Liberal Lies: What the liberals WON'T tell you about Obama's "tax cuts" and rich taxpayers

In this edition, I analyze the notion that Democratic presidential candidate Barry Obama's tax program is anything more than a free ride with no incentives for poor people. I came across an article, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, that analyzes and essentially debunks Obama's proposed tax cuts. A term I had read in a recent article is "mathemagic." From what I've gleaned from reading and listening to various sources, is that Obama would essentially give money to people that do NOT pay taxpayers.

Note the following:

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

That's called "welfare," folks. Let the transformation into a welfare state begin. Of course this is now surprise. We've heard Obama state in the past, most notably with Joe the Plumber, that sharing the wealth is good for everybody.

It is?

How is an bottomless cup of handouts for lazy, unmotivated poor people good for everybody? It doesn't make said poor people any richer, instead it makes everyone else poorer. Remember that Winston Churchill once said, "The vice of capitalism is that there is an unequal share of the blessings; the virtue of socialism is that there is an equal share of the misery."

Obama has also stated that 95% of the population will receive a tax break. Technically, that's impossible since a significant chunk of this country do not pay taxes. How he can reward those that do not pay taxes is through this concept of wealth redistribution. The "tax breaks" for those that do not pay taxes will come in the form of various refunds.

Regarding the notion that "rich" people do NOT share the overall tax burden, Dick Morris states the following:

In fact, the rich are paying vastly more in taxes than they ever have. "Reality Check," by Dennis Keegan and David West, points out that the percentage of income-tax revenues paid by the top percent of the population has almost doubled in the last 20 years; it now pays 40 percent of all income tax. (The bottom half in income pays less than 3 percent.) Despite the lower rates, the rich are paying more in taxes because they are earning more and more. In the last eight years, real, after-inflation income growth for the top 10 percent of the population has been more than 45 percent.

It's easy political fodder for the Left to blame President Bush and the upper class for the mortgage crisis and the supposed disastrous policies from the former. But what happens when you start taxing the upper class, and all forms of business owners?

These disastrous economic policies lie not in the Bush tax cuts, but instead with the increases in spending and the subsequent expansion of the federal deficit. It's almost an economic given that if taxes are lowered, revenues increase. Note the following:

Let's step back from the politics and ask one simple question: Does the idea of supply-side economics make fundamental good sense or not?

I say that it does. It's so simple: Tax rates that are too high can be self-defeating, and so lowering them can increase total revenues. Bartlett told me that this idea can be traced all the way back to Jonathan Swift, who wrote in 1728 that "in the business of heavy impositions, two and two never make more than one." He noted that economists and philosophers from Smith, Montesquieu, Say, and Mill, to von Mises and Keynes, wrote about the basic principle.

In the modern era, of course, no economist is more closely associated with supply-side economics than Arthur Laffer. He embodied the idea as the famous Laffer Curve, which illustrates that government will earn no revenues at all if tax rates are either zero or 100%. Somewhere in between is a tax rate at which government revenue is maximized. So when rates are too high — too near 100% — revenues can be increased by cutting taxes.

According to the TaxProf blog, hundreds of economists have signed an letter opposing Obama's tax to plan:

We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.

After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

Again, what Obama and his minions in the Democratic Party have done, enabled by their partners in crime in the corrupt media is simply lie to the public, whether it's about the economy, global warming, or big oil.

Barry Obama: Silencing Dissent regarding his ties to the Weather Underground

First of all, thank you Michelle Malkin, arguably the BEST conservative blogger on the web, for posting this story:

"I cannot stress how outrageous the Obama campaign’s attempt to silence the creators of the Ayers ad is. Mr. Hope and Change is applying Chicago-style mafia tactics to intimidate those who want to alert the nation to Obama’s troubling ties to, and longtime relationship with, the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Obama’s lawyers and minions are playing hardball with TV stations that have dared to air the ad. They have the gall to champion campaign finance integrity — even as Obama has just admitted hiding payments to his Chicago cronies at ACORN. The Obama campaign can’t cite anything false or defamatory about the ad because it is accurate and truthful. This intimidation campaign is of a piece with the left-wing MoveOn effort to bully GOP donors. Remember?"

The American Issues Project, in response, ran a television ad outlining Obama's relationship with Ayers. In response, "The Barack Obama campaign has resorted to a campaign of intimidation and legal threats to convince television stations and the federal government to force off the air an ad by the American Issues Project detailing the link between Sen. Obama and remorseless domestic terrorist William Ayers."

"The Obama campaign has been contacting stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot. The Obama campaign also sent a letter yesterday to the Department of Justice asking the government to investigate American Issues Project, its officers, board of directors, and donors. With no success on either front, the campaign has begun running its own ad in response. Notably, this ad fails to dispute a single fact in the American Issues Project’s initial ad."

For those of you that do not remember, Democratic presidential Barry Hussein Obama, the self-proclaimed unifier and Washington outsider, has a bit of a sordid past that he and his enablers in the Mainstream Media have been trying to sweep under the rug. In this case, it's his cavorting with domestic terrorist William Ayers.

So essentially, through HR Bill 1592, an attempted reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine, efforts by the San Francisco city government to rifle through your trash, among others, it's the damn liberals and their goddamn Democratic benefactors that are suppressing your civil rights and freedom of speech.

Once again, thank you Mainstream Media for failing to shed light on your chosen one's questionable political ties, religious relationships, and verbal gaffes. Instead, for the past eight years, you've exposed a clandestine Bush program that kept us safe from terrorists, run ads calling General Petraeus, "General Betray Us," and refused to run stories chronicling the successes in the Iraq War.

Australia's "The Age:" Iraq War was a failure

According to Australian "The Age," "Iraq is an example of a profound failure of US policy. Afghanistan must not fall victim to a similar failure by either of the rivals for the White House."

It was?

Our invasion to remove a psychotic murderous despot who violated 16 U.N. sanctions was a failure?

The fact that we established a DEMOCRACY in a hotbed of theocratic, human-right violating, totalitarian countries was a failure?

How was it failure? Because we couldn't convince feckless European countries with close ties to Saddam to assist in the military option?

Some points:

"Senator Obama, who opposed the war from the outset, says he will withdraw America's combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010. "We made a strategic error," he says of the invasion."

First, Obama was not a Illinois senator during 2002, which precluded him from taking a stance on the Iraq War. More than likely he, like his Democratic brethren who authorized military action in 2002, he would have voted FOR said military action. Second, undoubtedly the Bush Administration made strategic errors AFTER we topped Saddam's Baathist regime; but let their be no doubt that the invasion and the way our military prosecuted the war was NOT a strategic error. One could almost grant the opposition that it would have been better to leave Saddam as a counterweight to the growing Iranian hegemony, but a moot point exists.

Second, we in the United States hear too often from foreign countries that we have not ingratiated ourselves around the world. For that matter, we have tarnished our image by "occupying" a Muslim country, say some.

Of course, those dissenters forget that according to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), "the United States remains the largest donor of "official development assistance" at $23.53 billion in 2006."

Those same naysayers also forget the the billions of dollars in foreign aid we give during global catastrophes; for example, we gave over two billion dollars in foreign aid, the most of any country, in response to the 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc.

Or the critics disregard the fact that we deposed of a violent thug in Saddam Hussein, a man who used chemical gas on Kurdish dissidents in Halabja (just one event in a campaign where Saddam called for the extermination of the entire Kurdish population; he ultimately butchered 182,000 people), killed 148 Shiite militants in 1982, murdered 8,000 members of Masoud Barzani's clan (leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, reduced the population of the Shiite Marsh Arabs from 250,000 to 30,000 through starvation and forced migration, and ultimately murdered approximately 500,000 Shiites in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Furthermore, according to About.Com: Civil Liberties:

"Although most of Hussein's large-scale atrocities took place during the 1980s and early 1990s, his tenure was also characterized by day-to-day atrocities that attracted less notice. Wartime rhetoric regarding Hussein's "rape rooms," death by torture, decisions to slaughter the children of political enemies, and the casual machine-gunning of peaceful protesters accurately reflected the day-to-day policies of Saddam Hussein's regime. Hussein was no misunderstood despotic "madman." He was a monster, a butcher, a brutal tyrant, a genocidal racist--he was all of this, and more."

So where's the love? Why is the United States vilified? It is because the appeasers in ineffective Europe and other supporters of Saddam's murderous regime did not want the thug deposed? Is it because they did business with the man, despite numerous United Nations sanctions? Or could it be they despised the United States for finally growing a set and usurping the murderous tyrant?

Rage Against the Machine: Bush should be tried for war crimes

It pains me to say; it pains me deeply, but I need to vehemently disagree with the rhetoric of one of my favorite bands. According to Jason Gregory of Gigwise,

"Rage Against The Machine frontman Zack De La Rocha has called the US president George W Bush to be tried as a war criminal.

De la Rocha's comments came during the band's headlining set at the T in the Park Festival in Scotland last weekend.

Addressing the crowd, he said: "They said we had said George Bush should be assassinated. We did not say that. We said he should be tried for being a war criminal."

As an avid guitarist and music-wannabe-aficionado, I was instantly entranced as a college freshman by the unique blend of funk, hardcore, and hip-hop that Rage Against the Machine conceived. As an 18 year old who really didn't know better, I was also attracted to the fiery brand of leftist rhymes De la Rocha articulated.

But for the last eight years, we've been bombarded with concocted rhetoric regarding the Iraq War spewed from various liberals, their Democratic enablers, and ultimately disseminated vis a vis the Mainstream Media. In liberal fantasy-land, President Bush is a pariah, while the true crimes against humanity committed by Iraq despot Saddam Hussein and his Baathist cronies are either overlooked or completely forgotten.

It's truly unbelievable.

Let's review the facts for those of you still deficient on your history of the past 18 years:

1. After the 1991 Gulf War, a CEASE FIRE was signed; for the duration of the 1990's, the United States Air Force and Navy, primarily, engaged in low-level military action against the Iraqi government, destroying fighters, radar installations, and other military targets. These attacks were not without provocation, however, as Saddam's military perpetually violated terms of the cease-fire by entering the no fly zones that existed over Iraq or building military installations in said no fly zones.

2. After the resultant 1991 cease-fire and the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led military coalition, Saddam violated sixteen United Nations violations, which called ultimately for military action against the Iraqi government.

3. Iraq flouted by using chemical weapons against the Iranians during the 1980's Iran-Iraq War.

"Iraq's chemical weapons program was mainly assisted by German companies such as Karl Kobe, which built a chemical weapons facility disguised as a pesticide plant. Iraq’s foreign contractors, including Karl Kolb with Massar for reinforcement, built five large research laboratories, an administrative building, eight large underground bunkers for the storage of chemical munitions, and the first production buildings. 150 tons of mustard were produced in 1983. About 60 tons of Tabun were produced in 1984. Pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984. Germany also supplied reactors, heat exchangers, condensers and vessels. France, Austria, Canada, and Spain provided similar equipment."

Furthermore, Iraq also used chemical weapons on its own citizens, primarily the Kurds in Halabja.

"The Halabja poison gas attack occurred in the period March 16–17, 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War. Chemical weapons (CW) were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, killing thousands of people, most of them civilians (3,200-5,000 dead on the spot and 7,000-10,000 injured^[1]). Thousands more died of horrific complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack.^[2] The incident, which Human Rights Watch (HRW) defined as an act of genocide, was as of 2008 the largest-scale chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history."

Furthermore, De la Rocha added, "'If in protest to their war you burn down the American embassy...it's up to us, generation after generation to beat the system which perpetuates war. Wake up,' he said."

So how is Bush a war criminal? Because he used British and Russian, but intelligence gathered during the Clinton Administration? Because he merely acted on claims made by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, et al. made during the 1990's? Because it was time to depose a wily but pathological dictator, who slaughtered over 500,000 of it's civilians?

Can anyone truly answer this?

Offshore drilling moratorium lifted

According to the Associated Press, President Bush, in an act of sheer brilliance, "lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president."

With that said, lifting the ban from the executive end is only one hurdle; now, Democratically-controlled Congress, in order to establish the possibility of off-shore drilling, must lift a ban as well.

It's up to the Democrats now; within days and weeks, we'll find out just who they represent. Will they heed the call of the working class Democrat, the constituent who's way of life and his/her pocketbook has been hit hard by rising energy prices? Or will Democratically-controlled Congress bow to the wishes of the environmental lobby, which has perpetuated the lie of global warming as well as the evil of fossil fuels?

Here are the FACTS, sentiment for cultivating our natural resources is growing: whether it's drilling for oil off our coasts or in Alaska, using coal as a fuel, or building more nuclear reactors. According to the Pew Research Center, a June survey indicated that 50% of the public believes we should drill in Alaska, compared to 43% who are opposed (up from 42% in a February survey). Furthermore, more people now believe that developing our energy infrastructure is more important than protecting our environment (by a staggering 60%-34% margin).

With that said, there should be a compromise. Drilling technologies have changed drastically over the years; oil companies can drill for oil without leaving a footprint.

The environmental argument is fading; in the past few years, we've seen the Democrats side with Islamic fundamentalist, the environmental lobby, and the open border crowd. How much longer will we tolerate their indefensible attacks against this country?