Obama’s 21st Century Class Warfare

November 20, 2012 8 Comments

The fiscal cliff is staring us straight in the face. Early next month the debt ceiling will be reached and on January 1st taxes increase for everyone. The election resulted in Obama believing he has a mandate from the 47% who don’t pay income taxes to take from those who do pay taxes. Obama has created the class war of the 21st century. It’s quite different from the leftist class war of the 20th century. This time rather than the war being a battle between workers and business, the class war is between tax payers and tax takers. Obama has shifted the battle.

The 20th century began with the first US President inaugurated in the century’s assassination by a radical leftist anarchist. It saw the bloody Russian Revolution and the millions of murders by Lenin, Stalin and other Soviets. It saw Germany’s nationalist left-wingers pillage and murder during the reign of Hitler, to say nothing of events in China and North Korea. The first half of 20th century also saw violent union strikes throughout the US and Western Europe. All of these events, whether leftist governments murdering or violent union strikes have their root in the Marxist idea of class warfare.

By the end of the 20th century the leftists largely grew weary of bloodshed, perhaps because the average man on the street was tired of war. The progressive left shifted from violence, be it in or out of government, to achieve class warfare during the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Obama is the first American President to represent the new left-wing vision of class warfare. It is no longer a warfare marked by violent union strikes or violent overthrows of government. It is a “democratic” class warfare where the tax takers rise up against the tax payers and take over government to their own benefit.

Obama won re-election in part because 47 million Americans are dependant on food stamps. That represents 75% of his vote total. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, food stamps use is higher than nearly every other state. Obama promises freebies from the government, he promises to raise taxes in order go give his voters said freebies. Is it any wonder why he won? Not only is food stamp use up, so are the rolls of Social Security disability which increased dramatically during Obama’s first term. You would think disability would be largely immune from economic conditions but not under Obama. He’s increasing his base of voters via welfare.

Fast forward to the fiscal cliff, there’s a good chance Obama digs in and refuses to deal with the Republicans. He doesn’t have to worry about re-election and he likely believes the Democrats will win no matter what in 2016 because he has set up the conditions for a prolonged 21st century version of class warfare. Obama doesn’t benefit when the economy is doing well, he doesn’t benefit when taxes are cut. He only benefits when he can turn the nation’s problems into a battle between tax payers and tax earners. Obama isn’t interested in unity, he’s interested in us versus them. His campaign was us versus them, his first administration was as well.

The GOP doesn’t have much time to figure out how to counter Obama’s class warfare. They already failed miserably with Mitt Romney. In the short term, Speaker Boehner needs to figure out a way to at least come close to Obama in media manipulation. Boehner cannot afford to take all of the blame for the fiscal cliff. In the long term, the GOP needs to figure out the best way to counter the left’s new version of class warfare while holding to our conservative principles. It took conservatives nearly 80 years to figure it out in the 20th century. We cannot afford to wait another 80 years this time around. The left’s 20th century class warfare turned out to be unsuccessful. We must make sure this new form of class warfare is equally unsuccessful.

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Obama Flip Flops, Plays Politics On Tax Increases

July 11, 2012 2 Comments

Obama is running around the country these days demanding an end to the Bush tax cuts. He wants the rates on “millionaires’ (read: those making more than $250,000 a year) to go up to 39%. There are two ways we can view this move by the President. We can either view it as a curious flip flop or we can view it as a blatantly political move meant to shore up various constituencies within the Democrat Party. The latter is most likely what’s actually going on because it’s doubtful that Obama really understands economics enough to actually flip flop on an economic issue. In short, all of his economic statements are meant for short term political gain.

In August 2009 President Obama said that raising taxes in a recession is “the last thing you want to do.” Why? Because raising taxes “would just suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole.” Keep in mind, we have 1.9% growth today which is actually less than it was in August 2009. Job growth today is stagnant, averaging 75,000 new jobs a month which doesn’t keep up with population growth. In fact, the second quarter of this year has been the worst in two years. It may not be an official recession but it sure feels like one to most people.

In January 2010, coming off a 5.6% fourth quarter growth figure, Obama had the following to say:

I am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best. And what they will say is that if you either increased taxes or significantly lowered spending when the economy remains somewhat fragile, that that would have a destimulative effect and potentially you’d see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs. That would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off.

This is an interesting statement on a couple of levels. First of all Obama always has to pretend that he’s in the center of some broad consensus. Whether there is a consensus or not, Obama always will pretend there is one and he’s right in the middle of it. Second, if the economy was fragile with 5.6% fourth quarter growth in January 2010, which ultimately dropped in the first quarter of that year to 3.2%, then what exactly is the economy today with 1.9% growth? If we don’t have a fragile economy today then what do we have?

In January 2010 Obama made the Republican case for extending the Bush tax cuts. You’ll recall that in December of 2010 Obama negotiated and passed through a 60% Democrat Congress an extension of the Bush tax cuts. Mind you this was with Nancy Pelosi at the helm in the House. He gleefully signed into law an extension of nearly all the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthy. The economy in the 4th quarter of 2010 grew at a 3.2% rate, much higher than today’s 1.9% growth rate.

So why did Obama oppose tax hikes in August 2009 and January 2010 while signing a Bush tax cut extension in December 2010? It’s all politics. He pushed for a Bush tax cut extension in December 2010 because he couldn’t politically survive a massive tax hike which was scheduled to take place on January 1st. He’s calculating his risks today. If re-elected, Obama won’t have to worry about another election and thus he won’t personally feel the political fallout of a massive and unpopular tax increase.

Obama has been playing footsie with class warfare tax policies throughout his administration. You’ll recall the ridiculous corporate jet tax he proposed last year which wouldn’t have collected more than a few million in tax. You’ll recall his billionaires tax that wouldn’t have collected more than a few billion in revenue. Obama floats these tax proposals for political purposes. He surely knows they won’t collect anything significant in revenue, he’s playing a demonization game. Demonize the rich and the poor will rally around Obama, or so he thinks.

Since the Bush tax cuts expire on January 1st 2013, Obama can safely support letting them expire without worrying about his re-election chances. Like Obamacare, the country won’t feel the pain until after he’s re-elected and we’re stuck with him. Until now, it’s politically paid for Obama to support lower taxes or at least support not raising them. The political winds have changed though, now he has to shore up his base and since the pain of tax hikes won’t be felt until after the election Obama thinks he’s safe.

But Obama isn’t safe on this matter because he’s spoken about not raising taxes in a recession before. Once again, Obama’s own words will come back to haunt him. This has been a problem for his entire life, he believes he can say whatever he wants and no one will ever call him out for flip flopping or outright lying. He opposed the individual mandate until he had no choice but to support it. Obamacare wasn’t a tax, unless he wanted it to be. He was conceived in Selma, Alabama after the great march on Selma. Except he was born four years before the march and had never been to the mainland of the US until college. He rode Greyhound Buses on vacation when he was 11 except that they don’t have Greyhound Buses in Hawaii and again, he didn’t come to the mainland until he want to college.

We are in double dip recession. It may not be an outright recession but it is a major slowdown in economic growth. The June Jobs Report was dreadful. When we had greater economic growth Obama said we shouldn’t raise taxes. He was right then. So why should we raise taxes now when economic growth has slowed down and is much less than it was in August 2009, January 2010 and December 2010? Obama must be held to account for this flip flop. We have his very own words and actions available to us on You Tube. If the press won’t ask the question, the American people should. President Obama, why do you want to raise taxes in a recession today when you said it was a bad idea earlier in your term?

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Obama’s Class Warfare Destroyed By IRS Numbers

January 28, 2012 Leave a comment

President Obama’s first campaign speech of the year, the State of the Union, was the opening of what will be a 10 month class war. Obama demands that the rich “pay their fair share.” He trots out Warren Buffet’s secretary, claiming she pays a higher tax rate than her boss. First, we should recognize that tax rate and amount paid are two different things. Second, we should recognize that Buffet earns most of his money as capital gains. The capital gains rate is 15%. The IRS reports that 97% of Americans pay less than 15% in income tax. Meaning that if Buffet’s secretary actually pays a higher rate than her boss, she’s likely earning in excess of $200,000.

If one were to listen to Obama one would believe that there are hoards of billionaires running around the country screwing the rest of us out of what’s “rightfully” ours. Unfortunately the IRS data suggests something quite different. 2009 is the most recent year of IRS data available. There were only 8.274 Americans who had income over $10 million. (see table 1.1, 2009) Those people had total income of $240 billion. So even if the government were to tax these people at 100%, the truth is that it wouldn’t fund the government a whole month. Mind you we have a Federal budget that is almost $4 trillion. Currently this group pays $6 million in income tax a piece, totaling around $50 billion. Obama wants to double that (assuming everyone is only paying capital gains) to $100 billion. That won’t even pay for a week of the Federal government’s budget.

In fact, if we taxed people earning over $1 million at a rate of 100% the Federal government would only take in $726 billion in tax revenue. That doesn’t even pay for the Federal government at current spending rates for 3 months. Keep in mind we’re talking about taxing at 100%. Obama is talking about raising taxes on these people from 15 to 30% assuming these folks are earning all of their money from capital gains, which we know many on the lower end are not.

The amount of revenue raised via Obama’s proposed tax increase is peanuts compared to the size of the Federal budget and the Federal deficit. Let’s say the government manages to take $100 billion in additional revenue based on Obama’s tax increases. That will reduce the budget deficit from $1.4 trillion to $1.2 trillion. The havoc it would create in the market though would be much greater. Faced with the inability to earn a fair return on an investment, people with money to invest will be less likely to take risks. After all, if there is a limited reward for risk taking most people won’t take the risk. It will be good for low risk investments but bad for the sort of high risk investments that move the economy forward.

In other words, Obama’s proposed tax increase will do nothing for the budget deficit but will substantially harm the economy. Thankfully it has no chance of passing because the House Republicans won’t even consider such a bill. That is however exactly what Obama wants. Remember, this is a class war battle Obama is waging. He’s pretending like there are billionaires out there not “paying their fair share” when in reality they are already.  Half the people in this country don’t pay income taxes, those making over $200,000 pay the vast majority. The hoards of billionaires out there not paying “their fair share” simply don’t exist based on the IRS data.

Truth has never mattered to the Obama administration. It’s going to be up to the Republican nominee, presumably Romney, to present the truth to the American people. So far Romney hasn’t done it. We can only hope he takes on Obama head on over this stuff. Tax increases on the rich simply won’t bring in revenue sufficient for cutting the deficit. Furthermore, the harm that increased taxes will cause far outweigh the potential minor benefits. Class warfare cannot be allowed to win.

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Obama Strategy Pits Government Class vs Private Sector Class

November 29, 2011 Leave a comment

According to the New York Times, Obama and the Democrats are going to abandon white working class Americans in their quest to win the 2012 election. In doing so Obama hopes to cobble together a coalition of white teachers, artists, social workers, lawyers and librarians with minorities and those who are otherwise dependant on government assistance. In other words, Obama and the Democrats are setting up the 2012 election as a battle between the government class and the private sector class.

This new Democrat strategy ought to put Obama’s jobs plan from September in a different light. We all knew it was about getting re-elected. Now we can see how his plan fits perfectly into his re-election strategy. On one hand his jobs plan provides more money for teachers and those otherwise dependant on government for their job while doing nothing to actually better the economy. Obama cannot afford to have the economy perform well because if it does he’ll lose the support of the minorities and whites dependant on government hand outs. In other words, Obama and the Democrats only win if they can maintain a permanent underclass that will vote for them.

Meanwhile working class whites, in reality all other people who work in the private sector are out of luck with the Obama administration, Democrats and progressives generally. If your job isn’t somehow dependant on government, you have no reason to vote for these people because they couldn’t care less about you. Certainly Obama isn’t going to do anything for private sector jobs, he hasn’t so far during his administration and it’s unlikely a second Obama administration would do anything positive either. In fact, Obamacare and a number of Obama regulations have specifically hurt the private sector. But what does Obama care, he isn’t interested in the votes of those who work in the private sector.

At first glance one wonders how Obama’s strategy can possibly win in 2012. Obama needs to win Ohio and Pennsylvania if he wants to be re-elected. Both states have a legion of working class white voters. If Obama abandons them how can he possibly expect to be re-elected? It comes in creating a permanent underclass, which includes not just minorities but whites as well. The more unemployment, the more underclass voters. Unemployment is high in both states, Obama must be banking on an increased underclass offsetting a loss in white working class voters. He has no incentive to get the economy rolling, such would only hurt his chances and the chances of Congressional Democrats.

In the end this strategy isn’t likely to work, at least not this time around. There is still a connection between most white voters and serious hard work. These voters aren’t likely to willingly accept, in a matter of four years, being part of an underclass. It’s going to take a generation in the underclass for such voters to willingly accept being part of the underclass and accept being completely dependant on government. There are enough of Obama’s targeted whites who will resist being part of the government dependant underclass that they’ll vote Republican because they want a better economy and a shot at providing for themselves. Poor whites still have a sense of dignity, they still look at government as a last resort. It will take another generation, indoctrinated by government school teachers, before poor whites are broken.

In the end, it’s clear that Obama has no use for the private sector. He is a socialist. If his policies did not prove this, then surely his re-election strategy does. He seeks the votes of those dependant on government whether they’re school teachers, government employees, librarians or the perpetually jobless and lazy who look to government to endlessly provide them food stamps and cash. Those of you with a job in the private sector, whose job isn’t dependant on the state, you’re out of luck with Obama. His policies will hurt you and he is uninterested in your vote.

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Obama’s Tax Increases Have Nothing To Do With Jobs

September 22, 2011 Leave a comment

The President is running around the country promoting tax increases by calling it a jobs bill. He’s currently taunting Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell by giving a speech near their districts in Cincinnati. Obama’s speech is going to be in front of a bridge that he alleges is the perfect example of an infrastructure project his jobs bill will create jobs to fix. Unfortunately under his own bill the bridge isn’t even eligible. In fact, even if it was covered by the jobs bill workers wouldn’t be hired until 2015. Don’t expect the left-wing press to cover these facts.

While it’s amusing that Obama’s grand example of crumbling infrastructure won’t create jobs for years and isn’t eligible anyway, his true intentions aren’t as funny. Obama’s running around calling himself a warrior for the middle class. Obama stated the other day:

Now, you’re already hearing the Republicans in Congress dusting off the old talking points. You can write their press releases. Class warfare, they say. You know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against middle-class folks in this country for a decade now

 The notion that raising taxes on the wealthy is being a warrior for the middle class is ridiculous. Let’s not forget that 51% of Americans don’t pay income taxes. That is what we’re talking about after all, income taxes. Those 51% are lower and middle income Americans. The wealthiest 2% pay around 60% of the income taxes in this country. Obama wants to raise them even higher and somehow that makes him a warrior for the middle class. I didn’t know the middle class demanded so much of other people’s money.

But let’s examine how it could be that a middle class American can pay the same income tax rate as a wealthy American. Warren Buffett whined a couple weeks ago that his secretary pays a higher income tax rate than he does. I’m left wondering how that could be. We all know Buffett only pays himself a salary of $100,000, which puts his salary in the 28% tax rate. Is he paying his secretary $174,401 or more? That’s where the next tax bracket begins.  If that’s what he’s paying his secretary, I sure would like to have that job.

Obama has said several times over the past few weeks that billionaires shouldn’t pay the same tax rate as a plumber. Well, they don’t.  Unless the plumber makes a ton of money. To have the same tax rate as a millionaire or billionaire, a plumber would have to take in more than $379,151 to thus be in the highest income tax rate. If there are plumbers out there making that kind of money, good for them. But that seems a little unlikely.

Odds are that Warren Buffett’s secretary and the average plumber are making what Obama said nurses, teachers and construction workers make: $50,000. These middle class Americans don’t pay anywhere near what the average person making a million a year pay in taxes. Even USA Today caught this. If you’re making an average middle class salary and have kids, you’re not paying 25% to the Federal government. With deductions and tax credits, odds are you’re paying 10% or less. Probably a lot less. Even the capital gains tax for the rich is higher than that at 15%. A millionaire may pay 30% of his income in taxes.

As someone who admires millionaires and billionaires, I very much agree with Obama. They should pay the same rate as middle class plumbers, secretaries, teachers and nurses. It’s absurd that they aren’t paying the same percentage. I therefore propose that no one pay more than 10% in tax. Of course, Obama won’t go along with that because he’s really just playing a class warfare game. He’s trying to set the middle class against the wealthy, despite the fact that the wealthy pay an overwhelming majority of the income tax in this country.

In the end, while Obama has spent most of his time talking about tax increases the number one issue among voters remains jobs. Obama’s tax proposal doesn’t really have anything to do with jobs. Increasing taxes on the wealthy won’t create any jobs. In a year it won’t even increase Federal revenues because the wealthy will find loopholes or they simply won’t work as much. This is what has happened every time taxes have been increased. Again, what does this have to do with jobs?

Filed under 2012 election, jobs, Obama, Politics Tagged with , , , , ,

Obama Plays Class Warfare; Jet Tax Would Bring In Measly $300 Million

June 30, 2011 1 Comment

President Obama held a press conference yesterday bordered on the absurd. Apparently the President is very upset that Congress is taking a 4th of July break. Obama believes Congress should stay in Washington to work on the debt ceiling issue. Sounds good, unfortunately it’s absurd in light of the fact that Obama has been nowhere to be found at the debt ceiling negotiations. If Obama is unwilling to get involved, why should Congress work on his schedule?

Obama’s presser had nothing to do with the debt ceiling. It was his announcement that he’s running for re-election. His strategy is clear, he’s going to play class warfare for the next year and a half. More so than he’s already been playing it. Obama whines that without tax increases children won’t go to college, old people will die without medical research and no one will know if a thunder storm is on the way because the National Weather Service won’t exist. (Obama believes we’re to stupid to stick our head out the window and know for sure whether it’s raining unless government tells us)

What was most absurd about Obama’s argument is that the rich are jet owners. Mind you the rich as far as Obama is concerned earn $250,000. The Wall Street Journal points out that those who earn that little cannot afford private jets. One has to earn in the millions to really be able to afford such luxury. Even if Congress gets rid of the corporate jet tax break, it will bring in a measly $3 billion over 10 years. The Federal government spends nearly $11 billion a day, the $300 million in taxes raised in one year if the jet tax is increased wouldn’t even pay for an hour of government spending in one day.

President Obama knows very well that the eliminating the corporate jet tax loophole wouldn’t raise any significant revenue. Just like he knows that eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the “rich” would only bring in $21 billion next year. These revenue increases wouldn’t amount to much of anything in light of a deficit of $1.6 trillion. Obama knows this, he’s not dumb. He’s playing politics though. He’s creating a class conflict by giving the impression that the “rich” are being handed all sorts of tax breaks by Republicans at the expense of services and goodies handed out to the poor and middle class.

Unfortunately the truth isn’t on Obama’s side. The rich aren’t riding around in private jets and even if government were to confiscate all income over $250,000 and all assets of billionaires the government could barely make it into July in one year before running a deficit. What the government does the next year is anyone’s guess but it can’t be good for the middle class. The fact is that if government spending isn’t brought under control, all of the middle class goodies and services that Obama wants to protect will be lost in a sea of debt default or inflation.

Tax increases to pay off China aren’t going to create jobs here in America. But in class warfare, it doesn’t matter so long as the rich are demonized and the poor and middle class are turned into victims. This sort of leftist nonsense may have worked in days gone by but it’s tired and old these days. The internet has largely exposed class warfare as little more than the folly of communists and assorted radicals. The numbers are readily available and the internet allows everyone to see that Obama’s statements on jet setters and the poor just don’t add up.

Filed under 2012 election, economy, Politics, Taxes Tagged with , , , , ,

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