Great Depression Online Archive Issue:

Pelosi's Work of Health Care Duplicity

Great Depression Online
Long Beach, CA
November 10, 2009

Inside This Issue You Will Discover…

*** A Remarkable Piece of Doublespeak
*** The Return of the Inflation Tax
*** Pelosi’s Work of Health Care Duplicity
*** And More

A Remarkable Piece of Doublespeak

Whether you are for or opposed to government health insurance is not our concern.  Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion…and who are we to stand in the way.

Here at the GDO, and in the words of Henry David Thoreau, we “heartily accept the motto, -- ‘That government is best which governs least.’”  Along these lines, a bunch of government goons in D.C. expropriating our money so they can control our medical insurance coverage sticks in our craw like a splintery chicken bone.

On Saturday night we learned the House of Representatives had passed a remarkable piece of doublespeak…The Affordable Health Care for America Act.

“Democratic Leader Basks in Victory,” said the Sunday morning headline on the Yahoo homepage.  Above it was a photograph of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surrounded by an entourage of sycophantic underlings…all fawning and drooling like flies on cow puckey.

~~~~~~Opportunity Knocks~~~~~~

The U.S. Department of Energy finally agrees: We’re running out of oil – FAST!

The world is heading for a catastrophic shortfall of oil.  And there won’t be any other source of energy available in time to replace it.  To say we’re going to experience turmoil in the energy market might be the understatement of the year.

How to Profit from the Oil Supply Crisis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From what we gather, the health care bill will cost an estimated $1 trillion over ten years.  But not to worry…

“The bill is fiscally sound, will not add one dime to the deficit,” said Pelosi.

Maybe so, but to pay for subsidized health insurance for all, the bill would reinstitute the most dastardly and dishonest tax of all. 

The Return of the Inflation Tax

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $1.00 today is equivalent to what $0.05 was worth in 1913…the year the Federal Reserve was born.

It’s really quite simple.  When the Federal Reserve prints money or issues credit, they increase the money supply.  As the supply of money increases, over time, its relative value in the economy decreases.

The increase in the money supply, and the resulting loss of purchasing power, is commonly known as inflation.  And this alone is a form of taxation on savings.  But the return of the inflation tax we’re talking about is much more sinister than that.

As inflation increases, incomes generally increase too.  So while in nominal terms a $50,000 income is much more than a $17,000 income, when you adjust for inflation, a $50,000 income today is equivalent to what a $17,000 income was in 1979.

In recognition of this, tax brackets have typically been indexed to account for inflation driven income increases.  In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, there’s been “…a 30-year bipartisan consensus that it is unfair to tax unreal gains in income.” 

Pelosi’s Work of Health Care Duplicity

With The Affordable Health Care for America Act, that could change…

“In order to raise enough money to make their plan look like it won’t add to the deficit, House Democrats have deliberately not indexed two main tax features of their plan: the $500,000 threshold for the 5.4-percentage-point income tax surcharge; and the payroll level at which small businesses must pay a new 8% tax penalty for not offering health insurance.

“This is a sneaky way for politicians to pry more money out of workers every year without having to legislate tax increases.  The negative effects of failing to index compound over time, yielding a revenue windfall for government as the years go on.  The House tax surcharge is estimated to raise $460.5 billion over 10 years, but only $30.9 billion in 2011, rising to $68.4 billion in 2019, according to the Joint Tax Committee.

“Americans of a certain age have seen this movie before.  In 1960, only 3% of tax filers paid a 30% or higher marginal tax rate.  By 1980, after the inflation of the 1970s, the share was closer to 33%, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis of tax returns.

“These stealth tax increases—forcing ever more Americans to pay higher tax rates on phantom gains in income—were widely seen to be unjust.  And in 1981 as part of the Reagan tax cuts, a bipartisan coalition voted to index the tax brackets for inflation.”

While the Pelosi’s income tax threshold may not impact you today, there’s a good chance it could impact you tomorrow…especially with the future inflation that’s being sparked by current fiscal and monetary policy.  Sometime in the not to distant future your income could rise, along with inflation, and even though your inflation adjusted income would be equal or even less than what it is today, you’d pay more of it in taxes.

What’s more, there’s a provision buried in the bill that makes it a felony offense, punishable by five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, for any individual who doesn’t participate in the program or pay the mandated penalties.

Such is the Pelosi vision for health care in America.  Where to help people you must take their money.  Where the harder people work the more their money is commandeered by the state.  Where those who disagree with you must go to prison. 

The more one studies it, the more exceptional it seems.  If it is not a work of duplicity then no work of duplicity exists on earth.

Sincerely,

M.N. Gordon
Great Depression Online

P.S.  With the coming inflation, energy prices could skyrocket.  In fact, energy is poised to be one of the most promising sectors of the next decade.  But it will also be a difficult sector to navigate.  If you are to profit from energy, you will need some expert advice along the way – an expert in the industry who will share his experience and tremendous insider knowledge with you.

That person is Marin Katusa

 

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