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Modern Day Pied Piper
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
The so-called “Fiscal Cliff” was averted on Tuesday, January 1, 2013.
The Senate passed the legislation in the early hours. The House, after
much groaning and complaining, passed it just before midnight.
Income tax was raised on those the Democrats referred to as “the rich”
from 36 percent to 39.6 percent. “The rich,” by Dem definition, were
single income filers earning $400K a year and joint filers earning
$450K a year. Included were many small businesses that file as
individual and joint income earners.
The Reps said this will impact jobs. I know from experience that extra
money paid to the state or the feds will affect how or when a business
can hire and what rate it can pay. Add Obamacare to the mix and you
have multiple job-killers that will impact employers and, consequently,
the unemployed.
The “really” rich, those in the $1 million and above brackets, will
likely be unaffected by either as they still have tax shelters and
other options to protect them.
The Social Security payroll tax increased by 2 percent, impacting both
employee and employer.
The “death tax” for estates worth $5 million or more will rise from 35
percent to 40 percent. While most of us can’t envision a number like
“$5 million,” there will be many family owned businesses and farms –
more employers – that will be impacted by the deal.
Emergency unemployment benefits, childcare and tuition tax credits, the
Farm Bill, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will not be impacted.
A majority of Americans believe government spending is out of control.
In 2011, due to the impending expiration of the “Bush tax cuts,” a
Democrat president and Democrat Senate blackmailed a Republican House
into a deal that provided a net increase in revenue of $620 billion
over 10 years. No Republican proposal that actually cut spending ever
got past the Senate to the President’s desk.
We were told that if the tax cuts expire, it will be on the Reps’ heads
for refusal to work with the Dems to prevent taxes from going up on
everyone.
Three points might be of interest…
1) The Reps created their own blackmail scenario by setting up the
“fiscal cliff” based on Obama’s promises that there will be cuts in
2012. They came up with the Bush tax cut expiration if a deal couldn’t
be reached with this Congress and President.
2) How many of you know that in Federal speak, a cut isn’t really a
cut? It is only a cut in projected spending increases. Many pundits
have noted that if spending stayed at the same level for 10 years, we
would balance the Federal budget. How many of you have projected your
spending on income increases? I never have.
3) Your son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter – any baby born in
the United States today – comes into the world under the cloud of a
$50,000 debt. That is the incurred individual responsibility for a
national debt created by our U.S. Representatives, Senators and
President. And the current administration wants to increase it even
more.
I have to give President Barack Obama credit. I’ve always referred to
him as an awesome orator… one of the best. I just didn’t have a handle
on HOW awesome an orator he really was.
The only president I know in U.S. history who managed to get re-elected
while the unemployment rate was at 7.9 percent or higher, and the
economy was in a shambles, was FDR during the Great Depression. I don’t
know of any president who managed to get re-elected after increasing
the national debt nearly $6 trillion. That’s more than 42 presidents
managed in 53 terms in office.
Obama took office with the unemployment rate at 7.9 percent. Four years
and $5.8 trillion later the unemployment rate is 7.9 percent. And it’s
still Bush’s fault.
Now we face another debt limit crisis. Not only does our president want
unilateral power to raise the debt limit on his own (in other words, a
blank check), he holds Congress responsible to pay they bills that
“they” created.
If I remember right, the House offered a dozen or more bills that
reduced spending. I guess he kind of forgot that his lackey over in the
Senate, Harry Reid, refused to bring them to the floor. He also kind of
forgot that he has offered exactly one budget plan that even his own
party soundly rejected. Then there’s the bi-partisan budget committee
that he appointed and then “forgot.” They offered reduced spending to
go along with tax increases.
He simply wants tax increases.
In my own humble opinion, he doesn’t take the U.S. Constitution
seriously. He’s crossed the line by criticizing the Supreme Court, and
somehow managed to get a conservative Justice John Roberts to support a
constitutionally questionable Obamacare. He’s bypassed Congress on
numerous occasions, most notably his EPA mandated greenhouse gas
regulations that Congress defeated.
Now he wants to write his own laws regarding gun control. He released
23 “Executive Orders,” many of which had nothing to do with enforcing
the laws Congress has passed but rather are new laws he’s trying to
create by mandate.
Not his job. He’s the President. He’s not a Supreme Court judge nor is
he any longer in Congress. And he is not an elected dictator.
I saw a brief discussion between former presidential candidate Mike
Huckabee and two Republicans: a Congressman and a Senator. Huckabee
asked how they would compare working with Obama to working with former
President Clinton…
One simply said it was much tougher; the other said “I never thought
I’d say this, but I now get nostalgic about the ‘old days’ working with
Clinton.”
On the other hand, the public loves him. His approval rating is higher
today (at 53 percent) than it was at any time during his first term
(after the traditional “honeymoon” was over). Compare this to its
approval of the Republican Congress, which simply wants to get
out-of-control spending in check: 27 percent.
So are we really stupid or is he the modern day Pied Piper of Hamelin?
Or both?
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
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