NoYouCant.US

The president, speaking to congress, indicating that the Federal workforce was too large announced that as many as one in five federal jobs were redundant and that there would be widespread layoffs of Government workers in every area. He went on to say that private small businesses were to be encouraged to start and encouraged to hire more people displaced from their government jobs.

So far so good.

Problem is - the President making the sensible changes last week was Raul Castro and the country was Cuba.

As Barack Obama and friends continue to push public employment at the expense of private, a country who has over 50 years experience living Obama's dream is going the other way.

Hmmm.

Thanks to Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate and the US House of Representatives we again learn the danger of taking money from the government whether you’re talking welfare, tax breaks, or Medicare or Medicaid or Tricare. As you have likely heard, effective June 1 of this year Medicare cut their physician fee schedule by 21.3%. Given that many doctors are small businesses with overhead sometimes exceeding 50% this cut in income (note Medicare these days makes up 50% or more of physician income) will result in a cut in physician pay of 50%-100%. This is what we get for agreeing to file claims to the government in the first place - they can give it and they can later take it after the entire industry restructures such that it can’t live without this source of payment. Seniors and disabled people don’t really have access in most cases to private insurance and few can afford to pay cash for their healthcare thanks in part to the oppressive taxation of any money they might have otherwise saved for this purpose. As a result the government froze payments for the first 2 weeks of June resulting in Medicare payments stoppping 100% for up to 2 weeks - how many businesses can afford that? When payments start coming in in the next week or two they’ll be paid at a rate 21.3% lower. Given that much of the care provided for this 78.7% of normal reimbursement was paid for by the doctor (employee salaries, supplies, rent, utilities, insurance) this puts quite a squeeze on many practices and if not reversed quickly (and I’m talking weeks here) many practices will have to lay off from 50-100% of their staff - that’s right - many practices will have to close and patients will be left to find their doctors and without access to their records as who will be able to pay anyone to provide them those records once the money runs out? And where will they go for care? In this town very few doctors are taking new patients at all, much less new Medicare patients.

I urge everyone to contact their representatives in the house and senate and get them to reverse this cut immediately and to fix the physician reimbursement system quickly before the whole system melts down.

This article has been circulating far and wide but does speak to what this website is about - the idea that taxes can be raised high enough that the real taxpayers seriously consider leaving the country to avoid paying them.

To All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of
this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the
economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges.
However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to
your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing
political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help
you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against
employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there
is a Back Story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed
by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside.
You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all
these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about
my life.

However, what you don’t see is the BACK STORY :

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300
square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment
was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into
building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent
went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a
defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I
stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and
partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work,
discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends went to their jobs. They worked 40 hours a week
and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They
drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer
clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion
item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any
clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My
friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I,
however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business
with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford
these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check
in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off”
button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a
weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I
eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no
rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this
business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child.
You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house,
the Mercedes, the vacations… you never realize the Back Story and
the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the
right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people
who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel
entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of
my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I’ve paid is
steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you,
is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me
tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay
enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and
use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment
taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these
taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him.
Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes
with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to
the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my
“stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the
guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over
2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single
mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her
next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the
economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and
you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants
to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is
why your job is in jeop ardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy
you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government
mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of
depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have
spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic
growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in
the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it
now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t
defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to
life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the
heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must
stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington
believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American
economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is
the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be
swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then
plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your
child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and
retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the
productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to
provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it
will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this
country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its
landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a
beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed, THE BOSS

Rights are basic freedoms to which all humans are entitled. No right can be considered valid if the only way it can be delivered is by coercing another, by force, to provide it. You have a right to free speech for example and you don’t have to steal anything from anyone to provide that right. It stands on its own. Healthcare, on the other hand, has to be given to you and to be given it has to be taken from someone who either has the means of providing it or for paying for it.

If you argue that healthcare is a right then you have to explain to me why you or the government should be able to steal my property or my labor to provide for your right. If it’s ok to steal these things from me then why not make it a right to have food? Food is far more important than healthcare and water is more important than food. Should these be rights? Should we say that not only is food a right that good food, excellent food, or top of the line gourmet food should be a right? This is what many advocate with respect to healthcare which as indicated above is far less important to our health and survival than is healthcare. Should farmers be required to give away the product of their work for free or for whatever price the government decides is fair? What if they refuse? What if they decide farming isn’t for them as it just isn’t worth it for what they get. What if the government decided that in order to support a massive department of agriculture that hundreds of pages of paperwork would have to be completed by farmers before they could be allowed to sell food to anyone. Farming isn’t that profitable as it is but I suspect you’d find fewer and fewer people wanting to be farmers and the overall cost of food would increase.

I will not argue that a government should be able to decide that it’s in the interest of that government to provide for some level of healthcare but healthcare will never be a right and no one should ever be forced at gunpoint to provide healthcare to anyone.

Government Healthcare - meaning Medicaid, Medicare, Champus, Tricare, and the Veteran’s Administration are first and foremost a jobs program. They exist primarily to employ lots of people in government jobs. They are not competitive and all of their financial incentives are to tax more and spend more with the spending mainly aimed at increasing the size and influence of their own influence. This is how government works. If benefits have to be paid to citizens so be it so long as it doesn’t interfere with their primary reason for existence which is preservation and expansion of the agency.

In a capitalistic society, as opposed to a socialistic society, we should whenever possible try to keep as many things out of the governments’ hands as is possible so as to avoid the politicians having too much control over our lives and to keep our options and choices and freedoms available and in our own control. If you put everything under government control then no one has any incentive to be successful or to take care of themselves and their families.

A good healthcare plan should be one that provides access to anyone who wants it while maintaining freedom of choice, competition that leads to availability of better products/services, and that keeps costs under control while taking control out of the hands of massive federal agencies who strangle actual healthcare in favor of their own expansion. The fewer people working for the government the better.

Those who favor nationalized government sponsored and controlled healthcare should ask why veterans who can go to any VA hospital in the land choose almost uniformly to have their healthcare delivered in the private system if they can afford to do so? Why do people from countries with socialized medicine prefer to come to the USA for healthcare whether from Canada or Europe?

If you ask a veteran which he’d rather have, a VA card or a Blue Cross PPO card and I don’t think you’d find many who would prefer long waits, small medication formularies, tremendously restricted access to anything expensive, and limited numbers of clinics and hospitals to being able to shop for the best doctor they can find at the hospital or clinic of their choice. The secret is we could buy that Blue Cross card for the Vet when their service career ends and keep up the premiums for far less than it costs to operate the VA hospital system and Veterans administration federal jobs program. What a waste!

Another freedom many would have you give up is the ability to use your resources to buy better than average healthcare. Socialists want everyone to be equal - equally miserable perhaps in terms of their access to care. I can see arguing that the country should find more cost effective ways of providing basic healthcare for all but also feel that people with the initiative to earn more should be allowed to purchase more than basic care if they’re willing to do so much as we find a way to provide food stamps for the hungry poor without promising them lobster and filet mignon yet they’re welcome to buy that lobster with their own funds should they earn the right to do so. Healthcare can be this way too with some planning.