Dismantling America

Thomas Sowell : Dismantling America - Townhall.com

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.

Sunday Funnies - from Australia I like their perspective & observations!

HUMOR FROM BEYOND THE U.S. BORDER - COMPLIMENTS OF THAT GREAT LAND DOWN UNDER ...

A very clear explanation of the VAT: It's a NEW TAX to Finance Much Bigger Government

CLICK THE VIDEO BELOW --

Health Bill Includes $507 Billion in New Taxes and Fees

Finance Committee Health Bill Includes $507 Billion in New Taxes and Fees
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By Matt Cover
http://ow.ly/ugCn
MP3 http://ow.ly/ugGc


In this Sept. 29, 2009 file photo, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nev., right, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., left, and newly-named Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, center, listen. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
(CNSNews.com) – The health-care bill that the Senate Finance Committee will vote on today will cost a total of $829 billion over 10 years, with $507 billion of that cost being covered by new federal taxes and fees, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

On Oct. 7, the CBO released a report on the budget impact of the “chairman’s mark” summary of the bill that the Finance Committee is set to vote on today. Based on the document it was given, the CBO found that the bill would reduce the federal budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. That estimate was based on the calculation that, if enacted, the bill would bring in $480 billion in new tax revenues and $27 billion in fees.

These new taxes and fees include:

-- $201 billion in new taxes on high-premium health care plans.

-- $83 billion in new taxes paid by workers who will receive less employer-sponsored coverage or lose that coverage altogether but will be compensated with higher wages or monetary benefits, which are taxable.

-- $23 billion in penalty fees paid by employers who do not comply with the federal insurance mandate.

-- $4 billion in penalty fees paid by individuals who don’t have health insurance.

-- $16 billion in new income and Medicare payroll tax revenue due to changes in Medicare.

-- $180 billion in other tax revenues items calculated by the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

According to the JCT, this $180 billion in new taxes would include: A new tax on prescription drug makers that would account for $22.2 billion over 10 years; a new tax on medical device manufacturers that would bring in $38.6 billion; and a new annual tax on insurance companies would net the government $60.4 billion.

Also, a provision that raises the threshold at which medical expenses become tax deductible, from 7.5 percent of income to 10 percent of income, would reportedly yield the government $15.2 billion in new revenue from sick and disabled Americans with high out-of-pocket medical costs.

It would also include $5.4 billion derived from changing the definition of a deductible medical expense for health savings accounts; $14.6 billion from limiting to $2,500 the tax-deductible amount in flexible spending arrangements between employers and employees; $17.1 billion in revenue from expanded requirements (and potential penalties) on corporate reporting of taxable payments to other parties; and $5.4 billion from sponsors of Medicare Part D plans who are no longer able to deduct subsidies paid by the government to those plans.

The overall bill would cost $829 billion, according to the CBO, the cost of which apparently would be covered by a combination of savings, taxes, and penalties. The CBO said that the Baucus bill (currently in summary form, not final legislative language) would probably achieve $404 billion in spending cuts and other savings, largely through cuts to Medicare payments to physicians and to the Medicare Advantage insurance programs. The costs would come primarily from generous federal health insurance subsidies and entitlement expansions.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix Arizona Interview on CNN

Notice how the reporter cannot accept the FACT from the sheriff, that 20% of those in prison in Maricopa County (Phoenix AZ) are here illegally.

BIG names LEAVING the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

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