Barack Hussein Obama thinks he deserves a tax increase. That’s OK with me. In fact, I rather like the idea of a tax increase for him. But why should the rest of us have to feel his pain? Quoth the Senator:
“I think the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more and people who are in need are protected.”
Notice the weasel word “adjust.” What Barack Hussein Obama means is “raise.” You can be quite sure that by “adjust” he doesn’t wish to lower the cap on payroll taxes. No, he wants to take more of your money. But even in the process of proposing to increase taxes on hundreds of thousands of middle-class families, he injects a rhetorical lubricant to ease the shock. If there were a little truth bubble floating above these “we-want-more-of-your-money” politicians, it would read something like this: “Yes, we’re planning to lift unspecified thousands of dollars out of your pocket and spend it as if it were our money, but we are going to justify that bit of statist expropriation by ‘adjusting’ upward the volume on the knob marked ‘liberal guilt.’”
It’s quite a spectacle. The U.S. economy has been humming along nicely, thanks partly–maybe largely–to the tax cuts President Bush pushed through a few years ago. Now that there is building pressure on the economy from the weak dollar and the subprime scandal and some pundits are mouthing the “R” word, we have a crop of Presidential hopefuls proposing policies that would further curtail liquidity, place ever more initiative in the hands of the state (i.e., that apparatus they themselves hope to run), and generally foster the gloominess that helps to precipitate the recession they keep warning about. “The power to tax,” observed John Marshall, “is the power to destroy.” That was in 1819. Why haven’t we learned that lesson yet?
It used to be said that experience was the great teacher. But the stampede to raise taxes, and thereby choke the economy (incidentally hurting the people one pretends to be helping), shows that (as T.S. Eliot said in another context) when it comes to fiscal realities, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.”
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5 Comments
1. OMAC:Well, I really believe the rub is in how Your money is spent, emphasis on “Your”. As a card carrying member of the proletariat Obama does not want to “take more of (my) money”. As he stated very clearly this tax increase affects “rich people like myself [sic]“. As a member of the unwashed masses who raise Your Kobe beef, transport Your Bentleys, and prevent forest fires from burning down Your ski resort towns, I hold slight reproach towards putting heavier monetary pressure on the patriciate. Considering the vast discrepancies in income between the power elite and hoi polloi in the States, the lack of social services provided, and the laughably low tax rates the upper echelon enjoys compared to the Northern European (see – developed first world; what we claim to be) nations, I do believe that taxing the horsey set may do America some good. That is considering that that money is spent appropriately, i.e. on social services, scholarship, and environmental protection, rather than on building the industrial-military complex that is just so darn swell for our economy. While I hope your disapprobation is due to the fear of mishandling thats been ingrained into the minds of Americans over the past 8yrs. rather than not being able to make the next mortgage payment on your house on Nantucket (refinancing?), I can assure you that with Obama in office next year (we can wish right) there is a high probability that the extra cash you will be doling out will go to assuage the coping pains felt by the backbone of this great nation (old, poor, helpless) as they make their way into this 21st century America that is resembling feudal Europe more and more daily. If you don’t agree with this then put your money where your mouth is and support your local republican (my vote’d go to Thompson) who will be more than willing to give us, and Obama’s plans for America, the finger.
Nov 12, 2007 - 5:33 pm 2. Tom N.:Just visiting your blog for the first time, drawn by your Mailer obit, which I thought was a reasonable piece though I disagreed with much of it. But on reading this post I had to ask what you have in mind in impishly writing “Barack Hussein Obama”? I look at your column of serious books on the left of this page, full–apparently–of gravity and respect for civilization and tradition, and then I see you descending into race-baiting name calling. Do you think his middle name reveals some sinister, hidden truth about him? That perhaps he’s not one of us? I have a hard time reading that any other way, and have a hard time imagining you as a serious critic when I read it.
Nov 12, 2007 - 10:21 pm 3. Levans:It cannot be repeated too often: Obama and Warren Buffet and all those others who claim they want to pay more taxes are now, and have always been, perfectly free to donate large sums to the government without any necessity for changes to tax rates for others. In fact, isn’t it unseemly that they make such a claim and then allow their financial agents to seek out any and every possible deduction when preparing their returns? Their protestations are despicably dishonest, on the order of the serial murderer who cries “please stop me before I kill again.”
These people are liars, pure and simple. They don’t want to pay more taxes, else they simply would. They want others, us, to pay more taxes.
Nov 13, 2007 - 5:41 pm 4. touche:Both do contribute to public charities, i.e. Redcross. That’s tantamount to donating to the government while just cutting out the middleman, who would probably steal the majority of their benevolence to pay the rest of a Halliburton no-bid contract.
Nov 14, 2007 - 9:36 am 5. Zhombre:I could see raising the cap on the payroll tax if that was accompanied by a simultaneous cut of the payroll tax rate. That would represent a tax cut for people earning lower wages and for small businesses who have to match dollar for dollar the employee tax but don’t have a lot of high earners.
Nov 17, 2007 - 7:04 pm