The American Spectator has a great post about Obama’s destructive behavior and the success of JFK and Reagan in cutting taxes on the rich and its affect on job growth (Red Planet h/t):
With 15 million workers unemployed and another 11 million underemployed, President Obama recently decided that the answer was to hit the road and throw some anti-rich red meat to some friendly stadium audiences.
At a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, Mr. Obama declared that the United States “didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness.”
He didn’t say whether we became the most prosperous country via income redistribution and mandatory wealth spreading.
He also didn’t say whether the “greed” accusation applied to folks like Jay-Z and Lady Gaga or just to the regular capitalists and entrepreneurs who run America’s car repair shops and jewelry stores on Main Street.
He also didn’t say whether his definition of “recklessness” includes the nonstop and decentralized risk-taking that’s inherent in a free enterprise economy, a system rooted in what Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”
[….]
Mr. Obama also declared that “anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it’ll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up — they just haven’t studied our history.”
In fact, the history of the 1960s and 1980s, under Democrat and Republican presidents, shows that the benefits of cuts in top marginal income tax rates clearly trickled down to help “working folks” in the form of more jobs, less unemployment, less poverty, less inflation, and higher wage growth.
The John F. Kennedy income tax cuts of 30 percent that were enacted in 1964, cutting the top marginal federal income tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent, were followed by several years of 5 percent real GDP growth per year, dropping the unemployment rate from 5.2 percent in 1964 to 3.5 percent in 1969, a lower jobless rate than the 4.0 percent unemployment rate that’s generally defined as “full employment.”
Similarly, the Ronald Reagan income tax cuts produced real average annual GDP growth of 3.2 percent from 1981 to 1989, a higher growth rate than existed before and after the Reagan years — the 2.8 percent average real annual growth in the pre-Reagan years from 1974 to 1981, or the 2.1 percent growth in the post-Reagan years from 1989 to 1995.
Following the Reagan cut in the top marginal federal income tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, unemployment was cut in half, from 9.7 percent in 1982 to 5.3 percent in 1989.
And the impact on the poor? The real income, adjusted for inflation, of the poorest fifth of U.S. households increased 12 percent in the Reagan era, reversing a 17 percent decline in their average real income from 1979 to 1983 before Reagan’s pro-growth tax cuts kicked in.
The poverty population in the U.S., after growing by 7 million in the late 1970s, dropped by 4 million in the 1980s. The real median income, adjusted for inflation, of African-American households increased by 17 percent from 1982 to 1989, reversing a 10 percent decline from 1978 to 1982.
Obama’s strategy? Ignore the aforementioned history and raise taxes on “the rich” during a recession, for “fairness.” That’s a clear policy of economic and political “recklessness,” a strategy that will keep millions of people needlessly unemployed.
….SOF staff has engaged directly in training of allied troops, supplementing the U.S. military’s effort. They were particularly active in Central America’s recent civil wars. A recent Newsmax article by Barrett Tillman relates:
The byword is professionalism. For instance, a 1983 report describing the work of a 12-man SOF team in El Salvador covers 47 pages. It includes weapons maintenance, sound discipline on ambush, field medicine and sanitation.
On September 30th 1995, the El Salvadorian government awarded Brown their Combat Star medal. The citation reads: “In Recognition of Your Combat Support Services With Units of the Armed Forces of El Salvador, 1980 to 1992.”
SOF provided similar training to Nicaragua’s Contras during the Nicaraguan civil war. While they were at it, Brown grounded the Sandinistas’ entire fleet of Soviet Hind attack helicopters by posting the advertisement shown below. I interviewed Unintended Consequences author and firearms expert John Ross about it by phone, who confirmed the following account:
In the 1980s, Danny Ortega’s oppressive Communist regime in Nicaragua received a fleet of Russian Hind helicopters… to put down the Contras. When the Contras started to take heavy losses from these gunships, Bob Brown single-handedly grounded the entire fleet in less than 72 hours. How? By printing a full-page ad in his own magazine offering a million dollar reward to anyone who would bring us one of these choppers. The Russians knew damn well that every Cuban pilot would jump at the chance to fly into nearby El Salvador and get a million bucks and a Miami liquor license for his efforts. Bob’s actions helped cause Ortega’s fall, and stopped the spread of Communism in Central America dead in its tracks.
Nicholas Waller had committed two carjackings on the night of April 4th, 2009, when he was chased on foot by Independence Police Sgt. Steven Boles. Waller had shot at Boles five times, missing each time, when Boles managed to fire back three times, hitting Waller in the chest.
Waller was then knocked down by a police cruiser driven by Sgt. Barry Huwar, whose dash-cam captured the entire incident.
“I thought my life was over when I started taking the gunshots and I couldn’t get my gun out,” said Boles. “I feel God put me on my knees that day and allowed me to persevere.”
Waller had just carjacked two different drivers including a pizza delivery driver at an Independence 7-11. He abandoned the car in front of a nearby home and took off on foot only to be stopped a minute later by Sgt. Boles, shooting at him before Boles could get a word out.
On Thursday, Nicholas Waller apologized in court, blaming his problems on years of drug and alcohol abuse, saying he started sniffing glue at age 12. He had already served years in prison for six prior felonies including assault on a law enforcement officer.
“Everyday I put the uniform on I realize it could happen again,” said Boles.
Jackson County prosecutor Jim Kanatzar called Waller’s attack on Boles an attack on all police everywhere.
“It’s a violence against all police officers who stand up everyday and try to protect society,” said Kanatzar. “We felt that a life sentence was appropriate in this case, we felt consecutive life sentences was appropriate in this case.”
Waller will be eligible for parole in 25 1/2 years
Despite free-speech concerns, Supreme Court justices sounded sympathetic Wednesday to a lawsuit filed by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral was picketed by protesters with signs like, “Thank God for IEDs.”
The justices appeared inclined to set a limit to freedom of speech when ordinary citizens are targeted with especially personal and hurtful attacks. The 1st Amendment says the government may not restrict free speech, but it is less clear when it shields speakers from private lawsuits….
How long before this is applies to peaceful protesters at abortion clinics? What I mean is that if the “health of the mother” can be interpreted as her not wanting a child who has a clef-palate and can get an abortion at the 8-and-a-hald month mark… then why can’t a limit to freedom of speech when ordinary citizens are targeted with especially personal and hurtful attacks be applied to a woman walking into a clinic. As much as I agree that there should be a limit placed on these whackos, what will the progressive left do with this ruling (if it comes)?
The use of the term “whore” is an insult to both Meg Whitman and to the women of California. This is an appalling and unforgivable smear against Meg Whitman. At the very least Mr. Brown tacitly approved this despicable slur and he himself may have used the term at least once on this recording.
In the above video we see Obama saying the following:
“IF you are already getting health insurance on your job, then, that doesn’t change. Health insurance reform passed was passed six months ago. I don’t know if anybody here has gotten a letter from their employer saying, ‘you have to go on government health care’….”
This statement is just false. I have posted in the past on this topic of companies dumping their plans because it will be cheaper for them just to dump their employees onto the government plan. Here is a recent example exemplified over at HotAir – 3M to dump retirees from medical coverage:
Remember when Barack Obama repeatedly promised that no one’s current coverage would have to change if Congress approved the health-care overhaul he demanded? When the ObamaCare bill passed, the Associated Press suddenly discovered that the change of tax law that would supposedly generate billions of dollars to pay for the costs of the bill would also drive companies to dump retirees from their existing drug coverage and push them into Medicare. Minnesota-based 3M became one of the first large corporations to do just that — and push retirees off of all their plans as well:
3M Co., citing new federal health laws, said Monday it won’t cover retirees with its corporate health-insurance plan starting in 2013.
Instead, the company will direct retirees to Medicare-backed insurance programs, and will provide reimbursement for that coverage. It’ll also reimburse retirees who are too young for Medicare; the company didn’t provide further details.
The company made the changes known in a memo to employees Friday; news of the move was reported in The Wall Street Journal and confirmed Monday by 3M spokeswoman Jackie Berry.
The ObamaCare bill created a fund to subsidize employers who didn’t dump their retirees, but the WSJ notes that it simply wasn’t enough to change the negative incentives created by the government interventions:
The changes won’t start to phase in until 2013. But they show how companies are beginning to respond to the new law, which should make it easier for people in their 50s and early-60s to find affordable policies on their own. While thousands of employers are tapping new funds from the law to keep retiree plans, 3M illustrates that others may not opt to retain such plans over the next few years. …
Democrats that crafted the legislation say they tried to incentivize companies to keep their retiree coverage intact, especially until 2014. The law creates a $5 billion fund for employers and unions to offset the cost of retiree health benefits. More than 2,000 entities, including many large public companies, have already been approved to submit claims for such reimbursement. 3M did not apply.
How did Democrats come up with the $5 billion figure for subsidies to protect retirees from losing their plans? From the looks of it, they simply made it up. They also didn’t do much calculation to determine whether the subsidies would actually incentivize employers into rejecting this strategy for cost savings. To some extent, they may not have been able to make that calculation, because thanks to the massive amount of ambiguity in the bill, no one can really say for sure what the future costs would be. And of course, that’s why 3M chose now to dump the retirees.
3m has 23,000 retirees, many of them likely to be living in Minnesota. They’re also likely to vote in the upcoming midterms, perhaps even more likely now than ever. That won’t be good news for House Democrats in the Minnesota delegation hoping to win a new term in four weeks.
We already know we will not know the ultimate costs… and going off of experience, we know all government programs are always more than what we are told:
This is a concern for the Dems and will be a losing issue (among the many others). Here are a couple examples of the impact this ridiculous bill has had on business:
The Washington Examiner has a great short interview with Walter “Tank” Mondale. He thinks Obama relies on these teleprompters too much. Not that it carries much weight, but I think that as well.
Former Vice President Walter Mondale said on CNN that President Obama relies too much on teleprompters — which Mondale called “idiot boards” — when speaking to the American people.
In a discussion of whether Obama projects empathy in his speeches, the 82 year-old Mondale said the president “has got to connect with the American people.” When CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked why Obama has not shown more empathy, Mondale answered, “I’ve seen places where he’s done it. The Milwaukee speech, I thought was terrific. I think some of these backyard events are terrific. But I think he — he’s very bright — as a matter of fact, brilliant. And I think he tends to — and he uses these idiot boards to read speeches on television and I think he loses the connection that he needs emotionally with American voters.”….
HotAir has some great input on Ed Schultz that makes me laugh at the audacity of dope:
Remember how leftists were accusing Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck of being a polarizing figure after and especially before his “Restoring Honor” rally? He was too outspoken, not nuanced enough. Well, how about this?
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz at “One Nation”: “We must fight the forces of evil – the conservatives.”
He went on to say that:
They want it for them, they don’t want it for the people. They talk about the Constitution, but they don’t want to live by it. They talk about our forefathers, but they want discrimination. They want to change this country.
If that’s not “polarizing,” I don’t know what is. “They want discrimination”? Really? Strange, I’ve never heard, say, a Tea Party speaker advocate reintroducing segregation. In fact, if memory serves me well, Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally featured several prominent African American speakers, who demanded an end to Obama’s “divide-and-conquer”-politics. If conservatives “want discrimination,” why is it that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alveda King, was happy to accept Beck’s invitation to speak at his event, that stressed moral values such as honor, honesty and respect?
While estimates for Beck’s rally are 300,000 (really more like 500,000 — but to go with the major news orgs, 300,000), much less came for the One Nation Rally, period. Politics and World News has this post on the event:
The One Nation Rally which transpired on Saturday is the talk of the political circles. After the Glenn Beck rally, it only made sense that the liberal demographic would stage their very own event. However, it appears as if the attendance figures for the one nation rally are actually far less than Glenn Beck’s rally attendance.
Now, there will be people that argue until they are blue in the face. However look at the photograph here – one of the photos were taken at Beck’s rally and the other was taken at this weekend’s One Nation rally. Tell me which crowd appear larger?
However, no one is releasing totals on the attendance of the One Nation rally. One non-partisan satellite imagery company issued an estimate of 87,000 for Beck’s rally attendance, although he claims more like 500,000 attended. The One Nation organizers claim that 175,000 to 200,000 came to their rally.
The politics are heated, and therefore we won’t have a concrete total from the rally. Whose rally was better, Beck’s or One Nation? It all depends on who you ask.
What attendance do you think was better – one Nation or Glenn Beck?
One of my favorite commentaries comes from Protein Wisdom, and PW sums up the speakers presentations:
If you can stand more than ten minutes of dreck — the Left farce known as “One Nation” march on D.C. A group consisting of the usual Progressive groups — from SEIU, AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood to Socialist Democrats of America and the American Communist Party.
I’ve listened to the opening “march reasons” which included (quotes as I heard them)
We march against in resegregation from Arizona to Atlanta.
We march against when a handful of Senators can block progress and keep tax cuts for the rich.
And now the first speaker is the deranged, demented Ed Schultz.
“The conservatives voices of America want to keep you down. They don’t believe in your freedom.”
What a fucknut among other fucknuts.
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“We need to value people over profits” … For pity’s sake, does the Left ever go beyond its old, moldy, risible slogans of the past?
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“Go back to the slums of our Northern cities knowing this must change.” Does the little proggie mouthing that line even stop to consider the worst city slums are in cities that have been run exclusively by Democrats according to Progressive “values”?
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What is striking so far is the lack of enthusiasm in the crowd. I’m not hearing much in the way of applause and reaction to the speeches. I wish there were more crowd shots; there seems to be a lot of milling around, large groups of people wearing the same t-shirts (union affiliation?)
Seems this rally is being phoned in as well as it was bused in.
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“If my gender is respected but other genders are pushed to a life of seclusion … things are not right” Eddie Flores (?) from Los Angeles.
Um…just how many genders are there and which one is being “pushed to seclusion”? Interesting line from an East El-Lay cholo who described himself as a 23 year old who has a “lifetime of pursuing social justice.”
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SEIU rep now takes the podium and tries to get the crowd to chant.
Fail.
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We had the muzak version of Lennon’s lame “Imagine” and interpretive dance at the beginning, now we get Black Ice, a hip-hop poet.
Oh, lord.
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Van Jones! “It’s our turn now.”
Whoops…quick crowd shot and they are just not paying attention!
“We have a Saudia Arabia of solar power beaming down on us right now.” [facepalm]
Now Van is talking about wind power “You’ve never heard of a ‘wind slick’ or ‘wind spill’.”
“We care about red states, too. We have some real answers for them.” I bet you do, Van; I bet you do.
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More credibility for this rally: here’s Al Sharpton!
Little Proggie college coed who doesn’t want to connect Federal interference in higher education and the explosion of tuition fees. Kinda says how economics is taught, eh?
Sharpton pulls the race card. Yawn.
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Another crowd shot … lots of empty chairs shown.
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Some greyhaired “Native American” comedian (sic) [Charlie Hill?] who, if the crowd reaction is any indication, is a reject from open-mic night. Where’s that giant hook when you need it?
He slams Beck, Palin and others then says “Now is the time of healing.” Oky, doky …
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Barbara Elliot, union organizer: “We don’t just need jobs, we need jobs for justice.” Um, anyone want to take a stab at translating that one?
Larry Cohen is now slamming Xerox. Oh yeah… “One Nation” demanding an immediate one million jobs. Just what tree do they think those jobs grow on?
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Shot of professionally printed signs. Yep, this is really a “grassroots” rally.
Now time for some more Progressive union demogoguery.
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Dick Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO: “If you watch TV you’d think we were a nation full of hate.” heh
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Yikes … I needed to take a break for a while and return to see Jesse Jackson on stage!
Oh, an illegal alien college student who is saying “It wasn’t MY fault I’m here … pay me.”
JJ: “When Michelle Obama speaks of obesity in children, she is on the right side of history.” Wow, I’m inspired, aren’t you?
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“The terrorism in the modern work place.” Excuse me?
Victoria Rowell is now saying it is impossible for any person to be represented by any one else but another person of the same melanin-level or sexual orientation. Indeed, this sneering little collectivist makes clear that individuals are to be judged by their group they are assigned to and by the actions/words of the leaders of that group.
Sorry, Vicki, but that is antithetical to America.
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Beau Sia, Siam Poet — Coming next to an over-priced, free-trade coffee shop near you.
Um…. he finishes a poem talking about how wonderful and valuable teachers are, then the bump music as he leaves the stage from Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall ? “Hey, Teacher, leave those kids …” and the snippet cuts off. Hilarious.
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Shot of sign “Hillary Clinton: Lady MacDeath”
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Darlene Nipper continuing the celebration of identity politics.
The crowd is thinning out and not interested.
Rep Luis Gutierrez, 4th district D-Ill shilling for illegal alien blanket amnesty
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Whoa!! Speakers are still at the podium and the cameras swung to the crowd. I snagged this screenshot:
No one left the Restoring Honor Rally early. This was supposed to rival that.
Astroturf ain’t just what it is all cracked up to be, eh, Proggies? Even Soro’s money and Union-financed buses couldn’t keep the paid butts in those seats.
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The Proggie chick speaking is saying that the government must provide a “safety net”, but what she really wants is a hammock.
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“We are tired being represented by the so-called Tea Party. We are the real America.”
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George Clinton introduced with “…here to perform one of the 500 most important songs in America.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA …. I’m sorry, but the unintended comedy is hilarious ….
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ouch… GC is really pathetic trying to play to empty chairs. This is embarrassing. Just when I thought this thing couldn’t go any lower ….
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1:36 PDT the rally is mercifully over … there were some speakers left on the roster, but even the rally organizers couldn’t keep putting them on before an audience that was consistently apathetic and started bailing out much earlier.
