The Hell With It. Let’s Just Go Off The Damn Fiscal Cliff. Because You Just Can’t Negotiate With These People.

I just got through writing an article calling for a compromise on the tax hike Obama is demanding.  I already have to eat my words.

It is frankly hard to believe how pathologically Democrats prove themselves to be on a constant basis, even as much as I distrust Democrats and call them liars to their faces.

Realize that Democrats – and particularly Obama – have been saying that we need to hike taxes on the rich.  In order to do what?  In order to reduce the deficit, they said.  A nice, noble-sounding reason.  I mean, how can you possibly be against wanting to reduce the deficit???

Here’s a headline of Obama demagoguging tax hikes on the rich under the pretense that it would be to reduce the deficit:

Obama proposes $1.5tn tax hike to cut deficit
US president announces a number of measures aimed at reducing deficit in next 10 years, saying rich should pay more tax.
Last Modified: 19 Sep 2011

Here’s Obama over a year later, preaching the same message:

Obama says deficit plan must include higher taxes for wealthy
By Amie Parnes and Russell Berman – 11/09/12 03:51 PM ET

President Obama called on Congress on Friday to reduce the deficit in “a balanced and responsible way” in his first public remarks since winning reelection.

The president said Congress should extend the current tax rates for 98 percent of Americans, but raise taxes on households with annual income of more than $250,000.

Obama did not talk about higher tax rates in his speech, but said he would not accept a deal that cut spending and entitlements but did not ask wealthier households to pay more taxes.

“If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes,” Obama said. “That’s how we did it in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president, that’s how we can reduce the deficit while still making the investments we need to build a strong middle class and a strong economy.”

But Democrats are LIARS and you simply cannot do a deal with these liars because they have no integrity at all in any way, shape or form.

Take a look at this:

Senate Democrats say deficit package must include stimulus
By Alexander Bolton – 11/14/12 01:42 PM ET

Senate Democrats, feeling confident from their net gain of two seats in last week’s election, say any deficit-reduction package negotiated in the coming weeks must include stimulus measures.

They have yet to decide which prime-the-pump measures to push, but are mulling options such as new infrastructure spending and an extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Some Republicans are likely to balk at the notion that a package to cut the deficit would include new spending. But Democrats argue the No. 1 concern for voters is job creation and that the government needs to take a more aggressive role in spurring the economy.

“We need to do something on stimulus as part of the overall fiscal cliff,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democrats’ chief political strategist. “We have to do something because the economy is not growing fast enough in the first year or two.”

Democrats are liars, and they are particularly liars ANYTIME they say ANYTHING about cutting government spending.  Period.

Obama is the selfsame president who promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term and instead tripled that deficit.  And now they’re already at it again just days since they ran a campaign based entirely on lies.

Democrats are now implicitly acknowledging that the “hike taxes so we can pay down the deficit” was a lie and a ruse from the deceitful party of lies and ruses.  Now they’re saying, “People who believe what we say are fools, so we have no qualms about lying in every single ‘promise’ we make.  We’ll promise one thing and then do another, and if you’re dumb enough to believe us then doom on you!”

Here’s another headline to show you just how damn far Obama is from “compromise” while he demonizes the Republicans for not compromising:

Obama Demands $1.6 Trillion More In Taxes Posted
by Adam English on the Wealth Wire
Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

President Obama will begin budget negotiations on Friday morning but moving twice as far away from Republican interests. Instead of the $800 billion in extra federal revenue from tax hikes,Obama will be calling for a whopping $1.6 trillion.

On the other side of the table, House Speaker John Boehner hasn’t specified a revenue target, but he has said he would be willing to accept new tax revenues. He is still unwilling to consider higher tax rates.

As a condition for the possible concession, Boehner continues to insist that Democrats accept structural changes to entitlement programs which are causing long-term budget concerns.

President Obama just attended a meeting with union officials and other activists and will be meeting with CEOs of a dozen companies today. Many executives have already voiced grave concerns about the consequences of the looming standoff over the fiscal cliff.

73% of participants of a Wall Street Journal CEO conference earlier this week said their primary concern was the fiscal cliff.

How the hell do you actually move TWICE as far away to the left from your previous bargaining posture while simultaneously self-congratulating yourself for “compromising” and demonizing the party that HASN’T moved twice as far to the right on their bargaining position?  I don’t know, but with the help of the worst media propaganda since Goebbels, Obama has managed to do it.

Statement of fact: “The offer is twice as high as a deal Obama scuttled last year, suggesting he may be prepared to let talks fail again.”  That deal – which took Boehner to the breaking point – called for $800 billion in tax hikes.  Now Obama is demanding tax hikes that will be TWICE as high as last time.  While somehow trying to simultaneously claim that HE is the one willing to compromise!

Republicans – you know – “the obstructionists” – have offered Obama revenues that match what he says he needs by eliminating and/or capping deductions.  And it turns out that Obama HIMSELF has argued that what the Republicans are proposing is a solution:

The idea of curbing tax breaks isn’t new. Tax policy experts have touted it for  years and Democrats, including President Obama, have proposed it in one form or  another. That’s why it may offer a key to resolving the fiscal cliff.

So this isn’t about raising revenue; this is about targeting one group of people to punish them for daring to try to be successful in America.  This is about an out-of-control government demanding more and more control.  This is about pure demagoguery, pure and simple.

The fact of the matter is that Obama has DOUBLED DOWN on his demand while the Republicans have offered a surprising concession in being willing to increase government revenues.  But because we live in a world that Joseph Goebbels would love, the media STILL portrays Obama as the man who is “compromising” even though he is in fact demanding TWICE as much and the Republicans as “obstructionists” even though they are massively compromising.

I’m not the only human being who can see the massive, galling, astonishing hypocrisy and dishonesty from the Democrat Party, am I?

It doesn’t matter if the Republicans come to the table willing to compromise or not; they are demonized anyway, just the same.  So why compromise?

If Democrats want tax hikes, let’s give them to EVERYBODY.  If you want somebody else to pay more taxes, dammit, YOU should pay higher taxes.

I was looking for some way forward for Republicans and some way out of this fiscal cliff mess.  But let’s just go off that damn cliff.  Because there is no possible way to negotiate with people as deceitful and dishonest and disingenuous as Democrats have proven themselves to be.  And because “the cliff” can’t be any worse than the direction Obama wants to take America, anyway.

Democrats’ Effort To Fearmonger Path To Socialized Medicine Has Been Tried Before

In the mainstream media narrative, Sarah Palin is demonized as “about half a whack job” and her statement about “death panels” is literally interpreted in a way I’d love to see them apply JUST ONCE to the Constitution.  Conservatives were denounced as an “angry mob,” as “un-American,” and as exhibiting Nazi characteristics by the Democrat Speaker of the House.

The media loves to talk about rightwing fearmongering.

I’d like to say a little more about leftwing fearmongering.

How about the one that we need to pass health care reform in order to get our economy out of the toilet?

A smattering of various Obama “warnings” fearmongering health care:

– “We must lay a new foundation for future growth and prosperity, and a key pillar of a new foundation is health insurance reform.”

– Obama cast retooling the U.S. health-care system as crucial to the nation’s economic success. Reform would help rein in the national deficit and rebuild the economy, he argued, in a way that would help middle-class workers, whose wages have stagnated in recent years largely because of spiraling health-care costs.

– WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that the United States would not rebuild its economy unless political leaders joined him immediately on a perilous political drive for healthcare reform.

– President Obama warned Wednesday night that health-care reform is central to rebuilding the economy “stronger than before,” and without congressional action on health-care reform, “We’re guaranteed to see Medicare and Medicaid basically break the federal budget.”

And our last Obama “warning”:

“The country has to reform its health care system or else not only are you going to continue to have people really going through a hard time, we’re also going see a continuing escalation of our budget problems that can’t get under control,” Obama told Moran. “I think America has to win it here.”

In the dialogue surrounding health care, Obama warned against “scare tactics,” which he said are fostering anxiety and serving to distract Americans from the plan’s principles.

What’s nice about the last one is that it includes fearmongering on the one hand with warning against “scare tactics” on the other.  Obama tells us one the one hand that our economy will plummet unless we implement ObamaCare, and then demonizes everyone who has a different fearmongering message.

It doesn’t matter that Obama’s urgings that we pass health care “reform” will lower our costs and boost are economy are entirely false:

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose “the sort of fundamental changes” necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs, particularly Medicare. On the contrary, Elmendorf said, the measures would pile on an expensive new program to cover the uninsured.

Though President Obama and Democratic leaders have repeatedly pledged to alter the soaring trajectory — or cost curve — of federal health spending, the proposals so far would not meet that goal, Elmendorf said, noting, “The curve is being raised.” His remarks suggested that rather than averting a looming fiscal crisis, the measures could make the nation’s bleak budget outlook even worse.

It also doesn’t seem to matter that, given that the “reforms” Obama is seeking wouldn’t take effect until at least 2013, there is little reason to rush headlong into anything other than opportunistic partisan demagoguery.  And yet Barack Obama was out there rushing “reform” and calling August 1st “the people’s deadline” even as polls showed “the people” overwhelmingly wanting Congress to take time crafting health care legislation.

Interestingly, these tricks of fearmongering health care “reform” in the name of averting economic calamity and trying to rush the process through have been tried before.  Think Bill Clinton, First Inaugural Address, 1993:

But all of our efforts to strengthen the economy will fail—let me say this again; I feel so strongly about this—all of our efforts to strengthen the economy will fail unless we also take this year, not next year, not 5 years from now but this year, bold steps to reform our health care system.

In 1992, we spent 14 percent of our income on health care, more than 30 percent more than any other country in the world, and yet we were the only advanced nation that did not provide a basic package of health care benefits to all of its citizens. Unless we change the present pattern, 50 percent of the growth in the deficit between now and the year 2000 will be in health care costs. By the year 2000 almost 20 percent of our income will be in health care. Our families will never be secure, our businesses will never be strong, and our Government will never again be fully solvent until we tackle the health care crisis. We must do it this year.

The combination of the rising cost of care and the lack of care and the fear of losing care are endangering the security and the very lives of millions of our people. And they are weakening our economy every day. Reducing health care costs can liberate literally hundreds of billions of dollars for new investment in growth and jobs. Bringing health costs in line with inflation would do more for the private sector in this country than any tax cut we could give and any spending program we could promote. Reforming health care over the long run is critically essential to reducing not only our deficit but to expanding investment in America.

What’s interesting about this is that liberals depict the Clinton years as the time when the streets were lined with gold and every child went to bed in a warm house with a full tummy.

So the point would obviously be, either Clinton was fearmongering health care in a way that did not turn out to be true at all, or the “glorious Clinton economy” is itself a fabrication.  Because somehow Bill Clinton had to flounder along with no health care reform.

We need to put some things into historic perspective: 1) Bill Clinton so mismanaged the country his first two years in office that it led to the largest political tsunami ever experienced in American history as Republicans took over in an unprecedented landslide 1994 election.  2) Many of the benefits that Bill Clinton has received credit for were actually enacted by the Republican Congress (example: welfare reform).  3) Bill Clinton benefited from an economy that was just recovering from a severe recession at the end of the Bush I administration as Clinton took over.  By contrast, George Bush II – like Barack Obama now – had a significant recession handed to him that will count against his average performance.  In President Bush’s case, that recession was compounded by the worst attack on American soil in nearly 200 years  in the 9/11 terror attack.  4) Bill Clinton changed the way unemployment figures were calculated back in 1994 – making comparisons to previous eras appear far more rosy than they really were.  5) The “Clinton Budget Surplus” is in reality a myth.  In actuality, Clinton created a smoke and mirror illusion by transferring “public debt” costs which are calculated as part of the budget over to “intergovernmental holdings” (eg., by borrowing from Social Security) which are not counted as part of the public debt.

I might also point out that Bill Clinton’s famous statement from his State of the Union Speech in January 1996 – “THE ERA OF BIG GOVERNMENT IS OVER” – tacitly recognized the new Republican era, and which in reality was the ultimate reason why the Clinton economy became ultimately successful.

Democrats were wiped out in 1994 as Republicans swept into power when Americans became fed up with Democrat incompetence and massive spending.  And Bill Clinton was wise enough to recognize the handwriting on the wall.  As a result, he transitioned into a fiscal moderate and avoided the fate of his party.

But now the man who recognized that “The era of big government is over” is back to his pre-1994 ways.  Bill Clinton has joined Barack Obama with the very same big spending, big government socialistic mindset that brought the Democrats to such historic disaster in 1994.

There are many things we can do to improve our health care system.  That goes without saying.  But the Democrat’s presentation that opposing their system is opposing “change” or “reform” is simply asinine.  If any change is better than our present course, than we should just nuke ourselves and be done with it: that would be “change,” after all.  We need to recognize that there is good reform and there is bad reform – and government-run health care is simply “bad” reform.

ObamaCare suffers from massive policy problems that go right to the heart of the greater debate surrounding the size of government, the size of Obama’s unprecedented deficits, and the unsustainable size of our debt.  Democrats have a real problem explaining how they are going to spend $1.6 trillion and yet bring down costs – especially given the CBO’s damning analysis.  They have a problem explaining how they’re going to take hundreds of millions out of Medicare and yet not affect the quality of care to Medicare beneficiaries.  And they have a problem explaining how they’re not going to end up transferring over a hundred million Americans out of their employee-based health care and into the “public option” when good analysis sees exactly that happening (and see also here).

The American people listened to Obama fearmonger his way to the gigantic stimulus package that will ultimately cost Americans $3.27 trillion.  The stimulus has been deemed by the American people as being so unsuccessful that fully 72% of Americans now say “returning the unused portion of the $787 billion dollar stimulus to taxpayers would do more to boost the economy than having the government spend it.”  People are turning against what they increasingly recognize as big government socialism.

We need to STOP health care “reform” until it includes tort reform such as loser pays, until it includes an end to state and federal mandates, until it includes allowing our 1300 private insurance companies to compete across state lines.  And we need to STOP health care “reform” until it EXCLUDES giving full medical coverage to more than 12 million illegal immigrants, until it excludes “public options,” excludes “Co-Ops,” and excludes any other device that becomes a backdoor guarantee to government health care.