How do you want to improve America? By focusing on improving and refining yourself? Or by transforming society? The answer to that question will reveal whether you’re on the Left or the Right.
Category: Local
How big should the government be? And what is its proper role in the daily lives of Americans? The Left and Right have opposite answers.
UPDATE (12/11/15): Theft of dozens of propane tanks, purchase of 150 prepaid cell phones in Missouri puts FBI on alert
Click here: FBI was alerted recently after several “suspicious” bulk purchases of mobile phones at multiple Walmart locations across the state of Missouri.
One location, Macon, MO, is only 150-miles from Burlington.
Police say just before 4am Saturday morning, two men purchased about 60 phones from the Lebanon Walmart store in addition to three other reports of similar incidents in Columbia, Macon and Jefferson City.
Click here: Liar, liar, pantsuit on fire: Hillary Clinton still insists she didn’t tell the grieving families of the Benghazi victims that an anti-Islam video was to blame.
Yet family members say she said just that, three days after the attack, at the Sept. 14, 2012, ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base.
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Click here: Pointing to an Islamic terrorist attack in California that killed 14 and wounded 21 and a mentally ill shooter in Sandy Hook, NJ that killed 20 in 2012 – all defenseless victims in gun-free zones – Iowa citizens and parents have urged the Governor and Legislature to eliminate gun-free zones in schools, saying Iowans should be allowed to defend themselves when faced with the potential of mass violence.
Iowa schools are currently gun-free zones, and Branstad said he believes the policy should remain in place.
Click here: In a most bizarre twist, scientists now claim it’s not God versus science, but followers of God and science working together trying to save humanity and the planet.
“The world will not act enough on climate change, until we teach this in every church, every mosque, every synagogue, every temple.”
Advocates for bigger government continue to press their case for higher taxes because, they argue, the “rich” are not paying their “fair share.” However, a review of the actual tax statistics undercuts this argument, or at least raises questions about how to define “fair.” The IRS figures for Fiscal Year 2013 (the most recent set of data available) show that the richest Americans bear a disproportionate share of the federal income tax, and despite a tax hike that went into effect, that share was smaller than the previous year.
One year of data does not make a trend, but for 2013 at least, the conclusion is pretty stark: after President Barack Obama got his way and Congress raised tax rates on the wealthy, the top 1 percent shouldered less, not more, of the tax burden.
The richest 1 percent of income earners in the U.S. paid 37.8 percent of all income taxes, down slightly from last year’s mark of 38.09 percent. The share of taxes paid dropped despite a new higher tax rate of 39.6 percent on income above $450,000. The amount of taxes paid by those in this percentile is nearly double their Adjusted Gross Income load.
The top tenth of filers paid nearly 70 percent of all income taxes. One-quarter of all income earners were responsible for 86 percent of all taxes and the upper half accounted for nearly the entire burden at over 97 percent. The bottom half of all earners contributed less than 3 percent.
These snapshots continue to depict two common-sense trends: when people are allowed to keep more of their own money, they prosper, and once prosperous, they pay a bigger part of the bill for those who aren’t.