A Soap Box Speech - Apologies in Advance

So the government is extending and expanding its $8,000 tax credit to first time home buyers. Initially, it was to be available through November. Now you can get that credit through June. Additionally, they are now offering homeowners who have lived in their homes 5+ years a $6,500 tax credit for new home purchase. And there is a stipulation that as a married couple making $225,000, (because they really need help) you can buy a home for up to $800,000 before they start phasing this credit out. This is a good thing for Bob and I since Bob is a real estate agent. But I have to wonder, what is it really about?

Seems to me that we as citizens should be fed up about now with all the smoke and mirror tactics of our government (past and present) and its economy. The idea is clearly to get the housing market moving. If the media has nothing but good news of gains to report about the housing market, we must be in a recovery, right? And then we can all start buying again. Which, I understand is what stimulates the economy. I get it. Except that while the housing market shows gains, unemployment still rises at record levels and they are actually calling this a "jobless recovery" - which makes absolutely no sense at all since if you don't have a job, you can't recover (unless a truck pulls up to your door and hands you a check for $10,000,000 from Publisher's Clearing House - oh and by the way, new, legalized gambling casinos are springing up all over the country. Now there's hope for us!). So they have extended unemployment benefits again - which I am truly grateful for at this point because this is really getting scary - but I'd rather have a job.

The plan is to fund these extensions and credits through business tax (as though they can take the hit) but they are also refunding taxes paid by business in previous years to businesses who are losing money this year. And all of this sounds so helpful. And there is no doubt that all of us who benefit are undeniably grateful. But it is a bit like giving morphine to a dying person. It feels better for now, but you're still gonna die. It seems to me that we must start looking this gift horse in the mouth. Because on closer look, that horse has all the markings of being Trojan.

And for the record, I am a registered democrat.

Interesting to me as well is that I hear absolutely nothing about what is being offered to the truly poor. Those people who couldn't get by even when things were great. Most disturbing of all though is the endless waste. A couple of weeks ago 60 Minutes reported on a $60 billion crime industry in Medicare insurance fraud! In Florida, it has far surpassed drug trafficking as the number one crime industry. And I'm pretty sure that Florida gets top billing over the rest of us in drug trafficking. They explained how incredibly simple it is for literally thousands of criminals currently involved in this scam (in Florida alone) to set up a phony business (pharmacy, doctor office, etc.), buy a list of medicare patients, and just start billing medicare for huge bogus services - each operation stealing up to $100,000+ a month. The policy of medicare is to "pay now, investigate later". So by the time an investigation begins, the criminals have moved out - lock, phantom stock, and barrel - to set up shop somewhere else. Further, in the area of Miami, there are only 3 medicare employees whose job it is to investigate fraud. This against what is reported to be thousands of fraud cases monthly. They interviewed one woman who says she has been calling medicare for 6 years to report fake charges being paid out by medicare on her behalf - for wheelchairs, prosthetics, services that she has not received and has never needed. For 6 years the only response she has received back from Medicare is a form letter stating "thank you for bringing this to our attention, we are investigating it." When asked why this hasn't had more attention before, the answer from Medicare is, "well we just didn't realize that this was such a problem". And then, my next thought is, are these the same people who are wanting to set in motion a government sponsored health care program? Uh - let's back up a little okay? I'm not sure we should give the baby the matches.

If the government took some of the trillions of dollars they have given away (with no accountability) and created thousands of jobs across the country in meaningful, real, effective insurance fraud investigation and prosecution, the $60 million they would save in payments to criminals would not only pay for the thousands of new employees, it would increase the funds available to medicare. And maybe I could get trained in this new job and go to work again.

And I understand that government benefits are killer!