You may not agree with his economic theory, but Paul Ryan isn't the only one suggesting that we raise rates.  A few weeks ago people lambasted him here for that idea.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/01/paul_ryan_is_an_idiot/

Well a former economist at the IMF has similar ideas. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-22/bernanke-must-raise-benchmark-2-points-in-prescient-rajan-s-latest-warning.html

Does Mrs. Obama live on another planet?  Do you think she even discussed with her husband the possibility of vacationing somewhere in the United States so it would boost the domestic economy rather than Spain's??

 

Tim Kaine's response was "She's a mom."  Well, she's also the First Lady at a time when most of the country is hurting.  I'd like to take my kids to a part of the world that they haven't been before, but we are doing a "stay-cation" this year because we can't afford it.  And at the same time the President is trying to encourage tourism in the Gulf Coast areas affected by the BP oil spill.  Talk about being out of touch.

AD thinks he so smart with his paraphrasing of other news articles.  My recent favorite is the one linked to below where he attributes the Wall Street Journal as saying:  "allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will hurt only those people earning more than $300,000 per year; keeping the Bush tax cuts will  force people earning $60-150,000 to pay more."

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/07/news-we-should-notice.php#more


But if you actually read the article, the WSJ is just referencing a Tax Foundation article.  AND if you bother to read the actual source, ie the Tax Foundation, you'd see this quote:  "For example, if Congress fails to act to extend the Bush tax cuts, the federal income tax burden for a married couple filing jointly making $80,000 with two children would be $2,137 higher in 2011 than if all the tax cuts were extended."

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/26548.html

Hmm.  This quote form the Tax Foundation seems to contradict with AD's headline...Moral of the story?  Be careful what AmericanDad claims other people (or media sources) are actually saying.  Do your homework.  Check sources.

Obama's pledge that only certain earners will see their tax rates go up next year is nice.  But if Congress doesn't agree with him then a lot more people will see their tax rates go up.  People like Steny Hoyer and Diane Feinstein have other ideas.  And per Sen. Dorgan - "times have changed". 

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/07/news/economy/bush_tax_cuts/index.htm

In just six months we will experience significant tax hikes across the board.  Is now the time to raise taxes across the board?  Exactly the wrong medicine for what we're suffering from right now.  And the whole debate over stimulus versus austerity misses a key point - it is the private sector, not the government that creates long term sustainable job growth.    We are arguing over whether we should have another round of Stimulus versus going the austerity route - but neither create new investment or new jobs.  So if it hasn't worked up until now why should we believe it will ever work?    Taxing or borrowing from Peter to pay Paul does not create jobs.  Neither does extending unemployment benefits. 

After spending roughly $1,000,000,000,000 on a so-called "Stimulus" we are at best experiencing a grinding and anemic jobs recovery.  Private payrolls are growing slowly.  The workweek is again shrinking and average hourly earnings have declined.  The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5%, but only because 650,000 people LEFT the labor force.

The recent GDP reports show that government contribution to growth has been about zero.  Because transfer payments don't contribute to the output of goods and services.  We've had 3 recovery quarters where inflation-adjusted GDP growth has averaged around 3.5 percent.  But the federal contribution has been only a couple tenths of one percent while state/local government contribution has roughly offset it.

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/q1-2010-gdp-3rd-revision-27

As for the tax hikes, here are some of what's coming:

http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3646

1.  The top tax rate will rise from 35% to 39.6%.  The lowest rate will rise from 10% to 15% and all rates in between will also rise.  

2.  The "marriage penalty" will return from the first dollar of income.

3.  The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500.  The dependent care and adoption tax credits will also be cut.

4.  The estate tax returns .

5.  Capital gains rate will rise from 15% to 20%.  The dividends tax will also rise from 15% to 39.6%.  These rates will rise again in 2013.

6.  AMT - according to the Tax Policy Center www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2702 the AMT will affect 28 million people, up from 4 million last year. 

This article talks about the Dutch offering aid to the US - ships outfitted with oil skimming booms.  For some reason I can't understand we declined the offer.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/obama-refused-dutch-oil-cleanup-help/

I thought Congress had learned their lessons, but the latest example of special dealings shows just how corrupt Washington remains.
Healthcare reform was supposed to be about improving access to care.  But the backroom deals and special carve-outs show just how bad this bill is.  The Senate spared voters in a few states of the harsh impacts of the Medicare cuts.  These deals made possible reduced rates of reimbursement and Medicare funding for the rest of the country, rates so low and unacceptable to a few key senators that they had to use all their pull to spare their own states. 
If it is unacceptable to these few senators who got special deals, why must the rest of the country live with it?  The moral justification for health care has been thrown out the window by those who used their power to squeeze care for millions while sparing themselves the worst of that backlash.
Some of the quotes are astounding:
"Rather than sitting here and carping about what Nelson got for Nebraska, I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle:  Let's get together and see what we can get for South Carolina" - House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn
"I don't know if there is a Senator that doesn't have something in this bill that was important to them.  And if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them."  - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Congress still doesn't get it.  For a bill that is so important to only have been passed because of these bribes is bad enough.  But for politicians to take such pride in the pay-off makes it much worse.

Hey everybody - I know it SUCKS when you're stranded on the tarmac for a few hours because of a snowstorm.  So let's force the airlines to raise fares and makes us more miserable!!
Forget about healthcare!! That's not important.  
Forget about banking reform!! That's not important.  
Global warming?!?  Let that take a backstage seat to AIRLINE PASSENGER REFORM!!!
We need to be compensated because we're stuck on tarmac for hours during a snowstorm!!  Those evil airlines!!!  They SUCK and they MUST PAY!!
(In case you weren't sure, I applaud you for reading this far and hope you appreciate my humor. But I get very annoyed at people who feel like airline passenger bills of right's are so important right now.

Pretty soon the problems of America will squarely be President Obama's problems.  The percentage of Americans who believe the President inherited our current problems with the economy is steadily dropping. 
So what should the President do?  How about focusing on job creation rather than healthcare?  And when I say "creation" I actually mean creation, not this amorphous jobs "saved" metric.
Voters are saying in recent polls that deficit reduction is more important than healthcare reform. Yet we're hearing much more from the Administration about healthcare than we are about the deficit.
But of course, healthcare reform seems to be some type of "Waterloo" that the media has made out to be a defining moment of the President's agenda.  But ramming through an expensive bill that doesn't really do much to cut healthcare costs will just make his polling numbers lower.  
Voters would like to see compromise on key points of healthcare to reduce costs, while the Democrats' plan is very much focused on expanding coverage.  Many voters want something passed but less than a majority approve of the current bill.  Most people would prefer a less costly bill that incrementally improves coverage, provides reform for pre-existing conditions and experiments with tort reform and competition along state lines.  

This is a great piece in today's WSJ by a writer who describes why he will lose his health insurance under the House's latest bill.
Definitely worth a read.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704402404574527493169603118.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

Maybe if Congress spends another $787 billion in the name of job creation, we can get the unemployment rate to 11 or 12%.
We've now had two very concrete examples of "stimulus" packages that didn't work - President Bush's $160 billion effort in February 2008 and President Obama's "super-size" version a year later.  Neither has made the smallest dent in unemployment.
Not only did the unemployment numbers get worse, but the hourly hours worked stayed the same.   So millions of Americans will have to start becoming full-time workers first before any new bodies get hired.
The White House says that the stimulus created as many as 1 million jobs.  No one doubted that this massive spending would create a few and "save" a few jobs.  But every new dollar in government spending is either taxed or borrowed from the private sector, which might have put it to better use.
If the government takes $1 from Paul, who might have invested it in a new business, and gives it to Peter, who buys a new lawn mower, the government records it as a net gain for economic growth via consumption.  But the economy is hardly more productive as a result.
The lesson here is for both parties.  Bush's cave-in to Democrats meant there was no debate in Washington over policies that might have produced a much better stimulus earlier on in the recession.  A stimulus needs to be immediate, permanent, and at the margin of the next dollar earned.
Prime example that we haven't learned our lesson is the extension of home buyer credits and the additional unemployment benefits.  Most home buyers would have bought a home anyways.  And most unemployed (including myself) received plenty of weeks of unemployment benefits that helped us get back on our feet as we found a new job.
The best thing people can do right now is to stop trying to ram through a health-care bill that slaps a 5.4% tax "surcharge" on anyone making more than $500,000 a year.  The Joint Tax Committee says that one-third of this tax increase will be paid by small business job creators who file their taxes under the individual income tax code.  With north of 10% unemployment, we shouldn't be slamming small businesses.
Once Congress gets out of the way, the job market will have a chance to recover on its own.

In September, the Administration apparently "changed course" (again), this time deciding that it WOULD reveal the names of White House visitors, except for a "small group" that in doing so would have national security concerns.  
http://www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2009/09/obama_reverses_course_will_rel.html

Of course, after the initial campaign promise of real transparency, the Administration in June decided it WASN'T a good idea - (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/politics-white_house/)

So now after we got all excited in September that we would actually be getting what was promised, the list revealed by the White House yesterday only had 110 names on it ?!?!?
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33556933

Nothing has changed in Washington.


 

I stole the title from an article in today's WSJ by Joe Queenan.  I thought I would post the link here because it provides an interesting perspective on what people should expect from the President and I think I'm probably one of the few people here that reads the WSJ.

The key point is that people need to make sure they understand what the majority of the country wants, and not just what they want.  You can't honestly accuse the President of wimping out and caving to others unless what you want is what the majority of the country wants.  Sometimes we all need to take a step back and compare those two items.  He's governing for all of us, not just one or two of us.

See the link below, it's a quick read.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489700704666232.html

 

I don't mind ex-Wall Street bankers entering the public sector as a second career.  But presumably they have sold their old company's stock and don't have any direct monetary ties to the banks any longer.  And if retired people like Alan Greenspan want to get rich on the speaking tour, be my guest.

But this Bloomberg article is very frightening.  People who are actively shaping policy, such as Gene Sperling and Lee Sachs, should not be getting any money from Wall Street, even if it's just for speeches.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abo3Zo0ifzJg

 

 

Senator Pelosi has said a lot of dumb things in the past, but this one is really amazing.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10646#frame_top

Now, she wasn't advocating it, per se.  Instead she said we should "put it on the table" and analyze it. 

But her poor reasoning for having a VAT is just astounding.  She thinks it will "level the playing field" and also wouldn't result in a tax increase on the middle-class.  It might not be a direct income tax increase on the middle class, but it would most definitely result in middle-class American families feeling the additional tax burden in the price of everything they buy.  We are not leveling the playing field by increasing the price of American goods versus foreign goods.  It will kill whatever manufacturing is left in America.