Note to the President

President Obama met with the GOP today, and was angry at them because they've opposed his initiatives. For the most part they've had good reason to oppose them, they aren't the ideals they were elected to congress to support.

Quick note, Prez, maybe you should get your own party in order before you start whining about the "opposition party" opposing you. You've had a year with a super majority in the Senate, and a big majority in the House, yet you've gotten nothing of consequence passed. You can't get your own party behind your ideas, and you are angry the other party isn't supporting them?

You are angry the GOP wouldn't support you on health care reform? They offered over 400 amendments between the two chambers, every one of which was shot down on a party line vote. They attempted to work with your party, your congressional leaders would have none of it. And now they have no bill. Mr. President, when you can't get a single RINO in the Senate to vote on your bill, you know it's too far to the left.

You are angry they wouldn't support the stimulus? CBO now says the bill will cost 850 billion dollars, not 787 billion, and you've had to change accounting methods three times to make it look like it's creating jobs. Yet every independent study so far says it hasn't. Maybe they understood that the bill wasn't about jobs, and that's why they didn't support it.

You don't like extending the Bush tax cuts because "billionaires don't need tax breaks". Here's the truth, Mr. Obama, when rich folks get a tax cut they invest it, providing the capital for other businesses to expand and create jobs. They don't stuff it in mattresses or lock it in a basement to count nightly. Venture capital doesn't materialize out of thin air, it's money that the investor class uses to take a chance on some small start up becoming the next Oracle or IBM. When you confiscate more of that money, that's less start ups that have a chance to suceed.

When you give the same amount to a group of a hundred million people the money is watered down. Some buy things which stimulates the economy, but as was seen last time, most paid their bills which doesn't do the same thing as tossing a hundred million bucks to businesses.

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More Stimulus Hijinks

Well, now that they've been called out numerous times on the bogus jobs numbers from the $787 billion stimulus package, the White House has dropped all pretense of trying to get good numbers for jobs that are supposedly created or saved by the deal.

Now, instead, anyone who uses stimulus money to pay salaries can count all of those salaries as jobs created or saved.

Wait, it gets better, give employees a raise with stimulus cash? Those are "created or saved" jobs too.

Hold it, I'm not through yet. Did you report the employee job as saved last quarter? Did you get more stimulus money this quarter? You can report the job as saved again!!

If you think I'm joking here's the link to the article on Yahoo News about it. This had to be true, no one is good enough to make this crap up.

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Why Not Just Cut Taxes?

President Elect Obama has decided that the $175 billion "economic stimulus" he suggested during the campaign may not be enough to get the economy rolling again. So now, he's discussing a plan somewhere between $500 and $700 billion dollars. (GPO linked XL spread sheet. Cell BI)

To put this in perspective, that's between 40 and 60 percent of all personal income tax revenue estimated to be collected for FY 2008. If you do the low end of it, $500 billion, that would be every bit of tax income paid by the bottom 95% of tax payers; folks with an income under $153,000 in 2006. (Tax Foundation Table).

This begs the question, why not just eliminate the income tax on the lower 95% of the population for the next year or so? That seems to be the simple solution to getting that money out there. But there is are political reasons it won't be done.

Simply put, Mom and Pop feel better about getting a check from Uncle Sugar than they do about seeing their paycheck go up a few bucks. Over 40% of tax payers complain about their income tax, yet don't actually pay any. They see the money come out of their check, but then come April, get a refund with tax credits that is more than they paid in. They like that check, and seeing taxes deducted over the course of a year gives them something to bitch about, and politicians a way to claim the little guy is being screwed.

The second reason is that by cutting taxes directly, you aren't able to pay off the lobbies and interest groups that got you elected. If instead you send that $175 billion back to tax payers, and spend the other $325 billion on infrastructure projects, you can make a lot of folks in a lot of industries that invested in you happy.

For those not familiar with this method, it's known as the Chicago way. Our state leaders; the mentors of Barack Obama; have become the national experts at buying votes from interest groups with OPM (other peoples money). It was a trend started in Chicago (hence the name) to keep the Original Mayor Daley in power, and has spread to our state capital in a big way. Big enough to have the last Governor in prison and the current one under investigation by the feds.

If you think you need help from road builders, get a federal grant and spend a billion or so, spread among the 10 biggest, and redo every major freeway in Chicago, at once. Want help from health care providers, expand the state health care system to pay for just about anyone, then let the judges say it's illegal. It's how we do business here in Illinois.

President Obama would like to carry this quaint midwest tradition to the White House, deficit be damned. And, great for his union buddies, The Davis Bacon Act makes sure that all that infrastructure money gets funneled through them.

Yes, a tax cut would get the money back to the people in the most efficient manner, but let's not get confused here. The purpose of the economic stimulus expansion has much less to do with you, the tax payer getting something than it does with paying back political backers.

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