My Name Is Barack, And I'm A Spendaholic

     The biggest surprise to come out of the recent fiscal cliff debate was the revelation that President Obama told Speaker Boehner that there was no spending problem in Washington. The statement was illustrative of all the alcoholics I've ever known who deny they have a problem and blame everyone else who keep suggesting that they do. Barack Obama needs to admit that he has a problem with spending and get himself to a meeting. Sadly there is no evidence that Mr. Obama is now or will ever be ready to admit that he has such problem.
     But if the President were to admit that he is powerless over spending and that the budget he oversees has become unmanageable, it would be a first step on the road to recovery. But to start the healing process, Barack would have to turn over his will and his life to God as he understood Him in an effort to restore himself and the nation to sanity. To successfully complete this step, the President would have to admit that there is a higher power than government. He would also be required to make a searching and fearless inventory of himself, which he does not have the courage to perform.
     Of course even if Barack Obama completed the steps above, he would have to admit to another person the exact nature of his wrongs and humbly ask God to remove these character flaws. The President does not know the meaning of humility, let alone how to practice it. He would also need to make a list of all those he harmed in an effort to make amends. This list would fill volumes because it would have to include the entire nation sans union thugs, green energy campaign donors and Mexican drug cartels. After making amends to an entire nation, the President would have to embark on a journey of continual self inventory and promptly admit when he was wrong. This step would be near impossible for a perfect man like our President.
     The most important step in the President's recovery from spending would be for him to improve his contact with God through prayer in an effort to know His will for Barack. He would also have to use his spiritual awakening as a means to preach the benefits of spending recovery to the other spendaholics in Washington. The real tragedy of any addict is not the damage he does to himself through his behavior, but all the people in his life that are negatively affected. And in the case of Barack Obama, spendaholic, the list of victims includes over three hundred million people. But miracles can happen, and some day we may see the President rise and say, "My name is Barack, and I'm a spendaholic."

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The Seriously Deluded Right

     I remember a Seinfeld episode in which the character George Costanza tells off his boss and quits his job, only to regret his rash act later. He decides to report for work Monday morning as if nothing happened. He thought if he bought the lie that his boss and co-workers would as well. I recently thought about this episode while listening to some on the right, especially radio talk show host Michael Medved, as they tried to pretend that the Republicants bested the President and Congressional Democrats in the recent fiscal cliff deal.
     The seriously deluded Mr. Medved theorized that since the current tax rates were going to remain the same for 98% of taxpayers, somehow that meant that George W. Bush, and by extension the feckless Republicants in Congress, were the big winners. He further suggested that separating the tax issue from the spending issue somehow magically gave the Republicants the upper hand in the upcoming sequestration/debt ceiling debate. I am disheartened to see my fellow Conservatives be so deluded that they refuse to accept reality. Their desire to live in a fantasy world they wished existed, instead of the real one that does exist, further contributes to the Republicant party and the country being destroyed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.
     The Republicants lost the fiscal cliff debate because the President and Congressional Democrats were able to divert the debate from dealing with the real problem of spending and shift the focus to the manufactured problem of taxes. Raising the tax rates on individuals making over 400k a year and couples making over 450k a year is going to raise 60 billion dollars a year in revenue. When the Federal government is spending 1 trillion dollars more than it brings in every year, 60 billion dollars is only about 6% of that deficit. The Republicants bought into the false assumption that any tax increase would actually be used to reduce the deficit, even that measly amount. The President already has plans to spend that increase and more. In fact President Obama and Congressional Democrats are already talking about raising taxes even more.
     As for Mr. Medved's assertion that somehow John Boehner's latest cave-in forces the President and Congressional Democrats to deal with their over-spending, it's a complete fantasy created by people who want to believe that you win by losing. In the real world, the President and Congressional Democrats are the ones who have won the public relations battle and by virtue of having done so, have the upper hand in any upcoming debates. I can tell you with one hypenated word what is going to happen in the sequestration/debt ceiling debate, cave-in. The Republicants are going to give the President exactly what he wants, just as they did in the fiscal cliff debate and every other debate that has taken place over the last two years. The President's real goal for the fiscal cliff was to get the Republicants to break their tax pledge, which they did with abandon.
     The larger issue in this debate is that those on my side of the aisle like Mr. Medved continue to buy the manufactured crisis of the Left and then are soothed by a "solution" that puts the country in a worse position. Some on the Right are mollified by the fact that tax rates on 98% of taxpayers will not change, that will only last up until the point that they do change. Meanwhile the Medheads are celebrating some bizarre victory that they have twisted themselves into pretzels to create. By the way, pretending that reality doesn't exist didn't work out for George Costanza either, in the end he was left without his job.

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The Mis-Adventures Of The Republicants

     Now that both the House and Senate have passed the so-called fiscal cliff bill, which actually doesn't even begin to address the fiscal problems of this nation, I am wondering where the people's representation has gone. The bill adds 4 trillion dollars to the debt over the next ten years and raises $42 in taxes for every $1 dollar of so-called cuts. The supposed cuts are only a reduction in the rate of growth, not meaningful cuts to an overly-bloated Federal budget. The bill also extends unemployment for another year, which guarantees that the unemployed will have no incentive to go back to work and lower the overall unemployment rate. The most egregious part of this bill is what is not in it, i. e. a resolution to the automatic spending cuts called the sequestration.
     Our elected deadbeats in Congress have decided not to do their jobs once again, and have delayed any action on the sequestration. I can almost expect this kind of behavior from the Democrats, who have refused to fulfil even their basic Constitutional responsibility of passing a budget for the last four years, but I am really disillusioned with Republicans. I am so upset at the seemingly impotent way in which the Republicans have conducted themselves in the last 2 years, from now on I am calling them the Republicants. They seem unable to stop this President from destroying the greatest engine of economic growth in the world.
     It was the fecklessness of the Republicants that lead the nation to the fiscal cliff because they were unwilling to stand on principles. First, during the lame-duck session of Congress after the 2010 mid-term elections when they agreed to only extend the Bush-era tax rates for another two years, instead of making them permanent. And secondly, during the debt ceiling debate in August of 2011, when they abdicated their responsibility to the nation and allowed Democrats and the President to borrow trillions more and put in place the ticking time bomb of sequestration. In every struggle for the health of the nation, the Republicants have been bamboozled, bested and befuddled by an incompetent President and petulant Democrats in the Senate.
     I had high hopes during the first part of the President's first term, when Republicants stood unified in voting against Obamacare and the first stimulus bill. But it seems as though they became weaker after winning the House in 2010, which gave them tremendous power, if they only weren't afraid to use it. And losing this past election to a President that is probably the most demonstrable failure in presidential history, further reinforced the Republicants can't do attitude. I understand the arguments against a third party, but with Republicants unwilling to take up the mantle of Conservatism and fight for what is right, I feel there may be no other way. I don't expect my representatives to win every battle, but for the sake of this great nation they must at least show up on the battle field armed with their best.

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The Sound Of Us Going Over The Leadership Cliff

     The President, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans have reached a deal to ostensibly avert the fiscal cliff, sort of. The legislation, which is expected to pass the Senate today or tomorrow, keeps the Bush-era tax rates steady for most taxpayers. Rates would rise to 39.6% from the current 35% on families earning over 450 thousand dollars a year. Federal estate taxes will be instituted at a whopping 40% for estates over 5 million dollars, and capital gains and dividend taxes will rise to 20% from their current level of 15%. The automatic spending cuts, called the sequestration, will be delayed for two months until, are you ready for this, Congress has more time to debate the issue.
     It is hard to say whether this legislation will have trouble passing in the Republican-controlled House, but it certainly should. Once again our spineless leaders on both sides of the aisle have refused to deal with the main issue that comprises 95% of the fiscal problems in this country, i.e. spending. The Congress should have had the intestinal fortitude to deal with out of control spending during the debt ceiling negotiations in August of 2011. But they chose instead to kick the can down the road with the creation of the idiotic sequestration. Now, over a year later, they say more time is needed and have once again chose to abdicate the very responsibilities they were elected to execute. If this latest deal to abdicate their responsibilities passes the House, the President and Congressional "leaders" on both sides will bloviate in front of every available camera and microphone about how they "saved" the country from the horrors of the fiscal cliff.
     Absolutely nothing has changed vis-a-vis this grand legislation that would lead any thinking person to conclude that our financial health has suddenly gone from grave to skipping out of the fiscal intensive care unit in which we currently find ourselves. After racking up more debt in one term than the first 42 presidents combined, this President shows no signs of being fiscally responsible with our money. Furthermore, there seems to be no one in the Congress who has the will or ability to stop this drunkin' sailor from spending our hard earned dollars on frivolous tattoo payoffs to constituents and the intoxicating whiskey of an ever-expanding Federal government.
     So as you awaken on this New Years morning and look forward to a fresh set of months in which to improve your life's circumstance in some way, you may hear the faint sound of a thud emanating from the direction of the nations capital. It is not, as we have been lead to believe for months, the sound of the country falling off a fiscal cliff, but rather this great republic being pushed off the leadership cliff by ineffectual politicians.
    
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Who Has Compromised And Who Has Not?

     Yesterday on the floor of the Senate Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader of that body, made the case that it has been Republicans who have compromised in an effort to craft a deal with the President to avoid the fiscal cliff. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, of course tried in vain to make the opposite case.
     The problem with Senator Reid's position is that it has no standing in fact and reality. The Democrat-controlled Senate has refused to pass a budget in almost four years. The Republican-controlled House has passed a budget every year since being made the majority by the voters in the 2010 mid-term elections. But the Republican budget, which would have imposed some fiscal sanity on the Federal government and gone a long way to reducing the deficit and debt, was not even brought to the floor for a vote in the Senate. The Republican house has passed 31 jobs bills, which Harry Reid killed as soon as they were sent to the Senate. In fact, Majority Leader Reid bragged about House Republican bills being, "Dead On Arrival" in the Senate that he controls. Finally, the Republican House has sent legislation to the Senate that would solve the current fiscal cliff crisis, but once again Harry Reid has not even allowed debate on this legislation, let alone a vote.
     So what have the President and the Democrat majority in the Senate been doing while the Republicans have been advancing legislation to repair the nation's problems? Nothing. The President nor the Democrat-controlled Senate have yet to put forth an official plan for solving the fiscal cliff problem. Senate Majority Leader Reid talked about a Senate bill that House Republicans have yet to pass, but the bill is vapor. As of yesterday, December 27, 2012, no bill has been sent to the House from the Senate regarding the fiscal cliff. The existence of a Senate bill on the fiscal cliff is a moot point anyway since Constitutionally all spending and revenue bills must originate in the House. They are then sent to the Senate for debate, amending, voting on and then sent back to the House to be approved by that body.
     In the final analysis, the Republicans have moved their position from being dead set against tax increases on anyone, to agreeing to a raise on those making over a million dollars a year. This is a huge compromise that has gotten them in hot water with many Conservatives. But it is to no avail since the President has refused to give in on any meaningful spending cuts, which comprise over 90% of the nation's fiscal problems. In fact, the President has suggested increased spending that would actually add another 9 trillion dollars to the debt in the next 10 years. The Republicans must stand firm on meaningful spending cuts and entitlement reforms, otherwise there is no point in avoiding the fiscal cliff only to fall into the bottomless fiscal abyss that will surely come as a result of out-of-control spending.

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Ridiculous Is As Ridiculous Does

     With Christmas over and the New Year fast approaching, so is the fiscal cliff that will see automatic spending cuts and an across the board tax increase. This nation waits with baited breath to see if Speaker Boehner and President Obama craft a grand deal that is going to save us all from the pain of falling off the cliff. The reality is that the terms of a deal really don't matter, or even if there is a deal at all. This nation's fiscal problems that have resulted from the Obama policies, have only just begun. And any hope of a solution was lost with the election in November.
     Tax revenue to the Federal government is to the level it was before the recession. Rick Santelli from CNBC said recently that all the focus of the fiscal cliff debate is on taxes which are 7% of the problem, too much spending is the other 93% of the problem, and it is not being addressed. Federal spending since the end of World War Two has averaged 18-20% of Gross Domestic Product, Barack Obama's policies have increased Federal spending to over 24% of GDP. If you combine the increased spending with the fact that 40% of that money is being borrowed, and 70% of the borrowed money is being lent to the Federal government by the Federal Reserve whose printing machines haven't stopped spitting out ever-decreasing-in-value dollars since Obama took office, you have a cliff that looms much larger than any we are facing now.    
     In the midst of this financial malaise caused by over-spending, President Obama and the Democrats want to institute a discriminatory tax increase on the very people who can create jobs and economic prosperity. As ridiculous as this sounds, it is even more ridiculous for the President to suggest that raising taxes on the so-called wealthy is not going to deliver a gut shot to an economy that is already stumbling.
     This is why my suggestion for the Republican leadership in the House is to illustrate the ridiculous by being ridiculous. They should propose a 100% tax rate on anyone making over 250 thousand dollars a year and let the Democrats defend the Conservative position of why raising taxes on job creators during a failing economy is a bad idea. Because even if the Federal government took every dollar from this group of taxpayers, they would only be able to run the government for a couple of weeks. The real problem is that politicians in Washington will continue to spend more money than is paid in taxes, and those in the private sector who burden the cost will have less and less with which to create future wealth and shore up the economic health of this country. The real solution is to limit the amount the Federal government can spend by requiring it to balance its budget and limiting it to 18% of GDP. But accomplishing this solution is a little like the proverbial fox limiting his visits to the hen house.

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I Just Had A Crazy Idea-Or Is It?

     John Boehner has been Speaker of the House since January 2011, after the Republicans won the majority in the 2010 mid-terms elections. Mr. Boehner seems like a good and decent man, but good and decent men aren't always up to every task put before them. The current Speaker has shown an inability to negotiate with Barack Obama and achieve outcomes which are anything other than complete humiliations for Republicans and disastrous for the American people. I've said before that Barack Obama is a street fighter and the Republicans approach him as if he is a chess player. They continue to make the mistake that this President has the best intentions for the country as founded and refuse to admit, even after four years of incontrovertible evidence, that he wants to remake the country into something 180 degrees out of phase with the Founders' intentions.
      That is why I think the Republicans should immediately call to remove John Boehner as Speaker and elect instead Newt Gingrich. Crazy you say? Well, technically it can be done. The Constitution says that the House of Representatives shall elect a Speaker, but it does not say that that person has to be from their ranks. The Speaker has always been a member of the House because it is natural for the members to vote for one of their own. But there is nothing Constitutionally from preventing the majority in the House from voting for someone like Newt, who holds no elected office.Of course this brilliant, if I do say so myself, stroke of strategy would require courage, thinking outside the box and a unified Republican caucus.
     Once elected as Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich could make the President aware in no uncertain terms that there is a new sheriff in town. Gingrich is smart, tenacious and not easily intimidated, all qualities in short supply in the current Speaker. Newt Gingrich also has the added benefit of being a little unpredictable, which is a good quality to possess when negotiating with a street fighter like Barack Obama. John Boehner's steady, predictable nature is an advantage in some situations, but in the hard-knuckle contest of political negotiations, one needs to unbalance his opponent with unpredictability. Newt's track record of accomplishments in this arena is staggering. He was able to move a big government liberal like Bill Clinton to accept a balanced budget, welfare reform and many other policies which President Clinton now brags about, but which he fought tooth and nail at the time.
     But alas, my fantasy will never materialize because of a Republican party that is too mired in its recent failed past to reach back further to a past when they exhibited political success and in the process did what was right for the country. I sure would like to see the look on Barack Obama's face when he had to sit across the table from someone who he couldn't intimidate or back down with his smuggish thuggish brand of politics. Now that would be a street fight I'd pay to see.

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Look Out For The Cave-In

     If you happen to be walking by the nation's capital and hear a rumbling sound, it isn't gastrointestinal noises emanating from bloviating politicians, it's the Speaker of the House John Boehner caving into the President on a fiscal cliff deal. While the President has been playing golf with Bill Clinton, running around the country campaigning (apparently the President doesn't know the election is over) and using the recent massacre in a Connecticut elementary school to undermine the second amendment, John Boehner has been once again negotiating with himself. And himself is getting the better of the Speaker by backing him into a corner where he has all but given up the farm to an absent competitor.
     John Boehner began this negotiating process by saying in no uncertain terms that he would not agree to raising tax rates on anyone. His plan was to increase revenue into the Treasury by closing some deductions and loopholes and entitlement reform as a way to decrease the Federal budget, a plan for which the President himself was advocating just a little over a year ago. The Speaker knows that raising tax rates on anyone in the debts of an anemic economy will drive us off another cliff, the recession cliff. Especially if those increased tax rates affected higher income earners, many of which are small businesses that employ two thirds of the nation's workers. These small businesses have already stopped hiring and may begin to layoff in an effort to minimize the effects of Obamacare, which becomes fully implemented in just over a year from now.
     Speaker Boehner has compromised his position on increasing tax rates on upper income earners, while at the same time the President has not given an inch on any cuts to an overly bloated Federal government. The Speaker thinks that Conservatives will be placated by the fact that he has gotten the President to raise the threshold of tax rate increases from 250 thousand to 400 thousand, but this is unacceptable, especially without any real spending cuts. The President has shown no signs of any willingness to make any serious cuts to a Federal budget that grows by leaps and bounds every year.
    So now we have come to a point where Conservative principles, which can save this country from the dire consequences of a President on a spending spree, have no champion in the Congress. Speaker Boehner is a nice guy, but you know what they say about nice guys and finishing last? And throughout his tenure as Speaker of the House, John Boehner has finished last in every encounter he has had with this President. I expect nothing more from the current fiscal cliff negotiations than for the Speaker to cave once again and for the President to get his tax increases without any real spending cuts. And the only thing left for the citizens of this great nation to do is to avoid getting trapped in the massive cave-in of Speaker Boehner.

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The Real Purpose Of Taxes

     Not once during the current fiscal cliff debate has the President talked about tax collection as a way of funding the essential functions of government, as is the only Constitutional basis for the government to levy taxes. No, the President looks at taxes in a completely different way than the founders did. He sees them as a way for the Federal government to impose some twisted sense of fairness that he and his intellectual elite decide based on taking from those who they deem to have too much, and ostensibly giving it to those they deem to have too little. It's ironic that after half a century of income redistribution that began in earnest with President Johnson's "Great Society", the poor are still poor and are additionally worst off because their families have been destroyed by Liberal policies.
     The founders gave Congress the Constitutional authority to impose and collect taxes to pay for the essential functions of government, like national defense. But these early taxes were in the form of tariffs and duties, which is why in 1913 Woodrow Wilson and his progressives had to push for a Constitutional amendment to allow for the income tax. The founders were turning over in their graves with the passage of the income tax because they would have thought it the height of tyranny to tax a man's labor. Once the Federal government was allowed to lay claim to a man's labor, then he became either a slave or a beneficiary to the power of a central government. The 70,000 page tax code is a testament to corruption, it is a tome of special deals handed out to certain groups of people by politicians. These politicians attained their power by granting themselves the authority to determine what percentage of a man's labor he is able keep for himself. Politicians decry "loopholes" as if they fell out of the sky and embedded themselves into the tax code, when in reality every "loophole" was created by politicians to exact political favors from those who benefited from them.
     I think a much more moral and just tax system would consist of a consumption tax, i.e. tax people when they spend their money, not when they earn it. Of course, any national consumption tax would have to require 2/3 vote in both chambers of Congress and a majority of the states' support to be raised at any time in the future. This would save the tax payers the estimated billion hours they spend each year filling out tax forms. It would also eliminate the billions of dollars spent on tax preparation. But the most important outcome of a consumption tax would be to mitigate the power of the Federal government over the citizen. And less government control always leads to an expansion of liberty, which benefits everyone in society, not just power-hungry politicians.

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Success Supression

     Lost in the back and forth of the fiscal cliff debate is a core question we must answer as a country. Do we want more or fewer wealthy Americans? Depending on the answer to this question, government policy must reflect the answer and encourage the desired result. If we wish to create more millionaires, then more wealth must necessarily stay in the hands of individuals and out of the coffers of government. If we wish to have a country of fewer wealthy citizens, then the government must take more money out of the private economy to prevent economic growth and prosperity. The latter seems to be what the current administration has as its core objective.
     Raising tax rates on the rich, in addition to the constant characterizations of the rich as selfish and greedy, inculcates in others the desire to avoid becoming wealthy. After all, no one wants to be a constant target of  demonization by their fellow citizens. People often wonder, and so did I for a long time, why billionaires like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates would advocate for raising taxes on people like themselves. They, as successful businessmen, understand better than most that fewer dollars at work in the private economy means less economic growth. Then I realized that by publicly taking a populist stand against themselves, they have attained immunity from the criticism of class warfare rhetoric. They can appear to be saying, "Look I'm with you, but those damned Republicans won't raise my taxes." This makes them the "good rich" as opposed to the "bad rich" who want to keep more of the money they earned through their own endeavors.
     Another way in which the wealthy are characterized as the scourge of humanity is by reducing or eliminating their accomplishments, saying they became rich "off the backs of the poor." No one has yet to explain to me how it is that poverty creates wealth, but the masses don't think that hard. The left foments envy and coveting within the minds and hearts of those who are not rich against those who are. This coveting has escalated in recent years to a place where the non-rich feel entitled to charge government with taking wealth from those who have earned it, and give it to those who have not. In my opinion, there is no greater greed than feeling you are entitled to the private property that someone else has earned. And there is no greater travesty than employing the power of government to confiscate that wealth for you.
     Abraham Lincoln once stated that a man can not build his own house by tearing down his neighbor's house. He also understood that owning the fruits of one's own labor is what is called liberty and the opposite is called tyranny. And the worst kind of tyranny is that which is self-imposed as a result of suppressing the desire to succeed to avoid public criticism and derision. 

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.

The Fiscal Cliff And The Alinsky President

     The Fiscal Cliff negotiations are illustrative of the President's inability to lead and to govern. With this dire deadline of economy-killing tax increases and automatic spending cuts looming over the American people, he chooses to campaign at toy factories, golf with Bill Clinton and publicly try to intimidate the Republicans into a deal that he wants. President Obama hasn't even met with Speaker Boehner in person for weeks, choosing instead to only talk to him over the phone.
     But then we really can't expect any other behavior from a committed Alinskyite like the President. When one strictly adheres to the principles of Saul Alinsky, you don't negotiate, you intimidate. You don't take a stand, but make the other guy take a stand and then you demonize it. You create so much static with class warfare rhetoric that it drowns out reason and fact. A good case in point is the President's insistence that the wealthy do not pay their fair share. He has been saying this for so long, it is almost an accepted fact by some. The real truth is that the top one percent of wage earners have gone from paying 20% of the total tax burden in the 1980s to 40% today. The percentage of the total income they earn is around 25%. If one extrapolates out the tax burden to include the top 10% of wage earners, the total share of the tax burden paid by that group is 70%. Their total percentage of the income earned is around 38%. These facts come straight from current IRS data.
     No fair-minded person could conclude from the empirical evidence laid out in the previous paragraph, that the wealthy in this country are not paying their fair share. And yet, the President spews out this categorically false narrative and a certain percentage of the population laps it up like kittens lapping milk from a bowl. This is also what followers of Saul Alinsky practice, repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. This concept is best illustrated by the incident in Bob Wooward's recent book about the debt limit negotiations in August of 2011. President Obama placed his hand on John Boehner's arm and said, "John, I have complete confidence in my ability to sway the American people." This statement shows not only the President's complete contempt for the truth, but for the American people who he looks at as sheep to be lead, not free people to be governed.
     The President looks at problems not so much to be solved, but as opportunities to score political points and advance an agenda that recent polling has shown, even a majority of his voters don't want. President Reagan had a sign on his desk that read, "It is amazing what a man can accomplish when he doesn't care who gets the credit." President Obama should have a sign on his desk saying, "It's amazing what I can accomplish by blaming others for the problem."

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.
    

Rise Above By Sinking Below

     CNBC, whose parent company GE received billions of taxpayer dollars at the dawn of President Obama's first term, has created a campaign called, "Rise Above." This White House inspired campaign is designed to convince House Republicans to abandon their principles and sink to the level of fiscal depravity currently occupied by the President and Congressional Democrats.
     The incestuous relationship between CNBC and President Obama began early in his first term. It was best illustrated by Jim Kramer, the host of the network's show, "Mad Money", when he  laid down at the administration's request. Only months into the President's term, Jim Kramer said he had never seen an administration that had engaged in such a massive destruction of wealth in the private sector. Only days later, presumably after a visit from the Chicago mob in the form of Rohm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Mr. Kramer was praising the administration's handling of the economy. It was shortly thereafter that Jim Kramer received a promotion to one of the morning anchor positions. Had he stuck to the truth, I imagine his career would have suffered an opposite but equal effect.
     The "Rise Above" campaign is insidious in its use of  the Liberal tactic to manipulate through feigning balance. Ostensibly the campaign is suppose to send a message to politicians from both sides to "rise" above partisanship and come to an agreement to save the country from leaping off the fiscal cliff. On a daily basis, however, CNBC engages in characterizing  Republicans as focusing exclusively on keeping tax rates low on the wealthy, as if they are actually suggesting a rise of middle-class tax rates. One of their methods of deception is to demonize Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, and by extension the Republicans who signed Grover's pledge not to raise tax rates. Over the years, CNBC has engaged in a campaign to characterize Mr. Norquist as a radical right-winger, simply because he advocates for the American people keeping more of what they earn and the Federal government living within a budget. Pretty radical stuff.
     The "Rise Above" campaign, replete with its own graphic and buttons that all the CNBC employees are forced to wear, looks and feels like an extension of the 2012 Obama Presidential campaign. Any time now I expect CNBC to claim that Republicans want to tax Big Bird and use the money to buy binders for businesses that want to ship jobs overseas in some grand scheme that will prevent women from being able to afford contraception and abortions while at the same time pushing your grandmother over a cliff in her wheel chair.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted November 26, 2012.
    

Between Barack And A Hard Place

     House Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for the difficult position in which they currently reside visa-via the fiscal cliff. By allowing the Democrats to back them into a political corner the last two years that they have controlled the House of Representatives, John Boehner and the rest of the Republicans have given President Obama and the Democrats not only legislative victories, but may well have cost their party the Presidential election.
     It all began shortly after the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 mid-term elections. The Bush era tax rates were set to expire on December 31, 2010, unless they were extended by Congress and the President. President Obama, at that time, wanted to extend all the rates, saying that raising any tax rates in the context of a faltering economy would throw us back into recession. But the President also wanted increased spending and the ill-advised tax holiday created by a reduction in the Social Security withholding rate. Instead of John Boehner and the Republicans saying "no" to the increased spending and tax holiday and pushing for the current income tax rates to be made permanent, they gave the President everything he wanted. And in so doing, they placed a temporary tourniquet on a bleeding economy and allowed the President to procrastinate the results of his failed policies until after he was safely re-elected.
     Less than a year after the President and Senate Democrats played John Bohner and the House Republicans like a cheap Stradivarius, they executed an encore performance. In August of 2011 the Federal government's debt ceiling was reaching its limit and needed Congressional action to allow the drunken sailors in Congress and the White House to extend their spending spree. Once again, instead of having a showdown and imposing adult behavior on the Federal government, the House Republicans agreed to raise  the debt ceiling. But they didn't just stop at raising the debt limit, they also agreed to the automatic cuts in defense and domestic programs called the sequester. These automatic cuts would be triggered by nothing being done otherwise, which is the one talent Congress exercises best. Conveniently for the President, the cuts wouldn't happen until he was safely re-elected. Once again, for fear or reprisal from the voters, the Republicans aided President Obama in kicking the can down the road past his re-election.
     Had John Boehner and the House Republicans stood on their principles and the knowledge of what was best for the country, the colossal failure of President Obama's policies would have been brought to fruition before he was re-elected and may have prevented that tragedy from ever occurring. This would have allowed for a real recovery to happen over the next four years with leadership interested in the health of the country, both economically and constitutionally. I find it ironic that the very thing which lead the Republicans to cave into the President, i.e. electoral defeat, is the one result they guaranteed with their fall from principle.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted November 26, 2012.

Fiscal Cliff Negotiations-Day One

     Friday was the first day of the Fiscal Cliff negotiations between President Obama and Congressional leaders in the House and Senate. The two sides came into the meeting with Republican leadership in the House and Senate wanting to cut spending and raise revenues without hurting small business. The President and Democrat leadership from the House and Senate wanted to continue the class warfare they have been waging for the last four years. The President and Congressional leadership from his party understand that raising rates on the top wage earners will snag over a million small businesses that file as individuals. This will cause more unemployment and add more pain to an economy that is already on life support. It also will not catch the millionaires who are not paying taxes now, the only way to do this is through the Republican plan of reforming the tax code. But raising rates on the top earners is the most transparent way for the President and his party to show the faithful that they are punishing the rich for, well, being rich.
     Both sides exited the meeting on Friday afternoon saying that it was constructive and that a "framework" for a deal was reached, whatever that means. The President, as he always does in public, seemed cooperative and willing to compromise. But with negotiations of this kind, it's more important what is said behind closed doors, which is why I think the Fiscal Cliff show should have been public. There is no national security issues or classified information being discussed, it's all about the math. I assume that the President didn't want a repeat of the health care meeting held early in his first term, when Paul Ryan made him look unprepared and foolish.
     I expect a deal that will include no real cuts in spending, but reductions in the rate of growth. The Federal budget hasn't been cut, in any meaningful way, since President Reagan. Any "cuts" since then have simply been smaller increases in the growth of the budget than previously planned, and this reduction is then characterized as a cut. This is why the Federal budget increases every year without fail. As for the tax side of the deal, I would expect that the Republicans will cave on higher rates, even if it is in the form of allowing the Alternative Minimum Tax to snag more taxpayers, which in essence will harm the middle class. Any increase in tax revenue that doesn't come from tax reform, will hurt the struggling economy and lead to more unemployment. I heard someone say recently that higher taxes don't keep the rich from being rich, they prevent the non-rich from becoming rich. This concept is the basis for Democrat power, because the last thing they want or need politically is a nation of self-reliant rich people.

Click here to watch my political song parodies.
    

Democrat-Sanctioned Discrimination

    Yesterday the President met with union leaders and Bono on the fiscal cliff crisis. The sage advice on economic matters from Bono and union thugs was so important to the President, he had to meet with them prior to his meeting with Speaker Boehner this Friday. I believe President Obama is sending a clear message that, to his way of thinking, any fiscal cliff deal has to include more spending, not less. Expect the deal to provide the President's union supporters with a fresh supply of billions of taxpayer dollars, while expanding the federal government in the form of some new social program for the "poor". The question is whether or not Speaker Boehner and House Republicans will allow such a deal to come to fruition.
     The idea that the Democrats want to raise the tax rates on the very segment of taxpayers that already shoulder the lion's share of the total tax burden, is discriminatory. According to the latest IRS data, the top 10% of wage earners pay a whopping 70% of the total Federal taxes collected in this country. And still the Democrats say the "rich" aren't paying their fair share, which is true, they are paying more than their fair share. Raising tax rates on only certain taxpayers, i.e. "the rich", in my opinion, is the poster child for discrimination.  Discrimination is the treatment of an individual or group of individuals based solely on their membership in that group. Someone has attained, through their own hard work and meritorious behavior, an income that government determines to be too high.  This individual is then singled out to have their tax rate increased, while the rest of the population sees no change in their rates. This is the very essence of discrimination, but it is Democrat-sanctioned discrimination, so it is entirely acceptable. You see, Democrats aren't opposed to discrimination, only the perceived discrimination that they think will garner them votes on election day and a reason to confiscate more taxpayer money for their pet projects.
     It is ridiculous for the President and the rest of the Democrats to talk about raising revenue through higher tax rates on the rich. Even the most optimistic predictions from the administration itself, shows that taxing the wealthy at a higher rate will only generate 40 billion dollars a year in additional revenue. This amount is about 1% of the total budget, which illuminates the need for less spending, not more revenue. According to the government's own data, Federal tax revenue has recovered to pre-recession levels, but spending has expanded far beyond its former unsustainable highs. Which is illustrative of what Conservatives have been saying for years, that sending more money to Washington is like providing a crack addict with more crack.
     John Boehner and the House Republicans need to stand firm on raising no one's tax rates, but rather reform the tax code to generate more revenue and cut spending in order to balance the budget. Both Republicans and Democrats know the economically sound course to take in order to achieve the stated goals. The road block to fiscal probity is the Democrats unstated agenda of union payoffs, expanding government and continuing the class warfare tactics that won Barrack Obama a second term.

Click here to watch my political song parodies.
    

Don't Fear The Cliff

     This is the position in which John Boehner and House Republicans find themselves in the context of the fiscal cliff negotiations. If they cave into the President and Harry Reid and allow the current tax rates on high earners to expire, whatever crumbs they get in return will be blamed for the economy continuing its downward slide. However, if they stand firm on no tax increases for anyone and push for tax and entitlement reforms, and the fiscal cliff occurs as a result of no deal being struck, the economic demise will be blamed on "those obstructionist Republicans." A rock and a hard place would be desirable to the current position in which the House Republicans find themselves. Seemingly, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
     My strategy, if I were Speaker of the House, would be to stand firm on tax policy and entitlement reforms, or give the President and Harry Reid everything they want and let them own it. The former would allow the economy to expand and grow, creating more tax revenue, and the latter would cause tax revenue and the economy to decline further, but without Republican fingerprints. In order for option one to work, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans can't fear the coming cliff and being blamed for its economic effect. For option two to work, they can't fear the backlash in their own party. Either option would require a well articulated public campaign.
     The fiscal cliff, for those who aren't aware, comes January 1, 2013 when the Bush era tax rates expire and every ones taxes will rise, including the taxes on capital gains and dividends. Added to this tax increase are the automatic cuts in defense and entitlement spending that were the result of no deal being reached by the super committee that was created by the debt ceiling negotiations in August of 2011. But how bad is the ensuing economic malaise from the fiscal cliff, compared to what is going to happen as a result of the President being successful in his agenda? Every study that has been done on tax reduction shows the biggest economic gains are made from cutting the top marginal tax rates, little benefit occurs from cuts in lower rates. We can extrapolate from the data that the opposite is also true, i.e. when you hold lower tax brackets at a lower rate and allow top marginal rates to increase, you slow economic growth and receive less revenue to the Treasury. As for the automatic cuts in defense and entitlements, the former is something that is going to happen under a second Obama administration anyway and the latter needs to happen, but probably won't in the next four years.
     If the Republicans make any deal that includes an increase in any tax rates, it would be tantamount to kicking the can down the road, thereby stunting any economic recovery. Now is the time for a well-articulated campaign to save the economy through policies that actually have a history of working. One thing is clear, this past Tuesday's election gave a mandate to House Republicans. The House Republicans were returned to power by the voters after having spent the last two years passing budgets, jobs bills and tax and entitlement reform bills. The President spent the entire campaign, not exalting his ideas and accomplishments, but convincing the voters that he wasn't Mitt Romney. The President's mandate, if one exists, is to not be Mitt Romney. It's time for the House Republicans to pick up the mantle of their mandate, future elections be damned. If we don't solve our debt and economic problems now, it will matter little who controls the empty shell of government that remains in the future.

Click here to check out my political song parodies.