I've been hoping against hope that I was having an extended dream... or nightmare as the case might be. You know... one of those things that is SO vivid and has such a realistic time line that it actually *seems* real?
I've had a couple of those. In the last one... days passed. Back in reality I open the door to go out into the garage and am shocked that I can't find my motorcycle. Someone must have stolen it! I'm upset as hell and getting ready to phone the police and my wife asks what the problem is and I tell her my motorcycle is missing from the garage. She looks puzzled and informs me that I don't OWN a motorcycle... haven't since before we got married 20 some odd years earlier. The kids verify her story and I'm left wondering what the hell happened to my bike and who are these aliens who've taken over my family's bodies!
That's what I hoped I'd been having these past few weeks... a really vivid dream/nightmare from which I'd eventually wake and everything would fall back into place and be normal again. The black President thing? I could care less about the man's pigment. I'd have gladly voted for Condie Rice or Michael Steele or my favorite.... J.C. Watts had any of them run. No, the nightmare is the politics of the man.
What we're witnessing now the the New Deal II... or as I like to call it... the Raw Deal. Tax and spend liberalism drunk with power and totally out of control. These are the folks who openly favor socialism over capitalism and planned and managed economy over free enterprise. Remember the good old days of the Soviet Union and all their "5 year plans" and '10 year plans" for their disaster of an economy? Yeah... how well did those work out? Well enough that V. Putin has warned the Bamster NOT to head down that road because it's dead end street. Now when the commies are trying to tell ya that it doesn't work... it MUST be a bad thing! Good thing the bunch in power now knows better, huh?
The liberals have already said they are going to put the tax brackets back to where Clinton had them... at least for a while. They are also going to let the Bush tax cuts expire... which means another tax increase! (although they will swear to you that they did NOT raise your taxes) And as the spending continues to run out of control they will be forced to keep raising taxes and raising taxes. As Maggie Thatcher famously said... "Socialism is a wonderful thing.... until you run out of other peoples money." Unfortunately we're the ones who are going to run out of money... not the bloated and expanding government.
In case you haven't investigated the finer points of the "stimulus" plan... what it amounts to is a giant money chest for the liberals to use to "reward" the folks who elected them. There is over 4 BILLION for the group ACORN. Yeah... those folks who registered the same guy to vote 74 times under 73 fictitious names. Voter fraud now gets rewarded. Unions? Oh yeah! BIG handouts for all the unions to thank them for their votes. You honestly think the automotive "bail out" is for the car companies? Nope... it's to keep the UAW and all the other associated Unions in place and in power so they will vote democrat.
Biggest unions are the teachers unions and the government employee unions. Now you'd think that if anyone would NOT need a union to insure "fair" treatment it would be an employee of the government.... but nope! HUGE union! And the "stimulus" plan plans to expand government by nearly 26% over the next 4 years. All union and a good 90% of them democrat voters. They are not even trying to hide this stuff either. They are buying votes and ensuring that they stay in power for as long as our money holds out.
Now the dark side of all these fun and games the liberals are playing with this country. If you're paying attention to the goings on you know that the term "nationalization" is being bandied about. Basically... if the government gives a company money... then they get to tell the company how it will operate. Think about that for a moment. The government presently runs one financial entity (social security) and one "service sector" business (The Post Office). Both are poorly managed losers and neither has ever shown a profit for their investors. (us)
Social Security is in the crapper and heading south farther every day... with absolutely no plan in place to make it solvent. (Well other than just keeping all our money and telling us to shut up and die) The business model for the USPS is a genuine piece of work. Provide slow service at ever increasing rates. I can't even use up a sheet of stamps before the rates go up making it necessary to buy more stamps to add to the ones I still have so I can mail a bill.
This is all very predictable too. The rates go up and service is trimmed to help balance things out. People get ticked because of the higher rates and reduced service so they use the service less.... causing revenue to drop. To make up for the loss of revenue they raise the rates and cut back on service. More customers jump ship.... funds decrease.... rates go up service goes down. Beginning to spot a cyclical trend here? If so YOU should run the USPS.... because THEY haven't managed to figure it out yet! Yet... we're told that the ONLY entity which can solve the current "crisis" is Government. God help us all. (In all fairness to the USPS... I'm still amazed someone in Maine can put 41 cents worth of postage on a letter and it actually makes it to California in a reasonable time) I'm also amazed by telephones... but that's best saved for a different blog.
Taking off the tin foil hat and breaking out the synthetic crystal ball.... permit me to make some predictions. The liberals are going to get way too cocky and over reach. In only 20 some odd days of the age of Obama some on the left are already wondering what the hell is going on. Given time the light will come on in more and more liberal heads.
Judging from his cabinet appointments we can see why the left doesn't mind raising taxes. They don't PAY them! Has anyone Obama has nominated been vetted to find out if they might have a problem with the approval process? Gee Bamster.... come on. Taxes will be the straw that breaks the peoples back.
These tax increases on the "wealthy" are going to have a devastating effect. Why? Who is it that employees the majority of the people in America? (Hint... it ain't Big Business) Nope! It's the entrepreneur and his small business. Folks hiring from 1 to 250 people are the largest employers in the country. THOSE are the folks targeted for massive tax increases. Tax those folks more and something has to give to balance the books. Cutting payroll is the fastest way to increase the bottom line... so folks get fired to pay the taxes. Unemployment goes up.... disposable income goes down.... purchases decrease.... production cuts back.... people get laid off.... See that trend developing?
That's just the human side of it. Remember there WAS payroll and SSAN/FICA taxes on the wages that were lost to pay the small business taxes. Also a loss of sales taxes, inventory taxes, etc. As is the case EVERY time... if you tax something more you get LESS of it. Tax businesses more... you get fewer businesses and less taxes.... mark my words. To make up for the "unexpected" loss of tax revenue... they'll (of course) raise taxes again! Look at history... it's right there in black and white for anyone with a brain to see and figure out.
The New Deal is a case in point. Sorry all you FDR lovers but he did NOT get us out of the depression. What he did was enshrine liberals in power for over 40 years and prolong the depression by 7 painful years. World war 2 got the US out of the depression by putting Americans to work building things for the allies.... until we also had to enter the war. Just like the New Deal didn't solve the problem then... this massive spending and pork program won't solve this problem. All it's doing is adding a burden to all those who will follow us giving them a world with less hope, fewer opportunities, a lower standard of living and life under a nanny state government system.
The only saving grace.... is that the American people aren't all sheeple yet. This push towards socialism, never ending deficits, cradle to grave government "management" of our lives and the constant erosion of freedom and liberity will hit a break point. Reagan was the backlash to the Carter disaster. There will be someone who will fill those shoes again and put right the current mess.
