I have been reading some disturbing news items about our President and was wondering if Congress is looking into these possible issues.
One, he doesn’t know that he is supposed to “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. Would this not count as perjury when taking the oath of office and thus be an impeachable offense per “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”?
Two, he wants to reopen Alcatraz? Is this the action of a sane person? Also, his ongoing flip-flopping on tariffs; who gets them and how much they will be, seems to indicate mental instability. Congress should investigate.
Three, this whole $Trump meme coin business smacks of bribery (see above) and emoluments. Is Congress reviewing this activity?
He makes the point that complex systems, such as Social Security, Immigration, and indeed, the United States, cannot be completely error-free. Errors/fraud can be minimized, but not eliminated.
Please consider this as you provide oversight on the Republican Administration.
I read with great trepidation that DOGE and the hackers are being unleashed on the IRS systems. I don’t know what a mere Representative can do in the face of such an onslaught from the Republican Administration, but please find the fortitude to keep them away from sensitive personal data. I can not see any reasonable reason for these parties to be rampaging through IRS data, much less the delicately-balanced systems that maintain our tax/revenue collections.
The Social Security Trust Fund is running low and may not have enough income to to pay the expected outflow and it will then need to start reducing payments such that income and outflow balance. Sometime in the 2030’s is projected.
Currently an employee contributes 6.2% of income up to $160,200 (in 2023), with the employer matching that 6.2%. If they really can’t get rid of the cap on the employee’s side of the equation, why don’t they get rid of the cap on the employer’s side and let them continue to contribute 6.2% of income with no cap? That should put a bit more money into the trust fund.
I heard a story the other day about how states are looking at ways to tax EV to pay for the road taxes they no longer collect on the lost gasoline sales. There is also the issue of declining gas tax revenues because of improving fuel efficiencies without the reduction of the wear and tear on the roads themselves. Some of the ideas included charging an EV tax on annual registration renewal or taxing at the charging station (but if you charge at home and not at a charging station, no taxes?)
Why not just tax the tires? Add a certain tax based on the expected mileage of a set of tires. The actual usage of the roads will be captured by how often the tires are changed.
If we look at consider the average car gets @ 16 MPG and the gas tax is $.18 per gallon then the average tax is $.01125 per mile. So a set of 4 -40,000 mile tires would be taxed $450. A set of 60,000 mile tires would be taxed $675.
Heavy Duty Vehicles and their tires can be taxed at a different rate since the heavier vehicles put more where and tear on the roads.
It might be easier to collect the tax at the annual registration time and ignore the difference between the the folks that only put 3,000 miles a year on their cars and those that put 30,000 miles a year on them. If we assume the average car is getting 12,000 miles a year, then an average $135 a year can be collected in the registration fee.
All this is in lieu of the gasoline tax and could be applied to all types of vehicles. Although the registration tax could just be used for EV and gas taxes can stay until the last pump dies.
I forget though. The $.18 gas tax is the federal tax rate. The same process can be used for states gas taxes to add on to the figures above.
I see that the average State Gas Tax is $.31 per gallon. That comes to $ .019375 per mile additional state tax and a total of $.030625 per mile combined Fed and State Taxes. Tire taxes would be $1225 for a set of 40,000 mile tires and $1837.50 for a set of 60,000 mile tires. I can see that would cause a bit of sticker shot for the consumer. The registration cost, using 12,000 miles as the average, is $367.50 per year.
If there was a way to spread out the tire tax over a period of years, it may be a more appropriate way to tax for actual road usage. Those of us who only drive 5,000 miles a year will only be getting new tires every 10 years or so. (Do tires actually last that long?) Or maybe a combination of registration tax and tire tax such that it isn’t such a big hit at once.
Either way, the EVs do need to pay their way for road maintenance.
In Federalist No. 47, James Madison warned that “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
They argue that by distributing all the command and control of the Executive functions across wide and diverse groups of faceless bureaucrats who are writing, executing and adjudicating the rules that make our society work, that we are reaching that stage of tyranny. Instead, they want to consolidate all this into a more compact group of ideological political appointees and put the career bureaucrats out to pasture.
They are concerned that the “Radical Left” are running the bureaus, agencies, and departments with some sort of agenda to weaken America and it’s standing in the world. I believe Barry Goldwater is part of the Radical Left as well.
It will take a while get through all this. They have detailed breakdowns for the various Cabinet departments and independent agencies, and, how the incoming “conservative” president can fix it all.
I discussed how to set a living minimum wage in an earlier post. Upon further reflection I would like to amend my approach. I was looking at two separate measures to determine a minimum wage: the poverty level of the nation or of an area, and the median household income for an area. The national median household income is $68,700, in 2019.
For the national minimum wage we will use 40% of the median annual income (rounded to the nearest $500)- $27,500. Working 2000 hours a year will result in a hourly wage of $13.75. This should be the national minimum wage which will be adjusted annually as the Census Bureau updates the median income.
In my earlier post I was looking at the HUD Median Family Income Calculation to derive a minimum wage for the more expensive Metro Areas around the country. My initial idea was to use the Extremely Low Income Level (30% of the Median family income) as a basis. Upon reflection, using a 40% value is more appropriate and balances with the national baseline.
Metro Area
Median Family Income (HUD)
Minimum Wage (40% MFI/2000 hours)
National
$68,700
$13.75
New York City
$78,700
$15.75
Los Angeles
$77,300
$15.50
Denver
$100,000
$20.00
Colorado Springs
$81,600
$16.25
Chicago
$91,000
$18.25
San Francisco
$143,100
$28.50
Seattle
$113,300
$22.75
Boston
$119,000
$23.75
DC Metro
$126,000
$25.25
Minneapolis
$103,400
$20.75
San Jose
$141,600
$28.25
Minimum Wage Table
Several other areas that should be addressed are piece work, gig work and personal service work.
For piece work I am thinking of jobs that pay per unit produced rather than the actual time needed to produce the units. This will require some historical information on the time it takes to produce a batch of units. If, on average, it takes 8 hours to produce 100 units then a minimum per unit wage will be 8*$13.75/100 = $1.10 per unit and earn $110 for the eight hour day. As a minimum. Now if a worker is just learning the trade they might produce only 80 units in 8 hours and only earn $88 for the day. An experienced worker may produce 120 units and earn $132 for the day. Of course, this will require honest reviews of how long the actual unit production time is. The same process can be used for filling bushels of produce, painting ‘art’ works, etc.
Gig work is another area that needs to be reviewed. Gig workers are like piece workers in that the work is on demand and produced as needed over a possible indeterminate time. If you don’t produce there is no income. One of the problems with the ‘gig’ economy is that the Ubers and Lyfts claim to be intermediaries connecting the customer with the driver and they will be glad to handle the monetary interchange, for a cut. And they set the rates. I suppose a driver could set a bottom limit to what they would drive for, but I don’t know if they would get many calls after that. I think the gig intermediaries need to have realistic rates for the amount a time their gig “contractor” will take to do a job and ensure their rate is sufficient to cover a minimum wage for the worker and all the withholding and mileage rates that accrue.
Another category of work I am trying to define are the folks who act as rafting guides, tourist guides, people who have to be on-the-job 24 hours a day, travelling and away from home. At a minimum they should be earning the equivalent of a 16 hour day, or $220 a day.
Salaried people must make at least the median family income per year. Below that they should be paid an hourly wage plus overtime as incurred.
Corporations that are paying for labor need to withhold SSA and Medicare from laborers be they employees, contractors, gig workers, piece workers or whatever. If the corporation is paying for the labor they must match the SSA and Medicare and remit the monies to the appropriate office.
Given that someone working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, 2000 hours a year, should be earning, at least, a minimum, LIVING, wage, then a minimum hourly wage of $13.25 is justified. I suggest that this should be considered a minimum living wage for an individual-nationally. *
Again, we will use the “family of four” as our baseline. In my home county of El Paso, Colorado, the Median Family income is $81,600. 30% of that is $24,500 (rounded to the nearest 100). Divide by 2000 hours, that would create a Minimum wage of $12.25. Since the National Minimum is higher, the higher one applies. Any Metro area with an median family income of less than $90,000 will use the national minimum wage. (rounding results to nearest $.25)
Metro Area
Median Family Inc
Minimum Wage
New York City
$78,700
National Minimum
San Francisco
$143,100
$21.50
Boston
$119,000
$18.00
DC Metro
$121,000
$19.00
Chicago
$91,000
$13.50
Seattle
$113,300
$17.00
Los Angeles
$77,300
National Minimum
Metro Area Minimum Wages
Rather than going with a flat $15 an hour minimum wage that is being bandied about, I propose this model as one that will change as the local economy changes, growing as needed, rather than waiting for Congress do to anything. The current annual wage of a Congressman is $174,000, ~6.6 times the Poverty Level we are basing our minimum wage on. Why don’t we keep that ratio in place and tie the Congressional wages to 6.6 times the national poverty level for a family of four?
*note this applies to the lower 48 states. Alaska and Hawaii have higher baseline poverty levels.
** The FY 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act changed the definition of extremely low-income to be the greater of 30/50ths (60 percent) of the Section 8 very low-income limit or the poverty guideline as established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provided that this amount is not greater than the Section 8 50% very low-income limit. Consequently, the extremely low income limits may equal the very low (50%) income limits.
Rather than make DC a state, why not give the residential section of the District back to Maryland and leave the mall and non-residential area as the District of Columbia?
