Morning Joe 4/11/2012 -- Liberal love-affair with taxes

On Morning Joe, even the "small" government conservative extraordinaire, Joe Scarborough, is asking for higher taxes, if congress will also balance the higher taxes with spending cuts (okay, stop laughing). Chris Coons was on, and he said the Buffett Rule is about fairness. All agreed that taxing the rich will not be enough, but all still want more taxes, and none can identify any serious cuts that really amount to cuts and not just a deduction in spending increases. I just want to say, because hardly anyone else is saying it -- the Buffett Rule is bullshit. There are corporate taxes, then capital gains taxes, then death taxes -- Rich bastards are taxed enough. They pay the great majority of taxes, and they pay far higher rates than secretaries, so the Buffett Rule is based on a damn lie, and our President is broadcasting this lie daily. There, at least I said it.

Another news item was Santorum's announcement he will drop out of the race. Much was made over Santorum getting this far, but the main reason Santorum made it this far is that the Republican Party still has a number of social conservatives who couldn't stand the idea of Ron Paul gaining power in the party by being the sole candidate against Romney. Gingrich will now be the buffer to stop Paul from gaining influence. I don't think conservatives really had that much against Romney, but they couldn't stand the idea of Paul pushing the GOP further in the libertarian direction. The battle now in the Republican Party is not between moderates and conservatives -- both have been damaged -- but between the Old Republicans and the New Republicans. Romney represents a potential breidge from the Old to the New. The New Republicans lean libertarian like most of the Founders, yet it's not a throwback movement. It's a dynamic, truly progressive movement which seeks to apply time-tested principles to modern problems. The economic problems of today call for the principles of limited government and a free market. We'll see how much effect Ron Paul has on Romney from here to November. The GOP needs to present very clear opposition to the statist system upheld by Democrats and Old Big Government Republicans. The Morning Joe panel discussed, shortly, Bush's capitulation to statist solutions at the end of his presidency -- this is what has to change.

If we can limit government, then we can cut government spending in ways that really free the economy to grow, create jobs and generate new wealth. We can also eliminate the old tax structure and design something that is reasonable, good for all Americans and friendly to business.

The biggest challenge for Romney going forward, and for America as a nation, is to change our relationship to other countries and resign from Police of The World. We have to re-evaluate our foreign military bases and our interventions in regions like the mideast. Our Founders had a sceptical aversion to foreign entanglements, and so should we. Yes, the international situation is complex, but it could be a lot less comlex if we didn't intervene in ways that complicate matters.