Society Is Becoming Dependent on the Government to Care for Them

"If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth programme, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism or, more accurately, socialism is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite." - Gary Allen, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Concord Press, 1971

"Freedom and initiative are being replaced by ever higher taxation, regulation and centralization of power in Washington. Our economy is now stagnant and our standard of living is declining. Each year government takes a bigger share of our earnings, employs more and more of our people, enacts more rules that strangle our economy, and controls more and more of our lives. In the enjoyment of plenty, have Americans lost the memory of freedom? When citizens are willing to sacrifice their liberty for security, they will have neither liberty nor security and will soon find themselves living under tyranny." - Ellen Sauerbrey, The Spark That Has Triggered Rebellion, American Thinker, September 13, 2009

"Fiscal spending is running wild, and our president predicts a budget deficit of $9 trillion dollars over the next ten years. The Congressional Budget Office says spending has to be cut 8% permanently over the next several years. In July alone, federal spending rose 26%, as revenues fell 6%. Corporate tax receipts fell 58%, as individual revenues fell 21%. The official economic contraction is the worst since the great depression. Can you imagine what it really is? 9.4% unemployment is front-page news, but you didn’t hear about the 4.7% loss in salaries and wages of 4.7% for the 12 months ended in June. There are more government employees now than all those employed in manufacturing and construction. How is it that state employees now make 40% more than the average income in non-governmental jobs? What a perversion of government. It is no wonder that the US poverty rate is higher than in Mexico and Turkey." - Bob Chapman, Fairy Tales of Recovery, Reality of More Failures, The International Forecaster, September 3, 2009

Where Has the Future Gone?

By Paul Murdock, Campaign for Liberty
November 24, 2009

Political commentators and pundits in the media endlessly talk of recent developments such as universal health care, civilian trials for terrorists, and the horrors of the Afghanistan debacle. These commentators occasionally make valid points or express important views, but often fail to highlight the long-term implications of Congressional bills that truly alter history. This continues to be the case with the health care debate. Deliberations exploring the costs, payer systems, taxes, and death panels are important, but neglect the far more devastating impact this bill may have upon human behavior.

The study of human behavior and social influence are well known to editors, the media, and political hacks. The real Obama agenda is to influence Americans in such a way that society becomes dependent on the government to care for them. For health care, this means, pass anything, knowing that once it has passed, the dependency and complacency of American citizens will ensure it cannot be reversed. This has become Obama's prized political goal because this legislation will force future politicians to be more liberal, expand their voting base, increase government involvement, and negatively alter you medical liberty forever.

Introducing horrendous legislation to increase American dependency not only feeds into liberal ideology, but also expands the liberal voting base. For example, millions of Americans currently rely on Medicare, Social Security, and other government handouts for health care and economic support. In fact, many law firms specialize in, and occasionally exclusively practice, social security law.

Now, instead of striving to become doctors or business leaders, many of our youth have come to rely on and expect the government to care for them. Not only do they hear liberal propaganda on the news and in the classroom, millions have now witnessed and experienced it in their own homes. Cash for Clunkers, extended unemployment, and government bailouts constantly reinforce to Americans that Uncle Sam will pick up the bill.

Just as wild animals seek out the garbage of society, reinforced Americans citizens will increasingly seek out handouts from those who are productive. The end result is that only socially-orientated politicians are elected in the future. This pattern is destructive to human motivation and production, and destroys the work ethic and creativity of generations. Most importantly, it crushes individual liberty.

You will also notice that Obama has quietly slid into the shadows during the health care debate in Congress, except to promote "any" bill and meet with Democrats in the House for a special closed meeting. Although Obama may truly want a one-payer system, the true goal of his administration is to pass any health care bill that will survive the House and the Senate.

President Obama knows that once health care is expanded, no legislator in the future will be able to reverse this reckless program. Americans will become too complacent to object and eventually dependency will set in. Even President Clinton recently declared that no bill needs to be perfect, it just needs to be passed. In other words, the goal is not good legislation; it is to foster American dependency forever at the expense of American Liberty and economic freedom.

The examples of American dependency are becoming endless. Climate scientists rely on government handouts to push their global warming agenda, autoworkers rely on bailouts to pay for their retirements and health care, and parents rely on the Federal government to pay for their children's education. The more frequently the government pays for your car, the greater likelihood Americans will vote for increased bailouts and government support.

The same tactic is being used in global warming legislation. The goal is to pass any bill and then let American complacency ensure that government control survives forever.

Not only will America tax itself into economic poverty, but it will continue to foster dependency in the third world. Americans will become increasingly accustomed to government intervention until politicians control every aspect of your life.

If this sounds radical, a reading of the headlines in Europe and California should be alarming as the news talks of carbon credit cars, increased carbon taxes on gasoline, and mileage surcharges.

Global warming oils the wheels of the government machine as it expands it spokes into every facet of your life. It also expands the socialist voter base and dependency as the size and scope of government increases and provides additional jobs.

Many countries around the world have introduced vast social agendas and legislation. As a result, political parties in Canada and Europe are far more liberal than American. Because politicians have to manage the dependency and social welfare of their constituents, only liberal, socially-minded individuals are elected. As a result, true freedom and liberty in these nations is forever lost.

America continues to follow this same road to destruction. Despite being the leader in business innovation, economic prosperity, and health care, Americans are duped into accepting tyranny on a daily basis.

There are many good choices in this world. In an ideal setting, universal health care, world peace, and economic prosperity would be fantastic. The media and politicians constantly reinforce the moral belief that Americans should do the right thing for the poor. However, they forget that although caring for the poor is "good," there are better choices, and the best choice is to maintain our freedom. Liberty must be your first and only vote, for we have rarely regained a liberty in America that was once lost!

Copyright © 2009 Campaign for Liberty

Paul Murdock is currently a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Indiana State University. In addition to his academic studies, he is a writer, employee at a state psychiatric hospital, and is the co-founder of The Freemen Institute, a website dedicated to preserving the foundations of liberty.

Record Number of Americans on Public Dole

HotAir.com
August 30, 2010

For some, this will just prove how prescient Congress has been to create a vast network of social programs that combat poverty.

Others may wonder what the endgame looks like when one in six Americans now receive public subsidies through Medicaid, unemployment, or other welfare programs. That ratio is a new record, according to USA Today:

Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.

More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.

Think the Medicaid growth comes from the passage of ObamaCare in March? Think again. The expansion comes from the Great Recession and the loss of millions of jobs. The ObamaCare expansion will come on top of the additions to the enrollments over the last two years, and that has major implications for health care providers and customers alike:

The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. “Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,” saysDan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

Some of those 16 million to be added may be part of the expanded enrollment now, of course. However, even if the number left to be added is just half of the original 16 million estimate, it will drop like a bomb on provider networks. Medicaid already pays below Medicare in reimbursements, for instance, and far below private-sector health insurance. That’s why many providers won’t take Medicaid patients at all anymore, which pushes Medicaid patients into emergency rooms at a far higher pace than the uninsured. We can expect to see even greater pressure on clinics and hospitals as a result.

But even outside of ObamaCare, the sudden growth calls into question the sustainability of the welfare state in the US. Having one in six on some form of public subsistence perhaps underscores the real nature of unemployment and underemployment in the US, but voters have to also wonder at what point we can afford to keep going.

We already have entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare about to sink into a sea of red ink because the worker-to-beneficiary ratio has dropped too low for the programs to remain on their current trajectories. If every American has to support one-sixth of another outside of family through taxation, then either taxes will have to get hiked substantially or benefits and means tests have to be rethought.

Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of U.S. Wages

A government job or welfare. Both options looked like selling out the only thing I had left: my soul. Therefore I refused. - Margaret, Living The Dream: What Do You Own – Really?, EndoftheAmericanDream.com, June 5, 2010

CNBC
March 8, 2011

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.”

The economist gives the country two stark choices.

In order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26 percent of pay, “either wages and salaries would have to increase $2.3 trillion, or 35 percent, to $8.8 trillion, or social welfare benefits would have to decline $500 billion, or 23 percent, to $1.7 trillion,” she said.

Last month, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a $61 billion federal spending cut, but Senate Democratic leaders and the White House made it clear that had no chance of becoming law. Short-term resolutions passed have averted a government shutdown that could have occurred this month, as Vice President Biden leads negotiations with Republican leaders on some sort of long-term compromise.

“You’ve got to cut back government spending and the Republicans will run on this platform leading up to next year’s election,” said Joe Terranova, Chief Market Strategist for Virtus Investment Partners and a “Fast Money” trader.

But the country may not be ready for these tough choices, even though economists like Schnapp say something will have to be done to avoid a significant economic crisis.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week showed that less than a quarter of Americans supported making cuts to Social Security or Medicare in order to reign in the mounting budget deficit.

Those poll numbers may be skewed by a demographic shift the likes of which the nation has never seen. Only this year has the first round of baby boomers begun collecting Medicare benefits—and here comes 78 million more.

Social welfare benefits have increased by $514 billion over the last two years, according to TrimTabs figures, in part because of measures implemented to fight the financial crisis. Government spending normally takes on a larger part of the spending pie during economic calamities but how can the country change this make-up with the root of the crisis (housing) still on shaky ground, benchmark interest rates already cut to zero, and a demographic shift that calls for an increase in subsidies?

At the very least, we can take solace in the fact that we’re not quite at the state welfare levels of Europe. In the U.K., social welfare benefits make up 44 percent of wages and salaries, according to TrimTabs’ Schnapp.

“No matter how bad the situation is in the US, we stand far better on these issues (debt, demographics, entrepreneurship) than other countries,” said Steve Cortes of Veracruz Research. “On a relative basis, America remains the world leader and, as such, will also remain the world's reserve currency.”

Many Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax; Earnings, Credits Eliminate Liability

Associated Press
April 8, 2010

Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 and with two children younger than 17 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.

Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

The vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, as well as excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property.

That helps explain the country's aversion to taxes, said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert Deloitte Tax. He said many people simply look at the difference between their gross pay and their take-home pay and blame the government for the disparity.
The federal income tax is the government's largest source of revenue, raising more than $900 billion -- or a little less than half of all government receipts -- in the budget year that ended last Sept. 30.

But with deductions and credits, especially for families with children, there have long been people who don't pay it, mainly lower-income families.

The number of households that don't pay federal income taxes increased substantially in 2008, when the poor economy reduced incomes and Congress cut taxes in an attempt to help recovery.

In 2007, about 38 percent of households paid no federal income tax, a figure that jumped to 49 percent in 2008, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center.

Income tax rates were lowered at every income level, making it relatively easy for families of four making $50,000 to eliminate their income tax liability.

Here's how they did it, according to Deloitte Tax:

The family was entitled to a standard deduction of $11,400 and four personal exemptions of $3,650 apiece, leaving a taxable income of $24,000. The federal income tax on $24,000 is $2,769.

With two children under 17, the family qualified for two $1,000 child tax credits. Its Making Work Pay credit was $800 because the parents were married filing jointly.

The $2,800 in credits exceeds the $2,769 in taxes, so the family makes a $31 profit from the federal income tax.

41 Obama White House Aides Owe the IRS $831,000 in Back Taxes — and They're Not Alone

Los Angeles Times
September 10, 2010

Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't labor down in that monument-strewn former swamp.

Well, finally, an end to all those undocumented doubts. Thanks to some diligent digging by the Washington Post, those suspicions can at last be put to rest.

They're correct. Accurate. Dead-on. Laser-guided. On target. Bingo-bango. As clear as it's always seemed to those Americans who don't feel special entitlements and do meet their government obligations.

We now know that federal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

As in, 1,000 times one million dollars. All this political jabber about giving middle-class ... Americans a tax cut. Thousands of feds have been giving themselves one all along -- unofficially. And these tax scofflaws include more than three dozen folks who work for the president with that newly decorated Oval Office.

The Post's T.W. Farnum did some research and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes. As in, overdue. The IRS gets stiffed by the legislative body that controls its budget. How Washington works.

Now, back taxes have been a problem for the Obama-Biden administration. You may recall early on that Tom Daschle was the president's top pick to run the Health and Human Services Department. But it turned out the former Democratic senator, who was un-elected from South Dakota in 2004, owed something like $120,000 to the IRS for things from his subsequent benefactor that he just forgot to pay taxes on. You know how that is. $120G's here or there. So he dropped out.

And then we learned this guy Timothy Geithner owed something like $42,000 in back taxes and penalties to the IRS, which is one of the agencies that he'd be in charge of as secretary of the Treasury. The fine fellow who's supposed to know about handling everyone else's money. In the end this was excused by Washington's bipartisan CYA culture as one of those inadvertent accidental oversights that somehow never seem to happen on the side of paying too much taxes.

And under Geithner's expert guidance the U.S. economy has been, well, wow! Just look at it.

Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquents' names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes. That would cover a lot of special chocolate desserts in the White House Mess.

• In the House of Representatives, 421 people owe a total $6,524,892.
• In the Senate, 217 owe $2,774,836.
• In the IRS' parent department, Treasury, 1,204 owe $7,670,814.
• At the Labor Department, where Secretary Hilda Solis' husband had some back-tax problems before her confirmation, 463 owe $7,481,463.
• Eighty-one workers for the Federal Reserve System's board of governors owe $1,076,733.
• Over at the Justice Department, which is so busy enforcing other laws and suing Arizona, 1,971 employees still owe $14,350,152 in overdue taxes.

Then, we come to the Department of Homeland Security, which is run by Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who preferred to call terrorist acts "man-caused disasters." Homeland Security is keeping all of us safe by ensuring that a Dutch tourist is aboard every inbound international flight to thwart any would-be bomber with explosives in his underpants.

Within that department, there reside 4,856 people who owe the tax agency a whopping total of $37,012,174.

And they're checking our pockets for metal and coins?

Federal Workers Owe $3 Billion in Back Taxes?

OCRegister.com
June 15, 2010

Employees of the federal government apparently are a little behind in paying their taxes — like $3 billion worth, according to Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

Coburn listed collection of these unpaid taxes among 20 measures in his proposed amendment to the so-called tax extenders bill (HR 4213). A 2008 IRS report showed that 276,300 federal employees owed $3.042 billion as of September of that year.

The senator believes the projected $126 million in savings could cover the cost of the legislation without having to increase taxes.

The tax extenders bill is being watched closely by those who are out of work because it also would provide extended unemployment benefits through the end of November for people more recently laid off.

A previous bill that allowed the unemployed to move into the next of four tiers of jobless benefits or FedEd aid expired June 2. California officials estimate thousands of people in this state alone have been cut off from unemployment benefits since the legislation lapsed.

The tax extenders bill is a grab bag of legislation that would, among other things, continue a series of tax breaks for small business to create jobs and keep jobless payments going for the unemployed.

Last month the House approved a stripped-down version of the original bill after deleting a continued subsidy for COBRA health insurance premiums for the unemployed and cutting back Medicaid to states.

It immediately ran into problems in the Senate. While some are pushing to add back benefits that were cut, others are objecting to tax increases for wealthy fund managers. And how to cover the cost of whatever is agreed on continues to be the subject of debate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., submitted a motion Monday to end debate on the bill, according to The Hill. A vote on the bill itself could occur later this week.

Here are some of the ways Coburn wants to save money on the bill without tax increases:

• A one-time reduction in the budgets of members of Congress: $100 million
• Enacting the White House's one-time proposed 5% cut on government spending: $22 billion
• Eliminating over 10 years non-essential government travel: $10 billion
• One-year freeze on federal employees' salaries: $2.6 billion
• Rescinding unspent federal funds: $50 billion

Tax Scam Uncle Sam? You Oughta Be Fired! Says Utah Rep. Chaffetz

ABC News
March 18, 2010

Working for Uncle Sam comes with some great perks, like job stability, posh benefits packages, and in many cases, average salaries that are higher than what the same job pays in the private sector.

That's why Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, is irked that nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees owe the IRS $962 million in back taxes. He thinks they should pay up or be fired.

Chaffetz has introduced a bill that calls for the federal government to "ferret out" civilian employees who have "seriously delinquent tax debt" and prevent the hiring of other tax delinquents.

More than 3 percent of the 2.8 million federal civilian employees owed the Treasury unpaid federal income taxes in 2008, according to the IRS. If you include retirees and military service members, the numbers go from nearly 100,000 up to 276,000 current or former workers who owe $3 billion in taxes.

"If you get to the point where the government is putting a lien on their property and they've exhausted their appeals… the right thing to do is fire them as a federal worker," said Chaffetz. "If you're going to take federal tax dollars, you should be paying your federal taxes."

Currently, only IRS employees can be terminated for non-payment of federal income taxes -- a measure Chaffetz wants extended to all federal agencies. The IRS has the lowest level of tax delinquency among its employees than at any other federal agencies, according to the most recent statistics.

But skeptics of Chaffetz's plan argue firing the delinquents en masse circumvents due process and could only hamper efforts to recoup the cash.

Firing federal employees as soon as a lien is imposed by the IRS would be "prior to any due process hearing," said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce.

"We have a system that's in place. For a federal employee, we have the [IRS] garnish their pay at 15 percent -- which is higher than for the regular taxpayer," he said. "We're getting the money back."

Wade Morrow, assistant general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union, said workers should be held to account for back taxes but that Chaffetz's rule would not accommodate the complexities of individual cases.

"There may be other facts and circumstances that you should consider," he said, adding that some individuals may have become delinquent due to sickness or divorce complications or due to a mistake in tax filings.

Morrow also said the most serious offenders could face termination under existing guidelines if the tax delinquencies interfere with their jobs.

"Getting them to pay back what they owe is preferable to having them all fired, in which case you're not going to get anything at all," said Morrow.

Chaffetz: Firing Federal Employee Tax Delinquents Aligns With Obama in Principle

Chaffetz conceded the terminations would probably make it harder for the individuals to pay their tax bills and said employees appealing to the IRS or "making a good faith effort" to repay them should be spared.

But he said a broad purge of tax delinquents is still justified and consistent with a principle laid out by President Obama for contractors employed by the federal government.

Earlier this year, Obama ordered federal agencies to terminate contracts with companies who don't pay federal taxes.

"It's simply wrong for companies to take taxpayer dollars and not be taxpayers themselves," the president said Jan. 20. "We need to insist on the same sense of responsibility in Washington that so many of you strive to uphold in your own lives, in your own families and in your own businesses."

Democrats in both the House and the Senate have introduced legislation codifying new rules for federal contractors who don't pay their taxes. Chaffetz is the first and only Republican so far to co-sponsor the House version.

"I think the president's right in the case [of companies] and now I'd like it expanded to federal workers as well," he said. "If you're going to take federal tax dollars, you should be paying your federal taxes."

The bill is currently under consideration by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Federal Employees Routinely Make Six Figure Salaries

Average pay $30,000 over private sector

USA TODAY
December 11, 2009

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

"There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee.

Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.

USA TODAY analyzed the Office of Personnel Management's database that tracks salaries of more than 2 million federal workers. Excluded from OPM's data: the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel.

The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

Key reasons for the boom in six-figure salaries:

• Pay hikes. Then-president Bush recommended — and Congress approved — across-the-board raises of 3% in January 2008 and 3.9% in January 2009. President Obama has recommended 2% pay raises in January 2010, the smallest since 1975. Most federal workers also get longevity pay hikes — called steps — that average 1.5% per year.


• New pay system. Congress created a new National Security Personnel System for the Defense Department to reward merit, in addition to the across-the-board increases. The merit raises, which started in January 2008, were larger than expected and rewarded high-ranking employees. In October, Congress voted to end the new pay scale by 2012.


• Pay caps eased. Many top civil servants are prohibited from making more than an agency's leader. But if Congress lifts the boss' salary, others get raises, too. When the Federal Aviation Administration chief's salary rose, nearly 1,700 employees' had their salaries lifted above $170,000, too.

In Obama's America, You'll All Work for the Government

Jewish World Review Commentary
January 31, 2010

... Does even Obama listen to Obama's speeches?

The public does — at least to this extent: They understand that, when he's attacking the tired old Washington games, he's just playing the tired old Washington games. But, when he's proposing the tired old Washington solutions, he means it; that's the real Obama, the only Obama on offer. And everything the president proposes means more debt, which, at the level this guy's spending, means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.

Functioning societies depend on agreed rules. If you want to open a business, you do it in Singapore or Ireland, because the rules are known to all parties. You don't go to Sudan or Zimbabwe, where the rules are whatever the state's whims happen to be that morning.

That's why Obama is such a job-killer. Why would a small business take on a new employee? The president's proposing a soak-the-banks tax that could impact your access to credit. The House has passed a cap-and-trade bill that could impose potentially unlimited regulatory costs. The Senate is in favor of "health" "care" "reform" that will allow the IRS to seize your assets if you and your employees' health arrangements do not meet the approval of the federal government.

Some of these things will pass into law, some of them won't. But all of them send a consistent, cumulative message: that there are no rules, that they're being made up as they go along — and that some of them might even be retroactive, as happened this week with Oregon's new corporate tax.

In such an environment, would you hire anyone? Or would you hunker down and sit things out? Obama can bury it in half a ton of leaden telepromptered sludge but the world has got the message: More Washington, more microregulation of every aspect of your life, more multi-trillion-dollar spending, and no agreed rules in a game ever more rigged against you.

Obama and the Democrats have decided, in the current cliche, to "double down." That hardly does justice to what the president's doing. In effect, he's told embattled congressmen and senators to strap on the old suicide-bomber belt and self-detonate for the team this November. That's a lot of virgins to pass out, but, with this administration, budget restraints aren't exactly a problem: Untold pleasures will await every sacrificial incumbent in paradise, or at any rate the coming liberal utopia.

What's the end game here? President Obama gave it away in his student-loan "reform" proposals: If you choose to go into "public service," any college-loan debts will be forgiven after 10 years.

Because "public service" is more noble than the selfish, money-grubbing private sector. C'mon, everybody knows that. So we need to encourage more people to go into "public service."

Why?

In the past 60 years, the size of America's state and local workforce has increased five times faster than the general population. But the president says it's still not enough: We have to incentivize even further the diversion of our human capital into the government machine.

Like most lifelong politicians, Barack Obama has never created, manufactured or marketed any product other than himself. So, quite reasonably, he sees government dependency as the natural order of things.

And in his college-loan plan he's explicitly telling you: If you start a business, invent something, provide a service, you're a schmuck and a loser. In the America he's building, you'll be working 24/7 till you drop dead to fund an ever-swollen bureaucracy that takes six weeks off a year and retires at 53 on a pension you could never dream of. Obama's proposals are bold only insofar as few men would offer such a transparent guarantee of disaster: It's the audacity of hopelessness.

In Massachusetts, enough voters got the message. And the more speeches this one-note politician inflicts on the nation, the louder they'll hear it.

US citizens continue to live in welfare quagmire
Government aid a hard habit to break
America Looking Like a Developing Nation as 30% of Americans Rapidly Approach Poverty
Largest-ever Federal Payroll to Hit 2.15 Million
A Growing Share of Americans’ Income Comes from the Government
Recession Chugs on, Except in Government
More Young People Lining Up for Government Jobs
60 Percent of the Population Now Gets More in Government Benefits Than It Pays in Taxes
Accounting for What Families Pay in Taxes and What They Receive in Government Spending
Government to Account for More Than Half of Healthcare Spending
The Federal Government is the Nation's Largest Employer

Updated 2/11/10 (Newest Additions at End of List)