A Classic Tax-n-Spend Liberal – That’s Change?!

It’s just over a week until Election Day, and I’ve resigned myself to a Barack Obama victory. Obama has run a campaign with the theme of “Change”. Change you can believe in. Change we’ve been waiting for. (Note: Both of these Obama slogans end in a preposition – a grammar no-no. I hesitate to point this out because I’m no grammar expert. I’m sure to have grammar faux pas in this very post. However, I’m not running to be leader of the free world, with millions of dollars at my disposal.). Change for America. Change the course of history. Change the rising tides of the seas. Change, change, change, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, there will be changes, but they won’t be the kind of changes Obama supporters are hoping.

If you think the economy is tough now, wait until Obama wins.

Despite all his grand talk, Obama is nothing more than your classic tax-and-spend liberal. A fact that cannot be disputed is that Obama plans to increase the level of federal budget spending. This is not my opinion, or some Conservative attack. It’s simply fact. Obama’s social programs, particularly his health care plan, will increase the federal budget. Even with an end to hostilities in Iraq, an Obama administration plans to increase spending. The argument here is not whether increasing federal spending is good or bad. I’m simply pointing it out as fact that spending will increase under the Obama plan. That’s the “spend” part of Obama–the-tax-and-spend-liberal.

As far as taxes go, yet another undisputable fact is that Obama plans to increase taxes. OK, one can argue that he plans to raise personal income taxes on only the top 5% of Americans (More on that later), but regardless of who will be paying the taxes, the fact remains that he certainly plans to raise taxes. When the government plans to take a higher percentage of available income in taxes, no matter who’s paying, that’s a tax increase. That’s the “tax” part of Obama-the-tax-and-spend-liberal.

Let’s delve a little deeper into Obama’s tax increase plan. In addition to raising the personal income tax on the top 5% of wage earners, Obama plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Regardless of his campaign rhetoric, this will certainly impact some of that precious 95% that Obama claims will be unaffected. On top of these taxes, Obama’s plan is to raise the capital gains tax as well as taxes on corporations. Such tax increases are indirect taxes on individuals. They don’t show up on your 1040 form in April, but they certainly impact you, whether you notice it or not. These hidden taxes play well with the populace because they tap into people’s intrinsic jealousy. They fan the fires of class envy, and eventually get passed on to the “little people” anyway.
Senator Fred Thompson used an analogy of a pool to help explain Barack Obama’s tax plan. Imagine our economy as a big pool. We are all in that pool together; corporations, working people, rich people, unemployed people, retired people – all together. So, if the corporations are on one side of the pool, and Obama takes water away from them, what happens to everyone else in the pool? The water level does not just go down on the corporation’s side; it goes down for all.
Obama is under the impression that an increase in the corporate and capital gains taxes will not have impact on most Americans. Well, again to steal a concept from Fred Thompson, raising the corporate tax will have no impact on you as long as you don’t work, invest, or buy anything from a corporation. Unlike government, which continually runs on deficit, the bottom line is not a moving target for a corporation. If the government takes away more money in the form of taxes from a corporation, that corporation will have to take actions to make up for this loss. Those actions could come in the form of tightening their corporate belts, but it can also come in the form of layoffs, reduced spending and investment, and the passing on of costs to consumers. Corporations are already meeting to layout plans for cuts to offset the Obama tax increases.
Obama likes to say that we are all in this together. In his now famous lecture to Joe The Plumber, Obama said, “spread the wealth”. Obama needs to understand that when it comes to taxes we are also all in this together. Once again, liberal policy will fall victim to unintended consequences, and instead of “spreading the wealth” the Obama tax plan will most certainly spread the pain.

Election Over Load Creates Apathy

Typically during my normal day of work, reading, radio listening, and TV watching, I find one or two things that give me the thought "I should write a blog post about that!". Once I identify a potential topic, my mind wanders during free moments to start contemplating the pieces of the post. What are the points I can make? What research do I need to do? What format should I write in? Sometimes I'll even jot down a few random thoughts on a piece of scrap paper and fold it into my pocket until I can get to a computer. Not all of these daily epiphanies actually become posts, but almost all that do become posts have been born of this sort of haphazard process. I'm pretty sure that's not how George Will comes up with his columns, but for me, that's how the process goes. However, I've noticed that lately, I've had less of these moments. I took a moment to reflect on the cause of this observation, and I can point to one thing as the source -- election over load.

It seems that the nearly 2 years of 24-7 election coverage has finally gotten to me. Most days, much to the disappointment of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, there is nothing going on save for the typical campaign stump speech by one of the candidates. They analyze and over-analyze every word uttered by every candidate. Sick of the faux analysis, I waited weeks for the first debate to come. When it finally arrived (and there was definitely some question whether it would arrive as scheduled) I struggled to not fall asleep on my couch as the candidates repeated talking points we've all heard dozens of times before.

The vice-presidential debates are Thursday. I fear that these debates have the potential to be another yawn-fest. It seems that dialogue the caliber of the Lincoln-Douglas debates could not live up to the hype of this upcoming debate.

So, for my own selfish reasons, and the sake of this blog, I hope these next 5 weeks produce some substance. Other than that, November 4th can't pass fast enough for me!