One in six dollars owed to the IRS are not being paid.[1]
An astonishing number of wealthy Americans do not pay the taxes they owe. What is also astonishing is that some members of Congress appear to have that as a goal. You will see their efforts play out over the next few weeks in the very scary debate about federal debt. You will hear a lot of talk about our government running out of money. These politicians will focus on cutting federal spending rather than collecting money owed but not paid by tax cheats. Cuts to Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare will be predicted unless we “balance the budget’ and “eliminate the deficit”. These statements are intentionally misleading.
Category: Uncategorized
A taboo subject we cannot fix if we cannot not talk about it.
How many of these surprising facts disclosed in my columns of January 1 and January 15 do you know?
As you see above, school-aged kids are the most at-risk population for excessive unhealthy weight gain. The school absentee rate of overweight and obese students is between 27% and 54% higher than normal weight students.[1] How does this impact their education? Let me count the ways….
Nationally, this group is four times more likely to develop diabetes,[2] almost twice as likely to experience mental health issues such as depression and anxiety[3] and is between 25% and 50% more likely to have asthma.[4][5] Vitamin D deficiency is common in children with obesity, with reported prevalence rates as high as 90%.”[6] Half of all children who have vitamin D deficiency experience lifelong hearing loss because the tiny bones in the inside of their ears have not grown correctly.[7]
Today’s Parents Have a Heavy Responsibility.
As you may have seen before, data published in 2019 showed the percentage of American adults (both men and women) who were obese went up 500% between 1950 and 2018.(1),(2),(3)
Since that three-year-old report was published the situation has gotten worse for both adults and children. (4)
Just before Christmas 2022, health officials announced that doctors needed a new chart to record children’s health statistics. The old chart, in use for 24 years, had to be scrapped because it did not have a place to put 4.5 million American children who gained so much weight during Covid that they literally outgrew the chart. (5)
The new category is called “severely obese” – and they probably will not need a retirement savings account because they will likely not live long enough to retire.