That’s an old and annoying Democrat talking point: Rich boss pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Indeed, raising the cap gains tax would reduce investment, which is the opposite of what we need. Besides that, Buffet’s tax rate is only lower because he isn’t counting the corporate tax which is paid on that money too.

It’s annoying that our ‘leadership’ is unwilling to fix things. Here’s a campaign slogan: Don’t fix it, tax’n patch it. Our debt is racing toward $20 Trillion, and the best idea they have is a runt version of the trickle-style stimulus we’ve been using. We’re going to trickle ourselves to death.

We need serious reform! What about reforming Medicare? Use means testing or raise the age. Because if we can get the deficit under control, the debt won’t matter. YES – our $15 trillion debt is offensive. But with the size of our GDP, it’s manageable. What makes it not manageable is the deficit and the lack of willingness to balance the damn budget.

If we could get the deficit under control, then we could do something serious, like drop $4-5 trillion on infrastructure updates. Maybe we could set up a smart-grid, something that could actually handle and distribute all this electricity the Liberals are demanding to magically appear from wind and solar. Maybe we could set up a super-broadband, and bring it to every town. Maybe we could update some water and sanitation.

What about reforming the tax system? You want to increase exports? How about taxing all the shit we buy, which includes all the imports we buy, and stop taxing the American work that goes into making our exports? Something like Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. That kind of change would be profoundly good for both business and government efficiency.

What about zeroing the cap gains tax??? Yeah, it would hurt Warren Buffet’s feelings… But all the non-deranged people and businesses would have to let go of their money. They’re hanging onto it out of uncertainty: Risk. The way you overcome risk is with reward. Lower taxes on investment means higher reward, resulting in higher tolerated risk, and thus investment.

What about all these rich people who aren’t struggling? We could just tax them more to pay for bills labeled according to the electorate’s biggest current concern. Then we wouldn’t have to do any actual reform right now that could frighten old people and threaten Obama’s reelection. Even if we can’t force it through, we’ll be able to vilify the Republicans and set them up as the “Party of No,” or the “Anti-Jobs Party.” We’re already trying to get, “The Tea Party Recession” out there in preparation. Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

The uniqueness of the summit was that it was on TV. Presidents have always gathered up congressmen and tried talking them into this or that.

It’s fairly obvious that the summit was a symbol. Obama knows that his only chance of passing this now infamous bill after Brown won is to abuse Reconciliation. The summit was a symbolic show of bipartisanship to try and make the Reconciliation effort look less dastardly.

I’m not sure Obama believe the bill will or won’t work. I think he just knows it’s his chance to stake a claim for government control of healthcare. He knows once they have a foot hold the ever expansive nature of bureaucracy will grow – and fix – its way into controlling that huge chunk of society.

This is terrifying to anyone who sees government for what it is: an inefficient monster whose energy is only suited for certain and unique jobs. But guys like Obama think government is pretty much the answer to every problem – and by that I mean government issued payments. I mean – that’s the base of his whole ideology: Gather wealth with taxes and spread it around in a way that is fair.

Again – all he’s looking for is the biggest foot hold he can get.

Divinity Dove, Dr. Dove, and Professor Dove suggested some incentives to bring young professionals and businessmen to Michigan to help revitalize the state. For example, full spectrum lights, student loan assistance, parks and nature development along the detroit river, etc. Good grief you guys. You are recent graduate (wana-be) x-Michiganders. Would any of that shit keep you in Michigan? No. Of course not. You’re going to go where the opportunity is that opens up to you. So – Michigan needs opportunities opening up in Michigan if they want to keep young people. Not the other way around.

You can’t just offer some incentive to draw people in and hope that turns things around. Squirrels don’t cause nuts to grow on trees – they go live where nuts are growing on trees. That’s like the Dem philosophy of “creating” jobs to turn back growing unemployment. That’s not how it works. You need to promote business so actual opportunities will open up.

Like the clowns running Washington… Yeah, by their standards I could create 10,000 jobs with only $100,000. All I’d need is a few empty lots, some shovels, and some news paper ads – some offering work as hole digges and some as hole fillers. Yeah – that would pump $100,000 into the economy and put some people to work for a day. Would it do anything? NO. Would it create any economic activity? No. Would unemployment go down? No – well – not until more of the people looking for work give up anyway.

But wait! What about the economic activity produced when the workers spend their wages?

Well – that’s actually negative economic activity in a sense, because you have to tax someone – before, now, or in the future – to get the $100k to pay the wages. And no doubt – those taxes were/will be/are on business and entrepreneurs who otherwise would have spent the money creating economic activity (investing) which would have created actual opportunity.

Some people might think I’m simply misunderstanding the economics behind such thinking. So here’s what’s going on. The stimulus – which is similar to my hole digging idea – is an implementation of Keynesian economics. It’s a simple concept. Government regulates interest rates, banks, and stuff to stabilize business cycles. But if these controls aren’t enough and the economy slows down too much government picks up the slack by spending. The concept itself is sound.

The ‘downturn’ becomes apparent – or more apparent.
People slow spending (due to unemployment or fear of)
Sellers cut back orders and cut employment
Producers cut back production and cut employment
Loop back to step 1.

The idea is to stop this cycle, or prevent it. So government dumps cash into the economy in the form of spending to take up for slowed people spending – with the idea sellers will stop cutting orders and producers will stop cutting production and employment will stabilize.

I don’t see this method as being the “American” way of doing things, nor do I think it’s the most effective way to recover an economy. But I’m not in charge. Liberals are. And Liberals like this method because it’s yet another opportunity to further Liberal causes and generally redistribute reward. Regardless – as I’ve said – the idea is valid.

Here is the small problem though: Obama isn’t following the idea. This Economic Recovery Act business trickles the money out WAY WAY late and trickles much of it into state bureaucracies and infrastructure projects. This means the $700 billion isn’t getting in there and replacing spending – hell – they still have half of it pilled somewhere and aren’t organized enough to avoid fraud – one of the big weaknesses of the Keynesian idea. It’s a small matter though because I don’t think even effective Keynesian stimulus is what helps the economy. I think it’s the simple sense that some higher power is working to fix things. It gives people confidence – which is essentially what an economy is.

Here is the big glaring problem. You can’t try to stimulate an economy with clumsy “trickle up” stimulus and at the same time scare the shit out of investors and businesses!!! Everything from Obama bashing the bank CEOs to Pelosi ramming though cap and trade, the whole bag of anti-business pro-littleguy DESTROYS confidence.

And without confidence, even if people aren’t laid off, they slow spending. Without confidence sellers cut orders and employment. Without confidence producers cut production and employment. And without confidence we loop back to step 1.

F-me 72 minutes long.

I appreciate efforts to make positive comments. But holy horses ass don’t you hate being treated like you’re a stupid jerk who has no idea what’s happened in the past year?

Indeed, I love the idea of a capital gains tax cut on small business investment. But I’ll swear this right now – and let it be heard: If Obama and his Democrats pass such a tax cut, and actual cut and not in name only, the following Saturday, at the first strike of noon, I will cross my front street and take a shit in my mail box.

This address has amazed me. I wasn’t expecting Obama to be so brazenly and blatantly contradictory and – well – disingenuous. This address was one contradiction after another – and one skewed view of reality after another.

Seriously – he’s still trying to sell the Recovery Act as a jobs creator? Even MSNBC is calling that bill a big fat failure. No one with a brain is proud of that load of pork – Liberal victory party.

Seriously – he thinks there’s no support for this asinine health reform bill because he didn’t explain it well enough? Does he really think we’re that stupid??? Who the hell knows what is in that bill? The week before last his camp had locked themselves in a room, made dirty secret deals in order to grab votes for a secret bill. All the while Obama is constantly – on every channel every week – spouted poetry about vague ideas of health reform. Didn’t explain it well enough… Oh yeah – if only the American people understood the bill they’d all be on board. YOU KNOW DAMN WELL YOU KEPT IT A F****G SECRET BECAUSE YOU KNEW DAMN WELL IF AMERICA DID KNOW WHAT WAS IN IT THEY’D SHIT THEMSELVES OVER IT!!!!

Seriously – he wants to talk about putting old Washington politics aside? That’s what he spent the last bit of the address about, an emotionally calling for a start of new, and so on. Seriously? HE – Obama – was calling for an end to the perpetual campaign???  Come on – we aren’t all stupid. Obama himself IS that dirty style of politics – where you do [this] but talk [that]. That’s what this address IS!!!. He’s talking [$that] while doing [$this].

$that = nuclear, drilling, tax cuts, spending freeze, veto

$this = health takeover, redistribution, climate religion, command economics

I noticed something interesting. He claimed with regard to healthcare reform that he didn’t take it on to take a political victory. As he said it though, watch his body language. He didn’t believe what he was saying, or at least he wasn’t comfortable or confident saying it.

But the most honest thing he said was that he’d focus on job creation in 2010. No – I don’t believe he will focus on job creation in 2010. It’s just honest that he basically admitted that he sure as shit wasn’t focusing on jobs creation in 2009 – unless you count government jobs.

I’d get more detailed, but I’m just exhausted. Obama’s idea of sharing a cake is to take the whole damn thing up to his room. Of course his brother will disagree with that policy. So Obama will accuse his brother of “not sharing” by blocking his policy of sharing the cake.

I can’t believe a single thing Obama says anymore. I just can’t. It’s not partisanship either, or any of that blind religious belief in conservativism some would like to accuse me of, or racism, or prejudice against left handed people. It’s a simple fact I learned long ago: Some people lie.

Also, does anyone else find his narcissism a little off-putting? Shit, this whole speech was focused on Obama. I-I-I-I-I-I-I…

It is funny that every Democrat commenting on the speech has had something derogatory to say about Republicans holding up legislation. Those poor Dems… If they ever took a group trip to Baskin Robins we’d never see them again.

Come on Republicans. Get on board with our cake sharing policy! Don’t you believe we should share cake??? Why won’t you let us share the cake with you? You just want the whole cake for yourselves don’t you. Yeah, you’re selfish. Obama has bent over backwards to compromise with your guys and you’ll have nothing to do with it. It’s like – you expect Obama’s cake sharing policy to actually let you have some of the cake or something…

Shit I shouldn’t have watched this thing so early in the day. I was going to watch it last night but my connection got sick. Maybe I’ll have more detailed and less frustrated comments later.

Fairness

Let’s start with the semantics – my favorite part of politics [ facetiousness detected ]. We are talking about the FairTax Act. If we judge this Act by the standards held by recent legislation – like the American Clean Energy and Security Act, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – I have to assume that the FairTax Act taxes people unfairly and is not specific to America.

So, despite traditional congressional naming conventions, could the FairTax Act be in some ways fair? It certainly depends on your perspective. Essentially a FairTax would abolish income tax, capital gains tax, and all other types of earnings taxes – and replace them with a federal sales tax, levied by current state systems. Certainly, anyone under the assumption that the rich should be taxed more because they have more will see the basic concept as unfair. But the FairTax act includes tax credits that would make all purchases up to the poverty level – or something – tax free. Still, squeezing successful people for money would be more difficult, because they’d have to spend it for uncle same to grab his share, which means he won’t be able to write a quick bill that taxes the sox off the rich to set up entitlements. Some won’t see that as fair.

If you’re a person who believes it’s government’s job to provide certain services, and a person’s tax share should reflect that person’s use of those services – then the FairTax might be fair. It just depends on how you calculate it. Everyone is a consumer and benefits from government services about equally in that regard – national security, roads, infrastructure, regulation, law enforcement, and so on. Entrepreneurs benefit even more by doing business with the aid of such services. But then, we all have the freedom to innovate and do business. That’s one of those freedoms provided.

And if you’re one of those people who believe each person should simply pay an equal share – with exceptions for those who simply can’t afford it – then the FairTax is exactly fair. You’re only taxed for what you spend – what you use. You’re free to work as hard as you like, make as much money as you like, and you still pay as much tax per unit of stuff used as the next guy.

No rational person can use ‘fairness’ in deciding legislation – the word is vague and arbitrary. Obama used it in his campaign for crying out loud. For some it seems fair for five friends to split the bill five ways. For some it’s fair that each person pays only for what they order. And to some, like Obama, it’s fair for the guy with the highest income to pay the whole bill and also give the guy with the lowest income money for lunch tomorrow. The FairTax is like paying for what you order plus a little extra to pay for the friend who forgot his wallet.

One definite fair thing about the fair tax is how government spending would be conducted. The FairTax act requires taxes be revenue neutral. In other words, if government spends more they have to visibly tax more. No more of the Obama-type free gifts for everyone – I’ll make the rich pay for it. This would help resolve a big weakness in democracy: The majority electorate voting for monetary gifts from the minority. For example: the false idea that we can all have free healthcare would be a harder snake-oil to sell.

Likewise there would be direct visible ramifications to irresponsible spending and pork-laden bills of all types – no more free money.

Viability

Viability of the FairTax is something fun to ponder. I mean, if it’s viable to have the IRS – a country-sized bureaucracy – lording over every productive/profitable move we make, slicing off a piece of every inch of progress we make – then shifting taxes from income tax  to a streamlined spending tax should be perfectly viable – mathematically. Nothing should cost more. Right now we pay for a company’s taxes when we buy its products. Under the FairTax we’d pay the same taxes but they’d be visible.

You might worry about a tax on spending causing a reduction in spending – which would be BAD in this economy. And it might cause a reduction in spending if we abruptly switched. But – fundamentally – a FairTax would lower prices.

How? How would a 23% sales tax reduce the cost of goods? Well, we’re already paying that 23% tax, but in a less efficient way and based on our output and not our consumption. Once the punishment for productivity is removed, there will be more productivity – obviously. And productivity leads to efficiency, innovation, and investment – which all make everything cheaper as it has been since the concept of The United States of America began.

Of course this concept goes both ways. People will see the punishment for spending. Rather than having 1/3 of their wages taken they will see a 23% tax. This will cause people to reflect longer before making large purchases and people will be overall less inclined to make purchases. (which may be a good thing long term because people will stop buying garbage and start demanding better and healthier stuff) And of course, this affect will be at least somewhat offset by the fact that people are bringing home 1/3 more cash to spend.

And from Uncle Sam’s and stat’s perspective – revenue cash flow wise – the continuous nature of sales tax is a goodthing. We just saw California keel-over and about die because they are so reliant on rich-people income taxes, like capital gains tax, which dries up completely during recessions.

So the concept is certainly viable. The implementation would have to be realistic of course. So the guys who give Obama his numbers would have to be killed and fed to dogs just to be sure. And this is assuming Obama’s agenda is at least partially crippled, since all his ideas will require a lot more than a silly 23%.

This system could also lend some extra flexibility. For example, in times of war the tax could be raised slightly to pay for it. This would lessen war debts and spread the sacrifice around. Or maybe it could be used as a market control – like how the Fed manipulates interest rates. When the economy gets too hot you could raise the sales tax. When it gets too low, you could lower it. We would just have to keep the lesson learned from the past few decades about not abusing market manipulators. (The idea of Fed controls was to soften peaks and valleys. Instead we used them to heighten peaks.)

Likelihood

As far as legislation goes, FairTax is highly thought-out, conceptually and actually. It has loyal support, mostly on the right, but including one Democrat. And it’s claimed that the FairTax Act is non-partisan.

Of course, the FairTax is by no means non-partisan. Sure, by Obama’s standards of bipartisanship this bill, like the House healthcare reform bill, is bipartisan because is does include support by one democrat. But seriously, passing the FairTax Act would be a total and unmitigated disaster for the long held agenda of the Left. It would also make getting elected a true nightmare for Democrats. There’s no way in hell the Liberal Democrats will let something like this pass – if they can at all help it.

A FairTax would make it impossible to specifically tax millionaires and billionaires. And without all that lute there’s no way to finance – or pretend to be able to finance – all the bright ideas and experiments the Left would like to try. And without all that lute, Democrats can’t make their promises to “the little guy” – promises like free healthcare, free homes, free education, high paying low skilled jobs, and all the other impossible yet expensive proclamations.

So any effort to actually pass the FairTax will have to come from the Right. But Conservatives – as the name implies – are not enthusiastic champions of any monumental change. The average Republican in office today is totally engaged in slowing down Obama’s attack on business.

Right now the momentum is in the total opposite direction of the FairTax. We have energy taxes coming down the congressional chute. We have a healthcare reform bill being finalized in secret – because its public support has taken ill – and who knows what kinds of taxes/fees/penalties will emerge from that pile of dirty-porky-compromise. And the current Washington idea of ‘fair’ is to spread the wealth around.

HOWEVER – momentum has a nasty and abrupt habit of shifting direction, especially when crazy Liberal face-lift enthusiasts from San Francisco are running roughshod over congress and spending every oz of the Liberal savior’s political capital in his first few months in office – trying to force-feed the country the most belligerently partisanspreader load of legislation seen in recent history.

And if we know anything from recent history, we know that the population is averse to such behavior. We can add that to the economic climate, the fact that our economic policies and current legislative efforts are crippling business, the slow realization that Obama is a tentative and inexperienced leader, the perception that he’s gentle with national security while people’s underwear is being weaponized, the general creeping feeling that his charming personality really isn’t going to de-nuke and otherwise save the world, the abuse of the dollar, the porkroast cook-off and spending-spree they’re having with all our tax dollars – and created dollars – and you will soon see a backlash against whatever and whoever is most prominently in charge of whatever.

And if the FairTax manages to ride that backlash – assuming it’s hard enough – we might see it make it to law. It will have to be a hard backlash though, fed by worse than the semi-permanent 10% unemployment we have. Another one trillion in ‘stimulus’ won’t hurt.

Professor Dove recently said to me:

“Who owns the heart and mind of our children?…  Everyone is telling them what to think and how to think.  Do you know what they are being told?  What are you telling them? “

And I responded:

I’m telling them that penises are poisonous and vaginas are haunted. It’s the only way – scare’m.
I hated that when I was a kid. Teen age boys have too much testosterone to be afraid of anything, or make rational decisions for that matter. And, from my perspective, fear was basically the only thing that ruled.

I remember a conversation that was being had where each person was stating the trauma that each of their boys endured while driving which made them suddenly start driving like they had a brain. “Such bullshit” I remember thinking. I drove better than any of them and had never had anything happen that was scary and didn’t make me want to take more chances.

Ah excess testosterone… Sure, I rubbed a few things and got the car stuck once honing my tactical driving skills, but hell – you have to learn one way or the other and if I ever need to drive in a war zone or as a wheel man I’ll have some background.

I think kids will only have their behavior affected by people they respect. Adolescents emanate their idols. The big problem is kids respect people for weird reasons, which means they have their behavior affected by weird people.

The “HAPPY” bill, congress people propose all kinds of laws like this. And as far as proposed laws go, you can find worse. Take a look: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bssQuery/?Opt=t&Db=111 And as far as wasted time, I consider that a productive use of a congress man’s time. Hell – he’s legislating isn’t he? And there’s not much he can do about the health care bill, unless he wants to support it with Snow.

Anyway, the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years Act has two sponsors and was referred to the Ways and Means committee on July 31^st. It would give a $3500 yearly deduction for pet care expenses. Robert Davi got it off the ground. And, it is a tax cut, and a tax cut is a tax cut. I’d support it.

But if you want to argue against it I’m game to argue for. Gosh, three or four different approaches just tumbled though my mind. There goes a fifth…

The power of reasoning is the only thing I think that makes humans more valuable than animals – and few humans are capable of reasoning. So, for the most part, I like animals better.

There are a few glaring differences, besides the tax being levied during a recession. Sulfur dioxide and carbon are different. You can cut out sulfur dioxide by changing your process or use a scrubber to remove it. Carbon is released no matter what you do, unless everyone starts using not-yet-invented carbon capture systems and disposing of it through not-yet-created disposal system. It’s the difference in capping and trading poison emissions and capping, trading, and taxing energy emissions – plant food.

You might think this bill would spur the development of carbon systems – and you’d be right – and you’d also be right if you were talking about a simple cap and trade system without the tax. But you wouldn’t be right, right away because to sell this bill they had to give away numerous exceptions to different industries in certain congressmen’s districts.

Basically it’s the difference in the ideological approach. The sulfur dioxide cap and trade system simply added a mechanism to the open market system – sort of an artificial ‘shortage’ in the market – whichallowed people who find a way to emit less to save money and a simply way for people needing to emit more to purchase it – and created a new industry for removing it from emissions.

This carbon cap and trade is a tax on carbon. The government is then supposed to spend the money on reducing carbon. Rather than money just shifting in the economy in a natural way it sucks money out and relies on the wise decisions of election leaders and bureaucrats to spur innovation with the money shovel and punish carbon emitters with the IRS.

It seems similar but the economic mechanisms are very different.