Time for Thorns

Democrats have  killed the Republican amendment to  exempt middle-class families from the mandate taxes proposed in the Baucus health reform bill.     What further proof does anyone need to be convinced that there will be mandates and taxes on the middle class and anyone else who might have a few pennies?

Campaign promises don’t mean much when your real goal is to have the federal government acquire control of a sixth of the economy.    Of course, with the brilliance of Obama’s economic policies,  there won’t be any middle class left to be worried about.

Go  here for some memory checks on His Oneness and taxes.

The next time a politician or government functionary tells you that a law or tax or regulation is really for your ultimate benefit,  laugh while you hand   ‘em a copy of this.      Yes,  the alliance of preachers and bootleggers which have made it impossible to buy spirits legally in certain places has been run over by governments desperate for revenue.

So the same governments which insisted alcohol was an evil are now urging you to buy it so they can have more money to waste.  There are few smells worse than that of government hypocrisy,  but let it be a lesson to you — governments lie, cheat and steal — ALL from you.

Today is the day Americans will finish working solely for the government and begin working for themselves.

In case you’re wondering,  we managed it on July 16th of last year.  By next year,   I expect it to be Thanksgiving,  given the current rate of government spending.

The Americans for Tax Reform site linked above has a lot of good information,  and you may find it useful in whacking your particular set of Fools on the Hill.

Sunday Treasury Sec.  Geithner began the walk-back on the no-new-taxes-on-middle-class campaign promise.    Of course,  this ignores the fact that the promise was broken shortly after Obama ascended to the throne with a big increase in tobacco taxes,   which primarily hit the poor and middle class,  more of whom  smoke.

Democrats are still blaming Pres.  Bush for the economy as well as everything else the public dislikes,  but as Byr0n York details,  the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll is bad news for Democrats versus Republicans across the board.

Philip Klein looks at polls on Obama personally,  and reminds us  ” it’s hard to point fingers when you’re running the show.”

As for taxes,  the middle class has begun to figure out that the light at the end of the tunnel is another train coming.

People have actually gotten grant money (your tax dollars) from the federal government for breeding toads in Wyoming and improving education in Cambodia.

There’s much more to be gleaned from this site,  if you don’t think your head will explode.

Obama made a big deal today out of instituting  “pay-go”,  without mentioning that’s what Speaker Pelosi suspended to get stimulus, TARP,  and the inflated budget through.

The Washington Post article mentions only that Bush’s tax cuts can’t be continued.   No hint that pay-go will be the new Democratic excuse for raising taxes through the roof in lieu of spending a few pennies less.    But His Oneness and the Democrats have ballooned an $83.4 billion war-funding bill to $100 billion with spending for swine flu,  the International Monetary Fund,  and possibly auto sales boosters.

Obama also touted the stimulus plan,  promising more,  faster.    But his administration’s need for speed will only tilt the playing field even more towards big firms with the staff to speedily handle paperwork, and local firms are already being shut out of stimulus funding.   As Bloomberg reports,  His Oneness is basically telling businesses to drop dead.

It should surprise no one that a wealth-eater seeks to destroy the very engine producing the riches he wants to redistribute.    It is no accident that many of the most ardent leftists,  like William Ayers,  were trust-fund babies,  insulated from the honing effects of reality during their formative years.   Obama didn’t have a trust fund,  but he has certainly benefited all his life from the generosity of others –  private school tuition,  Ivy League scholarships  (whether foreign or domestic student status still unknown),  law firm internships,  teaching positions arranged not to interfere with his legislative duties or his activities on behalf of ACORN.    The list is quite long,  isn’t it?

Where is unemployment the worst?    The red states,  surely,  full of those uneducated dullards clinging to their God and guns.    Actually,  in April the unemployment figure remained 20% higher in states won by Obama than in those won by McCain.

And the stimulus doesn’t appear to be stimulating many jobs for anyone but the government.    Remember that a job is permanent, productive employment.    Work isn’t permanent,  and may or may not be productive,   such as all the folks lining up for training in the “green-collar” jobs His Oneness assures us are forthcoming.

A recent Spanish study shows that 2 regular jobs are lost for every green job created,  and with the other damaging policies on his wish list,  what’s left of our economy will be choked to death by the environmentalists intent on killing domestic energy production of carbon forms.    Job seekers shouldn’t look to the stimulus, either — the White House’s own numbers reveal that of the 150,000 jobs it claims to have created,   thousands are  summer jobs for youths.

Obama claimed the stimulus would help build a  “21st Century infrastructure,”  but it has already become evident that,  at best,   it will be only a face-lift.

Never mind that Obama admitted to CNN :   “Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades."

So the rapidly increasing deficit,  should be blamed not on his own reckless spending, but on the failure to socialize health care sooner!

According to a recent  study for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),  from 1998 to 2007,   more than 1,100 people per day — many of them high-income earners — moved from the 9 highest-income-tax states primarily to the 9 no-income-tax states.   For example,  after New Jersey implemented its “half-millionaire” tax hike in 2005,  the state lost 4,000 half-millionaires.   As billionaire Tom Golisano recently wrote in The New York Post,  his move from the Empire State to the Sunshine State will save him over  $5 million annually in state taxes.

When the University of Colorado’s Barry Poulson examined reasons for states’ prosperity or lack thereof from 1964 to 2004,  he found  “a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on state economic growth.”   The ALEC study confirmed this,  finding that from 1998 to 2007,  states with no income tax created 89% more jobs and boasted 32% faster personal income growth than high-tax states.    How, um,  un-progressive…

From ReasonTV, a nifty little clip of video of various politicians saying stupid things about taxes, interspersed with graphs showing the facts.  The name of the video is just about what watching it will do to you, but watch it anyway!

Other than giving my impressions, I haven’t gotten into the meat of Obama’s less than impressive press conference.    You know it was bad when even the San Fran Chronicle politics blog calls His Oneness a lecturer.

I could write for a week on the lies he trotted out,  but here are some columns that highlight some of the most outrageous things in his proposed budget.

Start with the impression he gave that the Bush deficits went continually up,  when they were actually declining.

Then to the charities which His Oneness assured us would not see a dime less.

And here.

But people may be starting to catch on.

Illinois Gov. Quinn is going to raise income taxes 50%,  but through Obama magic, it’s really going to be a tax cut for millions.”

And if that isn’t enough to make your head hurt, Cook County will now be known for something other than the customary Illinois election fraud, by requiring a right hand thumbprint from anyone selling property there.

But you watch — states will now be jacking up their taxes, so the few  people who’d benefit under the Obama plan will simply pay that to their states and municipalities.    The question will soon be:   how many of us are willing to hold our states accountable?    Start by reminding them that 60% of the jobs created in the last couple of years were in Texas, which has no state income tax.    Look at the number of businesses and workers who have fled Michigan and California in the last few years.