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Does the White House Want to Drain the Taxpayers Dry?

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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Looking at what the President attempted in the budget negotiations is pretty disturbing. The Wall Street Journal lays it out for us:

Taxes Upon Taxes Upon . . .
Obama wants $1 trillion in taxes on top of what he’s already signed.

So the fondest Washington hopes for a grand debt-limit deal have broken down over taxes. House Speaker John Boehner said late Saturday that he couldn’t move ahead with a $4 trillion deal because President Obama was insisting on a $1 trillion tax increase, and the White House quickly denounced House Republicans for scuttling debt reduction and preventing “the very wealthiest and special interests from paying their fair share.”

How dare Republicans not agree to break their campaign promises and raise taxes when the jobless rate is 9.2% and President Obama’s economic recovery is in jeopardy?

We think Mr. Boehner is making the sensible choice. No one wants to reform the tax code more than we do, but passing a $1 trillion tax increase first on the promise of tax reform later is a political trap. If the President were really sincere about reform and a willingness to keep the top tax rate at or below 35%, he’d negotiate that at the same time he does a debt deal. Mr. Boehner will have a hard enough time getting any debt-limit increase through the House, much less one that raises tax rates.

Keep in mind that Mr. Obama has already signed the largest tax increase since 1993. While everyone focuses on the Bush tax rates that expire after 2012, other tax increases are already set to hit the economy thanks to the 2010 Affordable Care Act. . . .

There are numerous . . . new taxes in the bill, all adding up to some $438 billion in new revenue over 10 years. But even that is understated because by 2019 the annual revenue increase is nearly $90 billion, or $900 billion in the 10 years after that. Yet Mr. Obama wants to add another $1 trillion in new taxes on top of this.

The economic ironies are also, well, rich. Mr. Obama is now pushing to reduce the payroll tax by two-percentage points for another year to boost the economy, but he’s already built in a big increase in that same payroll tax for 2013. So if a payroll tax cut creates jobs this year, why doesn’t a payroll tax increase destroy jobs after 2013?

Mr. Obama is also touting spending cuts he’s willing to make in entitlements in return for bigger tax increases, yet the spending increases built into ObamaCare aren’t even up for discussion in the debt-limit talks. The Affordable Care Act adds more than 30 million more Americans onto Medicaid’s rolls, when that program is already growing by 6.5% this year. So Mr. Obama is willing to cut current entitlements on grounds that they are unaffordable, but he’s taken what may be the most expensive entitlement off the table.

We think this was the President’s spend-and-tax plan from the very first. Run up spending and debt in the name of stimulus and health-care reform, then count on Wall Street bond holders and the political establishment to browbeat Republicans into paying for it all. He apparently didn’t figure on the rise of the tea party, or 1.9% GDP growth and 9.2% unemployment two years after the recession ended.

Read the whole thing; the delineation of all the taxes that were part of the “Affordable Care Act” is infuriating; it’s been a while since most of us actually read that list.

UPDATE: Also, see Insty’s post-prez-presser mini-roundup.

Optics Over Reality: Ryan’s “Winegate” [UPDATED x4--and BUMPED]

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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Aw, come on: it was called The Path to Prosperity, not The Path to Penny-Pinching.

It turns out that splurging in Washington, D.C. is not the same as splurging in Glendale, California. I had feared as much. Last time I ate something spendy, it was a chocolate bar that cost a whole $2.59 and had to last all month, at one square a week. I bet I enjoyed it more than Rep. Ryan did that wine, though.

But Josh Green is gloating over at The Atlantic:

Remember John Edwards’s $400 haircut? That turned out to be quite a problem for him. It looks like Paul Ryan is about have a similar problem on his hands. According to . . . Talking Points Memo, Ryan — the leader of the tighten-your-belt, fiscal-austerity crowd — is in the habit of drinking $350-a-bottle wine, specifically Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru. In fact, Ryan enjoyed two bottles of this fancy Pinor Noir while dining the other night with a pair of conservative economists at Bistro Bis, the swanky Capitol Hill restaurant favored by lobbyists and other expense-account barons.

Ryan had the misfortune of sitting at the table next to Susan Feinberg, a Rutgers business professor, who didn’t share his nonchalance about calling for draconian budget cuts for the poor and elderly by day and then sipping $350-a-bottle wine by night. Feinberg confronted Ryan after dinner and demanded to know “how he could live with himself.” Confronted by TPM, Ryan did not deny the story, but lamely pleaded ignorance about the cost of the wine. And he was rather ungallant to Ms. Feinberg, whom he called “crazy.”

If there’s any justice in the world, Ryan ought to get at least as much grief for this as Edwards got. And if I were President Obama’s adviser, I’d suggest that he add $350 wine to that line about Republicans defending corporate jets and hedge-fund fat cats.

That would be President “wagyu steak” Obama, of course. The guy who once had a tent put up on the White House lawn for a state dinner, and turned it into a nightclub. Word is, he partied that night like it was 1999 . . . except that everyone was flat broke, ten years later.

The liberal-but-always-fair Tommy Christopher points out, at Mediaite:

This is the kind of story that the political media eats up, like the time John McCain couldn’t remember how many houses he owned while he was calling then-Sen. Barack Obama an elitist, or all of those eco-conscious celebrities who fly around on fossil fuel-guzzling private jets. Fair enough; Ryan was drinking some pretty expensive wine.

However, Washington, DC is just an expensive place to eat, period. That’s why, unless I’m mooching off of a more well-heeled colleague, or there’s an open bar, you’ll always see me nursing a light beer and scarfing bar nuts. If I saw Paul Ryan, or any other legislator, at a place like Bistro Bis with an Amstel Light in hand, I’d probably sneer, “Poseur!”

Be that as it may, I think we all have the right to eat dinner without being annoyed by some other patron of the same upscale restaurant (the federal minimum wage won’t even get you a plate of fries at Bistro Bis) who thinks we’re spending too much on dinner.

Which brings up the question of how Susan Feinberg realized that the wine she saw at a completely different table was as pricey as it was, when Rep. Ryan himself apparently didn’t even know that–he had one glass of it, and was just trying to pay his share by picking up the cost of one of those bottles. There is also the issue of whether it’s “ungallant” to call someone “crazy” who is acting . . . well, a bit crazy.

Though apparently it’s open season on Josh Green; feel free to critique his choices next time you see him having a night on the town. He won’t mind. If he picks up the check for something he isn’t really consuming, that means you should guilt-trip him all the more.

UPDATE: Jimmie Bise has more.

UPDATE 2: Ann Althouse weighs in.

UPDATE 3: James Joyner has some thoughts.

UPDATE 4: Ryan’s accuser may have been drinking $80-a-bottle wine; more at The Examiner.

The Right To Be Wrong: Cambridge, Massachusetts; Illinois; and California Editions

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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The Boston Globe has this story about a targeted tax break in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[S]tarting this month, Cambridge will become what is believed to be the first municipality in the country to pay its public employees a stipend in an attempt to defray the cost of the Federal tax on health benefits for their same-sex spouses.

The city employees hit by the extra tax pay an additional $1,500 to $3,000 in taxes a year, and officials estimate the stipends will cost the city an additional $33,000.

In the comments at the Globe there are a lot of people making a fuss over this; because I’m a conservative who doesn’t support gay marriage, you might expect me to object to the stipend/tax break–but consider: This is an individual city in an individual state. As with all cities, the people who made this decision were voted in by the citizens of the city.

Additionally, Massachusetts has an awful lot of cities and towns with houses and apartments available–at reasonable rates–to those who want to live there. Trains go into Cambridge (and Boston) on a regular basis. And conversely, the new rules make employment by the City of Cambridge more attractive to a person in a gay marriage.

Bottom line: If the people of Cambridge want to tax themselves further to support gay marriage, and they prefer to incentivize employment by a particular group of people, that’s their call. If the voters don’t like it, they are more than welcome to vote out their current city council and replace it. It’s up to them.

Meanwhile, California and Illinois (via Insty) are also reaping what they sow–or, should I say that Arizona and Indiana are doing so:

Amazon declined to provide specific figures, but said the new facility will add hundreds of jobs, giving the company an Arizona work force of more than 3,000.

As some states facing budget squeezes press for online retailers to collect sales taxes, Amazon is steering business toward states that are not.

Amazon also announced last week that it would open a fourth Indiana distribution center just outside of Indianapolis. Indiana officials four years ago offered not to push the tax issue in recruiting Amazon to the state.

That means new jobs for two states that have not been going after Amazon for taxes, while states like California and Illinois, which have decided to tax Amazon, are left in the dust. News Alert points out:

As you guessed: Illinois and California weren’t going to get those jobs because they’d rather have jobs go somewhere else.

Ah, but there was an election in 2010, and the citizens of both those states chose to send Democrats into positions of power; they, in turn, decided to make an attempt at taxing Amazon.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Illinois lost a congressional seat, while Indiana did not–nor that Arizona gained a congressional seat, while California did not. It appears that the people of those states who don’t feel that their votes are really counting at the ballot box are voting, as the saying goes, with their feet.

Either way, as always, people are getting the government they deserve.

The AP’s Democratic “Get Out the Vote” Campaign for CA-36

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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One day before the scheduled election in CA-36, the AP has suddenly noticed that something might be going on:

In a season of turbulent politics, a little-noticed runoff election Tuesday for the House seat vacated by former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman has become unusually competitive.

Supporters for the Democratic candidate, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, are jittery, while Republicans see a potential upset in the making for businessman Craig Huey, who owns marketing and advertising companies and has largely bankrolled his campaign with at least $795,000 in personal funds.

“This is the West Coast’s `Scott Brown moment,’” the conservative California Republican Assembly wrote to supporters in an email Friday

The AP’s sudden attention to this story has a single theme: Democrats need to turn out. How do I come to this conclusion?

Exhibit A: The stop the Scott Brown redux theme

Retiree Ann Dupuy is a loyal Democrat who has watched a forest of Huey lawn signs sprout up in her Redondo Beach neighborhood. She said her son, visiting from Texas, is so alarmed at the idea Hahn might lose that he plans to volunteer for the Hahn campaign while he’s in California.

Does Dupuy see much enthusiasm for Hahn?

“No,” she answered.

With the election scheduled for a July day “it’s hard to get people stoked up,” she said.

Message one to democrats in the area: this could be a Scott Brown in the making; we need people to volunteer, and help to keep this from happening.

Exhibit B: Get Democrats riled up about social issues

Huey has been endorsed by the Government is Not God political committee, which supports candidates “who stand firmly against the unbiblical welfare state.

The election in California is no more about social issues than the national election is about whether people are born gay–but like David Gregory on Meet the Press yesterday, the reporter is emphasizing an insignificant group, in the hopes of firing up the Democratic base.

Exhibit C: We can win if you just show up!

Both sides agree on one thing: The outcome will be decided by turnout – which campaign does a better job of identifying supporters and getting them to the polls.

No word on what the polling is or why–just a plea, and a reminder that victory will hinge on the supporters who turn up.

Exhibit D: Scandal? What scandal?

We’ve written about the ad that highlighted Janice Hahn’s connection to local gang members, of the death threats those revelations incurred, Hahn’s playing of the race card, and the foolish attack on Fox news by Hahn’s campaign. Strangely enough, the AP story doesn’t find any of those events to be newsworthy, as Newsbusters reports:

But as anyone who has followed the wire service’s biases would expect, Political Writer Michael R. Blood’s nearly 1000-word write-up (“GOP looks for upset in race for Calif. House seat”) totally ignored a serious controversy and related attempted thuggery involving Democrat Janice Hahn, whose opponent is Republican Craig Huey.

In my initial read of the story, my first instinct was these omissions were rather odd. Normally, the MSM tries to localize any election that appears to go against the Democrats or the Obama Administration, while nationalizing any Democratic win. Hahn’s missteps are the perfect excuse for the left; why not play that up? The answer comes in the next sentence:

It’s fair to ask whether the AP’s Blood withheld the incriminating information against Hahn in hopes of avoiding further harm to an already vulnerable liberal in what was originally supposed to be a cakewalk race.

There’s the rub: the AP believes this race is still winnable for the Dems, and as long as this is true, any hint of the scandals that surrounds Janice Hahn must be avoided–even in a 1000-word article.

Does anyone want to make book that if Huey wins, the AP follow-up story will be all about Hahn’s scandals?

Will this last bit of free press be enough to save Janice Hahn? We’ll know this time on Wednesday morning.

UPDATE (JM): Uh-oh:

Craig Huey for Congress is reporting that a last minute mailer from Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn in the campaign for the 36th congressional district has drawn a stinging rebuke from a representative for 93 year old World War II POW Louis Zamperini of Torrance. The mailer used photos from Zamperini’s recent book and website and implied an endorsement from Zamperini, in spite of the fact that Hahn had been warned in advance not to use the photos or embroil the WWII hero in her political campaign.

“The Hahn campaign has been told repeatedly, both verbally and via email, that Louis Zamperini does not wish to endorse Janice Hahn’s campaign for Congress, and does not approve the use of Mr. Zamperini’s name or likeness,” said John Naber, Assistant to Mr. Zamperini. “The Hahn campaign did not have permission from Mr. Zamperini for the recent mailing using photos from his book and website.”

That’s desperation.

Dealing With What Liberals Do

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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Professional progressive aneurysm-causer Michele Bachmann can’t stop infuriating her opponents, which is only one reason to like her. But her gaffes have been truly appalling. She looked into a different camera, totally not really expressed inadvertent admiration for John Wayne Gacy, and thinks the Founding Fathers opposed slavery just because they did. And then she said “internets” at the Twitter town hall! Wait: was that her?

But she truly crossed the line when her husband helped poor people. His habit of heartlessly accepting Medicaid patients at his mental health clinic reflects an uncommonly selfish desire to aid those who have been granted government-issued insurance. The compassionate thing to do would be to turn them away, preferably waiting until winter so they may be cast into snow banks for the benefit of hungry Republican wolves.

Or maybe they’re simply coping with circumstances. Of course, one of the core consequences of Obamanomics is that more people are on more doles. She voted against all the crap that led to the immense poverty that defines the second annual Recovery Summer. But why not attack her for the Bachmann family’s efforts to help the needy after the government already tried?

Still, Bachmann’s foes aren’t worried about Barack Obama’s widespread non-successes. Instead, they’ve shockingly gone negative by attempting to portray her as a dumb phony when they’re not struggling to do the same with a former Alaska governor they also hate with their very being. As for their present favorite feminine target, they think that Bachmann a neo-Pharisee for dealing with reality. That is, they would if they appreciated Biblical references.

Undoubtedly, she would prefer that her husband accepted people who could afford to pay out of pocket or obtain private insurance. But those are impractical goals during an Obama presidency. Blaming her family for coping with the aftermath of the staggeringly growing quantity of Medicaid recipients is akin to taking a date to see Larry Crowne, then wondering why she’s sad and uninterested in you afterward.

The charge that she’s violating her principles by being married to a man who treats those who require assistance holds up as well as an insufferably disgusting, slimy, lying, unemployed creep claiming that she’s “crazy.”

The world’s Anthony Weiners rationally think that her placid eyes are symptomatic of lunacy. On a related note, they start with the assumption that anything she says reflects why she’s dumb and full of it. Remember: they’re pro-women.

My favorite Minnesota congressperson ever can be judged by the nastiness of her foes. Those irritated by another successful conservative woman with a family let their contempt render them as snarky as they are oblivious. Sadly, Bachmann Derangement Syndrome resembles the Palin strain in that it cannot be cured in our lifetime, even if you’re lucky enough to have Bachmann’s spouse treat you.

Similarly, opponents of the surging presidential candidate also expect conservatives to turn down Social Security checks, which disregards the not precisely voluntary nature of the pyramid scheme. Um, Americans are forced to toss money into the pot as a condition of employment.

Everyone qualified is naturally collecting said benefits, but those who think there’s a better way are apparently supposed to turn them down on principle even though they surrendered some of their retirement funds to fund them. Make participation voluntary, and we’ll talk.

Bachmann’s non-controversy is also reminiscent of the time well-adjusted left-wing bloggers got some giggles when they learned that Ayn Rand took Social Security benefits. Cheers to them for uncovering this fact only a few decades after the fact. Regardless, they deliberately or obliviously disregarded that she also paid into the system as a result of selling warehouses full of books despite her strident tone and ridiculously artificial characters.

Additionally, states with Republican governors were supposed to turn down stimulus money on principle. Instead, they accepted that the government was handing out allegedly free pizza, that the state’s residents chipped in to pay the delivery guy, and that they would have been at a disadvantage compared to other states if they declined. Hate the stimulus game, not the playa, yo.

They’re upset that we’re not cheating at Monopoly, although they still can’t figure out how conservatives are so proficient at managing income and property. We play by their twisted rules. They then bitch when we comply before calling us hypocrites. Those who are smug may as well be oblivious, too. Why not claim she wants to ban porn, or savage her for thinking people who date within their respective genders have a say in the matter?

Further, consider how they link her husband’s business practices to her. To quote a random feminist, “THEY’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE.” The capital letters are theirs.

But they’ll still try to paint Bachmann as a sanctimonious extremist when they’re not dissecting her words for secret references as if they were Bob Dylan lyrics. It’s uncertain which they like better: pretending that they found evidence that she’s a dolt or that she’s betraying her beliefs. Expect them to remain typically classy as they do so, especially those of them who haven’t been funny in nearly two decades.

Maybe they’ll stop trashing her husband for his work to help the underprivileged once they find dirt about one of her 23 foster kids. Next, they’ll present evidence that she’s collecting a government paycheck even though she wants to limit its size. Oops: I scooped them.

Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. He tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.

Greece: Europe Wakes Up and Smells the Ouzo

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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When last I looked in on Greece, the Euro-leaders were trying their damnedest to avoid the word “default” slapped on anything. They have finally realized that’s not possible:

European leaders are for the first time prepared to accept that Athens should default on some of its bonds as part of a new bail-out plan for Greece that would put the country’s overall debt levels on a sustainable footing.

The new strategy, to be discussed at a Brussels meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Monday, could also include new concessions by Greece’s European lenders to reduce Athens’ debt, such as further lowering interest rates on bail-out loans and a broad-based bond buyback programme. It also marks the possible abandonment of a French-backed plan for banks to roll-over their Greek debt.

More details at the link, if you really want to know.

I think it will go better now that they’ve quit trying to deny the reality of the situation. And the credit rating agencies may be breathing a bit freer now that they’re not being called on to paper over an obvious default.

UPDATE, JM: It blows me away that the crisis in Greece is affecting the fortunes of the Swedes to this degree, but I suppose that’s why they called it the “European Union” . . . because it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Or something.

Kenneth Gladney Case Scheduled to Start Trial Today.

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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But it was two years ago that Gladney was beaten up by SEIU “activists” at a rally–basically, for Selling Gadsden Flags While Black.

Gateway Pundit:

After a health care town hall meeting in August 2009 St. Louis native Kenneth Gladney was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Rep. Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters. Gladney was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized for the night.

Gladney, a cancer survivor, was selected by the Carnahan supporters for the beatdown because he was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags and because he was black.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported at the time:

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

The national media and NAACP ignored the hate crime. Gladney didn’t fit the mold. . . .

CBS Local reported:

Twenty months after he claims he was beaten by two union activists, while he tried to sell conservative buttons outside a Congressman Russ Carnahan town hall forum on health care reform, Kenneth Gladney now has a court date. . . .

SEIU members Elston McCowan and Perry Molens are charged with misdemeanor assault. Both men pleaded not guilty and [they] requested a jury trial.

Read the whole thing; Jim has video that will help you to get up to speed.

Geithner Promises . . . Pain

Posted on July 11, 2011 By

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Yahoo News:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says [it] will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.

Geithner tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it’s a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people “it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”

And it would have been much, much worse if unemployment had gone as high as we were told it would if we didn’t blow all that money (that we didn’t have) on the stimulus. . . . oh, wait–something is terribly wrong . . . it went up that high anyway. And higher.

Also, there’s this, from The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday the U.S. is not going to default on its debt obligations despite the apparent hardening of the impasse between Democrats and Republicans on a budget compromise.

“Let me make this clear,” Geithner said on NBC’s Meet the Press, adding, “The U.S. is not going to default. We are a country that pays its bills. We’re going to meet our obligations.”

If lawmakers and the Obama administration don’t agree on a compromise budget package that includes raising the $14.29 trillion borrowing limit before Aug. 2, Treasury says the government could begin defaulting on its obligations.

Late last week, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said he would no longer pursue a $4 trillion deficit-reduction deal proposed by the White House. Rather, Republicans now want a smaller deal, which would reduce the deficit by between $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion over 10 years, and consists largely of spending cuts.

Geithner said on Meet the Press, however, President Barack Obama will push for “the biggest, most substantial deal possible. The deal that’s going to be best for the economy.” He said even getting a smaller deal, such as the one proposed by the GOP, is “very tough too because it requires very difficult reforms, savings, cuts and things people depend on that matter.”

Repeatedly pressed on the news program if the administration was open to cutting entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Geithner said Obama was “standing tough,” against such measures.

Republicans have said the White House is backpedaling on whether it would consider reducing the size of entitlements.

Still, Geithner said, Obama’s “willing to do very, very difficult political things” to cut costs, “even Medicare and Medicaid.”

“There are things we can do responsibly to save money in those programs and we have to do that if we’re going to bring these deficits under control,” he said.

The secretary also said the economic recovery hadn’t stalled, but said a return to health was a “long-term” process. Dismal and persistently high unemployment levels continue to plague the U.S. economy, worrying markets and households alike that the country may be in for a much longer slump than originally expected.

On a separate matter, whether the secretary would leave office before the end of the president’s first term, Geithner was coy.

The secretary wouldn’t commit to the full term, rather saying, “I’m going to be doing this for the foreseeable future.”

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