...instead of reining in trial lawyers:
Chicago USA Monday AM 24 August 2009
Editors, The Financial Times
Gentlepeople:
A fine letter from the US in the Monday, August 24 Financial Times asks: "Would we really rather reduce [healthcare] benefits... than think about reining in the absurd awards trial lawyers regularly walk away with?"
Follow the money: Tort lawyers make lots of money, and give lots of it to politicians' election campaigns.
On the other hand, the only tax 2/3 of voters pay is a hidden national sales tax that funds 2/3 of the US federal government:
In 2007, the federal government took in a total of $2.692 trillion, 62% of which was withheld from wages (2009 Statistical Abstract of US, table #462.) So nearly 2/3 of all the actual dollars that came into the US general fund were from employer bank accounts, not employee's. Employers pass all of this on to customers in higher prices, resulting in almost 2/3 of federal income coming from an invisible national sales tax. This hoax started with the 1943 Current Tax Payment Act, but a regularly expanding national economy makes it all but painless to voters, resulting in their lack of interest in what Congress spends or does.
This problem could be fixed by the House and Senate passing, and a willing president signing, an act to change paragraph 3402 of USC Title 26 — 'Internal Revenue Code' Subtitle C 'Employment taxes' Chapter 24 'Collection Of Income Tax At Source On Wages'... from "every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax..." to "every employer making payment of wages shall pay all of those wages to the employee...." The employer would still calculate the tax, and remind each payee how much the feds are expecting him to send in within 30 days"
Would this be inefficient? Certainly for an insatiable federal bureaucracy. But writing a check on their personal bank accounts to the Federal Government every month for 20% of their take-home pay would give voters strong incentive to stop voting for tort-lawyer supporters.
Arnold H Nelson 5056 No Marine Dr Chicago IL 60640 773-677-3010
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Email to Newt Gingrich
Chicago IL PM Sunday 23 August 2009
To: Newt Gingrich
Mr. Speaker:
In 1994 you engineered one of the three biggest takeovers of the US House of Representatives in history, picking up 54 seats, ending 40 years of Democrat party control, and severely crimping the ambitions of the 42nd president. You accomplished this unparalleled breakthrough with an entirely new approach - nationalizing a congressional election for the first time in history, with an entirely new tool, the Contract with America.
In 2010 we face a Democrat majority that has done more damage in two years than those 40 years that you ended. And now they have a President even more demented than they are. So here is a New Contract, for a new, but even more dangerous situation than we had after 40 years of Democrat control.
REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA 2010
1] On the first day of the 112th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately begin a promise made by the great Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said in a speech to 5,000 people in Pittsburgh PA on Wednesday evening, October 19, 1932: "I shall approach the problem of carrying out the plain precept of our party, which is to reduce the cost of the current Federal Government operations by 25 per cent." [You can look it up.]
2] Next, we shall replace the traditional opening prayer led by a member of the clergy with a group recitation of the 158-word prayer written by our Founders:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....
"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and...
our SACRED HONOR."
We will continue to recite these words at the opening of every session the people of the USA allows us to conduct. And we will make a strong, if non-binding, official Congressional suggestion to every local school board in the nation to have every school day started with the same recitation by all students.
We will also require of each voting Representative a signed affidavit for each bill they cast a vote for that they have actually read the bill, cover-to-cover.
Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 112th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny.
All legislation will be based on the recognition that the federal government can do only two things with other peoples' money: take it away from some, and give it to others.
3] We will implement the Enumerated Powers act, requiring all bills passed by congress to include their constitutional justification, expanded to include what James Madison wrote, in his Federalist Number 41, clarifying what the Founders' meant in Article I Section 8 by "provide... for the general welfare":
"Some critics say that the power to 'provide for the... general welfare...' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the... general welfare....
"But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?"
That 'specification' is a list of 17 things Congress is Constitutionally allowed to do. Not a word about Social Security, Medicare, a Department of Education, or telling car companies how to build cars.
4] We will initiate a Constitutional Amendment repealing the ill-conceived 17th amendment that, by making Senators elected directly by the people, politicized a body the Founders specifically wanted to be non-political, by making its members elected by state legislatures. (It was only after three successive Senate elections following the Passing of this amendment that the senate saw its first party leader.)
5] In 2007, the federal government took in a total of $2.692 trillion, 62% of which was withheld from wages (2009 Statistical Abstract of US, table #462.) So nearly 2/3 of all the actual dollars that came into the US general fund were from employer bank accounts, not employee's (forget the strong implication if the money were not withheld, employers would give it to employees as wages. Also, if the money doesn't get to the feds, the employers go to jail, never the wage earners.)
Employers pass all of this on to customers in higher prices, resulting in almost 2/3 of federal income coming from an invisible national sales tax. This hoax has been going on since the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, but because of a regularly expanding national economy, it's all but painless to voters, resulting in their lack of interest in what Congress spends.
This problem could be fixed with a Voter responsibility act, changing paragraph 3402 of USC Title 26 — 'Internal Revenue Code' Subtitle C 'Employment taxes' Chapter 24 'Collection Of Income Tax At Source On Wages'... from "every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax..." to "every employer making payment of wages shall pay all of those wages to the employee...." The employer would still calculate the tax, replacing the reassuring (but thoroly misleading) note "you earned and your employer paid" with "here is how much the feds are expecting you to send in within 30 days"
Would this be inefficient? Certainly for an insatiable federal bureaucracy. But writing a check on their personal bank accounts to the Federal Government every month for 20% of their take-home pay would give voters strong incentive to vote the spenders out of office.
Would it be easy to do? Not all at once, but a good place for the "frog in boiling water' technique: over a three-month quarter convert the 0.1 percent of the population w/ names starting with 'x' to a new, real 'pay-as-you-go' system, add in a new letter every quarter for 25 quarters, thru the 20% of the population w/ names starting with M and S.
Those 26 quarters would cover three elections of the House of Representatives, reelection of the entire Senate, and two elections of a president. Soon enough congresscreatures would forget how to spell 'earmark', let alone use it.
6] Recognizing that all federal income goes in the same account, we will replace all unrealisticly individually designated taxes (Social Security, Medicare) with a single rate tax on individual income. If the rate is 20%, someone making $1 million/week will pay $200K/week, someone making $100/week, will pay $20/week.
As possibly advantageous as it may be, individual home ownership is no business of the federal government - no more tax deduction for interest. And the entire income tax deduction list will be carefully examined for dropping of any deductions even less justifiable than the mortgage deduction.
At the same time we will elinate all corporate income taxes, since as the corporations are made up of individuals, these taxes result in double taxation.
7] Recognizinbg that every increase in the federally mandated minimum wage results in either jobs being lost, new jobs not being offered, or both, we will rescind this federal intervention in the private sector.
8] Recognizing that letting people who pay no federal income taxes vote for representatives who can give them money back, we will enact whatever necessary (amendment or statute) to limit voting rights to actual, check-writing taxpayers. Also, federal ballots will be printed only in English, a subtle hint that to exercise citizenship rights, you must speak the American Language, English.
9] Realizing that the Land use act of 1785 and the Morrill act of 1863 did not give local schools any money, only land as an endowment, and assumed no more control than to stipulate that income from such endowments will be used only for public education, the federal department of Education will be abolished.
10] ‘Dual Citizenship’ will be eliminated. Part of naturalization will include signing a document renouncing all allegiance to any country besides the USA. Anyone who obtains citizenship in another country will automatically be renouncing their US citizensip. Also, by whatever means necessary, statute or amendment, the so-called ‘anchor baby’ anachronism will be eliminated. To get birthright citizenship you must have at least one parent a US citizen.
11] Realizing that coal, oil, and natural gas, are absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our economy and living standard, and that there appears no reasonable chance of our running out of any of these resources even in our own country for at least many generations, we will open up all lands and seabed to exploration and mining/drilling, subject only to reasonable environmental regulation for health, safety and aesthetics. Further, because of the actual. Proven, pitiful potential of so-called biofuels, wind, and solar, we will stop all federal funding of such studies, leaving it to the ever-resourceful private sector to do our searching/testing for us.
12] Our planet earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the fundamental tool of climate investigation, the thermometer was invented only 445 years ago. Using a simple mathematical model of comparing the earth to an 80 year lifetime, we had our first tool for studying climate only 3 minutes 53 seconds ago. Recognizing this hoax for what it is, we will stop funding of all so-called 'global warming' and 'climate change' study, again leaving it to the private sector.
Now, Mr. Speaker, comes your part: This contract will obviously be assiduously studied and presented by press, TV and the blogosphere, but the most effective presentation would be by you presenting it in personal visits to each of the 435 Congressional districts, which you know all so well, between now and November 2010. We know the original Contract did well with Reagan Democrats - a 2010 version addressing each of these 12 points, would do at least as well, and after the disaster our Democrat president is building, a new contract may even go over well with so-called ‘independents’ and ‘moderates.’
On top of that, what could be a better start for a 2012 presidential nomination?
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
773-677-3010
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
To: Newt Gingrich
Mr. Speaker:
In 1994 you engineered one of the three biggest takeovers of the US House of Representatives in history, picking up 54 seats, ending 40 years of Democrat party control, and severely crimping the ambitions of the 42nd president. You accomplished this unparalleled breakthrough with an entirely new approach - nationalizing a congressional election for the first time in history, with an entirely new tool, the Contract with America.
In 2010 we face a Democrat majority that has done more damage in two years than those 40 years that you ended. And now they have a President even more demented than they are. So here is a New Contract, for a new, but even more dangerous situation than we had after 40 years of Democrat control.
REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA 2010
1] On the first day of the 112th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately begin a promise made by the great Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said in a speech to 5,000 people in Pittsburgh PA on Wednesday evening, October 19, 1932: "I shall approach the problem of carrying out the plain precept of our party, which is to reduce the cost of the current Federal Government operations by 25 per cent." [You can look it up.]
2] Next, we shall replace the traditional opening prayer led by a member of the clergy with a group recitation of the 158-word prayer written by our Founders:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....
"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and...
our SACRED HONOR."
We will continue to recite these words at the opening of every session the people of the USA allows us to conduct. And we will make a strong, if non-binding, official Congressional suggestion to every local school board in the nation to have every school day started with the same recitation by all students.
We will also require of each voting Representative a signed affidavit for each bill they cast a vote for that they have actually read the bill, cover-to-cover.
Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 112th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny.
All legislation will be based on the recognition that the federal government can do only two things with other peoples' money: take it away from some, and give it to others.
3] We will implement the Enumerated Powers act, requiring all bills passed by congress to include their constitutional justification, expanded to include what James Madison wrote, in his Federalist Number 41, clarifying what the Founders' meant in Article I Section 8 by "provide... for the general welfare":
"Some critics say that the power to 'provide for the... general welfare...' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the... general welfare....
"But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?"
That 'specification' is a list of 17 things Congress is Constitutionally allowed to do. Not a word about Social Security, Medicare, a Department of Education, or telling car companies how to build cars.
4] We will initiate a Constitutional Amendment repealing the ill-conceived 17th amendment that, by making Senators elected directly by the people, politicized a body the Founders specifically wanted to be non-political, by making its members elected by state legislatures. (It was only after three successive Senate elections following the Passing of this amendment that the senate saw its first party leader.)
5] In 2007, the federal government took in a total of $2.692 trillion, 62% of which was withheld from wages (2009 Statistical Abstract of US, table #462.) So nearly 2/3 of all the actual dollars that came into the US general fund were from employer bank accounts, not employee's (forget the strong implication if the money were not withheld, employers would give it to employees as wages. Also, if the money doesn't get to the feds, the employers go to jail, never the wage earners.)
Employers pass all of this on to customers in higher prices, resulting in almost 2/3 of federal income coming from an invisible national sales tax. This hoax has been going on since the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, but because of a regularly expanding national economy, it's all but painless to voters, resulting in their lack of interest in what Congress spends.
This problem could be fixed with a Voter responsibility act, changing paragraph 3402 of USC Title 26 — 'Internal Revenue Code' Subtitle C 'Employment taxes' Chapter 24 'Collection Of Income Tax At Source On Wages'... from "every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax..." to "every employer making payment of wages shall pay all of those wages to the employee...." The employer would still calculate the tax, replacing the reassuring (but thoroly misleading) note "you earned and your employer paid" with "here is how much the feds are expecting you to send in within 30 days"
Would this be inefficient? Certainly for an insatiable federal bureaucracy. But writing a check on their personal bank accounts to the Federal Government every month for 20% of their take-home pay would give voters strong incentive to vote the spenders out of office.
Would it be easy to do? Not all at once, but a good place for the "frog in boiling water' technique: over a three-month quarter convert the 0.1 percent of the population w/ names starting with 'x' to a new, real 'pay-as-you-go' system, add in a new letter every quarter for 25 quarters, thru the 20% of the population w/ names starting with M and S.
Those 26 quarters would cover three elections of the House of Representatives, reelection of the entire Senate, and two elections of a president. Soon enough congresscreatures would forget how to spell 'earmark', let alone use it.
6] Recognizing that all federal income goes in the same account, we will replace all unrealisticly individually designated taxes (Social Security, Medicare) with a single rate tax on individual income. If the rate is 20%, someone making $1 million/week will pay $200K/week, someone making $100/week, will pay $20/week.
As possibly advantageous as it may be, individual home ownership is no business of the federal government - no more tax deduction for interest. And the entire income tax deduction list will be carefully examined for dropping of any deductions even less justifiable than the mortgage deduction.
At the same time we will elinate all corporate income taxes, since as the corporations are made up of individuals, these taxes result in double taxation.
7] Recognizinbg that every increase in the federally mandated minimum wage results in either jobs being lost, new jobs not being offered, or both, we will rescind this federal intervention in the private sector.
8] Recognizing that letting people who pay no federal income taxes vote for representatives who can give them money back, we will enact whatever necessary (amendment or statute) to limit voting rights to actual, check-writing taxpayers. Also, federal ballots will be printed only in English, a subtle hint that to exercise citizenship rights, you must speak the American Language, English.
9] Realizing that the Land use act of 1785 and the Morrill act of 1863 did not give local schools any money, only land as an endowment, and assumed no more control than to stipulate that income from such endowments will be used only for public education, the federal department of Education will be abolished.
10] ‘Dual Citizenship’ will be eliminated. Part of naturalization will include signing a document renouncing all allegiance to any country besides the USA. Anyone who obtains citizenship in another country will automatically be renouncing their US citizensip. Also, by whatever means necessary, statute or amendment, the so-called ‘anchor baby’ anachronism will be eliminated. To get birthright citizenship you must have at least one parent a US citizen.
11] Realizing that coal, oil, and natural gas, are absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our economy and living standard, and that there appears no reasonable chance of our running out of any of these resources even in our own country for at least many generations, we will open up all lands and seabed to exploration and mining/drilling, subject only to reasonable environmental regulation for health, safety and aesthetics. Further, because of the actual. Proven, pitiful potential of so-called biofuels, wind, and solar, we will stop all federal funding of such studies, leaving it to the ever-resourceful private sector to do our searching/testing for us.
12] Our planet earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the fundamental tool of climate investigation, the thermometer was invented only 445 years ago. Using a simple mathematical model of comparing the earth to an 80 year lifetime, we had our first tool for studying climate only 3 minutes 53 seconds ago. Recognizing this hoax for what it is, we will stop funding of all so-called 'global warming' and 'climate change' study, again leaving it to the private sector.
Now, Mr. Speaker, comes your part: This contract will obviously be assiduously studied and presented by press, TV and the blogosphere, but the most effective presentation would be by you presenting it in personal visits to each of the 435 Congressional districts, which you know all so well, between now and November 2010. We know the original Contract did well with Reagan Democrats - a 2010 version addressing each of these 12 points, would do at least as well, and after the disaster our Democrat president is building, a new contract may even go over well with so-called ‘independents’ and ‘moderates.’
On top of that, what could be a better start for a 2012 presidential nomination?
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
773-677-3010
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
"Massacre or battle?"
Chicago Tuesday PM, 18 August 2009 Voice of the People, Chicago Tribune
Gentlepeople:
Your "Massacre or battle?" editorial of Tuesday, August 18, attempting to justify the knee-jerk politically correct renaming of the site of the Saturday, August 15, 1812 Fort Dearborn Massacre is an assault on the bedrock foundation of newspapers: words. Battle means one thing, massacre means another.
Will Chicago's Native American citizens reenact the battle at the new park? Will they celebrate their victory? Will you issue a correction of your Friday, September 1, 1995 statement "During... the massacre of the Marlins, Cubs General Manager Ed Lynch was busy...."
What next? The Battle of Sand Creek (29 November 1864)? The Battle of St. Valentine's day?
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640773-677-3010
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Gentlepeople:
Your "Massacre or battle?" editorial of Tuesday, August 18, attempting to justify the knee-jerk politically correct renaming of the site of the Saturday, August 15, 1812 Fort Dearborn Massacre is an assault on the bedrock foundation of newspapers: words. Battle means one thing, massacre means another.
Will Chicago's Native American citizens reenact the battle at the new park? Will they celebrate their victory? Will you issue a correction of your Friday, September 1, 1995 statement "During... the massacre of the Marlins, Cubs General Manager Ed Lynch was busy...."
What next? The Battle of Sand Creek (29 November 1864)? The Battle of St. Valentine's day?
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640773-677-3010
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
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