NOW I understand…Eliminating a tax DECREASE is NOT a tax INCREASE. Thank you Speaker Pelosi.

Thanks for reading, or in this case, viewing.

–Matthew S. Urdan

Inside Government hasn’t posted much over the last few months. That’s because this site was instituted to explain how the U.S. Government works. The trouble is, since the TARP Bill was shoved down the American people’s throats last October with scare tactics more appropriate maybe for the current movie ‘Saw IV’ or V or whatever number it is, from our President, Senators, Congressmen, Presidential Candidates, and everyone involved in the financial sector; it’s impossible to explain how the United States Government works because it’s broken.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Without going into a critique of all things broken over the past year, CNN is reporting that illegal aliens are now going to be given permanent “Temporary” Visas and all the benefits of US Citizenship…and more. Illegal Immigrants are going to be given complete tax amnesty–they won’t have to pay any back taxes to the IRS. Wow…yet the IRS is still going after United States Tax Payers for the $4 mistake in their 2004 return. Plus interest and penalties. (Another story for another time.)

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Further, the 33,000 gang members at large in 33 of the 50 states are going to be given free college tuition. No state provides free college tuition to its law abiding citizens. All the gangsters need to do is sign a piece of paper that says he or she is no longer in a gang, and the college education is theirs.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Further, we the taxpayer, are going to pay Mexico hundreds of millions of dollars to provide incentives for Mexicans to stay in Mexico. Now this makes sense. Let’s pay Mexico money to improve programs in Mexico to keep Mexicans in Mexico. Now why would the Mexicans who would rather illegally enter the United States and gain immediate access to state-funded health care programs stay in Mexico when the United States is granting citizenship, a guarantee of no back taxes, and free college tuition to gang members? Further, once Obama’s Health Care plan goes into place, all of these illegals will be covered.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Who is going to pay all of this? You and I. And who will suffer? You and I. Not to mention all those who wish to immigrate to the United States legally, and who have gone through the proper channels and have waited in line for years.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

To quote a friend:

This is so insulting. It’s like you have been standing in line at Disney World for 3 hours and a bunch of people jump the fence and get in line ahead of you. Then, instead of kicking them out the manager gives them free tickets for the rides, lunch, a place to stay and coupons for free admission for the rest of their lives.

My fellow Americans and taxpayers, we can not remain quiet. I am urging all of you to flood the White House, the Halls of Congress, and the local offices of your elected officials with every email, tweet, text message, letter, telegram and phone call you are capable of sending. We can not wait for another Town Hall meeting or a staged Obama publicity stunt televised in prime time.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Almost 250 years ago, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere and every other famous name you have ever heard or haven’t heard in our country’s history went to war for independence and freedom from tyranny and to eliminate taxation without representation.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Well, here we are, crying out against taxation without representation. Congress did not listen to us about the TARP. Congress did not listen to us about various other post-TARP Bailouts and spending packages disguised as “Stimulus.” Congress did not listen to us regarding health care at Town Hall Meetings where the citizens were more informed than our own elected “representatives.” If we don’t speak up as loud as we possibly can, each and every one of us, Congress won’t listen to us about this.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

It is taxation without representation. Even though we elect our Representatives and Senators, when was the last time one of them returned a phone call to you, returned an email to you, or even sent you something other than a non-responsive form letter in response to a carefully written letter you wrote? The truth is that they don’t care what we think. All they care about is scaring us into voting for them by painting their political opponent into a lying, adulterous, soft-on-crime incompetent villain. WHERE is the HONOR in that. WHERE is the RESPECT for the PRESIDENT of the United States of America? Do you remember last year when someone threw a shoe at President Bush? Well just recently, not a single Russian Diplomat would even shake President Obama’s hand. How far has America already fallen? How did we get this way? By playing favorites. By allowing a privileged class to exist at the expense of the Middle Class. And now, by offering free to lawbreakers and gangsters what so many of us have worked so hard for all of our lives.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Congress doesn’t care about you or I. Congress doesn’t care about our well-being. Congress doesn’t care about the well-being and the financial security of our nation. All congress cares about is finding another way to give themselves a raise and to ensure their own re-election by negative campaigning, pointing fingers at the other party and by using every scare tactic they can learn from Hollywood horror films to scare us all into submission.

Look at what Congress is about to do and form your own conclusion. Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC.

Go to http://www.congress.org. If you don’t know who your representatives and senators are and/or how to reach them, this link will give you all of their office phone numbers and addresses. Don’t waste another day. If you were mad about $4.00/gallon gas prices, if you were mad about the wasted taxpayer money from Katrina, if you were mad about the TARP, if you were mad about any of the bailouts and lack of accountability from AIG and Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, if you are mad about health care or how Americans are being ignored and mistreated at Town Hall Meetings, don’t waste another day.

Watch the CNN News Video. This is CNN. Not Fox. Not MSNBC. Draw your own conclusions.

Don’t be submissive anymore. This is taxation without representation. We can not allow Congress to pass this legislation. We can not afford all the social and financial consequences. As a nation, as states, as individuals.

And if you detect some passion in my language, well, I think the quote comes from Hollywood: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Thanks for reading.

–Matthew S. Urdan

Last weekend, over 5,000 people gathered in Cincinnati to protest the bailouts and multi-trillion dollar spending in Washington in a Modern Day Boston Tea Party. Michelle Malkin reports that this is the beginning of a growing revolutionary movement. “The tax-paying rebels are not going away. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, March 7, an estimated 500 protesters gathered for a Tea Party at Titletown Brewing. Similar Tea Parties have been held in Seattle, Denver, Mesa, Arizona, Olathe, Kansas and in other cities around the country but the Cincinnati protest is by far the largest one yet.

The Tea Party concept, of course, gets its name from the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773 when colonial Americans said to George III of England that the colonists would not accept any further taxes imposed by the Crown unless they had representation in Parliament and were able to speak on and vote on all issues. The colonists just wanted a seat at the decision table. When George III denied the colonists that seat, revolution was all but assured.

Strangely, as citizens of the United States with elected representatives in Congress, we find ourselves in a position very similar to colonial Americans almost 250 years ago. While we elect our representatives and senators and technically their votes reflect our wishes, increasingly they pass legislation and increase taxes without checking with their constituents.

Politico reports House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) didn’t rule out the the idea of a second stimulus package and said Wednesday he would be willing to sit down with the White House and congressional Democrats to discuss any new emergency spending proposals.

Citing the current economic crisis, Cantor acknowledged: “You have to.”

The Richmond congressman said, though, that he would only support a bill that differed from the first stimulus and included additional tax cuts for small businesses.

Meanwhile, many others on Capitol Hill express ignorance when a second stimulus package is mentioned. Our question is: If there aren’t results from a first stimulus package, why try for a second? Won’t it only drop us deeper into the black hole of debt?

But while Congress is now throwing around the words “Billions and Billions” like Carl Sagan used to a quarter century ago when talking about the vast expanses of the universe, the new buzzword is Trillion. Already several trillion dollars have been authorized when you add up the TARP funds, the Citibank and AIG and Auto Bailout Money, and the Recovery Act of 2009. Unfortunately, Americans aren’t screaming about this as loudly as they should be, mostly because a trillion of anything is far beyond our comprehension as a species to understand. We’re discussing and throwing numbers around in our media like we understand them, but in reality the concepts a billion and trillion represent are so vast they are normally only used when discussing phenomenon out in space in our universe.

Elizabeth Williamson of the Wall Street Journal reports that The travel industry is taking aim at Democrats’ efforts to limit luxury travel by companies that accept government bailouts with a new advertising campaign that says the attacks on travel are costing jobs. The article is important because it clearly explains the other side of the coin, or in other words, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or to put it even more simply, consequences.

Certainly the media were correct to report the largesse of AIG’s top salespersons’ conferences and conventions where executives rung up thousands of dollars in alcohol after AIG received an $85 Billion bailout from the government. Spending like that was out of line and in poor taste as long as the taxpayers are footing the bill. However, business travel is legitimate and helps the economy as long as it’s within a company’s budget and the company is profitable and can justify the travel with a resultant revenue stream and return on investment for shareholders. Absolutely travel can be wasteful when travel decisions are made for the wrong reasons. If a company has the money to spend and it’s budgeted and it’s generating a revenue stream that pays for its travel expenses, the travel is fine. If a company is in bailout or bankruptcy and its purpose is a business perk, maybe not so much. Like any other, it’s a complex issue.