If thou are a master, be sometimes blind;
if a servant, sometimes deaf.
Thomas Fuller
Sunday Talk Soup and the Fiscal Cliff
I cannot lapse in this blog into profanity, but I'm sorely tempted, particularly after listening to my podcast backlog of the ABC This Week and Fox News Sunday (MTP recently revised its podcast schedule and I think it now only makes available the last show's podcast).
But one talking point has me seething:: the idea that the election has a mandate on discriminatory class warfare tax hikes. First of all, let me point out that since Obama took office, there are more Republicans in each chamber of Congress--including the GOP holding the House in 2 consecutive elections. There was a strong rebuke to astronomically high federal spending, and what was the response of Senate Majority Leader Reid and Obama to the biggest House landslide turnover since the 1937 recession? Neither individual submitted and passed a viable budget and with trillion dollar budget deficits as far as the eye can see: we didn't see even modest proposals like putting a freeze on spending and hiring. How dare these progressive hypocrites suggest that we give Obama a blank check in an election where he got millions fewer votes and the incumbent won a number of battleground states by a mere 1-5 points?
Second, the hypocritical Dems have waxed enthusiasm for the Clinton tax regime--they claim we can't afford to maintain the tax rates on the 2% who pay, to use an Obama phrase, above their weight class of taxes (i.e., over their proportion of national income)--25% of the cost of tax extensions, less than 10% of the annual budget deficits. Never mind the fact that some states (e.g., HI, CA) tack on up to an additional 11%, not to mention the add-on of some local governments, we will have a counterproductive steep investment tax increase (especially dividend income). All of these things discourage the realization of investment and/or other income--which is especially incompetent and self-defeating in a sluggish growth economy.
Now I know that progressives are mathematically challenged, but even a kid in middle school math knows if we can't afford the 25% revenue loss to the upper 2%, we surely can't afford the 75% going to the middle class. If the middle class doesn't like having their taxes raised, they should vote out the party in power that created unsustainable government spending. But just because the middle class would hypocritically prefer to stick their fair share of the tax burden on economically successful does not justify legal theft/plunder; I'm not, and never have been, part of the upper 2%; I don't think I personally know anyone in the upper 2%. I just know punishing economic success is a double-edged sword. The fairest tax rate is a flat rate ( like established in many countries in the former Soviet bloc). Everyone would have skin in the game of government financing. Also a VAT or consumption tax, which would balance the economic burden.
The reason the GOP is focusing on entitlements is because 60% of the budget is there. The programs have been underfunded from the get-go. For the third straight fiscal year the social security program ran a pay-as-you-go deficit; the government made up the difference by deducting it (tens of billions) from anemic interest payments on the captive social security reserve. And just like I predicted last year, politicians are trying to extend the 2% employee payroll tax cut (I don't mind that in theory if everybody agrees to a relevant reduction in benefits--but doing a cut without reforming an already chronically underfunded program? Financially irresponsible!)
I think the fix I mentioned in an earlier post is we need $7T a year in revenue just to sustain these programs. That's almost triple our federal revenue for the whole government. These are INDIVIDUAL BENEFIT programs--not the cost of "real government"--the court systems, common defense, etc. I think the fiction that the elderly have paid their "fair share" is absurd; counting premiums and lifetime work contributions, and longer lifespans, Medicare benefits are more than 2-1, according to CATO.
With a growing, longer-living senior population this is quickly escalating out of control. It is morally unjust to transfer that burden to someone else's pockets. If one of the Koch brothers frequented a restaurant, would it be right for me to insist that he picks up my check? Why is it any different for me to transfer my retirement expenses to him?
I think in the long run we need to demand that citizens take ownership of their own retirement, that federal healthcare spending focus on catastrophic expenses. So help me if I hear another disingenuous progressive like Sen. Stabenow (D-MI) engage in political spin suggesting that Medicare Advantage is a wasteful giveaway to health insurers... A detailed refutation of this apples and oranges nonsense is beyond the scope of this post, but here's a salient response from a Heritage analysis:
In other words, instead of reducing waste, the MA cuts will simply cut health care services available to patients and transfer spending from Medicare Advantage to other federal programs and other payers (including patients), thus increasing federal and state spending on Medicaid and patient spending on Part D, supplemental care plans, and out-of-pocket costs.I'he second talking point was this preposterous knee-jerk defense of Susan Rice whom had gone on several Sunday talk shows following the Benghazi consulate attack to advance the Youtube hypothesis. I don't get intelligence briefings but it was clear to me this was a terrorist attack before Rice went on the shows. The liberals insist that she was simply parroting unclassified intelligence. (Now "national intelligence" is an oxymoron if there ever was one...) I leave it to Congress to investigate how a completely fabricated, unsupported hypothesis appeared in an intelligence briefing, but we know this much:
Reuters and Fox News have obtained copies of an email sent about two hours after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which the White House, Pentagon and other agencies are told that the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia had "claimed responsibility."Petraeus has also testified that they knew from the start it was a terrorist act. Surely Rice was aware of salient facts of the attack.
Putin Signs Law Barring
American Adoptions of Russian Orphans.. Thumbs DOWN!
There have been a few notorious cases of American adoptions of Russian youths not working out. Was this motivated by a recently passed law targeting alleged human rights violations in Russia? I don't think the Congress should pass laws tying the hands of diplomats. That being said, Mr. Putin should put the best interests of the child first. Surely loving American parents is a better option than growing up in a state system.
Musical Interlude: Christmas Retrospective
Celtic Woman, What Child Is This?
