Well, America, you got what you wanted...

A Washington DC contract attorney who goes by the nom de plume 'Raised by Wolves' (RBW, in future references) has written an excellent analysis of what is going to happen to contract opportunities (as well as permanent positions) once ObamaCare hits in January 2013. Among other comments, he asks what contract agencies will do when the new requirements that basically force any company with more than 30 employees to either buy them over-priced, horrible government-issued insurance or pay a hefty per-employee penalty. His answer is as follows:

There are only two choices. First, nobody works 30 hours a week for an agency ever again. That probably is an unworkable solution, but it is not unthinkable, given the trend in the industry toward a 40-hour cap on projects. A 30-hour cap would mean more bodies, staggered, but would not be a dramatic departure from the no-OT policy that already governs so many projects. Given the staggering costs of forced health coverage (or penalties), agencies won't consider this option unworkable. They'll think about it, and you'll have to start finding two projects at a time to make a living wage. Assuming, of course, that agencies and the firms that hire them stop enforcing their concurrent employment policies that ban working two projects at a time.

The second choice is, your taxes just got harder. Agencies could deem contract attorneys to be independent contractors and start issuing 1099s instead of W-2s. That means you'll have to make quarterly estimated tax payments for withholding, Social Security and Medicare taxes. Oh, and by the way, it also means you'll be responsible for the employer's half of those Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as you will now be self employed. Of course agencies will raise your rates to make up for the fact that your share of the payroll taxes doubled while their share disappeared. Don't doubt it for a second.

Now RBW was focusing on the contract attorney field, but his analysis is valid for any field where contracting is common. This includes the high-tech fields where I earn MY living. And my reaction is that RBW is spot-on. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that where I live, there are lots and LOTS of contract offers. Perm? None. Everyone wants to hire contractors. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that companies know what's coming and are trying desperately to avoid the coming storm? Why, yes, it could. Which is also why permanent opportunities are going to be few and VERY far between for the next ten-twenty years. The Democrats have basically made it uneconomical to hire permanent employees. And so they are desperately trying to get people to do contracting instead. Of course, my sympathy for most of these companies is miniscule since these are largely the same companies whose CEOs are in bed with the Democrats.

But hey, America basically voted for two issues in the 2012 election. These issues, as constantly screamed forth by the Democrat propagandists in the press corps were:

1. Lots and lots of government 'free' shit (paid for with Other People's Money) and...
2. Killing babies so that irresponsible and feckless young women can have lots of fun without consequences while forcing everyone else to pay for that fun, as Sandra the Slut memorably begged for.

Those were the two main campaign issues the Democrats and their media shills pushed over and over again (in between dragging out seventh-grade stories and telling us what a scary and horrible guy that Mitt Romney fellow was, of course). So guess what, America? You got what you wanted. I hope you enjoy it when the inevitable bill comes due.

Another Postscript

I just looked at the post-election map. For conservatives, this should be deeply disturbing. The Democrats now own Virginia, Nevada and Colorado and to all intents and purposes, Ohio as well. This essentially means that no Republican can ever win a Presidential election ever again and even if one should somehow manage to get past the media bias and demonization, there is no chance that Republicans will ever have a majority in Congress either - especially not in the Senate.

Why is this? well, look at the map. Montana and South Dakota both chose to elect Democrats over Republicans, despite being thought of as red states. Republicans failed to beat outright frauds in massachusetts and failed to beat deeply unpopular incumbents in both Missouri and hold a REpublican seat in Indiana.

Overall, this election tells me two things. First, that the Democrats have succeeded in creating a majority built on government-reliant groups. Second, that the media's scare tactics still work too well and no Republican will ever be able to get past them to try to convince these groups that Democrats do NOT have their best interests at heart. And this is a majority that cannot be broken - they will never vote for those who honestly say they will cut their benefits. And of course Democrats will promise anything and scare them by saying REpublicans want to to take away those benefits. The same goes for parasites like the federal unionized bureaucrats. They will never vote for Republicans.

What this means is that we who love this country are watching it die. The takeover is complete. First the Democrats seized control of the educational system and created an indoctrination program. Then they added those indoctrinated fools to a large group who relies on government to live. And now, they have won and the country's federalist roots are finally dead. The plan initiated by Woodrow Wilson and continued by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson is complete. This country is now ruled by a small cadre who plans to turn all of us into beggars dependent on Almighty Government. And never again will any election do anything to stop it. The best we can hope for is to slow the progress, but now we have gone too far. The government, according to the Supreme Court, can tell us what to buy, what to wear, what to eat, where to live, and anything else, as long as they call it a tax.

I don't know if I can offer any comfort. We had the worst President of our lifetimes, a horrid economy, a disastrous foreign policy and yet a majority of Americans STILL voted to re-elect Obama. And not only that, they gave him increased control in the Senate and cut the Republican majority in the House. As a conservative, there is no comfort that I can take tonight. Our side lost and lost big. And from where I sit, the country is beyond repair. I guess we can look forward to becoming just like California now. Yay.

Get Ready for Taxachusetts

Now that Barack Obama has won re-election, and the Democrats have strengthened their hold on the Senate, taxes will go up on January 1. The Republicans have lost seats in the Senate and cannot stop any of Obama's legislation. And after tonight's shellacking, I don't expect them to try. I wouldn't if I were them. Why bother? If they try to stand up for ordinary Americans, they will be demonized in the press and they obviously lack the spine - they didn't even nail the president on his many failures during his first term. But this means that Americans will face a massive tax increase. All the Bush tax cuts will expire and not only that, ObamaCare's taxes kick in on January 1 as well. So we are facing the largest tax hike in US history. Thanks, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama!

So, what will this tax hike entail? No one knows for sure, but CNBC says that most Americas will see their investment taxes rise by approximately 3.8 percent. In addition, CNBC says that with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, that means wealthy Americans will see those taxes rise by close to 45 percent.

But that is not all. As Daily Finance.com points out, the expiration of the afore-mentioned Bush tax cuts also means that the average US family will pay 15 percent more in taxes immediately - in addition to those massive investment income tax hikes.

So, get ready for a much higher tax bill in 2013. Thanks to Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress of 2007-2010, it's coming. The only question is whether or not the Democrats will reach for even more tax hikes as well. Personally, I wouldn't bet against it. After all, as Obama famously said in 2009, 'I won."

Goodnight, America

Well, it's over. Good-bye America, it was great while it lasted. With the results of this night pretty much set in stone, we now know that our future is limited and the end is in sight. Once the socialists seize control of a country, as they seized control of the United States tonight, the future is always the same - huge deficits, disastrous foreign policies, a rising class of political nomenklatura, an educational system designed to indoctrinate, not to educate, and the loss of freedom for the people. That is the future that awaits us as well, especially if the other frequent result - a fascist or communist dictator - occurs. It was due to this type of situation that brought Mussolini to power in Italy. And so, knowing that the great experiment that was America has reached the beginning of the end, we must ask ourselves what happened? Here is my small attempt at explaining this debacle. I see four primary reasons why barack Obama won. These are as follows:

1. The media advantage They lied for Obama, they hid news that would make him look bad, they glorified his Administration's response to Hurricane Sandy (behavior that they crucified W over), they falsely blamed all the bad economic news (when thy reported it at all) on either George W Bush or the post-2010 Republican House of Representatives, they refused to report on the many scandals of his Administration, they falsely demonized his opponent and they actively worked with his campaign to report only those items that would reflect well upon him. Media bias was huge for the Democrats.
2. Voting fraud The Republicans tried to shut off the illegal voting with Voter ID and they could not do it - Democrat judges shot it down. I would not be surprised to learn someday that this election involved shenanigans like the infamous theft of Illinois in 1960. But without any real way to verify voters, what can we expect?
3. The Gimme Vote Mitt Romney said that 47 percent of American was beyond his reach. I fear he under-estimated. Based on tonight's results, I think that over fifty percent is now on the government teat in one way or another. And this was by design. The democrats intend to get the country dependent on government aid so that they can more easily control us. beggars are easier to please, after all - especially ignorant and indoctrinated beggars. Look at Red China and the old USSR for evidence. As Alexander Fraser Tytler is said to have written (this is also sometimes attributed to Alexis de Toqueville), "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury." I think we have now reached that point.
4. Race. Obama won largely because too many Americans could not bring themselves to vote against The First Black President. His policies were secondary to his skin color. This means that the ideal of equality is dead - people will be judged solely on color, not on what they can do. Martin Luther King's dream is dead - destroyed by his own race. Blacks and other minorities as a group apparently cannot see beyond color. They voted en masse for an incompetent poser solely because of color. This despite the fact that his policies are directly responsible for a great deal of their misery. Amazing and utterly depressing.