Tax day is often marked by many political events objecting to our nation’s tax policies.  This year will be no different, as tea party groups and advocates for tax reform will be out in full force across the country.

Americans are upset with Washington, and it is easy to see why. Government dependency and spending is up, while nearly half the households in America (47%) will pay no federal income taxes this year. Meanwhile, Gallup reported this week that 63 percent of Americans believe their taxes will increase in the next 12 months. Private sector jobs are increasingly difficult to obtain, and special interest groups control the agenda on Capitol Hill.

Many wrongly claim that only the “rich” are affected by high tax rates.  In reality, the average American worker surrenders 27 percent of his earnings to federal, state and local governments, meaning the average American gives three months of his annual earnings to government.

Despite this high percentage, liberals in Congress want to take even more money out of the pockets of American workers by pursuing an agenda that increases taxes to pay for the policies being handed down by Nancy Pelosi and signed by Barack Obama. Liberals in Washington are spending the federal government into a record deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars this year alone.

America cannot continue down the current path because our spending levels are unsustainable. Spending needs to be cut and our method of taxation needs to be changed.

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Despite efforts by some weak sisters like Sen. “Bailout” Bob Corker (R-TN) to cut a deal with “Countrywide” Chris Dodd (D-CT) on legislation to create a Blank Check Bailout Bill and lots of loud speculation from Senate Democrats about peeling off a Republican, Senate Republicans are currently holding firm against intimidation tactics to ram the bill through the Senate a la Health Care Reform.

Sources on Capitol Hill report that Sen. Shelby recently briefed Senate Republicans about the bill and got unanimous support for his efforts to block the Democrats latest government takeover scheme.  Unanimous support means that even the Senators from Maine — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are holding the line against future bailouts despite ongoing White House efforts to jam the bill. According to our sources, Collins even went so far as to make an explicit commitment to Shelby to oppose the bill saying she has many problems with it.

And with good reason too. As readers recall, the so-called “Financial Reform” legislation contains a number of key provisions – none of them good–that creates more bureaucracies, more fees and taxes, more Washington red tape and makes bailouts the permanent policy of the US Government.  But while offering permanent bailouts and a government takeover of the rest of our economy the legislation of course does nothing to address the root causes of the crisis including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the consumer lending laws that pushed mortgages to people who could never afford to pay them back.

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Recently, a particularly bone-headed leftist threw up a website, recruiting fellow dunderheads to “crash” the tea parties. To be honest, I initially assumed it was a clever black-bag operation by someone affiliated with tea parties. The media is snipe-hunting for any shred of evidence that ‘tea partiers’ are the racist, homophobic rubes they just know they have to be.  Nestled snuggly on their coastlines, it is impossible for them to understand that people “out there” in the rest of the country might not be thrilled about losing their rights, freedoms and hard-earned wages. A site that advertises it will plant these messages at rallies was the ultimate protection against the media’s lies.

But, no, it turns out the “crash” effort was a straight-up and highly public effort by a leftist to fake racist and homophobic smears among tea partiers. I always knew the left had a certain degree of incompetence, I just didn’t realize they had Apple-Dumpling-Gang levels of stupidity.

So, today, tonight and in the coming months, tea party patriots may find some uninvited guests at their events. Thanks to the efforts of the great JS, we here at Big Government want to provide you with the only resource you need to deal with the latest leftist silliness.

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On the issues that matter most, the president is always somewhere else.

Exhibit A)  For most Americans, the economy is the most pressing issue.  We just got last week’s jobs report, and it wasn’t good.  For the second week in a row, first-time jobless claims spiked.  The unemployment situation is getting worse, not better.  Home foreclosures have also just reached record highs.  And where has Obama been?  Focused on health care.

Exhibit B)  While Iran is working at breakneck speed on a nuclear weapon and is defiantly telling the U.S. where to go, Obama has been dusting off old Cold War treaties with Russia and holding meaningless nuclear summits to secure Canadian and Chilean nuclear material.  To recap:  Iran is over here, developing a nuke.  And Obama is over there, clinking glasses with the
Canadian prime minister.

Exhibit C)  Today is April 15th, the most dreaded day of the year.  Tax Day. If you are two seconds late with your tax return, the IRS begins compiling interest on what you may owe.  (Of course, many states are broke and handing out IOUs instead of tax refunds.  Try giving the IOU to the barista at Starbucks for that latte.)  Of course, nearly 50% of the American people pay
no federal income tax at all, so for them today is just another Thursday.

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“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society,” said legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As students of Buck v. Bell could tell you, Holmes had a habit of being monstrously wrong, but if he’s right about taxes and civilization, it’s certainly worth asking whether we’re getting what we pay for.

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As we watch Obama govern, we don’t need to look far to find where he learned Chicago-style politics. One of his professors was Alderman Edward M. Burke, boss of the Chicago City Council.

After Alderman Fred Roti was convicted on 2 RICO, 5 bribery and 4 extortion charges, the Outfit lost much of its leverage over city business. Over time, Burke stepped into the void and centralized legislative power in his own office.

As chair of the Finance Committee, Burke gained control over the purse strings, and the City of Chicago carries a big purse. The Chicago Sun-Times reported:

When city workers get hurt on the job, they usually turn to a handful of lawyers tied to City Hall. And the city often fights back by hiring lawyers with ties to Ald. Edward M. Burke, chairman of the City Council Finance Committee, which has sole authority to settle workers compensation claims against the city. Injured city workers most often turn to Frederic Krol Sr., who went to prison for five months in the 1960s for bribing a federal prosecutor and temporarily surrendered his law license. The city has paid more than $65 million to settle 3,750 workers comp cases Krol has filed since 1980, records show.

Burke had familial influence over the restructuring of Chicago’s judicial system in the wake of Operation Gambat. Here’s how.

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It was common knowledge that SEIU and ACORN were of the same tree prior to the James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles coast-to-coast video sting.  At ACORNcracked.com, I chronicled nearly two dozen SEIU contributions to ACORN in just a few years.

In 2009, SEIU gave to a variety of ACORN affiliates both before and after the sting videos began to be released.  Consider these:

The last one, Citizens Services Inc, is particularly interesting, given that CSI was the entity Obama for America also hired for campaign work, as Michelle Malkin pointed out.

SEIU 1199, the largest local affiliate of the national union (and former employer of White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard), gave a whopping $550,000 to the Working Families Party in 2009.  WFP was co-founded by ACORN.

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According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, it’s not happening. The Hill reports

“Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes—in 2019 alone—due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper.

The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.

Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be able to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.

Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.”

Here is more, as if this wasn’t enough. Over at the Washington Examiner Marie Grace Turner gives a list of the new taxes brought to you by “Obamacare.”

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Jack A. Neal posted this photo and comment on Bobby Jindal’s Facebook page tonight: Hi folks. I was in New Orleans this past Friday night. I was dining within a half block of where the incident involving Allee Butsch happened. I joined this group so that I might share the info, as well as a photo I took. More to come…
Via The Hayride.

Allee Butsch suffered a broken leg from the beatdown outside to the SRLC dinner at Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans. She had her leg operated on over the weekend and it will take her months to recover. Her boyfriend Joe Brown suffered a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a concussion. They were attacked after leaving the Southern Republican Leadership Conference dinner at Brennan’s Restaurant.

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On April 15th, it is always a worthy enterprise to reflect on one of the major motivations of the American Patriots that caused them to break away from England. Of course, I am referring to “Taxation Without Representation.” Today, we know from the Tea Parties multiplying around the Country that Gerald Berzan is quite to say right that “Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.” Perhaps that is why Douglas Adams declared that he was “spending a year dead for tax reasons.”

In that lively spirit, I give you my Top 10 Anti-Taxation Quotes with my annotations:

No. 10.

“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin. It is hard to start anywhere else. The little known full quote is “Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” The Founders, who framed a Constitution to protect us from government, did not dare consider an income tax. Franklin obviously did not trust future politicians.

No. 9.

“I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.” Milton Friedman. The 1st of two Friedman quotes in this countdown brings up the question: Why the Republican Party is (or should be) so anti-tax? Franklin obviously warned us. Friedman accepted his warning and knew that unless we fought them at every turn, taxes would be more than inevitable.

No. 8.

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” Legendary Judge Learned Hand. I guess it turns out Joe Biden was wrong?

No. 7.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The first of John Marshall’s 2 quotes in the countdown: Simply stated, but sadly not well understood: that maxim also applies to income as well – which is why higher rates result in less tax revenue. Later Alan Greenspan would say that “Whatever you tax, you get less of.” It REALLY is that simple – if only our politicans would learn that lesson.

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Today is the deadline to file your federal taxes. Unfortunately, election day is seven months away. Enough said.

For decades abortion supporters argued that restrictions on abortion would cause women to die in unsafe “back alley abortions” all across the land. This scare tactic was a mantra that seemed to work quite well to spread abortions throughout the states and helped spur the Supreme Court to penumbra its way to a pseudo Constitutional “right” for abortions. But the main thrust of the tactic was ostensibly warning about unsafe medical procedures, a situation that they wanted to change. Flash forward to 2010 and we see President Barack Obama and his Democrats about to send not just abortions, but our entire medial system into a veritable “back alley” situation with a shortage of doctors, rationing, denials of service, and outrageously high insurance premiums.

And now we can add a new twist to the dangerous situation that Obama is forcing on patients in the U.S. The Associated Press reports that 28 states are already seeing a shortage of primary care physicians, a dearth of doctors that will only get worse with Obamacare, and these states are looking toward expanding the medical responsibilities of nurses to cover the shortage.

So, what we see here is a situation where less qualified practitioners will see their roles expanding in the era of Obamacare! Healthcare practitioners with less training and experience are being given more responsibilities in our healthcare system even as Obama claimed that his goal was to improve our nation’s healthcare.

This news comes out on the very same day that a Massachusetts judge ruled that the not-for-profit insurance industry in the Bay State is not allowed to raise its premiums to cover rising expenses.

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I first met David Saucedo last October in Waco, Texas.  I was impressed.  He was a young Christian construction worker who spent his free time counseling inner city youth.  After tough days of framing and pouring concrete, he went door to door pounding into these kids that if they got an education and worked hard enough, anything was possible.

This is America.

David Saucedo is also a heck of a rapper. His rapper moniker is Politik. The kids dig his music.

I was happy for him when the Tea Party Express decided to feature him on their Tea Party Express: Just Vote Them Out Tour.

Oh by the way, David Saucedo is of Hispanic background. His skin is brown. According to the progressive elitist and mainstream media mantra, Dave doesn’t exist.

He doesn’t exist because they profess that the Tea Party Movement is only made up of white guys and angry racist extremists.

Is there anger in the Tea Party movement? You betcha! People are pissed because every time they call for limited government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and integrity in leadership: they are called racists.

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In a follow-up to my story this morning and my ongoing series about the CIA’s viscous war on the Department of Defense, the Washington Post is reporting that the CIA’s Deputy Director, Steven Kappes will “retire.”

While I have been adverse to mentioning Kappes by name, when I was informed last night that the CIA had leaked to the New York Times the names of Americans covertly providing Force Protection to our troops in Afghanistan and that the Times was going to run with those names, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

As the Agency has blindly followed what has become known as the “Kappes Doctrine” it has made mistake after mistake after mistake; all underscored by the horrible F.O.B. Chapman attack, one of its most deadly.  Something tells me that there won’t be anyone baking any cakes for Mr. Kappes’ sendoff.

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Written and Directed by David Nussbaum

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A study released Monday by economists from George Mason University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Virginia said that the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed telecommunications regulation known as net neutrality would limit further broadband investments and innovation and substantively curtail consumer welfare.

“While there is no evidence of systemic market failures that might be remedied or ameliorated by the proposed rules,” the study read, “there is substantial basis for believing that the proposed regulations would harm competition, slow innovation, and reduce consumer welfare.”

Specifically, the study maintains that many of those practices that would be banned by the new regulations generally benefit consumers and foster competition and that the FCC’s existing framework is sufficient for the Commission to adjudicate traffic disputes and the like.

“Regulation can improve economic welfare only in the face of market imperfections, such as market power, externalities, or information asymmetries,” the study read. “While the markets at issue in this proceeding are characterized by product differentiation, high fixed costs and other deviations from the textbook model of ‘perfect competition,’ the evidence provides no support for the existence of market failure sufficient to warrant ex ante regulation of the type proposed by the Commission.”

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Remember the summer of 2009, when the Obama administration tried to push through a cap and trade bill?  It passed the U.S. House, and it’s been sitting in the U.S. Senate ever since, where I expect it will stay.   In short, it failed to pass muster with federal leaders who perhaps recognized that its passage would be both detrimental to our limping economy and to their political futures if they supported it.

Fast forward to 2010.   New Mexico has decided to go it alone and unilaterally pass its own Cap and Trade program, making it the only state in the country to ignore the federal decision on this issue.  More specifically, NM Governor Bill Richardson and his lame-duck administration have decided to use administrative process alone to force through Cap and Trade, and even bypass our state legislature.

This is the second time the Richardson administration has ignored the legislative process to force through rules that cripple our state’s energy industries.  I’ve decided to do something about it.

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A few weeks ago, Democratic strategist Robert Creamer was repeating the widely-circulated slanders about the Tea Party: “Is there any wonder that they spit at members of Congress as they went to vote, or that they hurl racial insults that are dredged up from the worst parts of America’s past,” he wrote in his column at the Huffington Post.

Today, Creamer is full of praise for the Tea Party movement–with nary an accusation of racism or violence in sight. “Tea Party activists don’t much trust big institutions of any sort–big government or big banks. They think of themselves as victims of the bureaucrats in Washington as well as the big banks in New York,” he writes.

What seems to have changed Creamer’s mind is the realization that more and more Americans sympathize with the Tea Party’s simple goals–which, in my understanding at least, are to protect and to expand freedom and opportunity for all Americans by restoring our constitutional values and limiting the size and reach of government.

Creamer seems to believe that the Tea Party can be turned against “traditional Republican defenders of Wall Street.” Some of Wall Street’s most devoted patrons are Democrats, but never mind. Creamer seems to envision a sort of proletarian unity, in which ordinary people can be whipped up in anger against their perceived oppressors.

I think Creamer has the Tea Party wrong, in that its members are not hostile to the free market ideals that built America.

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The video vault has now provided us another glimpse into the fever swamp occupied by President Obama’s moonbat science czar John Holdren. Holdren of course is the man brought in to put a scientific imprimatur on the Left’s latest excuse for much of its economic agenda, wrapped as it is in the cloak of averting environmental crisis.

First, the merely good news arising from Holdren’s odious openness: it floated to the surface just in time for my new book coming out Monday (but available for pre-order now, before today’s ’s Ways and Means Committee “green jobs” hearing causes a run on them! Really.). In these pages Holdren, Carol Browner and a few others receive close inspection, particularly in Chapter 3 “Van Jones Was No Accident: Obama’s Radicals” (also relevant to this discussion is Chapter 6, “Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’”).

More on all of that, including some pretty startling internal documents, in a few days.

Now for the even better news. As detailed in “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America“, Holdren is a longtime global-cooling-then-warming alarmist who’s also on record advocating the constitutionality of sterilizing the public through the drinking water supply to address the “population crisis” when it reaches the point that his kind believe is just  too much to bear.

As is also detailed, he and his ilk like to see (and shriek) crisis pretty much everywhere they look, and transparently as an excuse for their real obsession with massive government usurpations of individual liberties — or, ahem, Power Grabs. So to them that point where statist seizures are urgently required is always right…about…nnnow.

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