LINK

LINK

Even more so under the current administration.

Seth

I have made a number of posts the last few days of people who legitimately call themselves moderates who are having second thoughts about this administration.  And, for the record, I believe the number of moderates who are going to become angry in the weeks ahead is going to grow.  Maybe even Andrew Sullivan will come around.

Scott, during the election cycle, assured us that Obama is “left of center”.  And, in fact, I believe there was some anecdotal evidence to suggest that to be the truth.  (Some public comments, and some advisors on his campaign come to mind.)  Nevertheless, Steve and I argued back and forth with Scott that Obama is pretty far left and some concessions were made on both sides along the way…and I would say that we ended the discussion with some HOPE that maybe Scott was right.

And with that as the context I have to say this…I am EXTREMELY disappointed in his first 45 days in office.  EXTREMELY.  Perhaps I haven’t looked hard enough or perhaps I have looked in all the wrong places…but I have not seen the slightest moderate impulse from Obama.  (With the possible exception of foreign policy.)

Which brings me to my main point.  What does it mean to be a moderate?  And why is their a growing unease among them about Obama’s start?

Here is my analysis.  (This is all over-simplified to make my point.)

There are really two kinds of moderates.  Conservative Moderates (right-of-center) and Liberal Moderates (left-of-center).  They are really two different groups.  Generally speaking, conservative moderates are fiscal conservatives who are socially progressive (and therefore part ways with right-conservatives on social issues).  Liberal moderates are fiscal conservatives who are socially progressive (and therefore part ways with liberals on economics issues.)

So, of the four groups–left liberals, center liberals, center conservatives, and right conservatives–3 OF THEM ARE FISCAL CONSERVATIVES.  This is VERY TELLING.

As I said…I realize that this is a little simplistic so let me grant a little complexity.  Both of the center groups may in fact be for higher taxes or minimum wages or other anti-Austrian economic principles.

So, in what sense are these three groups fiscally conservative.  For the purposes of my post…by fiscally conservative here is what I mean…DRUM ROLL PLEASE BECAUSE THIS IS MY MAIN POINT…fiscal conservatives are people who believe that Business and Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship are the engine of the American economy.  In other words, when it comes to the economic recovery…they don’t trust in Government…they trust in people and private sector organizations.  People and organizations who put their fortunes and capital at risk to start new ventures, invent new gadgets, produce new whatzits, propose new ideas, expand the plant’s capacity, supply a need and otherwise fill in what’s lacking.  It is predicated on two almost axiomatic principles.  One, is that the government doesn’t produce anything and, two, the government can’t employ everyone, even if Obama wants to try.  So, in order to fulfill it’s good intentions the government has to TAX (confiscate people’s property through the threat of imprisonment) which removes money from the economy and use that to hire more employees who actually don’t produce anything.

My hope and the hope of moderates everywhere was that there would be some indication at some level that Obama realizes this.  We were hoping to detect some impulse somewhere in his policy-making that understands that in the end that there is only so much hiring that the government can do (whether through government jobs or temporary make-work) and that it is up to the private sector to do the real hiring of real people doing real jobs providing real goods or services.

In his time in office Obama has demonstrated ALMOST NONE of that impulse.  Certainly nothing that will make a real difference.  This is made VERY clear through everything he has done but mostly through the $1,000,000,000,000 spendulus bill (which Republicans were right to say lacked enough stimulative provisions) and now his $3,500,000,000,000 budget proposal.  The budget proposal. particularly is what is beginning to alarm people.  There is NO SIGN of compromise in that bill.  There is absolutely NO INDICATION in the bill that Obama believes that business is the key to the recovery.  Nothing.  Nil.  Nada. Nyet.  Zip.

Let’s make my point personal.  Do you work?  Do you work for the government or a business?  What about most of your friends…government or business?  Of those who you know who have entered the unemployment rolls…did they used to work for government or business?  (I know the answer.  Government employees never lose their jobs…even when they are incompetent and there is a recession.)  Are they more likely to find a job working for a business or the government?

Everything Obama has done screams, “In Government We Trust.”  He could have done SO MUCH to stimulate this ecomomy and he is missing his opportunity.  He could have temporarily suspended payroll taxes (which has the double effect of putting more money into consumers hands and freeing up business capital at the same time).  He could have cut corporate tax rates which are the highest in the world.  He could have suspended some of his more progressive programs until the economy recovers and could absorb them easier.  For example, he could have suspended the HUGE TAX increase he is about to foist on everyone in America through his Energy Cap and Trade policy.  He could have avoided putting a cap on charitable giving (still part of the private sector economy who unlike government actually will do some good in these times), he could avoid tinkering with the home mortgage deduction when the housing industry is in a shambles, he could have avoided taxing the wealthiest people in America who need to spend their money to build new business or expand existing ones.  He could have avoided demonizing whole sectors of our economy (banking and healthcare come to mind–not all of them behaved wrongly) and demonstrated speech and behavior that didn’t demonize America’s most successful people and businesses.  He could have asked unions to concede more to companies in these difficult times rather than promising a nationwide push for unionization of more industries across every state in the union.

But now I know. Obama can’t have done any of these things because at his core he doesn’t believe in them.  In other words, he is not a moderate.  AND he has to do the political payback to all of those exreme leftists who got him elected which he is doing in spades.  AND he has to seize the opportunity of this downturn to accomplish as much of the leftist wish-list as he can.

Do you think I am wrong.  For you Obama supporters out there (Scott, are you listening) could you please present to me 3 things that Obama has done in the last 50 days that are “”business friendly”.  Only 3.  Not 10.  Not 50.  Just 3.  Leave a comment.

Now…here is the upside of all of this.  Obama will either have to shift-to-the-center (which is good for the country) or he will keep us in recession/depression long enough that Republicans will sweep the 2010 elections (which will be good for the country).   And then he might just become a decent president.

Do you agree?  If not, tell me please, what has been moderate about Obama so far?

Seth

PS.   One closing thought.  I will start with where I began.  I have said in earlier posts that the Daily Kos has their head in the sand.  What I say in this post is WHAT THEY DON’T GET.  Remember the 3 of 4 segments I mentioned earlier in the post that all hold some form of fiscal conservatism in common.  The 2 center groups and the right group.  TOGETHER these three groups EASILY represent enough voters to defeat ANY democrat.  The Daily Kos thinks we are leftist country.  But at best we are a left-moderate-to-right-moderate country.  True progressives account for less than 30% of the voting electorate.  I hope Kos and other lefties keep NOT getting this.  It will help us in 2010.

He says:

McCain, just like Obama, believes that taxes should be levied for the purpose of funding social programs that redistribute income downwards. (We’ll leave aside, for the moment, the fact that both of them also believe that taxes should be levied for the purpose of funding a bloated military-industrial complex and other things that redistribute at least some of the income upward.) McCain and Obama may envision different forms and scopes for those programs, and those differences may or may not have profound consequences in practice. However, the McCain rhetoric is being employed to argue that just about any downward redistribution is a type of socialism. If it is (at least in McCain’s usage of the term) then McCain is a socialist. Maybe not as much of a socialist as Obama (we’ll leave aside welfare for the rich, for the moment) but a socialist nonetheless.

If the pinko pot wants to call the kettle red, well, have fun. One can argue that McCain is a lesser evil according to the manner in which he has framed the issue (leave aside welfare for defense contractors, because military spending isn’t actually spending, in the bipartisan consensus) but that’s about it. The party that expanded government spending for 8 years (even leaving aside military spending) and brought us the Medicare prescription drug benefit simply has no credibility on whining about redistribution. Of course, one could acknowledge this and still argue that at least McCain will spend less money on social programs (not so sure that’s true, and of course we’re leaving aside a whole pack of pachyderms in the room, but whatever). Still, the rhetoric as currently framed defies credibility. As McCain and Palin are currently framing the argument, any sort of redistributive social program is welfare and hence socialism (according to their usages, mind you–Gov. Palin, what do you think about Alaska’s oil fund?).

The post is HERE and the commentary over there is intelligent as usual. You should join in.

Scott

So, I can’t sleep and I moseyed on over to the tax foundation where I am reading a comparison of the candidates tax plans. And I keep reading that Obama want’s to make a lot of new or existing Tax Credits “refundable”. And I think to myself, “what they heckfire does that mean?”. (Normally I wouldn’t say heck-fire but I am tired and I think maybe Joe Biden might end up reading this and he thinks I’m a redneck because I believe in gun rights.) But I digress.

Any guesses? What is a refundable tax credit? Don’t cheat. Just guess.

Seth

3 weeks ago hearings were held by the House Education and Labor Committee to re-vamp the way Americans save.  The proposal would do the following:

1.  Eliminate any and all tax breaks for 401-K contributions.

2.  Implement a 5% payroll tax on all Employees.

3.  The tax will be placed into government guaranteed bonds that would guarantee a whopping 3% annual return.

4.  All employees receive a $600.00 inflation-adjusted annual subsidy from the federal Government.

Apparently the democrats heading this committee think this is an absolutely stellar idea.

I just hope that the damage about to be done by the Obamacrats in the next 4 years will be mildly reversible.

LINK

Seth

It was shortly after the bailout and I was feeling really TICKED (still am, BTW) when I recieved the following RANT from the FairTax.org folks.

I have been meaning for some time to post on our ridiculous tax code that is profoundly burdensome and unconstitutional and job-killing and politically dangerous and unjust, etc. But I don’t know if I am going to get to it.

So I will let this RANT from the FairTax people do for now. Here is my favorite quote:

“Trust us,” we are told. “We have the best interests of the nation at heart.” Citizens are now left with no rational choice to protect savings, college plans, and investments but to accept the new aristocracies’ trillion dollar picking of our pockets to prop up institutions that must function. It is not the first time in recent years that we have accepted the grasping hand of the federal government in our wallets to avert a disaster not of our making.

In 1983 a “Blue Ribbon” panel of similar leaders including Alan Greenspan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others “saved” Social Security from another big collapse by dramatically raising taxes on earnings of up to $97,500 annually. The promise, then, was that Baby Boomers would actually “pre-fund” their own retirement with astoundingly increased taxes, decades ahead of time. It was also promised as relief to the coming generations so they would be free of crippling taxes. Sounded good.

Lo and behold, the trillions of dollars taken in since then—far exceeding promised payments to senior citizens—have since been spent on everything else. Turns out, that it was nothing more than a new tax levied on those with earnings below $97,500 a year so executive and legislative branch office holders could have more of our money to spend extravagantly on “us” so they could win new terms in office. The FICA payroll tax has become a major factor in keeping the poor that way, retarding new business growth and keeping middle-class earners from moving up. Worst, it also turns out that our children and grandchildren will, in fact, still be burdened an ever-growing and mind-numbing national debt AND unbelievably high FICA taxes to support their parents.

Click HERE to read the whole thing.

Seth

BTW - This is not necessarily an endorsement of everything that the FairTax folks are claiming about the idea. In principle I like it but many people question the claim that the FairTax is “revenue neutral”. To be honest, I am not heart-broken about that. We need to shrink government anyway and the FairTax is one means that could help with that. I do NOT deny that the current system is unjust and COMPLETELY BROKEN.