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The Spectacle Blog
Dave Weigel writes: “You could seriously argue that if Democrats approve extensions of all the Bush tax cuts, it would be as big a cave-in than George H.W. Bush’s cave-in on the 1990 budget.” You could seriously argue that, but I’m afraid this argument misses something serious.
Yes, liberals would be as angry that Obama broke his pledge to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year as conservatives were that Poppy George Bush broke his pledge not to raise taxes. But here’s the rub: A lot of people also got angry at Bush because he raised their taxes. And still more people whose taxes didn’t actually go up under the 1990 budget plan nevertheless belonged to the Taxes Are Too Damn High Party and blamed Bush for them being too high.
People are not going to get similarly angry if Obama doesn’t raise their taxes. (With the possible exceptions of George Soros, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates Sr.) The only people who will be angry are ideological liberals. That’s a political problem for the president, no doubt, but not in the same way that raising people’s taxes would be. Moreover, while Obama was certainly adamant that he wanted to return to Clinton-era tax rates, there wasn’t anything quite like a “read my lips” moment. Obama engaged in mixed messaging about how he was actually going to let most people pay less taxes than they did under Ronald Reagan.
If any of the tax cuts expire, the people whose taxes go up aren’t going to like it very much. Even if taxes only go up on the people making more than $250,000 a year, these angry voters will be joined by others who believe their taxes are too high and will blame Obama for for high taxes in general.
Add to this people who would very much like to be employed by the upper-bracket earners whose taxes just went up and those who oppose tax increases on principle, and I’m willing to bet you are going to find a bigger group of angry people than those who believe in tax increases for the wealthy as a matter of principle — even if you can find a poll here and there that says most people are “fine with” the top tax rate going up, in much the same way they once told pollsters they were “fine with” a liberal health care plan. Swing voters are fine with all kinds of stuff in the abstract. It tends to work out differently in practice.
UPDATE: Don’t take my word for it. Ask Walter Mondale how the debate between promise-keeping and tax-increasing worked out.
View all comments (5) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/06/no-raising-peoples-taxes-reall
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c. j. acworth| 12.6.10 @ 6:06PM
And if some of those people whose taxes get raised happen to be not people, per se, but small businesses which go out of business as a result, you will have more unemployed who will not be very happy either.
Oldefarte| 12.6.10 @ 8:03PM
Anyone whose taxes increased would be angry in this economic environment, which was largely created by Obama and Democrats [going back to 1977's CRA]. They planned this tax increase in 2008 after he won the presidency, with first increasing social services/welfare governmental spending [healthcare, stimulus] and then allowing the tax cuts to expire as a way to add revenue to the government to soften the increasing defecit/debt effects of same. They did not count on the taxpayer-voter anger over their socialist programs, the tea party movement and the results of 11/2/10 bring in a massive wave of elected Republicans. He/they had to today back down because of same. If hopefully the conservative/Republican/tea party movement continues, Obama/Democrats will find themselves retreating further and further going toward 2012. If Hillary etc does not unseat Obama for the nomination, He and the Democrats will suffer a further crushing defeat at that time!!!!
Occam's Tool| 12.6.10 @ 8:39PM
I get kind of pissed off by this President making me the enemy of the month:
I make over $250,000/yr---I'm the enemy.
I'm an MD---I'm the enemy.
I believe in American defense---I'm the enemy.
I'm a Zionist---I'm the enemy.
The hell with the Dhimmicrats.
cheapairjordan | 12.6.10 @ 9:54PM
good post!
DVD drive Burner | 11.8.11 @ 4:11AM
How to Burn an AVCHD File to DVD
AVCHD is a new high definition standard created by Sony, and used in many of their HD Camcorders. The resulting AVCHD disc is then able to be played in many consumer Blu-Ray players, the Sony Playstation 3, as well as the camcorders themselves. These are capable of producing 1080p and 720p video.
Instructions
1
If you have not done so already, plug in your camcorder to your PC. If an autoplay box does not appear, locate the camcorder's files on your PC. Two folders are needed in order to properly burn an AVCHD onto DVD, and they are BDMV and Certificate. Once they are located, copy and paste these two files onto your desktop. This could take anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes.
2
Once they are transferred to your desktop, go to the following web address and download the software:
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download
Once downloaded, install the software by double-clicking the downloaded file and follow on-screen instructions.
3
Right click the AVCHD folder that you just transferred to your desktop and click on "Properties." On the General tab, locate the size of the file in order to specify how big of a DVD is needed to burn the files. Sizes up to 4.3GB will fit onto single layer DVD's. If the size exceeds 4.3 GB, a dual-layer DVD is needed. Once you figure out which DVD is needed, insert it into your PC's DVD-RW drive.
4
Imgburn Software
Open the ImgBurn program that was just installed. Click the option that reads "Write files/folders to disc." The next screen is where you need to click some options. The image provided locates the options that need to be checked and unchecked. Make sure the "Auto" box is checked and the "Verify" box unchecked. After this is done, add the 2 folders (BDMV and Certificate) into the large open space. This can be done by either clicking on the magnifying glass and adding them, or by simply dragging and dropping them into the program.
5
Once the files are loaded into the program, the settings will verify you want to change to UDF 2.5 burning mode. Click "Yes" when prompted. Next, simply click on the large icon located near the bottom. You will be greeted by a few pop-ups verifying your disc burning session and allowing you to name the disc. Click "OK" and your burning will start.
6
Once the burning is complete, remove the disc and insert into appropriate Blu-Ray players or Sony Playstation 3. If all went well, you will be enjoying your home movies in amazing quality, also allowing you to start a library of HD home movies, instead of storing them on a hard drive
Tips & Warnings
Memorex and Verbatim DVD's have the best success rate. Verbatim Dual Layer DVD's are the best to use when needed. Be patient, burning might take a couple tries.
Depending on your PC's DVD drive and Blank disc, you may go through a few DVD's until one works perfectly. AVCHD does not work on all Blu-Ray players, so check with the manufacturer first. Do not pirate copyrighted material.