Class Warfare the Last Refuge of a Failed Presidency

by Bruce Thornton, FPM

Now that Mitt Romney will be Obama’s opponent in November, the Democrats are rolling out the false narrative they will use to demonize Romney and obscure four years of failed economic policies that have created the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. In two recent speeches, Obama has begun heating up his class warfare rhetoric in an attempt to paint Republicans as the heartless minions of greedy capitalists who increase their wealth at the expense of everybody else.

On April 3, Obama went after Representative Paul Ryan and his budget, which Obama linked explicitly to Romney. Ryan’s budget actually addresses the key problems of out of control government spending and rapidly metastasizing entitlement costs, the looming fiscal train-wreck that Obama and the Democrats have avoided dealing with for over 3 years.

Masking this dereliction of duty, Obama in his speech instead piled up lie after lie about Ryan’s budget, spicing the whole with question-begging rhetoric. Financial aid cut for 10 million college students, 1,600 fewer grants for Alzheimer’s and AIDS research, clean energy technology cut by a fifth, 200,000 pre-schoolers banished from Head Start, 2 million mothers and children denied healthy food, cuts to the Department of Justice and the FBI, national parks closed, air, food, and water safety compromised, less accurate weather forecasts, more flight cancellations at airports––this whole catalogue of apocalyptic disasters is a patent lie, one worsened by the charge that Ryan’s budget is “thinly veiled social Darwinism” designed to further enrich the already bloated 1% by ruthlessly cutting government programs. In fact, the Ryan budget increases spending from $3.6 trillion this year to almost $4.9 trillion in 2022.

A week later, in Boca Raton Florida Obama was at it again, beating the drum of tax “fairness” as he proposed imposing the “Buffet Rule” on those earning more than $1 million to force them to “pay their fair share,” which Obama puts at 30%. This idea that rich Americans are tax deadbeats was given traction by billionaire Warren Buffet, the tax-shelter king who popularized the myth that millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than ordinary Americans because the rich pay most of their taxes at the capital-gains rate of 15%. In actual fact, as NRO points out, Americans in the $40-$50 thousand income bracket pay an effective rate of 3.2% in federal income tax, 80% of U.S. households are taxed at a rate less than 15%, and half pay nothing at all. As for those dastardly millionaires, the rate for most of them is already 30%, while 10% pay less and another 10% pay more, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Worse yet, the amount of revenue the Buffet Rule would raise is $5 billion a year––“or less than 0.5% of the $1.2 trillion fiscal 2012 budget deficit and over the next decade a mere 0.1% of the $45.43 trillion the federal government will spend,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Obviously, this is not enough revenue to “stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade,” as Obama has claimed. In fact, to close the deficit in 2035, when entitlement spending will blow up the budget, tax revenues would require a surreal rate of 223% on the highest tax bracket. Nor will this Buffet Rule pittance do anything to rein in federal spending, projected to reach 50% of GDP by 2060 because of runaway entitlement costs destined to expand even further if Obamacare survives. Finally, the idea that the extra revenues generated by the Buffet Rule would be used to lower the deficit flies in the face of history, which shows that every dollar of increased revenues leads to at least $1.17 of government spending. As Milton Friedman once said, “Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with.”

Yet this is just the beginning of Obama’s economic ignorance and mendacity. Increasing the capital gains tax rate, as the Buffet Rule perforce does, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire would target small businesses and lessen the investment capital needed to grow the economy and create jobs, at the same time it would fail at increasing tax revenues, which historically have increased when tax rates are lowered. Consider what happened after Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. In 1981, the top 1% paid 17.58% of all federal income taxes; in 2005, this same cohort paid 39.38%. In 1981 the top 1% paid $94.84 billion (in 2005 dollars); in 2005 they paid $368.13, an increase of 288%.

During this same period, taxes paid by the bottom 75% went from 27.71% of all tax revenues to 14.01%. More recently, the Bush tax cuts resulted in a 44% increase in revenues from 2003-2008. “The only conclusion,” Arthur Laffer concluded in 2008, “one can come to is that by raising statutory tax rates on the rich as proposed by the Democrats, the effective individual income tax rate won’t change, but the comprehensive household income earned by this group will fall, thus resulting in a sharp decline in tax receipts from the very highest income earners. If you want to get more tax revenues from the rich, you’ve got to make the rich richer, and to make the rich richer, you’ve got to lower tax rates.”

All this class-warfare rhetoric has nothing to do with fixing our economic problems by reducing the deficit, curbing government spending, and growing the economy. Nor is the issue “fairness.” By any metric, the U.S. already has a fair tax system, given that the top 10% pay 70% of all federal income taxes, while nearly half pay nothing. Indeed, the U.S. has the most progressive tax system among 24 OECD economies, as measured by the ratio of share of taxes paid to share of income among top earners. For example, the top 1% of earners paid more than 38% of all federal income taxes, but they earned 20% of all income. As a result of this burden on the highest earners, the top 10% of U.S. earners pay 35% more income taxes than does the same cohort in progressive heartthrob Sweden, and 22% more than in France.

This rhetoric of “fair-share,” then, is really about Obama’s reelection and his leftist ideology. The President has calculated that he can win votes with faux-populist attacks on “fat-cats” and thus obscure his tax-and-spend agenda whose ultimate aim is to increase the power of the government. In that way he can benefit his base and create ever more clients beholden to the feds. That’s what all this talk about “fairness” really means: redistributing income, always the way the enemies of freedom have gained power. As history shows, when democracies start to devolve into tyranny, unscrupulous leaders arise to foment class hatred by pandering to those who, as the Greek historian Polybius wrote, are “habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have [their] hopes of a livelihood in the property of [their] neighbors.” That is what the “Buffet Rule” is all about: creating the “soft despotism” Tocqueville warned about.

April 15, 2012 | 29 Comments »

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29 Comments / 29 Comments

  1. @ yamit82:
    I appreciate your comments on these matters, Yam. I do not come from a family that made money by having money pass through their hands (something the financial firms that are ruining America do). My grandfathers were a logger and a locksmith, respectively, and their fathers were grocers, farmers, farm laborers and tinsmiths. I was taught to study hard and learn an honest profession — which I did, studying Chemistry after years of working hard at menial jobs. I have a hard time understanding all this high finance, which seems to amount to rich bankers planing Monopoly (R) with my money.

    I was in China exactly a year ago, and the place was booming. My son-in-law IMPORTS American and other products to China, so he wasn’t hurt by the world financial crisis. Only God knows where I and my family will live during the next few years we will have before things utterly fly apart. As the psalmist said,

    “A thousand may fall at your side
    And ten thousand at your right hand,
    But it shall not approach you.

    “You will only look on with your eyes
    And see the recompense of the wicked.

    “For you have made the LORD, my refuge,
    Even the Most High, your dwelling place.”

    Externally, we live in these countries, like the US, Israel, China; but internally, we live in the world of the spirits, which is eternal; and it is our location THERE that matters. As the one the psalmist was addressing, God is not someone far away: I live IN Him. He both fills me and surrounds me, in His secret place. I will not fear what men can do to me, but will trust in the God of Israel.

    Of course, China’s having problems. That’s nothing new for them. My son-in-law was born during the turmoil after the Cultural Revolution. His family fled to Hong Kong; then, when HK was about to revert to PR China, they moved again to New Zealand. When they arrived in Hong Kong, the father was an experienced engineer and the mother a university teacher. HK did not recognize their credentials; so they lived in the hallway outside a relative’s apartment, and built up a business from sewing for people — first by hand and then, after they had saved enough, with their own sewing machine.

    I’ve lived in Australia, both my children have lived in China, and we have distant family all over the world. Don’t fret over us: We have trusted in God all our lives, and He has taken care of us. Take care for yourself and your neighbors, though; I expect things to begin booming soon there. You’re all in real danger, but I think most Israelis know what they’re up against. Americans are also in danger; and with them, the whole world. Yes, the merchants as far away as China will mourn when they see the smoke of our burning, because nobody is left to buy their products anymore. That sort of thing is past due, and anyone with sense knows this. Just how DEEPLY they know it, that’s another story altogether.

    Shalom shalom 🙂

  2. @ BlandOatmeal:

    By “deregulation”, I assume you mean taking off regulation of Ponzi scheme economics like the circulating of derivatives.

    Yes but not just. By eliminating the Glass–Steagall Act opened the barn door for the banking and wall st crooks, created by definition the moral hazards which eventually led to the bubbles derivitives and finally the global economic collapse.

    By the way ,China is in worse shape and are really bankrupt. Where can you go now? 😛

  3. @ Joe Hamilton:

    @ Yamit ;

    Obama who unlike Bush had a veto proof congress passed a trillion dollar spending stimulus which produced few if any new jobs. While Bush was president unemployment despite the damage to the economy caused by 9/11 was as low as 4%. The deficit was increased by 5 trillion during Bush’s 8 years because of having to fight 2 wars after the first attack on the US mainland since 1812. Obama who inherited a situation which required much less spending on the 2 wars but has increased the deficit more than twice as fast as Bush. A large part of the deficit increase during the Bush administration was due to Bush’s tax cuts which benefited the economy as evidenced by a much lower unemployment rate.

    Obama who unlike Bush had a veto proof congress passed a trillion dollar spending stimulus which produced few if any new jobs. While Bush was president unemployment despite the damage to the economy caused by 9/11 was as low as 4%.

    The 4% was the first year in office inherited from the Clinton admin. He cannot take credit for it but can take credit for unemployment gains year by year till he left office. His overall record of job creation was the lowest of any president since Wilson.

    The deficit was increased by 5 trillion during Bush’s 8 years because of having to fight 2 wars after the first attack on the US mainland since 1812.

    Not quite!! Bush inherited a budget surplus of close to 3 trillion dollars, ( enough to deal with the mild recession he inherited from Clinton) The real debt incurred by Bush was about 8 trillion dollars. I won’t argue the efficacy or the reasons for the wars ( I disagree with both) but he did not raise taxes to pay for the wars, thereby increasing the national debt more than all previous Presidents till his presidency.

    Obama who inherited a situation which required much less spending on the 2 wars but has increased the deficit more than twice as fast as Bush. A large part of the deficit increase during the Bush administration was due to Bush’s tax cuts which benefited the economy as evidenced by a much lower unemployment rate.

    Through 8 years of Bush during which the Republicans controlled both houses for 6 of the 8 years, increased Federal spending and Federal obligations besides the military without increased revenue. The job creation did not match the demad for jobs and participation in the workforce decreased substantially during his 8 years. Jobs simply were eliminated, through new technologies rendering American business more efficient while reducing corporate costs and millions of Jobs were transferred to other countries to save money and increase corporate profits. Business has no national loyalty The loyalty is to the stockholders and the bottom line.

    The bush tax cuts did not help the middle class or the poor of course but did enrich the top 20%, who did not based on available data use their wealth in any meaninful job creation unless you count jobs in china and other countries.

    All statistical data indicate that real wages of the American worker adjusted for inflation have been flat for the past 30 years. During this period the par between top Corp executives rose from 1-65% to 1-600%.

    Bush Record till Obama:
    Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
    In his first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
    Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
    Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
    Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
    Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
    Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
    Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
    Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
    Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
    Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
    First president in U.S. history to have a majority of 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
    Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
    Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
    First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
    There is a lot more: My problem is the hypocrisy of those who Bash Obama(rightly so) but are silent over the Bush 8 years.

  4. @ yamit82:

    Deregulation may inhibit some business but lack of regulation allows the crooks free reign. In cause and effect much of the current American and world economic crisis can be laid at the door of deregulation.

    Thanks, Yamit

    You are making sense here. By “deregulation”, I assume you mean taking off regulation of Ponzi scheme economics like the circulating of derivatives. God knows, we have enough problems with our REAL economy (like the production of tractors and computers), that we can do without having to deal with fantasy assets. Yes, I agree that schemes such as derivatives need to be “regulated”. More to the point, they ought to be criminalized and done away with; for they seem indeed criminal to me.

    A thousand trillion dollars? Those are interplanetary numbers! Who will answer? The kings and the nobles of the land?

  5. Is that how it works? What about things like “overpro duction”? A merica has all the cars and t ractors it needs, so it is induced to spend instead on things it did perfectly well without years before, things like c omputers. We pay for these things with b orrowed money, because we no longer are getting p aychecks from making t ractors and cars. Then our l oans come due, and all h ell breaks loose. We refi nance our i ndebtedness, getting deeper and deeper into debt, in order to pay for the things we want but don’t need; and we will never be able to pay off the d ebt. When the day comes that we stop refi nancing, the unneeded things cease to come, and Chi nese computer fac tories are idled.

    Why do I get the feeling, that we’re running as fast as we can, so we can stay in the same place? When can I go back to work, making trac tors?

  6. s that how it works? What about things like “o v e r p roduction”? America has all the cars and tractors it needs, so it is induced to spend instead on things it did perfectly well without years before, things like computers. We pay for these things with borrowed money, because we no longer are getting paychecks from making tractors and cars. Then our loans come due, and all hell breaks loose. We refinance our indebtedness, getting deeper and deeper into debt, in order to pay for the things we want but don’t need; and we will never be able to pay off the debt. When the day comes that we stop refinancing, the unneeded things cease to come, and Chinese computer factories are idled.

    Why do I get the feeling, that we’re running as fast as we can, so we can stay in the same place? When can I go back to work, making tractors?

  7. …Who will feed the Nile? Who will bring rain from heaven? Can you really summon the clouds, by throwing tax-free capital into the sky? Ted talked about getting “turnover” going, as though it were something like rain: The rich man throws money into the sky; it then falls down to earth, and the poor gather it into their homes and serve it for dinner. They then respond to nature and fill their chamberpots, and put the pots into the rich man’s bank. He converts the refuse into new money, and throws it again into the sky. The only thing that can cause a problem, it seems, is to divert too many of those chamberpots to the government. They, in turn, give this corrupted wealth to the poor to eat. The poor can’t digest it, so they do not produce the new feces needed to keep the cycle going, and we fall into recession. Without proper medication, this progresses to depression…

  8. …Who will feed the Nile? Who will bring rain from heaven? Can you really summon the clouds, by throwing tax-free capital into the sky? Ted talked about getting “turnover” going, as though it were something like rain: The rich man throws money into the sky; it then falls down to earth, and the poor gather it into their homes and serve it for dinner. They then respond to nature and fill their chamberpots, and put the pots into the rich man’s bank. He converts the refuse into new money, and throws it again into the sky. The only thing that can cause a problem, it seems, is to divert too many of those chamberpots to the government. They, in turn, give this corrupted wealth to the poor to eat. The poor can’t digest it, so they do not produce the new feces needed to keep the cycle going, and we fall into recession. Without proper medication, this progresses to depression.

    Is that how it works? What about things like “overproduction”? America has all the cars and tractors it needs, so it is induced to spend instead on things it did perfectly well without years before, things like computers. We pay for these things with borrowed money, because we no longer are getting paychecks from making tractors and cars. Then our loans come due, and all hell breaks loose. We refinance our indebtedness, getting deeper and deeper into debt, in order to pay for the things we want but don’t need; and we will never be able to pay off the debt. When the day comes that we stop refinancing, the unneeded things cease to come, and Chinese computer factories are idled.

    Why do I get the feeling, that we’re running as fast as we can, so we can stay in the same place? When can I go back to work, making tractors?

  9. [sentence deleted]

    Life, though, comes from the Nile; and the Nile is controlled by God. Thornton rightly says that Obama is using the “wealth distribution” issue as an election gimmick. The Republicans seem to be doing likewise; as I’ve said already, it isn’t an easy issue to grasp…

  10. …What’s different between Joseph’s Egypt and the Obama administration, is that in Egypt, the only rich men left standing were Joseph, Pharaoh and the priests. In America, by contrast, there are still plenty of rich men left, each of them a little Joseph or Pharaoh unto himself. Obama would like to put them out of business and become Pharaoh — he and his priesthood, that is, consisting of the rich who supported him. It’s a distinction of very little difference: The poor get screwed, it seems, in either system…

  11. [lines deleted}

    …As you can see, the main difference I see between the socialists and the crony capitalists, is who gets to be Pharaoh and his ministers. Life, though, comes from the Nile; and the Nile is controlled by God. Thornton rightly says that Obama is using the “wealth distribution” issue as an election gimmick. The Republicans seem to be doing likewise; as I’ve said already, it isn’t an easy issue to grasp.

    Who will feed the Nile? Who will bring rain from heaven? Can you really summon the clouds, by throwing tax-free capital into the sky? Ted talked about getting “turnover” going, as though it were something like rain: The rich man throws money into the sky; it then falls down to earth, and the poor gather it into their homes and serve it for dinner. They then respond to nature and fill their chamberpots, and put the pots into the rich man’s bank. He converts the refuse into new money, and throws it again into the sky. The only thing that can cause a problem, it seems, is to divert too many of those chamberpots to the government. They, in turn, give this corrupted wealth to the poor to eat. The poor can’t digest it, so they do not produce the new feces needed to keep the cycle going, and we fall into recession. Without proper medication, this progresses to depression.

  12. …What’s different between Joseph’s Egypt and the Obama administration, is that in Egypt, the only rich men left standing were Joseph, Pharaoh and the priests. In America, by contrast, there are still plenty of rich men left, each of them a little Joseph or Pharaoh unto himself. Obama would like to put them out of business and become Pharaoh — he and his priesthood, that is, consisting of the rich who supported him. It’s a distinction of very little difference: The poor get screwed, it seems, in either system.

    As you can see, the main difference I see between the socialists and the crony capitalists, is who gets to be Pharaoh and his ministers. Life, though, comes from the Nile; and the Nile is controlled by God. Thornton rightly says that Obama is using the “wealth distribution” issue as an election gimmick. The Republicans seem to be doing likewise; as I’ve said already, it isn’t an easy issue to grasp.

    Who will feed the Nile? Who will bring rain from heaven? Can you really summon the clouds, by throwing tax-free capital into the sky? Ted talked about getting “turnover” going, as though it were something like rain: The rich man throws money into the sky; it then falls down to earth, and the poor gather it into their homes and serve it for dinner. They then respond to nature and fill their chamberpots, and put the pots into the rich man’s bank. He converts the refuse into new money, and throws it again into the sky. The only thing that can cause a problem, it seems, is to divert too many of those chamberpots to the government. They, in turn, give this corrupted wealth to the poor to eat. The poor can’t digest it, so they do not produce the new feces needed to keep the cycle going, and we fall into recession. Without proper medication, this progresses to depression…

  13. Ugh. I got vaporized again. I was posting to Keelie. Let me try again, in fragments:

    @ keelie:

    Yes – Investment is one of the main pillars of economics, and it’s done mostly via Saving. Without the means or will to invest, an economy will quickly descend into ruin. Look around, Oat, and see what the Politics of Envy has done to the economies of countries who have decided to “soak the rich” (in effect, soaking the middle-classes) so that “the people” can buy more colour TVs.

    Hi, Keelie. I see you’re actually addressing me for the most part, not Ted. I can appreciate what you’re saying about the “Animal Farm” countries of this world that tried but failed to help the poor by stealing from the rich. China is a good example of a country that has learned this lesson the hard way.

    Your comment about “saving” is interesting. Saving for a rainy day is certainly good economics, and is promoted in the Bible. When it comes to the rich, though, “saving” as we know it doesn’t exist: There ARE no rainy days for the rich that they actually have to “save” for. On “rainy” days (actually drought days, if you want to apply the Joseph in Egypt analogy), the rich have all they want and are busy amassing power from the poor. The poor give up all they own, all their capital, and become forever dependent on their “benefactors” in exchange for enough to feed themselves…

  14. @ keelie:

    Yes – Investment is one of the main pillars of economics, and it’s done mostly via Saving. Without the means or will to invest, an economy will quickly descend into ruin. Look around, Oat, and see what the Politics of Envy has done to the economies of countries who have decided to “soak the rich” (in effect, soaking the middle-classes) so that “the people” can buy more colour TVs.

    Hi, Keelie. I see you’re actually addressing me for the most part, not Ted. I can appreciate what you’re saying about the “Animal Farm” countries of this world that tried but failed to help the poor by stealing from the rich. China is a good example of a country that has learned this lesson the hard way.

    Your comment about “saving” is interesting. Saving for a rainy day is certainly good economics, and is promoted in the Bible. When it comes to the rich, though, “saving” as we know it doesn’t exist: There ARE no rainy days for the rich that they actually have to “save” for. On “rainy” days (actually drought days, if you want to apply the Joseph in Egypt analogy), the rich have all they want and are busy amassing power from the poor. The poor give up all they own, all their capital, and become forever dependent on their “benefactors” in exchange for enough to feed themselves.

    What’s different between Joseph’s Egypt and the Obama administration, is that in Egypt, the only rich men left standing were Joseph, Pharaoh and the priests. In America, by contrast, there are still plenty of rich men left, each of them a little Joseph or Pharaoh unto himself. Obama would like to put them out of business and become Pharaoh — he and his priesthood, that is, consisting of the rich who supported him. It’s a distinction of very little difference: The poor get screwed, it seems, in either system.

    As you can see, the main difference I see between the socialists and the crony capitalists, is who gets to be Pharaoh and his ministers. Life, though, comes from the Nile; and the Nile is controlled by God. Thornton rightly says that Obama is using the “wealth distribution” issue as an election gimmick. The Republicans seem to be doing likewise; as I’ve said already, it isn’t an easy issue to grasp.

    Who will feed the Nile? Who will bring rain from heaven? Can you really summon the clouds, by throwing tax-free capital into the sky? Ted talked about getting “turnover” going, as though it were something like rain: The rich man throws money into the sky; it then falls down to earth, and the poor gather it into their homes and serve it for dinner. They then respond to nature and fill their chamberpots, and put the pots into the rich man’s bank. He converts the refuse into new money, and throws it again into the sky. The only thing that can cause a problem, it seems, is to divert too many of those chamberpots to the government. They, in turn, give this corrupted wealth to the poor to eat. The poor can’t digest it, so they do not produce the new feces needed to keep the cycle going, and we fall into recession. Without proper medication, this progresses to depression.

    Is that how it works? What about things like “overproduction”? America has all the cars and tractors it needs, so it is induced to spend instead on things it did perfectly well without years before, things like computers. We pay for these things with borrowed money, because we no longer are getting paychecks from making tractors and cars. Then our loans come due, and all hell breaks loose. We refinance our indebtedness, getting deeper and deeper into debt, in order to pay for the things we want but don’t need; and we will never be able to pay off the debt. When the day comes that we stop refinancing, the unneeded things cease to come, and Chinese computer factories are idled.

    Why do I get the feeling, that we’re running as fast as we can, so we can stay in the same place? When can I go back to work, making tractors?

  15. @ Ted Belman:

    Thanks, Ted

    Turnover, eh? Hmmm. Why does it all still sound like “something from nothing”? I understand that big undertakings, such as putting factories online, require the release of capital; and you are saying that by keeping his taxes low, we are freeing and encouraging the rich man to let loose some of his money and put it into new, promising ventures. That makes sense to me. What still doesn’t make sense, is how Thornton says that during all those years since the Reagan Administration, years in which the Republicans were presumably hell-bent on reducing taxes for the rich, taxes actually went up for the rich (I mean tax RATES, not revenues), while loopholes increased for the poor.

    Explain that to me, and you have my gratitude. Even then, I wonder how this can be packaged (if it’s indeed valid) for the man in the street. My son is on disability income, which pays for his rent and most of his food. Nobody will hire him because of his disability, and we supported him out of our own pockets for years. He respectfully disagrees with me concerning Obama; because all he can see of the Republicans, is that they want to line their pockets at the expense of people like him. What can I say to convince him otherwise? Isn’t he right? Please tell me.

  16. @Bland Oatmeal; I resent you saying I’m playing the race card when I am only pointing how Obama and Holder are playing the race card. Is speaking the truth such Obama and Holder have 2 standards for justice, blacks can break the law such as Al Sharpton who incite attacks against Jews and the cowardly criminals known as the new Black panthers who were found preventing whites from entering a voting location and also putting out a bounty on Zimmerman, and white have a different standard. Should I pretend this travesty isn’t occurring. Maybe I point Obama’s racism because I don’t have white guilt like many whites in America. @ Yamit ; Obama who unlike Bush had a veto proof congress passed a trillion dollar spending stimulus which produced few if any new jobs. While Bush was president unemployment despite the damage to the economy caused by 9/11 was as low as 4%. The deficit was increased by 5 trillion during Bush’s 8 years because of having to fight 2 wars after the first attack on the US mainland since 1812. Obama who inherited a situation which required much less spending on the 2 wars but has increased the deficit more than twice as fast as Bush. A large part of the deficit increase during the Bush administration was due to Bush’s tax cuts which benefited the economy as evidenced by a much lower unemployment rate.

  17. This discussion is just the regular partisan BS having little relationship to real facts and real cause and effect.

    I have no problem blaming Obama for exacerbating the dire problems of the American economy but he is not the main culprit only the worst of a long line of contributing predecessors. All of the arguments here are simplistic and superficial.

    GW Bush for example inherited a surplus and in 8 years not only wiped out I think a 2 trillion dollar surplus but increased the debt to 8 trillion. Deregulated to the point of creating many moral hazards (credit swaps and derivatives) resulting in the real estate bubble and bust and so much bad paper carried on the books of all the worlds major financial institutions as assets. Estimates are there is over a 1000 trillion dollars of such bogus paper held against real debt.

    Derivatives: The $600 Trillion Time Bomb That’s Set to Explode

    The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System

    Deregulation may inhibit some business but lack of regulation allows the crooks free reign. In cause and effect much of the current American and world economic crisis can be laid at the door of deregulation.

  18. Obama: Two Americas, two economies, and too late:

    If “Socialism is great, until you run out of other people’s money to spend”, then America should be bankrupt like Greece. But it isn’t, because America is “too big to fail”, and has the dollar and the Fed.

    America’s economy seems to be holding its own, but that is illusory. America now has two economies. One is real, and consists of white christian conservatives who do productive work for a living, and pay taxes (Republicans). The business reports are based on that economy.

    The other (the Democrats), consists of people on welfare (blacks and latinos), healthcare providers, and unionized government employees (state, local, federal, TSA, Homeland Security). These are largely parasitic. They not only consume all the taxes produced by the real economy, but they run an enormous deficit, which should have bankrupted America by now.

    It hasn’t because China, until recently, has purchased US debt, since dollars still have some value in the world. As China slows its buying of US debt, the Federal Reserve has stepped in. It prints up money to buy more American debt from the Treasury. The Treasury uses this money to pay for welfare, healthcare, and other entitlements.

    This causes inflation, but because the Fed only prints up a little money at a time, the rate of inflation is low (The Fed calls this Quantitative Easing).

    It is unlikely that this can go on forever. The Republicans say they are trying to stop it, but the Republicans are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority. It is unclear if they can muster enough votes to defeat Obama with Romney. They are afraid of opposing unlimited latino immigration, because they need every latino vote they can get. And if America stopped borrowing money, the poor people would starve.

    The Democrats just don’t care. They are determined to keep borrowing money until America is bankrupt, and then hope they can pull a new rabbit out of their hat.

  19. Liberals demonize those who have earned wealth in the private sector. Yet they have no problem with unproductive federal employees enriching themselves with six figure salaries at the expense of tax payers.

  20. BlandOatmeal Said:

    but for the Blacks in America, Obama has been a good thing: He’s shown them that American Blacks CAN pursue the American dream; that they CAN hope, and that they can accomplish things their parents never dreamed of.

    with respect, oatmeal, the wind behind hussein’s sails was (and still is) such, that NO AMERICAN BLACK could ever hope to achieve. it is ONE THING to rise and succeed in spite of all odds against you, more like bill cosby, THIS would be an example that would back your theory.
    hussein’s rise, has NOTHING to do with his capacities (none!, zero!, zip! gurnisht!)but more with the cabal behind him. i submit, that were i black, THIS ABOMINATION, would be NOTHING (!!!) that i would aspire to emulate

  21. @ Ted Belman:
    Yes – Investment is one of the main pillars of economics, and it’s done mostly via Saving. Without the means or will to invest, an economy will quickly descend into ruin. Look around, Oat, and see what the Politics of Envy has done to the economies of countries who have decided to “soak the rich” (in effect, soaking the middle-classes) so that “the people” can buy more colour TVs.

    This particularly true of taxing the hell out of the middle-class, as I indicated above, so that their “marginal propensity to save” is minimal – or worse. Numerically the middle-class is more likely to be highly effective as an investment source than the few rich people Obama is talking about(that 1% again). But in order to do this, the middle-class has to have savings. They also have to have an investment climate that is trustworthy; ask the folks who were depending on GM shares to help fund their retirement, that were stolen from them when GM was bailed out by Obama and his cronies.

  22. @ BlandOatmeal:
    It’s all due to something called the “Zeitgeist” – and the blacks are part of that, as most of us are. How dominant? I don’t know; not everything can be quantified. Certainly not easily or directly, quantified

    But there are viable statistics on certain defined areas of interest (which I’m not about to get into; you do the research), that point to problems in the black community. Sharpton and his ilk are not interested in helping matters; only in promoting their own mouths. Even Bill Cosby, who is apparently well-respected in the black community, was shouted down when he attempted constructive criticism of his own people.

    Then we have of course, the apologists; people who jump to apologize for the uglier aspects of life, usually by blaming others.

  23. @ BlandOatmeal:
    You stopped your analysis before finishing it. You got to the point where the government gets $2 million in taxes rather than $2.5 million. True enough but continue. According to the theory, Mr Oyl now has to make $12.5 million in order to pay the same taxes and he has an extra extra $500,000 to invest. Furthermore the lower rate is an inducement for him to sell some of his assets and realize a capital gain on which he must pay tax. I think at the heart of the issue of lowering the tax rate is that the rich will turn over their assets more frequently and thus pay more taxes then they otherwise would have.

  24. [sentences deleted]

    …We have committed ourselves to a course of action, which we can not go back on. Our goal is to have Blacks in America assimilate, much like the Italians and Jews have assimilated (Those Jews who do not WANT to assimilate are free to do aliyah). The big helpers in this effort have not been the Black Panthers, etc.: They’ve been people like Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey and, in spite of his MANY faults, Barry Soetero Obama. Yes, Obama. I don’t like him as President, and wish every day that the election were yesterday and we won’t have to deal with him anymore; but for the Blacks in America, Obama has been a good thing: He’s shown them that American Blacks CAN pursue the American dream; that they CAN hope, and that they can accomplish things their parents never dreamed of.

    The Race Card, Joe, is Obama’s forte. Don’t play to it — You’ll lose. Stick to the economy — find someone OTHER THAN THORNTON, who can make sense of the numbers to people like me, who aren’t CPAs, and we can nail this guy. Our economy has serious, long-term problems that are hurting tens of millions of Americans, and Obama is the one steering the ship into the iceberg. He has a lot of campaign money on his side; but if we can keep our wits about us, and with God’s help, we can get rid of him.

  25. …The whole country is sick, from top to bottom. Homosexuality isn’t just tolerated; it’s TAUGHT and PROMOTED in grade schools as “acceptable behavior” — and that, in the middle of an AIDS epidemic caused mainly by homosexuals. Did the Blacks do that? How about the fact that parents are afraid to spank their own children, for fear they might be hauled in by the Social Services Gestapo? Did the Blacks do that? How about all those humiliating, invasive searches and seizures at our airports? Did the Blacks do that?

  26. @ Joe Hamilton:

    Joe, I don’t know how much good this race talk is going to do. You mentioned a racial incident, and so far it hasn’t gotten awfully out of hand. If Zimmerman gets lynched, that will be another matter.

    In the meantime, the people of the United States have committed themselves, since the administration of Harry Truman, to create in America a multi-racial society. It’s been a rocky road. White male Americans have, by and large, suffered while some blacks have moved to places of prominence. Still, I don’t see that the blacks have gotten a tremendously unfair advantage over the deal; and I can see much more to blame than the Civil Rights movement…

  27. A more pertinent character flaw of Obama is his aiding and abetting black racist criminals. He and Jeffrey Holder who is supposed to be the highest law enforcement official in the USA are refusing to prosecute “The New Black Panthers” who are a bunch black criminal cowards who prevented several elderly white women from voting in 2008 now came out of their rat hole and broke the law again to participate in the attempted lynching of George Zimmerman who in self-defense administered justice to black punk who was smashing Zimmerman’s head repeatedly on the concrete sidewalk.These black racists actually put out a bounty on Zimmerman “dead or alive”. Obama is now acting like a Hitler inciting violence against white Americans showing what an incompetent racist he is.He has made statements implying Zimmerman who probably would not be alive if he had not shot the punk who assaulted him, is a racist murderer. The irresponsibility of Obama unfortunately the President of the US to inject himself into an ongoing investigation is incredible. He is so stupid he thinks his actions will misdirect attention away from his incredible incompetence, especially in economics. Zimmerman,although the case against him is incredibly weak, under pressure from the Obama and other black racists was arrested. The local Sanford Florida police had previously determined there was not even enough evidence Zimmerman committed a crime to arrest him when they arrived to investigate the shooting ,to arrest him at the scene of the shooting . Obama is with black racists such as the vile pig Al Sharpton who is personally responsible for the death of Yonkle Rosenberg an orthodox Jew in Brooklyn during Crown Heights Brooklyn Pogrom.Sharpton was the leading inciter of this black pogrom against Jews in about 1990. But Obama and his criminal AG ,Holder praised Sharpton for his participation in the lynching of George Zimmerman.So Obama alleged constitutional scholar who is closer to an idiot, not only hates Israel and Jews but clearly hates whites in general even though his white grandmother who through great financial hardship, payed for him to attend the best private high school in Honolulu. Sharpton who the criminally incompetent racist Holder praised, also incited a black mob in Harlem NYC to take violent against a Jewish owned store which resulted in the death of at least 7 people.

  28. I have just finished reading Thornton’s “less is more” number crunching, including his statement,

    “If you want to get more tax revenues from the rich, you’ve got to make the rich richer, and to make the rich richer, you’ve got to lower tax rates.”

    Duh, excuse me. Let me figure this out. There is a hypothetical rich man, Mr. Oyl, say. Oyl earned $10,000,000.00 last year and pays, say, 25% of that in taxes. That means we (the American taxpayers) get $2,500,000.00 from him. We want to get more than that, so, according to Thornton, we need to lower his tax rate to, say, 20%. That means he will pay, according to my admittedly rudimentary math skills, $2,000,000.00.

    According to my figures, Oyl will pay half a million dollars LESS in taxes at a 20% rate than at a 25% rate. I am not an Economics major, but I have done the family taxes for decades, and used to do the books for some businesses I worked for. Please check my math, and tell me where I have gone wrong.

    Some of Thornton’s other figures are even more amazing. He says that since the ’80s, when the Republicans have been pushing tax cuts, taxes on the rich have gone up, the middle class is paying less and the poor are paying nothing. If the whole point of their tax cuts was, as Thornton says, “to make the rich richer”, where have they gone wrong? Perhaps the Democrats have been thwarting them. Let me check, to see who’s been in power since 1980:

    1981-83 P Rep S Rep H Dem
    1983-85 P Rep S Rep H Dem
    1985-87 P Rep S Rep H Dem
    1987-89 P Rep S Dem H Dem
    1989-91 P Rep S Dem H Dem
    1991-93 P Rep S Dem H Dem
    1993-95 P Dem S Dem H Dem
    1995-97 P Dem S Rep H Rep
    1997-99 P Dem S Rep H Rep
    1999-01 P Dem S Rep H Rep
    2001-03 P Rep S tie H Rep
    2003-05 P Rep S Rep H Rep
    2005-07 P Rep S Rep H Rep
    2007-09 P Rep S tie H Dem
    2009-11 P Dem S Dem H Dem
    2011-13 P Dem S Dem H Rep

    “P” is President, “S” is Senate, etc. You can see that the Democrats did not monopolize making budgets and tax policies all those years. In fact, for a good while, the Republicans controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress. How is it, then, that the rich have been paying a higher tax rate recently instead of a lower rate? Weren’t the Republicans the ones who were going to LOWER their rates? How did they go so terribly wrong?

    I don’t believe a single word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Obama. By the same token, I can’t see how Thornton is making any sense.