Tag: Wealth Redistribution (page 3)

New legislation that jumps the death tax to 55 percent of estates exceeding $1 million threatens 526,421 family farms, of about 25 percent of all farms in America, according to a Senate analysis.

According to the analysis from the Senate Republican Policy Committee, chaired by Wyoming's John Barrasso:

If President Obama and Senate Democrats do not act, the federal government will begin taking more than half the value of family farm estates exceeding $1 million beginning next year. This summer, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats passed legislation (S.3412) on a party-line vote that allows Washington to take up to 55 percent, a huge increase over today's top rate of 35 percent, and drop the tax's exemption from $5.1 million to $1 million. The lower exemption -- combined with soaring farm real estate values -- could put more than 420,000 additional farm estates at risk from the death tax.

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Looks like Democratic Party funders George, and Warren, must be interested in acquiring some blocks of land on the cheap.  S.3412 was indeed passed by Party-line with Stabenow, and Levin voting Yea.  And, to think that re-elected moron, Alan Grayson's imbecile rhetoric used against Republicans, now similarly places over a half million family farms in jeopardy.  Don't get sick - Don't Die - or Democrats will tax your property away from your heirs.

Congratulations, you voted for it!  Ironic, yes?  Shouldn't be to anyone by now.

So, what set the cult of dirt worshiping loons off their organized collectivist rocker?  Sincerity from, Rep. Benishek.

"I'm not sure how significant global warming is," he said during the debate. "I spent a lot of time in the sciences, and you know, I'm not exactly sure what's happening with the climate."

The League of Conservation Voters, which gave Benishek low rankings in its annual scorecard, responded by announcing a new billboard campaign targeting Benishek for having his "head in the sand" on global warming.

Yessirree.  Droughts, shmouts, besides; Debbie can feel it when she's flying! Tolerant Leftist strike again, and damn any substance in discourse.  'Cause dammit! Al Gore's mockumentary said the earth is dying, and that big yellow thing in the sky can be taxed.

Just another reason that it was a no-brainer for me to vote for Doctor Dan, this year.

Indeed, JP Morgan's Christopher Paton told Bloomberg News that food stamps are big business for the big bank:

"We are the largest processor of food stamps in the country...[the EBT program] is a very important business to JP Morgan. It's an important business in terms of its size and scale.... Right now volumes have gone through the roof in the past couple of years or so. The good news from JP Morgan's perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume."

While some may be glad that a private company-not a government agency-is tasked with EBT transactions, the GAI report reveals that JP Morgan does not use the same fraud detection systems commonly used by today's credit card companies.  In fact, federal and state agencies--not EBT processors--are the ones tasked with policing food stamp fraud.

Nice gig, eh?  JP Morgan lobbies Ag Committee Chair Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for their graft then those of us that are taxpayers also get to pay for the policing of JP Morgan's transaction processing.  Think not?  

So how did EBT processors like JP Morgan land its lucrative half-billion dollars worth of contracts?

The GAI report, Profits From Poverty: How Food Stamps Make Corporations Money, says JP Morgan's political donations to members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees (who oversee the food stamp program) skyrocketed once the bank entered the EBT market:

Between 1998 and 2002, JPMorgan's total contributions per election cycle averaged $82, 897. After JP Morgan entered the EBT services market until the 2010 election cycle, their average donation per cycle more than doubled to $215,120.... JPMorgan's donations to political campaigns also show a clear trend. During the 2008 election, Barack Obama received more than twice the contributions of John McCain: $807,000 for Obama compared to McCain's $345,505.

Today, one out of every seven people in America receive taxpayer-funded food stamps.

When it comes to funding campaigns, JP Morgan is Debbie Stabenow's third best friend.  Remember folks, the $500 billion Farm Bill that Sen. Stabenow, is now all of a sudden campaigning on while Arab Spring rages against America, is 80% EBT/SNAP money.  JP Morgan has paid Debbie handsomely for their share of that $400 million in food stamp monies her committee sent to the Senate floor.

The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), headed by Maureen Taylor, has been telling Detroit welfare recipients to occupy foreclosed homes around the city. "You can't imagine," Taylor told WWJ in Detroit, "when we get to work at 9 and 10 in the morning, there are 20 to 30 people in the hallway talking about `I don't have any more money, my rent is due' - three or four months behind - what can I do? And its unreal, because we don't have answers except to say, `here's a list of houses that we have intercepted that have been repossessed by banks, pick one and move in.'" To boot these trespassers out of the homes, banks are forced to take MWRO to court.

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The Senate Agriculture Committee today released its version of the Farm Bill and it appears to fall far short of needed reforms. And that's putting it kindly. The Chairwoman's summary claims the bill will contribute $23 billion toward deficit reduction. Even if true, this is significantly less than $33 billion the President included in his budget and the $30 billion House Republicans agreed to in their budget.

Access the bill here: 2012 Senate Committee Farm Bill

In a sop to the reality that agricultural producers have experienced record revenue for the last few years, the bill eliminates a number of entitlements starting in 2013. It eliminates direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, and the Average Crop Revenue Election Program (a failed subsidy from the last farm bill).

The bill, however, does nothing to rein in the exploding costs of taxpayer subsidized crop insurance. In fact, instead of chipping away at our trillion dollar annual deficits with the savings from eliminating the commodity handouts, it plows them into a new agricultural entitlement covering "shallow loss" that will end up costing taxpayers billions.

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