obligations under the auspices of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, founded by a CATO board member. She clearly is reading everything she says from a prompter, but for pure eye candy will probably attract male viewers who otherwise would completely ignore the subject. Other young, female right-wing narrators make fashion choices that border on soft porn. Republicans learned long ago to recruit a stable of beauty pageant runners-up to do their political bidding.

A couple of other similar YouTube propaganda pieces go back a few years as well. An older one claims 50 Trillion in unfounded obligations with the ever-popular household number pegged at $400,000.

Here are the lastest unfunded obligation figures quoted by USA Today…

• Medicare: $24.8 trillion
• Social Security: $21.4 trillion
• Federal debt: $9.4 trillion
• Military retirement/disability benefits: $3.6 trillion
• Federal employee retirement benefits: $2 trillion

We’re told the huge Medicare number represents expenditures ‘over the lifetime’ of current recipients and workers. What exactly is ‘over the lifetime’? Men live an average of just over 75 years, so, actuarially they get Medicare for about 10 of those years. That’s not much of a ‘lifetime’ of benefits. The actual expenditure for Medicare and Medicaid combined in FY 2010 was $793 billion. For Social Security, $701 billion; the year before the number was $686 billion ($807 billion was taken in for a surplus of $121 billion) . But you’re led to believe that for Medicare alone, we owe $24.8 trillion any day now.

Let me home in on social security.  It’s your safety net for decades of labor. You tithe 6.2% of your pay for the privilege of having enough money for your golden years. Your employer kicks in 6.2% as well. Eventually, the total will have to increase by a modest percentile of 1 – 2 percent. With that one caveat, we’ll be fine for at least 75 years. As is, there is no problem for roughly 25 years doing absolutely nothing. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the truly rich wage earner kick in past the current limit of $106,800.

Medicare and Medicaid will remain solvent and then some with a few logical and practical adjustments. Though doubtful, there may have to be a marginal increase in the 1.45% contribution both you and your employer give to the program. I doubt that increase would be necessary if we pursued the following strategies…let’s begin by negotiating prescription drug prices just like the VA, the DOD and other industrialized countries. These other smarter countries also place ceilings on how much the pharmaceuticals can rip us off. Controlling prices at a reasonable and still profitable level is an imperative. Deregulation is a huge factor in our current ethical imbalance. Huge corporations will get away with whatever they can. And you’ve seen unconscionable increases in prices and premiums across the board.

Fraud is another ever-present consideration. President Obama appears to be sincere in going after the crooked docs, dentists and hospitals that are squeezing the system for billions in undeserved reimbursements.

The real questions to be asked; if we’re in such a horrific fiscal crisis mode, why on earth would any elected official vote to cut already benign taxes for the top 2%?  Why wouldn’t we go after the hundreds of billions of tax dollars tucked away in off-shore havens ranging from Andorra to Western Samoa with 37 asset-hiding destinations in between? It might surprise you that under certain circumstances, Canada and Great Britain are included in the list.

And why do we allow ourselves to continue to be blackmailed by industrial giants that supposedly honor us by not taking all their manufacturing overseas to countries with workers who are paid pennies an hour? Why should it take a billion bucks to persuade Boeing to locate in this state? And, given all the tax and infrastructure breaks all the states give the Fortune 500 crowd, why have we effectively stopped collecting any federal tax from them? Corporations used to account for a high percentage of taxes collected by the feds, now it’s miniscule. Ergo, we lose trillions in revenue over time.

A study quoted in the consummate corporate apologist publication, the Wall Street Journal, revealed that 12 huge corporations with profits of $171 billion received $62.4 billion in federal tax subsidies and ended up paying ZERO federal taxes for the three-year period of 2008, 2009 and 2010 (Boeing was prominent among them).

It’s not a new phenomenon. Between the years of 1996-2000, 61% of U.S. Corporations paid no federal income taxes. In 2008, the number was 55%. And while the U.S. may have the second highest statutory tax rate among industrialized countries, it’s effective or real rate (the taxes actually paid) ranks right down there with the lowest.

The same holds true for wealthy individual tax-dodgers who fleece us out of many additional billions of tax dollars and flee to the same tax-havens as their corporate brethren. 

An easy and obvious revenue producing solution is to start collecting the unpaid taxes from these aforementioned corporations and rich folks.

There are your real “Unfunded Obligations”

Townhall trickery

Back when Republican Bob Inglis was desperately trying to hang on to his 4^th District Congressional seat, I attended one of his ‘trash H.R. 3200’ anti-health care reform Town Hall meetings. Before I even entered the building where the event was held, I was given a handout listing 16 reasons why H.R. 3200 was the anti-Christ of health care legislation.

I’m only going to mention one of the reasons (all easily refuted) since it conforms to the true purpose of this entry. Inglis’ document asserted that H.R. 3200 represented an entitlement program equaling a $32 trillion Medicare obligation. That certainly is one whale of an obligation all right. What Inglis neglected to mention was the obligation was spread out over a 75-YEAR period. In other words, it covered a period from quite early in the century to quite late in the century.

I couldn’t help but see the similarity in Inglis’ sleight of hand and the current efforts of Texas Republican Senior Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. Hutchison, who was once an executive of a failed Texas bank, rebounded nicely and is now worth at least $5 - $7 million dollars. So, as is the case for most elected officials who already have theirs (beaucoup bucks and a handsome pension)…she wants to take away a lot of ‘yours’ – (substantially fewer bucks).

Here’s Kay’s proposal. She wants you to work until you’re 69 years old, though it would take 16 years to reach that number. Of course the current average life span is 75 for men, so if that stays essentially the same, that’s a whooping 6 years of fun in the sun for you fellows after nearly 50 working years. Here’s where Hutchison mirrors Inglis. She claims a Social Security burden of $6.5 trillion in unfunded obligations. That’s actually about $15 trillion less than a figure sited in a recent scare-piece in the June 7^th edition of USA Today. I’ll have more about that in a future entry. Like Inglis, Hutchison’s number is spread out over 75 years. The differential is explained by the smaller figure reflecting taxes collected from future workers, failing to account for the benefits workers will get in the 76^th year.

75 years?  Let’s expand that to 275 years…that’s a whole lot scarier. Where’s my calculator? My conservative estimate is that we will have 117 quadrillion dollars in unfunded obligations. That’s a terrifying 17 TRILLION PER HOUSEHOLD!!! Vote republican in 2012 so those poor folks in 2286 won't have to suffer needlessly.

Stay tuned for a reasonable response to the latest nonsensical republican echo chamber. I’ll close by telling you one truth…your household doesn’t ‘owe’ $534,000 to the government as claimed on the June 10^th SHJ editorial page.

Explanation coming soon. 

"I can see Mexico from here."

Challenge of the day…getting the head of a South Carolina state agency to answer the phone. Odds:  1 in 7 billion. Obvious question:  “Why do they even have phones?” 

But I digress.

Today I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the state’s laughable immigration bill (gee, I thought we already had national legislation). Oh, I forgot…the governor HATES the federal government, as do all right-leaning legislators. It makes much more sense to spend tens of millions duplicating federal laws and refusing federal grants.

A reality check: I happened upon a local construction project a few weeks ago. Had I not known better, I would have thought that I was in Tijuana.  Were all those workers brand, spankin’ legal?  In my opinion about as legal as our fine Hispanic, Mexican and/or Latino neighbors hired by some of the very same legislators who passed our current, impotent “reform legislation”, a bloated form of the initial attempt mounted in 2008.

Not to worry ye hirers of ‘undocumented’ alien types. If you get caught (pretty much dependent on your political and big boy connections), they put you on some kind of one-year probation (Oh, the agony; the pain). Hire south of the border cheapo and still undocumented labor again, and your business license can be temporarily suspended. Suspended that is until you fire the illegals and pay a reinstatement fee. OUCH!  That slap on the wrist really stings. Fall off the alien-hiring wagon a third time and by golly, your employer’s business license can be revoked. It’s apparently not a certainty that it will be. Do I smell a new attorney specialty brewing?

How will you know that your hard-working, albeit ‘from another land’ employee is legit? You dive for something called the federal E-Verify database, that’s how. A FEDERAL database OMG!!!  Police are also required to check the status of anybody whose skin tone varies from their own, er, I mean anybody they suspect is in this country illegally after “they have stopped that person for another reason.” Law enforcement at its most creative. It’s usually that non-working taillight, or wandering an 1/8^th of an inch into the other lane.

A new Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit will be created within the State Police jurisdiction. Another layer of bureaucracy republicans purport to despise.

It’ll be interesting to see if a tough fed standard will apply when the handful of illegals is rounded up under this new state legislation. For the feds, any employer who fudges on paying income or social security taxes by filing false tax returns or actually phonies up SS numbers is subject to IRS criminal and civil sanctions. I doubt that will ever be a blaring headline in SC.

At the end of the day, this ‘crackdown’ is pure cotton candy. Illegal (as in low wage) aliens are here to stay. They’re hired by the thousands in SC annually and everybody knows it and shrugs their shoulders at the practice. But if a few pages of legislation and speeches of resolve and pseudo-concern make right-wing and blue dog politicians feel better on Sunday morning, have at it.

You can wink at the illegal alien in the same pew as you’re leaving.    

No Pictures, Please!

No Pictures, Please!

The Feckless Foursome

President Barack Obama continues to perpetuate the fantasy that making nice with the rich man puppets who occupy the republican side of the aisle in Washington will somehow result in a ‘reborn’ congressperson who suddenly actually cares about the poor, the infirm, the unemployed, the union member…and anybody else with a net worth below a million dollars.

The latest “won’t you be my neighbor?” ploy was a gruesome golf foursome consisting of our Chief Executive, his Vice President, Joe Biden, Republican Speaker of the House, John ‘boo hoo’ Boehner and Ohio Governor, John “the catastrophe” Kasich, who single-handedly is in the process of ruining the Buckeye state for decades to come. Fitch, S & P and Moody’s bond ratings agencies recently lowered Ohio’s rating to ‘negative’.

The state has an $8.6 billion dollar shortfall, Kasich wants to go on a privatizing binge, he’s pushing education cuts that would jeopardize 7,000 teacher positions plus cuts of a third for the local government fund virtually guaranteeing higher local taxes for fire and police protection and of course Kasich is eagerly welcoming a giant casino for each of the state’s four largest cities after a public vote OK’d the move.

Apoplectic bible-thumpers went berserk when democrats proposed casinos in Ohio, noisily packing public meetings, rolling on the floor in agony, predicting a social tsunami – not a word now. The casino tax has been set at 33% and, over time, will bring in billions.

And who will ever forget  Kasich’s first love – destroying unions. The new collective bargaining bill doesn’t even allow for bargaining for health benefits. FYI, Ohio public employees earn less than their private sector counterparts for the same work.

And 18 holes of strained banter followed by some suds on 19 is going to change even a single syllable of the Kasich agenda?  Maybe Kasich will comp Obama at one of the shiny new casinos.

A closer look at Boehner reveals an agenda that is the polar opposite of what Obama supporters would accept. After fighting like a pit bull with a hornet sting against everything the majority Obama congress stood for, Boehner ascended to the Speaker’s post when the far right took over the House.

Boehner is dedicated to one thing – reversing every policy the democrats hold near and dear. Freeze government into a state of paralysis so the state’s-righters can hold sway; rip the guts out of the Obama Health Care plan, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security so the unregulated private sector money gluttons can squeeze every last buck out of an impotent public and if you can’t afford treatment or medications, go die in the gutter. That’s Boehner.

Here’s how Obama and Boehner Aides described the golfing aftermath as quoted by reporters. They (the Aides) played down the chances of deals being struck, but acknowledged the outing could improve a relationship that is respectful, but hardly close.

I’m tingling all over.

So as Boehner takes a 3-wood out of his legislative bag and pounds everything Obama was elected to accomplish into irrelevant submission, he’ll do it with a cordial and civil grin as his congressional republican colleagues and their wealthy mentors continue to rob the poor, the ‘have-nots’ continue to expire prematurely, overseas tax havens continue to thrive, unions disappear, services continue to be decimated, social programs continue to be slashed, a few jillionaires continue to run the country (and the states) and nothing, but nothing good comes of the leaderships of Boehner and Kasich. 

FORE!!! 

Fools rush in

Speaking of websites, after you’ve finished viewing “Inside Job” I have another recommendation for you; a documentary that will leave you with profound sympathy and disgust. It’s called Refrigerator Mothers. You can access it at a site sponsored by Goldman Sachs. Yes, knowing the real Goldman Sachs, you will suffer through several self-serving commercials interlaced within the presentation but it’s a small price to pay to see that society was almost as nuts in the 50’s and 60’s as it is now.

Go to www.snagfilms.com/films/title/refrigerator_mothers/  or just go to Snag Films, click on A-Z on the upper task bar and find Refrigerator Mothers under ‘R’.  

Refrigerator Mothers traces a period in our history where mothers of children with autism were blamed for that tragic condition in their little boy or girl. An émigré from Austria, Dr. Bruno Bettelheis persuaded most of the academic, medical and psychologist communities that in his theory, this obvious neurological disorder was to be defined in the Freudian terms of “a genuine lack of maternal warmth” by the mother from infancy forward.

He wrote a book on the subject and the real tragedy is that this quack’s theory captured the hearts and minds of those who mattered…the doctors and psychologists charged with treating this mysterious and frustrating condition. Refrigerator Mothers tracks several mothers and their children with autism from the dark ages of Bettelheis to the present day adulthood of the child. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the South Carolina governor and the legislature are going after funding for autism with a vengeance.

It should also be noted that in July of 2008, Michael Savage, the greatest fool in the history of talk radio (and that’s saying something) made the following assertion on his show; “autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "  Dr. Bettelheis, who died in 1990, would have been proud!

Needless to say, Savage’s perception doesn’t quite square with the real world of autism. Autism is a disorder that can range from high-functioning relative normalcy to the inability to perform even the simplest tasks, lack of control of body movements, a lifetime of expressionless faces, total silence punctuated by little or no emotion, seizures and even death from instant respiratory shutdown.   

Watch Refrigerator Mothers especially you well-meaning folks who have been cynically brainwashed by the likes of Savage not to look past the horrific problems of millionaires and billionaires unable to buy a third $10 million dollar house because of repressive taxes.

Hopefully, this compelling documentary will open some eyes, and maybe for the Tea-Party talk show fans, some ears as well.

Inside Job

Go to this site:  www.informationclearinghouse.info

At the bottom of the home page, click on continue. Do the same (click on continue) on the bottom of each subsequent page until you reach May 26 (twenty-six). Go down about 8 stories until you see the title headline 'Inside Job'. Click on the title.

This is a documentary narrated by Matt Damon. It tracks all of the Bush-era actions that led to the virtual destruction of the American economy. The Documentary is presented in 8, 15-minute segments. At the end of each segment, you simply click on the next one.

Now matter how many times absurd republican propaganda blames the democrats, the current quagmire can inexorably be overwhelmingly traced to republican actions, legislatively and through their crooked corporate mentors. I would especially encourage independents and moderate republicans to see this  documentary with an open mind.

If you do, you will not even consider voting republican in 2012.