Politics and Insights from History

Yesterday, Barack Obama once again delivered a speech. This time he was in Kansas; something that he almost forgot. Perhaps if Obama stayed in one place he might remember where he is. Yesterday, was December 7, Pearl Harbor Day. Instead of talking about it and commemorating those who died that day, he had to give a speech about how the wealthy don’t pay enough, America is unfair, and how only he knows best.

The bulk of Obama’s speech was basically chastising the rich for being rich. He claims that he wants to build the shrinking middle class. Except, the middle class is shrinking because the government keeps enacting policies that increase the cost of living and force businesses to cut costs by firing people.

Obama slammed Republicans and Conservatives who believe in Reagan’s trickle down economics theory, and who believe in cutting taxes for everyone who actually pay taxes and in cutting government regulations that hinder economic growth and development. Obama claims that Republicans have no ideas and only hold to what doesn’t work. If Reagan’s tax cuts and deregulation did not work, then why were 1980s a decade of economic growth, a prosperity that continued through most of the 1990’s despite Bill Clinton’s increase in taxes and regulation? Obama claims that the Bush tax cuts led to the recession we are in now. If that is so, then how come unemployment under bus remained under 6% until the last few months of his presidency when the housing market collapsed? Meanwhile, Obama’s policies made unemployment shoot up to 10% and the economy is now stagnated with a 9.1% unemployment. But according to Obama his not so new socialist ideas are working.

Obama rants that Republicans have no new ideas. But He and his fellow Democrats have no new ideas either. IN fact, everything they do is just a throwback to F.D>R.’s New Deal programs. Neither side has new ideas and it doesn’t matter if they do or not. What is important is if they have good ideas that actually work.

Almost every other paragraph in Obama’s speech yesterday was him whining how the wealthy don’t pay their fair share. What is fair about 50% of Americans who pay no taxes but receive government welfare from those that actually pay taxes? That’s fair? Taking money from someone and giving it to someone else to fulfill your ideological sense of fairness is fair? Obama claims that a billionaire only pays 1% of his income in taxes while someone earning 50 grand a year pays more. Let’s do the math? Say a person who earns $1 billion annually pays 1% in taxes. That equal $10 million that goes to Uncle Sam. Now take the guy who earns $50 thousand and pays 38% of his income in taxes. That amounts to $19,000 that goes to Uncle Sam. Despite the differences in the tax rate, who still pays more to the government? If this still seems unfair to some of you, why not get rid of the current tax code that even the IRS cannot make sense of and institute a flat tax, where everyone, regardless of their income level, pays the same tax rate. Let’s say the billionaire in the example above still pays 1% of his income in taxes, but now the guy earning $50,000 also pays only 1%. This means that the he will only pay $500 of his annual earnings to the government.

Interestingly, Obama is pushing an extension of the payroll tax cut. But just a few months ago he proposed increasing taxes. Also, he is pushing the extension of a tax cut, while in the same speech he claims that tax cuts led to the “greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression”.

Another thing Obama falsely claims is regarding the 1920s. Obama claims that deregulation and tax cuts led the disaster of the 1920s. The 1920 were the most prosperous decade in our history because we had presidents who deregulated and cut taxes and then minded their own business. Remember Calvin Coolidge? The reason why the stock market crashed in 1929 was because under President Hoover, the government began meddling in the economy again. Then Obama praised F.D.R. whose polices kept us in the depression. His New Deal programs were so great that while the rest of the world recovered economically the U.S. continued to have double digit unemployment and a stagnant economy.

Obama’s speech was the same speech he’s been giving since he was elected. Basically, according to Obama America is unfair, capitalism doesn’t work, the wealthy are too wealthy and could do with less, the poor just need a government program to make it, and, well, the world’s just not fair. This coming from a guy who is going to spend 17 days in Hawaii for his Christmas vacation. Isn’t this something those wealthy CEOs do?

With all this talk about the looming deadline for a debt ceiling deal, you’d think the world was going to end on August 2. The truth is, even if the debt ceiling is not raised, there will be no dire economic consequences. the only real consequence will be the Obama and the Democrats might have to think twice before spending trillions of dollars we do not have. Think about it. Say you have a credit card and it’s maxed out. You ask you creditor to up the limit on it, but the refuse. Do you declare bankruptcy just because your credit limit was not increased? No. As long as you maintain payments you’re fine. The same principle applies here with the debt ceiling. All the Democrats want is an increase in their credit limit, and for once the Republicans are standing firm with a resounding “no”. (I hope it continues.) As long as our government continues make payments on its loans we’ll be fine. If they can’t maintain payments, raising the debt ceiling will solve the problem. In fact, the continued raising of it in years past is part of the problem. It’s like taking out another credit card to pay off one that is maxed out. You’re still in debt.

Besides, what is the point of having a debt ceiling if we keep raising it? We’d be better off giving Congress unlimited credit. Congress can raise the debt ceiling now, but they will blow through that credit in a matter of months and in two years time we will be back with the same debate.

The tragedy of this entire debate is that the Democrats and liberals are calling Tea Partiers all sorts of names; like they always do when anyone stands up to them. I don’t know what happened to their call of civility, but now they are linking Tea Partiers to terrorists groups like Hezbollah. Why? Because the Tea Party movement is against raising the debt ceiling and against raising taxes or imposing new ones. The Tea Party insists that Democrats for once cut spending. And not defense spending, which seems to be the only place they are willing to cut, and has been cut the past two years under Obama. We need to cut entitlement spending. Not a few billion here or there, but trillions, since we are now spending trillions. Half of our population is on some form of welfare and does not pay taxes. We need to get rid of farm subsidies and corporate welfare. And federal funding for individual members of Congress’ pet projects must stop. Privatizing Social Security and Medicare, giving individual people more control over it, would save the government billions upon billions.

Instead we get a barrage of outrageous claims from the left which spouted everyday on the major networks. Comparing Tea Party members to terrorists is ludicrous. Since when has anyone from the Tea Party attempted to blow up a shopping mall of hijack an airplane? Claiming that Republicans want to force people into homelessness or force them to eat dog food is equally insane. Yet, nobody calls the left on these outlandish accusations.

The Democrats’ only solution to this mess is to raise taxes to bring in more revenue. Bringing in more revenue is fine, but raising taxes won’t do it. The big thing is, what is the point of generating more revenue for the government, if Congress continues to spend more than they bring in? If our government continues to spend more than they bring in income, we will remain in this debt crisei indefinitely. There is more than enough tax revenue generated to pay for all of the vital functions of government. It’s just big government kooks think they need to spend more than that. If we operated our individual budgets they way Congress operates theirs, we would be in serious trouble and possibly facing jail time. Well, the Democrats’, and the Rhinos’, spending spree has landed the country in serious peril. And Obama’s insistence, as well as Reid’s, that we continue down the same path is sheer stupidity.

Here’s the deal. You all need to ask yourself some questions:

Would you be happy if the Republicans just give into the Democrats like they have done routinely in the past?

Do you really want the debt ceiling raised? If so, then should we even bother with one?

Is increasing the amount of debt we take really to help the U.S. economy, considering that our burdening debt is what is crushing us?

Raising the debt ceiling will not solve the problem, it just postpones the inevitable. Most importantly, it will give Obama the chance to push the problem on the next president’s shoulders assuming he loses in 2012. Not raising the debt ceiling will barely impact the normal functions of government. Social Security checks will still go out as well as other forms of welfare. In actuality, what we need in not an increase in the debt ceiling, but a 2012 budget that we can actually afford and based on common sense.

This is a 45 minute presentation that explains briefly what Trickle Up, Trickle Down, and Supply Side economics are.  Hope you all find it helpful.   (Note: In the the first video when you here “9 million”, it’s supposed to be “9 trillion”.)