Obama Setting Up Fall Guy for Tax Hikes
Thursday, February 18th, 2010Having already spent more tax dollars in one year than all other Presidents have spent in over 200 years, Obama is preparing a scapegoat to blame for even more tax hikes.
President Obama on Thursday named two Washington old-timers to scour the sofa pillows in search of some change — enough to bring down the government’s massive deficits by 2015.
Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson were introduced as co-chairmen of a debt commission, which will look to reduce the federal budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product in five years.
Obama said they were “taking on the impossible.”
“They’re going to try to restore reason to the fiscal debate and come up with answers,” he said.
There are two glaringly obvious conclusions which can be drawn from this exercise: first, this “commission” will recommend that taxes be raised and second, that when they do make this recommendation, Obama will use it to deflect criticism of his economic policies. Also obvious, if Obama continues to spend tax money like a drunken sailor, nothing anyone recommends is going to reduce the deficit.
But the president’s commission, issued by executive order, will be a much weaker version of the debt commission Congress recently rejected, meaning the commission’s recommendations will not have the force of law.
The commission is likely able to offer up only unpopular ideas — cutting Social Security and Medicare or raising taxes — meaning getting Congress to go along will be no picnic. It has to vote them up or down or could just shelve them.
Chances are that Obama and the Democrats in Congress will simply use this commission’s recommendations to continue to redistribute the wealth of America’s economic producers to the favored special interest groups of the left, such as the poor, the unions, and groups like ACORN. The Democrats simply have not learned a very simple principle regarding economics: Tax increases in and of themselves do nothing to strengthen and grow the economy. You also have to cut spending in a real and significant amount. By real, I mean an actual reduction in the amount spent, not a reduction of the amount of increase in spending.
Thanks to Obama and the Democrats’ economic policies, the next generation (or two) will be the poorest ever with the lowest standard of living of any American generation in modern times. I mean, Obama has already spent their tax money and their children’s tax money, so they are starting out in a very deep hole.
Also, with all of the taxes Obama is going to levy on small businesses, jobs are going dry up and the unemployment rate will continue to climb. He loves to tell everyone that he is only going to tax the wealthy, but he fails to realize that it is the wealthy who run businesses and create jobs. The more wealth he removes from the private sector, the fewer jobs that will be available.
Fewer jobs, lower standard of living, and record spending and deficit increases. Is this really the “Hope and Change” the Democrats were talking about?
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February 23rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm
So now the “poor” are a Democratic special interest group?
I guess since wealthy fat cats are a Republican special interest group, then that only makes sense.
So tell me, can you come up with a historical example where your “very simple principle regarding economics” has been successfully applied? When have we ever had strong economic growth that coincided with government “cutting spending in a real and significant amount”?
Certainly not during and immediately after WWII when government spending boomed and our country grew to become the strongest nation in the world. Certainly not during the Reagan error when military spending went through the roof and the national debt tripled.
Perhaps you are referring to the Clinton years when the economy boomed and we managed to balance the budget?
Fortunately for all of us, President Obama is not following your foolish advice to slash government spending in the middle of a major recession. That would certainly be shooting ourselves in the foot, but after watching the Republicans during the Bush years I guess that is what they are best at.