i agree
 

i have agreed with this statement since i taught religious ed and was dismayed at the emphasis on social justice instead of the tenets of our faith. i think this is a product of infiltration of the church from the left. not that social justice is not a good thing, but it does nothing to make us appreciate the beauty of our faith and tradition....there are 67 million catholics in the US. if they could be made aware of this leftist agenda, we could truly change the face of this country. there is a great video called Test of Fire produced by a church affiliated group...check it out on you tube...and VOTE!

bucco - you didn't offend me - i got your intention, too! ;)

Government jobs are growing as we know.....must be a good place to work...

"...as of 2010, there are 98,291 federal employees who owe us $1.034 billion. (That’s billion with a B.) This really shouldn’t surprise anyone since the number of federal employees who are also tax delinquents has been fairly consistent: about 100,000 over the last seven years. The problem is that during that period the amount owed has soared from $600 million to over $1 billion."

While not the worst of the lot, worth noting...

"The Presidential staff has 36 employees owing a total of $833,000 – that comes out to $23,000 per employee!"

Maybe we dont need the class warfare if we just went after these folks, AND it appears that finally..

"So what has the Congress been doing to rein in their employees who are tax chiselers? Not much, which is why the amount of money owed in back taxes continues to skyrocket. But finally, there is an effort to clamp down on this disgusting matter. Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has decided that the American people deserve better behavior from their employees."

He has actually entered a bill that would allow termination for those who do not pay their income taxes. As we know this will be blocked at some venture along the way along with our budget and everything else...

Our Government Employees Skip Paying Taxes - Bruce Bialosky - Townhall Conservative Columnists

While the number of Federal employees owing taxes is too high - remember that there are approximately 2,748,978 Federal employees. The 98,291 (if my arithmetic is correct) constitutes less than 1%.

Take any very large corporation like IBM and I would bet there are at least 1% of the employees who owe Federal taxes.

True, Government should be an example to the rest of the country - but with 99% not owing Federal taxes is not too much to gripe about.

The Federal Government DOES do penalties on employees who have government debt either through pay being reduced until it is paid off or penalties that does include dismissal.

"He now has introduced a bill that gives every department the authority to terminate employees who don’t pay their taxes. When I asked him why the bill doesn’t require the employee to be fired, he replied that [SIZE="2"]the Democrats would never agree to that, principally because they were concerned that key people might be among the debtors.[/SIZE] I then wondered aloud whether federal workers could then say “You can’t fire me or make me pay my taxes because I am too important.”

I dont disagree with the premise that MAYBE their are others but this is the fastest growing segment of jobs, and I just wonder why this and the "Sharpton type" things never make the news. To me, anyway, it IS a story to be told. In addition the Presidential staff number of employees and average amount owed is glaring.

I am sure that there have been others but under the current circumstances you sort of wonder why this is not in the news more.

I just Googled "income tax owed by federal employees" and came up with several pages of facts and figures. They were excerpts from television (CBS, NBC, ABC, and newspapers including Washington Post) as well as countless others.

How much coverage do you want on the subject?

Point well taken.....dont think it can get enough ! I need to start watching television I suppose ! Never read it until this morning

ChaCha -

I have nothing against a Catholic church being tax exempt. That is the same for all churches whether they are Catholic, Protestent, Jewish, or Islam.

Not Just The Dems
 

C'mon Figmo, it's not just the Democrats. Both Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett (as well as thousands of other 'top one percenters' I suspect) paid a lower tax rate on their income last year than I did. And I'm just an old retired guy living in The Villages.

Somehow continuing to lower the taxes on the 'job creators' while incrteasing the tax rates on people like me seems a little counter-intuitive...particularly when the job creators don't seem to be creating any jobs.

I dont believe that FIGMO was referring to what rate, BUT payment of ANY taxes whatsoever

Ridiculous
 

I still think it's ridiculous that the GOP steadfastly protects the wealthiest among us from paying any more in taxes than they pay now. In fact, most of the GOP proposals cut the taxes on the rich even more. It's pretty clear to anyone who pays even the least bit of attention that the tax code, including all the loopholes, deductions and exclusions, has been bought and paid for by the lobbyists representing the wealthy. Most people know it and the overwhelming majority of Americans think it's wrong and that the wealthiest should pay more. But the GOP continues to 'serve and protect', just like the police for the rich.

Doesn't anyone ever ask WHY??

So you are one who believes in the Buffet rule ? That is the political gimmick that the President is touting INSTEAD of wholesale tax code revision.

So you believe in NO BUDGET at all, hiding the health care costs ? That seems to be the way of the Democrats and has been for years they are in control.

VK I totally respect your financial knowldege and your post will be the mantra of the democratic party....and it is class warfare. The house budget by Ryan is far far from right on but our secy of Treasury says he doesnt care what it says, he is against it.

The Republicans are not correct and neither are the Democrats, but you seem to think they got it and the Republican do not With all due respect I disagree totally with you.


As far as the polls, the polls also said that the majority were against the healthcare bill, but we got it anyway, and NO conversation about all the taxes hidden in that bill EVER !

You and the democrats propose the easy way...the way that sounds good and will certainly sway voters....and that is it. If you think that just raising taxes on a few rich people is the answer, wow...how simple that is.

Lets go to work and revise the tax code.....but stop the political pandering about rich and poor !!!

Sorry, I do respect your opinion but when you come out backing this Democratic party I have to disagree. It was you who said we need to cut and cut deeply, yet the house budget gets not a look....just tax the rich and we will be ok.

By the way...the "serve and protect" line is a good one. Did you share that with the party ?

VILLAGEKAHUANA....saw this the other day and thought of you when you used to go on about the size of banks and how whatever was being done would reduce those large banks....I am paraphrasing so feel free to correct me on that but at least in my head that is what you were saying.

This is from a blurb I saw the other day...

"Two years after President Barack Obama vowed to eliminate the danger of financial institutions becoming “too big to fail,” the nation’s largest banks are bigger than they were before the credit crisis.

Five banks – JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — held $8.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2011, equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy, according to the Federal Reserve.

Five years earlier, before the financial crisis, the largest banks’ assets amounted to 43 percent of U.S. output. The Big Five today are about twice as large as they were a decade ago relative to the economy, sparking concern that trouble at a major bank would rock the financial system and force the government to step in as it did during the 2008 crunch."

Great news: “Too big to fail” banks even bigger now « Hot Air

Bottom line to me....I/we trusted this man on health care and he lied and continues to do so. There were a number of things that I actually thought this man would or could do...but he lied all around.

That is enough for me !!

Broader
 

You kinda broadened out the discussion, Bucco. Of course I'm for a broad and complete reworking of the tax code...combined with an aggressively crafted budget that substantially cuts both discretionary spending, but more importantly entitlement spending.

What I'm really for is a Congress and a POTUS who will do the arithmetic and then act on the results. Our fiscal problems cannot be solved without both substantial spending cuts as well as tax increases. The most likely and logical tax increases will have to be borne by the wealthiest individuals and those companies who either pay no or little taxes or benefit from tax loopholes that are not needed other than to increase their profits.

Is that "income redistribution"? Yeah, I guess it is. The wealthy will have to contribute more of their earned income to pay for government services, many of which will benefit those who can't afford to pay for them. But in my mind, that's the role of a democratic government in a developed country.

If that's the Democratic mantra...yep, I'm for it! If that's what the GOP will support, I'm for them too!

"Big" Isn't Always Bad
 

Big isn't always bad, Bucco. But what is bad is big combined with a tepid and ineffective regulatory structure. Unfortunately, that's what we have. Dodd-Frank is a joke. It doesn't provide the regulatory structure that I think is necessary and in fact the complicated regulations it does require tends to drive the smaller, community banks out of business, making the largest banks even larger. (That's what they wanted, of course, and that's what they got as the result of their lobbyists payments to members of Congress.)

I know that the vast majority of those on the right have ObamaCare squarely in their sights. But really, the law that has the potential of creating another life-changing crisis in the near term is Dodd-Frank. But nary a word about overturning that abomination. And unfortunately, the critics don't understand our financial regulatory structure any better than they understand the contents of ObamaCare.