Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 064, Ed. 1 Friday, January 29, 2010 Page: 4 of 12
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Viewpoints
Page 4 ■ Friday, January 29, 2010
Sweetwater Reporter
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TA
MEMBER
2010
TEXAS PRESS
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EDITORIAL POLICY
The editorial section of the newspaper is a forum for
expression of a variety of viewpoints. All articles except
those labeled "Editorials" reflect the opinions of the writ-
ers and not those of the Sweetwater Reporter.
Hamilton
GUEST C01UMN
Focus on the family
God bless America, and how's everybody?
Focus on the Family shot a Super Bowl ad with Tim
Tebow and his mom. She tells how she was ill while
pregnant with Tim but refused a doctor's order to abort
him. The sonogram indicated that he
would beat the doctor's alma mater four
years in a row.
Brett Favre drew sixty million viewers
to watch the Vikings lose the NFC title
in overtime Sunday. Now comes the
i, retirement drama. It's such an annual
event that most Americans believe the
/> Trail of Tears led from Green Bay to
New York to Minnesota.
Tiger Woods was reported Monday
AMMC to res'c''n§ ™ his own villa at a
fVyilS Hattiesburg sex rehab instead of in the
patient dorm. This place is in deepest
Mississippi. They almost kicked Tiger
out when they found out he's not rel at-
ed to any of his mistresses.
Pablo Picasso's The Actor was torn up Monday when
a woman in New York's Museum of Art lost her bal-
ance and fell into the canvas. It didn't have to happen.
Normally if you want to tear up an actor you just tell him
you've decided to cast somebody younger.
Colorado's Nazi Party purchased the right Monday to
participate in the state's highway clean-up program. The
Nazis will maintain one mile of a road right next to one
mile of the road which is maintained by the Southern
Baptists. With this much singing up along the highway,
the litter just picks up and goes of its own accord.
Sandra Bullock won another Best Actress Award for
her role as an evangelical Christian woman in The Blind
Side. This is unfamiliar territory for movie stars. George
Clooney turned down The Oral Roberts Story when he
learned it wasn't a gay role.
President Obama was caught Friday reading a speech
to a grade-school class off two TelePrompters, He was
right to take precautions. President Bush used to read
to grade-schoolers right out of the storybook and it just
attracted al-Qaeda attacks.
President Obama gave his State of the Union address
to Congress Wednesday. He is under siege. The day
before, Toyota recalled its new Obama model because
the car takes off too fast and then stalls out, and it won't
stop looking at itself in the vanity mirror.
President Obama proposed a freeze on federal discre-
tionary spending Tuesday. It won't apply to spending on
national defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
and stimulus packages. It's just like quitting drinking
except for beer, wine and tequila.
President Obama was treated politely by Congress
during his State of the Union Thursday. He still has the
power to make or break any Democrat in the chamber.
If anyone doesn't support his agenda, he'll go into their
district and campaign for them.
President Obama was criticized by both liberals and
conservatives unhappy over the federal spending freeze
he proposed to Congress Tuesday. It's not set in stone.
The spending freeze has an exception for emergencies,
national disasters and Nebraska.
Senator Harry Reid announced Tuesday there's no
rush on health care reform and said Democrats aren't
working on it. Pretty slick. These guys who were teenag-
ers in the Fifties are experts at hitting the brakes just
before the car goes over the cliff.
China tested a missile designed to disable U.S. mili-
tary satellites Monday while Chinese Army hackers
toiled away to crash U.S. military computers. They have
no defense against our most potent weapon. If they
declare war, we declare Chapter Eleven.
Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy
Store in Hollywood. He can be reached for speaking
engagements by e-mail at argus@argushamilton.com.
Letter to the Editor Policy
The Sweetwater Reporter welcomes Letters to the Editor
for possible publication in the newspaper. A letter must
be original, signed by the w riter and bear the address and
phone number of the writer. Only the name and the city
will be published with the letter, but the phone number
and address are necessary for verification or clarification of
content.
The Sweetwater Reporter reserves the right to edit all
letters. If deemed derogatory, libelous, unclear or for other
reasons determined by the newspaper to be unwise to print,
it will not be used.
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has little meaning, and thus it will not publish anonymous
letters to the editor.
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Letters to the Editor discussing the issues or offering
endorsements. However, the deadline for letters during elec-
tions will be two weeks prior to election day.
The publishing of Letters to the Editor are offered by the
newspaper to the community for expression of personal
views on matters of concern. Residents are encouraged to
use the column in a constructive manner, sharing their views
on subjects of interest with the newspaper's readers.
GUEST COLUMN
ax questions: Tough call
was
Suppose you made 10
trips to the ATM, but three
of those times it was out of
order. Or if, in 10 visits
to a fast-food place, the
milkshake machine
broken three times.
Think you'd find a
different bank and
a better take-out
restaurant?
The fact is, when
dealing with cus-
tomers, getting it
right 70 percent of
the time isn't near-
ly good enough.
Unless, of course,
you have the power
of the U.S. govern-
ment behind you.
As Americans
begin thinking about
tax season, the Internal
Revenue Service promises
that, this year, it will aim
to answer 71 percent of the
phone calls to its help-line
number, 800-829-1040.
So the agency begins the
tax season by admitting it
plans to ignore three out
of every 10 callers.
This would actually be a
slight improvement from
2008, when only five out
of every 10 calls to the
IRS were answered. And
it would roughly equal last
year's "success rate," when
seven out of 10 calls were
answered.
Meanwhile, those who
do manage to get their call
answered must endure the
waiting game. The aver-
age caller will spend 12
minutes on hold.
"This level of service
is unacceptable," National
Taxpayer Advocate Nina
Olson reports. She called
the IRS's unresponsive-
ness the "number-one
most serious problem for
taxpayers." (Wonder if
she's ever been audited?)
In the agency's defense,
spokeswoman Michelle
Eldridge told The
Washington Post that,
"The bottom line is we
have answered millions
more phone calls in the
last two years than ever
before." That's undoubt-
edly true. Year after year,
Congress makes changes
to the tax code, making
it even more difficult to
understand. That's why
most taxpayers pay some-
one else to prepare their
GUEST COLUMN
Edwin
Feulner
return; they're afraid to
make an expensive mis-
take.
They're right to worry.
Even if they can get
through to the IRS for
help, taxpayers
are often steered
wrong.
For example,
a 2004 Treasury
report found
that the IRS pro-
vided incorrect
answers 20 per-
cent of the lime.
In the agency's
defense, that may
be because there
often isn't one
single, apparent
correct answer.
For many years, Money
magazine asked 50 tax
professionals to prepare
sample returns. Year after
year the pros came up with
different tax liabilities —
sometimes differing from
each other by as much as
$1,000.
Even when IRS advice
isn't wrong, it's often mis-
leading.
Last year, the Treasury
Department studied the
IRS's program that pro-
vides volunteer tax pre-
parers to those who ask
tor help. Some 41 percent
of returns were filled out
incorrectly. "If 17 of the
incorrectly prepared tax
returns had been filed,
taxpayers would not have
received $4,138 in tax
refunds to which they were
entitled," the Treasury
report found. Quite a price
to pay for free help.
The real problem is that
lawmakers keep trying to
use the tax code to shape
social policy. They then
compound the mistake by
ramping up the IRS work-
load without providing
additional resources to do
the work.
Congress gives tax
breaks to induce people to
save for retirement — but
caps those breaks so peo-
ple won't save "too much."
It aims to encourage oil
production — but in try-
ing to discourage energy
tax shelters, lawmakers
thwart most of the incen-
tives.
It gives tax breaks for
installing a particular type
of window in your home.
It gives a tax credit for
each child, but beware: the
amount of that credit will
plunge next year unless
lawmakers act this year.
Enough. The purpose
of a tax code is to col-
lect revenue to fund the
federal government. And
that's all it should be used
for. In 1986, lawmakers
greatly simplified the tax
code, but we've allowed
it to get out of hand again
in the decades since. It's
time for a flat tax that
we can all understand and
comply with.
Maybe we can't force
government bureaucrats
to become as responsive
or effective as McDonald's
employees are. But at
least we can ensure that
Americans can fill out
something as basic as a
tax form without needing
to place an unanswered or
errantly answered call to
the IRS.
Ed Feulner is presi-
dent of The Heritage
Foundation (heritage,
org). Any comments
about this column can be
emailed to editor @sweet-
waterreporter.com.
HlOlELlE
IMD
WAS BuSHS FAUTI
1
@2ofa cfieATtfif.cm
ine tuning the message
President Obama needs
to give a few more speech-
es, maybe get his
face on TV more
often, give a few
more interviews
to friendly jour-
nalists and every-
thing will be all
right, despite
Democrats' stun-
ning defeat in the
Massachusetts
Senate race this
week. "(W)e were
so busy just get-
ting stuff done
and dealing with
the immediate
crises that were
in front of us that I think
we lost some of that sense
of speaking directly to the
American people about
what their core values are
and why we have to make
sure those institutions are
matching up with those
values," the president
explained to ABC's George
Stephanopoulos. Yeah,
that's the ticket.
The president gave only
411 speeches during his
first 365 days in office;
that's barely more than one
a day. Maybe if he'd given
two a day, the American
people would have gotten
through their thick skulls
that he knows what's good
for them, even if they don't
like it. Maybe he should
have talked more about
health care; he made only
52 speeches or statements
urging health care reform
during his first year.
Surely, if he'd talked about
it more often or explained
it a little better, Americans
would be clamoring to
turn their health care over
to the government.
Now, I know some pun-
dits are saying that Obama
and Democrats in Congress
linda
Chavez
should rethink their agen-
da. But they're missing
the point. Thank
goodness the
president's
spokesman
Robert Gibbs
explained it to
the White House
press corps: "I
don't believe the
president thinks
that we should
stop fighting for
what's impor-
tant to the mid-
dle class, that
we should stop
fighting for an
economic recov-
ery, that we should stop
fighting for what we need
to do to create an environ-
ment for the private sector
to hire,"
Right. They should
just keep on doing what
they've been doing, only
harder. The Washington
Post's Michael D. Shear
described the strategy
inside the White House
this way: "As they huddled
behind closed doors in the
West Wing, Obama's top
aides were glum but unde-
terred. Several described
an atmosphere of resolve
not unlike the mood dur-
ing the toughest moments
of the 2008 campaign." If
Hillary Clinton and John
McCain could be thwart-
ed, so can the will of the
American people. It's just
a matter of putting the
right words on the tele-
prompter.
For those skeptics that
think Obama's falling pop-
ularity and the Democrats'
loss of three statewide
races so far this year has
anything to do with 10
percent unemployment or
an increase of nearly $1.7
trillion in national debt
on his watch, well, that
just shows they haven't a
clue who the real culprits
are. It's George W. Bush's
fault — oh, and his banker
friends.
Never mind that the
same folks Obama now
calls "reckless" are among
the Democrats' most reli-
able financial backers —
Goldman Sachs gave 73
percent of its political con-
tributions to Democrats
in 2006-2008, and hedge
funds have given 70 per-
cent of their funds to
Dems so far in the 2010
election cycle, according
to National Review's Kevin
Williamson. But so long as
Obama tells the American
people that the bank "res-
cue, undertaken by the
Bush administration, was
deeply offensive" (even
if 'it was the necessary
thing to do," as he con-
ceded this week), they'll
think it's Republicans who
are in bed with the banks,
not him or Democrats in
Congress.
Obama is all about
change. And now it's time
to change the subject. Let's
not talk about Democrats'
defeat at the polls. Let's
not talk about Americans'
dislike of a government-
run health care system. Or
about disappearing jobs.
Let's find an enemy we can
all agree to hate. Bankers
are evil; we've known that
since Jimmy Stewart's
George Bailey took on the
villainous Henry F. Potter
in "It's a Wonderful Life."
Obama just needs to rally
the people to take on Big
Banking and they'll forget
all their own problems.
Politics has nothing to
do with the democratic
will of the people. It's all
about messaging, and
Obama just needs to fine
tune his.
Linda Chavez is the
author of "An Unlikely
Conservative: The
Transformation of an
Ex-Liberal." To find
out more about Linda
Chavez, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
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Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 064, Ed. 1 Friday, January 29, 2010, newspaper, January 29, 2010; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229078/m1/4/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.