Yeah, let’s cripple more companies during an economic downturn, not to mention the increased tax burdens this will shift to the lower income families (you know the families that liberals claim to support, while we evil conservatives brush them aside to help our corporate fat-cat friends).
This is what Democrats love to do…impose their agenda, beliefs and ideologies on the rest of us with no thought paid to the unintended consequences that these decisions have in store for us.
This is also the precursor to “Universal Healthcare” that President Obama wants to push. He’s going to have to find ways to pay for it somehow and raising taxes on things like soda and cigarettes are just step one. Pretty soon, we’ll see fatty foods, sugary cereals, Vitamin D and 2% milk, candy, alcohol and God knows what else taxed because some Washington bureaucrats think they know what’s better for us than we do.
I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves as we have over three and a half more years to go.
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, I, like many, were simply appalled by the media’s absolute fawning and teenage-like crush over, then-candidate, Barack Obama. Everything from Chris Matthews’ leg tingle to Andrea Mitchell’s shameless shilling made me believe that the last bastion of the mass media’s journalistic integrity slipped away with the passing of Tim Russert.
Unfortunately for all of us, I was woefully incorrect. The new low hit yesterday during CNN’s and MSNBC’s covering of the tea party demonstrations around the country.
Whether you agree with the tea party campaign or not, it is still a valid form of grassroots, political opposition to the actions of our government and thus, should be reported that way.
Did MSNBC and CNN view it that way?
Absolutely not.
Instead of reporting it as a legitimate news story, they treated it like a crude sex joke at a frat house.
If you are not aware, “tea bagging” is slang for a sexual act performed between a man and a woman. I’m not going to describe it any further. If you want to find out what it is, just Google it.
In case you’re interested, here are some examples of what I’m talking about:
"It's hard to talk when you're tea bagging."-CNN anchor Anderson Cooper
"Tea bagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."
"They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending."
Also described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless"-MSNBC reporter David Shuster
Also, while not sexually charged, but equally delusional…
"I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox."-CNN reporter Susan Roesgen
Seriously? This is what passes as “journalism” and “reporting” nowadays?
Listen, if someone like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow wants to rant about the “simpletons” and “sheep” (their words, not mine) that attend these gatherings, that’s fine with me. They are political commentators, not reporters. It is their jobs to give their opinions on political stories, not report the news.
However, what happened yesterday shows that reporting the news has taken a back seat to political ideologues posing in the guise of legitimate news reporters and anchors passing their judgment on events, people and groups that they’re supposed to remain neutral towards. That is not political journalism, that is political activism.
Hmm…I can only wonder why CNN and MSNBC continue to lag in ratings.
Don’t believe me? See for yourself by looking at the cable news ratings from April 15 (the numbers in parentheses are the number of viewers…thanks Drudge!):
This also demonstrates the Left’s favorite pastime of trying to discredit a group of people that don’t follow their beliefs with ridicule and profanity.
I guess when you have nothing else to argue with, you can only resort to the lowest common denominator.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
This week some of you experienced a massive tax increase in your cigarette purchases, a move that started at the desk of one, President Obama…the most powerful smoker in the world. The new cigarette tax tripled the amount of money the federal government collects on each pack of cigarettes from $.39 per pack to $1.01 per pack. This taxing measure should bring in around $38 billion in taxes over the next five years.
Not only was this tax increase a flagrant breaking of President Obama’s campaign promise to not raise any taxes on individuals making less than $250,000, but it is a move that will ultimately be bad for the economy.
This move also demonstrates one of two things:
1.President Obama lied about raising taxes on the not so affluent.
2.President Obama views sales taxes differently than regular, personal income taxes.
I can live with option one as many politicians lie or have to sell out some of their campaign rhetoric once they encounter the reality of the situations they face in office.
If it is option two, well then we had better hold onto our pants, as the government may begin to raise taxes, sales taxes mind you, on virtually anything and everything.
But, let’s get back to the cigarette tax that we are currently living with.
There is something that I find particularly interesting when looking at cigarette taxes. That thing is that republicans and conservatives alike, generally, do not throw up nearly the same type of rightfully, hysterical opposition to this type of taxation as they do with increases in other forms of taxation such as property taxes or income taxes.
My question is, why not?
I think many people that don’t smoke, don’t really care about this tax. They figure, “Hell, I don’t smoke, so why should I care if a bunch of people that are slowly killing themselves by smoking have to pay a little bit more to do so?”
It is this very sentiment that makes cigarette taxes so dangerous.
Any tax, whether you think it directly affects you or not, does have a negative impact on you because it has a negative overall impact on the economy as a whole.
For every extra dollar that is paid to the government in the form of a cigarette tax is one less dollar that is in the private sector…a dollar that could, theoretically, go towards a business that you either directly run or have invested in. Or in this case, $38 billion.
Additionally (and this goes back to the point I made above about President Obama’s views on sales taxes) this just makes it easier for the government to start taxing other forms of our income.
What this indifferent approach to cigarette taxes shows is that the government can tax all sorts of items and, as long as a large majority of the population doesn’t use said item, there will be little opposition to those increases as well.
This doesn’t even begin to discuss the damage these taxes do to the cigarette companies, companies, last time I checked, that employ many thousands of American workers.
All this tax is just the latest example of the liberal approach to slowly forcing their agenda on the rest of us by punishing certain rights and practices.
So the next time a cigarette law comes up, rally against it, rally against it hard…even if you don’t smoke. You will be helping yourself in the long haul.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
"The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."-Obama Press Secretary on the Administration’s ethics standards.
Well…I’ll let all of you judge that one for yourselves.
House Democrats, working closely with President-elect Obama, just called for $825 billion in federal spending and tax cuts to revive the slowing economy, with a strong emphasis on energy, education, health care and jobs-producing highway construction.
I can’t help but shut my eyes, shake my head and chuckle at the thought that this package will actually stimulate anything other than its supporter’s sense of self worth.
Let’s take a closer look at this gargantuan spending bill shall we?
$550 billion of the $825 billion is actually government spending with only $275 billion in tax cuts, most of which will be “cutting” the taxes of people that don’t actually pay taxes. But please, let’s not bring facts into this feel-good story that Congress is peddling.
Here are some more numbers for you:
(These excerpts, by the way, are pulled directly from the Yahoo News story)
“The measure calls for $87 billion to help the states meet the rising cost of providing health care for the poor in the recession”
React: Why is it the federal government’s responsibility to bankroll the broken health care programs of the states? Why should federal tax dollars from a state that knows how to properly manage its health care costs go to bailout a state that doesn’t know how to do so?
“and another $39 billion to subsidize coverage by out-of-work wage-earners who cannot afford the cost of their employer-covered health care.”
React: Yet another welfare program, as we continue to move towards universal health care run by the ever-efficient and wise federal government. (Heavy use of sarcasm)
Also, what the hell is an “out-of-work wage-earner”? It must be the politically correct way of saying unemployed.
“More than $100 billion is ticketed for education, including money for school districts to shield them from the effects of state cutbacks in services.”
React: At least it’s for education, but again, why is the federal government doing this? Again I ask, why should federal tax dollars from a state that knows how to properly manage its educational costs go to bailout a state that doesn’t know how to do so?
Democrats also provided tens of billions in spending and tax breaks designed to lessen the nation's dependence on oil as a principal source of energy.
React: Allow me to translate this to you: more subsidies for multi-million dollar farmers that will invest more and more of their land and resources into the development of ethanol, a fuel that is more harmful to the environment while simultaneously inflating food costs for consumers.
Outstanding! (More sarcasm)
I know some of you are thinking, “Alright, if you’re so smart, you come up with a plan.”
Would I have actually written that last sentence if I already didn’t have a plan worked out?
I think you all know me well enough to know the answer is a big, fat “no”.
Here’s my plan: Eliminate federal income and corporate taxes for a calendar year.
Currently, we have spent, or are planning to spend $1.542 trillion on bailouts, “stimulus packages” and tax cuts.
For 2007 (the last year on record), the receipts the federal government received from personal and corporate income taxes was $1.470.2 trillion.
Now, I want all of you to honestly ask yourselves, which will do more to stimulate the economy, letting the government figure out a way to move around over a trillion and a half dollars to jump-start it or let people and companies keep more of their own money and let the markets correct themselves?
I think we all know the answer to that, don’t we?
Some of you may be thinking, “well, without taxes, what is the government going to do? How will it pay for things?” Well, they’re largely paying for everything with deficit spending as it is, that would just continue.
Plus, tax receipts would still flow in from social security, excise and customs taxes to pay for a number of programs.
Additionally, states would benefit as consumer spending would ultimately increase and therefore raising the amounts of sales taxes they would collect.
Businesses would be more likely to hire, people would be more willing to spend and the economy would undoubtedly improve.
Listen, I’m not actually suggesting that we continue to spend like drunken sailors. However, if our government is so hell-bent on “stimulating” the economy by spending money, I think we should, at least, do it properly.
Maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe I’m dense for not seeing how government is the answer to all of life’s ills. Maybe I’m foolish for not believing that by simply throwing money at a problem, it will magically disappear.
I guess I’ll let all of you decide.
That’s it for now folks, until next time, take care and be well.
Unfortunately, it seems that the current and future administration’s economic policies are merely focusing on who shall receive the next government handout, rather than actually eliminating the need for them.
So who is next in line for the handout du jour?
The American consumer of course!
I’m not sure if President Bush and President-elect Obama both have Disney’s “Robin Hood” in their movie library, but by looking at a great deal of their recent, economic policies, one may certainly believe that they do.
The incoming Obama administration is following in the footsteps of the current Bush administration by considering a second stimulus package aimed at increasing consumer spending. This stimulus package, however, is substantially larger than this summer’s Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (ESA). This second package weighs in with a price tag of $500 billion, compared to the $152 billion devoted to the ESA.
By both administrations’ accounts, this is a “tax-cut for the middle class”.
Rubbish.
This is nothing more than an incredibly short-sided, socialistic approach to redistributing wealth by stealing it from the wealthy and giving it to the not so wealthy.
Besides the obvious unfairness of this thievery, I have another major issue with this sequel to the stimulus package…the first one simply didn’t work.
Why didn’t it work you may ask?
Well, for one thing, none of the money went to the top income earners in the country. As much as some may not like to admit, the vast majority of the wealthy are wealthy because they’re smart; they innovative and they’re willing to invest their money in things that expand their prosperity.
Not granting these people a taste out of the taxpayer coffers in not only wrong, it’s also incredibly ill-advised as they’re the ones that can really help boost the economy, or at least far more so than the people that received the previous handout can.
Then there’s the work of legendary economist Milton Friedman. His near universally accepted “Permanent-Income Theory” states that temporary increases in income do not lead to an increase in consumption. Friedman argued that consumption only increases when long-term income expectations rise.
There is no better example of this than the failed ESA. The government handout gave consumers a nice boost to their monthly intake, but it did absolutely nothing to improve their long-term financial situation, hence the lack of an increase in individual consumption.
So, some of you may be thinking, “what does promote long-term income expectations to rise?”
A permanent, across the board tax cut would improve the long-term income expectations for everyone in the country. It would also do something that government handouts have failed to do…it would actually boost the economy because of the short and long-term benefits it provides.
This tax cut would increase the incentive of the wealthy (as well as everyone for that matter because all future earnings will be subjected to less taxation) to innovate and invest, immediately boost individual consumption and provide some much needed stability to both individuals and the stock market.
This lack of stability should not be discounted as it perpetuates fear in both individuals and businesses and it is this fear that is really wreaking havoc on the stock market and our economy in general.
This fear either drives investors away or it forces them to make a number of assumptions on the future performance of the market. This fear and speculation has resulted in an incredible sell off and crazy fluctuations in the stock market.
Just to give you an idea of how crazy the stock market has performed, take a look at this snapshot from September 10 to November 21.
In that time, there were 50 trading days. On 25 of those days, the market moved over 4% (16 up and 9 down). That’s half of the days people! That’s almost, literally, unbelievable!
To illustrate this historic turbulence, take a look at the market’s performance directly before that. In the market’s previous 25 years, there were only 25 days that experienced a move of 4% or more! So we go from 25 days in 25 years to 25 days in 50 days.
Absolutely shocking.
I do believe these government handouts fuel this fear as well, as they appear to be an act of desperation. When people see desperation they get scared and when they get scared they don’t spend and when they don’t spend, the economy doesn’t grow and when the economy doesn’t grow, well then, the economy doesn’t grow and I don’t have to explain why that is a problem.
An across the board, permanent tax cut would instill some much needed stability as people would see that their long term income outlook is improving and businesses (especially small businesses) won’t be scared off by the potential of smaller revenues; making them more willing to invest further into their companies.
Furthermore, the tax cut would also have another extremely important benefit…it would provide less governmental influence over the financial decisions of both individuals and businesses.
This cannot be overstated, as more governmental influence on an economy is never, ever a good thing.
I know in a dark economic time like this it may seem hard to believe, but capitalism didn’t just break. Capitalism has been the dominant force in an unprecedented expansion of wealth over the past 125 years and if we continue to trust the market with our economic prosperity, rather than the government, we will get through this tough time.
An easy way of doing this is by rejecting another socialistic solution like government handouts.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well
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