John, you are always a courteous debater, and I for one, enjoy your posts as the remnant of "real" conservatives that I remember, not the insane nuts that have destroyed the Repub party.
"A 2011 Government Accountability Office report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 (!) on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100 billion-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester."
For a recent year the IRS was threatening to take property if I did not pay a fine. From the amounts it was clear they had not looked at one of the forms in my return. When I called up, the fellow looked at my return and said "Oops! I'll take care of it."
And you will notice for quite some time it has required a long wait to get someone on the phone. I infer the IRS has been under staffing pressure for a year or two at least. In an attempt to reduce staff they have also been putting in a new automated system.
Expecting a further reduction now as we approach April 15 is not realistic.
IRS Ready to Collect Billions From Insurers Under Obama care..
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released its proposal Friday to garner billions of dollars through annual fees on health insurers as part of the Affordable Care Act.
Industry groups are quite upset, arguing that the fees will be passed along to consumers, The Hill reports.
The fees, to be collected from most insurers, would register $8 billion next year and rise every year afterward, breaking $14 billion in 2018, according to the IRS. The amount of the fees would depend on an insurer’s net premiums.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), one of the industry’s top trade groups, lambasted the proposal, estimating it would cost insurers more than $100 billion over the next 10 years and hurt consumers.
AHIP estimates that the fee would help push up the average family’s health insurance bill by $300 next year and more than $500 in following years.
“This is a new $100 billion tax on health insurance,” AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach told The Hill. “Taxing health insurance is only going to make it more expensive.
NO DOUBT Reilly! Sooo,, in Syria, we have the Israelis firing on Syrian held, Russian made rocket launchers, while we are giving 60 million to some Syrian rebels? What,, a mini cold war extension here?
Screw Syria.. All our gubbment is doing now is flapping their jaws about being broke and putting just the hard working ground level employees on furloughs, while they GIVE 60 MIL to Syrian rebels that will,,,, no doubt, in time turn that money against us..Its probably already in the hands of the musluuuum brotherhood already.
How can one NOT be pissed at our gubbmint and its non stop non-sense in the ME?
I'm sitting back watching the drama unfold as the "conservatives" start to squirm as the republican party slowly dissolves.
In staunchly conservative Wyoming — where legislators just cut most state agency budgets by 6.5 percent despite virtually no state debt and more than $15 billion in savings — the across-the-board federal cuts are raising questions.
Residents who depend on tourism for a living are already complaining to the state's all-Republican congressional delegation, which is on record as supporting the cuts if it means the alternative is raising taxes.
"I'm sorry, but in how this is affecting us, it doesn't seem to me like it's fiscally responsible," Darby said. "Somebody needs to refigure this, or we need to get better advocates."
National Debt Up More Than $6 Trillion Under Obama
Saturday, 02 Mar 2013 10:50 AM
By Sandy Fitzgerald
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The national debt has increased by more than $6 trillion since President Barack Obama took office, marking the largest increase under any president in history.
The Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt on Friday published its daily debt report, showing the government's total debt topped $16.687 trillion, CBS News reports. On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama took office, the debt was $10.626 trillion.
Less than two months into President Obama's second term, new numbers show the national debt increased by more than $6 trillion since he took office. The Office of Management and Budget projects the national debt will continue to increase by more than $800 billion this year alone.
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The new milestone was quietly announced on Friday, while Obama and congressional leaders were discussing $85 billion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts that started taking effect on Saturday.
Obama was seeking a package of targeted cuts and eliminating tax breaks to avoid the sequestration, which he says will harm the economy.
But the federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion for four years in a row, with Obama continuing to blame Bush for polices that created the debt, “primarily as a result of two wars, two massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis, (which) will have to be paid down," he said in a speech last year.
Under President George W. Bush, the debt climb by $4.9 trillion.
Let us know!