HR 1105 and Other Taxpayer Ripp-offs

On March 10^th, the Senate passed, by a margin of 62-35, a bill with the harmless-sounding title of "HR 1105." This bill approved $410 billion in spending to pay for government operations that have been running on "stopgap funding" since last October. According to the Associated Press, this bill was "sent to President Obama on a non-record vote."

Attached to HR 1105, in a nest of legislative camouflage, was a provision that preserves the automatic annual "cost of living" raises given to members of Congress without mandating a public Congressional floor debate. Thanks to this provision, the Congress received an automatic, self-provided, pay raise on January 1, 2009, of some $4,700.

Please bear with your humble correspondent as he makes a few observations.

First of all, what the Hell is a "non-record" vote?

After an hour or so digging through the online version of Riddick's Senate Procedures Manual, I discovered that a "non-record vote" is exactly what it says: a vote that's taken but not recorded, as in the case of many amendments to bills such as the above pay raise thing that was hidden within HR 1105. This allows your designated influence peddler the opportunity to lie about his or her voting record without fear of being confronted with evidence to the contrary.

Secondly, although I'm sure that it's only a coincidence, I noticed that the Congressional base salary of $174,000 falls under the $200,000 mark above which the Odumba Administration plans to tax everyone at a higher rate in order to "make the rich pay their fair share."

Next I must ask the obvious question: when was the last time that you got a $4,700 pay raise? For that matter, how many of you still have a job?

Finally, has anyone noticed that the $410 billion doled out in HR 1105 is in addition to the $787 billion from the so-called Economic Stimulus Plan? With the passage of both HR 1105 and Odumba's abridged version of one of Stalin's 5-Year Plans, the Congress has spent about 1.2 trillion dollarsof our money in less than three months!

I also read how the Odumba Circus and Traveling Socialized Medicine Show is forcing a pay cap of $500,000 on the top executives at banks and other financial institutions that take one of the generous "investments" of government money. In fact, it was just a few months ago that I wrote about the Big 3 automakers themselves begging for better than $25 billion in bailouts (see my previous diatribe, The Big 3 and Chapter 11). Needless to say, the Big 3 got what they wanted.

I sure that it's just another coincidence that the Odumba crowd didn't put a $500,000 cap on the salaries of anyone at the Big 3 and I'm certainly sure that the fact that the Big 3, as well as the United Auto Workers' Union, were among the biggest supporters of candidate Odumba and also that they made some really big-time, serious money campaign contributions to the Odumba campaign had nothing to do with it as well.

This brings us to the "good news/bad news" section of today's posting.

The first entry in the good news department comes word that the money will soon be forthcoming to extend everyone's unemployment benefits for another 26 weeks' worth of payments.

The bad news is that all unemployment payments received must be reported to the IRS as taxable income. Also, all payments received as part of a severance package must also be reported as taxable income, including the "cash value" of benefits such as outplacement services and other job search services.

For all those expecting a "free ride" from the Odumba Administration at the expense of everyone else: congratulations and welcome to the club! You just got screwed by the guy that you just couldn't wait to put into office!

An in a final note, we may take heart in the faint light at the end of the tunnel: as of today, March 18, 2009, there are 1,404 days until Barak Odumba leaves office in disgrace.