3625
Less Federal money for housing assistance
That's the story today in the Columbus Dispatch. Licking, Fairfield, and Pickaway Counties are closing their Section 8 housing lists. The paper says the federal funding has dropped. I'm guessing there's more to this story than meets the eye. So I took a look at the law at the HUD site. The formula for FMR (Fair Market Rents) was changed during the Clinton administration--it was too complex for anyone but a government bureaucrat to understand, like what percentage of the people live in a census tract, but I was able to read the date. However, I'm just guessing it has more than a bit to do with what's happening to real estate in those counties. During the last real estate boom, they were hot, hot, hot. Unbelieveable housing development going on with easy access to Columbus via free-ways. I'm thinking some pretty cheap houses and acreage was bought up by developers, and now low income owner occupied housing has been replaced with middle income and upper middle income neighborhoods. Every exit of the free-way has many restaurants, Krogers, Target, Wal-Mart, auto parts, video stores, etc. Every community is trying to pass bond issues for new schools. All these areas need infrastructure--roads, police, fire, water systems, parks, etc. Are rents higher than before? You betcha! It's called progress.

The federal government got in the housing assistance business during the Depression. People were desperate. My parents took in borders to make ends meet and they had jobs. What was unemployment then? 20-30%? Do you think the Congress of the 1930s intended to make this assistance permanent? (Actually, since gov't programs don't ever go away or get smaller, they probably did.) Today, you feel you are borderline poor if you don't have cable, a cell phone, 2 TVs and 2 cars. Maybe sending tax money to Washington so they can send a smidgen back for housing vouchers to live in wealthy counties with an unemployment rate of about 4.5% isn't such a terrific idea.

Can I hear an Amen?Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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3580 To report abuse

Have you ever thought of picking up the phone when you see this statement on a government publication: "To report fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal programs call. . ." Each year about this time when we get our tax returns from our accountant and will pay her $400 so we can pay the government more of our pension this phrase sticks in my mind (don't bother to tell me to buy brand x tax software or do it myself--she's actually worth every penny, but charges a higher hourly rate than architects). I just can't think of a single Federal or state program where there isn't fraud and waste. Can you? Katrina rebuilding is probably the most pitiful and worst example, but it has just shown us how bad things are when federal money is mismanaged at the local and state level and the people reelect the clowns stealing our tax money. I'm grateful (I think) that we have the GAO to report on such things but when it takes 100-150 pages to report it and no one in Congress does anything, or they pass a new regulation which requires more taxes and more paper, and more review and reports by GAO, I do sometimes think it is part of the problem abuse.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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3544 The American Dream

Banks have been offering home mortgages to undocumented workers using a taxpayer ID instead of a Social Secuity number, and it's not illegal to do so. You don't have to be an American citizen to own property here. Think about all the rich European rock stars and middle eastern oil magnates who buy multi-million dollar homes that eat up our coastlines and forests so they can drop by a few weeks of the year. They are actually cheap tax shelters because their own property taxes are confiscatory.

Now a new bill has been introduced (H.R. 480) by John T. Doolittle R-CA to amend the Truth in Lending Act to make such mortgages to illegals difficult (I was going to say "illegal" but we know that there is an army of lawyers out there working for advocacy groups that will find the loophole, so I downshifted to "difficult").

When there is a practice or law so clearly working against the average, tax paying, law abiding citizen, I always say the trite and true: FOLLOW THE MONEY. Who benefits when undocumented workers buy homes? MurrayT has a home in Florida and the recent tornado wiped out some of those homes. He says FEMA is trying to find the home owners to give them aid--but they have fled fearing arrest for being in the country illegally and are afraid of the INS. Property owners paying taxes in that county and paying high insurance premiums and the rest of the nation (me) who donate to the very inefficient Homeland Security Department are paying.

But the banks with their fees and the real estate industry (now in sort of a slump) and all their linked industries like home inspectors, title examiners, insurance companies are not innocent. Local taxing districts probably don't care as long as the county or township gets its share. Nor are advocacy groups innocent, like La Raza, who normally would turn up their noses at a so-called American value. But they'll preach it brother, oh yes, "the American dream," how could you deny this to hard, working immigrants? Read their own material. They intend to "retake" the southwestern U.S. which Mexico lost in a 19th century war.

The sovereign Mexican government is the big bandito behind all this. And we have so many trade treaties with Mexico it would be hard to sort through. How about that latest one allowing Mexican truck drivers to deliver Mexican goods within the U.S. when we can't even inspect our own trucking industry. But our banks are doing lunch with their bancos you can be sure. Illegal immigrants sending money home, supporting (destroying?) villages and towns left with no young men, is the second highest source of income in Mexico, with oil being number one and tourism number three. The quasi-American left who will weep bitter tears over the 5% rich in this country who pay most of our taxes (but never enough, right?), have no problem turning a blind eye to the inequities in Mexico with the richest Spanish-Mexicans (they have very restrictive laws regarding citizenship) at the top of the government and industries and the poorest Indian-Mexicans at the bottom. Why should Mexico ever clean up its act and be responsible for its own poor and unemployed and create some upward mobility if we're willing to support them with the jobs and social benefits?Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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Citizens Against Government Waste

was founded following the lead of President Ronald Reagan in establishing the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, or the "Grace Commission," after Chairman J. Peter Grace, in 1982. In its more than 20 years of existence, CAGW has grown to include more than one million members who have helped reduce government spending by three-quarters of a billion dollars. The work of CAGW has also identified as much as $200 billion in unrealized one-year savings and more than $1.6 trillion in five-year savings. (Ohio Piglet Book)

Whichever party is in power, is the big offender, so for 2006 it was the Republicans. "The 2006 Congressional Pig Book is the latest installment of Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) 16-year exposé of pork-barrel spending. This year’s list includes: $13,500,000 for the International Fund for Ireland, which helped finance the World Toilet Summit; $6,435,000 for wood utilization research; $1,000,000 for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative; and $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C."

Some states have their own Piglet Book. Here is Ohio's for 2006, "The book Columbus doesn't want you to read." Congratulations to Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Florida and Georgia for being the states that are the least greedy in bringing home the federal pork. Alaska is number one, and Hawaii number two.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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Confidential except for. . .

The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 requires that the IRS ask for information. But first they want me to know why, and who else might see it, and what would happen to me if they didn't receive it.

The IRS has a right to ask and it is mandatory for me to answer this because of the Internal Revenue Code sections 6001, 6011, and 6012(a). But here's my favorite part:

My tax returns are confidential BUT Code section 6103 allows or requires the IRS to give it to a whole bunch of others such as

• Department of Justice
• cities
• states
• DC
• U.S. commonwealths or possessions
• certain foreign governments
• so they can carry out their tax laws.

The IRS may disclose my tax information to obtain information it can't get any other way to the

• Department of Treasury
• its contractors
• other persons as necessary

The IRS can disclose my tax information to

• The Comptroller General of the United States
• the Committees of Congress
• federal, state, and local child support agencies
• other federal agencies concerning entitlement for benefits or repayment of loans
• other countries under a tax treaty
• federal and state agencies to enforce federal nontax criminal laws
• federal law enforcement
• federal intelligence agencies to combat terrorism.

This information is on page 22 of the 35 page instruction booklet for the 1040EZ for filing electronically (so much for paper reduction). But the booklet does not contain any tax forms.

The pie chart on p. 33 says that 37% of the federal income goes for Social Security, Medicare, and support for the disabled and elderly; 20% goes for social programs like Medicaid, food stamps, assistance for the needy, Supplemental security income and related programs like health research and unemployment compensation; 10% goes for physical, human and community development such as agriculture, natural resources, environment, space, energy, science, etc.; and ta-dah, 24% for national defense, veterans and foreign affairs, of which 20% is funding the global war on terror.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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3484 Environmental Groups

I'm all for taking care of the planet. I wish more people would treat the planet with the respect my mother had. She used to say, and then lived her beliefs, "I can't save the world, but I can clean up four acres." I get so irritated at people who throw trash from their cars along the highway and build homes along the coasts, expecting the rest of us to clean up their mess or bail them out when a hurricane blows through. The January 27, 2007 issue of National Journal reports that groups like National Audubon Society and Sierra Club are all putting their tithes, offerings, and investments into the Greenhouse Gas Church of Global Warming. The article lists the priorities of the environmental groups now that they believe they can get in bed with the Democrats. And they're playing footsie with some outside their usual group. My comments in brackets.

1) Regulate carbon dioxide. [More jobs will say good-bye. And it won't even help global warming, if it exists.]
2) Broaden alliances with other groups, some are not known to be friendly, but politics as usual.
3) Make cozy cooing noises with religious groups. [See what I mean?]
4) Work with the Democrats. [No surprises here.]
5) Promote clean energy technology. [There will be a lot of opportunity for businesses and investment here unless Pelosi kills it with higher taxes.]
6) Expand farm bill's conservation. [Farmers are already on the receiving end of government aid and bail outs. Do they need more?]
7) Protect more federal lands. [Probably just from ordinary folks like us--celebrities will still be able to have their multi-million dollar vacation lodges.]
8) Shift priorities in EPA, Interior and Forest Service. [Whatever Bush has been doing, do it differently and charge the taxpayer more.]
9) Cheer for Pelosi no matter what. [See #4]
10) Cut subsidies for "big oil." [So do they plan to increase exploration and refineries or just punish American interests by making us more dependent on foreign owned oil?]
11) Force electric utilities to use wind power. [Ever driven through a central Illinois wind farm and watched what looks like robotic giant chickens? Not a pretty picture, but celebrities won't be building there.]
12) Require automakers to produce more efficient vehicles. [We did that in the 70s--now we have more cars than ever on the road. My van gets 26 mpg--would a celebrity drive a mini-van?]
13) Revamp farm subsidies. [I'm all for this--how about a free market and no welfare for farmers? What about putting back the fence rows and not planting right up to the highways? Frences are homes for birds that eat bugs and wildlife and cuts down on erosion.]
14) Open ranch and farm land for hunting and fishing. [Whoa! They're going to talk to the NRA?]
15) Revitalize the Endangered Species Act. [Yes, good idea. Let's remove the species that aren't endangered and start worrying about endangered people.]
16) Tax incentives for property owners who provide habitats for wildlife. [Does Oprah really need this for her California coast ranch? We've got gobs of these tax credits now, and the small holder can't use them.]
17) Review the Army Corps of Engineers projects. [Yes, and while we're at it, let's look at all the environmental protection lawsuits that kept those levees from getting built in NOLA because of impact statements.]
18] Wilderness legislation to protect federal land. [Do you suppose the Forestry folks and home owners in western states could be allowed to cut down and remove diseased and dying trees? Might help with those expensive forest fires and bring back tourism.]
19) Legislation to protect coastal areas. [Here's a thought. Let's stop bailing out millionaires and factory farms who build close to the coast. That should do more than any new legislation which will only protect contributors to the green causes and the lawyers.]
20) Reinstate Superfund Tax on oil and chemical industries to pay for cleanup. [You mean actually fund legislation? Will you stop telling gas station owners to close up and then give them no money to get the oil out of the underground tanks? Will that be on all laws and regulations, or will you be selective? You do know when you tax oil companies that we pay more at the pump, don't you?]
21) Rewrite the 1872 Mining Act. [Anything that old, fat and lazy should definitely be looked at for its usefulness--I've got a few eastern Senators in mind.]
22) Fight the coal and oil industries at all levels of government, including state and local. [Fine. My investments in energy are in Canada shale. The machines to extract the oil were probably built in Japan because you've made them too expensive to build on our soil. You'll be sending more American dollars and jobs abroad with this tactic.]Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/taxes
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