Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Home Front: Politix

Trump Should Name His Fed Chair Replacement Now, Not Later

2025-06-29

[American Liberty] Markets do not wait. Investors, lenders, and entrepreneurs thrive on clarity, not suspense. President Trump understands this better than any recent occupant of the Oval Office. When he senses uncertainty, he instinctively moves to resolve it. He did so with taxes, with regulation, and with foreign policy. The time has come for him to do it again, this time by naming Jerome Powell’s successor as Chairman of the Federal Reserve now, not eleven months from now. This is not a rupture of norms, but an embrace of responsibility. Naming the next Fed Chair is not simply an administrative matter, it is a macroeconomic signal, a moral declaration, and a political necessity. Consider the context. The US economy is wobbling between resilience and recession. Inflation has cooled but not vanished. Consumers are cautious. Small businesses hesitate to expand. The yield curve remains inverted. And yet the Federal Reserve, under Powell’s sluggish stewardship, refuses to cut interest rates decisively. Their reasoning? Prudence, or perhaps cowardice, cloaked in the language of inflation targeting. But there is a more unsettling possibility, one that few in polite circles dare acknowledge: partisanship. Every single economist at the Federal Reserve is a registered Democrat. Not one has donated a dollar to a Republican candidate in over twenty-five years. That fact, standing alone, ought to give the public pause. Powell told the Senate this week, "If we make a mistake here, people will pay... the cost for a long time." But millions are already paying the price for the Fed’s mistake of raising rates too far, too fast, and keeping them high for too long, even as Europe cuts rates in response to similar economic conditions. The Fed’s refusal to follow suit cannot be attributed solely to monetary caution. It increasingly appears ideological, a quiet campaign of economic resistance against a president they loathe and a movement they fear. Now enter the central philosophical question. Should the executive branch, led by a duly elected president with a national mandate, exercise some influence over the nation’s monetary trajectory, or should it leave such questions entirely to an unelected elite ensconced in an institution that prides itself on "independence"? That word, like many others in modern technocracy, conceals more than it reveals. Independence, in practice, often means unaccountability. The Federal Reserve is not a Platonic guardian class. It is a government agency, and its decisions, however "data driven," have massive distributive consequences. Rate policy determines who gets a mortgage, who hires, who invests, and who saves. Historically, presidents have understood this reality and have acted accordingly. Lyndon Johnson infamously browbeat Fed Chair William McChesney Martin at his Texas ranch in 1965 for raising rates during the Vietnam buildup. Richard Nixon hounded Arthur Burns into keeping rates low ahead of the 1972 election. Ronald Reagan, while more tactful, made it abundantly clear what kind of monetary policy he expected from Paul Volcker, and later appointed Alan Greenspan to ensure continuity. These interventions, while criticized in retrospect, were hardly the undermining of constitutional order. They were expressions of democratic accountability.

Link

Economy

Target CEO Says Consumers To Shop Less, Stay Home Amid Inflationary Storm

2022-01-21

[ZERO] Consumer prices soared the most in 40 years in December, a stunning 7% from a year earlier that is crushing real wage gains and sending President Biden's polling numbers to a new record low. The Federal Reserve is expected to embark on an inflation-crushing mission with the first-rate hike expected in March to tame inflation. According to Target's top executive, high inflation eating into wage gains is expected to directly impact US consumers who will be forced to drive less, eat at home, and reduce their shopping habits. Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell told attendees at a National Retail Federation event in New York on Sunday that high inflation will derail consumer spending patterns. Many will resort to cheaper generic-brand goods to save money. "Some of the historical ways consumers react to inflation will play out again in 2022," Cornell said. He noted consumers would "drive fewer miles, and you'll consolidate the number of times and locations where you shop. You'll probably spend a little more eating at home versus your favorite restaurant, and you might make some trade-offs between a national brand and an own brand." Compared to the last two years of stimulus-fueled retail spending, Cornell expects spending patterns to change. He said a lot about the consumer would be understood in the next "60, 90, 120 days" in adapting to the high inflation environment. As part of the rapid recovery, fueled by trillions of dollars in monetary and fiscal aid, prices for cars, gas, food, and furniture rose sharply in 2021. As consumers increased spending, supply chains became snarled, and prices increased further. In the new year, US inflation pressures show very little easing, and some economists predict the peak could be nearing. The high inflation problem has led rate markets to price in 4 rate hikes by December, with the first live meeting expected in March. Many consumers have never seen anything like this because they weren't around in the 1970s and early 1980s of high inflation. It only took then-Fed Chair Paul Volcker to increase interest rates to double digits to tame inflation which sent the economy into a deep recession. High inflation has put Biden on the spot ahead of midterms. The latest polling data shows the president's popularity sunk to a new low this week.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Minn. Dem Denies Knowledge of Former Co.'s Alleged Dealings With Saddam

2018-10-24

[Free Beacon] A Minnesota Democrat running for Congress on her business record says she had no knowledge of a company subsidiary that was implicated in a kickback scheme with the Saddam Hussein regime. Angie Craig is challenging Republican representative Jason Lewis in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, a rematch of the 2016 race that Lewis won by fewer than 7,000 votes. She has highlighted her success "working in health care" for more than two decades as evidence that she can "contribute meaningfully to immediately fixing what's wrong with health care." Her rise in the business world came through her work in corporate communications for global medical device firm Smith & Nephew. Her 12-year tenure at the company coincided with allegations that the company profited from corrupt deals with the Saddam Hussein regime. The probe conducted by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker into the oil-for-food program alleged that Smith & Nephew's UAE subsidiary paid more than $50,000 in bribes to members of the Hussein regime to win a $600,000 contract. Craig denied any knowledge of the subsidiary's dealings with Iraq, pointing out that she only worked for the parent company and had no role in "billings or sales."

Link

Home Front: Politix

Volcker criticizes Congress’ attempt to weaken Dodd-Frank

2015-01-11

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker criticized Congress' attempt to delay provisions of the Dodd-Frank law rule that bears his name. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted down a bill that would have delayed a provision of the so-called Volcker rule that would have given banks until 2019 to comply with rules regarding collateralized loan obligations, a type of security backed by debt, often high-risk commercial loans. Volcker previously criticized banks for not being able to comply with another part of the rule, which required banks to divest from hedge funds and private equity funds. "I realize that lobbying is eternal, but instead of extending the compliance period, the Congress should focus on closing the remaining loopholes," Volcker said in a statement. The provision failed to pass after a suspension of the rules that required a two-thirds majority to pass, but will likely receive another vote since only one Republican voted against the bill. Supporters of the law have also voiced concerns that Republicans, who now control both the House and Senate, will try targeting Dodd-Frank through spending bills or through other important legislation. This was the case with the terrorism risk insurance bill that passed the House Wednesday that included a provision on derivatives regulation

Link

Home Front: Politix

VDH: If It Wasn’t Syria, It Would Have Been Something Else

2013-09-07

It is very possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria; if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis—the first time in history that a president has decided to go to war against the declared wishes of Congress. The public and the courts will adjudicate the legality of that act, and it would be contentious. So the corner that Obama has painted himself into is now inescapable. Defying Congress will put the country into a Watergate/Monicagate mess. Not doing anything will confirm the administration’s impotence and only enhance Russia, Iran, Assad, China, Islamists, and almost anyone else who does not like the U.S. Doing something small, with or without congressional approval, will be looked upon as a cynical waste of human lives to restore Obama’s credibility, the sort of craven, immoral political act that a younger Obama made a career out of mocking. Doing something big will invite public and global outrage if only moderately successful, and doom the Obama presidency if unsuccessful. How did Obama get himself into this mess? It was bound to happen, given his past habits. All we are seeing now is the melodramatic fulfillment of vero possumus, lowering the rising seas, faux Corinthian columns, hope and change, the bows, the Cairo speech, and the audacity of hope. Hubris does earn Nemesis. 1) His inclination is to damn straw men, blame others for his self-inflicted errors, and spike the ball when he should keep quiet and become modest (cf. the bin Laden raid). So in Syria we heard the same old, same old: A host of bad guys, here and abroad, wants to do nothing. Obama alone has the vision and moral compass to restore global and U.S. credibility through his eloquence; but the world disappointed him and is now at fault for establishing red lines that it won’t enforce: He came into the world to save the world, but the world rejected him. After five years of this, the world caught on, and sees juvenile and narcissistic petulance in lieu of statesmanship—and unfortunately a sinister Putin takes great delight in reminding 7 billion people of this fact almost daily. In terms of geostrategic clout, Obama has nullified the power of his eleven aircraft-carrier battle groups, Putin through his shrewd insight and ruthless calculation of human nature, has added five where they didn’t exist. 2) Obama thinks in an untrained manner and for all the talk of erudition and education seems bored and distracted—and it shows up in the most critical moments. Had he wished to stop authoritarians, prevent bloodshed and near genocide, and foster true reform in the Middle East, there were plenty of prior, but now blown occasions: a) the “good” war in Afghanistan could have earned his full attention; b) the “bad” Iraq War was won and needed only a residual force to monitor the Maliki government and protect Iraq airspace and ensure quiet; c) the green revolution in Iran was in need of moral support; d) Qaddafi could have been continually pressured for further reform rather than bombed into oblivion; e) postwar Libya needed U.S. leadership to ensure that “lead from behind” did not lead to the present version of Somalia and the disaster in Benghazi; f) long ago, the president could have either kept quiet about Syria or acted on his threats when Assad was tottering and the resistance was less Islamist; g) he could have warned the one vote/one time Muslim Brotherhood early on not to do what everyone in the world knew it would surely do; h) he need not have issued tough serial deadlines to Iran that we have not really enforced and probably have no intention of enforcing. Instead, Obama relied on his rhetoric and talked loosely, sloppily and inconsistently from crisis to crisis, the only common denominator being that he always took the path of least resistance and thus did nothing concretely to match his cadences. Usually to the degree he made a decision, he made things worse with empty, first-person bombast. 3) Obama cannot attract top talent. Those from prior administrations who are gifted and worked for him or who were promoted by him—Robert Gates, David Petraeus, Paul Volcker, Richard Holbrooke, James Mattis, Stanley McChrystal—either were treated badly, not fully utilized, or ended up regretting their experience. Instead a host of mediocrities are recruited on the basis of either their partisanship, loyalty or demonstrated past lightness—an Eric Holder, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Timothy Geithner, Chuck Hagel, etc. Nowhere than in the present crisis is this unfortunate trend more telling: Pro-war John Kerry has opportunistic anti-war baggage, pontificates rather than persuades, and freelances into serial embarrassments; Martin Dempsey, to his credit, cannot square the circle of being an honest man assigned to say things he knows simply cannot be true, and so pleads the military’s version of the Fifth; Chuck Hagel has not recovered from the confirmation hearings, and just wishes Syria would go away; anything that a surprisingly quiet Joe Biden says on the crisis will probably be incoherent and incendiary, and surely contradictory of some past statement; Susan Rice astutely outsourced this crisis; Hillary Clinton whose “what difference does it make?” fingerprints are all over the Syrian and Libyan fiascos wisely got out of town ahead of the posse. What is now the least bad choice between terrible and even more terrible alternatives? If the congressional vote is yes, the choice is cynically wasting a few American lives for a possible point, or killing lots more people for a more possible point. Not good choices. If the congressional vote is, as I hope, no, Obama should quietly (i.e., don’t blame Congress, the world, the public, etc.) back out of the bombing mode, more quietly continue the belated work of promoting a pro-Western resistance to Assad, mend fences with allies most quietly, and prepare very carefully (but without the bombast) for a real crisis on the near horizon that will need the public, the Congress, our allies, and the president’s full attention and response. In our new Vienna-summit-to-Cuban-missile-crisis era of danger, I fear our enemies and rivals are digesting the Syrian misadventure and calibrating to what degree they might soon turn our present psychodrama into a real American tragedy.

Link

Economy

Inflation Actually Near 10% Using Older Measure

2011-04-13

After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation. Using the methodology in place at that time puts the CPI back near those levels. Inflation, using the reporting methodologies in place before 1980, hit an annual rate of 9.6 percent in February, according to the Shadow Government Statistics newsletter. Since 1980, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has changed the way it calculates the CPI in order to account for the substitution of products, improvements in quality (i.e. iPad 2 costing the same as original iPad) ['I Can't Eat an iPad'] and other things. Backing out more methods implemented in 1990 by the BLS still puts inflation at a 5.5 percent rate and getting worse, according to the calculations by the newsletter’s web site, Shadowstats.com.

Link

Economy

Obama stresses US economic potential

2011-01-23

[Arab News] President Barack B.O. Obama said Friday that "putting the economy into overdrive" is a top priority, even as a new poll showed the public giving him poor marks in this area. Possibly because each thing he is proud of accomplishing hobbled the economy yet another notch. Such a clever man, who thinks we'll all be fooled by his version of "It's the economy, stupid." The News Agency that Dare Not be Named-GfK poll underscored the selling job that confronts the president as he prepares to seek a second term: People like Obama personally, but just 35 percent say the economy's gotten better during his tenure. Do people like him personally, or are they just being polite to the nice pollster? Appearing in Schenectady, New York, on Friday, Obama announced that he was naming General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt as the head of a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, his latest move to court a business community that he's clashed with amid continued high unemployment. Addressing workers at a GE plant, Obama recommitted himself to spending the next two years trying to speed up the economic recovery. His success or failure there is likely to be the central issue of the coming 2012 presidential campaign. Pass another bill to repeal Obamacare, O House Republicans, or to track down waste from Stimulus I or II, and we'll see what the central issue becomes. "Our job is to do everything we can to ensure that businesses can take root, and folks can find good jobs," the president said. True. It's nice to see you doing as much as just talking about it, Mr. President. That's a major improvement on your previous positions on the subject of business. "We're going to build stuff, and invent stuff," said Obama, emphasizing the need to boost American exports to countries around the world, an issue that was a focus during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House this week. Remove the impediments you put in place, Mr. President, and American businesses won't need the government to boost anything. "That's where the customers are. It's that simple," Obama said. His choice of Immelt to head the competitiveness panel won applause from the Chamber of Commerce, which called it a "promising step" toward creating jobs and enhancing US competitiveness. But the Alliance for American Manufacturing condemned the choice, dismissing Immelt as "an outsourcing CEO" whose appointment would "alienate working class voters." That underscored a fine line for Obama in pushing for growth into the global marketplace while still looking out for the interests of US workers. The competitiveness panel replaces Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which had been chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Obama announced late Thursday that Volcker, as expected, was ending his tenure. Did they ever actually advise anything? The change in the advisory board signals Obama's intention to shift from policies that were designed to stabilize the economy after the 2008 financial meltdown, to a renewed focus on increasing employment. The White House says the board's mission will be to help generate ideas from the private sector to speed up economic growth and promote American competitiveness. Reduce regulations, reduce paperwork, reduce requirements on business employees, Mr. President. There, now you can disband this advisory board, too. The shift in focus is aimed at winning over a public that remains skeptical of the administration's economic policies. Over half of those surveyed in the AP-GfK poll disapprove of how Obama has handled the economy, and 75 percent rate the economy as poor. However, The infamous However... three-quarters do say it's unrealistic to expect noticeable improvements after two years; they say it will take longer. Mindful of those sentiments Obama told listeners Friday that "it's a great thing that the economy's growing Is it? There are those who say this is but a false dawn, from the train entering the other end of the tunnel. -- but it's not growing fast enough." For Obama, the visit to General Electric was also an opportunity to claim credit for tax, trade and energy policies pursued by his administration as the nation attempts to recover from the worst recession since the 1930s. It's the first of many treks during the second half of his term that the president is expected to take to put a more hopeful countenance on the economy amid stubbornly high unemployment. Yes! It's time to put lipstick on that pig! May I recommend Sparkly Passionate Fuschia, Mr. President? Or will it just be the usual dollop of Chicago Wheel Grease? The GE plant is benefiting from a power turbine contract with India announced during Obama's Southeast Asia trip in November. Immelt also has been an advocate of alternative forms of energy, and the GE facility, the company's largest energy plant, is the future site of GE's advanced battery manufacturing program. New battery technology has become something of an Obama pet project as a symbol of innovation, clean energy and job creation. Immelt's appointment adds another corporate insider to the White House orbit, underscoring the administration's efforts to build stronger ties to the business community. Earlier this month, Obama named former Commerce secretary and JPMorgan Chase executive William Daley as chief of staff.

Link

Economy

US banks set to lose swaps fight

2010-06-13

Banks are likely to lose a key lobbying battle in the US over whether they will be forced to spin off their lucrative swaps desks, according to people familiar with financial reform negotiations in Congress. Defeat, which would be a further blow to Wall Street, has been made more likely by Paul Volcker, the influential former Federal Reserve chairman, softening his opposition to the provision. Blanche Lincoln, the Senate agriculture chairman, is the lead proponent of the plan, which would force banks to create a separately capitalised subsidiary to house the derivatives dealing operations – a significant source of profits for big banks, such as JPMorgan Chase. The expensive restructuring could drive activity out of the largest Wall Street banks and into more lightly regulated rivals and overseas competitors, according to the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oppose the plan.

Link

Europe

Secretive Bilderberg Club Set For Another Meeting

2010-06-03

Splash! Could that be the sound of Lord Mandelson hitting one of the Dolce hotel's four pools? Or Robert Zoellick of the World Bank? Paul Volcker of the US Economic Recovery Advisory Board? Or merely the euro taking another dive? That is the thing about the Bilderberg group's top secret meetings: you never know quite what is going on behind the police checkpoints. Across the world, secretaries to the rich and the powerful have blocked out the next three days in their bosses' calendars for their annual gathering, this time at the Dolce in Sitges, one of Spain's most exclusive resorts. Normally, every minute of their working lives is accounted for but, each year, a couple of hundred of the world's financial elite and the more business-friendly members of the political class disappear from view; supposedly to save the planet from the dangers of parochialism, the nationalist genie. It is all terribly confidential -- breathe a word about it and you're out of the club -- but the Bilderberg watcher Daniel Estulin claims to have a copy of the agenda. The big question this time around is whether the euro will survive. "They are afraid that the countries in trouble will leave and the euro will fall apart," said Mr Estulin. "The biggest nightmare is if EU members return to nationally orientated policies." That would certainly explain why the keynote address is being given by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. The Piigs -- Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- are of concern to the Bilderbergers. After all, the club was set up in 1954 by a Polish exile, Joseph Retinger, to create a European bulwark against the spread of communism. It provided the germ of the European idea; Franco-German reconciliation, the entry of West Germany into Nato, the Maastricht treaty -- all were cooked up in annual fireside chats. Now, according to Mr Estulin's information, the Bilderbergers are nervous that the erosion of the euro could nudge the world back into recession while public services cuts could trigger unrest and radicalise the political climate. Plenty to talk about at the Dolce, then. The Bilderberg protesters, sure that they can smell a good oldfashioned capitalist conspiracy, will be holding fringe meetings in the town. The hunt will be on to find a chambermaid ready to ransack hotel litter bins for evidence that evil work is afoot. It has been easier to get nuggets of information out of Bilderberg since hotel staff started to read Dan Brown and talk about the illuminati. Could it be, though, that the Bilderbergers are simply having fun, away from their spouses, on their annual jamboree? The secret of Bilderberg could be that there is no secret. Certainly, the hotel offers plenty of distractions for stressed CEOs: qi-gong courses, excellent fish, fine wines and bicycle tours. Henry Kissinger, 87, the former US Secretary of State, and David Rockefeller, 95, the former chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, are the elder statesmen of Bilderberg -- but the leaked invitation list reveals that the gathering is made up primarily of elderly white gents. What? No racial quotas? Better get Obozo in there immediately to straighten things out! Remember Richard Perle, 68, George Bush's erstwhile Prince of Darkness? He could perhaps form a Prince of Darkness sub-group with Lord Mandelson. Paul Wolfowitz, 66, formerly of the World Bank? Mario Monti, 67, EU commissioner for the single market between 1995 and 1999? Only the possible attendance of George Osborne, 39, the British Chancellor, will reassure hotel staff that they are not dealing with a Saga Holidays tour. Other members of this clandestine coven include Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of Holland. No doubt their views will be sought on the Swedish royal wedding later this month. Is it right, for example, that a young princess should marry her personal trainer? Fortunately, the Dolce has a team of personal trainers on hand ready to chip into the debate. Last year Bilderberg held its meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace hotel in Greece and apparently failed to spot how close their host country was to melting down. Watch out, Spain! The weather forecast is for three days of sunshine -- time for the Bilderbergers to slink out of the shadows.

Link

Economy

Obama suggests VAT may be an option

2010-04-22

Hope and Change, rubes... WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days. Tipping point? Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are." Like how much can I screw this country before they finally all wake up? Y'know, stuff like that... After Obama adviser Paul Volcker recently raised the prospect of a value-added tax, or VAT, the Senate voted 85-13 last week for a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution that calls the such a tax "a massive tax increase that will cripple families on fixed income and only further push back America's economic recovery." Geez, if even those idiots realize it... For days, White House spokesmen have said the president has not proposed and is not considering a VAT. "I think I directly answered this the other day by saying that it wasn't something that the president had under consideration," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters shortly before Obama spoke with CNBC. Well, you're either lying, Doughboy, or your boss just tucked it up your ass... After the interview, White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said nothing has changed and the White House is "not considering" a VAT. No no no...what he said is not what you think he said. Many European countries impose a VAT, which taxes the value that is added at each stage of production of certain commodities. It could apply, for instance, to raw products delivered to a mill, the mill's production work and so on up the line to the retailer. And we all know how schmart them Europeans are... In the CNBC interview, Obama said he was waiting for recommendations from a bipartisan fiscal advisory commission on ways to tackle the deficit and other problems. Ah, well...a bipartisan commission. Phew! I was worried there for a minute... When asked if he could see a potential VAT in this nation, the president said: "I know that there's been a lot of talk around town lately about the value-added tax. That is something that has worked for some countries. It's something that would be novel for the United States. And before, you know, I start saying 'this makes sense or that makes sense,' I want to get a better picture of what our options are," Obama said. So y'all be cool. This is Obama speaking to you, baby... He said his first priority "is to figure out how can we reduce wasteful spending so that, you know, we have a baseline of the core services that we need and the government should provide. And then we decide how do we pay for that." Maybe we could, I dunno, deactivate the armed forces, or sumthin. Maybe sell the country's naming rights to the Chinese. Y'know, like the big ballparks do.... Volcker has said taxes might have to be raised to slow the deficit's growth. He said a value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it had been in the past. Like I said the other day, "not as toxic to who?" Since then, some GOP lawmakers and conservative commentators have said the Obama administration is edging toward a VAT. But, as everyone knows, they're just haters and racists... Investors' Business Daily sponsored a poll on this subject: After hearing VAT opponents smeared as anti-government radicals and worse, we decided to poll Americans on the issue. What our IBD/TIPP poll found was surprising: Not only is the VAT unpopular, but it's unpopular across the board, regardless of political affiliation. Overall, Americans oppose a VAT by 73% to 22%. Republicans, as might be expected, feel the strongest: 83% against, 14% for. But even Democrats oppose it 65% to 27%. Independents stand somewhere in between (see chart). So, if President Obama pushes this through like he did the health care bill, he will anger the same people even more, and even more people on both issues. How To Make Friends And Influence People, writ large.

Link

Economy

America Becomes a Two-Class Society - Schlafly

2010-04-13

Income tax day, April 15, 2010, now divides Americans into two almost equal classes: those who pay for the services provided by government and the freeloaders. The percentage of Americans who will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009 has risen to 47 percent. That isn't the worst of it. The bottom 40 percent not only pay no income tax, but the government sends them cash or benefits financed by the taxes dutifully paid by those who do pay income tax. The outright cash handouts include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which can amount to as much as $5,657 a year to low-income families. Other financial benefits can include child tax credits, welfare, food stamps, WIC (Women, Infants, Children), housing subsidies, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, S-CHIP and other programs. This is both a massive transfer of wealth and a soak-the-rich racket. The top 10 percent pay 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has become the congressional leader in explaining details of the recently passed Health Control Law. He says that, based on Congressional Budget Office figures, taxes to pay for Obamacare will have to skyrocket to an 88 percent income tax rate within 30 years. Although all wage-earners help fund their own Social Security and Medicare benefits, only federal income taxpayers pay the costs of running the federal government, and are responsible for paying off our $12.8 trillion national debt and for bailing out Social Security, Medicare, and Fannie and Freddie when they collapse. Even the recently passed Health Control Law contains financial subsidies to unmarried couples that are denied to married couples. This rewards the unmarried women who were the second largest demographic constituency that voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008. When Obama told Joe the Plumber he wanted to “spread the wealth around,' Obama wasn't kidding. That's exactly what he is now doing: taking money from taxpayers and spreading it around to non-taxpayers. Nor was Obama kidding when, on the eve of his election, he threatened, “We are going to fundamentally transform the United States of America.' Converting the earnings of American workers into handouts for those who voted for Obama in 2008 is certainly a fundamental transformation. Obama's promise not to raise taxes on middle-Americans is already down the drain. Obama brought former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker out of obscurity to serve as chairman of an Economic Recovery Advisory Board and announce that we need to raise taxes. Volcker was blunt in predicting that the new tax increase will be a Value-Added Tax (VAT). That's the tax European socialists love because its rates can be hidden and frequently raised, while producing rivers of revenue for the bureaucrats. Volcker claimed that a VAT is “not a toxic idea.' It really is — Charles Krauthammer called it “the ultimate cash cow' because it transfers so much money from individuals to the government. Having already co-opted the executive and legislative branches of government for his fundamental transformation, Obama now wants to use the judiciary, too. The retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens gives him this opportunity. On Jan. 18, 2001m on Public Radio WBEZ-FM, Chicago, Obama complained that the Earl Warren Court “wasn't that radical' because “it didn't break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and serve more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.' Calling for the Supreme Court to participate in the “redistribution of wealth' is shockingly revolutionary. Any judicial nominee who agrees with Obama's theory should be rejected. Obama's game plan to “fundamentally transform' America is based on both Saul Alinsky's modus operandi for community organizing and on the Cloward-Piven spending strategy. Saul Alinsky was a famous Chicago radical, and Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were less-well-known Columbia University sociologists. The goal of all three of these agitators was the overthrow of the private enterprise system. The Alinsky strategy is to use community organizing and mass demonstrations by those he labeled the “Have Nots,' and the Cloward-Piven strategy is to overload the bureaucracy with enormous demands for entitlements, thereby causing a financial crisis. Obama used Alinsky methods by taxpayer financing of ACORN and subprime mortgages. Obama used Cloward-Piven methods by massive deficit spending for entitlements for more and more millions of people. Fortunately, hardworking, taxpaying Americans are beginning to understand how they are being ripped off and rushed into bankruptcy. The one way to save ourselves and our country is to elect a Congress in November pledged to stop the spending.

Link

Economy

Volcker: Taxes likely to rise eventually to tame deficit

2010-04-07

(Reuters) - The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday. Giving a speech tonight, Paul? Here. Float these trial balloons for me, willya? Stress that they're kinda European. The rubes love that shit. As you wish, sire Mr. President. Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary. "Not as toxic"? To who? Though he acknowledged that both were still unpopular ideas, he said getting entitlement costs and the U.S. budget deficit under control may require such moves. "If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," he said. How 'bout cutting spending, Paul? How 'bout rolling back a few 'entitlements'?

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More