Barack Obama's "Redistribution" Tax Plan

Hard Numbers on Obama’s Redistribution Plan
by Scott A. Hodge
Fiscal Fact No. 132
The Tax Foundation

The Tax Policy Center's recent analysis of the presidential tax plans has received a considerable amount of attention in the press. While much of the focus has been on how much or how little each plan benefits "middle-class" taxpayers, little attention has been paid to how each plan affects the overall distribution of the nation's tax burden.

On this account, the plans are vastly different. Under the McCain plan, since every taxpayer gets a tax cut, the overall distribution of the federal tax burden remains roughly the same as it is today. Under the Obama plan, because some taxpayers get a tax cut and others get a substantial tax increase, the overall distribution of the federal tax burden changes quite considerably.

In short, the Obama plan would redistribute more than $131 billion per year from the top 1 percent of taxpayers to all other taxpayers. In 2009, for example, Tax Policy Center figures show that after the income-shifting in the Obama plan, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would pay a greater share of the total federal tax burden than the bottom 80 percent of Americans combined. In other words, 1.13 million Americans would pay more in all federal taxes than 128 million of their fellow citizens combined.

These figures do not include the impact of Obama's proposal to apply Social Security payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000. According to Tax Policy Center estimates, this plan would increase the tax burden of top earners by an additional $40 billion in 2009 alone and more than $629 billion over the next ten years. By itself, the $40 billion tax hike is twice as much as all the federal taxes paid by people in the bottom quintile combined.

To put the Obama plan in context, it is important to understand how divided America's tax burden already is between a large group of Americans who pay little or nothing and a shrinking group of upper-income taxpayers who shoulder the lion's share of the burden.

For example:
In 1999, about 30 million tax filers had no income tax liability after taking advantage of their credits and deductions. By 2006, the number of non-payers had grown to nearly 44 million, one-third of all income tax filers.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2005, the top 20 percent of households paid 86.3 percent of income taxes while the bottom 80 percent paid a collective 13.7 percent of the income tax burden. The top 1 percent of households paid 38.8 percent of income taxes.

Looking at all federal taxes, in 1990, the bottom 80 percent of households paid 42 percent of the tax burden while the top 1 percent of households paid about 16 percent. By 2005, the share of all federal taxes paid by the bottom 80 percent of households had fallen to 31 percent, while the share paid by the wealthiest households had risen to nearly 28 percent.
A recent Tax Foundation study found that in 2004, the nation's tax and spending policies redistributed more than $1 trillion in income from the top 40 percent of American households to the bottom 60 percent of households.

The chart below shows the tax changes that would result from Obama's plan in 2009, in raw dollar amounts, for taxpayers separated into income quintiles, or fifths. The top quintile has been split into smaller income bands to illustrate the amount of income shifting between the groups. The top 1 percent of taxpayers would see a tax hike of $131 billion while the other groups would see a tax cut of $155 billion. Presumably, the residual tax cut of $24 billion would be deficit financed.

While the majority of the redistribution is targeted to taxpayers in the middle three quintiles, a surprising large amount—$40 billion—would flow to taxpayers in the 80th to 95th percentile (those earning roughly $93,000 to $192,000 per year). This is largely due to the extension of the AMT patch.
Figure 1 Tax Increases or Decreases Faced by Different Income Groups under Obama's Plan




Source: Tax Policy Center
Table 1 presents the share of total federal taxes currently borne by each income group compared to the changes that would occur under the Obama plan. A couple of figures jump out. First, the table illustrates how few taxes are paid by Americans at the bottom end of the income scale and, thus, how difficult it is to give them tax relief.

According to Tax Policy Center tables, there are roughly 72 million tax units in the bottom two quintiles, representing 48 percent of all tax units.

Under current policies, these people pay just 4.8 percent of all federal taxes. Those in the lowest quintile would receive $22 billion in various tax credits under the Obama plan, which would reduce their overall federal tax liability by an average of $567. However, since these 39 million people currently pay an average of only $489 in federal taxes, they would see their federal tax liability fall below zero, meaning they would get money back from the government in excess of any taxes paid. For those in the second quintile, the Obama plan would cut their current average tax liability of $2,995 by 30 percent, or $892.

At the other end of the scale, the Obama plan would boost the average tax bill for the top 1 percent of taxpayers by $115,974, from $559,181 to $675,155. The overall tax burden on the top 1 percent would climb from 25.7 percent of all federal taxes to 31.3 percent. Thus, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would shoulder a greater burden of all federal taxes than the bottom 80 percent combined. Again, these figures do not include Obama's proposed increase in payroll taxes on high earners.

Table 1 of Impact of Obama Plan on Federal Taxes Paid by Income Quintile
CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS TABLE
* Quintiles have equal numbers of people but unequal numbers of tax units

While many Americans may cheer this outcome as just or equitable, this sort of direct redistribution raises some important questions that should be part of a larger national discussion:

What is the long-term effect on the economy of so few households shouldering such a large share of the tax burden?
What are the consequences for our democratic system when a majority of Americans are disconnected from the full cost of government? Will that majority demand more from the government because they bear little of the cost?
Should the tax system be used as a means of redistributing income or simply as a neutral mechanism for raising money for government services? Can a tax system premised on redistribution also be compatible with economic growth?

The Obama plan assumes little behavioral change from such a large tax hike on high-income workers. Is this realistic or will the higher rates encourage tax minimization strategies and reduced work effort, which will lead to lower tax revenues?

The Tax Policy Center has done the public a service by putting hard numbers on the candidates' tax plans and bringing a dose of reality to the political rhetoric. While it is easy for the press and voters to consider only "What's in it for me?," there are larger issues raised by these findings that deserve more public discussion.


HMMmmm redistribution of wealth sound familiar?
The redistribution of wealth is a major tenant of communism/socialism

Add one more reason why America can not afford an Obama presidency

Barack & the 2nd Amendment

First I thought would be appropriate for Michigan's own Ted Nugent to weight in about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning the Washington D.C gun ban.

Below the "Nug" comments AND Barack Obama's position, voting record on gun control. Despite how he tried to spin it after the ruling, Obama is no friend of the 2nd Amendment

TED NUGENT WEIGHS IN ON SUPREME COURT RULING RE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

Ted Nugent wrote this in response to today’s Supreme Court ruling that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, striking down a strict gun control law in Washington, DC.

Ted was recently re-elected for his fifth term on the Board of Directors of the NRA.A

“SUPREME” COURT? I CAN DO BETTER
by Ted Nugent

It is glaringly obvious that a critical lesson in history 101 is due in America, for it appears that not only does a lunatic fringe of anti-freedom Americans dismiss our founding fathers’ clear declaration of independence and succinct enumeration of our God-given individual rights, but some Americans have the arrogance and audacity to question whether the right to self-defense is indeed one of these individual rights. Dear God in heaven, who could be this soulless?

How about 4 (the usual liberal suspects) out of the 9 so called “Supreme” justices of the land. God help us all.Who could be so asinine as to believe that a free man has no such right to keep and bear arms for self-defense? What kind of low-life scoundrel would know that courageous heroes of the U.S. Military would volunteer over and over again to sacrifice and die for such self-evident truths, then turn around and spit on their graves by discounting the very freedoms that these brave men and women have died to protect?

Will these supreme legal scholars also affirm an individual right to choose the religion of our individual choice? Do they authorize our individual freedom of speech? Can you imagine? Them is fighting words my friends, and the line drawn in the sand has never been more outrageous.

Recent USA Today and Gallup polls showed a whopping 73% of good Americans know damn well that we are all created equal, and that we each have an individual right to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. What kind of jackass doesn’t know this? Allow the guitar player to translate for the soul-dead among us.

Keep-this means the gun is mine and you can’t have it. This does not mean I will register it with a government agency. The government works for “we the people,” not the other way around, regardless of what Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or Barack Hussein Obama or 4 supreme justices may try to tell you.

Bear-this means I’ve got it right here, on me, either in my grasp or damn near. This does not mean locked away in a safe, trigger-locked or stored at the local sporting club. Shall not be infringed-this of course is another way of saying Don’t tread on me, for we will not be your willing crime victims, subjects, servants or slaves, so don’t even think about it.

When the evil King’s gangsters came to collect unfair taxes from Americans, we tossed their tea into the drink. When they came to disarm us into helplessness against their old world tyrannical ways, we met them at Concord Bridge and shot them dead till they quit treading on us. Any questions children? I didn’t think so.

Corrupt men cannot be trusted, hence the right of “the people” to choose the individual church of our choice, to speak our individual ideas and beliefs, to have individual freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, and ultimately, to exercise our individual right to keep and bear arms so that evildoers cannot do unto us that which we would not do unto them. Get it? I would love to meet the human being who would argue these points with us. We would be looking at a fascist, and of course fascists, by all historical and empirical evidence, must be eliminated.

If you value the American Way, if you believe in the words and spirit of the US Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights, if you know in your heart that you have the right, the duty, the spiritual obligation to protect yourself and your loved ones from evil in all of its forms, then you had best contact each and every one of your elected officials right away and let them know that you know exactly what the Second Amendment says and stands for. Remind them about the “shall not be infringed” clause. It will not be the fault of the rotten anti-Americans out there who don’t believe in individual rights that rape and pillage our Constitution, it will be the fault of those who know better but failed to speak up.

Now is the time to fortify America, and we better inform the Supreme Court just who truly is the “Supreme” Court of America-We the people. Individual people with individual, God given rights. The real America. Live free or die.
Press Release Date:Thu, 2008-06-26 21:00
Press Release Link:http://
Press Release Teaser:TED NUGENT WEIGHS IN ON SUPREME COURT RULING RE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
http://www.msopr.com/?q=node/3956


Barack Obama on Gun Control
On the Issues

Ok for states & cities to determine local gun laws. (Apr 2008)
FactCheck: Yes, Obama endorsed Illinois handgun ban. (Apr 2008)
Respect 2nd Amendment, but local gun bans ok. (Feb 2008)
Provide some common-sense enforcement on gun licensing. (Jan 2008)
2000: cosponsored bill to limit purchases to 1 gun per month. (Oct 2007)
Concealed carry OK for retired police officers. (Aug 2007)
Stop unscrupulous gun dealers dumping guns in cities. (Jul 2007)
Keep guns out of inner cities--but also problem of morality. (Oct 2006)
Ban semi-automatics, and more possession restrictions. (Jul 1998)
Voted NO on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers. (Jul 2005

ACTION ALERT

Governor Granholm Threatens to Veto Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

Citizens for Traditional Values

Lansing MI 48908

After frustrating delays in the House, SB 776, which would ban partial-birth abortion, is finally headed to the Governor’s desk for her signature. However, Governor Granholm has indicated that she will not sign the bill. The next fourteen days are crucial; within that time period the Governor must sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to go into effect without her signature.

Citizens for Traditional Values and Right to Life Michigan urge you to contact Governor Granholm immediately urging her to sign the bill which has the support of Michigan citizens. This is the third time that Michigan citizens have expressed their desire to pass legislation mirroring the federal level ban.

In 2003, Governor Granholm vetoed legislation that would have defined birth by stipulating that once any part of a child emerged from its mother it would be granted full legal standing. In protest, Michigan voters forced a referendum to override the Governor’s veto, however the legislation was later declared unconstitutional.

Governor Jennifer M. Granholm
P.O. Box 30013Lansing,
MI 48909
517-373-3400 or 517-335-7858
Fax: 517-335-6863
Online contact form

Advising McCain & Educating RFK Jr

Recently I received two letters. One from John McCain asking for a donation and one from a RFK Jr about contributing to his endorsed global warming BS organization called , National Resources Defense Council, complete with pictures of "cuddly" polar bears.

So I decided why not take advantage and send them my 2 cents in the return envelopes they so thoughtful provided?

So I did and I urge you to do so too!

Below is my letter to Senator McCain and my answer to National Resources Defense Counsel.

6/13/2008

Dear Senator McCain,

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less petition reached over 500,000 signatures!

We are the only country not making use of our natural resources. China drills 60 miles off the shore of Florida but we cannot?

You want to rally the base, and then make this issue part of your campaign, people WANT it. Moreover, energy independence is necessary for our national security.

Going "Green," developing, and using our natural resources are not mutually exclusive. We can do both. There is NO alternative energy that can even come close to meeting our energy needs now. We drill and build nuclear power plants while at the same time continue to search for viable alternative energy sources. Let the free market create new business in both, instead of making draconian laws based on erroneous assumptions (man-made global warming) that will be ruinous to our economy and our super power status.

This issue combined with pork barrel vetoing, support of our national defense and Israel, could find this envelope with a check the next time around.

Thank you,

My name inserted here
Conservative Blogger, Prescient delegate, ____ County Republicans
My address inserted here
http://www.apackof2-theworldaccordingtome.blogspot.com/


My answer to global warming kool aid drinker organization

You'd never know it from all those sorry photos of sad polar bears, but global polar bear numbers have actually increased over the past 40 years. In 2001, the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union found that of 20 distinct polar bear populations, one or possibly two were declining, while more than half were stable and two subpopulations were actually increasing. In its more recent study of 2006, the group found a less rosy picture, but not much less rosy. It discovered that of 19 polar bear populations, five were declining, five were stable and two were increasing; there wasn't enough data to judge the fortunes of the remaining seven populations. The global polar bear population has increased from around 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today.

According to Mitchell Taylor, a Canadian polar bear biologist, these beasts are not nearing extinction: "Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct."

One of the "nine scientific errors" found in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, following a case in the high court last year, concerned his hysterical claims about polar bears. Gore said that a scientific study had found that polar bears were drowning because they had to "swim long distances to find ice". Yet the only scientific study that Gore's team could provide was one which showed that "four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."

According to Bjorn Lomborg, the widespread concern about bears drowning as a result of man's industrial terror springs from this "single sighting of four dead bears the day after an abrupt windstorm". I once saw a kitten frozen to death in a field: maybe I should cite this as evidence that the planet faces a terrifying global freeze?

Lomborg has pointed out that, while the global polar bear population has increased since the 1960s, there has been some decline in subpopulations since the 1980s - but this is most likely related to hunting. Every year 49 bears are shot by hunters in the west Hudson area alone. So if you want to Save The Bear, why not ban hunting instead of claiming fantastically that low-energy lightbulbs, cheap flights, shopping in Tesco and human fun in general is somehow killing them off?

Today's polar bear frenzy is a modern morality tale - and like all morality tales, it has a highly dysfunctional relationship with the truth. The polar bear has cynically been transformed into a symbol of nature's desperate struggle to resist mankind's wickedness.

Environmentalists have effectively turned the bears into cuddly ventriloquist puppets, through which they can mouth their own misanthropic views about industry and economic growth. The myth of the desolate bear reveals two things about the politics of environmentalism: first, that it's underpinned by a simplistic, anthropomorphic view of good vs evil, which most of us grew out of before we hit our teens; second, that it frequently bends the facts to fit the fable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/04/bearfacedlies


Ways to stop producing carbon dioxide

Stop breathing - When you exhale you release carbon dioxide
Dont drive - We all know how bad driving is
Don't live in a house/apartment/condo or any building that uses gas or electricity - Homes produce 2-3 times as much carbon as cars.
Don't wear shoes or any sort of clothing produced in a factory. Grow a cotton field and make your own clothes by hand.
Quit school - Those school buildings produce more carbon in a year then you do in 20 years.
Eat meat raw - Whether your using gas or electric both produce carbon dioxide.
Turn off this monitor and computer - You hypocrite.
Don't use toilets, urinate or poo in your back yard.- The water to your house is cleaned and sent to your house using pumps that use electricity.
Stop exercising - Increasing your heart rate increases the amount of oxygen you take in and turn into carbon dioxide.
Die - Dying younger means you will do all of the above less. Living one year less means you will save the earth 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide every year your not here!

http://www.globalwarminglies.com/


We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists.
Petition Project

BEWARE OF CANVASSERS

Please beware of paid canvassers approaching you to sign a petition that "would reduce pay for state legislators by 25 percent" or "to fix Michigan's economy or "to prevent a new income tax hike"

These paid canvassers are at John Ball Park Zoo in Grand Rapids to downtown Lansing, the Courthouse in Detroit, the Red Wings Parade, Owosso, Mount Pleasant, Jackson area supermarkets and elsewhere

The problem?

LIES

The Jackson Citizen Patriot and The Mount Pleasant Morning Sun have both run stories about canvassers deceit in obtaining signatures

In reality this petition is really about amending our state constitution!

According to Right Michigan
Under the proposed constitutional amendment:

Two (2) seats on the Supreme Court would be eliminated. It targets those with the least seniority, Justices Young and Markman, both Republicans re-elected in recent years by overwhelming margins. They'd lose their jobs as of December 20, 2008.

All seven (7) Court of Appeals seats up for grabs in 2010 would also be eliminated as of this December, cutting short by two years the terms of previously elected judges. Six of the Court of Appeals judges being targeted are generally considered to be "GOP." The seventh, Helene White, has been nominated by President Bush to take a seat on the federal bench and will be moving on anyways.

All judges would be subject to a pay cut beginning in 2009 that would reduce compensation to what the position garnered in the year 2000. Judges who took the bench before 1997 have their pensions calculated on their final salary. The paycut, in essence, would force these judges to chose between early retirement and significant long-term financial penalties. One judicial insider who spoke on condition of anonymity claims that in theory up to half the judgeships in the state could suddenly go vacant. While that could create major delays and case back logs it would also provide Jennifer Granholm with the ability, in one sweeping set of action, to appoint half the bench in the State of Michigan.

The Judicial Tenure Commission would be rebuilt including an affirmative action provision mandating the makeup of reflect the population of the State of Michigan.

The House of Representatives would be reduced to eighty-two (82) members. The Senate to twenty-eight (28). New district lines would be drawn according to strange provisions requiring "competitive" apportionment. Half would be drawn with a majority Dem base, half with a majority GOP base while four (4) Senate seats and nine (9) House seats would be restricted to a maximum 53% base from either political party.

A new redistricting commission would be created with four (4) Democrats and four (4) Republicans and a ninth "non-partisan" member serving as chair. The ninth member would be selected by no fewer than six of the other eight members. If an agreement on the ninth cannot be reached each Party would submit a name and then toss a coin.

The redistricting plans also require six of nine votes for passage. Without the requisite number each Party submits its own redistricting plan for approval of the "non-partisan" chair. The "non-partisan" chair who may actually be a Democrat selected by the flip of a coin. Once this "non-partisan" chair approves plans from each side another coin is tossed deciding district boundaries statewide.

The new ballot initiative is being actively circulated statewide by Progressive Campaigns Inc.with big dollars behind it, though whose are anybody's guess (the smart money is on one Mr. John Stryker, the one man with a deep-seeded desire to liberalize the courts and the money to pull it off... with a big assist from the Michigan Democrats).

The same Jon Stryker who "Democratic control of the Michigan House is largely attributable to homosexual activist billionaire Jon Stryker of Kalamazoo, who contributed $5 million of his own funds during the 2006 election to an independent expenditure campaign to unseat the then Republican majority.

Foreman during his remarks Friday credited Stryker in part for homosexual activists’ political successes in 2006: “It was leaders like Jon Stryker…who helped fund campaigns to take out bigots and elect pro-(Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) candidates.”
American Famiy Asociation of Michigan

Imagine that,a liberal organization basically committing fraud to amend our state Constitution! OUTRAGEOUS!

PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ALONG AS ANYONE COULD BE APPROACHED BY THESE CANVASSERS.

DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITION UNLESS YOU READ IT THOROUGHLY

The Federal Reserve's Reply

Did you know that you could e-mail the Federal Reserve?

I didn't until I decided to e-mail them about the lack of mortgages the banks are lending with the the lowest interest rate money they are receiving.

Here is my e-mail with the reply from the Feds following:

It is my understanding that the major reason for lending money to banks at a lower rate is to help the housing markets by providing more money for loans. That hasn't happened, they're taking that cash and using it to shore up their books. So it appears that the banks have/are reneging on the deal!

It would seem if the major reason money was being lend was to fund mortgages then shouldn't banks be doing that??! My question is; When lending money to the banks at a lower rate for a specific purpose, do you require that the banks prove that a high percentage of that money did go for that intended purpose? If not why not?

There ARE qualified people that would like to buy a home but can't find funding because the banks have made it impossible. This is the second year my house has been on the market as I watch homes prices plummet. I have had people who wanted to buy but could not get financing or wanted to buy but could not sell their home for the same reason.

Thank You,


Mortgage applications fell 15.3% led by a 25.7% decline in refinancing, which fell to the lowest since Aug 2006. Purchases fell 5.4% to its lowest level since February 2003. The rise in mortgage rates was the main catalyst as the average rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage rose to 6.17% from 5.96% last week.



Dear Ms. _________:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the effect of a lower federal funds rate on other interest rates.

By targeting the federal funds rate, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) seeks to provide the monetary stimulus required to foster a healthy economy. A lower federal funds rate increases the amount of money and credit banks have on hand and ultimately affects other interest rates and the performance of the economy.

It is important to recognize that the rates that actually prevail are determined by a number of forces, and not by Federal Reserve actions alone. The Federal Reserve has considerable influence over some short-term interest rates, such as the so-called "fed funds" rate. But the Federal Reserve has less control over other short-term rates, and long-term rates often do not respond at all to Federal Reserve's actions or respond with considerable lag.

Mortgage rates also are affected by the economic factors that affect most other long- term rates. Mortgage rates, however, sometimes rise or fall more than other long-term rates because of the additional investment risks to lenders who make mortgage loans.

For example, a portion of the additional cost of mortgage credit compensates lenders for the risk of default, while another portion compensates lenders for the option that homeowners have to refinance their mortgages when interest rates decline.

I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,

JPD
Board Staff


So basically the answer to my question is NO. Banks are not required to show that they actually lending money for mortgages which was one of the supposed reason they gave for lowering the rate.

Hmmmmmmmmmm

Show Me the Money

Fox Business

Did you see this this morning? My friend Peter Boockvar from Miller Tabak sent it to me this morning.

Mortgage applications fell 15.3% led by a 25.7% decline in refinancing, which fell to the lowest since Aug 2006. Purchases fell 5.4% to its lowest level since February 2003. The rise in mortgage rates was the main catalyst as the average rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage rose to 6.17% from 5.96% last week.

These are unbelievably disappointing numbers!!!!
This is what gets me hot under the collar. Banks are borrowing money at record rates from the FED and the Term Auction Facilities and yet they’re taking that cash and using it to shore up their books. What about using it for the consumer, for us? We need the money. We can’t find funding. We can’t find people to refinance our mortgages. Isn’t that what we need to turn housing around?

Shortly after the mortgage application numbers and Hovnanian quarterly numbers were released this morning, I talked to Karl Case, the co-Founder of the S&P Case/Schiller Home Price Index and Daniel Shaffer, a CPA and president & COO of Shaffer Asset Management about how we can turn the inventory picture around and bring some life back to the housing market. Look at what they both had to say about where we are in the housing downturn in the context of a nine-inning ball game :)!


There ARE qualified people that would like to buy a home but can't find funding because the banks have made it impossible. The FED lowered rates so the banks would fund more mortgages but the banks are reneging on the deal!

This is the second year my house has been on the market as I watch homes prices plummet. I have had people who wanted to buy but could not get financing or wanted to buy but could not sell their home for the same reason.

Now I am no expert on financial transactions and the conditions on which money is lend by the Feds. However it would seem if the major reason money was being lend was to fund mortgages then shouldn't banks be doing that??! In addition, it would seem to me that in order for banks to receive money from the Fed at a lower rate that they would have to show that a percentage of that money had went to mortgages?

Anyone reading who has expertise in this area please comment

June 02, 2008

Get Me from the Church on Time
American Thinker
Russ Vaughn[Thanks to Scott Johnson at Powerline for the inspiration and apologies to Lerner & Loewe]

I'm gettin' elected in November;
Ding, dong the polls are gonna chime.
So plug in some stoppers,
I'll tell some more whoppers,
To get me from this church on time.

I'm gonna be there in November;
Just one more Hill left to climb.
She's kickin' up a rumpus,
Still trying to bump us,
So get me from this church on time.

I'll still be running in November,
If I can dodge the Clinton slime.
Billary's tryin' to tar me,
With their Blue Collar Army;
Please get me from this church on time.

I'm gettin' elected in November;
Ding, dong the polls are gonna chime.
Rush Limbaugh wants to diss me;
Chris Matthews wants to kiss me;
Just get me from this church on time.

I gotta make it to November,
Got to avoid the grit and grime.
If I dump the racist preachers
And fools cheering in the bleachers,
Will that get me from this church on time?

Russ Vaughn

Yup. Obama will throw whoever (grandmother,"typical white) and whatever under the bus in his march towards the nomination.
Funny thing is that he joined to get his "props" in the black community and resigns because of a white priest.

Irony is so ironic