Where Are My Keys?

More shady dealings by the IRS?

It's starting to look like the IRS has some significant systemic failings:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.  

 

"This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," the complaint reads. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," it continued.

 

According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, "it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter," the complaint read. 

 

The class action lawsuit against the IRS seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages "per violation per individual" in addition to punitive damages for constitutional violations.  Thus, compensatory damages could start at a minimum of $250 billion.

(emphasis mine)

People need to go to jail.

I'm behind this idea 100%..

John McCain wants to eliminate the "blackout" rule for stadiums that are funded with taxpayer dollars:

McCain's bill also aims to eliminate the sports blackout rule, which prohibits local television stations from airing an NFL game that is not sold out. While that proposal has no shot of standing up in privately owned stadiums, McCain wants it implemented for any team whose stadium was funded with taxpayer dollars.

"When the venue in which these sporting events take place has been the beneficiary of taxpayer funding," McCain said, via the Los Angeles Times, "it is unconscionable to deny those taxpayers who paid for it the ability to watch the games on television when they would otherwise be available."

I don't think it has a chance in getting passed, but kudos for making the case, Senator.

Nope, no need for entitlement reform in this Country..

The Bomber Brothers and their families received $100,000 in benefits:

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify.

Look, I get that it's pretty hard to look at each and every application for benefits to spot the bad eggs, and prevent them from getting taxpayer funds.  Could we at least cross-match names against no-fly lists, terrorist watch lists, and maybe folks with extensive criminal records?

Maybe that would be an easy place to start.

City Workers finally having to contribute like the rest of Us..

Cities around the Country are waking up to financial reality, and *gasp* asking new hires to pay their portion of retirement expenses.  You know, like we do:

Pension costs have caused several recent high-profile municipal bankruptcies recently, so other cities are trying to avoid suffering similar disasters by asking employees to begin paying part of their pension costs.

In Sacramento, Calif., City Manager John Shirey said today he will hire 58 new police officers only if current officers agree to pay the employee share of their pension payments. The police union is one of few groups of employees in the city who don’t pay any of their own pension costs,  according to the Sacramento Bee.

Most public pension plans are set up with a set contribution for employers and employees, but employee unions often negotiate for employers to pay both the employer share and some or all of the employee share, which makes pension payments a large chunk of many cities’ budgets. Bankrupt Stockton, Calif., for instance, owes the California Public Employees Retirement System $900 million.

It's not just Sacramento seeing the light:

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake introduced a bill today that would require city employees to pay part of their share to address $681 million in unfunded pension liabilities, according to the Baltimore Sun. The bill would require employees to put 5 percent of their salaries into the pension fund by 2018. Rawlings-Blake’s office estimates it would save $53 million over nine years, according to the Sun. “The costs of outdated benefits have crippled our ability to pay workers what they truly deserve in their paychecks,” the mayor said in a statement. “We must make tough choices to rebalance the way we compensate our hard-working employees by reforming unsustainable benefits and instead invest in better wages up-front.”

Look for more and more this to happen in cities near you.

Remember, something that can't go on forever, won't.

Who would have thought?

So when taxes go up, Consumer spending goes down?

Spending by U.S. consumers cooled in March after the strongest gain in five months, showing the biggest part of the economy lost momentum as the first quarter drew to a close.

Purchases advanced 0.2 percent, more than projected and reflecting a surge in outlays for utilities and other services that is unlikely to be repeated, after a 0.7 percent increase the prior month, Commerce Department figures showed. Another report showed more Americans than forecast signed contracts to purchase previously owned homes in March.

Higher payroll taxes that took effect in January may be starting to take a bigger toll on the American worker, chipping away at the consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. With growth projected to ease this quarter and inflation subdued, Federal Reserve policy makers meeting this week will probably keep pursuing the record monetary stimulus that’s helped breathe life into the housing recovery.

“Consumers won’t be able to sustain the current pace if income growth continues to disappoint,” said Millan Mulraine, an economist for TD Securities USA LLC in New York, who accurately projected the gain in spending. “The weak inflation backdrop is likely to cause the Fed to at least keep purchasing” securities.

I wonder what would happen to Consumer spending if taxes went down. 

Why the Democrats lost the Obama Sequester battle..

Pretty simple, really.  The disaster scenarios advanced by the White House didn't materialize:

Problem was, when the spending cuts came, nobody noticed. This led the Obama administration to try to up the pain by focusing cuts in places where people might feel the pain: canceling White House tours for schoolchildren, or furloughing air traffic controllers.

That didn't work either. The tour-canceling just looked mean, and the problem with targeting air travel is that members of Congress, and their top donors, fly a lot. Huge bipartisan majorities in Congress thus quickly passed legislation forcing the FAA to make cuts elsewhere instead.

The whole thing was a bust, and has me thinking that someone in Congress -- or, if he's smart, President Obama -- ought to propose more across-the-board cuts as a means of addressing our swollen deficit and national debt. Critics of across-the-board cuts always say that we should make "smart cuts" instead of using a "meat axe." But the reason why we have a ballooning national debt is that our politicians are clearly incapable of making "smart cuts."

As it should be..

Don't pay your taxes?  Find a new job.

Anyone that opposes this bill is condoning shirking their financial and social responsibility.

More Obamacare hidden costs to the Middle Class coming out..

Too bad you rubes didn't listen to the warnings that something like this would happen, before the Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress:

More importantly, due to the creeping effects of inflation, 20 million Medicare beneficiaries would end up paying higher "income related" premiums for their outpatient and prescription coverage over time.

Administration officials say Obama's proposal will help improve the financial stability of Medicare by reducing taxpayer subsidies for retirees who can afford to pay a bigger share of costs. Congressional Republicans agree with the president on this one, making it highly likely the idea will become law if there's a budget deal this year.

But the way Pugach sees it, she's being penalized for prudence, dinged for saving diligently.

It was the government, she says, that pushed her into a higher income bracket where she'd have to pay additional Medicare premiums.

IRS rules require people age 70-and-a-half and older to make regular minimum withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement nest eggs like 401(k)s. That was enough to nudge her over Medicare's line.

"We were good soldiers when we were young," said Pugach, who worked as a computer systems analyst. "I was afraid of not having money for retirement and I put in as much as I could. The consequence is now I have to pay about $500 a year more in Medicare premiums."

Just like the mortgage fiasco, those that played by the rules and planned ahead get screwed by this Administration.

If the proposal were already law, Pugach would be paying about $168 a month for outpatient coverage under Medicare's Part B, instead of $146.90.

Then, the plan would create five new income brackets to squeeze more revenue from the top tiers of retirees.

But its biggest impact would come through inflation.

The administration is proposing to extend a freeze on the income brackets at which seniors are liable for the higher premiums until 1 in 4 retirees has to pay. It wouldn't be the top 5 percent anymore, but the top 25 percent.

"Over time, the higher premiums will affect people who by today's standards are considered middle-income," explained Tricia Neuman, vice president for Medicare policy at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "At some point, it raises questions about whether (Medicare) premiums will continue to be affordable."

Who decides what is "reasonable"?

Why, the Government, of course!

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.

The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code.

The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year. 

It'll just be "The Rich" this time around.  Next time, it will be "The Wealthy", then it will be You.

Remember when those of you on the Left laughed when those of us on the Right pointed out that there were folks in the Obama Administration looking into the feasibility of going after retirement accounts?  (As a sidebar, some back then were also laughing at the thought of Obama "taking away our guns")

Funny how the things the Right warn about well in advance have a crazy history of coming true later, isn't it?

A metaphor for his Presidency..