The Hypocritical Media Elite

As we as a country charge over the fiscal cliff in our supercharged Obamamobile, it seems like there is an awful lot of do as I say, not as I do among the ‘unbiased’ media outlets.  Turn on any of the letter stations (NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN) and you will hear nothing but demonizing of the wealthy and conservatives (to the mind of a liberal, these are one and the same), for not doing their part to allow the spendaholic Obama administration to keep spending.  It boggles my mind that the average liberal has no idea how to manage money.  Have these people never had to manage a budget?  It’s not hard.  You have your income (taxes and fees) and you have your expenses (things you spend your income on).  Now, if the first is higher than the second, you have extra money for ‘fun’ stuff (here in Milwaukee, that would include Mayor Barrett’s hipster trolley).  If the second is higher, you need to find a way to cut expenses or increase income.  For conservatives, cutting ‘fat’ out of the federal budget is the way to go.  When times are better (more workers providing more tax revenue), you can bring back some of that ‘luxury’ spending.  For liberals, the key is increasing income at all costs.

The best way for a liberal to get revenue is soaking the ‘rich’.  In the mind of a liberal, a rich person is by definition evil and his ill-gotten gains from the sweat and toil of the little people needs to be confiscated by the government and used for a better purpose than they do with it.  Well, the facade of the liberal talkers tends to look a bit crumbly when you look a bit closer.  Many of the most well known liberal TV personalities are not only rich, they would be considered filthy rich by anybody’s standards (Hell, Chris Matthews’ salary alone is $5 million per year).  So, in an effort to see if these people are willing to practice what they preach, I sent the following letter to Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Matt Lauer of NBC, Wolf Blitzer of CNN, George Stephanopoulos of ABC, and Bob Schieffer of CBS to see if they were willing to ‘do their part’ and ‘pay their fair share’:

With all the talk from the liberal left about how the rich are not paying their ‘fair share’, I was wondering if you would be willing to do your part? While I do not know your tax bill, I’m sure that, according to the liberal talking points, you are not paying your fair share. With that in mind, I propose this. Below, I have compiled what I believe is a fair budget. Any money you have left over per month should be donated to the federal government to help out those less fortunate than yourself. To make it easy, here is the link to make that donation: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html

Food: $300 per person in the household per month (more than double the famous ‘food stamp challenge’.)
Rent: $1,100 per month
Utilities: $275 per month (I feel that this is a fair average for throughout the year for heat, water, and electric)
Phone: $50 per month
Internet: $25 per month (this is only on here as a concession to your job)
Transportation: $125 per month

That is it. That is, admittedly, a bigger budget than most middle-class families can afford. Do you think you could do it for the greater good? I do not expect any reply, but it would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.

These letters were sent out on December 8th.  As you can imagine, I have yet to receive any replies.  These were sent to their public e-mail addresses or contact forms on their employers websites.  I do realize that these high profile people must get thousands of e-mails on a daily basis.  I also am sure that they have interns or lackeys that go through them as either part of or their entire job.  I feel that 15 days is ample time to even send out a form letter.  So what does that say?   I can only make inferences, but to my mind is that they would rather spout off about taking money from the other rich, not them.  Is that an incorrect assumption, maybe, but considering the fact that they have not yet returned my e-mail, I cannot say that this isn’t true.

The Great Liberal Small Business Challenge

Ok, this one is really not just for liberals.  It’s for anyone that is all for the president’s plan to soak the rich and love to ‘shop local’.  Here’s all you need to do.  Find your favorite local, independent store.  It could be anything.  A pizza joint, a florist, that boutique that always has those oh so cute clothes.  Ask if you can speak with the owner.  Tell them how much you love shopping there (good to get the conversation off to a good start).  Then ask if they are an S corp.  When (if) they answer yes, congratulations!  You have found a business that will be soaked by the Obama Tax Plan.

I tried to explain this before.  If you wish to see it, go back to my “It’s one for you 19 for me” post.  For every small business that files as an S corp, they are taxed at the maximum PERSONAL tax rate.  That’s right…All the businesses profits/losses flow directly to the owner’s personal tax return.  That means that if your favorite business makes profits over $250,000, they are the ones that are going to pay Obama’s taxes.  What does that mean for you as the consumer?  Well, it could mean higher prices, that clerk that you love dealing with could have their hours cut (or their job lost entirely), or, in a worse case scenario, the business closes due to the new taxes choking off all of their profits.

You may not be rich yourself, so the taxes don’t directly affect you.  However, I’m sure that most of you have a small business that you frequent (even occasionally) that will be affected.  I’m not going to blame the low information voters.  Every one of the 51% of the voters that re-elected this administration is to blame.  Because you fell for the hype, you have managed to choke off the American Dream.  It’s a struggle and the hours are long and crappy, but everyone with ambition strives to own their own business.  What is better than saying that you work for yourself?  With these new taxes, existing businesses will struggle and new businesses will not be started.  Small business built this country.  Liberalism is trying to destroy it.

Where does teaching end and parenting begin?

In my day to day life, I see many strange and unusual things.  I know that the majority of the strange and unusual things I see are only strange and unusual to me.  I have long since accepted that my brain doesn’t process things the way most people’s do.  However, one thing I saw a while ago (and has been festering ever since) I would hope would make others think about it the way I do.

I have mentioned before that I work at a school.  I won’t say which, but if you dig just a tiny bit, you will know which one.  All around the school, they have posters which list expectations of the students in the various areas.  Most are common sense reminders.  One, however, I am saddened to see.  It is this one:

Now, the first time I saw this sign, I was a little shocked.  I mean, do we really need to have the school install these ‘traits’ into the kids?  I would think  that the parents should have taken care of this.  These signs are very large (I cropped this one for ease of reading and to prevent the school being known in the photo) and they are laminated.  A decent amount of time and money went into these.  Is this really necessary?  Has our child-rearing skills deteriorated so far that we need to rely on the schools to give half-grown children these simple, basic life skills?  Should I really be shocked by this?  I still laugh at the touchy-feely liberal mentality of the last one….What are we expecting?  Do we want the kids to feel like #1 while they go #2?

I have been hearing for years about and from the teachers that will have a class of 22 kids and only have 2-3 show up for conferences.  Is this the result?  Do we now have to spend time and resources teaching our kids in school things that they should be learning from their parents?   Is there any wonder why our schools are so far down?  I have seen a picture online shared by some liberals that think that all of our school problems would go away if we paid our teachers huge sums of money.  That is irrelevant to the problem.  You can pay each and every teacher $500,000 a year, but if they have to waste time teaching these simple things instead of the parents doing it, we will still have a low quality education system.  There are several issues with teacher’s unions that are a strain on the public sector, but this one falls squarely on the parenting. This is not all parents however.  Unfortunately, it is a larger and larger percentage of parents every day.  Until we find a way to hold parents accountable for their lack of parenting skills or their unwillingness to teach their kids even basic lessons, it doesn’t matter how much the teachers make, how much recess time they have, or if they have to take standardized tests…Our schools will continue to decline.  These parents may claim that the school has failed their children when in fact it was them that failed their children.

The toll trolls are creeping northward

Well..here we are.  The silly season has begun when it comes to state budget talks.  Unfortunately, with the way that the media has this obsession with locking onto any idea even whispered by a Republican like a pit bull on a crippled cat, the statement by State Assembly Speaker-elect Robin Vos regarding the creation of toll roads has received more traction than it merits.

The DOT claims that the money is needed to raise funds to prevent delays in the Milwaukee Zoo interchange project and the I-39 project in the Madison area.  Nevermind that former Governor Jim Doyle raided the transportation fund several times during his reign to balance his woefully out of balance budget…The DOT needs this money.  Really?  How badly?  Well, I went to the source recently.  After a brief e-mail correspondence with Edward Tuecke, the WisDOT Chief of the Financial Management Section in the Office of Policy, Budget and Finance, I learned just how badly the state DOT needs these funds.

First, a little primer.  There is more than one way of accounting used when talking about a state level department.  One way to look at it is on a ‘budgetary basis’.  There are two ways to look at this, but basically both require receipts and disbursements to be recognized in the fiscal year in when they are received or paid.  The state’s accounting records remain open until July 31 in order to allow state departments to enter transactions applicable to the fiscal year ended June 30.  The other way is known as the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis.  Here, revenues are recognized when earned and expenditures are recognized when obligations are incurred as a result of the receipt of goods and services.  In order to keep my head from exploding from the mental acrobatics required to understand most accounting principles, I asked for the data that seemed the most straightforward.  Below is the end of fiscal year balance for the Wisconsin Transportation Fund using the GAAP basis since 2000.

Fiscal Year                            End of Year Balance

2000                                       336,894,000

2001                                       345,658,000

2002                                       356,330,000

2003                                       386,363,000

2004                                       348,006,000

2005                                       393,586,000

2006                                       387,227,000

2007                                       459,078,000

2008                                       422,102,000

2009                                       531,592,000

2010                                       650,148,000

2011                                       794,192,000

2012                                       690,208,000

Multi-year construction projects are calculated a bit differently depending on the method.  Under budgetary-basis reporting, these multi-year construction projects reserve current year budget authority.  Under GAAP, commitments for future year expenditures do not reduce fund balance.  Either way, while the DOT may not be awash in money in governmental numbers, they still aren’t broke either.  What does help out greatly is that the two most major projects over the past several years (the Marquette Interchange and the I-94 corridor from Milwaukee to Illinois) are either done in the case of the Marquette or nearing the halfway point.

This is simply another cash grab by a bloated government agency.  True, they do provide some needed services, but in this era of a stagnant economy I think that they (along with every other government agency) need to start to live within their means.  I don’t fault them for the Marquette Interchange project.  If you ever traveled the ‘Change before and looked at the underside of the bridges, you would know that the project needed to be done.  Same goes for the Zoo interchange, one of (if not the) most traveled interchanges in the state.  However, the redoing of Highway 41, specifically the roundabouts at every offramp, is a project that could have been delayed until a time when the economy was a bit better.  Another thing along these lines…There is a lot of chatter about how Milwaukee is dying.  The manufacturing base has fled, there is no economic development in the inner city, there are no jobs for the poor folks, etc.  Have any of you tried to drive around some areas of Milwaukee?  The roads are horrendous!  No wonder why no businesses want to go there.  If people won’t want to risk damage to their cars getting to a business, there’s no reason for a company to open up a location in the city.  Priorities need to be reset for many government agencies, not just the DOT.  We need to start saying no to these types of revenue increases until the agency can prove that they can manage it well.

Don’t let the door hit Bango in the ass…

I don’t really want to do sports topics here.  However, this one is quasi-political due to the inevitable taxpayer money that will be used for it.  Once again, the Milwaukee Bucks have begun the drive, again, for a new arena in Milwaukee.  It has been a non-starter the last few times because it comes down to the fact that the Bradley Center (I refuse to put the BMO Harris in front of it.  Nothing against BMO Harris…It’s still the Rosemont Horizon to me as well as the San Jose Arena.  Unless it’s a new building, I’m not going to use a corporate name for the most part), a wonderful gift to the city by Jane and Lloyd Pettit, while old by NBA standards, is still a very good building for basketball.  In my opinion, another reason for the city/state to not give them a new arena is that, deep down, they knew that Senator Herb Kohl, owner of the Bucks, wouldn’t really move the team out of the city.  Now, with Senator Kohl retiring from the Senate, the possibility that the team could leave is now more real. To this I say…See the title.

Now, this would be a little different if the Bucks would be a top shelf team.  Of course, if the were I’m sure that they would have had enough capital to fund their own arena by now.  While they have been decent, they are not what one would call elite.  Here’s a little pop quiz for you.  Of the the following teams, which one would you rather have playing in your city? All data is since 2000. (phraseology has been adjusted to prevent telegraphing the teams)

Team 1

5 playoff births, 1 division title, 6 .500 or better records, 0 championships.

Team 2

11 playoff births, 4 division titles, 8 .500 or better seasons, 1 championship

Team 3

9 playoff births, 1 division title, 12 .500 or better seasons, 0 championships

Team 4

2 playoff berths, 1 division title, 5 .500 or better seasons, 0 championships

So, which one? 1, 2, 3, or 4?  Well, Senator Kohl has said in the past that he was for doing everything he could to keep the Bucks in Milwaukee.  As recently as May 4th, Senator Kohl has stated as much publicly.  What wasn’t stated, however, was what would happen if a new arena wasn’t built.  For me, why should the public who may not give a rip about pro basketball (and with an overall attendance ranked 27th out of 30 last season, that seems to be a majority of the city) fund an arena for team #1 up there (the other teams are: #2 – Milwaukee Admirals, #3 – Marquette Warriors Men’s basketball [both in the Bradley Center as well], and #4 – Milwaukee Brewers [now in a new, publicly funded stadium])?  I can hear the arguments now.  ”But, but, but…The Thunder got a new arena with just a one penny tax increase!”  It’s not the amount of the tax.  It’s the fact that it’s a tax at all.  Around here, once a tax goes into affect, it’s always will be there no matter the sunset date (see the Miller Park stadium tax and the exposition tax).  If Senator Kohl can get a sweet new arena in, say, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, or Kansas City, more power to him.  The NBA is full of examples of teams moving.  The Lakers, Clippers, Thunder, Grizzlies, Hornets, Kings, Nets, Jazz, Rockets, Wizards, Hawks, 76ers, Warriors, and Pistons franchises have all moved at least once since the formation of the NBA in 1949 with the NBL-BAA merger.

I know there is a certain prestige attached to having a professional sports franchise in your city.  I do get it.  Growing up less than a 30 minute drive from Green Bay I understand what a source of pride is attached to it.  However, when the fan base dwindles and the on court product is sub-par, how long before the prestige dwindles?  How many years did the Clippers spend with the image as the ugly step-sister to the more fashionable Lakers?  Who remembers the pathetic ‘Save the Oilers’ rally  back in 1995?   Or how about the current struggles of the Jacksonville Jaguars?  At some point, however, it’s best for both parties to have a somewhat clean break (not like the Whalers/Hurricanes debacle from the NHL) and start fresh.  That time may be now for the Bucks.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t drag out or become a fiasco like the Oilers/Titans train wreck.

Am I blacklisted?

I know that I haven’t been writing a lot lately.  It’s because I have been doing research in what little free time I have.  Research on three different posts that may not see the light of day.  Why?  Well, it seems that the people/institutions that I e-mailed looking for some information were either unable or unwilling to respond.  Is it because the word has been spread that I am an evil conservative and people have been told not to answer my questions?  Honestly, I know that I do not have as wide a reach as that.  I’m no Rush Limbaugh.  I would like to be…I have a lot to say about all sorts of different topics.  Many views are not mainstream, but will speak to a wide audience.  Maybe, just maybe, I could change a mind or two.  Open one or two sets of eyes.  But alas, I have been ignored.

To be fair, one of the e-mails was very recently sent out.  I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt still.  However, the other two have been out for over two weeks (one has been over a month).  You would think that you could at least send out a form rejection letter.  Something along the lines of, “I’m sorry, we cannot divulge that information.”  I don’t mind.  I might be a bit peeved that they wouldn’t answer my very basic questions, but at least they were courteous enough to give me a response.  I’m not hiding either.  I signed each e-mail with my real name and location (city and state).  The saddest part?  One of the long term ones is a US Federal office.  No, I wasn’t asking for any classified information.  If I was I’m sure I would have had a nice visit by one of the 3 letter groups (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.) by now.  Yea, my name is pretty common, but I’m sure that if they have the resources (and the government does) they could track me down.  I’m not really hiding very hard online.

So what’s the deal?  I don’t e-mail very much at all (and to companies/institutions even less) but I would think if somebody has a ‘contact us’ link on their website (as all did) that they would respond to people contacting them.  Am I naive?  Am I expecting too much from people here?  I know I like to ask questions that people are uncomfortable answering, but come on…all of the inquiries that I have made over the last month were for, in my opinion, very basic information.  I wasn’t looking for national secrets.  I didn’t want propitiatory information.  I wasn’t looking for trade secrets.  I just wanted a few basic questions answered,  Bur alas, I am just one of the little people…unworthy of a simple rejection letter.  I might call them out…I might not.  I’m still a bit pissed that I was ignored.  I did waste a decent amount of time on research and the start of the posts.  I’m not sure what calling them out would do other than guarantee that I get less responses in the future.  Oh well…I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised.  Aren’t we all getting conditioned to be ignored and to like it or accept it?

One for you 19 for me….It’s the Tax Man!

I know that this information (at least some of it) has been out there in other media sources.  Not all of this is news, but I felt the need to get it out there with an experts viewpoint.  We all know that we are facing a fiscal cliff and the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room is where is the money going to come from to pay for ObamaCare.  Well, thanks to a bit of digging and with some help from my lovely assistant (who has nearly two decades of experience in the tax prep field specializing in small businesses) I will show where exactly where at least some of the revenue will come from to pay for ObamaCare.  From what I have seen so far, most of you will be less than impressed.

I have received some notes from a seminar that was given by the vendor of a major tax prep software company.  This seminar was a prepper course for CPA’s about what they will see not only this tax season, but in tax seasons to come.  The following bullet points (with a layman’s explanation provided by my lovely assistant) are things that most people, if they knew ahead of time, may just have changed their minds on November 6th.  Are you ready kids?  Well, ready or not, here we go…

There are 93 expiring or already expired tax items

Now, some of them do not affect the majority of people.  Several have to do with estate taxes.  However, there are quite a few that do affect the average person.  Whether these are taken care of by the President and Congress before January 1st is yet to be seen.  If not, the tax season could be delayed while the proper forms are created and made available to tax preparers.  If there is a significant delay, will there also be a corresponding extension to the filing deadline?  I doubt it…

No itemized deduction for Sales Tax

This one affects more people than you would first think.  Up until this year, if you bought a car (for example), you could write off the sales tax.  So, instead of getting a credit of up to a few thousand dollars you get to pay for money you spent in taxes.  I’m betting this one doesn’t get fixed.  On the left, if you say ‘itemized deductions’ they assume you are talking about tax loopholes for the rich.  Yep, that family who is making $50,000 who needs to buy a car to get to work and the kids to school is rich.

10% credit for low speed electric vehicles and plug in electric conversion

People wondered why the Nissan Leaf is going to fall way short of sales goals for the year.  This hits the liberals twice.  It reduces the amount of sales taxes collected (the average price of a hybrid/electric car is 2-10 thousand more than a gasoline car) and it proves that without massive tax credits, people don’t want to buy their green cars.

Energy efficient home credit

Again, here’s another way to soak middle-class families who are trying to do the right thing.  It was reduced in 2011 and has disappeared totally.  It wasn’t much of a credit (30%/$1,500) but it was a little something to help the average family offset the costs of making energy efficient choices for their homes.

Energy efficient appliance manufacturer credit

This one is a little involved, so try to stay with me here. There was a credit given to producers of energy efficient appliances.  The credit per unit (maxed out at 4% of gross sales) was given foe every unit produced over the average production in that industry over the previous two years.  So, if the average production of energy efficient refrigerators was, for example, 3,000 units and a company ramped up production to 3,500 units, they would get a tax credit for the extra 500 units.  I’m guessing the credit was put in place, partially, to help offset the overtime given to the workers to make the extra units.  Now, with the credit gone, it creates a disincentive for these manufacturers to give out the overtime.  So, a credit given to “evil” corporations and greedy millionaires turns out to hit the blue collar manufacturers the hardest.  I have known many workers over the years that count on that overtime for various reasons.  Now, with it gone, the discretionary spending does way down, affecting the small businesses that rely on that spending.

Mortgage insurance deductable as mortgage interest

In past years, if you paid for mortgage insurance you could deduct the premiums paid along with the mortgage interest.  Considering that the premiums could easily climb over $1,000 per year, that is a real tax savings for the average family.  This one was started in 2007…sounds like another ‘evil’ Bush tax cut on those greedy rich.  Nevermind the fact that the people that buy mortgage insurance are, for the most part, not rich.  It’s against the liberal talking points.

Coverdell savings accounts limits lowering

For any of you who have been using the Coverdell savings accounts to pay for a dependents future education costs, you better pay close attention to this.  Up through year, you are able to contribute $2,000 into the accounts.  If things are not changed, this amount will lower to $500.  With the rate of inflation on it’s way up, this limit won’t even cover the rise in inflation.  Once again, the people that are trying to be responsible and do the right thing take it in the shorts.

Student loan deduction adjusted

After this year, student loan interest will not be able to be deducted for interest payed after the first 60 months of the loan.  Now, I have never had a student loan, so I don’t know how long it takes to pay off the average loan, but with the average debt that today’s college graduates face, I can imagine that a decent percentage of graduates take more than 5 years to pay off all of their student debt.  Here’s another deduction that helps the middle-class folks that (likely) will not be adjusted mostly because of the low profile of it.

Child tax credits

There are a couple here that I know hit every middle class family.  First, the Child Tax Credit.  After this year, the amount will be cut in half (to $500 from $1,000) if there’s no adjustment.  This tax rarely went to high income earners.  This was put in for the low to middle class workers.  In addition, the Child and Dependent Care credit will also be reduced.  After this year, it will be 30% (instead of 35%) on the first $2,400 (instead of $3,000) spent on child care.  As someone who has taken advantage of both these credits in the past, these are both very important credits for people that are counting on a refund.

OASDI rate increases

After this year, the 2% cut to the Social Security tax put in place in during the Obama stimulus package will expire.  Funny, a flat tax like this was supposed to affect the rich more than the poor.  So why would Obama give a tax credit to rich people?  Oh yea…it was supposed to help spur economic development.  Now, he wants to soak the rich, hoping that what the cut failed to do an increase will accomplish.  Makes sense to me.

AMT threshhold lowered

Ahh, the AMT.  No one single aspect of the tax code causes more frustration to those that have to pay it than the Alternative Minimum Tax.  Currently the exemption sits at $48,450 (for unmarried) with a patch in place (a patch is an adjustment put in by Congress to adjust for inflation).  The president proposes lowering this to $33,750 without a patch.  Now, I have no way of knowing how much the rate will be after a patch (if they add one on).  I don’t claim to know very much about the AMT, but anyone who does, these numbers mean a lot.  To me, it looks like a lot more people will be subject to the AMT.

Medical expense limit to increase in 2013

For anyone that has chronic, ongoing medical expenses, you know that there is a bit of relief.  If your medical expenses exceed a certain percentage of your income, you can deduct it from your income tax.  Unfortunately, in 2013, that percentage will jump from 7.5% to 10%.  How many elderly and disabled people will be affected by this?  How many on a fixed SSI income will suddenly find themselves upside down?

Now, these are just some of the changes to the tax code that are either up for expiration or that have already been put in by the current administration.  For all the talk of giving breaks to the middle class, I don’t see a lot of it.  I can’t say for sure if all of these will continue to either go away or be applied, but my guess is if you don’t hear about an increase or renewing a decrease, there won’t be a change.  Jobs are down, wages are down, and taxes are going up (I only grazed the surface of ObamaCare).  It is often said that we live in a Nanny State.  I agree with the local radio host who disagreed…We are in a Mommy State.  We want the government to take care of us from cradle to grave.  Just like Julia…Only much, much worse….