Socializing America

Obama must be happy about this (emphasis mine):

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.

We've been on a path of gradual socialization for a very long time, but Barack Obama has shifted this process into warp speed.  He campaigned on re-making America, his background pointed to this conclusion, and his policies have implemented socialist-style Statism at every turn.  The Dems in Congress have played along the whole way.

And it won't stop until they're thrown out of office:

President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are publicly fretting about the dangers of spending and debt, which can mean only one thing: Another big spending "stimulus" bill is in the works. And sure enough, the House plans to vote this week on $190 billion in new spending, $134 billion of which it won't even pretend to pay for.  ...

This bill is also one of the most expensive corporate welfare giveaways in recent years with subsidies for municipal bond traders, cotton farmers, yarn producers, sheep growers, Hawaiian sugar cane cooperatives, motor sports businesses, renewable energy firms, the steel lobby, and so on. Any industry that doesn't get a tax credit or other handout in this bill should fire its lobbyist.

All of this is "paid for," in the Beltway lingo, with a net tax increase on business of about $40 billion and at least $134 billion of new debt. There's a new 24 cent a barrel tax on oil companies, which would flow to consumers in higher gas prices, because Congress says the industry's profits are excessive.

I'm not sure 'paid for' should count hypothetical tax increases because it hasn't happened yet, and it has a negative effect on the economy anyway.  And since when does Congress get to determine how much a company can earn before it's considered 'excessive'?  Anyway, this new jobs bill is just more of the same.

Here's the almost inescapable conclusion:

Perhaps you're wondering what happened to the "pay as you go" budget rules that Mr. Obama announced to great media fanfare as recently as February. Democrats now say "paygo" doesn't apply because this spending qualifies as an "emergency." But while the new spending isn't paid for, Democrats are insisting that the bill's extension of the R&D tax credit and small business depreciation allowance must be offset by the tax increases.

Oh, and by the way, the President is unveiling a new line-item veto proposal this week to "rein in wasteful spending and hold Congress accountable," as Senator John Kerry put it yesterday in a press release. If any of them were remotely serious, they'd start by line-item vetoing this entire bill.

Yeah, that'll happen.

On a related note (emphasis mine):

Tuesday's primaries were more proof of the anti-incumbency mood felt in many parts of the nation, and a new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that many voters continue to feel a randomly selected sample of people from the phone book could do a better job than their elected representatives in Congress.

The latest national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that 41% say a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation's problems than the current Congress. ...

These findings show little change from early January and early September 2009. However, the number of voters who feel a random selection could do better is up eight points from early October 2008, just before the presidential election.

I find this tidbit very interesting:

Yet while 57% of Mainstream voters think a random selection from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress, 90% of the Political Class disagree.

Ignorance is bliss, Congress.  Ignorance is bliss.  Until you get thrown out on your rotten, lying, out-of-touch butts, that is.

There's my two cents.