Tax Cheat?

Did the Big Lug Nut under report his income?

According to records released, Culver and wife, Mari, reported a total income of $126,745 in 2009. That included $117,668 in wage and salary income.

However, the Governor's salary is $130,000.

He must have arrived at that figure by factoring in his 10% (?) cut.

We were advised last fall -- Because Culver’s salary is set by law, his pay cut will take the form of a reimbursement. He will collect his full pay, but write a check to the state.

Which means his income should have been reported as $130,000.

Can you say audit?

Tax returns were also released for former Governor Terry Branstad and this headline is just a little bit off...

Election win would mean pay cut for Branstad

The article mentions a big pay cut if he succeeded in again being elected governor based on his salary as president of Des Moines University. He resigned from that job in October.

The big pay cut came after his last check from DMU and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Ten Percent?

Showing up her boss, the Big Lug Nut, Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge never took a 10% cut in her $103,212 tax payer paid salary.

Some top Iowa officials didn't accept cut in salary

Secretary of State Michael Mauro also didn't take a cut in his $103,212 tax payer paid salary, but he expects people to feel sorry for him...

"I've been in this job going on for about four years, and there's been no increase." This isn't a case where we've been greedy. There's been no increase. Not a cent."

It's an office he sought and is seeking re-election for and it's a bump up from the position he held as auditor for Polk County.

It looks like Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald has been in office so long that he doesn't care, which explains why he didn't cut his $103,212 tax payer paid salary.

"...I don't work for the governor. I work for the people of Iowa."

Hopefully not much longer and the scientific community is united in that fact.

It must be a coincidence that all are Dummycrats.

It took a while to clear up the BLN's 10% pay cut, but I still think he's going to have some problems with the tax authorities.

Cut It Out

“Governor Culver announces he is cutting his salary by 10 percent.”

When is a 10% pay cut not a 10% pay cut?

When the mathletes, like the Big Lug Nut and posse, work the figures.

Culver's annual salary to be cut only 5.4 percent, not 10 percent

These dumbasses have 0% credibility and the scientific community is united in that fact!

Because Culver’s salary is set by law, his pay cut will take the form of a reimbursement. He will collect his full pay, but write a check to the state.

I'll believe that when I see the copy of the cashed check.

I would call them inapt, but that means at some point they were apt.

Serious Journalism?

I was a little stunned by this Ragister article...

Branstad won't cut his salary to help balance state's budget

They're ragging on Governor Branstad for not cutting his salary like Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's $1 pledge.

Snyder is a millionaire who had the resources to spend nearly $6 million of his own money for the job.

Iowa's budget deficit isn't nearly as bad as Michigan's and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Did this journalist cut his salary to $1 to help bail out the Ragister and save jobs there?

Why didn't the Ragister make a stink over the Dummycrats who never took a 10% cut in their state salaries when other state workers did?

Poor Side of Town

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

So welcome back baby
To the poor side of town

When is a poverty tour not a poverty tour?

When it's headed by a multi millionaire trial lawyer.

...publicity about his personal wealth - $400 haircuts, construction of a 28,000-square-foot house, hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary to speak about poverty and advise a hedge fund for the superrich - has opened him to charges of hypocrisy and threatened to undermine his message.

"Let them attack," Edwards said in a letter to supporters, asking for symbolic $8 campaign donations to support his effort.

Edwards poverty tour was supposed to be a break from fund raising and campaigning.

Do you see why there might be charges of hypocrisy?

Some at his campaign rallies do.

Last night in Fort Dodge, Dave Price reports this...

A woman first asked him if he would consider living on the "food stamp diet' a few members of Congress are trying. He told her he hadn't heard about it, but if he could make it work on the Presidential campaign trail, he would think about it. Then she brought up the haircut. She told him her family lives for weeks on what he paid for that one haircut. The comment brought a collective "ohhhh" from the crowd and silence for a bit from Edwards.

That's for a $400 haircut, but his barber---er, hairstylist was paid more.

Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help.

...Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times.

At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

When this first came out Edwards said that he was embarrassed by the cost and that he "didn't know it would be that expensive," suggesting the haircuts were some kind of aberration given by "that guy" his staff had arranged.

16 times is not an aberration.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me 16 times you're a Fiberal Dummycrat.

...the Edwards campaign said this week that Edwards had arranged for the stylist to give him numerous cuts over the past four years. But it said that a personal assistant handled paying for the haircuts and that Edwards didn't realize how much they cost.

Really?

...According to Torrenueva, the last time he cut Edwards's hair was March 23, the day after Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned and a month before the cost of the haircuts became public.

Unlike two prior haircuts in January and February, which were paid for by the campaign, Edwards personally paid the $400 for the March cut, the stylist said.

The Edwards campaign said this...

"Breaking news -- John Edwards got some expensive haircuts and probably didn't pay enough attention to the bills. He didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction or spring Scooter Libby; he just got some expensive haircuts."

No, Edwards lied about haircuts!

Pathetic!

There is one thing I can agree with John Edwards on...

"Democrats want to win. This is not an intellectual exercise for us..."

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

I can't blame you for tryin'
I'm tryin' to make it too

... Together we can make it baby
From the poor side of town

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

In this day and age the public is going to find it hard to feel sorry for a person who had their salary cut to $73,259 a year and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Branstad slashes workers' comp official's pay

Chris Godfrey has twice refused a request from the Governor to resign his position as Iowa's Workmen's Compensation Commissioner.

Godfrey, an attorney, is said to be reviewing his legal recourse.

Which means he'll hire a lawyer, probably at state expense, even though the action is within the Governor's authority.

Maybe he'll try to prove the arm twisting and pay cut are an on the job injury.

ZIP-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

My, oh my zero percent allowable growth doesn't seem so bad for education.

West Des Moines school board OKs pay and benefits

Teachers will get a 2.93 percent combined increase to salary and benefit packages.

A 2 percent salary increase is scheduled for administrators who meet performance requirements.

There's a 2 percent salary increase for a group that includes program coordinators and teaching coaches and a 2.7 percent salary increase for nonunion support staff.

The contract is based on an allocation of zero percent allowable growth from the state Legislature.

They must be teaching fuzzy math in West Des Moines and the scientific community is united in that fact.

State Senator Paul McKinley notes zero percent allowable growth actually provides more state money to local schools than they received after Governor Culver made his disastrous across-the-board cut.

What's more the fear mongers who've stated for months that statewide layoffs of teachers would be close to 1500 if zero percent allowable growth was allowed. The story went on to say the actual result will be closer to 100 positions statewide and most of those are a result of retirements, loss of student enrollment and one-time dollars from the federal stimulus running out.

It's the truth, it's actch'll
Ev'rything is satisfactch'll

Downtown

Des Moines City Manager Rick Clark is seeking a 3% pay cut from the cities police and fire employees to help alleviate a two year projected $11 million budget deficit.

Last year Clark's "leadership" was praised when he froze his salary at $198,000 a year.

Think how much love he'd get if he actually showed some real leadership and cut his pay before asking that from others.

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to guide them along...

Hard Corps

My friend Cal, Freedom's pal, sent me this from Robert A. Hall - The Old Jarhead.

I'm Tired

I’ll be 63 soon. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth around” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy or stupid to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them—with their own money.

I’m tired of being told how bad America is by leftwing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women’s rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won’t multiculturalism be beautiful?

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor;” of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers;” of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery;” of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I believe “a man should be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.” I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of President Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of US Senators from Illinois. I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less in an all-knowing government.

I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful. That thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress, that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his, that slammed Palin with two years as governor for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever.

Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need.

I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people then themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers—bums are bi-partisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bi-partisanship. I live in Illinois, where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats and Republicans has worked together harmoniously to loot the public for years. And I notice that the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet are bi-partisan as well.

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to get to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

Thanks Robert, for all you've done for your country.

Coincidence?

Within hours of the release of poll, at the Iowa Republican, that showed him trailing Matt Schultz, Secretary of State Michael Mauro put out a press release claiming spending is down and revenue is up in his office.

Oddly, it took over a month to issue this Fiscal Year 2010 report and in his archived press releases, Mauro has never issued this report before.

For this report Mauro noted -- "We've dug in and done more than our share while handling hundreds of thousands of transactions for Iowans."

And

"We have fought – and continue to fight – to create real savings for Iowa taxpayers while generating increased revenue for the state treasury."

It would have been over $10,000 more if Mauro would have taken the 10% cut in his $103,212 tax payer paid salary that was mandated on other state employees

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

Miller Lite

Add Attorney General Tom Miller's name to those Dummycrats that didn't take a 10% pay cut to his taxpayer paid $124,000 salary.

Miller also wouldn't ditch a friend, Lynn Walding, no matter how much taxpayer money he misspent.

Iowa alcohol agency kept unspent money, memo says

The Attorney General went all legal eagle in defending his recommendation that the Big Lug Nut not let Walding go...

"After a staff review of the memo and applicable Iowa statutes, the office concluded that the allegations contained within the five-page memo were not sufficient to warrant removal of an appointive state officer by the Executive Council under the standards set forth in Chapter 66.26 of the Iowa Code."

Per the Ragister -- The law cited by Miller says that administrators such as Walding can be removed from office for habitual or willful neglect of duty, willful misconduct or maladministration in office, or a failure to produce and fully account for all public funds in the employee's hands.

It must depend on the meaning of the word "sufficient" and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Tom Miller must go.

Slave To The Wage?

Already counting on being re-elected, and hoping for a raise, is Treasurer Michael "Ponzi" Fitzgerald.

The "Ponz", pictured, said he was disappointed a proposal by Governor Branstad to give statewide elected officials a pay raise apparently has been torpedoed by the chairman of his political party.

The proposal would have raised the pay of Iowa's next Treasurer from $103,212 to $112,510.

It's a shame that one hundred grand doesn't buy what it once did and the scientific community is united in that fact. 

Fitzgerald thanked the governor for seeking a pay raise on their behalf that he and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, also a Democrat, supported.  

The next Attorney General's salary would rise from $123,669 to $134,800.  

The last time these two's salaries came up was in 2010, when the Big Lug Nut took a 10 percent pay cut and Fitzgerald (Ten Percent?) and Miller (Miller Lite) refused to do the same.

Price Less

That was my reaction to the Big Lug Nut's spokeswienee Troy Price trying to show up State Auditor David Vaudt.

Vaudt urged the Dummycrats in charge to consider taking corrective budget action now to avert deeper spending cuts later.

Price said the BLN is taking “a more responsible and prudent approach” by waiting.

Really?

Then why pay a consultant $300,000 to recommend budget cutting ideas for the 2011 budget year?

I offered the BLN an idea (No Charge) already and here's a couple more.

Cut the number of boards and commissions in Iowa.

I know your consultant doesn't agree, but do we really need 178 boards and commissions with a total of 1,388 members?

You would probably have to work with the Legislature on this, but now is a good time as they've set up a State Government Reorganization Commission (your buddy Staci Appel-sauce for brains is a chair).

What is within you power is the appointments, and the scientific community is united in that fact, as of this writing there are only 18 openings since you just appointed four more Iowans.

According to your boy Bo Berntsen, those commissioners and boarders(?) receive anywhere from reimbursement for travel and lodging, to a $50 per diem, to an annual salary.

Lastly, flush any fool that needs to change the name of his department in the times of a recession, because you know there's some major money spent on new signs and stationary.

Your site still refers to it as the Department of Elder Affairs, making the change DOA not IDA.