My Beauty Best Teacher

2011, regardless of what happens in the 2010 elections, will be a bad year for America due to the avalanche of tax increases that will hit everyone, specifically dead people, married people, rich people, investors, poor people, those with kids, those who save, those who buy medications, and small businesses. New tax increases of varying amounts will be levied on these groups starting in 2011, and the result of these tax increases will be lower spending, lower saving, lower investment, lower business activity, and increasing hiding of taxable income by those that can, with the end result being falling revenues to the government and less economic activity. That will mean less jobs, less income, and a lower quality of life for you. The blame for this can be laid 100% on politicians, namely anyone who voted for Obamacare and anyone who refused to vote to make permanent the 2001 tax cuts, both of whom are almost all Democrats and who are all liberals.

There are so many new taxes and taxes that are going to come back from the dead that it is tough to know where to begin, so let's start at the end- on midnight of December 31, the death tax returns. If you die before than, there is no tax on your beneficiaries property simply because you died, but if you die in 2011, the government will swoop in after you die and take more of your already-taxed before property simply because you are dead. They will take 55% of the property of those who have left behind $1 million or more in savings and redistribute that property to favored political groups in society. Of course this is immoral and unethical, but that's what you get when you vote Democrat. If you are a small business owner or farmer, you may very well have an estate that is valued in excess of $1 million, especially if you have worked hard your whole life and been successful, and after you are dead government agents will come in and figure out how to destroy your life's work and break it up and redistribute it to those who didn't work hard and earn it. This will obviously hurt our economy.

The Bush tax cuts are also set to expire in 2011. These tax cuts are not just 'for the rich'- the lowest bracket for the personal income tax, or the tax cuts 'for the poor', will jump 50% from 10% today to to 15% under Obama and the Democrats. You read that correctly- Obama and the Democrats will have worked to raise taxes on the most poor in our society by 50%.

The next lowest income bracket, we'll call that 'taxes on the lower-middle class' or 'taxes on the working class', will be increased from 25% to 28%, and 'taxes on the upper-middle class' or 'taxes on the hard-working class' will be increased from 28% to 31%. Again, these tax increases will strike the middle class as well, meaning that more of your money that you work hard for every day will be taken to you and transferred to the government who will then transfer that money to various politically connected groups. You will have less money to spend on goods and services, which will mean lower demand for those products, which will mean someone will lose a job who provides or makes those, which will mean someone else on welfare sucking down tax money. Unemployment will raise, consumer demand will fall, and our society will be more poor because of these tax increases.

Oh, I guess 'the rich' also will be taxed at higher levels too, although once you become rich, you are able to hire good tax attorneys who figure out how to hide your wealth from the government anyways. And I imagine with a more confiscatory government swooping in to take more of your wealth just because you are more successful will encourage more people to seek to hide their income and assets behind politically-engineering loopholes and accounting tricks, leading to the tax increases 'on the rich' not taking as much of their wealth as liberals and Democrats hope. The details are that those currently in the 33% taxable income bracket will have their taxes increased to 36% and the 'taxes on the super-rich' will be increased from 35% to 39.6%. I predict that the results of these massive tax increases on the rich will not provide the revenue that the government hopes it can steal from these people, and so they will demand higher and higher taxes on 'the rich' out of envy and greed. This immoral theft will result in more money and effort spent in hiding assets from an unethical government rather than in doing anything good for society, less money at the top for goods and services resulting in less demand for products resulting in unemployment and a falling economy, considerably less 'play money' for the 'rich' to put in the bank where it can be used for mortgages or small business loans, or less 'play money' for the 'rich' to invest in the stock market leading leading to depreciating assets and less business investment.

Democrats, liberals, and anyone who votes for them, are bringing this falling economy on us in 2011 by letting the Bush tax cuts expire and the death tax revive. But that isn't all- those who voted for Democrats in 2008 also share the blame for the massive amounts of taxes that come with the new Obamacare bill. That will be my next post.

Source: Investors Business Daily.

Today I'd like to draw your attention to a recent story that appeared in The Hill and talk about several of the alarming aspects of this story and what it says about the Obama Administration, the Democratic Party which supports this administration, and the people in our nation who continue to support Obama's policies.

The opening line of the story is this:

President Obama’s education reform efforts will address growing income inequality in the U.S., Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Wednesday..

The United States Congress is empowered by the Constitution of the United States to regulate commerce, levy taxes, provide for the general welfare, and a range of other powers- but no where is the national government of the United States of America given the power to 'address income inequality in the U.S'. Oh, I know that addressing income inequality has been an issue in our nation for years- but even liberals used to argue that the reason for progressive taxation was that the 'rich' used the services of the U.S more and so should pay a larger percentage of their income or that anti-poverty programs were simply a helping hand up- never in our nation's history has an administration openly pushed for policies designed to simply take wealth from one group and give it to another group.

And the worst part about this administration's push for income redistribution is that it knows that the Constitution does not give this power to our federal government- or more specifically, Obama and his cronies know that it is not one of the enumerated powers given to Congress in Article I and there is no way that policies designed to redistribute wealth are necessary and proper for helping Congress to do its other enumerated powers. They know that what they are doing is unconstitutional and not allowed in our government- but being the tyrannical thugs they are they are going to do it anyway

Duncan’s comments are part of an effort by the administration to call attention to efforts by the president to take actions on the economy that do not require legislation from Congress.

Did you all catch that? The administration is going to purposefully make laws and policies from the executive branch, knowing that these laws and policies would not and could not and should not be passed by the branch of government in our nation given the authority and power to make those laws and policies. This is wrong and contrary to the way that a free and limited government of free men is supposed to be run.

Congress needs to immediately defund any agency or department or official who begins to exercise arbitrary power in our nation and act in a way that is unconstitutional and contrary to the law. Obama's czars and administration are setting down precedents that I don't want anyone to follow, from either party- that executive officials are and should be putting in place policies that our elected officials don't want and putting in place policies that are not authorized by our governing documents.

And the Supreme Court needs to step in and defend the founding principles our which our nation was based- separation of powers and checks and balances. Actions of the executive branch can also be checked by judicial review- and if Congress has not provided for authorization and funds for the Department of Education to engage in a policy of wealth redistribution through its college loan program (which was recently nationalized by the federal government), then any policies that the DOE acts on are unconstitutional and should be rejected and declared null and void.

Obama, his administration, his officials, his party, and anyone who supports him is destroying our Republic through actions such as these, and our nation needs to act swiftly and quickly or we will no longer be living in a nation where people's life, liberty, and property is protected by an impartial government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead, we'll be living in a tyranny, where people can be killed, their decisions and choices taken from them, and their property redistributed by unelected officials who do this because- to quote Obama- they can and they won.

Progressives and Liberals and the Democratic Party that they've seized control over frequently claim that it is under evil right-wing Republicans that the 'rich get richer' and that there is 'rising inequality.' These groups suggest that having the government seize more power over the free people of our nation through increasing taxes and regulations and increased government spending results in a more equitable distribution of wealth and a more equal society. By having the government make choices for people and take property away from others, they argue that a more fair society can be created and that the playing field can be evened; liberals say that government social programs will stop inequality in our nation; and that religion, class structures, education, and traditions make the rich richer and cause inequality and therefore these social structures must be attacked and broken down. The problem though is not that liberals are ignorant of their policies and their arguments- it is that their policies and arguments are just not true.

From Investors Business Daily article Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton:

In his weekend radio address, President Obama decried that "over the past three decades, the middle class has lost ground while the wealthiest few have become even wealthier." Although he was trying to leverage the Occupy Wall Street movement, the income gap has been a longstanding concern of his. During the 2008 campaign, Obama said, "The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with."

But it turns out that the rich actually got poorer under President Bush, and the income gap has been climbing under Obama.

What's more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House.

The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush's eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline.

In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama's first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it's climbed 5.7% since he took office.

Meanwhile, during Clinton's eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980...

That's right- like most liberal policies that have addressed poverty, energy, unemployment, deficits, and helping out minorities, the results of their policies have resulted in the exact opposite of what they have tried to do. The reason for this is quite clear- liberal policies are wrong.

When government takes power and property away from individuals and transfers that power and property to those it favors, of course it results in rising inequality- the rich are of course more connected, and those who are connected prosper and make more money, resulting in the rich getting richer and rising inequality. But when people make free decisions and earn and keep their own property to do what they wish with, it doesn't matter what sort of connections people have and it doesn't matter what their previous status or station or wealth is, and so the rich don't get richer and inequality doesn't rise. As evidence, I submit to the jury real evidence- read the IBD article and you'll see it quite clearly there.

All the talk is about some sort of deal on tax cuts, and so I point you to a post by Paul over at Powerlineblog which discusses the games that Democrats and Republicans are playing with our incomes for the next several years.

The Senate today rejected two attempts by the Democrats to raise taxes on high-income earners. The first attempt was a proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts, but only for the first $250,000 per year of income. It received 53 of the 60 votes necessary (with 36 opposed). The second proposal would have extended the Bush tax cuts, but only up to $1 million a year. It too garnered only 53 votes (with 37 opposed). All Republicans who voted opposed the tax increases.

These votes needed to be taken so that the Democrats will have the Republicans on record as holding continued tax relief for the middle class hostage to continued tax relief for higher earners. Now that the votes have occurred, Congress and the administration can get on more seriously with the business of preventing everyone's taxes from going up in a few weeks.

To accomplish this, Republicans will probably have to give President Obama something in return. A likely candidate is a lengthy extension of emergency unemployment benefits. This seems like a small price to pay; indeed, it is arguably a humanitarian action that would have merit standing alone. Presumably, the White House will ask for a few more additional goodies in the form of spending that has less merit.

Some liberal Democrats have signaled that they intend to oppose a deal that would extend the Bush tax cuts across-the-board.... Despite the determination of such leftists, a deal between Republicans and Obama would, I suspect, be likely to carry the day.

If Republicans are unwilling to accept White House demands, they could let the tax cuts expire and revisit the issue come January. But with no majority in the Senate (never mind a super majority), the Republicans still may not be holding a fully winning hand. Public outrage will have kicked in (along, perhaps, with a major decline in the stock market), but it's not clear that such outrage would be directed wholly, or even mainly, at the Democrats, now that they have voted to extend the tax cuts for the middle class....

Mostly I blame the Democrats, who are simplifying playing games- if they really opposed tax cuts because they believe something good will result by the government taking more of a certain group in societies income, they should oppose them, especially since they still run (as of today) everything and next month still will run almost everything. But the modern day Democrat party basically is playing games, since the leadership is basically communist and they know that communism failed and doesn't work so they can't openly try for communism.

But I also blame the Republicans. They're playing games too- if they really supported tax cuts because they believe something good will result in people keeping more of their own money that they labored and worked for, then they should support tax cuts, especially since they are still the minority party in government. Rather than push to simply extend tax cuts and then give Obama a bunch of other things that they oppose, they should double-down and push for extending tax cuts and increasing them, and make Obama and his Democratic Party battle that back.

This is not a game, Republicans and Democrats. This is my income. I worked hard for it. I put in my effort to produce it. The government of the United States has a questionable claim on it, especially since it is the job of the government to protect my 'pursuit of happiness' and not take it away from me to provide for other people's 'happiness.' But if they want to make it a game, make it a game by demanding more and more and more and make the Democrats defend why tax cuts are bad while you explain why tax cuts are good. It might be a winning strategy.

Jack McHugh put together a stunning list. Maybe you are old enough to remember back when every aspect of your life or business wasn't taxed. Or maybe you remember starting your own business, without getting a license from the government. Maybe, but I don't remember those days. I have grown up in tyranny and seen it only increase as I have gotten older. This is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our Founding Fathers fought and died for less than this.

Here is a list of 55 Taxes On You and 116 Licensure Mandates for those who want to start a business in Michigan. First, here are all the taxes that government has slapped on us to steal our money: Accounts Receivable Tax, Business income tax, Business Gross Receipts Tax, Business Tool and Equipment Property Tax, Building Permit Tax, CDL license Tax. Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Taxes, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges, IRS Penalties, Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax, Service Charge Tax....

Seriously, are you still reading this list of taxes? Do you think the government taxes all these for the money, or is it just to control us and do a little social engineering? You know, pick winners and losers like government is God or something?

Here are more taxes: Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal/State/Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Use Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, and Workers Compensation Tax...

As if those aren't enough taxes, the Democrats and Obama are proposing two new giant taxes- Cap and Trade and taxing employer provided health care benefits.

I'm not going to go through all the license requirements here- you get the picture. Check them all out though if you want, and email me and let me know which license requirement you think is the most insulting. Personally, I'm a little surprised that you can't clean out a sewage tank without paying the government money for a license (Sewer Pipe Cleaners License). Oh well.

Kind of makes you look longingly at the days of a Stamp Tax, doesn't it?

Via the New York Post:

The VAT is a type of national sales tax, levied on the value-added at each stage of production. Consider a piece of furniture: The VAT would be imposed when the raw timber is sold, when the sawmill produces lumber, when the manufacturer builds a chair, a tax at the wholesaler level and then when a retailer sells the chair to a consumer.

To avoid double taxation, each seller along the way gets a credit for taxes paid at earlier stages of the production process. So the final tax to the consumer, at least in theory, is the same as a retail sales tax of the same amount.

The VAT has its virtues: As a single-rate, consumption-based system, much like the flat tax or national sales tax, it would introduce far fewer economic distortions than today's income tax -- and a heckuva lot less paperwork.

That would be a persuasive argument -- if proponents wanted a VAT to replace the Internal Revenue code. But that's not what's intended by Volcker -- or Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who've also been chatting up the VAT. The politicians want a VAT, and they want to keep the income tax. (To be more accurate, they want a VAT and to raise other taxes as well.)

They want the cash, of course, so they can continue buying votes by spending other people's money.

The VAT is "on the table," according to Democrat Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (source here). One of Democrat President Barack Obama's top economic advisers suggested that it's time for America to adopt a VAT. And President Obama's new debt commission, which will meet for the first time just before the elections and after Obama has added trillions in debt, was rumored to be looking strongly at suggesting that the US adopt the VAT. And although the Senate just voted Thursday to say they don't want to create a new value-added tax, 12 of the 13 senators who voted to support the possibility of a VAT were Democrats. Democrats are working today on how they can make my children pay a VAT.

The state of Michigan once used a form of VAT known as the "Single Business Tax" (SBT) as its form of general business taxation. It was the only state to have used a VAT, and it sucked. Voters voted to replace the SBT with the new MBT, which was expected to be more fair and less of a jobs and economy killer than the SBT ended up being.

One other note on the VAT. While most Democrats and liberals want a 'small' VAT, most tax rates start small and then end up going up and up and up (except when you vote Republican, then they go down). When the income tax was first put in, the highest marginal income tax rate in 1913 was only 7%, but only 5 years later the highest rate to 77%, and by the 1940's, the top rates in the US were above 90%. Expect the VAT to follow a similar trajectory- if passed by Democrats it will start small, but eventually will be a massive jobs and economic killer.

Brett D. Schaefer writes that"...To reach upper-middle-income status (gross national income per capita of $3,256 or higher), the average sub-Saharan African with an income of $536 would have to experience real compound growth in per capita income of over 5 percent for over 35 years.[11] To become as wealthy as the United States, the average country in sub-Saharan Africa must grow at 5 percent per year for nearly 90 years. Quite simply, without high, sustained levels of eco­nomic growth, sub-Saharan Africa will not close the gap with the developed countries..."He concludes that "...Foreign assistance alone cannot increase eco­nomic growth and development. Achieving these objectives requires the political will to implement policy change to expand opportunities and remove barriers to growth. Developed countries can assist development by encouraging good policy and opening their markets to developing country products, but success in development ultimately depends on developing countries’ adopting and implementing policies that promote economic freedom, good governance, and the rule of law. Only then will developing countries be on the path to economic development..."

Under the health insurance overhaul plan being pushed by the Democrats in Congress, married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together.

For many middle-class and lower-income couples, the plan proposed by Obama and Pelosi will mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they are married.

From the Wall Street Journal:

For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 -- a "penalty" of $2,084. Under the Senate bill, a couple with $50,000 combined income would pay $3,450 in annual premiums if unmarried, and $5,100 if married -- a difference of $1,650.

The marriage penalty in the health bill has not been a major focus of attack by Republican opponents of the bill, who are focusing on larger themes such as new taxes in the bill and growth in government spending. But it has caught the attention of some conservative groups, who claim that the prospect of reduced subsidies will dissuade people from tying the knot.

One of the reasons that I oppose the Democrats and their liberal agenda so strongly is because I believe that its unintended conquences will be to create a society that is less moral, less law-abiding, and less prosperous than a society that is built around conservative ideas. With legislation such as this and other acts Democrats appear to be encouraging people not to get married. They are using the power of the federal government to create disincentives for marriage, and encouraging people instead to live together without marriage.

This is wrong. Being married is a great thing. But increasingly the government is penalizing me and my wife for being married, instead encouraging through law after law for us to instead live together in an unmarried state. Democrats are wrong to do that, and they are wrong to advance this healthcare bill.

Over considerable Democratic objections, a Republican Congress dramatically lowered taxes for everyone in our entire country almost ten years ago. Republicans lowered taxes for low-income earners who go to work everyday making goods or providing services that we all need. Republicans lowered taxes for middle-class earners who do what they do to make our economy strong and vibrant. And Republicans lowered taxes for high earners, those who invest in industry, run their own businesses, or are very successful in their enterprises. Everyone in our country got a tax break when Republicans were in charge of Congress and everyone in our nation got to keep more of their income.

Not so when Democrats are in charge of Congress. Under four years of Democratic control, there were no major tax cuts enacted (most of us never even noticed that little baby Obama cut that was targeted towards politically favored groups). And now, as Democrats are being thrown out of office, they have decided to at the very last moment engage in class warfare and not extend the tax cuts for high earners in our nation, thereby putting in place the largest tax increase ever in the history our nation on small businesses, successful entrepreneurs, and top investors. The effect of that massive tax increase by Democrats will predictably be to lower investment, lower incentives to produce, and increase business for tax layers who will shield greater amounts of income from the state's lustful reach.

So, on a local note, where did Congressman Gary Peters vote?

Congressman Peters, as some of you might know, is a 'blue-dog' Democrat from Michigan who managed to cling to office in spite of the Republican wave of 2010 by convincing the voters of his district that he was a tax-cutting, small-government, moderate, friend-of-business conservative, and not in fact what his votes in Congress say that he is, which is a tax-raising, large-government, liberal, enemy-of-business leftist. He says he's one thing- I say his votes say he is another. So, let's take a look at where he voted this time around. Did he vote to play class-warfare and raise taxes on the rich or did he vote against his party in support of Republican proposals to make permanent the tax cuts for everyone? Oh, he'll run next election claiming that he voted 'to cut taxes', but we all know that the vote on HR 4853 was not about cutting taxes for the middle class, but was about whether or not to let the Republican tax cuts for everyone continue or not.

Let's go to the record, courtesy of the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. On Roll Call vote number 604, on a motion that the House agrees with an amendment to the Senate amendment of HR 4853 (which extends the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund) (Democrats couldn't openly vote on this issue, they had to sneak attack on it in a totally ungermane bill), Gary Peters, Democrat from Michigan's 9th District, voted 'Yea'. Just look for 'Pelosi' on the Roll Call list, and you'll see Peters' name there, as always, voting with Nancy Pelosi 95% of the time.

And with that, Peters and other Blue Dog Democrats have once more showed that when it comes down to it, they want to just play games with tax rates, picking and choosing who they like, and would rather attack the rich in a down economy then let those people keep the money they earn to invest or buy as they see fit. Peters and other 'moderates' showed that class warfare and shady games are more important to them then just doing the right thing, which is extending the Republican tax cuts. If Democrats love the middle class and poor so much, after extending tax cuts for everyone, they should then propose deeper tax cuts for those groups, and I am sure Republicans would be okay with it. It's within their power to do so. But no, they just want credit for not raising taxes that they supported earlier on selected groups within society. And if you vote Democrat, that's all you are supporting. Myself, I usually vote Republicans, because they want credit for lowering taxes that they have always supported lowering for everyone in society, and that sounds a little bit more like it should be.

UPDATE: Via Conservative Summer:

On December 2nd, Rep. Gary Peters voted along with his party again, to extend the 'Bush Tax Cuts' to those making under $250k a year. This is not what the Congressman promised back in September. In fact, in a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Peters along with three other Congressmen wrote:

"We urge you to consider legislation to extend all of the income tax cuts," the letter to Pelosi reads. "In recent weeks, we have heard from a diverse spectrum of economists, small business owners, and families who have voiced concerns that raising any taxes right now could negatively impact economic growth. Given the continued fragility of our economy and slow pace of recovery, we share their concerns."

Today we find the unemployment numbers have climbed from 9.6% to 9.8% and these numbers will certainly rise with the additional tax burdens that Congressman Peters has imposed on our small business owners. And he calls himself a 'moderate.'

UPDATE II: The Freep says this about Peters recently:

U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, a Bloomfield Township Democrat, was one of President Barack Obama's best friends last week because he was one of the few Democrats openly supporting extending the Bush-era tax cuts for everybody, not just people who make less than $250,000 a year...the New York Times described Peters as an "obscure" freshman representative from Michigan.

This is Peters' game- openly support tax cuts for everyone, and then when the vote comes up in Congress on the issue, vote the other way. Then when it comes time to explain why you voted the way you did, you use your legal background to explain that your vote was to cut taxes for the poor and middle class, while we all know that that vote was to purposefully extend tax cuts for everyone but the 'rich'. This guy might be 'obscure', but I think a better word to describe Congressman Gary Peters is 'slimy.'

Via Americans for Tax Reform:

Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate Cost of Government Day. This is the day on which the average American has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state, and local levels.

In 2010, Cost of Government Day falls on August 19. Working people must toil 231 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - 8 days later than last year and a full 32 days longer than 2008.In other words, in 2010 the cost of government consumes 63.41 percent of national income.

Whenever you get into any argument with any liberal or Democrat about tax rates and the size of government and government finances, you need to ask that liberal or Democrat how much of a person's work and labor and investments in time and money and effort (referred to in the future as income) should the government take from them and give to someone else (government bureaucrats, connected interest groups, politically favorable charities, etc)? How much is too much?

You'll get two answers- that we are at the perfect rate right now (as if 63% is some sort of magical number), or that the rate is too high on the liberals and Democrats but not high enough of the conservatives and Republicans (or as they'll call it, the 'government-subsidized poor' pay too much, but the 'working private rich' don't pay enough). The magic number for liberals and Democrats is that they want 100% of your hard work to go to what they want to spend it on- they want to turn you into a slave of their interests and their desires. That shouldn't shock you- out of the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have been around, slavery has existed and thrived all but 150 of them (although slavery continues even today for women in Muslim nations and there is sex slavery in Africa and Southeast Asia). The real goal for Democrats and liberals is to make you a slave once more to the state, and have you work longer than 231 days out of the year for the state's interests.

Myself, I'm increasingly resenting the fact that I work 231 days out of the year for someone else- I consider that a violation of my life, liberty, and protection of property on which this nation was founded. Even if the Republicans can retake the House and the Senate and the state governments and the Presidency, at best they can only hold the line at this point, which is not good enough for me. The Revolution is brewing.

UPDATE: Just to educate some of your liberal rubes who read my blog, the solution to these high taxes on individuals for being productive is not to tax businesses instead. A business has costs to run and sells goods and services, and if they sell those goods for more than they cost to produce, they make a profit. If taxes are increased on businesses, several things could happen; one, the business owner will pay for those increased taxes out of profits that he earned, which will give him less money to buy goods and services from others, will give him less money to reinvest in his business, and will lessen his desire to make profits by being efficient; two, the business owner will pay for the tax by raising the cost of the goods or services, which will cause overall inflation on everyone as goods and services become more expensive to consumers, lowering economic activity and inflicting harm on everyone; three, the business owner will raise his prices to pay for the tax but be unable to have customers buy the goods at the increased prices and therefore will go out of business; or four, the business owner will keep his prices the same, no longer make money on the business, and eventually be unable to pay his bills and his business will go under.

Those of you who see 'increase taxes on businesses' as a solution to tax woes are indeed idiots, or fools with radio shows named Tomm Hartman.

In Obama's recent speech on reducing the debt (also see my earlier post on this subject), President Obama proposed instituting a "debt trigger," or fail-safe mechanism, that would force the government to make substantial reductions in discretionary spending if deficits exceed 2.8 percent of GDP starting 2014 (which they are going to as a result of his budget calling on more and more spending combined with his policies which encourage lower and lower GDP). Entitlement programs would be exempt, which is important, because entitlement programs make up most of what our government spends money on and are predicted to overwhelm our entire budget in the coming decades, so by making them exempt from this 'debt trigger', the President conveniently votes present on the most important issues facing our nation once again.

Via Yglesias, I see that the White House sent out additional information about this 'debt trigger' proposal. Their bullet points say:

— A debt failsafe that will ensure that our nation’s debt is on a declining path as a share of our economy. If by 2014, budget projections do not show that the debt-to-GDP ratio has stabilized and is declining in the second half of the decade, the failsafe will trigger an across the board spending reduction, including on spending through the tax code.

— The trigger will ensure that deficits as a share of the economy average no more than 2.8% of GDP in the second half of the decade.

— Consistent with prior fiscal enforcement mechanisms put in place by Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton, the trigger should not apply to Social Security, low-income programs, or benefits for Medicare enrollees.

— The trigger should also include a mechanism to ensure that it does not exacerbate an economic downturn or interfere with our nation’s ability to respond to a national security emergency.

Although this appears to be saying that if the governments spends too much money and drives our nation into bankruptcy, the language is key- entitlements are exempt, welfare is exempt, any 'low-income programs' are exempt, anything that might 'exacerbate an economic downturn are exempt(like 'investments' in 'green energy' or any other favored liberal project), and most importantly, the spending reduction will include reduction 'on spending through the tax code.'

So what sort of spending occurs through the tax code that may be cut out if politicians spend too much money on programs that make our nation less wealthy and prosperous and free?

The formal name for 'spending through the tax code' are tax expenditures, and these are basically 'spending' through the use of the tax code. The sorts of things that the government considers 'spending through the tax code' are tax credits, deductions, exclusions, exemptions, deferrals, and preferential rates.

Examples of 'tax expenditures' include the mortgage tax deduction, the 'Bush' tax cuts, the 'Obama' tax cuts, having pensions be tax exempt, dividend taxes, exclusion of taxes your employer pays on health care, tax credits for children, the elimination of the 'marriage penalty, and many more. A full list of 'tax expenditures' can be found in this document.

What Obama is calling for and Democratic legislators are supporting and liberal bloggers are rallying behind is a provision that will automatically raise taxes on families, employers, home owners, retirees, and many more, in order to transfer wealth to low income earners and other politically favorable groups who will be exempt from such a devastating automatic tax increase.

The fact that the media just let this slip by without discussing and analyzing it is amazing and demonstrates how far outside of the mainstream that Obama is that his proposal to demand automatic massive tax increases on many of us was just another in a long laundry list of horrible socialist leftist proposals and so didn't demand further analysis and commentary.

When you vote next year, don't let you or your family forget that the President of the United States wants you to pay considerably more in taxes so that he and his cronies in government can continue to dole that money out to their favored groups in society.

In July of 2010 in response to a Politico poll that showed how out of touch the elites in Washington DC were from the rest of the nation I wrote "while the countryside is being plundered, the Democratic lords and Emperor Obama are living in a different world based on luxury, hope, and change."

Turns out that I was right- while the rest of the nation has been battling unemployment, falling salaries, and a feeling that things are going in the wrong direction, Washington DC has become the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area according to recent Census data. Whereas in years past wealthiest metropolitan areas were based on producing goods and services, Washington DC has become the nation's wealthiest area on the backs of booming salaries and employment for government workers and booming employment and a growing concentration of lawyers and lobbyists.

Unlike recently passed Silicon Valley which built its wealth on innovation and production of computers or historic wealthy areas like Oakland County Michigan which was built on money generated from automobile production, under President Barack Obama (Democrat, President since 2009) and the Democrats (control of House from 2006-2011 and Senate since 2006), Washington DC simply vacuums trillions of dollars from taxpayers and trillions more in debt in order to give high salaries to ever more inefficient government employees and to distribute gifts and favors and contracts to special interests.

With about 5.6 million residents, the Washington region has an aggregate household income of about $221.4 billion. The San Jose area (Silicon Valley) has about 1.8 million people and income of $67 billion, according to census figures gathered from the American Community Survey. Although there is considerable income disparity in Washington DC (in the District of Columbia almost 11 percent of the city’s population qualifies as “very poor"), total compensation for federal workers (including health care and other benefits) soared last year to an average of $126,369, compared with $122,697 in 2009 and even less than that in years before that. In addition to soaring federal pay, employment has been stable as well- the unemployment rate in the Washington metro area was 6.1 percent, compared with nationally joblessness at 9.1 percent (source).

In addition to booming salary and jobs for federal workers during this recession, there has also been a stunning rise in the number of lobbyists and lawyers working over the federal government- spending on lobbying efforts reached a new record of $3.51 billion last year and in 2010 there were a new record number of registered lobbyists (12,964), with most working in or around the nation’s capital. This is likely the result of the Democrats crony capitalism policies, which award contracts and business to those who are politically connected and make campaign donations to Democrats (see Solyndra or the bailout of General Motors for examples of this).

I personally saw this sort of corruption when I visited our nation's capitol last. After that visit, I was moved to write this:

Washington DC is booming. I think it is one of the few states in the nation to actually have increasingly employment, job growth, and GDP growth. There are signs everywhere of prosperity and building- roads are being repaired, monuments are being revamped, buildings are adding on, and fresh paint and plaster is in abundance. On a guidebook of DC I read that our capitol was designed to look like the capitols of the Emperors and despots of Europe, but it was okay because we lived in a free nation that celebrated liberty and property. Well, as our country becomes more despotic and tyrannical, it is going to look increasingly like those capitols of the old days, when the Emperor took money from the countryside to build himself new statues and bigger palaces.

There is no way to sugar-coat this sort of thing or make it appear to be some sort of sign of progress. President Obama campaigned on cleaning up Washington, and he has done the exact opposite, making Washington a rising cesspool of corruption and money while the rest of the nation struggles to make ends meet. There needs to be a house-cleaning in 2012 to get rid of the people who have been in charge there over the last couple years when the problem has gotten dramatically worse, and since Bush and the Republicans are not in charge any more, that means the Democrats (who control the bureaucracy, Presidency, and Senate) should be thrown out of their fancy palaces in DC so that they can find real jobs making goods and providing services in good old productive American cities.

Mark Levin probably agrees with me- check out his book Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.

In the Economist:

Developing countries are becoming something else...engines of the world economy. Since 2008, says the World Bank, they have contributed almost all of what economic growth there has been. In the 1980s they accounted for 33.7% of global income, at purchasing-power parities. This year, the share will be 43.4%. The map above shows how the world would look if country size were adjusted in line with the projected GDPs of countries by 2015.
These trends have been going on a long time but the end of the great recession has speeded them up dramatically. Richer countries have not fully recovered: their income is still below what it was before the crisis. But in poorer ones—notably in Asia, the Middle East and Africa—income now exceeds pre-crisis levels by wide margins.

More here

In the featured 'Commentary' section of the Detroit Free Press today, Diane Carpenter Emling, who is a professor at Northwestern Michigan College, writes "Raise my taxes":

Over the last several years, our state legislators have supposedly done us a great favor by cutting our taxes. Speaking for myself, I barely noticed it. However, the inability of the state of Michigan to fund basic public services is costing me greatly. I can’t afford these tax cuts.

Michigan’s financial problems are structural. It is hypocritical to propose patching yet another annual budget by cuts only. For those who want to solve the fiscal problem by cuts, demonstrate some political courage, rather than going once again to the political cheap-shots.

Make structural changes: Work seriously to pass a progressive income tax. Eliminate funding for townships, consolidate school districts, enact rational sentencing reforms, and eliminate legislative pension and insurance hand-outs. Cut tax loopholes and extend the sales tax to all services. No more across the board cuts, cuts in programs for the most needy, and beating up on teachers and public servants. Significantly increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to protect the most needy, but please, do me a favor: Raise my taxes. Do it now.

Diane Carpenter Emling, you are a liar and a hypocrite. I call you a liar because you don't want your taxes raised- you want my taxes raised- you didn't call for an increase in taxes, you called for an increase on taxes on other people. I call you a hypocrite because you claim that you want your taxes raised, yet I am sure that on your tax deduction you claimed everything possible, and probably haven't donated additional money to the state.

Liberals always try to pretend that they are some sort of holy person and that they would want to be taxed more, but when it comes down to it, they don't. In Virginia they established a "Tax Me More Fund," modeled after the one in Arkansas, where all of those liberals who offer to 'tax me more' can donate money. Year after year, all of the 'tax me more' people donate nothing to this fund (Virginia's fund raised $19.36 in 2006). Given the choice to pay more in taxes, liberals like Professor Emling never do, because they are lying about their agenda- they want you to pay more in taxes, not themselves.

Professor Emling's agenda is quite clear in her editorial- she wants anyone not her to pay more taxes (progressive tax) and to have that wealth redistributed to her (no more cuts to teachers pay). Giving her a voice and listening to her is what will make our country a worse, less successful, a less free, and a less prosperous nation.

A quick search of Professor Diane Carpenter Emling turned up some fun stuff. She is a social studies teacher at Northwestern Michigan University, and apparently teaches her class in the same agenda-driven incoherent babble as her commentary above. One reviewer of her class (ratemyprofessors.com) said "she often talks in circles and is incoherent," another wrote "she is the worst professor i have ever had," and another wrote "she pushes her personal beliefs on the class and she has no room for other beliefs- as long as you can conform to her ideals for the purpose of the class, it is easy, but her class is a joke and she should be fired." She is also surprisingly a big Obama donor (opensecrets.org).

Many people email me and comment that they are scared about how I might be teaching and corrupting our youth- my reviews are the exact opposite of those!

It is doubtful that she can be educated, but if you would like to try, here is how to contact her: Phone: (231) 995-1295 and E-mail: demling@nmc.edu. Have fun!

That's right- according to Democratic candidates and strategists and pundits and blogs, every tea party candidate supports privatizing popular and successful Social Security program, or at least this is the word-for-word line that Democratic candidates and strategists and pundits and blogs are parroting. By similar logic, every Democratic Candidate Supports Nationalizing Popular and Successful Car Companies! Oh wait...

So you're saying that just because one person or a couple people who is affiliated with something says something or characterizes something in a certain way we can't blanket stereotype everyone from that group? Yes, it is true that some Tea Party candidates believe in privatizing Social Security, although since there is no real official 'tea party' that would be hard to be clear on, plus there is no national 'tea party' platform, so it would be hard to prove that a candidate who isn't labeled 'tea party' supports a platform that isn't written down anywhere. So I guess saying 'every tea party candidate supports' is as accurate as saying 'every Democractic candidate supports.' But the rest of the statement is true, right?

So you're saying that exaggerating the position of a group isn't something that we should do? Some candidates support modernizing and changing and hoping and unicorning a program like Social Security by allowing people choices and control, but this isn't the same things as 'privatizing' the program, any more than Obama and the Democrats swooping in and seizing a large private company in violation to the bankruptcy laws of our nation is the same as nationalizing a company. Overstating positions and exaggerating a candidates position is the kind of sleight-of-hand and trickery that real candidates, blogs, and pundits shouldn't rely on. Although in retrospect, I guess I'm still confused how what Obama and the Democrats did to GM was not illegally nationalizing a company so that political elites could divide up its assets and distribute them to political supporters. Regardless, GM and Social Security were both successful and popular, right?

Does successful and popular mean a giant pyramid scheme that benefits a particular group in society? Oh sure, old people and those nearing retirement age really like social security, but young people and those far from retirement age don't (and if they do they are morons). It won't be there for them when they retire, at least not in its current form, so the deal that is being made now- pay a fair percentage of your income to the government to hold on to it for you so that when you retire you can retire with a comfortable source of income- is a raw deal. Young people will pay their entire lives into a system that will pay them greatly reduced benefits when they retire, but old people who are getting the sweet deal now certainly like it, that's for sure. Oh, and as far as being successful- I've got a business opportunity for you, you just sell this thing to seven people, and if they sell it to seven people, then you'll make lots of money... social security is successful just like Democrats are successful, in that it exists and is sucking the system dry before it collapses.

Huh, weird, when you actually listen to what liberals and Democrats say and throw it through some logic and analysis, their best arguments are pretty lame.

Aneel G. Karnani counters(PDF) C. K Prahalad's assertion about a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid:

We argue for the need to view the poor primarily as producers, not as consumers. Rather than emphasizing selling to the poor, we should emphasize buying from the poor. By far the best way to alleviate poverty is to raise the income of the poor. Even though the BOP proposition conceptually focuses on the poor as consumers, it sometimes cites examples of successful organizations that treat the poor primarily as
producers... In discussing solutions to poverty, it is useful to conceptually separate the role of the poor as consumers and producers...The poor often sell their products and services into inefficient markets and do not capture the full value of their output. Any attempt to improve the efficiency of these markets will raise the income of the poor.

via NextBillion

Yasser Abdih, Ralph Chami,Jihad Dagher, and Peter Montiel in an IMF working paper(PDF):

Conclude that despite their nature as household-to-household private income transfers,remittance inflows may have adverse effects on domestic institutional quality – specifically,on the quality of domestic governance – that are similar to those of large resource flows. In our analytical model, this effect arises because when households receive remittances, the government finds it less costly to free ride on the households and their emigrant relatives and divert resources for its own purposes. In other words, because access to remittance income makes government corruption less costly for domestic households to bear, the government engages in more corruption. Remittances, by acting as a buffer between the government and its citizens, give rise to a moral hazard problem; these flows allow households to purchase the public good rather than rely solely on the government to provide that good, which reduces the household’s incentive to hold the government accountable.

via Foreign Policy

Professor Hans Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be. Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. In the following four minute film, he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Despite its light and witty touch, the film nonetheless has a serious message - without statistics we are cast adrift on an ocean of confusion, but armed with stats we can take control of our lives, hold our rulers to account and see the world as it really is. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine. Enjoy!

Hans Rosling has written a textbook too- check out Global Health: An Introductory Textbook.

From the PLOS computational Biology website, "...To be a scientist in a low-income country (LIC)...requires a set of qualities that are necessary to confront the drawbacks that work against the development of science. The failure of many young researchers to mature as professional scientists upon their return to their country from advanced training elsewhere, motivated us to propose these ten rules..."[continue reading]
via Science Blogs