Social Security Stupidity
One of the silly bi-partisan agreements in December of 2010 was a partial employee payroll tax holiday for 2011. Before this provision was agreed to each employee in the US had 6.2% of their paycheck withheld (Up to a maximum wage of $106,800) by their employer and then each employer matches this amount and remits the money to the Social Security Administration.
In another effort to stimulate the economy (By putting more money into employees pockets each paycheck) The Reps and Dems agreed to lower the employee portion of Social Security tax to 4.2% from 6.2% for 2011 only.
So if you are paid $50,000 in wages before this provision was passed you would have had $3,100 withheld from your paychecks throughout the year for Social Security taxes and your employer would have matched this amount dollar for dollar. Your employer would have paid $6,200 to the Social Security Administration for you. With this policy change the same employee in 2011 will have only $2,100 withheld from their paychecks and their employer will still contribute $3,100 to Social Security. So the employee will be paid $1000 more in 2011 (Money in their pocket that they can spend) and the Social Security Trust Fund will get $1,000 less. The Federal Government will drop an IOU into the Social Security Trust Fund to make up the $1000 that was forgiven.
More Patriot Act stupidity
As the readers of this blog know I detest the Patriot Act. It is a violation of our civil liberties and was passed to “supposedly” help fight terrorism. The Act is a crime fighting bill and it gives our Government too much power…
I wasted 30 minutes at work today dealing with a stupid provision of the Patriot Act…
As most of you know I am a Certified Public Accountant and I own 1/3 of a Fort Wayne Public Accounting firm called SBS CPA Group. My wife and I jointly own another small company that in turn owns part of a commercial property. Our second small company owns a 2000 square foot commercial space that our Accounting company rents from us. This 2000 square foot commercial space is part of a larger building that I do not own. The rest of the building is unfinished and is waiting for tenants who will be able to build out a space to their specifications.
Our building is run by a tiny not-for-profit condominium association. The small condo association has a bank account and pays expenses like trash removal, snow removal, etc. The small condo association has three board members. I am one of the three board members.
We bank with Chase Bank. Chase Bank is required by the Patriot Act to gather information and perform due diligence on my tiny condo association. Today I talked to Chase Bank and due to The Patriot Act they are required to fill out “due diligence” paperwork and among other things this requires them to collect the following for each board member:
- Full name
- Social Security number
- Birthday
- Mailing address
Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner
There have been a lot of scandals involving male politicians over the last few years. About half of these scandals involve Republicans and about half involve Democrats. America is growing more and more cynical about our elected officials according to many polls over the last few years.
To make a long story short Democratic Congressman (NY) Anthony Weiner is married and has been exchanging naked pictures, engaging in phone sex, etc. with at least six women who are not his wife.
He was caught by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart. Many in the liberal media immediately attacked Breitbart and Congressman Weiner himself spent a great deal of time professing his innocence; in fact, he repeatedly lied and he created a story that someone had illegally hacked into his Twitter account. Many in the liberal media immediately took Anthony Weiner’s side and professed his innocence.
Anthony Weiner came clean this week and admitted that all of the claims against him were true. He admitted that he lied, fabricated a story about illegal hacking, etc.
President Obama and our inept Congress, Post 2
I have written a couple of previous posts about President Obama and his current “misadventures” in Libya. You can read them here and here.
The Democratic Senate has so far completely ignored President Obama and his unfortunate decision to commit the American armed forces to a conflict in Libya without the approval of Congress. The US Senate is a completely dysfunctional body and can barely take the time to name Post Offices…
The Republican House has also been negligent; however, they have been less negligent. The House almost passed a resolution on June 2nd that would have ordered President Obama to remove our troops from Libya. In an earlier post I discussed what happened in the House on J une 2nd.
President Obama, Libya, and our inept Congress
The President of the United States does NOT have the power to declare war. War is declared by Congress. Many recent Presidents have exceeded their constitutional authority. These Presidents have been Republicans as well as Democrats. Congress has for some reason ceded its authority to the President on several occasions.
I put up a post about this back on May 1st, 2011. A drive by commenter who was unwilling to leave his or her real name posted three inane and relatively ignorant comments on the original post. He or she used the name “You should change the name of FWP.” Basically they thought my post was bombastic and should be ignored because since other previous President have exceeded their constitutional authority therefore it is OK that President Obama (The great Nobel Peace Prize winner) has exceeded it as well.
Two wrongs do not make a right. I am sick and tired of people ignoring the Constitution. I do not feel that the President has the right to commit the forces of the United States in a foreign conflict for 60 days or more without the approval of Congress. In fact unless there is an imminent threat I do not feel the President should commit our armed forces to any foreign conflict for even one day without the express approval of Congress.
This issue is not about whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. It is about right and wrong.
Permitting Process
There has been a lot of talk about the recently approved proposal to improve the permitting process by spending 1.4 million dollars. I have several observations about this process:
- This is not a Republican problem nor is it a Democratic problem. It was a problem created by bureaucrats overseen by both Democrats and Republicans.
- The permitting process has been broken for at least ten years.
- Our local politicians decided it needed fixed due valid complaints from the business community.
- Our Deputy Mayor from Chicago admits that there is a problem and further seems to acknowledge that the attitude of some of the City and/or County employees needs improvement and that they need to understand they are providing a service rather than acting as a justified hindrance. I would like to see our local leaders FIRE any employees who are not doing their jobs correctly and who do not realize that they need to facilitate the permitting process rather than hindering it.
- It is hard to imagine that the taxpayers will spend $500,000 in legal fees to change various ordinances associated with the permitting process. If we have this many ordinances that need to be changed I think it would be far cheaper to hire an employee who is an attorney rather than to pay large legal fees to various law firms.
- I think the $380,000 that will be spent on software is likely justified. It would be best if the various departments use the same software.
- I am not sure about the large amounts of money that would be spent on a project manager and an expediter. I think this expenditure will make sense if it is truly a temporary expense and the need for these new positions is temporary (two years or less).
Mike Sylvester
