"The spending will continue until the deficits improve." – Michael McDaniel
George Rebane
Conservative commentators are beginning to realize and report their discoveries that Obama is actually trying to take America into a level of socialism that would make the Europeans blush. Rush Limbaugh is the most recent to experience this epiphany. For RR readers, none of this should be news.
The fiscal cliff negotiations are providing the latest revelations of the messiah’s master plan. His message to Michigan’s unions Monday was vintage socialist prevarication. The state’s unions have held its workers back for decades, and caused an exodus of employers and the more talented employees to greener pastures in other states. And Michigan still has an employment rate that is about 30% higher than the national average.
But there was Obama the Pandering Pangloss, attributing none of the state’s misery to forced union membership and encouraging them to oppose the state’s new right-to-work legislation from making Michigan the 24th state so blessed (more here and here). Obama counseled – “what we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions.” The new Michigan law – along with the 23 other such laws already on the books across the land – does none of that, but that’s not what the sheeple should believe as the unions continue to wage their thuggery in Lansing.
Today the state's teachers unions are planning to stay home as the Dept of Education reports that, of Michigan's 8th graders, 3 out of 4 "are not proficient in reading", and 2 out of 3 "are not proficient in math". It is clear that Michigan might benefit greatly if those same teachers would not come back into their classrooms.
On the national scale Team Obama’s lying machine continues to push its no growth agenda (21?) to weaken America (see also Obamunism). The drums beat louder for the socialists’ grand shibboleth – all economic misery is due to the rich not paying enough taxes, and the Bush2 tax cuts have now demonstrated that beyond all that passes for reason among the gimme chorus. So the only way to avoid the fiscal cliff is to increase taxes on the rich – that is the secret sauce that will make things right with the economy. Spending cuts? Well maybe later, but it’ll have to come out of national defense, not entitlements (which are the real 800 lbs deficits gorilla, and projected to soar to the moon in the coming years).
In the meanwhile what the lamestream does not pass on to the national flock are reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Tax Policy Center which tell us that Obama’s taxes on the rich will be enough to cover only nine days of federal spending – truly a pimple on the butt of a budget that still no Democrat wants to put his name to. But the biggest truth that must be kept under the rug is that socialism’s grand shibboleth is a lie. “(The) CBO and Tax Policy Center data together show that only 4% of the $12 trillion swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits from 2002 through 2011 resulted from the upper-income tax cuts. Two recessions and soaring government spending were the main factors.” (more here)
And that’s merely the Keynesian interpretation. But we of the Austrian school – who believe that those who earn it make better decisions for the economy on where they spend their money – know that lower taxes also contributed to economic growth and maintained total government revenues at higher levels than would have been possible if the Bush2 cuts had not helped us out of the Clinton recession. But now beyond the tipping point, none of this matters – the cry of the downtrodden proletariat continues, ‘The rich must be punished, even if we have to sacrifice ourselves in the process. Social justice demands it.’
To put a bow on Obama's ideological direction, Jeff Immelt, chairman of the President's Economic Advisory Board and CEO of GE, has now publicly stated that he believes "state run communism works", and points to the relationship between Chinese communists and its large state directed/owned corporations. Immelt's take on the matter is not a surprise to those of us who know how leviathan corporations come into being, operate, and are maintained by our government's active participation in their markets, regulatory affairs, and as guarantor without peer.
Until the state takes over completely (Stalin), socialist governments become cheek-by-jowl partners (Hitler) with their large corporations in directing production and wealth distribution. But even before that, the managements of corporate dinosaurs have to firmly plant their lips on the lower two cheeks of government and keep them there for the duration. Posing as a capitalist, Immelt is only the current poster child of this.
[14dec12 update] Today Bill Whittle of PJ Media and guests conclude (here) that the unions have indeed destroyed Michigan as one America's longtime economic engines. Do these guys read RR? 😉
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