Barack Obama is a millionaire because of two books he supposedly wrote. One, it is speculated, was ghost written by Obama friend and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers but let’s not speculate let’s stick to the facts.

Speaking to the Facebook crowd and 26-year old billionaire Mark Zuckerman last week Mr. Obama stated:

“But I think that what he [Rep. Paul Ryan] and the other Republicans in the House of Representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a pretty fundamental way. Their basic view is that no matter how successful I am, no matter how much I’ve taken from this country—I wasn’t born wealthy; I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents; I went to college on scholarships. There was a time when my mom was trying to get her Ph.D, where for a short time she had to take food stamps. My grandparents relied on Medicare and Social Security to help supplement their income when they got old. So their notion is, despite the fact that I’ve benefited from all these investments—my grandfather benefited from the GI Bill after he fought in World War II—that somehow I now have no obligation to people who are less fortunate than me and I have no real obligation to future generations to make investments so that they have a better [future].”

How noble of Mr. Obama who paid, with his wife, a mere 27-percent tax rate when he could have volunteered to pay 35-percent by not taking deductions and using those dreaded loopholes.

But then Obama links himself with millionaires and billionaires who have really earned their money, who have taken risks and spent lifetimes creating jobs, growing businesses, investing personal funds and creating wealth through their own sweat equity.

“And then what we’ve said is let’s take another trillion [dollars] of that that we raise through a reform in the tax system that allows people like me—and, frankly, you, Mark—for paying a little more in taxes.”

Why does Barack Obama have so much animosity for people “like him” and then take all the accounting and tax “loopholes” and “deductions” to pay less then what he would deem “his fair share.” Why isn’t Barack Obama willing to spread more of his wealth? Could it be that Barack Obama suffers from acute class envy?

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal provides some facts concerning real wealth builders and how they choose to spread their wealth without the insistence of the federal government or Barack Obama.

Andrew Carnegie alone built more than 1,600 libraries in the U.S. Today, according to Internal Revenue Service data, there are some 110,000 grant-making private foundations in the U.S. Beyond the foundations bearing the names of famously undertaxed plutocrats such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates there are another hundred thousand or so, often run by modestly wealthy families whose foundations support a vast array of needs—scholarships, schools, hospitals, cultural institutions and even causes across the political spectrum, no doubt including windmills.

The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College reports that giving by individuals hit an astounding $243 billion in 2007. As to the millionaires, the report says, “In that year, households with $1 million or more in net worth gave 52%, or $126.15 billion.” During the 2008 recession, their giving dropped 4% “because there were 27% fewer millionaire households at that time.” But by the end of 2009, giving by millionaire households returned to 52% of the national total.

Look at disasters, Katrina as one example, or other disasters in America and around the world. American’s of all stripes donate money without question, voluntarily, without a nudge from the government. American’s come to the forefront when people are in need, they volunteer time and money on their own and this has always been the case in the United States.

If Obama gets his way and eliminates the charitable deduction,  then he should agree to drop the top tax rate or simply flatten it and quite probably total giving will rise, not fall. Giving is what Americans do, and they consistently do so at all income levels.

Barack Obama believes only the federal government can make money relevant and only the government can spend money wisely. Barack Obama’s “foundation” is not of his own making, but increasing its size is his ambition and goal. Barack Obama’s “charitable” foundation is the federal government and the federal budget.

Entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare sit at the center of the Barack Obama Charitable Foundation but he is not funding it through his own entrepreneurial spirit because he has none. Barack Obama is not funding his foundation with sweat of his own but on the backs of people who really know how to earn money and then grow it exponentially.

Barack Obama is not “one of them” because he is not a producer but a taker. Obama is like a thief in the night who uses Czars and the bureaucracy in the halls of the federal government to take, not give, not produce.

Barack Obama never pays what he calls his “fair share” but he only wishes to take from those who produce and pretend his is just like them. Mr. Obama is NOT “like them” because he has never produced anything of value to broader society. Indeed!

If you believe the grave prediction in yesterday’s news from Market Watch the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has dropped a bombshell and date certain for the end of the Age of America.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

When? 2016! Merely five years from now.

According to the IMF forecast, which quietly posted the dire prediction on the Fund’s website just two weeks ago, whoever is elected US president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Brett Arends of Market Watch writes:

The actual date when China surpasses the U.S. might come even earlier than the IMF predicts, or somewhat later. If the great Chinese juggernaut blows a tire, as a growing number fear it might, it could even delay things by several years. But the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

This is more than a statistical story. It is the end of the Age of America. As a bond strategist in Europe told me two weeks ago, “We are witnessing the end of America’s economic hegemony.”

IMFs prediction is based on trends however and anyone familiar with economics and business understands that trends are fluid, things change, unknown factors take place that arent’ predictable or written in stone.

Heritage Foundation’s Derek Scissors writes:

The IMF’s assumption that our economy will be weak indefinitely is all too reasonable. China might run its economy into the ground, but we are running our economy into the ground. Reasonable people can sharply disagree over what to do, but what’s killing U.S. leadership is obvious to the IMF and anyone looking at the global picture: our budget deficit.

Dr. Scissors does point out that a silver lining very well exists in the economic clouds:

If we do get our act together, we will stay far ahead of China where it counts most: in wealth, in employment, in technology, and so on. The United States is richer, has far more productive workers, and far more in the way of natural resources than China. The only way we stop being the global economic leader is if we blow it.

So according to Dr. Scissors the future lies not in predictions but in America’s ability to use its resources, both natural and human, to grab itself up by the boot straps and do what America has always done best – don’t quit but step up and reduce its debt and get its fiscal house in order. Allow the private sector to invest and produce and to grow jobs and the economy.

Average citizens must pay attention, they must call and write their representatives and demand that government stops the spending, stops the entitlements, stops the gross misappropriations of taxpayers dollars and begin to balance the budget.

The United States grew under a Constitutional government with respect for civil liberties and property rights. China has a system that ignores basic human rights and certainly rights of American citizens as provided as a birth right under our Constitution.

Take note – if the Age of America ends then the Age of China will look quite different. Ask yourself – is this what I want for my future, my children’s future, the future of a great Constitutional Republic? Take action, fight for your birth right, fight Obama and his Marxist ilk and prevent the end of America as we know it.

If the Age of America ends the world as we know it ends. Indeed!

Remember when Sarah Palin referred to Obamacare as having “Death Panel’s” and the mainstream media and many in the political class went on an all out frontal assault against the former Alaska Governor?

Of course Obamacare has death panels or at lease Barack Obama intends to have death panels. If you’re a senior citizen and you’re ill and maybe that treatment and money could go to someone younger than take the pill, take something for the pain. Too bad!

But now we have IPAB and acronym for “Independent Payment Advisory Board” which Mr. Obama mentioned in his response to Republican Paul Ryan’s (WI) 2012 budget proposal. The Obama death panel debate is not dead, it is only beginning to resurface under a different moniker.

The sole purpose of IPAP is to cut funding for some health care services seniors now take for granted and these are precisely the services that will kill people if not administered to the patient. IPAB was created pursuant to section 3403 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and its ostensible purpose is to “control costs.” Remember, PPACA is known as Obamacare.

A fifteen member panel will decide who receives care based on costs. These so-called “experts” will be imposing price controls on medical care. Before Obamacare only the US Congress could make changes to Medicare reimbursement rates but now IPAB will gain the power on changing the rates and if Congress fails to take action by passing contrary legislation and whoever occupies the Executive Branch signs said legislation into law then IPAB proposals automatically take effect.

Power’s of Congress are transferred to fifteen people, unelected by the citizens, all given the ultimate authority to control who receives health care and who does not.

Take note of comments from Obama’s former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag last year in a discussion at the Economic Club of Washington:

“This institution could prove to be far more important to the future of our fiscal health than, for example, the Congressional Budget Office. It has an enormous amount of potential power.”

Orszag goes on to describe the automatic implementation features of IPAB’s proposals:

“So the default is now switched in a very important way on the biggest driver of our long-term costs, which is the Medicare program.”

The mission of IPAB is cost cutting to Medicare and Obama has been very direct about rising costs, cutting costs and where those cuts will come from.

Obama said he “”will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.”

The original idea of Obamacare was to keep provisions and boards like IPAB well under the radar, away from public view assuming the Democrats would keep their power in Congress after the 2012 elections since the new law doesn’t require IPAB to produce it recommendations until 2014.

Columnist Jay Bookman wrote in “Why ‘death panels’ are a necessary evil,”:

“Death panels exist, they will exist in any conceivable system of health-care delivery, and we all know they are necessary but prefer to ignore it.”

“Somebody has to say no to the terminal patient who refuses to acknowledge that he or she is terminal and demands hopeless if expensive treatment.…

Somebody has to have the power to rule that Procedure A or Drug A is more cost-effective than Procedure B or Drug B.… Even Heaven has a gatekeeper.”

Power to mere mortals to decide who lives and who dies all appointed by Barack Obama. This makes some people very uneasy, even some Democrats such as Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA), who is among the co-sponsors of a bill that would repeal IPAB. In a statement released last week she said:

“Congress must assume responsibility for legislating sound health care policy for Medicare beneficiaries.… Abdicating this responsibility, whether to insurance companies or an unelected commission, would undermine our ability to represent the needs of the seniors.”

Even those comments don’t go far enough because the “ability to represent the needs of seniors” should be in the hands of individuals under the free-market system not an elected official or an appointed commission.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is attempting reform to get bugs out of the system which introduce competition among insurers, realigns tax incentives and removes some of the regulatory morass that reduces the efficiency of health care providers. This plan is a market-based approach that was successfully used in the Medicare Part-D program, which was beginning to drive down drug costs but meddling by Democrats after they gained power in 2006 began ending this.

Obama and his ilk wish to use “cost cutting” as a means to control health care, further grow government and eliminate free choice. Once they control your health care they control everything in your life.

“Cost control” is code for government-imposed rationing of care to the elderly. Obama’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator and lead health czar has often praised IPAB’s deadly British prototype, the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) and has famously averred that:

“The decision is not whether or not we will ration care; the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

The problem is that Obamacare’s death panel, as Sarah Palin correctly called IPAB in the Wall Street Journal, will end up closing a lot of aging eyes — permanently.

Obama, health care reform, and death panels, indeed!