The Bloated Pig In All Its Porcine Hideousness

President Obama unveiled his first official budget a few days ago, and it's worth examining in depth, not only for its details, but also for its bigger scope. I'll explain more on that in a moment. This is a huge post, but there's a ton of red meat in here, so please take your time to sift through it, check the links, and think it through. This stuff will affect every man, woman, and child living in America over the next four years (and for many beyond that), so you have a personal stake in what's involved here.

First, the bottom line: this budget is a total of slightly less than $4 trillion -- an increase of 32% from last year -- with a deficit of $1.75 trillion, more than the previous five years' deficits combined! Shazam!!! Though Obama is quick to say he'll cut that deficit in half by 2013, his plan also shows the deficit spiraling upward quickly for the four years after that. Not exactly inspiring. Now, let's look at some of the specific things in this fattened pig.

You know how we all gritted our teeth at the initial $700 billion to failed banks? At the time there was at least a semi-plausible argument for it (though many conservatives never did support it, and for good reason). Then, when that did nothing to help, some of those banks started coming back for seconds, and people got pissed. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Well, we weren't fooled (though apparently Congress was...or bought off). Guess what? Obama's budget contains another $750 billion for troubled banks. Remember, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I think we can safely say Congress is insane now.

There are massive tax increases in this budget. Here are some highlights lowlights:
- the top two marginal income tax rates will be raised to 39.6 percent and 36 percent
- itemized tax deductions will be limited - taxes on capital gains will be increased from 15% to 20%
- a “down payment” of about $635 billion will be allocated to begin the nationalization of health-care (yes, you read that right - it's a done deal now)
- there will be a crackdown on offshore tax havens, netting about $220 billion
- there will be a crackdown on business transactions that are solely designed to reduce companies’ tax bills, netting about $5 billion
- the Advance Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax break for low-income earners, will be eliminated, netting about $882 million
- a cap-and-trade system that requires companies to buy credits if they exceed greenhouse-gas limits will be implemented, netting about $75 billion in 2012
- spending will be decreased on weapons systems and programs (remember this?)

There are a couple good things:
- 4 percent increase in the Pentagon’s budget to $534 billion
- agriculture subsidies also are targeted for reductions
- proposing to cut federal subsidies to student loan providers

Those good things are minor, though - the Pentagon increase is the smallest required by law. The ag subsidies only go to rich corporate farmers, so that's not really helping the little guy, anyway. And, cutting student loan subsidies is likely to increase the amount of reliance people will have on government for education assistance.

These are some of the tax increases specifically for businesses:
- $17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
- $24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
- $5 billion - codify “economic substance doctrine”
- $61 billion - repeal LIFO
- $210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
- $4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
- $5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
- $3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
- $62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
- $49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
- $13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
- $1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers

In short, the administration’s budget contains $1.4 trillion in tax increases – tax hikes that will impact everyone, from small businesses, charities, and seniors to everyone who owns a 401(k) and anyone who flips on a light switch...uses electricity, drives a car, or relies on energy in any way. How does that promise of tax cuts for 95% of Americans look now? Just a little bit like a LIE, don't you think?

Here's another bit of wonderfulness on those tax 'cuts' that the administration is going to start sending out in a few weeks. First, let's be real - they're not cuts at all, since all income tax rates are either going up or remaining unchanged. It's simple redistribution - taking money from the top earners and giving it to the bottom earners, many of whom don't pay taxes at all. It is, in effect, welfare disguised as a tax 'cut'. But, it gets even worse. If you're one of those people who gets a tax 'cut' check, you would do well to save it, because that will count as income on your tax returns next year. That's right, the tax 'cut' that Obama is redistributing is going to be taxed as income! So much for your $65/month increase.

This deceptive liberal methodology is exactly what conservatives were warning of for months before the election, and now we're seeing it play out in real life. For those of you who voted for Obama: thanks. The coming economic disaster is your fault.

Just out of curiosity, how much does all this debt equate to per taxpayer? There are about 140 million taxpayers, so that equals just over $25,000 per person! Not family, person. That means Obama's budget is effectively heaping another $25K of debt onto each and every one of you. If you're married, you now owe $50,000 more. And all you get out of the deal is more government meddling in your life.

How much money is $4 trillion, really? Here's a great video that helps put it into perspective:

And that doesn't even take into account the baseline increases. Remember, government establishes its level of spending based on a certain percent increase from the previous year. So, if it's $4 trillion this year, it'll never go back down to less than that. It's a spiraling snowball of economic doom.

But that's only half of the story. This is just the spending side of things...what about the money coming in? Can we count on this plan's projected numbers? Uh...no:

The [budget's] 2010 forecast is more optimistic than the 1.5 percent growth rate estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in January or the February Blue Chip consensus for an increase of 2.1 percent.

So, if less money is taken in than what he's projecting, that will only make things worse, right? Great. Charles Krauthammer commented this way on Obama's speech a few days ago when he unveiled this budget pig:

The president used the word "honest." That's astonishing. Look, all budgets are fiction. This one is fantasia.

Obama has promised to cut the deficit by the end of the first term in half. He does it by pretending that in 2011 there will be a growth in the economy of about 5.5 percent, and in the next year it will be over six.

Now, these are Chinese-level numbers, and even the Chinese aren't achieving them anymore. It is completely fictional, those numbers.

Next year he says we will grow at about 3.5 percent. Next year we could still be in negative territory.

His projections are pure, deceitful fiction, based on figures that are hopelessly unrealistic, and even then they show America falling into more debt than a normal mind can conceive. It's no wonder Senator Judd Gregg -- the man Obama himself tapped to be Commerce Secretary -- is saying this is a plan that will bankrupt America.

The 'rich' are going to be the ones by far the hardest hit. The obvious problem in Obama's logic, then, is this (emphasis mine):

Obama's assumptions are particularly rosy, considering his plans to burden the economy with a crushing tax plan.

The 'rich' are going to get especially soaked. Basically, Obama is making the very dangerous assumption that increasing taxes don't affect taxpayer behavior.

Needless to say, he's wrong. And we all get to see just how wrong in a few years. Won't that be fun?

That's the real misunderstanding of liberals. History and basic economics both show us that to tax something is to decrease that thing; similarly, to reduce taxes on something is to promote (and therefore increase) that thing. Obama is raising taxes on the highest earners in this country, on businesses, and on productivity. What does that tell you about what's about to happen under these new policies? Exactly.

But what about those savings Obama touted in his speech? Just another deceit, as it turns out:

In his speech, Obama didn’t want his listeners to think he’s a big-government heir to Lyndon Johnson, so he talked of slashing waste. He said his team had begun going “line by line” through the budget, and “we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”

In common parlance, “savings” is taken to mean . . . well, savings. But half of this $2 trillion is accounted for by Obama’s planned tax increases on the rich — in other words, he has identified revenue, not savings. Much of the rest is arrived at by assuming the Iraq War would cost $170 billion a year for the duration, even though Obama has long planned a drawdown. Obama portrays himself as ruthlessly paring back government when he is simply raising taxes and leaving Iraq.

It's unfortunate especially in light of the fact that there are already some signs of recovery, and some forecasters are now predicting we'll be back into strong growth by 2010. In fact, a number of top budget specialists -- some of whom attended Obama's fiscal responsibility summit -- recently warned Obama that the kind of long-term debt he's racking up will have major consequences. Of particular concern is the fact that China has funded about 3/4 of America's debt over the past four years, but there are now signs of economic hardship in China, so there is no guarantee that they'll keep funding our spending. If foreign investment dries up, the only other viable choice the U.S. government would have is to print its own money, but that will lead to serious inflation. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Obama's policies are wedging us ever deeper in there.

But maybe this isn't that much different than in other tough times. Have we been here before? How does this all figure into history? Take a look (emphasis mine):

When do deficits go below 3% of GDP in President Obama's projections? Basically, never. Two years after his second term would end, in 2018, he projects them at 2.9%. But then they go back up to 3.1% in 2019, the last year of his projections.

Folks, 3% of GDP is considered high for a deficit. The European Union sanctions it members if their deficits exceed that level. Obama can't even see his way to that low by 2019, much less a balanced budget.

And how does he expect them to come down even that much? By assuming that by 2012, the last year of his first term, revenues will exceed the average of the previous ... 50 years ... for every year from then on. In short, he assumes unprecedented revenues to start flowing in, year after year, from 2012 onward. He also assumes unspecified savings in those years way past his first term.

Concerning the short term, where numbers are more solid, don't even look at his budget if you are at all squeamish. He puts the deficit at 12.3% of GDP in 2009. Throughout the Great Depression, whether under Hoover or FDR, the deficit never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under Reagan, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under George W. Bush, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never even got to 4% of GDP.

In fact, in only five years since 1930 has the deficit exceeded 6% of GDP: 1942-46. It has exceeded Obama's 12.3% only from 1942 to 1945. That was World War II. Then, defense spending was about 40% of GDP. Now it is about 4%.

President Obama projects debt held by the public at 59% of GDP in 2009, and about 65% of GDP thereafter, as far as his projections go.

You have to go back to Truman to see debts that high. And Truman was paying off World War II costs. It's been below 50% of GDP since 1957. For the first time since then, it will exceed that level this year, going from 41% to 59% of GDP in a single year.

This is not what Obama fears; it is what he hopes. The reality will be even worse than his projections -- after Congress, the real behavior of the economy, and who-knows-what in terms of future bailouts, hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, etc. are factored in.

Well, he was the candidate of hope. It's just unfortunate that he gave us such a foolish and irrational hope for something that just can't happen in any normal universe.

And there are other effects that will ripple down from this snowball that are even harder to calculate: the damage to charities and non-profit helping organizations. Think about it. What's one of the first things to go when you have to tighten your budget? It's not food or electric bills, right? No, it'll be charitable giving. Churches, charities, and non-profits all depend almost exclusively on the generosity of people who have a surplus of wealth every month, so when they start giving less, those helping organizations will shrivel and die. What happens to all the people who no longer have food and shelter provided by those organizations? My guess is they'll turn to the government, which is exactly what Obama wants.

Two of the worst provisions in this budget are health care and energy. I'll examine health care in a different post, but I do want to focus a bit on energy, the lifeblood of the American economy. The news isn't good.

In one of the budget's most ambitious proposals, the president plans to cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, forcing polluters to purchase permits for emissions that would be slowly brought down to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The sale of those permits, beginning in 2012, would reap $646 billion through 2019.

Cap-and-trade energy policy could be enough to potentially destroy the American economy all by itself; when you combine it with all the other madness in this budget, it's a virtual guarantee. For more on the dangers of cap-and-trade see these links:

Potential Costs to America From Cap-and-Trade
The Obamessiah's Energy Plan: More And Less
The True Cost Of Green Legislation
Effect of the Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Legislation on States

By the way, this is the very same cap-and-trade system that recently collapsed in Europe. Obviously, then, why wouldn't we want to give it a try here? This one program alone is projected to cost a loss of as many as 4 million jobs and between $444 billion and $1.3 trillion dollars over the next two decades. That's why it failed so utterly in Europe. It'll fail here, too. And it's all to combat a hoax.

This entire budget is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to destroy the foundations of America - capitalism. It will heap mountains of debt onto future generations, institute monolithic control of every possible facet of American life in the hands of the federal government, and penalize the very same independence, initiative, and success that has made America what it is today. House Minority Leader John Boehner put it this way:

"First it was the stimulus, then the omnibus and now the budget," Boehner said during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference. "It's all a down payment on a new American socialist experiment."

"The spending barrage is just beginning," he added.

So, we must ask: what political ramifications are at play here?

It's hard to say. While there will undoubtedly be plenty of people who will follow Obama blindly off a cliff, I think there are many more people who are about to get supremely pissed off at the vast overreach of government that is about to take place. Up until now, they've only paid attention to the sound bites - the 'tax cuts for 95% of Americans' crap that are outright lies. Once their taxes skyrocket, their freedoms get curtailed, and their way of life is ruined because of Obama's suggestion that we all sacrifice for the common good, they'll wake up. I think this paragraph at Powerline makes a great point:

Michael Barone has written that Obama was elected in November on the strength of a "top and bottom coalition." He carried high-income and low-income voters, while John McCain won a majority of middle-income voters. As the inevitable effects of Obama's policies become visible--higher taxes, inflation, prolonged weakness in the economy, depressed stock market--the "top" part of his coalition will begin to erode. That process likely began today.

The question is - will there be too many on the bottom to overcome in bringing back some sanity in 2010? The actual rich have the option of cashing in their chips and leaving, moving to an island and sipping pina coladas in blissful ignorance. But what about the rest of us who don't have that option? We've got to deal with it somehow.

We need to tie the economic tsunami that is bearing down on us undeniably to Barack Obama.

By being armed with the facts and equipped with the confidence to share them, we need to boldly speak out on what truly caused this mess. Sure, the Republicans played their part over the past few years, and we all share some blame for re-electing the same worthless politicians over and over...but there's a distinct difference, and let there be no mistake about who sent us over the cliff. I read a terrific illustration of this once (I can't recall where it was) that said it was one thing to be driving 80mph in a 70mph speed zone, but it's entirely different to be racing along at 150mph on that same stretch of highway. It's laughable for the Democrats to complain about what the Republicans have done at this point in time, and we need to make sure we can point that out.

Here's the biggest challenge we face in Obama. Remember Orwell's concept of doublethink? Obama embodies it:

Even as he expands government, Obama forswears any interest in expanding government and says he’s scaling back: “Everyone will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me.” Really? The only programs he said he’d cut were ineffective education programs, useless weapons systems, and subsidies to agribusiness, and his budget increases discretionary spending by 12 percent next year. To paraphrase Bob Dole, where’s the austerity?

Obama the writer-president prides himself on a facility with words that has fueled his political rise. He clearly respects words, including their power to manipulate and mislead. “A good catchword,” Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “can obscure analysis for 50 years.” To pass a vast program changing the relationship of American government to its citizens, Obama only needs to obscure analysis for about a year.

And his followers have wholly bought into it. It's going to be darn near impossible to persuade them of the truth. That's why the focus needs to be on all those other people who aren't drenched in Kool-Aid, who are very intelligent but so far uninformed (thank you, mainstream media). Just look at the numbers - about 130 million people voted in the last election, and there are over 300 million in this country; that means there are 170 million or so who didn't vote, and could very well be part of that silent public who needs the truth. It is critical to pierce the veil of ignorance that has been cast over this country, and to show everyone what is really going on, who caused it, and why.

This brings us back once again to the core reason Obama is deliberately destroying the American economy - he doesn't want to fix the economy, at least not yet. He does, however, truly want to re-make America. He's a socialist, and he believes that capitalism is unfair and so our system of civilization should be changed into something he thinks is more 'fair'. Once he achieves that, he'll worry about the economy and the other problems we face. Until then, he's going to grab for power and entrench his own bureaucracy as deeply as possible. So, if he wreaks enough havoc and causes enough destruction on the American economy, he's hoping there will be enough desperate people who will grasp his lofty rhetoric (without bothering to see his horrific policies) and willingly follow him into his version of a socialist paradise where the government controls everything...for the good of the people, of course.

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aY8vuevw1NKs
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/26/spendzilla-fun-facts-about-obamas-budget-busting-budget/
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/26/obamas-new-budget-25000-per-taxpayer/
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/02/022931.php
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/obamas_busted_budget.html
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/senator-judd-gregg-us-is-facing.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/27/the-obama-plan-massive-tax-hikes/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19403.html
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/5f19e514-b8db-4c14-a5f2-a8c8cf823fb5
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNlZGI3OTI0NjJkNjk4OTVjNzc3ZGNjYTQxNmMyMWY=
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123564748462081261.html
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-introduces-cap-trade-costing.html
http://minx.cc/?post=283503
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/economist-peter-morici-slams-obamas.html
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjY0OGQxNmMxZDgzMGRiOGEwNDY4N2E5MmFlZDUyNTY=&w=MA==
http://minx.cc/?post=283328
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/02/23/a_warning_for_obama_on_deficits/
http://minx.cc/?post=283279

Fun & Frivolity: Husband's Revenge

I almost wet myself when I watched this:

See more funny videos and Funny Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Have a great weekend!

Obama's Blowout Budget

I'm putting together a huge post on Obama's budget, its details, and its estimated effects on the economy. I might get it done this weekend; if not, it'll be early next week. As I'm sure you've already figured out, the only thing about it that's small is the amount of good news it'll bring.

A great teaser would be this cartoon from Michael Ramirez:

***sigh***

There's my two cents.

Link Roundup

Here's another absolutely packed set of links.

In the USof[Socialist-in-the-making]A:

• The era of big government is back.
  
• The first steps in regulating the Internet...?
  
• Many states assert their sovereignty against federal takeovers.
  
• Mortgage sob stories (here, here).
• Fox host rips ACORN chief.
  
• The coming battle over redistricting.
  
• Discussing sanctuary cities.
• Even Dems know Obama is grabbing for power.
  
• Liberal newspapers failing (here, here).
  

Economic news:

• Obama ushers in the return of the welfare state.
  
• The nationalization of Citi plunders on.
  
• Smokers will be paying for universal health care.
  
• Moronic stimulus stunt.
  

Obamessiah news:

• Obama's failure of leadership.
  
• Obama's foreign policy failure (well, at least one of them).
  
• Obama's unity hustle.
  
• Obama's energy secretary surprised to know he's in charge of oil policy.
  
• Lesson plans for change.
  
• Special interest groups dominate Obama's economic summit.
  
• Let the vetting commence!  On prayers, of course...what were you thinking, cabinet nominations?  Hahahaha...!
• More lies from yet another Obama nominee.
  
• 51% say Obama likely to fail promise of cutting deficit.
  

Around the world:

• U.S. aid to Africa is a crock.
  
• More from the religion of peace.
  
• Free speech and Islam.
  
• Disturbing trend in war on terror - British Muslims.
  

Now you're set!

Hope And...What Now?

Barack Obama has officially announced the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.  His Kool-Aid drenched minions will probably herald this as ultimate victory over the eeeeeevil Bush war, but they're a bunch of clueless mind-numbed dolts.  David Freddoso reveals how this is nothing more than a political scam, and always has been:

In June 2006, President Obama spoke on the Senate floor about how irresponsible it would be to withdraw quickly from Iraq. That November, as soon as the 2006 election cycle was over and he found himself facing Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries, he announced the need for an immediate withdrawal. Three months before the Iowa caucuses, in September 2007, he declared that he would "have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months" of his inauguration, and that "we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq."

 

To this point, Obama's shifting positions on what to do in Iraq have been based on political considerations and not necessarily the reality of the situation there. So it is anyone's guess what has pushed him toward the new position announced today: He plans to stay in Iraq until at least the beginning of 2012 with 50,000 troops. For those paying attention, that is exactly how long President Bush planned on staying in Iraq.

 

That business about withdrawal? About change? Just an election gimmick, sorry. The Obama administration does still insist that there will be no permanent military presence in Iraq after our withdrawal. But that can always . . . change.

The danger this illustrates is, of course, the continuing trend of Obama doing whatever is politically advantageous, no matter the issue or circumstance.  He has no core principles that Americans agree with -- as far as I can tell, all he's got are abortion, higher taxes, and the implementation of socialism -- in big majorities.  On top of that, he's attempting to re-write history, since he isn't about to prove that Bush had the right policy and/or timeframe - he's couching this as his plan, his timeframe, and his victory.  Big Brother would be proud.

These facts are key indicators of the incredibly serious danger presented to America by our very own President, because we can have no confidence that he'll do any given thing in any given situation.  We are facing some legitimately serious times and situations, both economically and in terms of national security, and to have a 'leader' who follows the political wind on any given day is courting disaster.

There's my two cents.

No One Earning Less Than $250,000 Ever Drives

At least, that must be the case if we're to believe the Obamessiah's promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 by 'one dime'.  Here's the problem...

Raise federal gasoline taxes to help pay for road projects?

Not during a recession, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said.

Then how about moving toward a system that finances highway construction by charging motorists by the mile?

When LaHood suggested last week that be considered among other potential financing schemes, he got bushwhacked by the White House. "It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," the president's press secretary said.

With the administration's position seemingly clear, a special commission created by Congress is nonetheless endorsing those two ideas.

Its report Thursday warns that if government fails to find a new way to raise money, "we will suffer grim consequences in the future: unimaginable levels of congestion, reduced safety, costlier goods and services, an eroded quality of life, and diminished economic competitiveness as a nation."

The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission says the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax are not raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of highway, bridge and transit projects. The commission proposes lifting the gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon and the diesel tax by 15 cents per gallon, and adjusting both for inflation.

So, if they end up raising taxes on gas and diesel, they apparently believe that no one who earns more than $250,000 ever drives anywhere, right?

Seriously, though, let's take a realistic look at this situation.  Sure, the Obama administration said no to the gas tax hike, but if the commission thought that was a firm and final stance, why would they have wasted their time recommending just that?  To me, this looks like a preemptive political cover game - the commission floats the idea to see how much public animosity there is toward the idea, and the administration gets to come out hard against it.  They look tough, and like they're on the side of the people.  However, I wouldn't be surprised if this idea came up again a bit further down the road, and Obama will have a different reaction to it then.  He'll talk like it's something he really didn't want to do (and he'll point to this first rejection as proof), but since things are so dire, well, he has no other choice.  Then he'll call on Americans to share the load, sacrifice for the common good, blah blah blah and raise the gas tax.

When that happens, I wonder if anyone will have the guts to call him on his $250,000 promise.  I can't imagine any reporter would, outside of perhaps Jake Tapper, but even he only gets so many chances to ask questions.  I suppose it's a moot point anyway, since Obama has already broken the $250,000-no-tax-increase promise; what's one more incident going to matter in what has become a chronic pattern?

But, you have been warned.

There's my two cents.

New Israel Policy?

Victor Davis Hanson connects some dots and questions whether we're seeing a radically new policy toward Israel:

The rumored appointment of veteran diplomat Charles Freeman, Jr. to head the National Intelligence Council, the announcement that the U.S. taxpayer will give $900 million to Hamas to rebuild Gaza, the return of Samantha ("monster") Power to the Obama inner circle, the quite revealing interview that President Obama gave to al-Arabiya, the loud Kerry statements from and about Syria, and the willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions, I think, suggest the outlines of a new reappraisal of the American-Israeli relationship.

I would sum it up as a growing administration belief that solid U.S. support for Israel is probably the reason for radical Islamic anti-American terrorism; and, secondly, the Palestinian issue can be best resolved with the return of Israel to the 1967 borders. Apparently, this thought stems from the assumption that there has been a radical reappraisal about Israel on the part of the Arab nations, and Islamic world at large, who in toto have now accepted Israel's right to exist. Therefore, with the casus belli removed, in the future we should expect no more wars — like 1948, 1956, and 1967, when Israel did not hold the Golan Heights or the West Bank. Accordingly, the withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza were positive first-steps and left stability in their wake.

Hanson's point, of course, is that none of this is correct.  Arab and Islamic nations still fervently believe that Israel has no right to exist, and stability around Israel is a myth that will be perpetuated until Israel is either eradicated or completely victorious.

Still, I think Hanson is right - there are a barrel of indicators that undermine the foundations of the tight relationship between the U.S. and Israel, not the least of which are Obama's pledges of cooperation with Israel's mortal enemies like Iran and Hamas.  Don't be surprised if Obama leaves Israel hanging the next time they need us.

If you have any doubt, read this:

Jewish leaders are stunned that Hillary is hammering Israel over Gaza.
WCBSTV reported:

In a swift about face from her views as New York's senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now hammering Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

"I am very surprised, frankly, at this statement from the United States government and from the secretary of state," said Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and member of the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council.

"I liked her a lot more as a senator from New York," Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, said. "Now, I wonder as I used to wonder who the real Hillary Clinton is."

The most obvious explanation is also the one that makes the most sense: Hillary's sudden policy change is the result of working for Barack Obama.  Now, let's be honest...do we really think Obama is going to go out on a limb for Israel anytime soon?

There's my two cents.

From the office of John Boehner:

Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) today condemned a provision tucked into Congressional Democrats’ $410 billion “omnibus” spending bill that would phase out the District of Columbia’s groundbreaking school choice program, which has provided educational opportunities for thousands of inner-city children since it was established with bipartisan support in 2004. Boehner issued the following statement:

“The D.C. school choice program has provided hope for thousands of low-income children in the District of Columbia since it was established, and has been demonstrating results when it comes to parental satisfaction and increased parental involvement. Eliminating this program would represent an irresponsible and shameful act on the part of the Democratic leadership in Congress, and the children of the District of Columbia deserve better.

“The American people, whose hard-earned money is being spent without the transparency and accountability they were promised by the Democratic majority, also deserve better. Nearly three weeks ago, Republicans asked the Democratic leadership to put this bill online so the American people would have adequate time to review it. They declined to do so, and now we know why. What other unpleasant surprises have Democratic congressional leaders tucked into the text of this massive legislation on behalf of their special-interest political allies?”

NOTE: Last December, Boehner joined other GOP colleagues in sending a letter to Democratic leaders on the House and Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to support the program, as passed by the House of Representatives last year. The Heritage Foundation last week released an analysis providing facts about the D.C. school choice program. Boehner, a key supporter of the program, chaired the House Committee on Education & the Workforce at the time the program was established.

School choice is one of those concepts that has always puzzled me. When you boil it down, here's what it means: parents choose which school their kids will attend. The money spent on education would be attached to the student rather than the school, like a college scholarship from an independent foundation. For example, this would allow inner-city parents to send their kids to suburban schools that are safer and provide better education, and the $15,000 per year (or whatever the number is) that would have been spent on that student in the failing inner-city school would be spent on transporting the kid to the suburban school, as well as providing the suburban school with that funding. How is this a bad thing?

Nevertheless, it is almost always those very same inner-city folks who oppose school choice or school voucher programs. The question is: why?

In reality, it's an issue that has little to do with education and everything to do with politics. You see, when you give the parents control over the money spent for their own kids' education, the vast majority will do so wisely in such a way that their kids get the best education possible. That means schools will have to compete to attract students, and that means the union-infested public education system suddenly loses all control. In short, it's the injection of free markets into a socialistic system of central monopolized control. Schools with a good track record and high graduation rates will flourish, and schools with ineffective teachers and bloated administration will close. While that's bad for the lazy and ineffective teachers and schools, it's a tremendous benefit for students. If you follow the link above to the Heritage analysis, you'll see that the Washington, DC program has seen great success and approval from students, parents, and schools alike.

Unfortunately, most unions are composed of the lower educated, less wealthy, and minorities, who are the very same people who have the most to gain from school choice or school voucher programs. But, the unions are in lockstep against almost every effort to enact school choice or school vouchers, and that's the sad irony of the situation.

Just listen to what the kids think:

One final thought on this. Obama recently moved to Washington, DC and put his girls in school. Did they use the public school system? Was it good enough for the First Family? No. The First Daughters are going to a private school that costs almost $30,000 a year.

Actions speak louder than words, don't you think?

There's my two cents.

Obama: The Depression President

More staggering economic visuals from Gateway Pundit:

Is Obama the "Depression President?"

The markets continue to predict the outcome of Barack Obama's failed economic policies of massive spending and record deficits.

Things don't look so good right about now.
Team Obama projects a record $1.75 trillion budget deficit this year:

CBO chart via RedState

These numbers were released today by the Obama Administration:

The Obama plan assumes that massive government spending and record deficits are going to jump start the economy.
The Wall Street Journal breaks it down:

After contracting at a 1.2% rate in 2009, a more modest drop than the Congressional Budget Office and Blue Chip Consensus forecasts assume, the White House sees growth domestic product growth snapping back by 3.2% next year and then 4% or higher the three years after that.

The last time the economy preformed that well was the New Economy heyday of the late 1990s.

The White House is putting all of their money, and yours, on the assumption that the elevated deficits will be beneficial to the economy.
So far the markets aren't buying it.

This is the kind of wildly inaccurate calculation that Democrats rely on when they say that there was a huge surplus after Clinton left office.  It just ain't true, if you care to look at reality, and this shows you why.

The bottom line is this: Obama is killing the American economy.

Hope-n-change?  We'll be hoping for change soon...if you aren't already.

There's my two cents.

Biden: Wrong On Jobs

Earlier this week, VP Joe "Gaffe Machine" Biden mocked Bobby Jindal's speech by saying Louisiana was losing 400 jobs a month. Of course, there's just one teeeeeny tiny little problem: he's wrong. Watch the whole thing:

Well, hey, Biden can't even spell 'jobs', so he can't really be expected to be able to remember actual statistics, can he?

There's my two cents.

Sources:
http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=9906943
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/26/video-biden-falsely-claims-jindals-state-is-losing-400-jobs-a-day/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWsKn7AGFM0

PAYGO Flippage

The Wall Street Journal wrote this about the Democrats' Pay As You Go (aka PAYGo) style of government back in December of 2007:

"Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay-as-you-go budget discipline."--Speaker Nancy Pelosi, December 12, 2006

Well, as Emily Litella, the half-witted Gilda Radner character on Saturday Night Live, would have put it: "Never mind." Last week Congressional Democrats formally renounced their ballyhooed budget pledge to offset any new tax cuts with other tax increases or spending cuts. We're delighted to see this false promise go, but there's a larger lesson in this failure for the tax and spending battles of 2008.

Senate Democrats gave up on "paygo," as it's called, when they realized they lacked the votes to offset the $50.6 billion cost of protecting more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from getting whacked by the Alternative Minimum Tax this year. They've spent the year floating all kinds of tax increases to make up the difference. But in the end they passed an AMT relief bill without a penny to pay for it. Paygo is now pay gone.

We should stress that this is the right decision for the economy and the federal budget. The AMT was never supposed to hit the middle class, and it only does so now because the Democrats who designed it failed to index it for inflation and raised AMT rates under Bill Clinton in 1993. With the economy in a slowdown, the last thing anyone needs now is a tax hike. The budget deficit is a little above 1% of GDP, which is below the 25-year average, and should remain so as long as the economy keeps growing.

But paygo shouldn't be allowed to expire without everyone kicking sand on its grave. That's because it has been nothing but a confidence game from the very start. Paygo doesn't apply to domestic discretionary spending, and it doesn't restrain spending increases under current law in entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. Its main goals are to make tax cutting all but impossible, while letting Democrats pretend to favor "fiscal discipline," a la Ms. Pelosi's boast above.

In fact, the paygo farce has been unfolding all year. Since the day they took the gavel, Democrats have been using gimmick after gimmick to evade it. The Schip bill for health care, for example, includes a spending "cliff" that disguises its actual cost. It assumes spending would rise to $14 billion in 2012, but then pretends the costs would fall to less than half that level in 2013--which just so happens to fall outside the five-year budget scoring window. Some $60 billion in spending over the next 10 years were hidden through this ploy.

Then there is the House farm bill awaiting action in the Senate. That spending marathon includes between $5 billion and $10 billion in fictitious paygo savings by shifting the date of farm aid payments from one year to another. If a Fortune 500 CEO did that sort of thing, he'd be indicted.

House Democrats realize how humiliating this all is, so they're still vowing to make paygo work. Especially embarrassed are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats for whom "fiscal discipline" is a coat of political protection. John Tanner of Tennessee is so upset he says the Senate paygo abdication "is bordering on criminal," and about 30 Blue Dogs are threatening to vote against AMT repeal without offsetting tax increases. They'd have more credibility if they also opposed the various fiscal gimmicks in the Schip and farm bills, not to mention the 2008 Congressional budget outline that exceeded President Bush's budget request by $22 billion.

In any case, they'll have to reckon with New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, who helped doom paygo in the Senate. Mr. Schumer runs the Senate Democratic campaign committee, and he's raised boatloads of cash from hedge funds and private equity while winking that he can block the House's tax increase on their "carried interest." Let's see: Paygo, or more cash to elect more Democrats. Which do you think wins?

The larger relevance of this episode concerns the 2008 campaign. Hillary Clinton in particular has made paygo a major campaign theme because it makes her sound like a fiscal conservative while helping to justify tax increases. But, lo, guess who was missing on Thursday when the Senate voted 88-5 to ignore paygo on the AMT? None other than the candidate herself, along with Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. To quote another Saturday Night Live character, "How convenient."

Mr. Bush, and especially the GOP Presidential candidates, should be using this paygo collapse to explain to Americans what a charade this Democratic line is. The 2003 tax cuts expire in 2010, and paygo will make them all but impossible to extend. Now's the time to bury paygo for good.

In short, the Democrats admitted that their entire tax scheme was wrong. Of course, now that the Obamessiah is in charge, he's up to his usual tricks of ignoring the failed policies of the past:

President Barack Obama on Monday pledged to cut in half the nation's deficit by having federal agencies review every item on their budgets, ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and re-instating the pay-as-you-go approach of the Clinton administration.

This will be just another time around the block where they talk a nice game and fail to follow through. And, we've seen firsthand in the past two weeks that the Democrats have absolutely no intention of paying anything as they go along...except for maybe themselves and their constituent lobbyist groups, that is.

There's my two cents.

Hope-n-Change Hypocrisy: Calm Or Crisis

Just further evidence that Obama's hideous management of the American economy is deliberate and destructive.

Can we even survive another 3.9 years with Obama at the helm? Unfortunately, it's a question that probably requires some consideration at this point.

There's my two cents.

Technical Difficulties

Time Warner Cable currently has a suckage reading off the meter - I'm currently getting a connection error on about 99% of the websites I try to visit.  I called in, and they had this wonderful message telling me to go away because they're already working on it.

Blogging will resume normally as soon as my Internet access recovers.

Obama About To Vote Present Again?

David Freddoso reports:

On Monday, Karl Rove was a no-show at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee at which he had been subpoenaed to testify. The committee had issued a subpoena for Rove to testify on the U.S. Attorney firings. He has cited the Bush administration's claim of executive privilege as his reason for not testifying.

 

If you haven't been following this affair over the last few weeks (or if you were out of the country, as I was), here is a brief look at what has happened. Obama must make up his mind in the next week whether to back the claim of executive privilege that is keeping Rove and two other former White House officials (Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten) from testifying. The D.C. Circuit Court has given the Obama administration until March 4 to weigh in.

 

As Obama's counsel, Greg Craig put it two weeks ago, Obama is "sympathetic" to those wishing to grill Rove, but also "mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So, for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle."

 

This is a clever way of masking what amounts to a serious dilemma for an opportunistic politician. If Obama backs the claim of privilege, he risks serious outrage and disappointment on the Left. If he does not, he cedes a significant amount of power, and his own decisions over the next four (or eight) years could be similarly dissected someday by his political enemies.

 

Obama has never been known for making tough decisions on principle. (A possible exception was his October 2002 speech against the Iraq War, which his biographer David Mendell nonetheless attributes, in part, to Obama's already-planned 2004 Senate run.) Obama is hoping for Conyers and the former Bush advisors to reach a deal before he has to make this one.

I'm not overly concerned about the particular issue at stake here.  I'm posting this to illustrate yet another dangerous thing that we tried to warn (here, here, here) about Obama long before the election: his tendency to vote present.  While it's one thing to vote 'present' on an internal power struggle over the previous administration, Obama has also voted 'present' on major world conflicts.  That's what concerns me.  What happens if Iran nukes Israel?  What if Russia invades Ukraine?  Will Obama vote present on all of these things?  Will he lead, or will he follow whichever way the wind blows?

Not exactly a reassuring track record, is it?

There's my two cents.

Obama Vs. American Businesses

Wow, this is bad news:

Tuesday night, the president said that he would "finally" get rid of "tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas." Dan Griswold recently wrote about this topic.

Politicians are not usually specific about exactly what "tax breaks" they want to repeal. The biggest tax exemption for U.S. companies that invest abroad is the deferral of tax payments for "active" income. U.S. corporations are generally liable for tax on their worldwide income, whether it is earned in the United States or abroad. But the relatively high U.S. corporate tax rate is not applied to income earned abroad that is reinvested abroad in productive operations. U.S. multinationals are taxed on foreign income only when they repatriate the earnings to the United States. Not surprisingly, the deferral of active income gives U.S. companies a powerful incentive to reinvest abroad what they earn abroad, but this is hardly an incentive to "ship jobs overseas."

Such deferral may sound like an unjustified tax break to some, but every major industrial country offers at least as favorable treatment of foreign income to their multinational corporations. Indeed, numerous major countries exempt their companies from paying any tax on their foreign business operations. Foreign governments seem to more readily grasp the fact that when corporations have healthy and expanding foreign operations it is good for the parent company and its workers back home.

If President Obama and other leaders in Washington want to encourage more investment in the United States, they should lower the U.S. corporate tax rate, not seek to extend the high U.S. rate to the overseas activities of U.S. companies. Extending high U.S. tax rates to U.S.-owned affiliates abroad would put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage as they try to compete to sell their goods and services abroad. Their French and German competitors in third-country markets would continue to pay the lower corporate tax rates applied by the host country, while U.S. companies would be burdened with paying the higher U.S. rate. The result of repealing tax breaks on foreign earnings would be less investment in foreign markets, lost sales, lower profits, and fewer employment and export opportunities for parent companies back on American soil.

Not only is Barack the Obamessiah targeting American businesses here at home via the tax increases on millions of small businesses making more than $250,000, but he could very well be targeting American businesses overseas, too.

We'll have to wait and see what he does on this, but if this "tax break" gets revoked, it can't get much more clear that Obama is deliberately trying to ruin American businesses.  If it suddenly becomes more expensive to operate both here and abroad, we won't just see outsourcing of workers, we'll see outsourcing of entire companies and industries!

How many more dots do we need to connect before the case that Obama is trying to kill the American economy becomes ironclad, even for Kool-Aid drinkers?

There's my two cents.

Earmarks? What Earmarks?

Mary Katharine Ham posts this at the Weekly Standard:

Contradicting Obama's language on the trail and his press secretary's comments in the briefing room, there's a $7.7 million earmark in the $410 billion spending bill with Barry's name on it:

President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a $7.7 million set-aside in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill (HR 1105) passed by the House on Wednesday.

The bill is an accumulation of leftovers from 2008 — spending measures that weren't enacted before the 110th Congress expired. Lawmakers who wanted money for local projects in those bills were required to submit their requests many months ago, while Obama was still a senator. It's moving through Congress now because a temporary extension of funds to run the government will run out after March 6.

Obama's name jumps out on a list of many earmark cosponsors because he and his staff have been so emphatic about his no-earmark stance.

"I think you can take one sign of the president's seriousness on this that there aren't any from him that I know of in that omnibus largely because there weren't any that were requested last year," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.

He's not the only one:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. , who was a senator from Delaware when the window for making 2009 pet project requests was open, has his name is attached to $94.9 million in earmarks.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , who was a senator at the time, sponsored or cosponsored even more in special line items for favored projects. His total, including earmarks he supported as a secondary sponsor, was $227.4 million. The overwhelming majority of those earmarks were cosponsored in conjunction with other lawmakers.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood , Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also were members of the last Congress, and each of their names is associated with at least one earmark in this appropriation, which is ready for debate in the Senate.

That ethics bar keeps looking higher and higher every day.

Amen to that!  All I have to add is...




There's my two cents.

Top Immigration Law Enforcer Shocked That Immigration Law Is Enforced

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this:

Oh, the open-borders crowd's heads are exploding.

Under President Obama and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's watch, federal immigration agents had the nerve to — gasp! — enforce immigration laws.

How could this happen? Quick, launch an investigation! This must not be allowed to stand!

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered a review of a raid at an engine plant in Washington State that resulted in the arrests of 28 people suspected of being illegal immigrants.

A high-level official in the Department of Homeland Security said that Ms. Napolitano had not been informed about the raid on Tuesday before it happened, and that she was seeking details about its planning and scope.

"She was not happy about it because it's inconsistent with her position, and the president's position on these matters," said the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the secretary had not authorized the conversation.

You can be sure the taxpayer-funded National Council of Raza will use all the earmark money it will be receiving to lobby aggressively for comprehensive shamnesty:

The National Council of La Raza urged supporters to call the White House and demand Mr. Obama lay out his immigration policy, while the National Immigration Forum said the raid was an unwelcome continuation of Bush administration policies.

"What are Latino and immigrant voters to think? They turn out in massive numbers and vote for change and yet 'change we can believe in' turns out to be 'business as usual,' " said Ali Noorani, executive director of the forum.

He called for a halt to the raids while Homeland Security conducts its review of immigration policies.

As for the poor, innocent workers nabbed in the raid, guess what? The raid was the result of a gang investigation:

"Information derived from two gang members previously arrested in an ICE gang operation led to the initiation of the work-site investigation at Yamato Engine Specialists," said press secretary Kelly Nantel. "Follow-up investigation uncovered a potentially large number of illegally employed workers. ICE conducted the operation in order to identify and if appropriate, apprehend any unauthorized workers and to further determine potential criminal activity."

Homeland Security officials worried about gang and criminal activity?

This must not stand!

Um...seriously?  The Department of Homeland Security Secretary finds that enforcement of current American law is 'not consistent' with her position and the President's position?

I'm struggling to find any additional words here, although the obligatory reference to hope-n-change may be in order:

HOPE (for illegal aliens, gang members, and criminals)!  CHANGE (no more of that law-abiding crap)!

There's my two cents.

Obama's Tax Increases On 'The Rich' Actually Means You

Obama campaigned using a distinctly conservative plank on his otherwise liberal platform: tax cuts for 95% of Americans.  He's smart enough to know that's what people want.  He's also liberal enough that he'll never do it.  We discussed that repeatedly during the campaign, but I think it's worth reviewing now that he's working to actually implement his tax increases on 'the rich'.  If you need some background, here are a few links you might want to check out first.

Who Pays Taxes (And How Much)?
Obama's Tax 'Cut' Explained
Obama's Four Tax Increases For People Earning Under $250,000
Small Business Not Safe From Obama Tax
Obama's Tax Plan and Small Business

So, the links above have firmly established the fact that Obama's taxes will hammer just about everyone at some point, regardless of their income.  The top earners, however, will bear the biggest brunt of Obama's proposed tax increases, which common sense then indicates will have a ripple down effect that is going to be amplified for those in the lower income brackets.

Aside from that common sense analysis, however, Obama's argument doesn't even hold up to the flimsiest scrutiny on its own.  Now that Obama is moving forward with his plans to increase taxes on 'the rich', there are ample figures to prove that the middle class are not only going to lose out on his promise of a tax 'cut', but will also share the burden of his tax increases on 'the rich'.  This general idea has been debunked before on this blog, but the Wall Street Journal has a new article that does a terrific job of laying it out in real numbers.  Read the whole thing:

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

Fast forward to this year (and 2010) when the Wall Street meltdown and recession are going to mean far few taxpayers earning more than $500,000. Profits are plunging, businesses are cutting or eliminating dividends, hedge funds are rolling up, and, most of all, capital nationwide is on strike. Raising taxes now will thus yield far less revenue than it would have in 2006.

Mr. Obama is of course counting on an economic recovery. And he's also assuming along with the new liberal economic consensus that taxes don't matter to growth or job creation. The truth, though, is that they do. Small- and medium-sized businesses are the nation's primary employers, and lower individual tax rates have induced thousands of them to shift from filing under the corporate tax system to the individual system, often as limited liability companies or Subchapter S corporations. The Tax Foundation calculates that merely restoring the higher, Clinton-era tax rates on the top two brackets would hit 45% to 55% of small-business income, depending on how inclusively "small business" is defined. These owners will find a way to declare less taxable income.

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

On that point, by the way, it's unclear why Mr. Obama thinks his climate-change scheme won't hit all Americans with higher taxes. Selling the right to emit greenhouse gases amounts to a steep new tax on most types of energy and, therefore, on all Americans who use energy. There's a reason that Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means panel, which writes tax law, is holding hearings this week on cap-and-trade regulation.

Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.

So, as you can see, even if 'the rich' get hammered, the money raised will be far short of what Obama needs to cover his government expansions.  So where will he turn to come up with the rest?  If he sucks the wealth out of 'the rich', and the poor already escape taxation altogether, that leaves...[drum roll please]...the middle class.

You're next.  You have been warned - spread the word far and wide.

Now let's get practical.  I'm not sure what can be done to stop this, so the next best thing is to properly frame his actions to prepare for a comeback in 2010.  I think a lot of people voted for Obama (or at least didn't oppose him) because they heard only the soundbites of him pledging to cut taxes rather than looking at his actual policies.  But, once their checks start shriveling up, they'll suddenly take notice and get pissed about it.

We need to be prepared for that day, and that effort starts now.  Tell people that Obama's tax increases on 'the rich' are just a facade, and that his tax increases will really reach deep down into the middle class.  People won't believe you, or they may ignore you, but that's okay.  You're setting up the knockout punch that will be delivered by their own W2.

If the facts have been properly gathered, widely distributed, and effectively communicated, 2010 may be a GOP landslide.

There's my two cents.