Monday, March 02, 2009

Fiscal responsibilty?

BO's staged "Summit on Fiscal Responsibility" and his whining about the deficit he "inherited" from President Bush are losing more credibility every day. The irony of claiming to follow a "pay as you go" policy days after signing a $787 billion pork spending bill that will still be accruing interest when our grandkids are footing the bill was overshadowed when BO proposed a budget with a $1.75 trillion deficit.

For Democrats and other mathematically challenged in-duh-viduals, that is a quadrupling of the previous record deficit. In a single year the government will go $5,800 further into debt for every man, woman, and child in America, making BO the most reckless money waster in history. If he wants to waste his own money, I'm fine with that, but he is wasting our future and the futures of generations not even born yet.

BO proposes a myriad of tax increases to go along with his spending binge. He admits that these taxes will not pay for everything he wants to spend, which is not surprising. According to CBO figures, even if he taxed 100% of all income over $75,000 it would not pay for all of his spending proposals.

I'm sure you were relived to hear that only people earning more than $250,000 would be affected by BO's tax hike. If I doubled my income tomorrow I wouldn't be close to that, and unlike the President I cannot confiscate other people's earnings by fiat. But these 2% of the highest earners in America who BO loves to demonize are the people who make our economy work. They already pay more taxes than the remaining 98% of us put together. They own businesses and invest in wealth-creating enterprises which create jobs and generate prosperity that benefits everyone.

If you think that BO's massive tax grab will not affect you, think again. His budget includes a mammoth energy tax, which he estimates will generate $650 billion. Do you drive a car? Ride in a bus, train or airplane? Do you use electricity? Do you rely on natural gas to heat your home? Do you buy groceries? This tax will hit you hard. BO's $13 per week tax cut won't go far to offset the $1.30/gallon jump in gas prices or the doubling of your electric bill.

Another horrendous proposal is eliminating itemized deductions for those evil people who earn more than $250k. Those same people who create most of the jobs and prosperity in this country and pay most of the taxes also give more to charity than anyone else. Private charity groups who work in our communities and around the world to help people in need will be pounded mercilessly by this tax hike, and it won't be the rich who are punished, as BO suggests. The United Way, March of Dimes, Feed the Children, Salvation Army, American Cancer Society, World Vision, and hundreds of others will see contributions plummet. I believe that this is entirely intentional, as BO wants to be the sole benevolent benefactor with as many people as possible dependent on him for their subsistence.

The most insidious tax of all is being levied on us all right now, without any legislation passed by Congress or signed by the President. It is a tax on the value of our currency. In the past few months, the US Treasury has fired up the printing presses to a record rate and flooded the economy with money created out of thin air. The money supply, which had been growing at a fairly steady rate of six or seven percent a year for decades, was nearly tripled in just a few months, and even more is on the way to pay for more bailouts and the porkulus bill. With three times as much money chasing the same amount of available goods and services, rampant inflation is sure to set in as soon as people start spending money again. Right now, people are fearfully hoarding money, due in large part to BO's gloom and doom rhetoric and dire predictions of the catastrophe awaiting is we don't immediately rush his harebrained agenda through which is destroying what shreds of consumer confidence were left. This demagoguery ensures that the economy will not recover in the short term, which is fine with BO, who wants to take full advantage of the situation to seize as much power as possible and entrench countless new entitlements and government bureaucracies while people are gripped with the urgency of a crisis mentality. But when all of the newly created money starts to move again, inflation will hammer the purchasing power of your savings and income. This hidden tax will hit everyone, not just the evil rich people. In fact, those people who are having trouble affording the basic necessities right now will feel the effects the most, when the price for food, clothing, electricity, gas, and rent all skyrocket.

Is this the change people voted for? If BO had campaigned on a platform of quadrupling the deficit, taxing the life out of private charity, sending energy costs sky high, and decimating the value of the dollar, would he have been elected? BO is betting his Presidency, his re-election, and his legacy on big government socialism. History says that is a losing bet.

1 comment:

an Donalbane said...

Invest in wheelbarrows. You'll need one to carry your money to the store to buy a loaf of bread.

CPI? You gotta be kidding! It's about to blast higher and faster than a Saturn V rocket...