We need to increase tax revenue, not necessarily tax rates. The core problem is the bad economy, growing medical quality (notice I didn’t say costs), and entitlements that haven’t been adjusted for 50 years of change, including increased medical quality that has people living into their 100s and not just their 60s and 70s when SS was constructed.

Raising tax rates won’t fix any of this, and any intellectually honest person with even the slightest understanding of economics will agree that raising tax rates right now could easily decrease revenue, and make the problems worse. Just because the last few harvests have been poor doesn’t mean we should fall to the temptation of selling the tractor… We’re undergoing some serious economic change and we need our “rich” to invent the new economy before our rivals do and we end up behind or buried.

I watched Charlie Rose yesterday. He had a political analyst on there who said something I’ve heard multiple times since the speech, on NPR and FOX, which makes a lot of sense. Basically, according to the commentator(s), Obama’s strategy – political strategy – was to wait for the Republicans to come out with their radical Teapartyish budget reform plan, let it scare everyone into pooping their pants, then appear on TV with a 45 minute speech doing his election-2008 shtick, criticizing all the easy targets of the Republican plan and offering an “alternative” in the form of inspiring moderate ambiguous intangible rhetoric.

But the strategy sort of failed. People didn’t poop their pants after hearing Paul Ryan’s plan. Instead, people praised Ryan – including The Economists magazine – for finally offering some seriously needed reforms. The only partially scary sounding part of the plan is turning Medicare into the type of insurance buying system that Congress gets. Democrats are running around trying to hype it up, calling it a ‘voucher’ plan – which it isn’t. It’s a copy of the prescription drug plan, which works well. Instead of having a monstrous government agency controlling the prescription drug benefits, Medicare recipients have a choice between several private companies. You just check a box. If you want to change you can. The different companies all have to fight over you. Payments to these companies come directly from the government, no vouchers.

And people all this time have been wondering where the hell the President has been. We’ve got serious problems, people are worried about the debt and the future, one guy has produced a plan, but all Obama has done is criticize that plan without offering a solution of his own. People don’t like that. This is lack of leadership. This is indeed political pooplery.

I was just thinking about how the unions took the deal they just got with their ‘Cadillac’ healthcare plans?

Personally, and specifically Citibank – I don’t care if they ram it up their ass sideways with the trunk open. But rationally and fundamentally, it’s just another example of the philosophical approach the Left takes to problem solving:

– The élites decide we all are entitled to, or have a right to “this” – home’s, clean water, healthcare, high pay, and so on. Instead of promoting the growth and advancement of “this” – which can often require some pesky effort and understanding – they take the simply approach. They look at how much “this” costs, make up a number of people not currently enjoying “this”, multiply the two, then decide which group of wealthy people to tax for that amount and pass the legislation with a rushing screaming mob under the banners of for-the-little-guy compassion and demonizing their opposition as being “for the status-quo”. –

In this case they want all the banks to pay back all the money tax payers have lost bailing them out. All the banks can’t pay. So the one’s that have paid – the ones with money – Obama wants to force to pay the whole bill. And that might be fair. I don’t know or really care except for the fact that this approach to home ownership was the cause of the bank problems to begin with. And don’t bring up poorly regulated derivative funds. Yeah, they were brand new devices that needed regulation. But what else needed regulation was Fannie and Freddie – which the evil Bush brigade tried to pass legislation for but Franks – and even Obama himself – fought against it successfully. They called the Conservative’s warnings of an impending crash due to Fannie and Freddie fear mongers.

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.