Aren't we all getting sick of seeing President Obama give campaign speeches all over the country at taxpayers' expense? The speech never changes in tone or content; it's class warfare against wealthy Americans that he accuses of not paying their fair share.
The top 1% of wage earners that Obama excoriates already pay 36.7% of income taxes, and the top 10 pay 71%. But that's not enough for the President. But has he ever mentioned that 47% of Americans don't pay any income taxes at all ? Has he ever asked these people to pay their fair share?
The President asked the Simpson/Bowles committee to come up with recommendations for reducing the debt. It did. But Obama ignored them, including sound recommendations for reforming entitlements. Has the President ever proposed a solution other than raising taxes on the rich?
The country is drowning in debt, yet we are on target to spend even more in 2012. In 2011 the House of Representatives submitted the Ryan Plan, a sound budget that addressed the problem of entitlements. But the Senate, led by Harry Reid, dismissed it out of hand. This is the same Senate that hasn't submitted a budget of its own in over two years.
We have to borrow 40 cents on every dollar to pay for entitlements, yet the Administration and Congress can't agree on any solutions. So nothing is being done as the country sinks deeper in debt every day.
If we can't agree on any reforms, couldn't we at least begin by eliminating the fraud? It is estimated that 20% of Medicare payments are fraudulent; up to a third of people on Medicaid shouldn't qualify; and thousands of people on disability aren't disabled at all.
The recent investigation of Long Island Railroad employees on disability revealed that fraudulent applications abetted by complicit doctors and lawyers could cost taxpayers up to a billion dollars a year. And that's just for Long Island Railroad workers.
The Department of Justice is now looking at law firms that specialize in helping people qualify for disability payments. One of them, Binder & Binder, has spent $20 million in advertising (you've seen the guy in the cowboy hat) and reaped a tidy profit of $88 million. How many thousands of successful applications do you think it took for the Binders to make that kind of money? And how many of them were fraudulent?
Americans are a generous and compassionate people. Nobody wants to deny a helping hand to the less fortunate. But if we don't stop fraud and abuse by cheats and unscrupulous doctors and lawyers, we'll never get out of the hole we have been digging for ourselves.
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