Here are the eight Republican congressmen that went against their party and all common sense to vote for the largest tax increase in history.

Bono Mack (CA) (202) 225-5330
Castle (DE) (202) 225-4165
Kirk (IL) (202) 225-4385 (And he’s seriously considering running for Senate!)
Lance (NJ) (202) 225-5361
LoBiondo (NJ) (202) 225-6572
McHugh (NY) (202) 225-4611
Reichert (WA) (202) 225-7761
Smith (NJ) (202) 225-3765

Michelle Malkin

Business as usual. Politics as usual. The Federal Government has become an entrenched political class. They have passed laws and implemented regulations that favor the incumbent politician and make politics a matter of power and not service to the nation.

There are five changes to the Constitution that could break this pattern.

TERM LIMITS
The Founders laid out a series of term lengths for our elected representatives which serve to vary the time spent in office between elections. Members of the House serve two years at a time while Senators serve six. The President and Vice President serve a term of four years.

There are no limits on how many terms a member of Congress may serve. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution limits the President to being elected twice, for a total of eight years maximum.

The lack of any term limit has led both Houses of Congress to use seniority as a criteria for selection to important internal posts such as committee chairs. It also allows both bodies to pass laws and promote regulations which make it increasingly difficult for citizens to challenge incumbents for re-election.

In the Senate, Robert Byrd (D-KKK) has served over 50 years. Ted Kennedy (D-Taxachusetts) has served over 46 years. Two more Senators have served over 34 years each.

In the House of Representatives, John Dingell has spent over 56 years and John Conyers over 46 years representing the United Auto Workers in Congress. 14 other Members have spent 34 years or more in the House.

The time has come to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit the terms of members of Congress. The Founders never intended to create a class of politicians for life. Spending those amounts of time in Congress make the office all about being a Member not serving as a Member.

LINE ITEM VETO
The ability of the President to affect the bills that Congress passes is limited. The spending and appropriation bills, in particular, give the President little option but veto or sign.

That is because the leadership in Congress some decades ago discovered that it is far easier to pass one large bill than several small bills. A large bill can hide earmarks, pork, and by its size carries a certain degree of protection from oversight by the voters and the President. A 700 page bill provides a lot of hiding places.

Certainly the President could veto one of these huge bills. But, in most cases that tosses the baby out with the bath water. To prevent a few objectionable items, many necessary, even vital, items would also be vetoed.

The courts have held that most versions of the line item veto are barred constitutionally. We need an amendment to change that. The President should have the legal authority to veto any portion of any bill, and thus send it back to the Congress for reconsideration.

CONGRESSIONAL PAY TIED TO WORK
For many years, Congress has failed to abide by a law which it passed that requires pay be withheld from members who are not present for their duties in Congress. Members run for office, including other offices, are ill and unable to attend, or are off on trips of one sort or another and still receive their pay.

In May 2003 we reported: Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) has missed 162 votes in the House this year – 85 percent of the total.

In 2006 we reported on Lane Evans, congressman from Illinois. He was dying of Parkinson’s and the court was about to appoint a guardian. He missed almost 39% of the votes in that Congress.

Also in that 2006 report, we pointed out four other Congressmen who had missed between 14-23% of the votes because they were running for another office.

The Washington Post has a site where the missed votes for Senators from the 110th Congress are displayed. The top six Senators missed more than 20% of the votes. Five were running for President and the sixth was seriously ill at home.

These examples are the tip of the iceberg. Congress normally works a three day week, and perhaps no more than 120 days a year. For that effort they are paid $174,000 a year. Their perks include staff, offices, transportation and many, many other benefits that most workers can only dream about.

That law should be replaced by an amendment to the Constitution that ties Congressional pay directly to being present in the Capitol.

PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION
The line of succession to the Presidency is currently as follows:

• Vice President
• Speaker of the House
• President pro tempore of the Senate
• Secretary of State
• Secretary of the Treasury

It then goes on through the Cabinet Secretaries.

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution provides for filling vacancies in the Offices of President and Vice President.

Two changes should be made to these provisions. The President pro tempore of the Senate has become an honorific for the most senior Senator. In other words, the fourth in line to the Presidency is a very elderly member of the Senate. In the last ten Congresses, Robert Byrd (D-KKK) has held the post four times, and Strom Thurmond (R-child bride) twice. Ted Stevens (R-bridge to nowhere) is the only other Senator to have held that position during that time.

Either this office should be removed from the line of succession or the office should be assigned by amendment to a Senator for some more compelling reason than being old.

The second change that should be made is to the provision for filling the vacant office of Vice President. It should not be by appointment of the President with the consent of the Senate as Cabinet posts are filled. The Constitution should be amended to fill a vacancy in a manner that ensure that the next Presidential election will be a contest. To that end, a Vice Presidential vacancy ought to be filled by the House majority or minority leader that is from a different political party than the President.

The Constitution originally provided that the Vice President would be the candidate receiving the second highest total of votes in the Electoral College. This amendment would take us back towards the original intent of the Founders and act as a break to political parties reacting in their own self interest and not that of the people in a crisis.

SUNSET FOR TAXES AND FEES
Sunset provisions have been come a popular means of limiting the duration of laws in the last few decades. The fifth and final amendment we propose to the United States Constitution would place such a provision there.

The tax cuts which were enacted during the Bush Administration have a sunset provision. They expire unless re-enacted by Congress.

Rather than trust Congress to do the right thing at some point in the future, a sunset provision for tax and fee increases should be placed into the Constitution. No tax or fee increase can be permanent. Congress must re-enact any such increase. A reasonable sunset limit would be nine years. That would span two Presidential terms so that an increase of necessity can have an effect but it can still expire in a timely manner when a new administration takes office.

We believe these five Constitutional Amendments are necessary to limit the current size and strength of the Federal Government. It does not matter which political party controls Congress or the Presidency. A political class with more similarities than differences has developed and their hold on our government must be broken.

The Internal Revenue Service today announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008. Taxpayers may use the optional standard rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. This is an increase of eight (8) cents from the 50.5 cent rate in effect for the first six months of 2008, as set forth in Rev. Proc. 2007-70.

In recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2008. The IRS normally updates the mileage rates once a year in the fall for the next calendar year.

“Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans. Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers.”

While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs.

The optional business standard mileage rate is used to compute the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business use in lieu of tracking actual costs. This rate is also used as a benchmark by the federal government and many businesses to reimburse their employees for mileage.

The new six-month rate for computing deductible medical or moving expenses will also increase by eight (8) cents to 27 cents a mile, up from 19 cents for the first six months of 2008. The rate for providing services for charitable organizations is set by statute, not the IRS, and remains at 14 cents a mile.

The new rates are contained in Announcement 2008-63 on the optional standard mileage rates.

Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.

IRS

We continue to examine the “earmarks” in the HHS / Labor Appropriations bill. This time, via the Porkbusters’ database, we can sort by amount. You know, the tax dollars squeezed from us, the taxpayers so that our employees, known as Congressmen, can secretly and without accountability fund projects for friends, benefactors, contributors, and such.

As the first item amply demonstrates, it also is not considered inappropriate to give our tax dollars to projects bearing your own name. You can also sort the database by project, thus giving the viewer a nice collection of “earmarks” going to the same place. Yale University, for example, does quite well, especially considering the tuition it charges and the endowment it has.

If these items are not pork, why aren’t they introduced publicly by the Congressman responsible? Why are they so vague in many cases? Who actually is responsible for seeing that our money, yours and mine, is spent properly?

This is just one of the appropriation bills. This same process happens in just about all of them. We just didn’t find out in time or it was hidden much better.

So, here are the top 15 offenders and they are spending $23.5 million of our money:

Related: Here, Piggy! Piggy! August 16, 2006

The House is on record about earmarks, and it is not pretty. Andy Roth at the Club for Growth has the votes, all 19 of them. Louise Slaughter, D-NY 28, voted to kill two of them and to support the spending of seven of them. She did not vote on four of them.

First of all, I thought we paid her to vote. Odds are she would have voted wrong, to support the pork, but not voting is just plain wrong by itself. Here are the votes.

House Vote 190 – Dairy education in Iowa ($229,000)

House Vote 191 – Hydroponic tomato production in Ohio ($180,000)

House Vote 192 – National Grape and Wine Initiative ($100,000)

House Vote 204 – Virginia Science Museum ($250,000)

House Vote 205 – Juniata Locomotive Demonstration ($1,000,000)

House Vote 277 – Swimming pool in Banning, CA ($500,000)

House Vote 278 – “Facilities” in Weirton, West Virginia ($100,000)

House Vote 279 – Multipurpose facility in Yucaipa, California ($500,000)

House Vote 280 – Strand Theater Arts Center in Plattsburgh, New York ($250,000)

House Vote 298 – Mystic Aquarium in New London, Conn. ($1,000,000)

House Vote 299 – The Jason Foundation in Ashburn, VA ($1,000,000)

House Vote 302 – Northwest Manufacturing Initiative ($2,500,000)

House Vote 303 – Lewis Center for Education Research ($4,000,000)

House Vote 304 – Leonard Wood Research Institute ($20,000,000)

House Vote 334 – Arthur Avenue Retail Market ($150,000)

House Vote 335 – Bronx Council for the Arts in Bronx, N.Y. ($300,000)

House Vote 338 – Tourism Development Association in Kentucky ($1,000,000)

Louise voted to kill the two items in bold. The Mystic Aquarium vote was a poke in the eye to Joe Lieberman, I suspect. I don’t understand the vote against the Jason Foundation. It must have to do with its sponsor, because it’s a foundation to prevent teen suicide. Louise is in favor of teen suicide?

The last four, in italics, were the ones she missed out on.

Ask yourself this question. Which of these pork earmarks would you go up to Congresswoman Slaughter and say: “Louise, I want you to vote for this. Spend my money on this.”? Think about it. Heck, the two that even come close for me are the two she voted to kill.

The truth is that none of these items belong in a category called Funded by the Federal Government. They should be funded, maybe, by state and local governments, or by private donations. These aren’t national defense, anti-crime or any other topic that my money and your money should be spent on by Louise Slaughter and her porker friends.

BTW. John “Porkpie” Mutha voted to fund every single one of these projects.

Support the movement to cut the pork from the budget. All the news at the link above.

Support the movement to cut the pork from the budget. All the news at the link above.

Support the movement to cut the pork from the budget. All the news at the link above.

Support the movement to cut the pork from the budget. All the news at the link above.

President Bush’s information

President and Mrs. George W. Bush reported taxable income of $618,694 for the tax year 2005. This resulted in a total of $187,768 in federal income taxes paid by President and Mrs. Bush.

The President’s 2005 income included salary earned as President and investment income from the trusts in which their assets are held.

President and Mrs. Bush contributed $75,560 to churches and charitable organizations, including the American Red Cross – Hurricane 2005 Relief, the Salvation Army – Hurricane 2005 Relief, the Salvation Army – Pakistan Earthquake Relief, Martha’s Table, the Archdiocese of New Orleans Catholic Charities, the Mississippi Food Network, and the Federal Government’s Combined Federal Campaign.

Vice President Cheney’s information

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney released their 2005 federal income tax return today. The return shows that the Cheneys owe federal taxes for 2005 of $529,636 on taxable income of $1,961,157. The Cheneys’ adjusted gross income in 2005 was $8,819,006 which was largely the result of the exercise by an independent gift administrator of stock options that had been irrevocably set aside in 2001 for charity. The Cheneys donated $6,869,655 to charity in 2005 from the exercise of these stock options under the terms of the Gift Administration Agreement and from Mrs. Cheney’s book royalties from Simon & Schuster on her books America: A Patriotic Primer, A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Woman, and When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots. As provided in the Gift Administration Agreement, gifts were made to three designated charities named in that Agreement. The Cheneys’ return was filed on March 20, 2006.

The following essay was first published on my Blogger blog, then here on November 29, 2005. I am reprinting it, and expanding upon my thoughts in an addendum.

Immigration is important to me. I am the result of immigration. Hard working men and women who gave up their lives in foreign lands and came to the United States to make a better life for themselves and their descendants. Nearly all my ancestors arrived before the country regulated immigration. As the line goes “They were poor men, with dirty faces…”. They followed Gunny Highway’s dictum, and adapted, overcame, and improvised. They became Americans, and America became great through their efforts.

What bothers me about the illegal immigration issue is the apparent racist nature of the debate. It is estimated that Mexicans make up the largest single group in that population. Once upon a time, it was the Irish, the Chinese, the Italians, the Poles. In the 200 plus year history of our great nation, many groups have comprised the majority of immigrants at any given time. For the vast majority of that time, immigration was unrestricted, or rarely limited. Yet race or ethnic origin was still a means for the bigoted to discriminate against immigrants.

The President has proposed a plan that would, in part, allow illegals who have a job to remain in the country. And the answer from the nativist right is “Deport them!”

Why should people who show that they are willing to work, and who have a job, be sent back to a country where they don’t? Is this about who they are rather than what they do? Tell me how the anti-immigration arguments differ from those of the Know Nothings, or the Klan in the 1890′s? Immigrants speak a different language. They live in the same neighborhoods. They celebrate different holidays, eat different foods, smell different, act different. For 150 years it’s been : No Irish Need Apply. No Chinks. No Wops. No Polacks. And every single time the ethnic group most hated and reviled and looked down upon has assimilated. It takes generations, and we have to have that view of history and of our nation.

The nativists raise the issue of terrorism. Since 9/11, all the attacks on American soil that are termed terrorism were conducted by American citizens or legal immigrants (though Johnny Malvo was illegal, his mentor was not). The El Al shooting guy was legal. The ALF / ELF folks are all citizens, so far as we know. The FBI believes the anthrax attacks were domestic. The Texas folks just convicted of WMD type charges were citizens. I’m stating fact, and suggesting that a chain of facts may prove a theory. My theory is that we should first be looking for acts that have actually happened repeatedly before looking for acts that might or could happen.

Could uncontrolled immigration allow terrorists into the country? Of course. Has it been found to have occurred? Not yet demonstrated.

The nativists are failing to come up with a practical means of satisfying their demands to deport all the illegals. Honest employers already incur a financial burden complying with the INS regulations. Are we then to be asked to prove our citizenship as a matter of routine at banks, hospitals, schools as well? How do we do that without a national ID card, or a Federal system of verifying identities?

Nine million illegals, more or less, 3-5% of the population. Can you imagine rounding up that many people? Locating them, identifying them, proving that they are not legal or a citizen, and then finding a country that would take them back. Mexico has no reason to allow 6 million people back into its country. Will we build camps along the borders, like the Palestinians live in now? Shouldn’t that God awful mess be a cautionary tale about uprooting people. That all started with 650,000 Palestinians.

Most people know by name about 250 people. Imagine the police coming and taking 8 of them away. Not all illegals pick lettuce. It might be your doctor, your maid, the owner of your gas station, or you. The government does make mistakes, all the time, and there is nothing that says that a pogrom-like roundup won’t grab a few citizens.

You do realize that it’s possible to have a Hispanic name, speak Spanish fluently, and still be a bonafide citizen of the United States?

I’m all in favor of enforcing the immigration laws. But no one has demonstrated a practical method of removing the current group of illegals. I say “Fait accompli!” Find a way to legalize them, get them all into the legal economy. The nativists are proposing, for the first time in our history, to take working people and send them back to where they came from. This country was built by immigrants who were willing to work for low wages and at backbreaking menial jobs. So now that the Micks, the Chinks, the Wops and the Polacks have made it in, we close the borders?

It’s funny how the very people who regularly tout the benefits of the American Way of Life, capitalism, free enterprise, the virtues of libertarianism, the innate goodness of the United States turn around and say the equivalent of “Oh, but that won’t work for Mexicans.” Where are your principles? If freedom and economic growth are good for you and I, why not everyone? Hey, maybe I’m waving the black flag here, but my tiny brand of libertarianism says let people choose for themselves, not have their future imposed on them by government.

A half million people vote with their feet every year by coming to the United States. Just like Michael DeLaney did in 1845, and folks named Kroger, Meyers, Simmins, Ferris, and yes, Stockstaad, too. We are the future that those people wanted when they came to the United States. How can we honestly deny those choices and that freedom to those who are coming here today? Where are your principles?

Reprinted from Blogger in January 2004

ADDENDUM: Crime and terrorism, the two strawmen advanced by the nativists to justify the mass deportation or imprisonment of ten million people.

Ever hear of the Mafia? Or the tongs? Every ethnic group that has immigrated to the United States has brought its criminal element with them. The Irish, the Russians, heck I’d bet there’s even a criminal or two from Lesotho someplace.

In every immigrant community there have always been criminals and criminal organizations. The Hispanic community is no different. Why should they be treated any differently than those who came to America before them?

As for terrorism, let’s see. Michelle Malkin, one of the most vigorous nativists, wrote a book that revealed a variety of Japanese efforts using native born and immigrant Japanese to commit acts of spying and sabotage before and during WWII. Germans and German immigrants were involved in spying and sabotage during both wars in the United States. Immigrants from Warsaw Pact nations, and native Americans spied on the United States during the Cold War. IRA funds were routinely raised in pubs across America for “the boys behind the wire”. My own father grew up in an Irish slum peopled by IRA members driven out of Ireland during and after the Black and Tan.

The reality is that both native Americans as well as immigrants have committed acts of treason and sabotage.

The blunt fact continues to be that the discussion about illegal immigrants is actually about illegal immigrants of color. Hispanics. People with another language, another religion and mixed loyalities. Who are brown not white.

When my father and his family lived above that stable in the Irish section of Jersey City, you could starve to death in America. The only significant difference in immigration between 1925 and now is that it has become very, very difficult to starve in America. The government at all levels now provides a safety net, which many immigrants use. It’s costly, very costly, and many parts of the net are severely pressured or overwhelmed by local conditions. If that net were not there, would immigrants return home? Or would their life in the United States still be enough of an improvement that they would choose to stay?

Do you want to live in an America where ten million people are locked up or starved or dying of disease because they wanted a new life and we didn’t want to share?

The solution to the immigrant problem lies in their homelands. For decades the United States has treated Latin America as an afterthought. We shouldn’t. If there are jobs and schools and health care at home, folks will stay there. Latin Americans are our closest neighbors and we ought to be treating them like our neighbors.

As I tried to say in the original piece, an America where you have to prove your citizenship daily is not the kind of country I want. We’re not a private country club. We’re the land of the free.

Back off, boy, or the refund gets it!

That’s the attitude of New York State. The State’s fiscal year begins April 1. Every year the State knows that it will have to refund our money, taxpayers’ money, to us due to their clever manipulation of the withholding tables. You see, in order to avoid having to pay the State, you basicly have to choose to accumulate a sizeable refund. Which is, of course, an interest free loan to the State.

However, knowing that these “loans” are now due and payable doesn’t stop the State from, year after year, holding the money for several weeks until the start of the new fiscal year. This year, nearly 50% of the money to be returned to the taxpayers of New York State is being held until April 1. Isn’t that special?

Buffalo News:

The state is withholding tax refunds to more than a million New Yorkers who filed early, officials said Tuesday. State Department of Taxation and Finance spokesman Thomas Bergin told the New York Post that state officials put an annual cap on refunds to be paid out before April 1. This year’s cap was set at $960 million.

The tax department is holding back $717 million in refunds until April 1 as New York struggles with its finances, the Post reported. The state has sent out 1.6 million refunds totaling $900 million so far this year. An estimated 1.3 million taxpayers, however, would be affected by the refund cap.

Energy Information Administration

Smoking Gun

Richard Hatch, the first winner of CBS’s “Survivor,” was charged today with failing to report his $1 million reality TV windfall to the Internal Revenue Service. The below two-count criminal information, unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, charges Hatch with filing a false 2000 tax return that omitted his seven-figure “Survivor” winnings. The nudity enthusiast, 43, is also charged with filing a false return for 2001 (he allegedly did not report $321,000 paid to him by a Boston radio station). If convicted of the felony charges, Hatch could face a maximum of five years in prison for each count and could be hit with a $250,000 fine. Hatch is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges in Providence federal court January 24.

Kerry is bitching about tax breaks for companies that have overseas operations. The only break I’m aware of is the one that allows them to not pay United States taxes on income that has already been taxed by a foreign country. Avoiding duplicate taxation, in other words. How is that a bad thing?

Remember, only successful companies pay taxes. Taxes are a brake on the growth of successful companies by siphoning off profits that would otherwise be reinvested or distributed to owners and spent.

As it is, the corporate income tax is a travesty of justice. Corporation pay tax, then their owners, the shareholders pay tax on any profits that are distributed. Double taxation.

So, what tax breaks are Kerry and his merry band of economic thugs talking about?