What? Only Fifty Percent of Our Citizens Pay Taxes

John Cornyn (R TX) among others has been complaining that fifty one percent of our country does not pay any taxes  According to the Tax Policy Institute it's actually about about forty six percent, but for everyones sake let's just say it is fifty percent.  Fox News seems to have had everyone of their on air personalities screaming the talking point.  What Fox News does not tell you is that out of the fifty percent, almost half are retired people who do not make enough money to pay taxes.  If you have retired parents who are on social security and maybe some savings dividends, would you want them to start paying?  They're retired it's time for them to enjoy life, not worry about it.  But that's ok because the same Republicans that wan't to tax Social Security want to get rid of it all together anyway.  Warren Buffett one of the wealthiest people in the world, this week said the rich need to step up and pay a higher tax rate.  To which one idiot on Fox News called him a Socialist.  One of the greatest capitolists in history is called a socialist?  And that's why I do not take what Fox News says too seriously.  Getting back to point, the other half of the fifty percent don't pay taxes because they are poor.  They don't make enough to pay income tax, but the ones that work, do pay other taxes such as Social Security, Medicare, Sales Taxes, Gasoline and other user based taxes.  The ones that don't work still pay user based taxes.  The amount they pay is actually disproportionately higher than many well off people pay.  How you ask, someone who makes four hundred grand a year stops paying into Social Security at roughly one hundred, seven thousand dollars a year.  With that in mind he roughly pays Social Security on about twenty five percent of his income, where as a person who makes twenty five thousand a year pays Social Security taxes on one hundred percent of his income.  I have explained this so even a chimpanzee could understand it.

To fix the problem with our budget shortfall the Democrats want to raise the tax on the four hundred richest Americans another three percent by rolling back the Bush tax cuts, in addition to cutting spending.  Republicans are saying no way.  Spending cuts only.  Republicans say that it would only generate around seven hundred billion over ten years.  How out of touch are they?  Seven hundred billion is major money.  Instead as I said they want everyone to pay their fair share.  I am all for it, so let's take someone who earns the national average for a family of four which is around forty thousand a year, find out the total taxes they pay (everything I mentioned above) and that percentage would be applied to everyone making over four hundred thousand a year.  This country would be out of debt in no time considering the four hundred richest Americans have over fifty percent of the money and they make well over four hundred thousand a year. 

Fox News, The Good and The Bad

First the good.  In the Ames Iowa debate Fox News Chris Wallace, along with the rest of the panel, for the questions they asked the candidates.  Those were hard questions and that was a conservative panel, as three of them were from a Washington D.C. based conservative newspaper.  Thank you.  At first I was wondering if I was watching Fox, or was MSNBC putting on this debate.  Once again, thank you.  Now the bad.  Fox News.

All week Fox News has been talking about S+P downgrading our countries credit rating, and that it was Obama's fault.  They have all been calling it the Obama downgrade.  It has been talked about all week by not just Fox, but by several of the Republican candidates for President.  The problem with that though, is S+P has said since the downgrade was given, that the reason they did it is because forces in our government have turned the debt ceiling and the threat of default into political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.  How does the right wing interpret that into Obama's downgrade?  When did Obama ever say he would use it as a bargaining chip.  He was for raising it on its own the way it was always done.  He was stupid to not do it during the lame duck Congress, before the Tea Partiers got in.  But Fox News kept hammering that it was Obama's downgrade.  When the rhetoric started on Fox, the next day, an S+P Senior official gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, coincidentally owned by the same parent company as Fox News and said "The conclusion was pretty much motivated by all of the debate about raising the debt ceiling".  The "Conclusion" was the downgrade, the "Debate" was in Congress, specifically in the Republican Caucus in the House.  The debate was with the Tea Party Caucus and the rest of the Republicans.  The fact is the Tea Party members of the House wanted the U.S. to default.  Skip ahead to the debate Thursday night and you'll see.  Michele Bachman, a Tea Party Congresswoman said "We just heard from S+P, when they dropped our credit rating, what they said was we don't have the ability to repay our debt.  I was proved right in my position and we should not have raised the debt ceiling".  After hearing that, the next day a Senior Director of  S+P in an interview with Politico said "Several lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default.  That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable.  This kind of rhetoric is not common among AAA rated nations".  You can't spell it out more clear than that.

S+P downgraded our rating due to the actions of the Tea Party members of the House.
I would say John Boehners days are numbered as Speaker, he has no control over his Caucus.  I don't agree with the downgrade as the U.S. has never nor will they ever default.  In the days after the downgrade the stock market crashed but U.S. Bonds couldn't be bought fast enough.  That shows the world that we are still the safest bet out there.

Introducing Rick Perry from Texas

So I hear that this weekend Rick Perry has a busy schedule all over the United States. Rumor has it that during his travels he will announce his candidacy for the President of the United States.  He is showing 2nd in the national polls behind "Insta-President" Mitt Romney.  When you look at Romney's picture he has that break glass/add water and you have Insta-President, an ongoing observation my wife and I have every time we see a pic of him.  Anyways just who is this Rick Perry?  Why don't we start with his record as Governor of Texas.

Yes Texas has created more jobs than any other state during the recession under his watch but then again most of those jobs are minimum wage jobs, as Texas has the highest average amount of people making minimum wage in the country.  In fact for someone who shuns the federal government, he sure asks a lot from them.  His 2010 budget was only balanced because the federal government plugged 97% of his deficit.  This was higher than any other state.  Instead of blasting Obama he should be thanking him.  Let's dig a little deeper, ok with you?  Just like all the Tea Partiers in office he is full of shit.  He is the typical Tea Party person talking about less government/less regulation/less intrusiveness.  His record shows opposite of his rhetoric. 

Such as the fact that after Merck donated 5,000 dollars to his campaign.  He signed an executive order requiring 12 year old girls to get the vaccination Gardasil, which is made by Merck. To top that off his abstinence only sex education laws have resulted in Texas having the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.  He actually has an immigration policy more liberal that Obama's as he signed an executive order giving "In State Tuition Rates" to illegal aliens. As liberal as some people call me, even I don't agree with that.

But the real scary thing is what he did last weekend.  He initiated a religious gathering called "The Response".  He tried to fill a stadium in Houston while religious fanatic's got up and spoke to anyone who showed up. Some of the ministers are so far out there that one of the endorsers of the event called The Statue of Liberty a "Demonic Idol right there in the heart of New York Harbor". 

Below is a sample of Rick Perry's work ethic:

As the state faces a budget hole of $18 billion, Part-Time Perry continues to charge Texas taxpayers over $9,000 a month in rent and $428.57 an hour for work.

Perry's extravagant rental mansion is worth $1.85 million, 10 times more than the average price for a home in Texas, which is $183,800.

"Texas taxpayers are stuck with the bills for Rick Perry's fancy mansion, his Food & Wine magazine and his one and a half chefs, while Perry charges $428.57 an hour for work," Bill White said. "He's been a career politician for so long he's forgotten who he serves. Texans deserve a governor who's working for them, not himself, and a governor who works as hard as they do."

State schedules released last week showed Perry averages just seven hours of work per week.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average work week for Texans is 40 hours.


The question now is this.  To you righteous patriotic Republicans would you vote for someone running for President of the United States who accepts money from a minister who calls one of our countries greatest symbols of freedom a demonic idol?  If you answer yes then you'll also be voting for a man who a little over two years ago threatened to have Texas succeed from the United States.  Now there is a man all of us can trust.