Carolina Politics Online

Makes sense to me

“For the last eight years, we’ve spent our time talking about vouchers when we should be talking about how to improve public education,” Sheheen said. “Enough is enough, and I’m standing today for public education.”

Sheheen’s Wednesday news conference at Columbia’s Hand Middle School had the feel of an event just weeks, not months, from Election Day. State Republican Party staffers held signs asking Sheheen’s positions on a national health care law and illegal immigration, while Sheheen staffers boxed out a Haley camera crew attempting to record the event.

Sheheen said he would end teacher pay cuts and reduce class sizes. But South Carolina could face as much as a $1 billion budget shortfall next year and Sheheen did not say how schools could pay for programs to achieve those goals. Sheheen said he would not raise taxes to fund education.

The State

Studies have shown that there is no correlation between smaller class sizes and improvement in public education.  Furthermore, how would Sheheen accomplish this while at the same time suggesting he would not raise taxes to fund this, which quite honestly, I don’t necessarily believe.

I am ambivalent when it comes to vouchers.  It’s a better system than we have today, but it’s not the best.  What I have always found ironic is how Democrats almost routinely oppose vouchers or almost any form of school choice when it’s typically poor, minority children who benefit the most from their use.  Doesn’t the Democratic Party claim to be the best friend of the poor and racial minorities in this country?  It seems to me that when it comes to the masses being properly educated, they care more about the campaign donations coming from the NEA who oppose any education reform that doesn’t put more tax dollars into their coffers.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that for years has been tracking and monitoring the wasteful spending being undertaken by our members of Congress. When I say waste I mean real waste, things that most all of us regardless of political ideology and views could likely agree on. Wasted spending like $1,454,000 for mosquito trapping research or $2,573,000 for potato research. Better yet, right here in our own backyard, UNC Charlotte received $762,000 for interactive dance software.

CAGW has a searchable database containing the 9,129 pork-barrel projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book. They also do a ranking of every member of Congress with a score of 100 indicating a taxpayer superhero and a score of 0 being a wasteful taxpayer abuser. Unfortunately, here in the Carolinas we have several big fat zeros. That list is below:

The last thing American businesses need in this economy is to get smacked with a tax increase so that the Federal government can dole out more welfare money, but that is exactly what the U.S. Senate did today and Kay Hagan voted for it.

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted Thursday to approve a package of $26 billion in aid for state and local governments, funded partly by an $11 billion tax increase on U.S. multinational corporations.

In what was one of the final moves by the Senate before lawmakers depart Washington for the summer recess, Democrats were able to score a significant victory for a core constituency of their party: labor unions and public-sector workers.

But at the same time, they handed a hefty tax bill to U.S. companies with units overseas that have been able to pay a lower corporate income tax rate on profits derived from their foreign businesses.

The Wall Street Journal

You would think that in a state with double digit unemployment numbers the last thing Hagan would want to do is hinder further job growth, but she isn’t too bright on the economic side, is she.  The House still needs to pass this before it becomes law, but I don’t see any reason why they won’t.

Predictably, two amendments of Senator DeMint’s voted on in the U.S. Senate yesterday were rejected.  One would have barred the Obama administration’s ability to sue the State of Arizona over their illegal immigration crackdown law and the other would have permanently repealed the Estate Tax.

The illegal immigration amendment was defeated 55 to 43.  It would have barred funding for the Federal government to prosecute the law.  Democrat Kay Hagan voted against the amendment, while Republicans Lindsey Graham and Richard Burr, along with DeMint, voted for it.  A few Democrats from other states crossed over to support DeMint’s efforts, but not nearly enough and that was expected.  The left has been particularly outspoken against Arizona’s efforts to protect their state from the harm caused by mass illegal immigration.

Permanent repeal of the Estate Tax was nothing but a pipe dream and only 39 Senators voted in favor of it, about what I would expect.

The repeal movement has lost some steam in recent years as former enthusiasts in the business community have sought compromise with the Democratic majority on a plan that would lower the tax, not eliminate it.

But a core of groups representing small businesses and conservatives continue to push repeal, arguing that the tax is an unfair government intrusion and that it serves as a disincentive for individuals to build family businesses.

“What right does a government have to take someone’s property because they die?” DeMint said on the Senate floor.

NASDAQ

Great question, huh?  That is the one that has always rankled me.  Why is the government entitled to anybody’s property simply because they die?  It’s absurd.  The property should stay in the family where it rightfully belongs.  Family business owners and family farms get clobbered by this.  Just because one’s estate is valued at a few million dollars does not mean they are millionaires bathing in golden bathtub of 100 dollar bills.  Pieces of farm equipment can cost a few hundred grand alone and that is all added into the value of the estate.  It’s not uncommon for the children of a family farmer to have to sell off the farm in order to pay the inheritance taxes on the estate.

The Estate Tax is nothing more than another weapon used in the Marxist tactic of class warfare.  It was established by politicians seething with envy, jealousy, and greed.

South Carolina consumers would pay sales tax on music, book and movie downloads, higher taxes on car purchases and again pay sales tax on groceries in exchange for a lower overall sales tax rate, under a proposal given preliminary approval today.

The state’s Tax Realignment Commission, a Legislature-appointed group of financial experts, voted on a plan that will drop the base sales tax rate from 6 percent to 4.96 percent and add a 2.5 percent sales tax on groceries. The proposal is part of a comprehensive plan to reassess the way South Carolina taxes its residents and businesses, after the recession and ongoing economic slump have drained state coffers.

The proposal is made up of dozens and dozens of recommendations to repeal individual sales tax exemptions. Within the proposal are recommendations to:

• Charge 2.5 percent sales tax on prescription drugs (although purchases made by people on Medicaid and Medicare would continue to be exempt).
• Remove the $300 sales tax cap on motor vehicles, excluding boats and planes. Car, truck and SUV buyers would pay up to $1,200 in sales tax until 2014 when the cap is eliminated altogether and consumers would pay according to the value of the vehicle they purchase.
• Begin taxing music, books and movies, among other digital items, downloaded from the Internet.
• Charge sales tax on the purchase of newspapers.
• Tax at 2.5 percent water sold by public utilities and certain nonprofit corporations.
• Repeal the exemption on wrapping paper.
• Add sales tax to the purchase of supplies, machinery and electricity to television and radio stations.
• Remove the exemption on the sale of plants and animals sold to zoos and gardens.
• Tax vacation time shares.

Maybank said the goal is to have a broad, diversified tax base.

The Post and Courier

There is an exemption on wrapping paper??

Why not make it simple and just have a flat sales tax on everything.  Nobody or no thing gets an exemption.  Wouldn’t that just be the simplest way to do it?  Why do people on Medicare and Medicaid get to be exempt from paying taxes on their prescriptions, but the rest of us don’t?  When you start exempting this group and that group it only complicates things and leads to an unfair burden of taxation on certain members of the populace.

John Ruoff of the advocacy group South Carolina Fair Share warned the panel to consider the consequences of their recommendations.

“The more your system depends on sales taxes, the harder is going to be on low income folks,” he said.

And by “Fair Share” they mean other people should pay their bills for them.  The argument that sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor doesn’t add up.  Tennessee has a 9.5% sales tax in lieu of an income tax and there isn’t a plague of poor, underprivileged people living in cardboard boxes, starving in the streets.

We have a primary election here in South Carolina on Tuesday with some important choices to make.  We’ll be choosing party nominees for the next gubernatorial race and we’ll be getting at least two new Congressmen this year since Henry Brown (R-SC01) is retiring and Gresham Barrett (R-SC03) is making a failed run for governor.  We may be seeing a bigger turnover than that however.  Bob Inglis (R-SC04) isn’t exactly in the greatest reelection shape and some speculate that he could be forced into a run off by one of his primary challengers.  Add that to a strong challenge by State Senator Mick Mulvaney (R-Indian Land) to Congressman John Spratt (D-SC05) in November and we could potentially be replacing over half of our state’s Congressional delegation come January.

Now I obviously can’t vote in all of these races, but I’m happy to offer my thoughts on many of them and point out who I would vote for if I could.  I make these decisions based on who I think is the best candidate to protect our liberties and freedoms from the tyranny of the powers that be.  And so here we go.

York County Council District 1

I don’t typically weigh in on local races because I don’t have the time to analyze the hundreds of races going on in every county and municipality in the Carolinas, but I am going to weigh in one and that is because it is pretty close to my backyard.  If you live in York County, or more specifically Fort Mill or Tega Cay, then right now you are being represented on the York County Council by one corrupt SOB.  His name is Paul Lindemann.  That shouldn’t be a new name for you.  We talk about him all the time.  Despite the publicity of his malfeasance, he is running for reelection.  If you vote for Paul Lindemann you deserve to be flogged, tasered in your groin, and then buried in the sand up to your neck right near a mound of fire ants with honey drizzled over your head.  Is that descriptive enough?  This man is the living characiture of the stereotypical corrupt politician.  Now you may think that Paul is crazy for running again.  How could he possibly get reelected?  Well he’s got three challengers so his ability to survive in a four way race should not be underestimated.  There are plenty of lambs out there who will go to their slaughter on Tuesday to try and install this man for another two years.  Don’t let that happen.  Give your vote to someone with integrity, honesty, and decency.  That someone is Mr. Kyle Boyd.

I have met Kyle Boyd.  He is the headmaster at Walnut Grove Christian School and the father of three children.  He identifies himself as a fiscal conservative and pledges to be a leader on tax reform and government transparency.  We will not be reading stories in The Herald of Kyle Boyd getting DUIs or being a party to a domestic violence dispute, or bouncing $10,000 checks to Winthrop University, or not paying contractors for the work they do on his house.  We will not be reading those stories about Kyle Boyd the way we have read them about Paul Lindemann.  This is an opportunity to put an overall good guy into our county government so please don’t screw it up this time.  Vote for Kyle on Tuesday.  It’s really that easy.

South Carolina Congressional District 1

This is the seat currently held by Republican Congressman Henry Brown.  Thankfully, he is retiring this year so we will no longer have to worry about him stealing our tax dollars and redistributing it to his district.  This has become a huge contest.  There are nine Republicans, two Democrats, and four third party candidates running for this seat.  On the Republican side there are many good candidates to pick from and if I lived in that district I would have a difficult time making a decision.  However, kind of like Highlander, in the end there can be only one.  So that being the case, I would again, like in 2008, go with Katherine Jenerette.  She is an accomplished woman and mother.  She has bravely served this country in our armed forces and I think she has the right ideas to take us forward.  Her agenda on lower taxation, lower government spending, and controlled immigration is a positive plan for the nation.  I think she would be a responsible representative for the people of the Grand Strand.

On the Democratic ballot I like Col. Robert Burton.  He recently retired from military service after spending 32 years in the United States Air Force.  Burton has a strong focus on lowering South Carolina’s unemployment rate, one of the highest in the nation, by championing a lower Federal tax rate on small businesses and actively seeking opportunities to bring technology and energy jobs to the state.  He also realizes the need to stick it out in Afghanistan.  It’s been a long and tiring war on our soldiers and there was plenty of mismanagement of the war by our previous administration, but Burton is correct.  We just can’t cut our losses and leave like some in our Congress would like to see.  Burton is a common sense man with common sense ideas.

South Carolina Congressional District 3

This is the far western district of the state bordering Georgia and currently held by Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett.  As I stated before, he is not seeking reelection and instead decided to lose in the gubernatorial race this year.  He voted for the bank bailout, so I’m not too upset about his current political misfortune.  There are six Republicans running to succeed him and the one I like is State Representative Jeff Duncan.  Duncan has a proven record of fiscal responsibility in our state government.  In fact, he is one of the few that can actually make  that claim.  He has received an “A” rating from the South Carolina Club for Growth whose opinions I take very seriously because they don’t just hand out good grades to anyone.  Duncan’s views on reigning in government spending and excessive taxation is precisely the shot in the arm our nation needs.  He is the guy we need to send to D.C.   We do not want to send State Representative Rex Rice.  He not only supported raising the cigarette tax to expand the nanny welfare state in South Carolina, he was a co-sponsor.  Duncan good.  Rice bad.

South Carolina Congressional District 4

I think this goes without saying.  Bob Inglis is in some pretty deep shit and may very well be the next incumbent to get booted in his party primary.  Inglis is facing the hostility of a very conservative electorate in his district who are not all that pleased with the direction the Republican Party has been going in.  He has also taken some heat for voting to reprimand Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC02) for his infamous “You lie!” outburst to President Obama during this year’s State of the Union address as well as voting against “the Surge” in Iraq in 2007.  Furthermore, the man has hit my boiling point over his insistence on us needing to implement a carbon tax over the fraudulent man made global warming scam.  In my opinion, there is no need to stop the national political bloodletting here in South Carolina.  Give Inglis the boot.

My recommendation is Spartanburg attorney Trey Gowdy.  Gowdy is strong advocate of job creation by lessening Federal restrictions on businesses that make it difficult for them to thrive.  Of course, he is mortified by the irresponsible spending going on in D.C. otherwise I wouldn’t recommend him.  He is also a staunch supporter of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution meaning he is very much opposed to the recent Federal grab of our health care system and their unconstitutional insurance mandate.

South Carolina State Superintendent

This is a race that doesn’t get talked about much but really should.  Public education in this state has a poor reputation and we haven’t seen much improvement.  We just keep getting more of the same and Jim Rex has been no different.  I like Gary Burgess for this seat.  He’s big on school choice and eliminating programs that have not shown any merit.  The main reason we spend so much money on education in this country but do not get the bang for our buck is because the vast majority of the money goes to bureaucracy.  Burgess wants school spending accounted for.  But the real idea that sold me on Burgess is his philosophy on school choice, that the tax dollars should follow the student.  My God, how many times have I written about that very same idea on this Web site?  Make the school districts compete for the students.  With the students comes the money.  It is a winning formula and mark my word if Gary Burgess could accomplish that he would be the most successful state superintendent in this country.

South Carolina Governor

And finally we get down to the big one.  I have a candidate for both the Republican and Democrat parties.  On the Republican side I have been an ardent supporter of State Representative Nikki Haley and despite the calamity that has surrounded her over the past two weeks, I am sticking with Nikki Haley.  Accusations are not proof of guilt.  It was different with Mark Sanford because there was proof of his indiscretions and he came right out and admitted it.  Maybe Nikki Haley has been unfaithful.  I don’t know, but what I do know is that there isn’t a single shred of proof out there to support these accusations.  If there was we’d have seen it by now.  We are innocent until proven guilty in this country.  I believe that of all four Republican candidates Nikki Haley has the best ideas to take our state forward.  She has a record of fighting for transparency in government and against wasteful spending.  Prior to the recession our state budget increased an average of 11% per year for four years and that was with Republicans in control.  You know, the party that claims to be for small government?  Haley has fought against that kind of government growth and I think she can be a real powerhouse in the governor’s mansion.  She has my vote.

On the Democratic ticket I think State Senator Robert Ford is an outstanding choice.  Senator Ford took a brave stand last year going public with his support for school choice so that the parents of the poorer children in this state can get those kids out of these failing schools and get them a better education.  Ford took a lot of flack from his party and fellow legislators over that stance because his party has been in bed with the teachers union for decades and have been preserving the failing status quo in public education in order to keep the donations coming in.  Ford recognized the problem in education and chose to speak out.  I also support Ford because of his push to bring back video poker to South Carolina.  According to Ford’s estimate it could bring in a billion dollars in revenue for the state and create several thousand jobs, but it’s not just that.  I am a grown man and if I want to go to a bar and gamble some of my money on a video poker machine, who in the hell is the State of South Carolina to tell me that I am not allowed to do that?  This is an issue of liberty and I said at the beginning of this post that was the primary goal I was looking for in these candidates.  Robert Ford fits the bill.

So that’s what I’ve got for Tuesday.  Man am I tired after all of that.  Vote wisely and good luck to all of the candidates.

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U.S. Rep. John Spratt was late in paying property taxes on two occasions at his home in Washington, D.C., resulting in $1,382 in late penalties and interest, his office confirmed to The Herald.

Meanwhile, Republican challenger Mick Mulvaney’s development company made late tax payments on four different properties between 2005 and 2009, according to York County tax records.

Spratt said he paid the bills as soon as he discovered the missed deadlines. One payment was made three weeks late in September; the other was five days late in April.

The Herald

As far as I am concerned, this is a non-story.  So they both made a few tax payments late.  It happens.  It would be one thing if they completely dodged them altogether, you know, like five of Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees, including the current Treasury Secretary who actually heads up the IRS, but that is not the case here.

But GOP operatives pounced on Spratt’s late payments as a campaign issue, pointing out the York Democrat helps run the federal budget as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

“Be it willfully or mistakenly, is it any wonder the nation’s balance sheet is deep in the red when Barack Obama’s budget chairman can’t manage his personal finances?” asked Andy Sere, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Spratt supporters fired back Thursday that Republicans shouldn’t be so quick to criticize.

And they shouldn’t be.  It’s hypocritical for the NRCC to criticize Spratt for his late tax payments when Mulvaney has had the same problem.  Sure, Spratt is a shitty budget chairman, but the two issues are mutually exclusive.  The NRCC should follow Mulvaney’s own advice and focus on the issues people actually care about.

The House voted 96-1 on Thursday to sign off on a bill that creates a new system that taxes employers according to the frequency that they lay off workers. The bill is the latest in a series of legislative fixes intended to correct problems at the state Department of Employment and Workforce, formerly known as the Employment Security Commission.

House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Cayce, said the new taxation system will reward employers who don’t layoff workers with no taxes and require those who layoff workers to pay their share.

“We have a system that is fair, competitive and puts South Carolina in a good light to businesses that are looking to locate here,” Bingham said.

The Post and Courier

I think this plan is completely asinine.  Employers don’t layoff workers because they want to build a gold bathtub in their bathroom and bathe in a bounty of $100 bills.  They layoff employees because they can no longer afford to keep them and maintain their bottom line.  So because for one reason or another their business isn’t doing as well we’re going to tax them more for it?  What kind of logic is that?

The North Carolina Education Lottery has claimed that if the state were to legalize video poker again it could net state coffers as much as $576 million per year.  The machines were banned by the state legislature in 2007 for a number of reasons.  Some said the industry was rife with corruption.  Others who made themselves the moral authorities for us all wanted them gone because they viewed them as sinful.  Since the ban the law has been challenged and some litigation is still making its way through the court system.

State Senator David Hoyle (D-Gastonia) has suggested that the state could lift the ban and heavily regulate the industry in order to add to tax revenue lost throughout the Bush-Obama recession.  I think they should be allowed because this is a free country, isn’t it?  Frankly, that’s not a question with an easy answer these days.  As far as I am concerned if I want to walk into a bar and blow $50 on a video poker machine then that’s my right as a grown man.  The ban is nothing more than a nanny state infringement on the rights of every resident of North Carolina.  For that reason alone the ban should be repealed, the state revenue not withstanding.

The long fought battle over the cigarette tax has finally come to a close.  The party of “small” government voted handily in both chambers to raise South Carolina’s cigarette tax fifty cents a pack come July.  The tax will raise over $120 million and will allegedly go to health care for the poor.

As I’ve said before, we don’t need Democrats in South Carolina because we have Republicans that do just as well at ass raping the public which makes me question why this state continues to elect them rather than seek an alternative.  While the state has slashed $2 billion in spending over the past two years because of lost tax revenue due to the recession the last thing they should be doing is sponsoring more government spending and expanding the welfare nanny state.  Cigarettes are largely consumed by blue collar and less affluent members of the public so the Republicans just slapped a nice big tax increase on the poor and middle class.

Pretty much all the Democrats voted for this as well in both the House and Senate, but I put the blame squarely on the Republicans because they hold a healthy majority and they are the ones that go around at election time and lie to their constituents about supporting limited government and limited taxation.  Here are the Republicans in the House who voted for the tax increase.  The Senate roll call is not yet available, but I will post that when it comes out.  Note that among the Republicans who voted for the tax increase is State Representative Rex Rice who wants you to vote for him to be the next Congressman for the Third Congressional District.

• Nathan Ballantine – Irmo
• Bruce Bannister – Greenville
• Kenny Bingham – Cayce
• Joan Brady – Columbia
• Richard Chalk – Beaufort
• Alan Clemmons – Myrtle Beach
• Derham Cole – Spartanburg
• Kris Crawford – Florence
• Joe Daning – Goose Creek
• Greg Delleney – Chester
• Shannon Erickson – Beaufort
• Mike Forrester – Spartanburg
• Marion Frye – Leesville
• Bobby Harrell – Charleston
• James Harrison – Columbia
• George Hearn – Conway
• Bill Herbkersman – Bluffton
• David Hiott – Pickens
• Jenny Horne – Summerville
• Chip Huggins – Columbia
• Keith Kelly – Woodruff
• Chip Limehouse – Charleston
• Lanny Littlejohn – Pacolet
• Deborah Long – Indian Land
• Jay Lucas – Hartsville
• James Merrill – Charleston
• Steve Moss – Blacksburg
• Phil Owens – Easley
• Gene Pinson – Greenwood
• Rex Rice – Easley
• B.R. Skelton – Six Mile
• Donald Smith – North Augusta
• Murrell Smith – Sumter
• Roland Smith – Warrenville
• Mike Sottile – Isle of Palms
• Kit Spires – Pelion
• David Umphlett – Moncks Corner
• Bill Whitmire – Walhalla
• Mark Willis – Fountain Inn
• Bill Wylie – Simpsonville
• Annette Young – Summerville
• Tom Young – Aiken

Wow….

As I’ve pointed out many times, I originally hail from the northeast where property taxes are an incredible burden in order to pay for the largess of government. In Pennsylvania in particular there has been a grassroots movement for several years to eradicate school property taxes because people, especially the elderly on fixed incomes, have been losing their homes to sheriff sales left and right because they can’t keep up with the rising property tax bills. I know countless stories of elderly couples who lived in their homes for 40 and 50 years and got thrown out of them because they could no longer afford the property taxes. All of that equity gone like that. My grandparents almost lost their home to a sheriff sale before they died.

Also consider that with property taxes hanging over your head, you never really own your home or the land it’s on. You’re really just leasing it from the government because if you stop paying the taxes on the property they can just come and take it from you. This is certainly not what our Founders intended.

So my point is that property taxes are already a huge burden on millions of people around the country and Vance Patterson’s solution is to institute a national property tax?

Mr. Patterson, please consider these words of my wisdom when I say to thee….

At the afternoon rally, Dan Eichenbaum, a Murphy ophthalmologist running for the Republican nomination to face U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler in November’s congressional election, spoke in favor of a simpler tax policy.

Several speakers, including Eichenbaum, who the local tea party has endorsed, said they favor the “fair tax,” which would replace the federal income tax with a consumption tax on goods and services.

Asheville Citizen-Times

The Fair Tax is a legislation that has been around for nearing two decades now that would completely eliminate the Federal Income Tax and replace it with a national consumption tax on new goods and services.  It has its advantages, among them:  no more stressful income tax filing every year, no more intrusive and tyrannical IRS audits on the general public, more disposable income for almost every American, and more financial freedom.

I have stated in the past my skepticism that this will ever see a vote in Congress because the tax code is the primary vehicle for allowing politicians to wield their power in Washington.  Furthermore, while it will incredibly boost this country’s economic viability, no method of taxation will be a path to economic salvation until we get Federal spending under control  However, that said, unless the public supports candidates who support the idea of the Fair Tax then we only ensure my self-fulfilling prophecy, so I generally give two thumbs up to any candidate or representative who will get behind the idea.  Dan Eichenbaum supports the idea so hopefully that will weigh on your decision when you cast your vote in the North Carolina primary election, for which early voting has already begun.

The Legislature socked it to retail customers, smokers, drinkers and big earners with higher taxes last year to help close a budget gap calculated by Democrats at more than $4 billion.

Could hospitals or doctors’ offices be next?

Legislative leaders are returning to Raleigh early to begin adjusting the second year of the state’s two-year budget and they’re intrigued by a hospital or provider tax or fee because it could draw down three times as much extra money in federal matching funds for Medicaid.

It’s one of several options they’ll examine to help close another budget gap starting July 1 that ranging from $700 million to $1.2 billion. Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor, is on track to be $475 million over budget in North Carolina next fiscal year as more — and apparently sicker — patients enroll, legislative staff members told budget-writers last week.

“It’s worth considering,” said Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe. “Medicaid is there to serve the people and we’ve gone past the point, in my opinion, of being able to serve people appropriately. We’ve cut to that point.”

Business Week

Dear God, these people are out of their flippin minds!  All we’ve heard from the socialists is how the government has to take over control of the health care industry because the cost of care is getting too expensive and what do the socialists in North Carolina come up with?  Tax people for visiting a hospital!  Really??  Can it get more insane?  Why is cutting services never an option to these people?  To hell with Medicaid.  Cut it!  We’re in a recession!  When a family gets hit with a financial set back they have to tighten their belts and deal with it.  The government shouldn’t be any different.  If revenue is falling then cut back on the freebies!

You always hear the left bitching about the shrinking middle class.  Well, this is exactly why it’s happening!  It’s the middle class that gets tapped to pay for all of this redistributionist garbage.  Your suburban families that are working hard trying to support a family and maybe put a kid or two through college are the ones having to pony up to pay for everyone else who either can’t or won’t support themselves.  When will enough be enough already?

When His Majesty appeared to his subjects here in Charlotte Friday there was an open Q & A with the serfs.  One woman bluntly told the Big O that we are already overtaxed and questioned his “wisdom” in signing off on a health care bill that will raise taxes on Americans while we are already suffering a recession.  Obama doesn’t handle the truth very well.

Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package.

“We are over-taxed as it is,” Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. “Well, let’s talk about that, because this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation

The Washington Post

Translation: “You’re too dumb to understand, Doris.  You are not listening to my propaganda.”

I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have,” the president said.

Translation: “I have to work harder lying to you and the rest of the country.  Hopefully if I repeat these lies enough times, you insolent peasants will believe them.”

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).

And like most seasoned politicians, he gave an overly long and complex answer that had nothing to do with the question asked.  Watching paint dry would have likely been a more productive use of every attendees time.

South Carolina State Representative Kris Crawford (R-Florence) has been arrested and charged with failure to file a tax return, failure to pay income taxes, and failure to keep tax records for the years 2004 through 2007.  According to the Florence Morning News, he could face up to seven years in prison and $70,000 in fines if convicted.

I’m curious as to the thought process involved in Crawford’s decision to not abide by the very same tax laws that he as an elected state official implements on the rest of us.  Did he never think that at some point as a public figure this would come out?  It never occurred to him that a potential opponent in an election could discover this and torpedo him?

In the past year we’ve witnessed an epidemic of politicians and other political figures dodging their tax responsibilities.  Several of President Obama’s cabinet nominees had to withdraw their nominations over tax fraud.  New York Congressman Charlie Rangel (D) is in hot water over failure to declare and pay taxes on portions of his income.  Hell, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geither who heads the IRS cheated on his taxes.

Apparently, the taxes foisted upon us by the political class are only applicable to us and not to them.

As expected, the Republican controlled South Carolina Senate passed a 50 cent cigarette tax hike yesterday.  This is a larger increase than the 30 cent tax the Republican controlled South Carolina House passed roughly a month ago.  I told you they are never going to quit pushing for this and I’ve told you that the Republican party is full of shit when it claims it’s for small government and low taxes.  Here is what the Senate bill does.

The legislation calls for it to rise to 57 cents a pack, generating nearly $120 million for Medicaid programs, and $5 million each for efforts to curb smoking and cancer research. But it also sets aside $2.8 million for marketing agriculture products and $3.5 million for rural infrastructure development efforts along I-95, an area known for low income residents and underperforming schools.

”They get their money before a nickel goes to health care,” said Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, who said the bill won’t survive a veto. ”When it becomes a goody bag for some new spending, it’s in trouble. The trimmings doomed it,” the Charleston Republican said.

The New York Times

Now this new funding has always been touted as being needed to prevent smoking among kids and young adults and to help treat smoking related illnesses.  Yet, you can see that this is really just another funding stream to expand the socialist nanny state in South Carolina and to fund pet projects that are completely unrelated to health care.

Governor Sanford is sure to veto this and based on the vote count in the Senate by which the bill passed, 27 – 16, will not be enough to withstand that veto.  That’s assuming that they are even able to reconcile their bill with the House bill first, which was a lower tax increase.

These are the Republicans that voted for the bill.  Among them you will find the usual big government supporters, Socialist Luke Rankin, Socialist Tom Alexander, and of course my own Senator, the Socialist Wes Hayes.

• Tom Alexander (R-Walhalla)
• Paul Campbell (R-Goose Creek)
• Ronnie Cromer (R-Prosperity)
• Mike Fair (R-Greenville)
• Wes Hayes (R-Rock Hill)
• Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence)
• Larry Martin (R-Pickens)
• William O’Dell (R-Ware Shoals)
• Luke Rankin (R-Conway)

So my mailbox has been the recipient of an onslaught of press releases from angry Republican Congressmen and candidates over the passage of health care deform last night.  I am not going to post every single one of them so I am just going to put up snippets of each one and whose office they were sent from.

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District)

“Now more than ever we need sensible health care reform,” Foxx said. “That’s why it’s so sad that the Democratic majority forced this overhaul through. This bill is bad medicine, plain and simple. It’s chock full of government mandates, $569 billion in job-killing tax hikes and $1.2 trillion in new government spending.”

In addition to increasing taxes by $569 billion, the final health overhaul slashes Medicare by $523.5 billion. It also includes nearly $200 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage. There are more than 40,000 seniors in North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District who enjoy the benefits of Medicare Advantage.

Katherine Jenerette (Candidate for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District)

It’s a set up guys. Obama and his brain trust are out in front on this one. They put the ‘thou-shalt-purchase’ clause in the bill deliberately knowing every freedom-loving, red-blooded Republican AG would charge. They intend to have the Republican’s object to this in bit-and-pieces instead of a full frontal attack that the ENTIRE Bill is unconstitutional.

We Republicans bit the bait real good, but, it was a Trojans horse covered with shiny stuff like the abortion debate; deliberately set to get our attention. While all along, ‘Obamanistas’ fully expect that the Supreme Court will strike down the parts that mandate a person will buy insurance or they will pay through the nose to BigFed one way or another. There are bigger problems ahead, so save some ammo.

We had a saying when I was in the desert in the first Gulf War, ‘It’s not just the mouse that ran through the tent you need to worry about – it’s the viper that’s chasing the mouse you better be afraid of.’

When the Supreme Court decision is finally made – with the anticipated ruling, the bumper sticker “I Heart Socialized Medicine” liberal crowd will pull out the already prepared Round Three plan: Public Option in tandem with the Federal Government picking up the tab incrementally to offset the loss.

Scott Keadle (Candidate for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District)

Congressional candidate Scott Keadle today called on North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper to join other states’ attorney generals in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care reform bill passed by Congress late last night.

Currently, Attorney Generals from Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington have announced plans to do so. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced this morning that he would file suit on behalf of Floridians.

Keadle said, “The health care reform legislation passed by the U. S. House of Representatives last night violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state’s sovereignty. North Carolina should join the other states and file a lawsuit to protect the rights and the interests of its citizens.”

“The 10th District citizens overwhelmly are opposed to this legislation, and they deserve legal representation from our state’s top lawyer to fight on their behalf,” he said.

State Representative Jeff Duncan (Candidate for South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District)

As I watched the health care debate, it was my hope that Congress would have considered legislation that would lower costs and improve access by offering free market solutions. I hoped Congress would have remembered the Constitution of the United States and realized they were leading our nation away from our founding principles

Instead, we witnessed a 2,700 page bill rammed through Congress by using a mixture of backroom bribes and procedural tricks. Instead of passing a transparent bill that would help rejuvenate our economy, thousands of small business owners are left wondering if this health care bill will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

With the passage of this flawed health care bill we witnessed free market ideals substituted for more government bureaucracy. The federal government will be hiring approximately 16,000 new IRS agents just to enforce the new tax element of this legislation. In addition, this bill will make major cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and ask private citizens and doctors to pick up the tab. Ultimately, I believe this health care legislation is too expensive and is clearly unconstitutional.

Congressman Patrick McHenry (North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District)

“Today’s vote means the President will sign federal funding of abortions, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, 19 tax increases and $500 billion in Medicare cuts into law. His so-called health care ‘reform’ plan raises premiums, ignores lawsuit abuse and adds billions to the federal deficit.

“This is an anti-jobs bill. Instead of helping businesses create jobs it will increase federal spending, raise taxes and slow economic growth.

Like I said last year and the year before they are never going to let this go.  From yesterday’s Post and Courier article, let’s start with the logical fallacies of one Dr. Charles Darby.

“The higher the taxes, the more lives that we can save. It’s time for South Carolina to do what is right for our state,” said Dr. Charles P. Darby Jr., Medical University of South Carolina professor emeritus of pediatrics and executive director of the Children’s Hospital Center for Child Advocacy.

“Those of us who do not smoke pay higher health insurance premiums and taxes to subsidize the habit of smoking,” he said. “It is time the smoker pays for some of the cost.”

The Post and Courier

So according to the good doctor the only way to possibly solve this problem is to hand over more money to the government.  There would seem to me to be a much more logical solution.  Why don’t the insurance companies simply raise their premiums on people who smoke?  What, is that just too easy?  Or is the problem if we go that route our elected officials can’t get their grubby little paws on the money and then redirect it to all of their own little pet projects so they can buy votes at election time?

“Every delay just allows more children to get hooked on cigarettes,” Darby said.

According to what data, Doc?  You think a thirty cent price increase on a pack of cigarettes is going to stop kids from smoking?  It’s a negligible amount.  I am a former smoker myself.  I started smoking in high school back in the early 1990s when Marlboros were a buck a pack.  When I eventually quite smoking in my 20s the price of Marlboros was approaching $5 a pack.  It wasn’t the price that got me to quit.  I just decided to start being more cautious of my health.

Now I am going to shock you.  Unlike in years past, I am not as vehemently opposed to this tax hike this time.  Here is why.

Rep. Chip Limehouse, a Charleston Republican and a ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, made the proposal to get the 30-cent increase in the budget. He said a cigarette tax increase is about the only tax increase he could support and that it’s more important than ever to pass it now. New cash for Medicaid will free up money for schools, law enforcement and other priorities.

If they give so much as a dime of this increase to the schools I am going to be thoroughly pissed.  They don’t need any more money, but other state departments do.  As one example, our jails in particular have been the recipients of excessively painful budget cuts and that effects the safety of every resident in South Carolina.  The state budget has been stripped by more than $2 billion over what it was two years ago, so the efforts have definitely been made to try and reel in spending.

There is also this.

The governor said again in his State of the State address in January that he wants a cigarette tax increase to be used to cut corporate income taxes to make the state more competitive.

“We’re very much of the same mind as we’ve been in years past — that being that we’d definitely be open to an increase in the cigarette tax if it was accompanied by a corresponding tax cut in some other area. In fact, we’ve proposed just such an action in years past,” Ben Fox, communications director for Sanford, said in an e-mail Monday.

The House on Thursday gave key approval to a plan that eliminates the corporate income tax, as a way to make the state more attractive to business, making a cigarette tax increase this year even more likely.

That is a plan I can support.  If the state were to inversely eliminate the corporate income tax in exchange for an increase in the cigarette tax then that is something I can probably roll with.  Unemployment in South Carolina just hit 12.6% and we need a more competitive business environment.  Eliminating the corporate income tax would definitely put us on that path.

But Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent working with Graham and Kerry, said a detailed outline of a bill could come within days and that it will have to include a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions that drops in future years.

Last June, the House narrowly passed a climate change bill with cap-and-trade as its centerpiece and a carbon-reduction target of 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

But the initiative has stalled in the Senate, despite Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approval of a similar bill.

But, as a result of work in the past few months, Kerry said he was feeling “more confident” that a climate change bill could be presented to the Senate for passage this year.

“We’re looking at a new way of coming at this that we think can attract greater support,” Kerry said.

Environmentalists have speculated the bill the senators will produce could take a “sectoral approach” by imposing a new carbon-pricing mechanism on utilities, which account for about 40 percent of the emissions blamed for global warming.

Sources also have said there is talk of a transportation tax. Pollution controls on manufacturers could be put off for a few years to give time for more affordable alternative energy sources to come on line, they have said.

Reuters

I would really like to wonder exactly when it was that someone beat Lindsey Graham with the stupid stick because that guy has nothing but shit for brains.  A transportation tax?  It’s not clear as to what exactly that would entail, but one thing is for certain.  The result will not be good for South Carolina.  Any tax on transportation, but whether its an increase in the gas tax, a tax on transportation companies, on the airlines, etc is going to smack everyone in this state in their back pocket.  A tax on truckers transporting goods would be absolutely criminal because it would cause prices to rise in just about every sector, socking the poor and the middle class harder than anyone.

And yet Graham can’t figure out why he keeps getting booed when he speaks around his own state, oblivious to the fact he is alienating his own constituents in the name of junk science.