Re: The actual US deficit is .......... (into the trillions last year, entirely fatal, US GAO)


Serious stuff, see below....

On Tue, 25 Dec 2007, phil scott wrote:

On Dec 25, 6:57 pm, Old Pif <Old...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 23, 1:48 pm, phil scott <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



The $163 billion reported by Congress and the White House to the
newspapers and TV is *cash basis* accounting -- cash in, cash out.

Statistical observation: the more important topic, the more capital
letters in Phil's writings. In that one ALL sentences start from the
capital. Which means the problem is damn serious ...


There are a LOT of damn serious problems out there, and not that many people care, not that many people know, and out of the few solutions, they are all hard, controversial, and not guaranteed, and workable only on paper. More below....



yer next piff

No capitals?

On Dec 25, 6:51 pm, Igor The Terrible
<igor_the_terri...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Plan Would Let Seniors Work to Pay Taxes
Tuesday December 25, 1:38 pm ET
By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press Writer

NY Town Wants to Start Program to Let Senior Citizens Work Off
Property Taxes, for $7 an Hour

$7/hour? Whomever is getting the work is getting a ton of a better deal that the whomever would get the $7.

GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) -- Audrey Davison lives alone,

She might be a widow. Nobody around to help her if something bad happens like a fall onto the floor, or problems in the house. This is serious, too.

gets a $620
Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising
taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there
and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time,
for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

I wonder what kind of jobs they have in mind.

"People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with
less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town
Supervisor Paul Feiner.

He envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired
accountants helping with the town's finances, retired lawyers offering
their services for a discount. But there are plenty of less-skilled
jobs that need doing, he said.

"It's not like we're going to see grandma running the snowplow," he
said. "There are lots of things people can do for the town and it
wouldn't cost us that much to pay them."

The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in
Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner
property taxes.

What comes to my mind is the age old question: High property taxes mean that all that money ends up somewhere, and one of the things that comes to mind are highly paid govt workers with cushy jobs, high benefits, and who will get cushy pensions. Then we could think about what the taxpayers get in return and ask how they feel about what they get for what they pay.

The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York,
but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado,
Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to
get around on her bad days,

I know a lot of people now, who, in their older ages, are having a very difficult time in those ages. AND, these are all declining conditions (meaning: things only get worse, and never better).

said she pays about $12,000 a year in
property taxes -- perhaps $2,000 to the town -- and has already taken
out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.

Ahhhhh...yes...finance everything. Expand the debt, borrow, etc.

Talking to Feiner last week at the town senior center, she said, "I
would work as long as it was a job where I could sit."

"You could be a receptionist!" Feiner said. "You could greet people
right here, when they come in."

"That I would love," Davison said.

Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the
program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn't limited to menial
work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors
involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.

Yes, there is a problem when people don't know what to do with themselves, but I (we), here, don't have that problem.

Boulder County, Colo., pioneered a tax workoff program in 1986 for
residents over 60 and now has about 250 applicants for the fewer than
100 openings,

Ahhhh...yes...something I've been harping on for ages: the failure rate, or the attrition rate. N people need something, less than N people get it.

said spokeswoman Barbara Halpin. The work done by the
seniors includes landscaping, gathering climate data, clipping
newspapers and staffing the courthouse information booth.

"Taxes aren't that high out here, so even at $7 an hour people can
burn off their county taxes pretty quickly," Halpin said. She added
that many stay in the program as volunteers after paying off their
taxes.

In Concord, Mass., Maria Casey of the personnel department said about
10 seniors get $8.50 an hour to work at research, data entry and
groundskeeping. The program, started in 1999, "allows seniors to be
able to work and be involved in the community, and the town benefits
by their work," she said.

Feiner is suggesting creating about 25 slots for seniors and letting
them work off $500 or so a year. His proposal faces some obstacles. If
the wages earned are to be tax-free and directly credited to the
property tax bill, the state Legislature would have to approve. In
addition, unions would have to be convinced that the program is no
threat to their members' job security.

Something tells me, or sounds like to me, so far all we have is really nothing new here. For decades, employers have really been creating jobs, at the lowest pay possible, with low job security, and low or no benefits. The only thing "new" is that these "programs" would be meant for senior citizens (reverse age-discrimination?), only, and that they are trying to reduce the income taxes on this compensation.

Feiner is hoping for at least a pilot program next year.

Eventually, he said, he would like to see the county and the local
school districts adopt similar plans.

"If we got seniors working for the schools, there might be a more
intergenerational feeling there,"

Speculation?

he said. "It might be easier to pass
the school budgets."

Hmmmmm....makes me think of the local snot in my neighborhood: getting the underlings to give up some pay, shift the saved money so it ends up in the paychecks of the overlings.

Janet Goodman, a retired teacher and travel agent who was leading a
knitting class at a Greenburgh community center, said paying the bills
at her town house in Hartsdale, one of Greenburgh's seven villages, is
"a constant struggle." She said she would gladly take part in a tax
workoff program "as long as the work is interesting."

"You have to be creative," she said.

I'd like to see some more research on where the tax money ends up and what could be done to "redistribute" that. Here in my state, we have wonderfully low real estate taxes but there are reasons for that including that the state is business friendly, gambling is legal, and low taxes attracts business, etc.



this lady is billed 12,000 dollars a year in ppty taxes... at 7
dollars an hour thats 1800 hours a year, thats 35 hour weeks to pay
her property taxes. nearly a full time job.

Good thing if she has other resources to pay for all the other things they didn't talk about: medical bills, food, heat, electricity, junk, entertainment, house insurance, etc. I wonder what the size of her house was for that $12K.

Our property taxes here are $1K, house insurance $1K more. Sounds pretty good, but if you add up all our other living costs (try to get out of a grocery store these days without dropping a bundle, car insurance is also another $1K for us per year). My wife pays $3K/yr for medicines. All the other stuff adds up, too.

further, working
runs up the cost of living for a person, clothes, more food, car
expenses etc. and various taxes taken from the wage. so for this
lady under that plan she will work herself until she dies.... never in
fact owning her own home, it owns her...along with government that has
laid claim to her body and soul.


so what about the glorious govt.... well you see as it demands she
work until death to pay taxes....civil servants in many states retire
at well over 100,000 dollars a year... police and fire in calif and NY
retire at 140k a year in many cases (by means 'spiking' the last years
base income)

I'm not going to begrudge those who have nice, maybe too nice situations, but ask why so many are at the other end of the scale.


and who pays? well dang.... its us retired, who work ourselves do
death as most civil servants quaifify for full benefits (and 100
percent paid for health care btw) after 30 years.

I would vote for some kind of no frills universal health plan. Details later.


also....did you know for instance that in calif a police officer,
working or retired can bid on this ladys house if its in calif and she
fails to pay her taxes. the house is then sold to them at HALF the
next highest private bid?

Something this is the situation practically everywhere. The only way to get around this is with legal help where the house is put in a trust so that some non-profit owns it but she gets to use it rent/fee free till she croaks. Of course, if you don't pay big bucks to a govt, then you have to pay big bucks to the lawyer for doing a couple of hours of work instead of 35 hour weeks for all year.

fascinating isnt it.

There is a mouse in the house. However, did I ever explain to you the analogous "fascinating" situation with kings and peasants of days of old? You know, overling and his "court," living large at the top, and practically everyone else, being underlings at the bottom, groveling as usual? Oh, yes, they had some kind of "landlord" system way back, too, where another group of guys (not the king & court) got everyone else to pay them rent. I have a book on the Roman Empire, with writings from 300 AD; guess what? The people who had to pay rent didn't like their landlords, either. Rent was due even if the weather was bad and there was a crop failure. All the risk went in the direction opposite to the direction where all the money went.

I envy my birds and squirrels. They don't pay rent. I am happy for them. But, um, in the wintertime, food gets scarce and it gets cold outside. OK, I have a soft spot for them, and put out food for them.



Phil Scott

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