Obama press conference

Obama:  “Tax cuts for the rich is the Republican’s holy grail”

My Holy Grail is the carpenters cup, because I don't want my face to melt off.  Fan of the Fraulein though.

Don't choose poorly 

Speaking of Indiana Jones, Obama is like an action hero when it comes to annihilating straw men.  None can stand in his path.  If only he was as harsh against, maybe, our enemies as he is to the false arguments and talking points he assigns to people who disagree with him about the role of government in life.  He called Republicans "Hostage takers" and "Bomb throwers" today.  This is after Menendez from NJ called compromising on tax matters with Republicans "Negotiating with terrorists."  I thought this was a new era of politics, no?

Just to be clear, addressing where Obama got his start in politics, in the parlor of an unrepentant murderous Weatherman terrorist and his unrepentant murderous Weatherman terrorist wife and addressing another long time friend of Obama's ties to the PLO are completely inappropriate, dog whistle, racist, fear mongering attacks.  Got that.  But if you don't think the government should raise taxes because you disagree with Keynesian economic theories due to recent empirical evidence (see Trillion dollars, Stimulus of) you can be called a hostage taker or bomb thrower by our post partisan president and a terrorist by his allies in the Senate.  Did I sum that up right?

Tax Compromise

They told me if I voted for John McCain that:
Gitmo would still be open
Patriot Act would still be chugging along
Drone kills of people who have not even been tried in military tribunals let alone Manhattan court houses would increase
We would be surging 30K troops to Afghanistan
The tax cuts that were responsible for ruining our economy would be extended

Guess they were right?

A little more snark, if the tax cuts work and the economy stars rolling again are they now going to be called the Obama Tax Cuts, which are pure and wholesome, written on rainbows with unicorn horns obviously, rather than the dastardly Bush Tax Cuts written with the blood of poor children?

As much as I love seeing the progressives howl about how they were sold out, this is only a small step in the right direction.  I hate the fact that conservatives lose the language battle so thoroughly, these were not tax cuts that we just enacted.  We prevented an increase in taxes, the mindset that whatever money that Washington let's us keep is a gift from our benevolent, enlightened leaders is the problem here, the fact that professional politicians do not see it as our money.

It is a small step, but a good one.  The 13 month extension to unemployment benefits is a joke, but Nancy Pelosi  said that is the best way to stimulate the economy.  I wish someone would explain to me why an administration being absolutely pilloried over their treatment of jobs and the economy would extend a program that dis-incentivizes people to, you know, look for work?  The deferral of the debate for another 2 years is another strategic pants pooping by the Left.  In what world is raising taxes a winning issue?  What is their argument going to be?  "OK, we cut taxes and there was gridlock in Congress so we couldn't pass any other truly destructive bills and the economy started to turn around.  Now we should raise them."  Or is it going to be "The economy was too bad two years ago to raise taxes and it has gotten worse.  Now we REALLY need to raise them."  The two year delay puts the debate squarely in the 2012 Presidential election cycle, is that really what they want the debate to be about?

Final thought on taxes, screw Warren Buffet.  Screw Hollywood liberals and everyone else clamoring for taxes to be raised.  They say that the CAN afford to pay higher taxes and it is the price of living in a functioning society.  Well listen Warren, there is a huge difference between "I CAN" and "You MUST."  Why do liberals feel the constant need to buy spiritual indulgences with other people's money.  The more aggravating part about this is the fact that Warren Buffet, as a massive player in the life insurance industry, is one of the biggest lobbyists in support of maintaining the death tax, while he sets up a massive trust with Bill Gates to get around it.  Taxes are for the little people, right Warren?

I think people should practice what they preach, so here is a little incentive to all the bleeding heart liberals out there.  Looking at you Krugman with your unhinged rants about how the stimulus was too small, John Kerry with your yacht, Claire MCCaskill with whatever it is you are talking about here, or any of the "tax me more" Bill Gates and Warren Buffet crew.  Here is the address to send donations to the government:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782


Post the receipt and I will match as a % of income the most generous giver.  I can put my money where my mouth is, can these other clowns?

David Brooks reads my blog!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=1

Well, maybe not, but his tax reform ideas appear very similar to my own, although they look a little different because he has an "editor" that "cares" about "grammar" and "punctuation."

While I completely support his tax reform ideas, I have no faith in his vision of Obama as someone who can make a pivot and address this issue that could be a huge winner for him.  I do not think he has it in him to forsake 30 years of idealogical commitment and activism as a professional leftist community organizer and the most liberal vote in Congress.  I would love to be proven wrong here for the sake of the country. This would paint him as sympathetic to everyone who pays taxes, (insert snide comment about Democrats only liking to spend other people's money here) and could be a real factor in getting the economy moving again.  I don't want Obama to crash and burn, I am unwilling to immolate the country just to get him out of office.  If he can read the writing on the wall and tack right like Clinton there are things that he could accomplish that could be really positive.  Clinton's welfare reform was one of the best pieces of legislation passed and I doubt that any Republican President could have gotten that through.

More Multi-national organizations run amok

Spoiler alert, I am a huge soccer fan and will occasionally make points in that context.  Skip this post if you do not care

Russia and Qatar given 2018 and 2022 World Cup respectively.  Soccer is supposed to this universal game that everyone can play.  The people who run the sport resist all change to any kind of technology, microchips in the ball to see if it goes over the line, instant replay or additional officials because they want to to be accessible to everyone on all levels, sounds all happy and granola groovy, right?

What happens if Israel qualifies?  FIFA already makes Israel qualify through Europe (amazing geographers those heads of FIFA) because Israeli athletes are not allowed to enter various countries in the Middle East, including Qatar.  There was probably a reason that South Africa did not get the World Cup until after Apartheid.  Can you imagine if the USA got the World Cup and did not allow Muslims?  What is the difference?  Would we even be allowed to apply?

Further food for thought, it's not just in the Middle East

Don't we do enough for them already?

If this CNBC article about the US agreeing to fund an EU Stability fund is true I make puke all over the recliner that I have not left today

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40454469

We already subsidize the entire European continent to an enormous extent.  The only reason that it has taken their effete, soft democratic socialist organization this long to collapse is they have not had to spend any money on defense since WWII.  They depend on their gauche, rude cousin to the west to take care of all the bad things in the world while they look down their noses at us about our methods.  I am not an isolationist by any means but for the life of me I cannot understand why we continue to shield these clowns with our troops stationed on their soil.  This brings me to another rant about the UN and other countries in general.  If people don't like us and do what we say why are we giving them a dime of anything.  I understand helping countries in crisis like the Tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti or the floods in Pakistan but day to do funding and aid given to countries that spit in our face or regions that danced in the streets on 9/11 is reprehensible.

Why should we be bailing out Europe when they admit countries that do not meet the fiscal requirements?  It is bad enough that Germany is bailing out Greece while the Greeks riot about raising their retirement age but now the rest of the PIIGS too?  I would love to help the Greek and Italian economies.  I have free time and want to travel, I would be more than happy to take trips there and spend my dollars if they dropped out of the euro-zone and devalued their currency to pesos.  What good does artificially propping up a failed system do?  Finally, why are we following the statist blueprint provided by Europe rather than using their failure as a preview as what will happen when the government controls health care, auto companies, banks and the economy in general?  Wasn't the argument that they were more civilized and advanced and had it figured out and we were living in the dark ages by not having the enlightened programs headed by gifted technocrats to take decisions out of the hands of the unwashed public?  Why are they coming to us with their hands out now?