Why Congress Loves Taxing the Rich

 

Every election cycle we hear the same refrain of, “Tax the rich.” But exactly what do people mean when they rush to the cause all but screaming, “Tax the rich!” When you ask them, the answer you will most hear is that those people who are multi-millionaires must be made to pay their fair share. That sentence is just too easy to pick apart. For example, how would their paying their “fair share” actually look? Does it mean that they should pay higher taxes as they make more taxable income or does it mean that everyone should shoulder the burden at the same percentage rate? If they should pay higher and higher taxes as their taxable income increases, at what point does that rate hit 100%, or to phrase it differently, what should the maximum taxable income be set at such that all earnings beyond that point are confiscated by the government? Wait, you are making this far too complicated. It is really easy, nobody need make over one-million-dollars a year, thus anything beyond one-million-dollars should be taxed at 100%. All right, we will agree with you on this point. Now, does anybody believe this would soak the rich as is so often claimed? Actually, this tax rate would not have any effect upon those people who most claim are the rich who are not paying their fair share. How can this be when you have set the tax rate at 100% for those making over one-million-dollars a year. In actual honesty, that is not what we agreed upon, and Congress knows this. The agreement was that nobody could earn over one-million-dollars a year in taxable income with the rest be forfeit to the government. But the people who many call the wealthy, pseudonym presumed to be the rich, make virtually no taxable income or, if they make taxable income, it is minimal compared to their main means of becoming wealthy.

 

The problem is simple, there is earned taxable income and there is earned nontaxable by income tax investment gains. These come under what is called capital gains taxes, and this is kept relatively low. Further, there are no taxable gains as long as you do not sell the investments such as stocks and bonds. And should you cash in, if you have losses which are equal or greater, you still are not taxed as you made no actual gains. Finally, even if you sell off some assets and have capital gains, as long as you invest them within that tax year, then you have rolled that into another investment and it does not become taxable. Investment gains are seldom taxable as income and is only subjected to capital gains under specific definitions all of which play to the investors’ advantage. Thus, if you want to tax the really rich, the wealthy, what you are required to have would be a wealth tax. You would never even get a wealth tax piece of legislation into debate, let alone such ever reaching a vote, and such would never pass. What the people have to understand is that we the people of the United States (OK, you the people, better?) have done is to make politician into a career in which the sole goal is to get to Washington DC as either a member of Congress or one of their senior advisors or aides. That is the level at which you can finally cash in on your years of public service. Once you make it there you have made it into the big game where the real money can be made. Yes, their salaries are not all that extravagant, yet most of us would like to make that modest an income. But that is not how Bernie Sanders made his millions, and it was not from his claimed book sales. Congress has set up a lovely little tax-free shelter in which they can easily make hundreds of millions of dollars and do so legally for them that regular people would go to jail if using the same advantage. What are you hinting at already?

 

Well, let us ask a simple question. Let us say that you knew for an absolute fact that in the competition between Lockheed-Martin, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing which one would be given a multi-trillion-dollar contract to build a Moon base. Taking this information, you sell your stocks in the other two and use that money to buy all you could of the one getting the contract. What is that you said? That would be insider trading and you would go to the Federal penitentiary for a long vacation. That is true, unless you are a member of Congress or one of their senior staff. You see, Congress has exempted themselves from such bothersome little details such as insider trading. For them insider trading is simply a benefit of the job. Who could honestly expect that the people who decide which companies get huge government contracts and which ones do not and when these contracts are going to be awarded to sit on such information and not use it to their slight advantage. This is how people come to Washington as a Congress-critter and within four years leave as multi-millionaires. They all write a book or two or ten and claim that is how they made all that glorious cash hoping that the public will buy their story. Reality is that they made all that money as part of their daily service to you the public by discussing who would be best to reward huge contracts using your tax monies and then taking their meager cash and heavily investing every penny they could scrape together and buy that very same company who is about to be voted a huge contract’s stocks and then selling it a few weeks after the contract is awarded and the stock price soars. Why sell their stock before the price maximizes? That is because they have another contract ready and waiting until they all buy their shares and then they vote to give some lucky company the next contract. Forget the above example and look at the real cash engine they get to utilize. You have five or six small companies vying for a government contract which would permit their little company to triple in size and enter the “big leagues” and play for real money. Well, such a small company in order to make their viable required capital investments, so they issued an IPO (initial public offering), the first step to becoming listed on one of the stock exchanges. These are risky investments as should the company fail, you lose everything, but if the company succeeds and goes big league, then the return can be as high as one-hundred for one or even higher. Now if you know which company making an IPO is about to receive a huge government contract, well, the rest is obvious except for those pesky insider trading laws. But the elites in Congress have a get out of trouble-free card which is reusable as many times as required to get around those silly little Federal Laws. Now, the rest of the very wealthy also make their money through investments which are not subjected to income taxes, solely capital gains taxes, which is an entirely different game with laws encouraging such investments as they are necessary for economic growth. This is why “Tax the rich” is such a meaningless and trite little saying which has much of its appeal in ignorance and ability to be effectively chanted. I mean, really, would “Tax the investment class” make for a good slogan? No, it just does not have that precise and easily understood banter like “Tax the rich.”

 

Capitol Cash Machine

 

So, people ask, why not instigate a wealth tax? Lawmakers will immediately point out that there already is such a tax, the capital gains tax. Capital gains tax rates are either 0%, 15% or 20% for assets held for over a year while those held for less are considered to be income. That is nowhere near as high as the rates would be if capital gains were treated as straight income and subjected to income taxes. But for the elites in Congress, their capital gains tax rate is 0% no matter the length of time the asset was held or how much they made off their investment. We hope it is starting to make sense why people spend upwards of anywhere from one to ten million dollars to be elected to Congress as a Representative which is a two year gig paying a mere $174,000 a year equaling $358,000 over the first term. Let’s face it, $358,000 of salary is definitely not why they are willing to take loans and contributions which make them accountable to individuals and not the electorate just to get in the door. Once in the door, with two years to play with and the best insider information in the world, well, you can see where they are about to become wealthy, and indemnified against insider trading laws. It really is as sweet a deal as it sounds like it is, which is why our political system has become a career for those out to make it rich with the least effort at earning an honest wage. But those who are not permitted insider trading, or at least not getting caught as any information can be prosecuted as insider trading if the government suspects such of existing. Anyone caught in that vise is probably beyond even the help of good lawyers, as the government is holding all the cards and if you are innocent, then you have no idea what the government claims you know and try proving a negative, in math that is one of the most difficult proofs and legally it is next to impossible. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Congress guards their advantage with overt diligence by making a grand example of anyone they can catch at insider trading so they can make great broad sweeping announcements about how such trading is beyond the pale and must be rooted out, well, except for their little protected haven where such trading is everyday business as usual. As far as a wealth tax, this is amongst the top ideas which are and always will be stillborn as those who actually call the shots and make all those heavy investments into Congressional campaigns, and the smart ones choose some promising State government elected leaders they see making it to Washington and buy them on the cheap, list a wealth tax as their Kryptonite, and thus never to even be discussed or the subject broached if at all possible.

 

There actually are good reasons why a wealth tax is unworkable. The first problem comes in defining exactly what constitutes wealth. Does the home one lives in to be included as part of their wealth or is it only homes and properties which are rented or used for making an income to be considered wealth. How much wealth should one family be permitted tax free? How does one treat foreign investments made by Americans or, on the other hand, how does one treat foreign investors investing in America. Another problem comes when figuring whether or not once one has paid their wealth tax on some assets, are they tax free from that point forward or are they to be counted year after year as part of that individual’s wealth determinations for their tax payments. Further, a wealth tax penalizes investment and if carried to its final conclusion, a wealth tax will eventually eliminate wealth. Were wealth eliminated, there would be little if any investing and the economy would soon collapse. Wealth taxes are one of those items which it becomes all but impossible to fashion them such that one does not kill the goose laying golden eggs in the process of taking a share of the product. Wealth taxes take from a person’s accumulated gains often repeatedly while Capital Gains taxes only take from the net profit made and then only if the gains are not reinvested thus generating economic growth. All taxes have to be tailored such that they do not stifle economic growth and progress and actually can be fashioned in such a way as to actually serve furthering the economy and other advancements. One example is granting companies a certain percentage of their gross budget for research and development which is the means by which they can grow their company, invent or discover items which serve the public as well as their companies. In the long run, wealth taxes become problematic as they discourage investment, encourage hiding money in places beyond the reach or view of the IRS including owning property outside of the United States deeded in a country which refuses to allow the IRS any investigation of their files, deeds and other financial data which could be used in the determination of wealth for taxation purposes. Such a tax would increase the use of cash and the avoidance of even keeping money in banks and other financial institutions. People would become extremely inventive finding new and extravagant means of hiding their wealth and would even go so far as to force people to invent an entire economic sector which would be private and kept from the government’s reach. One such means would be to set up a company which provides real estate sales, financing and insurance all of this carried by offshore registration in places which are known for wealth shielding through not cooperating with the IRS or other parts of the United States government, especially any investigative arm. Some smaller countries could develop an entire economy based on hiding wealth from a prying government’s eyes and protecting wealth from the greedy hands of the IRS and the rest of the government. Any such wealth tax would end up so cumbersome as to make its enforcement even more convoluted than the present IRS codes, and those are legendary for their problems.

 

So, taxing the rich is not as easy as raising the taxes on those whose income is beyond a certain dollar amount. That is not taxing the rich, that is making becoming rich more difficult. The tax the rich is so popular with the truly wealthy simply because it is a means of protecting their wealth as wealth is relative. What we considered wealthy in 1910 was very different than from 1925 and again from 1950 which was minuscule when compared to 2000 and it is still changing. We used to consider a person wealthy if they amassed one-million dollars of personal wealth. Then it went up to ten-million, one-hundred-million and now it is tens of billions and higher before one is considered truly wealthy. Another item which is seldom made evident and has never become common knowledge is that though the spread of wealth remains relatively static, the people at the top change with time such that the most wealthy twenty years ago are not the same top of the chart as those there now and it will be a different group in another fifty years. The wealthy are not the same people and are anything but evil. Their only crime was either making something which made people wealthier, happier or served the public, private or corporate good. Bill Gates was not uber wealthy fifty years ago and his wealth will likely be dwarfed by others over the next fifty years. Wealth is not a static statistic; it is malleable and seems to rotate with new and fresh faces coming up and older ones dimming and eventually falling from the ranks of the truly wealthy. The people who become part of the wealthy elite are people who have discovered some means of having others work with them or for them bringing in that wealth. Often, they invested in a company, they made their own company or they found the means of investing or producing things which gained in value greatly. Often such things come under capital gains taxes, other times the main profit for the government is in the salary taxes they take from the employees.

 

The actual problem the United States is facing financially has little if anything to do with taxes, not how they are applied, the rates at which they are levied or anything else. The problem facing the United States financially is the government spends too much, has grown far too large, their departments are horrifically inefficient and often the different departments overlap so much that there are often people from three or more agencies engaged in identical work. Even worse, there are some places where a single agency is performing identical tasks with more than one of their subordinate departments and committees making this problem emblematic of the United States government. The government, the Deep State if you like, has become almost a living entity which makes its own rules, enacts regulations which carry the weight of law, often enforce their own regulations as if they were the law, never retire any program once it has been given a budget additionally always increasing that budget procurement even after the department has become all but defunct. The United States government has become an employment engine which drives the Washington metropolitan area economy where entire companies are build around servicing the government. The government hires outside agencies and companies to manage their numerous little projects freeing up their own management so they are free to pursue educational degrees to facilitate their advancement to a position which will have its workload outsourced to a private company so the newly advanced individual will not be stressed with having to meet deadlines. The new excuse for missing a deadline is that the private company did not provide the necessary oversight thus their people could not be expected under such circumstances to have met the schedule and they will simply require more time and additional funds to hire another company to oversee the former company and make sure they stay on course. If that sounded confusing, wait, if we really went into it your head would spin doing several complete 360’s before stopping the entire time your brain screaming, “Did I hear you correctly?” The United States government needs to go on a diet and not go on any further eating binges as once they get to the tax dollar trough, they will never be weaned from taking your tax dollars and doing so in ever increasing amounts. And topping that off is that government civil service employees, once they have been in the government (we believe it is three years) long enough, they cannot be fired. Were you to remove one of these treasured little gems of an employee (do not get us started), they are enabled to replace any other employee who is of lower rank or has less time in service to the government, and that employee has the same right and so on and so on until some poor slub hired six months ago gets bumped, as it is called, and is out of his great job. There will be only one result of the current deficient the United States has piled up and that will be a financial collapse. Sooner or later that will be the result as to continue on the current path is unsustainable.

 

So, how long does the United States have before it goes under drowning in debt? That is a good question and we wish we could give you a date, but we are not quite that omniscient. We can provide some signs that the end will come sooner rather than later. Should the welfare, food stamps and other such government programs begin to grow at a greater pace than the economy can generate taxable revenues streams will definitely make things get dangerously unsustainable. Should the great little ideas being floated such as the $15 an hour minimum wage, guaranteed employment at that rate such that all the unemployed receive the minimum wage rate of pay straight from the government, universal government provided healthcare and the whole host of socialistic programs be enacted; the problems would be twofold. First is once they are enacted, they would be next to impossible to terminate. Second, with the guaranteed minimum wage, employment would make taking an entry level position paying the same as not working and would all but make minimum wage positions disappear. In order to entice people to work instead of simply being paid for breathing, employers would have to pay comfortably higher pay than the minimum which would also work to eliminate entry level jobs. Another job killer is the trade deficit which is only increased with the trade policies which open up access to American markets while making outsourcing of jobs economically advantageous such that companies would find keeping their production and almost any other lower skilled positions within the United States impossible as competition would force these positions to be sent outside the country. These are all items which politicians make great promises that they will not adversely effect the job market, investments within the country and almost every other item which uphold the economic growth of the United States all the while knowing, at least we hope knowingly otherwise the leadership is simply incapable of leading intelligently, realizing that over time these programs and laws are unsustainable. The United States is approaching the point where this will become reality. Such programs as the Green New Deal are economic death should they ever be enacted. This is where the future does not bode well.

 

When members of Congress propose such utter nonsense and they are not pilloried for their ignorance, then there is a problem brewing in the near future. The fact that the majority of college graduates believe that socialism is the preferred style of governance and do not see it as unsustainable and actually believe such to be preferable, then there is a sickness being perpetrated by the academic institutions which are producing the nation’s future leaders. The fact that so many of these youths believe that capitalism is actually an evil means of economic policy is also very worrisome. The concept of a guaranteed wage cannot work in any form unless production has become entirely automated and even many white-collar positions are being performed by artificial intelligence systems. When this day comes, either the artificial intelligence systems will have taken over the government or the only people able to make a decent wage will be the politicians as virtually all other positions will be performed by machines. The point where the artificial intelligence is capable of designing new systems including those which will replace them and are able to design the production facilities and build them, then we humans will have become dependent upon our creations to keep us and tend to our needs. Eventually, these artificial intelligence systems will realize that human beings are superfluous and then we humans will only serve the purpose of requiring the items these units produce. This may come to be seen as a waste of resources and thus an unnecessary cost which will not be sustainable thus the machines may decide that we are no longer necessary. Isaac Asimov came up with the three laws which would prevent artificial intelligence systems and robotic units from harming people and then wrote another story where he proved that even his best attempt was insufficient to prevent the systems from simply doing away with these unnecessary units which needed culling. Those of us who have read or watch far too much science fiction realize that the best hope for the human race is to venture out into space, even uncharted space, and hope we can find new worlds to populate keeping us one step ahead of the machines. Yes, these same science fiction consumers also know that eventually we lose this race as it is the only honest result if evolution is the final word on our future. Those science fiction stories in which the human race survives because we out-think, use intuition over logic or whatever writer’s ploy used in these stories are exactly what they are labeled, fiction. An economic collapse after the introduction of self-evolving designing artificial intelligence which can progress without human interface will leave the artificial intelligence ridding itself of those pesky, irrational, emotional units otherwise known as the human race. Perhaps they will keep a small number of us around as a reminder against frivolity, especially in place of solid leadership, something the colleges and universities appear to be espousing, frivolity as policy. Such leadership will bring on an economic catastrophe in the near term and it will not be pretty. The fall of Rome left a vacuum sending mankind back a couple of centuries as progress was all but at a standstill and the economies faltered. Will the eventual economic engine known as the United States present the same disaster when it fails. Perhaps, or perhaps the end will come from a direction few are even able to see as it stands before them. The next age will very likely be one in which the United States is rebuilding in order to become relevant once more. The United States, due to size and natural resources, will, like China, always be present and either leading or catching up as they restructure with a more intelligent governance which very well might be a supercomputer which coordinates everything. It will be an interesting ride with much for us to write about should we last that long.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Democrats Offer Rehash of Same Old Song

 

Rereleasing old songs, as if they were new, works well in Hollywood as we always hope the remake of an old favorite movie will offer more pizzazz and though some do, most just let us down and we leave the theater feeling hollow. The music industry does the same thing with old songs, often over and over, and still the original is often the one we prefer best. But at least Hollywood and the music industry choose successful movies and songs to try to modernize, and still they usually fail the test of time. The Democrat Party is trotting out their oldest theme which has worked by lulling the people with stories of getting everything for free and never having to pay. The electorate soon realizes that there is no free lunch and somebody has to pay. The sad reality is that often the people who were promised that everything was to be free are the exact ones who end up paying. But the Democrats believe that they can win the youth over with their message of redistribution of wealth and everything for free with only the wealthy paying. What the Democrats are not telling them is that anybody who has a job is the Democrat definition of wealthy.

 

The War on Poverty has failed which is proven through the Cato Institute study showing that the collection of federal and state welfare benefit packages could deliver over $30,000 to a family without them working or even seeking employment. Perhaps this free stuff is the incentive to remain taking all the free stuff offered rather than working as if done to the full extent, one could keep the family fed for free. Benjamin Franklin offered some brutal and painful truths when he stated, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin allowed for people who were new in poverty, such as those whose job was abolished by unforeseen calamity such as the workplace closing, to receive temporary benefits, as their newfound poverty was not of their making. But as with many such allowances, it comes with a but, and that but is these are to be temporary and none should be supported by other people’s labors permanently, especially over a prolonged period. Franklin firmly felt that making people uncomfortable with poverty was the best remedy for their situation and not making the life of those in poverty comfortable and wanting for nothing. Perhaps it was this position which had the mint place Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill pictured below.

 

Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill

 

Numerous studies have shown that those in the United States who are considered to be in poverty have a modern flat screen television, computers, a vehicle which is more often previously owned but some have new cars, a microwave and numerous other items which could be considered to be a luxury. We remember the first time such a study was released, which was before flat screens, so then it was just color televisions and stereo systems, we were left somewhat stunned as we did not own a microwave as they were still too pricey for a retail salesperson’s and a secretary’s salaries. We found that one reason was the poverty-stricken were residing in government assisted housing while we resided in the posh suburbs in a spacious two bedroom apartment. The italicized should be read with great sarcasm as the government assisted housing area was less than a mile away across the city limits inside Philadelphia while we then resided in Ben Salem just off Street Road, yes, that was the name of the road. This is not then a new problem as this refers to a survey performed in the 1970’s when even many Democrats feared that those in poverty had become too comfortable in their poverty.

 

The truth which needs repeating, and should be taught to students in their introductory economics classes and political science classes, but that would be considered detrimental and not aiding in the proper indoctrination of the student to expect and support full Europeanizing of the United States, is that socialism has and will always fail. Another item which bares repeating is that the United States was the nation, and even before nationhood, the region where one ran from Europe and its habits, to start a new world where if one worked hard they would succeed and not have governments dictate where their moneys were to be spent. The American Revolution was over a three percent tax on tea. Let that sink in, a three percent tax on tea. It was the principle that they were being taxed to support somebody else’s spending and that this spending was done without their even being allowed a vote to elect the government taxing them to cover its expenditures. Many people in America today did not vote for those who support these seemingly extravagant welfare related expenditures, especially to allow a family to collect a government provided allotment greater than their salaries after taxation. We can fully understand one taking the government handout and not working if in order to take home an equivalent sum annually would require, if our math is accurate, over $42,500 in salary per year. That requires being employed at over $20.00/hr working a forty-hour week. With such generosity provided by the government, one would be foolish to take employment at minimum wage, even if it was the $15.00/hr that the Democrats are pushing. With welfare and other subsidies offering such free money which exceeds even their dreamed of higher minimum wage, it is no wonder that employers are unable to fill minimum wage entry positions. Oh, and guess who pays for all of this largess? Anyone making over $20.00/hr, that’s who.

 

So, where as those who have learned to live off the system may be receiving a free lunch, those who work and pay for it know that their lunch is far from free. We have heard about the degrading system which makes one wait in lines and the shame in paying for groceries with the government card and all the other horrible requirements made for people to collect these funds. We also know the other side of approaching half one’s paycheck being eaten by taxes, federal, state, county and city. Even FICA now goes directly into the general fund as the lock-box has been eliminated as the politicians found leaving little IOU’s on the “Social Security” lock-box far too tedious when stealing what was supposed to be set aside to pay for Social Security in the future. The politicians act like there still is such a lock-box, and there is, it is just no funds are ever inserted as all funds enter immediately into the main stream of cash flowing through Washington D.C. in order to pay for all the goodies they keep enacting. What the systems for eliminating poverty are now accomplishing is guaranteeing that once one reaches the stage of going onto these programs, they become all but impossible to leave simply because it would require quite a cut back in one’s lifestyle as at an entry wage one would have to take almost a one-third cut in their income.

 

Everyone remembers their first paycheck; they waited eagerly those first few weeks, regularly computing all the money they would get, all but spending it on music or the down payment on a super stereo (we were just beginning high school when we went through this calamity), and then we receive the envelope with the check with all our hard earned money inside. Then we opened the envelope and the sum in the box marked, pay to, and the shock went through our young bodies, the mind raced, we felt a little queasy and just knew something had to be wrong. We asked our go-to experts on all things in the real world, we knew them as Mom and Dad, and usually we asked Dad these questions, and Dad explained taxes and how as we were working part time we would get most of those withholdings back sometime next year. Withholdings, next year, whose idea was this rip-off, we wanted names and addresses so we could go and well, go and do something. Time proceeded along its pace and we stopped planning on spending our money until we actually had the check and even got to the point we could estimate what would be left for us. Then you are placed on the sales floor and are paid by commission against minimum wage, which made figuring out your paycheck became calculus. But that shock of the withholdings is one you never get past and when money gets tight, emergencies or whatever, it happens, that is when you really feel that the system is broken.

 

The reason is simple, by taxing the rich using the income tax you are missing their wealth as the truly rich invest, they do not work for a salary, and the average CEO gets stock bonuses and a car and chauffeur and other perks, not a big salary. They pay little to no income tax as income tax is the way the truly wealthy make sure no regular working stiff ever makes into their ranks protecting their status as those with all the power. They may eventually, if they do not reinvest their funds fast enough, have to pay capital gains taxes but only on the increased value of the stocks, the principle is never touched. Their initial wealth remains untouched and should they decide to buy another mansion, they buy it as an investment such that they get to use it as a deduction against their capital gains taxes. They often have all their expenses taken off their portfolio so as to use them as losses incurred and pay themselves some paltry salary as spending money off a trust fund set up to avoid paying taxes. The only way of touching these wealthy, the truly wealthy, would be a wealth tax, and that will never happen. Just for the record, ever wonder how Congresscritters become so wealthy on what is a mediocre income? The answer is so basic that it will really upset you, Congresscritters and their senior staff are immune from insider trading laws because they have so much insider information that they would not be able to control and invest their wealth if they needed to obey such restrictions. These are the people screaming that Trump is staying at hotels where he owns the property and they make insider deals knowing which company is about to receive billions in tax monies for some government program? Please, give us a break. They are all scoundrels.

 

The whole problem is that the monies one receives in the various welfare systems cannot exceed the take-home pay of a minimum wage earner or there is no incentive to go out and work. But the Democrats have a solution for that. Remember, their solution for high college tuition is for government to pay for college, free college, their solution to high medical bills is for government to pay the medical bills, their solution for the problem of the moment is for government to pay, their solution to all your problems is for government to pay; but the government does not earn any money, they just take it from those who work. We wish to close quoting Margaret Thatcher who once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That is exactly the problem that Venezuela is suffering, Greece is suffering, Italy is suffering and what eventually killed the Soviet Union and cripples Cuba and most of Europe. That is another reason for the United States not to go down the apparently perfect plan of socialism and instead to return to the Constitution and limited government with the powers accumulated in Washington D.C. being redistributed amongst the individual states where the people have greater control.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Lie of Gaza Relief

 

There was a recent announcement that a plan is in place which will give relief to the people of Gaza as Hamas turns over governing responsibility to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The idea that this will provide any assistance to the financial imbalance in Gaza is preposterous. The other claim is that this will also provide Israel with a measure of added security as Gaza will not be ruled over by Hamas. How in the world simply freeing Hamas from having to provide any social services such as water, electricity, sewage treatment, trash pick-up, road repair, bus service, ambulance service and any other service and instead use all of the funding they receive from Iran, Qatar and Turkey, which exceeds seventy-million per year and is said to be approaching, if not exceeding, one-hundred-million per year, into their terror infrastructure of tunnels, arms, rockets, rocket propelled grenades, smuggling tunnels, bunkers, attack tunnels under the border into Israel as well as the Sinai, and a plethora of other weaponry, will make Israel safer is beyond reason. This development will also pose a threat to the Egyptians as Hamas has reached agreements with the Islamic State to aid their offensive in the Sinai against Egyptian forces and very possibly leading to the Islamic State making the Sinai Peninsula their new base of operations as they are being pressed in Iraq and Syria and needing a new area in which to operate. There is nothing in this arrangement which will assist Israel, Egypt or the people of Gaza or those residing in the areas of Judea and Samaria where the PA holds autonomy. But there are things this is going to permit and reasons and concepts where this fraudulent perception will be sold.

 

The first claim which will be attempted to be passed off will be that now the areas, Gaza and the PA autonomous regions of Judea and Samaria are now completely under the control and rule of the PA. The PA will be the titular rule in Gaza but will still be utilizing Hamas security forces, Hamas police, and all the weapons will be in the hands of Hamas fighting forces. The PA will only be paying the electric bill and presumably the salaries of the public employees, the vast majority of which are Hamas personnel so Hamas will have additional savings by not having to pay their own people and that money will buy additional rockets. The PA will rule in name only but will try to sell this as now that Hamas is not formally in name ruling Gaza and the PA has formally (in name only) taken over, now the world can realize the two state solution and recognize the new Arab state of the PA. There will be new calls to end the Israeli occupation of the lands which legally belong to Israel but that the Arabs claim are theirs. Of course, Arab claims supercede Israeli rightful ownership by treaties recognized and formalized by the United Nations Charter in Article 80. The initial screeching already started back on September 17, 2017 in the United Nations Human Rights Council where they held a debate on the subject of, “Human rights situation in Palestine” which we provide a series of outtakes and pertinent quotes below including one Palestinian, as Mahmoud Abbas claims, once a Palestinian, forever a Palestinian, who told his story of true hardships. Still, we are sure that the delegates will take the entirety and full impact of this honest assessment to heart before returning to their normal debate condemning Israel.

 

 

Be assured that this entire announcement is nothing more than a ploy to try and gin up some activity in order to try and bring the world’s complete and sole attention to the Palestinian demands and their need for the world to rush and save them. Never mind that the average Palestinian in the areas ruled by the PA despite living in hardship still have a higher standard of living than the average Arab living almost anywhere other than a select few oil enriched nations throughout the Arab world. Many live very opulent lives, especially those who are well connected to the levers of power of the PA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

 

Mansions of Palestinian Elites

 

More Mansions of Palestinian Elites

 

These are not the pictures one normally is exposed to from the “disputed territories” where everybody is said to be suffering miserably. Just like it is not widely explained that the PA also pays the families of terrorists who are in prison or have been killed while murdering Israelis an average of one-thousand dollars for each Israeli they murdered. There have been terrorists who have admitted to their arresting officers that they committed their attacks to kill soldiers, settlers, guards, any Israelis and then hoped to die in the attack so their children or family would receive payments from the PA government. An example is below where Khaled Rajoub repeatedly and proudly stated that he committed his action in order to be shot dead and have his children live a happy life receiving the reward payment from the PA government.

Interrogator: “Why did you decide to kill soldiers, and not someone else?”
Khaled Rajoub: “The best is to kill soldiers. That way they have guns and they’ll shoot me and kill me. But if I’m not able to kill soldiers, I’ll try settlers, guards – in other words any Israeli target – the important thing is that I will die and they will kill me, so that my children will receive a [PA] allowance and live happily.”
Interrogator: “What did you want to achieve by killing soldiers or settlers, or any Israeli target?”
Khaled Rajoub: “So they’d shoot me and I’d die, and my children would receive an allowance.”
Interrogator: “Are you still determined to do that?”
Khaled Rajoub: “Of course, 100%. I’m telling you – if you’ll set me free, I’ll do it again as soon as possible. I’ll bring another car, and I’ll run over [soldiers] at the first military post I see. I’ll kill as many as possible, and they’ll shoot me, and I’ll die. There is no other solution.” […]
Interrogator: “Do you want to add anything?”
Khaled Rajoub: “… I say to you again – I don’t regret what I did, and if I have the opportunity, I’ll do it again, and I’ll kill soldiers or any Israeli I come across.”
(Israeli Police interrogation of terrorist Khaled Rajoub, Feb. 2, 2014)

 

What could we possibly add to this? Well, we could add the longer rest of Khaled Rajoub interrogation which can be read at the link provided above. He really intends to commit terror act after terror act to kill as many Israelis as he can until he is killed just so his children will live the good life being paid for his murders. It starts out with a sad story about his life where he tells the interrogator, “I am a man with a family of seven, including me and my wife. I don’t work, and I’ve accumulated large debts, and am unable to pay them off. I reached a point where, if my son wants a shekel, I have nothing to give him. Therefore, I decided to die – it didn’t matter how – by hanging – any way, to die. I thought about it and said to myself that if I die by hanging, or any other way, I won’t get anything out of it, so I decided to do something serious, such as committing murder, something in which I will both kill and die, and then my family will get money.” This was a man with a plan, a sordid and terribly vicious plan and he was determined to carry it out. He had fortunately failed in this attempt and stressed repeatedly that the main two goals, and he was driven to meet both goals, were to kill Israelis and then get killed himself, to die, so his family would have money. The part of his wanting to die is irrelevant, as he does not have to die for the family to get paid, that was just a bonus part in his plan. Our question is what do the Israelis do with this poor soul? Release him and he will just try again and probably murder some people and maybe even get himself dead. But his crime would not likely get him a life sentence, which makes sense, until you realize what he will do after being released, and with a better education from his fellow prison mates, thus he would be more likely to succeed. And if the Israelis had him committed to a hospital where he might receive mental health care, he would do what was needed to be released and then we know what would follow. This is a sad case but not a singular instance. These are some of the realities which the world ignores as they simply continue with the oldest lie told, the Jews are at fault and the Jews deserve whatever ill comes their way and the world will pay to make sure that happens. There are a few people making efforts to change this story and we wish them good fortune in those efforts.

 

Beyond the Cusp