-By Dan Scott
Now that a tax cheater, I mean former tax cheater, Timothy Geithner has been officially confirmed by the Senate to become Secretary of the Treasury, we, the taxpayers, have the poster child of government fiscal irresponsibility. President Obama’s particular choice of this flawed person gives us a valuable insight into how he intends to squeeze us, the taxpayer, of every last penny. Who better than the very person who specializes in financial rescues would best be suited to the job of propping up failed government policies by finding yet more creative ways to fund those failures?
Picking up on Thomas Brewton’s theme of Social Justice, liberals have a faulty worldview in regards to the cause of crime and poverty, that being unequal wealth distribution. In the liberal worldview money and the resources it buys is the answer to their Utopian dreams. This worldview is based on the trope that given enough money literally anything can be made to work. This is why liberals continue to insist the public school systems of the US are under funded, when in fact every year more money is spent for a continual diminishing return evidenced by higher drop out rates and low test scores. In the liberal worldview, not enough money has been spent to make it successful and that’s why it’s a failure, to them the teachers, students, parents and methods have little to do with the results. There is no such thing as personal responsibility, just social responsibility. Where does the money come from? The taxpayers.
For example, the CRA caused the mortgage meltdown when politicians decided that cheap credit was the social justice answer to home ownership. The banks went bust when those who shouldn’t have been homeowners couldn’t make their mortgage payments. The taxpayers were forced to pick up the tab in a massive redistribution of wealth scheme that literally cost private industry trillions of dollars in 2008. The purpose of the bailout literally was to perform an orderly transfer of wealth from investors in a way to preserve the banking system for yet another round of wealth transfers – Nationalization.
Another example, consider the Big 3 automakers asking for the bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. The alternative, using chapter 11 bankruptcy would drive their outstanding stock shares to zero. That means the management, the UAW and the retirees whose pension fund (remember Enron) was invested in those stock shares lose most if not all of their money. The bailout was plain and simple Quid Pro Quo from the politicians who were the beneficiaries of the Big 3 management and UAW campaign contributions, all at the expense of the taxpayer.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” – Lord Woodhouselee
We may be witnessing the end of our Republic, we are on the slippery path to destruction perpetrated by the greed of slick talking politicians and special interests that regularly feed at the trough of corrupt government condoned by the fear of a deceived naïve public who believe every rationalization why they should be shorn like sheep. Now Congress is getting ready to pass the first installment of many annual trillion dollar budget busters under the guise of emergency economic stimulus which some have dubbed the Generational Theft Act of 2009. Every penny to fund this budget buster will come from the private economy and thus represents a continuing transfer of wealth to achieve social justice funding of various boondoggles. What we are witnessing here is a government run ponzi scheme in which investors and the next generation will be forced to make payments.
Liberals love their boondoggles, the insidious cycle of toxic self-promotion and payoff is central to their financing and power. This parasitic behavior is nothing more than brazen political corruption rationalized. Since when is bamboozling the public with slick talking sales hype a sign of leadership? Quite frankly, the taxpayers of this country have been defrauded in one of the biggest financial scams in human history to save the personal interests of campaign contributors starting with the AIG bailout. This, in my opinion was outright fraud committed by government officials and made legal through legislative fiat. All legitimacy of self-governance has been co-opted by a group of self-serving elitists. This isn’t even counting the other ponzi schemes the politicians are juggling as well.
At some point we (taxpayers) who have been foisted upon to pay for the social justice nonsense will wise up and realize this won’t end well at all and the sooner we end it, the better. Less pain now, more pain later. If all of the unappreciated class, the taxpayer, were to strike for a week what would happen? Obama and the Democrats want a welfare state, maybe we should give it to them sooner than they planned. Maybe we all should stop working and draw all those government benefits we have been paying for against our collective wills. When the taxpayers decide it’s not worth being stolen from by the government to bring about the utopian liberal world where social justice reigns then the bubble will finally pop just as it did with the mortgage crisis.
While my snarky suggestion of just getting on the government feeding trough to break it’s back is outrageous, consider that the only way to stop the scam is to bring it to it’s knees. I think we all recognize that the politicians have bought into the idea that if they just can delay the inevitable long enough the problem will resolve itself thus it never existed in the first place, this is called the ostrich approach. They voted for the bailouts despite our objections. Does anyone rationally believe that the US Government, i.e. the taxpayer is good for the $10.8 trillion owed? Do you really believe there is any chance of it ever being paid down in the next 30 years? 40 years? 50 years? 100 years? That my friend is the hallmark of a ponzi scheme. The US Government has become the operator of thee most outrageous financial fraud in the entire history of mankind. Normally a ponzi scheme meets its short term financial obligations by drawing more people into the scheme to bring in more money. All ponzi schemes end when there is insufficient money to meet the current obligations. I propose we, the taxpayer, step in to end the ponzi scheme with a civil disobedience campaign where the politicians simply can’t overcome their self-interest to do so.
There are three ways to cut the cash flow to the US Treasury, which will force the hand of politicians.
1. Refuse to buy US Bonds in any denomination, it’s a loosing proposition anyway. Additionally, tell foreign buyers they shouldn’t either since they are in effect being drawn into the ponzi scheme as well by investing in it. You can’t deficit spend if you can’t borrow the money.
2. Every taxpayer who normally gets a hefty tax refund (over $1000) should adjust their withholding for a zero dollar return. This is perfectly legal. You are enabling profligate spending with your zero interest loan to the government by having such large refunds. Stop being an enabler. For an estimate of your total 2009 tax liability look at your last paycheck of 2008 for the total withholding you paid for the year and then subtract the refund you received from your 2007 tax return. Using your pay stubs you can track how much withholding tax you need to contribute to achieve a zero tax refund for 2009.
3. For the more committed, claim 10 deductions on your W4 form for tax withholding now here in January and then in April change it to zero deductions to cover the rest of your tax obligation for the year. It is only illegal if you owe more than $1000 on your tax return in which case you pay a penalty. You can avoid the penalty by estimating your 2009 tax.
The effect of number one would be immediately dramatic in and of itself as this would bring the US Treasury to its knees in a matter of months. Number two would end the whole scheme by April since IRS refunds are dependent on US Treasury cash flow which means they would have to choose between issuing refunds or shutting down the government’s non essential operations. Obviously number three would be devastating since politicians will see this for what it is, a vote of no confidence in a corruptly run government.
Ben Gates: A toast? Yeah. To high treason. That’s what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and-Oh! Oh, my personal favorite-and had their entrails cut out and *burned*!
[brief pause]
Ben Gates: So… Here’s to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right…
[nodding]
Ben Gates: what they knew was right.
The burning question for every taxpayer is this, do I have more to lose by not acting or by acting now? There is no question as to the losses that we have already sustained in our retirement accounts and future earnings. There is no question that we the taxpayers are stuck in a financial lose/lose proposition given the current leadership in Congress and the Whitehouse. There is only one way in which we, the taxpayer can hope for a win/win scenario and that is we collectively put fear in the politicians hearts and minds as they did to us when they created this mess.
____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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A 40-Year Wish List
You won’t believe what’s in that stimulus bill.
This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years. We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
The January-April gambit is almost certainly illegal though rarely enforced. Otherwise, ideas 1 and 2 are good ones.
The more effective approach would be to give employees the option to avoid withholding if they promise to make quarterly payments. In fact, it probably IS perfectly legal to claim 9 exemptions IF you make separate appropriate quarterly payments (but there’s no way to avoid SocSec withholding, which normally involves bigger amounts for a majority of employees).
Sadly, for all the extra work people would be taking on to make the quarterly payment, even that doesn’t affect things that much. It would, if enough people got in on it, amount to a 2-4 month deferral of a couple of hundred billion. Sadly, in the current context that is pocket change.
China Losing Taste for Debt From U.S.
China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/business/worldbusiness/08yuan.html?em
The irony maybe that the Chinese will be the ones to save the American people from their own foolish government. The Chinese being the largest buyer of US bonds is essentially enabling a spendthrift government. The sooner people stop buying bonds, the sooner Washington DC will face reality. We either deal with the pain of deficit spending withdrawal now or face catastrophic consequences later.
Breaking News, not told by MSM!!!!
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/02/germany-fails-to-place-tresuries-again.html
Germany failed for a 2nd time to sell it’s bonds! Now where do you think the US Treasury is going to get the $2 trillion needed in 2009 to fund the annual budget deficit, TARP and the so called Stimulus Bill. Warm up the printing presses, here comes hyper inflation in short order.