1) H&R Blockheads
The IRS wants to save you from your rogue tax accountant (and prepare your taxes for you)
We're guessing that when Americans think of outlaw industries, tax preparers aren't the first rogues that come to mind. But lo, the nation's green eyeshades are now destined to come under the regulatory rule of the Internal Revenue Service as part of the Obama Administration's latest revenue grab.
Under the plan, which would begin with the 2011 tax season, anyone who takes money to help people with their taxes will have to register with the IRS, and eventually pass competency tests and sign up for continuing education. So having made tax filing so complicated that most Americans need help with their forms, Washington now wants to raise the price of such counsel by regulating advisers in a way that may reduce their supply.
…To get taxpayers away from preparers and off-the-shelf software, the state is pushing programs like CalFile, which allows voters to file returns through a state run electronic program. Under the ReadyReturn program, the state will even scour your W-2 for the year and send you a return for your signature already filled out. The eventual goal seems to be to have the government do everybody's state tax return, like the French do.
The feds are now getting in on this act, with Montana Democrat Max Baucus and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley supporting a free e-file portal at the IRS Web site that would compete directly with private tax preparation software. In March, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a Ways and Means Committee hearing that he'd also like the IRS to begin sending taxpayers pre-completed returns (emphasis mine).
…That would change the dynamics of U.S. tax compliance, trending away from a voluntary system in which taxpayers are expected to be honest about declaring income and deductions—subject to audit. Instead, the feds would apply their standards, and a taxpayer would have to appeal for an exception to the same efficient folks at the IRS you can't get on the phone at tax time.
America's tax preparers are far from a band of desperados: CPAs and lawyers already make up a large percentage of those who assist taxpayers for a fee, and all paid preparers already have to put their name or ID numbers on client returns. The IRS can thus already see if the clients of certain preparers are on the edgy side in taking deductions or declaring income. The tax men can make auditing decisions accordingly. These new rules look like a redundant exercise to intimidate tax preparers to be less aggressive in urging clients to take tax deductions.
For the Obama Administration, the new regulation is a way to try to increase tax revenues without Congress having to pass a law (emphasis mine).
See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640572196836150.html
2) Morning Bell: Obama’s Other Broken Health Care Promises
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) emerged from a closed-door meeting with top House Democratic leaders yesterday, the press asked her about C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb’s request that she permit cameras to televise the final health care negotiations between the House and Senate. After Pelosi first demurred, a reporter reminded Pelosi about President Barack Obama’s frequent promises to the American people throughout 2008 that he would ensure C-SPAN was allowed to televise exactly such negotiations, to which Speaker Pelosi quipped: “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.”
Speaker Pelosi is right: President Obama’s broken health care promises are legendary…Here are just some of the other major promises President Barack Obama has broken:
-Individual Mandate (Yes, the one that sends you to jail if you don’t buy health insurance. On the campaign trail, Obama said he was against it).
-You Will Not Lose Your Doctor
-No Tax Hikes for People Making Less than $250,000: On February 24, 2009, President Barack Obama promised the American people: “if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.” Speaker Pelosi believes the Senate bill’s excise tax on insurance plans breaks this promise, and she is right.
-Your Health Premiums Will Be $2,500 Lower
-Health Reform Reduces the Deficit (Ha ha ha ha! Does anyone believe this?)
-Tax Payer Funded Abortion
No one expects a President to fulfill 100% of his promises. But when the failures to live up to your past pledges pile so high, it shouldn’t be any surprise that the American people have turned so strongly against President Obama’s health care plan.
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/06/morning-bell-obamas-other-broken-health-care-promises/
2a) Beware a Public Health Plan in Private Disguise
In the ongoing attempts of Congress to find an alternative to the “public plan” in health reform, the Senate bill includes a provision to give the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) a new role: sponsoring health plans to compete against private health plans in every state in the nation.
As Kay Cole James, a former director of OPM, points out in a recent op-ed, the FEHBP works because OPM plays the neutral role of an umpire: federal employees choose the private plan they like from a wide variety of different plans, all of which compete against each other to attract the most enrollees. The federal government provides its employees with a defined contribution towards their health costs, and it doesn’t micromanage their choices. OPM allows variety and flexibility in the program, and limits its regulatory role to ensuring consumer protections. Sen. Reid’s proposal would have OPM sponsor new multi-state plans. OPM would set the premiums for plans it sponsors.
This new role for OPM is the Senate alternative to the House passed “public option”. But ordinary Americans should be leery of the difference. According to Kay Cole James, “this arrangement seems to be a “public option” in “private” option disguise… Because OPM would not merely serve as the umpire overseeing competition among private health plans. It would also become a health-plan sponsor, fielding its own team of players to compete against the existing private plans in every state.”
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/06/beware-a-public-health-plan-in-private-disguise/
3) Abrupt Democratic retirements show tough landscape
WASHINGTON – Two longtime Senate Democrats suddenly abandoned re-election bids, and so did a Democratic swing-state governor, underscoring the perilous political environment for President Barack Obama's party as anti-incumbent sentiment ripples across the nation.
…This week's are only the latest Democratic retirement announcements, accompanied by several in the House and the recent defection of Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith to the GOP, in a dispiriting trend for a party that had been soaring after winning control of Congress and the White House in back-to-back elections. The losses could hamper candidate recruitment, activist enthusiasm, and grass-roots fundraising.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100106/ap_on_go_co/us_democrats2010
4) Border security agents planned to question Nigerian when he landed in Detroit
WASHINGTON - U.S. border security officials learned of intelligence about the alleged extremist links of the Christmas Day airline bomber as he was in the air en route to Detroit and had decided to question him when he landed, officials said in new disclosures Wednesday.
Oh, that’s helpful. It’s good that something remained of the plane and this man so that he could be questioned.
See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-dc-airline-terror-story,0,6801082.story
5) Gitmo prisoners may resist transfer to Illinois
What’s worse — living in a secure facility in the tropics where some reasonable social interaction exists, or living in a Supermax facility in icy weather under almost-constant constant lockdown? Mark Hemingway notices a key tidbit in a report on Gitmo from Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff that suggests the Gitmo detainees may sue to stay right where they’re at:
“But the final irony is that many of the detainees may not even want to be transferred to Thomson and could conceivably even raise their own legal roadblocks to allow them to stay at Gitmo.
Falkoff notes that many of his clients, while they clearly want to go home, are at least being held under Geneva Convention conditions in Guantánamo. At Thomson, he notes, the plans call for them to be thrown into the equivalent of a “supermax” security prison under near-lockdown conditions.”
“As far as our clients are concerned, it’s probably preferable for them to remain at Guantánamo,” he says.
Um, aren’t conditions at Gitmo supposed to be a national embarrassment? Aren’t they so bad that it serves as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, which apparently really rankles our Chief Executive? Think maybe that’s overblown just a tad?
See: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/07/gitmo-prisoners-may-resist-transfer-to-illinois/
6) US readies new Mideast peace push
…The letters are likely to contain gestures to both sides. For the Palestinians, that would include criticism of settlements and the belief that the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War be the basis of a future peace deal. For the Israelis, they would acknowledge that post-1967 demographic changes on the ground must be taken into account, meaning that Israel would be able to keep some settlements.
Translation: Palestinians gain new land. Israel gives up land it won in a defensive war. Yeah, that’s “gestures to both sides”.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100107/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_mideast
7) Iran Shielding Its Nuclear Efforts in Maze of Tunnels
Last September, when Iran’s uranium enrichment plant buried inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum was revealed, the episode cast light on a wider pattern: Over the past decade, Iran has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country.
In doing so, American government and private experts say, Iran has achieved a double purpose. Not only has it shielded its infrastructure from military attack in warrens of dense rock, but it has further obscured the scale and nature of its notoriously opaque nuclear effort. The discovery of the Qum plant only heightened fears about other undeclared sites.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/world/middleeast/06sanctions.html
8) REPORT FROM EPICENTER: ISRAEL STEPS UP WAR PREPARATIONS
Greetings from Israel. I’m here for a time of prayer and planning with some of our Joshua Fund team. Three big stories in the news since I’ve hit the ground, all involving preparations for a possible massive war between Israel, Iran and her Radical Islamic allies:
A) ISRAEL TO SIMULATE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE ATTACK: “An exercise simulating a response to a biological warfare attack will be carried out in the Dan region next week. The exercise, which will be the largest of its kind in Israel’s history, will be carried out in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, and Holon and aims to evaluate the ability of the Home Front, the medical services, rescue teams and the municipal authorities to respond in the conditions created by a biological catastrophe caused either by terrorists or by accident.
B) IDF TO BLANKET ISRAEL WITH GAS MASKS — “The Home Front Command is planning to begin distribution of individual protection kits, i.e. gas masks, to every citizen starting in late February, according to a cabinet decision taken last week. Originally, just over 60 percent of the population were to receive kits, but a decision to extend that protection to the whole country means the production of the necessary equipment has been stepped-up, and another billion shekels is needed to fund to the endeavor. The plan is to distribute protective kits to each of the nearly eight million citizens (in line with a population estimate for 2013), over a period of three years.”
C) Tehran Plans a Major Military Exercise: Drill to Boost ‘Defensive Capabilities’ Coincides With Deadline Iran Has Set for West on Nuclear Offer – “Iranian media on Sunday reported Tehran will conduct a large-scale defensive military exercise next month, coinciding with what government officials now say is a deadline for the West to respond to its counteroffer to a nuclear-fuel deal.”
See: http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/report-from-epicenter-israel-steps-up-war-preparations/
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