Did you vote today?

[Churmudgeon]

I hadnt seen the video link Raptor provided. It is slanted to portray only the republican Bushes as NWO. The fact is its both partys. the UN is the NWO. The fact is most things around are in some manner controlled by secret societies. I have been invited to join secret societies. I declined I have no interest in controlling others or manulaplating anything. It starts out innocently enough. You might join the boy scouts,Vollentier fire dept, chamber of commerce, rotary etc. Then someone does you a favor. then your beholden and do one in return. Eventually you are caught up in the web and cant escape. You wil do without question what your ordered to do or else. The or else is things like you lose your job.the bank forcloses . they may plant drugs on you or family members and arrest them. Many have even been killed! Thats why there are so many corrupt police & elected officials. The city of Pocahontas Ark is a poster boy example of GOB corruption.

[Reality Check]

Raptor in Michigan wrote:

<quoted text>
"Investment income is taxed at a lower rate because the income used to invest is taxed at the normal rate and America wants to make investing attractive so people with a lot of money won't just sit on it."
Good point. I would add that America wants to make investing attractive so people will invest and be able to care of themselves in retirement.

That is as good of a point as I have heard anyone make. We need to become a self sufficient society so those that truly need can get the help they deserve. The entitlement nanny state never has and never will work. It is the most greedy form of governing. You have those that make the best lives for themselves on their own and then you have those that want all the benefits and none of the sacrifice. Those who are unwilling to sacrifice want those that have to give most, if not all, of their hard earned income away so the lazy can have frivilous benefits they don't deserve. The unwilling can never get enough and will go to great lengths to have more like acting disabled, poor, ignorant, or helpless. The lazy and unwilling are the greediest people in America but they hide it by turning the attention to those who do have a lot and saying "look at him, why does anyone need that much money? I am barely making it on my own. Please government, step in and take from that guy and give it to me". Combine that with those who are niaevely sympathetic and ignorant to the world around them and you all of a sudden have a situation like we now face in America under Obama.

[Reality Check]

I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?" I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate." 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?

[Raptor in Michigan]

Reality Check wrote:

I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?" I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate." 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?

I judge that post: Brilliant!

[tax payer]

Reality Check wrote:

I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?" I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate." 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?

I agree with raptor on this one brillant. hope everybody reads this. because this is where all the tax dollars are going that we all are paying. And everybody wonders why we are so broke. I sure hope barney reads this because he can finally read something very intellegent.

[Churmudgeon]

Reality Check wrote:

I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?" I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate." 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?

You missed all those countries the UN dictates must be helped by the USA. you know we fight their wars give them foriegn aid ect.

[Raptor in Michigan]

Reality Check wrote:

I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: "List all dependents?" I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads;
42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate." 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS?

400 GITMO prisoners?

[Raptor in Michigan]

Churmudgeon wrote:

I hadnt seen the video link Raptor provided. It is slanted to portray only the republican Bushes as NWO. The fact is its both partys. the UN is the NWO. The fact is most things around are in some manner controlled by secret societies. I have been invited to join secret societies. I declined I have no interest in controlling others or manulaplating anything. It starts out innocently enough. You might join the boy scouts,Vollentier fire dept, chamber of commerce, rotary etc. Then someone does you a favor. then your beholden and do one in return. Eventually you are caught up in the web and cant escape. You wil do without question what your ordered to do or else. The or else is things like you lose your job.the bank forcloses . they may plant drugs on you or family members and arrest them. Many have even been killed! Thats why there are so many corrupt police & elected officials. The city of Pocahontas Ark is a poster boy example of GOB corruption.

"It is slanted to portray only the republican Bushes as NWO. The fact is its both partys."
Republicans is all we need it to portray. It's already well known that the democrats welcome and embrace it. It is mainly the republican voters who believe the representatives of their party will resist it.

[Raptor in Michigan]

More on NWO
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[guest]

tax payer wrote:

<quoted text>I agree with raptor on this one brillant. hope everybody reads this. because this is where all the tax dollars are going that we all are paying. And everybody wonders why we are so broke. I sure hope barney reads this because he can finally read something very intellegent.

There are federal programs that will hire someone to read it to him, there are even programs that will hire someone to explain it to him, what we need is a program that will hire someone to comprehend it for him.

[Raptor in Michigan]

A litle lengthy, but very good!
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[BARNEYII]

guest wrote:

<quoted text>
GED dropout and you are questioning the work of one of the best accounting firms in the world. Sometimes it is more beneficial to take a deduction in a later tax year and sometimes you can pick the timing yourself. I own some investment property, I delay deductions if it is to my benefit. I have always calculated my tax rate by the amount I make less the amount of legal deductions, exemptions and other adjustments, divided by the amount of tax I owe. If you use that scenario the Romney's paid in excess of twenty percent.

Mitt Romney’s lawyer admitted to the Democratic accusation that the Romneys could have paid a lot less in taxes in 2011, but they manipulated the returns so as to conform to an August Romney claim that he always paid at least 13%.

The AP reported:


But, Brad Malt acknowledged, the couple “limited their deductions of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement in August, based on the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.”

[Reality Check]

BARNEYII wrote:

<quoted text>
Mitt Romney’s lawyer admitted to the Democratic accusation that the Romneys could have paid a lot less in taxes in 2011, but they manipulated the returns so as to conform to an August Romney claim that he always paid at least 13%.
The AP reported:
But, Brad Malt acknowledged, the couple “limited their deductions of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement in August, based on the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.”

So now your mad that Romney is not taking as many deductions as he LEGALLY could meaning he's paying more in taxes each year aka "his fair share". Based on the liberal left's argument, you should be applauding Mr. Romney. Maybe you're mad that he didn't give his donations to the welfare fund. Instead Romney choose to give his charitable donations to BYU or the charity of his choice and that doesn't sit well with you. You should also tell Warren Buffet that he should do the same since he is so mad that he pays a lower percentage than his secretary but seems to think he is powerless to do anything about it. With liberals, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. You liberals simply can't be pleased.

[Taxmageddon]

100 Days Until Taxmageddon
Sunday will mark the start of the 100-day countdown to “Taxmageddon”– the date the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2013:
First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief
In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for small business owners, families, and investors (later re-upped by President Obama and Democrat Congress in 2010). The following tax hikes will occur on January 1, 2013:
Personal income tax rates will rise on January 1, 2013. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which the majority of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
-The 10% bracket rises to a new and expanded 15%
-The 25% bracket rises to 28%
-The 28% bracket rises to 31%
-The 33% bracket rises to 36%
-The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%
Higher taxes on marriage and family coming on January 1, 2013. The “marriage penalty”(narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of taxable income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.
Middle Class Death Tax returns on January 1, 2013. The death tax is currently 35% with an exemption of $5 million ($10 million for married couples). For those dying on or after January 1 2013, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.
Higher tax rates on savers and investors on January 1, 2013. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 23.8 percent in 2013. The top dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 43.4 percent in 2013. This is because of scheduled rate hikes plus Obamacare’s investment surtax.
Second Wave: Obamacare Tax Hikes
There are twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Some have already gone into effect (the tanning tax, the medicine cabinet tax, the HSA withdrawal tax, W-2 health insurance reporting, and the “economic substance doctrine”).

[Taxmageddon]

Several more will go into effect on January 1, 2013. They include:
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax begins to be assessed on January 1, 2013. Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. Exempts items retailing for <$100.
The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike takes effect on January 1, 2013. The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Starting in 2013, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate.
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” comes online on January 1, 2013. Imposes a cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C.(National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare cap harms these families.
The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions goes into force on January 1, 2013. Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only.
Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes
When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2013, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. These tax increases will be in force for BOTH 2012 and 2013. The major items include:
The AMT will ensnare over 31 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 31 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Full business expensing will disappear. In 2011, businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. Starting on 2013 tax returns, all of it will have to be “depreciated”(slowly deducted over many years).
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability will no longer be there.

[Taxmageddon]

That's right; Obama is "ending" liberals and conservatives alike. There are no real Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians if Obama gets the presidency again, only the dying and the dead.

[Taxmageddon]

You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers. Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry. Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke. Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated. Sadly, at a time when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our spending on infrastructure is actually way down. Back during the 50s and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent. But of course we don't have any extra money to spend on infrastructure because of our reckless spending and because of the massive amount of debt that we have accumulated. While the Obama administration is spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop, our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us. Once upon a time nobody else on the planet could match our infrastructure, and now we are in the process of becoming a joke to the rest of the world.

The following are 21 facts about America's failing infrastructure that will blow your mind....
#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America's crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.

#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today. Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.

#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.

#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due "to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards."

#6 One out of every four bridges in America either carries more traffic than originally intended or is in need of repair.

#7 Repairing all of the bridges in the United States that need repair would take approximately 140 billion dollars.

#8 According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our decaying transportation system costs the U.S. economy about 78 billion dollars annually in lost time and fuel.

#9 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt roads into gravel roads, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

[Taxmageddon]

#10 There are 4,095 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure. That number has risen by more than 100 percent since 1999.

#11 Of all the dam failures that have happened in the United States since 1874, a third of them have happened during the past decade.

#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

#13 Our aging sewer systems spill more than a trillion gallons of untreated sewage every single year. The cost of cleaning up that sewage each year is estimated to be greater than 50 billion dollars.

#14 It is estimated that rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost the U.S. economy approximately 80 billion dollars a year.

#15 It is being projected that by the year 2020 every single major container port in the United States will be handling at least double the volume that it was originally designed to handle.

#16 All across the United States, conditions at many of our state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long....

More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.

#17 Today, the U.S. spends about 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Meanwhile, China spends about 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 16 percent of our construction workers are unemployed.

#19 China has plans to build 55,000 miles of highways by the year 2020. If all of those roads were put end to end, it would be longer than the total length of the entire U.S. interstate system.

#20 The World Economic Forum ranks U.S. infrastructure 23rd in the world, and we fall a little bit farther behind the rest of the developed world every single day.

#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure. That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

So where did we go wrong?

Well, one of the big problems is that we have become a very materialistic society that is obsessed with short-term thinking. Investing in infrastructure is something that has long-term benefits, but these days Americans tend to only be focused on what is happening right now and most politicians are only focused on the next election cycle.

Another major problem is that there is so much corruption and waste in our system these days. The government certainly spends more than enough money, but very little of that money is spent wisely. A lot of the money that could be going toward rebuilding our infrastructure is being poured down the toilet instead. For much more on this, please read my previous article entitled "16 Sickening Facts That Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Workers Are Living The High Life At Your Expense".

Unfortunately, it is probably appropriate that our infrastructure is decaying because we are decaying in just about every other way that it is possible for a society to decay.

We are decaying economically, politically, mentally, emotionally, physically, morally and spiritually.

We do not have the money that we need for infrastructure because of all the debt that we have piled up. The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are all struggling to stay afloat in an ocean of red ink, and unfortunately that means that spending on infrastructure is likely to be cut even more in the years ahead.

So get used to rotting, crumbling, decaying infrastructure. What you see out there right now is only just the beginning.

[BARNEYII]

Reality Check wrote:

<quoted text>
So now your mad that Romney is not taking as many deductions as he LEGALLY could meaning he's paying more in taxes each year aka "his fair share". Based on the liberal left's argument, you should be applauding Mr. Romney. Maybe you're mad that he didn't give his donations to the welfare fund. Instead Romney choose to give his charitable donations to BYU or the charity of his choice and that doesn't sit well with you. You should also tell Warren Buffet that he should do the same since he is so mad that he pays a lower percentage than his secretary but seems to think he is powerless to do anything about it. With liberals, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. You liberals simply can't be pleased.

LOL, what would I have to be, "mad about", not a thing.

REMEMBRER THIS ROMNEY QUOTE?

"I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president. I'd think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires."

Hell, I agree with him.

[Old Army]

Barney, you need to accept the fact that Romney and Obama are rich and you aint. Quit being jealous of success.