The Right is Right

Obama's State Dinner

2010-05-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Obama will be hosting a state dinner for Mexican President Felipe Calderon, his wife and a couple hundred invited guests. The Presidents will be discussing pressing issues between the United States and Mexico (perhaps even the new Arizona law).

They will be checking IDs at the door.

Consumer Protections

2010-04-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that liberals love to regulate business. Federal agencies such as the FTC and the FDA serve to protect consumers from purchasing products that the federal government deems unacceptable. I recently asked a group of liberals if they thought these agencies were beneficial to society, and the answer was an emphatic and unanimous, "YES." Basically, they said we can't possibly be required/allowed to figure out what's safe for ourselves.

So why did this same group of liberals tell me that we need to legalize drugs? If it's, "My body, my choice," regarding illegal substances, why shouldn't the same be true for corporate regulations? Both serve to protect the citizens of America so why is one set of rules 'good for us' while the other is just a silly, out-dated law?

Seems a little hypocritical to me, but liberals aren't really known for their critical thinking skills. Keith Olberman or Jon Stewart told them that corporations are evil so they'll probably stick with that.

Massachusetts and Health Care Reform

2010-04-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

We all know that Obama passed his health care reform (though I’m sure very few people actually understand what was just passed), but I want to discuss the similarities between what Obama signed and what Massachusetts has already implemented.

Both plans include a mandate for individuals to purchase insurance. Both levy fines on businesses if they don’t offer coverage. Both will be heavily regulated by the government. Both offer large tax-payer subsidies and Medicaid expansion. Both remove insurance companies’ rights to deny people with pre-existing conditions.

Shouldn’t we be able to look at MA to get an idea of what will happen when this plan is implemented nationally?

MA was spending 33% more than the national average before RomneyCare (the highest of any state), and in 2 years, it increased an additional 23% under RomneyCare (the national average being approximately 6.5% per year).

Very recently, insurers proposed 274 premium increases to help cover costs – 235 of which were rejected by MA regulators. Many private insurance companies have had to close shop, leaving big non-profit companies like Blue Cross and Harvard Pilgrim. The rates have gone up dramatically and without the ability to raise premiums, the non-profit companies will either have to close down or ration care.

Can anyone explain to me how Obama’s national plan won’t end up the same?

Michael Moore & Capitalism

2009-10-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

"Documentary" filmmaker Michael Moore has a new movie coming out: "Capitalism: A Love Story". I can only guess that it's 90 minutes of MM complaining about how terrible capitalism is, and I won't be wasting my $10 to go see it.

He's free to say whatever he wants (however libelous it may be), but what really made me laugh is when he recently said:

"Capitalism did nothing for me."

Surely he had to be joking, right? He went on to say, "You know, I had to pretty much beg, borrow and steal. The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there."

Let me see if I have the story straight - this poor little boy, who came from nothing, had to work hard to amass his $50 million fortune?

Sounds like a page straight out of the capitalism success book.

Pathetic.

Moral Obligations

2009-09-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

"We have a moral obligation to give health care to everyone."

I've been getting this line (or similar ones) a lot lately. Liberals like to use it to secure a little moral superiority and attempt to make conservatives look like selfish animals.

Since when does the left support making laws that force people to do what one group thinks is morally right?

Seems to me that the crux of many liberal arguments (abortion, gay marriage, etc) is that one group shouldn't have the ability to force their system of morals on the entire population - especially through laws.

Please tell me - how is this any different?

The WHO health care rankings

2009-09-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

With the whole health care debate going on right now, I frequently hear liberals cite the World Health Organization’s rankings for which country has the “best” health care (the US is ranked 37th, by the way).

I've never met a person who decided to travel to Oman for their cancer treatment. I've never read a story about a person flying to Saudi Arabia for their eye surgery, just like I've never heard of anybody going to Colombia for their fertility treatments. Yet I have heard hundreds of accounts of people coming to the US for procedures. Strange that so many people around the world would pay out of their own pocket to receive the 37th best health care.

Of course the liberals don’t understand that the WHO isn't measuring quality of care.

One of their problems is measuring the life expectancy, but there are lots of things that cause premature death that have nothing to do with the quality of health care a person receives. If you remove the deaths from murder and car accidents, the US life expectancy is one of the highest.

Another flaw in the WHO rankings it that they reward countries based on how "fairly" they distribute their health care. That has little to do with the quality of health care they are receiving. As long as everybody in the country receives a fair amount of crappy health care - they will rank higher on the list than the US (not to mention this way of judging a system is completely subjective).

The US also falls short because of the number of uninsured we have. Of the 45 million uninsured, 17 million make more than $50,000 per year, 9 million make more than $75,000 per year, 10 million are here illegally and 15 million are eligible for existing government programs but have chosen not to enroll.

Basically, the WHO rewards socialized systems so it's no wonder we rank so low, but it's a poor indicator of the quality of health care we are receiving. But seriously, please let me know if you’re planning on traveling to Morocco for your medical treatments.

Your Future Health Care

2009-07-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few highlights from the bill that is being pushed through congress. Obama better act quick before more people (maybe even a few of the congressmen) actually read it.

Page 16: You can keep your current insurance (Obama keeps repeating this half-truth), but the catch is - after this bill passes, insurance companies will no longer be able to create new plans or sign up new people. If you ever decide you want to switch insurance companies (or change jobs or whatever), then congratulations - you are now enrolled in Obamacare!

Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments/benefits a person will receive (Wait, I thought we were trying to avoid rationing treatments)

Page 42: The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your health care benefits for you. You will have no choice.

Page 50: Health care will be provided to illegals.

Page 58 and 59: Government will have access to your bank accounts and finances (Yay! More government involvement in my personal life)

Page 124: No company can sue government on price fixing and there can be no judicial review against government monopoly (yikes, I thought this was going to increase competition, Mr. President).

Page 149: Any employer with payroll above $400,000 who does not provide health care will be fined 8% (Goodbye personal freedoms. Sorry small business owners).

Page 167: Any individual who doesn't have acceptable health insurance by government standards will be taxed 2.5% (That's right, if you choose not to be on any plan, you're going to be punished).

Page 170: To add to the above, if you are an illegal, you won't be subject to that fine (Make sure the illegals know they are more important than citizens).

Page 272: Rationing of treatments to cancer patients (Oops, I thought Obama said there would be no rationing).

Page 317-318: Government will mandate that hospitals cannot expand (Gotta love government telling us what private businesses can do).

Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of special needs people (Sorry guys, apparently you aren't important enough for adequate health care coverage).

Page 429: Advanced care consultation. May include an order for ending someone's life (That's right - the government will be able to order to end your life if your treatments are too expensive - sorry granny).

And I know I posted this on my other blog, but I can't resist the urge to post it again:

The Poor Getting Poorer

2009-07-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

I frequently hear people say, "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer."

It's pretty obvious that the rich are getting richer. We live in a country that makes that possible (maybe that will change in the next few years). But are the poor really getting poorer?

Hmm...the bottom quintile has averaged 3.9% growth. Not exactly getting poorer.

According to the US Census Bureau, the number of households making $25,000 to $75,000 has decreased from 48.2% to 44.3%. The number of households making less than $25,000 decreased from 28.7% to 25.2% while the number of households making more than $75,000 increased from 23.2% to 30.4%.

Sounds a lot like the poor are actually getting richer.

Obama's Dog and Pony Show

2009-07-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Obama hosted a National Discussion on Health Care Reform where he was supposed to address questions that Americans had about his upcoming health care reform policies.

Of the 7 questions asked, 4 were hand picked by the White House and the other 3 were from liberal groups that proudly and openly support Obama (Healthcare for America Now, Organizing for America, and Service Employees International Union).

Even Helen Thomas, a liberal White House reporter who has been through several administrations said, "The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I'm amazed, I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency...It's very shocking."

Why is Obama hand picking softball questions? What happened to transparency? Why won't Obama answer tough questions and real concerns that people have instead of controlling everything that gets asked?

Cap and Trade

2009-06-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Obama is mastering the art of talking out of both sides of his mouth.

When Obama was interviewed by the San Fransisco Chronicle in January of 2008, he said:

“You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know, under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it -- whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.”

He also said, "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

So he's already admitted that electricity rates are going to skyrocket under his plan and it will cause loss of jobs, and yet now that he's trying to pass this terrible policy he's saying, "Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth."

Hmm...you mean that misinformation that came out of your mouth last year?

Luckily, only people who make more than $250,000 per year use electricity so they're the only ones who will be paying for this. Oh wait...

Health Care

2009-06-17T12:37:00.001-07:00

I have a few quick thoughts on Obama's proposed health care overhaul.

1. The current proposal is supposed to cost somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years (yeah, right) and will take the currently 50 million uninsured Americans down to 37 million uninsured Americans (um, that's not insuring every American, Obamateur). That math would mean every person they insure will cost the government $123,000 over the next 10 years. Are we putting these people in gold plated hospital beds and hiring Britney Spears to be their personal nurse?

2. Part of the plan to pay for the health care overhaul is to make cuts to medicaid and medicare. Does this sound completely idiotic to anybody else? The government can't afford the entitlement programs that they already have, but they are going to start taking away money (and therefore, benefits) from the programs already designed to help the elderly and poor receive health care.

3. But the thing that really gets my leg tingling is the part of the plan where Obama says we might start taxing employer provided benefits. Hmm...why does that plan sound familiar? Oh yeah, that's the plan McCain proposed during the campaign that Obama mocked.

Outsourcing and Illegals

2009-05-02T14:59:00.001-07:00

I recently had a conversation with a couple of liberal friends and the hypocrisy of the discussion was staggering.

The conversation started with illegal immigration and, of course, quickly progressed to them claiming that, “Americans won’t do the jobs that illegals will,” (apparently exploiting the poor is tolerable if they are here illegally).

I told them that the employers should be raising their wage until Americans are willing to do those jobs and we would have to deal with the subsequent rise in prices for that good or service (liberals have a hard time grasping the concept of supply and demand, but that’s a whole other discussion).

They kept saying that people wouldn’t be willing to pay higher prices, so I brought up outsourcing.

American companies outsource to raise their profit margins and provide cheaper prices for us, the consumers. But according to my liberal friends, outsourcing = pure evil.

So it’s unethical for businesses to legally ship American jobs overseas so that we can enjoy Walmart prices, but it is perfectly acceptable for businesses to illegally hire immigrants and pay them a pittance because we want to save a couple bucks on oranges?

You guys are going to have to pick one or the other, though I don’t expect that you will. Liberals tend to think they can have their cake and eat it, too.

Healthcare Hypocrisy

2009-04-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

Last month, the Obama administration proposed a plan to cut veteran’s health care benefits. The plan would ask that private insurance companies foot part of the bill for veterans who were wounded in combat. The plan was expected to save $540 million.

Out of the other side of his mouth, Obama goes on and on about how we need a universal health care plan and has already pledged a down payment of $634 billion towards the government mandated health insurance, which will surely include people who are here illegally.

Now, it should be noted that the veteran’s health care cut has been put on hold (if not completely eliminated) because people were so outraged by it. But am I the only one who sees something disturbingly wrong with Obama’s thinking?

Obama pretends to be fighting for health care coverage for all, but then turns around and tries to take away benefits from the people who arguably deserve health care more than any other group of Americans? Not to mention the amount he was trying to save by taking away coverage from our heroes was peanuts compared to the coverage he wants to provide to illegals.

Seriously, disgusting.

Tax Cheat Timothy Geithner

2009-04-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

Obama hasn't even been in office for 100 days, but he's already decided he has the power to fire America's CEOs.

When Katie Couric asked our fabulous tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner if he would leave the option open to fire other CEOs, he replied, "Of course."

And here I thought Obama would try to ease into the dictatorship. I guess I was wrong.

Unbelievable.

2009-03-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Obama's newest cabinet nominee, Kathleen Sebelius owes back taxes.

*sigh*

Yay for Inflation!

2009-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced that they’d be putting an additional trillion dollars into their vault.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/fed_03-18.html

To put things in perspective, there is about $800 billion in circulation around the country. There is another $800 billion already sitting in the vault, for a total monetary supply of approximately $1.6 trillion.

When congress voted to give banks the bailout money, most of the banks used the money to offset their losses on their balance sheets – instead of giving out loans (that’s what happens when you keep throwing money at problems with no strings attached). Banks have become very stingy with their loans right now so most of the bailout money is sitting in the Federal Reserve earning interest (for the banks), instead.

Now, when the economy inevitably starts to pick up, banks will start giving out loans, draining the Federal Reserve, and suddenly tons of money will be chasing the same amount of goods.

That $13 tax break Obama gave to the poor and middle class should go far when we see the double-digit inflation that ensues.

AIG Executive Bonuses

2009-03-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

AIG, a company that recently received a $170 billion bailout from the tax payers, will be giving out $165 million in post-bailout bonuses to their executives.

First, Obama wanted to change their contracts to take away the bonuses but now they are discussing an emergency bill that would tax their bonus money at 100%.

In fact, Chris Dodd (D) has completely flip-flopped on the issue. He specifically put a clause in the $787 billion stimulus bill that provided an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” and now he’s saying we should tax the bonuses at 100% to get the money back (by the way, Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations - $103,100 – maybe he should give that money back to the tax payer as well).

So what should we do?

It is illegal for the government to go and change contracts like that. Retroactive taxes are also illegal – so if they try to do an emergency tax on the bonus money, they’ll be breaking the law as well.

The other option is to just let it go and let the executives keep their million dollar bonuses.

Another shining moment for the Obama administration.

More Corruption

2009-03-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Does anybody remember that guy John Walker Lindh? How about Tony West?

Tony West is now Obama's nominee for the assistant attorney general in charge of the US Justice Department's Civil Division, but before that, he was the lawyer that represented John Walker Lindh - terrorist.

For those keeping score, there are a plethora of tax cheating appointees, a pornography buff, lobbyists, those with ongoing investigations of corruption, and now a terrorist sympathizer. Did I leave someone out? That list took about 30 seconds to compile; I'm sure there's more.

Another interesting tidbit of information is Tony West raised $65 million for Obama's campaign. Fancy that!

What I'd like to know is: Is Obama appointing these losers on purpose, or is this all the Democrat party has to offer nowadays? Liars, swindlers, terrorist lovers and perverts.

Scare Tactics and the Left

2009-03-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, I’ve listened to the left whine that republicans and conservatives use scare tactics as a means of pushing their agenda. One of their go-to examples is their claim that Bush used 9/11 as an excuse to go to Iraq.

So what is it called when the Democrats use these same types of tactics to push their agenda?

Rahm Emanual (Obama’s Chief of Staff) recently told the New York Times, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.” Not long after, Hillary Clinton told members of European Parliament, “Never waste a good crisis.” And Obama himself said last Saturday that there is great opportunity in the midst of the ‘great crisis’ befalling America.

Anybody else notice that everything is a crisis these days? The financial crisis, the education crisis, the housing crisis, the health care crisis and others are being used by the left to scare people into going along with their unprecedented levels of spending. If people don’t think there is some sort of crisis – they aren’t going to go along with multi-trillion dollar deficits.

The left spent years screaming that Bush was using a crisis for his partisan or ideological gain, and now we have Obama and his cronies boasting that they are using the pain of the American people to push their agenda – you’d think that the media would be all over that. But no.

It’s called courageous. It's called progress. It’s called leadership.

Hypocrisy is an ugly thing, isn’t it?

Paying Taxes

2009-03-05T00:44:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that Obama’s newest cabinet pick, Ron Kirk, owes about $10,000 in back taxes.

I’m starting to lose count of all Obama’s cabinet picks who have unpaid taxes. There’s Timothy Geithner – who’s now the Treasury Secretary in charge of the IRS. There was Tom Daschle – who was supposed to be essential in reforming our health care system. Nancy Killefer – who was self-terminated when her past tax problems were discovered. Bill Richardson pulled out of Commerce because of federal pay-to-play probe. Hilda Solis’s husband had some tax liens going back 16 years.

I’m starting to wonder if Obama’s vetting questionnaire looks something like this:

“Do you owe back taxes? If yes – when can you start?”

Maybe he needs to send Biden in to let these people know that paying taxes is patriotic (remember that?). Does that make Obama’s cabinet a bunch of traitors?

No wonder democrats don't care if taxes are raised. It doesn't affect them.

If Obama continues this trend, we may get enough Obama appointees to make a real dent in these impressive upcoming deficits.

Clinton's "Surplus"

2009-02-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

With all the recent news about Obama’s budget plans, I want to set the record straight about something.

I keep hearing liberals boast, “Well, when Clinton left office he had a surplus, and look what Bush did to it…”

Clinton didn’t have a surplus.

Slick Willy changed the rules of accounting while he was in office to make it look like he had a surplus.

Clinton decided to use the “cash” based accounting numbers, which look directly at cash that came in vs. cash that went out. This type of accounting is fine for very small businesses or personal checking. Federal law requires businesses with revenues over $1 million/year to use “accrual” based accounting. Accrual accounting measures income and expenses when they accrue. For example: if I borrow $10,000, cash accounting says that I have $10,000 on my books and doesn’t take into account that I owe someone that money. Accrual accounting says that I have $10,000 + -$10,000 in debt = $0.

During the final 4 years of Clinton’s budget, they reported a $559 billion surplus. When the government audited the numbers (using accrual accounting), there was actually a $484 billion deficit.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm

Budget Deficit

2009-02-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Obama recently announced that he plans on cutting the deficit in half by the end of his term.

His team said that he plans on reducing the federal deficit to $533 billion by 2013.

Does anybody else see a slight problem, considering the budget deficit in 2008 was $455 billion?
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1213.htm

Are we supposed to be impressed that he is going to more than double the deficit and then cut it in half by the time his 4 years are over?

Quite a lofty goal there, Mr. President.

Obama's Spending Extravaganza

2009-02-13T23:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve put off making a post about Obama’s spending bill because I am just so absolutely disgusted by it. I could go on for hours about how unbelievably stupid it is, but I’ll be brief.

It’s not a stimulus package. I wish people would stop calling it that. I’ve heard estimates from 7-10% of the bill being spent in 2009. If this is supposed to stimulate our crappy economy, why are we waiting to spend 90% of it? It’s actually just a giant bill of pork to pay off Obama’s buddies who helped get him elected. I love how Obama keeps saying, “There are no earmarks in this bill.” Yeah, not if you redefine the definition of ‘earmark’ to suit your agenda. Earth to Obama: the entire bill is pork.

During Obama’s campaign, he told the American people repeatedly that he would be able to pay for every dime of his plans, so where is the $800 billion cut in the budget?

Democrats like to pretend that republicans are into ‘scare tactics’ so I’m curious what they think of Nancy Pelosi’s recent comments. “If we do not pass this economic recovery package, 500 million Americans will lose their jobs every month.” For those of you who aren’t good at math, there are approximately 300 million Americans. Every one of us will lose multiple jobs every month until Obama’s spending bill is passed. Sounds a lot like a scare tactic to me.

So why the rush to pass the bill, Ms. Pelosi? If only 7-10% of the bill is going to be spent this year, why are the democrats pushing for it to be passed so quickly and thoughtlessly?

Are you freaking kidding me?

2009-01-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

As I watched B. Hussein Obama sworn in as the president of the United States yesterday, I couldn't help but giggle when the oath became a mangled mess. That's it...just a giggle. I hadn't planned on giving it a second thought.

Until I turned on the radio and hear some liberal commentators and callers complaining about how John Roberts had messed things up and was to blame for the gaffe. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

First, we are already making excuses for B. Hussein? He's going to have to put on his big-boy pants at some point and start taking some responsibility.

Second, if Mr. Roberts messed up on the oath, shouldn't our new President be a quick enough thinker that he can repeat after someone, or is that too much to ask? I mean, we all know he can read off a teleprompter like nobody's business, but ask that man to repeat after you and the crap hits the fan.

But I must admit that I'm not surprised. The next 4 years will be an endless string of excuses for B. Hussein. Anything that goes wrong the next 4 years will be blamed on Bush or someone else, and Obama will get the credit for anything that goes right.

Luckily, I won't have much time to sit around listening to the liberal media fawn over their messiah. I'll be too busy waiting in line for health care...

Che Obama

2008-11-07T23:41:00.001-08:00

Alright, the election is over and there's nothing any of us can do about it (except complain).

I am getting really freaking sick of all the Obama supporters telling me that we need to, "Come together," now that their guy won. Stop trying to make the rest of us feel bad by not running around singing Obama's praises, riding on unicorns, farting colored marshmallows and collecting our strawberry scented welfare checks.

When I hear this garbage coming from a liberal's mouth, here are a few things that come to mind:

It's like all of a sudden, now that their guy is in office, we aren't allowed to disagree? Or have we instantly forgotten that dissent is patriotic?

So in the words of Ann Coulter:

"In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president."

Question for Obama supporters

2008-11-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Obama says that 95% of people will get a tax cut under his plan (sometimes he says 95% of ‘working families'). http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.mississippi.transcript/

But 32% of people who filed taxes in 2006 had zero tax liability. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html

I want to know how Obama is going to give a tax cut to those 43 million Americans who don’t pay any taxes. My suspicion is that this isn't really a tax cut at all. Obama has cleverly disguised the world 'welfare' by using the term 'tax cut'.

Lucky for him, there are millions of Americans who care more about getting a couple hundred dollars back from Uncle Sam than they care about the far-reaching detrimental effect Obama's plan will have on our country as a whole.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."
-Gerald R. Ford

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Obama Bin Lyin'

2008-09-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Obama says he is going to raise taxes only on the top 5% of wage earners, and says 95% of tax payers will see a decrease in their taxes.

The top 5% pay 57% of the total federal income taxes.
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

The total income taxes collected by the federal government last year was $1.25 trillion.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/hist.html

If the top 5% paid 57% of that, that means that the top 5% of taxpayers paid $712.5 billion.

As it is now, people in that tax bracket pay 35% of their money in taxes. So that means that the top 5% of people made $2.034 trillion.

So, assuming that they made that same amount of money under Obama’s tax plan (39.6%), the federal government would collect $805.5 billion.

That means Obama will collect $93 billion more from the richest 5%.

Obama has promised $270 billion in tax cuts for the poor and middle class.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=411693

Obama has promised $293 billion in new spending, annually.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=97

So, Obama will collect $93 billion more from the richest 5% but he has promised $563 billion in extra spending and tax cuts to the poor and middle class per year.

Here is what I can conclude, either:

1. He is lying about who he will raise taxes on (he’ll have to raise taxes on many more people).

2. He is lying about giving tax cuts to the poor and middle class and also lying about the spending that he is promising to special interest groups (since there is no way he’ll be able to afford all those promises).

3. He is going to increase the federal deficit by approximately $470 billion per year.

Charity: Obama vs. McCain

2008-09-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

In Obama’s convention address, he stated:

“That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.”

It’s no surprise coming from the democrat presidential nominee that he would advocate helping out our fellow Americans, and a big part of his campaign has been focused on what he’ll do to help out the poor and middle class. But does Obama live by his own credo?

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/obama-releases.html

I thought it was very interesting that someone who is so actively involved in promoting social change and progressive values seems to be so stingy with his own pocket book. Some years, he gave less than 1% of his income to charity. What I find even more interesting is that he couldn't even donate the extra money that he was able to keep because of Bush's tax cuts.

By the way, Obama’s actual half brother lives in Africa, surviving off pennies per month, so I guess Obama doesn’t really think he should have to be his brother’s keeper. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/20/2008-08-20_barack_obamas_povertystricken_halfbrothe.html

Anyway, I got curious and looked up McCain’s tax records:

“In 2007, the Arizona senator reported $405,409 in total income and contributed $105,467, or 26 percent of his total income, to charity. In 2006, Mr. McCain said he had $358,414 in total income and donated $64,695, or 18 percent of his total income, to charity.” http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/4437/john-mccain-discloses-data-o%20n-his-charity-giving

So which is more noble? Trying to use power to force everyone else to help the poor through taxes, or actually putting your money where your mouth is to give sizable portions of your income to those who are less fortunate?

If you like Michigan's economy, you'll love Obama's

2008-09-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

I started trying to put this into my own words, but the original article was just too good so a lot is copied directly from the original article:

One of the main issues in the upcoming election is the state of the economy. While we can only speculate what the candidates’ plans will do to our economy, we can get a pretty good idea by looking at the plans on a smaller scale.

Individual states are able to exercise substantial freedom in pursing their own economic fortune – or misfortune. As a result, the states provide a laboratory for testing various policies. In other words, if we want to see what Obama’s and McCain’s plans will do, we can see them in action on a smaller scale (the states).

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, American Legislative Exchange Council found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful. Their analysis showed that “generally speaking, states that tax less, particularly on productive activities such as working or investing, experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.”

From 1996 to 2006, Texas Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.

Texas gained 1.7 million net new jobs, Florida gained 1.4 million and Arizona gained 600,000. While the U.S. average job growth percentage was 9.9%, Texas, Florida and Arizona had job growth of 18.5%, 21.4% and 28.9% respectively. A third of all the jobs in the US in the last 10 years were created in these 3 states. The population of the three highest performing states grew twice as fast as the national average, per-capita real income still grew by $6,563 or 21.4% in Texas, Florida and Arizona. That’s a $26,252 increase for a typical family of four.

By comparison, Illinois gained only 122,000 jobs, Ohio lost 62,900 and Michigan lost 318,000. Population growth in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois was only 4.2%, a third the national average, and real income per capita rose by only $3,466, just 58% of the national average. Workers in the three least successful states had to contend with a quarter-million fewer jobs rather than taking their pick of the 3.7 million new jobs that were available in the three fastest-growing states.

What explains this relative performance over the last 10 years? The simple answer is that governance, taxes and regulatory policy matter. The playing field among the states was not flat. Business conditions were better in the successful states than in the lagging ones. Capital and labor gravitated to where the burdens were smaller and the opportunities greater.

Incredibly, the business climate in Michigan is now so unfavorable that it has overwhelmed the considerable comparative advantage in auto production that Michigan spent a century building up. No one should let Michigan politicians blame their problems solely on the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Yes, Michigan lost 83,000 auto manufacturing jobs during the past decade and a half, but more than 91,000 new auto manufacturing jobs sprung up in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

So what do the state laboratories tell us about the potential success of the economic programs presented by Barack Obama and John McCain?

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to know something about the "infamous" top 1% of income tax filers: In order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich, it isn't the Rockefellers they're talking about; it's the companies where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the end of his first term. Mr. Obama's program offers no hope, or even a promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122126282034130461.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Gas Rebates

2008-08-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

So I came across this article talking about how Obama now wants to send out $1,000 rebates to American families to help soften the blow from the pressure we’ve felt at the pump. Where is he going to get that money? He’s going to take it from the oil companies, of course!

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/01/obama-calls-for-1000-rebates-to-offset-energy-costs/

But I thought he said he was going to raise taxes on the oil companies and use the money for alternative fuel exploration…? I guess we can add another lie to his long list of empty promises.

Exxon mobile already pays more money in taxes to our federal government than the entire bottom 50% of American tax payers (http://seekingalpha.com/article/88703-exxon-s-record-taxes-capital-and-exploration-spending-in-perspective).

Exxon’s profit margins were around 10%, which is right around the industry average, and oil company's margins are worse than firms in the chemicals industry, pharmaceuticals, and the beverages and tobacco industries (http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/08/04/does-exxon-mobill-have-windfall-profits/).

So Obama’s platform is going to be to punish corporations for earning profits? Should we expect to see Obama start to steal money from Microsoft, Google, Wal-mart, and Berkshire Hathaway and spread it out among the poor and middle class as well?

Obama's spending

2008-07-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

Obama keeps promising more and more money to special interest groups. Just for the things he has promised in his speeches, they are estimating that he plans on spending around $800 BILLION http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/obamas_gloomy_biggovernment_vi.html

He claims he is going to be cutting taxes for the poor and middle class while raising taxes on the rich. If he raises taxes up to 39% for the rich while simultaneously giving all the tax cuts he has promised to the poor and middle class, he will end up with a $80 billion deficit. All the money that is supposed to be coming in from the rich will easily be offset by the tax cuts he is promising the poor and middle class.

The federal budget is around $3 Trillion per year, and Obama has promised over $800 Billion in new spending. Either he's completely lying and he's not going to fund all the projects he is promising or he's not going to be able to give all those tax cuts he's promising to the poor and middle class. The richest 1% alone can't foot the $800 Billion bill.

But let's pretend he TRIED to make the top 1% of wage earners pay for all his spending. The top 1% of wage earners already pay 37% of the federal income tax received. That's more than $1 Trillion of federal money that comes just from the top 1%. If he needs $800 Billion more money from those people, he's going to have to double their taxes. The rich can't pay 78% of their money in federal income taxes. After FICA, state and local taxes, sales taxes and any other taxes, they wouldn't have any money.

So I'd love to know where Obama is going to get the money for all the projects he is promising. If he can't come up with $800 Billion (a conservative estimate) then he's got to be lying about something.

NObama in 2008

2008-05-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

I am getting so tired of the Obama frenzy. I’m pretty much at my breaking point, and whenever I ask an Obama supporter why they like him, the response is always the same:

“Blah blah blah change, blah blah blah hope, blah blah he's different.”

I’ve never actually heard an Obama supporter give a good reason as to why they want this man to be our next president. It’s never about the issues that our country faces every day. It’s always a rehearsed catch phrase that has no substance behind it.

“He wants change.” – Has there ever been a presidential candidate whose platform was, “I want everything to be exactly the same.” Absolutely not. Every candidate wants things to change. We are a constantly evolving nation. If Obama is elected, you’ll see change, but I doubt it will be what you’re expecting. Obama supporters see a land where nobody goes hungry, there is always peace, and everybody has a pony and a puppy and there is a rainbow in the sky every day.

One thing Obama wants to change is health care. He wants every American to be guaranteed health coverage. Obama claims that his national health care plan will cost $50-65 billion (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080222/EDITORIAL/457737055/1013).

In 2007 the US spent 15.3% of our GDP in healthcare. Of this amount the government already pays 45.1%. The United States’ 2007 GDP is 13.86 trillion dollars. So here is the math:Our health care expenditures are 15.3% of $13.86T, or $2.12T. The government already pays $956B (2.12T * 45.1%) in health care costs. Thus, the actual cost of universal healthcare is $1.16T annually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html If Obama only picks up the tab for the 45M uninsured Americans, that would indicate only an increase of $318B [(45M/300M) * $2.12T]. That is six times more than Obama admits.

Many Obama supporters think that we’ll have more money available (for things like healthcare) if Obama is president because they think he’ll pull out of Iraq.

“Regarding the peace dividend, it must be recalled that Mr. Obama declined in September to promise that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by January 2013, which was more than five years down the road.” (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080222/EDITORIAL/457737055/1013)

So the US won’t see any additional monies from leaving Iraq. Obama says that he will cut certain taxes for middle class families (about $80 billion).

That means Obama plans on spending an additional $318 billion annually while cutting $80 billion worth of taxes. Not to mention he has promised other programs for various special interest groups.

Obama is pro-choice, that’s no surprise. But what may be a surprise is that he believes women should be given the choice to have partial birth abortions (meaning, a woman can abort a baby when she is 9 months along). I won’t get into the details of partial birth abortions, because it is absolutely horrifying.

Not only does he think women should be able to abort their 9 month old ‘fetus’ but he also believes minors should be able to have abortions without their parents’ consent. Minors can’t go tanning or go on a field trip without parental consent, but a controversial medical procedure is just fine according to Obama.

While I don’t think that it’s fair to judge a person based on what their wife or pastor says, I think it speaks volumes about what kind of people Obama has chosen to surround himself with. His wife has never been proud of our country until very recently and his pastor is a bigot.

Among other slipups, Obama has said that small town people cling to guns and religion to explain their frustrations (even though I’m pretty sure people have had religion and guns for centuries) and he also said that there were 57 states. The funniest thing about the 57 states is that the people who love Obama are many of the same people who make fun of Bush for being an idiot. If Bush had said there were 57 states in a speech, people would be all over him.

I could seriously go on and ON about other things that I can’t stand about this man. It would really sadden me to see him in the white house because I think he will do a great deal of damage to our country.