GOP tax plan designed to stimulate voters more than economy

The press is having a field day with something called the Paradise Papers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a pile of documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). They detail the business dealings of celebrities like Bono and the Queen of England, and companies like Apple and Nike. Even U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. They show nothing illegal, really, just how the rich and famous move their money around to avoid paying too much in taxes.

The media are treating this like a scandal when it’s actually a wake-up call. This is why tax reform is so badly needed here in the United States. I’ve regaled you with the stats from the IRS, like the top five percent of wage-earners paying nearly 60 percent of the income tax. The House Republican tax legislation takes some steps in the right direction but it still leaves the basic problem unresolved. They won’t tell you what that is so I will. The rich pay way too much in taxes. They’re the ones who need a tax break, not the middle class.

The middle class now pays somewhere around eight percent of their income in taxes. That’s set to go to around five percent if the House Republicans and President Trump get their way. They always target the middle class for tax cuts because there’s more of them. They just don’t need another tax cut.

If the objective is really to stimulate the economy then you’re going to have to allow the filthy rich to keep more of their money and spend it in the economy. That means the dreaded one-percenters. I know, people don’t like to hear that, but it’s true. The rich are overtaxed and the middle class are under-taxed. The poor and working poor aren’t taxed at all. In fact, most of them get money from the government through the Earned Income Tax Credit that they never paid in.

Why aren’t the folks in Washington telling you this? Because they’re cowards. Cowards and panderers. They don’t really see this as a vehicle to stimulate the economy. They see it as a way to buy votes, not dissimilar from the way the Democrats operate. So, why aren’t the Democrats going for it? Simply because they didn’t think of it first. If this were their idea they’d be all over it.

The only thing that remotely comes close to doing what we need done is lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Mark my words, that’s the one thing that will probably not survive intact when the dust settles. It’s too tempting, even for the Republicans, to punish the very corporations that create the jobs.

And then there’s the SALT issue. That stands for state and local taxes. The current GOP plan would severely limit how much high-tax states can deduct those taxes. That’s raised the ire of Republicans and Democrats in high-tax states. Rep. Diane Black, chairman of the House Budget Committee and member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee pointed out to me that it’s wrong for the rest of us to subsidize high-tax states. She has a great point. Why is it fair for anyone to claw back some of the taxes they pay their own states through deductions to their federal income tax? The fact that some states tax their people to death is not the fault of the rest of us.

Getting rid of many of the deductions is the right move. Continuing to soak the rich is the wrong move.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

While you weren't looking . . . amnesty

While you were obsessing over the latest incarnation of out-of-control government, whether it be Obamacare or the NSA, forces were diligently working behind the scenes to pass amnesty.  Sen. Jeff Flake - appropriately named - tells The Arizona Republic that he senses “some active movement” on a House version of amnesty.  Flake tells the paper the House bill “won’t prohibit those who are here illegally now from getting on some sort of track that already exists.”  He adds, “It just wouldn’t create a special path like we did in the Senate bill.”

What I’m trying to figure out is why in the world we need to be doing anything other than enforcing the laws we already have.  It’s against the law to break into this country.  You do it once it’s a misdemeanor.  Twice or subsequent times and it’s a felony.  Once again, Congress seems obsessed with concentrating on the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem.

They tend to overcomplicate the issue like they do everything else.  Fixing the illegal immigration issue is simple.  There’s a reason why 20 million illegal aliens have invaded our

country.  They’re here for either the jobs or the benefits or both.  You cut those off and they go home.  Stop feeding the cats and you get rid of the cat problem.

I can’t tell you how long I have been proposing Demagnetize America.  You fine businesses for their first offense in hiring illegals.  If they do it again, you jerk their business license.  Problem solved.  Illegal aliens are not going to come here if they can’t find a job.

At the same time you have to cut off the benefits.  Again, it takes stiff penalties to make that work.  A slap on the wrist won’t cut it.  That’s exactly why the IRS is still targeting conservatives.  There is no down side.  You get caught, like so many IRS officials have, and there’s no repercussion.

It’s like everything in life, if the risk outweighs the gain you have a better chance of stopping the bad behavior.  Horse thieves used to be hanged.  Why was that?  It was because stealing a horse was such an easy thing to do and people depended on their horses for transportation and work.  The only way to curtail the crime was to make the penalty so great that the risk would outweigh the gain.

Hiring an illegal alien is one of the easiest things to do.  However, the unintended side effects are enormously destructive.  Illegal aliens clog our courts, our prisons, our hospital emergency rooms.  It costs billions to educate their children.  Illegal aliens kill American citizens daily either through car accidents or murder.  They soak up a disproportionate amount of our social services.

Instead of going to the root of the problem our congress seems determined to make it worse.  They want to legitimize the illegals who are already here seemingly unaware that in doing so they ensure another, larger wave of illegal immigrants.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Secret e-mail accounts belie transparency

Richard Windsor over at the Environmental Protection Agency received the agency’s recognition as a “scholar of ethical behavior.”  How ironic to learn that Richard Windsor never existed.  He was the e-mail alias for Lisa Jackson, the former EPA administrator.  A recognition for scholar of ethical behavior?  How ethical is that?

Mr. Windsor seems to be the norm within the Obama administration.  Some of the president’s political appointees, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, have been using alias e-mail addresses.  The Associated Press asked for a list of political appointees’ e-mail addresses under the Freedom of Information Act.  The Labor Department wanted to charge them $1 million.  Apparently with this administration freedom of information is not free.

And this was supposed to be the most transparent administration in history?

It’s obvious from the recent scandals exactly what’s going on.  If you can use your alias for your more, how should we say, ‘clandestine’ activities you can shield those activities from the press, even if you turn over all your e-mails under your real name.

The fact that the Labor Department wanted so much money for a simple list arouses suspicion that all is not above board in this administration.

Now with the revelation from Congressman Issa’s committee that there were no “rogue agents” who went after the tea party groups it’s clear to see how alias e-mail accounts could come in handy.  The “rogue agents” argument in the IRS scandal is starting to look like the “anti-Muslim video” argument in the Benghazi scandal.  The question is with all this obvious obfuscation will we ever really know what happened?

The AP has been trying to get a list of e-mail addresses from ten agencies including the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS.  Treasury has been dragging its feet for about three months.  The Treasury spokesman, by the way, is named Marissa Hopkins Secreto.  Perfect.  Sounds like the name for a Bond girl.

Several agencies have turned over some e-mail addresses but the lists are suspiciously incomplete.  The foot-dragging only compounds the suspicion in light of the IRS scandal where agents are now telling investigators that orders to single out conservative groups came from Washington.  How far up in Washington remains to be seen but we already know that the “two rogue agents” story was another fabrication.  Congressman Issa went so far as to refer to White House spokesman Jay Carney as “a paid liar.”

Having a second e-mail account is nothing unusual, especially for people in the public spotlight.  What’s bizarre is apparently EPA Administrator Jackson corresponded under the Richard Windsor pseudonym as Windsor, in some cases, never revealing her true identity to the people with whom she was corresponding.  What could possibly be the reason for that?

I’m sure the president will deny any knowledge of this, too, much as he has remained detached from the rest of the scandals swirling around him.  But, for how long can his plausible deniability remain plausible?  His senior advisors knew about the IRS investigation but didn’t tell him.  People all in his administration were unleashing the IRS on innocent people just because they didn’t like their politics and he had no idea.  Cabinet officials are apparently conducting official business behind some alias and he had no idea.  And don’t get me started on Benghazi.

If the president had no idea about any of this, in the very best light, it appears he was asleep at the switch.  As is typical with the Democrats, just saying you take responsibility seems to pass for punishment.  That is no longer acceptable nor is it sufficient.

GOP: Don't overplay your hand

Republicans have a nasty habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  Just when you think they may have it won they find a way to lose it.  The latest trio of issues swirling around the White House might very well be President Obama’s undoing if only the Republicans don’t overplay their hand.  One of the three is not really a scandal.  Can the Republicans tell which one?

Some conspiracy theorists believe the entire IRS scandal is a red herring, a diversion to distract us from the Benghazi scandal.  Were that true the Democrats would had to have planned the entire scheme two years in advance because that’s when the IRS started targeting conservative groups.

Outgoing IRS Commissioner Steve Miller now claims they grouped the conservative applications together so that one group wouldn’t be approved while another was being reviewed.  No one thought to ask Mr. Miller one simple question.  How did he know which groups were conservative?  That simple question would’ve boxed him in a corner.  Once again, the Republicans wasted a golden opportunity.

But where a lot of Republicans and conservatives are overreaching is on the Fox News story.  Like the AP story, it’s not a scandal.  It may have been heavy-handed treatment by the administration but, so far, there’s nothing to indicate anything illegal.

In the case of reporter James Rosen from Fox News, he was reporting information on North Korea that was classified.  Whether or not he knew it was classified is another matter but this administration – any administration – is obligated to plug such leaks and that’s what they did.

They accessed security badge records at the State Department from Rosen and matched his movements to department employees.  They obtained a search warrant for his e-mails and between the two found the leak.  Now Fox News is outraged that the administration was targeting their reporter.  The fact is had he not been broadcasting classified information there would’ve been no investigation.

As I’ve stated before, the administration’s investigation into the Associated Press over another leak pertaining to a CIA operation in Yemen is what’s driving the mainstream media to actually do their job on the IRS and Benghazi scandals.  The last thing the Republicans need to be doing is trying to equate the AP and Fox News issues with the real scandals.  Once all the facts come to light and it’s clear the administration was simply trying to plug leaks the Republicans cannot have been on the wrong side of those issues if they want to be on the right side of the real scandals.

Obviously the IRS was targeting not only conservative groups but conservative individuals.  Who knows how deep or how high this scandal goes.  We do know that senior White House officials were aware of the Inspector General’s investigation.  Saying they never told the president stretches credulity. 

We also now know the State Department gutted the original CIA talking points on Benghazi and inserted their own, including the ridiculous notion that the attack was simply the product of a YouTube video protest gone bad.  The simple question is who made up the excuse about the video and why?

If the Republicans allow themselves to get sucked into the Fox News story as some sort of scandal they run the risk of destroying the credibility of the real scandals and that would be a real shame.

This is probably as close as we will ever get to leveraging an issue to make fundamental changes in our tax system and scale back the beast known as the Internal Revenue Service.  Please, Republicans, don’t blow it.

IRS misconduct no surprise to me

(This column originally appeared in Talkers Magazine)

The revelation that the IRS was targeting conservative groups came as a shock to much of America.  For me, it was all simply a confirmation of something I’ve been experiencing for some time. 

A couple of years ago I began getting inquiries from the IRS.  They wanted me to explain certain items I’d taken as deductions.  I had the same experience back in the mid-‘90s when I first moved to Philadelphia.  This was during the Clinton administration and I figured when I landed in Philadelphia to do talk radio I also landed on the administration’s radar.  Again, it was petty stuff like making me dig up receipts from prior tax years and fill out all sorts of annoying forms.  Once I satisfied the requests for one year another inquiry for another year would begin almost immediately.

So when this all started again with me a couple of years ago I decided to contact some of my friends in the talk radio business.  I e-mailed back and forth with some high profile talkers.  A couple of them admitted they were going through the same thing but told me in no uncertain terms that they did not want their names made public.  That’s how frightening the IRS can be.

I, on the other hand, was sick and tired of it so each time I got a letter I shared it with my listeners.  I knew I was running the risk of damaging my reputation.  After all, being investigated by the IRS puts all sorts of ugly thoughts in people’s minds.  I also knew I’d be inviting more ire from the IRS but I thought the story was important enough that I needed to tell my audience what was going on.

They began to target my mortgage interest deduction.  Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats had limited how much mortgage interest you could deduct.  The IRS disallowed all of my mortgage interest, not just what would’ve been above the limit set by Congress.  All of it.  And they sent me a bill for tens of thousands of dollars.  I knew they were wrong so I went through the pain of digging up the information they needed.  That wasn’t enough.  They wanted more documentation from the mortgage companies, one of which had been absorbed during the mortgage meltdown by another bank.  Once I provided the requested information they just moved on to another year and started the process all over again.

What’s amusing is after the third time they discovered that I had made a mathematical mistake to my detriment.  They sent me a check for several thousand dollars.  I could tell it was sent begrudgingly because the check arrived with no explanation, no note, no nothing.  At first I thought it was one of those tax scams since it came from out of the blue.  I called the IRS and, after working my way through the labyrinth of departments, finally got word that, yes, the check was real.

That was just a few months ago.  Now they’re on to another tax year, asking for the same information, asking me to fill out the same worksheets and the same forms.  To be clear, I’m not saying that Bill Clinton was behind my IRS harassment during the ‘90s and I’m not saying President Obama is behind it now.  What I’m saying is someone inside the IRS is misusing their power for political retribution, despite what the IRS is saying.  There are just too many examples of it.  We need to put a stop to this once and for all, no matter the political party in power.

How Benghazi, the IRS and the AP are all connected

There are three stories swirling around in the press right now and I'm going to tell you how they're all connected.  There's the Benghazi cover-up.  We'll get back to that one in a moment.  There's the IRS story in which the IRS was targeting conservatives.  Then there's the AP story.  The Obama justice department subpoenaed phone records from the AP ostensibly in search of a leak about a CIA operation in Yemen.  This is the story that connects the other two.

You see, the Associated Press and most of the mainstream media view the subpoenaed phone records as overreach, at the very least, and a gross violation of the sacred bond between a journalist and his or her source, at the very worst.  Once anonymous sources understand the government will violate that bond whenever they please then secret sources will cease to exist.  The mainstream media types view this as an abuse of power by the Obama administration and they know that anonymous sources are the bedrock of investigative journalism.

The AP story may not yield anything criminal by the administration.  After all, they saw a CIA operation compromised by someone who leaked information to the Associated Press and they're probably within their rights to plug that leak.  The White House denying any knowledge of the details of the story is laughable but that's another issue.  But what that story has done is it has made the mainstream media suspicious of the White House.

The IRS story, although it only involves conservative victims at this point, is troubling to the mainstream media because they know an administration powerful enough to sic the IRS on conservatives is powerful enough to sic the IRS on them, if they ever have a mind to.  That's why they're covering this story.

ProPublica, which bills itself as an investigative journalism organization, is really little more than a front group for George Soros and his liberal agenda.  They are funded, in part, by Soros' Open Society Foundation.  And they partner with practically every mainstream media outlet in the country including NPR and all the major news networks, as well as many establishment newspapers.  Pretty scary.  They have now admitted to getting nine confidential applications from the IRS last year and using them in hit pieces they tried to pass off as investigative journalism.  As the noose tightens on the IRS scandal it was inevitable that ProPublica would be exposed.  They tried to get out in front of the story to pass themselves off as whistle-blowers when, in fact, they're part of the entire ugly conspiracy to target conservatives.

ProPublica's involvement in this nasty affair is a not-so-subtle reminder to the rest of the mainstream media that the thin line between their being used by this administration and serious journalism is far thinner than they were previously willing to admit.  They feel sullied by it all.  They've awakened to the sad fact that they had become little more than apologists for this administration instead of holding it accountable, as is their duty as journalists.  The news in recent days that the heads of CBS News and ABC News both have siblings who not only work in the Obama White House but are directly involved in the Benghazi affair surely are jolting enough even for a jaundiced news media.

The AP story and the IRS story have caused the mainstream media to double back and start asking more questions about Benghazi.  What first appeared to them as conservative hysteria over minor details is now being viewed through the newly-grinded lens of an administration that will disregard any law to get what it wants or to cover up its indiscretions.  Here we are eight months after the Benghazi attacks and the major networks are just now demanding to see the e-mails pertaining to the talking points on Benghazi.

The AP story will probably pan out to be a non-issue but it will prove to be the catalyst that finally opened the eyes of the mainstream media about what's been going on for the last four-plus years.

For the first time ever the mainstream media don't trust Barack Obama.  Welcome to the club.