The True “Cost Of Action”
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the two years, it’s that President Barack Obama can give a speech.
As we said on the occasion of his inauguration, his command of the oratorical arts is practically unrivaled in the modern Presidential era.
But turning a phrase and running a country are two totally different things, and after his first month in office it’s clear that Obama isn’t the “Clintonian centrist” many thought he was.
Nor is he an intrinsically pure left-winger like Jimmy Carter was.
Clinton told us the “era of big government is over,” but under Obama it’s obviously just beginning.
And while Carter spoke of a “crisis of confidence,” Obama is all sunshine, dandelions and cute kids from Dillon, S.C.
Having already gotten his massive $787 billion “stimulus package,” Obama’s speech was all about paving the way for additional federal interventionism – as if the $11 trillion the government has already committed to spend over the past five months wasn’t sufficient.
“While the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater,” Obama said.
Blah, blah, blah.
This is the same big government garbage that President George Bush’s people fed us shortly before they handed $700 billion of our money over to the banks.
At some point, Americans are going to figure out that the “cost of inaction” might not be as bad as everybody says it is, and that the “cost of action” is more than just dollars and cents, it’s the free market economy on which this nation was built.
Comments
By Pat Hendrix on February 25th, 2009 at 11:49 am
The alternative?
I’m waiting. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and carp, but somebody has to be the grownup.
By fitsnews on February 25th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Pat,
The alternative is to let those businesses that are going to fail sell their assets competitively in bankruptcy proceedings.
Then we cut (not raise) cap gains, individual income and corporate taxes while eliminating the estate tax and passing a federal spending cap that limits government’s growth to the growth in pop + inflation.
-FITS
By Pat Hendrix on February 25th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
No, the alternative is systemic failure of the entire banking industry. Citi, the gaggle of nitwits and crooks that they are, owes billions to their creditors, most of it in credit swaps that have zero value. They go down they take a dozen more with them.
You think I like Citi? Hell, it’s a miracle I have not marched down there with a torch after they tried t jack interest rate. But you have to let this blind adherence to ideology go. These things can’t be solved by the simple regurgitation of the Club for Growth talking points. We have to grow up.
By Jack on February 25th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
The solution to America’s economic woes is pending in Congress right now as HR-25. This bill eliminates -not “cuts”- capital gains taxes, the personal income tax, the estate tax, gift taxes and all regressive payroll taxes for Medicaid and Medicare. These revenue sources are replaced with one uniform tax on all new goods and services, so all Americans pay taxes at the same rate. Visitors and those who profit from illegal income as well as income tax evaders pay their share on purchases. The immediate repatriation of an estimated twelve trillion dollars sheltered overseas will be a huge boost to the financial markets and fund new investment in plants and equipment to put Americans back to work manufacturing goods that can compete on a level tax basis with foreign manufacturers. Visit SCFairTax.org to learn more about the FairTax and its supporters in SC. Now is the time to pass the FairTax.
By Pat Hendrix on February 25th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Ugh, Jack, wake up. Ain’t going to happen. You just got your ass handed to you in the last election. The “Fair Tax” is dead as fried chicken.
By roofus on February 25th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Jack,
If we pass Fair Tax, how then will limousine, silk-stocking liberals like Caroline Kennedy avoid taxes?
By Jack on February 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Pat, what a sweet pitch. Yum Brands, Inc. parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken just announced 2008 Earnings per share growth of 14% over 2007 results, the eight straight year of double digit growth, and project at least 10 % growth for 2009. You would have to have at least some rudimentary understanding of economics and business operating results to comprehend the impact of those numbers.
The FairTax was not on the ballot anywhere in the last election. However people of all Political Party affiliations who are willing and able to take the time to study this proposal as an alternate to the inefficient, incomprehensible and growth inhibiting mess of the 64,000 page Internal Revenue Code become supporters of the FairTax. The FairTax Act is less than 100 pages long. Come on now, surely you can read that.
Roofus, my man. You have me stumped, I must admit.
By mijeel on February 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
The Fair Tax deserves at least a fair investigation if for no other reason than we’ve got to get a tax system in place that is so easy even a cabinet-level nominee can understand it…(with all due respect to Geico)
Stating the constitutionally obvious is not carping from the sidelines. Numerous alternative amendments were offered to the so-called stimulus package but were dismissed out of hand by the party in power because they contained no provisions for social engineering or government expansion.
We can expect the same treatment with the recently announced $410B Omnibus Spending Bill being pushed by Obama, Reid & Pelosi, LLC (Liberals Lurching towards Communism?): Stimulus II – Son of Porkulus. It will be too big to read, contain even more money for pent-up liberal Democrat social engineering, and have to be passed in a hurry before people find out what’s inside.
Can anyone really say with any certainty whether doing “nothing” is worse than what we’re “doing?”
By keith on February 26th, 2009 at 4:22 am
The FairTax solution will return the 14 trillion dollars worth of investment and business chased out by our punitive tax code. Our current fiasco collects 160 billion dollars every month from individuals and business for FICA, Medicare, and Social Security, then the money is handed to the general fund with an I.O.U. and a tiny interest rate and our government spends it. Under the FairTax all that money will remain in the hands of workers and business. (Yes under the FairTax both Medicare and Social Security are fully funded for the first time in history)
Talk about about a real economic stimulus plan!