Obsession with taxes

The easiest part of the Grand Bargain everyone is ostensibly seeking in DC is to raise tax, but the fundamental solution that eludes those in power is economic growth -- all other solutions without growth are counterproductive.

We should be on the way to economic growth but progressives have a point to make. They aren't going to capitulate to the Bill Clinton Strategy of going along with market principles to create economic growth, even though much of the growth was the dotcom bubble, because in this politically heated environment it would appear that Romney won after all, he just didn't get to move into the White House. Progressives are using their stay in power to make fundamental changes regarding the role of government in the economy, which really means the role of government, period, since everything we do is related to the economy in one way or another.

Progressives will not ruin their opportunity to shine by capitulating to free market principles -- however, what they are doing is harmful to our economy. Obviously progressives believe that government investment will create enough economic growth to pay for an expanded welfare state that will keep the unemployed comfortable until a better social arrangement can be made -- in the meantime, Obama and his gang of progressives will design our statist system to accomplish their goals of social justice.

The welfare state has already exanded, but ACA has not kicked in so there's a long way to go, and this is why raising taxes is such an obsession. There's no way a small tax hike on millionaires&billionaires will be enough to fund the progressive transformation, so they'll have to come back at some point with a carbon tax or value-added tax. Government has to shift a huge amount of money from the private sector to government in order to achieve their goals.

Unless there's an intense and vigilant public reaction to extended unemployment and worsening economic problems, I don't expect any government interventions to create economic growth.

They are still talking about Republicans!

Good Lord, do they know they won? Why are progressives still carrying on about problems in the Republican Party when they should use their momentum to push their agenda? What is their agenda? All I've heard is how McCain is a racist because he's mean to Susan Rice and taxes should be higher. Warren Buffett is out again calling for higher taxes on the rich. Then what? Take all of it and you still have a debt and unemployment problem, a much bigger unemployment problem. Then what?

Democrats have been praising the virtues of government intervention, so why are they not putting forth plans for government action? All I hear on news shows is how out of touch Republicans are with the new American demographic. Okay, so move along, go forward, create equality and social justice. Put forth the plans that will transform America. Geez, the campaign is over.

Morning Joe 5/9/2012 -- Oh my, the political class is imploding

On Morning Joe today the audience received a close-up view of the implosion among the political class. As government fails to deliver on its promises, and as the incompetence in DC is on display daily, the bather that emanates from pundits who parade through Morning Joe reveal how little unerstanding they have regarding our economic problems. Plus, I don't know if it's just me or whether Joe Scarborough's increased pomposity is in direct proportion to his decreased relevance in the Republican Party, but it sure seems that way.

Joe's petty attacks on Romney are taken straight from the liberal/Democratic media headlines. This morning they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing a comment Romney made about Obama finally doing with GM what Romney had suggested all along, a structured bankruptcy. Romney had called for a normal bankruptcy procedure that would have avoided favoritism to the unions. You would have to look at all Romney has said regarding this issue, then look at what happened. Joe and his Leftist guests had a ball criticizing Romney and suggesting things he could have said -- they were things that Romney has said in other venues, but those comments from Romney were never covered like the comments that can be isolated and ridiculed. The Left criticizes the Right for doing this to Obama, but now they are doing the same thing. I will have to include Joe as a Leftist since he's acting like one. I see no difference between Scarborough and the Democrats who dominate his show. As a matter of fact, Harold Ford is more friendly to the private sector and free enterprise than Scarborough.

Paul Krugman was on and he's still selling his Keynesian snake oil. Krugman said the answers to the economic crisis are easy -- spend more money on state and local governments, so that teachers and police and firefighters are hired back, as if these departments have been gutted to start with. Krugman said we can worry about balancing the budget once there is economic recovery. Scarborough basically agreed with Krugman with the caveat that government spending should be "smart". We've heard a lot lately regarding the need for smart government, as has been the case for quite a while now when government fails -- the statists will say we need smarter government. If we only had smarter statists the interventions would work. The idea is that the right, smart people in government can take money from the private sector during recessions and invest it better than the private sector can invest it. Of course, the statists believe that gov ernment can manage the economy at any time better than the private sector, and this is why they all say an "unfettered" market is evil and destroys the middle class, even though the rich need a strong middle class in order to be rich. It's so confusing. So far, there's no evidence that government can invest better and manage the economy better than the private sector. If we trace all our economic woes back to orginal causes, most of the causes orginated from government intervention, such as the housing bubble created by government interventions to increase home-ownership by any means possible, even by bullying banks to give loans to people who didn't qualify.

Yes, statists like Krugman, Lawrence O'Donnell, Joe Klein and Joe Scarborough, who were all sitting around the table giving their brilliant prescriptions for recovery, think that government can smartly control the ups and downs of the American economy. We will witness more of this political buffoonery as they lose more of their relevance. They have no idea what is happening, and their default position is more, but smarter government intervention. I think we can safely say, now, that smarter government intervention is a dumb thing to rely on.

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.

What if the Church is appeased?

If Obama and company come up with a "deal" that the Church can live with, will the Church put its head back in the sand, or will it continue to fight for freedom? Obamacare will violate freedom in many different ways, not just in the narrow sense of religious freedom promoted by some, so, will the Church stand tall for freedom in general? If the issue is government over-stepping its bounds and telling  private organizations what they can and can't do regarding behaviors that don't violate rights, then the Church and all social conservatives and Catholic Democrats who are now resisting the government intervention regarding Catholic organizations should fight against all such government interventions which violate our freedom.