President Obama’s budget speech of April 13 may well go down in history as one of the worst Presidential speeches ever broadcast. But it still bears analysis and commentary! While Vice President Biden was sleeping through it, I was taking notes – so here goes. We’ll take Mr. Obama’s most salient statements, and lay them against a plumb line of reality. This may be a lengthy piece – but there is quite a lot to examine!

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

Obama throws a bone to the majority of America! Unfortunately he and the left don’t BELIEVE it, as we’ll see in the rest of the President’s remarks!

Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.

So, let’s understand: We DESERVE security at the hand and responsibility of the FEDERAL Government? Do we all deserve compassion? Certainly. Charity? Of course. FAMILY responsibility? Resoundingly, yes. Perhaps even state governments can constitutionally choose to involve themselves in such services. But the enumerated powers granted the Federal Government under our Constitution provide no authority, much less a mandate for any such programs! And Obama thinks that we WOULD NOT BE A GREAT COUNTRY without entitlements? Does he believe we sucked before FDR?

For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year.

Books could be written on this paragraph alone! But I’ll try to be brief. Half the people in this country pay NO Federal Income Tax at all! They are the ones who benefit from this “way of life”. The rich have striven for, worked for, risked for and EARNED their success, only to have it APPROPRIATED for redistribution to those who have not done so! Many of these “beneficiaries” have their homes, heat, food, daycare and many other expenses paid for, and have nicer cars, televisions, cell phones and clothes than many who work hard for their sustenance! Perhaps the “beneficiaries” who now live on Government Largesse at no expense to them should pay THEIR fair share!

The so called wealthy already pay far more than the lion’s share of taxes. They already see half or more of what they work for taken in Federal, State and other taxes. At what point does confiscation of wealth become UN-fair? The American Dream is that ANYONE has the opportunity to work hard and become successful. But if you attain that success you become the enemy and your wealth must be confiscated for redistribution to those who did not take the initiative to utilize their opportunities that you did? If you ATTAIN the American Dream, do you then deserve to have it TAKEN from you?

Now, at certain times – particularly during periods of war or recession – our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities. And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn’t going to hurt if it’s temporary.

TEMPORARY? Our nation has lived on the credit card as a major part of our budget for generations! This isn’t new, and it’s never been “temporary!

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon. They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.

The “1980s” and “amassing debt” comment is an implied dig at Reagan. Reagan cut taxes, and was blamed for increasing the deficit. Yet the reality is that Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues. It was the Democrat Congress, led by Tip O’Neal, (who declared Reagan’s reasonable budgets “dead on arrival”), which increased spending by $1.84 for every dollar in tax-cut generated new revenue!

Yes, the Dems DID see the age-wave of the Baby Boomers coming… and welcomed it as a voter boom! As they aged, they’d become more dependent on Government! The ideal situation for the party of the nanny state!

To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.

As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

This is almost laughable!

Prior to the Gingrich revolution of 1994, the Democrats had a death-grip on Congress, where budgets/spending take place! Interestingly, starting in 1994, we saw deficit reduction fiscal responsibility under the GOP majority that lead to a couple years of actual SURPLUSSES which, of course, Bill Clinton took credit for, though he was dragged kicking and screaming by the GOP Congress to budgets of austerity! And now Obama’s claiming it to have been a BI-PARTISAN effort!

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending.

It wasn’t until the perfect storm of the dot-bomb, 9/11, and the prosecution of 2 wars that we had to pick up that credit card again! Bush’s worst deficit (and the worst deficit in history to that point) was in 2003, at 420 Billion (a mere PITTANCE by today’s standards!).

The “dramatic increase” for 2 wars: Remember the $87 Billion that Kerry voted for before voting against? We ran 2 wars for a year on $87 Billion. Remember the $787 Billion Bailout? That was 9 times bigger!!

The Bush Tax Cuts (that Obama wants to roll back, as we’ll discuss later) did what tax cuts ALWAYS do… they raised revenues! Our deficit declined in EACH of the following 3 years, so that when the power shifted back to the Democrats in 2006, the deficit had been reduced to a mere 120 Billion. The Bush tax cuts REDUCED the deficit by 300 Billion in 3 years – or about 100 Billion a year!

Bush took office with our national debt at 4 Trillion. He and the GOP Congress were deservedly criticized for increasing that by 50% to 6 Trillion in the first 6 years of the Bush Administration. Bush raised the debt by 2 Trillion in 6 years, and was “rewarded” with the return of power to the Democrats and Pelosi and Reid took the helm of Congress.

Unfortunately, as bad as Bush’s fiscal leadership had been… it was exponentially better than what followed. In their first year, Pelosi/Reid tripled the previous year’s 120 Billion dollar deficit to 450 Billion – 30 Billion worse than Bush’s WORST deficit in 2003! But the following year, they tripled THAT to 1.2 TRILLION! Pelosi and Reid started their tenure in charge with a 120 Billion dollar deficit and 6 Trillion in debt. In merely 4 years they increased the deficit EXPONENTIALLY, to 1.6 Trillion (1600 Billion) and they raised our debt by 2 1/3 times to 14 Trillion! It took 43 Presidents and 230 years to amass a 6 Trillion dollar debt… and these clowns added 8 Trillion to it in 4 years!

Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts – tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade. To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our national checkbook, consider this: in the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.

So that’s how our fiscal challenge was created. This is how we got here. And now that our economic recovery is gaining strength, Democrats and Republicans must come together and restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s. We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt. And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.

WOW! There’s a mouthful! Most of it false!

First, he’s still playing to that economic myth that the left strives so hard to promote: The “Tax Rates are Directly Proportional to Revenues” myth. This theory has been disproven every time Tax Cuts have been tried! Revenues INCREASE when tax rates are reduced. Kennedy proved it. Reagan proved it. Bush proved it. So if revenues go UP when tax rates go DOWN, then rates and revenues are NOT directly proportional and tax rate adjustments have BEHAVIORAL effects on the public which can cause DYNAMIC expansion and contraction of the economy.

This brings us to the second sacred myth of the Left: The “Zero Sum Game” theory of the Economy. Under this theory, the economy is a fixed size and there is only so much sand in the sandbox. Piling up too much in one corner deprives the rest of the sandbox. If someone is too successful and amasses too much wealth, someone else somewhere is denied the opportunity to have enough. This is the very FOUNDATIONAL truth of class warfare! If you make the rich poorer, axiomatically you improve the lot of everyone else, as if by magic!! But the economy is not static. It dynamically expands and contracts with the behavior of the producers. Wealth is created every time a new idea comes to market! Every time a business grows and adds workers. It contracts when the producers feel the need to protect their assets and minimize risk. An adversarial relationship between Government and the producers in this country and anti-business tax and regulatory policies drive the producers into a defensive posture, contracting the economy and reducing tax revenues. Raise rates on business, and you’ll net LESS revenue.

Now, before I get into how we can achieve this goal, some of you might be wondering, “Why is this so important? Why does this matter to me?” By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. Just the interest payments.<p> Just to remind you: 2006 debt, 6 Trillion. After 4 years of Pelosi/Reid, debt is 14 Trillion.

Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That’s it. Every other national priority – education, transportation, even national security – will have to be paid for with borrowed money.

In other words, the government made promises it can’t keep! The nanny-state Socialists are running out of other people’s money! Obama talked about 2525 – far enough away that folks will dismiss it as “the future”… but the fact is that TODAY our discretionary spending IN TOTAL is 1.3 Trillion while our deficit is 1.6 Trillion. If we funded ONLY Entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d be 300 billion short!! We’re ALREADY paying for 1/3 of our budget with borrowed money… and 2/3 of our budget is entitlements and interest on the debt! In fact he admits it below, though with obfuscation:

So here’s the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What’s left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That’s 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.

Note that he included National Security (Discretionary) in with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (so-called Mandatory entitlement spending), and he separated interest on the debt (mandatory) out. Let’s look at ALL mandatory spending as distinct from Discretionary: In 2010, Medicare (519 Billion), Medicaid (273 Billion) and Social Security (701 Billion) totaled 1.493 Trillion out of a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. That’s 1/3 of the budget by itself. Add in Interest on the debt (202 Billion) and “Other Mandatory” spending like welfare and food stamps (433 Billion) and you’re up to 2.128 Trillion out of 3.5 Trillion!

Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won’t solve the problem. So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget.

Our Defense budget (692 Billion) and all the rest of our Discretionary budget (666 Billion) totals 1.358 Trillion. Less than 1/3 of the entire budget… and non-Defense Discretionary spending isn’t 12% it’s 19%, but that still means that less than 1 out of every 5 dollars we spend is non-Defense Discretionary spending.

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that. Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That’s what they’re proposing. These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

Actually, Mr. President, the Ryan Plan’s vision is one that begins to move on the path not only to prosperity and sustainability… but to constitutionality!! There is no constitutional authority nor mandate for ANY of the so-called Mandatory Budget… outside of interest on the debt that was unconstitutionally amassed! And within the Discretionary budget are many Departments, Agencies and Programs which have no constitutional justification for their existence as well! We could EASILY afford to fund a government which was LIMITED by the constitutional limitations they have ignored!

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.

Actually, Sir, infrastructure IS one of the expenses AUTHORIZED under the Constitution’s enumerated powers!

It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors.

We CAN’T! Our entitlement system is a Ponzi Scheme. A pyramid where those at the bottom pay for those at the top! The problem is that it’s an inverted pyramid and there are more dependents than the producers can support, and the demographics are shifting to INCREASE that problem!

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy...

…There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.

“…More than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy”??? WHAT new tax breaks? We have passed no new tax cuts – we PREVENTED the automatic INCREASE to rates that have been in effect for nearly a decade! No one is even TALKING about further rate reductions! So what’s he talking about? He views NOT making those increases in tax rates as a NEW CUT!

And how does he put a dollar amount of a trillion dollars on these failed tax rate increases? As we showed earlier, raising tax RATES is not directly proportionate to revenues. If he wants to increase revenues he should consider a further REDUCTION in rates which would spur economic growth and generate new business expansion, more jobs, more workers earning more taxable income etc.

No, the tax rate debate is not about revenue, or deficits, or budgets. It’s about wealth redistribution and that 2nd economic myth. The Zero Sum Game theory implies that if you make the rich poorer, you magically make the poor richer!! It’s a fallacy… but the left BELIEVES it and promotes it!

Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years… The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week… But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt... Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense... The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself...That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.

While I won’t state the Defense Budget is an untouchable sacred cow… Democrats have historically been eager to cut the lean with the fat. If we eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in the Defense budget, and cut wasteful or ineffective programs while BOLSTERING spending on modernization, research & development of new weapons systems and recruitment, retention, training, equipping and PROVIDING FOR our military personnel… then Military spending is fair game to be on the table… but don’t expect huge savings if these things are properly approached!

ObamaCare is a fiscal boondoggle and everyone knows it. The left can put all the whitewash they want on it, but even the CBO has continued to issue report after report… each worse than the one before it… declaring Obamacare as a money-sucking black hole that will not improve care, access or costs! Yet Obama is determined to preserve it, though the Supreme Court will ultimately find it unconstitutional as 2 lower courts have. Meantime businesses must make the expenditures to gear up for implementation that may or may not be funded, and may or may not be dismantled ultimately by SCOTUS. This uncertainty is bad for the economy – and recovery could be accelerated by simply abandoning and repealing ObamaCare utterly, as though it never occurred!

Social Security is about to go bankrupt. The President is correct in saying Social Security is not the cause of the deficit… but the decision under Democrat Administrations to eliminate the “trust fund” and “lock box” aspects keeping Social Security separate from the general fund of the US treasury IS a cause. Social Security might have remained solvent if it were not raided by prior administrations to fund their pet vote buying schemes!

The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.

Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn’t itemize.

This is the most egregious Orwellian NewSpeak in the entire speech. SPENDING IN THE TAX CODE? Let’s see… So ALL our money is the Governments, and anything we’re allowed to KEEP is a Government EXPENDITURE???

Obama views itemized deductions… in other words, DOING those things that are deductible from ones tax obligations like paying home mortgage interest or making charitable contributions, is like sending the government a bill for payment? We know that leftists don’t like private charity. It is a competitor for Government Programs that buy votes! Why have a church food pantry when the government can give food stamps? And subsidizing private home ownership? Personal Property Rights? Another of our rights under assault by the left!

And what about that “$75,000 tax break” that millionaires get while the typical middle class family doesn’t get because they don’t itemize? If someone’s a millionaire, then with only ONE million that average $75,000 tax break represents only 7.5%! If they’re RICHER than that $75,000 represents an even lower percentage!

The STANDARD DEDUCTION for a typical family is over 11,000 so if you earn less than 110,000 and don’t itemize that deduction represents more than 10%, and the less you earn, the higher that percentage!

Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn’t even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It’s just an article of faith for them.

Exactly right. Americans are NOT under taxed. Congress over spends. As I outlined in my recent article: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/after-the-shutdown-showdown-reality-still-bites, “…the revenue side of the equation is simply not an option.”

Others will say that we shouldn’t even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered. I’m sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December. It’s also why we have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit – so that we can keep making the investments that create jobs. But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don’t begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.

Obama is talking to the true Keynesians in his own party here. They TRULY BELIEVE that they can spend their way out of debt… as counter intuitive as that sounds (and as false as it IS!). Obama has come to realize that, while he’s “sympathetic to this view”… that is, he, too, is a Keynesian at heart – but he recognizes that to hold firm to the theory would now be political suicide! This is a politically motivated moderation… not a change of heart!

Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn’t make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed. Here comes the dig that “Republicans will take Grandma’s check and give it to the rich while she starves and freezes in her cold, empty shack!” But Obama will make kinder, gentler “reforms”.

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments.

Yes, you have that obligation… and to date you have failed to offer that proof!

“I still believe. I believe in that great country that my grandfather told me about. I believe that somewhere lost in this quagmire of petty bickering on every news station, the ‘American Dream’ is still alive…

The American Dream IS alive. We are the land of equal OPPORTUNITY, not equality of outcome. If you seize the opportunities with both hands, work hard, and are willing to take risks… there are rewards. The biggest danger to the American Dream is the threat that as soon as you achieve it, the IRS will be there to take it away!

Reality bites. Sometimes it bites HARD!

With both sides claiming victory in the recent budget battle brouhaha, it’s important to realize that, when the partisan rhetoric is stripped away, there are no winners and the American People are the ultimate loser! Trimming our discretionary budget by $39 billion reduces our deficit by around 2%! Meantime, our debt was increased by more than $50 billion in just the 8 days preceding the “historic cuts” deal!! Our wings have already fallen off… and we’ve convinced ourselves that, since we are still above the ground, we must be still flying! Sadly, the law of lift only supersedes the law of gravity for as long as the wings are generating lift! Denial of that fact will only produce a moment of surprise as we impact the ground!

We had a National Debt of $6 trillion when the balance of power in Congress shifted 4 years ago and Pelosi/Reid took the helm. In 4 years, they spent us into a debt of $14 trillion. It took 230 years and 44 presidents to rack up $6 trillion in debt… and Pelosi/Reid added $8 trillion in 4 years! And today the Democrat controlled Senate and the President can’t agree to more than $39 billion in cuts to a $1600 trillion deficit? There is no rational argument that can be made that the Trillion dollars added to the annual budget during the Pelosi/Reid tenure represents NECESSARY spending! Yet they’re unwilling to scratch the surface of dismantling that new structure! Why? Could it be that they are simply puppets executing the orders of one whose stated intent is to collapse the economy of the United States, and who is the money-man behind their campaigns and many of their pet projects? Obama, Pelosi and Reid are so beholden to George Soros that if he tells them to jump they ask permission to come back down while they’re on their way up!

REALITY CHECK:

There are only 3 ways to reduce a deficit. Increase Revenue, Reduce Discretionary Spending, and Reform and Reduce Entitlement Spending.

On the revenue side, we have shown by experience that tax rates and tax revenues are NOT directly proportional. Cutting tax rates has increased revenues every time it’s tried. We’ve also shown that Congress has an awful track record in dealing with revenue enhancements… When Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues, the Tip O’Neal congress spent $1.84 for every dollar of new revenue!

But still the cries go up to “soak the rich”.

Unfortunately, pronouncements by Michael Moore notwithstanding, it is mathematically impossible to balance our budget if we simply confiscated all earnings from everyone earning $200K or more annually! We’d still fall $600 billion short!! See my prior article at: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/the-uncomfortable-truth-we-can-t-soak-the-rich-enough

Bill Whittle of PJTV produced an excellent video outlining what is required to fund our current spending levels for one year, titled “Eat the Rich” at http://youtu.be/661pi6K-8WQ. As he frighteningly points out, you CAN actually meet the spending for the year if you “eat the rich”. But what’s for dinner next year?

There is no way we can appropriate enough funding to meet the insane spending levels we’ve reached. This spending is un-sustainable! The revenue side of the equation is simply not an option.

That leaves cutting either discretionary spending or making adjustments to entitlements.

Our current discretionary budget runs about $1.3 Trillion. That includes the military, all our departments, agencies, and non-entitlement programs. With our current deficit at around $1.6 trillion, that means that if we eliminated our entire discretionary budget, and funded only entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still fall short by $300 billion!

Obviously the only viable answer to our spending problem is to address entitlements!

Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” may not be perfect (nothing coming out of Washington ever is!) but it’s the first serious attempt to treat the disease and not simply give an aspirin for Cancer! Lifesaving surgery is often painful, and recovery is lengthy, uncomfortable, and difficult… and usually requires adjustments and accommodations. America has entered a new era and is faced with a new paradigm! It is time to acknowledge it. Prior administrations and prior congresses have “kicked the can down the road” for decades… knowing the problem was there, but delaying its inevitable consequence for as long as they remained players in power. But there was always a day of reckoning coming. The profligate spending of the last 4 years has merely hastened its arrival by a few years. The fact is, it’s HERE, and Americans must face that fact and be prepared to deal with that reality.

John Boehner declared that the 2012 budget battle will be over trillions and not billions. It remains to be seen whether he holds to that promise – but unless the GOP prevails in making draconian cuts and significant structural reforms, the house of cards built by the Progressives since Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Johnson will collapse – and soon.

And remember, that is exactly what the puppetmaster, George Soros, has unabashedly stated he wanted from the get-go.

Does anyone remember Operation Cyclone? In 1979, Jimmy Carter began arming the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, and ordered the CIA to begin stirring Islamic unrest in the region to “destabilize” the area and help repel the “oppressive” Soviet Union. This action may well have made things more difficult for the Soviets, but it also set in motion the creation of Al Qaida and the Taliban! And, of course, Carter’s policies regarding Iran allowed the creation of the Islamic Republic, now the largest state sponsor of terror on the planet! One could well argue that Carter and his policies were contributory if not causative to the events leading to and following 9-11!

In his first 2 years in office, Barack Obama’s policies toward the Islamic World (and, concurrently toward our allies) have caused a lot of head scratching! It would be a lengthy and distracting tangent to pursue his history in this regard here. Suffice it to say that there are many examples where his foreign policy has been either incoherent or antithetical to our historical understanding of friend and foe.

But with his singlehandedly committing to military action in Libya, he has made an epic blunder which will be history-changing. (By single-handedly I mean without congressional consent . UN authorization and the cries of the Arabs notwithstanding!)

Isn’t it interesting that Al Qaida is cheering for our intervention to oppose Khadafy? WHY? If Khadafy’s demise is desirable to Al Qaida… isn’t that reason enough to question our complicity with it?

Remember that, despite his being a despotic and brutal dictator (what Islamic nation IS NOT under a brutal and dictatorial regime?) Khadafy was a muzzled mad-dog. After Reagan rang his bell with bombs falling around him he shut up. He did try striking back with the Lockerbie incident, but got slapped down again after that. When he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein… he shut down his nuke research, invited inspectors in, and began COOPERATING with us by providing intelligence. He kept Al Qaida at bay in northern Africa. So while he was a dictator ruling his country with an iron fist… he was actually SERVING the US vital interests!

So, with the current unrest – why should we get involved at all? Is there a vital US interest requiring us to commit US blood and treasure? Not according to Secretary Gates! He says we had no vital interests in the region!

President Obama tells us we are acting on the authority of the World Community! (So if the UN says “Jump”, he says “how high?” now?) Isn’t CONGRESS supposed to authorize military action? Is the Constitution now subordinate to the United Nations… that organization that’s been such a good friend and strong defender of America’s Vital Interests? (Sarcasm here.)

Obama claims “This is how the international community SHOULD work”. Really? The UN “authorizes” action and our military acts on their wishes without consent of Congress? Obama touts a “coalition”, yet Bush had twice as many countries on board HIS coalition when we initiated action against Iraq! Bush sought and received authorization from Congress to use military force. We had authorization from the UN as well, to use military action. Yet Bush was blamed for starting an “ILLEGAL” war and a “war for oil”.

(Interestingly, France and England, who were among those CALLING for a no-fly zone in Libya, did so in their own vital interests in the hope of securing Libyan oil… thus, a war for oil! America imports essentially NO Libyan oil so it’s of little to no vital interest to us!)

Joe Lieberman tells us that we’re doing the will of “the Arab street”! Are our military now taking orders from the UN and the Arabs? And what kind of allies have the Arab nations been to the US?

Having failed to make a case for this intervention on the basis of US vital Interests… the Administration is now trying to appeal to America’s humanitarian nature calling it a humanitarian cause to end “attrocities”. They trot out the case of a woman claiming to be raped by pro-Khadafy forces, for example. Tragic, if true, but pick up your local newspaper and you’ll find rapes and murders committed daily! Should we send in Tomahawks to New York, or Detroit, or DC because crimes are committed?

There is not a single Islamic nation on the planet where “atrocities” are not committed on a daily basis! There is civil unrest in most of them. Look at Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Rwanda and the Ivory Coast for example! People are hacked with machetes, limbs are cut off, people are buried to the waist and stoned, and kids have truck driven over their arms. That world is a brutal one. Should we intervene in all of them? (The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer of Cocoa… producing more than half the world’s supply. Should we intervene there to insure the free flow of chocolate at market prices? That would be a greater “vital interest of the United States” than is to be found in Libya!)

There is now an effort underway to provide arms to the Libyan rebels. Hearken back to Operation Cyclone! Isn’t that what CREATED the Taliban and Al Qaida? When Khadafy falls, WHO will fill the void? Who’s going to ultimately follow Mubarak in Egypt? The protesters cry “Democracy”, but what does that mean? Does anyone truly believe that a constitutional republic will be the result of the fall of these regimes? “Democracy” is Mob Rule – literally! (Look it up!) It has been said that Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what to have for dinner! Let us remember that “democracy” does not necessarily lead to freedom and individual liberty! Look at what happened in Gaza when they had “democratic” elections. They elected HAMAS! As a wiser man than I said in this context… “Democracy” means one-man, one-vote, ONE TIME! After that they’ll be right back under totalitarian rule… but this time it will be under a theocratic rule and Shari ‘a Law.

So, what is the meaning of all this unrest in the Middle East? CALIPHATE! Remember, the acolytes of the 12th Imam – the “Islamic Messiah” for lack of a better explanation – believe he will not come until the world is plunged into chaos. Iran’s Ahmadinejad IS such a 12th Imam believer and has STATED his goal to BRING ABOUT his return. This “popular uprising” among the Islamic nations has been fomented by Iran and other Jihadi influences. This is NOT a cry for western style freedom and liberty. It is a move to establish a world-wide caliphate.

And President Carter 2.0 is playing right into their hands, whether thru Carter-like incompetence or intentional complicity. Either should disqualify him from service as our Commander in Chief.

Before entering into any political discussion relative to the events following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, I must first express my sympathies with and support for the people of Japan! What a horrific series of events they have endured and continue to face! “Tragedy” doesn’t begin to approach the magnitude of the impact on the nation of Japan and its people. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

As I write this, the efforts to cool the Fukushima nuclear plants are still ongoing. The scale of the event is approaching that of the Three Mile Island accident, but at this stage is still well short of the Chernobyl disaster – and it is unlikely to ever progress to that level. There is hope that power will soon be restored and cooling will be enabled – which will be the first step to resolving the situation.

The problems with the Fukushima Nuclear Facility have re-ignited the debate and re-invigorated the Anti-Nuke crowd who now point to this incident as reason to abandon nuclear power.

It seems to me that this puts the Anti-Nuke, Anti-Fossil Fuel Enviro-nuts on the horns of a dilemma. If we can’t meet our energy needs with nuclear, and we can’t burn fossil fuels, how will they plug in their Chevy Volt? Windmills and solar panels blanketing our landscape couldn’t BEGIN to meet our energy demands!

To their argument that the Fukushima incident exemplifies an inherent flaw or failure of Nuclear Power, the clear answer is, “NONSENSE!”

Let us examine a few facts: There are many hundreds of nuclear power generation plants operating around the world. Sixteen countries depend on nuclear power for at least a quarter of their electricity. France gets around three quarters of its power from nuclear energy, while Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and Ukraine get one third or more. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.html  

Japan’s 55 plants produce 1/3 of the electrical power for that nation. Nuclear power generation has been around for over 40 years. In all that time and with all those plants operating, there have been so few incidents that the 2 big ones, 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, are seared into our memory, and the more minor incidents are all but forgotten.

Most of these incidents involved short-lived releases of small amounts of radioactive contamination. But even the more serious events were hardly catastrophic… Who remembers October 5, 1966 when the core of an experimental reactor near Detroit, MI experienced a partial meltdown when its cooling system failed? http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Japan/Accidents.shtml  

Hundreds of nuclear plants have operated for decades without incident, and the last significant incident before the Fukushima event was in 1999 when workers at a Japanese plant mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel used too much uranium and accidentally set off an uncontrolled reaction. A number of plant workers were exposed to radiation, and local residents were ordered to stay indoors for a time. Not exactly a world-shaking event.

The point being that nuclear accidents are rare, and usually overblown. Even the 3-Mile Island incident has had few lasting effects.

Still, the radioactive material involved in nuclear power generation is indeed quite dangerous. Therefore, significant safeguards must be in place. The fact of the matter is… they ARE!

Let’s look at the Japanese situation. First, they experienced a 9.0 earthquake and HUNDREDS of 5+ pre and aftershocks. ALL 55 Japanese reactors WITHSTOOD this level of seismic activity! The Richter scale is logarithmic, where each whole number is 10 times the intensity of the previous number. Southern California has rarely experienced a quake above magnitude 7. Yet the Japanese quake was 100 times more powerful, and ALL their nuke plants withstood it! Fukushima was a unique situation unlikely to ever be replicated anywhere else in the world. A nuke plant built ON the San Andreas would never have experienced the intensity of quake that ALL 55 reactors in Japan successfully endured!

The earthquake triggered the procedures to shut down the reactor. This occurred as designed. The chain-reaction was stopped. The quake took out the local electrical power grid. The backup generators kicked in as designed. These backup generators had redundant backup generators behind them. And behind them, there were batteries. These redundant systems would keep the cooling system operational until normal electrical power could be restored. Except… the Tsunami struck.

The tsunami took out the generators. All of them. It also insured that electrical power from the grid wasn’t coming back anytime soon. When the batteries had been expended, cooling was lost and the problems began. Fukushima is a unique situation. A “perfect storm” of cataclysm converged on this plant – one unlikely to ever be replicated anywhere else on the planet!

There is virtual certainty that the Fukushima situation will not progress out of control to anything approaching the Chernobyl disaster. Yes, some radiation was released and this is a significant mishap. But the reaction to this event is overblown. In the immediate vicinity of the plant, during the period of time until the radiation is contained, there is certainly a danger. But the panic in the USA and the run on potassium iodide is mere hysteria. The effect on the USA will be little more than going thru the TSA’s naked scanner a time or two!

Once power is available to re-enable cooling, the situation will be brought under control in short order thereafter. The Fukushima plant may well be damaged beyond the point of ever bringing it back online to produce electricity… but the “fallout” from the incident will likely be far more impactful politically than physically.

Soaking the rich as a revenue remedy to Government’s fiscal woes is a mathematically provable myth!

Perhaps the math might have worked (though the logistics still would have failed) back in the days of President Bush, whose worst deficit (2003) was only around $420 Billion, and whose tax cuts raised revenues enough to reduce that deficit down to 120 Billion the last year before Pelosi/Reid took the reins of Congress, and tripled that in one year, and tripled it AGAIN the next year! But given the realities of the damage done by the 110th and 111th Congresses, we have spent ourselves into an oblivion that the so-called “rich” cannot bail us out of if we confiscated EVERYTHING THEY EARN!!

But here are some figures you MUST LEARN and be able to use to dispel the myth when the leftists try to use the REVENUE side of the equation when it comes to getting the Government’s fiscal house in order.

Our Deficit is 1.6 TRILLION DOLLARS. To make that more understandable to those confused by big numbers… that is 1600 Billion dollars, or 1.6 Million Millions of dollars.

The Deficit is not the DEBT. The deficit is our annual shortfall of OUTGO versus INCOME! It has been said, “When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall!”

There are approximately 330 million people (men, women AND children) in the USA. That means this year’s Federal Spending will exceed tax revenue income by around $4850 for each and every one of us, including our infants and our elderly and our infirm!

Our DEBT is around 14 Trillion, or 14,000 Billion. The debt is the cumulative shortfall of all our deficits since Washington, less all our surpluses. That’s on the order of $42,500 for each of us.

But these numbers, while disturbing, don’t prove my initial postulation that it is impossible to soak the rich and resolve our fiscal crisis!

So, here’s the proof:

According to the latest Government Figures, the earnings total of all people in the USA was around 7.8 Trillion Dollars a year. Of that, those earning $200,000 a year represented 17.5% of the total, or approximately 1.37 Trillion.

If we TOOK EVERYTHING MADE by those earning $200,000 or more, we fall significantly short of our 1.6 Trillion deficit!

But remember, these people are ALREADY paying taxes out of that number! If we estimate a current net tax burden after deductions and “loopholes” of 25%, that means we can only appropriate another 75% of that $1.37 Trillion - if we took EVERYTHING from EVERYONE earning $200,000 or more! So we could further reduce our deficit by not 1.37 Trillion but by only 1.03 Trillion! In other words, we’d STILL have a deficit of $600 Billion… almost 50% higher than Bush’s worst deficit with a GOP Congress!

Remember also that on the spending side, Discretionary Spending is only around $1.3 Trillion of our $3.7 Trillion budget. If we eliminated ALL Discretionary Spending, and funded ONLY Entitlements and interest payments on the debt, we’d be left with a $300 Billion deficit!

Cutting a billion here and a million there from our Discretionary Budget might make for politically expedient rhetoric that might help an incumbent gain more re-election votes… but it is merely arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!

The Uncomfortable Truth is that this ship is going DOWN unless we tackle the real and ONLY real problem: Entitlement Spending!

Sweat shops. Child Labor. Exploitation. Yeah, we get it. Labor unions were formed to address legitimate grievances of labor and to right serious wrongs. And they have served a useful purpose in assuring the quality of the trades.

I have no beef with trade unions, and most especially not with the rank and file union member. Most union workers are hard working honest people who desire nothing more to earn a good living and provide for their families.

Collective bargaining has its place in the private sector free market. Let labor bargain for the best deal they can get! Fair enough.

BUT, if the company over-commits, and agrees to wages and benefits that are unsustainable… they should either downsize or face bankruptcy! It is not the responsibility of the American Taxpayer to bail them out! The workers who bargain themselves into unaffordability will find themselves jobless. And that is a market-based correction to an overreach!

The Public Sector is another matter entirely.

In the Private Sector, the Company exists to make a profit for its stakeholders. Management bargains with Labor, representing the interests of those stakeholders and Labor bargains on behalf of the worker. They arrive at an agreement which provides the needed labor at a sustainable cost which permits the profits which allow the Company to continue to operate and to continue to employ the workers. While there is some latitude for bargaining, both sides recognize that there is a balance that must be maintained to keep both labor and stakeholders happy, and that an imbalance toward EITHER side will destabilize the ability for the Company to continue earning profits and employing labor.

Unfortunately, this balance does not exist in the Public Sector, as NO ONE at the bargaining table represents the true stakeholder… the taxpayer!

In the public sector, the employer is the Bureaucratic GOVERNMENT! The Management, negotiating the contracts on behalf of the employer consists of elected officials, who seek power and seek re-election.

The Public Sector Unions exist more to deliver votes to these elected officials than to “represent” the workers… but because of this incestuous relationship, whereby Union Dues support the campaigns of the officials who will ultimately decide the pay and benefits of the unions, the workers get the sweetheart deals.

So it’s a win-win, right? Everyone gets what they want, right?

Umm… Well… The Public Sector Employee gets a nice cushy job with wages and benefits far exceeding the private sector’s equivalent positions. They’re happy.

The Elected Officials get campaign contributions out the Wazoo. They’re happy.

Oh yeah – I neglected to mention – Big Labor supports DEMOCRAT elected officials with more than 90% of their political contributions.

So everyone’s happy, right? Everyone except the STAKEHOLDER… The Taxpayer! The guy who foots the bill for both Labor and Management in this enterprise has NO SEAT at the table! Collective bargaining in the public sector is a huge conflict of interest, an incestuous relationship – ripe for corruption, and completely disregards the people the Government exists to serve… the taxpayer.

Wages and benefits grow to the point of unsustainability, as we’re seeing in CA, NY, NJ, WI, OH, IN, MI etc. The Democrats keep kicking the can down the road, avoiding the necessary day of reckoning when the reality comes to light that they simply can’t afford what they’ve promised. But when a Chris Christie or a Scott Walker simply speaks the truth that the State is BROKE and CANNOT continue to fund the goodies these public sector unions have enjoyed historically – the unions go berserk!

The unrest we are seeing in Wisconsin, and which is spreading to other states, is being likened in the mainstream press to an Egypt-style cry for freedom! What a disingenuous comparison! These public sector workers currently receive their healthcare and pensions FOR FREE!! Without any contribution on their parts! Talk about a sweetheart deal!! Show me a private sector UNION employee who gets that today!

No, these union uprisings are not like Egypt at all. They are like France and Greece! The Riots of the Entitled! This is what happens when the Entitled discover their Socialist Utopia has run out of other people’s money!

The fact of the matter is that Walker’s proposals WILL become law. Public Sector Unions WILL lose their right to bargain for benefits, and Right to Work WILL spread to more states. The pendulum MUST swing back from the extremes of its arc.

When a child is told by his mommy that he can’t have a desired toy because Mommy can’t afford it, he’ll often throw a tantrum. This is what we are seeing in Wisconsin today. But when the tantrum doesn’t work and mother and son leave the store without the toy, what happens? After a period of sulking, the boy will eventually accept the inevitable and get on about the business of living his life.

Public Sector Unions had best get the message that concessions are inevitable and accept it. Governments, whether municipality, city, state or federal, are out of money and running out of the ability to borrow! You can’t spend what you don’t have, in perpetuity. A day of reckoning MUST COME! For Public Employees, it’s here.

President Obama has submitted his budget proposal, and unsurprisingly it calls for an even bigger deficit and more spending! Fortunately, the GOP-controlled House is sending the Administration a message reminiscent of Tip-O’Neal’s “dead on arrival” response to Reagan’s austere budgets.

Obama is calling for a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. Of that, more than $1.5 Trillion is deficit spending, meaning that for every dollar we spend, nearly 43 cents is new debt. Borrowed money which future generations must pay back, with interest!

Said another way, wherever we can afford $57, we spend $100!

The President claims his budget will cut $1.1 Trillion over the next decade. Even if that were true (and there’s no evidence to suggest that it is!) that is a cut of $110 Billion a year on a $3.5 Trillion budget with a $1.5 Trillion deficit! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a reduction of the deficit by a factor of around 1/15!

Let’s apply that formula to something a little closer to home. Let’s suppose I’m spending $45,000 a year more than I make, and I’m half a million in debt.

Do you think my cutting $3000 a year from my spending habits would keep me from bankruptcy?? Of course not! But the Keynesians STILL believe that they can spend themselves into prosperity!

Keynesian tax-and-spend economics, the mainstay of Progressive economic policy for nearly 100 years, has been attractive to Socialist Utopian Academics… because it fits their narrative and agenda. When tested in the laboratory of REAL LIFE, however, their hypotheses fall flat time after time. The failed “Stimulus” of 2009 should have erased any vestige of doubt and put the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model. Keynes is to economics what the Flat Earthers were to Geo-Science!

The Left decries conservative proposals to cut the budget as “Draconian”… but pay attention to the numbers!

Remember that a BILLION is 1000 MILLION, and a TRILLION is a MILLION MILLION!

Our current deficit is 1.5 Trillion. Obama is willing to cut 110 Billion!! But he says he has to raise taxes to do it!! Congressman Ryan recently complained about not having a “baseline” for budgeting. May I suggest using the FY 2006 Budget as your starting point?

This was the last budget passed by a GOP congress before Pelosi/Reid took the reigns of Congress and began spending us into oblivion, tripling the deficit every 2 years and raising our debt from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 short years! In 2006 our deficit was only around $120 Billion… it’s currently almost 15 times larger! Why don’t we START with a BASELINE that undoes Pelosi/Reid spending?

In the 4 years that Pelosi/Reid were in power, our debt more than doubled. They increased our debt by 8 TRILLION in 4 years! When President Bush took office, our debt was only 4 (FOUR) Trillion dollars! After 6 years, the debt was increased by 50% to 6 Trillion, and Bush was roundly (and deservedly) criticized. In 2003 the deficit was around 420 Billion. This was after 9/11, the dot-com bubble burst, and the runup and execution of the combat phase of 2 wars!

In 2003 Bush and the GOP Congress passed tax cuts, and consequently the deficit was reduced each of the following 3 years, so that when Pelosi/Reid took the reins, we were on track for a balanced budget in a year or two! When the GOP lost control of the house, they had reduced the deficit to 1/3 of the 2003 level – around 120 Billion.

It is now time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are 14 TRILLION in debt, so the INTEREST on that debt has more than doubled in 4 years. We are in a hole we may NEVER be able to climb out of… but certainly the first step MUST be to STOP DIGGING!

You will hear a lot of talk about “discretionary” spending. This encompasses our Military spending (both wartime operational expenses and the baseline expenses to maintain a standing military), as well as all other regulatory and operational costs of government. The sum total of our “discretionary” spending is around 1.2 or 1.3 Trillion dollars.

The remainder of our budget is the so-called “mandatory” spending. This is a misnomer. These expenses, with the exception of interest on the National Debt, are “ENTITLEMENTS”. Since the constitution neither mandates nor authorizes these “take from Peter to pay Paul” transfers of wealth, how can they be termed “Mandatory”? But I digress!

It is essential that we address the problem of entitlement spending. Congress must acknowledge that if we were to eliminate ALL discretionary spending and ONLY fund entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still be left with a budget shortfall of around 250 BILLION DOLLARS!! Without operating a government AT ALL except to transfer money, we’d STILL be a quarter of a Trillion dollars deeper in the hole every year!

STOP DIGGING!! We must cut entitlements, significantly. Yes, there’s discretionary spending that can be trimmed. But again – cutting ALL discretionary spending won’t be enough to balance the budget. Entitlements MUST be addressed. It’s fiscal Armageddon if we don’t.

2) The left complains that tax cuts have to be paid for. As mentioned, we haven't cut taxes, we kept them the same... but that fact notwithstanding, this premise is faulty. Tax cuts don't have to be "paid for." Tax rates are not directly related to tax revenues!! Tax cuts have INCREASED revenues every time they've been tried. Kennedy, Reagan, & Bush all proved this. Reagan's tax cuts DOUBLED revenues. (This is because reducing taxes unshackles the engine of the economy - spurring growth, investment and risk taking - and this leads to job creation and revenue producing enterprise!)

3) Deficits are not a factor of revenues. They are a factor of SPENDING. When Reagan DOUBLED tax revenues, Congress spent $1.84 for every new $1 in revenues... and the deficits climbed DESPITE a doubling of revenue. We're not under taxed. Congress over-spends.

4) Our current Deficit is over a TRILLION a year and has been since Obama took office. Bush's WORST Deficit was in 2003, after 9/11 and the committment to 2 wars. It was under $450 Billion. After the 2003 tax cuts, the deficit was cut in half in 2004, and was 1/3 of the 2003 deficit in 2005. We were headed back to a balanced budget. Then we elected the 111th Pelosi/Reid Congress. In 2007 they tripled the 2005 deficit to around $480 Billion. This was their BEST deficit, and it was 30 Billion more than Bush's WORST. Then Obama was elected in 2008. The Deficit blossomed to over a TRILLION dollars... which tripled the previous worst deficit in history, which occurred under Pelosi/Reid... the year before!

5) Our current debt (as opposed to the annual deficit) is $14+ Trillion. When Obama took office, it was "only" $9 Trillion. In 2 years he managed to increase the national debt by more than 50%! When Pelosi/Reid took the majority in Congress the Debt was only $6 Trillion. In their 4 years, they managed to increase by 2.5 TIMES, the debt that it took the previous 230 years and 44 Presidents to amass. (BUSH was villified for taking our debt from 4 Trillion to 6 Trillion in 6 years. The Dems took it from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 years.)

Our problem is not and never has been a matter of under taxing ANYONE. It has always been a matter of irrational spending of money they DON'T HAVE.

Fans of "The Hitchhikers Guide…" will recognize the phrase, and will state that the answer is "Forty Two". But when considering today's economic and political atmosphere, I have another answer.

1) The economy is NOT a Zero Sum Game. You don't deprive someone else by becoming successful yourself. You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. You improve the lot of ALL by growing the economy and increasing the size of the pie! A rising tide raises all boats!

2) Tax Rates and Revenue are NOT directly proportional! Cutting Tax RATES doesn't COST the government in revenues! Tax Cuts INCREASE revenues. Proven by Bush, Reagan, and Kennedy! Reagan's tax cuts DOUBLED revenues.

3) Deficits are a function of SPENDING not Revenues. When Reagan's tax cuts doubled revenue, the Tip O'Neal Dem Congresses spent $1.84 for every $1 in increased revenue! Reagan got blamed for huge deficits (which were MINISCULE compared to today's deficits!) but he submitted BALANCED budgets. They were famously declared "dead on arrival" by Tip O'Neal, and Congress spent themselves silly!

4) You can't tax and spend your way into prosperity – especially when you're 9 Trillion (OOPS, that's a 2 year old figure… Current number is over 14 Trillion) in debt! Winston Churchill one observed, "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

Rev William J. H. Boetcker published a pamphlet in 1916 known at "The 10 Cannots". Often misattributed to Lincoln, these 10 statements embody a tremendous wealth of wisdom and truth:

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

WHY are Progressives so obsessively adamant about raising taxes on the "wealthiest Americans?

Equal Opportunity does not guarantee equality of outcomes. Still, whether your share is a large slice or a small slice of pie… if the economy grows, the pie gets bigger and everyone gets a bigger piece of pie!

Missouri Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, has been cited as one of the more vulnerable Democrat senators facing re-election in 2012. Unsurprisingly, ever since the Mid-Term elections of November 2010, she had been making a concerted effort to appear more moderate. But that ended recently as she spoke about the effort to extend the current tax rates for ALL Americans, including the top earners. As she spoke, she lurched violently to the left!

Here are her comments, verbatim:

“I’m trying to figure out how anyone in America can take the Republican Party seriously about deficit reduction. I’m trying to figure out how anyone can keep a straight face and say they’re for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans… completely unpaid for.

Now, they want to say this is class warfare. Well… y’know, in a way it is. Because we’re fighting for the middle class. We are fighting for the middle class. Frankly, the middle class hasn’t had enough champions in America.

Seventy percent of American don’t itemize deductions. That big-old complex tax code… It’s been written for wealthy Americans. The ones that itemize deductions. And then you get to the very very top… where a lot of these peoples income is all about dividends and capital gains, and not even ordinary income; and they have all kinds of ways that they can use the tax code to avoid paying taxes.

This is about leveling the playing field, for what has always made our country different than everyone else. That is a strong, vibrant middle class. And I will tell you this: If they think it’s ok to raise taxes for the embattled middle class because they’re going to pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires… it really is time for the people of America to take up pitchforks.

And all those people that are out there in the Tea Party that are angry about the economics of Washington; they really need to look at this. They need to pull back the curtain and realize that you’ve got a republican party that’s not worried about the people in the Tea Party; they’re worried about people that can’t decide which home to go to over the Christmas Holidays. They’re worried about the people who think they may take a jaunt to Europe for the new year. They’re not worried about those people who are packing those town halls. Cause those folks are the middle class.

So yes, we’re going to continue to fight for the middle class. We’ve net cut taxes $400 Billion in the last 8 months. Targeted like a laser on the middle class and small business. And we’re going to continue to fight for that middle class and for those small businesses. Throughout the end of this year, and all through next year, and beyond.

But please quit taking these guys seriously about the deficit. What a joke!”

See video at: http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/12/claire-mccaskill-if-we-dont-raise-taxes-take-up-pitchforks/

How anyone can listen to the entire statement without choking is beyond me – I had to take it in small chunks. But let’s dissect the statement, a phrase or a sentence at a time… because there are very few instances where 2 or more sentences are strung together without a massive error, lie or misdirection!

“I’m trying to figure out how anyone in America can take the Republican Party seriously about deficit reduction. I’m trying to figure out how anyone can keep a straight face and say they’re for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans… completely unpaid for.

Ok, so she can’t see how Republicans are serious about Deficit Reduction. Let’s not even spend much ink on the fact that the deficit was TRIPLED in Obama’s first year… or the fact that this TRILLION Dollar Deficit is only the first of MANY Trillion Dollar deficits, projected out as far as the eye can see!

Claire thinks that one cannot support lower taxes and be consistent with calls for reduced deficits. I could write an entire piece on this myth alone, but lets examine this presumption she adheres to.

First, she is relying upon an economic myth foisted upon the American population. The myth that tax RATES are directly proportional to tax REVENUES. They are emphatically NOT! Raising tax rates has historically put a damper on economic growth, and rarely results in significant gains in revenue. But more importantly, tax rate REDUCTIONS have universally stimulated the economy and resulted in INCREASED revenues. This is provable every time it’s been tried. It happened under Kennedy. It happened under Reagan (whose tax cuts DOUBLED federal revenues!!) It happened under Bush. Therefore, reducing taxes doesn’t COST… it PAYS!! The concept of “paying for” rate reductions is a lie.

Deficits are NEVER a factor of insufficient taxation. They are not a function of revenues. Deficits are a function of SPENDING! As mentioned, Reagan DOUBLED revenues after his tax cuts. But all you’ll hear about the Reagan economic policy is the so-called “Reagan Deficits”. The fact is that these were the Tip O’Neal deficits!!! The Democrat Congress at the time, under the leadership of former Speaker Tip O’Neal, spent $1.84 in new spending for every $1 in new revenue generated by the tax rate reductions!

Reagan submitted balanced budgets to Congress. They were famously declared “dead on arrival” by the Tip O’Neal House.

Now, they want to say this is class warfare. Well… y’know, in a way it is. Because we’re fighting for the middle class.

Well, I’m glad she actually admitted it! It IS INDEED class warfare. This feeds another Democrat propagated myth: The myth of the “Zero Sum Game”. This fallacy posits that the economy is a closed system. That in order for someone to have more, someone else must have less. Thus anyone who succeeds above a certain point is depriving someone else of a decent living… and fairness demands a redistribution to “level the playing field”.

But the economy is NOT a zero sum game! You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. You make EVERYONE more prosperous by growing the economy! You may get a smaller slice of the pie than someone else, but by growing the pie, you still get more pie! Or, as Reagan said… a rising tide lifts all boats.

Seventy percent of American don’t itemize deductions.

That’s true! But not because they’re not ELIGIBLE to do so! Many people pay more in taxes than they have to, because they DON’T go through the trouble to itemize. EVERY HOMEOWNER should consider itemizing… but so many people just want to just get thru the oppressive tax process – especially if they’re going to get a refund by just taking the standard deduction… that they’ll file a quick and easy form! But this is a function of ignorance, and laziness and not some conspiracy to aid the rich!

And then you get to the very very top… where a lot of these peoples income is all about dividends and capital gains, and not even ordinary income; and they have all kinds of ways that they can use the tax code to avoid paying taxes.

I’m guessing she forgot that most Senior Citizens (those who aren’t COMPLETELY dependent on the Government Social Security dole) are relying on “dividends and capital gains” to pay their bills and keep food on the table! Not everyone receiving dividends and capital gains is a top-hat and monocle wearing moneybag.

This is about leveling the playing field, for what has always made our country different than everyone else. That is a strong, vibrant middle class.

Yeah. That “leveling the playing field” I mentioned with the Zero Sum myth. This is a primary tenet of the Socialist and the Communist. Redistribution of Wealth. “From each according to his ability – to each according to his need”. She wants to expand the middle class by pulling the wealthy down into it!

If they think it’s ok to raise taxes for the embattled middle class…

THEY DON’T! The GOP wasn’t trying to raise taxes on ANYONE! They were trying to PREVENT AUTOMATIC INCREASES! If NOTHING were done, EVERYONE would suffer a massive Obama Tax Hike. Even Obama didn’t want that! But the GOP was adamant that the current rates… the rates that had been in force since 2003… should be allowed to continue for everyone! There is no reason to impose a massive Obama Tax Hike on ANYONE, including the upper incomes! This was the basis for the debate.

…because they’re going to pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires…

…it really is time for the people of America to take up pitchforks.

REALLY, Claire? I thought it was those evil Tea Partiers calling for violence in the streets!! (Sarcasm) Can you imagine the uproar if Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin made such a statement!!

And all those people that are out there in the Tea Party that are angry about the economics of Washington; they really need to look at this. They need to pull back the curtain and realize that you’ve got a republican party that’s not worried about the people in the Tea Party; they’re worried about people that can’t decide which home to go to over the Christmas Holidays. They’re worried about the people who think they may take a jaunt to Europe for the new year. They’re not worried about those people who are packing those town halls. Cause those folks are the middle class.

One must remember that the upper income earners are the driving force behind job creation in this country. They are business owners who hire people. When they are successful, they expand their businesses and hire more people. They are consumers who buy things that middle class people have jobs to produce. They patronize services performed by middle class workers. I wrote recently about the unintended consequences upon the middle class that were inflicted by the class warriors of the 80s who passed a punitive tax on luxury yachts. When the wealthy stopped buying yachts and found other places to spend their money, it was the industries, businesses and services that were depending upon the yachting community that suffered. Boatbuilders lost jobs. Marinas closed. Restaurants near marinas suffered. You get the idea. In the end these middle class workers who were directly hurt by the tax lobbied Congress LOUDLY and ultimately this punitive luxury tax was repealed as a miserable failure and boondoggle. Enough time has passed that most people have forgotten this chapter in our economic history. It is therefore appropriate to remind you.

So yes, we’re going to continue to fight for the middle class. We’ve net cut taxes $400 Billion in the last 8 months. Targeted like a laser on the middle class and small business. And we’re going to continue to fight for that middle class and for those small businesses. Throughout the end of this year, and all through next year, and beyond.

But please quit taking these guys seriously about the deficit. What a joke!”

You can’t demonstrate tax benefits like that, Claire! We may have realized a reduction in revenues – because leftist policies have dragged the economy to a crawl… but there have been no NET TAX BENEFITS.

And if ANYONE wants to get serious about the deficit, the issue is SPENDING, not revenues. As demonstrated every time... Tax REDUCTIONS increase revenues. Tax INCREASES rarely succeed in raising revenues. And Democrat majorities spend nearly $2 for every $1 in increased revenues.

Conversely, spending and deficits have gone DOWN whenever we’ve had GOP majorities!

Early in Clinton’s administration, he refinanced the debt with short term low interest paper. This began a reduction in deficits as interest payments were reduced. Unfortunately this was a political move to make him look good, as he knew he’d have to refinance that debt at a higher rate a couple years later. But in 1996 the Gingrich Revolution brought about a power shift in Washington. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the GOP was the majority in Congress. This began a series of annual reductions in the deficit that ultimately crossed that magic line and we had a couple years of surplus. This was under a GOP Congress, though CLINTON gets the credit! (Of course it’s CONGRESS that has the power of the purse, but that fact is only applied when it benefits the left!)

The surpluses continued until 9/11 and the dot com bust. This was followed by the run up and implementation of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. There were significant deficits in 2001 thru 2003. Sadly, these are what is touted by the left against the Bush Presidency. But what followed is conveniently ignored.

In 2003, Bush passed the Tax Cuts. In 2004, the deficit of 2003 was cut in HALF. In 2005, the deficit was 1/3 of the 2003 deficit. We were on our way back to a balanced budget.

Then came 2006 and the power shift in Congress. The 111th Pelosi-Reid congress was elected in November 2006 and seated in January 2007.

The 2005 deficit was tripled.

Then Barack Obama took office. And the 2008 deficit was tripled, and deficits crossed into territory never CONCEIVED of before. TRILLION dollar deficits.

WHO are the ones uninterested in deficit reduction? The ones who spent $787 Billion in Stimulus? The ones who gave us ObamaCare? The ones who are trying to give us Cap and Trade?

We will not forget in 2012.

As the expiration of the Bush Era Tax Cuts looms and Congress debates what to do next, it is perhaps useful to revisit the facts, and some basic understanding of what they mean.

Let’s first establish the fact that the current issue is not one of tax CUTS. We’re talking about EXISTING tax rates that have been in force for a decade. No one is talking about cutting taxes for the rich. The issue is whether to allow automatic tax INCREASES to take place… and whether to shield ANYONE or EVERYONE from these automatic increases. If these Obama Tax Increases go through, they will represent the largest tax hike in American history! 

Conservatives take the position that it is unwise and unproductive (not to mention unfair) to raise taxes on anyone at all during a period of economic turmoil such as we are currently experiencing. Further, it would do damage to the employment prospects of the working classes if more of the income of those in a position to create jobs were to be confiscated in taxes!

Liberals take the position that only the so-called “middle class” deserves to have their tax rates preserved, and that the “rich” (defined as those earning over $250K annually) aren’t paying their fair share and should have their taxes raised.

Before going into the dry economic realities that are embodied in these diametrically opposed positions represent, let me first share a parable which has made the circuit of viral email. It very clearly and accurately portrays our “progressive” tax system in a way even a Liberal steeped in Academia and Leftist Propaganda can understand it!

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men — the poorest — would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man — the richest — would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, Then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same proportion, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man now paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.

Where would that leave the rest? Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic!

Given the fact that 40% of American Wage Earners pay NO income tax, and in fact, some receive back money in credits that exceed any withholding contribution, we can see that the progressive tax structure already soaks the rich and executes a form of wealth redistribution!

Given the fact that the top 1% of wage earners pays almost 30% of the tax bill, and the top 10% pays nearly 60%... how can one argue they don’t pay their “fair share”? Class warfare is simply jealousy combined with the Democrat fostered myth that the economy is a Zero Sum Game. For someone to have more, someone else must get less. This is patently untrue, but the myth feeds the narrative.

The other myth Democrats propagate is that tax rates are directly proportional to revenues. This has been disproven every time tax cuts have been tried! Tax RATES affect economic activity. LOWERING tax rates spurs economic growth, and results in an INCREASE in tax revenues. Kennedy proved this. Reagan proved this. Bush proved this. It happens EVERY time it’s tried. Deficits are never a function of revenues. They are a function of spending. Under Reagan, tax cuts DOUBLED revenues, yet the deficit went up because the Democrat controlled Congress spent $1.84 in new spending for every $1 of new revenues!

I wrote more extensively on this in my article at: http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/2010/07/26/basic_economic_reality_101.thtml  

It is essential to remember that it is the very populace the Democrats seek to slap with punishing tax increases who are the engine behind hiring and job creation. Whether the $250K+ person is a business owner, who will hold off expansion and hiring, or whether (s)he simply won’t hire a maid or buy a luxury item that wage-earners work to produce… jobs are dependent on the wealthy!

Let me give you a real-world example of how taxing the “rich” hurts the middle class:

During the 80s there was a “soak the rich” sentiment that resulted in a luxury tax being levied upon “yachts” – pleasure boats of a certain size that lawmakers deemed out of the reach of the middle class, and a conspicuous luxury “toy” of the hated rich. The class warriors were pleased when this tax was passed. The “rich” would be punished for their extravagance.

But what happened?

The “rich” found other toys for their distractions. Instead of paying the higher taxes for their yachts, they stopped buying yachts.

Boat makers laid workers off. Marinas let workers go. Boat Sellers closed up shop. Boat repair shops lost business. Restaurants near marinas lost business. Once thriving communities, whose economic well being depended on the commerce generated by the yachting populace were all negatively impacted.

Oh, and there was also little in the way of additional tax REVENUE generated by the tax, as so few yachts actually sold!

Who WASN’T hurt? The rich! They simply found other ways to spend their money! But those who WERE hurt complained, LOUDLY, to congress. The result? That failure of a Luxury Yacht Tax was repealed!

Congress must begin to understand that the power to tax is not given them to control people or to redistribute wealth. The constitutional power to tax is only to raise revenue for the legitimate expenditures on the legitimate activities of the Federal Government. And if it isn’t in Article II of the Constitution – it isn’t a legitimate activity!

Raising taxes ANY time is a bad idea. It does not enhance revenue. It puts an ankle weight on those who are the runners in our economy. But raising taxes on the engine of job creation during what could be argued as the worst economy since the Great Depression is SUICIDAL.

As Congress debates yet another extension of Federal Unemployment Benefits, perhaps it is time to examine the system itself and gain a bit of perspective.

No one disagrees that Unemployment Insurance is a necessary safety net – providing a means to continue functioning when a job ends and to allow for a search for new employment. Unemployment Insurance is set up as a STATE run program, providing a minimal income for a set period of time. The maximum payout varies by state, but here in the heartland this maximum benefit is $250 a week. The maximum term of benefits is 26 weeks, or 6 months.

This is true insurance. Premiums are paid by employers thru a tax, and benefits are paid out when circumstances warrant a claim – up to the maximum benefit.

Unemployment Insurance Benefits are not intended to be an income replacement for a job! They are a supplement to allow the unemployed worker some minimal income to allow him to eat while he seeks another job. After 6 months, the benefits are maxed out and expire.

This is a reasonable system. No one will starve while seeking work. And since the benefit amount is based on earned income over the previous x number of months… someone eligible for the maximum benefit will have earned significantly more than that benefit amount while working. There is INCENTIVE to seek to return to work to maintain the standard of living! (During my last short stint collecting unemployment benefits… the sum total of monthly benefits barely paid my monthly mortgage! I was INCENTED to seek another job, as my other expenses ate well into my savings!)

Things get muddled when the FEDERAL government steps in.

During times of high national unemployment, the Feds institute “extended benefits”. This is NOT Unemployment Insurance. No premiums are paid or collected for these benefits. The program is ADMINISTERED by the states but the benefits are simply expenditures of the Federal Budget.

The currently expiring benefits have run through SEVERAL extensions. For one’s benefits to be expiring now, they’d have had to be collecting unemployment thru nearly the entire Obama Presidency!

Remember, McDonalds is hiring, and pays more than $250 a week! If someone has been out of work for 2 years, they COULD get a job flipping burgers for more money than unemployment provides. But WHY WOULD someone who is content to live at that level of income work 40 hrs a week for the kind of money the Feds are giving away for them to sit on their cans?

To be sure, there are people who are NOT content to live on unemployment. Myself, for example! During that last stint of unemployment I mentioned, I was unable to find full time work in my field of expertise, but I DID find and ACCEPT a part-time position! Since I am an IT professional, my part time job nets me, after taxes, significantly more than unemployment benefits pay, though HALF the income I had been earning! I am one of the UNDER-EMPLOYED not recorded on the nations employment statistics… but I am a productive worker, paying taxes and meeting my obligations and expenses – though barely – as I continue to seek a suitable career enhancing position!

The Feds have done enough for the “long-term unemployed”. As they drain federal coffers, they have DIS-incented millions of potential CONTRIBUTORS to the nation’s economy. Workers will not take jobs they consider “below them” when they can continue to collect taxpayer funded subsidy. They will not work 40 hrs at a job that will only minimally improve their lot over what the Feds give them for nothing. They CREATE the long-term unemployment problem!

Necessity is a great motivator. When the benefits expire, these people WILL go out and accept available employment to meet their needs and those of their families. It is time for the mamby-pamby spoiled brat children that make up a goodly portion of the American Population to find out what it is to take a menial subsistence job that is “below them” and be responsible for themselves. The Depression created innovation. The Depression created character. And the children of the Depression became the “Greatest Generation”.

The “Great Society” spawned the “ME Generation”… and these people have become spoiled, lazy, entitled and unproductive.

The Safety Net exists at the State Level. In extreme times, a single extension of an additional 26 weeks might be justifiable. But to extend these benefits ad infinitum is simply the creation of another Welfare program, without calling it so. It is another case of the productive funding and subsidizing the unproductive.

The time has come for Congress to say ENOUGH. There should be no extension of Federal Unemployment Benefits. Congress must begin to show SOME accountability with the tax dollars they appropriate from the productive people of this nation. And it is time for the American People to start being accountable for their own actions, and responsible for their own outcomes.

The election of November 2 was a watershed moment. A strong message was sent from the people of America to those who walk the halls of power in this country. The question will be whether the message will be heard, comprehended, and assimilated into the heart, the head, and the hands of Congress. How will it affect their thinking? How will it affect their behavior?

It would be foolish for the establishment GOP to think the party’s victory represents any great affection for the Republican Party and its traditional machine. It was simply the repudiation of the leftward march we’ve experienced since 2006, and particularly the sharp lurch leftward since 2008. Just as 2006 and 2008 repudiated the Bush Administration and the RINO infused GOP majority; we see how quickly the winds of favor can change.

It would be equally foolish for the establishment Democrat Party to dismiss the voice of the people as their mass-stupidity, or as evidence of a failure to sell the value of the program. The people reject the Progressive/socialist/Marxist/Redistributive program because they reject the mindset and the world view! To the informed and engaged common grassroots American, the program STINKS ON ICE! The ONLY WAY the Soros/MoveOn/Obama agenda can move forward is by thuggery, trickery or tyranny – as it will be resoundingly rejected as long as the PEOPLE have a say!

So let me give the incoming Congress a couple of items that need immediate attention, and some advice concerning them. I claim no divine inspiration behind these – but this is the pulse of the American People – and they tend to have a lot of common sense! From Thomas Paine to modern “common sense conservatism”, these ideas are supportable by facts and logic, they’re in conformity with the original intent of the Constitution Framers, and they don’t require mental gymnastics to understand them.

1) Bush Tax Cuts: I'm getting tired of hearing from the left that extending the CURRENT TAX RATES (or better yet, making them permanent) is somehow TAKING something from the Government , and that has to be PAID FOR! Well, 'SCUZE ME but we're not even talking about cutting anything here... we're talking about MAINTAINING the CURRENT TAX RATES!! For Dems to cry that we're GIVING something to the "Rich" and TAKING it from government is like a family living above it's means and then complaining that their employer is taking food out of their baby's mouth when they don't get a raise!!! a. Just a reminder that taxes are not a zero sum game! When you raise tax RATES that is not the same as increasing dollars of revenue. When you cut taxes, you stimulate the economy and generate ADDITIONAL revenue. This is proved every time it’s tried… and if you would like some very valuable education on basic economics, please see my previous article at: http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/2010/07/26/basic_economic_reality_101.thtml

2) ObamaCare Repeal: Let me take issue with those who have declared that ObamaCare Repeal can't be done before 2012. I respectfully disagree! Not only is it NOT a hopeless cause, but it COULD be done and it's at least worth trying! There are numerous advantages to doing so even if repeal doesn’t pass or gets vetoed! Let me borrow a theme from Richard (his nickname is getting filtered as "inappropriate language"!) Morris' pre-election visit to St Louis. We don't want to be guilty of UNDER-Confidence and only reach for low hanging fruit when there's a greater harvest if we reach higher.

 

NOW is the time to introduce COMPLETE and UTTER (as if it never occurred) repeal. FORCE the surviving democrats to make a choice and take a stand; with the PEOPLE, or with the President! If we lose, they're on record AGAIN as the party of ObamaCare. If enough Dems got the message of the Mid-Terms and bail on ObamaCare such that repeal passes, Obama will CERTAINLY veto. Whether or not we have the votes for an override, we get to put them on the spot YET AGAIN and force them to stand with the PEOPLE or with OBAMA. If we override, it's a victory 2 years earlier, and portends 2 years of POTUS Impotence. If override fails, you've got the Dems on record supporting the President and ObamaCare at least once on the override vote, and possibly twice on the repeal vote too. Sets up 2012 to be a repeat performance!! It's a WIN-WIN to push repeal NOW.

3) Keynesian Economics: If ever there was a demonstrable proof that spending your way to prosperity or spending your way out of debt is an inherently unworkable strategy, one need only look at the TRIPLING of Bush’s WORST deficit, and throwing TRILLIONS into bailouts and “stimulus”! It took 42 presidents and 230 years for our debt to pass 6 Trillion. Bush took that debt from 6 to 8 trillion in his first term (dealing with 9/11 and the dot-com bubble burst) and added an additional one trillion in his second term to a total of 9 Trillion. Bush increased the debt by 50% in 8 years – and was derided as a big spender whose deficits “drove us into the ditch”.  In less than 2 years Obama's added more than 5 Trillion to the debt to bring us over 14 Trillian!!  With approximately 6.8 Billion people on the Planet, that's over $2000 for every breathing human being!!

Yes, even conservatives faulted the Bush administration and Republican Congress for the excessive spending! But if you will view the chart at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31121224&l=99329d1f36&id=1124552001 you’ll note that Bush’s deficit was largest in 2003 and then the Bush Tax Cuts were passed. The deficit was reduced by nearly half 2 years later, and by almost 2/3 by the next year… when the balance of power shifted in Congress. A year after Pelosi took the Speakership of the House (where spending originates) the deficit climbed exponentially! Bush’s WORST deficit with a Republican House was around 400 Billion (with a B) in 2003. The BEST deficit since the Dems took control of Congress was in 2007 at around 450 Billion, and in 2008 that was TRIPLED! It is time to CUT SPENDING!!

4) Spending: Sure, there’s a lot of worthless “discretionary” spending. Grants for ridiculous studies; pork projects that don’t need to be built etc. But while I would advocate elimination of a number of programs, and across the board reduction of the rest of our discretionary budget… we will NEVER get a handle on spending without a paradigm shift which addresses ENTITLEMENTS

Social Security is an UNSUSTAINABLE Ponzi Scheme. The money today’s beneficiaries paid into Social Security was spent while they were still working! We collect from today’s workers to pay benefits to the beneficiaries currently receiving them. A cursory observation of our demographics would indicate that the numbers of productive workers are declining as the numbers of eligible recipients is climbing rapidly, and the crest of the wave has yet to hit. At one time, there were 50 workers contributing to the support of each beneficiary. Now it is under 5. Soon, it will be a 2 to 1 ratio. At that point it would be cheaper and more efficient to replace Social Security with an “Adopt a Grandparent” program, where each working couple takes on the direct support of a single retiree!!

The Ryan plan or other incremental plan is workable. We must progress toward the elimination of this program, but not in a draconian manner. I’d favor an incremental process where current beneficiaries and those soon to retire will receive everything they had been planning on without change… but where those in mid-career will be given the option to continue paying in, and received reduced benefits, or opting to cease paying in immediately, and forgo any benefit at retirement. Those in the earlier career years would receive back any contributions paid in, and be fully responsible for their own retirements while they are young enough to accumulate a significant nest egg.

Almost no-one under 50 expects Social Security to be around for them anymore anyway (and this is not an opinion formed without an evidentiary basis!). Why not ACKNOWLEDGE the reality and ADAPT TO IT! We keep our promise to the seniors. We give the OPTION to OPT OUT to the middles. We make no promise to break to the youngsters.

I could write pages on entitlements, but this is intended as a “brief” piece!

There are many other items that need review by a conservative Congress. I’ll write on them from time to time as things progress. Illegal Immigration (GO ARIZONA!), Border Security, Foreign Policy, Taxes, Defense and many others will each require course adjustment. They are all important. But the items discussed here are not just important, they are URGENT. I would strongly urge the incoming Congress to work to address these issues in their FIRST SESSION.