Death Tax, Neglected Nation, Shrinking Middle Class - March, 2011

Americans are fast becoming one of the most taxed peoples on earth. According to some, America may also be gradually reverting back to a slavery of sorts (although this time whites aren't going to be exempt). Over taxed, over regulated and underemployed, the quality of life in America is slowly but surely declining, and so is its backbone - the middle class. 

 It is a commonly held belief in America that Europeans pay higher taxes. In final tally, I'm not too sure if Europeans do indeed pay much higher taxes than Americans. However, what's important to realize here is that when Germans, Swedes, French, Danes or even America's northern neighbors, the Canadians pay higher taxes, they at the very least realize that a significant portion of their tax money comes back to fund their excellent education system, their excellent social benefits, their excellent national infrastructure and their excellent universal medical coverage. Moreover, and more importantly, unlike the typical American, the typical European actually gets to enjoy his or her one time on earth.

Tax burdened Americans, however, are slavishly working to keep tyrannical dictators in power. Americans are working to pay for more-and-more of Washington's weapons of mass destruction. Americans are working to pay for the protection of the Zionist state of Israel. Americans are working to pay for the maintenance of a thousand military installations around the world. Americans are working to pay for Washington's wars of plunder around the world. Americans are working to pay for millions of single mothers to have children out of wedlock. All this, while America's infrastructure is slowly crumbling and its industry gradually relocating to China and Mexico. American's immense national wealth is gradually being plundered by a handful of unimaginably powerful oligarchic entities. Increasingly, Americans are finding themselves to be under-payed and overworked slaves of mega-corporations and government agencies. As the nation's top layer (the top 10% of society that controls 90% of the wealth in the country) gets wealthier, most Americans today continue living from paycheck to paycheck and in fear of the future.

Being that the United states is by far the wealthiest and the most powerful nation/empire on earth - there is absolutely NO excuse for this.

The cost of merely one of the pentagon's many weapons system currently being procured can cure many of America's problems.  

As tens of millions of Americans continue living in poverty, a handful of companies representing the military industrial complex continue making billions of dollars. As the nation's infrastructure rots, billions of dollars are spent on doomsday weapons. As tens of millions of Americans go without medical insurance, the nation's oil giants continue are making record profits. There was a time, not too long ago as a matter of fact, when a simple blue-collar worker in America could provide his family with a good life. There was a time when the "American dream" was possible for most if not all layers of American society. There was a time in America when all one needed to start a good business was to have a good idea and a good work ethic. Not anymore. The American dream has been turned into an American nightmare for tens of millions. For a vast majority of Americans today, a single income family is a relic of the distant past. For the new generation of Americans reaching adulthood, owning a home is merely a dream. And starting a business today is simply unimaginable even for those that want to.

An overabundance of electronic gadgetry, a subpar national education system, a controlled mainstream news media and the ubiquitousness of mindless entertainment in the United States has all but decimated the public's intellect and has severely dulled its senses.  

Consequently, what we have in America today is a stunned and stupefied population struggling to pay its ever-growing number of bills. 

Slowly but surely, the federal government's ever-growing tentacles are reaching deeper and deeper into every sector of American society. Even in death Americans are no longer able to free themselves from the fed's reach. Ever heard of the death tax? Many living Americans haven't, actually. If any one of you Americans think that you may die at some point in your lives, please make sure to figure out how to protect your money and your real-estate from the taxman's claws. 

What you think may belong to you and your family and what the federal government thinks belongs to you and your family - are two vastly different things. The following information about the dreaded "death tax" proves beyond any doubt that officials in Washington enjoy participating in necrophilia.

Today's American society is overly taxed and overly regulated. If this situation continues for much longer, the system of government here will undoubtedly collapse before the end of this century.

Arevordi
March, 2011

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Death Tax Ambush

Great 21 century war looming, Egypt & Libya just brush fires (RT video): http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/31/-SiSlzYhiFU

Max Keiser on Revolts: Americans Joining Middle East Uprising Trend: http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/4/R7Usl1v7u40

Here's some free financial advice: Don't die in New Jersey any time soon. If you have more than $675,000 to your name and you die in the Garden State, about 54% may go to the IRS and the tax collectors in Trenton. Better not take your last breath in Maryland either. The tax penalty for dying there is half of a lifetime's savings. That's the combined tab from the new federal estate tax rate of 35% and Maryland's inheritance and death taxes. Maybe they should rename it the Not-So-Free State.

This perverse confiscation also applies to some 20 other states, thanks to a quirk in December's GOP-White House tax compromise. The new law applies a top federal death tax rate of 35% with a $5 million exemption for 2011 and 2012. But it also changed a federal credit for state death tax rates into a federal deduction. The credit allowed a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal taxes for state levies as high as 16%. This meant that every dime from state tax collections came from Uncle Sam. It was essentially a free tax for states.

By contrast, the deduction merely reduces the amount of federal taxable income and thus sharply reduces the amount of state tax that can be written off federal taxes. Many states have estate taxes at the old 16% threshold which now means an effective 10 percentage point or more surcharge above the 35% federal rate. This surcharge is even higher in states that also have an inheritance tax, which is levied on the value of specific property bequeathed to heirs, in addition to the estate tax (which is levied on the value of the entire estate).

Our friends at the American Family Business Foundation have done the math on the interaction between the new federal rates and these state taxes, and you can consult the nearby chart to see your state's fee for the privilege of dying. No wonder the battle over death taxes has suddenly moved to state capitals, with Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Rhode Island looking to repeal their state levies this year. These state taxes also generally hit estates starting at as little as $1 million. Family business owners, ranchers, farmers and wealthy retirees can avoid that tax by relocating to Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, South Carolina and other states that don't impose inheritance taxes. There are plenty of attractive places to go.

New research indicates that high state death taxes may be financially self-defeating. A 2011 study by the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Rhode Island, examined Census Bureau migration data and discovered that "from 1995 to 2007 Rhode Island collected $341.3 million from the estate tax while it lost $540 million in other taxes due to out-migration."

Not all of those people left because of taxes, but the study found evidence that "the most significant driver of out-migration is the estate tax." After Florida eliminated its estate tax in 2004, there was a significant acceleration of exiles from Rhode Island to Florida. Connecticut has come to the same conclusion. A 2008 study by the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services found that the 26 states without an estate tax produced twice as many jobs from 2004-07 and had a growth rate 50% faster than those with estate taxes. The study found that the average estate of those leaving Connecticut was $7.5 million and their average taxable income was $446,000. With wealth like this chased out year after year, is it any wonder so many Northeastern states can't balance their budgets?

Proponents argue that the death tax has minimal incentive effects because people can't change their behavior after they die. But every day people make decisions to minimize their tax bills before they die. In other words, estate taxes don't redistribute income among taxpayers. They redistribute income among states. The federal death tax will revert with a vengeance to 55% in 2013 unless Congress acts in the next two years. But in the meantime, states like Indiana and Ohio, and especially New Jersey, can help their economic recovery by eliminating their death taxes and inviting lost wealth to return.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960804576120050963075390.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay. What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs. But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart. The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA

When Democracy Weakens

As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only. While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, and the politicians dance.

So what we get in this democracy of ours are astounding and increasingly obscene tax breaks and other windfall benefits for the wealthiest, while the bought-and-paid-for politicians hack away at essential public services and the social safety net, saying we can’t afford them. One state after another is reporting that it cannot pay its bills. Public employees across the country are walking the plank by the tens of thousands. Camden, N.J., a stricken city with a serious crime problem, laid off nearly half of its police force. Medicaid, the program that provides health benefits to the poor, is under savage assault from nearly all quarters. The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be genuflecting before the very rich.

In an Op-Ed article in The Times at the end of January, Senator John Kerry said that the Egyptian people “have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities.” Americans are being asked to swallow exactly the opposite. In the mad rush to privatization over the past few decades, democracy itself was put up for sale, and the rich were the only ones who could afford it. The corporate and financial elites threw astounding sums of money into campaign contributions and high-priced lobbyists and think tanks and media buys and anything else they could think of. They wined and dined powerful leaders of both parties. They flew them on private jets and wooed them with golf outings and lavish vacations and gave them high-paying jobs as lobbyists the moment they left the government. All that money was well spent. The investments paid off big time.

As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson wrote in their book, “Winner-Take-All Politics”: “Step by step and debate by debate, America’s public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the many.”

As if the corporate stranglehold on American democracy were not tight enough, the Supreme Court strengthened it immeasurably with its Citizens United decision, which greatly enhanced the already overwhelming power of corporate money in politics. Ordinary Americans have no real access to the corridors of power, but you can bet your last Lotto ticket that your elected officials are listening when the corporate money speaks.

When the game is rigged in your favor, you win. So despite the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, the stock markets are up and all is well among the plutocrats. The endlessly egregious Koch brothers, David and Charles, are worth an estimated $35 billion. Yet they seem to feel as though society has treated them unfairly.

As Jane Mayer pointed out in her celebrated New Yorker article, “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry — especially environmental regulation.” (A good hard look at their air-pollution record would make you sick.)

It’s a perversion of democracy, indeed, when individuals like the Kochs have so much clout while the many millions of ordinary Americans have so little. What the Kochs want is coming to pass. Extend the tax cuts for the rich? No problem. Cut services to the poor, the sick, the young and the disabled? Check. Can we get you anything else, gentlemen?

The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away. I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.” I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12herbert.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

My Polluted Kentucky Home

LAST weekend I joined 19 other Kentuckians in a sit-in at the office of Gov. Steve Beshear. We were there to protest his support of mountaintop removal, a technique used by coal-mining companies that, as its name implies, involves blasting away the tops of mountains and hills to get at the coal seams beneath them. Since it was first used in 1970, mountaintop removal has destroyed some 500 mountains and poisoned at least 1,200 miles of rivers and streams across the Appalachian coal-mining region. Yet Governor Beshear is so committed to the practice that he recently allied with the Kentucky Coal Association in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to block more stringent regulations of it. In court his administration’s lawyers referred to public opposition as simply “an unwarranted burden.”

The news media and the rest of the country typically think of mountaintop removal as an environmental problem. But it’s a human crisis as well, scraping away not just coal but also the freedoms of Appalachian residents, people who have always been told they are of less value than the resources they live above. Over the past six years I’ve visited dozens of people who live at the edge of mountaintop removal sites. They bathe their children in water that has arsenic levels as high as 130 times what the E.P.A. deems safe to drink. Their roads are routinely destroyed by overloaded trucks; their air is clouded with pollutants. Their schools sit below ponds holding billions of gallons of sludge. Their children lose sleep worrying that the sludge dams will break, releasing the sludge down upon them. It happened 40 years ago at Buffalo Creek, W.Va., killing 125 people, and it could happen again today.

It’s a horrible way to live. And yet, as it does in many other impoverished quarters of America, the news too often avoids covering Appalachia as if it were a no man’s land. When a 3-year-old Virginia boy was crushed to death in his crib after a half-ton boulder was accidentally (and illegally) dislodged by a mining company, it barely made the national news. Many people around here believe the omission reflected that the child lived in a trailer home in the heart of coal country. In 2000, 306 million gallons of sludge — 30 times more than the volume of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez — buried parts of Martin County, Ky., as deep as 5 feet. Yet hardly anyone outside the region remembers the disaster, if they ever heard about it.

More recently, my friend Judy’s grandson was playing in a creek when he was suddenly surrounded by dozens of dead fish. Tests later proved that a coal company was releasing polyacrylamide — a cancer-causing agent used to prepare coal for burning — into the creek. When Judy complained to the state, no one replied. She recently died of brain cancer. I’ve heard dozens of stories like these, but they rarely make it beyond the mountains. Is it any wonder then that Appalachian residents feel invisible?

In fact, invisible is how we’ve been taught to think of ourselves since coal was first discovered here. When I was little, teachers would stand over my desk and tell me that I had to change my accent if I wanted to get ahead in the world. Never mind that I had nearly perfect grammar and spelling. We were also told the success of the mines mattered above all else, that if we complained about the dust, noise and disrespect pumped out by the mine in our community, people would lose jobs.

The coal companies, the news media and even our own government have all been complicit in valuing Appalachian lives less than those of other Americans. Otherwise, it might be harder for them to get that coal out as quickly and inexpensively as they do. Those of us who protest mountaintop removal do it for the environment, but we’re also fighting to prove we are not unwarranted burdens. Our water and air are being poisoned, but the most dangerous toxin is the message that people don’t matter. As a child I once stood on a cedar-pocked ridge with my father, looking down on a strip mine near the place that had been our family cemetery. My great-aunt’s grave had been “accidentally” buried under about 50 feet of unwanted topsoil and low-grade coal; “overburden,” the industry calls it. My father took a long, deep breath. I feel that I’ve been holding it ever since.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20House.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=coal&st=cse

Generation 'Y Me?'

Demographic changes here and abroad mean young Americans face a bleaker investment future than their parents did.

Times are hard for those of us in Generation Y. After voting two to one for Barack Obama in the heady days of November 2008, the realization that we'll end up working harder than previous generations—and with less to show for it—is descending like a bad hangover. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly two-fifths of Generation Y (broadly defined as those born in the 1980s and '90s) remain unemployed. Studies by Yale economist Lisa Kahn indicate that those who begin their careers in a recession face diminished lifetime earnings. Moreover, as the national debt and unfunded liabilities grow and future tax burdens reach crippling proportions, the prospects for intergenerational mobility are fading fast.

While policy makers have touched on these issues, they've ignored one key aspect—gloomy long-term financial returns. The conventional wisdom bequeathed to our generation was simple: Buy stocks and hold them for the long run. With the S&P 500 returning nominal compound annual growth rates of 10%-12%, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and 401(k) plans were thought to offer a sure-fire means to generate wealth over a lifetime. Investment advisers were quick to ignore those ominous lines enclosed with every investment prospectus: "Past performance is not indicative of future results."Rather than viewing those lines as a legal disclaimer, Generation Y should treat them as a statement of fact.

However, the structure of the global economy and financial markets are changing before our eyes, and three developments portend diminished returns for Generation Y. First, traditional stock valuation is anachronistic. Stock prices often no longer represent the present value of future dividends. Even if they did, the record levels of cash on corporate balance sheets imply a paucity of investment opportunities, meaning reduced future dividends and lower stock prices.

With the proliferation of "dark pools" and algorithmic traders—a recent study by the TABB Group revealed that the latter account for 56% of all U.S. equity trades—fundamentals no longer matter as much as they once did. Gone are the days of equity markets serving as a source of investment for capital formation; stock investors now buy volatility. Second, in addition to burdening us with onerous Social Security and Medicare payments, baby boomers will deplete Generation Y's wealth through the dynamics of portfolio management. Typically, as investors age, they shift from variable-income securities to fixed-income securities—from stocks to bonds.

As the nearly 80 million baby boomers make this shift, demand for stocks will decrease, implying depressed equity values. As demand and trading volume decrease, existing investors may be exposed to bouts of extreme volatility, as the prices of thinly traded assets fluctuate erratically.

Finally, the cold, hard reality is that the U.S. no longer occupies the privileged position it assumed after World War II. As the nucleus of the Bretton Woods system, the U.S. controlled the world's reserve currency, underwrote global security and economic growth, and served as the consumer of last resort. The easy prosperity attendant with abundant capital inflows, unconstrained monetary expansion, and steadily appreciating asset values is over. Generation Y will need to search elsewhere for yield.

The most promising opportunities will be in emerging markets like Brazil, India and China. Goldman Sachs already estimates that more than half of the global assets under management are outside of the U.S. Savvy young investors likely will allocate greater portions of their portfolios to the stocks of foreign companies and the bonds of foreign governments that are investing in economic growth rather than spending on entitlements. Perversely, U.S. investors will finance the growth of foreign companies instead of American ones—contributing further to American economic decline and reducing U.S. equity returns.

The trends are discouraging, but policy makers can make a difference. Rather than printing money to stimulate consumption and inflate asset values, they should abandon their quixotic attempt to return us to a higher level of comfort on the same downward economic trajectory. Rather than saddling us with more debt to finance entitlements, policy makers should invest in physical and communications infrastructure, adopt competitive tax policies, and offer incentives for foreign investment into the U.S.

Improving the U.S. investment climate will ease America's short-run economic challenges and make us more globally competitive over the long run. Given the dissolution of private pensions and the ballooning tax burden of Social Security and Medicare, attracting investment is the best hope for Generation Y to build wealth and pursue the American Dream.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989304575504262997083390.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


Related news from the not too distant past:

Rahm Emanuel Doesn’t Pay Taxes, So Why Should You?

Of course, if you don’t pay taxes to the government, chances are you will be arrested and thrown in the clinker. Not so in the case of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel’s brazen tax evasion is nothing new, although the corporate media does not bother to cover it. However, as we close in on tax day, the story is worth revisiting.

Millionaire Rahm created a handy-dandy charity in order to avoid paying property taxes on his Chicago residence. “According to the Cook County Assessor’s website, the Chicago home of four-term Democrat Congressman and likely new White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, doesn’t exist. While the address of 4228 North Hermitage is listed as Emanuel’s residence on the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, there seems to be no public record of Emanuel ever paying property taxes on this home,” Right Soup reported last November, shortly after the election.

It isn’t a real charity, though — or at least not a serious one. “The Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust was formed in 2002, when the Chicago lawmaker was first elected. The former Clinton White House aide and his wife, Amy Rule, are its only donors.”

Democrats are fond of this scam, as USA Today noted on January 7, 2007. “Rep. Rahm Emanuel made millions as an investment banker. Sen. Evan Bayh had leftover cash after two successful campaigns for Indiana governor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, became wealthy investing in real estate and technology firms… Emanuel, Bayh and Nancy Pelosi are officers of the foundations that carry their names but failed to disclose the fact on their annual financial disclosure reports filed with Congress.”

Don’t try this at home unless you want heavily armed sheriffs to show up.

“The Cook County Assessor’s and Cook County Treasurer’s online records indicate Emanuel’s Chicago neighbors pay between $3,500 and $7,000 annually,” explains the No Compromise When it Comes to Being Right! blog. “However, Illinois Review has been unable to locate any evidence that the former Clinton advisor and investment banker is paying his fair share of Cook County’s notoriously high tax burden.”

In addition to not paying property taxes in Illinois, Emanuel has a nifty deal in the district of criminals. “White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s Washington lodging arrangements, a rent-free basement room in a Capitol Hill home owned by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) and her pollster husband, have inspired debate among tax experts and in Republican-leaning parts of the blogosphere,” the Chicago Tribune reported recently. “One issue is whether Emanuel, who served in the House with DeLauro until early January, should have listed the room either as a gift or as income on his congressional financial disclosure forms. Emanuel’s disclosure filings contain no mention of his use of the room.”

Emanuel and other bureaucrats apparently don’t have the time or desire to fill out and file the sort of paperwork you and I take for granted — that is not unless you relish the idea of the IRS on your back. Earlier this month, the media covered the “tax problems” of yet another Obama appointee, Labor Secretary-designate Hilda L. Solis. Solis followed Treasury Secretary Thomas F. Geithner, Services Secretary-designate Thomas A. Daschle and Nancy Killefer, Obama’s choice to be the first “performance chief officer,” all with similar “tax problems.”

Solis’ tax evasion, however, is no big deal for the Democrats — on Tuesday, the Democrat-dominated Senate voted to confirm Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary, despite her husband paying overdue state taxes only after she was nominated by Obama more than two months ago. “The Senate voted 80 to 17 to confirm Solis, drawing praise from her allies in organized labor and the Latino community. Her nomination was held up when it was learned that her husband, Sam Sayyad, had recently paid about $6,400 in back state taxes he owed from his auto repair business in California,” the New York Daily News reports.

Rahm Emanuel and Obama’s appointees are excused from paying taxes. Meanwhile, speaking from the rostrum in the rogue’s gallery that is the House chamber, Obama said last night that more money will be needed to fritter away on the so-called banker bailout, actually a banker giveaway. Obama said trillions more will have to be “set aside” for the bankers. In other words, your children and grandchildren will pay confiscatory taxes well into the future.

Don’t expect Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Geithner, Evan Bayh, and other minions of the elite to pay their “fair share.” After all, taxes are for the little people.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/rahm-emanuel-doesnt-pay-taxes-so-why-should-you/