Is China Lending Us Our Money?

It's amazing to me that so many people are oblivious to the pending trauma that may occur if we default on our national debt by not raising the debt ceiling. Interest rates will rise for everyone and the cost of everything will go up. How will that help us achieve a balanced budget? Tea Party advocates repeatedly claim that we need to grow our economy to increase government revenue and the only way to do that is to lower taxes and government regulations.

Let's look at the world's current most successful economy and see how they manage things. That economy is China, both the largest creditor of the U. S. outside of the Social Security Trust Fund and now the manufacturing base for many of the products used by Americans. They are not even a Capitalistic society. They are a totalitarian regime with rigid control by the central government and that rigid control keeps working conditions abysmal and wages low. That totalitarian regime is able to lend America trillions of dollars because the Chinese government has lots of money.

Where do they get that money? Do you think the successful manufacturers in China just share their money with the government because they love it or do you realize that China has taxes too? The Chinese government controls everything that Chinese business does if you don't realize that, I fear for your sanity. Check out http://www.taxrates.cc/index.html to see how much the Chinese system demands in taxes. This site shows that they have a progressive income tax system that requires their richest citizens to pay 45% far above the 35% our richest citizens pay. They do have a lower corporate rate of 25% compared to our 39.2% but if you continue reading you will see they have a VAT,aka sales tax of 17% while the U. S. leaves the sales tax issue to the states and none have higher than 7% for the state and probably no more than 3% for the lower levels of government. Keep reading on this site and you will see that they also have a multitude of other business taxes which evidently rake in enough money to make China able to lend money to the rest of the world. Their tax rates also have several lower rates for industries they want to encourage like high tech and yes green industries.

Some day the Tea Party folks are going to realize that government services are not free and different governments use different forms of taxation to get to the same place and that place is where ever they decide will give them enough money to run their country. I don't know about the rest of you but I think that when an American company would rather pay taxes to China they should have to move there. Now their CEOS use the slave labor available there and lower Chinese corporate rate along with the lower U. S. rate on income to milk both systems.

They keep telling us America is the greatest country in the world while they do everything possible to bring the wages down of American workers and get an even better income tax rate for themselves. It just seems basically Unamerican for a company to pay taxes to another country that turns around and lends it to America. This is a grand scam and the American people are the suckers.

Wake Up Call

All four of Oklahoma’s Republican Congressmen got their wake-up call on Tuesday, May 24. That long-distance call came from upstate New York where a stunning upset occurred. Kathy Hochul, a Democratic challenger, defeated Jane Corwin, a well-financed Republican insider, in deeply red Congressional District 26.

Medicare became the defining issue in that campaign and, most likely, will define numerous 2012 elections as well.

Regarding Medicare, Oklahoma’s Republican Congressmen agree with defeated Jane Corwin’s position. In fact, Congressmen John Sullivan, Frank Lucas, Tom Cole, and James Lankford, voted “yes” for Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget bill (HCR 34) which ends Medicare as we know it.

Today’s Medicare would end for people now under 55 when they become elderly. Instead of Medicare,they would get a voucher as partial payment on health insurance from a private company. One person
at a time trying to buy health insurance would greatly increase the price and a lone individual could easily be denied coverage because of age.

If these four Oklahoma congressmen prevail, good luck to granny, who is supposed to enjoy her “freedom” from the “bonds of the mean old government” with its guaranteed health coverage.

Wanda Jo Stapleton

Smaller Government Phooey!

Every time I pick up the paper there is news of another ethically challenged appointment by one of our new Republican state wide office holders. First it's the governor appointing Glenn Coffee, term limited and now former state senator as Secretary of State. The former Secretary of State pulled in about 94K. It will be interesting to see what Coffee ends up making.

Next John Doak, the Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner, appointed 3 former Republican legislators who lost in the primaries to now serve as deputy insurance commissioners. The Democratic Commissioner had only 4 deputies but now we need 7? Their credentials are outstanding too, one was a wholesale air-conditioning distributor, another a realtor, and the third a banker. How any of those disciplines are relevant to the insurance commission beats me.

The Superintendent of Education has hired lobbyists and campaign workers to be her assistants. Jobs that have a regulatory requirement for personnel to have at least a masters in education. It seems obvious that in this instance, who you know is more important that what you know.

Many of these people were hired despite the fact that our state Constitution prohibits hiring legislators with appropriated funds for two years after they leave office. All were hired in agencies that claim to be predominately funded with fees instead of appropriations. I wonder how they keep that money separate.

According to the state finance office website, salaries for deputy commissioners range from $67,900 to $92,000. This will be a hefty raise for legislators who only make about $50,000 a year when you include their per diem and other benefits. If they work for the state for only three more years at the higher salary, it will literally double their retirement benefits.

That's okay though, our state pension fund is the most underfunded in the U. S. and is scheduled to be unable to pay full benefits by 2020. I wonder if these newly appointed state employees remembered all the money they borrowed for other expenses with these funds when they decided to work on a larger pension?