Hands Up Peter! Paul Needs Some Cash!

 Watching the President give his best campaign speech of the 2012 election cycle, that same old adage kept rolling over again in my mind.  The concept that you pay off one bill by way of another is tantamount to one paying his student loans off with a credit card and thinking he just made a great deal; or the guy who talks the car salesman down from $30,000 to $25,000 and claims, “I just saved $5,000!!”  No, you just SPENT $25,000!!

As the “American Jobs Act” – that must be passed immediately, but was evidently not urgent enough to pull President Obama away fromMartha’s Vineyard– is being fleshed out in Congress, we see the same pig with a different color of lipstick. The President claims that the jobs bill will pay for itself.  When was the last time a Keynesian stimulus bill ever paid for itself?  Ever heard of the Big Bang? Before that…..

As I heard the President lay out his plan last Thursday (Sept 8), I knew it would be more of the same.  Sure, it sounded great on the surface and for those who paid no attention in Economics and Civics class in high school (by the way, I taught both for many years), it probably was the solution to all of our problems.  However, being someone who has partaken of the tree of the knowledge (of good and evil), I also knew history, particularly the President’s history.  When Barack Obama refers to “we”, he means GOVERNMENT, not “We the People”.  When you hear, “we must” this and “we must” that, he means “the GOVERNMENT” must – and when you hear “Government”, a huge red flag with the word “TAXES” must  be hoisted in your mind.

Now, being the supply-sider that I am, I might be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Obama spoke of payroll tax cuts and incentives to small businesses for hiring and so forth.  It has a shiny gold surface, but then again, so does a gilded cage.

(Warning, read the following only AFTER sitting and strapping on the seat belt)

I actually agree with Obama!  (Told you to sit down…) Tax cuts are not good.  They bring in less tax revenue when what we need is more.  We need tax increases!

Before you write me out of your will, let me explain.  Conservatives are not for tax cuts, they are for tax RATE cuts – they are NOT the same.  The dirty little secret that is now coming out about the spectacular jobs bill is that the “offset” for these so-called cuts are – you guessed it – a tax RATE increase on “the rich”.  Obama defines “rich” as making more than $250,000 per year.  Never mind that fact that in some parts of the country, a two parent family of 6 (for those edumacated in da pubric schewls, that’s 4 kids) making 250k would be considered middle class if you factor cost of living.  The real issue here is that he plans to raise taxes on the JOB CREATORS in our country to pay for the tax cuts he plans to give these same JOB CREATORS so they can hire people.  Anyone else getting dizzy?  And of course the real kicker will be this – tax RATE increases, permanent; tax cuts… what do you think?

It all comes back to the same socialist (yes, I said socialist) philosophy of filtering everything through government and giving it back out the way they see fit.  Equal outcome versus equal opportunity – the founders and framers NEVER advocated equal outcome and it has failed EVERY time it has been tried, everywhere! (By the way, if this is done in the private sector, it’s called money laundering.)

Last night, CNN hosted a Tea Party debate among Republican candidates (I know, CNN and Tea Party in the same sentence, bad form).  The question of the night came from a young man at one of the tea party remote sites (shocker it didn’t come from ‘Wolf’ Blitzer).  He basically asked, “How much of the money I earn do you think I should be allowed to keep?”  After the audible gasp and enthusiastic applause of untold millions watching, John Huntsman proceeded to run the 100 meter hurdles blindfolded, tripping over his clueless tongue several times before finishing without actually answering the question.  What I wouldn’t give to have Obama (or any other liberal in Congress) answer that question!

So what is the answer? Certainly not laundering tax money that you, the government, did NOT earn.  In principal, we deserve to keep ALL of it if we earned it legally.  Yet even responsible conservatives know that there must be some form of taxation to fund a government, but when you have a tax code that requires full time tax lawyers to take a month off to up-train every year, it’s too much.  Our tax code should take less time to read than our Constitution, which calls for limited government, not a nanny state.  Until we get a politician – no, a statesman that is willing to answer that question correctly, we should keep looking.

But please stop mugging Peter.  He and Paul are on the same side.