A Failed Congress
By Alan
Caruba
*****************
This is for all
those who voted to reelect Obama or those who stayed home on Election Day
2012 because they found Republican candidates who talked about unemployment and the need
for more jobs unappealing.
The blame
falls on the Democratic Party that controls the Senate and the White House. The
blame falls on the Republican Party that needs to grow a new backbone instead
of looking for ways to compromise with an administration bent on the
destruction of the nation.
What
awaits Americans in 2013 is the largest tax increase in the history of the
nation and it is not because the Republicans in the House of Representatives
did not propose and pass one plan after another to avoid it.
What
awaits
Americans in 2013 is the result of the failure and refusal of Congress
to reform a huge and horrible tax code that even Certified Public
Accountants and IRS bureaucrats
cannot fathom and, unless an alternative minimum tax "fix" is quickly
approved, the IRS has notified Congress that up to 100 million
taxpayers will have to wait to file while it overhauls its computers.
Failing to
act on the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowes Commission to reduce government
spending, reform the tax code, and save the “entitlement” programs, and ignored by the President, resulted in a “sequestration”
program of automatic, draconian reductions that will cut the defense budget at
a time when it is our primary deterrent to attacks on the homeland and the protection of our interests
around the world.
Across the board cuts will impact all aspects of life in
America; reductions in government spending that should have been introduced in a sensible, reasoned manner.
Remember
George W. Bush who Obama insisted was to blame for the economy he “inherited”?
The roll-back of the Bush-era tax cuts will impose increased taxes on families
making between $50,000 and $75,000 that are estimated to take $2,400 from them
according to one non-partisan study.
Investment taxes will increase as well.
The
capital gains rate will increase from 15% to 20% for investors.
Dividends would be taxed like regular income, affecting decisions to
purchase stocks that aid the growth and expansion of corporations large
and small.
An estate tax will impact families seeking to pass on their properties and
savings to the next generation.
The
Congressional Budget Office predicts the nation could lose 3.4 million jobs in
2013. Meanwhile, jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed are set to
expire next year. The maximum 73 weeks in state and federal benefits will fall
to 26 weeks, affecting two million jobless Americans now receiving them.
The U.S.
has functioned without a budget for the past three years and one that was
submitted by the President was soundly rejected by Congress.
Millions
of Americans who saved for retirement and those on fixed incomes will suffer as
these tax increases occur.
Millions of employers will put their workers on a
“part-time” status to avoid Obamacare mandates, reducing their income.
Obamacare was judged to be a tax by a Supreme
Court that failed to give weight to the requirement that Americans must now
purchase health insurance whether they want to or need to. This directly
contravenes the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Some twenty states have
refused to set up the insurance “exchanges” required by the law. Others
struggle under the current Medicaid mandates.
This is
misfeasance—the improper and unlawful execution of an act that in itself is
lawful—by a Congress charged with the governance of the nation.
Politics
has always been understood as reasoned compromise between those elected to office, but
as we have seen in the weeks leading up to the so-called “fiscal cliff”, the
President has refused to negotiate in good faith or to compromise. No doubt he
plans to blame the Republicans for the ills of the nation.
As a
result, Americans will keep or spend less of their earnings and millions more will be
thrown into unemployment.
Most are
unaware of these realities. While all this occurs, the nation’s debt of $16
trillion continues to grow in a nation whose Gross Domestic Product—the
earnings from all its goods and services—stands around $14 trillion. This is
unsustainable and it threatens the future of the nation whose credit rating is
likely to be reduced.
It is a
perfect storm.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
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