True Tax Reform considers a living wage nationally.

In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally given the local cost of living.

Recently, in many communities, community organizers and citizens have successfully argued that the prevailing wage offered by the public sector and key businesses should reflect a wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living.

Who Uses the Living Wage Tool and Why?

Living Wage Rate Tied to the Cost of Housing and Child Care.

Results from the 2016 Data Update.

The living wage in the United States in 2016 is $15.84 per hour according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, before taxes for a family of four (two working adults, two children) or, $65,894 a year before taxes.

07/09/2017 AHCA and BCRA are bad deals for citizens.

Here is a summary of major provisions of the House bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA):

• To help people buy insurance, if they do not have coverage at work or under a government program like Medicare or Medicaid, or through the Department of Veterans Affairs, the bill would offer $2,000 to $4,000 a year in tax credits, depending mainly on age. A family could receive up to $14,000 a year in credits. The credits would be reduced for individuals making over $75,000 a year and families making over $150,000.

• Under current rules, insurers cannot charge older adults more than three times what they charge young adults for the same coverage. The House bill would allow them to charge five times as much. The Congressional Budget Office said this change would reduce premiums for young adults and increase premiums for older Americans.

• The bill would end Medicaid as an open-ended entitlement to health care and would put the program on a budget. States would receive an allotment of federal money for each beneficiary, or, as an alternative, they could take the money in a lump sum as a block grant, with fewer federal requirements. Medicaid cuts would total $880 billion over 10 years.

• The bill encourages people to maintain “continuous coverage” by requiring insurers to impose a 30 percent surcharge on premiums for those who experience a gap in coverage.

• Under the bill, states could opt out of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including one that requires insurers to provide a minimum set of health benefits, such as maternity care and emergency services, and another that prohibits them from charging higher premiums based on a person’s health status. Insurers would not be allowed to charge higher premiums to sick people unless a state had an alternative mechanism, like a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program, to help provide coverage for people with serious illnesses.

• The bill would provide states with $138 billion over 10 years that could be used for various purposes like subsidizing premiums, providing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and paying for mental health care and the treatment of drug addiction.

Key provisions of the Republican Senate Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) take effect over several years and include:

• Eliminate employer and individual mandates and related penalties, substituting a one-time premium increase of 30% for persons that were without coverage previously for a specified time period (63 days).

• States would be allowed more flexibility in establishing essential health benefits (i.e., insurance policy content).

• Change tax credit/subsidy formulas used to help pay for insurance premiums (initially age-based, later modified to income-based) and eliminate a "cost-sharing subsidy" that reduced out-of-pocket costs.

• Provide funding to health insurers to stabilize premiums and promote marketplace participation, via a "Long-Term State Stability and Innovation Program" with features analogous to a high-risk pool.

• Reduce income ceiling used for Medicaid eligibility and substitute a tax credit for those below 100% of the poverty line.

• Reduce Medicaid payments relative to current law, by capping the growth in per-enrollee payments for non-disabled children and non-disabled adults, by using a lower inflation index.

• Repeal taxes on high-income earners established under ACA/Obamacare, repeal the annual fee on health insurance providers, and delay the excise tax on high premium health plans (the so-called "Cadillac tax").

• Allow insurers to charge premiums up to five times as much to older people vs. young people, instead of three times, unless the state sets a different limit.

• Remove federal cap on the share of premiums that may go to insurers' administrative costs and profits (the "minimum medical loss ratio").

07/05/2017 Government is Out of Control

When was the Declaration of Independence written and approved?

In fact, independence was formally declared on July 2, 1776, a date that John Adams believed would be “the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” On July 4, 1776, Congress approved the final text of the Declaration. It wasn't signed until August 2, 1776.

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of ...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent ...

What is meant by the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence?

The pursuit of happiness is defined as a fundamental right mentioned in the Declaration of Independence to freely pursue joy and live life in a way that makes you happy, as long as you don't do anything illegal or violate the rights of others.

After 18 months of not posting to this blog I felt it time to do so; so that certain people understand that it is real and that it also applies today!

2016/01/16 Getting real about Social Security and Medicare!

US Household Income. According to the Census ACS (American Community Survey), the median (midpoint of a frequency distribution of observed values) household income for the United States was $55,775 in 2015, the latest data available. 2016 Census ACS data (including 2016 national household income numbers) will be released in September of 2017.

The average Social Security benefit was $1,360.00 per month.

The maximum possible benefit for a worker retiring at age 66 is $2,366. But to get this amount, the worker would need to earn the maximum taxable amount, currently $106,800, each year after age 21.

Number of people receiving Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or both, November 2016 (in thousands).

Type of beneficiary	Total	Social Security only	SSI only		Both Social Security and SSI
All beneficiaries	65,990	57,700		5,538	2,752
Aged 65 or older	45,323	43,125		975	1,223
Disabled, under age 65 a	14,065	7,973		4,563	1,529

Your Annual Income		2016 Premium Amount
Individual Tax Return	Joint Tax Return	You Pay
$85,000 or less	$170,000 or less	$121.80
$85,001 up to $107,000	$170,001 up to $214,000	$170.50
$107,001 up to $160,000	$214,001 up to $320,000	$243.60

Just over a third (34 percent) of retirees age 65 and older got 90 percent or more of their retirement income from Social Security. The majority of retirees age 65 and older (64 percent) get at least half of their retirement income in the form of a Social Security payment.

Medicare does kick in once you are 65, but there are costs for that coverage, too. And many retirees choose to buy so-called Medigap policies that provide coverage above and beyond what is offered through Medicare, or Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage.

2016 Medicare Part B premiums based on income.

Fidelity Investments, which has been tracking retiree health care costs for more than a decade, estimates that a 65-year-old couple retiring this year will need $240,000 to cover future medical costs. The average monthly health care expense for a couple at 65 is $583.

Average retired Social Security beneficiary to get measly $5 raise in 2017.

The high costs of the retirement Dream.

So this means that with couple earning an median Social Security of $1,360 per person they have a disposable income of $32, 640 of total household income.

The cost for a couple to live is $40,938; which means on person of the couple must work 22 hours a week at $7.25 to make up the $8,298 shortfall.

If Medicare is turned into a voucher system the second member of the retired couple must work 22 hours a week at $7.25 an hour to pay for health insurance.

So much for retirement for the average couple in the United States of America according to Republican plans for Social Security and Medicare.

01/02/2017 No Federal Funding of Road Tollways for Interstates, Bridges, Etc.

You're driving along an Interstate, perhaps I-95, minding your own business when suddenly, up ahead, there's a toll booth! 

And another one after that. And still more toll booths. Does the Federal Government know about this, you wonder?

Is the State trying to balance its budget by "taxing" out-of-State motorists?

Didn't you already pay for this road with your gas tax?

And so, you go home and write a letter to the President asking how in the world these States can be charging you for use of an Interstate highway that you already paid for.

In the 1939 report to Congress, Toll Roads and Free Roads, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) rejected the toll option for financing Interstate construction because most Interstate corridors would not generate enough toll revenue to retire the bonds that would be issued to finance them. In part, the report attributed this conclusion to "the traffic-repelling tendency of the proposed toll-road system." Although some corridors had enough traffic to support bond financing, the report predicted that motorists would stay on the parallel toll-free roads to a large extent.

After extensive debate, Congress decided in 1956 to authorize the BPR to incorporate toll facilities in the Interstate System to ensure connectivity without added expense. Section 113(a) of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 stated:

Upon a finding by the Secretary of Commerce that such action will promote the development of an integrated Interstate System, the Secretary is authorized to approve as part of the Interstate System any toll road, bridge, or tunnel, now or hereafter constructed, which meets the standards adopted for the improvement of projects located on the Interstate System, whenever such toll road, bridge, or tunnel is located on a route heretofore or hereafter designated as a part of the Interstate System: 

Provided, That no Federal-aid highway funds shall be expended for the construction, reconstruction, or improvement of any such toll road except to the extent hereafter permitted by law: 

Provided further, That no Federal-aid highway funds shall be expended for the construction, reconstruction, or improvement of any such toll bridge or tunnel except to the extent now or hereafter permitted by law.

On August 21, 1957, the BPR announced that it had added 2,100 miles of toll roads in 15 States to the Interstate System. The inclusions had been recommended by the State highway departments and approved by the BPR. The additions included 1,837 miles in operation. A BPR press release explained:

Inclusion of the 2,102 miles of toll roads in the Interstate System will not affect their status as toll roads. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 permits this, although no Federal-aid funds may be used for their improvement.

There is a glaring error in Interstate Highway, etc. funding. It needs to be added that if a state wants a toll road it must be constructed totally, from its beginning, without federal funds compromised. In simpler words, it means existing roads constructed with federal funds cannot be converted to toll roads.