Income Taxes, Excluding The Social Security And Medicare Tax

I am unimpressed with the headline and description of this CBO study:

CBO:Top 40% Paid 106.2% of Income Taxes; Bottom 40% Paid -9.1%, Got Average of $18,950 in 'Transfers'

CBO:Top 40% Paid 106.2% of Income Taxes; Bottom 40% Paid -9.1%, Got Average of $18,950 in 'Transfers' - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-paid-1062-income-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950#sthash.Pv2zdnnG.dpuf

(CNSNews.com) - The top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010, according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office. - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-paid-1062-income-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950#sthash.Pv2zdnnG.dpuf

(CNSNews.com) - The top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010, according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.

Normally these CBO studies look at that total tax burden by quintile and include Social Security and Medicare taxes, and they do that here as well. Folks willing to focus exclusively on the income tax can probably find the data supporting the CNS story. FWIW, the 'transfers' mentionned in the story are primarily Social Security and Medicare.

People in the lower quintiles have a low but positive total tax rate.

And we learn this about transfers (p 10 of 36 .pdf):

Government transfers increase income in all groups, but those increases, both in dollars and as a percentage of market income, are larger for groups with lower market income. Social Security and Medicare are the two largest transfer programs. Combined benefits from those programs averaged $8,900 for all households in 2010, and other transfers averaged $4,100.

Social Security and Medicare go predominantly to elderly households, many of which have low market income. Households in the lowest quintile received 36.2 percent of the total benefits from Social Security and Medicare (averaging $14,200 per household),...

 Send better right-wing agit-prop.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Firsties not selfies...

[cathyf]

Every penny of the "social security and medicare" tax ever collected has been completely spent in the year it was collected. Every year.

[daddy]

Good news.

FOX News says that the Spanish Language version of HealthCare.Gov remains horribly dicked up, much more so than the English Language version, so Hispanics remain totally pissed at Obama.

Off on a Library run, but I am wondering if anyone here who might be a member of a Volunteer Fire Department has heard any word from their local Fire Dept about the shutting down of their Fire Department.

Since Ben Franklin organized the first Volunteer Fire Department in North America (1736) we should be able to attack ObamaCare as absolutely un-American.

Early Volunteer Fire Fighters in America include: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Barry, James Buchanan and Millard Fillmore.

Sorry Founding Father's, but Obama sez you guys are out of a job.

[Stephanie]

Just wait til the homeowners get their new insurance bills based on the rating for living outside a volunteer fire fighting zone.

Snowballs melt with heat, but this one is growing...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Great Home Insurance Pickup Stephanie.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

TomM-- I'm not follwing your point about income comparisons-- is it the CNS headline and percentages referenced?

[jimmyk]

Just wait til the homeowners get their new insurance bills based on the rating for living outside a volunteer fire fighting zone.

The Obama Labor Department is going to rival HHS in the amount of damage it does to the country. It's going to try to operate under the radar screen with administrative rulings of one sort or another, and things like this are just the tip of the iceberg.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Jimmy-- didn't Labor dept historically rule they are volunteers, but Sebelius' Wreckers made the opposite employee ruling for ObummerCare?

[Gmax]

I have a new JOM project. Lets form a Nigerian money laundering scam and try it out of Rep Grayson, cuz I hear he is gullible he will fall for anything!

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

The Daily Mail report is that the IRS has ruled the volunteers are employees if they work 30 Hours/week. How come we have to learn this from the Brits?

[Miss Marple]

You know all this income transfer stuff, it isn't like it really goes to thepoor, either.

Some of it does, but a huge amount gets siphoned off to pay for government worker salaries, computer programs, huge government buildings, think tanks at universities, and community organizer scams.

We would be much better off if they would just assign us each 1-2 families to help out, or give them jobs like picking up trash, cleaning restrooms, and cutting grass.

[rich@gmu]

lol...another democrat, another Ponzi scheme.

[cathyf]

MM -- if you look at the graph, what it is telling you is that the people in the poorest quintile as a group are not even breaking even. Sure, there is net positive income transfer to many members of that quintile, but all of that -- and more -- is funded by other poor people in the same quintile.

[Ignatz]

Not sure what TM is unimpressed by.
Is there something inaccurate in anything stated?
Are SS and medicare not transfer payments?

[rich@gmu]

>>>
How come we have to learn this from the Brits?

Posted by: NK(withnewsoftware)<<<

real journalists...not under the thumb of the administration...the Clinton machine making sure they nail the coffin lid down.

[Danube on iPad]

"...the IRS has ruled the volunteers are employees if they work 30 Hours/week."

I would think that would be very uncommon.

[Ignatz]

Do the tax rate figures include state transfer payments or only federal ones?

And secondly, when the highest quintile is broken out the rates vary by over 10%.

I suspect if the lowest quintile were broken out similarly the lower segments have a negative federal tax rate since the rate for the whole quintile is only about 2% or less.

[jimmyk]

The Daily Mail report is that the IRS has ruled the volunteers are employees

Fair enough, this specific thing may have been IRS or Sebelius, but Labor is making similar inroads, for example applying minimum wage and overtime requirements to occupations that had been exempt, including volunteers and interns.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

DoT not so fast DoT-- apparently, if the story is correct, if a volunteer fire company has 50 volunteer-employees, they are covered by ObummerCare, and any of those employees who works 30 hrs or more has to be covered with insurance or subject to employer penalty. So the full-time people, the captain, the secretary whomever, have to be covered. They could make everyone part-time, or pay the fine, but why are we doing this as a society-- just more ObummerCare madness.

[Danube on iPad]

"Are SS and medicare not transfer payments?"

Yes and no, I guess. The initial SS and Medicare beneficiaries were getting pure transfer payments, having contibuted nothing. But I started paying FICA in 1962 and the Medicare tax in 1965 (and I still have a premium deducted from my SS). The return on my SS contributions has been pretty minimal; as it happens, I've benefited a great deal from Medicare - but that's always a possibility with insurance.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Ignatz-- you articulated my question for TomM much more precisely. Is he talking about the "106.2%" headline?

[cathyf]

The issue with the 30 hours per week is if you count the time that the volunteers are on call. Typically these guys are on call virtually 24x7. Where volunteer departments work is where the ratio of on-call time to time actually at a out on a call is quite high. That's why you have volunteers rather than full-time firefighters -- there isn't enough actual work so that a bunch of guys in their spare time can take care of it.

[dang those generics]

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/10/18/mental_illness_is_chemical_imbalance_theory_a_myth.html

"And so their treatments, to a huge extent, came off of the couch, out of the asylums and onto pharmacy counters.

And so a $70-billion drug market grew to feed tens of millions worldwide with daily doses of magic bullets — pills that could bring their brain chemistry back into balance.

Trouble is, in the minds of many neuroscientists today, that chemical imbalance theory has turned out to be a myth, with little more scientific or medicinal substance than poetry or song.
And the pills are now largely recognized by a multitude of experts, as well as some of the pharmaceutical companies that make them, as concoctions of magical thinking."

Yes but it's so expensive for patents and clinical trials.....Where else would Pharms get that pound of flesh?

Contraindications? BONUS structure !

[Danube on iPad]

"The issue with the 30 hours per week is if you count the time that the volunteers are on call."

I'd be amazed if that time were counted. But the U.S. gov't has frequently amazed me.

[maryrose]

Why does this stupid law have to destroy our lives in such an egregious way.To satisfy a small percentage 85% of us are at risk.

[daddy]

Michelle Obama---Life of the Party!

[Old Lurker]

I thought the ACA regs mandate coverage for companies with 50 employees and those would be measured as Full Time Equivalents (FTE's), and that "Full Time" is defined as 30 hours per week or more.

So 100 part time workers working 15 hours per week each is 50 FTE's = Mandated Coverage for all of them.

Or did I make that up?

I understood the regs were to do two things:

Prevent companies by making everybody part time therefore no mandated coverage, and

Snagging the largest population possible by calling 30 hours per week Full Time since that grabs more people than 40 hours per week would.

[jimmyk]

Because, Maryrose, we need to be reeducated that we are all in this together, and some of us who have already made enough money have to give up some of our pie so others can have some. You obviously have not gone along with this program, and therefore will be audited by the IRS.

[MarkO]

"FOX News says that the Spanish Language version of HealthCare.Gov remains horribly dicked up"

I logged on. It said, "Basta! Luego, puto."

[Old Lurker]

OK

LUN is what I'm talkin about, Boehner...

Bueller?

[jimmyk]

OL, I believe the FTE thing is limited to determining which companies have 50 employees and therefore are subject to Obamacare regulations. Even so, the requirement to provide coverage only extends to those employees who actually work 30+ hours.

So for example, a company that has 25 workers @30 hrs, and another 50 @15 hrs, is deemed to have 50 FTEs. It therefore must provide coverage, but only to the 25 who work 30 hrs.

At least that's my reading. I may be wrong about this, in which case someone here will correct me. :)

[daddy]

What a delight to be listening to the Dennis Miller Show today. Earlier he interviewed Dr K, and now he is in the middle of a full hour with Mark Steyn. Marvelous brisk, witty, insightful conversation insightful, honest and funny Dennis and Mark's segment on the Congresswoman who didn't want to talk about Benghazi, because she only wanted to talk about the Mid East, was hilarious. Please Priebus and the RNC, please please please put Dennis MIller on your team, then shut up and get out of the way.

Wish we could podcast Dennis's Show like the Mark Levin Show, without having to figure out how to be a member.

[Miss Marple]

I love Dennis Miller's show. Here, however, they now have him on at MIDNIGHT. They even call it "Miller at Midnight." The same station plays Hannity earlier, and I would prefer they switch.

[Stephanie]

We would be much better off if they would just assign us each 1-2 families to help out, or give them jobs like picking up trash, cleaning restrooms, and cutting grass.

Goes back to my comment weeks ago that we should employ Jerry Lewis and telethon for needy families.

Dang that was a good thread. Y'all had lots of awesome follow on ideas, too.

[Ignatz]

--Yes and no, I guess.--

Definition of transfer payment (n)
Bing Dictionary

trans·fer pay·ment

income from public sources: an item of personal income that comes from the state or a financial institution and is not investment income or payment for goods or services.

[DrJ]

Ignatz,

By that definition a grant is a transfer payment. Strictly there are no deliverables for a grant, so it is not a payment for goods or services.

[jimmyk]

SS is definitely considered a transfer payment (regardless of whether one has previously contributed to the system). I'm not completely sure how Medicare is handled. Payments for medical services are not considered transfer payments, but there may be transfers to the extent that the revenue comes from other than those on whose behalf the expenditures are made.

In any case, I'm intrigued by that definition at 5:02, as it seems to gloss over the fact that the source of a transfer payment is another person.

[jimmyk]

By that definition a grant is a transfer payment.

I don't think that's true, DrJ. Grants pay for R&D and other goods and services presumed to be of value.

[Stephanie]

Larry the Cable Guy on the Five:

"I've finally figured out what the Bronze plan is. It's what's color your finger is after you do your prostate self exam. The gold plan is looking for your wedding ring after the results of paying for your deductible and the silver plan is what color your hair is after you finish signing up"

Ok. I loled.

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

lol...another democrat, another Ponzi scheme.

That's a great line.

[MaryD]

Daddy and Miss Marple, it is easy and not terribly expensive to become a Dennis Miller Zone member, and you have access to all of his shows 24x7. Plus -- NO COMMERCIALS!

I can't wait to play today's show, since Mark and I have the same idiot congresswoman. And believe me she is a complete cipher.

[Old Lurker]

Jimmy that is exactly how I THOUGHT it worked but I heard some talking head say it the way I described above as he gleefully pointed out that companies who thought they would save money by getting everyone to 29 hrs/wk...wouldn't.

Hopefully you are right and he is wrong.

[Gmax]

Here is some good news from your friends at Predictable Partisan Polling (D) so you know its even worse than this, if that is possible:

New polling by the Democrat-leaning firm PPP shows Coloradans supporting legislative Republicans over Democrats on a generic ballot by a margin of 47–42. This is a major swing from the 47–40 generic advantage Democrats held in a poll conducted by the same firm in April 2012.

Independents make up about a third of Colorado’s electorate, and that’s where news for Democrats gets really troubling. In the 2012 poll, independents favored Democrats 43–27. Today, they prefer Republicans 41–30. In other words, Democrats have moved from +16 to -11 with unaffiliated voters in about 18 months.

[Jack is Back!]

Daddy,

Here is the 3 shot sequence of Michelle (in below link(, once behind and to Barry's left, then eventually shoehorning herself in between Halle Throrning- Schmidt the Premier of Denmark.

Here is the Flemish report from DeStandaard. She and He are becoming the laughingstocks of Europe (finally).

[daddy]

Cross posting Marlene from 4 threads back:

This is a good Massachusetts transplant story...two of my uncles own acres and acres of land in the general area of the seacoast (about 20 minutes from Portsmouth). They have had their hands tied in their development plans,or at least breaking the land into smaller lots. At a town council meeting a few years ago,a "transplant" said,I've lived here twenty years and I'm opposed to any development near my land.One of my uncles said,oh twenty years,well lady, you're looking at 75 years and from the retelling of the story,the town council erupted into transplants vs natives.

Marlene,

On my Library run I came upon a new back on the Salem Witches: Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials

The first Witch, Goodie Towne Nurse, is my great great great great great great granny. Anyhow, reading the first 15 pages I see that Goodie had a cousin who came over in early 1650 and instead of being a Puritan was one of them damned newfangled heretics, a Quaker! (I'm looking at you Henry).

Book says, that when the Massachusetts Govt banned some aspect of Quakerism, that my great great great great great great Aunt, in 1651, protested it by going out in the Town Square totally naked:)

So Henry, my question for you Sir. Is this behavior still traditional at Sunday meetings of the Friends? if so, I may have to find the nearest Quaker Church and give it a try.

[Ignatz]

transfer payment

One-way payment of money for which no money, good, or service is received in exchange. Governments use such payments as means of income redistribution by giving out money under social welfare programs such as social security, old age or disability pensions, student grants, unemployment compensation, etc.
Subsidies paid to exporters, farmers, manufacturers, however, are not considered transfer payments. Transfer payments are excluded in computing gross national product.

transfer payment; BEA defintion

Personal current transfer receipts are benefits received by persons for which no current services are performed. They are payments by governments and businesses to individuals and nonprofit institutions serving individuals. Transfer receipts accounted for 15 percent of total personal income at the national level in 2008.

Current transfer receipts of individuals from businesses accounted for 1 percent of total transfer receipts at the national level in 2008. These receipts consist primarily of personal-injury liability payments to individuals other than employees.

[henry]

Daddy, a couple snags in your plan. Quakers don't have Sundays (we use numbers because those evil Puritans use pagan derived names for days of the week... The day you want used to be 7th Day, aka Sabbath, until the Puritans got confused about which day the week started on and now we have to call it 1st Day), we don't have Churches (just houses where Friends meet, with our big imaginations we call them Meeting Houses), and last time I attended meeting I was the youngest person by a couple decades (which means your ancestor would fit in nicely about now). ; )

[narciso,]

Well that does change the image of Quakers somewhat, like Kelly McGillis did briefly for the Amish in Witness.

You ask for a Miracle Theo'

http://therightscoop.com/mcconnell-says-im-a-big-fan-of-the-tea-party-movement-while-fundraising-for-a-liberal-nc-republican/

[Jack is Back!]

This budget deal tells me what I guess I have always known: We are not serious about controlling our fiscal house. There is no political will and there is no political courage. The only thing that will ever make this really a crisis they can't deny is a return to Jimmy Carter era misery of 18% interest rates, 10% inflation and gas lines.

God forbid.

[daddy]

Miner quibbles, Henry,

I just wanna' know if your gals still get naked when they get upset about doctrine and stuff?

[Jack is Back!]

I know: Gas Lines were a Nixonian phenom. But its part of my misery index to come.

[henry]

When our gals get naked, doctrine is the last thing I ask them about...

[Miss Marple]

Hey, remember in the 70's when beef prices got really high? Kroger started selling ground beef mixed with soy (which would look rather greenish tinged when it was frying up).

I was still in school then and the geology people called it soyburgers with meat phenocrysts. (IU used to serve it as well.)

[Ignatz]

--Trouble is, in the minds of many neuroscientists today, that chemical imbalance theory has turned out to be a myth, with little more scientific or medicinal substance than poetry or song.
And the pills are now largely recognized by a multitude of experts, as well as some of the pharmaceutical companies that make them, as concoctions of magical thinking."--

The only magical thinking was in the conclusions drawn by the author which were contrary to the vast majority of what he wrote.
Because brain chemistry is vastly more complicated than originally thought does not discredit the "chemical imbalance" theory but reinforces it.
That drug companies have struggled to produce drugs that work well is hardly surprising considering how little we now know we know.
That many of the drugs developed have transformed the lives of the mentally ill is beyond dispute as the article notes, but because we don't understand why they do in many cases hardly undercuts the idea dysfunctional brain chemistry is at the bottom of most if not all mental disorders.
Whether the same is true of personality disorders is much less certain.

[Miss Marple]

Major ambulance service shuts down in six states without notice

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/09/21841229-major-ambulance-service-shuts-down-without-notice-in-six-states?lite

[Ignatz]

We just called them sloppy joes.
They still make me a little green round the gills.

[daddy]

Just wait til the homeowners get their new insurance bills based on the rating for living outside a volunteer fire fighting zone.

The great thing about this, is that once Homeowners lose their Fire Insurance coverage, and/or the costs gets so expensive that it goes thru the roof, then the Govt can step in with another 2,000 page bIll that we'll have to pass before anyone reads it, which will make everyone's Home Insurance costs come down just like they did with ObamaCare--- "You're in Good Hands with ObamaState!"

[Danube on iPad]

Given those definitions, they certainly are transfer payments. At least technically they are: "and is not investment income" gives me a bit of a pause, inasmuch as I have been forced to invest a great deal of money in both programs, although what I receive in return can't really be called investment income. In any event I think of them very differently from, say, welfare checks or "refundable tax credits."

[Sue]

Listening to Ryan and Murray. Still don't know what the deal is.

[daddy]

The issue with the 30 hours per week is if you count the time that the volunteers are on call.

My experience with Union rules is that if you are on call then you are on the clock. So if this is viewed thru the lens of Union Rules, which my guess is the way the Administration will choose to view this, then even if the Volunteers are home on the couch watching Football, they are on the clock and therefore pulling Duty time which almost instantly puts them above the part time weekly cutoff of 30 hours per week.

[Danube on iPad]

"We are not serious about controlling our fiscal house."

They cannot be serious without addressing SS, Medicare and Medicaid. And if it isn't done exclusively by the GOP it will be done in such a way as to increase the redistributive effects.

[daddy]

We just called them sloppy joes.
They still make me a little green round the gills.

Iggy,

Clarification please.

Are you talking about soy-burgers, or watching naked octogenarian Quaker gals at Meeting?

[Heestory]

Rat-f***ing has a long and venerated history for conservatives. Dems are learning the game.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reid-aide-gives-cornyn-democratic-bear-hug

[Danube on iPad]

"even if the Volunteers are home on the couch watching Football, they are on the clock"

Are they getting paid for that time?

[narciso,]

I would guess the former, but i'm just spitballing here,

See you get the likes of Mark Steyn, we get Rick Sanchez, as out drivetime, some kind of karma I think,

[Steve]

Video: WestJet Christmas Miracle: real-time giving

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/12/video-westjet-christmas-miracle-real.html

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

Has anyone linked this about the the Girl Scouts - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/08/Who-s-Josh-Ackley-and-what-s-he-doing-with-the-Girl-Scouts

""So, who is Josh Ackley? The press, moms, and the girls may know Josh Ackley in his day job but probably don’t know what he does off-hours. He is the lead singer of a band called The Dead Betties.

The Dead Betties were part of a movement called “homo-punk,” sometimes “homocore,” that Wikipedia describes as “an offshoot of punk… distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the gay, bi-sexual, lesbian and transgender communities.” "

[Captain Hate]

This budget deal tells me what I guess I have always known: We are not serious about controlling our fiscal house. There is no political will and there is no political courage.

I don't think I've ever been sold a bill of rotten goods like Paul Ryan before.

[matt]

This is a fun tool I played with a while back. let me know if anyone can meet the deficit reduction target set by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/

[daddy]

Henry,

Obviously funning and hope you took no offense. BTW, I've just pulled out an old genealogy that our family had done back in the 50's, and I love the names of my ancestor women:

Goodie Nurse was actually Rebecca Towne Nurse, but family lore called her Goodie because she was known as "Goodwoman Nurse", a very appropriate nickname---until of course they hung her for witchcraft in 1692.

We've got Mahitable, Mathilda Ann, Teyphonie, Howellyn, Phoebe, Sybil, and Prudence on the gal's side, and for the boy's we've got Ahijah, Ebenezer, Ephraim, Ezekial, Israel, Aseph, and Jeremiah. Then it becomes the old run of the mill Silas's and Mary's etc.

Dog Time. Woof!

[narciso,]

And yet some in the Horde, were wondering why primary Cornyn, including Drew M, who had been showing some sense in the last few monthes,

[daddy]

Dot,

I don't know about the Fire Volunteer guys but for me, yes. And after x amount of hours on the clock I have to be given a legitimate rest period. For the Volunteers in these Fire Departments, it beats me---who knows how the Administration looks at it?

Just for a bit of possible apples/oranges:

I do know that in the old Navy days we had no such thing as crew rest in the S-3. They could fly us as much as they needed us airborne. Only restriction I recall was if you flew more than 100 hours in a week or something you had to get a thumbs up from a flight surgeon to go back for more. But in the same Squadron we had C-130's, and since the Air Force was the model manager of the C-130, we had to give those guys crew rest, every 16 or 18 hours or whatever it was, so scheduling wise those guys were a pain in the rear to have to schedule, because you had to figure out lodging and logistics along the road for those guys etc.

It also was nutty in that in the Navy when we landed wherever, they put us in any barracks available. When I then flew DC-9's in the Reserves, again the Air Force was the model manager, and none of the barracks billeting was considered acceptable, so we always were sent to the hotels in downtown Waikiki for acceptable billeting.

So in the modern world of Obama in charge I have no idea what the current situation is, but from the Union side of the things in the Commercial world, we have to have all sorts of crew rest constantly, even when I pull a week of reserve at home and never get off the couch.

Hope that contributed something. Dogs are angry. Bye.

[henry]

Daddy, I took it in fun. That is an amazing bit of history... I was under the impression the witches were merely high on moldy grain or something. Sectarian discord makes more sense. Octogenarian Quaker gals can be a force of nature even when clothed, Friendly Persuasion only sounds mild.

[Ignatz]

--Are you talking about soy-burgers, or watching naked octogenarian Quaker gals at Meeting?--

Probably neither, daddy. I'm not sure what made sloppy joes green in our school cafeteria but if it had anything to do with naked octogenarian Quaker girls in the kitchen all I can say is I'm glad I only ever brought a lunch from home.
Of course "brown bagging" it might be construed as referring to naked dancing octogenarians too I guess so whaddya gonna do?

All I know is between the whole bag of Almond Joys I ate and this subject it's gonna take a while for me to get my appetite back.

[Account Deleted]

CH,

Ryan has been playing for the Bathhouse Billionaires since hooking up with Mitt. He's not on the DeMint A list and never really has been. He's not really that bad - we're talking about picking chastity champs from among Aunt Sally's girls. It's all about keeping up the "kindness of strangers".

[Captain Hate]

Drew went full Malor today, including insulting people who tried to talk sense to him.

[Ignatz]

I used to think of Grace Kelly whenever anyone mentioned naked dancing Quaker girls.
Guess that's gone for good.

[Captain Hate]

Rick, Ryan will be on Levin at 8 so there will be his first trial by fire. Ryan has always talked a good game but has never followed up on anything that I know of as far as cutting spending.

[Extraneus]

What a great meet-up I had with the lovely Janet today!

Down to earth, stylish, vivacious, and she even bore gifts! With Gadsen flags, no less!

I don't remember two hours going by any faster than that.

Oh, and I now have pics of many of the luminaries here. (So great to finally be able to put a face to a moniker.)

I'm removing the quotes from the phrase "internet 'friend,'" Janet.

[Captain Hate]

Levin says that bringing Pederasta into as counsel to the White House means more Executive Orders to bypass Congress.

[henry]

Ig, the naked Quaker girls I've seen dance are closer to your vision than what Daddy described... They just didn't dance at Meeting. ; )

[narciso,]

Yes, they made obvious, but not surprising, any number of figures are drawn from CAP, whose VP
is Rosencrantz's pop Mort,

[Jack is Back!]

Ha. Brett Baier just texted me thanking me for correcting him about him saying Halle Thorning-Schmidt was the Prime Minister of The Netherlands when she is actually the Premier of Denmark Will make the correction on line tomorrow's Special Report.

Another JOM moment among the stars:)

BTW, today at our Pro-Am awards ceremony I met Carlton Fisk's grand-daugter who is the wife of the pro who won the tournament. How old does that make you feel:)

[Ignatz]

--let me know if anyone can meet the deficit reduction target set by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget--

I met it by 2022, matt, but only because I don't buy into Pete Peterson's static tax assumptions, er excuse me, tax expenditures. (I'd like to add the jerk who invented that term to JiB's list of guys who need a thrashing.)

I wasn't given any latitude in eliminating about half the federal agencies which would let me meet their goal in about a year.

[MaryD]

Hey JOMers -- I have just found out that there is an actual product called "Death's Door" gin. My husband checked it out at the New Hampshire liquor outlet, and it costs the earth! Have any of you ever encountered it? And if so, what did you think?

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

from Dennis Miller on FB -
"Obama IS a selfie."

[matt]

I didn't like that one because it doesn't get to one of the root issues, which is that every time the feds get involved in anything, they add a layer of sclerotic, self perpetuating bureaucracy which costs us many billions.

I will bet that the DOT still has buggy whip regulators on staff and it goes through hundreds and hundreds of agencies.

[MarkO]

Wasn't Ryan on that losing Presidential ticket? Why is he lecturing us on how we should go forward politically?

Didn't he just sit there when Obama called him "Sonny," and when Biden made fun of him?

Just great.

[centralcal]

I see that Sen Ted Cruz walked out of the Mandela memorial when Raul Cruz began to speak. Good for Ted.

[Extraneus]

"She's an angry and bitter woman. How in the Hell does someone who has been handed everything - and I mean everything - have such an incredibly poor attitude. She's an embarrassment and a cretin."

I'm going to have to declare a Fox Butterfield on this one.

Posted by: jimmyk on iPad | December 10, 2013 at 01:59 PM

lol

[Danube on iPad]

Great Scott. I just heard Paul Ryan say that he wanted more means-testing for Medicare (higher premiums for higher incomes) but the Dems wouldn't go along.

[centralcal]

Chad Pergram ‏@ChadPergram 3m

Reid on Paul Ryan & budget deal: I hope this doesn't get him in trouble in the House.

Chad Pergram ‏@ChadPergram 2m

Reid on budget deal: This is a good deal for our country.

[Jack is Back!]

CC,

You mean Raul Castro?

[Jack is Back!]

Anything Harry Reid approves is DOOM!

If you can't roll that eejit Patty Murray then you are probably not the person for the job.

[Sue]

I had to leave while they were still blathering about how wonderful they were. I still don't know what the deal is.

[narciso,]

Untergangish;

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/12/deal-you-can-keep-your-budget-reform-if-you-like-it/#comments

[Jane]

Daddy,

WE may be related. I am absolutely convinced I was hung as a witch in a prior life. To this day I cannot bear anything around my neck.

Ryan sure made the budget sound pretty on Greta. Cavuto isn't convinced and my money is on him.

So I finally understand the whole "new currency" thing. We leave the government to deal in dollars and those of us who work for a living use an entirely new currency not available to anyone on the dole.

Is that it?

[Heestory]

"Anything Harry Reid approves is DOOM!"

Dood. He's taking sides with Cornyn in his race with the Nixon traitor. Try to keep up.

[Captain Hate]

Ryan is acquitting himself pretty well on Levin. He insists that he got out of this without raising taxes which will create a precedent for the future; I'm not so sure about that but we'll see. He agrees with Levin that the cuts are Mickey Mouse compared with the enormity of the overall deficit.

[Extraneus]

I don't get it. Is somebody suggesting that we have a budget? I thought we only had CRs these days.