The People lost control of government when they lost control of their money.  After all, people not in control of their earned wealth are called slaves.  At some point in American history The People lost control of their money, and that occurred when the Federal government began eating most of it.

Solid is the philosophy of local.  Local taxes solving local problems provides, if nothing else, local control.  From experience I can attest that grabbing a local elected official by the lapels and instructing him on what to quit doing produces the desired results.  Doing the same to your Congress Critter, less so.  Hence, when control over taxes and spending shifted from your county commissioner to 535 competing and corrupt(able) conmen in Congress, control over your wealth and your destiny disappeared.

Veronique de Rugy, the ever alert number cruncher for Reason magazine, cobbled together some statistics for which I lacked the gumption to gather (click the chart to enlarge).  As things stand today – and which is hopefully a temporary condition – the Federal government absorbs more than 60% of all government revenues.  It in turn spits out about half a billion bucks (about 19% of revenue) to the states in all manor of pork and social engineering.  The net effect is that no state and likely few localities get more than they pay, especially since Uncle Sugar always takes his cut off the top.

This creates the unseemly situation of 535 elected employees jousting to steal as much tax money as possible.  It also explains Barack Obama bringing Chicago-style bully and bribe politics to Washington, though this merely deepened that cesspool.  An effect of this untidy scheme is that federal money defines action.  Whatever cabal is in power uses your tax money not to improve your locale, but to make you and your neighbors do the cabal’s bidding (see the earlier slavery definition).  Complaining to congressmen is useless as they reliably blame the other 534 grandstanding gangsters who are allegedly more evil and intellectually deficient.

Grabbing your congressman by the lapels does no good, though sudden crotch kicks might.

The trend line is unpromising.  Aside from the Reagan years when the number and total dollar amount of federal grants to states dropped – and which incidentally ushered in the longest running era of prosperity in modern memory – Federal largess with your lucre has been accelerating, and took a tremendous spike with the 2010 projections.  In constant dollars, the degree of Federal financial manipulation of states has grown from about $25 billion in the post-war years to half a trillion today, or about a 20 fold increase.

Looked at from an angle of clarity, you have 1/20^th the control you once had over your state and by proxy your local government.

Aside from armed insurrection or the Supreme Court finally conforming to its oath of office, there is little hope for change, especially with the current Hope and Change merchant in charge.  Indeed, most of his unstimulating stimulus is in the form of expanded grants to state governments with the express purpose of growing state employee roles.  Your representatives, if I may misuse the word, hungrily grab every stack of such cash while bemoaning the culture of corruption that is Congress, unable to see that they are at best a tapeworm in that intestinal tract.

I have wondered of late what the cure might be, and I think there is one, albeit an audacious and somewhat dangerous display of federalism.  In theory (remember, theory and practice are entirely different creatures) a state could:

* Itemize unconstitutional Federal programs and programs for which it chooses not to accept federal fund.

* Calculate their residents’ share of the overall tax burden.

* Unilaterally declare that their residents are not liable for said taxes (i.e., tell their residents that they can shave xx% off their final calculated Federal income taxes).

* Bar all IRS agents and federal judges from the state that dare audit or arrest a citizen for taking that deduction.

* Levy fines against the Federal government for not refunding pre-paid taxes, and since the Feds will never pay the fines, follow-up by allowing in-state companies to reduce employee Federal income tax collection by protection of state law.

Predictably, this would devolve in two ways.  The Federal courts would rule the whole thing illegal and demand that the renegade state submit to the power of Federal law.  Of course, since there are fundamental questions about the constitutionality of the programs in question and the whole ugly issue of Federalism, a state could initially thumb its nose at the judges.  The only action that the Federal government could then take would be military.

There lay the complication.  Would any President order the military to take action against a state to enforce tax collection?  In theory they could not for the writ of the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the military for law enforcement. The other branches of the Federal government combined wouldn’t have the firepower to subdue but the smallest of states.  If a big joint filled with rough and independent minded people – let’s say Texas – were the instigator, then the Feds would have no choice but a full invasion.

Which would not work.  First, it is doubtful any sitting president – not even Obama the Omnipotent – would militarily invade a state.  Doing so, especially in these cantankerous times would invite all-out civil war.  If the instigating state also had a significant military presence, and given the fidelity the military has to The People over the president, odds are whatever military tools were in state would instantly belong to that state.

Imagine tea partiers with nukes.

It is an ugly scheme and one I hope nobody takes.  Yet being a student of history and knowing how free people will fight to stay free, this is not an unimaginable outcome.  Heaven help us if Texas elects Ted Nugent for governor … it might just come to pass.

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(Squeamish people … cowboy up.  I’ll talk you into bleeding like I talk everybody into it).

About four times a year I clomp over to the Red Cross offices and flirt with some nice young gal who assaults me with long needles.  We talk about anything aside from politics and exes, since agitating someone with sharp implements is never good policy.  Being an expert bleeder, I’m out of the chair and eating my weight in post-spew cookies in record times (truth be told, one of my motivations for giving blood are the cookies, an almost innocent sin).

Now here is where you come in.  You will donate blood, even if you are the biggest wimp since the last person I dragged to the donation center (she actually whimpered).  Know how I know this?  Because I know you will read the next paragraph.

Here is what I want you to do:  Imagine the person you love most in the world has been seriously slammed in an auto accident, is laying on an emergency ward table, and the doctors says to the nurse “What do you mean we’re out of blood?”

Donate Blood

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Of course I speak of Obama.

Several combined news items show a certain cluelessness about the regime du jour, the type of obliviousness that in other circumstance proceeds being belted by a biker or ditched by a girlfriend.  Within the gears of political machinery, slow-mo self destruction comes from declining to see that The People dislike incompetence or autocracy, though they will tolerate a competent scoundrel (for all his sins, and there were many, at least Bill Clinton lifted his head from an intern once in a while to take the pulse of the voting public).  Obama combines incompetence and autocracy in such a unique package that he’ll have the same number of terms as Nero, though ten fewer years to fiddle.

Such is Obama’s perpetual misreading of the public and voter demographics on the issue of health insurance.  Polls routinely show voters against legislation as drafted at Obama’s behest (Gallup say 60% against and Rasmussen says 56%).  By and large, The People are disenchanted, showing detest and come November they will be inclined to divest.  The secondary stimulus for their disaffection is the feeling that Obama and Company are not listening much less obeying.  Ever want to whack your child for being dangerously obstreperous and disobedient?  I know my parents did.

Voters appear poised to backhand Obama.

The primary political point is a general discontent with Washington, personified by the Tea Party movement.  Unlike the media, we must keep in mind that Tea Party rabble was roused in the waning days of the Bush administration as a backlash against incomprehensibly unconstitutional bail-outs of buddies (the unsavory collusion of Hank Paulson on behalf of his perpetual employer Goldman Sachs being instructive).  The peasants (a.k.a. my friends, family, neighbors, employees, preacher … everyone aside from politicians) were revolting against unrestrained power and apparent corruption before Obama waltzed into the White House.

He merely poured jet fuel on smoldering embers.

The Tea Party movement is a reflection of something deeper in the American political psyche.  Republicans imploded because they failed to stick to constitutional principles.  Democrats, not equally handicapped by constitutional fidelity, hijacked the crisis of economy and attempted an ideological end-run around the express written will of The People, folks with a nasty tendency to vote.  Disenchantment with the two parties and their indifference to The People’s policy is the paramount propulsion behind party defection, and the growing number of voters who self-identify as independents.

Independents hate ObamaCare more than Republicans or Democrats, with a full 62% willing to vote out anyone who votes up Obama’s legislation.

The collision ahead can only be ignored through blindness, willful ignorance, outstanding arrogance or plain stupidity, with “all of the above” being a distinct possibility when describing Obama’s latest misstep.  During this week’s refreshingly teleprompter free, but unfortunately day-long health insurance summit, Obama made it clear that his Henchman Harry would use a budgetary procedural gimmick (which Reid opposed when his party was out of power) to enact legislation despised by 62% of the largest voting block in the country.  Summarized, Obama is antagonizing the group most likely to beat him to an electoral pulp.

Uncle Bob used to call that “pissin’ in your own porridge.”

Tea parties have a recurring theme.  The original party was called because the government at that time ignored the express written will of The People.  The modern Tea Party movement and growth of the independent voter block is rising from resentment to the two halves of a similarly arrogant government.  When the 1773 government failed to listen to the people and abide by their will, blood was shed.  Let’s hope King Barry learns from King George before history reluctantly repeats itself.

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Wrong.  Those groups have widely overlapping memberships.

Playful cynicism has always been part of me, much like a congenital defect.  I have gathered, categorized and plagiarized some of the best cynical thinking in the history of humanity and committed it to a database, which may be the least safe place to put such anything.

For years a molder of a web site called The Cynical Web Site languished for lack of maintenance.  It was originally thrown together as an experiment in programming, and became an experience in pain management.  So in a fit of rainy weather induced insanity, the entire site was overhauled and republished.

www.Cynical.ws (the ‘ws’ stands for ‘web site’ and was chosen because some other maniac already owned .com).

So, please visit The Cynical Web Site frequently, copy and past links to cynical definitions and Murphyisms into your own web pages and blogs, and click on every advertisement you see (I could use the cash).

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I was slightly surprised to receive a stack of 1099-MISC forms from various Amazon.com subsidiaries, held companies and associated oddball entities.  I earn a few Amazon affiliate bucks for links on other web sites.  According to my list of received deposits from last year, I earned something south of $200.

So receiving 17 separate tax documents claiming they had paid me $843,454.49 caught my attention.

Don’t get me wrong.  I would gladly accept the better part of a million bucks from Bezos, and even playfully suggested such when I telephoned their accounting department.  So far, no such payment has been received, though the folks at Amazon sensed my good humor and politely declined sending cash.  They also report that I am not the only affiliate to receive stacks of inappropriate tax filings, though mine might be the only set with the non-existent Social Security number 999-99-9999 (click the image to see a full Monty of one of the 17 forms).

However, humor is running out.

As of the first edition of this post (2010-02-19), they have attempted twice to send a correct 1099, but have yet to use the right SSN.  That is forgivable.  What isn’t forgivable is that they refuse to provide a certified statement that I did not receive $843,454.49.  An ineffective and I suspect otherwise dysfunctional gal named Mary Bartlett (if that is her real name) echoed in email saying “I want to assure you that none of this information has been filed with IRS.”

Sure Mary.  And I want to assure you that I won’t make a deposit in your mouth.

My secret shame is that I wasted a decade working in info tech, managing big iron for some large corporations.  Tax filings are as automated as everything else in our modern age, and odds are all 17 inappropriate tax reports were automatically submitted to the Feds.  Odds are 17 red flags have already popped in some IRS dungeon and I am on an April 15^th watch list.  If my tax return doesn’t report an additional $843,454.49, an audit is in my future.

This is why I’ll likely take Amazon to court, to get a judge to enter into court records that I never landed all that lucre.  I issued Amazon a deadline to do the right thing (which they should do without the benefit of legal intimidation) but doubt they have their fecal matter sufficiently gathered.  Shame.  I don’t want to waste my time and they don’t need to waste their money on my lawyers.

Nor do they need this negative blog PR … or talk time I’ll get on CNN, CNBC, Fox and …

UPDATE (2010-02-23): Seems the mere mention of litigation motivates people, even Amazon (or perhaps they read this blog, or the letter I sent their CEO trickled down).  Regardless, 17 faxed pages were lobbed at Amazon this morning with their promise to overnight the stack back with appropriate *VOID* stamps, signatures, DNA samples and perhaps even a sacrificial virgin being laid … to rest in Seattle (though rumors of virgins in Seattle are unsubstantiated).

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Ignoring such institutionalized imbeciles, The City is rife with good natured fun.  Granted, much of it involves naked people doing very personal things to one another, but often San Francisco silliness borders on Middle American.  Such is the case with our annual mass pillow fight, or as we locals like to call it, the San Francisco Valentine’s Day Massacres.

As the Ferry Building clock strikes six chimes, a thousand or so strangers armed with feather pillows from their own beds commence to flail upon one another in post-adolescent adolescence.  There is no practical age barrier for this battle.  Children who can barley lift their bedding box octogenarians (granted, they only hit the geezers in the knee caps, but it is the sport that counts).  Cushion armed prototypical middle-incomers pummel punks while teenage girls scream, which as best as I can tell is the one unifying tribal trait of teenage girls around the globe.

The rules of engagement are pretty simple:  Feather pillows only, no loading your pillow case with anything but pillow, unarmed people or those with cameras are considered non-combatants and are to be left unscathed.

This year an ample number of unusual looking San Francisco denizens participated, but perhaps the best of the breed was an elderly fellow dressed in rather splendid pajamas and a quilted smoking jacket.  Looking like a badly aged Hugh Hefner (is that redundant?) he was a favorite with the smaller set.  Without being in the least creepy, he would let a kid wallop him, then say “I love you” before returning fire.  Kids exploded … figuratively … with joy and returned both the assault and the exclamation.

For all its seamier sides, San Francisco keeps one thing always in focus:  having fun, even if only reviving and grossly amplifying a childhood staple.

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(Speaking of which, I’m enjoying the sweet sound of silence now that John Edwards has mysteriously shut-up)

Whenever laws are loosened, the gun control industry predicts bloodshed in the streets.  I witnessed such first hand in Florida and later Virginia when those states respectively enacted concealed carry laws, letting honest folk tote weapons in public.  The Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, the Joyce Foundation (if I may be redundant) in a single voice said Hell itself would erupt and swallow those states whole.

Didn’t happen.  Not in Florida.  Not in Virginia.

Not in the 28 other states that followed FLA, rescinding restrictions on packing a heater.  In fact, Professor John Lott notes that not a single peer-reviewed criminological study on concealed carry has found a rise in violent crime compared to national averages.  A hand full of studies show minor declines in violence, and a few show major drops in select categories of bloody bad behavior.

Yet in 2008, when the Supreme Court told the District of Columbia that their handgun ban was history, the gun control industry resurrected the same claims concerning carnage.  They predicted (again) that gutters would run red with blood, which for D.C. meant nothing much would change.  The gun control industry said with certainty that death was inevitable for every living being in that city.

Guess what.

Crime statistics are in for 2009, the first full year in which D.C. citizens have been allowed to keep handguns at home, the overall violent crime rate fell.  Though much higher than most everywhere else in America, the rate of violence in The District plummeted.  Based on Census Bureau population estimates and D.C.’s own online crime statistics reporting system, violent crimes fells 6% in the first full year of liberated handgun ownership and homicides dropped 23% (if you want to check the math, here is a spreadsheet with the raw numbers).

It is unimportant to wonder why the crime rate dropped – there will be plenty of time for criminologists to analyze the dozens of potential variables.  However, private gun ownership did not cause violence to increase and may be the magic variable to explain why it tumbled.

Helmke, Sugarman, Brady, Feinstein … time to pipe down.  Your chorus is off key, again.

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One good outcome from this encounter is that a cultural mystery has been solved.  In many Asian regions, people eat dogs, which is more or less unheard of in Western civilianization (aside from Michael Vick).  Shih tzu’s are the key to the cross-cultural riddle.  These and other Asian breeds are small, annoying and perpetually agitated rodents.  They are unpleasant, odiferous and no burglar takes them seriously.

They don’t even make good footballs.

In other words, the only thing you can do is eat them.  I hypothesize that long ago one of those yapping rats was pestering a chef when the cook discovered there was no meat for the dish.  With hungry customers waiting, and with a good half pound of protein circling his ankles, the chef decided to improvise, no doubt telling his clientele that the mystery meat tasted just like chicken.

Indeed, this clever culinarian was likely the first person to ever wok a dog.

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History has witnessed numerous despots fiddle while empires burnt.  Barack Obama, aided by a legislature filled with Caligula’s elected descendants, is moving America steadily in the direction of the Zimbabwean empire.  The parallels between Obama and Zimbabwe’s loco dictator Robert Mugabe stop only at their body mass index (the latter being a pro-ranked porker, and the former a chain smoking string bean).  Both men – and I use the word “men” very loosely – are self-important, functionally clueless, imbued with messianic visions and able to drive entire nations into insolvency solo.

Anyone have a stack of Zimbabwean currency?  I need to hit the head.

Nobody with brains blames Obama for the pre-existing national debt.  America has run in the red for most of its modern existence.  However, aside from times of war (like the last nine years) there has been some semblance of sanity and approximate alignment between federal spending and revenue.  Obama is following in Mugabe’s footsteps by printing money at a rate that requires buying more printing presses.  Compounding the elaborate theft that was the 2008 bailout of failed businesses (AIG, et al) is Obama’s even more elaborate theft, done with enough audacity to double down and double the deficit.  His nearly trillion dollar stimulus spending spree only stimulated Chris Matthews’ leg, but did send the Bureau of Engraving and Printing into overdrive.

Now Barack is ready to spend even more.  (Note to the graduating class of 2010:  RUN! Barak’s bill has your name on it.)

This week Obama pimps a $3.8T budget that increases government spending beyond where he has already elevated it.

• · Another 6% for education and civilian research.
• · A cool $25B for states that misspent as effectively as the Feds (this money is, no doubt, reserved for blue states like perpetually insolvent California).
• · A “freeze” that locks-in last years hyper spending, yet excludes the most expensive and fastest growing parts of the federal monster – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, national security, and the VA.

Investing in Zimbabwean dollars suddenly sounds sane compared to buying U.S. bonds.  Before Mugabe gave in, a Zimbabwean $100 billion banknote could buy three eggs, clearly demonstrating the effects of the hyperinflation soon to rock America, which still produces a quarter of the globe’s GDP.  In other words, America will indirectly export its economic mess. You thought $4 a gallon gas was tough … just wait a couple of years and try buying three eggs.

The Congressional Budget Office, an operation with relative sanctity inside the beltway, estimates that even without Obama’s further fiscal indiscretions:

• · The federal deficit next year will be $1.3T – on top of this year’s $1.4T.
• · The total national debt will be 95% of GDP, and 100% within a decade (imagine owing your credit card company as much as you made last year … assuming you had a job last year).
• · Over the next 10-years the interest costs alone will tally $4.8T, a service load more than triple the debt itself.

That is the good news.

If you haven’t grabbed your bottle of Jack Daniels yet, best do so now, even if you are still eating breakfast.  You’re going to need a belt.  All these budget numbers do not take into account off-the-book liabilities the feds willfully adopted.  According to a federal inspector general, the government is the insurer of record for 90% of all home mortgages.  Perverse legislation granted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the ability to over-leverage their assets (a staggering 70:1 ratio), higher than any commercial bank, while congressional clowns (Barney Frank by name) encouraged Mae and Mac to buy subprime loans, which in the end accounted for 20% of their portfolios.  Uncle Sugar assumed all that risk and added it to mortgages protected by the Federal Home Loan Association.  If for any reason we enter economic decline – you know, like Zimbabwe – then all that mortgage debt will be paid for by you.

The tally thus far (yes … there is more) is that we are running huge deficits, getting ready to spend even more, pumping up our interest expense, and have a moat full of mortgage paper to insure.  Despite this, Barack boosts spending.  In his Keynesian  hallucination Obama begs for change Americans do not want, much like his health insurance hijack.

So, taxing in your IRA and 401K should not surprise you.  No, even your congress critter isn’t insane enough to renege on the promise of tax reduced/free retirement income … yet … though whispers of taxing retirement account capital gains are circulating within I-495.  What Obama and his cohorts in Congress are cooking is to tax all banks (including yours) to recapture TARP money (even if your bank didn’t want or take TARP cash).  This will result in raised bank fees, including the management fees on your IRA and 401K.  As noted in paragraphs above, the epicenter of the current economic emergency was the inane objectives of the Federal government.  But since Obama believes government is “cool” (his words, not mine) there is no way he can blame the mess on his own kind.  Thus Obama inappropriately harangues all banks in order to compensate for the federal mistake of bailing out a few banks … which was caused by the federal mistake of rigging the mortgage market.

These bank taxes will be passed along to you.  Of course, if you lost your job and have no money in the bank, then you may not feel the pinch.

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