Sunday, November 3, 2013

TAX SCAM: Big Companies Go To Court For Tax Relief

What is happening in Texas is occurring throughout the nation.  Big companies are taking their tax woes to the courts and are reaping huge tax cuts.


In Texas companies like Walgreen's are going to court for more tax incentives for dozens of stores and they are getting them.

This has been going on across the nation for a long time and it is a bad idea in the short and long term. It corrupts government and forces property owners to pay a larger share in taxes for educating children.

“If you’re looking at the competitiveness of a region, the most important thing a region can do is to focus on education. And this use of incentives is really transferring money from education to businesses.”

Donald J. Hall Jr., Hallmark C.E.O.

Don't expect it to change anytime soon, since business-friendly states like Texas encourages businesses to come here by offering large tax incentives and thereby incurring large and long-term debt.

Since legislators care more about short-term appearance, since they usually leave office within a 20-year period, it is unclear and often unknown for a much longer time frame what this actually does within a state's long-term fiscal environment.

What is known is that for every tax cut businesses receive from the state, property owners must assume the costs of educating children.

While some tax incentives are needed to encourage business development, the businesses who use the court system for further tax relief are manipulating state taxpayers into paying more than their fair share. 

It needs to stop.

At fault are state legislators who get campaign donations from big companies, the court system that provides even more incentives and the big companies who greedily are out for more profits and tax relief and refuse to pay their fair share.


Saturday, November 2, 2013

Federal Judges Support New Texas Anti-Abortion Law

The anti-abortion law in Texas appears to send us back into the 1950's, when women could not get abortions in the US and had to go to other countries and/or Puerto Rico to get an abortion.  It also opens the issue that women will get abortions illegally now, which poses more of a health threat to the woman and fetus. It is an extremist law by extremist legislators for extremist special interests that is supported by extremist judges.

According to several news sources:

"Supported by a federal appeals court, Texas began enforcing new abortion restrictions Friday, leaving about a dozen clinics — including one in Austin — suddenly out of compliance with the law and scrambling to cancel appointments and find other clinics for their patients."
It is estimated that half the abortion clinics in TX will have to close; approximately 13 of them.  The other half must rush to conform to the new law.  It will force doctors in those clinics to maintain a legal liaison with hospitals, which could be costly and in many cases not reality-based if the doctor or clinic is far away from a hospital.

It is unfortunate that  Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Legislators and Right to Life supporters do not maintain the same caring they feel for humans AFTER they are born that they do for fetuses.  Texas remains #1 of states in which children are uninsured [for health care].

Extremism still governs most of us, so there are few issues these days that are reviewed with a centered or grounded focus.  Unfortunately, pro- or anti- abortion is one of them.

Many people do NOT comprehend the laws governing fetuses.  Often there is a good reason because it is complicated and not truly defined.  Too many people react more emotionally about the topic of abortions than they do rationally.

So, here is the information on fetuses:

Fetus Law and Legal Definition

taken from USlegal.com
"A fetus is typically defined as a developing human at a certain point after conception to birth. The precise definition varies by applicable laws, some of which define a fetus to include the element of viability, so that it is able to survive independently outside the womb. Various laws have been enacted to protect fetuses and punish individuals who injure them or cause their death. For example, Texas' Prenatal Protection Act holds people who assault or harm a pregnant woman liable for crimes against the mother and unborn child. The issue has been raised as to whether the law requires doctors to report substance abuse of a pregnant mother. The federal Born-Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 amends the legal definitions of "person," "human being," "child" and "individual" to include any fetus that survives an abortion procedure. The federal law requires doctors to attempt to keep alive a fetus that survives an abortion.
Fetal protection laws vary by state. Some states states may amend existing homicide statutes to include the fetus as a possible victim, pass statutes defining the fetus as a person or human being, so that a fetus in encompassed by other statutes applicable to all persons or human beings, enact new statutes that create the crime of injury to a fetus, fetal homicide, or "feticide", or extend wrongful death and personal injury statutes to allow civil suits against individuals who cause the death or injury of a fetus."

click here for some important abortion facts

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