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Taxes imposed on working Americans to finance Medicare
for seniors
Medicare financed by payroll taxes is imposed
on working Americans
by the Federal Insurance
Contributions Act (FICA) and the Self-Employment Contributions Act of 1954. In
the case of employees, the tax is equal to 2.9% (1.45% withheld from the worker
and a matching 1.45% paid by the employer) of the wages, salaries and other
compensation in connection with employment. Until December 31, 1993, the law
provided a maximum amount of wages, etc., on which the Medicare tax could be
imposed each year. Beginning January 1, 1994, the compensation limit was
removed. In the case of self-employed individuals, the entire 2.9% tax of self
employed net earnings must be paid by the self-employed individual, however half
of the tax can be deducted from the income calculated for income tax purposes. |
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Act
Arizona Political Action Committee
The website
is under
construction.
This
article
being drafted.
PHOENIX (By
Jon
Garrido, The Jon Garrido News Network)
November 16, 2009 — The Act Arizona Political Action
Committee is being established to take back Arizona from present conservative
Republican ideologues now serving in the Arizona State Legislature representing
hundreds of thousands conservative Republican senior voters who
migrated to Arizona primarily from the upper mid west states of Nebraska, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio,
Indiana.
The
demise of services and programs for poor and moderate income persons began with
the migration of conservative Republicans from the mid West retiring to Arizona
answering the beckoning and call of Del Webb,
an American construction magnate and real estate developer who is significant
for developing the retirement community of Sun City, Arizona.
Webb was born in Fresno,
California and dropped out of high school to become a carpenter's apprentice. At
the age of 28, he suffered typhoid fever, and as a result moved to Phoenix,
Arizona to recover. In 1928, he began his namesake company which was a
construction contractor. He received many military contracts during World War
II, including the construction of the Poston War Relocation Center near Parker,
Arizona. Poston interned over 17,000 Japanese Americans and at the time was the
third largest "city" in Arizona.
In 1948 in Tucson, Arizona, Webb was contracted to build 600 houses and a
shopping center called Pueblo Gardens. This was a prelude to Sun City, Arizona,
which was launched January 1, 1960 with five models, a shopping center,
recreation center and golf course. The opening weekend drew 100,000 people, ten
times more than expected, and resulted in a Time Magazine cover story.
This significant infusion of conservative Republicans retirees into Arizona
beginning on January 1, 1960 changed the Arizona landscape.
The characteristics of
conservative Republican retirees constituting a massive undifferentiated and
often rigid monolithic society exhibiting and characterized by a rigidly fixed
uniformity monolithic party unity of
conservative Republican values.
Sun City retirees
are parasites that have invaded a host feeding off Arizona but are adamant about not paying for Arizona's programs and
services they do not receive.
The classic
example of this is the Dysart Unified
School District. The
District unfortunately includes Sun City. The District also includes a large portion of low
and moderate income families with children. For the past 20 years, the Dysart Unified
School District tried
to upgrade its facilities to meet the ever increasing needs of student
enrollment and to meet the necessary standards of annual maintenance. Six
school bond issues have been tried and failed as a result of Sun City residents
voting "no" to fund school facilities maintenance and expansion.
When Sun City
voters were asked why they did not support school bonds for maintenance and
expansion, Sun City voters were unanimous in voting disapproval because Sun City
voters stated they had already paid for their children's education "back home"
and they do not believe it is fair to have to pay for someone else's kids
education.
For the record, I
too am a senior but I a 5th generation Arizonan with compassion and empathy for low and moderate income
persons living in Arizona who suffer the daily lack of services and programs
that should be available in Arizona but are not because of the insistence of
Sun City retirees they have already paid their dues back in their home
states educating and raising their children and is the cause of Sun City
retirees being steadfast in their
opposition to spending their retirement income on meeting the needs of Arizona low
and moderate income families.
Yet, Sun City
seniors do not live in a cocoon. Sun City residents live in a symbiotic
relationship with other citizens of Arizona. Sun City seniors drive Arizona's
roads and highways, shop in Arizona's cities and towns, fly in and out of Sky Harbor
Airport,
receive medical care at hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices located outside
of Sun City in cities and towns whose infrastructures have been paid by levies by cities and
towns on poor and moderate income persons of those cities and towns.
And most of all
—
Sun City retirees
are the recipients of
Medicare and Social Security paid for by taxing all pre-retiree Americans which
include Arizona's poor and moderate income persons.
But when it comes to paying for
Arizona programs and services, Sun City retirees are adamant about not
paying for education and medical programs and services for Arizona's low and
moderate citizens.
To mandate safeguarding keeping
Arizona's taxes at below minimum service levels results in Arizona being at the
bottom of programs and services in all categories when compared to all other
states.
The conservative Republican
Arizona State legislators are at the beck and call of the Sun City mindset making state legislators
entirely subservient to Sun City retirees.
This selfishness specifically
diminishes Arizona's programs for low and moderate income citizens but also is
evident at the national level.
A heated debate is dividing
generations in AARP, the huge organization for older Americans, which has
often found itself forced to referee a battle between generations.
Its 40 million members are split
about evenly between those who have access to Medicare, the federal
government’s health program for the elderly, and those who are too young to
be eligible for such benefits. The younger members, or those between the
ages of 50 and 64, sometimes face terrible choices in the private insurance
market, with age and declining health status making premiums high and
benefits poor.
But members 65 and older get
among the most secure medical benefits in the country, and many are in no
mood to share.
On Tuesday, Karen Rasmussen, 58, told a gathering of 38 AARP
members who were just tucking into a dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes
that she and her husband, who has cancer, were being crushed by medical
debts.
“We’re hoping the government
can do something because this is just breaking our backs,” Ms. Rasmussen
said.
But Don Nichols, who is 85 and
has had Medicare benefits for 20 years, responded that those who complain
about insurance premiums have only themselves to blame.
“If they quit their smoking
and drinking, they would be able to afford it,” Mr. Nichols responded out
loud.
Mr. Nichols’s own daughter,
Donna Green, said she had a bare-bones insurance policy she had to
renew every six months after her husband, Jeff Green, was laid off as a boat
designer. At 55, Mrs. Green must wait 10 years before being eligible for
Medicare, and she is worried, she said.
For AARP, the nation’s largest
advocacy organization, this divide mirrors a larger generational debate.
Proposals on Capitol Hill to expand health care coverage largely rest on
forcing younger and healthier people to get insurance, expanding the money
available to subsidize care for the elderly. But the proposals also count on
about $400 billion in savings over 10 years in the Medicare program. In
effect, the young and the old are being asked to sacrifice for the
middle-aged.
David Certner, director of
legislative policy for AARP, said one out of every four 60-year-olds in the
country could not get health insurance.
“I can’t tell you how many
people in that age category tell me, ‘I’m just praying that I don’t get sick
until I get Medicare,’ ” Mr. Certner said.
But sacrifice can be a tough
sell, no matter the age. AARP’s advocacy director in Wisconsin, asked how many would be
willing “to pay a bit more to cover everyone in this country with decent
health care.”
About a third of those present
raised their hands, split evenly among those over and under the age of 65.
Priscilla Brockett, 59, said
everyone in the country already had access to good care. “They just present
themselves to the emergency room,” Ms. Brockett said.
But Judy Treptow, 63, said she
had been retired for about a year and had been paying exorbitant health
insurance premiums for a policy that pays for few preventive services. Her
husband, she said, gets Medicare.
And Fred Born, who at 65 only
recently became eligible for Medicare, said, “It’s a shame when people lose
their homes because of health care costs.”
If you want to Turn Arizona Blue,
follow us:
http://twitter.com/JonGarrido
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