I live up Interstate 195 from Rhode Island. It's a cute little state with a really cool seaside town called Newport.

It has lots of fancy stores, restaurants, mansions, and even John Kerry's new mega-yacht (to avoid paying $500,000 taxes in Massachusetts).

I have been keeping an eye on the emerging fiscal mess in Rhode Island since the democrats took over Congress in 2007 and the house of cards came tumbling down.

There was one town that fired all it's school teachers and in Providence, I heard that 100% of all of the Real Estate taxes collected were being sucked up to pay public union worker pensions.

Quite frankly, I never understood why Rhode Island would have so many problems. They do have a lot of wealthy residents, low crime, no urban rot or massive illegal alien problems. They have high taxes, but typically liberals love paying high taxes, so that shouldn't be a big problem.

Wrong!

As I have been reporting for some time, there is a very short leash between organized crime and big labor. In Rhode Island, there is also a very short leash between the democrat party, the mafia, and the public sector labor unions that fund their political campaigns.

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After weeks of wrangling with the Republicans over the debt ceiling, Vice President Joe Biden accused members of the Tea Party of having "acted like terrorists."

The comments came in a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting after Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) reportedly said that "We have negotiated with terrorists. This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

The New York Daily News
August 1, 2011

Somewhere in Chicago Rahm Emanuel must be smiling as yet another made-for-TV national crisis has been averted through bold political leadership (sarcasm intentional).

Now comes the “Pundit Free-for-all” as the so-called experts in the media debate their favorite subject “who won?”

First of all, if you have a hard core lefty like Mike Doyle saying “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money," it’s hard to call that a victory for tax and spend democrats who truly believe that the job of congress is to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need.

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"The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a different approach -- a cuts-only approach -– an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all.

And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scale, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about"

Barack Obama
July 25, 2011

Last night Obama came on TV and begged for action to resolve the impending credit downgrade of US Credit. That speech and all it's partisan rhetoric is as close as the man came to offering a plan.

In fact the only plan he has ever put in writing was a 10 year budget last spring that received zero votes in Harry's Reid's democrat senate. 

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“We’re at a point that the odds of having a downgrade make it pretty much inevitable. I see a downgrade as being inevitable."

Peter Cohan
July 25, 2011
Peter S. Cohan and Associates

Last night our beleaguered president foisted his way on to prime time TV and lied to the American people once again about the inevitable debt crisis -- that he created.

According to Obama, the downgrade of US debt can be avoided if the Congressional Tea Party Representatives simply ignore the will of the people who elected them and agree to raise taxes on job creators and believe his promise to make cuts he has never defined.

The Truth Hurts

With a few days left before the inevitable downgrade, it's worth taking a minute to review the key facts:

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I have to hand it to Obama, he is the king of clever lines -- "Eat Our Peas." In three little words, he has reduced the incredibly brave arguments of John Boehner and all of the fiscal conservatives who are risking their political lives to save the United States to that of a impudent child who refuses to clean his plate -- how regal?

Meanwhile, Obama and his senate cronies keep pushing a budgetary menu that's about as healthy as Chicken Fried Steak, Home Fries, and an Ice Cream Sundae.

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As the once great Grecian Empire averts one more economic meltdown, there are a number of very valuable lessons that might prevent the United States from suffering the same fate.

1. The  “Socialist Democrat” economic model is a Ponzi Scheme that will ultimately collapse just like Greece has: It’s simply not possible to sustain an economy where one third of the population works for the government, the majority of workers belong to a labor union, and everyone receives generous entitlements that far exceed what they pay in taxes.

Although the US has been trending in this direction for decades, it is a matter of fact that since Obama became president we’ve moved toward Greece at hyper speed; consider these doomsday statistics:

• In 2010, 46.4% of American paid no income tax.
• America's wealthiest 25 percent pay 86 percent of total income taxes.
• The wealthiest 5 percent pay 60 percent of total income taxes.
• The amount of unfunded entitlements owed by the U.S. government has reached a record $61.6 trillion, which comes out to $534,000 per U.S. household
• In just the last ten years, the American Public’s dependence on money from the Government has grown a staggering 49%!
  (source: politifact.com)

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"Why can't we just give the employee a chair rather than filing a lawsuit, battling bad lawsuits loses good jobs."

Tom Scott,
California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

One of the left's favorite boogie men are the Big Box Chain Stores like Walmart. Even though they provide low income citizens with good low cost products, employee millions of Americans, pay well including healthcare benefits.

Unlike Obama's favorite multinational -- GE, which pays zero federal income taxes, Walmart paid over 32% of their income in taxes; in fact they paid over $7 billion last year!

According to the Seattle Times:

Nearly every national chain is under legal attack in California for failing to provide "suitable seating" for cashiers and other employees who are expected to spend most of their work day on their feet.

Enterprising trial attorneys by the dozen are using an obscure California labor law requiring retailers such as such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target to have enough seats on hand for their workers.

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Every year another 4.2 million babies are born in this country. Some come from well-to-do families, but many more come from homes struggling to get by, babies who would never get a decent education if their families had to pay for it themselves.

One of the greatest things about America is that each of these babies is born with an incredible "grant" just for being born in this country; everyone of these babies gets 13 years of public education for free.

A $136,487 Gift

According to the US Census Bureau, America spends $10,499/student/year. That means that a K-12 education is worth $136,487 over the lifetime of each of these babies and given our highly progressive tax scheme, more of these baby's families get this for free than pay for it in taxes.

The next time you see school teachers rioting in the public square about education funding -- keep this in mind.

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This morning I was telling a friend of mine my latest idea to save America --  it's actually quite simple.

Anyone who receives more money or benefits from the government, than they pay in taxes, should not be allowed to vote.

Think about it, isn't it a conflict of interest for government workers to elect their boss; the one who will be setting their wages and benefits?

What about the 51% of Americans who don't pay income taxes and/or receive more from the government than they pay in taxes? When you have democrats running on a single message "vote for me and I'll give you more free stuff", isn't a vote by a recipient (dependent) of those government hand-outs a clear conflict of interest?

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I write "Who Stole My Career?" to educate and entertain (sure I make a few bucks when you click on one of these ads, but trust me, it's peanuts).

One of the greatest rewards to doing this comes when one of my stories strikes a chord with a reader who turns around and sends me another story that's even more outrageous than the original.

Earlier this year, a reader in Massachusetts sent me a story about Massachusetts Tollbooth operators who were making over $100,000/year and retiring early. It inspired my story -- "The Wealth of Toll Takers in Massachusetts".

Then a few weeks ago, I did a story about outrageous government worker pension abuse titled "The Curious Case of Peter Nowicki", about the Orinda California fire chief who had gamed the retirement system for millions. Although to me, the most outrageous part of the story was the fact that 29% of all state workers are doing the same thing and the abuse is costing the good people of California billions every year.

Little did I know that this story would result in a reader sending me an even more outrageous story coming out of California; one that involved government employed lifeguards.

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