Obama's Bone Headed Tax Strategy

STORY ONE:  Obama Plans to Triple Dividend Tax Rate to nearly 50%

STORY TWO:  Britain's 50p Tax Rate Hike Backfires - Revenue's Drop Dramatically

While Republicans Mitt Romney and especially Rick Santorum attempt to hand President Obama his reelection on a silver platter, President Obama continues his tone deaf and strangely self destructive approach to governing with a massive proposed tax hike that would hit vulnerable senior citizens hardest.  And, history clearly shows, it's a plan that will not work or raise revenues for the government.

As all my Twitter friends are saying, "WTF!!!"  (I'm sure they mean "Win the Future." Yeah, that's it.)

Been there, done that.  By raising Dividend Tax to an insane rate without also raising Capital Gains Tax, companies simply stop issuing dividends and instead plow the same money into stock repurchase plans, effectively turning the returns into Capital Gains.  The graph to the right shows the actual history of this effect in reverse.  Once we dropped the dividend tax rate in 2002, dividends increased dramatically as did tax revenue.

In STORY TWO above, we also see this type of tax increase in the "rich" also always backfires, driving investment, earnings, citizenship and tax revenues downward.  Instead of raising revenue, Great Britain has learned such tax rate increases actually reduce revenue.  There is plenty of historical evidence in the United States that proves the same thing.

Now (and I'm bracing for the attacks I will receive), we are actually harming the country more by totally exempting 50% of Americans from paying any income tax at all and reducing further their contributions to social security and medicare.  All of this is a plan to fail.

Today's it's hard to see how President Obama can lose in November, but he certainly is working to find a way.

P.S. No matter what the pundits are saying today, the gas price increases are absolutely killing the economy.  I'm on the front line and I can see it clearly.  Remember, you heard it here first.

Mitt Romney Can't Win

TODAY'S ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY BY THOMAS BEAUMONT:  Intensity question for Romney stirs doubt for fall 


MY BLOG ENTRY OF NOVEMBER 18, 2011: Why Mitt Can't Win


I'm not sure what the Republicans can do at this point.  For reasons that will forever be a mystery, genuinely viable, electable Republicans never entered the primaries this year, leaving the field to Romney and the seven dwarfs.  Newt Gingrich? Herman Cain?  Michele Bachmann?  You'd think somebody would have looked at this field and the weakened Barack Obama and literally JUMPED into the race.  Alas, no.


I like the current front runner, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania as a person, though I disagree with many of his positions.  I think he is a genuinely good man and it might actually be nice to have a good man as President.  But his far right wing social conservative positions make him unelectable.


So we're left with the consoling fact: President Obama's on-the-job training has been painful, but he is getting the hang of this President thing.  

The Growing Layers of Failure

The irony is so thick here it could be used as mortar to cement bricks.


STORY ONE (via National Public Radio): Kansas City's Failed Schools Leave Students Behind


STORY TWO (via The Blaze): North Carolina Food Police Replaces Nutritious Homemade Lunches with Deep Fried Processed Chicken Nuggets

PHOTO BY TOM BULLOCK OF NPR

The tragedy in Kansas City schools in story ONE above is simply heartbreaking.  The Kansas City failure is a story of a revolving door of administrators, an incompetent school board, middle class flight to private schools and suburban districts, and a teachers union deeply invested in a system that assures failure.  Scott Simon of NPR will continue this series next Saturday and I hope you will all tune in or visit the NPR Website.


I've written often here that Government does absolutely nothing well.  There are some things that only Government can do, the military is the most often mentioned example.  But even then the waste, incompetence, the inefficiencies and corruption is staggering.  


I'm guessing next week, Scott Simon will at least mention the state is considering Charter Schools or even privatizing the entire failed Kansas City School System.  This is exactly what should happen.


Meanwhile, via story TWO above, we have our government taking on another task that it will mismanage completely.  The well meaning North Carolina Legislature wanted to make sure children in the pre-kindergarten program had the proper nutrition to help them prepare for school.  Unfortunately, they only created a bureaucracy of food police following bureaucratic guidelines without even a modicum of logic or intelligence.  


So we have nameless inspectors not allowing children to eat a homemade meat and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat bun with fruit and fruit juice and instead forcing the child to eat in the school cafeteria.  Because the inspector is only "doing his job" he has no idea what the school cafeteria lunch actually is.  His job is to simply inspect the homemade lunch to be certain it has two fruits and vegetables. He doesn't care his actions forced the child to eat deep fried processed chicken nuggets with white bread and milk and ABSOLUTELY NO VEGETABLES!!!.


Somewhere along the line the mission of schools to teach got lost and their new mission is monitor homemade lunches.


As Liberals we should not ever be invested in the process, but only in the results. By definition Liberals should think outside the box, love alternatives and innovation.  We should not be invested in methodology of the past.  We should always strive for new, groundbreaking solutions.  It's time we realized that government is virtually never the solution.


Our goals and dreams must never change, but we must be willing to follow new paths toward achieving those goals.

My Valentine's Gift to You All

Emma Wallace is a treasure.
Delight in her whimsy.
Read her blog.
Buy her CD's.
Wrap yourself in her music.