Originally posted 2009-07-28 17:17:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

by Rick Sincere
RickSincereThoughts
July 16, 2009

As part of the gargantuan (1,000-page-plus) health care “reform” package introduced by members of the Democratic majority in Congress, the Obama administration proposes to raise taxes through a “surtax” on Americans who earn the most money.

The Washington Post explained this “soak the rich” policy in a front-page article on July 15:

The surtax would start at 1 percent and rise to 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. Combined with the expiration next year of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, the surtax would drive the top federal tax rate to 45 percent, the highest level since lawmakers rewrote the tax code in 1986.

The Washington Times, for its part, points out that this raises U.S. marginal tax rates to their highest levels since the 1980s:

A new surtax of 5.4 percent in the health care bill, which would apply to married couples’ income above $1 million, would bring the top federal income tax rate to 45 percent.

After consideration of state and local income taxes and the Medicare payroll tax, which applies to all wage and salary income, taxpayers in 39 states would face a top marginal income tax rate of more than 50 percent, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group based in the District.

“That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers,” said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. “The lowest tax rate would be 47 percent – and that’s in the nine states that don’t tax wages.”

Businesses say the surtax would hurt the economy.

“The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America’s small-business owners,” said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Placing a big tax burden on the small-business community would rob them of the resources they need to create the jobs that will lead us out of the recession.”

President Obama would be wise to look to history to see what happened the last time a president made a surtax the centerpiece of his economic program. (Some might object that this is a “health care” program. That’s true, up to a point. The fact that the bill has been referred to the Finance Committee in the House suggests that this is really a revenue bill.)

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In Yanek Mieczkowski’s 2005 book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, the Dowling College historian relates what happened when Ford proposed a 5 percent surtax on all incomes above $15,000 (more than it sounds like; remember, these were 1974 dollars) in his first major economic legislative package:

As what he termed “the acid test of our joint determination to whip inflation in America,” Ford pronounced the cornerstone of his new economic program, a one-year, 5 percent surcharge on corporate and personal incomes. The surtax was directed at individuals with yearly earnings of $15,000 or more for married taxpayers and $7,500 for the unmarried. (Taxpayers would have to figure out what they normally owed the government, then add the 5 percent surtax to it.) The advantages of the surtax were that it would be mildly progressive, since the rich would pay more, and temporary, lasting only the calendar year 1975. Nor was it onerous. For example, a single person earning $15,000 would pay a federal income tax of $2,549; the surcharge would add $78. (p. 121)

Despite its modest appearance, Ford’s proposal was met with strong opposition, especially from the Democrats who held a majority in Congress (a majority that would grow substantially after the midterm elections a few weeks after his proposal was announced). Republicans were not too fond of it, either.

Ford took a political risk by proposing a surtax less than a month before congressional elections. Unveiling a tax increase at such a time was like unleashing a skunk at a picnic; representatives and senators ran in the opposite direction, refusing to embrace or even come close to it. Officeholders facing difficult reelection battles, such as GOP senators Bob Dole of Kansas and Marlow Cook of Kentucky, deserted their president rather than support the proposal….

The program itself was a political bomb. The jumble of proposals gave the whole thing an eclectic feel, and the centerpiece — a tax increase — fell flat. One poll showed that Americans opposed the surtax, 58 to 34 percent. Members of Congress resisted it. Just two days after the speech, William Baroody warned Ford that it was “in serious trouble on the Hill and very unpopular politically” and that Congress was in no mood to reduce spending. Two weeks before the election [William] Seidman publicly acknowledged that the surtax faced an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill and called its prospects “uncertain.” The overwhelming Republican repudiation in the ensuing elections turned “uncertain” to “doomed.” Ford’s policy making was off to a rocky start. (p. 124; footnotes omitted)

In one of the more significant parenthetical partial paragraphs of any work of recent history, however, Mieczkowski writes:

(One economist’s skepticism about the surtax generated what later became a mainstay of Ronald Reagan’s “supply-side” economics. Arthur Laffer doubted that the 5 percent surtax would generate much revenue, and while dining at a restaurant with Ford administration members Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, he drew a graph on a napkin to illustrate his belief that tax cuts — rather than increases — would raise more revenue because of increased business activity. His illustration became known as the “Laffer Curve.”) (p. 122)

Apparently other economists caught on, even if they hadn’t seen the napkin. Yanek Mieczkowski writes on page 130:

By November, many economists, realizing that Ford had miscalculated, urged him to drop the surtax proposal and switch his focus to fighting the recession. The president stuck by the surtax and still urged budget cuts.

In the end, the surtax proposal crashed and burned. Mieczkowski notes on page 131:

A political science axiom says that “the president proposes, Congress disposes.” Congress certainly disposed of Ford’s surtax, and quickly. Although he developed a fiscally balanced program incorporating many recommendations from the economic summit conferences, it was also like a multipronged barb that Congress could not swallow. And it soon became incongruous. The deteriorating economy, coupled with the inherent unpopularity of a tax increase, doomed Ford’s first major economic initiative. But that failure was fortunate; as events played out, a surtax would have aggravated the downturn. (emphasis added)

History teaches us, and not just in this example from the mid-1970s, that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea.

Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have not absorbed this lesson of history and economics. Should they succeed in raising taxes to finance their ambitious program to socialize medicine, they — or, rather, we — will live to regret it.

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Rick Sincere is the editor of RickSincereThoughts

Article has been published with permission

Originally posted 2010-01-14 16:25:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

by Scott Spiegel
ScottSpiegel.com
January 9. 2009

When conservatives correctly pointed out that one disastrous terrorist attack and another catastrophic but thwarted attack both happened during President Obama’s first term in office, because his agencies overlooked the perpetrators’ jihadist intentions or failed to act on relevant intelligence, liberals responded with an argument that was discredited nearly a decade ago: “But 9/11 happened on George Bush’s watch!”

Obama supporters mocked Rudy Giuliani’s recent claim to George Stephanopolous “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” stubbornly avoiding Giuliani’s obvious implication that he was speaking post-9/11.  Until last week, Democrats loved to excoriate Giuliani for making endless references to the terrorist attack that occurred while he was mayor of New York; now they claim he forgets it happened.  Which is it?

Conservatives’ point is that Obama has forgotten the lessons of 9/11, which Bush did not have available to him until, surprisingly—9/11.  The Ft. Hood and Flight 253 attacks happened in the first year of Obama’s administration, and 9/11 happened in the first year of Bush’s administration, but Obama had the example of 9/11 to learn from, and Bush did not.  (Even if you count the thwarted attack by the shoe bomber in December 2001, that bomber tried to strike just months after 9/11, when fully revamped security procedures were not running as smoothly as they are now; also, the bomber used the novel, unprecedented technique of wearing the bomb on his person so that it would not be detected by luggage screeners.)

Obama not only had the example of 9/11, he had seven years in which to witness and debate and vote on the implementation of the policies his predecessor devised that kept the country safe in the years after 9/11.  Obama denounced and campaigned against these tactics every chance he got.  He hasn’t revoked all of the Bush policies—upon assuming the Presidency, he must have received access to hair-raising intelligence that made him realize the suicidal folly of reversing Bush on everything—but he has slackened up enough, rhetorically and policy-wise, that our security standards have slipped and our enemies have become emboldened.

It is not enough to say that Obama has forgotten the lessons of 9/11.  He has actively rejected them.  He has argued that doing the opposite of what Bush did will keep us safer.  We are seeing how well the Obama Doctrine is working out in his first 11 months in office.

Another error in the “Bush-was-bad-so-Obama’s-off-the-hook” argument is that Bush did not do anything to actively facilitate the occurrence of 9/11.  In contrast, the Ft. Hood shootings were aided by the politically correct refusal of the U.S. Army—under Commander-in-Chief Obama—to recognize murderous jihadist sentiments expressed by Major Nidal Hasan openly and repeatedly while in medical school and residency, and the promotion Hasan received despite his poor performance reviews.  The Flight 253 near-attack was made possible by the Obama administration’s failure to act on numerous warnings available to it, such as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father having called the U.S. Embassy to report him, Abdulmutallab’s not having a passport or luggage, and his having bought a one-way ticket with cash.

But there’s an even more damning flaw to the contention that Bush should have been able to prevent 9/11, and is therefore as bad as or worse than Obama on national security.  Namely: just what would Bush opponents have preferred that he do in his first eight months in office to prevent terrorist acts, when they now scream bloody murder at the slightest suggestion of profiling at airports, accuse Bush of being Big Brother for trying to monitor terrorist communications, and express their clear disapproval of any war Bush started abroad to target Al-Qaeda?  Are liberals implying that they would have been fine with Bush doing all of these things in a pre-9/11 world?  They’re not even fine with The One doing these things in a post-9/11 world.

The left have been digging up examples of localized attacks carried out by truly isolated (not Abdulmutallab-style “isolated”) loonies—such as Bruce Ivins’ anthrax-laced letters to news broadcasters in September 2001, Hesham Hadayet’s shooting of two Israelis at LAX in July 2002, the Beltway sniper attacks in October 2002—as proof that Bush didn’t keep us safe.  Ignore for the moment that when each of these incidents happened, the same people criticized Bush for using these events to “hype” the threat of terrorism to justify extra security measures.  Instead ask: what level of government intervention into our lives would have been necessary to prevent every one of these attacks?  And how likely is it that liberals would have supported Bush’s carrying out such interventions at the time?

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Scott Spiegel writes for the ScottSpiegel.com blog
Article published with the author’s permission.

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Originally posted 2010-06-01 21:31:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

by Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
June 1, 2010

The contuing love affair the left has with Barack Obama bears a striking similarity to my short-lived marriage with my now ex-husband.
 
Like Obama, my ex-husband, who I’ll call Sam (not his real name) was a blank slate upon whom I projected all my hopes and dreams. Only in hind-sight did I realize that my perceptions and expectations were a product of my own imagination, with little connection to reality.
 
Obama burst onto the national scene out of no-where. Millions of Americans naturally assumed that a man running for the highest office in the land had undergone the necessary vetting and was of high character. Since Obama had the official approval of the media, he was accepted, without question or investigation, by fully half of all Americans.
 
Likewise, I accepted without question that Sam was worthy of both my trust and respect. Being a judge, I assumed Sam had been vetted and been found worthy. He had society’s approval, having been given the right to add "The Honorable" to his name. I accepted Sam’s label as fact, without question. And counted myself lucky to have found a man of such high character.
 
During the course of our marriage, I was loath to acknowledge any facts that were at variance with the image I constructed of Sam. (Just as millions of Obama voters still do.) I had invested my hopes and dreams, trust and respect into this image, and any facts to the contrary were ignored. Even when Sam started showing signs of ‘The God Complex’ and began abusing the trust of his judicial office.
 
On one occasion, Sam awarded $500,000 in a case that he had previously informed me was worth only $50,000. When I asked him why, Sam said, "Because L… asked me to." L… was the plaintiff’s lawyer and Sam’s good buddy.
 
On one level, I knew Sam was wrong to do this. I was then faced with a choice of having my dreams shattered by an ugly reality or continuing to fool myself. I opted to compartmentalize. As in, ignore any evidence that didn’t accord with my earlier perceptions.
 
I had made Sam into a white knight, a hero, a man I could respect. To maintain that illusion, I routinely started ignoring the increasing indicators that maybe I had been wrong to do so. I ignored the growing disconnect between his words and his actions. I just couldn’t bear to have my dreams shattered. Much like the many devotees of Obama whose carefully constructed image of Obama would be shattered if they acknowledged Obama’s many imperfections, that are just now becoming apparent.

Very few men remain unchanged when given power over other men. When everyone laughs at all your jokes, pretty soon you convince yourself you are pretty funny. When surrounded 24/7 by yes men and the trappings of power, its only natural to start thinking you’re superior to others, that the rules that govern ordinary men don’t apply. This happened to Sam, just as it is happening to Obama.
 
It is true that power corrupts most men. It was also true, in my case, that Sam’s increased arrogance and his flouting of the law became secondary to my need to maintain my illusions. To admit that Sam was a mere mortal, a flawed mortal, was unthinkable. What did that say about me? That would mean that I was pretty stupid. That would mean acknowledging my naivete and gullibility. I chose not to do that.
 
After three years of marriage, Sam tired of me. With 20/20 hindsight, I realize he did me a favor, but that didn’t lessen the pain of divorce. It took another five years before I was able to admit and accept that Sam had never been worthy of my respect. I realized that my love for him was based more on my need to see the world the way I envisioned it instead of the way it really was.
 
I only hope it doesn’t take that long for Obama’s supporters to realize the same thing. Granted, reality is painful, but in today’s dangerous world, illusions are a luxury America can ill afford.
 

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Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for conservative news site RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Article published with the author’s permission

 

 

Recommended related reading:

Alter Regrets ‘We Didn’t Show Up’ for Obama
G.O.P. Sees a Way to Revive Healthcare Debate
Obama’s Approval Drops, Despite Gestures
Obama, the Thin-Skinned President
MARK TAPSCOTT: Will journalists wake up in time?

 

Originally posted 2010-05-25 22:12:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

by Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
May 24, 2010

 

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As Congress labored furiously to ensure that women have equal access to federal bathrooms, insurgents in Afghanistan this month launched a series of bold strikes on U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan. The Potty Parity Act is proceeding apace.
 
The Obama administration’s response to the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan? They launched an investigation into allegations that a number of American soldiers were responsible for the "unlawful deaths" of at least three Afghan civilians. This, despite the recent unanimous acquittal of three heroic Navy SEALS who were swiftly exonerated by a jury after being accused of, gasp, slapping one of the most dangerous terrorist detainees in the world. Who, by the way, the SEALS heroically captured. Thank-you, Navy SEALS. No update yet on the terrorist’s hurt lip.
 
As our young men are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, our current elected officials remain hard at work. Their most recent work product includes a proposal for a new medal to reward our troops for "courageous restraint." You got that? A medal for not killing the enemy. Of course most of these medals would, of necessity, be awarded posthumously.  

Maybe by the time the first new medal is awarded, the "enemy" will actually be defined. The only concrete message so far from Washington, via Attorney General Eric Holder, is that the enemy is NOT radical Islamic terrorists. Whew!
 
The month of May could very well be likened to a chapter out of Alice in Wonderland. As oil from the BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico continued gushing into the ocean (day 36 and counting), the Obama administration was otherwise occupied – holding a gala State dinner for Mexican President Calderone. A good time was had by all, although extensive media reports suggested that one of the guests had a dress quite similar to Michelle’s.
 
To be absolutely fair, Obama did appoint a commission to study how to deal with the BP catastrophe. Just because Obama is the largest recipient of BP campaign cash for the last twenty years doesn’t mean he’s in their pocket. No word yet on when or if the commission will release its expert findings.
 
Meanwhile, Obama blithely continued to side with foreign countries against the U.S., as he bravely spoke truth to power, teaming up with President Calderone to condemn the newly passed immigration law in Arizona. Although the Arizona law mirrors federal law, thanks to Obama’s TelePrompTer and a derelict media, millions of Americans now believe that upholding the Constitution is racist. And I guess its now OK for foreign leaders to criticize America from the White House lawn.
 
Also this month: Unfazed by the 368 point plunge in the stock market, which occurred the same day the Senate passed a financial regulation bill, Obama took to the airwaves to announce an executive mandate. Bypassing Congress, Obama unilaterally declared tougher, expanded fuel emission standards for cars and trucks. Damn the economy, Mother Earth is more important. Right?
 
As world stocks tumbled, Obama responded by granting unions expanded power, making it easier for airline and railroad workers to unionize. That unions are one of the reasons behind this year’s economic meltdown was left unreported.
 
As Bangkok was being burned by deadbeats protesting cuts in social spending, Congress remained totally focused on a slew of new and expanded social spending measures, costing a mere $200 billion. They hope to get it to Obama for his approval in the next three weeks, well before those pesky November elections.
 
Congress appeared unfazed by a new NATO report that identified Iran as a "Major Article 5 Threat." They were otherwise engaged crafting a formal apology to American Indian tribes for "ill conceived policies" and acts of violence committed by them."
 
As North Korea threatened war and sent 50,000 troops to the border, the House remained busy passing a beer resolution. House Resolution 1297 officially supports "the goals and ideals of American Beer Craft Week." North Korea and American alcoholics rejoiced.
 
As the new jobs numbers came out showing another "unexpected" increase in the jobless rate, the Democrats were busy crafting another $190 billion raid on taxpayers under the guise of a "jobs bill." That their last "jobs bill" exacerbated the jobless problem didn’t deter them.
 
As the world hurtles towards the edge of the cliff, the United States remains focused on the really important things. AG Andrew Cuomo was successful in forcing clothing retailers to hire transgenders. And Sen. Robert Menendez is busy urging the Major League Baseball Players Assoc.to boycott Arizona.
 
And let’s not forget the states. California, which is one step away from going bankrupt, was busy passing a bill that would require "diversity" in California pension plans. The very same pension plans that will soon put taxpayers on the hook for millions.
 
I could go on, but I’m starting to scare myself. This article is not fiction. Nor is it satire. It is a recap of the month of May in this, our United States.

Is it just me, or is something seriously out of whack in our country?

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Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for conservative news site RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Article published with the author’s permission

 

Originally posted 2009-08-27 21:58:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

by CJ Galdes
Conservative Voices
August 26, 2009

With the most radical administration of all time in the White House, so many people have tried to figure out where the President gets his agenda from. Many point to Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” for that answer. I don’t disagree, and I think every American should read it to get an idea of what we’re looking at. However very few people are able to come up with this next source that I will share with you. FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights.” In fact, very few people have even heard of “The Economic Bill of Rights”. I blame the liberal media and corrupt education system for covering this up. These “Big Brother figures” do their best to try to change this part of history. However some of us have caught on, and it’s time to expose where the far left gets their agenda.

“The Economic Bill of Rights” – January 11, 1944

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

A liberal reads this and is amazed at how compassionate it sounds. A conservative reads this and is amazed at how silly it sounds. FDR is an embarrassment to this country. What he proposed only undermined the constitution. However as thinking American’s we can take so much out of this, and I’m sure you’ve come up with some conclusions of your own. I have done the same, and here are a few things I’ve come up with:

1. These all seem nice in a perfect world, however we don’t live in a perfect world, do we? Wake up liberals, welcome to reality. Unfortunately it would be impossible to provide things like “a house for everyone.” Don’t let this confuse you. We live in the United States of America, the land of opportunity. This means that everyone has the opportunity to have a house. Housing is not guaranteed though. If you don’t want to put forth a little effort, we’re not just going to give you housing. This was tried just recently if you will remember. In fact, this is one of the main factors that lead to our economic downturn. Providing these risky loans to people who quite frankly can’t pay them off. Oh, and who can forget LBJ’s “War on Poverty.” Maybe this is a topic for another day, but just to sum it up in one word, FAILURE! Unfortunately there is no way to completely eliminate poverty. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help out. I’m all for helping those who are less fortunate. Private donations are a great way to help the poor (something Joe Biden knows nothing about). The problem comes when it is government regulated.
2. If it’s not obvious to you, I’ll spell it out. THIS IS SOCIALISM! Looking back at some of these “rights” you can see that FDR wants to create a society of the rich. This sounds nice, but it’s just not possible. Not everybody can live a life of luxury. This is something that is earned. Sometimes socialism is described as the equal distribution of wealth, I disagree. There are a few definitions we must get straight. Capitalism may be the unequal distribution of wealth, but socialism is the equal distribution of poverty. When you continue to suck money out from the rich, obviously the rich get poorer. And unfortunately, as proven throughout history, the general rule of thumb is when you continue to feed this money to the poor, they just stay poor. There are a small percentage of people who just caught a few bad breaks and actually need a little boost from the government. But there are also the people who are poor, because they want to be. I’m sorry, I speak the truth, and sometimes the truth ain’t nice.
3. Do you think that FDR was trying to represent the people when he proposed this bill? The fact of the matter is, the majority of Americans are opposed to these ideas. I’ll take an example and we’ll compare it to an issue today. You might have noticed that socialized healthcare is mentioned in this bill. Today, poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans are opposed to this idea. That goes for just about every other idea in this bill as well. Do you think our founding fathers wanted these types of things implemented in America? Of course not. The founding fathers were true capitalists. They set up the constitution to protect from these types of things happening. FDR was a left wing activist who really did not care for the constitution.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking. Of course there is much more to be said on this, but not everyone is up for reading a book on the subject. I encourage everyone to use this “Economic Bill of Right’s” and reference it when necessary. Come up with your own ideas and share this with others. They will try to hide things like this and keep them out of the history books, and it’s our job to expose it.

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CJ Galdes writes for Conservative Voices blog and also hosts a talk-radio program Friday nights at 9 pm EST http://www.blogtalkradio.com/grizzlypolitic.

He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Article has been published with the author’s permission