Death and Taxes

Centuries ago, Ben Franklin pointed out that in this life the only certainties are death and taxes.   http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?Search=death+and+taxes&startsearch=Search&Author=&C=mgm&C=motivate&C=classic&C=coles&C=poorc&C=lindsly

It appears that the Obama administration is attempting to change that formulation a bit by linking illness with taxes.  On Friday, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, (D, NY) indicated that his committee is proposing to pay for President Obama’s new health care plan through adding six hundred billion dollars in new taxes onto the tax burden of Americans.  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqLNecbH0dcg  Chairman Rangel advised that the details of the tax increases would be released this coming week.

No one should surprised by this announcement in light of President Obama’s off hand remark to Joe the Plumber about things being better when the wealth is spread around. Sadly for President Obama there aren’t enough rich people to be taxed to raise this enormous sum of money, so the new taxes–whatever they are–are going to hit many more Americans than just the rich.

No one knows for sure what the final proposal will look like. But what proposal that has been floated recently is to tax existing health care benefits.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476309180208203.html  My initial reaction to that idea was that whoever came up with it must be on drugs. But no, it is a serious proposal.

My reaction to the idea of sucking another six hundred billion dollars out of the economy is that there is going to be a Republican Congress sworn in 2011 if the tax increases passes. Besides being unpopular, increasing taxes will make a bad economy worse.

However, not everything is gloom and doom. In researching this question, I came across something that I had never seen before on a serious political web site.  On a web site pushing for a single payer plan, like the awful plan in Canada,  I noticed that one of its links was to a porn web site.   http://jointeffort.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/senator-baucuss-montana-constituents-are-downright-hostile-about-healthcare-reform/

Mercy sakes!  Will unclad females drive the debate about the Obama health care plan?  Has the country reached the point that political discourse is to be intermixed with images of naked women?