CBS Wails: “With Only $400 Billion to Spend”; NBC Rues Tax Cut – And the lefties still claim they need another news network to counter Fox News. They don’t think they have enough outlets with just ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and MSNBC to spread their socialist propaganda.

Very Richest’s Share of Income Grew Even Bigger, Data Show – And the NY Times’ answer to this disparity is to have our rulers in the government equalize everything by redistributing wealth from those who earn it to those who don’t.

Drugs and the Deficits – The Libs couldn’t care less about the deficit when it comes to more government spending programs; but they claim that the Earth will stop spinning if tax rates are reduced and people are allowed to keep a tiny bit more of their own money.

“Commuter Taxes” are Taking Many Workers for a Ride,Tax Research Group’s Study Finds – Just as with tourist taxes, government rulers love to be able to take money from people who are not able to vote against them.

The new decade of greed – The Clinton 1990s far surpassed the Reagan 1980s.

Time to retire General Washington – Has the one dollar bill outlived its usefulness in the USA?

Entitlements have history of cost overruns – Just as with projected effects of tax law changes, the numbers used to describe new government programs are complete fabrications. Our rulers have a long history of intentionally understating the expected costs of government programs. They know that nothing will ever happen to them when the truth materializes; costs hundreds of times higher than predicted. Most of the current rulers will be out of office by then. They also know that, just as with Medicare, by the time the true costs are realized, everyone will be so used to the system that there will be no political support for discontinuing the program. They are no different than drug pushers, getting as many people addicted to their government programs as possible.

Taxing retirement funds – Our rulers are literally salivating at the idea of getting their mitts on the trillions of dollars people have stashed away.

Social security imbalance sheet – There are still some in DC supporting the concept of allowing people to have more control over their SS money (aka privatization).

What Gives? The Possibilities of Private Charity – People are very generous in support of causes they agree with and efficient local charitable organizations can accomplish a lot more with a lot less than bloated corrupt government programs.

I’ve often discussed how many of the tax deductions and credits are only available to those people whom our rulers consider to not be evil rich, as defined by the AGI (adjusted gross income) on their income tax returns. They refer to this as “means testing,” implying that people with substantial income (means) don’t need additional tax breaks. I prefer to call it “mean testing” as a penalty for being successful.

In the recent discussions over expanding the government medical programs to cover prescription drugs, I never bought for a second the argument that many people were raising that the taxpayers would end up paying for the medicines of the super duper evil richest of our country, such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Ross Perot and Rush Limbaugh. I knew that was a bogus claim because any new government program would have to have a means test to weed out the undeserving. As Robert Novak describes, that means that the medical establishment will be provided with our income data in order to know which of us are entitled to the government benefits.

I’m not in favor of expanding the size and scope of government control over our lives. However, I am also not in favor of using bogus arguments in discussions of those issues. Claiming that the taxpayers would be picking up the tab for billionaires was never appropriate and just makes opponents of the program look stupid for mentioning it as a realistic possibility.

However, allowing government bureaucrats to have more actual life and death power over us is very scary. Need I remind everyone that our rulers in DC have already established the cut-off between the deserving and the evil rich for Social Security recipients as $25,000 AGI for single people and $32,000 for married couples? Is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to foresee someone being denied life saving cancer medicine because his/her AGI is $40,000?

For anyone who thinks using AGI as a test of eligibility for benefits is a good idea, please check the AGI on your most recent 1040. It’s the number at the bottom of Page 1. Now, ask yourself how much of that you have in actual cash with which to buy medicines or anything else. AGI has very little relation to the amount of actual disposable cash people have on hand and has never been a fair measuring stick for wealth. However, it has become enshrined in the mentality of our rulers in DC whenever deciding who may or may not participate in any new benefit.

$1 billion dot-bomb payout by firms. Internet companies to pony up for alleged inflation of IPOs – This is an unusually lucky break for those people foolish enough to invest in dot-com IPOs.

Nevada Turns to Brothels as a Budget Fix – The Holy Grail of taxation has always been to find one that is painless or that people enjoy paying. This idea might just be pretty close. There’s just an interesting balance to the concept of having the tax collectors screw you at the same time as… Since the Nevada Constitution forbids a State income tax, this is an interesting revenue raiser and should be a bit more pleasurable than paying IRS. They plan to call this a 10% live entertainment tax on brothel services. Since many of the customers are most likely from outside Nevada, it’s really no different than the various other tourist taxes already charged around the country, such as hotel and rental car taxes.