What is a Working American?

by Bobby Eberle, The Loft: On tax day, when hundreds of thousands of people gathered at tea parties large and small, Barack Obama was making a speech about taxes. Not once did he mention the protests going on around him. Not once did he acknowledge that Americans across the country are fed up with his policies and the policies of all tax and spend politicians. Not once did he mention that the tax burden was too high for all Americans and that the debt he was leaving us will be crushing.

No, he didn't mention any of that. Instead, he mentioned over and over again how his plan would help "working" Americans. The problem is that Obama has a very strange definition of what a "working" American really is. In his socialist viewpoint, a "working" American is someone who needs a government handout... someone he can point to and say, "See that other guy? He owes you, because he is successful." Obama in sults the American spirit by singling out only a portion of working Americans to suit his definition. Well, Mr. Obama, I know plenty of "working" Americans, and they should all be treated fairly and with respect . . . [Read Mr. Obama... Please tell me what a 'working' American is]

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Tags: American workers, Barack Obama, Bobby Eberle To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Greenberg at Little Rock TEA Party

Rep. Dan Greenberg: If you weren't at the state Capitol on April 15, you missed quite a show. Over a thousand Arkansas citizens showed up to protest high taxes and big government. If you like old-style speechmaking, here is an excerpt of about half of my remarks that day.

“When you wake up in the morning and drink that first cup of coffee, you’ve paid a sales tax. To start your car, you’ve paid an automobile tax. Drive to work, you pay a gas tax. At work, you pay an income tax and a payroll tax. You get home at night and you pay a property tax. Flip on the light – you are paying an electricity tax. Turn on the TV – you pay a cable tax. Make a telephone call - you pay a utility tax. Brush your teeth, you'll pay a water tax. Even when you die, you pay a death tax.

“I have just one question: Have you had enough?

“Most of these taxes are passed along to the consumer. Over a quarter of the cost of bread: taxes. About 50% of the cost of a phone call: taxes. Over 50% of a gallon of gas: taxes. And I am sure that you recall that in this very building right behind me, majority of legislators voted earlier this year to raise the taxes on milk.

“I am sure you remember the Boston tea party: a tax protest that was a response to a failed and unresponsive political system. A government out of touch with the people that was doing just the wrong thing in response to a crisis. Does this sound familiar?

“Winston Churchill said: For a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing on a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

“If you suddenly discovered you were much poorer than you thought, would your first reaction be to run up your credit card debt as high as it would go? I would call that stupid. What do they call it in Washington? A stimulus program!

“I would say that Congress is spending like a drunken sailor: but that is unfair to drunken sailors.

“Did you read the newspaper article about the city government nearby receiving a stimulus check for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Do you know what the city manager said? He said: this is great news, but we don’t know how we’re going to spend it yet. Think of that. When the people get taxed to pay for these things, they have plans to spend money too, but I guess that the stimulus has taken care of that.

“The deficit spending we have at the federal level leads to the worst and most dangerous and least visible and least accountable and most unfair tax of all. A trillion dollars of extra spending by government creates the danger of inflation: people with savings will have their savings completely destroyed by the inflation caused by government spending. Inflation is a less obvious way of going into everyone's savings account, forcibly removing the money, and giving it to everyone else.

“Is paying more taxes the patriotic thing to do, as the vice president has told us? His cabinet members apparently don’t think so.

“What is true patriotism? Well, it has to do with being in touch with reality. A good example comes from the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan reduced the top tax rate from 70% to 28%. The amount of income reported by the rich jumped by a huge amount between 1980 and 1988. The increase in taxable income was so immense that the amount of tax collected at a 28% tax rate was larger than the amount of tax collected with a 70% tax rate.”

I have spoken to a few people who find the spectacle of citizens demonstrating in favor of lower taxes a little frightening. Personally, I think it’s great. ----------------- Dan Greenberg is an Attorney-at-Law and State Representative (District 31), Arkansas General Assembly. Although he directly represents northern Saline County, he also represents all Arkansans with public stands for limited, transparent and responsible government.

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Tags: Arkansas, Dan Greenberg, legislature, Little Rock, Representative, tea party To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

President Obama Shows Us His Moves

Obama Bows to Saudi King

Obama's Hand Shake With Chavez

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Tags: Barack Obama, bows, Hugo Chavez, Saudi Arabia, Saudi King To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking

Slowly but very surely the truth about the global warming hoax is coming to light. This today from Australia's reputable news source, The Australian which realed that Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking.

In brief: Ice is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap. The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

Antarctica has 90% of the Earth's ice and 80% of its fresh water. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia. East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week's meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades." . . . [Full Story: Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking]
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Hat tip to Israel Anderson for calling attention to the above article. Anderson heads up the FaceBook Group: 10 FACTS about Global Warming.

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Tags: Antartica, Australia, global cooling, global warming, global warming hoax, ice caps To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Ozark TEA Party Great Success

Update: Photos of the TEA Party Signs. Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: This week a small Ozark community experienced a major event. An Ozark TEA Party was held on Tax Day, April 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm in the Northern Arkansas Ozark Mountains in Mountain Home, Arkansas on the Veterans Plaza. While 500 people were hoped for, over 1500 people showed up for a two hour event were no food or beverages were served. My wife and I attended this event.

The event was a modern day ‘Boston Tea Party’” to hear speakers, sing patriotic songs, waive signs and and show their unity against the excessive government spending, taxation, bailouts, earmarks, and the indebtedness of our future generations. Some of these fine citizens were quite concerned about being labeled by Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano as right wing extremest and potential domestic terrorists.

The event was non-partisan and people from all political parties as well as independents gathered this day in a common cause saying "enough is enough." In the crowd, I even saw local elected people from both major parties. Some people traved three hours to the event. There were so many people that the counting stopped at 1500 people as some people left after the first half of the event for family and mid-week church services and others started showing up after work and supper. Through out Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri many people listened to the live broadcast by Mountain Talk Radio 97.1.

The Ozark TEA Party was organized by Richard "Ricky" Caster, an 18 year old conservative, For the last four years, he has been active in the Baxter County Teenage Republican Federation and after turning 18, he registered to vote and filed to be on the Baxter County Republican Committee. This young man can smile, organize and give a great speech. Richard is a avowed conservative and can quote the Constitution and address conservative principles "at the drop of the hat" without apology. He recruited many people to help and to participate. Mountain Talk Radio 97.1 promoted the event.

In summary, the Ozark TEA Party not only had great purpose but it also featured numerous intersting speakers, some great music, and a wide range of interesting signs made by the citizens who attended. Arkansans also signed "Shape Up or Ship Out" pink slips addressed to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Reps. Marion Berry, Vic Snyder and Mike Ross. The pink slips will be delivered to the local Arkansas offices for each of the individuals along with a statement detailing a plan of action.

A video was prepared and will be released in a few days. Lots of photos were taken. Here are a few citizens' photos of the Ozark Tea Party:

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Tags: Mountain Home, Ozarks, protest, taxed enough already, tea party To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Janet Napolitano Has a List - We Are Wearing Yellow Stars

by Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of ALG News Bureau: As the shroud of fascism fell on Italy, Germany, and throughout Europe in the 1920's and '30's, it is often portrayed that it was without resistance that Hitler became master of that continent. But in fact, it was not with a whimper that liberty fell. Nor will there ever be a bloodless rise of tyranny in this country—no matter how ruthlessly Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security attempts to suppress and oppress “right-wing extremists."

And so it was before. The casual observer of history may forget, but there were actually very legitimate, forceful acts of resistance against the fascists of the past on their path to hegemonic, totalitarian control of society. As the Nazis descended on the Warsaw ghetto, for example, the Poles met the enemy with stiff resistance. The patriots of the Warsaw Uprising there persisted for some 63 days, for love of country, their homeland, and their families. More than 200,000 perished, including some 16,000 insurgents who fought against the invading forces.

Long before the invasion of Poland, the fascists incrementally and systematically created the framework for totalitarianism using the instrumentalities of government. As a political movement, the fascists concocted boogeymen, utilized scapegoats, and perfected the art of political theatre, to explain the dismal economic and political state of affairs after World War I. They routinely used political violence against the scapegoats. When the fascists took power, those scapegoats were then labeled as subversives and enemies of the state. It was the natural extension of their ideology.

That is why the recent memo by the Department of Homeland Security is so remarkably chilling. It broadly labels as “rightwing extremists” about half of the population of America—or in laymen's terms: conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans. In outlining the “threat” posed by “rightwing extremism,” the Department of Homeland Security defined the danger in part as “groups, movements, and adherents… that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority” and “groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” That is remarkable. And it is frightening. In one fell swoop, the Department of Homeland Security defined as “extreme” a central tenet of federalism: primacy of the states in the federal union. On top of that, some of the central planks of the Republican Party platform—the right to life and opposition to illegal immigration—were labeled by the Department as “right-wing extremism.”

Returning veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere were fingered as targets for recruitment by the “extremists”. According to the memo, “rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.” Homeland Security justifies the claim by noting that Timothy McVeigh, perpetrator of the Oklahoma city bombing, was a military veteran. The National Commander of the American Legion immediately fired a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, writing, “Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical 'disgruntled military veteran' is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.”

In short, the Obama Administration has created its boogeyman. This is pure fascist scapegoating.According to the memo,

If you're a veteran who recently risked his or her life defending this great country, you might be a “right-wing extremist.”

If you're pro-life, whether you're a part of National Right to Life or the Catholic Church, you might be a “right-wing extremist.”

If you believe that illegal aliens should be deported to their countries of origin, perhaps if you joined the Minutemen, a non-violent border-monitoring group, you might be a “right-wing extremist.”

If you're a gun owner who believes in the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, you might be a “right-wing extremist.”

If you believe the Tenth Amendment, and the rest of the Constitution for that matter, should be followed in accordance with the principles of limited government and the rule of law, and perhaps if you're a member of Americans for Limited Government or the Constitution Party, you might be a “right-wing extremist.”

Making matters worse—and revealing anew the ingrained arrogance of the Obama Administration—Napolitano is not backing down. She insists that “We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not—nor will we ever—monitor ideology or political beliefs.” Uh-huh. This is, in fact, greatly alarming to millions of Americans. Clearly, whoever wrote this memo should be immediately dismissed. And Janet Napolitano should resign from office.

"This kind of mischaracterization can lead to discrimination against veterans in our society, especially in the job market," Congressman Steve Buyer said. He's right. And it's not just veterans who could be discriminated against. Or worse. This memo legitimizes initial objections against the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. It is no longer a hypothetical question of “What if it was used for political purposes?”

Now, we're all wearing yellow stars. And the Obama equivalent of the grizzly “Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service” has now been officially issued from the chancellery's inner sanctum. In the very least, the memo is a disgrace and undermines the explicit intent of the Department of Homeland Security, which was to protect the American people.

Napolitano can diffuse the situation—which is what she needs to do—not by dismissing legitimate concerns, but by acknowledging that the memo was overbroad, and apologizing to the tens of millions Americans who were targeted by it. Else, she will only confirm the disquieting suspicion that her intentions are malevolent. She has taken the first step by apologizing to veterans, but they were not the only people alarmed by the memo.

This memo targets everyone from those who believe in limited government to those who want the borders protected to those who believe in the sanctity of life, and the government is sworn to protect them all, not just veterans. And the memo's intention to follow accusation with action is all too clear. The memo promises that the Department “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.”

While one cannot speak to what motivates “extremists,” it is just historical truth that patriotic Americans across the country are inspired with particular reverence by the nation's founding documents. They believe that tyrannical forms of government should be altered or abolished. They are rightly concerned with by the concentration of power in Washington. And, if past is prologue, they will do whatever it takes to defend their liberty.

The fact is: this nation was founded upon revolution. And the more government pushes the people—especially if they feel threatened by their own government—the closer the people get to lighting that fuse. It's a powder keg. And the American people will once again stand up against what they perceive to be the rise of tyranny in their nation, whether it be fascist, socialist, or otherwise. In short, they will pledge to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

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Tags: big brother, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, liberty, political cartoon, Right Wing, Robert Romano, William Warren, yellow stars To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Radical Right Wingers - TEA Party Attendees

by William Warren:

by Debra Saunders, Real Clear Politics: On April 7, the Department of Homeland Security distributed a counterterrorism assessment to local law-enforcement types entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The nine-page paper has many on the right questioning what is going on in Washington. The assessment reads like a sophomore's bad political science essay in, for example, noting that right-wing extremism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

"This is a very unfortunately named document," Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Sara Kuban told me. No lie. The not-quite-classified-but-also-not-meant-for-public-distribution assessment reads like a rookie mistake penned by political lightweights. But Kuban told me it was written by "career officials" who had been working on the assessment for more than a year. (Read: DHS started working on this when George W. Bush was in charge.) That career officials would write such tripe should scare you.

Fox News posted a Jan. 26, 2009, assessment entitled "Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber-Attacks over the Coming Decade." This would suggest equal-opportunity political targeting. Not so. The "left-wing" assessment named entities -- the Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, The Hacktivist, the Internet Liberation Front -- and explained the methods used in specific and recent cyber-attacks. It also warned how specific groups -- loggers, farmers and named corporations -- were or could be targeted. That is, the "left-wing" assessment included information that would be useful to officials investigating crimes.

The "right-wing" document, however, targeted, not activities, but political thought -- opposition to abortion, immigration amnesty and gun laws. While the "left-wing" assessment reported on known criminal activities, the "right-wing" document started with the acknowledgment that Department of Homeland Security intelligence "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence." (The italics are mine.) Then: "The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."

Veterans groups are furious at the paper's suggestion that law enforcement look out for disgruntled military veterans, as it noted "the willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war." Thanks for your service, vets, but Homeland Security is stuck on Oklahoma City bomber and Persian Gulf War vet Timothy McVeigh.

More mushy thinking from the memo: "Rightwing extremists were concerned during the 1990s with the perception that illegal immigrants were taking away American jobs through their willingness to work at significantly lower wages. They also opposed free trade agreements, arguing that these arrangements resulted in Americans losing jobs to countries such as Mexico." Many Democrats have opposed illegal immigration and NAFTA, too. And what business is that of Homeland Security, unless the individuals broke federal law? ... [Full Article: Homeland Insecurity]

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Tags: Debra Saunders, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, NetRight Nation, political cartoon, Real Clear Politics, Right Wing, TEA Parties, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

National Tax Day Tea Party - Ozarks - Mountain Home, Arkansas

Bill Smith, Editor: Getting ready to head out to the Mountain Home, Arkansas: Ozark TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party. I hope you will be supporting these Tea Parties in your home town too. I will have a post up later tonight covering the days happenings! To quote my fellow blogger, TexasFred, "Be safe out there folks, and watch your back!" But most of all, enjoy this historical national event!

Below are some relevant quotes for today complements of The Patriot Post [interesting that many of them are from people who would now be labled as "right wing extremeists" by today's Department of Homeland Security (DHS)]:

"When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government." --President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt." --President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)

"To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder." --British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"People are tired of wasteful government programs and welfare chiselers, and they're angry about the constant spiral of taxes and government regulations, arrogant bureaucrats, and public officials who think all of mankind's problems can be solved by throwing the taxpayers' dollars at them." ++ "Government can't tax things like businesses or corporations, it can only tax people. When it says it's going to 'make business pay,' it is really saying it is going to make business help it collect taxes." ++ "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." ++ "Our tax policy is engineered by people who view tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure." ++ "Raising taxes will slow economic growth, reduce production, and destroy future jobs, making it more difficult for those without jobs to find them and more likely that those who now have jobs could lose them." ++ "My friends, history is clear: Lower tax rates mean greater freedom, and whenever we lower the tax rates, our entire nation is better off." --Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

"Rampant redistribution of wealth by government is now the norm. So is this: It inflames government's natural rapaciousness and subverts the rule of law." --columnist George Will

"Inflation also means that all the talk about how higher taxes will be confined to 'the rich' is nonsense. Inflation is a hidden tax that takes away the value of money held by everyone at every income level." --economist Thomas Sowell

"[W]e need to return to a taxation system similar to the one established by our Founding Fathers. They did not penalize productivity through taxes the way we do today. They had no Internal Revenue Service. They believed in minimal taxation." --columnist Chuck Norris

"The cry at these tea parties should be 'not a penny more' until governments get their houses in order, just as we must do. Most people have been forced to reduce spending during the recession, but not the federal government, and likely not the government in your home state." --columnist Cal Thomas

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Tags: Arkansas, Gary Varvel, historical quote, Mountain Home, Ozarks, political cartoon, tax day, tea party, The Patriot Post To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

It's Tax Day - Polls Show Americans Unhappy with Gov't Spending & Skyrocketing Debt

On this tax day, polls show Americans are seriously concerned about the excessive spending and debt that the federal government. In this administration’s first 50 days, Congress approved spending totaling $1.2 trillion, an average of $1 billion an hour. After that, the House and Senate passed staggering $3.6 trillion budgets, which will double the debt in 5 years and nearly triple it in 10 years. And the Hous and Senate leadership, Bill Press, and even President Obama as hinted in his speech yesterday at Georgetown Univ.

It’s little wonder that Americans are concerned given that the deficit is projected to near $2 trillion this year and with a budget. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted recently, “[this debt]would accumulate more public debt than the total debt spanning over 230 years, from George Washington right up until January 20, 2009.”

Americans are clearly troubled by this avalanche of spending and debt, as evidenced by a new USA Today poll (despite the headline). The poll shows that respondents believe the Obama administrations’ proposals “call for too much government spending” by a margin of 55%-33%. Even in last week’s much-discussed New York Times/CBS poll respondents said they preferred a smaller government to a larger one by a margin of 48%-41%, and increase from the same time last year. And the same poll found that most respondents were “very” (63%) or “somewhat” (28%) concerned that “increasing the national debt will create hardships for future generations.”
Suggested Reading: Americans Think Obama Wants Too Much Spending (from USA Today)
Los Angeles Times: At tax time, cases like Geithner’s raise pointed questions
Glenn Reynolds: Tax Day Becomes Protest Day

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Tags: federal spending, National Debt, tax day, TEA Parties, tea party, US Debt, polls, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today is April 15th - Time to #TeaParty Across America!

Find a Tea Party near you (also here) Freedom Ain't Free! American Tea Party - Song by Lloyd Marcus (Video and Lyrics) The New American Tea Party WorldNetDaily.com - Senator echoes Tea Party rally cry: "People have to show that they're not going to take it anymore" Suggested Sign Slogans

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Tags: April 15, Freedom, limited government, Lloyd Marcus, tax protest, tea party, US ConstitutionS To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Tax Day Tea Party Discussion on Fox News - "I Smell A Rat" [Video]

Today (April, 2009 on FOX News' Live Desk: Bill Press, "the Rat," looks like an idiot coming out against tomorrows Tax Day Tea Party Protests. Eric Odom, a national organizer with TaxDayTeaParty.com, did very well in rebuffing the insulting Bill Press. Bill falsely says we (the citizens) were paid for the TEA Parties. Anyone get any money? Let me know? The only rat that Bill smells is himself!

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Tags: ABC News, Bill Press, Fox News, Live Desk, TEA Parties, tea party, video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Our Troubling Tax System [Video]

Just in time for tax day tomorrow, here’s a fascinating new video with some facts about taxes you might not know or want to know. The U.S. tax code gets more complex every year. It violates civil liberties and, left unchanged, will leave the United States at a powerful competitive disadvantage in years to come. Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies, Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell and Director of Information Policy Studies Jim Harper dissect the troubling aspects of our tax system. According Edwards, the tax system is growing at startling levels — there are 70,000 pages of tax regulations and $300 billion in compliance costs — and it’s only going to get worse.

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Tags: Cato Institute, FairTax, federal government, Flat Tax, IRS, tax day, tax system, US Congress, video, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Tax Freedom Day -- TODAY!

It’s About the Spending - According to the Tax Foundation, today is Tax Freedom Day: That means Americans have worked about three and a half months of the year, from January 1 to April 13, before they have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax burden at the federal, state and local levels. . . . But do not celebrate yet. The Tax Foundation also identifies how long Americans would have to work to payoff each year’s budget deficit. That day does not arrive until May 29 … the latest day ever for the deficit inclusive measure.

But back to the taxes. The Congressional Budget Office released a study last week that should give pause to anyone who believes the gap between spending and revenues can be closed by taxing the rich alone. In 2006, the latest date data is available, the top 20% of earners paid 69.3% of all federal taxes. Never has the top 20% of earners paid such a high share of federal receipts. Meanwhile, the bottom 90% of households paid only 45%, and the lowest 20% of earners paid only .8% of all federal taxes. Editorializing on the CBO findings the Washington Post warns: “There just isn’t enough revenue to be found above that figure unless we create a system so lopsided that voters would always want more government spending because it would come at such a low price.”

Unfortunately we are already there. Over the past 14 months, Washington has gone on an unprecedented spending binge that has sparked a nationwide protest. This Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Americans will take part in Tea Party protests in 500 cities and towns across the country. . . . [Full Article and reference links]

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Tags: CBO,deficit, federal spending, Heritage Foundation, Tax Freedom Day To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

The Tea Party - Our side vs their side

Cartoon by Lisa Benson at Townhall

Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret: The gigantic TEA PARTY revolution scheduled for Wednesday, April 15 is just a couple days away. If you haven't located an event to attend check out these two web sites: TaxDayTeaParty.com and/or TeaPartyDay.com . Those that can't physically attend can alert newspapers, call friends, send a letter to the editor,etc.......all of us can do something.

If you can't find a TEA PARTY near enough for you to attend at the above references, call you local newspaper, talk shows, and ask them where the local TEA PARTY event is being held. If no success then initiate your own TEA PARTY......it's not too late..........if all else fails, all you need to do is contact some friends, and find a heavy traffic area along the highway or city street, and show up with signs on April 15th.

Critical to our movement which must be first and foremost in our hearts and minds...this is about America, it's not about us as individuals, it's about us as a cohesive, committed, patriotic voice across America demanding a behavior modification by leadership in our nation back to Constitutional government and Republic principles. We won't stop until our goal is satisfied. Leadership in America will have an opportunity to recognize America's demands through our non-violent demonstration of grievances on April15th -- We are not going to be denied our Constitutional voice.
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Blog Kudos: Hat tip to Kate at An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings & to TexasFred for the cartoon.

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Tags: angry taxpayers, Kool-Aid, Lisa Benson, main street media, political cartoon, tax day, taxes, tea party To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Arkansas Republican Women Express Frustration with Leadership

Operation Speak Out: The Republican Women of Marion County, Arkansas wish to express their frustration with the leadership and elected representatives of the Republican Party. We have so many issues coming at us from Washington that it is practically impossible to keep up with this assault on our freedoms such as:

The mortgage crisis that can be traced back to the policies and laws of the liberal left of the Democrat Party.

A government bent on rewarding home buyers who were not qualified to borrow money for these homes, let alone able to pay it back, and at the same time penalizing those that played by the rules.

Money being pumped into businesses that should be allowed to fail, so that government can wrest control of them from the private sector. This, and all of the above, while destroying the savings and retirement of millions of Americans.

A president and Treasury Secretary that want to tell companies who they can hire what they can pay and what product they can make.

A proposed health care program that will cripple the nation with more debt and rob the people of their hard-earned wages to pay for substandard care.

A government pursuing a program to combat global warming based on junk science, and giving government an excuse to further interfere in the lives of the people. This is a an unabashed power grab by the government to dictate how we,the citizen, should live our lives.

There are liberal Democrats who want to take away our freedom of speech by instituting the “Fairness Doctrine”, thus silencing any opposition.

There are Liberal Democrats who want to enact the “Card Check” program and take away the secret ballot from workers.

We have a President willing to give away our sovereignty.

All of the above means government deficit spending that can never be repaid.

Where are the Republican Party voices? Is the Republican leadership going to join forces and voices to loudly protest and fight the drift of our nation to socialism?

Even now the leader of our party finds it easier to criticize the leading conservative spokesman on radio, Rush Limbaugh, than to lead the fight in beating back these Socialists. Doesn’t the leadership realize that Rush is an ally and not the enemy? We need the conservative spokesmen who are on the on radio, else we have no spokesmen who have the ear of the people.

Are our elected representatives, both national and state, going to fall all over themselves getting a piece of the pie or are they going to stand up and combat the drunken spending that is going on; spending that will enslave this generation and generations hereafter in paying off a debt that is never ending?

We want answers and action! We do appreciate the unity of our congressional Republicans in voting against the Democrat agenda, but feel the Republican voice must be louder and more visible.
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“Operation Speak Out” is a project of the Republican Women of Marion County, Arkansas. Through the project the base of the Republican Party voices there opinions to the leadership of the Party. Comments may be posted online using the comments section below or mailed directly to Operation Speak Out Project, Attn: Ginny Varn, Corresponding/Reporting Secretary, 2923 Hwy 178 N., Flippin, AR 72634.

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Tags: Arkansas, Arkansas Federation of Republican Women, Marion County, Operation Speak Out, Republican Women To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

The Great Unraveling

By Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government: The following two pieces succinctly summarize what an incompetent administration can do to a great nation in just a few short weeks. Below, writing for The Hill, Dick Morris does a great job of listing in clear, crisp language what damage has been done to our economic freedom. In the Washington Post, there is a column by Charles Krauthammer that reviews the weakness of Barack Obama’s foreign policies so far. Taken together, the two are chilling. I encourage you to read them in full.

First, Morris reveals an administration seeking to perpetuate an economic emergency to enact a radical agenda:

A crisis Obama won't waste

By Dick Morris: This economic crisis is too useful for Obama to want it to end. When Rahm Emanuel — and later Hillary Clinton — spoke of never letting a good crisis “go to waste,” many people were shocked. But now Obama seems to embody the corollary: that the crisis should continue until he has thoroughly milked it to reshape American politics, society and the economy. Like Faust, he seems to wish that this "given moment" will "endure forever." Unlike Faust, however, he will not lose his "life and soul" to such a wish. He'll sacrifice ours instead.

First came the “stimulus package.” With only about $185 billion of its $800 billion in spending to be spent in 2009, Obama clearly never intended the spending to be about stimulus but wanted the need for a stimulus to trigger the spending he wanted anyway.

Then came the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding, often forced down banks’ throats. Now comes word that even as banks want to return the money, the Treasury is making them keep it. One source at a TARP bank reports that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is insisting that banks go through their “stress test” before refunding the TARP money. As Stuart Varney speculates, in The Wall Street Journal, Obama wants the banks to keep the money so he can enforce his regulations on them.

Now comes Geithner's plea for extra regulatory powers and Obama's concession to global economic regulation at the G-20 summit. Both moves are game-changers for any major American business. Geithner wants the power to take over any business — presumably in any field — whose failure would imperil the national economy. Today it’s banks, brokerage houses, car companies and insurance firms. Tomorrow? Who knows?

And Krauthammer exposes Obama rolling back American nuclear weapons defense:

It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

By Charles Krauthammer: In his major foreign policy address in Prague committing the United States to a world without nuclear weapons, President Obama took note of North Korea's missile launch just hours earlier and then grandiloquently proclaimed: "Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response."

A more fatuous presidential call to arms is hard to conceive. What "strong international response" did Obama muster to North Korea's brazen defiance of a Chapter 7 -- "binding," as it were -- U.N. resolution prohibiting such a launch? The obligatory emergency Security Council session produced nothing. No sanctions. No resolution. Not even a statement. China and Russia professed to find no violation whatsoever. They would not even permit a U.N. statement that dared express "concern," let alone condemnation.

Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the United Nations -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the "realism" Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy.

He certainly has a vision. Rather than relying on America's unique technological edge in missile defenses to provide a measure of nuclear safety, Obama will instead boldly deploy the force of example. How? By committing his country to disarmament gestures -- such as, he promised his cheering acolytes in Prague, ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Really, now. How does U.S. ratification of that treaty -- which America has, in any case, voluntarily abided by for 17 years -- cause North Korea to cease and desist, and cause Iran to turn nukes into plowshares?

Obama's other great enthusiasm is renewing disarmament talks with Russia. Good grief. Of all the useless sideshows. Cut each of our arsenals in half and both countries could still, in Churchill's immortal phrase,"make the rubble bounce." There's little harm in engaging in talks about redundant nukes because there is nothing of consequence at stake. But Obama seems not even to understand that these talks are a gift to the Russians for whom a return to anachronistic Reagan-era START talks is a return to the glory of U.S.-Soviet summitry.

Not only does Obama want an economic emergency to put his socialist agenda on the fast track, he also apparently wants to downgrade America’s defense capabilities and elevate her enemies. And in the process, two institutions of American society, a free market economy and national security, are unraveling rapidly. This is actually worse than the 1970's.

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Tags: Americans for Limited Government, Barack Obama, Bill Wilson, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Morris To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Tax and Spend by Barack Obama [Video]

This April 15th go to your local tea party! There will be tea parties in over 500 cities! Find out where your cities tea party: TaxDayTeaParty.com. While a Tea Party is not a political event but a citizen event, one major concerns is the Obama's Tax Expend policies. The below parody video is edited to be humorous. Laugh a little!

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Tags: Barack Obama, capital gains taxes, parody, tax and spend, tea party, video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

2009 Arkansas Legislative Session Ends

by Rep. Dan Greenberg: The 2009 legislative session ended yesterday. Governor Beebe came to the well of the House and told us at some length what an excellent job we did. Legislators thought this sentiment so accurate that we gave him repeated standing ovations. We followed this up with standing ovations for Rep. Bruce Maloch, Speaker of the House Robbie Wills, and even the Speaker’s wife. Because standing ovations do not really cost anything, legislators are often promiscuous with them.

Newspaper readers will be able to find several stories with Arkansas politicians complimenting one another on our many successes this session. I would like to try a different approach by listing a few areas where, this year, we were not entirely successful.

On taxes and budget issues, there was room for improvement. We continued our tradition of handing out tax breaks for special interests, combining this policy with a tax increase on smokers. My own view is that any tax provision that treats one group differently from another should be scrutinized carefully. I wrote a bill that would replace special-interest income tax provisions, which create lower income taxes for a few, with lower income tax rates for everyone, but thanks to Democrats the bill did not make it out of committee.

Shortly after we passed the tax increase on cigarettes to pay for our state’s new trauma system, the governor’s top tax bureaucrat told us that the revenue estimate he used didn’t take into account the new federal taxes on cigarettes. This means that the new yearly revenue will be about $14 million short the first year, and it probably means that even more new taxes will be needed in order to fund our newly created obligations. I think we all suspected that basing revenue on cigarette taxes would be unstable over the long run, but we didn’t think we’d see such a big shortfall so soon!

I also wrote a bill that would require any use of the Quick Action Closing Fund, which is controlled by the governor, to be accompanied by a written contract that sets out performance expectations. Under current law, the governor can give QACF money to private interests without any expectation that taxpayers will receive any return on it. I think this is troublesome, but the Democratic legislators on the economic development committee disagreed.

We also passed a new tax on milk that was designed to protect Arkansas dairy farmers. After most of the House and the Senate approved it, Governor Beebe announced that he couldn’t support it and that he would support helping farmers with money from a different program. If the governor comes across any other state government programs with surpluses that he can redirect, perhaps he will let legislators know sooner next time.

There was also room for improvement on issues of government secrecy. Lawmakers produced bills that would have put our state budget on the Internet, that would have made the state database of criminal records a matter of public record for government officials, and that would have made the rules for racial and other demographic preferences in college admissions public. In each case, state government bureaucrats representing the Democratic politicians in charge of the executive branch argued that making records accessible to the public would be dangerous, impossible, or impossibly expensive.

The House also succeeded in sending over a couple of very bad bills to the Senate, perhaps in the hope that the Senate would fix them. For instance, we passed a bill that was intended to stop underage drinking that was so badly drafted that it would have criminalized children’s Communion. Luckily, the Senate was able to get that one fixed.

I enjoyed serving in the legislature this session. But if the voters decide to send me there again, I hope I will be able to furnish the body with more common sense than it showed this session.
(The following is a news release written by House staff that summarizes what happened this week.)

LITTLE ROCK – Lawmakers have recessed the 87th General Assembly in Little Rock after 88 calendar days with the adoption of the state’s spending plan for the next fiscal year.

The passage of the Revenue Stabilization Act is always one of the last items approved. This year’s primary funding bill sets priorities for $4.4 billion in general revenue to be disbursed to state agencies and programs over the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. The recession dictated much of this year’s session, especially on revenues.

Lawmakers, with the Supreme Court’s edict to make sure public schools remain the state’s top priority, were able to slightly increase funding for K-12 education. Public schools are getting $1.9 billion for the next fiscal year; the Department of Human Services, $1 billion; colleges and universities, $587 million, and the Department of Correction, $287 million. Those needs generally get about 90 percent of state revenue.

Invited by legislative leaders of both chambers to address members, Gov. Mike Beebe in his remarks in the House praised all lawmakers’ work but singled out Speaker of the House Robbie Wills for his leadership and noted the heavy lifting done by the Joint Budget Committee and its co-chairman, Rep. Bruce Maloch of Magnolia. He lamented the difficult decisions faced by lawmakers, especially in bad economic times, when they have to say no to worthy projects.

Speaker Wills closed the session with a rundown of the session’s work. In addressing the House on opening day, Jan. 12, Wills recalled the wooden contraption called a “Do Nothing” and implored lawmakers to work hard and accomplish good things this session. They did, he said on closing day.

Lawmakers in the waning days also approved the General Improvement Fund, which consists of a $300 million surplus of leftover state agency money and earned interest from state accounts. More than one-third of the surplus, or about $100 million, will go to plug holes discovered in the budget late this session. The fund also includes $50 million in a quick-closing account used by the governor to bring jobs to the state. Another $9 million will be used to shore up the State Police retirement system fund.

The House and Senate will get about $30 million each for projects of statewide need, including those at colleges and universities. Funds also will be disbursed to rural fire departments, senior citizen centers, domestic-violence shelters and economic development projects. Those funds will be routed through state agencies on an application basis. The governor gets $65 million for other statewide projects at his discretion.

One of the first major acts approved by the 87th General Assembly was a reduction in the state sales tax on groceries from 3 percent to 2 percent. Arkansas is one of the few states that came into its legislative session this year with a surplus and opened it with a tax cut.

Formal adjournment is set for May 1. Unless there are vetoes to consider or corrections to be made, formal adjournment takes only a matter of minutes and a bang of the Speaker’s gavel will end the session.

Lawmakers also closed the session with a full slate of constitutional amendments for the November 2010 general election. Up to three can be referred, and lawmakers came up with three.

They are: a constitutional right to hunt, fish and trap; amending the state’s super-project economic development plan to issue general-obligation bonds to lure employers of any size, subject to the General Assembly’s approval; and a rewriting of the state’s credit and usury limits. Readers can expect much debate on all three of those issues in the coming months.

The House also gave final passage to Senate Bill 2 to repeal the state sales tax on mini-warehouses and self-storage services. The bill goes to the governor.

The House also gave final approval to amendments to a bill, by Rep. Randy Stewart of Kirby, to keep secret the names of Arkansans who have state licenses to carry concealed weapons. Those names – and specific home addresses -- have been public information since the concealed-carry law was approved in 1995 but seldom requested and never published (except for a brief time on a publication’s Internet home page). The original bill struggled in the Senate after being approved in the House by a large margin.

Both sides compromised. While the records will still be public information and subject to the state Freedom of Information Act, only the licensee’s name and zip code will be provided under the amended bill, which now goes to the governor.

The House also gave final approval to HB 1930, by Rep. Pam Adcock of Little Rock, requiring insurance companies to offer coverage for hearing aids of no less than $1,400 per ear every three years. That bill is now Act 1179.

The House also gave final approval to HB 1058, by Rep. Dawn Creekmore of East End, to remove the statute of limitations for rape if DNA evidence is found and collected at the scene of the crime. The bill goes to the governor.

The Senate, meanwhile, gave final approval to HB 1649, by Rep. Ray Kidd of Jonesboro, and HB 1830, by Rep. Butch Wilkins of Bono. Called the Private Protection Act, HB 1649 lowers the threshold for felony charges to be filed against someone who steals property in an area declared to be in a state of emergency. Felony charges generally apply to thefts of property valued at $2,500 and up, but that value would drop to $500 for thefts in the disaster area. The bill goes to the governor.

HB 1830 requires a person convicted of fleeing to serve at least two days in jail and for his or her driver’s license to be suspended for at least six months. It also goes to the governor.

I hope you enjoy the coming week -- and especially the part where you pay your taxes -- more than I will!
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Dan Greenberg is an Attorney-at-Law and State Representative (District 31), Arkansas General Assembly. Although he directly represents northern Saline County, he also represents all Arkansans with public stands for limited, transparent and responsible government.

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Tags: Arkansas, Dan Greenberg, legislature, Little Rock To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Happy Easter 2009

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Tags: 2009, Arkansas Republican Assembly, Easter To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!