R3 Composites coming to Grabil
R3 composites coming to Grabil is great news. To be honest with you it is some of the best economic news we have had in this area recently. Basically they have moved into an abandoned facility on Roth Road and plan on spending between 4 and 5 million dollars between now and November. Better yet they are estimating that they may hire as many as 400 people to work in the plant between now and 2014. According to the abatement paperwork salaries are expected to be:
- One clerical job at $30,000 per year.
- $35,000 per year for as many as 376 production workers.
- Six maintenance jobs at $60,000 per year.
- Fifteen supervisory positions at $65,000 per year.
- Two management positions at $200,000 per year.
Wordpress Blog question
The comments are no longer displayed on the blog where they used to be.
Does anyone know how I can fix that?
Mike
Deficit Reduction in DC
The idiots in Washington DC are gearing up for the 2012 election. This means they are spending a lot of time raising money and even more time engaging in mindless partisan attacks. Both major political parties are involved in this.
The United States is in dire financial trouble. On a cash basis the US is 14.7 trillion dollars in debt. If you look at the debt on an accrual basis it is far worse. The amount of money the Federal government owes is the largest threat facing this nation…
The United States is approaching the debt limit that Congress has agreed to. The Democrats want to increase the debt limit by another two trillion dollars. The Republicans have decided not to increase the amount the government can borrow unless a couple of trillion dollars is cut from the projected deficit over the next ten years. I personally feel that a couple of trillion dollars can be cut from the deficit over the next ten years with minimal effort… It is just a small step in the right direction.
Apparently the idiots in Washington DC agreed to two trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years and both parties were happy. Note this would result in total Federal spending being cut by about 4% over the next four years. The devil is always in the details; however, cutting spending by two trillion over the next ten years would be great as long as those cuts were actually made over the next ten years.
The Democrats insisted in raising revenues by an additional 400 billion dollars over the next ten years by closing tax loopholes and removing “tax expenditures” from the tax code. In response the Republicans walked out of the meetings repeating their mantra that they can never support anything that could possibly raises taxes or revenues. When the Republicans do things like this I want to throttle them…
Please understand I am a CPA and I deal with the monstrosity of the tax code regularly. I prepare hundreds of individual and corporate tax returns every year….
Bipartisanship is supposed to be about compromise. We have a Democratic Senate, a Democratic President, and a Republican House. The Republicans need to stop “crying” and running out of these meetings.
In general I think a plan that includes two trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years AND 400 billion in increased revenues by removing “tax expenditures” is a good plan.
Now I want to discuss “tax expenditures.” A “tax expenditure” is Federal spending that is imbedded in the tax code. These are either tax credits or tax deductions that cause Americans to pay less in Federal income taxes. Examples of tax expenditures include:
- The mortgage interest deduction
- The various credits that can be taken for attending college
- The earned income tax credit for the working poor
- Ethanol subsidies
Memorial Day 2011
Memorial Day is a holiday that has been established to remember members of our military who have fallen in the line of duty. Almost every male in my father’s family and my mother’s family have served in the US military. We were all enlisted and we all served between four and eight years. All of my relatives served in the US Army while I served in the US Navy. I cannot tell you how much ribbing I have received at family re-unions in Anderson, Indiana…
None of my relatives died in the line of duty. Many were wounded and quite a few saw combat; however, they all came home.
I do not know anyone who died in the line of duty. All of my relatives who served in the military had friends who died in conflicts from World War Two through today.
I only have one relative who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. My relatives are much older than me and served in WW2, Vietnam, and Korea instead…
I was lucky enough to serve during peace time on a nuclear powered submarine.
I hope all of you spend some time today remembering those who served their country and never came home.
I especially hope you consider this when you are deciding who to vote for in the upcoming elections. Both Democrats and Republicans are continually supporting our involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and I am very discouraged by our involvement in these conflicts.
Mike
2011 Fort Wayne City Primary
The 2011 Primary is in the books.
I was very dissappointed that Paula Hughes won the Republican Primary for Mayor. It is amazing that three polls were done and in two Brown was ahead and in one Brown and Hughes were even. When the votes were counted Paula Hughes won with 56% of the vote.
It was an impressive victory for Paula Hughes. Turnout was abysmal; under 13% in fact. I tend to beleive that the low turnout must have favored Hughes because she likely had a very good “ground game” in place.
Mike
Fort Wayne Primary Races for City Council
I have only followed two of the primary races this year since I worked so much up until April 18th. Those two races are for the 2nd District (The district I live in) and the field of at-large candidates since I will be voting in that primary as well.
First off I think the three candidates running for the 2nd District in the Republican primary are all three people I could vote for in November. Gaines is running a lower key campaign and seems unlikely to be able to win; it seems more likley that Gutman or Jehl will be the victor. This is a primary that I did not get involved in and I feel that I will be able to support whover wins the Republican Primary against Karen Goldner in November.
The four candidates running for the three spots on the ticket for the at-large City Council seats are an entirely different story. I am not sure what happened this year; however, this is the weakest group of Republican at-large candidates that I have ever seen. Lets look at the field:
First off is incumbent Marty Bender. Marty Bender is a Republican in name only. He is often referred to as “The Mayor’s City Councilman” because he votes with the Democratic Mayor’s Administration very regularly. Marty Bender is a good man; however, he is not a Republican and he consistently votes for things a conservative would not support. Likely what makes me most angry is the fact that he refuses to recuse himself from votes on votes he should recuse himself from. A good example of this is the fact that he votes on his own pay raises as a City Policeman rather than recusing himself from those votes. There is no circumstance where I could possibly vote for Marty Bender.
Next is John Crawford. John Crawford has been identified as a Conservative and somewhat Libertarian individual. That being said he supported the smoking ban, Harrison Square, and the Public Safety Academy all of which were things I would not have voted for… Mr. Crawford was defeated four years ago and I was glad he was defeated; I certainly did not vote for him four years ago since there were better poeple to vote for. That being said the “at-large” candidates are so weak this year that I am currenly planning on voting for Mr. Crawford in the Republican Primary on Tuesday. In fact Mr. Crawford is the only at-large candidate I will be voting for on Tuesday.
I do not know too much about Tom Friestroffer; however, what I do know is enough to ensure I do not vote for him on Tuesday. He has four main points on his website. One of these points is that he is a strong “housing advocate.” What on Earth is a strong housing advocate? Based on his past positions he obviously supports a lot of Government interference in the housing sector and I personally think the Government should have NO INVOLVEMENT in the housing sector. His campaign website is one page and tells us nothing about his positions on a wide variety of issues. His campaign website is very poor. At this point I cannot vote for Mr. Friestroffer.
The final candidate is Ivan Hood. I have researched Mr. Hood somewhat and I just could not learn enough to make a good decision about Mr. Hood. At this point I have decided not to vote for Mr. Hood on Tuesday either.
With this weak field of Republicans I am pretty much 100% sure that I will be voting for Crawford (R) and Shoaff (D) this November for the at-large race. It remains to be seen if I will just vote for those two or if one of the remaining candidates will “trip my trigger.”
That being said the Republican “at-large” field is extermely weak and somewhat disappointing…
I think Eric Doden likely should have ran for City Council “at-large” and served at least one term before he decided to run for Mayor…
Mike Sylvester
New Poll about about Paula Hughes and her negative attack ads
The new poll is on the right sidebar of the blog.
Mike Sylvester
Stuff You Might Not Have Seen Otherwise
I’m thinking about posting YouTube videos here and there that I find interesting/absurd/idiotic/etc. Some may be political - some not. Figured it might be a nice change of pace though. So here are a couple videos you might not have seen (or cared to).
The first is a man asking his county commissioners to do something about the cars speeding down his street. It has, shall we say, an unexpected ending. The second is an Obama personator performing a parody of a Notorious B.I.G song. Even the lyrics are funny - “Spend cheese with my peeps all day, borrowed the money from China mayne”; “And my whole crew is loungin’, celebrate every day no more public housin”.
2010 Federal Income taxes
As the readers of this blog know I am a CPA and my firm prepares a little over 700 tax returns a year. Just over 500 personal returns and then just over 200 corporate returns for small businesses.
This may be the best blog post I have written in a long time; you should read it.
I am home with the kids tonight, my wife is in the office doing tax returns. I just put my kids to bed and I am bored. Dangerous things happen when I am bored. Our Federal income tax code is over 3.5 million words and is basically just a mechanism of social engineering and a means of keeping incumbent politicians in office. I want to show you some examples of theoretical 2010 Federal income tax returns that I just created this evening for fun for this post.
Lets say we have a married couple (Bob and Emily) with three kids who are all under age 17. Lets say the couple earns wages of $21,250 in 2010 and that is their only source of income and further lets say no Federal income tax is with-held from their paychecks. Lets say they rent an apartment and cannot itemize their deductions. They will get a Federal Tax Refund of $9,204. So this family will pay nothing in Federal income tax for 2010 and will instead be paid $9,204 by the IRS. For these same circumstances:
- If the wages increase to $30K with no Federal with-holding they will get back $7,626.
- If the wages increase to $40K with no Federal with-holding they will get back $4,515.
- If the wages increase to $50K with no Federal with-holding they will get back $1,581.
- If the wages increase to $60K with no Federal with-holding they will get back $81.
- If the wages increase to $60,550 they will pay $1 in Federal income tax.
Who to Believe?
Bob Caylor wrote a news item in Wednesday’s News-Sentinel about Paula Hughes’ suggested program to reduce the city debt. One of our Democratic bloggers was asked his opinion of this suggestion and his response was not very clear as to the figures he quoted. I sent an e-mail to Bob in re this and thought some of you might be interested - so here -
To: Bob Caylor:
Dear Bob:
In Wednesday’s News-Sentinel you had an article outlining one of our Republican mayorial candidate’s city debt reduction program. In this piece you quoted Keven Knuth, as a spokesman for Mayor Tom Henry’s campaign as saying, “as of January 1 (2011?), the city’s obligations totaled $129 million. You then state that Knuth’s numbers did not include some items. The difference is a huge $355 million!
Where did I get this figure? Per Pat Roller’s report to the 2011 Legacy Fort Wayne Task Force on January 27, 2011, the city’s “Net Debt per Capita” as of that date was given as $1,811. Since Fort Wayne’s population, per Mayor Tom’s State of the City address was given as 30% more than that listed in the 2000 Census (205,727) or 267,445 - that calculates to a debt of $484,343,000 or over 3 times what Knuth stated!
So, who is correct, our high-paid CPA Comptroller and our high-paid mayor - or a political hack???
Don’t you feel that a clarification is in order?
John B. Kalb
