Posted on 01/04/2013 7:06:00 AM PST by Kaslin
I hate to break it to those deniers who believe that President Obama's tax-guzzling capacity has somehow been diminished by the fiscal cliff provision to fix "permanent" tax rates. You're dreaming.
Several smart columnists and respected conservative editorial pieces tell us that a major silver lining in the crisis deal just concluded is that by agreeing not to reinstitute the Clinton tax rates (and leave the Bush rates in place) for all but the "wealthy" (income of $400,000 for single filers and $450,000 for marrieds), Obama and the Democrats made a major concession. They argue that if Democrats couldn't do better after Obama was just re-elected and when the debt is so high, they'll never be able to. They'll have to realize that they will never be able to sustain their desired welfare state through raising taxes alone and have to come to the table on serious spending cuts and entitlement reform.
This assumes that Obama and the Democrats have any real interest in reducing spending or curbing entitlements. They have shown no interest in doing so, despite the crushing debt problem threatening the nation's solvency.
Obama doesn't base his spending plans on projected revenues, except on a micro level when the law requires him to present bills with revenue-neutral scoring, at which point he manipulates the numbers to make it work out. He spends as much as he can get away with because spending (and taxing) are his tools to fundamentally transform America and to right the myriad economic and social injustices he perceives. I am convinced that the enormity of our deficits and debt never cost him a minute's sleep.
The silver lining proponents also assume Obama has now exhausted his avenues for extracting more taxes. I frankly don't have any idea how anyone could assume that. After all, during the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney capitulated to Obama's class warfare theme that the rich weren't paying their fair share and promised to eliminate deductions and "loopholes" to remedy this. Then House Speaker John Boehner, in one of his early fiscal cliff offers, surrendered on the very same point.
Is it any wonder today's Republicans have so much trouble with voters? Here we have a class A demagogue running up our deficits and debt to nation-bankrupting levels through runaway spending and obstructing entitlement reform, and Republicans allow him to establish the counterfactual narrative that we have a revenue problem -- caused by the rich, no less. Even if it were a revenue problem, we couldn't solve it by punishing the rich. Increasing taxes on everyone wouldn't put a serious dent in our deficits and debt.
Only entitlement reform and major discretionary spending cuts would do that -- coupled with policies designed to generate economic growth, which, by the way, do not include tax hikes on the wealthy and major job producers. But how can we possibly win arguments when we don't even articulate them?
So here we have Obama for his entire first term obstructing entitlement and spending reform and railing about the alleged unfairness of the tax code, which has nothing to do with the debt. During the fiscal cliff negotiations, this distorted dialogue continued unabated, with the main things being discussed having nothing to do with the problems we're facing. It's no surprise, then, that the budget deal finally reached will not only not improve our debt picture but exacerbate it.
But that's all fine, we are told. Round two is coming up in two months, in which Obama will take "revenues" off the table and really focus on spending cuts and entitlement reform. Really?
I don't know what is more disheartening, Obama's obvious determination to take this nation into socialism and bankruptcy or the deniers on our side of the aisle who insist on pretending we're dealing with a man who eventually will be reasonable and work in good faith on balancing the budget.
Be offended if you choose, but Obama is either trying to bankrupt the country or so addicted to spending and determined to fundamentally transform the nation that he refuses to be bothered about the reckless spending he is causing. We remain blind to this at the nation's peril.
I hate to say I told you so, but after the budget deal, Obama wasn't humbled; he was emboldened. He was ungracious toward Republicans, chastising them and promising there would be more revenue increases coming and absolutely no negotiation over the debt ceiling. Now reports have emerged that, indeed, the deal has emboldened Obama to demand more revenues.
If Obama cared about this nation's solvency and prosperity, he wouldn't have to be enticed through budget bargaining to agree to spending cuts and entitlement reform. He would be initiating dramatic reforms himself. He isn't, and he won't. Peace in our time.
Exactly and well said.
Not only will the debt ceiling be raised with virtually no concessions, the enemy of Conservatism is not so much the RATS as it is so many members of the GOP.
The GOP is INTENTIONALLY killing conservatism. And the sooner we realize it, the better chance we will have to save it. It is past time for a Conservative Party.
Here we have a class A demagogue running up our deficits and debt to nation-bankrupting levels through runaway spending and obstructing entitlement reform, ....
Cloward-Piven. He doesn't care about reconciling or balancing anything. He's a wrecker, a destroyer. A Frankfurt School destroyer.
....and Republicans allow him to establish the counterfactual narrative that we have a revenue problem
His only interest in taxes is a) to tap out our resources and b) run his demagogic "blame-the-rich" game. Revenue doesn't really figure in Cloward-Piven, which is all about destroying the Government -- the Republic -- with asymptotically-rising liabilities.
We haven't even seen, or even guessed at, what Barky and his Politburo really want, what they want to "establish" on the total ruin of America. But we can probably get a hint by looking at how East Germany worked, and how North Korea is run today.
Everyone has always wondered why the greatest nation the world has ever seen is no where mentioned nor refered to in the Biblical end times.
Well my Friends, we must become less, so that the new powers to be that will usher in the end will become greater.
By its very omission from Scriptures, the Bible speaks volumes about the USA’s demise.
Obama gets what he wants, because god has ordained our destruction. You cannot murder over 1 million children a yerar, and advocate the rest of the world do the same and not expect God to hold ua accountable.
Now we know how America will be destroyed. Like Babylon fell in one day, so too did the USA, the day Obama was elected, and the GOP is as much complicit as the Left.
All that is left, is for us to prepare for the inevitable by reaching the lost souls, because the end is much nearer than anyone would have thought just a mere four years ago.
I don’t believe obama is “doing” anything other than saying what he’s told to say. There is a power behind him that has the republicans scared and the democrats cheering. The republicans cave while the democrats rubber stamp everything coming from the white house. And that’s scary. The question is “why?” Is he who some believe he is?
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