Another opportunity to play, "Name That Party!" ...
WASHINGTON - Maryland officials have yanked a tax credit from Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel, who has avoided thousands in taxes on his nearly $1 million home there by improperly claiming it as his primary residence. The officials told Engel he doesn't qualify for the homestead exemption, a tax credit only state residents can apply for, because he and his wife Patricia's primary residence is in The Bronx.
Last year, The Post reported that Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel was getting the homestead exemption in DC from 1995 to 2000 - even though his primary residence was in New York, where he had four rent-controlled apartments.
Engel had enjoyed the tax credit since 2005, garnering a discount on his taxes in three consecutive years even as the value of his property in Potomac, one of DC's most affluent suburbs, nearly doubled. Engel got the credit in 2005 after his wife applied for it, according to state tax officials.
When her application for the credit was initially rejected, Patricia Engel filed again, claiming Maryland as her primary residence by submitting a copy of her state tax return, which she filed individually, as evidence. She then was approved - even though each Engel votes in New York and has an Empire State driver's license.
In a just world this would be sufficient for a felony conviction for fraud ...
The names of both Engels appear on property records for the Maryland home.
The credits saved the couple more than $5,000 over three years. The credit puts a cap of up to 10 percent on the amount of a home's increased value that can be taxed each year. To receive it, homeowners must live in Maryland for at least half the year, have a Maryland driver's license and vote in the state.
For the 2008 tax year, the state has denied Engel the credit.
Engel rents an apartment in The Bronx and has claimed to be a lifelong resident of the borough.
State officials say Engel won't be required to pay back any savings accumulated over past years because the family's homestead exemption was approved - even if erroneously. "We approved it, and we therefore accept it," said Robert Young, associate director of Maryland's Tax Department.
Even though the Engels committed fraud to get it. Boggle ...
"I have always abided by whatever determination the Montgomery County Assessment Office makes," Engel said in a statement. "I have never asked for any special privileges for being a congressman."
And his lips stayed on. That's how you know he's a 'pro' ...
Maryland officials say that it's unusual for a couple to get the tax credit when only one of them applies for the exemption but that there is precedent.
In 2007, the state toughened its rules for receiving the homestead credit. It requires applicants to state whether they have a Maryland driver's license and where they vote.
New York and federal laws require only that members of Congress be residents of the states they represent when they are elected. New York Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin said the state does not check whether officials are residents. "If an outside person or citizen believes somebody doesn't meet the qualifications, they can bring actions to court or the legislative body where the official serves," Conklin said.
Excuse me folks, but the Constitution requires that a Congress critter be elected from the state of his/her residency. You could look it up. Article I, Section 2.
Kathleen Hayes, a teacher who lives in Engel's Bronx district, said she was less concerned about where he lived than whether he was unfairly getting tax breaks. "He's an individual as well as a congressman, and if he's not paying his share, that means others are paying more," Hayes said. "That would be a problem for me."
And he's being two-faced about where he lives. Wonder if there is an intrepid reporter who might want to start going through other state documents in Maryland and New York to see what Engel is claiming.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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"Another opportunity to play, "Name That Party!" ..."
I'll play, Steve!
Does it start with a "D"?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/15/2009 0:12 Comments ||
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Why do they dance around the thought? Just come out and say: "Only Republicans should pay taxes." It's clear that none of the demoncrats have or will.
The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. meaning you'll pay more and get British Health Care
The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as the largest middle-class tax increase in history. Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses. Better that they should get it from the Gubbamint, right, Oh Empty One
In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The advertisements did not point out that Mr. McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage. Missed that, did they?
At the time, even some Obama supporters said privately that he might come to regret his position if he won the election; in effect, they said, he was potentially giving up an important option to help finance his ambitious health care agenda to reduce medical costs and to expand coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans. Now that Mr. Obama has begun the health debate, several advisers say that while he will not propose changing the tax-free status of employee health benefits, neither will he oppose it if Congress does so.
At a recent Congressional hearing, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat whose own health plan would make benefits taxable, asked Peter R. Orszag, the presidents budget director, about the issue. Mr. Orszag replied that it most firmly should remain on the table.
Mr. Orszag, an economist who has served as director of the Congressional Budget Office, has written favorably of taxing some employer-provided health benefits and using the revenue savings for other health-related incentives. So has another Obama adviser, Jason Furman, the deputy director of the White House National Economic Council.
They, like other proponents, cite evidence that tax-free benefits encourage what Mr. McCain called gold-plated policies, resulting in inefficient and costly demands for health care and pressure on employers to hold down workers pay as insurance expenses rise. And, they say, the policy discriminates against those many of whom are low-income workers who do not have employer-provided coverage. Time for some feedback via emails and phonecalls, to your local congresscritter. Add tar, feathers, et al
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2009 15:10 ||
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I'd be adding Piano wires.
When your state rations treatment, they really ARE trying to kill you.
#3
The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as "the largest middle-class tax increase in history."
Aha, the old "bait and switch" whizbang, ring-a-ding-a-do.
#4
Before we throw any more money at the health care issue, we need to pull out the 'weeds'.
I'd like to see the anchor baby rule stop, and only give emergent care to illegals for starters.
To expect citizens to pay for all the illegals care is very wrong.
For Obama to keep looking at ways to take more of my hard earned money to pay for a program that I don't support angers me to no end.
Posted by: Jan ||
03/15/2009 18:44 Comments ||
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... Should it surprise anyone that the same guy who cultivated the affections of crooks, terrorists and racists while building his Chicago power base didn't change when he moved to the White House? You can take the community organizer out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the community organizer (a statement that applies equally to the current Chief of Staff). Perhaps it's time we add competent executive leadership to the ever-expanding laundry list of items above Barry's pay grade.
Ms. Paglia can't imagine how her archetypal Leader of Men can possibly screw up. She and the tweed and Volvo crowd she hangs with could not bear the personal devastation attached to admitting the problem is with BHO himself. Surely the American intelligentsia is much too sophisticated to be duped by pretty platitudes deftly read from pretty teleprompters by a glorified used car salesman in a hand-tailored Burberry suit. These people are personally invested in playing the role of de facto Obama apologists. The cognitive dissonance associated with Obama buyer's remorse would drive them to double-up on their daily intake of martinis and Xänäx. By rationalizing his inadequacy, they vindicate themselves. Obama isn't incompetent, his people are. Actually, now that I think about it, Stalin was really a pretty cool cat, the Politburo made him do it.
Obama's recent treatment of Gordon Brown gave us a small window into the kind of guy we're truly dealing with: classless, offensive and tacky (odd that this also seems to describe socialism!). This is not how presidents behave. Unfortunately, it appears that this president's skill set does not extend beyond campaigning. On the job training is for Wal-Mart greeters, not American presidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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It's the same cognitive dissonance they displayed when they established the meme that W was stupid, so they had to set VP Chaney up as the mastermind behind the grating successes of the previous administration.
#2
Another victim of Hope-a-Dope. Ms. Paglia's commentary on the Oblahblah administration is on the nose, but she can't quite put her finger on the source. I can't blame her, as criticizing Him is the new third rail of politics.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/15/2009 11:39 Comments ||
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When can we call the President's shoddy treatment of Gordon Brown what it is? Overt racism against Europeans, or maybe just Brits. Obama might be able to clarify that if he wished.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
03/15/2009 11:55 Comments ||
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Simple African 'Luo' and Mau-Mau tribal hatred. Grandpa hated the British (even though they enlisted and fed him). Dad hated the British. Queen Michelle hates the British and any of their Algo, European, related descendency, spit, spit, spit. So Barry of course has no use for them as well. Next question please.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is denying Republican claims that she is partisan, saying she has been open to GOP ideas.
In an interview with Charlie Rose on Friday, Pelosi was asked what is the most unfair and misleading impression of her. Pelosi initially said she doesn't think about it, but when pressed, the Speaker took on her Republican critics. "There seems to -- some people think there seems to be a market for saying that I am very partisan, and that I don't give the Republicans their opportunity. That simply is not true. They know in this recovery package that we had, we ask them what they wanted. They wanted certain things in there."
Many Republicans in the House maintain that Pelosi is one of the most partisan figures in the lower chamber. One GOP lawmaker who requested anonymity told The Hill on Thursday that working with Pelosi on legislation is nearly impossible. "She's an ideologue," the Republican lawmaker said.
Pelosi suggested that Republicans are playing political games: "If you can't win on policy, then you go to process. If you can't win on process, then you go to personality. And that's how they have decided they would make up stories about me and the rest...but you know what? I'm in the arena. We have big issues. I can't be bothered about what they say about me. All I'm interested in is getting the job done. And I really want to get it done in a bipartisan way."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged and the early middle-aged: Isn't it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn't offered to pick up the tab.
Well, OK, they didn't exactly "offer" but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And "Yes, we can!"
Which is a pretty open-ended commitment.
Are you sure you young folks will be able to pay off this massive Mount Spendmore of multitrillion-dollar debts we've piled up on you?
"Yes, we can!"
We thought you'd say that! God bless the youth of America! We of the Greatest Generation, the Boomers and Generation X salute you, the plucky members of the Brokest Generation, the Gloomers and Generation Y, as in "Why the hell did you old coots do this to us?"
Because, as politicians like to say, it's about "the future of all our children." And the future of all our children is that they'll be paying off the past of all their grandparents. At 12 percent of GDP, this year's deficit is the highest since the Second World War, and prioritizes not economic vitality but massive expansion of government. But hey, it's not our problem. As Lord Keynes observed, "In the long run we're all dead." Well, most of us will be. But not you youngsters, not for a while. So we've figured it out: You're the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all preapproved!
The Bailout and the TARP and the Stimulus and the Multi-Trillion Budget and TARP 2 and Stimulus 2 and TARP And Stimulus Meet Frankenstein And The Wolf Man are like the old Saturday-morning cliffhanger serials your grandpa used to enjoy. But now he doesn't have to grab his walker and totter down to the Rialto, because he can just switch on the news and every week there's his plucky little hero Big Government facing the same old crisis: Why, there's yet another exciting spending bill with 12 zeros on the end, but unfortunately there seems to be some question about whether they have the votes to pass it. Oh, no! And then, just as the fate of another gazillion dollars of pork and waste hangs in the balance, Arlen Specter or one of those lady senators from Maine dashes to the cliff edge and gives a helping hand, and phew, this week's spendapalooza sails through. But don't worry, there'll be another exciting episode of "Trillion-Buck Rogers Of The 21st Century" next week!
This is the biggest generational transfer of wealth in the history of the world. If you're an 18-year-old middle-class hopeychanger, look at the way your parents and grandparents live: It's not going to be like that for you. You're going to have a smaller house, and a smaller car -- if not a basement flat and a bus ticket. You didn't get us into this catastrophe. But you're going to be stuck with the tab, just like the Germans got stuck with paying reparations for the catastrophe of the First World War. True, the Germans were actually in the war, whereas in the current crisis you guys were just goofing around at school, dozing through Diversity Studies and hoping to ace Anger Management class. But tough. That's the way it goes.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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none of my three kids voted for the empty suit.
I just wish we'd had a conservative Republican alternative
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2009 8:19 Comments ||
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...whereas in the current crisis you guys were just goofing around at school, dozing through Diversity Studies and hoping to ace Anger Management class.
Oh, and actually believing the professors and instructors [members of the self appointed ruling class] at your paper mill colleges and universities. [Didn't notice that they usually haven't had to operate in the real world outside the esteemed halls of 'Higher Learning'(heh)]
#4
As Lord Keynes observed, "In the long run we're all dead." Well, most of us will be. But not you youngsters, not for a while. So we've figured it out: You're the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all preapproved!
Steyn winds up from the blue line... he shoots... he scooores! Ma! The Meatloaf!
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/15/2009 11:43 Comments ||
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Maybe the donks will figure out how to levy an income tax for those employed in China and India. Or maybe they will figure out how to make their fellow donks pay their taxes.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama moved toward reversing the Bush administration's boycott of the United Nations Conference Against Racism by joining talks this week on the proposed outcome declaration.
Obama sent a delegation to negotiations that began today in Geneva, and the U.S. will consider attending the April 20-24 conference, according to the State Department. The U.S. didn't attend two preparatory meetings last year, after walking out of the first UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, eight years ago to protest criticism of Israel.
"We are here to explore with you whether it is possible to move beyond our differences and focus the Durban Review Conference on the racism and xenophobia that seriously persist today in our world," Mark Storella, head of the U.S. delegation, said in a statement to the opening of the Geneva meeting, according to a transcript provided by the UN.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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I thought he'd already pulled out. What was the shelf-life on that principled position, three or four days? These amateurs are a disgrace
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2009 8:21 Comments ||
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(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., which has $20 billion of cash in the bank, is among the first in the Puget Sound area to benefit from the investment in roads and bridges through President Barack Obama's stimulus plan.
Local planners allotted $11 million of $214 million awarded to the region to help pay for a highway overpass in Redmond, Washington, connecting one part of Microsoft's wooded campus with another. The world's largest software maker will contribute almost half of the $36.5 million cost. Other federal and local money will pay the rest.
Work is scheduled to begin by June, while larger projects in the area await funding, including replacing an elevated highway in Seattle damaged by a 2001 earthquake and a bridge over Lake Washington at risk of cracking in a windstorm. Spending watchdogs and even some Microsoft employees see more pressing needs.
"I'm sure Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates could finance this out of pocket change," Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said of Microsoft's chief executive officer and chairman. "Subsidizing an overpass to one of the richest companies in the country certainly isn't going to be the best use of our precious dollars.
"It's a bridge to Microsoft," he said. Ellis's Washington, D.C.-based group, which tracks government spending, coined the phrase "bridge to nowhere" to describe a proposed span in Alaska that got $223 million in federal funding in 2005 and later was canceled.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2009 00:00 ||
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The advantage of MS paying for all of it is that the usual patronage highway construction [and kickback] outfits won't necessarily get the job. A lot of such building 'stim' is just going to be recycled to the same old, same old people in the politically connected world at the local and state level.
Given MS history, I'd skip the 'overpass' and go for another design that can't 'crash'.
#3
usual patronage highway construction [and kickback] outfits won't necessarily get the job. A lot of such building 'stim' is just going to be recycled to the same old, same old people in the politically connected world at the local and state level.
I don't know how you do it where you live, P2K, but even here in CA, the land of fruits and nuts, we do it be sealed bid, with lowest responsible* bid winning. Successful companies do repeated contracts because they submit the lowest bid and know how to do it (I do bridges) right and still make their profit
* responsible = bid item prices are not unreasonably skewed ( like 60% mobilization) or screwed up. That mobilization was an open door for theft and run til the subsequent Special Provisions shut that door (Green Book and Caltrans)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2009 17:08 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is denying Republican claims that she is partisan, saying she has been open to GOP ideas.
