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"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans
began to slow and our planet began to heal"
Barack Hussein Obama
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event |
description |
| Hope Floats |
A carnival float depicting a flying Obama with Europe being
dragged along is seen during the traditional carnival parade in
Duesseldorf, Germany, on Monday, Feb. 23, 2009.
Rose-Monday-Parades in the carnival strongholds of Duesseldorf, Mainz
and Cologne are watched by hundreds of thousands of revelers and mark
the highlights of Germany's carnival season.
Excuse me -- but what the hell is Miss Europe
holding on to? And why is Obama smiling? |
Honk,
Honk |
The Tennessee Republican Party proudly
introduces its
newest bumper sticker, designed to help you protest the bailout-mad
Congress’s headlong rush into fiscal madness. |
| The 2% Illusion |
Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic
agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for
it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end
"tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that
households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by
"one single dime."
This is going to be some trick. Even the
most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that
raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those
making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund
Obama's new spending ambitions.
Obama is selling the country on
a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and
allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda.
Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.
On that
point, by the way, it's unclear why Obama thinks his climate-change
scheme won't hit all Americans with higher taxes. Selling the
right to emit greenhouse gases amounts to a steep new tax on most types
of energy and, therefore, on all Americans who use energy, and that's
everybody.
Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing
more than center-left pragmatism, but pragmatists don't ignore the data.
The reality is that the only way to pay for Obama's ambitions is to
reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class. |
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©
Copyright Beckwith 2009
All right reserved
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