Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Most Honest, Open, Transparent, Upstanding, Moral Bureaucracies in Government:

IRS:

You can trust these people with your money.

You can trust that they will apply revenue collection laws to the "T."

You can trust that they will never deliberately target any specific group for flagging, but will treat all Americans equally.

You can trust that if "low-level" workers in the IRS get some stupid idea to target a group, their superiors will know what's going on because they've earned their positions in the IRS hierarchy.

You can trust that nobody in the Administration has any idea what's going on in the IRS because...because...well, because if they know what's going on somebody might accuse them of leadership competence.

You can trust that tax dodgers will never be harassed by IRS while law-abiding businesses and citizens will be.

we can trust the the Determinations Unit of the IRS will always do what they are supposed to do, and their determination to focus on  the right things can be counted on.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

You can trust the Department of State to be organized in such a way that communications between "low-level" leaders and "upper-level" leaders is always clear and succinct.

You can trust the Department of State to really, really care about its Consulates and provide them with.whatever resources they need to function in an atmosphere of confidence safety and protection.

We can trust the Department of State to respond, when a Consulate is attacked, to knowingly put out a story about an obscure, virtually unwatched video causing the attack and to continue insisting that the video is to blame for at least 3-5 weeks.

We can trust the Department of State to react to the killing of Americans by shrieking, "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?" That's because we all know that the killing of Americans by radical Islamic groups just really doesn't matter.

We can trust the Department of State to remain uninformed about what happened when our Consulate was attacked, even though any regular citizen who watched the "alternative" news organizations knew almost immediately what had happened.

We can trust the Department of State to stonewall and cover up whatever might cause its leadership embarrassment or might shine the light of day on its lack of competence.

We can trust the Department of State's leadership to "take full responsibility" for what happened, even though "full responsibility" carries with it no suggestion of retribution or cost to the one responsible.

We can trust the Department of State to provide a springboard to higher office, despite the evidence that its leader is corrupt, incapable of rational thought, junkets around looking important while accomplishing nothing of note except leaving a trail of suspicion and contempt for our country.

It is the trustworthiness of the Department of State that cause our pride to rise and our confidence to be enhanced.

Oh how fortunate we are to have two such trustworthy bureaucracies to administer these important facets of American polity.

11 comments:

TeaBagger said...

Barack Benghazi Obama is hands down the worst president in American History. If he isn't impeached for the Big Three Scandals I will be utterly amazed. The buzz in D.C. is there is already a plan underfoot to impeach him. I say good riddance.

And as for ALL those idiotic Liberals, - Progressives and whoever is continuing to support this President. I can never quite understood your premise. How is supporting Obama,after all that he has done, and for what he is doing now right for this country?
How is forcing a healthcare mandate down people's throats doing what is right for this country? How is lying to America about the deaths of four men doing what is right for this country? How is liberals who demand repeal of the Patriot Act while defending the actions of our Justice Department in seizing phone records doing what is right for this country?

sue hanes said...


Joe - Good to have you back. I see you are rested up and in good shape.

Craig said...

Joe, Here's a good article on the IRS "scandal". Asking the IRS to do more while cutting it's funding leads to employees taking shortcuts. What the agents in Cincy did was wrong and it should be investigated whether or not they did it on orders from above, where ever that leads.

When outfits like American Crossroads and Priorities USA get 501 c4 tax exempt status as "social welfare" organizations, it makes my argument for doing away with tax exemptions look pretty good. Yes, for legit charitable orgs. but Citizens United has made a mockery of the process.

As for Benghazi, has anyone decided exactly what the "scandal" is? It keeps changing.

Joe said...

Craig: "... it makes my argument for doing away with tax exemptions look pretty good. Yes, for legit charitable orgs..."

I agree that tax exemptions should be abolished except for legitimate charitable organizations.

We might disagree on what constitutes a "legitimate" charitable organization.

As you know, I favor a flat tax (for the sake of discussion, say 15%) in which every earned dollar ABOVE THE POVERTY LEVEL, individual and corporate is taxed at the same rate.

This would mean poor people and very small businesses would pay little, if any taxes, while richer people and businesses pay lots.

My plan would have no deductions, no exemptions (except for legitimate charities) and no "loopholes." Your gross earnings times 15% = your tax.

The incentive to make more would be that you keep 85% of what you make, so if you are productive and make more you pay more, but you also end up with a higher income. That is the essence of fairness.

But I promise not to hold my breath for that one. Too many people and politicians (whom I do not consider to be people) "benefit" from the cumbersome mess we have now.

Dave Miller said...

Joe, I'll take you at what you wrote... no deductions.

My wife and I reported 53K gross in 2012 income. I serve as a missionary in Mexico and she teaches part time here in Nevada.

After the standard deductions, because that is all we qualified for, our tax was $2300.00 or about 4.5%.

Under your plan, I would have to pay almost $8,000.00.

Am I doing the math right?

Joe said...

Dave Miller: You did the math right. What you got wrong was: 1) If you are truly doing missionary work you would qualify as an exempt charity (in my plan). 2) If you earned $53,000, gross, you would deduct the poverty level (let's assume $20,000 as the poverty level) leaving $33,000 taxable gross.

You wold pay $4,950, not $8,000.

More than you paid, but enough left to live at the middle income level. I live comfortably earning less than $28,050.

Dave Miller said...

I work for an agency, which itself is exempt... I am not aware that individuals can claim to be totally exempt...

Very cavalier of you Joe to determine what I can live on. Except with $1500.00 in prescriptions monthly, that ain't gonna cut it.

You also forgot to take out the other 7.5% for SS.

The point being that under your plan, my taxes will double.

Joe, folks like me are at the bottom en of the bell curve, you too...

Tell me why the middle and lower classes should pay more?

If I can live on 33K as you allege, why shouldn't everyone?

Joe said...

DM: "You also forgot to take out the other 7.5% for SS."

Actually, I intentionally left it out because it would be covered in the 15%. You would give the government 15%...period. That's all they would get. No SS tax, no Medicare Tax, nothing.

I would also offer a Constitutional amendment that would require the feds to allocate funds based on a percentage of income for each and every program.

30% Defense
20% Social Services
30% Government Salaries
20% Discretionary Expenditures approved by a 60%+ vote of both houses.

Boy! Would that ever make it hard to spend money carelessly!

Imagine! A government required to live within its means!

Joe said...

DM: "Joe, folks like me are at the bottom en of the bell curve, you too..."

By the way, I am lower on the bottom of the bell curve than you are.

I would rather be retired, but lost all of my savings and can't do that. So, I am content with my present situation.

Ducky's here said...

You're going to spend more on government salaries than you are on Medicare and Social Security?

You'd increase the already bloated defense budget and talk about not spending money carelessly?

I need a highball.

Xavier Onassis said...

Joe - "I would rather be retired, but lost all of my savings and can't do that"

Remind us again who was to blame for that?