1st Presidential Debate Preview

October 3, 2012 17 Comments

Now that we’ve gotten over the silliness of Hannity, Carlson and Drudge, we can start focusing on tonight’s Presidential debate. This is a make or break night for Mitt Romney. He either lands punches on Obama and wins this debate or it’s all over. There could be no better topic for him tonight than domestic issues. The topic alone will allow Romney to attack Obamacare and Obama’s economic policy all while presenting his own alternative vision. These debates aren’t so much debates as they are joint press interviews. In that format, Romney had best come out swinging otherwise Obama and the media will tag team him and the race will be over.

If Romney can’t beat Obama on domestic issues then he shouldn’t be President and he shouldn’t have been the GOP nominee. No doubt the moderator will spend 20-30 minutes on Obama talking points like contraception. You know, issues that aren’t relevant but allow Obama to not talk about the economy for a few minutes. Which of course means every minute Romney discusses the economy will be even more important. He has to hammer home the pathetic 1.3% second quarter growth as unacceptable. He has to point out the 13% decline in orders of durable goods last month. He has to talk about unemployment and the lack of new jobs. He has to hammer Obama for his poor handling of the economy and not allow him to get away with blaming Bush.

Obamacare is sure to come up and we all know how unpopular Obamacare is with the voting public. Romney needs to hammer away at all of the absurd tax increases Obamacare will provide us with. He needs to explain what his alternative is. He needs to tell the public why it would be better for us to be able to buy health policies over state lines. He needs to attack Obama for raising taxes on 6 million middle class Americans, averaging over $1,000 thanks to the Obamacare tax. If Romney can’t make these points tonight, he’ll never be able to make them.

Prepare to be disappointed tonight. Even though debates tend to aid the challenger over the incumbent the fact is we haven’t seen a debate really matter since 1980. There have been “moments” since then but nothing that changed the race. Presumably neither candidate will pull an Admiral Stockdale and ask ‘who am I and what am I doing here.’ Absent some bizarre moment like Al Gore in 2000 getting to within a couple of feet of Bush during their last debate while looking menacing, we won’t even remember this debate by the weekend much less years later. If that’s the case Obama wins hands down. Think about it, do you remember anything from the 2004 debate or the 1996 debate? The less you remember about tonight this weekend, four years from now or sixteen years from now the more likely it is Obama wins.

At this point I don’t believe Romney has what it takes to beat Obama. He has all the issues lined up perfectly for him but he isn’t the sort of candidate who will lay them out with a sunny optimism. For whatever reason, when Romney talks about a sunny future for America it comes off as a show. He believes it but he just isn’t the sunny optimistic type and so it comes off as a put on. But we need a sunny, optimistic candidate tonight to defeat a President who has utterly failed at his job. Romney isn’t up to the task. His best bet tonight is a draw, which he’ll get if he can fend off Obama’s absurd Bain attacks. Unfortunately anything short of a win dooms his campaign.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has a post up about what Romney needs to do to win. He makes some sound arguments. In the end, we need to know what a Romney administration will look like. If we don’t know by the end of tonight we’ll never know because the public isn’t going to elect someone who can’t articulate what they’re going to do as President.

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Romney Must Hit Obama On Obamacare Taxes

October 1, 2012 2 Comments

Taxmageddon is right around the corner. On January 1st the Bush tax cuts will expire. The result is that marginal rates will increase for everyone. The average middle class family will pay $2,500 more in taxes next year because Bush’s cuts will no longer be in effect. Capital gains taxes will increase to 20% and taxes on dividends will triple to nearly 40%. These tax increases would be devastating to our economy. In fact, any tax increase in an economy as fragile as ours is right now will be devastating. Obama and company want to pretend the tax increases are only on those earning over $250,000. The fact is, the tax increases are on everyone.

The expiring Bush tax cuts are but one problem facing us on January 1st. The majority of Obamacare taxes will also start being collected on that day. Obamacare is already taxing tanning beds, much to John Boehner’s dismay. Beginning January 1st Obamacare will start taxing medical devices 2.3% based on gross sales. So not only will the cost of medical devices such as crutches, slings and the like increase at the consumer level, the tax is really going to hurt small businesses. This is a hidden excise tax that will negatively impact the over 400,000 people employed in the medical device industry.

There’s the special needs children tax which absurdly caps Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) at $2,500/year. Apparently families of special needs children have been using FSA’s to pay for school tuition, which at some special needs schools costs over $14,000 a year. By capping FSA’s, Obamacare increases taxes on these families and pays off the government school teachers unions by forcing a lot of these special needs kids back into the failing government school system. The unions will be thrilled but taxpayers will now be on the hook for these kids because Obamacare taxes make their specialized private schools cost to much.

If you currently pay more than 7.5% of your income in medical costs you may claim a deduction on your current income taxes. Beginning January 1st, Obamacare increases that percentage to 10%. Thus Obamacare is increasing taxes on the sick and injured who can likely least afford a tax increase. Obamacare is also hiking Medicare taxes and investment income taxes on those making more than $250,000. While the left might cheer mightily over this, the fact is that with regards to the Medicare tax that will disproportionately hit small business owners. Any tax increase on investment income will create a huge problem for our economy. Don’t forget, our second quarter growth was just under 1.3%. We can’t afford to take money out of investments to throw at government.

Where is Mitt Romney on all of this? We never hear him talk about any of these taxes. It’s understandable why he might not want to tackle any of the tax increases on those “rich” people making more than $250,000 a year. But why isn’t he talking about the medical devices tax or the special needs children tax? It’s great that Romney says he wants to repeal Obamacare but he needs to make clear to voters what not repealing Obamacare will mean on January 1st. Yet here we are in October and he continues to talk about Obamacare and everything else in vague, broad terms.

Romney has a chance to change all of this at the first debate on Wednesday. The only way he can win the debate is by hammering Obama on specifics. He has to systematically lay out the argument against Obama in detailed terms. General terms don’t matter anymore. It isn’t enough to oppose Obamacare, Romney has to lay out why he opposes Obamacare and he has to lay out what, if anything, he would replace it with. If Romney cannot do this on Wednesday he will have lost the debate and the election. The country simply isn’t going to elect a challenger for no other reason than then economy stinks. We want to know what the challenger will do as President. So far Romney has been short on details which is why he’s losing. If he wants to win, his chance is Wednesday. He has to hammer Obama’s record and offer a hopeful alternative in detail.

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Obama: Romney An Extremist, I’ll Compromise During 2nd Term

August 27, 2012 4 Comments

President Obama should seriously consider not speaking in public between now and the election. Why? Because every time he says something in public it’s ridiculous and it makes him look like a blithering idiot. His latest example took place during an interview with the AP when he said Mitt Romney was an extremist. That’s right, moderate Massachusetts Mitt is an extremist in Obama’s mind. The problem here is that the Democrats really believe that people who are pro-life are extreme, they really believe that people who believe in slightly lower taxes are extreme. It makes one wonder who the real extremists are.

But of course calling Mitt Romney an extremist isn’t even the kicker in Obama’s interview. He actually said that he would compromise with Republicans during his second term. Obama is a President who called Republicans “the enemy” in 2010. His campaign accused Romney of killing a former employee’s wife when she had cancer. He has spent four years refusing to speak with Republican Congressional leaders, in fact he spent the first two years announcing that he won so he didn’t even have to listen to Republicans. Now he’s calling our moderate candidate for President an extremist. But we’re supposed to believe that Obama is going to compromise with Congressional Republicans during his second term. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you believe Obama.

You can see why Obama shouldn’t speak in public anymore. No one other than the most extreme liberal Democrats believe Mitt Romney is an extremist. He’s a johnny come lately to the conservative movement. The idea of not raising taxes during a recession recovery is hardly shocking or extreme. His position on abortion isn’t in line with the GOP platform, he’s to the left of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan on the matter. Surely his opposition to homosexual marriage isn’t extreme, after all Obama took the same position until May of this year. Opposing Obamacare surely can’t be extreme, after all over half the country continues to oppose it. Of course would it surprise anyone to discover that Obama thinks half the country is extreme?

Obama’s goal is to make Romney look like an extremist rich monster who isn’t worthy of the White House. The fact though is that Obama’s attempts haven’t worked. Romney is only a point behind Obama in the Real Clear Politics average, he started August four points behind. Nobody in their right mind thinks Romney is an extremist, which makes those who say such things look like complete idiots. Which of course Obama looks right now making such accusations of Romney. Obama looks even more foolish in suggesting he’ll compromise with Republicans. Why should anyone believe him, he’s so far refused to compromise. We have a major tax increase coming on January 1st and Obama has made no effort to compromise with the GOP. But of course, he’ll compromise all over the place beginning January 20th. Who believes this nonsense?

Romney ought to have a field day with the litany of ridiculous comments coming out Obama and Biden’s mouths over the past few weeks. He needs to highlight all of this nonsense in his acceptance speech or allow Ryan to take it on point by point. The Obama campaign has been on a downward spiral ever since he declared ‘you didn’t build that.’ He says that but Romney’s the extremist. What planet are these people living on? The same planet that believes Obama is going to suddenly become the compromiser in chief during his second term I suspect.

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Romney Must Fire Andrea Saul

August 9, 2012 11 Comments

Obama’s Super PAC is running an ad claiming that Romney is responsible for the death of Joe Soptic’s wife from cancer. Soptic worked for GST Steel, which Bain Capital purchased in 1993. In 2001 GST was closed and Soptic lost his job. Meanwhile his wife had her own job and her own health insurance which she kept until she lost her job in 2003. Her job had nothing to do with Bain Capital. In 2006 she is diagnosed with cancer and she eventually dies. Keep in mind, Romney left the day to day operations of Bain in 1999 and formally left in 2002. In short, Bain and Romney had nothing to do with Soptic’s wife not having health insurance when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

The Obama campaign is distancing itself from the claim of its Super PAC. But in doing so they have to deny that they told the same tale back in May. Anyone who believes that Obama’s Super PAC is truly separate from his campaign is fooling themselves. Both campaigns have a Super PAC and there is little doubt they coordinate together. Obama’s Super PAC is doing little more than spinning the same lie that the Obama campaign spun back in May. The difference is that now they’re getting called out for it. The truth is Bain isn’t responsible for either one of these people losing their insurance. Had Bain not purchased GST in 1993, Soptic likely would have lost his job and his insurance long before 2001. Either way his wife would have been unaffected as she had her own insurance at her own job which was wholly unrelated to Bain Capital.

The noteworthy part of this whole episode is the Romney campaign response to all of this. Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign operative and spokesman, declared that if Soptic and his wife lived in Massachusetts they would have been covered by Romneycare. Thus highlights every problem conservatives have ever had with Mitt Romney. How can he run a campaign against Obamacare when his idiot spokesman is out touting big government socialist medicine put in place by Romney in Massachusetts? Romney barely has any credibility on the issue of health care in the first place, he cannot afford to have his closest operatives undermine him further. What Saul did is give Obama a great opening. Now Obama can run around saying that Soptic’s wife would be covered by Romneycare, which he’ll of course say is the blueprint for Obamacare. Thanks a million Andrea.

Ann Coulter believes Saul should be fired and we here at Steven Birn Speaks are in complete agreement. Romney cannot afford to have his operatives making ridiculous arguments like this as it completely undermines his argument to repeal Obamacare. Not only does it hurt Romney’s credibility with independents, it disheartens his base. If there is one thing Romney cannot do under any circumstances it is disheartening the base. He needs us to come out and vote for him in November. Republicans are more enthusiastic about voting for Romney than Democrats are voting for Obama. But that can easily flip flop if Romney’s operatives continue to spout left wing nonsense that undermines their candidate’s conservative positions. Andrea Saul needs to be fired. Quickly.

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Romney’s Pirouette With The NAACP

July 12, 2012 2 Comments

Yesterday Mitt Romney addressed the NAACP. Not surprisingly he wasn’t very well received. He actually gave a pretty good speech if all that was required was highlighting why a Romney administration would be better for blacks than a second Obama administration. He’s right of course but that message wasn’t going to be heard by the NAACP crowd. Romney tossed around statistic after statistic then made the fatal error of declaring he would repeal Obamacare. The NAACP is a group of radical leftists, all of Romney’s statistics fell on deaf ears by a group that needed to hear a message on foundational viewpoints.

Barack Obama has been a disaster for blacks. Black unemployment is 14.4%, down only 0.4% since Obama took office. In fact, black unemployment jumped 0.8% in June alone. Young blacks are unemployed at the staggeringly high rate of 39%. Obama eliminated school choice in Washington DC, thus forcing black kids into failing neighborhood government schools. Inner city schools remain terrible, propped up by the policies of Obama. Inner city violence is up dramatically in the last four years, Chicago’s murder rate for example is up 38%. That disproportionately affects blacks. The poor economy is hitting the black community in more ways than one.

No doubt Romney’s policies would be better for blacks. A lower tax rate for everyone, along with tax certainty, would boost the economy which will help everyone including blacks. Allowing school choice for inner city kids in DC would be good for them. Romney has talked about tying Federal education money to the child rather than handing out grants to schools. While I oppose government education and in particular Federal education spending, tying money to a student would force schools to compete for students thus increasing education standards and student output. All of this is good for the black community.

But the NAACP isn’t thinking along these lines. This is a group that has adopted a radical leftist outlook. It no longer is the group that it was when it was founded, that being a group dedicated to the end of Jim Crow. It’s now a group filled with radicals and they don’t care about the black unemployment rate. They don’t want to hear a message about no one ever saying there was to much free enterprise in a community. That’s because they’ll say exactly that. This is a group filled with the remanent of the Saul Alinsky 60′s, a group that believes not only is the big corporate CEO evil but so is the local merchant. We’re talking about people who truly believe the local merchant is trying to screw blacks by selling goods at a profit.

As such, to come to a NAACP meeting with a series of statistics and some vague plans for economic change in a free market direction isn’t going to be heard by these people. They don’t care about the statistics and the Romney solution is the opposite of what they want. The only way to approach a group like the NAACP is to take them head on. Romney should have made a substantive argument for capitalism and against big government socialism. Dancing around the subject only enrages the NAACP more and it annoys Romney’s base. 

Romney should have laid out what capitalism is, why it’s good for the black community and every other group in America and he should have laid out in detail how big government socialism has failed America and in particular blacks. Instead Romney danced around everything and once again looked like the lukewarm, johnny come lately conservative that he is. If we can give him something from this speech it’s that he did not offer up a laundry list of big government goodies, he remained true to his claim of being a smaller government conservative. That’s at least something positive to take away from this otherwise mediocre encounter with the NAACP.

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Romney Campaign Is Utterly Incompetent

July 10, 2012 6 Comments

Mitt Romney was given a golden opportunity to go after President Obama after the Supreme Court ruled Obamacare is a tax. In 2008 candidate Obama said he wouldn’t raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. During the Obamacare debates the President said the individual mandate wasn’t a tax. It wasn’t until Obamacare ended up in the courts that it was suddenly a tax. According to the CBO, the Obamacare tax will hit lower and middle class Americans an average of just under $700 during the first year of Obamacare, 2014. The tax goes up each year. Romney can exploit this but he’s been mostly silent so far.

There are two issues that the Republicans need to focus on for the next four months. The economy and Obamacare. So far Romney has danced around the economy, never offering his own concrete plan. Obamacare has been far worse, his campaign was completely inept during the first week post ruling. Romney had surrogates out there agreeing with Roberts or agreeing with Obama’s declaration that it isn’t a tax. Romney waited two days to long to disagree with them. There hasn’t been a clear message from the Romney campaign concerning Obamacare. Why they aren’t hitting it as a massive tax increase is anyone’s guess. It’s a mistake of monumental proportions.

So why isn’t Romney’s campaign hitting hard on Obamacare? Perhaps because they’re busy preparing a response to Obama’s Bain attacks. They might even drop the L word on Obama. No, not liberal. Liar. Obama started his Bain attacks two months ago, the Romney campaign is just now getting around to seriously responding to them. This does not bode well for the fall. You would think this would be an obvious observation but a candidate cannot let his opponent trash him and spread false rumors about him without a solid, concrete response. That Romney’s team is just now getting around to responding to the Bain attacks and that they’re sitting around debating whether to call Obama a liar is more than a little disheartening.

Let’s be quite upfront here, Romney’s campaign looks absolutely incompetent at this point. It’s taken them two months to respond to the Bain attacks even though it was clear over a month ago that they were hurting him. Obamacare as a tax is now nearly two weeks old and Romney’s campaign has done nothing with the issue other than disagree with themselves on cable news shows. The economy is tanking and Romney still hasn’t offered more than a vague plan for fixing it. Yes, Romney is out fundraising Obama right now. But it’s going to take a heck of a lot more to beat an incumbent than a lot of money when the campaign is utterly incompetent.

So what’s the Birn solution to this mess? Romney needs to stop being a typical Republican which means he needs to stop being timid and afraid to take risks. He needs to, this week, spend a few million on Obamacare tax ads in swing states. He needs to prepare a speech to be given next Tuesday that outlines his economic recovery plan. That speech will then be followed by a stump tour of swing states and economic swing state ads. It is worth investing $10 million in July on these two issues because these are the two issues that will dominate this fall. An expenditure like this lays the foundation for fall success.

Romney is right now on the pathway to defeat. His Obamacare message is weak and inconsistent. His economic plan is nonexistent. He has two clear openings to win and rather than focus on them his campaign is preparing Bain Capital response ads two months late. You think this would be obvious, but an ad featuring Obama saying he won’t raise taxes on the middle class and Obamacare isn’t a tax followed by CBO stats on Obamacare increases and the Supreme Court ruling would be nice right now. It would be nice to see Romney’s economic plan. Instead, the Romney campaign is going to call Obama a liar over Bain Capital. This is a recipe for defeat.

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Economy Makes Obama Vulnerable But Romney Cannot Exploit It

July 2, 2012 2 Comments

Earlier today I suggested that Romney has very little chance to beat Obama. The one thing that could render that analysis incorrect is the economy. It appears manufacturing is slowing down, shrinking in June for the first time in three years. On Friday the unemployment figures will be released, odds are it isn’t going to be terrific. Based on new unemployment claims, which in June averaged 387,000 per week, the unemployment number isn’t going down. New unemployment claims never decreased in June, despite the Department of Labor making such a claim nearly every week. They of course revise the previous week’s figures up and anything less is considered a “decline.”

Thursday’s Obamacare ruling caused stocks to drop dramatically. They rebounded Friday but only because Europe had reached a tentative economic deal. Stocks are back down today as businesses are very concerned over Obamacare. Individuals should be concerned as well, around 75% of the new taxes will be paid by those making less than $120,000 per year. With Obamacare scheduled to take effect in 2014, there is now actual tax and cost uncertainty. No one really knows how Obamacare is going to work. Businesses that don’t provide insurance today will likely see costs increase as they are taxed for failing to provide insurance. Likewise, individuals are also facing a massive tax increase if they don’t buy insurance.

In January 2013 we are facing massive tax increases as the Bush tax cuts expire. This has created tax uncertainty. John Roberts is to thank for piling on the uncertainty by ruling Obamacare a tax. Now businesses and individuals face tax and regulatory uncertainty going into 2014. The result is that stocks are down today. Couple that with manufacturing slowing, a stagnant economy and no real plan for the next four years, there are holes in Obama’s re-election campaign.

But these holes are not being exploited by Romney. A major Romney advisor is claiming the individual mandate isn’t a tax. If it isn’t a tax then the Supreme Court is insane (I’ll second that) but if it isn’t a tax it also undercuts the argument that Obamacare is now the biggest tax increase in history and thus Obama reneged on his promise not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000. What a foolish thing for a Romney advisor to say, he should be promptly fired. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time Eric Fehrnstrom has said something foolish, thus it’s a safe bet that Romney won’t fire him.

Romney still hasn’t offered a serious economic reform package that is simple and concise. He remains committed to his 56 point plan that he laid out during the GOP primary. This is of course absolutely foolishness. He needs to have a 4 point plan with all of the points easily understood in a sentence. He can lay out his four points in more detail of course but the main four must be concise and easily understood. Obviously they must contrast with Obama’s, which shouldn’t be difficult if Romney plans on halting government expansion and relying more on the private sector. But he hasn’t done this yet, which is maddening.

Obama is vulnerable but Romney is so weak, so afraid to make a bold move that Obama’s weaknesses cannot be exploited. We live in a country that has had 8% unemployment or higher throughout Obama’s term. We have added $5 trillion to the national debt. Obamacare is the largest tax increase in history and more tax increases are on the way when Bush’s tax cuts expire. We face massive economic uncertainty with a President who doesn’t really understand economics. Yet the GOP picked the weakest candidate to go up against Obama. Beating Obama should be a slam dunk. Instead he’s likely to dunk on the Republicans.

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Why Mitt Romney Will Lose To Obama

July 2, 2012 9 Comments

We need to come to grips with the fact that Obama is likely to be re-elected this November. There are any number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that Obama has been able to hold steady despite two months of increasingly bad news. Chief Justice Roberts gave Obama a massive political victory by bowing to outside political pressure in the Obamacare ruling. This victory for Obama suddenly makes him look like a winner. Initially I believed the ruling would help Romney but after thinking about it some I no longer believe this to be the case. Obama has at least a 75% chance of being re-elected, perhaps even more.

Romney now has to argue on  a national stage against Obamacare. He’s going to have a difficult time doing this in light of the fact that he is responsible for Romneycare. Obama will spend the entire fall claiming that he got the idea for Obamacare from Romney. It’s an absolute lie of course but by the time Romney and the GOP expose the lie the public will have moved on an the lie will become the truth. So far Romney’s call for repeal has gone over great with the people who already support him. But his lack of details concerning what he would replace Obamacare with aren’t going to inspire independents to vote for him. Romney needs a plan and he needs it now. Romney should announce a major healthcare speech for the week after Independence Day wherein he lays out what he would replace Obamacare with. So far that doesn’t appear to be forthcoming. He’s relying on the Obamacare ruling to be so unpopular that no one will care what his plan is so long as he repeals Obama’s. This is a fatal error.

Europe doesn’t appear headed for a blowup anytime soon. Merkel caved and the Euro Zone will continue bailouts and assorted nonsense. While the Zone may ultimately collapse, it won’t do so this year. As such stocks climbed substantially on Friday. That can only help Obama, who in the very least won’t face a massive international economic crisis in the next four months. He’ll face poor economic performance here at home and general economic uncertainty. Whether that will hurt him remains to be seen. The problem Romney faces is that he has yet to put forward a detailed economic vision. Independent voters may be willing to give Romney a look but not if he doesn’t provide a detailed plan. Again, simply being against Obama’s vision doesn’t win.

Looking at the electoral college, it’s difficult to see Romney’s path to victory. It’s hard to believe he’ll take Virginia at this point. He isn’t going to take Michigan or Wisconsin despite the GOP’s hopeful attitude about the state’s. Ohio is making an economic recovery, largely because of Gov. John Kasich’s economic reforms. Unfortunately Obama is likely to be given credit and as such it’s becoming increasingly clear that Ohio isn’t going to be won. That leaves Romney with no path to victory. Obviously economic news can change but at this point the polls seem to indicate a big Obama win.

Let’s be honest my fellow Republicans, none of us really expected Romney to win. As with all the other moderates nominated before him, he’s destined to lose. The American people would rather have an authentic liberal than a faux conservative. When will our party ever learn its lesson? Ford, Bush 41 (after we figured out who he really was), Dole, McCain and Romney are all cut from the same cloth. They’re all moderate to liberal and they’ve all lost. We keep getting told that the conservative can’t win when the reality is that the moderate can’t win. The result of nominating Romney will be defeat and four more years of the most destructive President this nation has ever known. I hope the moderate’s in the Party will be happy.

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The Real Problem Is The 16th Amendment

June 29, 2012 2 Comments

The individual mandate is now a tax even though Obamacare says it is not a tax. Talk about legislating from the bench. Keep in the individual mandate has two aspects to it. First, you must buy insurance. Second if you don’t buy insurance you’re fined by the government. Apparently that fine is called a tax. As such you aren’t entitled to due process. It appears Obamacare left this issue open, so it’s a matter of time before the government fines people for something and denies due process by calling it a tax. Good job Roberts!

The end result is that Obama is now responsible for the largest tax increase in history. In 2008 he promised not to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000. He’s now absolutely responsible for a tax increase that will largely hurt the poor and middle class. Perhaps Roberts is good for something after all, he’s at least given Romney something that ought to sink in with most people.

The bigger issue though is that it’s going to take a lot more than the repeal of Obamacare to swing this nation back towards the Constitution and the traditional culture that loves true Christian freedom. The libertarians who want all or nothing today will absolutely get nothing. It’s going to be a long, slow process. The Obamacare ruling proves that. We have a Constitutional problem first and foremost. It’s called the 16th amendment. Nothing has advanced the progressive agenda more than the income tax amendment. It is the income tax amendment that allows Obamacare to be called a tax and therefore Constitutional. Otherwise Obamacare would fall under the Commerce Clause and even Roberts wasn’t going to expand the Commerce Clause that far.

The 16th amendment more or less declares that all of our income is the property of the Federal government. Any amount they let us keep is the result of the benevolence of Congress. The Courts have ruled as such throughout the history of the income tax. This includes any income, from gifts to fringe benefits. If your employer pays for a business lunch, the Federal government can tax you for 100% of your lunch if they so desire. There are of course loopholes and all sorts of deductions and write offs. But those are all by the grace of Congress. According to the Courts and the 16th amendment Congress doesn’t have to write any deductions into law. They’re entitled to everything.

The income tax was sold to the American people by progressive Republican President William Howard Taft as a tax on corporations and rich people. Prior to the amendment taxes had to be apportioned to the states according to the census. As such most taxes the Federal government collected were Tariffs and various excise taxes. When it was sold to the American people, the idea was to tax the rich. Within 5 years of its passage the top rate was 77%. After a generation, most Americans were stuck paying income taxes. Now we’ve gotten to the point where government is calling a healthcare fine a tax. And why not? If everything belongs to the government what is to stop them from taxing us in fines?

Repealing Obamacare is a good move because it stops the tide towards socialist healthcare. But it doesn’t stop the problem which is the basis for the healthcare ruling. The income tax amendment is where the problem lies and until that is removed you can expect more problems like this ruling. We as a nation must ask ourselves whether we are truly free if the government is entitled to 100% of all our combined earnings, under the Constitution no less. This is a discussion that we Americans have for far to long put off having. With the 100th anniversary of the income tax amendment coming up next year and with this disastrous Obamacare ruling having its origins in that amendment, we need to have a serious discussion about our freedom. It’s discussions such as this that will slowly move the people back to freedom and away from socialism.

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Individual Mandate A “Tax?” Romney Given A Major Issue

June 28, 2012 8 Comments

The Obamacare decision is in with Bush appointee John Roberts siding with the liberals in ruling it constitutional. The mandate it appears will be declared a “tax” and thus it doesn’t fall under the Commerce Clause. It’s the most absurd of rulings, a complete cop out that ignores what the mandate actually is. Even Obama said it isn’t a tax. In calling it a tax, the Court suggests that individuals can simply “opt out” and refuse to pay it. And what, have 100 Fed agents on our doorstep demanding money? Ridiculous. So much for President Bush appointing conservatives to the bench. These Supreme Court appointments matter and Bush completely dropped the ball with Roberts. It would have been even worse had Alito not replaced the pathetic Harriet Miers.

With all of this in mind, expect Obama to gloat. But also expect the Tea Party to rise up in protest, backing Romney with vengeance. Romney’s campaign has been doing pretty good so far, they’ve not run into any major gaffes recently. Expect Romney to get a slight boost in terms of support as Tea Partiers who may be sitting on the sidelines suddenly join the Romney fray. Obamacare is still opposed by over 50% of the country, so Romney clearly has an issue to play with here. This could be the issue that puts him over the top, Obamacare remains unpopular.

Also expect Romney to raise a significant amount of cash. The Tea Party isn’t the only group that hates Obamacare, businesses and Catholics hate it as well. It’s caused premiums to skyrocket and we all know what Obama is trying to do to the Roman Catholic Church concerning contraception. If 5% of Roman Catholics who generally vote Democrat swing to Romney because they don’t like what Obama is doing that could be enough to win the election for Romney. That issue is back in play now.

Romney has been given a golden opportunity to campaign on the repeal of a job destroying, unpopular 2,000+ page healthcare law. He has the opportunity to corral all of the Tea Party into his camp. The ruling in the very least didn’t expand the Commerce Clause, we can at least rest on that. But this is truly the best ruling for Romney if he wants to win because now he has a major issue besides the economy to run on. He needs to campaign on repeal and offer his own, clear, concise market based alternative. If he does that, he can win this election.

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