Stupid Statement of the Week

I love it when liberals slip up and reveal the truth...

It's easy to get a liberal to admit our growing debt is a problem.  It's the solution we differ on.

Like the Miller Lite commercials (Tastes Great!  Less Filling!) Conservatives and liberals shout at one another, "More Taxes!"  "Less Spending!"
 
Here's Uber lib Michael Tomasky making the case for taxing the rich (and inadvertently blowing it) :

If wealthy Americans were paying taxes at the rate they did 50 years ago, says former Clinton labour secretary Robert Reich, the government would be taking in $350bn more a year: budget woes over.  (Michael Tomasky – Guardian)

Hahahahahahahahaha! "budget woes over?"  Hardly!  350 billion would barely make a dent in Obama's 1.5 Trillion annual deficits.  Tomasky just proved the opposite: We cannot put our fiscal house in order by gouging the rich.

Thanks Michael!  And Thanks Robert Reich for blowing a humongous hole in your Soak The Rich argument!

When Winning Really Isn't Winning

Liberals were crowing about knocking off a conservative Wisconsin state supreme court justice, and the liberal candidate who stupidly declared victory before the votes were counted now has egg on her face.

The ballot count now shows the conservative incumbent with a probably insurmountable lead.  The results are not yet final, but even if the liberal Kloppenburg somehow wins, it is still not a liberal victory

Consider:  This election was held in the afterglow of the Madison liberal loon lollapalooza, the rage-filled teacher marches, trashing the capitol and protesting those union-busting meanies in the GOP who have the temerity to look after the interests of the taxpayer.  This election had an unprecedented turnout thanks to millions in union money and the rank and file marching in lockstep to the polling place.

And what does the left have to show for it?  50%.  Only 50% in the deep blue union stronghold of Wisconsin.  This is their high water mark.  Liberalism is a spent force in Wisconsin.  Sean Trend breaks down the numbers.

Finally, if those two little tidbits didn't start your weekend on a lighthearted note, this will: Uncoached - 10 Great Vintage Miller Lite Commercials

Republicans Lose in a Government Shutdown

It’s an old joke, but those who want a government shutdown should ponder its deeper meaning...

Two bulls stand upon a small hill, gazing down at a herd of heifers.  The young one shouts excitedly to the older one, “Let run down there and get us a cow!”  “No,” says the wise elder, “let’s walk down and get them all.”

Ryan's 2012 Budget is the Prize

Conservatives with torches in hand and blood in their eyes need to stay focused on the long game, which is Paul Ryan’s budget proposal for 2012 and beyond.  Running the government off of continuing resolutions for the rest of the year provides a predictable outcome favorable to Republicans; shutting down the government would be a wild crapshoot with an unpredictable outcome.
 

Conservative commentator Fred Barnes explains the advantages of running out the year with a string of CRs…

In the meantime, the incremental strategy is working. Republicans have passed two short-term measures to keep the government in operation since early March while slashing $10 billion in spending. At this rate, they would achieve the target of GOP congressional leaders of lopping off $61 billion from President Obama's proposed budget in the final seven months of the 2011 fiscal year.

The GOP, surprisingly, has done a good job so far framing this issue and controlling the debate. 

Even reliable liberal outlets like CNN, the NY Times and Washington Post are essentially saying, “OK Dems, you hate Paul Ryan’s Plan, and we are certainly not defending it, but what’s YOUR plan?  Where’s the president?”  The GOP had now moved the debate from If we should cut to How Much. 

The GOP is offering comprehensive solutions, but it’s also about tone and tenor

Republicans are proposing cuts of historic proportions, and a shutdown would provide an opportunity for liberals to level a charge of reckless irresponsibility on top of the current charges of cruelty, child-starving and geriatricide.  

I just don’t know if the GOP can overcome the blame game.  Liberals are really good at squawking and screaming, and the noiser the contretemps becomes, the better for them.  It distracts from the fact that we are in this mess because overwhelming democrat majorities failed to govern and pass a budget in the last congress.  It also distracts from the fact that the GOP only controls one half of one branch of government.  The blame clearly falls upon Democrat irresponsibility, but all of these facts would get drowned out in a noisy New York Times, MSNBC-fueled rage-fest.  

Reasoned debate will advance the conservative agenda, which is why Democrats want to avoid that at all costs.   

If the Dems are fer it, I’m agin’ it!

This is a PR fight the GOP does not need right now, especially since they are controlling the agenda.  This is a sideshow; Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget is the main event, he’s got the spotlight, and we don’t want him to lose it.  Serious Democrats like Alice Rivlin and Erskine Bowles may quibble with some of his details, but he essentially has their backing.  

A government shutdown would shift the debate back to the Democrat’s home turf of raw emotion and unhinged outrage.  This is the reason the Democrats are drooling over the prospect of a shutdown, and that is why I am against it.

We Have Met the Dhimmis, and They are Us

It's time to leave the people of Southwest Asia to stew in their own fetid toilet

Close interactions with the umma have poisoned our culture and goaded the Muslim world to even higher levels of purple-faced rage.

Despite our bowing and scraping, and our  military leadership slapping hijabs on our female soldiers, the Muslim hate meter is still pegged. I am tired of our government's spasmodic self-flagellation at every Islam-fueled temper tantrum, and the serial apologies are making me sick.

Our government has fallen all over itself paying obeisance to Islam over a koran burning, but has said not one damned word about an Afghan policeman killing two of our soldiers.

Mark Steyn Says it Best

I don’t like the wholesale reprinting of articles posted elsewhere, but Mark Steyn says it so much better than I can in his brilliant and succinct post at The Corner, Winning Hearts, Minds and Trigger Fingers…

here’s a headline from today’s New York Times:

Afghan Police Officer Turns Gun on American Soldiers, Killing 2
 
These are the Afghans who know us best — the ones selected, trained, and funded by us for a decade.

What did these soldiers die for? That their commander might offer even more abject prostrations of apology over “any disrespect to the Holy Qur’an”? Would it help if General Petraeus stuck a couple more apostrophes in the approved spelling and began his press releases with, “In the name of Allah the most merciful . . .”?

We have internalized our enemies’ psychoses — that we are the unclean ones.

Related:
Andrew McCarthy – No More Dhimmitude
Michael Graham - Fired Up Over Nothing

Taming Bedlam is a Fool's Errand

The Christian nutball from Florida and his fervid band of Koran-torching zealots did not cause the rioting, death and destruction in Afghanistan – Murder-loving mullahs and their wild-eyed Islamist nutball followers did.


The fiery hordes who beheaded innocent UN workers in Mazar-e-Sharif knew nothing of last month’s Koran burning until Afghan Mafia Don Hamid Karzai trumpeted the news for political gain.

Senator Lindsay Graham (Republicrat – Dingdongistan)

Senator Graham echoes the Left’s shrieking that Terry Jones has blood on his hands. He proposes to make federal law Sharia-compliant by punishing American citizens who burn the Koran, and he does so with a classic phrase that has launched a thousand tyrannies…

“Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war.”

Fresh from the koran burning, Terry Jones now says his church will put Mohammad on trial. What’s Graham’s response to that? A ban on mock court proceedings?

Ignorant petty statists like Graham would give murderous religious bigots who live in third world toilets veto power over the God-given rights of Americans. His comments reveal a despicable mindset that has no place in the United States of America. The better answer is for the Unites States to stop messing with crazy people. Shit-canning our endless war doctrine would put a stop to such “we’re at war” Wilsonian jackbooting.

I can excuse General Petraeus’ comments; he has a war to fight and a political message to convey to the Afghanis. I understand the “putting the troops in danger” argument, since I was one of those troops in Afghanistan years ago, but I can’t help but think the real danger to our troops is to put them in a hostile environment with both hands tied behind their backs.

Thanks to the international left, CNN and pacifists here at home, we cannot fight a war the way it needs to be fought.  Our political establishment is too weak-kneed to stand up for our values, and too stupid to beat our ideological foes in the propaganda game, so we should just stay home.  We cannot crush the bad guys. Every bomb hits an innocent civilian or the ubiquitous wedding party, so every engagement is treated with kid gloves.  This spares legions of jihadis to fight another day, more emboldened than when they woke up that morning because they "beat" the United States by not being killed.

Breaking America's Addiction to Stability

An overemphasis on stability — and, perhaps, an erroneous definition of what “stability” even is — has begun harming, rather than helping, American interests in several current crisis spots. (Thanassis Cambanis – Learning to Love Change )

Precisely. We should have turned Afghanistan over to the Northern Alliance after toppling the Taliban and left it at that. Sure, it would have led to further turmoil, but who cares?  The place was never a Garden of Eden, and American dollars and blood will never make it so.

Welcome to the Third World, America

We're focused on rotten statist regimes in the Middle East, while ignoring the one that is growing right here in the land of the free and the home of the brave

I have lived in the third world (I know, it’s a politically incorrect term, so sue me), and this land that I love is starting to resemble it. It started before Obama, but he is hastening the downward swirl.

Our central bank, The Federal Reserve, handed out almost $100 Billion to Foreign Banks

We are too reliant on foreign bankers, as evidenced by the Fed handing out hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to them in the name of bailouts, economic stability, unclogging the system or whatever the latest alibi is.

Meanwhile, US owned mainstreet banks who weren’t big enough to earn a place at the DC-NY hog trough were left to die. Thank George Bush and Dirty Hank Paulson for that one. International fractional reserve banking is a shell game, and when the jig is up, the taxpayer bails out the cartels, who turn around and give the politicians their cut.

Government Grows, Private Sector Shrinks

Third world regimes are famous for a one-party state.  If you don't belong to the state-approved political party you get no job, no goodies, no nothing.  The more sophisticated regimes form a couple of parties to maintain the facade of choice, but the aim is the same:  Expand the power of the state by handing out government jobs and government assistance.

“Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things.” ( WSJ – We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers)

This is a favorite game of rotten statist regimes:   Put 'em on the dole and put 'em on the public payroll!  Tax credits, legal exemptions, food stamps, welfare.  This builds a reliable voting block eager to pull the lever for more and bigger government.  It's a reliable scheme until the axles on the gravy train snap.

Crony Crapitalism is Another Hallmark of Third-World Statist Regimes

The GM bailout actually cost the taxpayer over $80 billion... 

"a March 16 Congressional Oversight report [...] estimates taxpayers will be out of $25 billion. Additionally, the report points out that “full repayment will not be possible unless the government is able to sell its remaining shares at a far higher price.”

That's only the beginning. Both the White House and the Congressional Oversight report omit the fact that during its bankruptcy, GM got a $45 billion tax break, courtesy of the American people.

Over one year after the promises President Obama and his administration made about the auto bailout, a February piece on AutoBlog also confirms that GM will also get a $14 billion dollar domestic tax break.  (Washington Times – Losing $84 Billion is Big Success)

With over $80 billion of taxpayer money sucked into GM’s corrupt, mismanaged maw, the state-sponsored Chevy Volt has become our version of the Communist East German Trabant.  Heavy government subsidies + anemic sales = Third-World Government Failure.  And the much ballyhooed GM bailout payback was a scam.

Government rewards failure with million dollar bonuses
Government pet projects Fannie and Freddie gave their executives tens of millions of dollars in bonuses while we were bailing them out to the tune of hundreds of billions...

The top six executives at the companies received $35.4 million over the two years. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over in September 2008, the companies’ mounting mortgage losses have required a $153 billion infusion from taxpayers. Total losses may reach $363 billion through 2013, according to government estimates. (MSNBC-Fannie and Freddie Bonuses)

At what point does venal and incompetent cross the line and become criminal?

Power is the Most Abused Drug

Human nature is timeless, and its study brings wisdom 

The Greeks knew it but left the knowledge pasted inside the pages of philosophy.  The founding fathers knew it and crafted a system of government based upon a keen insight into man's fallen nature.


The works of William Shakespeare are a goldmine of human nature on display:  Love and hate, lust, greed, anger, abuse of power...  it's all there.

Justice and Mercy 

In The Bard's play, Measure for Measure, Claudio is condemned to die for knocking up his betrothed before the nuptials.  In act II, Isabella, Claudio's holy and virginal sister, pleads for mercy to Angelo the magistrate. 

Angelo rightly reminds her that True Justice lies not in some sappy sentimentality or misguided empathy.  True Justice, God's Justice, Nature's Justice, is blind to emotional appeals and always balances the scales.

Adam Smith, who no doubt was familiar with Shakespeare, summed it up succintly:  "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

Isabella:  Yet show some pity.

Angelo:  I show it most of all when I show justice; 
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offense would after gall;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. 
Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

That last line sounds callous, but the deeper meaning is that each of us should be satisfied when justice is done, even when it is done against us, for that is the cosmic order.

Abuse of Power

Counterpoised against a righteous exercise of justice is abuse of power.  Isabella laments how men harshly wield the power lent to them by God:

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength;
but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

Abuse of power is timeless...

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder.
Nothing but thunder!

She reminds us that God loans power and authority to man so that we many model our societies upon His justice.  But "proud man..."

Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep
who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

So it's not just an abuse of power and authority man engages in, but a usurpation of God's gifts that are loaned to us.  We forget we are "dust and to dust we will return."  Flush with pride and earthly arrogance, we forget we are fit for infinity, and we end up as angry apes who make the angels weep.  Were the angels mere earthly creatures like us, they would spare the pity and simply laugh derisively at us. 

* - Jove:  King of the Gods in Roman mythology, god of sky and thunder

I Paid More Taxes Than GE

April Fools Day!

The New York Times reports that GE made $14.2 billion last year, $5.1 billion here in the US.

Its American tax bill?  Zero.  $00000.00.

In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.  And Obama's cool with it, poking his head out of GE boss HeMelt's blazer pocket to tell us so.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. (NY Times)

Are Corporate tax Rates Too High?

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

Yet many companies say the current level is so high it hobbles them in competing with foreign rivals. (NY Times)

How do you reconcile this apparent discrepancy?

Easy. Tax avoidance ain’t cheap. This is how high tax rates can rob the treasury by resulting in less taxes. Businesses hide their money in unproductive pursuits and spend more on financial trickery. All money that could have gone to capital expansion that brings more jobs.

This is why many democrats and republicans are talking up tax reform that cuts out the swiss cheese exemptions and loopholes in exchange for a lower rate. It also explains why the move would be revenue neutral. At a certain point, it’s easier and cheaper to just pay the tax rather than pay skyscrapers full of accounting wizards and tax lawyers.

Crony Crapitalism

Unfortunately, too many people think "free market" means pro-business. It doesn't. Free market means laissez faire -- prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator. (John Stossel)

Government statists have a vested interest in the kind of crony capitalism that allows GE to pay no taxes.  You can't have your campaign sponsors wasting money on frivolities when you need that cash to finance your next election.