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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Roger Schlesinger :: Townhall.com Columnist
Did you ever stop to think that?...
by Roger Schlesinger
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Will Congress pass Obamacare by the end of the year?

If the government took over other industries, as it is trying to do with the health insurance industry, with an entity that will be run by the government without profit, how much money the government could save the people of this country?

If they did take over all these other industries, the profits would be gone and so would the tax revenue needed to keep the government going. This might be called a no win situation!

The new law, HVCC (home value code of conduct), which prohibits mortgage loan officers to order an appraisal from the appraiser directly, has seemed to ruin a rather large number of purchases as reported by the National Association of Realtors. The problem is the appraisals are coming in too low.

If this keeps up, real estate will tank again because refinances aren't working either. The appraisers, without knowledge of the transaction in most cases, and usually without knowledge of the area as well, cannot successfully produce a reasonable number of appraisals to make refis or cash-out transactions work. This leads to loans not being funded and transactions failing to close.

The unfair advantage General, or Government Motors has by being run by the government who can fix all the problems, financing and legacy debt to name just two, over the plethora (or actually two) of other American car manufacturers.

We could be down to a very small number of domestic car manufacturers that will make up this industry that needed to be saved. After careful calculation, I believe it would be somewhere between 0 and 2, at a cost approaching $100 billion when all the figures are added up. Is it too late to rethink this bailout?

Hopefully you are beginning to see the point of this article: words can paint a pretty picture as long as you don't study the picture too intently. This government is for competition in the health industry, but not the auto industry. This government wants real estate to bottom out and start a steady path upward, but passes laws that won't accommodate common sense lending or reasonable practices because they have been dumped for half baked ideas that hinder, not help facilitate purchases and sales of real estate. I mentioned the appraisal problem, but another example is what you can or cannot do when applying for and being approved for an FHA loan (100% government loan). If you are self employed and file a schedule C on your tax return, you must have a separate bank account to pay your business bills or they will be disallowed. That simply means you must qualify with double the amount of bills and payments that you actually have. Let's say you have a delivery truck that you expense because it is 100% used for the business. You pay for it with your personal check and even though you can prove the only need for the truck is for the business, you have to qualify with two monthly payments. Why? Because you will get your Schedule C income, which has already deducted the truck payment and then your income will be lowered by the truck payment again. Talk about new math!

What's next?

How about turning the energy industry upside down when an alternative that will serve more than one in one hundred consumers is not available. If we stopped using foreign oil, or any oil, we couldn't produce a fraction of what we would need in energy to keep our country moving. We could perhaps let everyone with a name that starts with A drive one day, B the next, C the following day and so on! This certainly would cut down on our need for foreign oil and a few hundred other needs as well. How ironic is it that a government who cares so much for the average Americans, and making their life better, is going to raise the cost of fuel (by adding more taxes) to a point that only the rich will be able to drive at will? Continued...

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About The Author

Roger Schlesinger's Mortgage Minute is heard on hundreds of radio stations and daily on the Hugh Hewitt radio show and Michael Medved shows. Roger interacts with his hosts and explores the complicated financial markets in order to enlighten his listeners and direct them along their own unique road to financial freedom.

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Roger, perhaps your last line,
"Not only are the prices low, the financing is low as well and with projected rampant inflation, this could be the best time you ever will have seen to stake out your future." Should be that it is the best time to put a stake in your future, the fraudulent One has!

How govt can cut costs
We the people pay all taxes, and we are the only ultimate source of all tax revenue. Regardless where government initially collects it, all tax money ultimately comes from us, the people.
Since we the people are the one and only source of all tax revenue:
There should be only one tax to collect all tax revenue.
It should be a single, simple, fair, direct, graduated, individual, full-income tax levied on living persons for each level of government: One Tax and Done.
You cannot convince a person or corporation to start a new business or expand an existing business, increase jobs, and hire new employees, when you tax away the capitol he is using to operate his PRESENT business
The best thing that government can do to help the country, the people, and even government, is to repeal all of the many hundreds, or thousands of existing taxes, fees, and charges. These taxes are the federal deficit. These taxes are the high price of everything. These tax eliminations are spending cuts. Every tax that is eliminated is a tax that we the people no longer have to pay. These taxes are the difference between the price we pay for health care and everything else, and the price we would pay if these taxes were repealed. Eliminating these taxes will remove them from the price paid for everything by everyone.
One Tax and Done will provide many benefits to all, even government:
One Tax and Done will reduce the price paid for everything by one-third.
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