Warning: The IRS May Be Hazardous To Your Health

The dialogue that follows is from a poignant moment during the 1981 comedy classic, "Arthur" where Linda (played by Liza Minelli) converses with Arthur's butler, Hobson (played by Sir John Gielgud).

Linda Marolla:  That sounds bad, have you seen a doctor?

Hobson:  Yes, and he has seen me.

Prior to this conversation, their relationship had been adversarial, but this brief interchange is a subtle personal moment where Hobson acknowledges that he is terminally ill.  How on Earth does this tie in with the IRS scandal?  Let's explore!

Looking at the current scandal, the worst case is that we have an administration reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s - trying to punish “enemies” via the power of the Federal government.  Some might make the argument that Barack Obama is the smartest man to ever assume the Presidency, yet he is unaware of the operations under the Executive Branch.  I'm not going to make that argument.  At a minimum, we have rogue bureaucrats singling out citizens for coercive treatment simply because they do not agree with the citizen’s political beliefs OR because the citizen’s political beliefs conflict with the bureaucrat’s and/or the Administration's beliefs.  For argument sake, we will accept that this scandal was carried out by rogue bureaucrats.

Regardless of party affiliation, using the IRS in this manner is an abuse of government power.  If  we know anything about the Founders, their desire was to limit the power of the government and they feared a government that oppressed the citizens.  After all, they had just fought a war against a King who treated them as subjects, not citizens.

Let’s move ahead into the future where bureaucrats will be deciding who gets medical care.  For example, say you are in need of a kidney transplant and a Conservative is in charge of the transplant list.  This specific Conservative checks into the political affiliation of everyone on the transplant list and moves all Republicans to the top of the list and all Democrats to the bottom of the list OR off the list completely.  We all can accept that this is WRONG.  It could happen vice versa where the bureaucrat is a Liberal and the potential kidney recipient is a Republican.  My point is not about who is the perpetrator and who is the victim of this dynamic, but about the existence of the dynamic.  Is this how we want our healthcare to work?  A sane person would want a doctor involved in this decision.  Well, the dynamic I just described is not a hypothetical.  A bureaucrat will be in charge courtesy of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and that is just ONE of many reasons why it was opposed so vigorously.

For those who have not paid attention, the IRS is the enforcement mechanism for Obamacare.  I know, I know, we had to pass it so that we could see what was in it.  We now have overwhelming evidence of why IRS bureaucrats should not be in charge of medical decisions.  Keep in mind – the ACA was deliberately written this way, not by accident.  Makes one wonder why?

So, if Linda Marollo were to ask Hobson this question in 2014 and a bureaucrat sympathetic to the Occupy movement was responsible for his case, Hobson might respond,

"No, an IRS agent saw that I am a butler for a 1%'er and denied my request to see a specialist".

This scenario could play out differently where someone who may be highly religious could be reviewing the case of someone who lives a more hedonistic lifestyle and denies that person access to needed treatment.  I don't believe we want a system set up where this arrangement can be played out as it is bad for all US citizens.

Independent of political stripe, I believe we want Hobson to respond:

"Yes, and he (the doctor) has seen me".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uTO30ONRbg

One Flew East, One Flew West...

An interesting way to differentiate great movies from good movies is to have events occur in real life which draw one back to a specific scene where a certain facial expression, hand gesture or wordplay rings the memory bell.  One of my favorite movie scenes is from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where the patients are attending a morning therapy session in which R.P McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) learns that most of the patients have not been committed to the asylum by the State, but are voluntary residents.

R.P. McMurphy:  "Cheswick, you're voluntary?
Cheswick:  (nods yes)
R.P. McMurphy:  "Scanlon?"
Scanlon:  (nods yes)
R.P. McMurphy:  "Billy, for Christ's sake, you must be committed, right?"
Billy:  "N-n-no".
R.P. McMurphy:  "You're just a young kid!  What are you doing here?  You ought to be out in a convertible bird-dogging chicks and banging beaver.  What are you doing here, for Christ's sake?  (laughter)  What's so funny about that?  Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothing but complain about how you can't...stand it in this place, and then you haven't got the guts to walk out?  What do you think you are, for Christ's sake, crazy or something?  Well, you're not.  You're not.  You're no crazier than the average asshole walking around on the streets.  And that's it.  Jesus Christ, I can't believe it!
Nurse Ratched:  Those are very challenging observations you made, Randall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc0_Xnvl3t4


This scene came to my mind as I learned of the terrorism attack at the Boston Marathon today.  Do I feel badly for the people who were injured, maimed or killed? Yes, very much so.  Was I surprised by the news?  No, not at all.  I'm not in denial about threats to our country. I know who and what we are up against.  When I first heard the news report out here on the West Coast, I expected the "normal" media exploitation of the victims and bystanders and the media did not disappoint because, after all, "if it bleeds, it leads".

I remember the coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and how the media made it look like San Francisco burned to the ground and that the land was rubble. Yes, there was some real damage in the area, but most of what the country saw through their TVs were a few events which were shot from different camera angles and the requisite eyewitness stories.

The coverage today made me think of the people of Boston and I wondered if they really were as frazzled as the media made them appear.  You see, I grew up in the suburbs of Boston.  My town wasn't the wealthiest of suburbs, but it also was not a ghetto.  It was a typical blue collar town which I left in 1987.  The Boston I knew was Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins.  It was the J. Giels Band and Aerosmith.  It was Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics.  It was the curse of the Bambino and Bill Buckner. It was one corrupt Kennedy after another always riding the myth making machine only to eventually expose their true human characters.  It was before Michael Dukakis ran for President.  It was before the Big Dig.  It was before Whitey Bulger went on the lam.  It was before Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won Oscars.  Before the Tom Brady Superbowls.  Before the 2004 Red Sox embarrassed the Yankees. Before Chara hoisted the Cup. It was rough and tumble Boston.  If the people of Boston are still the way I remember them, they are not frazzled.

To the contrary, they are rightly pissed off, ready to kick ass and take numbers. However, my guess is that we have had a few generations who have been on the receiving end of Conflict Resolution 101 courtesy of our mommified education system.  Instead of being pissed, identifying the enemy and seeking to take them out, there's a good chance many will seek to understand WHY someone could hate us and our way of life and what WE can do to make our behavior more acceptable in order to prevent future attacks by our enemies.  This second approach will be championed by our feckless political leadership which will try to show command presence in the near term, but will do very little in the long term as they seek out conflict resolution on a global scale. Sophistry on parade!

How is this like Cuckoo's Nest?  Well, I definitely identify with McMurphy - incredulous that the people around him would self inflict their time in prison.  I feel our society is following this same model by shackling ourselves via political correctness and avoiding to state the obvious.  Evil exists and it always will.  We cannot ignore it.  We must deal with it.  Conflict resolution, political correctness and speech codes are driving societal passivity.  Nobody wants to get out of line and disappoint the dear leader.

Folks, we are in big trouble if we do not wake up, call the threat what it is, terrorism, and aggressively respond.  This is not an "overseas man-made disaster", it is terrorism.  The terrorists who are coming after us do not plan to stop if the US continues to show weakness with its responses.  Weakness to them is opportunity. Please realize that some day, the target will be Mickey Mouse.  The Boston I grew up in would, no doubt, go right to the source of the problem and "solve" it.  The current Boston leadership is a reflection of the electorate and if Bostonians sit by and watch the political leadership wash over this event like the administration washed over the Benghazi terror attack, then they are voluntarily committing themselves to the metaphorical asylum. I will then echo McMurphy:  "What do you think you are, for Christ's sake, crazy or something?"

Rolling Down Hill Like a Snowball Headed for Hell!

The title of this post is a borrowed quote from the great Merle Haggard.  The USA is bounding down such a hill and there is little to stop it given the lack of interest in history by a majority of our citizenry and the willingness of our media to put self interest and self survival above the health of the nation.  The economy was bad in 2008 - no argument there.  However,the problems were exacerbated in 2009 and continue at dismal levels to this day.  The price to "achieve" this level of short term failure was a guarantee of the long term financial collapse of our capitalist system.  I come to this solemn conclusion after 4+ years of hearing platitudes and fabrications emanating from the executive branch in Washington, DC and the collaboration of nearly all of the media in propping up fiction and ignoring reality.  The willingness of our electorate to accept ignorance of history and economics and channel their energy towards a depraved pop culture has allowed for their exploitation.

We are in trouble.   President Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky and this is not a secret.  The media is fully aware of Alinsky political tactics and fully aware that the President's team employs them, yet the media coverage of the President intentionally ignores these tactics.  So, we cannot rely on the media to help in the education of our citizens, but we need to take the initiative to inform the people around us who have been far too busy entertaining themselves to death.  Let's see if we can describe one of the more recent prevarications touted by President Obama and then provide an example which, hopefully, everyday men and women can digest.

Recently, during the State of the Union, the President claimed that he had cut the deficit by $2.5 Trillion dollars and was on his way to cutting the deficit by $4 Trillion.

To that claim, I call "Bullshit"!!

To clarify, the surplus/deficit is a measurement of the annual budget, whereas the Debt is cumulative, ie adding together each year's surplus/deficit.  Surplus occurs when Revenues to the Treasury (taxes & fees, etc) are greater than government outlays, ie Spending.  Deficit means the opposite - spending exceeds revenue.  Let's look at the deficits since 2008:


2008 $    487B  (GWBush)
2009 $ 1.484T delta +$997B (BObama)
2010 $ 1.344T delta  -$140B (BObama)
2011 $ 1.322T delta  -$  22B (BObama)
2012 $ 1.128T delta  -$194B (BObama)

These numbers are from the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from Aug 2012 and have probably been adjusted slightly, but will NEVER make Obama's claims close to the truth.  The 2008 number means that the Fed Government spent $487B more than it collected and/or earned.  There are different tricks which President Obama employs in order to deceive our willfully ignorant public.  The first sleight of hand is that he ignores his first year in office (2009) which is where the real damage (the STIMULUS) was perpetrated.  For a moment, let's accept his premise.  Even if I went with this flawed 3 year window analysis, the deficit would only be reduced by $356B from 2010-2012, not $2.5T.  So, the $2.5T claim is pure fiction.  In addition, Obama is ignoring his initial budget buster when he implemented the $1T stimulus, hence the increase in the deficit of $997B.  Looking at all 4 years, the deficit has grown under Obama by $641B, so his claim is off by $3T.  Only a compliant media would refuse to report on this outright lie.

Exploring this a little further, we get to the crux of the charade being played by Democrats in Washington, DC where our Debt has grown by more than $5T since Obama became President.  The reason the Senate refuses to pass a budget is because it allows them to spend $1T stimulus over and over without having to explain it each and every year.  This is done by operating under Continuing Resolutions (CRs).

It’s not an accident.  It's not late.  It's not uncertainty.  IT IS INTENTIONAL.

By not passing a budget in the Senate, the stimulus is included in the annual baseline.  President Obama can claim, with some legitimacy, that government is growing at its slowest rate in history.  It completely misrepresents his stewardship of the budget since he doubled the size of government spending in his first year.  We have had the $1T stimulus called out only once in 2009, but $4T in stimulus has been added in total because CR's continue spending at the previous year's level plus a small %.  Another $1T stimulus is being added as I write this post, with $3T more to come during the 2nd term.

Let's try to find an analogy that every day Americans can understand.  Imagine, that in 2008, you and your family went on a modest vacation.  Wherever you are located in the country, you packed up the caravan and drove to the ocean, lake or mountains, etc, etc... for a week.  You paid for gas, rental, food and beverage.  Each year leading up to 2008, you had added a little benefit - maybe an upgraded room or suite or a fancy dinner.

In 2009, despite economic uncertainty, you once again went on the driving vacation for 7 days, but you also flew the family to Australia for 2 weeks, then to Europe for 10 days and another 10 days out at Fiji.

In 2010, you decided to cut back, so the driving vacation became a weekend, Australia was cut to 10 days, Europe and Fiji to 7 days each.

In 2011, you skipped the driving vacation, but still went to Australia for 10 days and Europe and Fiji for 7 days each again.

In 2012, you cut Australia to 7 days to match Europe and Fiji.

Technically, you could say that you have been reducing vacation expenses at historic rates since 2009.

You might still be spending 5 times as much as you did in 2008, but in Washington, DC speak, this is a cut because you are not still spending 6 times as much.

Just like the oxygen mask demonstrations prior to take-off, please put your mask on first and help others in need of help.  Please wake up and study the game and the do your best to help others to understand what is happening.  The country is going to collapse if we continue to elect liars, frauds and demagogues.  We know that we cannot depend on the media to expose them.  It really comes down to us.

As Merle asked:  "Are the good times really over for good?"