I hope that you'll forgive me for a personal note today.
Most of you know that I'm a family man. I have a fairly large family, and I love each of my children and their respective companions. It disappoints me that I apparently have not shared my feelings sufficiently with my children. Here is the reason for my statement:
This past weekend we had an unplanned family event. Our Air Force son and his wife came to visit from a long distance unannounced. We were pleased to see them and to enjoy them for a family birthday party honoring him and his twin brother. We contacted each of our children that live close by and let them know we were planning family events for the weekend while we were able to watch LDS General Conference. Each of my children that live close by came with spouse in tow to honor the birthday celebration of of my youngest two except one son and his wife. I am pretty disappointed that neither he nor she responded to any communication, and didn't at least honor us with a note declining to come. They just plain ignored the event all together. What topped the whole thing was a facebook note telling how much fun was had playing football on Sunday.
I thought I had taught my children to enjoy each other and honor each other's special days. I now must admit my failure. Failure as a father to teach my children is one of the most horrible thought I an imagine.
I've struggled over the past three days how to approach my failure and how to express my disappointment without being too condemning. I admit that I am still having trouble with it. Perhaps some of you can help me come to grips with this awful situation.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
The 47% from my point of view
From my point of view the 47% are made up of local, state, and federal government employees, welfare recipients, and government appointees at all levels including all three branches of government. The problem with the concept of the 47% is perception.
Let's take an example of a local city parks employee who makes $38,000/year. The associated payroll costs are about 40%, so actual cost to the city is about $53,200/year not including the vehicle and government issued supplies. This $53,200.00 is money paid into the city's coffers in the form of taxes. It may have been received through grants from state or federal government, but it all comes back to taxes. The employee returns about 17% to local, state, and federal taxes including income tax, fica, medicare taxes, etc. or about $9044.00. Therefore the employee actually reduces tax income from governments by $44,156.00.
While I don't advocate reducing these employees, it is important to see that they don't "pay" taxes. Instead they "receive" taxes. It doesn't feel that way to the employee, but the reality is that they pay a negative tax as shown above.
The same scenario applies to any government employee, appointee, and welfare recipient. Retirees are not the same because most of them paid into a phantom retirement program for years and years because the government told us it would pay for our retirement. I saw a report last week that indicated that if a person who had worked 40 years had put the same amount of money into an investment account as was paid into Social Security either by the employee or by the employer, even if there was no interest earned on the account, average payout would be over $30,000/year at retirement. And government could not have raided Social Security monies that were supposed to be in a secure account. That being the case, we can safely call what the federal government has foisted on us fraud. This is the ultimate ponzi scheme and we, the people, fell for it.
So those government employees who rely on government paychecks surely will vote for those who will guarantee their continued employment. Surely I would. It is just a matter of survival particularly if government is the only employer that will hire us.
However, there are some who can see this picture and will vote for the health of our nation instead of continued decay.
Let's take an example of a local city parks employee who makes $38,000/year. The associated payroll costs are about 40%, so actual cost to the city is about $53,200/year not including the vehicle and government issued supplies. This $53,200.00 is money paid into the city's coffers in the form of taxes. It may have been received through grants from state or federal government, but it all comes back to taxes. The employee returns about 17% to local, state, and federal taxes including income tax, fica, medicare taxes, etc. or about $9044.00. Therefore the employee actually reduces tax income from governments by $44,156.00.
While I don't advocate reducing these employees, it is important to see that they don't "pay" taxes. Instead they "receive" taxes. It doesn't feel that way to the employee, but the reality is that they pay a negative tax as shown above.
The same scenario applies to any government employee, appointee, and welfare recipient. Retirees are not the same because most of them paid into a phantom retirement program for years and years because the government told us it would pay for our retirement. I saw a report last week that indicated that if a person who had worked 40 years had put the same amount of money into an investment account as was paid into Social Security either by the employee or by the employer, even if there was no interest earned on the account, average payout would be over $30,000/year at retirement. And government could not have raided Social Security monies that were supposed to be in a secure account. That being the case, we can safely call what the federal government has foisted on us fraud. This is the ultimate ponzi scheme and we, the people, fell for it.
So those government employees who rely on government paychecks surely will vote for those who will guarantee their continued employment. Surely I would. It is just a matter of survival particularly if government is the only employer that will hire us.
However, there are some who can see this picture and will vote for the health of our nation instead of continued decay.
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