Category Archives: Taxes/Spending

The State Old State Old

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President Obama’s state of the union speech was the same old same old we have heard from him since he first started running for president. Soaring rhetoric and the abundance use of metaphors sprinkled with emotionalism are used to cover up his unwillingness to really tackle the tough issues. His desire to remain as neutral as possible on all issues in order to deflect as much criticism from himself is in effect his way of voting present instead of taking a stand.

His constant use of the term “investments” is merely a stand-in for let’s spend, spend, spend, because as with all liberals, spending is what makes his world go around. It is completely irrelevent to President Obama whether or not such spending actually works, for all that matters to him is that his conscience achieve some level of satisfaction. I suppose no level of satisfaction is ever achieved, because all he wants to do is spend, spend, spend.

He has been referred to as a constitutional law professor which he actually never was. He was a part-time instructor who was more concerned with political office than teaching anything in college. If he knew anything about the Constitution he would know that there is no constitutional authority for ninety-percent of the spending he proposes, but, as with all liberals he doesn’t care about the constitution.

We have lab experiments in progress right now that show exactly what will happen when liberal policies are put in place. These lab experiments are California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan. This country will end up just like these states, in a state of bankruptcy if those in the federal government do not cut spending and return the federal government to its constitutional function.

Franklin DelanObama Roosevelt

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In times of economic crisis the President can do only one of the following two things. He can instill an atmosphere of calm reassurance and certainty, or one of fear and uncertainty. Obama can’t be blamed for the economic crisis he inherited, but he can be blamed for how the country languishes under his guidance, for he has chosen, with his many big government initiatives and his attack dog style politics to instill an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

We had a President many decades ago who did the very same thing—FDR, the liberal’s icon. FDR’s philosophy of attacking business, banks, the rich, and Wall Street, raising taxes and fees, creating numerous agencies for the purpose of controlling the everyday lives of Americans created an atmosphere of absolute fear of the Federal Government. Businesses and the citizens withdrew financially when faced with the great deal of uncertainty FDR created, and because of his policy of intimidation. FDR’s policies turned a depression into the Great Depression. It may have been a good sound bite when FDR said, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself”, but he was patently wrong. There are many things to fear, and one is a intrusive and overbearing federal government.

Fast forward to today. Obama has attacked businesses, banks, Wall Street, and even American citizens, which if reports are correct, has resulted in death threats against these Americans. He is trying to enact health care and environmental legislation that will not only result in massively higher taxes, but will also result in the federal government micromanaging our daily lives. He is instilling fear and uncertainty, not to the degree that FDR did, but he is nonetheless creating an environment not conducive to rebuilding this economy.

The bottom line is that there is little that the President and by extension the federal government can do to cause economic growth. The President can pour barrels of money into the economy which will create temporary jobs, but the federal government isn’t the economy, and getting the economy going isn’t a matter of simple physics such as priming the pump. The economy is the American people—three hundred million individuals making billions of daily economic decisions, and the federal government can’t manage that. If President Obama wants the economy to improve, he needs to back off and stop scaring the hell out of everyone.

The Truth About Article 1, Section 8

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Dennis Kucinich made a statement recently on the Brian and the Judge radio show about the Constitution that is factually incorrect. He cited Section 8 of Article 1 as the authority for Congress to spend money on current and future social programs, and quoted only the first paragraph as the basis for that authority which reads: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

Section 8 is titled Powers Granted To Congress and it includes not only this paragraph, but also a list of 17 particulars. According to James Madison, who is known as the Father of the Constitution, the paragraph Kucinich cites is a general power about what the Congress can collect taxes for, and the 17 particulars that follow are the particular powers authorized by that general power. Madison also said that if the first paragraph was meant to be used as an unlimited authority for spending, then why include the list of particulars that follow. As Madison had stated in Federalist Paper 41, “For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.”

Keep in mind that Section 8 is titled Powers Granted To Congress. The founders were very fearful of a tyrannical government, after all, they had just fought a war because of one, and so the Constitution was written to give the federal government limited authorities, with everything else being the responsibility of the States or the people as set forth by the 10th Amendment which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In the end, this means very simply that most of what the Federal Government spends money for, including all social programs, is unconstitutional. The power to legislate and the authority to legislate are two very different things. Federal politicians have the power to do whatever they want, and have used that power, along with their willing accomplices in the judiciary, to exceed the limitations placed on them by the Constitution, to force their will upon us, to eat out our substance, and to intrude into our lives for any reason. Then, while puffing away on that cigarette, ask if it was as good for us as it was for them.

C.S. Lewis put it perfectly…. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Call It Anything But A Tax Increase

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Obama and his cohorts are groping for ways to fund his and their extravagant government life style and not having to call it a tax increase. During his appearances on a multitude of Sunday morning shows he found himself trapped in a discussion of whether the fine in the proposed health care legislation to be assessed on those who do not purchase their own health insurance is a tax or not. Right now, Obama is wishing he hadn’t campaigned on the promise that those in the bottom 95% would not see their taxes increase, because it is patently obvious that something will have to give, for there is no way he will be able to pay for all he wants to do and charge it only to the top 5% of wage earners.

This Sunday Obama argued that a fine for not purchasing health insurance is not a tax. I have heard another democrat strategist say that the tax increase on cigarettes was not a tax increase, because it was not the kind of tax increase Obama was talking about. It appears that Obama wants you to believe that as long as he doesn’t raise your payroll taxes that he is sticking to his taxes promise. This is just another example of Obama thinking he can say whatever he wants, and you will go along with it just because you like the way he sounds when he says it.

Whether it is called a fine, fees, taxes or revenue enhancement, it is all theft from the American citizens. The power of taxation is a responsibility that should be wielded with great deference toward the tax payer, but Obama, as with most statists, doesn’t believe in the principle of personal property, for he sees the personal income and wealth of the American citizens as the property of the State to be used as he sees fit. The power of taxation should not be used by politicians to satiate their never ending desire to be loved.

Wealthy Americans Are Americans too

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The wealthy have as much of a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the poor, and they have as much right to their personal property including their wealth as any other American. Their wealth isn’t the property of the the poor or middle class – nor is it the property of the Federal Government or the State in which they reside. Their wealth is not America’s wealth – it is their wealth, and their’s alone. They spent, countless hours of their time and thousands of their dollars receiving college degrees, and of their time away from home and family, and long days making their professions profitable. They didn’t do this on the backs of the poor and middle class – this was all done on their own backs. So, it should not strike us as odd, or unreasonable if they complain about being asked to pull a heavier and heavier wagon while so many more are jumping in for the free ride.

This brings us to Barack Obama’s domestic policies. It seems that the source, at least as he has laid it out, for all of his spending, is to steal it from the wealthy. We won’t get into the issue that most of his spending proposals are unconstitutional – we will just stick to how he wants to pay for them. If you want to get something done in politics, it is good practice to persuade more individuals to be for it than who are against it. This is exactly how Obama approached the issue of taxation during his presidential campaign, where he said, I think, because he did have several different versions, that the bottom ninety-five percent of tax payers would not see their taxes go up. No matter what extra spending he suggested, it would only be charged to the top 5% – the bottom 95% would get a free ride. This tactic was meant to pit a majority of Americans against a minority of Americans, and as the saying goes, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can generally expect the support of Paul, and since there are millions more Peters than there are Pauls, the opportunity to get the vote count to work in your favor is real.

We hear all the brain-dead class warfare from the Democrats about how the “rich” need to pay their fair share of taxes and their days of getting over on everybody else is over. Well, let’s look at the numbers for 2006 – the current numbers will vary slightly, but not enough to matter. The top 1% ($388,000 an over)paid 40% of all income taxes – the top 5% ($153,000 and over) paid 60% – at 60% I would say the wealthy (top 5%) are paying their fair share. This is the group Obama is talking about raising taxes on, and who apparently have bottomless pits for pockets. A side note – You will have a difficult time convincing those toward the bottom of that 5%, that they are rich.

There is something that we all should find personally offensive about getting a majority of the people to gang up on a minority of the people in order to steal their personal property – afterall, isn’t that the philosophy that led to the war between the states. When we think of thieves, we by default think of the person who breaks into our home, our car, or those who shoplift. We aren’t inclined to think of it as thievery, to expect some unknown person to be taxed at a higher rate so that others can be taxed at a lower rate, but it is.

With all of Obama’s flowery rhetoric, we now know that Obama was lieing about not raising taxes on the bottom 95%, because he has already done so via cigarette taxes, unless of course, smokers only reside in the top 5% of wage earners. Because of Obama’s massive spending proposals, there are all kinds of new tax proposals being made, and it is very important to note that Obama is rejecting none of them out-of-hand. He is putting all tax increases on the table, because he knows that the top 5% do not make enough money to pay for all of his pet projects. If he can’t figure out a way to force 1.2 million filers(the top 5%) to pay for the freeloading lifestyle of much of the rest of the country, he will have to dip into the pockets of the bottom 95%, and big time.

I would just like to say that I have a different opinion of the top 5%. These individuals deserve our gratitude, not our disdain, for were it not for their willingness to make all of the sacrifices previously mentioned, those of us in the bottom 95% would have to pay more a great deal more.  So, I will take this opportunity to thank the the top 5% for being there to do most of the wagon pulling in this great land, even while many of those who ride in the wagon, and those searching for votes, are constantly looking for ways to steal more of their property.