Businesses And Wealthy People Flooding Out Of Liberal California. The Only People Pouring IN Are Lobbyists. And Why Is That?

As a native Californian, I laughed when I first came across Murphy’s Laws and saw the one that said, “Everything east of the San Andreas fault will eventually plunge into the Atlantic Ocean.”

It’s not so damn funny now in the age of Obama when everything east of the San Andreas fault IS pretty much plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.  Especially given the fact that liberals dominate California and are plunging that state into its own special form of hell.

Then again, Murphy – never much for looking at the bright side – predicted Obama would become president in one of his darker moods.

Things were not going well for California.  People and businesses were flooding out of California.

It was 2009 when I cited an article which stated an amazing fact regarding the competition for businesses between liberal California and conservative Texas:

Don’t look now, but there’s a new War Between the States under way, and the south is winning. The most dramatic winner is Texas. The cover story of a recent (July 9) issue of The Economist compared California with Texas and implied that the Golden State is falling apart, while the Lone Star State is leading the nation out of the recession.  Then, in a mid-July issue of National Review, Kevin D. Williamson said the nation is “Going Alamo,” with new jobs and businesses tipping southward, draining California, the Midwest, and Northeast of their former economic glory.

One indicator of the trend, according to Williamson, is the cost of renting a U-Haul truck for a one-way move.  From Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California, the cost is $900, while a one-way rental from San Francisco to Austin is $3,000, due to the exodus of trucks from California.

All this makes sense.  We are a mobile nation.  People can move easily enough (especially if they rent), and capital can move even faster.  Capital, jobs, and businesses will go where they are most welcome, while capital leaves places where it is punished by higher taxes and over-regulation.

Why was it 233 percent more expensive to go from Texas to California than it was to go from California to Texas in a U-Haul truck?  Because rats were fleeing the sinking liberal ship of Statism, that’s why.

We found that the most liberal states with the highest tax rates were not only seeing by far and away the most flight as people poured out of states that simply were dead-ends for anybody wanting a damn JOB, but that it was these same liberal states that also had the highest budget deficits.  While states that were run by conservatives had the budget surpluses.

Well, of course, it got even worse for California.  In the 2010 election, California was pretty much the only state to defy the massive and historic Republican landslide as people across the nation voted against liberalism.  California actually gained power for Democrats that year.

Now where are we?

Well, we elected liberal Democrat Jerry Brown.  Jerry Brown hiked taxes.  And businesses increased their rate of flooding out of the state.

I was in a Burke’s Outlet store today.  The store in my town was almost completely empty of merchandise.  I asked the manager what was going on and he said that Burke’s – which has more than 500 stores nationwide – was leaving California entirely.

I asked him why that was and he was brutally honest: because of the new tax hikes.  There were other states that didn’t piss on their businesses the way California pisses on their businesses via the Democrat Party.

Well, I’m sure all of those Burke’s Outlet employees are thrilled to be out of their jobs.  I’m sure those tax hikes on the rich are working out just swell for those poor workers.

You don’t hear this very often, but the Los Angeles Times – in one of their incredibly few honest moments – published the fact that California has a $500 billion deficit because of their giveaways to liberal labor unions:

California’s $500-billion pension time bomb
April 06, 2010|By David Crane

The staggering amount of unfunded debt stands to crowd out funding for many popular programs. Reform will take something sadly lacking in the Legislature: political courage.

The state of California’s real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported.

That’s the finding from a study released Monday by Stanford University’s public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

We’re doomed in California.  And we deserve to be doomed.  Plunging into the ocean would be about the best outcome we could dream of compared to the economic collapse we’re eventually going to be unable to keep papering over with insanely bogus “math.”

And of course, other liberal states like Illinois (see also here) are just as evil and face just as awful a pension time bomb.

Liberalism is pure evil, and anybody who has a clue knows that.

Fortunately for liberals, most Americans are stunningly ignorant and depraved people.  So it’s working out great for the Democrat Party machine which has succeeded by lying to the most ignorant and stupid populations (such as young people who pretty much are the definition of “stupid”).

Do you want to know who IS flooding in to bankrupt California right now?

Lobbyists, that’s who.  Contrary to Democrats’ lies, we’re seeing a massive increase in lobbying to the tune of a 50% increase over the evil Bush years:

SACRAMENTO — Although many of California’s cities and counties have been struggling financially, putting off road repairs, cutting back library hours and reducing police patrols, there is one way in which they have not held back: hiring Sacramento lobbyists.

Local governments’ spending on advocacy in the Capitol has surged in recent years, topping $96 million during the two-year legislative session that ended last fall — an increase of nearly 50% from a decade ago.

The sum dwarfs the lobbying bills of the state’s largest labor unions, big oil companies and other energy interests combined, according to the California secretary of state’soffice. No sector spends nearly as much trying to influence government in California as government.

And, of course, after all of his lies and slander and demagoguery and bogus promises, Obama turns out to be the worst whore for lobbyists’ money in the history of the republic as he sells out this nation like no one has ever even thought of selling it out before.

Barack Hussein Obama is the Whore-in-Chief.

It’s actually pretty easy to explain what’s happening and why: liberalism is the worship of the State.  God is dead.  The State is God.  And in liberal theology, the State as God sovereignly chooses as our God who wins and who loses, who gets Marxist redistribution and who is forced to pay higher and higher and higher taxes to pay for that Marxist redistribution.  And under ObamaCare, the State even gets to decide who lives and who dies as the death panels Sarah Palin predicted turn out to be all to damn real.

And, of course, there too, the State gets to decide who wins and who loses, as liberals grant waivers to the unions and the big corporations that most helped Obama pass his socialist takeover of what used to be the finest medical system on planet earth.

After Black Friday in 1929, just as shortly after the Titanic hit that iceberg, there was a period when things didn’t seem that bad.  As an example, after that infamous Black Friday in September of 1929, “In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates.”  Things were looking up.  Everything seemed swell.

Just like now.

Mind you, during the Great Depression, which FDR prolonged by seven years according to economists, we had plenty of lobbyists whoring for more government influence and government money, too.  When the government is running everything on the one hand and spending money it doesn’t have on the other, there are always dishonest whores waiting to suck it out of corrupt politicians.

All you have to do is worship Obama and take the mark of the beast, and you too can have a fancy job as a lobbyist.  But otherwise, just give up because things are a lot worse than they seem for decent people.

The way of California is the way of Cain.  And Cain is burning in hell for his wickedness just like every liberal will soon be.

Update, 3/20/13: What Democrats are doing in California and everywhere else is a firehose of evil that just keeps pouring out of the left.  I wrote this article the evening of the 18th and published it so it would come out the 19th.  When I woke up the morning of the 19th, what did I learn?  That Democrats are doing in California what socialists were trying to do in Cypruss: steal their citizens’ money by any vile means possible.

In California, Democrats actually tried to retroactively tax small businesses five years back.  California had provided a tax break for small businesses and other entrepreneurs and Democrats are whores who suck other people’s money.  Democrats not only wanted to end the tax break, but they demanded that businesses pay the socialist State BACK every single penny they had received in those tax break – complete with interest and even penalties:

California’s top-end taxpayers — already steamed over a recent hike in the  nation’s highest state income tax — are now fuming over a new $120 million  retroactive tax grab on small business owners.

In December, the state’s tax authority determined that a tax break claimed  over the past few years by 2,500 entrepreneurs and stockholders of  California-based small businesses is no longer valid and sent out notices of  payment.

“How would you feel if you made a decision, which was made four years ago,  (and) you absolutely knew was legally correct and four years later a governing  body came in and said, ‘no, it’s not correct, now you owe us a bunch more money.  And we’re going to charge you interest on money you didn’t even know you owed’,”  Brian Overstreet told Fox News from his office north of San Francisco.

Last year, Overstreet and his fellow investors sold Sagient Research Systems  and immediately reported the sale to the California Franchise Tax Board, the  state’s version of the IRS. “It was good for the shareholders, it was good for  the employees and good for those of us who founded it,” Overstreet said about  the sale of the data mining company. “We paid the tax based on the law at the  time.”

Here’s the question: how would YOU feel, not that you liberals are capable of mustering up that kind of actual empathy or anything.

The vileness of the left simply has no limits and knows no boundaries.

Obama Promised To Cut Deficit In HALF By Now; Instead He’s Given Us The Three Highest Budget Deficits IN HISTORY OF ENTIRE HUMAN RACE

Barack Obama is a documented liar so many times over it’s positively unreal.  But it’s not merely the sheer galling number of his lies, it’s the magnitude of importance of the things he lied about, that most undermines America.

Sometimes a video is worth a thousand words:

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee (RNC) released a new web video “Empty Promises: Debt and Deficits” demonstrating President Obama’s repeated broken promises when it comes to spending. Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term but has run trillion dollar deficits every year since. Now, as he’s campaigning for a second term, he’s making the same empty promises he made four years ago.

Web video can be viewed here.

Download the web video here.

“President Obama has broken his promise over and over when it comes to reining in Washington’s out of control spending,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “During the campaign, he lambasted the growing debt and, once elected, he pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.

“Yet, President Obama’s record has been to double-down on Washington’s out of control spending by running trillion dollar deficits every year he’s been in office. His serial disregard of the nation’s finances is mortgaging our children’s future, guaranteeing that the next generation will not be better off.

“Barack Obama is right–the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. After four years of lip-service on spending, it is clear that Barack Obama is just a typical politician, saying one thing to get elected and doing another once in office.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner provided many of the details in print:

In his first speech to a joint session of Congress in 2009, President Obama promised to “cut the deficit in half” by the end of his first term. As the Associated Press said at that time: “In calling for a deficit of about $530 billion in four years, [President] Obama has established a marker by which to measure his first-term performance as president. The dollar figure could be his albatross or his badge of success.” Three years and three trillion-dollar deficits later, it’s clear that President Obama will not be brandishing any badges at this year’s State of the Union Address. Here’s more on President Obama’s broken promise to rein in the deficit:

• The President’s Budget, Released Last Year, Projected a Deficit of $1.1 Trillion for 2012. (Office of Management and Budget, Accessed 1/22/12)

• President Obama and Washington Democrats Have Run the Three Largest Deficits in U.S. History:

FY2009 Deficit: $1.413 Trillion, the Highest in U.S. History. (Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)

FY2011 Deficit: $1.299 Trillion, the Second Highest in U.S. History. (Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)

FY2010 Deficit: $1.294 Trillion, the Third Highest in U.S. History. (Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)

• President Obama Has Added More Than $4.6 Trillion to the Debt Since Taking Office. (U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 1/22/12)

• The Nation’s Debt Has Now Eclipsed the Size of the Entire U.S. Economy. (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 12/22/11; U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 1/22/12)

Far from fulfilling his promise to the American people, President Obama – aided by Democrats in Congress – has engaged in a reckless spending spree that is damaging the economy and making it harder to create private-sector jobs. Instead of putting forth a serious, credible plan to cut spending and address the major drivers of our debt, President Obama punted – offering a budget last year that failed by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday earlier this week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reaffirmed Republicans’ commitment to “real reform of our entitlement programs and real controls on spending here in Washington.” Republicans, led by Speaker Boehner, tried to work with the president to enact a major deficit reduction law — including new revenues, through tax reform with lower rates for all — but the president insisted on job-killing tax hikes on small businesses, opposed real spending cuts, and declined to support reforms to strengthen entitlement programs. House Republicans have led where President Obama has failed, and it is now up to Senate Democrats to do their job and pass a budget for the first time in 1,000 days. The American people “can’t wait” another three years for an economy that creates jobs, and a government that fulfills its “most basic responsibility of governing,” and they shouldn’t have to.

This issue is coming back again like a boomerang due to Obama’s failed leadership.  Because the same man who demonized George Bush as being “un-American” and a “failed leader” for trying to pass a debt ceiling extension – and then VOTING AGAINST FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT – is demanding a FOURTH debt ceiling extension himself after his last three were the highest in the history of the human race.

Obama’s budgets are so bloated and so bad and frankly so vile that NOT EVEN ONE SINGLE DEMOCRAT WILL DRINK HIS CYANIDE KOOLAID BUDGETS.  And the Democrat-controlled Senate just proved that yet again by voting 99-0 against Obama’s demon-possessed budget.

The only thing Obama knows how to do is campaign.  Which is why he’s already had more fundraisers than the last five presidents – three of whom served for two full terms – COMBINED.

Tax Cuts INCREASE Revenues; They Have ALWAYS Increased Revenues

We keep seeing the same liberal argument being played over and over again.  As the mainstream media seek to make their case to the American people that the Bush tax cuts should expire, one of the primary strategies being employed is to claim that Republicans are refusing to “pay for” their extension of the tax cuts.  And that therefore the Republicans will hike the deficit.  The problem is that it’s a false premise, based on a static conception of human behavior that refuses to take into account the fact that people’s behavior changes depending upon how much of their money they are allowed to keep, and how much of their money is seized from them in taxation.

As bizarre as it might seem, it is seen as perverse these days to suggest that allowing someone to keep more of the money he or she invests would stimulate people to take more risks by investing in businesses and products, and that such increased investment in business and products would in turn stimulate more economic growth.  Common sense has become akin to rocket science these days.

Then again, liberals aren’t doing much for rocket science, either.

Let’s take a look at the current facts, and then examine the history of our greatest tax-cutting presidents.

The Falsehood That Democrats Are ‘Cutting’ Taxes

Democrats say they are cutting taxes on “95% of Americans, but argue that giving the same tax cut benefits to the remaining 5% would hike the deficit and be fiscally irresponsible.

Well, for one thing, the Democrats are flat-out lying when they say they are cutting taxes for 95% of Americans.  That can’t possibly be true, because as a matter of simple fact a whopping 47% of American households pay no federal income taxes whatsoever.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization. […]

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

What Democrats are doing – deceitful liars that they are – is giving Americans “tax credits” and calling them “tax cuts.”

A  tax cut is a reduction in the percentage or amount of taxes that is being imposed on a citizen.  The government is cutting the amount it had been collecting from taxpayers.  A government cannot “cut” a citizen’s taxes unless that citizen had been paying taxes in the first place.

A tax credit is when you give someone money that has been collected from another taxpayer.  It is redistribution of wealth.  It is what Karl Marx described as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  Do you notice that “to” in the middle?  It means, “transferring the wealth from one government-penalized group of people TO another government-privileged group of people.”  It is what Obama described as “spreading the wealth around.”

What Obama and the Democrats in Congress propose is NOT a “tax cut.”  And it is nothing but a lie to call it that.  And every single journalist who has suggested that it is a tax cut is as much of a liar as the Democrats are.

That’s the first point.  Democrats are advancing a central tenet of Marxism and deceitfully and even demagogically relabeling it as “capitalism.”  And the media helps them get away with it.

The Falsehood That Cutting Taxes For the Rich – But NOT The Other Classes – Contributes To the Deficit

Next comes the idea Democrats argue that tax cuts for the rich contribute to the deficit.

Let’s say for the sake of argument (just for the moment; I’ll prove it’s wrong below) that tax cuts for the rich raise the deficit.  Let me ask you one question: how then do tax cuts for the rest of us not ALSO raise the deficit???

Why wouldn’t raising taxes on the middle class and the poor not correspondingly lower the deficit?  So why aren’t Democrats going after them?

Are Democrats too stupid to realize that there just aren’t enough rich people to pay off our deficit, especially when this president and this Congress have raised said deficit tenfold over the last Republican-passed budget deficit?  The last budget produced by congressional Republicans was in 2007.  That year, the deficit was approximately $160 billion; now under Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid it is $1.6 TRILLION a year as far as the eye can see.

Wouldn’t ANY tax cuts raise the deficit?  And shouldn’t we therefore tax the bejeezus out of EVERYBODY to lower the deficit?  Wouldn’t every single dollar collected reduce the deficit correspondingly?

Let me put it concretely: say I took a $100 bill out of the wallet of a millionaire.  And then say I took a $100 bill out of the wallet of a poor person.  If I took both bills to a Democrat, would he or she be able to tell the difference?  Would he say, “Ah, THIS bill will lower the deficit because it comes from a rich person; but THIS one clearly won’t because it clearly came from a poor person.”

Update, Sep. 10: A study by the Joint Tax Committee, using the same static methodology that I refer to in my opening paragraph, calculate that the government will lose $700 billion in revenue if the tax cuts for the top income brackets are extended.  And that sounds bad.  But they also conclude that the Bush tax cuts on the middle class will cost the Treasury $3 TRILLION over the same period.  If we can’t afford $700 billion, then how on earth can we afford $3 trillion?  And then you’ve got to ask how much the Treasury is losing by not taxing the poor first into the poorhouse, and then into the street?  And how much more revenue could we collect if we then imposed a “street” tax? [end update].

Hopefully you get the point: if tax cuts for the rich are bad because they increase the deficit, then they are equally bad for everyone else for the same exact reason.  And so we should either tax the hell out of everyone, or cut taxes for everyone.  And a consistent Democrat opposed to “deficit-hiking tax cuts for the rich” should be for raising YOUR taxes as much as possible.

Republicans don’t fall into this fundamental contradiction (see below), because they don’t believe that tax cuts create deficits.  Democrats do.  Which means they are perfectly content with shockingly supermassive deficits – as long as its 95% of Americans who are creating those deficits, rather than 100%.

Joe Biden said it was a patriotic duty to pay higher taxes.  And yet Democrats are trying to make 95% of Americans unpatriotic traitors who don’t care about their country?

Now, Democrats will at this point repudiate logic and punt to the issue of “fairness.”  But “fairness” is a very subjective thing, when one group of people decide it’s “fair” for another group of people to hand over their money while the first group pays nothing.  Even George Bernard Shaw – a socialist, mind you – understood this.  He pointed out the fact that “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

Which is to say it’s NOT fair at all.  Paul may think it’s fair, but poor Peter gets screwed year after year.

And it is a fundamental act of hypocrisy – not to mention advancing yet ANOTHER central tenet of Marxist class warfare – to claim to oppose tax cuts for the rich in the name of the deficit, but not to oppose tax cuts for everyone else.

And for the record, I despise both hypocrisy AND central tenets of Marxism.  Which is why I despise the Democrat Party, which is both hypocritical and basically Marxist.

[Update, September 20] Brit Hume demolished the Obama-Democrat argument regarding the Bush tax cuts being a “cost” to the government, saying:

“But the very language used in discussing these issues tells you something as well. In Washington, letting people keep more of their own money is considered a cost. As if all the money really belongs to the government in the first place in which what you get to keep is an expenditure.”

And, again, that mindset about government control and in fact government ownership over people’s wealth represents a profoundly Marxist view of the world. [End update].

For what it’s worth, Democrats will only maintain the massive contradiction of “tax cuts for the rich raising the deficit” for so long.  Obama already admitted he was willing to go back on his promise to raise taxes on the middle class.  And his people are already looking to tee off on middle class tax hikes.  In addition, if you have any private retirement funds, they may well be coming after you soon.

The Falsehood That Tax Cuts Increase The Deficit

Now let’s take a look at the utterly fallacious view that tax cuts in general create higher deficits.

Let’s take a trip back in time, starting with the 1920s.  From Burton Folsom’s book, New Deal or Raw Deal?:

In 1921, President Harding asked the sixty-five-year-old [Andrew] Mellon to be secretary of the treasury; the national debt [resulting from WWI] had surpassed $20 billion and unemployment had reached 11.7 percent, one of the highest rates in U.S. history.  Harding invited Mellon to tinker with tax rates to encourage investment without incurring more debt. Mellon studied the problem carefully; his solution was what is today called “supply side economics,” the idea of cutting taxes to stimulate investment.  High income tax rates, Mellon argued, “inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw this capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities. . . . The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up, wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people” (page 128).

Mellon wrote, “It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the Government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower taxes.”  And he compared the government setting tax rates on incomes to a businessman setting prices on products: “If a price is fixed too high, sales drop off and with them profits.”

And what happened?

“As secretary of the treasury, Mellon promoted, and Harding and Coolidge backed, a plan that eventually cut taxes on large incomes from 73 to 24 percent and on smaller incomes from 4 to 1/2 of 1 percent.  These tax cuts helped produce an outpouring of economic development – from air conditioning to refrigerators to zippers, Scotch tape to radios and talking movies.  Investors took more risks when they were allowed to keep more of their gains.  President Coolidge, during his six years in office, averaged only 3.3 percent unemployment and 1 percent inflation – the lowest misery index of any president in the twentieth century.

Furthermore, Mellon was also vindicated in his astonishing predictions that cutting taxes across the board would generate more revenue.  In the early 1920s, when the highest tax rate was 73 percent, the total income tax revenue to the U.S. government was a little over $700 million.  In 1928 and 1929, when the top tax rate was slashed to 25 and 24 percent, the total revenue topped the $1 billion mark.  Also remarkable, as Table 3 indicates, is that the burden of paying these taxes fell increasingly upon the wealthy” (page 129-130).

Now, that is incredible upon its face, but it becomes even more incredible when contrasted with FDR’s antibusiness and confiscatory tax policies, which both dramatically shrunk in terms of actual income tax revenues (from $1.096 billion in 1929 to $527 million in 1935), and dramatically shifted the tax burden to the backs of the poor by imposing huge new excise taxes (from $540 million in 1929 to $1.364 billion in 1935).  See Table 1 on page 125 of New Deal or Raw Deal for that information.

FDR both collected far less taxes from the rich, while imposing a far more onerous tax burden upon the poor.

It is simply a matter of empirical fact that tax cuts create increased revenue, and that those [Democrats] who have refused to pay attention to that fact have ended up reducing government revenues even as they increased the burdens on the poorest whom they falsely claim to help.

Let’s move on to John F. Kennedy, one of the most popular Democrat presidents ever.  Few realize that he was also a supply-side tax cutter.

Kennedy said:

“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now … Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president’s news conference

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“Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

“In today’s economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit – why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: “The Economic Report Of The President”

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“It is no contradiction – the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today’s economy is to raise consumption by major reduction of individual income tax rates.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: “The Economic Report Of The President”

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“Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963, message to Congress on tax reduction and reform, House Doc. 43, 88th Congress, 1st Session.

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“A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment. Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business, and as the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues.”

– John F. Kennedy, Sept. 18, 1963, radio and television address to the nation on tax-reduction bill

Which is to say that modern Democrats are essentially calling one of their greatest presidents a liar when they demonize tax cuts as a means of increasing government revenues.

So let’s move on to Ronald Reagan.  Reagan had two major tax cutting policies implemented: the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, which was retroactive to 1981, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Did Reagan’s tax cuts decrease federal revenues?  Hardly:

We find that 8 of the following 10 years there was a surplus of revenue from 1980, prior to the Reagan tax cuts.  And, following the Tax Reform Act of 1986, there was a MASSIVE INCREASE of revenue.

So Reagan’s tax cuts increased revenue.  But who paid the increased tax revenue?  The poor?  Opponents of the Reagan tax cuts argued that his policy was a giveaway to the rich (ever heard that one before?) because their tax payments would fall.  But that was exactly wrong.  In reality:

“The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988.”

So Ronald Reagan a) collected more total revenue, b) collected more revenue from the rich, while c) reducing revenue collected by the bottom half of taxpayers, and d) generated an economic powerhouse that lasted – with only minor hiccups – for nearly three decades.  Pretty good achievement considering that his predecessor was forced to describe his own economy as a “malaise,” suffering due to a “crisis of confidence.” Pretty good considering that President Jimmy Carter responded to a reporter’s question as to what he would do about the problem of inflation by answering, “It would be misleading for me to tell any of you that there is a solution to it.”

Reagan whipped inflation.  Just as he whipped that malaise and that crisis of confidence.

This might explain why a Gallup poll showed that Ronald Reagan is regarded as our greatest president, while fellow tax-cutting great John F. Kennedy is tied for second with Abraham Lincoln.  Because, in proving Democrat policies are completely wrongheaded, he helped people.  Including poorer people who benefited from the strong economy he built with his tax policies.

Let’s move on to George Bush and the infamous (to Democrats) Bush tax cuts.  And let me quote none other than the New York Times:

Sharp Rise in Tax Revenue to Pare U.S. Deficit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 12 – For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

A Jump in Corporate Payments On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.

Mr. Bush plans to hail the improvement at a cabinet meeting and to cite it as validation of his argument that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and ultimately help pay for themselves.

Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be “significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion.”

The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.

[Update, September 20: The above NY Times link was scrubbed; the same article, edited differently, appears here.]

Note the newspaper’s use of liberals favorite adjective: “unexpected.” They never expect Republican and conservative polices to work, but they always do if they’re given the chance.  They never expect Democrat and liberal policies to fail, but they always seem to fail every single time they’re tried.

For the record, President George Bush’s 2003 tax cuts:

raised federal tax receipts by $785 billion, the largest four-year revenue increase in U.S. history. In fiscal 2007, which ended last month, the government took in 6.7% more tax revenues than in 2006.

These increases in tax revenue have substantially reduced the federal budget deficits. In 2004 the deficit was $413 billion, or 3.5% of gross domestic product. It narrowed to $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006 and $163 billion in 2007. That last figure is just 1.2% of GDP, which is half of the average of the past 50 years.

Lower tax rates have be so successful in spurring growth that the percentage of federal income taxes paid by the very wealthy has increased. According to the Treasury Department, the top 1% of income tax filers paid just 19% of income taxes in 1980 (when the top tax rate was 70%), and 36% in 2003, the year the Bush tax cuts took effect (when the top rate became 35%). The top 5% of income taxpayers went from 37% of taxes paid to 56%, and the top 10% from 49% to 68% of taxes paid. And the amount of taxes paid by those earning more than $1 million a year rose to $236 billion in 2005 from $132 billion in 2003, a 78% increase.

Budget deficits are not merely a matter of tax policy; it is a matter of tax policy AND spending policy.  Imagine you have a minimum wage job, but live within your means.  Then you get a job that pays a million dollars a year.  And you go a little nuts, buy a mansion, a yacht, a fancy car, and other assorted big ticket items such that you go into debt.  Are you really so asinine as to argue that you made more money when you earned minimum wage?  But that’s literally the Democrats’ argument when they criticize Reagan (who defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War in the aftermath of a recession he inherited from President Carter) and George Bush (who won the Iraq War after suffering the greatest attack on US soil in the midst of a recession he inherited from President Clinton).

As a result of the Clinton-era Dot-com bubble bursting, the Nasdaq lost a whopping 78% of its value, and $6 trillion dollars of wealth was simply vaporized.  We don’t tend to remember how bad that economic disaster was, because the 9/11 attack was such a huge experience, and because instead of endlessly blaming his predecessor, George Bush simply took responsibility for the economy, cut taxes, and fixed the problem.  The result, besides the above tax revenue gains, was an incredible and unprecedented 52 consecutive months of job growth.

Update September 12: Did somebody say something about “jobs”?  Another fact to recognize is the horrendous damage that will be done to small businesses and the jobs they create if the tax cuts for the “rich” aren’t continued.  As found in the Wall Street Journal, “According to IRS data, fully 48% of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations reported on tax returns went to households with incomes above $200,000 in 2007.” Further, the Tax Policy Center found that basically a third of taxpayers who are expected to be in the top tax bracket in 2011 generate more than half their income from a business ownership.  And while Democrats love to point out that their tax hikes on the so-called rich only impact 3% of small businesses, the National Federation of Independent Business reports that that three percent employs about 25 percent of the nation’s total workforce.  “Small businesses that employ 20 to 250 workers are the most likely to be hit by an increase in the top two tax rates, according to NFIB research. Businesses of this size employ more than 25 percent of the U.S. workforce.”  So if you want jobs and an economic recovery, you simply don’t pile more punishing taxes on those “rich” people.  Especially during a recession [End update].

We’re not arguing theories here; we’re talking about the actual, empirical numbers, literally dollars and cents, which confirms Andrew Mellon’s thesis, and Warren Harding’s and Calvin Coolidge’s, John F. Kennedy’s, Ronald Reagan’s, and George W. Bush’s, economic policies.

Harding and Coolidge, Reagan and Bush, with Democrat JFK right smack in the middle: great tax cutters all.

The notion that small- and limited-government conservatives who want ALL Americans to pay less to a freedom-encroaching government are somehow “beholden to the rich” for doing so is just a lie.  And a Marxist-based lie at that.

[Update, 12/15/10]: Check out these numbers as to how the Reagan tax cuts INCREASED the taxes paid by the wealthy, and REDUCED the taxes paid by the middle class and the bottom 50% of tax payers:

Income tax burdens (from the Joint Economic Committee for the US Congress report, 1996):
1981: top 1% of earners paid 17.6% of all personal income taxes
1988: top 1% of earners paid 27.5% of all personal income taxes (+ 10%).

1981: top 10% of earners paid 48% of all personal income taxes
1988: top 10% of earners paid 57.2% of all personal income taxes (+ 9%).

So rich clearly paid MORE of the tax burden when their tax rates were LOWERED.

For the middle class:
1981: middle class paid 57.5% of all personal income taxes
1988: middle class paid 48.7% of all personal income taxes (- 9%).

The middle class’ tax burden went DOWN by 9%.  They paid almost 10% LESS than what they had been paying before the Reagan cuts.

For the bottom 50%:
1981: bottom 50% paid 7.5% of all personal income taxes
1988: bottom 50% paid 5.7% of all personal income taxes (- 2%).

So the Joint Economic Economic Committee concludes that if you lower the tax rates on the rich, the rich wind up paying MORE of the tax burden and the poor end up paying LESS.  When you enact confiscatory taxation policies, the people who can afford it invariably end up protecting their money.  They do everything they can to NOT pay taxes because they are getting screwed.  When the rates drop to reasonable rates, they don’t shelter their money; rather, they take advantage of their ability to earn more – and improve the economy by doing so – by investing.  If you take away their profit, you take away their incentive to improve the economy and create jobs.

Some articles to read:

The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates

Income Tax Cuts Increase Revenues and Help Low Income Families

[End Update, 12/15/10]

This ‘Blame Bush’ Crap Has Just GOT To End

Are you sick of Obama and the left unrelentingly blaming Bush for everything that is happening going on two years after he left office?  Do you think that Obama will ever man-up and actually become responsible for his presidency?

Me too, and me neither, respectively.

I went more than a little off on a liberal who dredged up this demagogic rhetorical garbage:

2010/08/20 at 8:24 pm

In Europe people laugh at us leaving in false dreams, wall streets spending false money, Bush starting a false war etc.

America is the land of dreams, how come? Idiots like George Bush can get elected to president. If he can Become president, then what can the smart people do? Jump to pluto?.

Do you really expect Obama to fix the worst recession in 80 years in a bit more than 18 months? Which was created by 8 years of Reagan, 4 years by bush, Clinton’s last period and 8 years by Bush? What is he some kind of god?

I didn’t vote for Obama but I expect him to put us in the right direction in this 6 years (he most likely) has left. in 2007-2008 they estimated that the recession will peak in 2012, so there is still a lot left. Just imagine how it would be with Palin/McCain. McCain who wanted to keep Bush’s politics moving and Palin who thought Africa was a country.

Here was my response:

First of all, I must pause to mock you for making Europe the gold standard of measurement. I guess if you like Nazism, fascism, Marxism, socialism, and genocide up the wazoo, Europe must be the coolest place on earth.  I can see why you lefties love it so much.

What was it that Jefferson said? “The comparison of our governments with those of Europe, is like a comparison of heaven and hell.” Not that you give a damn what Jefferson said about anything.

Let me assure you that the Iraq War – which 60% of Democrat Senators voted to authorize (just for the record) – was a REAL war indeed.

Here’s a record of how Democrats were for that war before they were against it:

Truth or Fiction
Freedom Agenda
Snopes

And at least Bush had the decency to actually WIN his war. Barack Obama demonized the Iraq War and demonized the surge strategy that enabled us to win it. And Obama made Afghanistan “his war” in order to maintain the facade that he really wasn’t a weakling on foreign policy.  Bush did so well in Iraq that the Obama administration actually tried to take credit for the victory. And now we’re “floundering in Afghanistan” under Obama’s failed leadership.

That Sarah Palin who thought Africa was a country thing? False, you demagogue. It was a made-up “fact” that was reported as truth. And the ONLY documented “source” behind it has been revealed to be a hoax.

Now, you want to see a REAL idiot in action? How about a guy running for president who thinks there are 58 states? This is a man who is so fundamentally ignorant he doesn’t even know jack squat about his own country.

Youtube:

Quote:

“It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”

So let’s talk about what a total and absolute ideologue you are to condemn Sarah Palin for a bogus fabricated quote that she didn’t even say, and to then defend a guy who is on video saying something about 20 times as stupid.  Because that’s how the Democrat Party operates, in a nutshell.

For the factual record, Obama actually called Europe a country.  How is that not just as stupid as calling Africa a country?

Youtube:

Quote:

“One of the things that is a huge advantage for America compared to countries like Europe is, actually, we’re constantly replenishing ourselves with hungry, driven people who are coming here, and they want to work, and they start a business, and our population is younger and more dynamic, and that’s a good thing!”

Which is to say that Obama is unfit to be president by your own deceitful example.

And as for Bush being an idiot, at least he didn’t need a pair of damn teleprompters to say his name right. Maybe Bush would have sounded more “intelligent” to you if he read absolutely everything he said at every venue he went to off his teleprompters.

Here’s Obama without his teleprompter for one minute:

Which is why he needs to bring one everywhere – even to sixth grade classrooms – to not sound like the gibbering idiot he truly is.

So, oh, yeah, the country is much better off with its “Genius-in-chief,” isn’t it?

You don’t give one damn about the truth; you live in your own self-created reality in which Sarah Palin is stupid for something that she never said, while Barack Obama who said something stupider than Sarah Palin ever said in her life is still brilliant.

You would be completely ashamed of yourself, if you were capable of that attribute of moral character.

I write an article that shows how BY THE DEMOCRATS VERY OWN STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT Obama is the worst president in American history. And you’ve got nothing to say about that. Nothing but more “blame Bush.”

Another demonstration of your rabid leftist ideology that will NOT be fair: the economy goes into an absolute TOILET under Obama, but he’s not responsible for any of his policies.

The unemployment rate was 7.6% when Bush left office. But Obama is not responsible for the fact that it’s near 10% now and by most expert accounts will rise higher after he pissed away $862 billion (actually $3.27 TRILLION) in his boondoggle “stimulus”???

Why is it that you refuse to hold Obama to any kind of standard at all – even the standard he set for himself? The Obama administration said this was a terrible economy, but he had the solution, that his stimulus would keep unemployment from going over 8%. And by his own administration’s standard did he not utterly fail? Wasn’t he elected to make the economy better, instead of far worse?

And what do we say about the fact that unemployment is going up, rather than down?  Wasn’t Obama supposed to make things better rather than worse?

Jobless claims rise to highest level in 9 months
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer – Thu Aug 19, 2010

WASHINGTON – Employers appear to be laying off workers again as the economic recovery weakens. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November.

It was the third straight week that first-time jobless claims rose. The upward trend suggests the private sector may report a net loss of jobs in August for the first time this year.

Initial claims rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Construction firms are letting go of more workers as the housing sector slumps and federal stimulus spending on public works projects winds down. State and local governments are also cutting jobs to close large budget gaps.

The layoffs add to growing fears that the economic recovery is slowing and the country could slip back into a recession.

Isn’t Obama kind of going the wrong way, Mr. “Blame Bush”???

We’ve got all kinds of measures showing that things are far worse than they ever were under Bush. But you, total rabid fundamentalist leftist ideologue that you are – can only shout “blame Bush!” all the louder.

Here’s one example from August 21, 2010 in the LA Times:

With consumers and businesses keeping a lid on expenses, more and more small and mid-size restaurants are throwing in their dish towels and closing up shop. […]

Nationwide, the number of restaurants dropped in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, according to NPD, falling 5,202 to 579,416.

So, wow. That means that things haven’t been this bad since Bill Clinton was president and the Dot-com bubble he created blew up. That means that things were NEVER this bad under George Bush.

Bush inherited a terrible economic situation, too. First of all, the Dot-com bubble that Clinton passed to Bush created huge economic upheaval – to the tune of Nasdaq losing 78% of its value. Trillions of dollars of Clinton economic growth were just blown away like a fart in a hurricane.  The mainstream media didn’t report the facts of Clinton’s recession because they are shockingly biased liberal propagandists. Which is why so few Americans trust them anymore. Clinton took all the credit for the Dot-com build-up; Bush got all the pain when it blew up, suffering a huge recession that was all on Clinton’s tab. Then you add to that the 9/11 attack, which crippled the airline and tourism industry for months, and you should understand how bad Bush had it. But he didn’t blame Clinton a gazillion times; he manned up and solved the problem. He took an economic lemon and made 52 consecutive months of job growth.   In contrast, Obama hasn’t solved anything. All he’s done is blame and demonize.

Here’s another one from the August 21 2010 Associated Press report:

In the wake of news about a spike in new applications for unemployment benefits comes another potentially troubling sign: A record number of workers made hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts in the second quarter.

What’s more, the number of workers borrowing from their accounts reached a 10-year high, according to a report issued Friday by Fidelity Investments.

Wow. Again, things haven’t been so bad since the last time a Democrat was president. Again, it was NEVER this bad under George Bush’s presidency.

How about trade deficit figures? From November 19 2009 Reuters:

WASHINGTON: The US trade deficit widened in September by an unexpectedly large 18.2 per cent, the most in more than 10 years, as oil prices rose for the seventh straight month and imports from China bounded higher, a US government report showed on Friday.

Hey, again, things weren’t so bad since a Democrat president last ran things. And it was never so bad under George Bush.

How about all the foreclosures? Surely Obama has made that better? Oops. Again, things were NEVER this bad under Bush’s presidency:

US foreclosures up 4%; top 300000 for 17th month on the trot
by Jaspreet Virk – August 12, 2010

Foreclosure crisis doesn’t seem to be loosening its hold on the housing sector. After declining for the last three consecutive months, foreclosure activity is back up in the United States.

As per the ‘Foreclosure Market Report’ released by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace, giving insights into foreclosures, 325,229 houses received foreclosure filings in the nation, 4 percent up from June.

Not only there has been a jump in the number of houses receiving filings, the foreclosures have exceeded 300000 for the 17th straight month. One in every 397 houses received foreclosure notice from the lenders in July.

Hmmm. Obama’s been president for all of those 17 months. And Bush was president for none of them. But it’s all Bush’s fault, anyway, isn’t it? At least if you’re a hypocrite liberal, it is.

Under Obama, and ONLY under Obama, foreclosures are up 75% in the major metropolitan areas:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Foreclosures rose in 3 of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year’s first half, likely ruling out sustained home price gains until 2013, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday [in its midyear 2010 metropolitan foreclosure report].

Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said.

“We’re not going to see meaningful, sustainable home price appreciation while we’re seeing 75 percent of the markets have increases in foreclosures,” RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

Has Obama done anything to solve this problem – which was why our economy blew up in the first place? Absolutely not.

Obama failed – because he is a failure, and failing is what he does:

WASHINGTON – Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.

“The government program as currently structured is petering out. It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

There’s “hope and change” for you.  A failed president with failed policies.

As an update (August 24), I add the following headline:

Instant View: Existing home sales plunge to 15-year low
Tue Aug 24, 10:28 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sales of previously owned U.S. homes dropped in July to their lowest pace in 15 years, implying further loss of momentum in the economic recovery.

Existing home sales dropped by a massive 27% in July.  And, again, omigosh.  We haven’t seen terrible numbers like this since the last time a Democrat was president.  We NEVER saw anything like this during the Bush era.

How about budget deficits? Bush never had a trillion dollar deficit in his entire presidency, and the Democrats still blamed him for his spending; but the CBO now says that Obama will run a trillion-plus dollar defict next year, making it three years in a row. And we will have massive trillion-plus dollar deficits for as long as the eye can see because of Obama’s reckless unsustainable spending programs and the debt they will create. How about this? Obama’s deficit for July alone was more than Bush’s entire 2007-year deficit! And how about this one? Obama outspent Bush’s entire eight-year presidency’s deficit in just 20 months – after demonizing Bush for his spending!!!

From The Wall Street Journal, which, unlike the New York Slimes, the LA Slimes, the Chicago Tribune, and other major liberal papers, ISN’T actually financially and morally bankrupt:

Mr. Obama cannot dismiss critics by pointing to President George W. Bush’s decision to run $2.9 trillion in deficits while fighting two wars and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina. Mr. Obama will surpass Mr. Bush’s eight-year total in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt. If America “cannot and will not sustain” deficits like Mr. Bush’s, as Mr. Obama said during the campaign, how can Mr. Obama sustain the geometrically larger ones he’s flogging?

Bush’s deficits were 2-3% of GDP.  Obama’s are at 12.8% of GDP – which is five to six times higher and bringing us closer and closer every day to the point of collapse.

Are the people better off under Obama than they were under Bush? I don’t think so:

More Americans are on food stamps now under Barack Obama’s failed presidency than at any time in history. And that certainly includes George Bush’s presidency.

But now Obama and the Democrats are going to raid the Food Stamp program to pay for their pet liberal projects. Because “Let them eat cake.”

How about bank failures? We kind of need banks for a healthy economy unless we want to go back to the barter system, you know:

Banks are failing at double the rate of last year.  During 2009, which the government claims was the peak of the recession, the total number of bank failures at this point in the year was 40.  It is already 83 for this year.

For the record, only 25 banks failed under Bush in 2008.  That number soared to 140 banks under Obama’s watch in 2009.  And now we’re already past 118 bank failures this year in 2010 with four more months to go.

But you can’t hold Barack Obama responsible for the fact that things are far, far, FAR worse under his presidency than they ever were under Bush’s. The ONLY reason you’ve got to “blame Bush” is that the 2008 economic meltdown happened under Bush’s presidency. You don’t even offer an actual reason or state an actual policy reason for the failure; you just blame Bush because he was there.  You don’t consider the fact that things were great until Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate in 2006 and royally screwed up the country (the unemployment rate before Democrats took over Congress in January 2007 was 4.6%).  Nope. Bush was president in 2008, so it was all his fault. Even though he warned SEVENTEEN TIMES that we needed to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae or have an economic disaster on our hands, and even though Democrats were in lockstep refusal to deal with the landmine that caused us to implode in the first place.  But you are way too much of a twisted unhinged ideologue to apply the same argument to Obama now. What happened while Bush was president was Bush’s fault; and what happened while Zero was president is still Bush’s fault.

Do I want to go back to Bush’s “failed policies” when unemployment never got above 7.6% and averaged 5.2% for his presidency? As opposed to “moving forward” with Obama and his 10%-and-rising level? Pardon me, but I’ll take Bush.

Democrats are currently saying, “Do you want to go back to the way things were when Republicans were in control?”

When Republicans were last in control prior to 2007, we had full unemployment with an unemployment rate of only 4.6%.

So, yeah.  I WOULD like to go back to the way things were when Bush and Republicans were in control.  And I frankly want to know what idiot wouldn’t?

As for your question as to whether Obama is some kind of a god, I can’t help but point out that it wasn’t conservatives who kept putting the halo on Obama’s head:

A funny video provides a giant montage of Obama halos.

We weren’t the ones who said “This is the moment when when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal,” either.

We weren’t the ones who said, “You can divide history. BB Before Barack. AB After Barack.”  So don’t blame us for Obama not living up to the ridiculous expectations he and his liberal minions fed to the culture.

The fact of the matter is that Obama is such a miserable, total failure that I see that even you can’t admit you voted for him.

Obama’s Plunging Polls Correspond To America’s Plunging Economy

President Obama’s biggest calender item yesterday was his scheduled “having a beer” with his good friend Henry Louis Gates and the man that both Gates (directly) and Obama (indirectly) called a racist, Sgt. James Crowley.  By sitting down for a beer, Obama was attempting to turn the giant turd he laid at his fourth prime time news conference in six months (which is how many George Bush gave in 8 entire YEARS btw) into a gold-plated turd.

I hope the three men clink their glasses to Obama’s plummeting poll numbers and America’s plummeting economy while they pondered why ‘Skip’ Gates is such a bigot and why Barry Obama acted so stupidly by claiming the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.”

Rasmussen has Obama at a -12 approval rating measuring the difference between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove of his presidency; and he is now at only 48% approval – a far cry from his halcyon days of being in the high 60s.  Only 34% of likely voters think the country is headed in the right direction.  And 49% believe America’s best days have come and gone, versus only 38% who think the country will improve.

The hope that once swelled the hearts of Obama voters is fading fast – especially in the swing states he needs to win to have any chance at either future re-election or even current relevance.  “Hope and change” now means, “I hope I still have some change left in my pocket at the end of the month.”

As U.S. recession bites, Ohio hopes fade for Obama
Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:12am EDT
By Nick Carey

TOLEDO, Ohio (Reuters) – Hope and jobs are in short supply in Ohio eight months after President Barack Obama won the recession-battered state in the 2008 election with promises of a better future.

“People were looking for a savior to get us out of this mess and that’s why they voted for Obama,” said Jeff Fravor, 55, a retired train conductor on his way to breakfast on the outskirts of Toledo.

“I’ve nothing against Obama personally, but he’s new to the job and ‘hope’ won’t fix this mess.”

Candidate Obama delivered his message over and over again in Ohio, a politically diverse battleground state that often decides presidential elections. Obama went back to the state last week with an approval rating below 50 percent.

A Quinnipiac University opinion poll released on July 7 showed the Democratic president’s popularity in America’s seventh most populous state had fallen to 49 percent from 62 per cent in May. Even worse for Obama, 48 percent said they disapproved of his handling of the U.S. economy, with 46 percent approving.

The reason for the poll drop? Rising unemployment.

The downturn has pummeled Ohio’s manufacturing base.

“As jobs have gone away, that has created a true focus here on job creation,” said Andrew Doehrel, head of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. “People look at what’s been done on a federal level in terms of bailouts and stimulus and they see that this has not equated to anything more than lost jobs in Ohio.”

Ohio has not been the state hardest hit by the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, but it is not far off.

Unemployment in the state of 11.5 million people reached 11.1 percent in June, compared with the national rate of 9.5 percent, making it the seventh highest rate in the country. Michigan was first with a rate of 15.2 percent.

TWICE THE UNEMPLOYMENT

Ohio’s unemployment has nearly doubled from 5.7 percent in January 2008. That is not a good start for Obama in a state with 20 electoral votes that could be vital for his re-election effort in 2012.

“It’s not a surprise Obama’s numbers have fallen here and they’ll continue to go down as long as jobs keep being lost here,” said Jim Rokakis, treasurer for Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland where unemployment hit 10.1 percent in June. “Americans always want a quick fix to problems, but they are going to relearn patience this time round.”

Toledo in northwest Ohio has been especially hard hit by the recession, in particular because of the auto industry-related plants that dot the area.

“Obama set expectations too high here and six months later, things haven’t got better, so some people are losing hope,” said John Johnson, branch manager of the Southeastern Container Inc plant in nearby Bowling Green, which makes plastic bottles for Coca-Cola Co..

Johnson said he had to turn away qualified workers from auto-related plastic companies seeking work. “When people are out of work for a long time, they become very impatient.”

Unemployment hit 14.2 percent in June in Toledo, a city of about 315,000 people. Many of the roads in and out of the city are in a poor state of repair and many downtown stores have closed down. Manufacturing brought the city wealth, so plant closures have taken a heavy toll.

‘DEPRESSION’

“We’re not just in a recession here, it’s a depression,” said Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. “This downturn has left Ohioans wondering if we’ve lost our place in the sun.”

According to a midyear survey from real estate service company CB Richard Ellis Reichle Klein, Toledo’s retail vacancy rate hit a record level of 14.6 percent.

“Everybody is having a hard time just existing right now,” said Bob Shelley, 72, who runs Shelley Rubber Stamp & Sign Inc for his father in downtown Toledo. “All businesses have been hit, so everybody’s giving everybody a break right now.”

Shelley said he felt Obama had an overcrowded agenda.

“He’s trying to satisfy everyone at once and he’s trying to rush everything through Congress,” he said. “But if you rush like that, you’re bound to make mistakes.”

Angie Carter, 32, a market research analyst in downtown Toledo, said she voted for Obama and he just needed time.

“This is a recession and we live in a manufacturing state,” she said on a cigarette break. “It’s going to take time to turn it around.”

When touting his $787 billion stimulus package earlier this year, Obama cautioned that a recovery would take time.

The president also has time to recover in Ohio if jobs come back. Aware of its importance, he was there last week to tout his healthcare plans. The last candidate who won Ohio but lost the election was Republican Richard Nixon in 1960.

Rokakis said Obama’s speech in Cleveland on July 23 was no accident.

“Obama is a smart man and he knows how important Ohio is,”

The article portrays Obama as having said that recovery would take time under his stimulus.  It fails to mention that the Obama administration – in pushing the failed stimulus package through Congress – predicted that unemployment would rise no higher than 8% if his stimulus passed.

As bad as things are now, there is no realistic reason to believe they will get better.  Meredith Whitney, the Wall Street analyst who gained much credibility in predicting the mortgage meltdown, is predicting unemployment will rise to 13% or higher.

The date for a housing market recovery stretches to 2015.

Obama’s deficits are soaring to stunning levels.  Back in March the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Obama’s “huge annual budget deficits that would force the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade — $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his budget request just one month ago.” And that mindbogglingly ginormous figure doesn’t include the trillion plus hole we would dig passing Obama’s health care plan.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Boskin puts it:

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined.”

Obama has blamed President Bush for the deficits, but not only has he racked up far more debt than did Bush, but as a Senator Obama actually voted for the very Bush-budget that Obama is now blaming on Bush – including the $700 billion TARP bailout.

It is also worth knowing that the federal government has exposed itself to $23.7 trillion in risks with its bailouts since TARP (which is turning out to be a thinly disguised anagram for “TRAP”).

Those massive deficits guarantee future economic pain, but recent developments are beginning to show that our future pain may already be here right now:

Weak Treasury Auctions Raise Worries About US Debt Burden
By: Reuters     Wednesday, 29 Jul 2009

The U.S. Treasury sold $39 billion in five-year debt Wednesday in an auction that drew poor demand, raising worries over the cost of financing the government’s burgeoning budget deficit.

It was the second lackluster showing in as many days,  convincing analysts that the stellar results of debt auctions just a few weeks ago were a fluke and that Thursday’s $28 billion seven-year offering could suffer a similar fate.

Under the weight of the ballooning deficit, the government has raised auction volumes and analysts now wonder whether the strain on the market is showing.

“Obviously everyone is inferring that tomorrow’s won’t be good either,” said James Combias, head of government bond trading at Mizuho Securities USA in New York. “Maybe you will see more interest tomorrow but I think the increase in the auctions and the size of them may be starting to have an effect. These are very large auctions.”

We are witnessing a terrifying unfolding scenario in which “Interest due on the debt could easily be $1 trillion toward the end of the next decade.”

Like the Texas Hold’em player who pushes every last dime into the center of a poker table, the federal government is now “all in” with its commitment to push the national debt to 50% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office believes that the Treasury will have to borrow nearly $2 trillion this year. None of that is new news, but what is beginning to emerge is a picture of a government which has narrowed its options for improving the economy down to one. Either GDP turns sharply up next year or the deficit will become an unmanageable burden. The Treasury will have to default on interest payments if sharply raising taxes in 2010 and 2011 does not bring IRS receipts to historic highs. That would not appear to be likely with unemployment moving toward 10% and American corporate earnings badly crippled.

You may not know it, but your government under Obama has gambled this country’s future – and gambled poorly.  Obama believed his $787 billion stimulus – which was actually scored by the CBO to be $3.27 trillion – would stimulate big, but it has been a total dud.  And as we continue to pile on debt on top of debt on top of debt, and combine that with continuing high unemployment and low economic output, the result is insolvency and doom.  And it is already beginning to rush toward us like an enraged Kodiak bear.

Some are pointing at the seemingly recovering Dow Index to argue that the worst is behind us and that we are on the road to recovery.  As reported by Reuters:

No Economic Recovery in Sight, Only Inflation
Mon May 11, 2009 9:01am EDT

FORT LEE, N.J., May 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Inflation Association yesterday released the following statement to its http://inflation.us members:

“Wall Street would like you to believe that the Dow Jones’ recent 33% rally from March’s low is due to improving economic fundamentals, but it is our belief this rally is due to nothing but inflation.

“Jobs data released on Friday shows that U.S. employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the fewest since October. However, these numbers were artificially strong due to the U.S. government increasing their payrolls by 72,000, which included the hiring of about 60,000 temporary workers in preparation for the 2010 census.

“Government jobs are non-productive jobs that normally get paid for by taxpayers. However, because the U.S. already has a huge budget deficit with tax revenues likely to decline substantially, these jobs will be paid for through inflation. An increase in government jobs is not a sign that the economy is improving, but only a sign that we are digging our economy into a deeper hole that will ultimately lead to the U.S. dollar collapsing.

“Even Warren Buffett, who is a huge supporter of Obama and has defended his economic policies, said last week that with political leaders showing little inclination to raise taxes, the only way to pay for excess spending will be by inflating the currency and shrinking the value of the dollar.

“The worst of the recession is not behind us. Nominally, anything can happen to the Dow Jones. If the Federal Reserve prints enough money, the Dow Jones could go back to 14,000, but it won’t mean anything if it costs $2,000 to fill your refrigerator with groceries.

Obama’s spending has put us into a genuine crisis: we are now in a situation where any recovery will be immediately followed by sharp increases in inflation, unless government either sharply raise taxes across the board (which will undermine the economy) or unless they sharply raise interest rates (which will also undermine the economy).  Both options are politically unacceptable.

You’d better be thinking about getting a wheelbarrow, because you’re eventually going to need to one to bring enough cash to the grocery store to buy your daily bread.

That was my long-winded way of saying that Obama’s polls are likely to drop to the point where angry villagers armed with pitchforks and torches start storming Castle Obamastein as the economy drops right along with his popularity by the end of his one-term presidency.