(Image courtesy of Fiscal Times)

What makes this chart particularly disturbing – outside of GE avoiding taxes altogether – is the 2nd article in this post from the Orlando Sentinel. And folks wonder why mainstream media refuses to combine related news…

(Fiscal Times) With President Obama’s deficit-reduction plan now on the table, the political left, right and center are ready to rumble over how to assure long-term fiscal stability. The big questions are where to slash and by how much, but over the next year or two, the most important question for the economy might well be how quickly the cutting should begin. Households have become unusually dependent on the government for income support and removing that prop too fast could put the recovery at risk.

For the first time since the Great Depression, households are receiving more income from the government than they are paying the government in taxes. The combination of more cash from various programs, called transfer payments, and lower taxes has been a double-barreled boost to consumers’ buying power, while also blowing a hole in the deficit. The 1930s offer a cautionary tale: The only other time government income support exceeded taxes paid was from 1931 to 1936. That trend reversed in 1936, after a recovery was underway, and the economy fell back into a second leg of recession during 1937 and 1938.

The recession cut deeply into tax payments as more people lost their jobs, and it boosted payments for so-called automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment insurance, that ramp up payments as the economy turns down. Plus, policy actions, including the Recovery Act, boosted payments to households by expanding and extending jobless benefits and creating other income subsidies while extending the Bush-era tax cuts and adding new reductions in income and payroll taxes.

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals.

Meanwhile back in Florida, four years of constant ‘homeowner’ bailouts has resulted in, what else, another $ billion ‘homeowner’ bailout program – this time ‘homeowners’ are set to receive as much as $12,000+ per household.

(Orlando Sentinel) The state today launches a billion-dollar mortgage bailout aimed initially at unemployed homeowners and pinned largely on the hope that those who get help will find jobs within six months.

The Florida Housing Finance Corp. starts taking applications this morning from struggling homeowners for mortgage assistance from the federal government’s Hardest Hit funds. Though the state-owned corporation had planned on providing as much as $35,000 during 18 months to each qualified homeowner, it scaled back the program to offer only $12,000 during six months at the direction of Gov. Rick Scott.

Scott, who earlier this year refused to take federal transit dollars for a Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed-rail project, agreed to accept the federal mortgage assistance with the caveat that it be spread among more recipients. Scott’s six-month proposal is expected to assist 40,000 homeowners, while the previous, 18-month version would have assisted about half that many.

But the risk associated with cutting each homeowner’s slice of assistance is that the person will not find work by the time the aid runs out in six months — and so would once again face foreclosure. In that case, the government money would have only delayed the inevitable.

“Some of us have a concern that six months isn’t long enough to help the people who really deserve help,” said Len Tylka, chairman of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. The government-owned operation is taking homeowners’ applications for assistance at the website http://www.flhardesthithelp.org.

~snip~

“We’re going to watch this like a hawk and take the battle to the next level if we have to,” Tylka said. “If we find this is not working, I will be wanting to make modifications.“

Where’d all the stimulus money go?: HERE and HERE

Jesse Jackson, ‘We need more stimulus’: HERE

We are a nation of takers, not makers: HERE

Ben Bernanke interrogated: HERE

Warren Buffet, ‘Debt good. Attitude bad.’: HERE

Big gains in the war on middle class: HERE

Budget spin meter – We’re on a road to nowhere: HERE

Bankruptcy declaration for states sought — QUIETLY: HERE

GE strategy: ‘Let’s avoid taxes altogether’: HERE

Bankrupt GE to spend $30 billion as Obama administration continues to fund GE: HERE

Obama says, ‘There is going to be a tug-of-war within the US between those who see globalization as a threat, and those who accept it’: HERE

Washington Post and CBS receive $2 million in Obamacare subsidies: HERE

The consequences of entitlement: HERE