musical cousins

Here are some pictures from the last board meeting. Our cousins from Mississippi were in and the girls had so much fun playing with the boys. Bradley and Addie Leigh are exactly a year apart and play well together. Piper loves playing with babies, so she just loved little Michael. We spent two weeks with them in Florida, and thought it would be Thanksgiving before we would see them again, but what a wonderful surprise we got when they were able to come hang out with us during and after the board meeting.

Piper's storytime with Meemama

I love this one!

Between Two Worlds: Martin Luther King Response to \"You Can\'t Legislate Morality; You Have to Change Hearts First\"

Between Two Worlds: Martin Luther King Response to "You Can't Legislate Morality; You Have to Change Hearts First"

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Why Our Tax System Has to Go!!

Ok, finally a non-partisan (kind of) post about our income tax system.

Here are the reasons we need to trash our current system and replace it with a whole new one, which I will outline in a future post.

1. Our current system is terribly inefficient- We currently pull in approximately $1.7 Trillion dollars a year in income taxes. It costs us about a third of the total revenue to do the accounting, and pay the IRS to bring in these taxes. In other words, it costs us a $1 to pull in $3. This has got to change. 

2. It is so complicated that no one can fully understand it- The IRS tax code has over 600,000 pages. It is estimated that less than 1% of tax returns are perfectly right. When people ask complicated tax questions to accountants the differences in the answers received are always significant. Even when getting a ruling or clarification from the IRS itself, they are rarely consistent.

3. It is used by politicians and special interests to give breaks to their people and tax everyone else. The current system has infinite possibilities for being manipulated so that it has become a tool used by politicians to stay in power.

4. It punishes success and has pushed over $10 Trillion dollars worth of businesses off shores by it's oppressive structure. Entrepreneurs are punished for making more money, hampering their ability to create more jobs. Since it is an income tax, it is flawed from the ground up.

These are the biggest reasons why our current system will not work in the long run. 

Corporate Taxes? Yeah Right.

Rant Warning... Again

Ok, this is another thing that really makes me mad about the left. One of their most effective strategies is to say that they will lower taxes on the poor and middle class and shift more of the burden onto the wealthy and "corporations." Here's why this is bogus: News Flash- There is no such thing as a tax on a corporation. Only individuals are taxed- either as owners of corporations, workers in corporations, or buyers of products from corporations. Any tax hike on a corporation ultimately effects individuals-owners, workers, consumers. 

Example:

Joe owns company A that makes widgets. His gross income before taxes is $1,000,000. Currently Joe makes an after tax profit of approximately $650,000 (in a 35% tax bracket). He sells 100 of his widgets for a profit of $10,000 a piece. So currently a buyer of Joe's widget is effectively paying $3,500 in taxes.

If Obama gets elected he wants to raise Joe's tax bracket to 39% making his income $610,000 all things remaining equal. Joe is a businessman and is taking risk. It is good and right for Joe to make a profit. Joe now has a decision to make, either he will: 

1. Take the pay cut and continue making 100 widgets per year and selling them for $10,000 each (this will not happen). 

2. cut the pay of his workers or the quality of his materials by $40,000 and continue to sell the widgets for $10,000 each, in which case he will continue to make $650,000. 

3. raise the price of his widgets by $400 each- still making $650,000. 

4. do some combination of options 2 and 3 (this is most likely). 

It is unlikely that Joe will take a pay cut, because every other producer of widgets doesn't want to take a pay cut, and doesn't have to. They just pass the increased cost along to workers or consumers, because that's what every other widget producer will do (assuming market forces work to drive the price to equilibrium, so that they get rewarded appropriately for the amount of risk they are taking). 

Now, under Obama's plan the workers of corporations, or the consumers of corporations pay the taxes. Joe's widget's now cost $10,400 meaning you pay $3,900 in taxes instead of $3,500 in taxes, or the worker's pay has been cut so that the profit remains. 

The reason politicians get away with this is because in figuring tax increases they don't take into account the effect of corporate taxes on the individual. Obama can say that his tax plan will reduce taxes on 95% of Americans, and it will reduce income taxes, but it will have an offsetting increase on embedded taxes in the products we all buy, thereby raising the tax burden across all classes of society. 

I guess my point is, don't be fooled by the lure of the corporate tax, it is a myth, and a ploy used by politicians to buy your vote. Think about what this means for Obama and company. There are only two possibilities (if you can come up with a third please let me know):

Either they know the corporate tax is a sham and they peddle this to the unsuspecting American people, or they don't know their basic economics and are doing this with genuine motives. They are either conniving, or innocently ignorant. 

I'll leave that decision to you,

JB 

The Hypocrisy of the Left on Charitable Giving

Warning: Here comes another rant.

Yeah, this makes me mad, really mad. Democrats are all about “helping the needy” and “taxing the rich and giving to the poor.” But when it comes time to pay up and accomplish this, what do they do? Give to these efforts out of their own pocket? No way, they want the government to pick your pocket to pay for their pet charities (just one example: the government gives $330 Million per year to Planned Parenthood- the largest abortion provider in the world).

Senator Joe Biden recently released his tax returns since 1998 to the present. While he and his wife were making $200,000-$300,000 a year they were giving anywhere from $120 to $995 per year to charity. Barack Obama’s record pre-2005 when he started his run for President was better than Biden’s but not by much. From 1997 until 2005 Obama’s average giving was well under the national household average of 2.2% per year. To put this in perspective in the year 2002 Obama and his wife claimed $1050 to charity while the average American household gave $1872. Keep in mind that their income was $259,394 that year putting them in the top 2% in terms of income earners in the US. Al Gore and the Clinton’s were not very generous during their administration either, though to their credit they have been very active in charitable giving since. Bush, Cheney, McCain on the other hand have been much more generous than their Democratic counterparts, giving an average of around 10% of their income per year to charities. They could do more and probably should, but if everyone would follow these Republican’s example in giving we would be able to take care of all the people in the United States who cannot help themselves, and let the government get out of the business of charity.

All of these facts illustrate my main point: Some High-Profile Democrats are hypocrites by claiming to be the party who is on the side of the poor and the downtrodden, yet their charitable giving tells a much different story. Your checkbook tells much more about where your heart is than anything you say with your mouth. Obama and Biden ought to be ashamed of themselves for claiming to be on the side of the poor, and yet not giving of their own funds to support the very people who put them in office.

I know what the reply will be… “But they give with their tax dollars!!” Well so do the Republicans, and that didn’t stop them from giving generously. Maybe it is a difference in philosophy. I believe that individuals and non-government entities do a much better job of getting help to people who need it than the government. Maybe the Democrats think government does a better job, but I didn’t see in any of their tax returns where they paid more than their share of taxes.

Sarah Palin’s tax returns will be let out in the next few days from what I hear and my prediction is that she and her husband have been much more generous than either Biden or Obama.
Rant over and out… until next time.
Jon

Why Hilary Doesn't Want Obama To Win, and Why She Must Campaign For Him

Warning: This is just a guess (real possibility). Don't take me seriously (unless you want to of course.) I am engaging in speculation (which I don't normally do and don't reccomend). I just know the Clinton's well enough to make an educated guess on her thoughts and feelings in the situation she is currently in (I also have at least half a brain). I realize that this is imputing less than honorable motives to Hilary (but she is a politician afterall).

If Obama wins the Presidential race, it will be at least another 8 years before Hilary even has a shot at leading the free world. If he wins, it almost guarantees that she will never be President. On the other hand if McCain wins, she will have another shot in 4 years.
Her predicament is that she must campaign for him because not doing so would also kill her chances of becoming President. My prediction is that the Clinton's will campaign for Obama, but only enough to appear to be in full support of him, secretly hoping that he loses the race. There will be no real way to prove that this is what happened, but the recent decision of Hilary to pull out of the U.N. Rally against Ahmadinejad got me to thinking about it. If you see Hilary and Bill making few and half-hearted attempts at campaigning, I will be vindicated. If they go all out and campaign for Obama, I will eat crow.
But I don't think I'll be picking feathers out of my teeth any time soon.
Let me know what you think.

Update: One of Hillary's big supporters just announced that she is supporting McCain for President! Very interesting...

Florida- the outakes

I want to say thank you to my husband for sharing his thoughts on this blog. I hope he continues to share! But lets take a break for just a moment from some of the more serious issues and have a little chuckle. :) We have hundreds of photos from Florida, but I'm sad that not everyone gets to see the funny outakes. So I gathered some here for you to enjoy!

legs are flying!

DRAMA!

They had had enough. :)

You try to get 22 people to look and smile at the same time!

The Economy Stupid!!

As a Christian, this issue is probably the least consequential to my Christianity, though my Christianity informs my views on this issue.

In order for the economy to thrive you must have certain ingredients. Here are the most important elements that must be present for a strong economy:

1. Capitalism- Individuals must be able to own property and goods, and to develop them to sell for profit. The process of production, buying and selling must be free and regulated by the market itself.

2. A non-oppressive tax system- The taxes on income and capital gains must be relatively low compared to the rest of the world, otherwise you will drive businesses out of the country in our mobile and portable world. There must also be a disparity between capital gains and income taxes (if you have an income tax as we do). If there is no tax-incentive for capital investment, this will discourage economic activity and will slow our economy.

Like many other issues in this race, the economic plans and philosophies of the candidates are very different.

Democrats want more government regulation on industry and wants the government to get into more businesses such as insurance, and health care. They also are in favor of progressive income tax systems which are oppressive and counter productive. The Democrats are for income redistribution to some degree because "what's the big deal? The rich people can afford it." As Obama told O'Reilly on his show.

Republicans for the most part are for less government regulation (not counting the recent real estate bailouts) in business, and seek to let the markets regulate themselves. They are also for lower taxes and a disparity between capital gains and ordinary income taxes. They don't seek to punish success, and believe in the power of free markets to create wealth and prosperity for all, even the lower classes of society.

This is another reason that I vote for Republicans most of the time, because I believe (in general) that their economic policies are more favorable to a strong economy, and they are more likely to keep tax rates reasonable.

The Role of the Government

This topic is logically prior to my first couple posts on abortion. I wanted to emphasize the most important issue of our day which I believe is abortion, and the issues surrounding the sanctity of life before this issue.

Government is not man's idea it is God's. According to the Bible the reason government exists is to limit evil (Romans 13). There are not many prescriptions in Scripture for government, but it is pretty clear that it should identify evil and restrict it. Therefore, the Bible does not prescribe any certain form of government, and Christianity can flourish in many different forms of government.

Here are the responsibilities that government has to it's citizens:
1. Protection- The government "bears the sword" which is the unique ability to carry out punishment on crime (hopefully that fits the offense). The government does this to restrict evil, and suffering. That means that it should protect the citizens of our country from countries and individuals that would want to harm us, and protect its citizens from other citizens that would seek to do them harm (prison system, justice system of the courts etc.) In our country the government puts together a military and gives them the right to defend us by use of force if necessary. Because of our unique position in the world, we must have the best trained troops, the best weapons and counter weapons in the world. I want our President's primary responsibility to be that of protector.

2. The second responsibility of the government flows from this primary responsibility and that is to create the opportunity for success. It should not give handouts and cause people to become reliant on the government (this is counterproductive, causing poverty and government reliance), but gives people incentive to work hard and be successful.
Functions under this responsibility include: Infrastructure- We must have good means of transportation in order for the the people to be successful. Ensure a free market- Encourage competition and substitutes, allow the free market to regulate itself as much as possible and prevent monopolies. Low taxes- Ensure that the government does not impose unreasonable and oppressive taxes on it's people.

Here again, the Democratic party tends to be lighter on military and instead seeks to reallocate those resources to give handouts to its people. We saw the reduction of our military under Clinton, which is one reason we have had to invest so much in our military since that time. To Clinton's credit however we did make some strides to reform welfare, so in that area he deserves some credit. Obama on the other hand plans to shift the tax burden more on the rich and institute an even more progressive tax system. He wants to do this to create a more "socialized" health system, and to give further handouts to the poorest in society- a worthy goal, but ultimately unhelpful both for the ones who pay and the ones who receive. When politicians begin doing this, it is a very effective way of getting into office. Lowering taxes on the poor and middle class (which is the vast majority of the citizens) and shifting the tax burden more to the rich wins (buys) votes, but is a wealth redistribution method that has never worked in the history of the world. We don't have to try this in America, we know what happens- see Russia, China, and other communist countries. This illustrates the main difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Democrats think that government is the answer to our problems, and seek to make it bigger and touch more areas of our lives.

The Republicans on the other hand are more concerned with having a strong military and less concerned with giving people handouts, but instead creating an environment in which people can succeed if they work hard or fail if they are lazy (This is biblical by the way- "If anyone is unwilling to work [which presupposes he can], let him not eat." II Thessalonians 3:10). I realize that there are people who truly need help, and the church has a responsibility to help those people. Granted, the church has failed in recent times, and the burden for taking care of people has fallen on the government. That burden needs to be shifted back to the people in churches, ministries and other organizations that can have oversight on it's efforts to relieve those who truly need help. The Republicans don't think that government is the answer to our problems, and seek to make it smaller (for the most part).

As I have said before and will continue to say. We don't need to become beholden to a party, but need to hold the people in our respective party responsible to be not just conservative in name, but also in practice.

Comments

In the interest of free speech and debate, I will allow pretty much all comments, unless they get really personal and inflamatory. I expect everyone to deal with each other with dignity and respect. With that in mind go ahead and make comments that are helpful, reasonable, substantiated, courteous, and not defamatory.
Jon