The Federal, State and local government leeches are in desperate need of more blood to fund their bloated bureaucracies, gold plated pensions, vote bribing entitlement schemes, and overall crony machinery. The State of PA is effectively insolvent if they used GAAP accounting . So is virtually every state and municipality in the country. The PA government pension liability alone will drive the state into bankruptcy. Rather than address the real problem with honesty and courage, the weasel politicians and bureaucrats solution is to defer, delay, tax and pretend. The weasels increase the gas tax, tolls, fees, and anything else they control to pay for their incompetence.
Earlier in the week, I heard another story about PA expanding gambling to fill their gaping budget hole. The Phila Inquirer described the situation:
As budget discussions unfold over the next few months, it is widely expected that the GOP-controlled House and Senate, along with the Corbett administration, will seriously consider a proposal to expand lottery gambling and, possibly, one to legalize online gambling. Both measures could mean hundreds of millions in annual tax revenue at a time when the state is in the red. The administration says Pennsylvania could be facing at least a $1.2 billion budget gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
These bozos already have a $1.2 billion budget shortage, COMPLETELY due to the mandatory government pension payments required to fund the retirements of government drones who retire at 50 years old. Instead of addressing that issue, they milk the cows for more revenue. The morons think they can generate another $200 million from keno and on-line gambling. Of course, all the other states have the same plan. You can’t get blood from a stone. The real people living in real houses across the state are making less real money than they did in 1989. But the clowns in Harrisburg think they can extract another $200 million per year from these people. None of these lowlife politicians mention the FACT that it is mostly senior citizens, the poor and the ignorant who are lonely, bored, and stupid enough to gamble. PA is taxing the poor and stupid to fund their pensions.
And now they are coming for your Superbowl pool. The Pennsylvania State Police are out to get you.
Two government drone politicians crafted Act 92 to, among other things, allow nonprofit clubs to run pools, as long as it is structured so any wager is an entry fee, not a bet on a specific outcome, with the house taking the other side. Wagers are capped at $20. But State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said Act 92 specifically says it cannot conflict with federal law, and Noonan said placing any kind of wager on sports violates the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. State Police had its legal team review Act 92, and found the federal law doesn’t leave any wiggle room for Super Bowl or March Madness pools, Noonan said.
We are seeing the heavy hand of government getting heavier by the day. Every State and municipality will be growing increasingly desperate as their un-payable entitlement promises come due. Everyone is seeing gas taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, real estate taxes, car registration fees, sewer fees, water fees, utility fees, cell phone fees, cable fees, and tolls increased. Government is bleeding us to death. The time is coming when we say we’ve had enough.
Reduce your footprint. Drive less. Cancel services that are taxed. Work for cash under the table. Barter. Buy less stuff. Don’t ever participate in state sanctioned gambling. Starve the beast until it collapses.
There’s a bowl of supers going on somewhere? I haven’t been paying any attention to that shit for years. The only, ONLY redeeming quality I used to be able to extract from football was that for a few months out of the year, I’d get to spend an afternoon not at work, drunk to varying degrees, watching millionaire idiots going to work and beating the shit out of each other for a few hours. Now they don’t even let them do that anymore, so it’s really become just a bunch of egomaniacal imbecilic narcissists in tight pants grab-assing each other while wearing neon pink trim. And that is supposed to be the pinnacle of ‘Murikan manliness? I’ll just be at the range working on my 400-600y drills. Football is for nutless pussies and closet twinks.
Admin
PA population = 12,760,000
So $200m comes to a lousy $15.67 per person.
You have two boys right? So, your family would pay a measly $62.69 to help the great state of Pennsylvania.
Pay up you cheap bastard!!!
I posted this story last year.
“Maryland is actually implementing a “rain tax.” The “rain tax” will be levied on all homeowners that have a roof, patio or driveway. For some homeowners, the tax will reach $150 per year. Worse yet, there will be private businesses that will be forking over upwards of $5,000 a year to cover the cost of their parking lots. ”
http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/04/11742-what-else-is-left-for-the-government-to-tax-how-about-rain/
After reading this, I have just figured out my retirement plan.
1) Withdraw all money from my retirement accounts at 59 1/2, (having retired several years earlier to reduce my effective tax rate) and place all CASH in a secret place.
Leave mebbe $10,000 in the local non TBTF bank, live off my SS check, if I get one, as my only taxable income.
The rest of my money I will just use cash from my stash. Why keep my money in a bank where it is earning a pittance of interest, not keeping up with inflation and is totally at risk in to be Corzine’d?
2) Keep driving my well maintained but older cars. No new vehicles, insure for liability only. No toll roads.
3) Minutes only cell phone, no cable, no land line, use internet at the local library. By that time, can probably by a burn phone version of an internet access, I hope.
4) Cash only transactions, no credit cards.
5) Work under the table, grow most of my own food, get that goat operation going, more cows and chickens.
I have no sewage/water bill as it is, so my biggest expense will be property taxes. Hell with this plan, I might even qualify for the Earned Income Credit!!!!
Will have to give up the Beemer, sigh, but no pain, no gain.
11 of 50 states were technically bankrupt 3 years ago. I doubt they were magically able to get their books in order since that time. It’s only federal deficit/stimulus spending that has kept them going this long.
A $1.2B budget gap due solely to pension obligations? That’s going to get some politicians attention. I don’t know how State politics work in PA, hopefully it’s not as fucked up as NY and CA.
NC achilles heel of government largess is the State Health Plan, where until recently employees were fully vested in 5 years of service for zero premium health care at 65. AFAIC, health insurance should be self supporting. Insurance companies make money, they don’t lose it. But a very large and powerful SEANC lobby would rather the general fund make up any shortfalls.
The state of NC is the state’s largest employer in the Triangle area, and the state. Spending doubled in the years preceding the dot com bust, and drones are starting to retire en masse.
Thank God for a Republican Governor and Legislature which cut taxes and cut spending this year. In addition to starving the beast, individual states should distance themselves from the feds. Take their money while you can, but don’t become dependent on it.
Piss ant story, but true.
My golf club has a hole-in-one kitty. Every member who joins the kitty kicks in five bucks. Whoever gets the next hole-in-one receives $595 cash from the kitty. Then another five bucks is charged to your account, and the cycle repeats itself.
Why $595? Because a payout of $600 or more would require the club to file a 1099 with the IRS to notify them that YOU were the recipient of gambling earnings that crossed the $600 or more threshold. Ergo, YOU would have to declare this to the IRS as part of your income and pay taxes on it according to your tax bracket.
Llpoh
Can you please chime in on SSS breaking the law? He is a tax cheat, just like Calamity. We are a nation of laws. If we allow SSS to get away with this, what next?
@ Hope
Re your retirement plan strategy, you left off one important item …… cheat.
I am not shitting you one bit. Cheat. Fudge a little here, omit a little there. Voila!!!! You just nailed Sammy out of some of his ill-conceived and ill-deserved gains.
This requires one key ingredient, no, make that two. First, you know enough about the tax code to recognize the “soft spots.” This experience generally comes from number two, which is ……. you do your own taxes. I have NEVER paid a dime to anyone like that evil Admin, who has a CPA, to do my taxes. You just can’t trust people like Admin.
Not that I have ever done this, of course.
Hmmm, so where does my bud llpoh come down on SSS advocating cheating on taxes? llpoh beat up Miss Calamity pretty hard over fudging on taxes, IIRC. I, for one, have mixed feelings-gotta consider the motivation-well intentioned in this case. But I bet IRS would not concur.
@ Hope,
add to that
6) move to a foreign country that is safe and has a lower cost of living.
@SSS: Heh, love your golf pool. I predict there will be MORE of that as we go along. One of the contractors I am considering to repair my closet (water leak) is hinting how he would be happy to be paid in CASH at the end of the job.
As we all know, Father Al Gore also sold his tv company to Al Jazeera just in time to avoid the big income tax hike. So we are in good company.
Hit ’em long and hit ’em straight! My golf clubs have had dust on them for the last several years, sigh.