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A Further Perspective
The Immorality of Obamanomics
Lying, stealing, and corruption are its fundaments.
The President’s economic policies are usually criticized for their practical ineffectiveness. Thinking people know that the result of the President’s 1970s retro economic policies has been the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression, with persistent high unemployment, declining real wages and incomes, soaring poverty, doubling gas prices, and budding inflation sure to get much worse.
Unthinking people still call national conservative talk radio shows to say the President’s economic policies can’t be faulted because the economy was doing poorly when he entered office, and so his policies enjoy unlimited time to produce any positive results. They make national fools of themselves in so demonstrating that they know nothing about the historical prosperity of their own country, and why.
But there is a much more fundamental problem. Besides not working, the policies of Obamanomics are just plain immoral.
The 99 Percent vs. The 1 Percent
Since
when has it been considered just for the bottom 99 percent to say
to the top 1 percent, “We can outvote you to take your money”? That
is a politics of piracy and theft, with no roots in American
history.
Sure the richest can be validly asked to bear proportionally more of the overall tax burden because they can do so with the least harm. But before President Obama was even elected, official IRS data shows that in 2007 the top 1 percent of income earners paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes, almost twice their share of adjusted gross income. The top 5 percent paid 60.6 percent of all federal income taxes, while earning 37.7 percent of adjusted gross income. The top 10 percent paid 71.2 percent of all income taxes, while earning 48 percent of adjusted gross income.
By contrast, the bottom 95 percent of income earners paid 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1 percent of income earners paid more federal income taxes than the bottom 95 percent combined!
Moreover, in 2007, again before President Obama was even elected, the bottom 40 percent of income earners as a group paid no federal income taxes. Instead, they received net payments from the income tax system equal to 3.8 percent of all federal income taxes. In other words, they paid negative 3.8 percent of federal income taxes. The middle 20 percent of income earners, the actual middle class, paid 4.7 percent of all federal income taxes.
What this adds up to is that even before President Obama was elected America already maintained the most progressive income tax system in the western world, maybe the entire world. Moreover, that was the result of almost 30 years of Reagan Republican supply-side economics that began with Reagan and Jack Kemp in the 1970s and 1980s, continued through Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America, and further played out with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. When President Reagan brought his supply-side economics to Washington in 1981, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent was 17.6 percent. After a quarter century of rate cuts, that share had more than doubled by 2007 to 40.4 percent, as noted above. That is because with the lower tax rates, incomes boomed along with the economy, and high income taxpayers had the incentives to pull their money out of tax shelters and invest it in the real economy, fueling the boom while increasing their reported income. But so-called Progressives (we should start calling them throwbacks instead) can’t understand these dynamics of modern capitalism.
Yet, we have a President who continually barnstorms the country calling for still more tax increases on the “rich,” articulating precisely the policies of the Marxist Occupy Wall Street movement, which reflects precisely his own roots. He says that is necessary for “the rich” to pay their “fair share,” when the facts as cited above indisputably show that “the rich” already pay far more than their fair share, and did so even before President Obama was elected. America has featured politicians that lie to the public from its founding. But never have we had a President that bases his whole pitch to the American people on a Big Lie that is so unhinged from reality it is just the opposite of the truth.
Given the factual reality as described above, raising taxes even more on the 1 percent would be immoral theft, not fairness. For rabble rousers and street agitators to threaten to lead the 99 percent to so loot the 1 percent is immoral demagoguery that demeans our democracy. It is the politics of Venezuela and Argentina, not America. For President Obama to continually barnstorm the country presenting a picture of America that is the exact opposite of the truth as discussed above is immoral dishonesty.
But immorality can’t get past karma. Given the wildly disproportionate present reality, trying to raise taxes even more on the top 1 percent will counterproductively lead to less revenue rather than more, particularly by increasing tax rates on investment income such as capital gains and dividends. Indeed, such further tax rate increases will likely lead to renewed recession, which will collapse revenues across the board.
But the rich can take care of themselves. America is already suffering a capital strike and capital flight, with trillions sitting on the sidelines and fleeing overseas. Further tax rate increases will turn that into a stampede, particularly in a second Obama term.
Such tax rate increases will rather only hurt working people and the poor the most, who can’t sit out the Obama depression or flee overseas (except for illegal immigrants, who have been heading back to their homelands in droves under Obama). They are fundamentally dependent on the jobs and increased wages produced by investment, and renewed recession will mean fewer jobs and declining wages.
The resulting record numbers in poverty, record long-term unemployment, and downward spiraling real wages can themselves be considered further immoralities of Obamanomics.
Is Your Vote for Sale?
Obama campaigns as
if he is certain that your vote is for sale, and all he has to do
is come up with some taxpayer-financed freebies for you. First it
was free contraceptives for everyone, as if your vote could be
bought by a condom. Then it was cut rate student loans, which was
always a fraudulent issue. It was the Democrats that provided for
the interest rates to double on new student loans issued
after July of this year, years ago when they had majority control
of Congress. House Republicans already voted through a bill to
continue the lower rates, financed by cutting government spending
elsewhere. But Obama and Senate Democrats have refused to consider
any House passed bill financed by reduced government spending,
defining the difference between the two parties today. The
Democrats demand record taxes or record borrowing to finance record
spending, which is what we have got today.
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (100) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Peter Ferrara
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Pecos Pete| 5.2.12 @ 6:24AM
As always, follow the money. The national debt is approx $16 trillion dollars. Someday we gonna have to pay it back. In the meantime, with that much money floating around, it is pretty easy for a wee bit to make its way into the pockets of the politically connected.
TLP| 5.2.12 @ 10:11AM
We spend too much time on Minutiae. Too much time on Numbers, and Averages, instead of the things that people understand. Things like Character, and Love of Country. Things like Liberty, and the Forces that would take it from us.
We have a man in the White House who was RAISED in the Muslim Schools and Mosques, of Indonesia, until the age of 11. A man who has been Immersed in the ways Marx, Engles, Farrakhan and Wright. He shares the beliefs of The Weather Underground and The Black Panthers. He is a TRUE BELIEVER in the the ways of Cloward and Piven, and of Saul Alinsky.
Every one of his Czars is either a Communist, a Marxist, a Maoist, an Anarchist, or a Phabian Socialist. None of them, ever stood a chance of getting past a Senate Confirmation Committee.
None of them.
This "Third World Man" has brought us to the precipice of joining all his Aunts and Uncles, and Half Brothers, in Third World Status.
He's never had a REAL JOB. He's never been a College Professor, teaching the U.S. Constitution. That has all been part of The Myth, and has nothing to do with the Man. It's part of his never ending Strategy of: THE BIG LIE. Starring: Jim Carney. John Brennan. David Axelrod. Timothy Geithner. Solis, at Labour. Salazar,mat the Interior. The Nobel Prize winning Chinese guy, at Energy, some guy named Plueffe, and everybody at CNN, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, ABC, CBS, BBC, Al Arabia, Media Matters, the WAPO, the New York Times, AP, McClatchy, the Urinal and Constipation,the L.A. Times, and Hollywood.
He's the Man who wasn't there.
The man who doesn't exist.
Is he Barack Hussein Obama? Or, is he Barry Soetoro? We know that he was ADOPTED by his Indonesian Muslim Step Father? But, do we know if this changed whatever Citizenship Status that he had, prior to this Adoption?
I know that I'm veering off course, here, but then, why wouldn't I? He, himself, is all over the map. LITERALLY. He never even set foot on the U.S. Mainland, until he was 18 years old.
This guy in the White House, is what everyone means when they use the term: Custerfck. That's what he is. His whole life has consisted of one Clusterfck, after another. His Parents, his Grandparents, his Mentors, his Pastors, his Friends, his Associates, his Wife.
People who've lived this kind of life (Did I mention that his Dad, abandoned him and his Mother, at an early age, so he could return to Kenya and begin a new Career as a Whore Chasing, Alchoholic? Did I mention that he Died, DRUNK, in a Kenyan Gutter?) usually find one of two ways to go forward with their lives. They put a Gun in their Mouth. Or, like this one.....THEY GET EVEN.
Add to that, the fact that his entire life has been lived inside an Anti-White, Anti-Jew, Anti-Capitalist, Anti-America, BUBBLE, and you realize that all of the Numbers that everybody wants to talk about, were ALWAYS gonna be the ones we have now.
It's Payback Time for young Soetoro.
The Drilling Moratoriums. The Keystone Lie. The Coal Mine Shutdowns. The Thousands of pages of New Regulations. His EPA "SS". His NLRB Gestapo. His Mafia Mob Consigliere at Justice. His Propagandists in Carney and Axelrod, and his Useful Idiots in the Main Stream Media.
Once again, Americanis privy to a Black Man with a Dream.
One had a Dream of Equal Opportunity for all, where his children, and the Children of White folk, would be judged, not by the Colour of their skin, but by the Content of their Character.
The one we have now, also has a Dream.
Unfortunately, it's the Dream of a Marxist Muslim, who ran out on his Family, contracted AIDS from African Prostitutes, and Died, Drunk, in a gutter on the Dark Continent.
So.
How bout them Yankees?
Pelleas| 5.2.12 @ 11:39AM
as USUAL, The Lying Pig (above) uses such breath-taking hate-speech, - that there has to be SOME sort of dubious award for it ( I think his "award" will be, however, eternal roasting in the pits of Hell)
Today's award for unbelievable verbiage that hasn't seen the light of day--thank gawd- among EDUCATED folk is--referring to Africa as "the dark continent"
oy, gevalt!
Dmac | 5.2.12 @ 11:55AM
Pelleas,
While TLP may write things in a very blunt way, just what above is a lie and why isn't it a lie? Another question I would have for is this, the next time any liberal, Obama, Biden, Gore, Pelosi , Reed, or any race baitor Jackson Lee, Sharpton or Jackson do one of their blame somebody else numbers, will you call them out as liars as well?
O.F. A.N. A.S.S.| 5.2.12 @ 12:41PM
Even sheep know ewe never have anything worthwhile to say.
Even sheep know only one sodomizer consistently spells these words this way:
"it definatly has...in comparason to..." 5.1.12 @ 4:29PM
Even sheep know this sodomizer is notorious for:
"I'm a 1%er, in Mensa" 1.16.12 @ 2:00PM
Even sheep know this sodomizer of sheep overtly who knows how many species covertly is bright and lively and cheerful and merry no matter how the sodomizer always posts nothing of any meaningful substance.
Ever.
Ovines For
A Nation
Absent Species Sodomization
Jobe| 5.2.12 @ 2:12PM
Son, there was quite a bit of truth in that piece that you condemn, and quite a bit of foolishness in yours. I think from what I have seen thus far, president obama is all of what he said he was, and more. He is something that one ordinarily scrapes off the bottom of one's shoe.
Alan Brooks| 5.2.12 @ 10:03PM
TLP thinks whites have wings on their backs, Pelleas.
Ground Control| 5.2.12 @ 10:48AM
That's a lot of other people's money that politicians used to buy their government job with government high falutin' lifestyle and public adulation. If you want to see unbridled greed, look at the Democrat Party.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.2.12 @ 7:35AM
Thieves with no conscience whatsoever.
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 7:35AM
" Study: Ron Paul would be the only candidate to shrink the federal debt
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog organization that focuses on issues having a significant fiscal policy impact, found that the Texas congressman was the only candidate whose plan would eliminate the nation’s record deficits and shrink the national debt."
DR.RON PAUL “PLAN TO RESTORE AMERICA”
SPENDING:
Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the.....e-america/
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 8:38AM
Yawn...............ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 11:44AM
Bibi Called, But You Were Asleep.
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 12:11PM
Take a message and post here next time. Yawn.
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:05PM
Make Me, Israel Firster Cupcake, Little Dick.
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:36PM
Arafat called....from HELL!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:37PM
PS: Arafat said for you to return his tableclothed turbin!!!!
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:11PM
PS. Bibi Said For You To Return His Underwear And To Stop Sniffin' It.
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 11:51AM
Bibi's underware is atop [both] Arafat's head and YOURS.....go sniff it yourself, AH!!!!!
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 3:51PM
Called for me or Clint?? Clint is the Paulistinian so I presume you mean him.
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 11:53AM
Clint, of course, whose phone number is on his speed dial!!!!!!!
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:09PM
Rumor Has It That Arafat Called Fart Man To Tell Him Bibi's Old Man Was Down There With Him, Now.
Al Adab| 5.2.12 @ 7:34PM
You know Clint, it does youir cause no good to assume that everyone who is not a Ron Paul advocate is Pro-Israel. Do you really think that applies to me?
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 8:14PM
Not Particularly.
So Criticize Them And Let's See What Happens.
However, I Fairly Well Know The Israel Firster Smear Bund, Who Attempt To Smear Anyone Who Dares Not To Ass Kiss Their Israel Firster Smear Bund Agenda.
A. Fox| 5.3.12 @ 6:34AM
After reading this crap from you young fools, at least most of you not all, you people are ill educated and stupid!
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 11:56AM
Clint, go kiss ya boss:
http://youtu.be/U6DVOqdayU8
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 11:54AM
No what he said was that Clint's sister was LEWINSKIFYING him and wiping her mouth with his tableclothed turbin!!!!!!!
Donald Young's Revenge| 5.2.12 @ 9:50AM
Ron Paul is suppose to be the "only" candidate who vows to defend the Constitution at all costs yet he refuses to challenge Barack Hussein Obama as to his "natural born Citizen" status. This is the Constitutional issue of the century since Obama in no way would qualify as a "natural born Citizen." He would have never survived the same vetting John McCain was forced into by the Democrat/Liberal BIRTHER when they demanded he prove he was a "natural born Citizen." That is all Ron Paul had to do, is demand that Barack Hussein Obama be subjected to the very same vetting and not only does he refuse to do so he makes irrational statements about Obama being born in Hawaii as if that settles the issue. Ron Paul has been in Congress for years, he has the perfect platform from which he could demand an investigation into Obama.
Now we have America's most well known Sheriff investigating Obama for the past 7 months about the criminal activity that went into Obama's rise to the top. The Sheriff has taken the investigation form "probable cause" to a "criminal" investigation and not a peep from Mr. Constitutionalist or any of the Republican candidates. Shameless and cowardly. Are you going to pressure Ron Paul to do the right thing on his way out?
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 11:52AM
Tell It To The Israel Firsters' RINO-CINO Frontman, Mittens Romney.
" Romney to Trump: Obama Doesn't Need a Birth Certificate
According to Romney family lawyers it doesn’t matter if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or even Paris: Because his mother was an American (and not even Donald Trump questions that), he is eligible to be President.
The Romney lawyers investigated this question in the 1960s, when Mitt Romney’s father, Governor George Romney of Michigan, was vying for the Republican presidential nomination. George Romney had been born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, as his grandfather moved there with his wives in the 1880s after polygamy was outlawed in the U.S."
Dmac | 5.2.12 @ 12:00PM
Wrong Clint,
Obama's mother was under age at the time of Baracks's birth. Therefore his father's nationality supercedes his mothers. That makes him a British subject as Kenya was under British rule at the time of his birth. Also, to many being a natural born citizen means both your parentsd had to have been born in the United States. His father was not born here.
It is a very legitimate question that has been dodged by both parties and most courts, and because it has been dodged it shows all of us just how corrupt these two parties are. They don't care what laws are broken as long as they retain their power over "we the people".
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 12:10PM
Clint has no idea what he is writing about. He relies on what Rube Paul says.
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:15PM
I Know That You Israel Firster BibiBots Rely On Your Mancrush Bibi, Little Dick.
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:13PM
Don't Tell Me ,I Ain't One Of Mittens' Kittens Nor Obama's Dog Eaters.
Like I Said.
Tell It To The Israel Firsters' RINO-CINO Frontman, Mittens Romney.
" Romney to Trump: Obama Doesn't Need a Birth Certificate
According to Romney family lawyers it doesn’t matter if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or even Paris: Because his mother was an American (and not even Donald Trump questions that), he is eligible to be President.
The Romney lawyers investigated this question in the 1960s, when Mitt Romney’s father, Governor George Romney of Michigan, was vying for the Republican presidential nomination. George Romney had been born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, as his grandfather moved there with his wives in the 1880s after polygamy was outlawed in the U.S."
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:35PM
Tell it to RJ@Media Matters!!!!!!!!!!
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 4:16PM
Don't Tell Me, Fart Pants I Ain't One Of You Mittens' Kittens Nor Obama's Dog Eaters.
Like I Said.
Tell It To The Israel Firsters' RINO-CINO Frontman, Mittens Romney.
" Romney to Trump: Obama Doesn't Need a Birth Certificate
According to Romney family lawyers it doesn’t matter if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or even Paris: Because his mother was an American (and not even Donald Trump questions that), he is eligible to be President.
The Romney lawyers investigated this question in the 1960s, when Mitt Romney’s father, Governor George Romney of Michigan, was vying for the Republican presidential nomination. George Romney had been born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, as his grandfather moved there with his wives in the 1880s after polygamy was outlawed in the U.S."
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 11:57AM
Clint to El Chosen One.....YOUSE BEEZ THE BOSS:
http://youtu.be/U6DVOqdayU8
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:41PM
Probably true, but he can't do it from LJ!!!!!!!
SC Mike| 5.2.12 @ 7:39AM
These folks and their followers know only one way to get ahead: extortion. That’s the only arrow in their quiver and it’s worked quite well for them.
Brian Mc| 5.2.12 @ 7:42AM
If every voter were to read this, the alien would be toast come election day no matter who the contester might be. Better yet, it should be audio recorded since those who need to 'hear' it can't read past the first paragraph. I'm ashamed to say that like other great truths this one will die on the vine, much to our detriment.
Tom Osterman| 5.2.12 @ 8:50AM
If a certain GOP candidate for President were to make Mr. Ferrara's arguments in his campaign, we wouldn't have to wish for more readers. It's disheartening that the alternative to the incumbent President got his position mostly on the strength of his war chest.
Richard Ryan| 5.2.12 @ 9:07AM
Copy/paste the web address and email to your address list.
The thing about this 16 trillion debt is, we will not be able to shrink it, let alone pay it off. Paul Ryan's plan only delays our demise, yet democrats are screaming and crying about it. Soon interest rates will rise, our debt will be 20 Trillion and we will have to use most of the federal revenue to pay interest. It's game over at that point.
CNBC has economists on TV every day cheerfully reporting that everything is hunky dory. I have no economic education and training, but the situation seems clear to me. WTF is happening here?
aware| 5.2.12 @ 4:59PM
"WTF is happening here?"
The systematic, ongoing destruction of the middle class and the subservience of national independence under a global economic/political order of corruption based on control of not just economies, but all of society, through the mechanisms of the State.
What is happening only seems insane if you still think "government" has your best interest, or the best interest of society, as its main reason for existence.
The Myth of "Good"" Government. If government were good you wouldn't notice.
Louis Jenkins| 5.2.12 @ 8:20AM
Hitler said if you tell a lie, the more absurb it is, and tell it often enough, people will believe it. Don't really know who first said it, but with Obama the lie(s) is coming to pass. How many lies has the man told us? How many are now part of the thousands of regulations, codes, and requirements of law? It's time to stop. This nation will break if Obama is relected. And that suits the man to a tee. Let it break.
Brian Mc| 5.2.12 @ 5:30PM
I could stand to be corrected but, I believe it was Goebbels who said something akin to what you refer to having come from Hitler.
A. Fox| 5.3.12 @ 6:40AM
Correct Brian Mc it was Goebbels!
Mike 3/505| 5.2.12 @ 8:21AM
"Sure the richest can be validly asked to bear proportionally more of the overall tax burden because they can do so with the least harm. "
Mr Ferrera, the above statement makes your thought process just as, if not more evil than the Liberals. Government is a product/service. As such, everyone should pay the same for it. By using the above thought process, you are making the same excuse the Liberals do when thet say "Soak the rich, they can afford it." You should know better.
Regards,
Mike
Von Mises Jr| 5.2.12 @ 8:39AM
"Crony capitalism" is doublespeak for fascism. This "Third Way" was invented by Communist that had been discovered as totalitarians and needed a new brand. The Crony "Capitalism" made it appear that their fascist control was a defect in free market capitalism. It served as a foil.
"Animal Farm" was written by George Orwell in 1945. This is when Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan were finally defeated. Orwell was speaking to fascism and communism in his classic, and he explained that THERE WAS NO WINDMILL! It was all a scam to trick the other animals into working for the state's benefit (the pigs!)
http://www.americanthinker.com....._care.html
Obama and his regime's "Green Energy" is also a scam. While we have some extremely expensive solar panels and electric cars, for the most part they do not work. It was a scam in Orwell's day and it is Obama's scam today.
Al Adab| 5.2.12 @ 11:21AM
Jr:
But he means well and his intentions are to help the people. Never forget that even if it costs the people Liberty it's the right thing to do. The ends clearly justify the means do they not?
facetious font
Von Mises Jr| 5.2.12 @ 11:41AM
If you do not accept that the ends justify the means, you will be shot at dawn.
KennesawJack| 5.2.12 @ 3:28PM
But we'll be doing it for you own good. We're sensitive that way.
Al Adab| 5.2.12 @ 3:51PM
Jr, Jack:
Those comments are worth a toast. 16 year old imported Scottish barley water here I come.
Von Mises Jr| 5.2.12 @ 5:03PM
"The Road to hell is paved with good intentions" and "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." (Nietzsche)
A. Fox| 5.3.12 @ 6:43AM
Very good Von I take it back their are SOME smart people here...not the norm though.
O.F. A.N. A.S.S.| 5.3.12 @ 8:48AM
Even sheep are smart enough to know it is:
"Very good Von I take it back they're SOME smart people here...not the norm though.
We are only sheep so we will have to get back to you on how many grammatical syntax errors they're in this one single solitary sentence though.
Ohvynes Fore
Ah Nayshun
Abscent Speesheys Saddamizashun
Mimi| 5.2.12 @ 9:54AM
Peter you've done it again and with facts a figures.
I say save it for the new hopfully BULLDOG attorney general.
If the Dem vote is diminished in Nov. We should take all the crooks to the cleaners....America needs to be paid back for all this outright theft!!!
Our people suffer....and they get away with this???
SUBVET| 5.2.12 @ 9:58AM
Adolph Hitler....."What luck for rulers that men do not think".
America need not fear so much the enemy at the gates, but high vigilance must be paid to the enemys from with in.
TLP| 5.2.12 @ 2:28PM
You nailed it.
Why am I not surprised?
Mark MacInnis| 5.2.12 @ 10:48AM
"Since when has it been considered just for the bottom 99 percent to say to the top 1 percent, "We can outvote you to take your money"? That is a politics of piracy and theft, with no roots in American history."
What floors me is that anyone with any kind of education accept the "bottom 99% vs. 1%" canard. The play is a kind of final desperation, especially when you realize, it can only happen once..... you remove the wealth from the 1%..spend it...and then what? The wealthy go away. No more sources of revenue.....
What happens to a plague of locusts when the crops are all eaten up?
play nice| 5.2.12 @ 11:52AM
"What happens to a plague of locusts when the crops are all eaten up?"
let's ask Locust Un
Jobe| 5.2.12 @ 2:37PM
I have read that if the entire fortunes and assets of the top 1% were confiscated, the money would not run the government for a year. I'm not sure that this is true, but if it is in error, I do believe that the money would not last very long.
Lenin accomplished a great deal in Russia by using class hatred, and the Alinsky play book certainly mirrors the Lenin play book. Whatever one believes, there is virtually no indication that obama loves this country, and there is no indication in his personal history that even remotely speaks to his fitness to be president. In fact, the most potent indication, his educational transcripts, are better guarded than Fort Knox.
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 3:48PM
All that confiscation would operate the gummint for less than 1 week.
Jack London| 5.2.12 @ 11:17AM
Only the most breathtaking hypocrite could talk about the moral imperative to be a kleptocracy, which is pretty much where we are now in terms of wealth distribution. Take a bow, Mr Ferrara.
davelnaf| 5.2.12 @ 11:24AM
Indeed, Obama is to truth what any demagoguing Marxist flack is to democracy. November will undo what the dunderheads foisted upon us and O will go down to defeat, maybe in a landslide. But in their remaining months in office he and the other lame duck dems will likely enact their revenge on the country. It will be a spectacle painful to some who believed in the fantasy that, despite evidence to the contrary, O was really deep down one of us. He is not. He is what his Marxist mother, grandparents, and mentors inculcated in him: a hater of this country. His smiley, military-friendly act is fooling no one.
Purp| 5.2.12 @ 11:46AM
"the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression" - Gee, ya think this could be that it is the WORST Recession since the Great Depression? Huh, ya think. Ingrate.
Instead of being glad he pulled the economy out of free fall and averted a Great Depression II, you whine and moan simply to make a point. Americans know better. He saved the economy, he saved the auto industry, and he's made America safer. What else is a President for?
As for Reaganomics - what you have missed is that the rich/wealthy have invested their money and done very well I might add - but the jobs went to China and India, Mexico and Brazil - NOT invested in American jobs. The stock market is a good indicator of this. The middle class American has been shafted by these moves, and if you haven't been affected by it yet, you will be. The trend for offshoring employment is continuing.
In fact, Paul Ryan's budget includes a "Territorial Tax" that encourages companies to make money overseas and avoid taxation by the IRS at all. That's a nice incentive to help American jobs - NOT.
Get with the program and support American Workers, American Jobs, and America. You say you love America - prove it.
From the Desk of Media Matters| 5.2.12 @ 12:15PM
"I will continue to NOT answer" - Pansy Penelope Prissy Pink Pantywaste Pelosi
"I can get an abortion, or an anal probe" - Pansy Penelope Prissy Pink Pantywaste Pelosi
Jacquelina Moscow Barney's Suppository And Denture Warmer,
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know Jimmuh Hussein Carter left us 21.5% interest and 14.8% inflation you idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know that Barruh Hussein Carter II is leaving us $6 trillion for worse conditions than when he began.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know how to do the math in their public school educated heads that $6 trillion divided by 300 million citizens is $20 thousand dollars for each citizen for the privilege of this recovery you idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know taxpayers comprise maybe 140 million citizens and can do the rough math the privilege is roughly $45,000 for this recovery per taxpayer you idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know the anointed one is toast and are just going through the motions collecting as much of other people's money as possible for as long as possible you idiot.
Stop embarrassing and discrediting anal probe recipients you idiot.
- MM staff
Paul McGrath| 5.2.12 @ 12:15PM
First of all, Purp, you don't know whether there would have been another Great Depression, and if government internvention prevented another Great Depression, credit would have to go to the bank bailout of 2008, which, as you undoubtedly know, occurred before Obama became president.
You say he saved the economy? With growth at a pathetic 2.2%--and this is before they revise it downward--unemployment currently at 8.2%, and real inflation obvious to anyone who buys food or gas, the economy is frankly in the tank.
Yes, I agree that the economy was sinking when he took office and I agree that unemployment numbers would have increased anyway. But he has now been in office for almost a full term, and nothing has really changed. By Reagan's fourth year in office there was significant growth, and econ0mic numbers had improved across the board.
What is even more disgusting, is that, allegedly to improve the economy, Obama is spending us into catastrophe. We are now 16 trillion dollars in debt, five trillion dollars higher then when he took office. The annual deficit is 1.5 trillion dollars. Under Bush's worst year, the annual deficit was about 480 billion.
Saving GM? GM is OWNED by the government. To this day. The country--and GM--would have been far better off to let it reorganize under bankruptcy. And if you think GM is out of the woods, you're not paying attention. The same problems exist in that organization that caused it to go belly-up in the first place.
Purp| 5.2.12 @ 12:35PM
While it is true that you can't know what's behind the door you don't choose, it was pretty clear that without the continued TARP program from GW Bush - which he deserves credit for (some conditions for getting the bailout would have been nice though).
GW Bush's last budget was 1.3 Trillion, and was handed over to Obama (the right continues to forget that).
And, unemployment dropped from a high of 10.1% to 8.2% during Obama's term. Surely that is progress.
He was saddled with 2 wars that Bush couldn't finish, with one now ended during Obama's term.
Debt, while concerning, is not a big deal once we get on our feet and a reasonable tax rate is in place and adjustments to spending as well.
When Unemployment insurance, food stamps and all the other aids to unemployed or under-employed end, the revenues for State and Federal treasuries will grow and we can adjust the deficit and debt then.
GM is now the #1 car company in the world again, and as much as the right wants to attack an American company, it has been saved - as has Chrysler and all the suppliers to them and Ford as well.
Bankruptcy was not an option in 2008, because NO private capital was available to restructure with - that is another fact the right tends to ignore. - including Richie Romney. Without government intervention, there would only have been liquidation and disaster with another 1-3 million out of work. Perfect situation, no, but save the companies, he did.
The economy is NOT in the tank - it is fragile, but some of that has been directly caused by the obstructionist policies of the Republicant House and the Senate Minority filibuster blockage.
The solution of the Republicants is to go back to the conditions that created the bubbles, housing and financial, that burst and caused the crisis in the first place. The rich would be happy, but the 99% would be screwed - again. No way we go back to those failed policies.
From the Desk of Media Matters| 5.2.12 @ 12:59PM
"I will continue to NOT answer" - Prissy Pantywaste Pelosi
"I can get an abortion, or an anal probe" - Pink Putz Pansy Pelosi
Barney's Suppository And Denture Insertion Extraction Assistance Dependency Provider,
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know GW Bush's last budget included Barruh Hussein Carter II's stimulus you stupid lying anal probe seeking idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know you continue to NOT answer to this you stupid lying anal probe seeking idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know you continue to NOT answer to this in 5.12 same as 4.12 same as 3.12 same as 2.12 same as 1.12 same as 12.11 same as 11.11 same as 10.11 same as 9.11 same as 8.11 same as 7.11 same as 6.11 same as 5.11 same as 4.11 same as 3.11 same as 2.11 same as 1.11 same as 12.10 same as 11.10 same as 10.10 same as 9.10 same as 8.10 same as 7.10 same as 6.10 same as 5.10 same as 4.10 same as 3.10 same as 2.10 you stupid lying anal probe seeking idiot.
Even our other bottom rung MM mindless retarded parrots know this is irrelevant when the smartest president, ever, who obviously knew as smartest president, ever, what he was getting into, promised to halve the deficit in his first term, anyway, you stupid lying anal probe seeking idiot.
Stop embarrassing and discrediting the smartest president, ever, you stupid lying anal probe seeking idiot.
- MM staff
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:32PM
Cum on, fess up....your real name is Lewinski, right....gulp, glup, slurp, slurp? Now get up off your knees and go away permanently to the NYT etc blog sites [oh and get your DOLLAR-BILL-PROSTITUTE paycheck from Media Matters @1600 also]!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:34PM
Gulp, gulp, slurp, slurp!!!!
Dick Nome | 5.2.12 @ 3:46PM
Twurp, you need some lessons in basic Economics (not Marxist dogma either). A good place to start would be Dr. Thomas Sowell's books or Dr. Walter Williams, but I know you won't as you would rather remain stupid.
Jobe| 5.3.12 @ 11:05AM
I am agog at your post, Purp. I don' t know what reality you live in, but it surely is not the one that the rest of us inhabit. Of course the economy is in the tank, and that is where it will stay until some person who realizes who it is that ACTUALLY creates jobs (not the government bureaucratic ones that obama has created) becomes president. And as for your unemployment extensions, food stamp increase, and all of the other "compassionate" moves by obama and the democrats, these are tantamount to shooting someone, then calling 911.
I just LOVE your "... debt . . . is not a big deal. . . ". Try dying and leaving your children nothing but MAMMOTH debts and see how gratefully they will remember you.
And by all means, lets give a government that cannot do anything right, the auto industry. GM and Chrysler bail outs were nothing more than payoffs to the unions. Both would have emerged from bankruptcy leaner and more competitive than when they went in. The contracts and pension debts that took them to the edge of bankruptcy are at work again. Who will bail them out in 5 years when they have the same problems that they had 5 years ago.
I'll tell you this: You DESERVE obama and the democratic congress (the same one that obama had for the first 2 years of his term). The problem is that the rest of us who recognize what douche bag he is are going to have to suffer him with you.
Jobe| 5.2.12 @ 2:48PM
My God man! Are you daft, or hypnotized? Listen for a moment, Purp. " Pulled the economy out of freefall"? Surely this is a joke post. This jackass obama has BURRIED the economy deader than yesterday's lottery ticket. His "stimulus" was a naked attempt to pay off the votes he got, as was his "saving" of Chrysler and GM. His second "stimulus" was a downpayment on the votes he is buying for the next election. My God! Do you read? Do you think? Of course the jobs went overseas. Obama's war on business makes expansion overseas the ONLY GAME that businesses can play. Have you looked at the businesses that are failing? Have you bought gas? Have you bought groceries? Have you bought clothing?
The middle class has been shafted by obama and the liberal left. They have taken the work out of the market place, taken the energy out of the country, and saddled our children and grandchildren with ENORMOUS debt.
No thinking human being could possibly believe that this pantload in the White House has been good for the country. He has been good for himself and for his leftist/communist czars.
Oldefarte| 5.3.12 @ 12:00PM
PURP.....enjoy this:
http://youtu.be/U6DVOqdayU8
Tim| 5.2.12 @ 11:46AM
Money Talks and BS walks.
This is true in politics and much of life
in this country and all points unknown.
It is also the mantra of many in all colors and creeds, the left the right the center and all points in between.
The only thing that can stand up to this age old truth is ethical and moral behavior that is usually sung by social conservatives.
But last time I checked that group is thrown under the bus at every turn.....which means
it will continue to be one world order or better known as Business As Usual.
Money and Power corrupt.....Period!
Bill| 5.2.12 @ 11:46AM
Obamacare will fail just like SS and Medicare because of high unsustainability, fraud, abuse, and waste. It will die within two years of implementation.
Kingofthenet| 5.2.12 @ 12:21PM
See it's 'Big Govt' if you give the poor or middle class a break, but 'Job Creation' if you give the rich a break.(I guess MY economic activity, NEVER creates jobs) Neo-Cons have a First Graders understanding of fair, it goes like this If Bon Jovi and three REGULAR friends from High School, (Say A Teacher, Cop, and Construction Worker) go out for dinner AND Bon Jovi pays, it is ONLY FAIR that the next three times the others take turns paying for him...in other words NO nuance, by THIRD grade, kids would understand that to EVER have Normal people paying for a Rock Stars dinner is CRAZY.
shipley130| 5.2.12 @ 12:52PM
The poor do get a break. They get free, free, free. The middle class also get breaks.
albert constantine jr.| 5.2.12 @ 6:31PM
This explains why even a liberal like Jon Bonjovi won't go to dinner with you ever.
cicero| 5.2.12 @ 12:29PM
Peter, All of the facts you cite in your article have appeared in the press at onoe time or another. When you add this to the unaccounted for stimulous money, we are looking at the broad daylight theft of billions of taxpayers dollars. Add to that the baillout of the bankers, and the rape of the GM shareholders and bondholders for the benefit of the UAW pension funds, and all is clear to see. In the event that the Republican candidate is electedd in November, and there is a new attorney general in January, it will remain to be seen whether there are any prosecutions. If no one goes to jail on all of this open theft, and if no one is stripped of the ill gotten gains, with the money going back into the treasury, then iit will have been shown to be nothing more that a sad game, and the beginning of the downward siral that will end in the demise of the country.
shipley130| 5.2.12 @ 12:49PM
It would be one thing if the companies that Obama are giving corporate welfare to were lying, but it's the Obama administration that are turning out to be the liars and cheats.
SetOurChildrenFree | 5.2.12 @ 1:22PM
Tyranny always begins with a lie, and in the case of Obama and the Dems, many lies over the course of many years. The LYING is the root of the immorality of these people.
Jobe| 5.2.12 @ 1:53PM
I have steadfastly maintained that the obama administration and presidency are the most corrupt in the nation's history. This Chicago gangster and his cronies have stolen the taxpayers blind, enriched themselves and their sponsors, insulted the intelligence of every thinking person in the country, weakened the defense of the nation, failed in virtually every duty incumbent on a president and his cabinet, and finally, embarassed us both at home and abroad.
As I have said many times before and will say loudly to everyone who will listen: This sleazy, criminal laden administration is the shame of America. He and his cohorts have done more harm to America than the Japanese did during WWII.
Anthony| 5.2.12 @ 1:55PM
Lying, stealing, corruption and now FAKE GIRL FRIEND.
Nothing about this man is real.
TLP| 5.2.12 @ 2:31PM
Sure there is.
He REALLY Hates this Country.
What's up, Anthony?
Oldefarte| 5.2.12 @ 3:26PM
Peter's outstanding editorial simply NAILED IT! [uh oh here come TAS POLICE PARAGRAPH SWAT TEAM] !!!!!!!!!!
Al Adab| 5.2.12 @ 3:52PM
No paragraph police topday O/F, but thanks for staying with us.
Controse| 5.2.12 @ 4:05PM
How many well thought out well documented posts/articles about the corruption of Obama, or whoever he is, have to be written before we stop diagnosing the disease and start curing it? How about a constant stream of posts/articles with strategies and tactics large and small a reader can take to deny Obama, or whoever he is, one more vote. How about a constant stream of posts/articles with strategies and tactics large and small a reader can take to deny Obama, or whoever he is, one more day in office. Let's use our imagination to take the offense. The sun comes up every morning in the East. We don't need anymore posts/articles about that.
Controse| 5.2.12 @ 4:06PM
How many well thought out well documented posts/articles about the corruption of Obama, or whoever he is, have to be written before we stop diagnosing the disease and start curing it? How about a constant stream of posts/articles with strategies and tactics large and small a reader can take to deny Obama, or whoever he is, one more vote. How about a constant stream of posts/articles with strategies and tactics large and small a reader can take to deny Obama, or whoever he is, one more day in office. Let's use our imagination to take the offense. The sun comes up every morning in the East. We don't need anymore posts/articles about that.
Mike| 5.5.12 @ 2:11AM
It is time to cut out the tumor, irradiate the remaining tissue, and poison the risidual Democrat carcinomas. It is time to destroy the head of the snake come November and cast this curse on America into the Indonesian seas from which he crawled ashore.
GriffMN| 5.2.12 @ 4:06PM
"But so-called Progressives (we should start calling them throwbacks instead)"
In my crowd they're referred to as "Regressives", since they seem hell-bent on returning us to the 1930's.
shoebox57| 5.2.12 @ 5:28PM
What is immoral is the taking any of the fruits of a persons labor. There should be no income tax. The SS/Med withholding needs to be stopped as well and a private national insurance/retirement industry needs to handle the voluntary contributions for old age, etc. Remove the People from the tyranny of income taxes and freedom can reign once more.
Dmitry Aleksandrovich| 5.5.12 @ 2:38AM
I disagree. Social Security and Medicare have their place in our society and will be essential as long as our's is a super individualistic culture where we feel no responsibility to take care of our elderly parents and/or other relatives who have fallen upon hard times for whatever reason and don't have the means to take care of themselves or their children. In most of what the west likes to refer to as "the third world" people take care of their relatives and in return when they are in need relatives take care of them. That used to be the same here in America, but it doesn't exist anymore as mainstream American family values.
As for privatizing social security...it's a bad idea. What makes you think Wall Street Banksters will be more responsible with your money than the government? Our problem isn't that social security cannot be sustainable...our problem is once again cultural. We are having smaller families which means less workers to pay into the social security pool. Thus there is more coming out of the pool than going in. This problem cannot simply be solved by taxing the rich...which I do think needs to happen given that the rich paid much higher taxes in the 1950's under the war hero Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower than they do now under Barrack Obama. Last but definitely not least we must introduce tariffs and other protectionist measures to safeguard American industry and offer tax breaks and maybe even subsidies to jumpstart local manufacturing. This will add millions of jobs to the workforce thus adding billions to the social security and medicare funds. I think Ron Paul is onto something about auditing the Fed if not disbanding it and bringing back some sort of Gold standard or at least tying our currency to precious metals in general. None of this is simple. Make it real simple...you can't get rid of the welfare state without a truly Christian (not-individualistic) culture where the most unfortunate among us are taken care of by their kin or by people who are like kin (friends, Church organization, etc.).
Rick| 5.2.12 @ 6:50PM
Obamas' polices do to work its just headwins. He will NOT loose! Your a bigget and your poles are rasist!
Pastor emeritus Nathan Bicke | 5.2.12 @ 10:17PM
Obama's economics all boils down to what I've called and described it, some time ago:
"Political Extortion – The Theft of America:"
http://moralmatters.org/2012/0.....f-america/
POST American| 5.3.12 @ 12:13AM
----And unaccountable, inter-generational,
INTER---national, psychopathic capstone
USURY remains the very head of the ever
unfolding snuff film that is 'the agenda'.
"--Her new highways, modern dwellings,
beautiful gymnasiums and perfect factories---
The Federal Reserve has pumped so many
BILLIONS into (--NAZI--) Germany that they
dare NOT name the total."
-Rep. Charles McFadden
1935
(the height of the bankster
engineered 'Great Depression')
---'Oh P.A. you're always posting
ancient history---"
With what unfolded in 8 decades of
Wall Street funded Soviet history
---and what's unfolding even now in
Bill Gates's EUGENICS paradise
--RED China --we must ever sing the
tune --
--'Everything OLD is NEW--Remberg again!'
IN FACT ---you should start singing it too.
It NEVER gets OLD! ----TRULY!
----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012----------------
Dmitry Aleksandrovich| 5.4.12 @ 1:12AM
I am definitely not an occupier however I am more than convinced that the system is rigged so the wealthiest elite of American society are able to steal the wealth of the Average Joe while at the same time limiting his ability to achieve the same standard of living as his father or grandfather thus returning the free born American male into the kind of serfdom or worse indentured servitude that caused his ancestors to flee from Europe in the first place. It is rigged. Government contracts go to the Wall Street cronies of Capitol Hill pols. Thus Halliburton, General Electric, Solyndra, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin and so on and so forth get the government contracts and pour millions upon millions back into the coffers of the pols that pushed forth bills that included those contracts. Thus you had Halliburton trucks running with no cargo in Iraq (putting the truck drivers in danger) and billing the U.S. taxpayer top dollar for it. Another example is Lockheed Martin which is paid by the U.S. government to keep F.B.I. databases amongst thousands of other lucrative government contracts. Then you have Progressive Insurance lobbying for a bill that would make it a Federal Law to have a commercial airline style blackbox in every personal vehicle across the United States which could be used to track the driving habits and whereabouts of every U.S. citizen. People say "Big Government" is the problem. I say it is "Big Government" hand in hand with "Big Corporations" that are America's problem and our most definitely pushing this nation towards fascism whether we realize it or not. Volkswagon, Mitsubishi and even IBM greatly benifitted from the fascist Axis nations during WWII. We shouldn't kid ourselves that Big Corporations somehow are champions of free market capitalism when they do their best to monopolize entire industries, suffocate small business owners and fix prices at rates of which the mafia in New York would be envious of.
I have no problems with large corporations as long as they keep and create well paying jobs here in America and refrain from conspiring with legislators to stomp upon our Constitutional rights in pursuit of the all mighty dollar.
Logika| 5.4.12 @ 10:38AM
Zen zee best vay to akkomplizh zis iz de remoovale ov zee government apparchnik un allow ze corporachnikz to be directorated oonlee by ze vree market, da?
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Rmm| 5.5.12 @ 11:06AM
At this point in time, you have to wonder about anyone who still listens to our sociopath President. He must believe that the country has gone into short term memory-loss, with some of the whoppers he has come out with lately. I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear what other world leaders have to say about AH behind his back. Now that, is a conversation worth having.
ralph lauren homme | 5.7.12 @ 3:49AM
nice!