I want a pony

As a CPA, I'm required to put in 120 hour of continuing professional education every three years to maintain my license.

Since December is my slow month, I've been in and out of courses so my posting has been limited.

In addition, as I sit through these seminars, I get more and more depressed about the status of American manufacturing as a result of the current and still to come Obamunist policies.

Take the health care bill. Right now, the house bill requires an 8 percent surcharge (penalty) to cover health coverage; in the senate, it's $750.00 per FTE.

So if you are a company that offers no insurance you just got a nice tax increase for your sin of hiring American employees.

If you offer insurance, you just received a nice reason to dump your coverage. Keep in mind the average health insurance premium for a family of four exceeds $12,000.

If that weren't bad enough, in both chambers' bills is a requirement for all insurance to cover things not previously required. What do you think that will mean for premiums? Hint, they won't be going down anytime soon.

But it gets even better. Medicare is set to go bankrupt in 2017 without some change(s). Most of the proposed changes to shore up the system consists of adding to the Medicare payroll tax which just makes it even more costly to hire American workers.

Real wages for American workers have gone up less than .1% in the past ten years but when you factor the costs of fringe benefits and all the other additional compliance issues, the costs of employing people in this country exceeds the CPI.

If you are liberal, you don't care. You're like a nine year old holding their breath until you get your pony.

But I live in the trenches with business owners. Last Sunday, I came into my office to catch up on some work and I noticed that each of the owners of businesses on my block were in the office working. This is the life of a business owner. They're not the pariahs leeching on the working man as most democrats would have you believe. They are the working man.

These business owners have lots of anxiety. They're worried about the future and worried about how they're going to take care of the employees they have; forget about hiring more.

But you don't care because you want a pony.

Let me clue you in on a little secret. Manufacturing companies don't have to worry about all this crap in Juarez or Thailand or the Philippines or Taiwan. Which is exactly why our good manufacturing jobs are being exported there. There's no minimum wage, cap and trade, card check, health care to deal with. They simply pay the workers for their service.

Imagine if you had a plumber come over to your house and his charge is $120.00. As you start to cut him a check, he tells you "Sir, could you make out a check to my supplier for $40.00, a check to my assistant for $30.00, one to my utility company for $5.00, one to my landlord for $10.00 and one to me for the remaining $35.00?" You'd probably tell him to get lost.

But yet that is exactly what employers have to do for their employee every payroll. They have to cover employment taxes, child support, union dues, health benefits, retirement accounts, etc. etc. etc.

Right now, one way to solve our health care crisis is to see that people actually have jobs. Our current administration seems to be more interested in getting everyone a pony.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Read this article about the Lovely Mrs. Gekko's home town.