…the clumsy attempt at class warfare probably wasn’t even Obama’s most disheartening moment during the presser. Several others were at least equally as bad…
But about what one would expect from someone so completely lacking experience or competence for the job: our Class Warrior in Chief.
[Update a few minutes later]
The president’s peculiar press conference:
It all had the feel of a childish tantrum by a person who desperately wishes he were living in a different reality—one in which he is the heroic man of action and his opponents are irresponsible and weak. But the fact is, the president and congressional Democrats have so far utterly failed to offer any path out of our fiscal problems—problems that they have greatly exacerbated. The president proposed a budget in February that would have increased the deficit, and then he retracted it in April and proposed nothing in particular in its place. Senate Democrats have not proposed a budget in two years; they now suggest they finally have one, though apparently it won’t really be brought to a vote. Republicans, meanwhile, have proposed a specific path out of our fiscal mess—averting a debt crisis and setting the budget on a course toward balance through discretionary cuts, budget-process reforms, and gradual but significant entitlement reforms. Rather than negotiate over that budget, the president has chosen to play the demagogue, simultaneously insisting that the budget offers nothing and that it goes too far in cutting government services (medical research, food inspectors, and the weather service are apparently in particular danger, he said yesterday, providing a kind of Salvador Dali map of post-modern lifestyle liberalism).
Now, having added about $5 trillion to the national debt since taking office (nearly doubling the debt), the president wants permission to add another $2 trillion, and he’s upset that rather than being given that permission together with a set of class-warfare tax hikes he is being asked to agree to some spending, budget, and entitlement reforms in return for that permission. Entitlements—the chief drivers of the even greater explosion of debt now coming at us—appear to be off the table altogether as far as he’s concerned. And while the president insists that failing to meet the August 2 debt-limit deadline would unleash a train of calamities not seen since the book of Job, he seems to be willing to risk them all in order to enact a set of tax increases that would yield largely trivial sums of revenue and whose only plausible justification could be the political appeal of envy.
It’s what class warriors do.
Yes, even Ronald Reagan, or perhaps especially and expressedly Ronald Reagan, conceded Social Security and Medicare to be permanent parts of the social contract in the United States, gave up on any attempt to achieve a balanced Federal Budget, and some time after a landmark tax reform, acceded to the largest Federal tax increase in history.
It was pointed out to me an a previous thread that any tax increase on the oil companies or tax on necessary-for-the-conduct-of-business corporate jets will in the end be passed on to consumers. Yes, I am thoroughly aware of such fundamental facts of economics.
And there seem to be those who regard any and all collection of money by Federal or State government through the eyes of Frederick Bastiat, that is, as legal plunder and state-sponsored thievery.
I suppose that a pure form of Libertarianism is a fine moral principle to uphold. On the other hand, it is interesting that the dudes on Powerline Blog some while ago were describing Libertarianism as more of a “direction vector” towards a more just society based on free people and free markets rather than as an agenda for radical reform. In other words, advocating individual investments and savings as a foundation for old-age support didn’t mean they wanted Grandma out on the street. Now.
Everyone across the Right Blogosphere is taking the mandate of the 2010 election, not simply as a shellacking of Mr. Obama, his Administration, and his failed policies, but as a ringing endorsement of that radical change the folks on Powerline Blog denied they were for.
I say Mr. Obama is giving a “tell” that his is a weak negotiating position — give him his tax on jets and oil and nothing more and squeeze hard on everything else.
I say this because this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, because at the rate things are going, the pendulum will swing the other way in the 2012 election. History is not on our side — it isn’t and never was — because in a democracy, the majority voting itself benefits regardless of the cost on a productive minority (and eventually on themselves) is the natural tendency of things.
Or take the moral high ground and watch Mr. Obama ply his rhetorical magic and get reelected in 2012.
After solving the economic problems of the US by spending more money Obama and his army of expert economists will now solve the world’s energy problems by inventing a working perpetual motion machine that returns two kilowatts of power for every kilowatt that it takes in.
Paul, have you been following the events in Greece? And when I use the word “following”, I don’t mean advocating heading in their direction, cause you obviously seem to want to do that. I mean, are you seeing the results of going in their direction?
Leland Says:
“Paul, have you been following the events in Greece?”
It is funny that you bring up Greece or maybe it is funny that Obama brought up Greece in his speech as one of the things he has been working on instead of going on vacation. Somehow I doubt Obama has done anything in relation to Greece other than read a news article about the riots.
The problem in Greece is that they don’t rely on their “Greek Exceptionalism”! Didn’t they hear the Pres. when he said all countries are exceptional? Or something there about?
Here’s the problem of ‘entitlements’. Most of the people getting them are SURE they will never stop at this level. Well, I’m on SS Disability, and I’d rather have them cut it by a quarter or a third, than try to go without! And any able bodied ‘human’ getting a check outta be jailed. Then they should have to pay back the ‘cheated parts’.
Funny the people here mention Greece. I say that because their austerity package raises taxes, specifically: all Greeks earning more than euro8,000-10,000 annually will be charged an extra tax worth up to 3 percent of their income every year for the next four years.
So all Greeks making over $11,600 / year (at today’s exchange rate) have to pay more taxes, but it’s “class warfare” to propose getting rid of the same sort of tax loopholes called out in Paul Ryan’s budget plan.
Yeah, now that Chris G has got my back regarding Modern Greece, I would like to talk about the downfall of Classical Greece and the Peloponessian War. My reference point is Donald Kagan, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace.
There is this human quality that is broadly described as “honor.” The maintaining of honor or disrespect to honor has been a major source of wars over the centuries.
The deal is that reforming government entitlement spending and a whole lot of government everything else is going to put the hurt on a whole lot of people. Yeah, yeah, maybe all of those people — union thugs, public employee parasites, old age moochers, defense contract queens — maybe those are people who deserve having the hurt put on them.
But any serious reform is going to spread around a bunch of hurt. And it is really hard to apply that level of hurt to that many people in a democracy.
So one way to apply that much hurt is to appeal to some concept of shared sacrifice. Well gee, we are going to have to cut (the growth) of Social Security and Medicare, raise the retirement age, do whatever, and yes, it is just sooo painful to y’all, but we have to pull together and we all need to chip in. See Grandma over there — she is not going to see a COLA in her check, but wouldn’t-cha-know-it, food and gas keep getting more expensive. But see that fat cat in the corporate jet? Well gosh, he is contributing to the effort too, because there is going to be a new tax on corporate jets.
Don’t you people get it? Raising some token rich-person tax on oil or jets is not going to raise significant revenues or really impact economic activity in a major way, and most of the shared sacrificing is going to take place among the thugs, parasites, moochers, and queens. The oil-and-jet taxes are purely symbolic, because any significant revenue-raising taxes would hit the thugs, parasites, moochers, and queens where it all hurts.
Mr. Obama conceded as much. There will be cuts to Social Security, there will be cuts to Medicare, there will be cuts to Defense, and there will even be cuts to programs favored by his political base as he defined it. Mr. Obama even conceded the need for streamlining government regulation, which must have been hard words for him to choke out.
The only taxes he was willing to talk openly about were those largely symbolic taxes on rich people. Let him save face with his base, but push him hard on substantive reform on everything else.
But no, many of the commentators on the Right Blogosphere, including this dude who calls himself after Genghis Khan’s right-hand man, want to rule the world and take no prisoners. Cutting a deal with Mr. Obama is wimpy, squishy stuff. How did that World Conquest thing work out for the Mongols?
Before I trust any politician on raising taxes, I want to see substance on cutting spending. They’re very quick to raise taxes but spending cuts are almost always accomplished with accounting shell games and trickery that would get any corporate CEO locked up in jail. I don’t give a damn about Obama or any other politician “saving face.” They signed up for the job and if they can’t do it, they should be voted out of office.
For the record, I’m a defense contractor who sees the need for cuts in the defense budget even though it may impact my job. My wife and I are approaching the age for SS and Medicare and those entitlement programs are unsustainable monsters that must be cut if our children and grandchildren are to have a future. I’m willing to see cuts that will impact me directly and I want to see cuts across the board. Once that’s done, then we can talk about raising additional revenue to fill any shortfalls in the budget.
I hope you’re right Paul. If so- then we might see some progress soon, and at this stage we really need somebody to blink. Sure I favor the cut over the tax solutions but I’d even settle for a 90-10 split if it saved our country from going over an economic cliff.
Pretty darned good, for a few decades to a few centuries, depending if you choose the Battle of Ain Jalut, the overthrow of the Yuan by the Ming, or the repudiation of the Golden Horde’s suzerainity by Ivan the Great as marking the end of the road for the Genghisids (we won’t mention Timur-i-Lenk or the Indian Mughals here).
Paul, raising taxes is not a “shared sacrifice.” Yes, without doubt, the fat cat in his corporate jet is going to get hurt by the new tax. But where does the new money go? It goes to help fly Nancy Pelosi back to SF from DC to spend a few precious hours with her grandchildren. It goes to pay for Praetorians to guard Obama while he plays another 18 holes. It goes to Senator Harkin so he can buy farmers’ votes with it by paying them not to grow soybeans. And on and on.
I agree with you we need shared sacrifice. But the people who have not been sacrificing are not the country’s dentists and successful owners of plumbing and furniture stores. The people who haven’t been sacrificing at all — who have been insulated from the financial crisis and the downturn, who have seen their salaries and power rise, whose prospects are brighter every day — are those in government. The planners, regulators, meddlers in other mens’ lives. Those are our modern “fat cats.” Those are the people who need to step up to the plate and sacrifice money and power.
By all means, let us eliminate tax breaks for corporate jets. Elminate tax breaks for anything and everything. Abolish the entire concept of tax breaks. Have one tax rate on income, period. Or sales, period. No exceptions, no fiddling, no “Earned Income Credit,” no “refundable tax deductions,” no nothing.
But no more money for the planners and looters and meddlers. Not one penny. We need to kick this addiction like an alcholic kicks the sauce, and that means even one tiny harmless drink for the road is no good.
And you know what? I don’t care if the government defaults. I don’t own any Treasury Bonds, and I have no great love for those crafty gnomes at Goldman-Sachs or JP Morgon, or in the government mansions in Peking, who do. Nor do I care if the government has a much harder time borrowing more money. I don’t want them to borrow more money. Nor do I believe the country will grind to a stop or Grandma go over the cliff. They have enough right now in tax revenue to pay the GI salaries, Medicare claims, and write all the SS checks, every last one. They don’t need to borrow a freaking cent to do those things.
Do they have to close the Washington Monument? Oh dear. No money to run the FAA? Well, fire everybody at the TSA and I daresay it can be found. Can’t pay ethanol subsidies to Illinois corn-growers? Cry me a river. Senators need to fire half the 50 people working for them in Washington? Tut, tut. Amtrak subsidies go into arrears? The Post Office won’t be able to run their yearly TV campaign urging us to mail early and use Zip Codes? The EPA will have to let go the extra ten $150,000 a year lawyers they hired to help write new CO2 regulations? Well, drat.
I have to say that ending the favorable tax treatment of carried interest isn’t class warfare. or if it is the people who benefit from it should lose, as quickly as possible.
It’s just unbelievable the distorted lines that Obama tried to tie between his subject matter topics. I mean, how do you really following the accounting of increased revenue from corp jet taxes and how it provides more kids with scholarships. I think these are the same arguments that those in the space industry hear a lot that, “Why, the cost of your stupid rocket ride to the moon could feed a million fluffy kittens for a 1000 years! Why do you hate kittehs?!? *cry*”. Really? The money in the federal budget gets sloshed around in any number of directions. The money could just as well end up funding the congressional janitorial supply, “Oohh we upgraded to leather scent, thanks fat cat corp jet owners, hah!” As it would some promising research grant in less scratchy underwear.
This is what I can’t stand of Obama’s “pragmatism” label he so fully does not deserve. A pragmatist would have no problem seeing the enormity of the deficits and meagerness of any of his soak the rich schemes and immediately know how to achieve the massive shifts in policy to realistically meet those demands. Instead all we gets is the same huckster rhetoric of the leftists for the last 100 years. This is the hope and change we were promised? Wow, a used car salesman would feel more embarrassed.
Oops, see me and Carl had practically same thoughts.
Carl said,
“By all means, let us eliminate tax breaks for corporate jets. Elminate tax breaks for anything and everything. Abolish the entire concept of tax breaks. “
Yes, totally agree. Which is why team Obama’s argument that, “oh we weren’t talking about the super duper wonderful corporate jet tax break in the Stimulus, oh my gosh; noooo. It’s that evil RethugliKKKan sweaty-fat-cat corporate jet owner tax that Reagan passed back in 1987!!!” Only problem is if you get rid of the tax breaks and all then there will be nothing left for the lawyers and politicians to do. So, 3 months, tops then; go home fellas you done great, but you can’t stay here. In fact, if there was a session limit put in place I’d say the best would be to return to when Washington, D.C. naturally had to be cleared out because the surrounding swamp became too infested with critters to bear.
Carl:
You think not owning US government bonds will put you in a better position, when Congress, (including the Republican majority house) decides that although they have authorized spending of x and taxes of y, making it necessary to borrow z, that they don’t want to allow themselves to borrow z?
Current bondholders will be the last to suffer. The Republican position is that making interest payments is one of our top priorities. And this is not unreasonable, since if we stiff the current bondholders, borrowing in the future will be much harder.
Potential purchasers of US bonds that need to be rolled over are also safe, because they can demand whatever risk premium they think is prudent, or walk away.
Who gets screwed in a default? Everybody else in the US.
Including you and me.
It’s that evil RethugliKKKan sweaty-fat-cat corporate jet owner tax that Reagan passed back in 1987!!!”
Reagan did sign it but Congress passed it. Presidents can’t pass any legislation. And in 1987, Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, the same as in 2009 when they passed the “stimulus” bill.
Next.
Well, it’s not unexpected that Gerrib would want advocate going the way of Greece.
Yes Gerrib, as the US government continues to spend money it doesn’t have; then it may come down to taxing the poor, as is being done in Greece. Sure, taxing the poor does share the burden, and it certainly is the goal of socialism to share the burden among all.
Better than taxing the poor to pay for benefits they then receive, why not just cut out the middleman?
Current bondholders will be the last to suffer.
At the hands of the current Congress, yes. But they can easily be replaced with new Congressmen by the voters, and don’t think it’s unilkely they will be. I am not sure anyone in Washington fully understands how angry folks will get about the kind of tax increases necessary to cover the new deficits. We’re not talking about cosmetic hikes on “the rich” — we’re talking about savage increases on every working Joe, tradesman, and small business owner.
The kind that force you to lay people off, put off buying a house, tell your son he can’t go to Stanford even though he got in. And all to pay for King Barack’s Win The Future “investments” in high-speed boondoggles, union payoffs, the pensions of government drones, and the preservation of diversity officers and EPA regulator jobs (which is how people will see it).
I would not count on current policy continuing. It’s a new era — there will be new rules. If you are sinking your 401(k) money into Treasuries, or government paper of any kind, I would stop.
if we stiff the current bondholders, borrowing in the future will be much harder.
To many of us, this is a feature, not a bug.
Potential purchasers of US bonds that need to be rolled over are also safe, because they can demand whatever risk premium they think is prudent, or walk away.
Of course they’re safe — they haven’t invested their money in the US Federal Government ponzi scheme yet. I’m guessing an increasing number are going to continue to be safe by continuing to not invest their money, like me.
Who gets screwed in a default? Everybody else in the US.
Er…nope. Not seeing it. I don’t own government paper, and I don’t give a damn if the government can’t borrow more or can’t do everything it now does — it does almost nothing that benefits me — from my point of view, it’s just a giant parasite sucking $30,000 a year out of my budget — and I reject the premise that my taxes will have to be raised to make sure the fellows at Goldman-Sachs who hold $50 billion in T-bills can continue to eat Wagyu steak and pay their chauffeur.
Carl:
Here’s the thing. *You* may be happy if the government is reduced by 40%, but the number of your fellow citizens willing to do that will be very small, once they actually understand that you can’t get there by cutting foreign aid.
And I don’t think you understand how many of your neighbors own US debt, directly or indirectly.
A scenario where the government shafts the creditors and then never borrows again is not going to happen.
What’s far likelier is that the government continues to borrow, but has to pay higher interest rates in the future. Which is ultimately paid for in our taxes.
According to Mark Steyn, it was the Dems who voted in the Corp Jet tax break:
“In his bizarre press conference on Wednesday, Obama made no fewer than six references to corporate jet owners. Just for the record, the tax break for corporate jets was part of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” – i.e., the stimulus. The Obama stimulus. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid stimulus. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Democratic Party stimulus that every single Republican House member and all but three Republican senators voted against. The Obama-Corporate Jet stimulus that some guy called Obama ostentatiously signed into law in Denver after jetting in to host an “economic forum.” ”
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-306708-corporate-independence.html