Say Anything Blog

If, as Obama tells us, “spreading the wealth will be better for everybody”, then why only do it a little bit?  Why not do a lot of income redistribution; wouldn’t that be even better for everybody?  In fact, if you accept Obama’s Marxist premise, the best thing to do for everybody would be to confiscate all income and redistribute it as the govt chooses, right?

Wrong premise, wrong conclusions.  GIGO

‘From the Beirut Bombing to 9/11’

Rick Moran

Today is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, A huge truck bomb detonated outside of the building housing our Marines located near the Beirut Airport and leveled the structure killing 241 American servicemen.

In a sobering column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Robert F. Turner draws a straight, undeviating line from that bombing to the attacks on 9/11 and shows how Osama Bin Laden took the measure of America and found it wanting while Congress seized powers previously reserved to the executive and emasculated our intelligence apparatus:

During a 1998 interview with an ABC News reporter in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden declared that this withdrawal proved Americans can’t accept casualties. It was obviously a consideration in his decision to order the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the conventional wisdom, that those deadly attacks resulted from “an intelligence failure,” doesn’t tell the full story.

A major reason we failed to detect the 9/11 attacks in advance was because, beginning in the 1970s, Congress launched a major public attack on the intelligence community. Mr. Biden, for example, was one of 17 senators to vote on Oct. 2, 1974, to make all covert operations (even espionage in some cases) unlawful. In 1986, he bragged in a New Republic interview that he’d personally blocked planned covert operations during the Reagan administration simply by threatening to leak them. (That statement calls to mind John Jay’s observation, in Federalist No. 64, that because Congress could not be trusted to keep secrets, the Constitution left the president “able to manage the business of intelligence as prudence might suggest.")

In 1978, Congress continued its intrusion into presidential powers by enacting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), making it a felony for intelligence professionals to monitor communications between foreign terrorists abroad and individuals within the U.S. without first getting a special warrant. But in a unanimous opinion, the appellate court established by FISA observed that every court to decide the issue had held the president has “inherent authority” under the Constitution “to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information,” adding: “We take for granted that the President does have that authority . . .”

Congress failed to anticipate in FISA the dangers posed by a terrorist like Zacarias Moussaoui—which is why FBI agents were unable to examine the contents of Moussaoui’s laptop computer and perhaps prevent the 9/11 attacks. Michael Hayden, then Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), later expressed his “professional judgment” that had these legal constraints (FISA) not existed “we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States” prior to the attacks, and “we would have identified them as such.”

It is hard to overestimate the damage done by liberal Congressional Democrats over the last 30 years to our intelligence capabilities. They not only put up walls between our foreign and domestic spy agencies but also created a mindset that deliberately destroyed our “Humint” or human intelligence capability. Carter’s DCIA Stansfield Turner fired 80% of covert agents and turned our intelligence efforts toward satellites and other electronic methods of intelligence gathering.

When ex-CIA agent Philip Agee outed several European CIA chiefs of station, the left made him a hero - which is strange when you consider the crocodile tears the left shed over the “outing” of Valerie Plame. When liberals became so concerned about keeping the names of our CIA personnel secret, they never revealed.

The leaks coming from liberals ensconced in the CIA and DIA over the last 8 years have been damaging and astonishingly partisan. This is a consequence of liberals in Congress doing the same thing with impunity. If they don’t like something the intel people are doing, they run to the press. If they discover a secret that, if outed, could be politically useful to them, they blab it.

They have emasculated, politicized, railroaded, terrorized, and caused confusion and dispiritedness in our intelligence community for going on 30 years. Some of our best and brightest analysts and agents retire early rather than deal with the constant leaking that makes their jobs next to impossible to perform.

[...]

We can’t afford more of this; it’s foolish to elect Dems to any position of influence.

The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Rodney has already posted the link to this video, but I thought you would like to see it directly.
This is the true face of Marxism.  This is their real agenda for this country.  Let’s not elect a Marxist as President, OK?

Find it here

Secret of Obama tax planned revealed?

By William Tate

I have learned how Barack Obama plans to cut taxes for 95% of the public, even though only 40% of people pay income taxes.  The explanation came from a young man calling from an Obama phone bank, one of millions of such calls being made these days.

Before we discussed the tax proposals, the college-age caller informed me that:

-Sarah Palin belongs to a church whose pastor believes in witchcraft, and that she is anti-Semitic.

-Obama will give me government-run health care and will pay for it, and all his other programs, by taxing the rich and corporations. When I pointed out that the wealthy already pay the majority of income taxes, and that corporations don’t really pay taxes, that they—for the most part—simply pass those taxes on to consumers, he sounded confused, as though they were concepts he had never heard before.

-Under Obama’s health plan I will be able to go to any doctor, including the most expensive specialists I can find, and the government will pay for it and all my other medical expenses, no matter how high the cost. Again, paid for by increased taxes only on the rich and corporations.

[...]

-McCain’s economic policies would be devastating. When asked if he knew anything about McCain’s proposals, he admitted he did not.

-Obama will hire people to drive down “high” unemployment, although he was unaware of where unemployment current stands (6.1% in September) or that it is low by historical standards.

-Obama will increase employment by giving tax breaks for corporations to bring jobs back to America. When I said my understanding was that the tax break would be $3,000 per job and asked how many people he thought would be willing to work for $3,000 a year, he said he would. He apparently had no concept of how little money that would be.

-The stock market will tank further if McCain is elected. When I pointed out that the stock market is a forward-looking mechanism, and that at least some of the market’s recent fall has been the result of pricing in an expected Obama victory, he simply continued to maintain the market would fall if McCain is elected.

Finally, I asked the troubling question about how Obama will ensure a tax break for 95% of people--despite the fact that about 40% don’t pay income taxes.  He struggled with that one for a while. Again, it seemed to be a foreign concept to him, like no one had ever raised the subject before.

He stumbled through a series of answers. Obama would “give” the unemployed jobs so that they could pay taxes and get a tax break. When I reminded him that would only account for 6%, he--in a tribute to the American education system--said that Obama was really talking about the 55% difference between 95 and 40. I reminded him that Obama had specified 95%, not 55%. He replied that “Obama didn’t really mean that.” I asked if he, the caller, was really supporting a candidate who lied about something so important?

He told me to wait while he talked to his supervisor. I could overhear bits of a conversation in which he referred to me, rather politely, as “a difficult one.” (At least he didn’t call me THAT one.)

When he returned to the phone, he informed me that Obama would reach the 95% figure by initiating taxes on the 40% who don’t pay income taxes now, so that he could later give them their promised tax break.

Out of the mouths of babes.

I don’t know which is scarier: that the young man knew so little about the policies of the candidate for whom he had volunteered to work, that the young man’s supervisor apparently knew little more, or that the talking heads say that young people like him could determine this election.

The Obama caller was polite and sincere ... and utterly clueless.

I thanked him for his sincerity and for a civil discourse on the subject. He thanked me for the same. Then we hung up.

And then he made his next call.

Pure witchcraft.

Find it here

In Grover Norquist’s new book, “Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives,” he writes:

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, less than 20 percent of American households owned stock directly. Today, 50 percent of households own stock and two-thirds of all voters in the past elections were shareholders.

The reason for the increase is the creation of the 401(k) plan. As people understood the plan and with the expansion of the mutual fund industry, more and more people are taking advantage of this. For those who don’t know, here’s what it is in a nutshell:

Employee 401k contribution are automatically deducted from their paycheck each pay period. This money is taken out before the employees paycheck is taxed. The contributions are invested at the employees direction into one or more funds provided in the plan. Employers often “match” employee contributions, but are not required to do so. While the investments grow in the employees 401k account, they do not pay any taxes on it.

The individual is using his or her property to ensure a prosperous future before the government has a chance to seize it. It is a great plan. I take advantage of it at work, as do many of my co-workers. You should see how attentive some of these folks are to the stock market.

The key part of the plan is found in the last sentence of the above quote. House Democrats are considering abolishing those tax breaks:

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Miller’s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.

At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.

Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.

The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.

So, instead of getting around 15% on my 401k investments, I’ll get a government bond at 3%. Why don’t they just kick me straight in the groin while they are at it? Seriously, this is what passes for a reform to Democrats?

[...]

But the problem with the 401k plan is it’s seated in individual and personal responsibility. And another big factor is the billions of dollars the Democrats don’t get to tax. Both of those run counter to the Democrats philosophy of having government be the nanny of the masses.

The Democrats simply cannot get enough of your property and they won’t hesitate to create new ways to take more of it. Here is a plan, the 401k plan, that is far more credible than Social Security, and they want to take money from it, essentially taking money out of the economy, and give it to government bureaucrats for their failed inter-generational Ponzi scheme.

This is not the change America needs.

More Dem theft.

By Terry Trippany

Chicago Tribune staff writer Rex Huppke has solicited the expertise of communist party leaders to defend Barack Obama from the fallout of the now famous answer he supplied to a man referred to as Joe the Plumber.

In an article with the misleading headline “Socialists: Obama No Socialist” Huppke applied some painstaking logic to reach his conclusion that Barack Obama can not be a socialist if avowed communists will not state that he is.

Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.

John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain’s campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven’t forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.

This is funny. Yesterday we heard that Dick Durbin was going to reign in Barack Obama’s liberal tendencies. Today a leader of Communist Party USA is coming to the defense of Barack Obama. Besides, we all know that communists support the capitalist candidate.

Batchell and Huppke weren’t finished however.

“Red baiting is really the last refuge of scoundrels,” Bachtell said. “It has nothing to do with the issues that are confronting the American people right now. It’s just a big diversion.”

Of course that’s just one man’s opinion. (And everyone knows you can’t trust a communist.)

Strange how any question that confronts Barack Obama’s policies is met with a response that really never addresses the policies in question. Much better to call names than discuss the merits of what led people to believe that Barack Obama is proposing a socialist style redistribution of wealth.

[...]

Huppke missed one of the main objectives of socialism that involves distribution of wealth for the benefit of all involved. Huppke’s selective definition actually touches on the theory that socialism is an intermediate step between capitalism and communism. So if we are going to speak in generalities Huppke had better brace himself for the eventual collapse of his argument when those generalities become a counter-argument to his premise.

For instance, I would expect proponents of communism to support Barack Obama as they do in Huppke’s article; especially if they see Obama’s words on the campaign trail as putting the United States one step closer to their idea of a future America.

Finally Huppke had one another argument to make. He solicited the editor of a Chicago based communist newspaper to support his theory that spreading the wealth isn’t such a bad idea anyway.

Right now, with the economy in the tank, the idea of a little wealth sharing doesn’t sound so bad to people whose 401k plans are worth less than the contents of their coin jars.

“The idea of closing that wealth gap, I think, is a concern for many, many Americans,” said Teresa Albano, editor of the Chicago-based People’s Weekly World, a communist newspaper. “I don’t think people are going to respond negatively to the idea of spreading around the wealth.”

Which is not to say that, by electing Obama, the country will gamely head down the path of socialism.

Yeah right. If history has taught us anything it is those “little ideas”, i.e. ideas with little thought, that have a tendency to become big problems somewhere down the line. 

Funny stuff.  Birds of a feather…

Randall Hoven

Every breaking story about the economy is just chock full of bad news.  Or should I say bad speculations?  When it comes to real data, the bad news would rather play hide and seek.

The last quarter we have real data for was the second quarter—the one that ended in June.  And GDP growth then was 2.8%.  In fact, it was positive for the first two quarters this year (January through June), and the only two quarters we have real data on so far.  That, my friend, is not a recession—yet.

And the latest unemployment report?  Unchanged in September .  At 6.1%, not great, but it could be worse and at least it didn’t go up.  Also, oil prices are falling, almost like a bubble popping.

And now what do we hear?  The latest leading economic indicators went up when they were expected to go down.  The AP reported that the Conference Board’s monthly forecast of future economic activity rose 0.3 percent, a better reading than the 0.2 percent drop expected by Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IF.

It sure seems like every time a stock index goes up it is attributed to something the government did—bail somebody out, buy some private assets, ease some rate, etc.  But every time it goes down it is attributed to something in the real economy—the unemployment report, for example.

But funny thing, after the big $850 billion bailout was signed into law, the S&P 500 index fell every single day for five days straight, for a cumulative loss of 18% in just one week.  But news reports didn’t blame it on the bailout.  The losses were attributed to this or that piece of economic data, like unemployment holding steady.  Huh?  Talk about an elephant in the room.

On this Monday, the market was up 4.8% in one day.  The reasons given were the prospect of another government stimulus package, that the bailout was reviving credit markets, or that the Federal Reserve was fixing to do some more good stuff.

But something else happened on Monday: the latest economic indicators were released, showing positive and better than expected numbers.

I’m beginning to suspect something:  there ain’t no damn recession.

[...]

If I didn’t know better, I’d say we just handed a trillion bucks of fun-money to Hank Paulson and his successor for no good reason.

Compared to the Carter economy, with double digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates, today’s economy is a walk in the park.  Why isn’t the MSM making that comparison?

By Michelle Malkin

The Raleigh News and Observer profiles a couple from Zimbabwe that was forced to escape their native country when the thug-o-crats decided to “spread the wealth around.”

Sitting at the kitchen table in the couple’s apartment in Ayden, Helen remembers vividly what happened next. Two Mazda pickups, bristling with armed police, were waiting for her. Their leader snatched the gate’s keys from the employee and turned to Helen.

“This is no longer your property. You have 24 hours to get out,” he told her. If you don’t, “we’ll kill you or put you in jail, whichever you prefer.”

It was not an idle threat. In 2000, war veterans killed a neighbor after he refused to leave his farm.

The Herbsts prided themselves on the relationships they formed with their black employees, many of whom worked with the family for years. The couple had provided a pre-school on the property for workers’ children, and a free health clinic where mothers could take their babies. Wally had hoped that his family’s longstanding ties to the area would spare his farm from seizure.

Frantic packing

In the end, it did not matter. With the help of neighbors and friends and their vehicles, the Herbsts were forced to pack up as much as they could. Police pilfered from the trucks as the woman who would be moving into their home gave demands.

The Herbsts were barred from removing anything needed to run the farm, including tractors. The farm would be turned over to a local politician, and his wife wanted some things inside the home as well.

[...]

The Herbsts’ son, John, returned soon after to tend to the cattle, only to be kidnapped and held for ransom at the farm.

The kidnappers had gained access to the Herbsts’ bank records. They demanded exactly what the family had on deposit. Helen doesn’t remember the precise figure, but it was millions of Zimbabwe dollars. It took Helen five trips with a suitcase to fill the back seat of her car with enough money to free their son.

Although she can retell almost the entire story without becoming emotional, Helen tears up when speaking of her three children, two of whom live in Zimbabwe. She is not sure when she will see them, or her grandchild, again, but Helen and Wally needed to leave.

The future of America under Obama’s rule.

By Randall Hoven

The Obama/Biden ticket’s entire campaign theme is based on “the last eight years.” Maybe we should really look at “the last two years,” or the time period when both the House and the Senate were run by Democrats.

In December 2006, after six years of Bush and the last month before the Democrats took over both houses of the national legislature, a snapshot of our economy looked like this.

Unemployment stood at 4.4%.
Real GDP growth over the previous four years (under a Republican President, House and Senate) averaged 3% per year.
A gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.30.
The S&P 500 stock index stood at 1418, or 84% above its post-911 low and more than 7% higher than when Bush took office.
Every year of Bush’s Presidency, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable income per person went up.  By the end of 2006, the average person was making 9% more in real terms than before Bush became President .

If you recall, that 2006 election was considered a referendum on Iraq.  The people wanted change, so they threw out the Republicans and replaced them with Democrats.  Welcome Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Here is how they handled Iraq once in office:  Harry Reid told us that the Iraq war was “lost” and the surge was not “accomplishing anything.” Senator Obama introduced legislation that would have prevented the surge and would have taken all US troops out of Iraq by March 2008 (that would be seven months ago, as you read this) .

Were they right?

Barack Obama now admits that “the surge succeeded.” So much for that change.  And as the surge succeeded, Congress’s approval ratings plummeted.  The latest CBS/New York Times poll has it at 12%, well less than half of the already low level it stood at when the Republican Congress was being tossed out in 2006.

[...]

What Congress would not investigate was anything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  In fact, they fought against such investigations and cast aspersions against anyone who would even doubt the soundness of those institutions.  Here is what Barney Frank said:

These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.  The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.

You can also see on YouTube how Democrats treated the regulators trying to reign in Fannie and Freddie.

But now we know what happened.  Fannie and Freddie were run corruptly and ineptly and went bankrupt.  Their $1.5 trillion portfolios had to be rescued by the government this year.  Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed CEO of Fannie Mae who was vigorously defended by Congressional Democrats, was sued by government regulators for cooking the books to the tune of $10 billion to increase his own bonuses to the tune of tens of millions.  He settled his suit for an estimated $25 million.

On the other hand, here is what the New York Times had to say in 2003 .

The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages. All told, these two institutions’ debt portfolio exceeds more than $1.5 trillion. Their current regulator is ill equipped to keep tabs on Freddie’s and Fannie’s sophisticated hedging strategies and the other financial moves they use to manage their huge investments.

And here is what John McCain said on the Senate floor:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation.  If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

So on the big things, the surge in Iraq and the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to our recent financial mess, the Democrats were wrong.  Dead wrong.  One hundred eighty degrees out wrong.

On the other hand, who supported the surge?  George W. Bush and John McCain.

Who tried to strengthen the oversight and regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  George W. Bush and John McCain.

In the case of the surge, Bush and McCain got their way.  The result?  Apparent victory in Iraq, a country that is now a democracy, at peace with its neighbors, no longer a WMD threat, no longer a terrorist sanctuary, and no longer filling hundreds of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, Bush and McCain did not get their way - Barney Frank did.  The result?  The failure of Fannie and Freddie, law suits against their executives and the spark that sent banks failing and stocks falling across the globe to the point of threatening a Great Depression.

Let’s vote for change.  Let’s undo what we did in 2006.

The facts speak loudly.

The Obama campaign is trying to destroy Joe the Plumber for asking Obama a question that most Americans would ask him, if they had a chance.

There is a better question to ask Obama: “What’s wrong with being rich?"

Most Americans believe that being rich is a good thing, but under Obama’s Marxist economic agenda, it would bring higher taxes, in an effort to take money from successful people to fund unsuccessful people and unsucessful enterprises, like so-called “alternative energy sources”. 

If I ran into a friend whom I hadn’t seen for a few years, and he or she told me that they were making $250,000 a year, I would be glad for them, and would assume that they were doing something right.

Not so for Obama’s Marxist economics; for him, rich people are doing something wrong, which is contrary to how America works.

Obama exposed his Marxism in his little conversation with Joe the Plumber, which is why the lefties are attacking him; they desperately need to create a distraction, so that what Obama said won’t be examined too closely in the public forum.

Find it here

Hey Plumber Joe: Been There, Done That

By C. Edmund Wright

God love you Joe. Bless your heart Joe.  You, and people like you, are what makes the country work. You make the country great. You get it—you act on it—and you enrich the lives of your family and your friends and your communites and your charities as a result.

But I think what I should say now is “God help you Joe.” Look, 16 plus years ago I was where you are now. And I must tell you if Obama wins, I am pulling the plug in a few months. I am out. I have had it.  I am preparing to destroy almost 100 jobs and lower my tax bracket and I can’t wait.

Consider: 16 years ago I was statistically in poverty, but I had dreams and a plan. At the time, the remnants of Reaganomics still set the economic tone and a fired up Newt Gingrich was forcing conservatism on the Clinton White House every time Bill and Hillary tried to move left.  There were actually politicians who praised business owners and business in general.  Against that backdrop, I’ve had a pretty good run. It’s been extremely challenging and the move up was not a straight line, but I am better off than I was 16 years ago. And 8 years ago. And 4 years ago. And so are a lot of folks who have been on this ride with me.

But Joe, I am not better off than I was just 2 years ago. That’s when decades of liberal energy policy came home to roost and four dollar gas took several hundred thousands from my bottom line faster than I could possibly react.  That same gas price slammed my customers—and my customer’s customers—forcing our company into a vice of rapidly rising costs and rapidly dropping revenues. Oh, and for fun, slower payments from our customers.

That started the ripple through the sub prime mortgage industry, and we have all seen the unravelling of our financial system which was more or less totally underpinned by real estate “values.” Those assumed valuations were the basis for any number of derivatives and credit swaps and so on. Well, forget all that Wall Street talk. To you and me it means employees are more desparate for money, customers are less willing to buy, slower to pay and banks less willing to lend. It certainly means whatever homes and 401K’s you have are worth less too which makes your bank even less anxious to lend to your business. It is the main street carnage of “unfettered government” onto small business. It is the destructive fruit of environmental leftists, the Fannie-Freddie cronies in government and other corrupt liberals in positions of power.

And sadly, this is also the result of George Bush giving into these folks all too often in defense of his “new tone.” (That worked out well, didn’t it?) This was helped ironically by John McCain “reaching across the aisle” to vote against tax cuts and vote for energy restrictions and so on. All of this was nicely summed up by Mitt Romney when he said that our problems stem from “too many Republicans acting too much like Democrats.” Now, if the polls are anywhere near accurate, we are going to get a taste of “real Democrats acting too much like Marxists” for at least a few years.

[...]

Now Joe, as someone whose been there, let me tell you how this works, though I think you have a good idea.  At the end of the year, as an LLC, I do file taxes with the business profit on my personal returns like many of others do as well.  And yes, that figure is much bigger than 250 thousand. But that’s not really MY MONEY to keep. It’s how I underpin my business. When customers disappear or take their time paying bills, I still have to pay my employees, rent, suppliers, and countless other expenses. Every penny that the tax man takes out of that profit is less money that I have to carry forward to stay in business for the next year. And if Obama and Reid and Pelosi take more of this by “raising taxes on the rich” then of course my business will suffer. And so will all the employees.

This is exactly what almost none of those lawyers turned polticians understand.

But of course, you will have to send tax money into the government, Joe, because the man who is in charge of spending that money—Charlie Rangel—damned sure wasn’t paying his fair share as we know now. Get out that checkbook.

Of course, all of this matters only if you can afford to fill your plumbing vans with gas at gosh knows what price. It could be that the recession will lower the gas price, but that’s not terribly good news for you either, since customers don’t spend as much money in a recession. I mean, I hate to burst your bubble, but small business owners are surrounded by a sea of challenges outside their control and almost all of them are caused by liberalism. Government has formed a business firing squad and it’s a doggone circle!

I wish you well, guy.  You might just have the genius and persistence to pull this off. I really do hope so. As for me, I have had enough. I have fought creeping liberalism and managed to eake out more wins than losses over 17 years. We have progressed to where our business, now a corporation, is big enough so that Obama and his ilk now have their own ideas about “what larger businesses can afford” and what “corporations can afford.”

Well I’ve got news for him. I cannot afford what they think I can afford, so I am breaking her up and giving her away to some key employees.  I wish them well too. They are like you, tough and smart. Perhaps if they stay small enough and never can carry forward more than 250 thou to the next year, they will be allowed to keep their businesses through a downturn.

As for me? I’m outta here.

One of our leftie commenters here claims to be a businessman, and also claims govt doesn’t really have a negative impact of private business.
Here’s the truth about how govt affects business.

By Dan Gainor

When the Dow hit below 8,000, the media went nuts, crying the economy was on the brink of collapse. But a lot of that same economy is still doing quite well, despite the mainstream media. Businessman Dan Kennedy, a new columnist with the Business & Media Institute, shows how skewed the standard view really is.

Between 91 and 94 percent of all home mortgages in the United States are current, not teetering at foreclosure. The overwhelming number of banks, particularly community banks, have been managed responsibly and are not on the brink of collapse. The vast majority of public corporations with stock values depressed by 20 or 30 percent are in no way connected to the mortgage meltdown, Wall Street’s house of cards or the collapsing auto industry. They are well-managed companies and their fundamentals are sound. And there are still productive, successful, optimistic people.

[...]

The column is honest about the problems facing the country and how to handle them. Kennedy points out:

Of course there are serious economic problems that require urgent fixing. That is best done, largely, with private capital, not the stampede to socialism made palatable through the marketing of crisis and manufacture of panic we’ve seen orchestrated - with a woefully ignorant media, parroting panic-talking points.

Read more at the Business & Media Institute and get used to finding straight talk from a man famous for “No BS.”

This is simply another leftie “October Surprise” to conceal the fact that they are wrong on the issues, and wish to turn American into a socialist hellhole.

By P.J. Gladnick

Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) seems to have committed a Thought Crime in the eyes of the leftwing Blogosphere by daring to question the Lightworker. As a result, and because his name was brought up several times by John McCain at the debate last night, Joe the Plumber has been the subject of a lot of rage at both the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos. The title of the DU thread alone tells you just how angry the left is: “Hey, Joe ‘The Dumbass’ Plumber. Listen up!” And the Daily Kos thread is flat out incorrect: “‘Joe the Plumber’” Not a Registered Voter.” Sorry, Kossacks, but Joe the Plumber is registered to vote. He just prefers to use his middle name but you were too eager to smear him to consider that fact when poring through the Ohio voting records. Here is a sampling of leftwing anger directed at Joe the Plumber starting with the Democratic Underground:

So, Joe the Plumber. If you are too damned stupid to understand how Obama benefits you much more than McCain, then throw the American dream away and vote for McCain.

Sorry, I know this is stereotyping but he looks jackbootish to me…

Have we found out yet that McCain paid this goof to ask Obama about his taxes? If so, I missed it so far. If not, I would not be surprised if we hear about that shortly.

Joe the Plumber was a republican plant. OBVIOUS. Cameras ready. Gotcha moment. Then use in debate. Toss “joe” (wow, another Joe, how curious) on the day after morning shows. Nearly perfect ....... but too obvious. Joe listens to way too much talk radio. Too many rw talking points.

Not to be outdone by the Democratic Underground in the Insane Rage department, the Daily Kos hurls accusations against Joe, including the incorrect charge that he’s not registered to vote:

“Joe the Plumber” Not a Registered Voter

Now, I realize that this has not been varified, but if this is true, and the MSM picks up on it, I honestly think that this may have damaging affects. McCain kept bringing him up, adding a new rule to drinking games. He is a household name now and then we find out he can’t even vote.

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You can read even more leftwing rage over Joe the Plumber for challenging the liberal assumptions of Barack Obama at the DUmmie FUnnies.

One of Rush’s callers today said that Joe should really be called “Joe the American.” I agree.  The lefties hate real Americans.

Erroll Ivery

When a politician says they’re going to raise your taxes, what they really mean is they’re going to raise tax rates. Lost on the minds of Democrats and Barack Obama is the fact that an increase in federal tax rates does not necessarily mean an increase in federal tax revenues. As a matter of fact, history reveals just the opposite is true.

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More people execute transactions more often, which increase revenue, even though items are being sold for less. When tax rates are lowered, more people execute transactions that generate tax revenue more often than execute them at higher tax rates. Why? At the lower tax rate, the transaction represents a better value to the taxpayer. They get to keep more income per tax generating transaction, but the increase in the number of transactions generates more revenue for the government. The goal of tax policy should be to generate more tax transactions and the way to do that is to have the equivalent of a tax sale! 

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, the top marginal tax rate was still 70%. Reagan lowered the top rate to 50%, and then to 28%, and at every reduction of the top marginal rate, revenues to the federal government from top wage earners increased! Seven years after the Bush tax cuts of 2001, we still hear the phrase “Bush tax cuts for the rich” despite a 2005 joint IRS / Congressional Budget Office report revealing the top 5% of income earners saw their share of taxes paid rise at a faster rate than their share of income under the Bush tax rates than the Clinton tax rates. Yes, their share of income rose, but their share of taxes paid rose faster because of the attractiveness of executing tax-generating transactions at Bush’s lower rates more often.

The Democrats desire to punish financial success as if it is always undeserved. Punishing success is more important than allowing more revenue to come to the federal government because of financial success. Democrats need scapegoats to make the enemy of the middle class through class warfare rhetoric. To admit that lower tax rates are a win-win situation for tax payers at every income level and for the government would eliminate the need for scapegoats to use to rally the middle class against the rich, and thus largely eliminate the need to vote for Democrat socialists. The Democrats need to raise tax rates on the rich for political reasons, because economically it makes no sense if the goal is to increase revenues.

Simple economics, beyond the reach of the Dems/lefties.  Or, maybe they have a different agenda for our country.