Bloatin’ Up the Bureaucracy and Stackin’ Up More Debt

Posted on Friday, June 22, 2012 by Post Scripts

Posted by Tina

The President and his Health and Human Services Secretary have set about to create even more layers of very expensive and controlling bureaucracy, as if we didn’t already have quite enough, thank you very much!

The Prez is playing with our oceans and waterways and the health lady will micromanage and control health protocols and treatments. But of course they won’t be doing this themselves, that would be silly. Instead big, expensive, ham handed (HT Libby) bureaucracies will be established. Maybe this is about desperation…last gasp efforts…a sign that this administration can see the writing on the wall and want very badly to write their policies in stone before they exit stage left. Or maybe they just really do think they have the right to decide what is best for all of us by fiat. Whatever! All I know is this. We don’t need more layers of expensive bureaucracy and control from on high…we do need relief from it.

Take a look at President Obama’s
executive order to manage the waterways and ocean, something he’s decided is necessary for the “development and protection” of our oceans:

The Executive Order creates a tangled web of regulatory layers that includes: 10 National Policies; a 27-member National Ocean Council; an 18-member Governance Coordinating Committee; and 9 Regional Planning Bodies. This has led to an additional: 9 National Priority Objectives; 9 Strategic Action Plans; 7 National Goals for Coastal Marine Spatial Planning; and 12 Guiding Principles for Coastal Marine Spatial Planning.

Imposing mandatory ocean zoning could place huge portions of our oceans and coasts off-limits, seriously curtailing recreational activities, commercial fishing, and all types of energy development – including renewable energy such as offshore wind farms.

What’s even more alarming is that the impact of this Executive Order is not limited to just our oceans. It establishes regional planning bodies with the authority to regulate as far inland as necessary. All rivers eventually drain into the ocean, which gives this policy the justification it needs to reach far inland.

I can only imagine what this will cost year, after year, after year. This expensive bureaucracy with broad powers and the unelected officials that will “control and protect” our oceans and waterways will mean limitations, delays, and fees. It will give the American people very little protection in terms of jobs and opportunity, energy, recreation, farming and more. It will deliver another huge body blow to America at the worst possible time. The thought of another gaggle of offices and office holders, where waste and abuse of power will exist unregulated and unaudited sure brightens my day…how about you?

Over eighty organizations are supporting an effort by Rep Hastings (R- Nebraska) who has called for a halt to implementation of this while he looks into the implications and costs associated with it.

Next, in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision that will be soon handed down, the eager beaver Kathleen Sebelious says she will keep Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) as part of her department whether Obamacare survives or not:

If Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius asserted that she would keep it alive in other ways. One of these is the development and use of comparative effectiveness research (CER) – studies that compare products or treatments to decide which is the most effective for the money – to decide which new technologies government health programs like Medicare should cover.

Under the new health care law, CER must be employed before we can use new technologies. Even if Obamacare is overturned, HHS will spend billions creating and marketing CER to health plans and doctors even as it limits private-sector discussion of innovation.

That’s Billions…with a capital “B”! I hope you will read both of these articles. These decisions will impact our lives in very personal ways and will add greatly to the cost of an already very expensive government. It will also affect the cost of products and services. As I have recently indicated this bunch does not live in our world of high unemployment and financial loss. They do not live in the world that produces wealth and abundance. Their focus is their dream of a perfect world controlled from the top down without regard to the cost in our lives, opportunity, or cold the hard cash it takes to feed the utopian beast. They live in an imaginary world of the mind (dreams of their fathers?) where money just shows up as you spend it, nothing you do has negative unintended consequences…and everyone lives happily ever after!

Taxpayers at this point realize that more money needed to support the federal government means fewer opportunities for themselves, their friends and family who are trying to get along without jobs. It means more of the hard earned dollars we do manage to make will be taken to feed the federal bureaucratic beast. It means less money to spend on our own personal needs and priorities. It means the heavy burden accruing to future generations will translate to absolute slavery to the state.

We can’t afford these desperate efforts; somebody grab the hook!

And we will…in November.

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6 Responses to Bloatin’ Up the Bureaucracy and Stackin’ Up More Debt

WTF says:

Friday, June 22, 2012 at 6:24 pm

Maybe the 47% of taxpayers that don’t pay any taxes could kick in a little. US tax rates are at their lowest in sixty years. We know from History that when tax rates are high, the US flourishes! Productivity soars and unemployment drops! It’s a win-win for everybody. The American standard of living was never higher than when top tax rates exceeded 70%–It’s a fact.
Peggy says:

Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 7:49 am

This is so bad its funny. Released by the campaign of Utah House candidate Ryan Combe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NnpBFxvLxJE
Tina says:

Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 1:30 pm

During that era it was government that flourished and grew…you call that a win win?

PFFFFFFFT!

I cannot explain the truth better than Alan Reynolds of CATO posted at WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375951025762400.html

Why 70% Tax Rates Won’t Work – Memo to Robert Reich: The income tax brought in less revenue when the highest rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest rate was 28%.

The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, proposing on his blog “a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the rich.” After all, he noted, “between the late 1940s and 1980 America’s highest marginal rate averaged above 70 percent. Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Not until the 1980s did Ronald Reagan slash it to 28 percent.”

That helped set the stage for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) and nine other House members to introduce the Fairness in Taxation Act in March. That bill would add five tax brackets between 45% and 49% on incomes above $1 million and tax capital gains and dividends at those same high rates. The academic left of the Democratic Party finds this much too timid, and would rather see income tax rates on the “rich” at Mr. Reich’s suggested levelsor higher.

This new fascination with tax rates of 70% or more is ostensibly intended to raise gobs of new revenue, so federal spending could supposedly remain well above 24% of gross domestic product (GDP) rather than be scaled back toward the 19% average of 1997-2007.

All this nostalgia about the good old days of 70% tax rates makes it sound as though only the highest incomes would face higher tax rates. In reality, there were a dozen tax rates between 48% and 70% during the 1970s. Moreoverand this is what Mr. Reich and his friends always fail to mentionthe individual income tax actually brought in less revenue when the highest tax rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest tax rate was 28%.

When the highest tax rate ranged from 91% to 92% (1951-63), even the lowest rate was quite high20% or 22%. As the nearby chart shows, however, those super-high tax rates at all income levels brought in revenue of only 7.7% of GDP, according to U.S. budget historical data.

President John F. Kennedy’s across-the-board tax cuts reduced the lowest and highest tax rates to 14% and 70% respectively after 1964, yet revenues (after excluding the 5%-10% surtaxes of 1969-70) rose to 8% of GDP. President Reagan’s across-the-board tax cuts further reduced the lowest and highest tax rates to 11% and 50%, yet revenues rose again to 8.3% of GDP. The 1986 tax reform slashed the top tax rate to 28%, yet revenues dipped trivially to 8.1% of GDP.

What about those increases in top tax rates in 1990 and 1993? The top statutory rate was raised to 31% in 1991, but it was really closer to 35% because exemptions and deductions were phased-out as incomes increased. The economy quickly slipped into recessionas it did during the surtaxes of 1969-70 and the “bracket creep” of 1980-81, which pushed many middle-income families into higher tax brackets. Revenues fell to 7.8% of GDP.

The 1993 law added two higher tax brackets and, importantly, raised the taxable portion of Social Security benefits to 85% from 50%. At just 8% of GDP, however, individual income tax receipts were surprisingly low during President Bill Clinton’s first term.

The Internet/telecom boom of 1998-2000 was the only time individual income tax revenues remained higher than 9% of GDP for more than one year without the economy slipping into recession (as it did when the tax topped 9% in 1969, 1981 and 2001).

But that was an unrepeatable windfall resulting from the quintupling of Nasdaq stockscombined with (1) the proliferation of nonqualified stock options that have since been thwarted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and (2) the 1997 cut in the capital gains tax to 20%. Realized capital gains rose to 4.6% of GDP from 1997 to 2002up from 2.5% of GDP from 1987 to 1996 when the capital gains tax was 28%.

Suppose the Congress let all of the Bush tax cuts expire in 2013, which is the current trajectory. That would bring us back to the tax regime of 1993-96 when the individual income tax brought in no more revenue (8% of GDP) than it did in 2006-08 (8.1% of GDP).

It is true that President Obama proposes raising the capital gains tax to 23.8%, which could raise more revenue than the 28% rate of 1993-96. But a 23.8% tax on capital gains and dividends would nevertheless be high enough to depress stock prices and related tax revenues.

Still, pundits cling to the myth that lower tax rates mean lower revenues. “You do probably get a modest boost to GDP from tax cuts,” concedes the Atlantic’s Megan McCardle. “But you also get falling tax revenue. It can’t be said too oftenand there you are, I’ve said it again.”

Yet the chart nearby clearly shows that reductions in U.S. marginal tax rates did not cause “falling tax revenue.” It is not necessary to argue that tax rate reduction paid for itself by increasing economic growth. Lowering top marginal tax rates in stages from 91% to 28% paid for itself regardless of what happened to GDP.

It is particularly remarkable that individual tax revenues did not fall as a percentage of GDP because changes in tax law, most notably those of 1986 and 2003, greatly expanded refundable tax credits, personal exemptions and standard deductions. As a result, the Joint Committee on Taxation recently reported that 51% of Americans no longer pay federal income tax.

Since the era of 70% tax rates, the U.S. income tax system has become far more “progressive.” Congressional Budget Office estimates show that from 1979 to 2007 average income tax rates fell by 110% to minus 0.4% from 4.1% for the second-poorest quintile of taxpayers. Average tax rates fell by 56% for the middle quintile and 39% for the fourth, but only 8% at the top. Despite these massive tax cuts for the bottom 80%, overall federal revenues were the same 18.5% share of GDP in 2007 as they were in 1979 and individual tax revenues were nearly the same8.7% of GDP in 1979 versus 8.4% in 2007.

In short, reductions in top tax rates under Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, and reductions in capital gains tax rates under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, not only “paid for themselves” but also provided enough extra revenue to finance negative income taxes for the bottom 40% and record-low income taxes at middle incomes.

Mr. Reynolds is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of “Income and Wealth” (Greenwood Press 2006).

There is only a win/win situation when the private sector flourishes, ordinary citizens have the opportunity to increase their own wealth, and because of their prosperity sufficient revenues flow to government.

Our standard of living is diminished greatly when government takes too much of what we earn and then spends too much causing debt then inflates our money to cover their massive spending and debt by printing money.

We have here not a bumbling brick wall that can’t learn but a true believer, liar and deceiver of the socialist brand.

UGH!
Tina says:

Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 1:37 pm

Peggy that is funny…and so revealing!

The left’s notion of Republicans (in this case Republican parents) never ceases to amuse me.
Peggy says:

Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 9:05 pm

Almost as funny as, All Republicans want dirty water and dirty air.

What is funny is this guy paid good money to have the ad made and aired. Now thats funny!
Post Scripts says:

Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 9:35 am

“Almost as funny as, All Republicans want dirty water and dirty air. What is funny is this guy paid good money to have the ad made and aired. Now thats funny!”

Peggy, it’s the big lie theory, said often enough people will believe it. Once is enough for the true believers aka liberals. Uh, so long as it comes from another liberal, then its a reliable source!.