THEY ARE LYING

As the country nears the dreaded, though fictional fiscal cliff some blabber is turning toward Medicare cuts. Let me tell you here and now, no matter what you hear, no matter what they may be saying, they are lying.

No, nobody's “stretching the truth”. Nobody is putting any “spin” on it. THEY ARE LYING. Get that? All it takes is some very simple research to get the truth. No part of the fiscal cliff involves Medicare. Here's the undeniable, indisputable truth.

Directly from the government's own website. “Medicare is paid for through two trust fund accounts held by the U.S. Treasury. These funds can only be used for Medicare.” And where do those funds come from? Again, from your government's own website. “Payroll taxes paid by most employees, employers, and people who are self-employed. Other sources, such as income taxes paid on Social

Security benefits, interest earned on the trust fund investments, and Part A premiums from people who

aren’t eligible for premium-free Part A.”

Know what you're contribution to medicare is? It's 1.45% of your income. It's part of your payroll tax (the other part is 4.2% for social security). Your employer pays a matching amount. Everybody with a job pays it...at least as far as I can determine. There's probably some exceptions involving civil servants (there always is) and some other deals arranged by special interest groups that we never were told about. But, in general, every week the government collects 2.9 cents for every dollar paid to every person who has a job...regardless of their wages. If you work for minimum wage at McDonald's, part time, you will pay 1.45 cents out of every dollar you earn. Mickie Dee will pay an additional 1.45 cents. So even if you work 10 hours a week at $7.50/hour you will pay $1.08 in federal taxes specifically to fund Medicare. And the people writing the check will match that. That also holds true if you're an investment banker earning the magical $250,000 a year. That 1.45% comes out to $3,625 plus the matching contribution from the firm they work for. And, by the way, those leeches on disability? They pay that 1.45% federal medicare tax, too. And the federal social security tax. I mention that only in passing and to point out that anyone repeating the blatant lie that “47% of the population don't pay any federal taxes” is an ignorant fool. And you're being played big time.

So when it comes to cutting government spending what's the point in focusing on Medicare? It's a separate fund. The government says so. Last year, Medicare spent $549,000,000,000 to help 48,700,000 Americans. We've spent over $800,000,000,000 on the war in Iraq with no funding for it. It was all borrowed money. The problems facing Medicare are mostly fabricated. Because of high unemployment the fund isn't collecting as much as it should. The current lie is based on the assumption that employment won't increase substantially in the near future and wages won't go up. If I have to explain how that works to you, maybe you should join the Tea Party.

The simple (non-political) solution is to “temporarily” raise the Medicare tax. Think your paycheck can take the hit? The kid working the drive-thru probably won't miss another buck o eight from their check. But think of all the damage it might do if Billy Gotbucks has to pay another $3,625. That might effect his annual tax deductible contribution to the GOP. Is there an alternative? Of course. Instead of doubling the tax how about a 50% increase? And why not tax all income at the same rate? You know, investment income. Hell, if we just taxed investment income at the current 1.45% rate there would be no need to raise anybody else's rate.

Take Mitt Romney for example. In the last two tax returns he allowed the public to see he earned over $42,600,000, most of it in capital gains. Most of it was not subjected to the 1.45% medicare tax (if any). Overall he paid about 14% in taxes. Including his Medicare taxes and Social Security taxes in to that may bump it up to 15%...less then you probably paid. Try as I might, I'm not seeing how paying the full 1.45% on all his income would alter his life style. So how about that? Instead of raising the tax rate how about everybody paying the same rate on all their income? The kid at the fast food joint and the multimillionaire all pay the same rate. The same penny and almost-a-half on every dollar earned. And millions of fellow citizens get medical care. I don't see a downside. But your Congressman does.

We're headed for a fiscal cliff and the only way to avoid it is to cut medical care for those that need it most. I can't imagine the stupidity involved in making that assessment. How Medicare is even involved in the issue defies rational explanation. But then again, we're talking about Congress. There's no component of the National Debt involving Medicare except for the part where the government borrowed the excess funds and has to pay it back. It's clear that anybody even mentioning Medicare as part of the solution is nothing more then a liar.

NAIL IN THE COFFIN #104

As with a lot of the “minor” reasons the Republican Party is about to plunge over a cliff of their own, the current ripple of secessionists petitioning the White House is one of the most telling. Leading the pack, to no one's surprise, is the great state (soon to be an independent nation?) of Texas. As I write this, a petition to the government to “Peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government” leads the pack with some 111,000 signatures. That's almost twice the number of the third most popular petition, legalizing marijuana (58,000). What's that tell you?

Also in the mix are Louisiana (28,446), Florida (21,270), Georgia (20,026), Alabama (19,862), and a bunch more, including New York with 11,217 signatures. When a petition hits 25,000 signatures within 30 days it is supposed to generate a response from the White House.

The governor of Texas ( and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination), Rick Perry, has (through a spokesperson) come out and said he no has interest in succeeding despite what he may have indicated in the past. Ah, good old Conservative Republicans. They never actually “say that” and yet, thousands of people “heard” that. No wonder they have such a hard time communicating their message.

Just before election day I thought I heard Rush Limbaugh suggest that on the day after the election, if Obama won, that perhaps the country should divide itself between red and blue states and see how each half does. Of course, he didn't suggest that himself, he was just sharing an e-mail he had gotten from “a friend”. Hell, he didn't actually mean it.

The whole secession concept is absurd. It's stupid. And everyone knows it. Probably most of the signers of such petitions understand that, too. But they want to send a message. And just what is their message? They think they're telling the country “We don't like the direction our nation is headed and we want our country back!”. What they're actually saying is “We have no idea what America is all about and refuse to accept the will of the people expressed through the process our country was founded on. So there!”.

The threat of secession isn't new. It was called the “Civil War”. Of course various groups roll out the whole secession thing in a more subtle manner now. Remember Sarah Palin? Her husband, Skeeter (or something like that), was part of a group aspiring independence for Alaska. Now Conservatives are petitioning the White House (one of the freedoms I believe they'll put in their own Constitutions) to “Peacefully grant the State of (put your state here) to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government”. SPOILER ALERT! It's not going to happen.

Right now, the topic is a joke. It hardly rated comment from John Stewart. Sean Hannity tried to jump start it, Rush Limbaugh won't touch it, and the general consensus is “let 'em”. And that's too bad. It's not Liberal Democrats petitioning the White House for independence. They have better things to do...like getting marijuana legal. And a better chance. No, while I'm sure all six members of the Libertarian Party are involved, it's pretty obvious this whole thing has been set in motion by Conservative Republicans. You know, the guys that lost the last election (again)? The guys claiming they love America, they love the Constitution and all that, but don't want to recognize the will of the people. The country's headed in the wrong direction and now they want to jump off the train. Patriots.

The Republican Party should be glad the main stream media is letting this one die and just treating it as a novelty item. The message they think they're sending has been coming out of Fox News for years. What the growing majority is hearing is a bunch of spoiled whiners who don't want to play by the rules. The real message here is how the Republican Party is slowly working it's way to irrelevancy. If the whole secession idea had (or maybe it still can) caught on any real Republican would have to distance themselves from it. And that would piss off the base. That “base”, anyway. And there's always a whacky third party advocating that particular issue. And they can't afford to lose even that little voting block.

But most importantly, whether this concept gains any real traction or not, it would seem Republicans tend to forget this is the “United States”. We all work together. What exactly would the country of Florida do if a couple of hurricanes hit? Heck, what would the country of New New York do after hurricane Sandy? Seems like we're all in this together. And that's the whole idea.

Remember Republicans, in 2016 how many people do you think are going to want to vote for the guy that advocating separating their state from the rest of the country? Somebody's going to bring it up. I know I will. This alone won't sink you (though I don't know why) but it is another of the hundreds of nails you've put in to your coffin.

OPEN LETTER TO RUSH LIMBAUGH

I know you're going to read this. I know you won't acknowledge it. At least not openly. But that's okay. I haven't been around lately and I know you're relieved. The fact is, I just can't keep up with your lies anymore so I took a break. I'd tune in your program from time to time and in less then thirty minutes I'd note a lie, make a mental note, then turn to NPR and enjoy the rest of my day. I'd get home and dash off a quick post exposing you and mocking you in the process. I know the word got back to you, you almost quote me from time to time. Of course, you usually take it out of context like you do with most things. But I have to give you credit. When I point out a blatant lie you do a quick spin and try and slide it past your audience in case they learned a fact or two here. But it gets tiresome. I'm not making a living on exposing your lies and, frankly, I have better things to do. You, on the other hand, have made your fortune lying to your followers and selling them tea. So I took a break from you.

While explored other options to honestly inform the public I came across a political section on Yahoo. As I went through the various questions being posted I noticed a common thread in many of them. Your minions were trying to spread your poison. I responded every chance I could, pointed out the sewer from which their information came, and eventually you reacted. I just happened to catch your show when you played a ten second clip of a couple of executives from Yahoo making what you considered a “liberal statement”. With that ten seconds of almost inaudible speech you unleashed your minions on to a public forum to try and stem the bleeding. I had been mercilessly whipping you and the best you could come up with was a 10 second sound bite with no context so you could brand them “liberal” and discredit any truth your followers may get. I'm flattered. I still chop your minions to pieces when they dare to post a question emanating from you but after they get pummeled by the truth, they withdraw and return more desperate then ever...pretty much like you.

But that's not the main point of writing this. I haven't been addressing your lies here lately because of the new source I found which is way more fun. But I'm sure you remember how I destroyed you during the 2008 elections. I thought for sure the way I pummeled and humiliated you (actually, you did that to yourself, I just pointed it out) that you would be just a bad memory this time around. But there seems to be plenty of sheep to shear so here you again.

This time around I sort of let you go. It's obvious that the dismal failure you were in 2008 has effected you to the degree that you realize you have virtually no influence on the elections so you just scrambled to make a point here and there. I've listened to you lately and I just love the way you tried to lie about the polling data. I pointed that out on a number of occasions and a major result of that is your minions are no longer bragging about Romney's numbers and they've stopped acting like fools trying to tell others how the polls are skewed. Face Rush, science and reason are not your forte. Even less so for your tea drinkers. So here we are. And I have a deal. If you come out ahead on this, I'll lay off. If I come out ahead, well, you just go on pretending you never saw this and I'll ramp up the torment. So here's the deal:

You don't trust polls, you don't like polls, you've stated the media is biased and in your gut you know you're right. I heard today that you dug up some guy that is predicting a Romney victory with nearly 300 electoral votes. You praised him as some kind of impeachable source. He knows his business and sees Romney winning with some where in neighborhood of 300 votes. What your tea drinkers (clinging to the last shred of hope you had to offer) never noticed was that you never mentioned the guy's track record. How'd he do four years ago? What's his batting average when it comes to predicting presidential contests? If you said anything about it at all I didn't catch it.

Meanwhile, I've been reading Nate Silver's stuff. I know you know who he is but I never heard you mention him. Certainly that's because he doesn't tow your party line. I suppose. But I'm betting he's a lot more accurate then that what's-his-name you dug up. Nate has Obama winning about 315 electoral votes. So, here's the deal. Romney wins (by any margin) I'll give up trying to educate the public to your lies. But if Obama gets re-elected, get ready. And if the President wins by 300 or more, load up your bomb shelter with plenty of tea because you're in for a long, rough ride.