*Do You Know How the Government Will Use Your 2019 Tax Dollars?:
As another tax day arrives, Americans are surely wondering where their hard-earned federal taxes go. This year, Washington will spend a staggering $35,148 per household and collect $26,677 per household in taxes. The resulting budget deficit of $8,471 per household will bring the total national debt to $177,000 per household. Federal spending has soared nearly $7,000 per household since 2007 and is projected to rise another $7,000 over the next decade (all numbers in this article are adjusted for inflation). Unless spending is reined in, tax increases must eventually result.
All families have their own level of taxation and distribution of benefits. Yet using the national averages, Washington will spend this year’s $35,148 per household as follows:
Social Security/Medicare: $13,178. The 15.3 percent payroll tax, split evenly between the employer and employee, covers most of Social Security’s and a small portion of Medicare’s costs. The typical couple retiring today will receive Social Security benefits 13 percent higher than their lifetime contributions, and Medicare benefits that are triple their lifetime contributions into the system, even after adjusting for inflation and net present values. As 74 million retiring baby boomers are added to this fragile system, paying all promised benefits would eventually require raising the payroll tax to 33 percent, or imposing a 34 percent value-added tax (basically, a national sales tax).
Anti-poverty programs: $6,483. Half of this spending subsidizes state Medicaid programs that provide health services to poor families. Other low-income spending includes: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, housing subsidies, child care subsidies, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and low-income tax credits. President George W. Bush increased anti-poverty spending from $3,700 to $4,800 per household, and President Obama expanded it past $6,000, mostly due to ObamaCare costs.
Defense: $5,312. The defense budget covers everything from military paychecks, to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the research, development, and acquisition of new technologies and equipment. Defense spending was substantially higher during the Cold War, before the Soviet collapse allowed late 1990s-lawmakers to slash defense to $3,900 per household. After the War on Terror pushed it back to $6,800 per household by 2010, deep cuts followed by recent increases have left the defense budget at $5,300 per household.
Interest on the national debt: $3,054. The federal government is $22 trillion in debt. It owes $17 trillion to public bond owners, and the rest to other federal agencies (mostly to repay the Social Security trust fund, which lawmakers raided annually before the program fell into permanent deficit in 2009). Record-low interest rates have recently held down interest costs. However, the national debt is in the process of surging to nearly $38 trillion by 2029 (it stood at $10 trillion in 2008), which will push annual net interest costs to nearly $6,000 per household – or double that cost if interest rates rise back to normal levels.
Veterans’ benefits: $1,556. The federal government provides income and health benefits to military veterans. Spending has nearly tripled since 2001 as new wars brought new veterans.
Federal employee retirement benefits: $1,154. A portion of this cost is offset by federal employee payroll contributions.
Education: $876. Education spending is primarily a state and local function; 9 percent of the K-12 total comes from Washington. Most federal dollars are spent on low-income school districts, special education, and college student financial aid.
Justice administration: $557. Justice spending includes federal attorneys and prisons, as well as law-enforcement grant programs. Post-9/11 homeland security costs have modestly expanded this category.
Health research/regulation: $533. This spending includes the National Institute of Health, Centers for Disease Control,Food and Drug Administration, and dozens of grant programs for health providers.
Highways/mass transit: $493. The 18.4 cent per-gallon federal gas tax finances most of these costs. Washington subtracts an administrative cost and sends this money back to the states with numerous strings attached.
International affairs: $422. This includes foreign economic and military assistance, operation of American embassies abroad, and contributions to organizations such as the United Nations. International spending has doubled since 9/1.
*TWILIGHT ZONE – DHS Releases 7K Illegal Aliens into U.S. in Five Days; 1.4K Released Every Day:
President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS)has released about 7,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the United States in the last five days. The latest catch and release totals obtained by Breitbart News revealed that, currently, DHS is releasing about 1,400 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the U.S. every day. Between April 18 to April 22, DHS released about 7,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country.
The catch and release process often entails federal immigration officials busing border crossers into nearby border cities and dropping them off with the promise that they will show up for their immigration and asylum hearings, sometimes years later. The overwhelming majority of border crossers and illegal aliens are never deported from the country once they are released into the U.S.
Today, there are anywhere between 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living across the country — the majority of which are concentrated in states like California, New York, Florida,Texas, and Illinois. Over the past five days, El Paso, Texas, has had to absorb 2,800 of the 7,000 border crossers and illegal aliens released into the country. Likewise, San Antonio, Texas, has had to take about 2,200, while about 1,200 were dropped off in Phoenix, Arizona, and 800 in San Diego, California.
*Why Your Doctor’s White Coat Can Be a Threat to Your Health:
A recent study of patients at 10 academic hospitals in the United States found that just over half care about what their doctors wear, most of them preferring the traditional white coat. Some doctors prefer the white coat, too, viewing it as a defining symbol of the profession. What many might not realize, though, is that health care workers’ attire — including that seemingly “clean” white coat that many prefer — can harbor dangerous bacteria and pathogens.
A systematic review of studies found that white coats are frequently contaminated with strains of harmful and sometimes drug-resistant bacteria associated with hospital-acquired infections. As many as 16 percent of white coats tested positive for MRSA, and up to 42 percent for the bacterial class Gram-negative rods. Both types of bacteria can cause serious problems, including skin and bloodstream infections, sepsis and pneumonia.
It isn’t just white coats that can be problematic. The review also found that stethoscopes, phones and tablets can be contaminated with harmful bacteria. One study of orthopedic surgeons showed a 45 percent match between the species of bacteria found on their ties and in the wounds of patients they had treated. Nurses’ uniforms have also been found to be contaminated.
Among possible remedies, antimicrobial textiles can help reduce the presence of certain kinds of bacteria, according to a randomized study. Daily laundering of health care workers’ attire can help somewhat, though studies show that bacteria can contaminate them within hours.
*Report: Ben Carson’s HUD Proposing Rule to Oust Illegal Aliens from Public Housing:
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), led by Secretary Ben Carson, is reportedly drafting a rule to force illegal aliens from living in taxpayer-subsidized public housing. Currently, Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act allows illegal aliens to reside in public housing if they are living with relatives who are eligible – a situation the new HUD proposal seeks to rectify. “HUD intends to roll out a proposal over the next few weeks that prohibits any illegal immigrant from residing in subsidized housing, even if they are not the direct recipient of the benefit. HUD currently estimates that tens of thousands of HUD-assisted households are headed by non-citizens.” Many American citizens need access to the housing, HUD said in a statement to The Daily Caller. What’s more, the new rule is intended to send a message to illegal aliens, HUD says: “As illegal aliens attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.”
*13,837,000 Government Employees Voted in 2018 Midterms; Led All
Classes of Workers With 67% Turnout:
There were 13,837,000 government employees who voted in the 2018 midterm elections, according to data released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau from the Voting and Registration Supplement to its Current Population Survey. With a turnout rate of 67.0 percent, according to Table 6 in the data, government employees beat the national turnout rate (53.4 percent) by 13.6 points.
Government employees also proved more likely to vote than self-employed individuals (58.8 percent); employees in private industry (51.8 percent); and unemployed people (44.3 percent). Government employees were also more likely to have voted in the 2018 midterms than people who were not in the labor force (52.2 percent), meaning they did not have a job and were not actively seeking one. According to the Census Bureau data, 122,281,000 U.S. citizens reported voting in the 2018 midterm elections. That equaled 53.4 percent of the voting-age citizen population of 228,832,000.
Despite having a significantly higher turnout rate than employees in private industry (67.0 percent to 51.8 percent), the 13,837,000 government workers who voted in 2018 was still far fewer than the 58,342,000 private-industry employees who voted. For each government worker who voted, there were approximately 4.2 workers in private industry who also voted.
*Beto O’Rourke: Strict Immigration Laws Are Basically The Same
As Slavery:
Beto O’Rourke started strong in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, commanding a larger fundraising total in his first 24 hours than progressive favorite Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). But in recent weeks, O’Rourke has started to drift left as his base of support moves over to South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. This weekend, O’Rourke drifted even further left on immigration, declaring that immigration laws preventing free movement across the border into the United States were basically a modern form of slavery, reports The Washington Free Beacon.
O’Rourke was headlining the Center for American Progress’presidential candidate forum in Las Vegas, Nevada, playing to a large group of mostly far-left Democrats. Asked about immigration, O’Rourke volunteered that he believes illegal immigrants are subject to “bondage.” “[With] Immigration, millions [are] living in the shadows, working some of the toughest jobs, lucky to make a minimum wage. Some not even making that,” O’Rourke said. “Kept in modern-day bondage, their immigration status used as leverage to keep them down from fully participating in this country’s success.”
The “economy that works too well for the few, but not enough for most Americans,” he concluded. O’Rourke doesn’t have a solution, however. The closest he’s come to a true policy on immigration was earlier in 2019, when he told an MSNBCanchor that he would consider not just stopping construction and maintenance on the existing border wall, but also that he would work to rip down the existing sections of the border wall, opening cities like his hometown of of El Paso, Texas, as pass-throughs for border jumpers.
In January, he was even less settled. “That’s a problem when you’re like, ‘It will be a wall,’ or ‘It will be this,’ or ‘We can only do it with this,’” O’Rourke said during a speaking event at the border. “The genius is we can nonviolently resolve our differences, though I won’t get to my version of perfect or I, working with you, will get to something better than what we have today… It’s rare that someone’s ever been able to impose their will unilaterally in this country. We don’t want that.”
In March, O’Rourke came out strongly against Trump administration border policy, comparing the Trump White House to the Third Reich, and President Donald Trump to the Nazis over a comment Trump made in 2018 about MS-13 gang members, whom he called “animals:” “Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect that in the United States of America,” said O’Rourke.
*DEFY GRAVITY–READ LBN EXAMINER:
Now you can invite your friends, family, and associates (if they’ve got the guts) by telling them to go to www.LBNExaminer.com.
*EXAMINER–A LOOK BACK:
Bill Gates in shown here demonstrating how much data could be stored in a single CD-ROM. In 1994, this technology was pretty mind-blowing.
*EXAMINER–VIDEO LINK:
Welcome to Episode # 2 of the revealing TV show “Without Notes” with Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, curator of the Holocaust Museum in Israel – Episode 2: The Art of the Holocaust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22kagOZxQ4o
*EXAMINER–SPOTLIGHT:
Jeff Maxwell and Ryan Patrick cut deep into the bowels of the iconic CBS Mega-hit, M*A*S*H. Nine years in the role of Private Igor, the beleaguered cook at the 4077, Maxwell provides behind-the-scenes tidbits as only a cast member can. Patrick, an Illinois radio personality and marketing genius, offers the squishy, emotional component available only from a life-long, devoted fan. Along with the hosts’ perspectives, M*A*S*H writers, producers, cast members, and even listeners drop in as featured guests to share their unique experiences and opinions.
Enlist today and explore with Jeff and Ryan why M*A*S*H did, does, and continues to matter in 2019. That’s an order!
What do I recommend?? Everything! MASH brings me back to being a kid enjoying time with my dad. Thank you Jeff and Ryan. What a team!! —Kevin Repeck
Love your podcast! —Christina Suppus from Germany.
Loving the podcast. Especially the one where they read my post and said my name. —Butch Newton
Wonderful podcast that gives new and interesting information on our favorite show. Thank you for getting this started. —Ed Fred
To be able to hear Jeff Maxwell (Igor) after all these years is special. Thank you so much for doing this for Us the Fans. —Grant Bingham
*EXAMINER–SPOTLIGHT:
Nicole Brandon, CEO of Artistry in Motion, Produces “Mental Prison,” a New and Exciting TV Pilot
Nicole Brandon, CEO and Founder of Artistry in Motion, has been asked to produce a new and exciting TV pilot called “Mental Prison.” Created in conjunction with the Amity Foundation, the show is a remarkable program and window into a new realm of consciousness. Through sound (singing) meditation, the prisoners change their focus to inner peace and caring for the world.
“In California 80% of parolees return to jail,” explains Nicole Brandon, “at Amistad de Los Angeles – Amity Foundation, with our meditation program, 80% of parolees never return to jail.”
The show will feature Deepak Chopra in a starring role, and Nicole Brandon will serve as the on-air host in the pilot, interviewing the prisoners/parolees and the heads of the Amity Foundation. The featured artist and creator of the show is Michel Pascal, an inspiring musician, composer, filmmaker, writer and meditation teacher whose programs are in Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
*WHO READS LBN EXAMINER?:
Actress – comedian Jane Curtin along with 12 members of theWhite House staff, 3 Nobel Prize winners, over 100 Academy Award winners, 6 U.S. Senators, and over 300 Grammy Award winners.
*EXAMINER–A DIFFERENT VIEW:….
