Extending That Which Does Not Exist

You can't help but laugh as you see Liberals falling all over themselves over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, especially for the middle class. The funniest part of all of this is that these are the same people who spent 8 years trying to convince us that the Bush tax cuts were only for the rich. Even some Republicans bought into that here in Mass.

How many times did we hear that only the rich got tax cuts? By pushing to extend the tax cuts for people making under $250,000 they are admitting that for 8 years during the Bush administration they lied to us, (big surprise), about the fact that we even got a tax cut in the first place. In more and more cases Democrats are pushing for an extension of all Bush tax cuts including the "tax cuts for the rich".

That's quite a turnaround from the rhetoric we're usually hearing from Liberals. Obama is blaming the Republicans despite the fact that he can't even get enough Democrats to jump on board of his sinking ship.

"Democrats, though, have sought to expropriate Republican concerns about the deficit in their defense of allowing the tax cuts for wealthier Americans to expire. They say an extension would add $700 billion to the federal tab over the next decade."

We'll get into why that's not true in a minute but let's first imagine that to be true. $700 billion over 10 years is only $70 billion a year. That's nothing considering our current deficits and debt. Think about it. Bush's failed stimulus cost about $787 billion. Obama's cost even more, including billions in earmarks, "pork" as it's sometimes called. 50 billion here, 20 billion there, we talk about billions now as if it's nothing and that alone is scary.

Isn't it funny how president's often use timetables that go beyond their presidency. If Obama was to win a second term, (I'll pause while you finish laughing............), if Obama wins a second term he would only be president until Jan. of 2017. Yet he's talking about revenues 10 years in the future. If there's one thing we can see when comparing 2000 to today it's that a lot can change in 10 years. This is the same president who said the stimulus would work and whose economic team said unemployment wouldn't rise over 8% with that stimulus package. They were wrong then and they're wrong now.

Have you heard Obama's clever catchphrase someone else probably came up with for him?

"You want to go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D.' When you go backward, what do you do? You put it in 'R.'" - President Obama

Well Mr. President it all depends on where you're parked. Your policies have now parked our country on the edge of a cliff. When you're on the edge of a cliff you don't shift into drive and head over the side. To be fair a quick little move in reverse won't necessarily make you safe either. Progressive Republicans can be just as dangerous to our country as progressive Liberals.

I was talking about politics the other day with someone and I was explaining tax policy like the Laffer Curve. I wanted to find a way to describe it that was so simple to understand even a progressive liberal would understand it. I'm going to use something we pretty much all do regularly. You engage in supply side economics and the philosophy of the Laffer Curve far more than you realize. I'll show you how very soon in my next post and it will explain why the government will make far less money than they are expecting. Until then keep enjoying the debate over letting you keep something they said you never had.