LEE RODGERS
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August 28 --

REALITY CHECK: WHO'S PAYING THE TAXES? ...
OBAMA OBSTRUCTIONISM & GAS PRICES ...
BOOM-AND-BUST CAUSE AND EFFECT

Who's kidding whom about Hurricane Isaac? Media reporting is replete with references to the storm "approaching Tampa" while those same reports show the actual track of the storm well past Tampa to the northwest and heading AWAY from the Republican convention city toward New Orleans. Is this wishful thinking in action?

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Is it premature, even unnecessary, to review national priorities? Two things are vital: national security and a healthy population.      Everything else, in varying degrees, is optional. Much of it wasteful pork-barrel spending.

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For the ignorant and the stupid, i.e., Democrats, Prof. Walter Williams reviews the basics about who pays what in taxes ...
     "Let's see whether the rich are paying their 'fair' share.
     "According to IRS 2007 data, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 22 percent of national personal income but paid 40 percent of all personal income taxes. The top 5 percent earned 37 percent and paid 61 percent of personal income tax. The top 10 percent earned 48 percent and paid 71 percent of all personal income taxes. The bottom 50 percent earned 12 percent of personal income but paid just 3 percent of income tax revenues.
     "Some argue that these observations are misleading because there are other federal taxes the bottom 50 percenters pay such as Social Security and excise taxes. Data from the Tax Policy Center, run by the liberal Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, takes into account payroll and income taxes paid by different income groups. Because of the earned income tax credit, most of America's poor pay little or nothing. What the Tax Policy Center calls working class pay 3 percent of all federal taxes, middle class 11 percent, upper middle class 19 percent and wealthy 67 percent.
     "President Obama and the Democratic Party harp about tax fairness. Here's my fairness question to you: What standard of fairness dictates that the top 10 percent of income earners pay 71 percent of the federal income tax burden while 47 percent of Americans pay absolutely nothing?"

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Oil-drilling platforms shut down temporarily because of seasonally-predictable hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico ... a refinery explosion shuts down much production of petroleum products in Venezuela (yes, their government hates us but still sells us much of our oil) ... another refinery fire cuts production in California.
     And thru all this, the Marxist in the White House stubbornly blocks more drilling in the U.S. and still delays the pipeline to bring oil from Canada. You decide: Is the man stupid ... or fulfilling an objective of deliberately undermining the U.S. economy?
     Think about it while you're waiting for the gasoline pump to fill your tank with go-juice that's already well above $4 a gallon in much of the country.

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Peter Friedman alertly points out that California Governor Jerry Brown's push for drivers' licenses for illegal aliens will have a byproduct beneficial to the crooks who run the Democrat Party. Those licenses well serve as identification for voter registration purposes.
     Only those who deliberately blind themselves to reality could fail to realize  that Democrats' opposition to efforts aimed at preventing vote fraud is based solely on the knowledge that they are the beneficiaries of illegal voting.

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Here we go again dep't. ...
     Rasmussen polling finds that only 8% of likely voters think Congress is doing a good job. Here's another example of the typical dung-brained American voter's "thinking."
      Why such a cynical observation? Because we know from every previous election that the overwhelming majority of congressional incumbents will be re-elected. Which tells us that nearly all these lame-brained dope voters, while decrying that awful Congress, will return the cretin from their own district without considering that he/she just might be part of the problem.
     And that's how we get people like Nancy Pelosi spending years in office despite obvious incompetence, corruption or both.

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In an effort to escape the mind-numbing crap that makes up most of TV's output, the other night my sleepy-time channel surfing led me to the History Channel and a series about a Las Vegas family that runs a pawnshop.      
     After a few minutes, it occurred to me that this "reality" show embodied a fundamental lesson in economics. People brought in items rescued from grandma's closet and had highly unrealistic expectations as to what they might be paid for these treasures. Even if the items were genuine, they were disappointed to learn they'd bring far less money than anticipated.
     It was apparent to me that here was a real-life lesson, the realization of which could have avoided much financial pain during the housing bust, the dot-com collapse all the way back to the tulip craze of the 1600s when investors paid huge prices for tulip bulbs and expected the market to grow endlessly.
     How was this accomplished by one cheap little TV show? Because the owners of the pawnshop had to repeatedly remind those expecting to enrich themselves with the sale of old pistols, autographs, etc.; an item -- family heirloom, share of stock or a house -- is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And that, at some point, you run out of suckers.

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We are indebted to CNS News for finding that at the end of 2011 there was a then-record of 8,575,544 workers collecting federal disability benefits and among them were 1,304,851 doing so because they suffered from “mood disorders.” The most ridiculous example was in Puerto Rico, U.S. territory, where a third of all workers collecting disability benefits were getting your tax money because quacks had certified that they suffered from "mood disorders."
     Want to see the budget cut? This is one of thousands of examples where the axe is badly needed.

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An anonymous reader observes that, while Obama has taken to quoting Abraham Lincoln, there are some pertinent Lincoln quotes he fails to note. Like these ...
     You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
     You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
     You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
     You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
     You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
     You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

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From Dan Sorkin ...
     The real genius of democracy is that ultimately the voters are to blame.

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The Sky-guy recounts an unpleasant encounter ...
     There was a bit of confusion at the store today. When I was ready to pay for my groceries, the cashier said, "Strip down facing me."
     Making a mental note to complain to my congressman about Homeland Security running amok, I did as she had instructed me.
     When the hysterical shrieking and alarms finally subsided, I found out that she was referring to my credit card.
Lee Rodgers"...and now, if you'll excuse me..."
radiorodgers1@yahoo.com