The Senate has Lost its Mind

Clowns

Okay, not the full Senate – yet, but can there be any doubt this lunacy will fly right through that democrat-controlled body?

Via washingtontimes.com:

Senate panel OKs tax-welfare benefits for newly legal immigrants

By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge.

In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status.

But immigrant-rights groups called that a rollback of due-process rights for the immigrants and said a drunken-driving incident shouldn’t cost someone a chance at citizenship.

“We cannot and will not support hard-line proposals that take away discretion and limit an individual’s ability to pursue the pathway to citizenship,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigration Project.

Overall, the committee continued to maintain the delicate balance struck by the “Gang of Eight” senators who negotiated the 867-page bill: Quick legal status for illegal immigrants, but delaying citizenship rights until after the administration spends more money on border security, puts in place a new electronic verification system to check workers’ status, and enacts an entry-exit system to check visas at airports and seaports.

In previous days’ action, two Republican members of the Gang of Eight — Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — joined with Democrats to block a series of GOP amendments to stiffen the bill’s security.

But on Monday, the two Republicans sided with their party colleagues on key questions on giving illegal immigrants public benefits.

The 10 Democrats on the committee still outnumber the newly unified Republicans, but the votes signaled tough fights ahead on the Senate floor.

You will find the rest of the story at this link.

Parasites

Hopefully the republican-controlled House of Representatives will put a swift end to this insanity, as unlike the idiots currently populating the Senate, all of them will be up for reelection next year.

-But you will pardon me if I refrain from holding my breath.

As for myself, I am getting beyond tired of seeing Americans being treated like second-class citizens in favor of illegal invaders by our own government.

Those on that Senate committee that voted for this idiocy should be ashamed of themselves.

Of course, when you have no shame…

-Dave

(h/t: Drudge)

More Americans are on disability than the entire population of Greece

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) has become the new government welfare.

A record number of 11 million (10,962,532) Americans are now on SSDI, which is 147,335 more people than the total population of the country Greece.

Too sick to work Americans (photo by Christopher Capozziello/Getty Images )

Terence Jeffrey reports for CNSNews, May 7, 2013, that April was the 195^th straight month that the number of American workers collecting federal disability payments had increased.

Newly released data from the Social Security Administration show a record 10,962,532 total disability beneficiaries in April, including a record 8,865,586 disabled workers (up from 8,853,614 in March), 1,936,236 children of disabled workers, and 160,710 spouses of disabled workers.

According to its latest census, Greece had only 10,815,197 residents.

As the overall number of American workers collecting disability has increased, the ratio of full-time workers to disability-collecting workers has decreased.

In December 1968, 1,295,428 American workers collected disability and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 full-time workers for each worker collecting disability. In April 2013, with a record 8,865,586 American workers collecting disability and 116,053,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each worker on disability.

Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform blog points out that the drastic increase in the number of Americans on SSDI has nothing to do with the aging of the population. As he puts it:

“Even the most pollyanna would agree that medical advancements since 1968 have been significant. These medical advancements would argue for less people being on disability and unable to work. Workplace safety measures have been increased exponentially since 1968, so that also argues for less disabled workers. The good old ADA law forced all workplaces to become disabled friendly. That argues for less people on disability. The country has transitioned from a manufacturing society to a service society. Workers don’t work on dangerous assembly lines anymore. Robots do the dangerous stuff. This should have dramatically reduced worker injuries and disabilities.

Everything I’ve pointed out is true. The tremendous increase in people on SSDI is nothing but a gigantic fraud, perpetuated by the Federal government and slimy lawyers. The government broadened the scope of disabilities to include stress, depression, and non-diagnosable things like aches and pains. I have stress, depression and pains too, but I get up at 5:15 every morning and go to work. The SSDI program is a joke. More than half the people on SSDI are lazy good for nothing leeches. They are sucking you and I dry while sitting around eating cheetos, watching Judge Judy on their government subsidized cable TV, and texting with other lazy fucks on their iPhones.

And don’t forget, you get the added benefit of Medicare coverage after only two years of SSDI stress [even if you're not yet Medicare age].”

My husband and I watch Judge Judy when we dine. I can’t tell you how many times a litigant in her court turns out to be living on Social Security Disability “benefits” although they appear to have NOTHING physically wrong with them. They walk down the aisle normally, without aid. And from their testimonies, they live a normal active life.

This is not to say there are no legitimate recipients of SSDI. But you and I both personally know people who are on SSDI who, in a just world, shouldn’t. My husband has a niece who had never worked at a paying job but has been on SSDI for her entire life. Her “disability” however had not prevented her from marrying, having two kids (the son is a petty criminal), and divorcing. In December 2008, The Oregonian uncovered potential SSDI fraud of $11 billion.

Once a person gets on SSDI, he/she rarely ever returns to the work force.

A recent Bloomberg article cites a federal government report: “Workers on SSDI rarely return to the labor force, resulting in a loss to society of the economic contribution those workers could have made.” Government data show that more than 99% of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age! 

You and I both know that this is unsustainable and cannot continue.

Congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports SSDI will run out of money in 4 years, by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. By 2036, about two decades later, Social Security’s much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry, too, leaving it unable to pay full benefits as well.

See also my post of Aug. 22, 2011, “Social Security Disability Running on Empty.”

~Eowyn

1 in 5 U.S. households on food stamps, incl. illegals

Food World News reports, April 25, 2013, that the Obama regime’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) Jan. 2013 statistics show that one out of every five households in America — a record 23.087 million U.S. households or 47.69 million individuals — are now on Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps.

That 23.087 million is an increase of 889,154 families from just a year ago in January 2012. In fact, the number of households on food stamps has doubled in size in the last four years under the POS.

But wait! The only thing growing faster than the number of households on food stamps is the cost of food stamp fraud, which has more than doubled in just three years.

Although seven major journalism groups and open-government organizations have banded together in calling on the USDA to release data on where and how the food stamps money is being spent, USDA officials have declined to provide data on which retailers are benefiting and what types of products, such as junk food and sugary soda, the money is spent on.

The POS is intent on getting even more people on food stamps.

From Judicial Watch comes the delightful [sarcasm alert] news that the USDA is working with the Mexican government to promote participation by illegal aliens in the U.S. food stamp program. Judicial Watch obtained that information only by pulling teeth via filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The USDA has provided the Mexican Embassy a Spanish-language flyer advising Mexican nationals in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance. In bold and underlined Spanish, the statement reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that USDA officials are working closely with their counterparts at the Mexican Embassy to widely broaden the SNAP program in the Mexican immigrant community, with no effort to restrict aid to, identify, or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls. In an email to Borjon Lopez-Coterilla and Jose Vincente of the Mexican Embassy, dated January 26, 2012, Yibo Wood of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) sympathized with the plight of illegal aliens applying for food stamps, saying, “FNS understands that mixed status households may be particularly vulnerable.  Many of these households contain a non-citizen parent and a citizen child.”

Yibo Wood

That email from Wood was in response to a request from the Mexican Embassy that the USDA FNS step in to prevent the state of Kansas from changing its food stamp policy to restrict the amount of financial assistance provided to illegal aliens.  In a January 22, 2012, article, the Kansas City Star had revealed that the state would no longer include illegal aliens in its calculations of the amount of assistance to be provided low-income Hispanic families in order to prevent discrimination against legal recipients.

In 2006, Judicial Watch revealed that the USDA was spending taxpayer money to run Spanish-language television ads encouraging illegal immigrants to apply for food stamps, with the assurance that receiving food stamps “won’t affect your immigration status.” The TV commercials even provided a phone number to apply.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton observes that the USDA actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens “further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. And the coordination with a foreign government to attack the policies of an American state is contemptible.”

H/t FOTM’s Glenn47 for the “Obama loves the poor” image.

~Eowyn

Boston bombing suspect Tsarnaev and family were on welfare

File this in your “adding insult to injury” folder.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead one of the two Tsarnaev brothers alleged to be the Boston Marathon bombers, and his estranged wife and daughter were receiving Massachusetts welfare assistance as recently as 2012. When they were young, the two brothers were also recipients of taxpayers’ largesse because their parents had also been on welfare.

All of which raises the ugly question of whether the bombs had been made with ingredients purchased with taxpayer dollars.

Chris Cassidy reports for the Boston Herald, April 24, 2013:

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

[...] The state did not say when the Tsarnaevs began receiving benefits. But Health and Human Services spokesman Alec Loftus said the Tsarnaevs “were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time of the incident,” a reference to the marathon bombing that killed three and injured 260.

Loftus declined to specify what kinds of benefits and the amount of benefits the family received.

Their taxpayer-funded status came to light last night after repeated calls and emails to welfare officials from the Herald. They refused to comment throughout the day, but pressure mounted last night when the Herald started asking lawmakers whether the Department of Transitional Assistance should release the information.

H/t The Weekly Standard and FOTM’s WildBillAlaska

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, mom and thief

By the way, the Tsarnaev brothers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who is loudly insisting that her sons are innocent because, you know, a mother just knows, was arrested for shoplifting $1,600 worth of clothing at a Massachusetts Lord & Taylor store last year. She was due to appear in court last October, but skipped the hearing, and she could be arrested on an outstanding warrant if she returns to the U.S. from Dagestan, Russia.

I wonder if her shoplifting was in the same Lord & Taylor store that’s located in the second Boston Marathon bomb blast, which reportedly has a surveillance tape showing, frame by frame, “a suspect” dropping off a black backpack, presumably with a bomb inside.

~Eowyn

Where did your tax dollar go?

Yesterday was T-Day – Tax Day.

If you hadn’t already sent in your tax returns, yesterday was the deadline to turn them in to the IRS (except for residents of Boston who’ve been given an extension for filing their taxes because of the horrible bombings at the marathon).

For the 49% of Americans who actually pay income taxes, you should know where and how your taxes are spent.

Romina Boccia and Curtis Dubay write for The Heritage Foundation, April 15, 2013:

Click image to enlarge

As the above infographic shows, 45% or almost half of all spending went toward paying for Social Security and health care entitlements. Without reforming these massive and growing programs, Washington will have to borrow increasing amounts of money, piling debt onto younger generations and putting the nation on a dangerous economic course.

Some other things to know about taxes:

• Not only must we pay confiscatory taxes, we also pay to prepare our tax returns! According to the federal Taxpayer Advocate in its 2012 report, Americans’ cost of complying with today’s complex tax code totaled $168 billion in 2010. That’s almost as large as the impact of the Obama tax hikes in fiscal year 2013, and twice the size of sequestration this year [see chart].

• It takes taxpayers 6.1 billion hours—or 51 hours per household—to complete all the required filings. That’s more than 6 full 8-hour working days per household!

• Federal govt spends way more than it takes in. In 2012, Washington collected $20,000 in taxes for every household in America. But Washington spent nearly $30,000 per household.

• Government overspending, in turn, means an ever-increasing national debt, now $16.629 TRILLION and increasing with every ticking second. That, in turn, means 6% of every tax dollar goes to pay just the interest on our national debt.

• Americans pay high taxes as it is, and with the 13 tax increases that hit this year, tax revenue is growing beyond its historical average as a share of the economy. But Washington’s deficits continue, because spending keeps going up.

• It will get worse because of the tax increases from the fiscal cliff deal and from the Unaffordable ObamaCare. Taxpayers will start seeing these costs when they do their tax returns next April and in future years.

Growing government spending threatens current and future taxpayers with higher taxes. Congress should reduce spending and prevent any more tax increases. Congress also needs to reform the tax code so it is less of a burden on the American people.

Learn more at savingthedream.org.

See also “US taxpayers spent 2422% more on Obama than Brits on the royal family,” Sept. 28, 2012.

~Eowyn

‘Wasted Away Again In Obumma Ville’

~Steve~                             H/T My Pal Jean

New face of poverty in America: suburban and white

The face of poverty in America is no longer just urban and black/brown.

The new face of poverty in America is suburban and white.

A study by the Brookings Institution finds that the rate of growth of poverty in America’s suburbs is more than double the growth rate in urban areas.

Single mom Tara Simons (l) and her daughter Alexis, in their kitchen in West Hartford, Conn., are among America’s new suburban poor. (David Friedman / NBC News)

Allison Linn reports for NBC News, March 22, 2013, that according to a Brookings Institution analysis of 95 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, the number of suburban residents living in poverty rose by nearly 64% between 2000 and 2011, to about 16.4 million people. That’s more than double the rate of growth for urban poverty in those areas.

“I think we have an outdated perception of where poverty is and who it is affecting,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the research. “We tend to think of it as a very urban and a very rural phenomenon, but it is increasingly suburban.”

Among America’s new suburban poor is single mother Tara Simons, who moved to suburban West Hartford because she wanted her daughter to grow up in a nice, safe place with good schools. Simons had a bout of unemployment and couldn’t find a new job that paid as well.

Simons’ situation is complicated by the fact she’s a single mom. Poverty and financial insecurity among single moms is far higher than for households headed by single dads or two parents.

The rate of poverty among single mothers actually improved dramatically through the 1990s, thanks to a strong economy, more favorable tax breaks and the success of so-called welfare-to-work programs. But two recessions and years of high unemployment erased many of those gains.

Simons had a good job with a rug retailer, but about a year ago she quit after disputes with one of the two owners. She had never had trouble finding a new job and was unprepared for how hard it would be. “I know that part of it is my fault and I absolutely take responsibility for that, but I never in a million years thought that I would (be in this position),” she said.

Simons went without work or unemployment benefits for five months before she got her current job about six months ago. The position, as a customer service representative for a local health products company, pays $14 an hour. That leaves her with take-home pay of about $460 to $480 a week, plus about $127 a week in child support. Simons has full custody of her daughter. She went on Medicaid after being unable to afford health insurance.

Like many working poor people, she has fallen into a debt spiral. She is behind on her electric and gas bills and owes nearly $400 to her daughter’s club lacrosse team. She took out an $800 payday loan, and she estimates that it will end up costing her $1,600 to pay it back. She also has several hundred dollars in credit card debt and has worked to pay off hundreds of dollars in bank overdraft fees. She’s sold jewelry for cash.

She and Alexis had to leave the house they were renting after she lost her job and a roommate. She got one-time aid from the city’s crisis fund to help with the down payment for her new, cheaper apartment. Still, the $1125 rent eats up more than half of her monthly take-home pay.

West Hartford is a picturesque suburb, with its well-kept homes, upscale town center, and a median household income of $80,061, more than double that of Hartford itself, which is $29,107 according to the Census Bureau.

And yet the number of people needing help has skyrocketed in recent years, said Susan Huleatt, the human services manager for West Hartford.

~Eowyn

I Don’t Drink Anymore, I Don’t Drink Any Less. :D

 

~Steve~

Tax Reminder!

April 15, 2013

Don’t forget to pay your taxes!

Muchas gracias! 

21 million illegal aliens — as well as the 51% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes — are depending on you!

Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Democrats took advantage of the worldwide focus of attention on the naming of a new Pope, to quietly release their first budget in four years.

The Senate’s Reid-Murray budget plan increases taxes by $1.5 trillion; avoids much-needed entitlement reforms; and increases spending compared to the current already unsustainable baseline — of a $162 billion spending jump from this year to the next, and spending continues to rise every year.

I have to take a day off from FOTM because I must spend the day doing the paperwork (income, deductible expenses, receipts, etc.) to hand to the H&R Block guy who’ll actually prepare our tax return.

Not only does the government exact its pound of flesh from us in taxes, we have to put in the time, labor, and money to prepare that pound of flesh.

What a great country! – Not.

H/t FOTM’s Miss May and Scott of LifeInExile

~Eowyn

Urine or u’re out

I work. They pay me.

I pay my taxes, and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.

In order to get that paycheck, I am required a pass a random urine test, with which I have no problem.

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don’t have to pass a urine test.

So, here is my question:

Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?

Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. But I do have a problem with helping someone sit on their butt doing drugs while I work!

Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people have to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

We can call the program “Urine or You’re Out!”

One last thought:

All politicians, including the one in the White House who goes around passing out free Obama welfare phones, should have to pass a urine test too!

And while they’re at it, they should also have to pass an intelligence test, a common sense test, and an understanding the Constitution test as well, because by their actions they show they lack intelligence, have no common sense, and are bent on shredding the U.S. Constitution into pieces.

H/t my sis-in-law Shireen

~Eowyn