Monday, March 30, 2009

Thoughts About Rush and the Republicans

Liberals have been going on a lot in recent weeks about Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans. The suggestion is that Republicans can’t disagree with Rush or even more absurdly that Rush is the leader of the Republican Party. This is of course wrong.

What has lead to some awkward moments for prominent Republican figures are occasions when these individual go along with the media’s insinuations that there is something inherently unacceptable about Limbaugh. And, by implication that one must distance one’s self from his viewpoints in order to be acceptable in mainstream politics. This is what led to negative feedback for the base of the party to these leaders. It reflects the weakness of will that characterized the last year’s McCain candidacy.

There is no problem in disagreeing with Rush on issues. I’m sure that I do that from time to time myself. What is unacceptable is to run away from positions Rush takes simply to appease the liberal media. To do so is to offend a significant voting block that is crucial to any Republican victory.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Obama Shows Lack of Knowledge of Economics

Obama really messed up on the question about the deduction for charities. Does he understand Economics 101? Or, does he think that the “evil rich” give without any thought of the tax consequences? A lot of Democrats aren’t going to like this one too!

Also, notice that he completely missed the point of the questioner about what would be the impact on the needy. He was just obsessed with taxing the rich. Does he think it’s fair when the amount of help that goes to the poor get is reduced? I’m reminded of his answer to a question during the campaign about the capital gains tax where he didn’t care about the effect it has on economic growth. He was only concerned that the rich pay higher rates out of his sense of what is fair.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Big Paradox of Obamanomics

With the AIG bonus “scandal” as an opening, Obama and the Democrats are now moving to place restriction on the amount of compensation executives can receive. The first step is to target the large TARP recipients. Now Obama is floating the idea of extending it to all financial corporations and even perhaps to all of the publicly traded corporations. The details are sketchy at the moment but the idea is to reduce the compensation of these executives one way or another.
This exposes one of the major contradictions in the Obama/Democrat ideology. One the one hand they propose tax increases on family incomes over $250,000 per year in order to finance their universal healthcare program and other massive increases in government spending. On the other they want to reduce the taxable compensation earned by those over the $250,000 level. The leaves us in a quandary as to how they propose to finance this increased government spending.
Put another way, one can understand a politicians plan to raise revenue by taxing the “rich” but with trillion dollar increases in spending you need a lot of rich to tax. This goes against the whole principle that led to the Clinton surpluses. The rich made a lot of money during the internet/software bubble which was then taxed. If you reduce the salaries and bonuses of the executive class, you are reducing the tax base from which to raise revenue.
So as the Democrat candidate for senate from Minnesota once put it in his former role as SNL comedian, “What does this mean to me “Al Franken?” What means is that the don’t tax the middle class promise is soon to go by the wayside. There will need to be significant taxes on the middle class (as defined by Obama, i.e. those below $250,000) to pay for all this or the government will join the big banks in bankruptcy. Many of these taxes will be hidden in the form of the “Cap and Trade” program to reduce CO2 emissions. You will see them as your utility bills increase as well as in the cost of manufactured products and gasoline.
So be happy with your $500 per year tax cut. You will pay dearly for it in so many ways!