If you liked the government’s “free cell phones for the poor scam,” you’re going to love the new “free high-speed internet access for the poor” program. Or as we like to call it, the precursor to free internet radio, free internet TV, and free internet movies for all.

Unfortunately, that free internet service isn’t coming from companies like NetZero.com or Google TiSP. It’s coming from the government. Which means you, the American taxpayer, will be paying for someone else’s free internet.

Arstechnica.com tells the tale of our new free broadband Big Brother:

Former FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate is back with a vague plan to get Big Government away from “dictating what Americans ‘should’ get or what is ‘best for them’” when it comes to broadband. Forget setting mediocre targets, like the “4Mbps for all Americans by 2010″ goal of the National Broadband Plan. Instead, just give people vouchers for really crappy broadband service and the problem will take care of itself.”

Tate actually thinks it’s good sales technique to describe the program as food stamps for broadband or “broadband stamps.” Great.

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Great. first step in being able to control the internet is to take over the ISPs. Bill of Rights. The Constitution. What an inconvenient document.

Welfare: Because everyone has the right to what you worked hard for.

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Vice President Joe Biden defended Rep. John Spratt’s (D-S.C.) handling of the budget process at a fundraising event.
During his speech, Biden instead noted Spratt’s role in the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997 and blamed the Bush administration for unraveling his good work.

Biden said it’s “understandable” that many Americans are angry about the nation’s economic situation. But when voters start paying attention to what the GOP alternative is, Democratic prospects will improve.

“They don’t want to think about anything other than what’s made them mad,” Biden said. “Come September … they’re going to have to look at the alternatives and not just be generically angry.”

Biden then noted his motorcade passed a Tea Party protest en route to the event.

“Today’s Republican Party is not your father’s Republican Party. It’s the party of the Tea Party, some of whom I passed outside,” he said. “I’m not questioning their integrity. I’m questioning their judgment.”
-TheHill.com

I believe the Congressional approval rate of 11% is the lowest since at least 1973. This was supposed to be an administration of bi-partisan legislation. But, it has been nothing but the contrary.

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Those already outraged by the president’s health care legislation now have a new bone of contention — a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change.

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While Liberals cheered and applaued the passage of ObamaCare, those who actually read the bill quivered in fear of what was soon to fall upon us.

People don’t realize that the provisions in the bill, now law, are set to ignite on us in stages. Stage 1 was the billions of
dollars it cost corporations to be in compliance. Stage 2 is the IRS as Enforcer. And let me tell you right now, folks, it’s gonna be painful.

“National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency’s new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already “greatly taxed”–pun intended?–”by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public,” like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.” And without “sufficient funding” it won’t be able to discharge these new duties.

Ms. Olson also exposed a damaging provision that she estimates will hit some 30 million sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations, two million farms and one million charities and other tax-exempt organizations. Prior to ObamaCare, businesses only had to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase. But starting in 2013 they will also have to report the value of goods they buy from a single vendor that total more than $600 annually; including office supplies and the like.”

WSJ

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Mention the new “tan tax” in a major news outlet and cries of discrimination and reverse racism often follow.

The complaint surfaced on reader comment boards to blogs and news Web sites back in December, when it became clear that the levy — a 10 percent surcharge on the use of ultraviolet tanning beds — was likely to be included in the new health-care overhaul bill. Since then, it’s been repeated by conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Doc Thompson, a fill-in host for Glenn Beck who intoned in March, “I now know the pain of racism.”

When an article about the fallout from the tax — which took effect last week — appeared on the Washington Post’s Web site Wednesday, dozens of commenters questioned the tax’s legality.

The case can seem deceptively simple: Since patrons of tanning salons are almost exclusively white, the tax will be almost entirely paid by white people and, therefore, violates their constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

Report from Washington Post

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