Obama Sees Benefit of not Taxing the Rich
Jun 18, 2008 Political
Barack Obama is cut from the same cloth as many Democrats before him. Tax and spend, and then tax and spend some more. Democrats always talk about taxing the rich as if that would solve our problems and as if the Rich don’t pay enough in taxes as it is. Whenever tax cuts are mentioned Democrats recoil like Dracula exposed to a Cross. Tax cuts are always bad unless the have a candidate running in a conservative region. Then they talk about how wonderful tax cuts are. Of course, to a Democrat, tax cuts are always for the rich. This is partially true because the rich pay most of the taxes in this country. However, the middle class made out better under the last tax cuts than the rich did. I don’t include the poor because they pay little, if any, taxes (why they did not get a rebate when the president cut taxes).
Democrats let the cat out of the bag recently when they discussed the “rebate” checks. They all talked about how the economy would be stimulated and that is what they named the bipartisan venture; The Economic Stimulus Bill. Democrats were forced to admit that allowing Americans to keep more of their money causes them to spend more and is better for the economy. The problem is, they gave the money to people who pay little or no taxes. Notice I say gave. In some cases they returned the money to people who paid taxes but a lot of people who pay absolutely nothing in taxes received tax “rebates” from money paid in by others. The Democrats will admit that lower taxes (that is what an economic stimulus is, after all) are good for the economy when it is an election year but they never quite seem to understand that it is better to take less from people than to take it and give some back when an election is not around the corner.
Barack Obama has been talking about how he will end Bush’s tax cuts “for the rich” and how he will tax people who make more than $250,000 a year. He would also lower taxes on the middle class, a group that shoulders a smaller part of the country’s burden than those making more. Obama is full of taxes. Tax this, tax that but in all of it, he admitted that it might not be wise to tax the rich after all:
Among Obama’s other proposals: raising the tax on capital gains and qualified dividends. However, Obama has raised the possibility of deferring some of his tax hikes on the wealthy given the ailing economy. My Way News
So Barry O Bam Bam understands that taxing the wealthy is not a great idea in a difficult economy. He must understand that doing so would make the economic problems much worse because it is the money of the wealthy that provides jobs and business opportunities. It is also the wealthy spending their money that helps stimulate the economy and when they are taxed more they spend less or, like members of Congress, they look for more tax free investments. If taxing them during down times is a cause for concern then why would it be OK to tax them in up times? Higher taxes result in economic troubles and no country ever taxed its way to prosperity. The way to make things better is for Congress to eliminate wasteful spending and there is a lot of that to eliminate.
Of course, Barry O Bam Bam can’t exactly do that since he is proposing trillions in additional wasteful spending. I am willing to bet he will not defer his plans to spend because of the ailing economy.
Tags: economy, Obama, rebates, spending, stimulus, tax the wealthy, taxes
Pelosi the Mediator is Loose with Facts
May 29, 2008 Opinion, Political
Nancy Pelosi has indicated that if the Democratic nomination process is not settled prior to the convention she will step in to get it settled. She said that Democrats cannot afford to go to the convention without a chosen nominee. Seems to me that Nancy Pelosi is rewriting the rules for the Democratic Party. Their rules say that there are super delegates and that those selected as super delegates are free to choose whomever they want for president regardless of any other influence including the popular vote, delegate count and number of states won. The purpose of the super delegates was to ensure the people got it right (in other words, make sure we can get who we want) and to select a candidate if none wins outright. Pelsoi seems to be indicating that she does not want this process and that she will step in to make sure that all of it is settled before the convention, the time set aside to actually settle such issues.
Nancy also said a few things in response to questions about the electorate and the current president. Nancy demonstrates the typical liberal mindset with one answer and then distorts the truth with another.
“I totally agree … this war is a big lie. It was a lie to begin with, and it continues to be a lie … at some point, maybe the lies just got too heavy for him to carry.” [in response to a question about Scott McClellan’s book]
Republicans “will try to use it [California gay marriage ruling] in the rest of the country” during the election, but voters are “tired of people who will take you to war and get you involved in (these) cultural battles. … They want to know: ‘Are you getting me a job?’ … They’re tired of these cultural issues being the currency of the realm.”
This president will go down in history as the worst, whether you’re talking about jeopardizing our national security… (or) the worst record of job creation.” SFGate [emphasis mine]
In response to the first item, has Nancy Pelosi read the book? She agrees with it 100% and yet she has only been privy to the excerpts we have all seen. If McClellan states that all Democrats are criminals and molest young children will she still agree 100%? Perhaps it would be prudent for her to read the book before commenting on it. I see it, so far, as a man who is trying to make some money off his bitterness especially since many folks are saying he was not part of the big meetings and was rarely included in those things. I seem to remember that Tony Snow wanted to be included in meetings before he agreed to replace McClellan. If it was standard practice he would not have needed the assurance. I will wait to pass judgment on the content until I have read it. Pelosi has done with this book just as she has with the war on terror in Iraq. She has made judgments without having the facts in front of her.
Nancy Pelosi says that Americans want to know [from government] “are you getting me a job?” Since when is it the responsibility of government to get people jobs? Getting a job is an individual responsibility and it is up to every person to take this task on without the government. The Constitution of the United States has nothing whatsoever in it about getting people jobs. This is the problem with liberals. They think it is the responsibility of government to do everything for people including getting them a job. Nancy showed her true liberal colors with that statement and she left no doubt that she believes (as is her liberal indoctrination) that it is up to the nanny state to take care of everyone. She cannot imagine for one moment that people should do this for themselves. However, just to make it clear, those who want jobs (and are willing to go get them) can find them. The unemployment rate is low and it has been throughout the entire Bush presidency. His unemployment numbers are nearly identical to Clinton’s and Democrats tout that economy as the best ever. This leads me to the last item.
Her opinion of George Bush jeopardizing national security is a joke at best and complete stupidity at worst. There were far more terrorist attacks on the US or its interests during Bill Clinton’s presidency than during Bush’s. The 9/11 attack was the direct result of Bill Clinton refusing to attack terrorists each time they attacked us. He allowed them to attack embassies, naval vessels, and he pulled our troops out of Somalia after the Blackhawk down incident. This emboldened bin Laden to attack America, a country he viewed as a paper tiger. This is according to bin Laden himself and all the censorship and secret document theft by Clinton and his minions cannot change that fact. If Clinton had taken out bin Laden on any of the occasions that he could have (and there were at least three) then 9/11 probably would not have happened.
As for the job creation or the economy in general, the Bush economy is as good as the one Clinton had and in some measures better. Bush inherited a recession from Clinton and 9/11 occurred eight months into his presidency. Despite this, job growth is as high as Clinton’s, unemployment is the same and the largest amount of home ownership in history has taken place on Bush’s watch. The problems we are having now (not unlike the dot com bubble burst) are a result of US monetary policy and political correctness. Our monetary policy is poor and we continue to print money out of thin air. The more unbacked (as in a gold standard) dollars that they flood into the market, the less value each of them will have. As far as PC goes, we allowed race baiters to change how loans are given. Jackson and Sharpton cried that denying blacks (as well as other minorities) a home loan was racist despite the fact that the decisions were based upon credit worthiness. Rules were relaxed and people who should not have been given loans were. Now they are defaulting and the baiters are crying that the banks are at fault for lending to people who could not afford it.
The reality is, many people (minorities and not) took advantage of the great housing market but they bought homes they could not afford. Some lenders engaged in shady practices and dimwitted people entered into contracts for things like adjustable rate mortgages. When the rates adjusted people who bought more than they could afford lost their homes. With regard to jobs in this country, it is a fact that the unemployment numbers are the same as they were under Clinton. If Bush has been an economic failure then so was Clinton. They cannot have it both ways. One last thing. People should not fall for the balanced budget BS that they harp on. The budget was never balanced. They did a lot of stuff on paper that would have made it balanced if all those things were adhered to. In other words, if they did it all the budget would be balanced in the future. Congress likes to spend and they have spent us into debt.
If the Democrats want to insist that the budget was balanced then they need to give the Republican Congress credit for it. Congress deals with the budget and if it was balanced it was balanced by a Republican Congress. As I stated though, it was never balanced and has not been for quite some time.
Nancy Pelosi showed her true liberal colors and she distorted the truth. This is what they always do. Remember, she and her Democrats were going to fix the gasoline price problems, they were going to stop the war, they were going to do it all. One of them recently admitted that thye lied to America because they knew they could not. Keep this in mind when you hear them spouting off, they will lie to you in order to get your vote.
Pelosi has been the worst Speaker of the House in the history of Congress. She is inept and she cannot get things done without attaching items to war spending packages. None of her plans would ever pass on their own merits so she and her cronies resort to procedural games to get stuff passed.
Finally, Nancy Pelosi said that this would be a bad year for Republicans and it is shaping up that way. If the Democrats win I hope they win big so that they can pass everything they want. This is what happened in Maryland and now a lot of people have buyer’s remorse because of the extremely high taxes imposed by the fuhrer here. A Democratically controlled Congress will do the same and I have the same hope for any of America’s poor and elderly who put them there. I hope you have to choose between cat food and heat in the winter. I hope you are so burdened and put out by their imposing taxes and policies that you suffer the worst pain you have ever had. I want it to be a matter of life or death for you the entire time they are in office.
Sometimes people need to experience pain before they learn. Consider it a great learning experience.
Sources:
America’s North Shore Journal
Free Republic
derkeiler
Neal Boortz
Others with interesting posts:
Rosemary’s Thoughts, Alabama Improper, DragonLady’s World, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, Pet’s Garden Blog, Allie is Wired, third world county, Faultline USA, Online Gym, Alabama Improper, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Chucjk’s Place, , Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Blame Boeing, not McCain for Loss of Contract
Mar 8, 2008 Political
I wrote earlier about the contract for the military’s refueling tanker and how that contract went to a French company. I did not debate the merits of the contract and instead chose to focus on the outrage expressed over the loss of jobs in America because the contract was not awarded to Boeing. The members of Congress who object to the contract are doing so based upon the loss of jobs and they are still at it only this time they are pointing their fingers at John McCain because he was responsible for nixing the tanker contract with Boeing in the past. The politicians are trying to use the actions of McCain against him in the upcoming presidential election and many union members as well as Boeing employees are joining the bandwagon.
I wrote before and I stick to my point that government contracts should not be awarded based upon the number of jobs they provide and to whom those jobs go. The Pentagon is responsible for ensuring our troops get the best possible equipment regardless of who provides it. The idea that the Pentagon and its contracts are some sort of social welfare is ridiculous. As I stated, I do not debate the merits of the contract because I do not know them. My friend Trip at Webloggin wrote an excellent piece indicating why the contract was a bad one and the potential problems that lie ahead. If members of Congress focused on the points Trip made then I would see their point. The prattle dealing with jobs is not an argument I care to hear because it is irrelevant. Certainly Trip has valid points about the economy but they cannot be the sole reason for the contract. If there are problems with the products and the methods, it is one thing but building the economy or providing jobs is quite another.
Of course, our economy is in a slow down so any chance to cry about jobs is one that Congress jumps at. The same people who are crying about lost jobs are the ones who utter nary a word with regard to all the jobs that ILLEGALS are taking from US citizens. If they close the border and get rid of the ILLEGALS there will be plenty of jobs. I realize the jobs involved are skilled and that Mexicans are taking few, if any, of those. However, John McCain is not the reason those jobs are going to France (but he is responsible for the jobs lost to Mexicans). Boeing is solely responsible for the loss of the contract because the company engaged in illegal activity to get the contract and John McCain caught it and ended it. McCain should be praised for halting corruption.
McCain called such criticism off base.
“In all due respect to the Washington delegation, they vigorously defended the process before – which turned out to be corrupt – which would have cost the taxpayers more than $6 billion and ended up with people in federal prison,” he said. “I’m the one that fought against that … for years and brought down a corrupt contract.”
Keith Ashdown, with the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Boeing executives who broke the law were to blame for the demise of the tanker contract – not McCain.
“This was theirs from day one,” he said. “This idea that any lawmaker is to blame is a joke.” My Way News
Boeing executives broke the law and that cost them the contract. That is the bottom line and no amount of finger pointing can change that fact. As McCain points out, many of the people criticizing him are the same ones who went along with the original, illegal, contract. He was the one who stopped it. In other words, the members crying about jobs were more than happy to overlook corruption in order for Boeing to gain the contract and keep jobs here in the US. That is business as usual in Congress and I would bet if we looked at other contracts there is plenty of corruption and these very members were aware and condoned it. I thought that at one time there was talk about denying any company involved in illegal contracting procedures the right to bid on contracts for some period of time. If they had something like that in place perhaps Boeing would not have been able to bid on it at all.
I have problems with John McCain but in this instance I side with him. The money for this contract comes from taxpayers and we deserve to have the money that is extorted from us spent wisely. Corrupt contracts and corrupt politicians cause the need for more money and fuels the Democrat’s desire to raise taxes. People should take a good, hard look at the folks who are upset with McCain and decide if they are the kind of people who are best suited to be good stewards of our money. I think not.
Regardless of how this plays out and regardless of how many fingers get pointed, one thing is for sure, creating jobs is not a valid argument for awarding a contract.
Tags: boeing, contract, corruption, economy, jobs, McCain, tanker
Economic Relief Package is Socialism
Jan 25, 2008 General
The economy is in a downturn right now with some saying we are headed for or in a recession and others saying that things will be better by the third quarter of the year. The White House and Congress have drafted a plan to stimulate the economy, a package that has rare bipartisan support. The problem with the package is that it is a redistribution of wealth.
The plan calls for rebate checks for people who did not earn enough money to pay income taxes and caps the rebates at income levels of $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married taxpayers. The rebates completely phase out at $87,000 and $174,000 respectively. The word rebate in this plan is misleading because a rebate is the return of something a person has paid. When one buys a camera with a rebate then part of what the person paid is sent back. If the economic plan were applied to the business world then one person would buy the camera and the company would send the rebate to a person who did not buy one.
The Democrats are not completely on board with the plan because it does not include more benefits (such as unemployment) along with the redistribution of wealth from those who pay the taxes to those who do not. In other words, they like it but feel it is has enough socialism built into it.
The government likes this plan because it will put money in the hands of people who are likely to spend it. If they gave the money back to the people who actually paid it then about 70% would be invested. Instead, the money will go to those who will run right out and spend it instead of putting some of it away for the future. The plan is short term as well as short sighted and since the government is slow with these kinds of things the money is likely to hit people’s hands about the time the economy starts to get better (depending on what economists one listens to). Additionally, this plan will do absolutely nothing to fix the part of the economy that is causing most of the problems, the housing crunch.
I know one thing that can end with this so called rebate and that is the mantra that our tax policies only help the rich. In this case, the rich are sending their money to the poor. There are some who will say that we are borrowing the money (which increases the deficit) so it is not coming from the rich. In reality, the government will have to get the money from some place and that place is from those who pay taxes.
If we want to stimulate the economy how about we cut taxes across the board so people will have more of their income to spend? How about we make other countries pay tariffs on the items they export to our country. How about we force our elected leaders to limit spending and force them to balance the budget? How about we force them to stop adding pork to bills and end the earmark practice? We could start drilling for our own oil and drive the costs down?
Of course these things are unlikely to happen because our elected officials are short sighted. The only reason they came up with this plan is because it is an election year and they all want to be able to say they helped the poor. While they like to pretend there are enough rich to tax into oblivion, they realize that the middle class and poor make up the lion’s share of our population. They will have far more votes than those who will foot the bill.
Socialism is the way of the left and they will certainly expand upon it should a Democrat be elected to the White House and the Republicans are so fragmented they are going along with it.
Sources:
Washington Post
The Politico