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Another Perspective
A Hollow Victory
The details of the tax deal are fine — but what about its moral underpinnings for economic freedom?
As news came out Monday about the tax deal reached between President Obama and Senate Republican leaders, all eyes were on the details. Highlights of the deal include:
• Bush tax cuts extended for all tax brackets for two years.
• Unemployment benefits extended for 13 months.
• Estate “death” tax maximum rate lowered to 35% (down from 55% for 2011) with an exemption on the first $5 million (up from $1 million for 2011).
• Capital gains tax maximum rate remains 15%. (This is perhaps the most important aspect of the deal for financial markets.)
• AMT “patched” to avoid its hitting over 20 million additional households.
• 1 year reduction of Social Security “payroll tax” of 2%.
• Continuation of certain Obama “stimulus” bill taxes, including for college tuition and equipment purchase write-offs; also expanding the earned income tax credit.
It remains to be seen whether the current crop of House Democrats will go along with the deal. It also is possible that a Senator, maybe Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will filibuster a bill to implement the deal, and there may not be 60 votes for cloture during the lame duck. So while there’s a deal, it’s not a “done deal.”
There will be plenty of time to analyze the economic and political impacts of the “compromise.” But one striking aspect of the debate is the utter lack of discussion of a political philosophy underlying anybody’s negotiating position. Where is the explanation of why tax cuts (or, more precisely, extension of the current tax rates) are not just good for the economy but are more moral (or, more precisely, less immoral) than accepting the Democrats’ desired policies?
On Monday, as Barack Obama offered his usual leftist pablum regarding his wish to raise taxes on those earning over $250,000 while suggesting willingness to give that up in return for Republican agreement on extending unemployment benefits, he demonstrated a world-turned-upside-down misunderstanding of the source of wealth and the proper role of government.
First, Obama said that continuing the current rates for the upper tax bracket is something the government “can’t afford right now.” Sadly, some large percentage of Americans including nearly all Democrats take that statement at face value without thinking about what he’s really saying: that money which high-earners earn is first the property of the government and only secondarily, and only if government feels generous, should be allowed to be kept by those who earned it.
Second, Obama implores Congress to extend unemployment benefits for people who have lost their jobs “through no fault of their own.” Again, many or most Americans will simply accept this statement at face value. And again, learning the lesson from Bastiat that we must consider “that which is unseen,” what do Obama’s words mean? They mean that because someone is suffering a hardship which is not “their own fault,” it is everyone else’s responsibility to give our money, or more precisely our children’s and grandchildren’s money, to that person.
The “no fault of their own” argument is the 21st century analogue of “to each according to his need”; and 99-week unemployment benefits paid for by deficits and the 1% of taxpayers who pay 40% of income taxes is the analogue of “from each according to his ability.” Obama’s argument is naked socialism.
It’s one thing for Republicans to take political victories where available. To be sure, even with Republicans agreeing to Obama’s desired unemployment insurance extension, getting all the Bush tax cuts extended, not to mention the other tax cuts and extensions in the deal, will be a stunning victory during a lame duck session in which Democrats retain huge majorities in both houses of Congress.
About the Author
Ross Kaminsky is a self-employed trader and investor and is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute. He is the host of The Ross Kaminsky Show on Denver’s NewsRadio 850 KOA at 11 AM on most Sundays. You can reach Ross by e-mail at rossputin(at)rossputin(dot)com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (105) | Leave a comment
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Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 6:41AM
>> as Barack Obama offered his usual leftist pablum regarding his wish to raise taxes on those earning over $250,000 while suggesting willingness to give that up in return for Republican agreement on extending unemployment benefits, he demonstrated a world-turned-upside-down misunderstanding of the source of wealth and the proper role of government
Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 6:44AM
F*#k Obama. Dream to follow...
Wayne | 12.8.10 @ 1:10PM
You are misstating Obama's definition of the rich. It is not $250,000, but $125,000 each for those married, and $200,000 for those not married.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 1:20PM
We'll see.
However why is it the economy improved each year under Clinton, but such was not the case from 2001 all the way to the end of 2008? nor from 1989 to the end of '92.
Coincidence?
Brad| 12.8.10 @ 2:12PM
Alan,
Are you saying, then, that the economy has "improved" since the end of '08? Coincidence?
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 2:25PM
"you saying, then, that the economy has "improved" since the end of '08?"
It will soon, as it did in '95. Naturally the GOP can and almost certainly will help stimulate the economy. However Gingrich fizzled out; Bush fizzled out; Bush's father...
idalily| 12.9.10 @ 12:10AM
I agree, Alan. It will improve as it did in '95. Both times, we have a Republican House controlling the privy purse.
Alan Brooks| 12.10.10 @ 2:35AM
Everything about economics I learned from Spiderman comic books,
JeffB| 12.8.10 @ 3:27PM
You may recall this little thing that Al Gore invented. The internet. Of course the Clinton "boom" turned out to be all on paper, since very few .com companies actually produced anything.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 4:16PM
The '80s weren't much better than the '90s.
You are perhaps writing that much of the modern (post- '60s) economy is based on fluff.
In that case we are in agreement.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 9:20PM
yea...all that Cisco hardware and Intel chips...total fluff.
Alan Brooks| 12.10.10 @ 2:34AM
Raise my taxes to 90% PLEASE!
Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 6:42AM
I occasionally have this vision. It has come and gone over the past 35 years, but it recurs, nonetheless. It now occurs more frequently than ever.
Some act passed by Congress (call it Cap and Tax, Card Check, Congressional pay raises, whatever) and signed by a clueless President takes effect. It is passed over the voluble objections of the populace. Small demonstrations against the bill have been held in a myriad of localities across the country, to no avail. Millions of phone calls, emails and letters have been made or sent to House Members, Senators and the White House, to no avail. Conservative talk show hosts and their loyal listeners have been admonishing of the negative aspects of passage (i.e. how it will affect their lives), to no avail. Reactionaries (with whose principles I agree, but knee-jerk methods I do not) have warned of the consequences, to no avail. Yet, this travesty prevails.
A groundswell begins across and within: the fruited plains, the frozen tundras, the suburban coffee klatches, the river towns, the purple mountains’ majesties, the cattle ranches, the small town restaurants, the mall shops, the corporate cubicles, the local taverns, the neighborhood soccer games (UGH!), the college football stadia, the hillside farms, the cornfields, the backyard barbecues, the Friday night card games, the movie houses, the child care centers, the churches (YES, the churches), the PTA meetings, the high school and college reunions and so many other locations and events.
The Moment of Inertia has been reached.
Not hundreds, not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but MILLIONS of law abiding Americans have decided to march on the District of Criminals. It is tacitly agreed that all who own arms will bear them at this particular demonstration.
Under the Sedition Act and Posse Comitatus, the POTUS activates National Guard elements and redeploys active duty military to protect the Capitol Building, the White House and other government battlements. Remaining true to their Oath, they obediently engage their maneuvers.
On the critical day, those millions of freedom loving, tax paying, hard-working citizens converge on the center of obstinacy, sloth, and largesse. As they approach the Capitol, the White House, the national monuments, the bastions of bureaucracy, the many halls of power at the designated hour, with the agreed upon passivity, the military, as is custom goes from parade rest to attention, rest arms.
The House, the Senate and the White House have divvied up responsibilities to send designated representatives to offer entreaties to the enraged, but still law abiding citizens. The military are at a moment of monumental decision. The commanders know not how they will order their troops to respond. The representatives are comfortable in their certainty that they will prevail, with the force of might at their beckoning.
At the designated hour, at the designated time, the appointed leader of the representatives raises a bullhorn and spews the identical text they have been ordered to deliver. The law abiding citizens stand, respectfully, listening to the effluvia from the Ruling Class.
The law abiding citizens have had enough. The Ruling Class has patronized and pontificated for the last time. The military is on nerve’s edge. The Republic, as originally established is on the precipice
The popularly designated representative of the law abiding citizens, be it whoever, picks up their own bullhorn at the Capitol Building. Speaking, very simply and clearly into a microphone, connected to a private frequency broadcast transmitter, amplified at the outlying locations, humbly asks the assembled crowd, “American People. You have heard the position of our government. What is your response?” The law abiding citizens man their arms and begin to approach the representatives. The military… the military…..
Without orders from the commanders, the military commits an immediate about face and comes to weapons ready against the ruling class.
This may perhaps be a dream, certainly not approaching a wet one, but a dream still the same. The citizens of the Constitutional Republic that Benjamin Franklin once cautioned an inquiring woman after the Constitutional Convention, “… if you can keep it,” has indeed been kept. Thomas Jefferson’s prescription has been realized:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
This may have the breath of a novel. Ken my friend, I have not yet read your latest treatise, but I truly have had this vision for some time. I will read your excerpts in the next few days. If this isn’t close to your premise, and someone does write this novel or screenplay, I only ask they proclaim attribution, and send royalty checks. ;-)
GOD BLESS THE USA!
Con Spiracy
EXCELSIOR!
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 10:08AM
The graphic novel, and later movie, "V for Vendetta" is close to this. While the hero fights for a more libertarian society with regards to morals and the villians are portrayed as super conservatives... it's actually a great movie. Especially when a true consevative can see that the government in the movie is, in fact, NOT a truely conservative government but a liberal one who feels compelled to rule every minutia of one's life. And the people seek not to be hedonistic, but to be free.
The end of the movie made both my wife and I get choked up because we knew we would never see such as day here in America.
I, too, have your dream. A lot. And I would wager many do. It is a shame that there is such a back-lash against anyone who even begins to consider what sort of options we truely have left to reclaim our liberty. Many say we must not speak of revolution while we still have the ballot box. And while we still hold elections, I argue... to what avail? Was it not the elections that brought us, ever closer every 2 years, to this point we are at today? Does history not show that in only very few cases has an election pushed the political situation towards freedom rather than away? Because of that, does history not dictate that, if trends were to continue, the election would be the very vehicle that brings us the death of the Republic?
How, then, can one say we still have the ballot box?
Ramon| 12.8.10 @ 12:31PM
With the crop of current Generals and Admirals leading our military, the dream would have to be a Colonel's revolt. Mullen and his ilk have betrayed the country...only worrying about keeping their perks and pensions while opening the flood gates to homosexuals for purely political reasons. If Obama halted suddenly, Mullen would break his nose.
Appleby| 12.8.10 @ 6:46AM
I am hearing more and more of my lefty friends displaying what used to be called cognitive dissonance when people knew words longer than four letters -- the pious assurance that they look on all their neighbours as Gods Children, whether rich or poor, and the indignation that the rich neighbour is permitted to keep that which is his when the poor neighbour Needs It More.
I do not believe this generation knows anything at all about morality. I suspect this was deliberate.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 7:07AM
the Left is playing this the wrong way. if taxes do go up and the economy tanks again...they...not the Repubs...will receive the full brunt of electoral fury. they will get the blame for 10%+ unemployment. they will lose the Senate in 2012 in whopping fashion and will not recover for at least a decade - i.e., the length of time some are predicting it will take unemployment to descend back to around 6%.
and interesting sidebar will be whether....ummmmm.....Liberals become the object of vituperative retribution.
Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 7:14AM
Libs suffering consequences? Please, spare me with the current electoral demographics.
I like (and am a pseudo-member) of the Tea Party, but there are still Way too many affiliates of the left out there.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 10:02AM
true enough....but misery has a way of converting even the most deeply committed fetichists
martin j smith| 12.8.10 @ 7:41AM
This entire deal is in large measure Kabuki Theatre & I do not believe for one second that the Left is really that angry at Obama. It is all play acting. Obama continues to spend our money and that is the bottom line hear. And, his class warfare goes unabated.
What should be done: Republicans hould go to the People abov e Congress and the President and present the case that his president is destroying our fabric as a nation thru continued spending and class. They should blame Obama for the unemplyment levels and demand existing funds that were unused stimulus money to fund any Unemployment etc--not new spending. Throw the class warfare back at Obama--How about all your vacations O ? warfare
Ryan| 12.8.10 @ 8:16AM
Look at it from the hard left's point of view and what they DIDN'T get that Obama promised them - Cap&Trade; Single payer/public option health care; and closing Guantanamo and getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
He just hasn't delivered on some of the more hard-left promises. They are feeling betrayed.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 10:05AM
but they are getting these policy goals - through executive department regulations. a somewhat less satisfactory approach since these initiatives can be undone at the stroke of a pen by a responsible (i.e., newly elected) chief executive.
Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 7:53AM
>> It is all play acting. Obama continues to spend our money and that is the bottom line >>
AGREED!
Con Spiracy
EXCELSIOR!
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.10 @ 8:02AM
Ross,
We have a problem. I discovered it while reading your column. Sometimes I am slow on the uptake, Duh, but when the lightbulb does go on it is pretty bright.
Here is the problem:
We Americans are a generous lot as a people.
We are inclined to help others if we can afford it, and we sorta have an inclination to shrug off the fact that the government "helps" very poorly, and very wastefully.
I think Jim DeMint read my new E-Novel. Heh he is a character in it.
I address the problem of unemployment by creating "freeholds" (small businesses and farms with a ten year tax holiday) www.texassaidno.com
We have to generate an alternative to gubmint trying to do the job.
Ross Kaminsky | 12.8.10 @ 9:00AM
Ken,
You're right with your characterization of Americans (especially non-liberals) as generous.
Throughout most of American history there was not a welfare state. Instead there were private charities, churches, mutual aid societies.
People did not starve in the streets. States sent each other aid from time to time out of pure charity.
If anything government crushed the instinct to be charitable because people (properly) feel that they don't need to give money to someone less fortunate because the gov't is already taking our money for that very purpose.
I still think the only way we win this is by showing the utter failure of the left's policies to accomplish their stated goals combined with explaining how the left's policy amounts to theft, even if they want to claim to be Robin Hood.
buckeyeman| 12.8.10 @ 10:27AM
Ross,
The Robin Hood analogy is one of my pet peeves. Robin Hood did not "steal from the rich and give to the poor" (at least according to the movie version, since there wasn't any "real" such guy). Robin Hood "stole" the TAX money that had been extorted from the people and gave it back to those who earned it. I love that guy.
The Republicans will not discuss the moral dimension of collectivism because they do not understand or believe it is immoral for the government to steal the wealth of some in order to give to others. They just don't. Don't expect a lesson in morals from folks who don't have any.
The "deal" struck yesterday made me sick. It will save me about $200,000 in taxes next year, but I would rather have my country starting to turn in the right direction. My money will be cold comfort to me when our freedoms are lost. A couple of days ago I posted on this site that the Repubs would gleefully approve the unemployment "insurance" extension and they have proved me right (again).
Don't expect much better in the new session. The republicans will focus on "paying for" socialist programs rather than justifying them.
Still, you wrote a nice article. At least someone is talking about government theft in the right terms.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 10:50AM
Robin stole tax money collected from everyone and gave it to the poor... NOT everyone.
That is redistribution. The king was redistributing the wealth from the masses into a select few... true. Robin the Hoodlum was taking something he did not have a right to take (it wasn't all his money to be sure!) and gave it to the poor... what about all the other people who weren't poor but paid taxes?
He's not all that cool.
Although Robin Hood is by far the GREATEST Disney movie ever made of all time. Period. I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!!!
Impeach Don't Wait| 12.9.10 @ 9:45PM
"The Republicans will not discuss the moral dimension of collectivism because they do not understand or believe it is immoral for the government to steal the wealth of some in order to give to others."
The problem is that it has been too long established in American life that all forms of taxation are acceptable. And differences of opinion are considered just that--differences of opinion--which are accorded no moral dimension. And we certainly can't have out of work people going without, right? So unemployment benefits will basically be extended forever. That's the problem with leftist "compassion": Nothing is ever enough. It just never stops. And Republicans adopt the same attitude. Just as a side thought: What would the unemployed do if unemployment benefits were NOT extended. Maybe nobody wanted to find out. I'm sure some need extended help, but some are just on the dole because they get the free money, we know it's true. (I say with fear and trembling because luckily I'm still employed... but we have to be honest.)
Anyway, as for Republicans continuing to pay for socialist programs... We're keeping a list. Nov. 2010 was phase 1. Next election: phase 2!! Never give up.
Curly Smith| 12.8.10 @ 9:42AM
Your "freehold" plan merely shifts the tax burden to your existing business base and drives any struggling business into bankruptcy... or drives them to another town where *they* can get a tax holiday. Why is a "new" business more desirable than an "old" business? A better plan is to follow Milton Friedman's axiom that "what the government does for one citizen it must do for all citizens". Why should the government get to decide who wins and who loses? Why shouldn't all parties be equal under the law? How much of the graft-laden tax code would disappear if we were a "nation of laws" instead of a "nation of men"?
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.10 @ 10:49AM
Hi Curly.
Heh...it is sorta' like the ole' joke..."I guess you would have just needed to be there."
You are correct of course...absolutely correct.
I do hope you will read the story....and any corrections and/or suggestions would be appreciated. contact me through
sales@texassaidno.com
Impeach Don't Wait| 12.9.10 @ 9:26PM
"I address the problem of unemployment by creating "freeholds" (small businesses and farms with a ten year tax holiday)"
Now that sounds interesting... I like thinking outside the box, and trying different things to see what works never hurt anybody--even universal health care WHICH IS A FAILURE! As long as you learn what works and go with that!! It's called "learning." Which liberals have never done. They just implement things that make things worse and you can't back out of. Okay I'm done.
martin j smith| 12.8.10 @ 8:04AM
Here is what Republicans should say to the American people: We made, foolishly in hindsight, a real attempt to work with President Obama and hat did we get for our efforts ? A slap in the face. Now that we as a Party have debated and taking into account comments by voters we have decided to take this "deal" off the table.
This national will not change,improve and grow unless the class warfare is stopped. The reason is clear: President Obama is hell bent on spending us into the ground and so any "deals" wil be held hostage to his spending demands. This will push our deficit to unsustainable levels--as if they are not there already. Look at Greece,Ireland,Portugal,Spain --look at the social turbulence in France and even in our own state of California !!!!!!!!!!! Is this what the American people really want !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?????????????
Sadly we must say there is a constituency on the LEFT that we believe does want this. It is time to let your voices be heard !!!!!!!!!!!!!! What kind of America do you want ? Let your representatives know. Those who voted against the Obama agenda, we want to hear from you but we also want to hear from those of you who are confused or even if you disagree with us. Our bottom line is we want to do what will bring us back from the brink of disaster not into disaster itself.
That is what I want to hear.
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 10:02AM
It is a fact that before debate even began on the stimulus bill, Republicans informed Obama that they would under no circumstances vote for it. Even then the Democrats curbed the size of the bill, and made a third of it tax-breaks, to try and garner some Republican support. They got nothing from the Republicans. It was a time of national emergency, and you idiots were playing politics.
The health care bill is a perfect center-right document. If you want a national health-care plan at all (which Republican politicians CLAIM they do), the bill that was produced looks exactly like a bill that Republicans would have crafted. But it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who crafted this bill, and who took all the political risk in drafting it. The Democrats are truly a big-tent party with diversity amongst its members, and we drafted a bill that addressed our conservative members' concerns, in the hopes that some responsible Republicans would support it. Instead, we got nothing but crass political obstruction from your side.
YOU DARE claim that we WE betrayed YOU!?!
Citizen, y0u have NO IDEA what a political FIGHT is. If the Democrats EVER started putting their money where their mouth is, instead of running from their principles, THEN you'd know what partisan politics WAS. You all should consider yourselves damn lucky, for once, that you ARE facing off against an Appeaser-in-Chief.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 10:08AM
9.8% and going up.
idiot.
tool.
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 11:16AM
Every reason to think it would have been WORSE without the Stimulus and the Bailouts. THAT'S the economic reality. THAT'S what would have happened if YOU'D been in charge. And you call ME a 'tool.'
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:22PM
Yes, Ted, but imagine if the stimulus had instead used the same amount of money in TAX CUTS for, oh, say, 10 years. Would we still have 10% unemployment? Me thinks not.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 10:16AM
No... you were "fighting" with Republicans. NOT the Constitution and conservatives.
If you were you'd have had the !@#$ beat out of you ten times over.
This bill very well may be what Republicans would have created (with some differences to be sure). It is in no way what conservatives would have created. The Constitution doesn't allow it.
Go read the Constitution. And if you don't have one, you can get one from via the PRIVATE CHARITY of the Heritage Foundation. They will give you one from the goodness of their own heart... free. And without the government regulating, overseeing, and directing them. Imagine that.
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 11:18AM
Continue to march proudly into the past, Citizen. The U.S. government has the power to tax, last I heard. It is that power that underwrites BOTH the Stimulus and the Health Care bills.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 12:19PM
The government does have the power to tax. Who said it didn't?
It does NOT have the power to spend on things not under its limited scope of jurisdiction. And it does not have the authority to regulate wholesale industries, even under the commerce clause. The Constitution came before the judges. After it came the clarifications of those who wrote it, not the judges. As such, these two things MUST be considered BEFORE a judge's ruling. Why? It is because these things are the foundation upon which the judge gets his authority to rule. These two things state quite clearly (and the reason I mentioned the clarifications of the founders is because they said precisely... namely Jefferson... that when a court is in doubt as to the direction given in the document seek out the intent in other primary sources of the framers... that leads us to either Adams or Madison [can't remember which] who says the commerce clause in no way grants unlimited authority to the government but only grants the the ability to maitain a decorum among the states with regards to how the states treat out of state entities to allow for a free flow of business across the nation... a direct response to the Articles of Confederation under which each state coined their own money and would unfairly protect their own business at the expense of national growth) that the fed does NOT have the power to inact the Health Care law on a myriad of reasons, not least of which is the mandate.
Also note that the power the government wields to do anything comes ONLY at the pleasure of the people. And if we do not desire it, they do not have the power to do it... they may have the will and the force, but not the just power. It is at this point we run the risk of the people exerting their right to revolution.
Christopher | 12.8.10 @ 10:57AM
The dems are not running away from "their principles" because they have not principles. They are a party of patronage buying off groups. What principles does it have, unless you believe that taking money from workers through taxes and giving that money to their favored groups is a principle. Or, maybe hating the "rich?" Obama in his statements admitted that lower taxes stimulates the economy, but he just doesnt like the "rich." This is not much of a principle, it is envy, class warfare. Or, is having the goverment run your life a principle?
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 11:28AM
Look, if you're such a big believer in self-sufficiency, why not go homestead somewhere in Alaska, or Siberia? The plain fact, staring you straight in the face (if you weren't morally blind) is that the rich can only GET rich in a SOCIETY that is structured in a very elaborate - and stable -way. The State in ancient times was much weaker than it is today - and they enjoyed nothing like our level of material well-being and technological innovation. There is a direct connection between a well-articulated regulatory regime, and the opportunity for individuals to peaceably amass great wealth. As a result, since the rich benefit the most from participation in our kind of political economy, they are obligated to pay a commensurate share back into the system that supp0rts them. Since the Reagan era they have not been doing that, and they have enriched themselves in the process - and driven up our debt to astronomical levels.
The ONLY class warfare that has been going on, is the warfare BY the rich AGAINST the rest of us. People like you (unless you are yourself rich) are simply dupes for the rich.
Christopher| 12.8.10 @ 12:14PM
Gee, thanks Ted, for pointing out how morally superior you are compared to us simple dupes. Tell us what percentage of your income you pay?" Do you believe you should pay more than you pay? And, the entire USA is built on self sufficiency, we do not have to got to Alaska or Siberia; maybe you did not know tha Alaska is a state in the US.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 12:26PM
In ancient times people were not free. In Russia they had a very regulatory regime and they went broke as a joke.
It is a correlation between a FREE people and wealth.
As for your assertion that the rich owe a larger percentage of the bill because they have benifited more is firstly unAmerican. Equality means all measures of difference are discarded such as race, creed, sex, and unfortunately for you, wealth.
Second... they HAVE paid a larger percentage. In fact, under Reagan and Bush the overal percentage of the entire tax revenue they paid increased. Someone here I'm sure can get the correct stats, but it's somethign along the line of the top 5% of icome earners account for upwards of 40% of total income tax revenue. The top 50% account for upwards of 90% of all income tax revenue. Then there is about 40% of the entire population who are able to get out of paying ANY income taxes at the end of the day. And the funny thing is that these ratios skewed towards what you are wanting more-so AFTER the actual tax rate for the rich was decreased under Bush and Reagan. Don't beleive me? Go look it up.
DRed| 12.8.10 @ 2:45PM
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is
to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the
higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they
rise." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:25PM
Dear Ted R:
I think I have more freedom in America today, even under the Obamination, than I would have had in Imperial Rome under Commodus.
Your degree of ignorance on economic issues is profound, but I'll leave that to Ken, the CEO, to rip you apart on.
Alaskan| 12.8.10 @ 3:16PM
Ted, come up to Alaska, we will make a self sufficient man out of you. For you Obama voters and worshipers, Alaska is one of the two states Obama planned to visit after he visited the other 57 states.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.10 @ 10:57AM
Hey, Ted
Welcome back!
We love it when you wimps squeal gimme gimme!
So:
Your "messiah" is not healing the earth.
I am very sorry, Ted. We just don't have the tools here to fix stupid.
You really are going to have to get a job...sooner or later.
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 11:31AM
It's evident that you don't have the tools to fix stupid. That's why you're here in the first place. I'm visiting here, doing my best to help you out, Citizen. Free. Consider it my charitable contribution.
Loshooligan| 12.8.10 @ 1:18PM
Keep pushing him Ken. Eventually he will lose his mind and spiral into his typical 100 line diatribe about how he is a true liberal. He will try to disassociate himself from every leftist with the zeal of Stalin, that because those other guys are just right of his ideology, they are right wingers. No matter how left wing they really are. Come on Ted.....you know you want to rip off a 100 line essay on your beliefs in this comment section. Just click "Reply To This" and show us some love!
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 1:56PM
Sure I could, I have here before. Probably you've read what I had to say. But you definitely don't have any rebuttal, or you'd have made one. After all, what is the definition of a conservative? A conservative is someone who forgets nothing, and LEARNS nothing.
Loshooligan| 12.8.10 @ 3:54PM
A rebuttal to what? Your definition of communism? Why should I waste my time rebutting your Freudo-Marxist rants? Spending so much time in your mothers basement, re-distributing her wealth, to re-educate conservatives AmSpec readers is not what I would call being a productive American, but hey….it is commendable that you do practice what you preach.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:27PM
Ted R., now you're into verbal abuse. OK.
"Your mind is to mine as that of an amoeba's but do not be afraid." (Paul Chapin as the Observer, MST3K)
Pete| 12.8.10 @ 10:59AM
This seems to be the latest talking point, supposedly validated by Osama not allowing taxes to rise (during a recession that he has already exacerbated - a terrible idea). What a moderate he is! Hallelujah! On the contrary, this is a contrived political move much like all of his others: pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And he is stuntcocking this one for all it is worth. I love the one where they say that convservatives ought to be outraged because not allowing taxes to rise will "add to the deficit." So now their projections are to be believed? I can recall the theft and redistribution of $1Trillion that added to the deficit and the projections that came with that action. Hmmm. If the mainstream media did a fraction of its job, this criminal would have been tarred and feathered by now.
Ross Kaminsky | 12.8.10 @ 11:04AM
Ted,
What planet do you live on?
The idea that Obamacare is "center-right" is delusional. Just because it isn't quite as far to the left as it could be (since it doesn't yet have a "public option") does not mean it's anything but a far-left piece of junk...which is exactly what it is.
As for the "stimulus" bill, you don't prove that it was made a center-right thing either, just that Dems tried to score political points by moving it slightly away from the far left edge.
If Pol Pot said that instead of killing all intellectuals and people who wear glasses (all as presumed enemies of his socialist state), he would spare the people who wear glasses, that wouldn't have made him a tolerant (or center-right) guy.
Political obstructionism is heroic when what it's obstructing is the destruction of capitalism or our health care system or America as we know it.
I understand though: you're very bitter at the realization that we are a center-right country and that Obama's election didn't signify that the USA suddenly turned into muddle-headed socialists like you.
Ted R.| 12.8.10 @ 11:38AM
The hypocrisy of you people simply beggars the imagination. The health care bill is absolutely a center-right document. YOU people don't like it, because - HELLO - YOU are on the FAR right.
Your obstruction has been anything but heroic. Its was simply crass political calculation and ideological inertia. You have succeeded, so far, because you have gotten NO pushback from us. You don't know what a fight IS. If we once get our act together and put up a candidate who actually fights, you're gonna think that NOW was the good 'ol days.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:28PM
"Obamacare is Center-Right."
That's a joke, right? Like "Moderate Arab leader Yasser Arafat?"
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 2:11PM
I wouldn't call it, or the President, center-right. But Obama is clearly a moderate liberal, much to the disdain of much of the Democratic Party. The bulk of the rank and file in the party, and certainly the activists in the party, strongly favor single-payer healthcare, wouldn't have compromised on the Bush tax cuts, oppose continuation of the war in Afghanistan, and are frustrated at the President's slow action on equal rights for gay citizens and immigration reform.
But those folks mistakenly saw in Obama the same misperception that the right-wing activists on this site harbor: that Obama is somehow a radical left-winger "socialist". He is and always has been a pragmatic, non-doctrinaire moderate liberal. That's just a reality.
Pete| 12.8.10 @ 2:41PM
So this is the new strategy and these are the new talking points. I have seen it across many comments now by trolls here and elsewhere in the past few days, whereas I never saw anything of the kind in the past. In true Osama fashion, knowing his own narcissistic butt is on the line now, he gets forced into a non-progressive radical concession and is going to milk it for all it is worth. "Look at me, the moderate! I didn't allow tax rates to rise during a recession that I have elongated. Hey, look at me, the fiscal conservative - pay no attention to the Trillion dollars I stole and handed out to my buddies and unions. Look at the intellectual inconsistency of the other side: THEY made me add to the deficit against my will!!!"
Horsepuckey. This arrogant elitist ass has did everything as radically left as he could through the first two years. Look how badly those who stood with him got punished - he couldn't have accomplished anything more radical and have enough folks sign on. Thankfully, self preservation trumps all sometimes. Now that he tanked the economy and exploited the crisis he exacerbated, it is time to go into election spin mode. Oh, he is still working towards socialist dream world goals via his unelected, unaccountable "czars," but Obama the candidate can no longer tie himself there. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...."
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.10 @ 4:24PM
RCV,
I will reply to this, but first...in case you missed it...
An earlier post a day or two ago:
RCV stated:
""Every week, on this site, so called "patriots" advocate the forceful overthrow of our own government ... they truly do. I do recall hearing some folks talk about, "If the ballot box doesn't work for us in November, we may have to resort to other means..." Sound familiar?""
NO SIR!
No one here that I know of wants to "overthrow" the government. We merely stand ready to "restore the government" to its rightful place under constitutional restraints.
If you lawyerly types cannot get that difference through your minds, then your licenses to lie in a courtroom ought to be revoked.
Conversely, Sharia Law adherents have NO interest in our "Law of the Land" and would replace it with their slavery to Allah, (under some bearded whack-job's guidance of course).
You sir are obviously a total statist. Our founders were not, and we are not. In our minds, the "Declaration of Independence" still stands, and we stand with it.
Any government, Sharia or communist, (pardon the shorthand), will not be allowed to stand here except over our dead bodies....and we are pretty hard to kill.
You know, growing up in Texas, I used to get in trouble a lot when I brought up the words "all men are created equal....."
You lawyerly types get all wrapped up in the minutiae of lawS, but often forget THE LAW.
(Our Constitution as an attempt to put wheels on our Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation for a "more" perfect union).
Most folks here do not have your trained arguing/lying ability. Neither do most of our soldiers and Marines. We do understand tyranny however, and will not stand for it.
We don't WANT to be a nation of lawyer/liers. We want to build stuff and take care of each other.
We will fight and die if necessary to maintain that freedom.
Believe it.
(now to reply to your latest:)
Obama is an American hater. Period paragraph.
You evidently hate American freedom as well. You want every American to pay you...in legal fees...for enjoying our freedom.
Obama is a communist, (pardon...no...let me put it once in longhand), Obama and handlers are would-be dictators.
He and his crew, obviously including you, expect to dictate to the American people.
We will fight you.
...Simply an observation apropos of nothing whatsoever...three hundred well placed bullets end this dictatorship wannabe and crew.
.....well, ten well placed bullets would serve as well.
Most of the crew are wimps, and would be all for Constitutionality going forward. (heh)
See, you guys screwed up a long time ago. You failed to register long guns...and confiscate them.
TOO LATE!
Somewhere in the vicinity of 60 million of us refuse to be enslaved one regulation at a time.
When Rush, (20 million listeners per day), mentions my imprisonment or death by you guys, you got a problem.
My death cranks up a million snipers.
(Heh, enjoy your commute to your office.)
I am simply saying that you toads do not rule us.
(Please forward this to your Gestapo friends in government. If I disappear here...and other places...heh heh heh.
.....Those ten bullets are GUARANTEED!
...by God fearing Americans.
Please, sir. Change horses. Your children are counting on you.
Best regards
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 4:49PM
I rest my case.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 5:04PM
And, for Occam and the other psychiatrists on board, if you want to see Delusions of Grandeur, look no further than above. Millions are just waiting for Ken to be taken out (as if anyone is remotely thinking of that) so they can rise up! I'll keep tuned to Rush for the announcement...
W| 12.8.10 @ 7:35PM
Obamacare may seem center-right if you are a far left nut. Obamacare seems center-right to Fidel,Sean Penn, Bill Maher, and the rest of the lefty windbags.
Alaskan| 12.8.10 @ 11:54AM
Ted is on planet France. He must be reading some history of the French Revolution and is adressing everybody as "citizen." Ted is an unemployed commie atheist, much like the "citizens" of the French Revolution.
Loshooligan| 12.8.10 @ 4:32PM
Make sure when you reply to Ted that the use of "Comrade" is used to identify him, as conservatives are identified as "Citizens".
Pete| 12.8.10 @ 4:38PM
At least France uses nuclear energy...I'd like to emulate that aspect of the country and nothing more, though.
Loshooligan| 12.8.10 @ 4:46PM
Well there it is folks. Comrade Ted said it was a fact so therefore it is. See any leftist document that is right of him is in "Fact" a center right document.
Impeach Don't Wait| 12.9.10 @ 10:05PM
Since I see the liberal agenda (socialism) as the antithesis of the conservative agenda (free market/personal ownership, etc.,), I figure there's no room for compromise. In other words, don't let 'em get an inch. (What's to be gained except that their agenda is advanced?) But I hear that folks who cling too heavily to idealogy seldom get what they want because it's all about compromise. You let the other get some of what he wants in order to get some of what you want. So that kind of prevents someone from calling the opposing viewpoint evil, no? You want to be "accommodating" enough to give in order to get. (Nobody ever said politics advances morality.) But that brings me back to this: What's to be gained? Except that their agenda is advanced? Inch by inch by inch.
coal carrier| 12.8.10 @ 8:06AM
I have a feeling that the Republicans are going to be lulled by the snake charmer in the WH. Now that Obama has tossed them a bone, has any Republican asked, Where are the cuts?
We all know that the reason we are in such financial trouble is because our government has a spending problem.
Where are the cuts?
Neo-libertarian| 12.8.10 @ 9:24AM
There will be no "cuts." Congress has devolved to do two things; they find a way to compromise if it involves spending more of your money and putting the country farther in debt, or they find a way to induce stalemate so that they can “take back” the mechanisms that save the taxpaying populace revenue. That is all they do, the stuff like national defense, infrastructure, and banking are simply chips used in the game they play.
There problem, of course, is that the electorate, even someone as politically inept as this simple retiree from a Red State sees through their scam. We sent the Tea Party to Washington for a reason; it is time for them to go to work. We will send more help in 2012.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 10:12AM
gimme a break......the Repubs know full well what the last election was all about. they don't the power of the purse yet.....the real hardball games start in January. what's going on now is just the start of the negotiation process over who gets gored. we already know DoD is on the block. the trick will be for Repubs to position themselves to exact equal or greater sacrifices from other budget categories - specifically entitlements.
MoeBlotz| 12.8.10 @ 8:19AM
Ross Kaminsky writes as if he were a student of the great Walter Williams. (_!_)
Ross Kaminsky | 12.8.10 @ 9:01AM
Thanks, Moe. I'll take that as a great compliment.
ggoblue| 12.8.10 @ 8:19AM
yesterday, dec 7th, a day that will live in infamy, the hawaiian president, BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA, dropped a nuclear bomb on the democratic party....
anything that splinters the democrats is good for america. period.
let the rest of the nation rejoice :)
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 12:16PM
Dream on. We're not splintering. We understand that the system our founders gave us requires compromise. It's the tea partiers who think the next two years will be the GOP "standing fast". Won't happen. They gave on extending unemployment benefits, and we gave on the wealthy tax cuts. That's the way it works, and will continue to work.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 12:33PM
Chamberlain compromised with Hitler. Really helped them Brits out.
And the Civil War was avoided because of the Missouri Compromise, wan't it?
Funny how compromise, when attempted, usually doesn't do anything but make things worse.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 12:55PM
Gee, that's convincing. I guess you should never seek compromise ever.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 1:50PM
Compromise on what to have for dinner? Sure. On how you and your wife/husband should budget some things... sure!
On being free or opressed? No. The other side can go shove it.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 2:06PM
No argument on the specifics of what you said. I personally just don't see the issue of whether the top marginal rate is 32, 35 or 39 to be a debate on being "free or oppressed".
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 3:40PM
It's at issue when the majority of what is collected as income tax is then used to fund unConstitutional functions that make up roughly 90% of the federal budget... welfare and social spendings.
The Fed is directed in only a VERY few areas to have jurisdiction, power, and directive. No where can you find a legal ground for SS, medicade/care, etc. from the federal government short of a ruling of a judge who ignored the very legal framework he swore an oath to work within.
I would imagine you would find many conservatives very willing to pay what was necissary to do the things that were necissary. But until those are the things that are being done... to lose my income at the point of a gun for something the government hasn't the right or authority to do certainly does begin to abridge my freedom.
And yes... I pay taxes at the point of a gun.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:30PM
Dear RCV,
Obama compromised because in the next Congress it was going to be worse. But he really is a very poor politician, and that is because he is a poor public thinker.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 2:04PM
He is not very skilled at political negotiation, to be sure. He leaves far too much on the table in his dealings with the GOP. For example, he gave away the public insurance option in the medical reform fight, and got nothing in return - not one GOP vote.
On the other hand, he persisted in pushing the health care reform bill when most Democrats thought it was dead. I don't agree with your assessment of his public policy thinking skills.
We'll see if he's saavy enough to get the Defense Appropriations bill, with the DADT repeal, through in the lame duck session. I think that he and the Senate leadership are pretty close to garnering the 60 cloture-proof votes necessary on the issue, but it will be a real test.
Curly Smith| 12.8.10 @ 8:43AM
What's the surest way to jump start an economic recovery? Cutting taxes and leaving more capital in the hands of the capable and productive American people and out of the parasitic hands of politicians. Did the Republicans cut taxes, and thus jump start the economy? No. They actually raised taxes on businesses with the extended unemployment benefits and did nothing to ease the uncertainty because they absolutely failed to cut any federal spending and we'll spend the next two years hearing about "tax cuts for the rich".
This deal is nothing but a status quo deal, it's an inside the beltway deal full of "Strum and Dang" that does absolutely nothing. It's a perfect ObamaDeal, all hype and no substance with both sides arguing around the periphery. It's just like abortion, it's a issue for politicians to pontificate on but never actually address. I had minor hopes for the GOP but I guess a productive and employed America just isn't their cup of tea. Oh well, not to worry, we've still got the TEA so we'll just have another Party.
ggoblue| 12.8.10 @ 9:15AM
this IS still a democrat congress...the new congress isnt even in yet and "oh well" time to break up the republicans and leave the playing field for nancy....
wth?
Curly Smith| 12.8.10 @ 9:50AM
In case it escaped your notice, it's a Democratic Congress that's unable to get enough Democratic votes to implement its agenda. A large swath of Democrats got the message from November's elections... why didn't the GOP Leadership? The GOP had no need to "do a deal", they could have simply run the clock out by filibustering every item. Instead, they choose the outcome that we see before us. The deal fully represents what the GOP Leadership wants. And it wanted a big bag of nothing.
Michael L. Hauschild| 12.8.10 @ 9:01AM
To those who have "lost their jobs through no fault of their own," you have certainly not lost your jobs through any fault of mine.
Redstateboy| 12.8.10 @ 9:50AM
what perplexes and saddens me to some degree.. is Why, WHY! didn't the Republicans demand the 13 extended Months of Unemployment Insurance be paid for out of unspent Porkulous funds??!?
JP| 12.8.10 @ 11:59AM
Because they had to prioritize. What would be worse in the short-medium term? The expiration of the tax cuts, or another $70 billion added to the defecit? If a deal could not be reached, the ramifications would be immediate and severe.
There is actually for little time for this kind of horse trading. Next week is the deadline as far as Wall St is concerned. Obama knows this, as does McConnell. The compromise reflects the serious and urgent nature of the issue.
YeloStalyn| 12.8.10 @ 10:17AM
... because they're politicians?
martin j smith| 12.8.10 @ 10:19AM
Redstateboy: If I were the fly on the wall, I could answer that one. But here is the thing: Starting the new year, there will be R House majority adn more Rs in the Senate. And, those Tea party Rs hopefully will open their mouths !!!!!!!!!!!!!! It will be a new ball game as it were. But I think Mitch McConnell needs to hear how people think none the less and be told to fight Obama on class warfare ( which means the whole Economic Package ). I think Rs need to take the risk of letting in the end the voters decide exact which of TWO choices they want: Commuism or Capitalism ?
NJK| 12.8.10 @ 11:10AM
The class warfare president
By Dr. Grace Vuoto
December 2, 2010
President Barack Obama, like other socialists, misunderstands the nature of America. In this nation, the poor, the working class and the middle class do not seek to tear down the wealthy: they want to join the wealthy.
It is the great fortune of the United States that the public, by and large, enjoys the pursuit of wealth and does not envy those who succeed. Instead, we celebrate their success as bearing witness to the possibility that every citizen who pursues riches, regardless of his origins, has the potential to become a part of the wealthy elite. This is the “American Dream” and the “American Way.” It is the cornerstone of American optimism—and what separates us from Europe, where class divisions and redistributionist statism are permanent features of public life.
Yet, Mr. Obama and the Democrats are importing a European-style dialogue into an analysis of our economic woes. Suddenly, we are not all Americans, who have in good measure equally contributed to the housing bubble, the national spending binge and the debt crisis. Instead, we are pitted against one another: Wall Street vs. Main Street, Big Oil vs. the American worker and the wealthy vs. the middle class.
This mindset is most starkly apparent in the current debate on the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire on December 31st, unless Congress extends them. The Republicans insist all the tax cuts be extended permanently, whereas Mr. Obama and his party maintain the extension should be granted only to those whose incomes are below $200,000 for an individual and below $250,000 for a couple—this category defined as “middle class.” The Democrats have floated possible compromises such as extending the cuts temporarily or lifting the cap to those who earn less than $1 million. In other words, Mr. Obama has determined that, as our far-sighted and gracious leader, he is endowed with the right to “level the playing field”—that is, make the wealthy pay for his spending programs that mostly benefit the lower classes.
The president is trying to present this as the “responsible” course of action in an era of massive deficits and vast national debt—that he helped to create, by the way, but we digress. However, he is taking a destructive position. As conservatives correctly insist, the upper echelons of a society have the capital to create jobs; small businesses are the primary engine of job creation and will be hampered by a tax increase if the Bush tax cuts are not extended to them also. This is a sound dollars-and-cents argument. But a more important point should be raised: The president must be told that in America—unlike in Kenya, France or Cuba—we do not vilify the rich, but embrace them. In America, the miserable politics of class warfare falls on deaf ears.
Our Star Trek President acts as though he is a benevolent leader, while speaking a language that undercuts the American way of life.
This attitude is not entirely of his making. The graduated income tax—that allows the government to force the middle and upper classes, especially the wealthy, to participate in the creation of a welfare state—is the culprit. While deemed “progressive” in its day and in ours, it is instead a reversal of the Founding vision: Americans are equal under the law. Equal does not mean finding ways to stick our greedy little fingers into our neighbor’s pie; his good fortune is not to be confiscated to serve the state, regardless of how badly the state bungles its finances.
Ironically, it was this very type of crisis—the British monarch’s desire to get the American colonists to pay their fair share of the imperial national debt—that was the catalyst for the American Revolution. The British imperial government had incurred massive war debts at the end of the French and Indian War (also called The Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763). British leaders began a drive to tax American colonists in order to pay these debts—obligations which, they argued, they had incurred for the benefit of American colonists who were not paying their just portion of the cost for their defense.
America’s national identity was thus forged in this tax battle. Suddenly, the colonists recognized that they had a common enemy and a common goal: they became Americans by rejecting the idea that a “benevolent” monarch and his parliament could arbitrarily tax them, even if the funds used were to benefit them, in this case, for colonial defenses.
As they created a republic and a confederation of states, the Founding Fathers were at first reluctant to create a central government that had the power to tax the Thirteen Colonies. This was, after all, the very kind of power that they had resisted. The linchpin of limited government was precisely that the government would not have the power to levy arbitrary—and unfair—taxes. And indeed, for about the first 86 years of the republic, there were few national taxes.
We have now traveled eons from the Founding vision. The liberals have held since 1913, when the income tax became permanent in America, that an unequal tax system—with higher rates for one class and lower for another—is essential to good governance. In reality, this is little more than the communist principle of empowering the central government to redistribute wealth.
When Mr. Obama singles out “the rich” in this tax debate, he is in essence saying that there are two Americas—and the government is the arbiter between the two. However, his role is not to mitigate or abolish class discrepancies—that is far too presumptuous a task. (Not even God has dared intervene in human society to redistribute wealth for since time immemorial there have been great disparities between the rich and poor).
The president needs to read his own brilliant 2008 campaign speech: “We are not red states or blue states;” he said, “we are the United States of America.” And what made us “united” in the beginning was a stark recognition that the government has no right to levy taxes based on its perception of what is “fair.”
In other words, the American government should be class-blind. What is good for one class is good for another. Otherwise, we will gradually degenerate into a state where there are masters and slaves: one class has rights and privileges that another does not. This is as problematic as arbitrary one-man rule; it is the “tyranny of the majority” that the Founding Fathers also feared could destroy the republic.
In essence, Americans overthrew that way of thinking in 1776. In the current tax debate Republicans ought to take a stand on principle as our Founding Fathers did so valiantly hundreds of years ago. The era of “classes” is long dead. There are only “Americans” who want the central government to show restraint in exercising its power, whether that restraint benefits the poor or the rich. In essence, we need a class-blind tax policy.
-Dr. Grace Vuoto is the Executive Director of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal.
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© 2006 The Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal, Washington, D.C.
JP| 12.8.10 @ 11:50AM
This deal was about delivering - it was politics pure and simple. Save the philosophical discussions and party purity for later. Besides, we are so far down the Progressive path that it is pointless to complain that this compromise is a "sell-out".
McConnell was given his marching orders to save or at least extend the tax cuts. The GOP worked from both a position of strength and weakness. The weakness was obvious; the GOP has only 41 votes (none to spare). Its strength came from the Mid-Terms. Obama knows perfectly well that if the tax cuts expire he will get the blame. A compromised was reached. The good compromises usually leave the purist in both party steaming, while the Middle is somewhat satisfied. McConnell ran down the gauntlest by promising to bottle up every piece of legislation until the tax cuts are extended. And they will remain an issue since the extension was not made permanent. Do not believe Obama's promises of bellicosity. He would like nothing more than to have this issue go away for every.
Yes, the GOP caved concerning unemployment extensions. This will hit small businesses hard, as they will continue to see thier premiums for this insurance sky-rocket. It will also add $70 billion to the defecit (the other $50 billion coming from higher premiums). But, McConnell was right in quickly accepting to the terms. Give Pelosi and Reid a inch and they will ruthlessly exploit it.
The ball is now in Obama and Pelosi's court. The Senate Dems will vote for it, and the House Dems in the end will as well. For once McConnell and the GOP Senate did the right thing.
Michael L. Hauschild| 12.8.10 @ 12:38PM
"For once McConnell and the GOP Senate did the right thing."
Three words for you JP, Upston, Rogers, and Bachus. Sorry buddy, Congress is going about business as usual.
JP| 12.8.10 @ 3:20PM
Guess what? Obama sits in the Oval Office; Reid runs the Senate. And come the 112th Congress, Obama will still sit in the Oval Office and Reid will still run the Senate.
I'm not sure exactly what people like you expect.
Michael L. Hauschild| 12.8.10 @ 3:40PM
We expect something other than RINO's and the masters of pork to lead committees. Obama, the WH, Reid, and the Senate had nothing to do with those appointees, Bohner and the leadership is paying no more attention to the base then they did before the last election.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 4:46PM
Welcome to reality instead of the Glenn Beck Show.
John II| 12.8.10 @ 7:00PM
Roberto, I was just passing by, and I noticed, above by a few dozen postings, your description of Professor Obama as a moderate liberal. You've said something along the same lines before.
I work in an environment in which the enthusiasts of the Professor are frankly statist in their socio-economic and even their cultural views: they make no bones about being socialists, and they do whatever they can to impose that point of view on their students. They represent sentiments shared by what careful pollsters estimate to be less than 20 percent of the American populace.
Now, I suppose the term "moderate" is relative, and I think the term "liberal" has lost all its meaning--but you do seem to be insisting that the Professor is not an ideologue, but rather something in the order of being "pragmatic" in his socio-political sentiments--pragmatic, of course, not in the philosophical sense (the Professor clearly has no interest in serious philosophy, a trait that he at least shares with Marxians) but in the work-a-day sense of ordinary discourse.
It won't take too long to do so, if you'd be interested, but I was wondering if you could sample the following two responses to Stanley Kurtz's "Radical-in-Chief." All I'm asking is which of the two strikes you as more informed and measured in its articulation.
You may also want to guess which of the two was sent to me by a campus enthusiast of the Professor. The two links:
http://carloz.newsvine.com/_ne.....-socialism
http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrad.....ley-kurtz/
And now back to "Rocketship X-M" (1950), starring the liberal Lloyd Bridges roughly twenty years before liberals started deriding the space program as a waste of money that could better be used to fund entitlements and extend the dole in service to economic dependency.
RCV| 12.9.10 @ 1:23AM
John - always a pleasure to read your postings. Of course, of the two postings you cite, Ron Radosh's is clearly the more articulate. He's a fine writer, and his analysis of the Rosenberg case was thorough and thoroughly convincing.
But the relative merits of the two writings is beside the point. Obama consistently has taken a more pragmatic, non-ideological approach to most of the majorvissues of concern to the left. Of the major Democratic candidates in 2008, he was clearly the most centrist on health care reform, and his final product reflects that: rejection of a single payer system, indeed abandonment of even a modest public insurance alternative. His solution relies largely on private for profit insurance. His approach to DADT is equally pragmatic: he has insisted on a slow, methodical transition, legislative endorsement and military driven change. The same is true on immigration, and certainly true on military matters, where the left of his party has strongly opposed his escalation of military involvement in Afghanistan, and his careful continuation of the Bush Iraq draw-down. To sum it up, he is infuriatingly moderate for much of the Democrats, who mistakenly saw in him what they wanted to see in the campaign. Those of us who worked for his election from the beginning, and knew his positions in detail, knew him to be the moderate liberal he is, and expected exactly the pragmatic approaches he has taken. Whether the more liberal lame duck Congressional Democrats will even buy the bitter pill of his concession on the lower tax bracket rates remains to be seen.
As for Radosh's views on the issue, he is as a recovering Marxist, more apt to see the disease in others than is warranted.
As for the space program, you won't find a more ardent enthusiast than this liberal. There are few better ways to spend my tax dollars. If only all that money wasted in Iraq could have been channelled into space exploration -- we wouldn't be dependent on Russian transport into space, a true embarrassment.
Be well.
John II| 12.9.10 @ 2:11AM
You be well too, Roberto. Myself, I'll just have to continue to be flummoxed by your rather sanguine preferential option for creeping and creepy statism, albeit contented with your view of the space program.
I recall losing interest in Martin Luther King about 1966, when he denounced the program as a crimp on the welfare state. At the time, I was a child in his twenties, and my instincts about the issue were more intuitive and abstract. Today they are more personal. I am alive today because of huge advances in cardiology that have been a byproduct of the space program. One must learn lots about how the human body works in order to keep it alive in space, I reckon. The whole enterprise is a kind of ongoing Manhattan Project, an explosion of scientific advances needed to make one colossal project work. Rather good for the human spirit too.
Chic lefty snobbery about the program is, I believe, emblematic of the many intolerable features of the Obamanation. I am happy you don't share that snobbery. So go ahead and read Kurtz's "Radical-in-Chief" and tell me what you think.
And now back to a quick episode of "Hogan's Heroes" before preparing next quarter's classes.
Wayne | 12.8.10 @ 1:06PM
I was thinking about the morality of the "Tax the Rich" philosophy of the Left. What new improved service do they intend to provide the "rich", 125K in Obama terms? Is extortion moral? I don't see it?
So at least the GOP did not compromise on this principal. What we need is a broadening of the tax codes, so that more people have a stake in the game. A friend told me he had so many tax credits last year he paid no income tax. Isn't it immoral for him to ask the "rich" to pay more taxes? Yes, this is definitely a morality issue.
Redstateboy| 12.8.10 @ 3:16PM
I listen to the Liber-ul pap and I am stunned... Stunned - that people can be so stupid! Take their talking-points.. "tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires." This appeals to an intelligent person?? Of course it doesn't!!!! It appeals to your basic Democrat voting stooge!!! which reveals the problem we face. Democrats can employ 2nd grade level talking points.. and ... it hits the Mark with their base!!!
Loshooligan| 12.8.10 @ 5:01PM
Redstate....just read further back up the page to anything that Ted R writes if you really want to be stunned!! Ted has a tinfoil hat that he uses to copy and paste 100 line essays, from his favorite book marked web sites, that he uses to try and impress us dumb citizens about his confused version of communism. Comrade Ted thinks that we don't know what he's up to, but we all now that he is just a contrarianist that writes here to look cool in front of his leftist friends.
ET | 12.8.10 @ 3:46PM
You ought to have seen the letters to the editor section of the New York Times yesterday (my parents still have it delivered daily, poor things) - every single letter was a mishmash of Marxist-Utopia rhetoric, angrily denouncing the "Rich" as the ones who "bankrupted our country", while tax cuts as a concept were described as "Causing recessions", and a boatload of other fantasies.
People can really convince themselves of some outlandish things, and they are paraded as the intelligentsia in the Times.
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