High Taxes Mean the Death of the American Dream

July 2010 saw the slowest pace of new home sales since 1963. In the same month, Congress extended unemployment benefits for a fourth time, adding another $34 billion to the deficit to help out 2.5 non-working Americans.

The Associated Press says, “High unemployment, slow job growth, and tight credit have kept people from buying homes.” In other words, a bad economy is scaring people away from purchasing new homes.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s wrong with our economy. It just takes a conservative.

When Mr. Obama went to Washington, he promised a lot of people a lot of things. He was going to pay their mortgages! He was going to pay their gas bills! He might as well have promised everyone a unicorn ride over a double rainbow and fat-free ice cream that actually tastes good.

The government doesn’t work that way. The government can’t take care of you; only other people can take care of you. The 99 weeks of unemployment Joe Schmoe is entitled to? Someone is paying that. Someone is paying for him to not work, instead of using that money to hire someone who will work.

Since the employer is busy paying someone to not work instead of paying someone to work, no goods or services are produced or rendered. No goods or services, no sales. No sales, no money. The employer goes out of business, and the few employees that were left working there are now out of work. But don’t worry about them; they’ll get unemployment checks from the government. To pay for them, Uncle Sam is going to raise taxes on the companies left standing. And then … those companies might have to downsize to cover the costs on the new taxes. It’s a vicious cycle.

New home sales are down because people are afraid to make such large purchases in times of economic uncertainty. We’re living in economic uncertainty because no one knows what new mandate or regulation is going to pass into law next. The tax burden of these entitlement laws falls on employers, who pass it along to their employees and consumers in the form of layoffs and higher prices.

Free health care? Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits?

Sure. At the expense of the American Dream: A decent job and a beautiful new home.

Cross Posted at The Stir

The Problem with Socialism

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” — Margaret Thatcher

Not a day has gone by in the past two years that I have not heard, spoken, or at least thought these words. I have been frustrated over and over again by well-meaning friends that believe that the government should take care of us from the moment we enter the world until the moment we leave it.

The government should pay for our mother’s prenatal health care, our childhood vaccinations, our educations, our food and housing, medical care when we need it, and our retirements.

It’s the right thing to do. Everyone deserves a good life, and it’s just so unfair that some people are born as Paris Hilton while others are born in slums. (Although it’s probably a toss-up as to which of those two fates is worse than the other.)

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Stimulating America

I got this in an email forward. No idea where it came from or who wrote it, but it wasn’t me. I wish I could take credit, but I’m not really clever enough to figure out how best to spend my money to stimulate the American economy. Most of my money goes to pay taxes so that I can pay for other people’s retirements, education, and health care. I’m not really sure why that’s fair, but somehow believing that I’m entitled to keep my money makes me a racist. I guess some things are just mysteries…

Sometime this year,  we taxpayers will again receive another ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment.

This is indeed a very exciting program, and I’ll explain it by using a Q&A format:

Q.  What is an ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment?
A.  It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q.  Where will the government get this money?
A.  From taxpayers.

Q.  So the government is giving me back my own money?
A.  Only a smidgen of it.

Q.  What is the purpose of this payment?
A.  The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set,  thus stimulating the economy.

Q.  But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A.  Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. Economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

*  If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart,  the money will
Go to China or Sri Lanka …

*  If you spend it on gasoline,  your money will go to the Arabs.

*  If you purchase a computer,  it will go to India, Taiwan or China.

*  If you purchase fruit and vegetables,  it will go to Mexico,
Honduras and Guatemala ..

*  If you buy an efficient car,  it will go to Japan or Korea.

*  If you purchase useless stuff,  it will go to Taiwan.

*  If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go tomanagement bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:

1)  Spending it at yard sales,  or

2)  Going to ball games,  or

3)  Spending it on prostitutes,  or

4)  Beer, or

5) Tattoos.

(These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.)

Conclusion:
Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard saleand drink beer all day!

No need to thank me,  I’m just glad I could be of  help.

Joe Biden Redefines “Fair”

From Yahoo Finance:

Vice President Joe Biden wants all Americans to know about the roughly $300 billion in tax breaks that were part of the Recovery Act passed last year.

There’s also the issue of whether these tax cuts, in conjunction with the health care reform bill signed last week, represent a redistribution of wealth in America, as many claim.

“It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care,” Biden says. “If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’ – well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair – giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.”(Emphasis mine)

Hey Joe, I think everyone’s entitled to a representative government. You don’t mind if we drastically slash your pay, do you? While we’re at it, I think everyone is entitled to organic meats and produce to feed their families. I would love to buy only organic, but the price is so high that I simply can’t do it. I demand a government subsidy. And why am I still getting a water bill each month? Isn’t water a necessity? Of all the things you can’t live without, I’d put water second on the list, right after air. It’s so unfair that I have to pay for water, when it should be a basic human right.

Are you getting the picture, Joe, or should I go on? Or did I just provide you with a whole new list of government programs? That’s a scary thought.

The fact is that people have rights so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of another person. To say that one person has the right to a service provided by someone else is not fair, it’s insane.

The Smart Girl Report – Episode 0023

Jason Mattera discusses his new book Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.

Tom Reed talks about his run for Congress in New York’s 29th district — the seat previously held by Eric Massa.

Tax Day Tea Party

Guess who’s speaking at a tea party this April 15th?

If you’re in Orange County, come celebrate America with us, and get fired up to keep fighting against the transformation of the greatest country on the planet.

How’s That *Free* Health Care Workin’ Out?

From Business Week:

March 26 (Bloomberg) — AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama, the most of any U.S. company so far.

A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, and the company will consider changes to the benefits it offers current and retired workers, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.

Do liberals thinks that businessmen have huge vaults of gold that they swim around in like Scrooge McDuck?  That any and all profit they make gets locked away just so that greedy executives can have the pleasure of staring at it, smelling it, touching it?

Um, no. You see, people like to be successful.  They like to make their businesses bigger and better. You know, creating those… uh… what were they called again?  Oh yeah. Jobs. Didn’t people used to like having those things? I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore, since the government is now going to take care of all of our problems.

Do you know what happens when businesses get heavily taxed, yet don’t see any benefits? They have to make up that cost somewhere. Either with layoffs or by raising the price of their products or services. Or both.

But hey, at least we have free health care now.

At least until the doctors are too taxed to work.

Out of Control Spending & Crippling Taxes

Remember this chart?  It was from the 2008 Presidential campaign.  I can’t tell you how many Obama supporters calmly and patiently explained to me that I would be silly to vote for McCain over Obama because I would get a bigger tax cut under Obama.  And I calmly and patiently explained to them that by taxing top earners so significantly, they’d have to cut jobs at their companies.  I also pointed out that in order to fund all of Obama’s socialist pie-in-the-sky ideas, the money would have to come from somewhere, and that I was 100% certain that we’d see that $250k bar drop.

Within a couple of weeks of the inauguration, Obama raised taxes on the poorest people in our country, those who have the highest majority of smokers in their demographic. The cost increase on a pack of nicotine sticks was the highest in US history.

But lots of people don’t see that as a *real* tax, because smokers can choose to quit and probably should for their health.

But even those tobacco-taxes-aren’t-real-taxes people should be worried now.  In an interview out today, President Obama said:

The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table… So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.

What I can’t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table…Some would say we can’t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can’t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can’t solve the problem.

The real problem has to do with the fact that there is a just a mismatch between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out. And that is going to require some big, tough choices that, so far, the political system has been unable to deal with.

I have a suggestion Mr. President.  How about we spend less money?  Why does Nancy Pelosi need $1000 per week for booze and delicacies on her private cross-country jet rides?  That’s $1000 per week for food and booze, mind you, not the cost of the travel itself. And I’m sure the turtles didn’t really need a $3,400,000 tunnel to cross the road.  What about the $800,000 for repaving a back-up runway at an unused airport?

President Obama, please don’t raise my taxes to fund those ridiculous projects.  I don’t know how much more of your “help” I can afford.

Organizing for America’s Alinsky Love Affair

Organizing for America, which can be found at www.BarackObama.com, is “the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering communities across the country to bring about our agenda of change.”

On the surface, it looks good.  What’s wrong with encouraging people, especially young people, to become more involved with the political process, to donate their time and talent to serve the community?  Nothing, of course.  Unless it’s just a tool to spread progressive propaganda like “the government knows better than you do” and “rich people are stealing from you.”  On a side note, I’ll never understand why people get upset about CEOs making millions but not Kobe Bryant.

Those crazy kooks over at OFA are busy recruiting high school students in government schools to become part of the team that will transform America.  To help spread the word that health care is a right, not a service, that fetus’s aren’t babies, and that bankrupting energy companies is a good idea.  You know, to really be a part of sumpin’ special.

Remember, this is a partisan organization to promote liberal/socialist ideals, and they’re recruiting teenagers in their high school government classes.  Not at lunch in the quad, not after school in the office, but right in the classroom.  If that isn’t unsettling enough for you, wait until you check out the recommended reading list. On it is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a book dedicated to Satan and containing such gems as:

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….”

and:

And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions…. Is this manipulation? Certainly….”

and:

“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth-truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing…. To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations….”

and:

“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.”

Unbelievable.

Another Step in the RIGHT Direction

Today the Supreme Court knocked out significant campaign finance laws, all of which had been unconstitutionally enacted in the name of “fairness.”  The 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) attempted to restrict electioneering by wealthy corporations and labor unions by barring them from using general treasury funds to pay for advertisements or other broadcasts that mention a political candidate.  Just a little bit of unconstitutional censorship, that’s all.

In a 5-4 vote, the Court lifted those restrictions.  Which means that companies will be able to run ads for candidates they like.  You know what kinds of candidates companies like?  The ones that make it easier for them to actually run their businesses, instead of trying to bankrupt them with mandated health care requirements and cap and trade.  If they can successful run a company, they can expand operations… and create jobs!  Remember, it’s better to have a job and no health care than no job and no health care.

From the White House, President Obama called the ruling a “major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

This from Mr. Closed Door himself. Obama doesn’t care about everyday Americans.  We’re all just serfs to him, here only to fund his playground of policies and bailouts.  Well we’re done Mr. President.  We’re picking up our toys, packing up our trucks, and going home to the Constitution. Don’t let the sand hit you in the teeth.