There's an old political truism that says you don't raise taxes during a recession. The reason is, raising taxes during a recession tends to make the recession worse. They used to call that – economics.

But that was before the Age Of Obama and Pelosi, where economic rules no longer apply. Obama and Pelosi just love to raise them some taxes, recession or not. It's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes with those two. The enormous 1990-page House health care bill is no exception. Following are the taxes contained in that bill, courtesy of Americans For Tax Reform:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs [Flexible Spending Accounts] would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA [Health Savings Accounts] Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

That's thirteen new taxes in all, which are supposed to generate $540 billion in new revenue over 10 years to pay for health care reform (though it seems little is actually being reformed with this health care "reform." Mostly, we're just creating a big new welfare program combined with a government mandate for all to purchase health insurance). There is a public option in the House bill, but it is not one which ties reimbursement rates to Medicare rates. It allows for providers to negotiate reimbursement rates. The other interesting thing about ObamaCare is that the health care taxes begin immediately, but the benefits don't kick in for four years or so. That's how ObamaCare "doesn't add one dime to the federal deficit." Ten years of taxes pay for six years of benefits. You aren't supposed to notice that, just as you aren't supposed to notice that ObamaCare cuts over $400 billion from Medicare to pay for itself, something that has never been accomplished before in the history of Medicare. Historically, it's been the Democrats who said Republicans were trying to kill grandma by proposing much smaller Medicare cuts than ObamaCare proposes. Now it's the Democrats proposing the cuts, and the Republicans are the ones saying the Democrats are trying to kill grandma. Things have come full circle. Go figure.

Many of these new taxes will be either implemented against the middle class or passed down to them (non-insurance penalty, tax on medical devices, employer taxes, limits on FSA's and HSA's). This reminds me of something President Obama said on the campaign trail last year:

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Sure Barry, whatever you say. The One broke that pledge a couple weeks after being inaugurated by raising the tax on cigarettes, and now he wants to break it again with health care reform. Then he wants to break his pledge again with cap and trade, which would be a huge tax increase that filters down to every American household. Various other Democrats want to tax sodas, gasoline, fast foods, heating oil, cigarettes some more, expensive health care plans (Senate health care plan), and anything else they can dream up. Democrats are engaged in the game of 1,001 ways to raise your taxes without you knowing they've raised your taxes.

And all this during what Democrats themselves term as the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong ?

Hey, I know. We can just keep passing $800 billion stimulus packages every single year, basically forever. That will "create or save" lots of jobs. Then everything will be just fine.

Just kidding. That would be a recipe for destruction, as any fifth grader could figure out. The problem is, that seems to BE the actual economic plan of the Democrats, at least until those millions of green jobs kick in sometime in the next couple decades.

That Obama sure is a good public speaker though. There's that.

People always act in their own financial self-interest. Ditto for organizations. For instance, let's say you have a choice between two competing health care plans with the same coverage. Company A offers the plan for $200 per month, and Company B offers the plan for $400 per month. It's pretty obvious you'd choose Company A, and Company B wouldn't make any sales. Organizations act in exactly the same way. When the Senate Finance Committee passed a health care reform bill that taxes medical devices at a rate of $39 billion over 10 years (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the medical industry descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes a $6.1 billion fee on health insurers (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the insurance companies descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes 40% taxes on so-called "Cadillac" health care insurance plans, the lobbyists for the unions descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate Health Care bill cuts $100 billion from Medicare Advantage programs (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for the insurers who provide those plans descend on Washington D.C. When the Senate Finance health care bill has a provision to create a commission to oversee cuts in Medicare (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for doctors descend on Washington D.C. to complain that their Medicare reimbursement rates are being cut.

This is one of the difficulties in passing something as large as health care reform. We have an array of varied business concerns all bargaining in their own self-interest. They all agree somebody must be taxed, they just don't want it to be them. You can't blame any of them, really. They are just looking out for their own financial well-being.

There is another organization that I believe is looking out for it's self-interest in the health care debate as well, but nobody talks about it. It's a very large organization known as the federal government. In my last post, I wrote about how the government is so deeply in debt that it will ultimately destroy the American economy. The government is fully aware of this, though they seldom mention it, and seldom seem to prioritize it unless it's around election time, after which they forget all about it, and continue merrily spending us into oblivion. The government, like every other self-interested concern, doesn't want to cut the size of government. They don't want to rein themselves in by cutting government spending. They want to increase government spending, and boy, do they. That's what a big portion of Obama's stimulus package was for, to keep the government from having to make the painful cuts that every other business concern in the country had to make during this recession. Government is the one organization that has actually grown during the recession. When the government says things would have been even worse without the stimulus package, this is mostly what they mean. The stimulus package was largely a bailout of government, unpaid for and added to the national debt. The taxpayers will have to make up that money at some unspecified future point.

This leads me to the health care reform bill(s), and the incentives included therein. Health care reform started out as a moral mandate to achieve universal health care coverage, but that goal has been abandoned. Instead, we have a mandate from the government that employers and individuals must purchase health care insurance or pay a penalty (tax) to the government. President Obama continues to say that nobody will be "required" to change their health insurance if they like it. The word "required" is key. The President is correct, nobody will be required to change their health insurance, but what will they be incentivized to do ? In other words, what will be the response of employers and individuals according to their own self-interest ? To understand that, all we have to do is look at the size of the penalty tax versus the cost of health insurance. It's also vitally important to keep in mind the reason everybody doesn't have health insurance now. It's because THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT, or they just choose not to buy it. Here's how Business Week describes the individual penalties:

In the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee on Oct. 13, there are no fines at all the first year it goes into effect, in 2013. In 2014 individuals would have to shell out $200 in annual penalties if they choose to forgo insurance, and by 2017, the number jumps to $750. That's starting to sound like a meaningful sum. But consider that the average yearly insurance premium for an individual policy is around $5,000. For just a few hundred dollars during the first years the law is in place, a healthy person might decide to forgo the costly security of insurance

Paying a fine of $200-$750 to the government, as opposed to shelling out $5,000 in health care insurance premiums seems to incentivize many people to just pay the far smaller amount to the government. Good for the government, because it raises their revenues, but not so good if universal health care is really the goal. I'm against the whole idea of government forcing people in the first place, but if they are forcing people, shouldn't they at least force them in the right direction, instead of setting up a system that incentivizes people to just pay more in taxes ?

The incentives for employers are even worse. The Senate Finance health reform bill would require employers with 50 or more employees to cover their employees or pay a fine of up to $400 per employee. That's far less than the actual cost of health care insurance, so employers would be incentivized to drop health insurance coverage for their employees altogether and just pay the penalty tax instead. That would be in the employers self-interest, and again, the government cashes in with more tax revenue. Then all those uncovered employees are required to buy their own insurance or pay the individual penalty, and the government cashes in one more time.

In conclusion, I ask, who is the government really looking out for – you, or itself ?

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.” - Senator Barack Obama, in a 2006 floor speech preceding a Senate vote to extend the federal debt limit.

Ah, how I liked THAT Barack Obama back in 2006, when he was railing against the irresponsible fiscal policies of President Bush and his GOP-led Congress. I even went out and bought Obama's book, The Audacity Of Hope. Obama seemed different. He was the post-partisan, responsible voice for change. Obama's book turned out to be pretty light on substance, but his rhetorical fluorishes promised a new kind of politics that could bring left and right together for the betterment of the country.

Too bad it was all rubbish. Obama's idea of bipartisanship is to have Democrats write all the bills, to ignore all Republican suggestions, and to have Republicans sit quietly in the corner and go along with whatever Obama and the Dems want. When Republicans refused to do that, an absolute certainty, Obama and company then demonized them as the "failed policies of the past," the "party of no," "racists," "dividers," "rightwing domestic terrorists (my personal fave)," and so on and so forth.

Speaking of the failed policies of the past, Democrats voted as a bloc against raising the federal debt limit back in 2006, when Obama was allegedly so concerned about shifting bad policy choices onto the backs of our children. Since then, after the Democrats took over Congress and eventually the White House, the debt limit has been raised three times. Now the Senate needs to raise it again, because we are going to exceed the current $12 trillion debt limit next month. We're going to have to keep on raising it too, because both the White House and Congressional Budget Office agree that Obama and the Democrats are going to add another $9 trillion to the debt (and the Dems have lots MORE groovy new spending plans they haven't implemented yet.) Apparently, Obama isn't quite so concerned about the burdens our children will have to bear anymore. Instead, he has declared open season on their futures. Ironically, it's the young people who seem to support Obama the most. Go figure. It's like falling in love with your executioner.

The rest of the world has taken notice of America's massive financial irresponsibility and is proposing changes. China wants to back away from buying U.S. debt, alarmed over massive American money printing (backed by nothing). China sees rampant U.S. inflation coming as soon as the recession ends. Can't argue with them there. The UN wants to move to a new world currency other than the dollar for similar reasons. The dollar just hit a new low for the year, and we're still hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming pace, with unemployment at a 26-year high. In addition, the FHA, which has taken over as the new securitized subprime mortgage lender of choice after the private lenders stopped making those boneheaded loans in the wake of the housing meltdown, is coming perilously close to not meeting it's 2% reserve requirements, as the economy continues to tank and foreclosures continue to rise. A new bailout for the FHA, perhaps ? Hey, why not ? What's another $100 billion these days ?

So naturally, with all this "good" news abounding, our Vice President, Joe Biden, recently declared, "The recovery act has played a significant role in changing the trajectory of our economy." Sure, Joe, whatever you say. Everything's going great. Keep creating your own reality. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

When all is said and done, the plans of the Democrats are the same as they always are, and as simple as the directions on a bottle of shampoo – Spend. Tax. Repeat.

The children be damned.

One of the most disturbing things about Barack Obama is not Obama himself, but rather some of the people around him, including several people he has put into positions of authority. I've already detailed the radical nature of a couple Obama administration personnel, Science Czar John Holdren and FCC Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. Holdren has a number of crazy beliefs, among them being the idea that the U.S. Constitution doesn't entitle people to have children. Holdren declared “neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce" in his 1977 book, Ecoscience. Evidently, Holdren missed the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence – "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." In Holdren's defense, he only attended MIT and Stanford. Maybe they don't teach the basics at those elite schools. I don't know. I could only afford to go to Podunk University in Backwater, USA (so I am oppressed and demand reparations ! Just kidding. My inner whiny liberal took over for a second there). Yet, somehow I know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution better than Holdren does. I must have read about it on a bathroom wall somewhere, or maybe at a gun show.

Mark Lloyd is another elite. He was a professor at Georgetown and a visiting lecturer at MIT prior to becoming a Hugo Chavez-loving Nazi hell-bent on destroying free speech on America's airwaves. Here's a quote from the well-educated Professor Lloyd:

“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. . . . This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. . . . At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”

Yes, Mr. Lloyd, it certainly IS clear that your focus is not free speech. That's why you should take the Che poster down from the wall of your office, clean out your desk, and go peddle your commie crap someplace like Cuba or Venezuela, but not here. Not in this country. We still call this the land of the free, not the land of government diktat.

Another Communist in the Obama administration is the eminent Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar. Mr. Jones went to Yale, so he's a real smart fellow, just like the other radical nutjobs I've mentioned. Jones claims to have been radicalized by the Rodney King verdict. By his own words, that drove him to embrace Marxism. I can't say I follow Mr. Jones' logic there, but like I said, I'm not one of the elite. To me, embracing communism because of a perceived American civil rights injustice is like jumping out of an airplane in flight because you don't like your seat. It's a hysterical and moronic overreaction. Maybe Jones doesn't realize that, under Communism, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CIVIL RIGHTS to begin with. What a boob, er, I mean, deep thinker. Liberal groups have been claiming that Jones radical Communist days are behind him, but here's Van Jones in April, 2009:

"This [green] movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're gonna change the whole system! We're gonna change the whole thing. We're not gonna put a new battery in a broken system. We want a new system. We want a new system!…And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn't want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt…What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about people who come here from all around the world who we're willing to have out in the field, with poison being sprayed on them, poison being sprayed on them because we have the wrong agricultural system. And we're willing to poison them and poison the earth to put food on our table, but we don't want to give them rights and we don't want to give them dignity and we don't want to give them respect?…We're really entering a third wave of environmentalism in the United States. The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities."

Sounds to me like Jones is still a radical, and a race-baiter to boot. Whitey is poisoning people of color ????? We need to change the whole system ? Into what, Mr. Marxist ? Glenn Beck has been on a tirade against Van Jones for awhile now, and a group Van Jones founded, Color Of Change, has been trying to get Beck kicked off the air (which kinda proves Jones is a Communist. That's what Communists do, silence the opposition. They aren't about the free and open exchange of ideas, in case anyone hasn't figured that out yet).

The next commie-loving race-baiter on the radical hit parade isn't a member of Obama's administration, but her stupidity merits recognition. Her name is Diane Watson, Democratic Congresswoman from California. This woman LOVES her some Fidel Castro, and is so lost in identity politics that she can't even think straight. Dig it:

"You might have heard their philosophical leader. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh. And he said early on, “I hope that he fails.”…And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails [Watson is black]…. just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that. And they’re saying, “We thought you would never do that.” So we don’t want to have this young man, and he just turned 48 — we want him to succeed, because when he succeeds, we regain our status. We regain our status….

It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”

And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…"

First of all, Ms. Watson, we are allowed to oppose Obama's policies, even though he looks like you. His skin color is completely irrelevant, except to those like yourself who are too blind to see anything else. These race-based comments are really just attempts at thought suppression. There's no other way to view them.

About Cuba, yes, please, let's "go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place." I believe the generally accepted term for it is OPPRESSION, along with a health dose of POVERTY, as happens with all Communist states. Cuba is a police state. Fortunately, the Democratic primary challenger for Watson's congressional seat doesn't share Watson's myopic view of Cuban health care. Let's vote him into office.

The final person on today's list is Cass Sunstein, Obama's Regulatory Czar. This guy is an intellectual heavyweight. He's a former Harvard Law Professor, and an expert in constitutional law, environmental law, and behavioral economics. I'm not certain how radical he is, because he's a complex man, but he has at least some very confused ideas. Here are a few of his elite ramblings:

“Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust ‘government intervention’ and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions"

This is quite the straw man argument. I don't know of a single person who doesn't think the government has a legitimate role to play. Government is uniquely qualified for certain roles, and those were laid out in the very beginning by the Constitution. What I distrust is GOVERNMENT INTRUDING INTO EVERY ASPECT OF SOCIETY, as it has been doing by gradual degree for my entire lifetime. And Mr. Sunstein, individualism is not "pernicious." Railing against it is.

"A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government"

This is Sunstein endorsing the Fairness Doctrine in order to control political speech. Looks like we have another nut who doesn't believe in free speech.

I just LOVE this next Sunstein quote. Love it.

“In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?… Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …”

Did we earn our own money ? Um, YES.
Did we earn it by our own efforts ? YES.
Could we have inherited it without probate courts ? YES.
Could we save it without bank regulators ? YES. (We could even save it without banks).
Could we spend it without public officials ? YES.

Sunstein sounds like the typical government drone, who thinks absolutely everything is derived from government. Wrong.

"Without taxes there would be no liberty," says Sunstein. To an extent, this is true, because taxation supports the government, which exists to secure our liberties. As George Washington said, "Freedom is not free." I think everyone agrees with that much. But should we "celebrate tax day" when our resources are stripped from us to pay for everything under the sun that the government can dream up, waaay beyond securing our liberty ? I think not. Should we celebrate pork barrel spending, special interest handouts, bailouts of the big corporations, the ripoff of our own Social Security system, private jets for congresspersons, trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities ? That would be NO. "Celebrate tax day," indeed. I'd almost as soon celebrate the day burglars broke into my home and stole my television, stereo, and my wife's jewelry. I never once thanked those burglars for helping to redistribute my wealth, nor will I thank the government for stealing my paycheck for unconstitutional purposes. Government exists to secure our liberties, not to rip them away.

In the last nine months, our federal government has bailed out big business left and right. Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, car companies. The federal government serves as a backstop for big business. Big business also happens to be the ones with the deep pockets, lobbyists, and campaign cash to help get the politicians re-elected. It's a cozy little quid pro quo of the nation's power brokers. The elite taking care of their own. The government has also bailed itself out by sending huge chunks of cash to state governments via Obama's stimulus bill. Those government jobs were "saved," even as us schlubs in the private sector lost our jobs. It seems ALL the big boys in our country are "too big to fail," and the enormous bailout price tag is put on the national credit card for some future taxpayer schlubs to worry about. That's a sweet deal for the big boys in and out of government. Their risk is alleviated. Their past sins, which led to these dire financial straits in the first place, are absolved. The taxpayers serve as the sin-eaters and the pain-eaters. Btw, the federal employees health care plan is top-notch. Thank you very much, schlubs.

But with all this bailing out of the big boys, something critical has been forgotten.

70% of the jobs created in this country come from small business. How are we treating our small businesses, the ones who create the lion's share of employment opportunities ???? Let's take a look.

The liberal solution to every conceivable financial woe comes down to basically three words – "tax the rich." Then the liberals spew out inanities about how the top income tax rates used to be MUCH higher, like 70% or 90% (as if that's a good thing). What they don't tell you is that small businesses are scooped up along with the wealthy as liberals cast their tax nets, trolling for rich people. The reason for this is because 75% of small businesses are sub-chapter S corporations, who file their business taxes under the individual income tax code. When the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, causing the top tax rate to increase by 4.6% to 39.6%, small businesses (the job creators) have to pay those increased taxes too. That leaves less money available to successful small businesses for investment, growth, wage increases for it's employees, and/or new job creation.

Reversing the Bush tax cuts is far from the only anti-small business measure being proposed. As part of the ObamaCare reform, the House Committee has propsed a surcharge tax for anyone making over $1 million per year, raising the top income tax rate to 45%. Last month, freshman Democrats in the House (who apparently have a lot more economic sense than many veteran Democrats in the House), sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) objecting to the measures, which they say will hurt small businesses. Here is a portion of that letter:

While the Ways and Means Committee states that the proposed surcharge in H.R. 3200 will only impact 4.1 percent of small businesses, we are concerned that this does not paint a complete picture. According to the Internal Revenue Service's 2002 Statistics of Income, 64 percent of households filing income tax forms with AGI above $250,000 filed as an S corporation or a partnership or filed a Schedule C sole proprietorship tax form. Further, of all small businesses, 75% are S-Corporations where the business income is passed through to the business owners' individual tax return, increasing the chances that it will be impacted by the proposed surcharge.

So, the Ways and Means Committees' 4.1% number of small businesses being affected is an outright lie. No surprise there. I'm only surprised when they don't lie. The letter goes on:

The proposed surcharge will also have a direct negative impact on manufacturers, another industry essential for our recovery. As manufacturers are capital intensive businesses, their taxable income is often higher (nearly 70 percent of the manufacturers that pay at the individual rate have an average taxable income of $570,000). Manufacturing machinery can cost of $1 million and many owners have to save for years to expand and buy new equipment. Yet those profits saved each year would be hit by the new surcharge, which could lead to reduced investment.

Especially in a recession, we need to make sure not to kill the goose that will lay the golden eggs of our recovery…Combined with state taxes, many successful small businesses — the very kind of business that should lead in creating new jobs and help us emerge from this recession — will be taxed at over 50 percent.

A 50% tax rate on job creators……Dumb-da-da-dumb-dumb. Small business can't thrive in such an environment.

The freshmen House Democrats go on to explain how, at a 50% tax rate, small businesses would also be at a huge disadvantage to the big corporations and multinationals, who would still be paying the lower 35% business tax rate. What an unbelievable coincidence. The big boys, after being bailed out and immunized from failure at the taxpayer's expense, and after all their lobbying and campaign contributions, get FAVORABLE TREATMENT FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the biggest job creators in the country, small business.

Btw, the letter also mentioned that $21 billion of the stimulus package funds are going to small businesses, the biggest job creators in the country. That comes out to about TWO PERCENT of the $787 billion Obama stimulus total. Do any of you STILL think that was a stimulus package ???? It wasn't. It was mostly just an extraordinarily large appropriations spending package, aka, pork. That's why it hasn't and won't work.

Let's also not forget that cap-and-trade is looming on the horizon, so Obama can "skyrocket" those energy costs for small businesses too. Then, if Card Check passes, the Big O can just drive a lot of small businesses out of business via unionization and it's unaffordable wages and mandates on business. Peachy.

Back to health care reform. The President is trying to sell the health care plan as being pro-small business, but a proposal in the House calls for employers with a total payroll above $250,000 to offer health insurance to their workers or face a surtax of as much as 8 percent. A Senate committee version would require all businesses, except those with fewer than 25 employees, to provide health coverage or pay a $750 fine per year for each worker. I've heard there will be a tax credit for businesses to provide health care (that doesn't help struggling businesses, which are many these days), but if these plans are pro-small business, I'd sure hate to see what anti-small business would look like.

That's why the business community, with the exception of those big and favored few who will prosper under Obama's plans (like Big Pharma or GE) is scared to death of Barack Obama, and is fighting back. I can't blame them. Anti-business craziness abounds.

I guess my only remaining question would be – is Obama trying to destroy this country on purpose, or is he just too stupid to know any better ?

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) computed the day of the year when all the costs of government at all levels are paid for. ATR calls it Cost Of Government Day. This year, that day fell on August 12, 2009. It has taken from January 1st until now to pay for all the costs of federal, state, and local government, plus the regulatory burdens imposed by the government. This year's Cost Of Government Day was almost a full month later than it was in 2008. The biggest reason for the change was the recession, which sparked a massive Keynesian government spending spree (TARP, stimulus, etc). Another reason is the unchecked growth of unfunded entitlement liabilities (Medicare, Social Security, etc).

This year, the cost of government consumed 61.34% of national income. Working people toil 224 days of the year to pay for their government. You can view the Cost Of Government Day report for 2009 here. It makes for some very interesting and disturbing reading.

Put in it's simplest terms, this means that we are becoming slaves to incremental government tyranny. ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade are some of the next steps in that planned process.

The breakdown of Cost Of Government Day is as follows:
- We work 111 days to pay for federal spending.
- We work 49 days for state and local spending.
- We work 42 days for federal regulations.
- We work 23 days for state and local regulations.

Cost Of Government Day varies from state to state, of course, because each state and locality has a differing burden. The state with the least burden (most free) in 2009 was Alaska (where that radical Sarah Palin governed. No wonder liberals hate her). Predictably, the states with the highest government burdens (least free) were liberal states, with Connecticut being the highest, followed by New Jersey, New York, and California. Liberals LOVE to give their hard-earned money to the government (well, actually, they love to give other people's hard-earned money to the government). Liberals exhibit a plantation mentality, with the government playing the role of master, and the liberals playing the happy slaves whose every need is met by Massuh (at the price of their liberty and free choice). This somehow makes sense to them, though I can never understand WHY it makes sense to them. I run from it like I'm headed for the Underground Railroad.

When you're working 7-8 months per year just to pay off the government burdens, it's only natural that you will be poorer than you'd be otherwise, but somehow liberals can never figure this out either. They are always clamoring for more and more government spending, taxation, and regulation. It's their version of Stockholm Syndrome. They loves them some Massuh. Massuh is SO very good and kind. Massuh is SO very smart.

In an irony so thick you could cut it with a knife, liberals, the willing slaves, call people "racists" when they resist the big government takeovers being planned by President Barack Obama. They actually think it's racist to want to be free from government tyranny, all because Obama's skin is black. They can't see past that singular, irrelevant fact. At this point, crying racism is nothing more than the liberal Pavlovian response to freedom. They can't help it, and they don't understand what the rest of us are so upset about. They don't get that most people don't want to become wards of the state. They are completely baffled when people don't want the government to takeover every aspect of their lives, so they use "racist" as a sort of intellectual firewall. Go figure.

Back to the Cost Of Government Day report. One of the many myths the report destroys is the idea that Obama's stimulus package was actually an economic stimulus package. It wasn't. It was mostly just a bunch of big government appropriations spending under the guise of stimulus, along with spending to prop up, guess who? – the government ("never let a crisis go to waste"). Here's the breakdown of spending in the alleged stimulus package:

- $90 billion for “State Fiscal Relief;”
- $71.3 billion for the Department of Labor, Health and
Human Services and Education (including $16.6 billion for
Student Financial Assistance, $13 billion for Education for
the Disadvantaged, $12.2 billion for Special Education and
$9.7 billion for National Institutes of Health);
- $61.1 billion for Transportation, Urban Development and
Housing (including $27.5 billion for Highway
Construction);
- $57.3 billion for Assistance for Unemployed Workers and
Struggling Families (including 39.2 billion for
Unemployment Compensation);
- $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund;
- $50.8 billion for Energy and Water (including $16.8 billion
for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy);
- $26.4 billion for Agriculture, Rural Development and Food
and Drug Administration (including $20 billion for the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program);
- $25.1 billion for Health Insurance Assistance;
- $20.8 billion for Health Information Technology;
- $15.8 billion on Commerce, Justice and Science (including
$4.7 billion on the Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program);
- $10.6 billion on Interior and Environment (including Clean
Water and DrinkingWater State Revolving Funds);
- $7.9 billion on Defense and Homeland Security;
- $6.7 billion on Financial Services and General Government
(including $5.4 billion on the Federal Buildings Fund);
- $4.3 billion on Military Construction and Veteran Affairs.

Another interesting item in the report is how the tax burden of the various states affects the population and prosperity of those states. The report states that between 1997 and 2007, the ten states with the highest tax burdens lost 3 million citizens and $82 billion in income. During the same period, over 2.6 million people moved to the states with no income tax, bringing in about $98.5 billion in income. Hmmm. Those no income tax states must be racist.

Maybe the most important thing to remember about President Obama's first year in office is this – in 2009, taxpayers are confronted with a federal budget that raises spending to over $9,000 for every man, woman and child in America—forever. That's $36,000 for a family of four. EVERY YEAR. And our President has only just begun to "change" America. Change into what, I shudder to think.

In conclusion, keep going to those Tea Parties and townhall meetings. Keep telling your Congressperson what you think. The only ones who can stop this tyrannical government (and it started long before Obama arrived on the scene) is we, the people. Ignore all the name-calling you endure from the leftist slaves and their pet slave media. They are the problem. You are the solution.

Barney Frank (D-VT) wants the federal government to decide how much Wall Street executives (and all other executives of private companies) are paid. Barney also wants the government to decide how they are paid. Legislation to ban incentive-based pay for private corporations has been approved by the House Financial Services Committee.

I don't know where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government thinks it obtains the authority to do this, but, hey, we don't use that musty old Constitution thingy anymore anyway. The notion of limiting centralized governmental power (federalism) envisioned by the founding fathers is as outdated as bell bottomed jeans. These days, we seem to be climbing all over ourselves to give the federal government all the power it wants (totalitarianism). The statists are on the march, making all the same false promises the statists always make, the false promises that never quite seem to materialize (FYI – health care reform = forcing all Americans to buy health care insurance and then having the government determine what medical procedures you are allowed to have, in case you haven't figured that out yet).

Here is Barney's rationale for limiting executive pay:

"The problem with executive compensation is essentially, from the systemic standpoint, that it gives perverse incentives," said Frank, a Democrat. Without penalties for bad bets, the system means "heads you win, tails you break even," he said.

Perverse incentives. That means people shouldn't be rewarded for driving their companies into the ground. They should be held accountable instead. I think we can all agree with that, if not with the idea that the federal government should dictate people's salaries. That is so……Soviet.

Let's continue with these ideas of accountability and perverse incentives. As of July 31st, 2009, the federal debt stood at $11,617,400,889,464.57. That's over $11.6 trillion. As soon as I write these words, they are outdated, because the national debt is now higher. The debt has increased by $3.89 billion PER DAY since September 2007. In addition, the federal government is projected to run nearly a $2 trillion deficit in 2009. We paid $451 billion in interest on the federal debt in 2008. This year it will be much higher. The interest on the debt is money flushed down the toilet (or sent to a foreign government, like China) that could easily pay for any imaginable health care reform we could dream up. Instead, our federal government has burdened every American citizen with roughly $38,000 in debt. The federal government is the poster child for incompetence.

This means the federal government, if viewed as a corporation (FedCorp), would be the worst run corporation in the entire history of the world (with the possible exception of those defunct Soviets we're trying to emulate). So, how are we holding FedCorp accountable ? Why, we're about to hand the entire health care system over to them !!! We're going to reward the worst company ever, FedCorp, by handing it control over 16% more of our economy. Talk about perverse incentives. This is equivalent to handing the entire energy sector over to Enron. FedCorp has shown NO ability to be responsible managers of taxpayer dollars, so, naturally, let's keep giving them ever more and more. That's the ticket. And never mind that the part of health care FedCorp already controls, Medicare/Medicaid, has such massive unfunded liabilities that it is threatening to destroy our economy down the road. If not addressed, the unfunded entitlement liabilities will hit our economy with such an economic tidal wave that the current recession will look like a ripple in a pond by comparison.

While we're on the subject of salaries, FedCorp is holding itself accountable for it's putrid mismanagement by…..giving all FedCorp's civilian employees a 2.9% pay raise in 2010. This is after Congress voted itself a 2.8% pay raise in January 2009, with the country in the depths of the recession. Apparently, accountability and perverse incentives don't apply to FedCorp, only to that horribly greedy entity known as the private sector (the sector that produces all our goods and services). FedCorp is spitting directly in your faces, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. YOU tighten your belts. THEY get raises.

There are so many examples of the federal government throwing away taxpayer dollars that I could never list them all. This post would be a thousand pages long if I tried. Go to the website YouDontKnowJack to see some examples of how just one Congressman, Jack Murtha (D-PA), aka, the King Of Pork, throws YOUR money around to his cronies and special interests. It's disgusting.

And it wasn't that much better when the Republicans were in charge. During the Bush years, with Republicans controlling Congress, government spending STILL skyrocketed. Federal spending went from $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year during Bush's tenure (and those guys were supposed to be conservatives ??? I don't think so). The only way the Bushies were conservative is if you compare them to Obama and the Democrats, who are trying to match Bush's 8-year federal spending increase total ($1 trillion) in their FIRST YEAR. If Bush was the frying pan, Obama is the fire. I find myself longing for the return of Bill Clinton and his Republican Congress. At least those guys realized the economy was EVERYTHING. Those guys look like geniuses compared to Bush and Barry, and even Clinton ran net deficits and added $1.5 trillion to the debt. Things have been so bad since then that Clinton and his GOP'ers seem like the good old days.

Our federal government is so far out of control that I barely know where to start. This post is only a drop in the bucket in trying to describe it. FedCorp is like a bunch of crack addicts with our money. They can never get enough. With an addict, there's only one cure. You have to MAKE them stop. WE have to make them stop. WE have to get rid of the whole bunch of them. WE have to vote them all out of office and start over. That's the only way WE can make a difference, the only way WE can make the federal crackheads stop. Barring that, WE are screwed. Barring that, America, the land of the free, will very soon be OVER. There is only so much money that FedCorp can spend. There are only so much taxes that FedCorp can take from us. We're on the express train to poverty as long as this continues. Wake up, America. Your country is disappearing before your very eyes.

Certain things defy explanation. For example, Bill Ayers went from being a domestic terrorist bomber for the Weathermen to being a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Chicago-Illinois. There is no rational explanation for how that happens, for how a radical like Ayers gets in a position to shape impressionable young minds when his proper place in society should be behind bars. It boggles the mind. There is a sense of unreality about it.

I had the same sense of unreality when I saw Al "Stuart Smalley" Franken (D-MN) sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the Sotomayor hearings. Stuart Smalley is the Distinguished Gentleman from Minnesota now. How did that happen ? How did Minnesotans decide Stuart was good enough, smart enough, and that, doggone-it, they liked him ? Some Republicans will tell you that Franken didn't really win the Minnesota election, and that IS a source of controversy (Minnesota counties didn't all use the same standard for accepting or rejecting ballots. We don't really know who won), but that's not the real reason Franken is in Congress today. The real reason Franken won with just under 42% of the popular vote is that three other candidates from three other parties (Independence, Libertarian, Constitutional) split off about 459,000 votes from the Democrats and Republicans. If not for the third parties, the vast majority of those votes would have been cast for Franken's opponent, Norm Coleman, giving him an easy victory. A substantial majority of Minnesotans (over 58%) did NOT vote for Stuart Smalley, which gives me a degree of comfort regarding the collective sanity of that state. I mean, you can convince 42% of Americans of almost anything. You can even convince them that Barack Obama is doing a good job of handling the economy, though the reality is, he's doing his level best to destroy it (tax increases, massive government expansion, anti-business policies, anti-free market policies, and anti-growth policies in the midst of the worst recession in nearly 70 years). There's a sense of unreality about that too. I feel like I'm watching the socialist endgame unfold right before my eyes.

But it is what it is, and now we have Stuart Smalley in the Senate. During the Sotomayor hearings, I found myself wondering how Franken got appointed to the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law. None whatsoever. He was a poli-sci major at Harvard. After that, he was a comedian and a radio talk show host (and a failed one at that). How did he get the appointment ? Granted, the Sotomayor hearings were a joke, but I still don't think that's any reason to put a comedian on the Judiciary Committee.

Luckily for us, Senator Franken himself revealed why he was on the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law, but, doggone-it, he watched Perry Mason on television when he was a kid. Every episode, apparently, because Franken knew that Perry Mason only lost one case during his distinguished imaginary legal career (though he couldn't remember which one). Watch the following video to see how Stuart Saves The Senate:

I look forward to lots of yuks for the next four years. Too bad the joke's on us. Maybe we should elect Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to the Senate next, being the serious country that we are.

Back to Obama's war on the economy – It seems the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office isn't buying Obama's inane claim that ObamaCare will result in a net cost savings. The CBO knows that is exactly the opposite of the truth. The CBO also knows ObamaCare will not address the long-term unfunded entitlement liabilities, as the President has suggested:

Sen. Kent Conrad: Dr. Elmendorf, I am going to really put you on the spot because we are in the middle of this health care debate, but it is critically important that we get this right. Everyone has said, virtually everyone, that bending the cost curve over time is critically important and one of the key goals of this entire effort. From what you have seen from the products of the committees that have reported, do you see a successful effort being mounted to bend the long-term cost curve?

Doug Elmendorf, Director of the CBO: No, Mr. Chairman. In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Conrad: So the cost curve in your judgement is being bent, but it is being bent the wrong way. Is that correct?

Elmendorf: The way I would put it is that the curve is being raised, so there is a justifiable focus on growth rates because of course it is the compounding of growth rates faster than the economy that leads to these unsustainable paths. But it is very hard to look out over a very long term and say very accurate things about growth rates. So most health experts that we talk with focus particularly on what is happening over the next 10 or 20 years, still a pretty long time period for projections, but focus on the next 10 or 20 years and look at whether efforts are being made that are bringing costs down or pushing costs up over that period.

As we wrote in our letter to you and Senator Gregg, the creation of a new subsidy for health insurance, which is a critical part of expanding health insurance coverage in our judgement, would by itself increase the federal responsibility for health care that raises federal spending on health care. It raises the amount of activity that is growing at this unsustainable rate and to offset that there has to be very substantial reductions in other parts of the federal commitment to health care, either on the tax revenue side through changes in the tax exclusion or on the spending side through reforms in Medicare and Medicaid. Certainly reforms of that sort are included in some of the packages, and we are still analyzing the reforms in the House package. Legislation was only released as you know two days ago. But changes we have looked at so far do not represent the fundamental change on the order of magnitude that would be necessary to offset the direct increase in federal health costs from the insurance coverage proposals.

On the bright side, ObamaCare will result in more health care bureaucracy and less choice. Maybe Senator Franken can help with this issue as well. I hear he used to watch Dr. Kildare on television when he was a kid.

As with the stimulus, Obama is pushing Congress to ram the health care bill through quickly (before people find out what's in it) Here's Obama:

“This progress should make us hopeful, but it can't make us complacent. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess."

As a general principle, isn't it better to get something done RIGHT, as opposed to getting it done QUICK, especially with something as big and consequential as health care ? If the stimulus bill misfire (only 10% of the funds spent in 5 months) taught us anything, it should have taught us that. Obama continually pretends that the sky is going to fall if his policies aren't implemented immediately or sooner. It won't. The only reasons to rush a health care bill through Congress without thinking the issues through are political ones, so Obama can claim "victory." We don't need his victory. We need good health care solutions.

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” – Thomas Jefferson

Allow me to construct a hypothetical set of circumstances. Let's say our country was in the midst of a severe recession, that unemployment was rising rapidly as millions of jobs were being lost, that average people were having an increasingly difficult time getting by, that our industries were having a difficult time competing, that the value of the dollar was dropping, that we were up to our ears in debt……

Okay, that isn't hypothetical at all. That's what is actually happening.

Now, in response to this not-so-hypothetical set of crisis circumstances, what would you think of our government if it passed legislation that would bring about massive tax increases, that would make it even more difficult for our industries to compete, that would cause more job losses, that would raise energy costs dramatically, that would increase the price of practically every product consumers purchase, that would put the average person much further in the hole, and that wouldn't even provide the desired benefit of said legislation ???? (link)

I'd call that government destructive to the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'd want that government replaced for working against the interests of the American people. That's what I'm thinking today after the House of Representatives passed Cap-And-Trade legislation by a narrow vote of 219-212.

The Cap-and-Trade bill, also known as Waxman-Markey, also known as The American Clean Energy And Security Act, also known as the Let Them Eat Cake Act, is a 1,200 page monstrosity that nobody in the House had time to read, because the final version of the bill wasn't posted until the night before friday's vote, and a 300 page amendment was added at 3:00am on the day of the vote. I seem to remember President Obama saying something about having the most transparent administration EVAH !…….I guess Congress didn't get the memo on that, because they are operating like cat burglars in the dead of night.

Here's a quick rundown of the bad guys and the good guys in the House. The bad guys voting FOR the destruction of America included 211 Democrats and 8 Republicans. The good guys voting AGAINST destruction included 44 Democrats and 168 Republicans. You can find a complete vote tally here. I'd like to single out Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for praise for standing against this bill. I've maligned Mr. Kucinich in the past, but I'm beginning to think I was wrong about him. He seems to be one of the few in the House who actually stands on his principles. That's noteworthy to me, even if I often disagree with him. The fact that 44 Democrats voted against this bill shows us that the Dems know Cap-And-Trade is a really bad idea, but lots of Democrats caved to pressure from the White House. El Presidente badly wants more control over all aspects of America, and this bill puts him in the express lane toward acquiring that control (but he believe in free markets ! lol).

"We've seen the example in Spain, it's a colossal mistake there, a political and an economic error. This could be the most colossal mistake ever made in the history of the United State Congress." – Congressman Steve King (R-IOWA).

I picked the above quote not only because a guy named King must be right, but because he mentioned Spain. What happened in Spain ?

Spain already implemented cap-and-trade, and has the most far-reaching renewable energy agenda in the European Union. The result ? Unemployment is at 18% in Spain (double the EU average), and there have been 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created. In addition, tons of subsidies are required for green energy initiatives to be competitive. The wind industry jobs created in Spain have come at a cost of $1.4 million PER JOB. (link)

Gee, who wouldn't want to emulate such "success" ???

But my favorite comment on the cap-and-trade legislation came from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who when asked why he spent an hour reading portions of the bill aloud on the House floor, said, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s–t." (link)

Even those who are in favor of restricting carbon emissions know that this cap-and-trade bill is, um, crap. Here's one such person, billionaire Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway:

"I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. And it's a fairly regressive tax. If we buy permits, essentially, at our utilities, that goes right into the bills of the utility customers, and an awful lot of people in Iowa, in Oregon, and Utah, and places where we are, very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for electricity. So I think that can be improved." (link)

Speaking of restricting carbon emissions, which is the stated purpose of cap-and-trade (all it's negative and destructive effects are just icing on the cake), exactly how much of an effect on global warming will this cap-and-trade bill have ? (for the sake of brevity, I'm assuming here that man-made carbon emissions are a significant cause of global warming, an assumption that is itself a source of controversy).

Washington Post writer Martin Feldstein lays it out in an article called Cap-And-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction — slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target — would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

Waxman-Markey will have NO EFFECT on global warming, but it will have the "benefit" of further destroying our country.

In spite of all this, there are many American corporations ready to jump on the green bandwagon and profit from the carbon credit trading frenzy that El Presidente is trying to unleash on us. You're even familiar with some of these corporations – AIG, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, General Electric…you know, the GOOD corporations that we've all come to know and love so much during the recession. They are ready to jump on the manufactured energy bubble and rake in the big bucks. That these same companies are all recipients of government bailouts is just a big old coincidence, I'm sure. Too bad Enron isn't around any longer. Those guys knew how to run an energy bubble. I bet most of you didn't even know that General Electric got a bailout. Somehow, that hasn't been mentioned by the mainstream media very much. Not only did GE get a bailout, they got a $139 billion bailout, second in size to AIG's bailout. Yet somehow, the enormous GE bailout hasn't been mentioned or condemned by major television networks like……NBC, nor by NBC's retarded cable stepchildren over at MSNBC (aka, The Obama Channel). I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that General Electric OWNS NBC, or the fact that GE is deeply in bed with the Obama administration. I'm sure that can't be it. Everyone knows MSNBC is a group of highly dedicated professional journalists who would never compromise their integrity or ideals for…….LOL. Oh, man. I can't finish this sentence. Sometime I even crack myself up.

But make sure you contact GE for all your carbon credit trading needs. They are primed and ready for all their cap-and-trade lobbying to start paying dividends.

As for you, America, I hope you like cake, because if you don't rise up and stop this Cap-And-Trade disaster in the Senate, cake is all you'll have left. And maybe some government cheese to go with it, if you're lucky.

In the last nine months, we have learned a great deal about how "free market" economics in America really works. With all the bailouts of financial institutions (TARP), automobile companies (TARP), and federal/state/local governments (Stimulus package), it has become clear that our economic model is – profits are privatized (paid to investors), and losses are socialized (borne by taxpayers).

Not that this model applies to everyone. It doesn't. It only applies to the wealthy and powerful, those in the "too big to fail" category. For the non-powerful, the rules are the same as always. If mom and pop's bakery goes under, mom and pop still take the entire loss. The taxpayer's don't prop them up. Mom and pop assume the entire risk for the success or failure of their business. Only the big boys like Citigroup, AIG, GM, Chrysler, and Government get to operate in risk-free mode (nice work if you can get it). In fact, mom and pop not only have to bear the burden for their own business, they have to bear the burden for the big boys as well, because mom and pop are the taxpayers ameliorating risk for the wealthy and powerful. If GM loses, it comes out of mom and pop's pocket (thus giving new meaning to the old saying, 'As GM goes, so goes America.' That has never been more literally true than it is today). When GM (Government Motors) loses, mom and pop taxpayer have to pony up $62 billion and counting. If GM should turn around and start making money again someday, don't hold your breath waiting for mom and pop taxpayer to get paid back. Mark my words, that will NEVER happen. Chrysler's loan from taxpayers has already been forgiven (link). As part of GM's bankruptcy, $15.4 billion in loans from the taxpayer have been forgiven (link). President Obama has referred to GM's loan forgiveness as a "gift." In return for the "gift," the government gets to own a car company. Kewl. I'd say the taxpayers get to own a car company, but we all know that isn't true. The taxpayers don't really own squat. Remember the rule – profits are privatized, losses are socialized. If GM ever returns to profitability, Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer will never see a dime of it. There won't be any dividend checks coming their way.

In America, just like in the mob, you are either connected or you're not. Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayers are NOT connected, therefore they don't get a cut of the loot. In America, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer are the marks. They don't get a cut, they only get the shakedown. In the case of GM, it's realy simple to figure out who's connected and who's not. Just look at the terms of the bankruptcy, which were handed down by diktat from the Don Fed-leone. Here's the new ownership of GM following bankruptcy:

Don Fed-leone (the federal government) gets a 60% ownership stake in GM.

Shareholders get virtually wiped out.

Of particular interest is the difference in terms between the bondholders and the union, both of whom are unsecured GM creditors. The bondholders got 10% for $28 billion in GM holdings, and the union got 17.5% for $20 billion in GM holdings. In addition, the union gets preferred stock. The bondholders do not. Preferred stockholders get paid first and are guaranteed dividends. The union got a MUCH better bankruptcy deal than the bondholders did. Why ?

Because the unions are more connected, that's why. They helped get President Obama elected, remember ? As Obama himself said, "I owe those unions." Don Fed-leone repays favors when it can.

Go here for a half-decent summary of GM's bankruptcy.

Btw, taxpayers. You get to back GM's warranties too.

We might have to rewrite the terms of bankruptcy law after this, because no such terms have ever been granted in bankruptcy before. This Presidential administration continues to move into uncharted waters of governmental authoritarianism. Uncharted for America, at least. Other countries operate like this all the time. Countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and China.

But not to worry, the government assures us that it doesn't really want to own or run automobile companies. The government assures us this is only temporary.

Like when the government took over Amtrak.

38 years ago.

Which the government still runs.

And which loses money every single year.

One guess who pays for those losses.

Why, you do, Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer.

You're the mark.

In my last post, I touched on the problem of our huge unfunded entitlement liabilities, primarily Social Security and Medicare. Yesterday, the Obama administration admitted the problem exists. Yippee ! This may not seem like such a big step forward, but it is. Remember, for years the Democrats in Congress denied there was any problem whatsoever. They kept saying SS and Medicare were in fine shape for decades. Little to worry about. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in 2005:

“Today’s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place — the minds of Republicans. In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.”

That Harry is such a kidder. Fellow kidder and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said this in 2005:

"There is no Social Security crisis. We all agree that there is a problem down the road that we should address before it becomes a bigger problem.”

But Pelosi has taken no action on Social Security or Medicare since becoming House leader. None. She also helped shoot down all previous Republican attempts at reform.

The Associated Press reports on the Obama administrations response to a Trustee report detailing the dire financial straits of SS and Medicare:

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

Medicare's condition is more precarious.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

Did you catch that last part ? SS and Medicare are NOT BACKED BY ANY ACTUAL ASSETS, and funding them would require the government to BORROW MONEY OR RAISE TAXES. In other words, the government spent your trust funds. I've been trying to make people aware of this for years, and this has to be the first time in recorded history that our mainstream media has admitted the truth about our Ponzi scheme SS and Medicare "trust funds." Halellujah !!!

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Of course, the AP is also admitting that our wonderful, compassionate politicians in Washington D.C. have been ripping us off for trillions and trillions of dollars for several decades, but I don't expect Obama or Congress to appoint any blue ribbon investigative panels or independent prosecutors to look into the matter anytime soon. We'd have to put a LOT of people in jail, and if we did put the deserving Congressers in jail for SS and Medicare fraud, well, let's just say the Democrats wouldn't be the majority party any longer.

Hate to say 'I told you so' to some of my more doubting readers, but I told you so. The federal government is worse than Enron and worse than Madoff. Far worse.

Here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

"The longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."

That's right, Tim. Btw, haven't Republicans been saying the same thing for years and years ? Yes, they have, including former President Bush.

The bottom line here is – get ready for massive tax increases. Massive. And lots of them.

The coup de grace of Democratic bs also came from Pelosi yesterday. Guess who San Fran Nan blames for the SS and Medicare crises she didn't think even existed previously ? If you said "Bush," you win a cigar. From cnsnews.com :

"The Trustee's reports reveal that, just as they left behind a record of recession, deficits and debt, the Bush administration's economic and fiscal mismanagement undermined the strength of Social Security and Medicare,” Pelosi said Tuesday in a news release. "The previous administration's shortsighted economic policies and fiscal recklessness have made the task of strengthening Social Security and Medicare for the future more difficult."

Un-be-liev-able. I better stop now, before I unleash a string of profanity aimed at our "esteemed" Speaker of the House. Is this woman genetically incapable of honesty ? She has no business leading the Democratic party in the House, or leading anything else, for that matter.

At the end of each fiscal year, the Treasury Department issues a financial report. The last such report was the 2008 Financial Report Of the United States Government. There is a link to the Citizens Guide version of the report here.

The stated 2008 deficit under President Bush was $454.8 billion. That was the largest budget deficit in American history in dollars, though President Obama's first year deficit of $1.8 trillion makes the 2008 deficit look like chump change by comparison. Every other projected Obama deficit over the next 10 years will also be larger than the 2008 largest deficit in history. Yet somehow, Obama's popularity ratings are still high. Go figure. Maybe bankruptcy is the new fiscal responsibility. I don't know. I don't get it.

But the American financial picture is much worse than those deficit numbers alone suggest. The real deficit in 2008 wasn't really $454.8 billion. It was actually much higher, because our federal government does it's accounting on a cash basis. Any debt obligations that are incurred, but have not yet paid, are treated as if they don't exist when it comes to the deficit. Those debts, however, do exist. In 2008, if you add in the debts accrued to pay federal employee and veterans benefits, the deficit balloons to over $1 trillion. If you add in all existing federal debt, we are in the red to the tune of $11 trillion. And if you add in all the accrued entitlement debts from Social Security, Medicare, and others, we are in the neighborhood of $55 trillion in the hole.

Now, imagine you are an incoming President looking at that 2008 financial report, and you can clearly see that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The report even states in plain English that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. What would you do ? If your name is Barack Obama, you would….spend trillions more dollars, skyrocket the debt beyond all historical levels, permanently increase the cost of government, create an enormous new health care entitlement, and expand other entitlements. On top of that, you'd cut taxes for the middle class. In other words, if your name was Barack Obama, you'd do the most fiscally irresponsible thing imaginable. Because one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I'd say Barack Obama must be insane.

But most of the media talking heads and so-called journalists seem to think Obama is some kind of genius. They act as if he is fixing all that ails our country, even though Obama has taken an already unsustainable fiscal path and made it far more unsustainable, and he did it all in only 100 days. Therefore, most of the media must be insane too. Then the media acts like the Americans who are calling for fiscal responsibility, like the Tea Party protesters for instance, are the insane ones. The media is openly hostile to them. What gives ? What on earth has happened to our country ? It's like a mass delusion has replaced all common sense. Up has become down. Has partisan spin so replaced rational thought that we can't even add and subtract anymore ? We can't even see what is right in front of our faces ? It seems so. I can't think of another reasonable explanation.

To add insult to injury, the same folks who are putting America on course to crash and burn at warp speed say they are doing it because they are "compassionate." They are destroying the future because they "care" about the common man. Are you freaking kidding me ? Please STOP "caring" about me, oh "compassionate" ones, before all your "caring" and "compassion" leaves me penniless and shivering out on the street.

The federal government of the United States Of America is the most broke institution in the entire history of planet earth, bar none. That's what all the "caring" and "compassionate" do-gooders have brought us. We couldn't be worse off if we let the Enron executives out of jail to run this country. Bernie Madoff might as well become the next President.

Btw, the state and local governments are another $160 billion in the red for this year. The house of cards is collapsing, and our government doesn't seem to care, not one bit.

An old Temptations song had the lyric "Vote for me, and I'll set you free." That's what our politicians are doing, setting us free – from our money. The Temptations had it right. It's a ball of confusion. That's what the world is today.

Hey, hey.

Baffle 'em with you-know-what.

If Washington D.C. has a credo, that must surely be it. The media isn't far behind.

But before I get into that, I'd like to take a moment to thank President Obama for saving us all from last week's swine flu pandemic (worldwide epidemic). Just think, if Bush was still the President, we'd probably all be dead now. Plus, Obama saved the country for the bargain basement price of $1.5 billion, which hasn't even been spent yet. Oh man, that Obama is GOOD.

The media was speculating today that the recession has bottomed out, because we only LOST 539,000 jobs in April. This rosy optimism came because the experts had predicted job losses of over 600,000. The media left out that the government hired 66,000 people to do the census, and the government hired many others as well (which accounts for almost the entire difference between the projections and the actual job numbers). Those government jobs are all on the taxpayer dime, of course, and add nothing to economic growth. The private sector is still hemorrhaging jobs as fast as ever, but I guess the media is looking for something positive to hand their hat on, because Obama is the president now, and that means CHANGE has come. Call me crazy, but I'll say the recession is over when we start CREATING jobs instead of losing them. The media's optimism comes in spite of the fact that GDP shrunk by 6.1% in the first quarter, and that we're $11 trillion in debt, and that we'll be running a $1.8 trillion deficit this year, and that we have massive deficits projected as far as the eye can see, and that Obama is projected to double the national debt in four years and triple it in eight years, and that unemployment is 8.9%, the highest in 25 years, and that we had a Treasury bond auction with demand so weak that we had to pay higher interest rates just to continue selling our long-term debt (which will raise Obama's deficit and debt projections even higher), and that our industrial base is vanishing, and that what's left of it is collapsing, and that we have massive unfunded entitlement liabilities looming on the horizon (growing at the rate of $2 trillion yearly), and that most of our state governments are broke, and that many banks failed the stress tests (they need $75 billion more bailout dollars, with more surely to come), and that credit still isn't flowing after $700 billion spent on TARP, and that companies all across the country are cutting back the hours of the workers they are retaining, and that if you add the folks who have fallen off the unemployment rolls to the unemployed numbers, unemployment comes out close to 15%, and that the federal government is spending dollars it doesn't have at an all-time record pace, and that the government is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, and that the government has committed a total of $12 trillion thus far in fighting the recession, and that on top of that, Obama wants to raise energy prices through the roof and create lots more entitlements…………

I guess other than that, happy days are here again.

Oh yeah, and we're still fighting two wars, Obama has no idea what to do with the Gitmo prisoners, we're funneling money to Hamas, we're pondering whether to charge Bushco with war crimes, Pelosi's STILL lying about her knowledge of waterboarding even after the leaked CIA information proves she lied her butt off, Obama is looking for a Supreme Court Justice who is "empathetic" to certain groups as opposed to one who follows the law, the price index is rising in while we're in the depths of recession, Iran is almost certain to have nuclear weapons soon, the Pakistan government is in jeopardy (and Pakistan has nukes, which just maybe could be a problem if the Taliban gets their hands on)…

But other than that, everything's coming up roses.

Plus, Obama cut $17 billion from the budget. Golf clap for Obama. What the media left out of that story was that Obama isn't reducing the deficit by that $17 billion, oh no, he's going to use that money for OTHER government programs, so the net savings to taxpayers is ZERO. This is what passes for fiscal responsibility in the new Obama CHANGE era.

But it's all good. Thar's a new sheriff in town, and he reads that thar teleprompter REAL good.

Never mind that in order to avert fiscal armaggedon, Obama is going to have to come up with a tax increase of proportions never before contemplated in this country's history. By my reckoning, it will have to be at least $2 trillion per year to cover the deficits, interest on the debt, and the unfunded entitlements. It's either that or make drastic government spending cuts, and you know our new sheriff ain't 'bout to do that. Only them thar rightwing extremist fellas talk that kind o' crazy talk.

Welcome to the age of universal government.

I've gone on several rants on this blog previously about what a Ponzi scheme Social Security is. I now realize I've been thinking too small. It isn't just SS that is a Ponzi scheme. It's our entire federal government, and that Ponzi scheme is unraveling. The new funds required from the taxpayers can no longer keep up with the demand for funds the federal government requires. Like all Ponzi schemes, even one on as grand a scale as our government, it is destined to collapse.

But remember, put your hand over your mouth when you cough, and wash your hands frequently. Then everything should be fine.

If any of you rightwing extremists (veterans and/or advocates of the U.S. Constitution, according to DHS head Janet Napolitano) or Tea Party protesters (racist, misguided, whining, crazy, unpatriotic people, according to the left) think President Barack Obama is not fiscally responsible, you better think again. Yes, Obama has spent trillions of dollars in three short months and has us on pace for unprecedented levels of deficits and debt…….but it turns out he IS fiscally responsible after all, at least according to…Obama. The President has ordered his cabinet to cut $100 million from it's budget in the next 90 days. As Bloomberg reports:

There is “a confidence gap when it comes to the American people,” Obama told reporters at the White House before his first meeting with his full Cabinet. “They’ve got to feel confident that their dollars are being spent wisely.”

Obama repeated his pledge to scrutinize the budget “line by line” to eliminate wasteful or ineffective programs and contracts. Anticipating critics, he said none of the individual cuts will solve the nation’s fiscal shortfall.

“But taken together, they can make a difference, and they send a signal that we are serious about changing how government operates,” Obama said. “A $100 million there, a $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.”

See, naysayers ? Obama is THE MAN when it comes to fiscal responsibility. By cutting a $100 million here and a $100 million there, shoot, pretty soon you're talking about a few hundred million dollars in budget cuts. That's how "serious" Obama is about "changing how government operates." Yes We Can, people ! Yes We Can.

In related fiscal news this week, Obama has announced $5.5 BILLION more spending in bailouts for the auto companies, another $5.7 BILLION in spending to expand Americorps, and $100 BILLION in loans to the International Monetary Fund.

That puts us taxpayers on the hook for another net $110.6 BILLION for the week. And it's only tuesday. THAT'S how "serious" Obama really is about "changing how government operates." THAT'S how serious Obama really is about fiscal responsibility.

Not serious at all.

We have to get rid of this guy before he sells the entire country down the river.

Seriously.

For those of you who mistakenly think the Tea Party movement is only about being anti-Obama, I suggest you watch the following video, where GOP Representative Gresham Barrett (R-SC) is booed throughout his remarks at the Greenville, S.C. Tea Party. Barrett is being booed because he voted for the $700 billion Bush TARP bailout.

The Tea Parties ARE anti-Obama, of course, but that's because Obama typifies the reckless Big Brother spendathon that is ruining this country. At their heart, it's the policies the Tea Partiers are protesting, not the person(s). That's why the crowd boos GOP'ers if they deserve it. The Tea Parties are also anti-Bush, because Bush represented the same big-deficit-and-run-up-the-debt spending policies. I don't know why this is so difficult for some folks to understand, but it seems to be. I suppose it's due to all the lies and bias coming from the media. Don't listen to them.

Btw, when the left wing media mouthpieces start to foam at the mouth and spew inanities over something like these Tea Parties – THAT MEANS WE'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. It also means we're exposing these deceptive haters for what they are. Let's keep it going. When Paul Krugman of the NY Times calls the Tea Parties "fake events" and calls the Tea Partiers "crazy people," when actress/moonbat Janeane Garofalo calls the Tea Partiers "racists" and "rednecks," and nitwit Keith Olbermann agrees, when Rep. Jane Schakowsky (D-IL) calls the Tea Parties "despicable" and "shameful," when CNN sends a reporter to do a hit piece on the Tea Parties under the guise of journalism, when leftwing bloggers try to infiltrate and then distort the true idea of what the Tea Parties are about, when MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and others put on their dismissive smirks and make endless juvenile inuendoes about a sexual practice know as "teabagging," when Paul Begala calls the Tea Partiers "whiners" and "sore losers," when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi calls the Tea Parties "astroturf" instead of grassroots (meaning the Tea Parties were GOP-funded events, a lie), when spokesmen for the White House pretend President Obama wasn't even aware of any Tea Parties (that attracted between 500,000 and 1,000,000 protesters to almost every city in the country)……..then you know – THEY ARE WORRIED. The more the left brings out their irrational hatred and lies, the more you know they don't have any real argument.

There is a Tea Party scheduled in Bowling Green tomorrow, and there are another round of National Tea Parties being organized for the Fourth of July. Obama isn't the only community organizer.

Power to the people ! Let's take back America. If we don't, nobody else will.

Very impressive. Cleveland had an estimated 1,500 (according to WKYC) at it's tax day Tea Party. The Associated Press said "tens of thousands" attended the Tea Parties across the country. The actual attendance figure has to be in the hundreds of thousands, because there were upwards of 800 Tea Party events held, though I have no way of arriving at a close estimate yet. There are some event photos at Michelle Malkin's website. There is a decent piece about how the Tea Parties got started from the Wall Street Journal. It wasn't from CNBC's Rick Santelli, as some have stated, though he did help publicize it. When Santelli called for Tea Parties, he was picking up on the Tea Party movement that had already been started by bloggers.

There were SO many countrywide protests held yesterday that the mainstream media actually had to take a little time out of it's busy day to criticize them. I'm sure that was very irritating for our media. Usually, they'd just ignore something like this altogether. I guess the criticism passes for progress in today's America.

The liberal side of the media has made complete asses of themselves about this, telling one lie after another about the Tea Parties, and calling the Tea Partiers whiners, sore losers, racists, and "crazy people," as Paul Krugman of the NY Times and others have said. The lefty media really brought out it's first class demonizers for these events, proving who the crazy people really are (hint: it's not the Tea Party protesters). The liberal media makes little sense, because the tea parties really are non-partisan events. In fact, one of my favorite protest signs said "Bush – Too Much Spending. Obama – Worse Than Bush." That captures it in a nutshell. You don't have to be a member of any certain political party to realize our federal government is way out of control. You just have to be sane and paying attention.

For those who still don't understand what the Tea Party movement is about (who I'll assume have been staying in the Amazon rainforest for the last 7 months, or have been listening to MSLSD, virtually the same thing), here's a chart of U.S. federal deficits in the 21st century that explains why protests are being held. Anyone who has only been listening to the fools (Olbermann, Maddow, Krugman, Begala, etc) talk about the Tea Parties should pay particular attention to this chart:

Now, I'd like to explain this chart to the fiscally impaired. You know who you are. The rest of you already know this stuff quite well, so I don't mean to insult your intelligence here, but this is going to be remedial for the slow learners.

Okay, libs. Pay attention now. Do you see the gray deficit lines on the left side of the chart ? Those were the deficits from the Bush administration. The Bush administration ran THE LARGEST DEFICITS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Bush added about $4.5 trillion to the national debt. That is a BAD thing. Can I get a big "AMEN!" from the liberals on that one ? Yes sir, I knew I could. If the libbies know anything, it's "Bush bad."

Now, my liberal friends, look at the red and pink deficit lines on the right side of the chart. See the WAY, WAY, WAY BIGGER DEFICITS that the Obama administration is projected to run up ? Do you see them ? Do you ? Good. Do you see that the deficits and debt Obama will be running up are FAR WORSE THAN WHAT BUSH DID, WHICH WILL MAKE OBAMA THE MOTHER OF ALL DEFICIT AND DEBT CREATORS ? (this is where I usually lose the liberals, for some reason. They generally start saying something like "Cheney sucks" right about here. Maybe it's Attention "Deficit" Disorder).

THAT'S why we're having Tea Parties. Our federal government is, as I said before, way out of control, and all that federal spending will have to be paid for. And how do massive deficts and debt get paid off ? With massive, crushing tax increases down the road. There's no way around it. As former Comptroller General David Walker said during the Bush years, "we're on an unsustainable fiscal path." In less than three months, Obama isn't giving us change we can believe in. I know how hard that is to hear for my left-feathered friends, but it's true. Obama isn't giving us change at all. He's just bankrupting the country at a much quicker pace than Bush did, that's all. Obama is bankrupting us at warp speed.

Hope this helps clear up the confusion (even though it probably won't). You see, dear liberals, if you can look at the above chart objectively and then call the Tea Partiers "crazy people," well, that's rather like Charlie Manson calling Gandhi violent. It's too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

P.S. – For any Democrats and/or liberals who aren't blind Obama sockpuppets, I apologize for the condescending tone of the second part of this post, but there was no other way.

What if Bush or Palin said this ?: "It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of — I don't know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing — and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics" – Barack Obama, who apparently doesn't know that Austrians speak German.

Yes, but freedom fries were before Sarkozy: "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." – Barack Obama, Apologist-In-Chief. Maybe you didn't notice Barry, but Europe was pretty dismissive of YOU during your overseas lovefest. The NATO countries are bailing on the Afghanistan War. Someone please remind me, why does NATO still exist ?

Um, weren't those JUDEO-CHRISTIAN ideals and values ?: "One of the great strengths of the United States is — although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." - Barack Obama in Turkey.

The times, they are a changin': "London hosted a Group of 20 meeting amid chaos. Chinese communists are now the capitalists, France's president is Hungarian, the Anglo-Saxons are being led by a socialist and a Kenyan, and Germany is refusing to send troops into other countries. Astronauts aboard the Space Station report the Earth is spinning backwards." – comedian Argus Hamilton.

This guy knows liberals: "The Huffington Post is organizing "citizen journalists" to attend the protests, allegedly to "report." Which means that they will try to find someone in a crowd who says something stupid, will post it on the internet, and build an argument around it trying to demonize the movement. And left-wing bloggers will react in unison like dogs responding to a whistle, about the "dangerous" and "violent" and "racist" tea parties. This tactic is as old as time; or at least as old as the internet." - William Jacobson, creator of the website Legal Insurrection, describing the pre-emptive faux-horror strategy of the left about the upcoming "treasonous and seditious" tea party rallies. Which reminds me, I'll see you at the Cleveland Tax Day Tea Party rally on April 15th at Mall C from 4-6pm.

And here's the reason why we are having Tea Party rallies: "Finally, what of the claim not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year? Even ignoring his large energy taxes, Mr. Obama must reconcile his arithmetic. Every dollar of debt he runs up means that future taxes must be $1 higher in present-value terms. Mr. Obama is going to leave a discounted present-value legacy of $6.5 trillion of additional future taxes, unless he dramatically cuts spending. (With interest the future tax hikes would be much larger later on.) Call it a stealth tax increase or ticking tax time-bomb.
What does $6.5 trillion of additional debt imply for the typical family? If spread evenly over all those paying income taxes (which under Mr. Obama’s plan would shrink to a little over 50% of the population), every income-tax paying family would get a tax bill for $163,000. (In 10 years, interest would bring the total to well over a quarter million dollars, if paid all at once. If paid annually over the succeeding 10 years, the tax hike every year would average almost $34,000.) That’s in addition to his explicit tax hikes. While the future tax time-bomb is pushed beyond Mr. Obama’s budget horizon, and future presidents and Congresses will decide how it will be paid, it is likely to be paid by future income tax hikes as these are general fund deficits." – Michael Boskin.

For science lover's only: "New research from NASA suggests that the Arctic warming trend seen in recent decades has indeed resulted from human activities: but not, as is widely assumed at present, those leading to carbon dioxide emissions. Rather, Arctic warming has been caused in large part by laws introduced to improve air quality and fight acid rain. Dr Drew Shindell of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies has led a new study which indicates that much of the general upward trend in temperatures since the 1970s – particularly in the Arctic – may have resulted from changes in levels of solid “aerosol” particles in the atmosphere, rather than elevated CO2. Arctic temperatures are of particular concern to those worried about the effects of global warming, as a melting of the ice cap could lead to disastrous rises in sea level – of a sort which might burst the Thames Barrier and flood London, for instance.
Shindell’s research indicates that, ironically, much of the rise in polar temperature seen over the last few decades may have resulted from US and European restrictions on sulphur emissions. According to NASA:
Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates." – Lewis Page, The Register.

Snort. I knew those NASA guys were nothing but a bunch of evangelical religious nut holocaust denying flat-earther zealots in the pocket of big oil. Geez. Don't they know the "debate is over," as the pre-eminent [non]scientist Al Gore says ? Enough with this so-called "science." It only confuses people.

The front of the Supreme Court building declares "equal justice under the law." The Declaration Of Independence states that "all men are created equal." The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says states must provide "equal protection under the law." We have many laws prohibiting discrimination.

But we don't mean it. Our government practices discrimination as standard practice. Many in government even say we don't discriminate enough. The source of the discrimination is the tax laws.

When one worker's labor is taxed at 10% and another worker's labor is taxed at 20%, what is that but discrimination ? The progressive nature of the income tax schedules is inherently discriminatory. The tax code itself is over 66,000 pages of repeated discriminations. The examples are nearly endless, which is why the tax code is so long. If we removed all the discriminatory content, the tax code could be contained on a single page.

Homeowners can deduct mortgage interest payments, renters cannot. You get a tax break to buy a hybrid automobile, but not to buy a different automobile. States and communities forego property taxes for one business, but not another. Married couples pay different effective tax rates than single persons. One person receives an earned income credit, another does not. Homeowners can receive energy efficiency tax credits, renters cannot. Government discriminates against smokers by taxing them to pay for health insurance for some other person's child. There are tax credits for retirement savings, children, adoption, education, solar panels, AMT, first time homebuyers, R&D, historic properties, water heaters, window, doors, skylights, and on and on and on. What can and cannot be deducted from your taxable income is the subject of endless debate and political manueverings. I could list a hundred more examples of discrimination in taxation.

Look at how the tax code has grown over time into the 66,000+ page monstrosity it has become today:

What this reveals is that the tax code has nothing to do with fairness. It has everything to do with government control and power. Both major political parties pretty much agree with tax code discrimination. They just argue about the extent of it. A few people, mostly conservatives, want to reduce the discrimination. A lot of other people, mostly liberals, want to increase it. (Ergo, the old joke about the Democrats ideal tax form, which has only two lines – 1. How much did you make ? 2. Send it in). In fact, I can almost hear liberals forming their "tax cuts for the rich" arguments as they are reading this. Those liberals are arguing in favor of more discrimination. They don't care about fairness. They only care about waging class warfare in a society which has no class boundaries. The liberal argument is about envy, not fairness.

The discriminatory and nearly incomprehensible tax code is one of government's biggest weapons against it's citizens. Even the Secretary Of The Treasury can't get his taxes right. Neither can the Congressman in charge of writing the tax code. There have been so many Obama cabinet nominees with tax problems that I'm losing track of them all. If these people can't keep things straight, how can the rest of us be expected to ? The tax code threatens to make criminals of us all.

Government taxes everything, even the dead, and it's never enough. The government hasn't lived within it's means in my lifetime. It took 212 years for the federal government's budget to reach $1.78 trillion in 1999. It has taken only ten years to double that number, with the current budget standing at $3.5 trillion. This indicates that the problem is not that there isn't enough taxation. No, it's quite the opposite. There's too much government spending. Our government is totally out of control.

And guess who's going to pay for it all ? YOU are. So are your children. And speaking of discrimination, and taxation without representation, what voice do the future taxpayers have in all the fiscal insanity taking place today ? When they come of age into a country with 50-60-80% tax rates, whose fault will that be ? It won't be theirs. It will be ours.

If we ever get our government under control and get rid of the wealth-destroying national debt, I'd propose an ideal tax form of my own – 1. How much did you make ? 2. Send in 10%. That would be fair, and it would discriminate against nobody.

Every American presidential administration comes up with a plan to balance the federal budget. The plan is almost always the same. It is a long range plan that will take many years to accomplish, usually ending after the administration proposing it is out of office. Then, when the balanced budget plan fails, the administration can say "hey, we had a plan in place," but the new administration (usually of the opposite party) ruined it."

I've been listening to this song and dance for decades, and only one administration ever achieved a balanced budget, Bill Clinton's. It took him six years to accomplish it, and even Clinton left a huge net federal debt, in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion.

Thus, I think it's fair to say our leaders are nothing but a bunch of irresponsible, phoney-baloney, lying blowhards. The verdict of the last 75 years is in.

Now, Barack Obama has announced his 4-year plan, not to balance the budget, but to reduce it to ONLY $533 trillion. Obama's budget for this year projects a deficit of $1.75 trillion, with federal spending soaring to $4 trillion in 2010, increasing government spending as much in two years as Bush did in 8 years. Some change. Then Obama acts like he's concerned with fiscal responsibility. I can't listen to this nonsense any longer. Enough is enough. Running these endless deficits already has us blowing nearly $500 billion annually on debt interest that benefits nobody (except maybe China). We are following our so-called leaders into the seventh circle of economic hell.

So here's one plan (not necessarily the best plan) to balance the federal budget RIGHT NOW. I wouldn't be proposing some of these steps unless the situation was dire, but it IS dire:

1. Repeal Obama's stimulus package. It's a combination of tiny tax cuts that won't make much difference in people's lives, coupled with tons of unneeded spending. Savings – $787 billion.

2. Stop Obama's foreclosure and toxic asset bailout. We've given the banks enough already, and I'm sick of rewarding corporations and individuals for their bad behavior. Let's start rewarding responsibility instead, as it should be. Savings – $275 billion.

3. Eliminate the federal Department of Education. Washington D.C. doesn't teach kids, your local teachers do. The Department of Education is little more than a bunch of bureaucrats. The test scores of America's children have DECLINED since the Department of Education was created by the Carter administration. Savings – $63 billion

4. Cut Department of Defense spending by 10%. Savings – $54 billion
Note – this does not affect funding for the wars, which is a separate appropriation. We should save another $150 billion or so as the Iraq war draws down.

5. Reverse Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. This is not the end-all-be-all panacea it is painted to be by the left-wing spinmeisters. According to the Tax and Policy Center, reversing the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000, as Obama proposes, would generate an additional $350 billion in revenue over 10 years. Nevertheless, every little bit helps. Extra yearly revenue generated – $35 billion

6. Freeze the Omnibus spending bill for march through september at the level of last year's bill. Savings – $32 billion

Let me get out the calculator and see how much I've saved so far. 787+275+63+54+35+32 = $1.246 trillion. We're getting there, but we have a little ways to go. What else can we do ?

7. Raise the Social Security payroll tax ceiling to $190,000. I know this is immoral, and I'd only do it as a stopgap measure until I fixed the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but it will bring in some revenue and push back the day of SS reckoning (sorta). Yearly revenue generated – $ 58 billion

8. Eliminate home mortgage interest tax deduction. Also painful, but everyone has some "skin in this game," as Obama says. This also primarily affects higher level income persons. Extra revenue generated – $75 billion

9. End agricultural price supports. Savings – $20 billion

10. Cut Obama's proposed budget from $3.5 trillion to $3.4 trillion, a 2% cut. Savings – $100 billion

I think that just about gets us to a balanced budget, and if we add in the savings from ending the Iraq war, we are in budgetary surplus. Everybody will hate some of this, and I hate a lot of it, but anything is better than spending ourselves into oblivion. It took me about an hour of research to come up with this. I'm sure I could develop a far better plan if I had more time and energy to devote to it. I'm sure I could get us to a major budgetary surplus and start paying down that enormous debt if it was my full time job. So, why can't Congress and the President do this ? After all, it IS their full time job. They are not serving the interests of the American people in any way. Why do we let them get away with it ???? I'll never understand. All Republicans can talk about is tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, and all Democrats can talk about is spend, spend, spend. A pox on both their houses. I'm all in favor of lower taxes and limited government, there's no doubt about that. That's a founding principle of liberty that should never be forsaken. But I'm even more in favor of not seeing my country go down the tubes, so lets jump off this partisan ship of fools to save our country. Time is running out. Balancing the budget is not some unattainable dream that might or might not happen 10 years from now. It's something that can be accomplished almost immediately. All it takes is the political will to do it, and therein lies the problem.

Campaign promise:

"sunlight is the best disinfectant…and when there's a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you, the public, will have five days to look online and find out what's in it, before I sign it." – Barack Obama

Reality:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – wasn't put online.
The SCHIP expansion – signed before the five day waiting period.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – passed late friday night, will be signed on tuesday, less than five days (granted, America will vaporize if Obama waits).

But Obama's promise sure sounded good to his blind and adoring followers, just like the one he broke before he even took office about not having any lobbyists on his team.

Here's what Obama said about lobbyists on the campaign trail:

"I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."

Statements like these drew great applause from Obama's naive and adoring fans, but they were always hogwash. When is somebody in the media going to realize that Obama For America is itself nothing but an army of people attempting to influence legislative actions (lobbying) ? Community organizers, like Obama used to be, also mobilize people for legislative change. They are lobbyists too. So, let's stop playing political pretend about lobbyists. ALL politicians and those associated with them are LOBBYISTS, attempting to implement their political agenda for their own ends. The Democratic and Republican parties are nothing but huge, well-funded lobbying groups. Attempts to ban lobbyists are essentially an attempt to remove politics from politics. Impossible. If it's the influence of lobbyist's money that we are trying to prevent, we must agree to the public funding of political campaigns, like John McCain did, and Barack Obama DIDN'T (breaking his word again). Change We Can Believe In.
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It looks like the man appointed to take Obama's Senate seat, Roland Burris (D-IL), perjured himself during the Blagojevich pay-to-play investigation. In a sworn statement to the Illinois House panel investigating Blagojevich, Burris said he had no contacts at all with the impeached governor before his appointment in late December. But it seems Burris left out one itty bitty little detail – Blagojevich’s brother solicited $10,000 in campaign cash from Burris before Blago named Burris to Obama's seat. Oops. That sounds like contact with Blago to me, and there's no way this solicitation could have slipped Burris' mind when it was the very subject of the Blagojevich investigation.

I can hardly wait for the forthcoming "it was an innocent mistake and I'm deeply sorry for the oversight" claim from Burris.
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Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) opened her fat yap and exposed some key counterterrorism information. Feinstein revealed that unmanned CIA Predator drones monitoring terrorists are run out of an airbase inside Pakistan. It was always assumed previously that the drones came from U.S. airbases. This hints at a much deeper cooperation between the Pakistan and U.S. governments than was thought before, and causes credibility problems between the Pakistan government and it's own anti-american citizenry, complicating the fight against terrorism. Feinstein is the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, though maybe the word "Intelligence" doesn't apply here. Pakistan possesses 100 nuclear weapons, and if you were to pick a world government most likely to be overthrown and placed under Taliban/Al Qaeda/Islamic rule, Pakistan would be it. Thanks, Diane.
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The Honorable Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) will stay on as chairman of the House Ways And Means Committee. Rangel, a tax cheat, is in charge of writing the tax code (How did Obama miss this guy for a cabinet position ?). Rangel's past is littered with one scandal after another, yet he always manages to avoid any real consequences (It's good to be a Democrat !).

Rangel's number one excuse for not paying his taxes is…are you ready for this ?…he didn't understand the tax code (that Rangel himself is in charge of writing). You couldn't make this up. Nobody would believe it.

I seem to remember something about a "culture of corruption." Wasn't it Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who coined that phrase ? Of course, she was talking about Republicans (Abramoff, Cunningham, Delay), but these days it seems a week can't go by without hearing about some new scandal involving Democrats. Daschle, Geithner, Richardson, Jefferson, Blagojevich, Kilpatrick, Murtha, Rangel, Jefferson, Spitzer, Dodd, Conrad, Mollohan, Solis…

Sure glad we restored ethics to government.

Moderate Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe are indicating they will defect from GOP ranks and vote in favor of President Obama's $825 billion porkulus bill ($1.1 trillion counting interest), thus giving Obama the 60 vote supermajority he needs to pass it. That makes the Congressional Republican tally on Obama's porkulus package – 219 against, 3 in favor (and Collins is wavering). Hurrah ! It's bipartisanship !

According to the NY Times, Obama congratulated the three Republicans for their "patriotism":

Mr. Obama called Ms. Collins and Mr. Specter, as well as Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, another Republican expected to support the deal, to acknowledge they were acting against pressure from their party and, one official said, to thank them for their patriotism in helping advance the bill at a critical time.

Is anyone else tiring of our President calling agreement with his policies "patriotic" and "unifying", while disagreement is characterized as "divisive" and "petty politics" ? I know I am, and he's been in office for only three weeks. Obama is not the nexus of all that is good and righteous. Obama's VP, Joe Biden, called it "patriotic" to pay more in taxes a few months ago, during the presidential campaign. Big Brother knows best, even when Big Brother was the one who screwed things up in the first place.

In another example of the new politics, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) wants to cap the compensation of all CEO's. There is legislation in Congress to accomplish the task:

“There’s deeply rooted anger on the part of the average American,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at a Washington news conference today. He said the compensation restrictions would apply to all financial institutions and might be extended to include all U.S. companies.

Let freedom ring ! Do I smell the rotting corpse of wage and price controls rising from the grave ?

You may remember Barney Frank as one of the facilitators of the Fannie/Freddie meltdown, which is responsible in part for the current economic crisis. I'd like to cap him (his pay, that is). Here's Barney in '05, when regulation was being proposed by Republicans to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

"These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

It doesn't seem like Republicans were exaggerating the problem now, does it Barney ? It's worth mentioning once more that Barney Frank is the head of the HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE, more commonly known as putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

I'm wondering, what kind of compensation should we be paying to a Congress that has us in debt up to our eyeballs and spinning down the economic toilet ? After all, they do work for us, though you'd never know it by their actions. Maybe we should take away their salaries and put it toward the debt. That sounds "patriotic" to me. Maybe we should only pay them when they run in the black, just like Congress and Obama suggest Wall Street should do. Maybe that would get our pols to be fiscally responsible for once in their lives. Nothing else seems to work. Let's put them on commission. No reduction in the federal debt, no pay.

Then there's Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), who a few months ago wanted to nationalize the oil industry because it was making more profit than Democrats liked. Now, Ms. Waters wants to takeover the banks:

"If it was left up to me … I would nationalize the whole [mortgage] industry." –Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Are you starting to get an idea of how these people think ? Anything that gives more power and control to the federal government is GOOD, and anything that doesn't is BAD.

But don't call them socialists. Heaven forbid. That's just crazy talk.

Also prepare yourselves for TARP II, which is said to be bigger than TARP I (which didn't work), and bigger than Obama's stimulus bill (which will have minimal impact). It's a brave new world, and money doesn't matter anymore. The numbers being tossed around are so large that a "billion" sounds like chicken feed nowadays. It isn't.

Stick 'em up. It's patriotic.

President Obama signed the SCHIP expansion into law yesterday amid great Democratic fanfare. As Democrats like to do, Obama pointed out a family that would benefit by his wonderful legislation (this time it was the Secrest family). Unmentioned, of course, were the hundreds of thousands of families to be hurt by the tax increase which pays for the SCHIP expansion. I've written before about how Obama is paying for SCHIP with a 61 cent tax on cigarettes, which studies show falls mainly on the poor, who smoke at much higher rates than more wealthy people do. I don't want to rehash all that again, but Obama made some comments during yesterday's SCHIP victory speech that I can't let pass:

But, as I think everybody here will agree, this is only the first step. Because the way I see it, providing coverage to 11 million children through CHIP is a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American…We'll have made the single largest investment in prevention and wellness in history, attacking problems like smoking and obesity, and helping people live longer, healthier lives.

I've heard politicians make stupid statements before, lots of them, but I want to nominate this one for the stupidity hall of fame. In the same speech that Obama is celebrating an SCHIP expansion funded by cigarette smokers, he says he wants to eliminate the problem of smoking…..which would eliminate the funding for his SCHIP expansion. Duh. In fact, SCHIP funding depends on the creation of 24 million NEW smokers.

Obama seamlessly morphed his "for the children" plea into a reason we should fork over $1 trillion+ for his pork-filled stimulus bill. He's promoting the dubious proposition that we can "help" our children by deficit spending ourselves into oblivion, which will saddle our children with mountains of debt and certainly lower their future living standards. This is precisely what Ronald Reagan warned about when he said the scariest words in the english language were, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Our post-partisan president also took a shot at Republicans who oppose The One's spend-a-palooza:

Now, let me say this. In the past few days, I've heard criticisms of this plan that, frankly, echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can address this enormous crisis with half-steps, and piecemeal measures, and tinkering around the edges, that we can ignore fundamental challenges like the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

Yeah, those rotten tax-cutting Republicans. How can those GOP wingnuts possibly think that giving people more of their own money back through tax cuts will help them…to….have…..more….money ? That's just crazy talk. Divisive. As for those "same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place," why does Obama think it was 10% tax cuts that did it ? Why doesn't Obama recognize the 50% increase in GOVERNMENT SPENDING during the Bush years as a contributing factor ??? How about the fact that government spending has doubled in the last decade ? Why doesn't Obama recognize that failed policy ? It couldn't be because Obama wants to DOUBLE OR TRIPLE that spending increase, could it ? What a bunch of malarkey our president is trying to push on us. He's trying to pass the largest government spending bill in history off as a "stimulus package", and then condemns the GOP for wanting to restrict the bill to things that actually might have a chance to stimulate the economy. I'm also pretty sure the GOP isn't strenuously objecting to the infrastructure projects either. Mr. Post-partisan forgot to mention that too.

Finally, the president pushed his electoral mandate:

"I reject these [GOP] theories. And, by the way, so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."

Now, I don't want to be a stickler or anything, and as mesmerized as I am by that word 'change,' I don't recall Obama campaining on the idea that he was going to pass a $1 trillion spending bill right after he was elected, do you ??? I don't remember him saying he was going to raise the cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack either. Such things might have influenced the outcome of the election. If only Obama had been more "transparent" about the policies he intended to pursue. What I remember Obama saying is "tax cuts for 95% of Americans" over and over, just like those failed Republicans are doing. What I remember is Obama saying he'd make health care more affordable. Now, objecting to his tax increases and massive spending increases is a "failed theory." No, Mr. President, what you are promoting is the failed theory, the one that says we can continue to live beyond our means. It's the same big government theory we've been operating on all along, except now you want to put it on even more powerful steroids, to make it a super-failed theory. No thank you.

And the polls are showing Americans don't want the stimulus bill passed in it's current pork-packed form. By all means, Mr. President, listen to the people.

President Obama said the SCHIP expansion was "only the first step."

That's precisely what I'm afraid of.

I know I'm pumped up. Our new president-elect, Barack Obama, will take office in eight short days, and CHANGE will come to America. Yeah, CHANGE, baby ! Woo-hoo ! Hope will be coming as well, and who doesn't like hope, especially when it's combined with CHANGE ? Count me in !

As his first CHANGE, Obama will try to pass the largest economic stimulus package in history, larger than the previous largest economic stimulus package passed by George W. Bush. See, a Bush stimulus package isn't CHANGE. An Obama stimulus package is CHANGE. Obama said Congress needs to act fast to implement his $1 trillion stimulus package, and that the consequences to our economy will be dire if Congress doesn't act immediately. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said nearly the exact same words about the $800 billion financial bailout, but clearly, Obama is for CHANGE, while Paulson definitely isn't for CHANGE. Obama's stimulus package is quite short on specifics about how the money will be spent, just as Paulson's bailout was, but don't let that confuse you about who the CHANGE guy is either. Have a nice glass of Kool-Aid instead, and don't worry your pretty little heads.

And definitely don't think about who is going to pay for all this government spending. That will only bum you out, possibly interfering with hope. Just keep repeating the CHANGE mantra. It's simpler. Much simpler.

The terrible ogre Bush ran federal deficits during his tenure as president, and Obama the CHANGE guy has already promised to do the exact same thing. Obama, however, is going to create jobs. That really would be a CHANGE, and Obama keeps upping the job creation ante, which is more good news. On the campaign trail, Obama promised to add 2 million American jobs. Then it went to 3 million after he was elected. Yesterday, he pushed that number to 4 million, so obviously, Obama is a great president already, and has exceeded expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets up to 5 million, or maybe even 6 million imaginary jobs created by his inauguration day. Happy days are here again.

Not only is The One going to put a chicken in every pot, he's going to bring us universal health care too. As to how he will provide 45 million uninsured people with comprehensive health care insurance and not drive up government spending even more drastically (health care already comprises 25% of government spending), well, we don't really have an answer to that, but I'm guessing Obama will wave his magical CHANGE wand and make that happen effortlessly. They don't call him the Messiah for nothing. If you have absolute faith in the infallibility of our new president, you will believe it too. If you don't have absolute faith, then you are probably an obstructionist GOP evildoer bent on the destruction of all that is good. You are an enemy of truth and light. Just ask my pal the Reverend over at the Blog Of Mass Destruction on ohio.com. He knows. The sole purpose of the Republican party is to destroy America. I can't exactly remember why the Republicans would want to do that, since they are part of the America they would be destroying, but ask the Reverend. I'm sure he has a theory.

Another wonderful part of the new CHANGE coming to America is that Obama is going to cut taxes for 95% of us. Isn't it marvelous ? I am super-psyched about that. Not only is Obama going to spend tons of money to help us and drive up the deficits, but with the new CHANGE, we don't even have to pay for it !!!!! Is that a sweet deal, or what ? It's like living in Alice's Wonderland, where nothing has to make sense, and reality doesn't have meaning. For those of you paying attention, it might seem like cutting taxes, increasing federal spending, and running deficits is the exact same thing that Bush did, but you are missing a vital CHANGE fact. Look at the two names of the presidents. 'Bush' is spelled B-U-S-H, while 'Obama' is spelled O-B-A-M-A. Clearly, they are totally different. Not at all the same. CHANGE is as CHANGE does, and life is like a box of chocolates.

So, party on CHANGE-sters ! It's all good. Obama is even going to have the most expensive inauguration in history, all in the middle of what Obama himself calls the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression. Money doesn't even matter anymore (because in the end, you won't have any). It's fan-freaking-tastic !

CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE !!! I can't get enough.

This presidential election is about the future direction of our country. It is a referendum on what type of country we want in America. There are fundamental differences between the progressive (Obama/Biden) view and the conservative (McCain/Palin) view. As I see it, the differences are fairly stark, and are illustrated clearly by looking at tax policy. The progressives view tax policy as a moral issue, to be used to implement social change. Therefore they favor higher taxes on the wealthy to "spread the wealth around" to the less wealthy, as Obama puts it. It is a redistributive policy. Conservatives, on the other hand, view tax policy more as an economic calculation, to be used to stimulate the overall economy in the best possible manner. Conservatives feel economic growth is best accomplished by keeping taxes low for everyone, and in McCain's case, lowering tax rates for business and capital gains to create jobs and growth.

It is only natural to consider progressive tax policy as more socialist in nature, and to consider conservative tax policy as more individualist in nature. When you look at the economic state of our country, with $700 billion bailouts for the financial industry, a $165 billion stimulus package being passed, another $300 billion stimulus package being proposed by the Democrats, the federal government buying up shares of the largest banks in the nation, bailouts for automobile manufacturers, $53 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities, $10 trillion in national debt….

It is therefore entirely proper to ask the men and women who are vying to lead this country about the direction in which we're heading. Everyone I know is concerned about it.

Enter Joe Biden's interview with a local television newswoman from Florida, Barbara West.

West: Senator Obama now famously told Joe the plumber he wanted to spread his wealth around. A Gallup poll showed 84% of Americans prefer government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S., as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth. Isn't Senator Obama's comment a potentially crushing political blunder ?

Biden: Absolutely not. The only person who has spread the wealth around has been George Bush and John McCain's tax policy. They have devastated the middle class. We, for the first time since the late 20's, we have 1% of the people make over 21% of the income in America. That wasn't the way before George Bush became president. All we want is once again to have the middle class to have a fighting chance. That's why we focus all of our efforts on restoring the middle class and giving them a tax break..

Timeout. Let's take a reality break from Biden's talking points. First of all, George Bush did NOT "spread the wealth around" with his tax cuts. Bush cut taxes across the board for everyone, allowing all taxpayers to keep more of THEIR OWN money. That goes for both the wealthy and the middle class. Middle class taxes were far lower under the Bush administration than under the previous Clinton administration. How does giving the middle class more money devastate the middle class, as Biden put it ? Despite all Obama's talk of growing the economy "from the bottom up" with his middle class tax cuts, if you look at Bush's tax cuts realistically, they amounted to growing the economy both from the bottom up and from the top down, because he cut taxes for all. When Obama/Biden talk about returning to the tax policies of the Clinton era, those policies taxed the middle class MORE. Obama/Biden are being dishonest in their portrayal of the Bush tax cuts.

West: You may recognize this famous quote, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around ?

Biden: Are you joking ? Is this a joke ?

West: No.

Biden: Is that a real question ?

West: That's a question.

Biden: Ha, ha, ha. He is not spreaking the wealth around. He is talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.

Huh ? Giving the middle class back the tax breaks they used to have ? That's a lie. As I just said, Bush CUT middle class taxes, and Biden is acting like Bush raised taxes on the middle class. Utter dishonesty from Biden.

Biden: We think the people should be getting a tax break, and not continue to distribute the wealth up…it's a ridiculous comparison, with all due respect.

Here Biden talks about wealthier people keeping their own money as a "distribution of wealth up", which it plainly isn't. It's THEIR OWN MONEY. That's not redistribution. Someone should tell Biden that other people's money doesn't belong to Joe Biden or the federal government. It belongs to the people who earned it. Regardless of our view of what constitutes fair tax policy, we need to at least be honest in our uses of terminology. Biden isn't being honest.

West: Getting back to the spreading the wealth question, what do you say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country, much like Sweden ?

Biden: I don't know anybody who thinks that except the far right wing of the Republican party.

Really ? Barack Obama's plans for universal health care, to nationalize pre-school, greatly expand government spending, redistribute wealth, and greatly increase taxes, don't bring to mind european-type socialism, such as that practiced in Sweden ? Of course they do, to any thinking person. Again, this election is about the fundamental direction this country will take in the future. These are just the type of questions that should be asked of our candidates.

But Biden objected. Biden addressed the interview at an event in North Carolina – saying it’s one more example of how “mean” the campaign has gotten. “I was on a television station the other day doing a satellite fed to a major network in Florida, and the anchor quotes Karl Marx, and says in a sense, isn’t Barack Obama Karl Marx,” Biden said. “I mean, folks, this stuff you’re hearing, this stuff you’re hearing in this campaign, some of it’s pretty ugly. And some of the innuendo is pretty ugly.” According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Obama campaign pulled an appearance by Biden's wife from the Florida television station, and also limited access of other Obama campaign members.

Are you kidding me ? Hasn't one of the complaints from Democrats about the Bush administration been that the Bushies won't answer any hard questions, and that they limit access to reporters ? Now we have the Obama campaign doing the very same thing in response to fundamental questions about which direction our country is heading. And Biden calling these fundamental questions "mean" and "ugly" ? I don't think so. Biden's arrogance is off the charts.

With all due respect, Mr. Biden, you work for us, the people. We can and should ask you any damn question we please, and you are supposed to answer it. That's how the public becomes informed and reaches a decision. I only wonder why these questions weren't being asked earlier than one week before the election. It would also help if you told the truth, Mr. Biden, at least once in a while. You aren't doing much of that either.

If any of you read my last post, called A Deficit Disorder, you probably know my feelings regarding our federal government's economic policies range somewhere between cynical and disgusted. Lately, with mob boss Hugo Chavez Hank Paulson running the Treasury like Don Corleone, making the big banks an offer they can't refuse to force a partial nationalization of those institutions, "disgusted" might not be a strong enough term. Paulson even told Wells Fargo Bank, who didn't want to be nationalized, that if they didn't accept his offer, they should (cue Marlon Brando's Don Vito voice) "never seek my favors or protections again." I'm paraphrasing, of course, but Paulson really did say words to that effect. Heaven help us. That's what happens when you give the feds so much power.

So, I almost passed on watching the third presidential debate last night. However, I was interested to see if John McCain would go down fighting or go down easy, so I tuned in. I was glad I did. While the talking heads, with their sound-byte mentalities, were saying things like "McCain didn't score the knockout he needed", or that Barack Obama "didn't make a major gaffe" after the debate, I saw things much differently. I thought John McCain cleaned Obama's clock on almost every issue. As an economic Conservative and an economic Libertarian, I finally heard from McCain some of what I've been hoping to hear. I finally heard McCain outline some fiscal policies to balance the budget and reign in Fedzilla (as Ted Nugent calls it), and I finally heard McCain expose Obama for the wrong-headed, wealth redistributing, big government tax and spend liberal that he is. I only wish McCain had mentioned some of the fascist policies of the other two heads of the liberal triumvirate of terror who would control our government if Obama gets elected and the Democrats increase their control of Congress – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who would attempt to do things like eliminate the secret ballot in union voting (you VILL join ze union, comrade !) with the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, and squelch free speech on talk radio (which mostly happens to be Conservative free speech) by imposing the equally Orwellian-named Fairness Doctrine. Ah, how I love the smell of our basic democratic principles burning in the morning.

McCain and Obama spent much time talking to Joe the plumber, who, after 15 years of working hard at his job, was finally in a position to own his plumbing business, and was concerned that Obama's tax plans would steal his hard-earned success and limit his ability to expand his business. (you really need to watch the entire video of Obama and Joe talking here). Obama's answer really does amount to stealing Joe's success, squelching Joe's American dream, and Obama taking the fruits of Joe's labor and "spreading the wealth around" to others. It's classic big government liberal-speak. In contrast, McCain showed how his tax cuts for business and low capital gains tax rates would enable Joe to grow his business, allowing Joe to hire people and create jobs. Obama's answer to Joe is the perfect example of how big government high-tax policies work against wealth creation and economic expansion. Instead of penalizing Joe for his success, the government should get the hell out of the way of people like Joe and let them do their thing. That is what would benefit society. McCain also rightly pointed out that Joe the plumber is not rich, though he would be under Obama's entitlement mindset. When Obama talks about tax "fairness", there really is nothing at all fair about it. Joe the plumber mentioned the flat tax during his conversation with Obama. The flat tax would be fair, but to Obama, those "rich" folks like Joe, who pay 35% income tax rates, aren't being taxed enough, whereas the non-rich, who often pay little to no income taxes, deserve even more money from the government. Once again, the word "fairness" takes on an Orwellian meaning in liberaldom (some animals are more equal than others).

McCain also pointed out that the last president wrong-headed enough to increase federal spending and raise taxes during a severe recession like this one was Herbert Hoover. Hoover's policies are widely seen as leading to the 1929 Great Depression. Are we about to allow history to repeat itself by electing Obama ? McCain noted that we shouldn't be raising ANYONE'S taxes during these harsh economic times. Amen, brother. We should be cutting back on government spending and stimulating the economy instead, as McCain said he plans to do, with both a hatchet AND a scalpel, and the veto pen too. Aww, Johnny, you had me at "freeze government spending."

McCain's plans are responsible, at least relative to Obama's. Obama's plans are nuts, unless our desire is to create a socialist country. I know I don't want that. I hope you don't either. Our founders sure didn't, which is why we have that wonderful document called the Constitution. It's too bad that very few are paying any attention to it these days, and that goes for both sides of the political aisle, including both Barack Obama and Hank Paulson. I couldn't find where Paulson is allowed to forcibly nationalize privately owned banks anywhere in the Constitution, but I guess I just don't get the notion of the "living" and "evolving" Constitution (Damn right I don't).

McCain mentioned several times that Obama's answer to absolutely everything is more government spending, more government control, and more government, period. Obama would take our already overblown federal government and put it on even stronger steroids. That is exactly the wrong answer – wrong for liberty, wrong for fairness, and wrong for America. Taxes, while necessary, should always be kept as low as possible. We have an annual time known as Tax Freedom Day, which is when the average American has paid off his government tax burden. It varies from state to state, but now falls around the end of April. After the financial crisis is cleaned up, and counting all our unfunded liabilities and national debt, who knows, it might fall at the end of June, July, or even August. When the average American is working 4-6 months of the year just for the government, what is that, but forced labor ? And what is forced labor, but slavery ? Do we want to keep EXPANDING that ? Hell no. America isn't a government chain gang. That cannot possibly be good for any of us in the long run. Each and every one of us has a civic duty to keep America free, to keep taxes low, and to limit our Fedzilla, to keep the American dream alive. And if the citizenry can't see that now, with all that is currently going on in our country, then we are certainly doomed.

You can find a transcript of the third presidential debate here. McCain took it to Obama, finally, though I wish McCain had been even more forceful in making his case. In boxing parlance, McCain too often jabs and jabs, and then inexplicably backs off from throwing the overhand right that he just set Obama up for. Too bad, because I don't think Obama could hear the rest of us Conservatives delivering those overhand rights by yelling at the tv sets in our living rooms.