President Obama has always talked big about changing the way things are done in Washington. He has unquestionably failed to deliver. The latest example involves his Fiscal Commission. At their first meeting, he said, “for years, folks in Washington deferred politically difficult decisions and avoided telling hard truths about the nature of the problem.”
And how exactly do the “folks in Washington” defer difficult decisions? Oh, that’s right, they form a commission that they can later pretend to listen to, then ultimately sideline. We don’t need any more commissions, Mr. President. We need politicians like you to name something – anything – that you are capable of cutting. Right now. Stop the posturing, pontificating, and politicking and just do it.
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Tax Day has come and gone. Naturally, this means Tea Parties have successfully been conducted across the nation. Not that the horse needs any more beating, but the Tax Day Tea Party event I attended in DC once again blew away the left’s racism narrative (which is not stopping them from doubling down with a new smear).
If the popularity of black speakers such as Rev. C.L. Bryant wasn’t enough, take this account from Politico:
Brooks Alexander, a 23-year-old Olney, Md. hotel worker and Obama supporter who wore an Obama tee-shirt to the evening rally, said infiltrators were being disrespectful.
“They’re doing a disservice not only to themselves, but to the people who are here trying to express their views,” said Alexander, who is African American and said he traveled to the rally to verify for himself liberal accounts blasting the tea party as racist.
“All my friends told me I was crazy to come down here in an Obama shirt,” he said. “Obviously I have political disagreements [with the tea party], but I cannot lie. I cannot say that people have been anything but nice to me. They have been shaking my hand. One guy told me I had a lot of [guts] for coming down here. I will definitely walk away from this with a new understanding of the tea party.”
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According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the black box health care bill comes with big tax increases on the middle class:
Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper.
The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.
…Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.
Barack Obama from the campaign:
“Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
Honesty fail. In fact, Mike Pence laughed at silly Democrat tax spin on the House floor:
Nor is the health care bill likely to be the last of the tax increases:
Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress.
…It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to write a climate bill that moderate Republicans could support. Along those lines, the bill will also include an expansion of offshore oil drilling and major new incentives for nuclear power plant construction.
Environmental groups have long advocated gasoline taxes to reduce fossil fuel consumption; the oil industry has spent heavily in recent years to fight taxes, which it says would harm consumers.
Don’t get me wrong, if we’re dead set on doing harm to the economy in order to encourage less use of fossil fuels and more use of “alternatives,” then such a Pigovian tax is the least bad solution. It will make investment in alternative fuels more attractive, but without getting the government too much into the business of picking specific winners and losers.
The problem is that much of the reasoning used to establish that there is a significant enough negative externality for fossil fuel use to justify such a tax (such as global warming) is flimsy or questionable. Raising such a tax now, moreover, will have very negative consequences for an economy that is already struggling to recover from decades of government missteps.
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I think this ad would have been better if it stopped right before the “april fools.” Some things are more powerful precisely because they need no explanation.
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Rush has been telling us this for quite some time. NRO now has the list. Some of my favorites:
STATEMENT: “These negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made.” January 20, 2008, and seven other times.
EXPIRATION DATE: Throughout the summer, fall, and winter of 2009 and 2010; when John McCain asked about it during the health care summit February 26, Obama dismissed the issue by declaring, “the campaign is over, John.”
STATEMENT: Then-Senator Obama declared that a recess appointment is “damaged goods” and has “less credibility” than a normal appointment. August 25, 2005.
EXPIRATION DATE: March 27, 2010: “If, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.”
Leave a commentSTATEMENT: “We will launch a sweeping effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.” – President Obama, January 28, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: “More than two months after some of the funds were released, [Recovery.gov] offers little detail on where the money is going… The government [spent] $84 million on a website that doesn’t have a search function, when its purpose is to ‘root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government.’” April 2, 2009
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The Chamber of Commerce wanted to know what the White House Council on Environmental Quality was up to when it came to “climate change.” So they filed a FOIA request. Should be pretty straight forward, yes? It’s not like there are any national security secrets involved.
But here is what they got in response from the most transparent government ever to grace these United States:
Hat-tip: The Foundry
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I recount a year’s worth of race-mongering in my latest article on Big Government:
Leave a commentBarack Obama came into office with a promise of ushering in a new post-racial era. One year into his term and Chris Matthews has already declared, “Mission Accomplished!” He forgot Obama was black, you see. America is now post-racial! Sadly, the facts tell a very different story. Over the last year, we have witnessed a proliferation of indiscriminate accusations of racism, or a period of what I like to refer to as hyper-racialism.
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I’d do it myself, but the Cato scholars do such a good job I’d rather you just watch this:
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Barack Obama promised to be a game-changer when it comes to polarization (McCain made similar, though less direct, promises). He clearly promised more than he could deliver (which I predicted would be the case at the time), as a new Gallup poll shows.
The trend line here is interesting. It fits with my own theory, that bigger government results in greater polarization. However, it’s possible I was right for the wrong reasons. I readily admit that I cannot rule out other explanations. It’s possible, for instance, that this is a reflection of greater ideological homogenization of the parties thanks to realignment. Southern conservative have shifted from the Democrats to Republicans while Northeastern liberal Republicans have made the reverse trip.
Can you think of any other explanations for the trend?
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In today’s digital world, the liars just can’t expect us to forget anymore.
Update: The House Republican Conference is on the attack:
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
