The Year of the Locusts

Buzzing throughout the now-shallow splendor of America’s First Residence is a pestilence of perversity. Swarming in ragged rank are the voracious hangers-on: flatterers, liars, hooligan academics, organized labor, hypocrites, psychotics, scabrous journalists, arm-twisting sleazebags…I mean lobbyists; and the rapidly increasing list of appointed commissar bunko artists.

Their point man is the present occupier of the Oval Office, who is obsessed with a deranged vision: castrate the United States of America, lay waste our economy, scour black our credibility, emasculate our military, strip us bare of our property and our inherent rights, and drive us to meager existence on the fringes of freedom.

This person, whose only gift is of effusiveness—who is not fully formed emotionally or politically and therefore, not of sound judgment or practical—is ruthlessly determined to hamstring our nation’s defenses and run through the shredder our alliances with other free and democratic nations. He is dedicated to turn turtle the canons of our Constitution and torch our Bill of Rights, as well as the other primary documents that grant empowerment to the American People.

We’re worn to the bone. We’re scarred with psychological sores and physically sick from anguish and dissatisfaction. We’ve been beaten down and are nearly at the end of our endurance because of this man’s obduracy—and he shamelessly exhibits how ineffably and imperiously pleased he is with himself, this eater of souls.

We’re in a pitched battle to dig ourselves out from under the financial avalanche, which is the direct result of spiteful folly on the part of those we entrusted with our votes, and those we relied upon to keep our earnings, our savings, and our retirement plans safe and sound. They deceived and betrayed us.

Phi Beta Obama now are threatening to ravage what’s left of us with a “new and improved” 1,990-pages healthcare bill, which is shot through with 13 new tax hikes. Here is the entire bill: H.R. 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (PDF version).

I realize this information has gone viral on the Internet. But I need to include it in my article so that I can be counted among those who are incensed—no, enraged—by the slop The Lollipop Guild have slapped down on the counter and expect that we pay through the nose for it. And as far as I can determine, no 12-step program exists to combat or overcome the damage this issue promises to wreak.

So, here are the tax hikes, with description and page number:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.).

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act.

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily.

Government officials are falling all over themselves trying to convince us that they’re doing us a favor. That is ridiculous, bogus, and just plain wrong. Their farcical profferings are an attack on the American People’s dignity and on our nation’s stateliness.

Remember how Obama’s armies of boosters flapped and cawed “believe” and “hope and change” and “yes we can”? All that squeaking and quailing have ground to blessed silence, because their distorted illusions are what put that person in the White House, and no one knows better than them that they have royally “screwed the pooch.”

No supporter of his who I know personally can voice doubt about the course of destruction on which he and Congress are taking us. And any defense of them now dies quickly for lack of basis, or is knocked out cold by the burning stare of sober reality.

For some—the weak-minded, the spiritless, those who have forgotten how to stand straight, their eyes fixed on their feet—there is no remedy but to admit defeat and be cast into tax bondage. However, for the super-majority of Americans who are the blood, the guts, and the backbone of this country, there is no such thing.

The snapping jaws in Congress only think they have unlimited power to grind us down and devour us. They idiotically ignore the fact that it is the People—the stiff-necked, the proud, the indefatigable—who are the primary overseers of the greatest country on Earth. We are the unswerving and unchallengeable authority, not Pelosi, not Reid, not Dodd or Murtha, not Barney Frank or Rahm “Dr. Giggles” Emanuel, and certainly not Obama, all of whose status boils down to “temp replacements.”