Obama Invokes George Washington to Defend His Proposed Tax Hikes

cnsnews.com ^ | 9-19-11 | Susan Jones

[Justaham]

The 44th president of the United States invoked the very first president on Monday, as Barack Obama called for $1.5 trillion in new taxes, mainly on wealthy Americans.

“George Washington grappled with the problem” of taxes, Obama said. “He (George Washington) said, 'Towards the payment of debts, there must be revenue, and to have revenue, there must be taxes. And no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.'

“But he understood that dealing with the debt is -- his choice of words -- 'always a choice of difficulties.' He also knew that public servants weren't elected to do what is easy; they weren't elected to do what was politically advantageous. It's our responsibility to put country before party. It's our responsibility to do what's right for the future. And that's what this debate is about."

As for Obama’s call to put “country above party,” even liberal media outlets don’t see it that way.

[DarthVader]

Blasphemy.

[ColdOne]

FUBO That seems to be the only comment I am leaving today!

[RexBeach]

Yeah, right. John Adams Blamed Washington for everything.

Ugh.

[dragonblustar]

Ever notice how Obama holds his head up like Mussolini, that raised head looking down at the people? I can’t find any other person in recent history that does the same thing as Obama.....

[wastedyears]

Obama defecates on the legacy and history of our Founding Fathers.

[Drill Thrawl]

Chavez, castro. It’s a marxist dictator thing.

[PDMiller]

Maybe Obama should reread this classic from Washington:

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.”

[Buckeye McFrog]

I live in the heart of Whiskey Rebellion country.
Is Obama threatening to send the Army out after the Tea Party?

[DJ MacWoW]

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address.

[dusttoyou]

Having read only a little on El Duce’s background, he and the WON really do seem to have a lot in common. If he keeps it up maybe they’ll have a LOT MORE in common.

[mrsmith]

The oldest trick in American politics LOL!

“...Republicans are borne down by fashion and a fear of being charged with a want of respect to General Washington. If there is treason in the wish I retract it, but would to God this same General Washington were in heaven! We would not then have him brought forward as the constant cover to every unconstitutional and irrepublican act. “
...The first U.S. Senator: “rigid and uncomplying in my temper”
Journal of William Maclay, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789-1791

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Ham-fisted attempt by Obama to throw the Founding Fathers back on the TEA party by cherry-picking Washington quotes.

[DJ MacWoW]

This is Washingtons complete quote:

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expence, but by vigorous exertions in time of Peace to discharge the Debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your Representatives; but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty it is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseperable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the Conduct of the Government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining Revenue which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

[hometoroost]

And Washington led and army into battle to fight people who imposed taxes and regulations that were a mere trifle compared to what goes on today or even in the first decades of the nation.

[grumpygresh]

Can we then have the same tax rate as under Geo. Washington? Will you give us zero, zero?

[Zakeet]

Whiskey Rebellion

“George Washington grappled with the problem” of taxes, Obama said.

If the Wee Wee weren't such a moron, his teleprompter would know what happened when George Washington over-grappled with the problem of taxes.

The problem: How to pay off Revolutionary War debt.

Washington's solution: Impose a special levy on distilled spirits. At that time, it was about the only way farmers on the frontier could transport their crops to market to sell for cash.

The consequences: The farmers revolted. Washington was forced to take to the field as commander of the U.S. Army -- one of only two times this has happened to date (the other being Madison during the War of 1812). Washington fought a losing guerrilla war; whiskey distillation was driven across the border from Pennsylvania to the then independent territories of Kentucky and Tennessee; according to most historians, the cost of enforcement exceeded the amount of revenues collected.

[newheart]

I cannot tell a lie...

Er... uh... never mind.

[WOBBLY BOB]

George Washington: His New Nation’s Largest Whiskey Distiller

Washington began producing whiskey at the suggestion of his plantation manager, who was Scottish. The new distiller first began by purchasing a copper still, but his first batch was so successful that he bought three more stills and built a larger distillery.

In 1798, the year before his death, Washington’s distillery produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey and produced a profit of $7,500. That was an enormous sum of money over 200 years ago.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/20070531150031.html

Washington’s reconstructed distillery is now a national distilling museum and the only historic site in the United States showing the distilling process from crop to finished product, which it does with costumed personnel. It’s now open to the public seven days a week from April through October.

[American Constitutionalist]

Obama, the new King Heriod of the client state of the NEW ROMAN EMPIRE imposing his oppressive taxes.
King Heriod was of doubtful origins, and his " Jewish birth and Jewishness " was in question.
King Heriod was know for his large and colossal building projects.
The NEW Roman empire is finally here.

[blueunicorn6]

Democrats in business......
“Let’s see....I’m buying apples for a dollar apiece and selling them for a quarter and I don’t seem to be showing much profit....I know! I’ll wear a striped shirt!”

[pburgh01]

I live in the heart of Whiskey Rebellion country. Is Obama threatening to send the Army out after the Tea Party?

Washington County, Pa here ...howdy neighbor.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

After all wasn’t it George Washington who freed the slaves and gave women the vote????

[Voter62vb]

It would not be out of the question for Obama and his “Rick Rolling”-Attackwatch/snitching-nuanced minions to consider referencing Washington’s Farewell Address ( http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp)

as a way to flip the bird to the public, conservatives, historians and “Teaparties”.

2nd line/paragraph of the address: “I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.”

Soros/Pelosi are giggling over this one.

“...all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country...”. Indeed.

[Ranger Warrior]

Prez Zippy mentioning George Washington evokes nausea! Then again, Zippy’s voice is like hearing someone vomit!

[dragonblustar]

El Duce’s background, he and the WON really do seem to have a lot in common.

Some similarities... Mussolini was called El Duce. Obama is called douche bag.

[Little Ray]

George Washington was trying to fund the valid functions of the State, not a bloated bureaucratic Social Welfare Empire.

[Voter62vb]

The following passage from the GW Farewell address somehow conjures up the race-baiting/class-warefare-inciting-community-organizing Obama Regime:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. “

“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. “

This part rings: “....by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

[Gene Eric]

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and MLK. Who knew?

- - -

Obama has been like Reagan, now Lincoln, next Washington & then Jesus!
By stayfree
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2764181/posts

Abraham Lincoln invocation:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2764153/posts

MLK comparison:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2763533/posts

[stars & stripes forever]

Ever notice how Obama holds his head up like Mussolini, that raised head looking down at the people?

Maybe he has bad eyesight and that's the only way he can read the teleprompter.

[Voter62vb]

Here is an excerpt that has Soros/Obama written all over it:

“...Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government...”

Since pirating from Washington today..arrrgghh!

[Pharmboy]

General Washington would be appalled at the rates and breadth of present-day taxation, not to mention the size of the federal government. Shut up, Obama, you don’t know what on Earth you’re talking about.

[bvw]

Washington was also exceptionally careful with spending what revenues the federal government received. He did not like to borrow, except by a necessity as great as war. Obama is far from that. Obama borrows for reasons as trivial and as disrespectful of the public trust such as to provide for his wife's many international shopping trips and vacations, and his own golf outings.

Mr. George Washington, President, said this in his Farewell Address:

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.

[existentialist]

It’s a little different now, since high income taxpayers are already furnishing the federal government with most of the tax revenue.

Life is becoming more then passingly strange in America. It’s almost like productive people almost solely exist to serve non-productive people. When non-productive people need more stuff, say a cell phone or a TV, productive people are being required to step up tax payments.

It’s probably not possible to have only productive people, along with people that stop being productive but have also planned for that event, e.g. savings, etc. within a given nation. It does seem like America is being overwhelmed by non-productive people. It seems like government is making it easier and easier to be non-productive - there are tons of programs to support that often personal decision.

America may be doomed.

[InvisibleChurch]

(Prescott) Bush’s fault!

[bvw]

In his farewell address it is clear that Mr. Washington was most concerned with the divisive impact of extreme faction, and those who promoted it. In context he saw the reality and possibility of faction arising out of natural differences in interest between north and south, between east and west. It was clear he knew that such divisions between Americans could be exploited by foreign interests, and to counter that forcing of faction by foreign powers he advised not overly favoring one foreign power over another, but to attempt to seek peace and equanimity, as opposed to policies that favored trade with one in a a way that would aggravate the relations with another.

It is very clear that Obama is a man Washington would despise, for Obama’s politics are strictly those of division, and Obama has ever in his political career sought to inflame the passions of one class of Americans against another.

[SoldierDad]

This picture needs, “Epic Fail” added next to Obozo.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Democrats in business......
“Let’s see....I’m buying apples for a dollar apiece and selling them for a quarter and I don’t seem to be showing much profit....

(*but we make it up on volume)

[Sir Napsalot]

>>> After all wasn’t it George Washington who freed the slaves and gave women the vote????

NO, no, no. All those credits go to teh WON.

/if some one had to mangle the history, why not go the full nine yards?

[fortheDeclaration]

Obama made a big mistake talking about Washington-people will quickly see the difference between the two.

[ballplayer]

OH! So now its George Washingtons Fault!