What a surprise! Congress is doing what Congress does best, which is kicking the can down the road for someone else to deal with. I’m still shocked that no one… not even the conservative talk show hosts are talking about how much this little 2% tax holiday is really costing. Social Security has for years been funded through a 12.4% tax on wages up to $110,100 (the 2012 limit.) The employer pays 6.2% and the employee pays 6.2% via a payroll deduction. Reducing the amount withheld from the employee by 2% to 4.2% represents a 16% reduction in overall revenue funding the already cash strapped Social Security System.

I don’t know of any business that is having cash flow problems who succeeds in fixing the problem by devising a plan that reduces revenues by 16%? I just don’t understand why these morons in Washington can’t see the end result of their lack of balls to do what really needs to be done to pull this country out of the hole they are digging.

In Obama’s world that means everyone wins… the employer doesn’t have to provide an objectionable benefit and the employee retains access to the benefit for free. I think Obama has forgotten something… birth control pills don’t just fall out of someone’s ass. They are manufactured by businesses operating in the free market and those companies making the pills expect to turn a profit in the process. Now I know Obama doesn’t have a clue how that process works and to the liberal crowd the word ‘profit’ is a dirty word, but it’s what fuels this countries economy and if the government tells them they have to give their product away for free to some people one of two things happen. Either they stop manufacturing the product or they simply increase the price to those who are paying for them to cover the regulation that dictates they give away part of their inventory. Most likely the latter will happen and those who aren’t bitching end up paying for those who are.

That’s not how a free market economy is supposed to work. What should be happening is the government lets the relationship between the employer and the insurance company dictate what services it provides. If your employer objects to providing contraceptives and your health insurance won’t cover them and you want them then you should be paying for them or else look for a job where the health insurance meets your needs.

Personally I don’t know what the big deal is… it was never intended to be anything more than a one year tax holiday designed to pump some life into our economy. Since its not doing what it was supposed to do why keep it in place?

The current administration keeps hammering us with the idea of fairness, well this is where everyone from the poor pitiful poor up through the middle class can do their part in the interest of fairness and start paying their fair share of the taxes that feed the Social Security monster.

I’m not sure what happened in Iowa. I was under the impression that since the voting actually takes place in private homes using cut up pieces of scrap paper with the results called into a central location that doing any kind of accurate recount was impossible. I guess there is no shortage of ways to screw up an election. With all the technology we have at our fingertips it always amazes me at how inept we are at counting votes.

Any way, we now have two different winners for the first two primaries and tomorrow we could end up with three for three, which makes Florida’s primary on the 31^st more important than ever.

We’ll just have to wait and see how badly we manage to screw up our moment in the limelight. Lord knows we’ve had enough practice at it.

l

Only thing left to do is take a nap until November 6^th and spare myself the agony and frustration of 10 months worth of negative political ads.

Hermain Cain’s Solution Revolution is following Mike Huckabee’s lead to become the latest Super PAC to hit the scene raising money to run shadow campaigns for Republican candidates.

I guess I must have been dreaming when I heard this country passed campaign finance reform legislation. The new loop hole in our political campaign system is the Super PAC. A Super PAC or Super Political Action Committee is allowed to raise unlimited funds from whomever they want and they can use the money pretty much any way they want. The only real rule they have to abide by is they are not to have any contact with the candidates they support nor are they allowed to coordinate any of their efforts.

It should come as no surprise that when our politicians wrote the latest barrage of campaign finance laws that they would incorporate the structure that they can use to circumvent any restrictions the laws bring to bear.

So Herman Cain is now running one of these Super PACs… what I imagine happens next is the Super PAC pays all of Herman’s travel expenses as he jets around the country talking up certain candidates and political ideals. Maybe he’s allowed to pay himself and/or his buds a salary. I have no if any of the money they collect or spend is monitored in any way shape of form… Sounds like the perfect opportunity to scam the public while appearing to be doing something positive and productive. To think at one point I had all the admiration in the world for Herman Cain. I thought he was going to be different than all the rest… boy was I wrong.

Michelle Bachman finished a distant sixth and has already called it quits. Rick Perry finished fifth and was going to go back to Texas to evaluate the future of his campaign. (update… Perry is staying in the fray. Must have found out he still has campaign contributions to live off of for at least another couple of primary votes.)

So much political movement from the results of an informal tally of an estimated 100,000 people or 5% of registered Iowan voters. If the race is already over and were stuck with Mitt Romney then what do we do for the next 8 months when the Republican’s actually nominate someone to run for President? Do we closely watch the suicide rate and attribute any increase to the barrage of negativity that will no doubt abound in the pre-election campaign stump speeches and television ads? You know if it really boils down to Romney vs Obama that all we’re ever going to hear from either one of them are reasons why you shouldn’t cast your vote for the other guy, because neither one of them has any positive accomplishments in their past worth bragging about.

Now we have John McCain coming out and giving his endorsement to Mitt Romney… he did so well during the 2008 presidential race who wouldn’t want him in your corner? The only thing McCain is going to do for Romney is teach him how to be a gracious looser when the time comes.

At this point the only thing that could excite me about this election (and it’s still 11 months away for Christ sake) would be if Marco Rubio was the Vice Presidential candidate on the Republican ticket.

The field of Republican hopefuls has boiled down to Romney, Perry, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul. Which in my opinion isn’t much of a choice. If you’re like me, looking for someone to oppose Obama who has a real plan to turn the economy around you’ll join the hoards of Republican and Independent voters who aren’t getting what they want.

Welcome to another Presidential election that is going to require you to hold your nose while voting.

All I know for sure is the process to get to a nominee and then the general election has/is way too long. We’ve already heard it all and seen it all. The lineup of presidential hopefuls is mediocre at best and all have been thoroughly vented by the liberal press. I just wish I could take a good long nap and skip the snooze fest that will make up the next several months.

Two-months… two-months, really! Do these people exist in another dimensional plane or are they that removed from reality that they don’t realize just how stupid a move that is.

Of course the House is holding out for a one year extension and President Obama is telling them it’s pass the Senate bill or else… or else the Social Security employee contribution will revert back to 6.2%, which is the rate that we all have lived with for decades.

Why is it that everyone seems to think that the world as we know it will come to an end if this measly pittance of a tax holiday comes to an end. It never made sense to me anyway… it gave the average worker 10 extra dollars in their weekly paycheck, but it created a reduction of 16% to the overall income that funds Social Security. How many years have our politicians been beating us over the head with gloom and doom predictions of the Social Security system going insolvent in the not too distant future? I have yet to hear any politician tell us what a 16% cut in funding does to that timetable? In fact I have never heard anyone else mention the fact that this 2% payroll tax holiday translates into a nearly 1/5 cut in funding.

Now if you’re part of the dumb-masses and are screaming at me… no no no, the rate reduction is only 2% I suggest you go back to school and take basic math over again. Social Security is funded with a 6.2% tax on earned income, that figure is matched by your employer, so the system is funded with a 12.4% tax on most peoples yearly gross income. If you reduce that percentage by 2% you have an overall reduction of 16.12% (2 divided by 12.4 equals 16.12)