Tax Cat Out of the Bag

When President Obama was candidate Obama he said over and over again that he would cut taxes for 95% of Americans, or that they would not see their taxes go up. Well I have news for you Obamabots, let me be clear, that was a big lie! Here’s a good rule of thumb: WHENEVER A POLITICIAN IS A DEMOCRAT (S)HE WILL RAISE TAXES AND INCREASE GOVERNMENT SPENDING! IF THEY SAY THEY WILL DO OTHERWISE THEY ARE LYING! 

On Tuesday, White House adviser Paul Volcker said that we might need to adopt a European-style value added tax and a carbon or other energy tax. He said we might have to do this to get entitlement cost and the U.S. budget deficit under control. 

Here’s a crazy idea: STOP SPENDING OUR F***ING MONEY! How about we try that as a way to get our budget deficit under control. Maybe we could reform our entitlement system so that we can ween people off of it and eventually abolish it instead of creating new entitlements, i.e. healthcare. Oh wait, the Democrats run everything so those aren’t options, failure is the only option.

The Sun Will Still Rise in the East Tomorrow

The unpopular health care overhaul bill passed in the house tonight, 219-212. We all knew this was going to happen and you were fooling yourself if you believed otherwise. Already, Republicans are planning on repealing the bill should they win back the majority in Congress in November. You are fooling yourself if you think the Republicans taking over Congress in November will change anything. It won’t, I’ve seen that movie before.

The natural tendency of government is to get bigger, no matter which party is in charge. This is the natural way of things just like the sun rising in the east. Will this health care bill increase the size of government and take liberty from us? Probably, but no more than the Federal Reserve, the IRS, the Social Security system, Medicare, Medicaid, and countless other unconstitutional government programs already have. The politicians and pundits on the right have been ranting and raving about how this health care bill will destroy our country and our liberty, but our liberty is long gone. We are all slaves to the debt. Our debt didn’t just happen overnight or under one President, but we are doing nothing to stop it. If you think the Republicans taking over Congress will solve our debt problem, you are fooling yourself.

It’s easy to see what will happen to us if we keep going down this road. Just look at Greece. The only way to solve our debt problem is to drastically reduce the size of government. A 50% reduction would be great, but that would be only a start. A limited government with a responsible citizenry is the only way out of the mess. I know it’s a lot to ask for but with liberty comes sacrifice and responsibility.

First, we need to dismantle our empire. Our military occupies land in over 150 countries or territories. Why? What are we gaining from this? We need to bring our military back home to their families. We need to remove ourselves from the UN and stop giving them money. We need to remove our embassies from other countries. Our founders gave us a republic, not an empire.  Anything other than a republic is unconstitutional.

Next, we need to abolish our entitlement programs. All of them. We can no longer allow people to think that the government can or will be their “safety net.” We all need to learn to weave our own safety nets of personal responsibility. Asking for help from your family, neighbors, community or religious institution is fine, but you shouldn’t be able to ask the government.

Dismantling our empire and abolishing our entitlement programs would be the first of many steps we need to take to solve our debt problem and limit the size of government back to what the Constitution demands, and they couldn’t happen overnight, but they need to start happening soon if we want to remove from our necks the yoke of debt we have burdened ourselves with. Will the Republicans or Democrats start to make this happen? No, they won’t. They are too busy arguing about federal funding of abortion.

Am I happy about the health care bill? No. Am I happy about anything government does? Not really. Even if this health care bill were repealed, don’t fool yourself, it wouldn’t be a great victory for liberty. To have the liberty our founders wanted would require much more that repealing this health care bill. It is well worth fighting for, but no one in government from either party except Ron Paul is truly fighting for liberty right now. As much as I love Dr. Paul, he cannot lead us to the promised land. We will have to lead ourselves there, one individual at a time, rising up for liberty. I see hope in the Tea Parties, but they must fight from being overtaken by the Republican party or people like Sarah Palin. But that is a topic for another post.

The natural tendency of government is to get bigger and more powerful. It is the natural way of things, just like the sun rising in the east.

You Call it Art, I Call it a Bunch of Orange and White Road Barriers Piled on Top of Each Other

What is orange and white, weighs over 35,000 pounds, and cost $4,300 of Austin, TX hotel-motel taxpayer money?  

 This:  

  

 Steve Dubov, an Austin-based “sculptor” is the man responsible for this work of “art” nicknamed the “Barton Barriers.” Dubov says that there is “no deep meaning” to this work. An understatement if there ever was one.  

 In all fairness, Mr. Dubov and his team contributed thousands of dollars of their own money to construct the Barton Barriers. However, $4,300 was taken from Austin’s hotel-motel tax. According to Vincent Kitch, the cultural arts program manager for the city of Austin, “it’s not local tax money that’s being spent … it’s the visitors who help pay for this public art.” So if you come and visit Austin a portion of your hotel-motel tax pays for things like the Barton Barriers. Doesn’t that make you want to come and visit?  

When you look closer though, it cost taxpayers more than just $4,300. According to Mr. Dubov, in addition to the $4,300 from the Austin hotel-motel tax, he received grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He did not say how much he received from these groups but since those groups receive most of their money from taxpayers it is inaccurate to say that the Barton Barriers only cost $4,300 of taxpayer money.  

I’m going to be completely honest here, I think every dime in taxpayer money that was given to this project is a total waste. This is not art. Any dude with a truck, some beer, and a couple of buddies could construct something like this. It irritates me to no end that taxpayer money was contributed to this project. If Mr. Dubov had paid for the entire thing himself I’d have no problem with it, but the fact that taxpayer money was used for this project should outrage everyone here in Liberty Market Nation.

I am completely against taxpayer money being used to fund art and I think the National Endowment for the Arts should be abolished. The NEA has given taxpayer money to projects like this and propaganda like this. What’s ironic is that the motto of the NEA is “A Great Country Deserves Great Art.” 

Would you consider the Barton Barriers great art?     

If you’re an artist and your art is good then people will buy it or pay money to see it in a gallery or museum. Artist are not special and don’t deserve any taxpayer to fund their stupid projects. Our country is over $12 trillion in debt. Institutions like the NEA are doing nothing but adding more to the debt and driving us further down the road to bankruptcy. So I guess that as taxpayers we need to ask ourselves, is funding projects like the Barton Barriers worth going bankrupt over?

No Salt For You!

New York Democrat Assemblyman Fleix Oritz for now on will be known as the Salt Nazi here in Liberty Market Nation. The Brooklyn douchebag Democrat has introduced legislation in New York that would ban restaurants from using SALT. That’s right salt, you know, sodium chloride, the white stuff next to pepper. The bill reads:

No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off the premises.

If you get caught using salt in your restaurant, you’ll get hit with a $1000 fine. I’m guessing the food police will monitor this?

The Salt Nazi said that the goal of this bill is to “save lives.” He says that banning salt would save billions of dollars and thousands of lives. I’m not sure how he came up with that calculation.

Eating too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which can cause heart attacks, but “you can live with salt in your diet” according to Sonia Angell, director of the cardiovascular disease and prevention program for the [New York] Health Department.

Many New York chefs are not too happy about the Salt Nazi’s proposal. Star of Top Chef  Tom Colicchio says, “anybody who wants to taste food with no salt, go to a hospital and taste that.”  For those of you who don’t understand the reference, hospital food sucks.

I’m guessing this bill has no chance of passing, but they did ban trans-fats in New York so who knows. Needless to say, I have a big problem with things like this. It is none of the government’s damn business how much salt we use. I think Jeff Nathan, the executive chef and co-owner of Abigael’s on Broadway, said it best: “The consumer needs to make their own health choices. Just as doctors and the occasional visit to a hospital can’t truly control how a person chooses to maintain their health, neither can chefs nor the occasional visit to a restaurant. Modifying trans fats and sodium intake needs to be home based for optimal health. Regulating restaurants will not solve this health issue.” 

This is the downside to letting government control our health care. It starts off with banning trans-fat. Most people agree trans-fat is bad so they go along  with it and raise little protest. Next they ban salt. People say whoa, hold on, you can’t ban salt, but it’s too late. Next they ban red meat, or fast food, or sugar. Once the government controls health care they can regulate or ban anything and everything, because everything affects our health one way or another.

The Salt Nazi is not alone, there are many more like him in local and state governments all over the country. The Federal Government is full of them. They are people, from both parties, who think they know better than you and that they can make better life choices for you than you can make for yourself. These are the people who’ve stealing our liberty for over six decades. These are the people who should be eliminated from government. The sooner the better.

Media Weapons of Massa Distraction

The big story out of Washington this week is the resignation of New York Congressman Eric Massa. The details are a quick Google search away if you’re interested. Massa went on Glenn Beck’s show this week to tell his story. It was a boring interview and nothing interesting came out of it. Beck himself said he wasted our time by having the interview and that the story didn’t matter to any of us personally. I agree with Beck in this instance. This story doesn’t matter to any of us at all.

In the realm of political sex scandals, Massa’s scandal is farm league. There were no hookers or blow, no oral sex, no dead bodies- only ‘tickle fights.’ This should have been a one day story in the news at the most but it’s turning into a huge cabal. Today, the House Republicans are spreading rumors that they are going to ask the House Ethics Committee to investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader for their handling of information about misbehavior by Congressman Massa. This is completely unnecessary and it’s obvious they’re doing this to get back at the Democrats for the whole Mark Foley scandal in 2006. Thank you House Republicans for standing up and fighting for the American people, I can’t wait until you guys are in charge again.  

This is a total waste of time. As Glenn Beck said, this story doesn’t affect any of us personally at all. It’s about as important as the Balloon Boy or Tiger Woods story. Unfortunately, stories like these that pass for ‘news’ today.

While everyone is distracted by this stupid story, Pelosi is no doubt behind the scenes, working alongside the White House, arm twisting the fence sitters in their caucus to vote for the unpopular health care bill that will literally affect every single person in the country. Did you know that they want to add a provision to the health care bill that would completely overhaul the nation’s student loan program and require the Education Department to originate all student assistance loans, effectively eliminating a role for banks and other private lenders. For those of you keeping score, Obama has taken over two car companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and potentially the entire health care system and the student loan industry.  Still think Obama isn’t a socialist?    

 Health care isn’t the only thing they’re working on right now either. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are meeting with Obama today to talk about immigration reform. According to the Politico, the Schumer-Graham plan “includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a liberal must-have) while sweetening the pot for moderates by proposing tough new safeguards, including a biometric national ID card for workers.”

A biometric national ID card!?!? Are you f***ing kidding me? ‘Moderates’ are in favor of this? Apparently so. Bill O’Reilly talked about it on his show this week with Lou Dobbs and they were both all for it. The Wall Street Journal said the proposal was only “potentially controversial.” I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Does liberty even matter anymore?

As if a government takeover of health care/student loans and the National ID cards aren’t bad enough, ABC News reported that the Tresasury Department announced yesterday that “the government racked up a record-high monthly budget deficit of $220.9 billion in February.” (Remember, February is the shortest month of the year.)

According to ABC: 

The latest flood of red ink brings the total deficit for the first five months of the current fiscal year to $651 billion, far exceeding the $589 billion shortfall for the same timeframe in the last fiscal year. The government ended the 2009 fiscal year with a record $1.4 trillion shortfall. The Obama administration has forecast a $1.56 trillion deficit for this year.

 That speaks for itself. If you still believe anything that Obama says about ushering in a new era of responsibility, cutting deficits, deficit neturality, or reducing the national debt you’re an idiot. 

 So while everyone in the media is using the Massa scandal to get ratings the government takes away more of our liberty. I guess it’s just a slow news day.

Even Democrats Think EPA Carbon Emission Regulation Goals Are Bat-Poop Crazy

Well, at least one Democrat thinks so. Senator John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia will introduce a bill today that effectively stops the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide for at least two years.

For those of you who aren’t aware, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the stuff we humans, and most other mammals exhale. CO2 is also a by-product of burning fossil fuels. 

Republicans like Lisa Murkowski have already introduced legislation to reign in the power of the EPA, but Rockefeller’s bill is significant because it shows that even Democrats know that regulating a trace gas that is essential to life on our planet is bat-poop crazy.

Environmentalist are not happy, however, and are urging President Obama to veto the Rockefeller bill if it ever gets to his desk. They see the bill as “a dangerous precedent and a serious blow to the administration’s ability to cope with climate change if Congress fails to pass a bill.”

Can someone tell me how regulating carbon dioxide will help us cope with climate change? Do you really think that if we lower the amount of carbon dioxide we produce that it will have a significant impact on anything? Also, does anyone else think it is dangerous that the President can use an un-elected regulatory body to do his bidding if Congress doesn’t pass the bill he wants? Why even have a Congress?

Hopefully more Democrats will see the light and fight against this inappropriate use of the EPA. It may be too little too late though, especially if the EPA decides that it is going to do what ever it wants to do, Congress be damned.

For more information about Rockefeller’s bill, see this article from The Washington Post

Reaching Arbitrary Targets for Greenhouse Gas Levels Will Cripple Our Economy

Remember when gasoline was $4-$5 dollars a gallon? Remember how that impacted your family budget? High gas prices have negative budget effects for everyone who isn’t a multimillionaire. Luckily, gas prices are a product of supply and demand. Gasoline suppliers were willing to supply more gas at the higher price which in turn drove the price down to the market equilibrium. Granted, it was bad for a while when prices were high, but that was only temporary.

Now imagine what it would be like if gasoline was $7 a gallon. How would that affect your family’s budget? What would you have to give up just to get around in your vehicle? A vacation? Cable TV? The Internet? Food? I think we can all agree it would be bad. If market forces drove gas prices to $7 a gallon we would all suffer, but our suffering would be temporary. Gas suppliers would start to supply more gas it would drive prices back down to an equilibrium.

However, if government forces gas prices up to $7 a gallon through taxation we would not have the luxury of market forces to drive the price back down. But the government would never do that, right? I wouldn’t be so sure.

President Obama’s EPA want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. The transportation sector consumes 70% of the nation’s oil supply. This target was set in the EPA’s budget for fiscal 2010. According to Harvard researchers, the only way to reach that goal is to make driving more expensive through higher gas taxes.

Even if you drive a fuel efficient vehicle $7 gas would have an extremely negative effect on your budget. Not only would gasoline cost more, but every product that is shipped via truck would see an increase in prices. This would cripple our economy.

Even if you believe in made climate change, are you willing to cripple our economy to reduce greenhouse emissions? I certainly hope not. A gas tax increase of this magnitude would be economically irrational and should be avoided at all cost. We have already lived through $4-$5 a gallon gasoline and that was bad enough, we shouldn’t let the government force us to experience $7 a gallon.

I hope the politicians aren’t stupid enough to do this, because if you thought the protest against health care and the Tea Parties were rowdy, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Mark Foley Jeopardized Our Country?

Remember Mark Foley? He was the Republican Congressman from Florida who was involved in a scandal that broke in September of 2006, right before the mid-term elections that gave Democrats control of Congress for the first time since 1994. Foley’s behavior was so terrible that  then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi offered a resolution to direct the House Ethics Committee to create a subcommittee to investigate Foley and the Republican leadership. Foley became the poster child for Republican Congressional corruption and unethical behavior, a poster child handed to the Democrats on a silver platter.   

When the Democrats took over Congress in 2007 Nancy Pelosi, now Majority Leader, promised that she would  ”lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.”

Fast forward to 2010.

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Charles Rangel, has been admonished by the House Ethics committee for cheating on his taxes among other charges. Is Pelosi asking him to step down? I thought she was going to lead the most ethical Congress in history. I thought wrong. According to Pelosi, Rangel didn’t do anything that, “jeopardized our country in any way.” 

Ah, I see. You can be unethical and keep your committee chairmanship just as long as you don’t jeopardize the country. I can’t help but wonder how Mark Foley jeopardized the country. Foley was forced to resign but Rangel gets to keep his seat? Something doesn’t smell right. I am in no way defending anything Foley did. What he did was wrong and he did the right thing by resigning. But Charlie Rangel hasn’t resigned, and his story isn’t all over the media. Why not? I blame Nancy Pelosi. 

Speaker Pelosi, you promised an honest, open, ethical Congress. You have failed. You have been one of the worst Speakers in the history of our great nation. You are so incompetent that even with a large majority you can’t get anything done. You use the Air Force as your own personal jet service, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. You don’t know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. You claimed that the US would lose 500 million jobs a month if the stimulus bill wasn’t passed. You come from a district that hasn’t elected a Republican since 1949. A bag of rocks with a ‘D’ next to its name could win an election in your district. You are not special. There is nothing impressive about you. You are a disgrace to the United States Congress. If anyone has jeopardized the country it is you. I could go on but this is a family friendly blog. 

I pray every night that the Republicans take over Majority control of the House again, not because I think they can do a better job, but because that would mean you would no longer be the Speaker of the House and I wouldn’t have to look at your cranial botulism anymore.

Say Good-Bye to Cap-and-Trade and Hello to Cap-and-Dividend

President Obama said in January 2008 that his cap-and-trade plan would cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket” since industries will be “forced” to retrofit their operations to fall under the strict new carbon emission standards. The cost of this retrofitting, like all business costs, is passed on to the consumer. These days, however, cap-and-trade has become increasingly unpopular among voters, especially during these tough economic times. Most people understand that it takes energy to produce things and you have to produce things to make the economy grow. The cap-and-trade bill would increase the cost of energy, which in turn would increase the price of production which means there would be less production and slower economic growth.

Last Wednesday, according to The Washington Post, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) declared that cap-and-trade was “dead.” While this is somewhat encouraging, I take the senator’s words with a grain of salt. Lately in Washington people have had a tendency to prematurely announce the death of bills. The health care bill was declared dead after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race, but still might get rammed through Congress this week. If Obama is going to appoint anymore Czars I think there should be a “Legislation Death Czar” to determine once and for all when a bill actually dies so we can stop talking about it. It’s also hard for me to believe that cap-and-trade is dead because Senator Graham, Senator John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, and Senator Joe Lieberman have been working on a bi-partisan Senate alternative to cap-and-trade that aims to set carbon caps on specific industries instead of creating a national target. This new bill won’t be called cap-and-trade but will still have the same effect on the specific sectors it targets, those sectors being: electric utilities, transportation, and industry.

While the new bi-partisan cap-and-trade alternative won’t put limits on the entire economy they will put limits on arguably three of the most important parts of the economy. Every individual and business uses electricity, transportation, and industry to some extent and the prices in these sectors will “necessarily skyrocket.” To solve this problem the politicians are considering giving pollution allowances directly back to consumers. They are calling this new plan cap-and-dividend, but make no mistake, this is just a wealth redistribution scheme. 

Fortunately, even this new cap-and-dividend plan will have a tough time making it through the Senate. Unfortunately, the Obama administration plans on using the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions which would have similar effects as a cap-and-trade bill except it will have been enacted by executive order rather than the legislation process.  

Why are any of these bills or executive orders even being considered when it is well-known that they will be harmful to the economy? Well, President Obama promised the world community back in December to cut U.S. carbon emissions 17% by 2020. Why 17%? Why 2020? You’re guess is as good as mine, but God forbid we break a promise to the world community.

All this nonsense is to be done in the name of slowing climate change. Nevermind that the IPCC has come under intense scrutiny lately for oversimplifying climate change information, or that the Climategate scandal has pretty much proven what many skeptics have thought all along, namely that the climate change “crisis” was all a fraud. Nope, new information or doubts about the scientific consensus don’t matter to Obama’s EPA or Democratic majorities. Perhaps these bill aren’t really about climate change?   

Senator John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, said this about the senate bill: “What people need to understand about this bill is this really is a jobs bill, an economic transformation for America, an energy independence bill and a health/pollution-reduction bill that has enormous benefits for the country…”

If you buy that, I got some ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to sell you.

How We Can Save $1Billion

(Hat Tip:  Times Online and The New Ledger)

Did you know that we were in the process of building a new US Embassy in the UK? Well we are. It is going to cost the taxpayers one billion dollars. It is going to have a moat. It is going to look like this:

We just spent $600 million on an embassy in Baghdad and are currently spending $850 million dollars on an embassy in Islamabad that’s still under construction. Without looking it up, do you know where Islamabad is*? I didn’t think so.

What are the American taxpayers getting in return for these investments? I wish I could tell you. It is hard to imagine building a one billion dollar embassy in another country when one out of every eight people in the US is on Food Stamps. Forget the protest signs, this is the kind of crap that makes me want to grab a pitchfork and a torch and start the revolution**.

We already have an embassy in the UK. We could just keep using that one for a little while longer couldn’t we? This embassy is a symbol of how our federal government still doesn’t get it. We must use the power of the ballot box to get new principled leaders in Washington to put a stop to wasteful spending projects like this. If we don’t, may God have mercy on our souls.

*Islamabad is in Pakistan.

**I don’t own a pitchfork or a torch and I’m not going to start a revolution. I’m a non-violent person. I don’t advocate violence of any sort.