Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
' Section 7203 '" misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
' Section 7201 '" felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.' [page 3]
The House is in the final rush toward passage of a national health care bill, and there's one thing Speaker Nancy Pelosi absolutely, positively does not want her Democratic lawmakers to do: Go home.
"You meet constituents and get an earful from them - that's the last thing she wants," says a key House Republican aide. "If you were a Democrat, and you went home last weekend and were asked about the health care bill, you could say, 'I'm still looking at it.' Well, now you've had it for a week, the vote is any day now. What are you going to say?" Better just to stay in Washington and avoid potentially uncomfortable scenes.
... and that's the official number that doesn't count those who have given up looking for work or are stuck in part-time jobs (the broader U6 is at 17.5%). Bloomberg:
Payrolls fell by 190,000 workers last month, compared with a 175,000 drop anticipated by the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The jobless rate gained from 9.8 percent in September and exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983.
"everything about his background is rock solid, and nothing extraordinary stands out about his background."
P.S. I should note that I grew up after the era of broadcast news; so I have no idea who this "Pete Williams" is. The only time I watched a broadcast evening newscast was when Dan Rather was hilariously trying to explain away RatherGate. These days, Bill O'Reilly gets more viewers than the networks' evening newscasts.
After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the eventual collapse of the communist government in 1992, the situation rapidly deteriorated. Karzai joined the mujaheddin government, which was dominated by Jamiat-e-Islami, but he was not trusted by the battle-tested warriors. In 1994, he was arrested and interrogated by security chief Mohammad Qasim Fahim on suspicion of being a spy for Pakistani intelligence. He barely escaped with his life, and did so only because a rocket tore the building apart as he was being beaten. (This is the same Fahim who is now Karzai's first vice-president; politics in Afghanistan does indeed make strange bedfellows.)
I have never had a mortgage because I have always believed that an individual having mortgage debt was essentially engaging in a form risky behavior. Many a times I cringed hearing real estate agents and mortgage brokers tell their clients to get the biggest house they can to get "the deduction."
Because of that belief, I have always felt that the allowance of a mortgage interest deduction was simply a subsidy on my part as a taxpayer to others that were in fact reckless. We do not have to look that far back in history to George Bush's "home ownership society" to see the ultimate danger of that reckless behavior.
That mortgage interest deduction is a direct Federal handout amounting to thousands of dollars, not once, but over fifteen, thirty or even more years.
As a result, when I first learned of the original homebuyer tax credit I started thinking that it was indeed a great idea to encourage the purchase of a home. While it helps someone get in the door, it is not built around tax deduction considerations that may or may not apply. I believe in helping people to buy a home, not inducing them to get the biggest mortgage they can.
The home buyer tax credit has now been extended and expanded, passing this time with tremendous Republican support;
WASHINGTON '- Buying a home is about to get cheaper for a whole new crop of homebuyers '- $6,500 cheaper.
First-time homebuyers have been getting tax credits of up to $8,000 since January as part of the economic stimulus package enacted earlier this year. But with the program scheduled to expire at the end of November, the House voted 403-12 Thursday to extend and expand the tax credit to include many buyers who already own homes. The Senate approved the measure Wednesday, and the White House said President Barack Obama would sign it Friday.
Now if they would only make the credit permanent and then forever ban the mortgage interest deduction.
But that will never happen, because those that are the loudest against the homebuyer credit have benefited the most from the mortgage interest deduction, which they gladly partake in, albeit quietly.
