Corie Whalen

Originally published at USDailyReview.com

My Twitter friend @keder posted something last week that struck me:

“Washington is not suffering from a ‘revenue problem.’ This year, Washington will collect $400 billion more than it spent in the year 2000.”

I replied and thanked him for tweeting that figure, because it reminded me of how utterly contradictory liberals can be when it comes to taxation and spending. Many on the left were apoplectic when President Obama decided to extend the Bush tax cuts last December. The liberal blogosphere was rife with claims that the tax cuts of the 2000′s were responsible for the “Great Recession” – completely ignoring, of course, other more realistic factors like a problematic monetary policy that encourages economic bubbles and dangerous levels of deficit spending. Oh, and they also conveniently forgot about the fact that during 2005, the period right after the Bush tax cuts, federal revenues were at record highs.

Nonetheless, a typical line used to denounce tax cuts and President Bush (who, for the record, I think was a terrible President, despite my Republican affiliation), is that under Clinton, things were so great! Even ignoring the fact that we were on the expansion side of both a dot com and real estate bubble, if we’re to accept the premise that the Bush tax cuts hurt the economy and that Clinton was the second coming of Jesus, to return to the promised land of the 90′s, we’d have to make a radical change at this juncture: Reinstate Clinton era federal spending. The left loves to fear monger about what would happen if we returned to pre-2008 spending (as suggested by conservatives like Paul Ryan), as if prior to 2008 we lived in the dark ages. Yet at the same time, the Clinton era was perfect? Try to make sense of that, because I can’t.

Ultimately, given the extent of our national debt today, with or without an extension of the Bush tax cuts, we’d still be in an unsustainable situation. It’s been proven mathematically time and again that even if we taxed every millionaire and billionaire 100%, it wouldn’t even make a dent in the problem.

The Wall Street Journal does the math for us:

“Imagine that instead of proposing to raise the top income tax rate well north of 40%, the President decided to go all the way to 100%. Let’s stipulate that this is a thought experiment, because Democrats don’t need any more ideas. But it’s still a useful experiment because it exposes the fiscal futility of raising rates on the top 2%, or even the top 5% or 10%, of taxpayers to close the deficit. The mathematical reality is that in the absence of entitlement reform on the Paul Ryan model, Washington will need to soak the middle class—because that’s where the big money is …..

….. Assume that tax policy confiscated all the taxable income of all the “millionaires and billionaires” Mr. Obama singled out. That yields merely about $938 billion, which is sand on the beach amid the $4 trillion White House budget, a $1.65 trillion deficit, and spending at 25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record ….

….. Say we take it up to the top 10%, or everyone with income over $114,000, including joint filers. That’s five times Mr. Obama’s 2% promise. The IRS data are broken down at $100,000, yet taxing all income above that level throws up only $3.4 trillion. And remember, the top 10% already pay 69% of all total income taxes, while the top 5% pay more than all of the other 95% …..

….. Let’s perform the same exercise in 2005, a boom year and among the best ever for federal revenue. (Ahem, 2005 comes after the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama holds responsible for all the world’s problems) …..

….. In 2005 the top 5% earned over $145,000. If you took all the income of people over $200,000, it would yield about $1.89 trillion, enough revenue to cover the 2012 bill for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—but not the same bill in 2016, as the costs of those entitlements are expected to grow rapidly. The rich, in short, aren’t nearly rich enough to finance Mr. Obama’s entitlement state ambitions—even before his health-care plan kicks in.”

Given these figures, it’s beyond obvious that screaming about the evils of the Bush tax cuts and “the rich” are strawmen the left use to engage in class warfare demagoguery; facts and figures be damned.

Personally, in my libertarian leaning fantasy world, I’d love to slash over half of all federal spending – but my realistic side is quite content with the notion of rolling back our commitments to the glory days of the 90′s that liberals hypocrtically tout. Here’s a compromise for you: Want to return to 1998 tax rates? Fine with me; if we go back to 1998 spending. In 1998, the federal budget was 1.7 trillion. Today, we spend 3.8 trillion – and borrow 43 cents of every dollar with no plan to pay it back. Given the circumstances, most conservatives I know would be thrilled to make a concession like the one mentioned above; especially if we’re able to get some tax code and entitlement reform in there; but that’s a discussion for another day.

We all know that the left would flat our reject such a compromise. Just imagine their reaction to the proposition of actually cutting 2.1 trillion in real (not projected) expenditures – that figure being the difference between 2011 and 1998 spending levels. We’ve heard fear mongering about dead grandmothers and starving poor people for much, much less. Given their head-in-the-sand approach to the mere mention of spending cuts, liberals really need to do a better job of addressing the disconnect between their worship of Clinton and a misguided, demagogic distaste for the Bush tax cuts – a measure that, as I stated before, actually led to higher federal revenues.

You can’t logically make an argument about the supposed danger of tax cuts without considering related revenue and spending levels. However liberals, always looking for ways to stir up class warfare sentiments during campaign season, manage to do just that – consistently. Then again, these are the same brilliant minds in charge of trying to ‘fix’ our current economic woes – and this whole 9.1% unemployment with a $14,696,963,569,782.73 national debt debacle isn’t doing much to showcase liberal ‘logic’ either.

Originally published at the US Daily Review

To be blunt, the employment numbers released by the Labor Department today are absolutely dismal.

As the Washington Post reported:

“The Labor Department on Friday reported zero net job creation in August, far worse than the 68,000 net jobs analysts had expected to be added. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.1 percent. The July job growth number was revised downward, as well, to only 85,000 jobs added that month — not the 117,000 estimated.”

Of course, these monthly numbers are ‘unexpected’ to the chattering class disciples of Keynesian theory who, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, believe that government looting private citizens and spending money we don’t have will create sustainable employment.

The scenario is dreadful. Anxious people are looking for a scapegoat. Enter the desperate Left-Elite, taking disgusting political advantage of the fact that being under and/or unemployed breeds resentment. So, who to blame other than themselves, they contemplate. Why, ‘the rich’, of course! You know, that nebulous collection of evil sub-humans who take advantage of the middle class by employing us. They’re the perfect target!

This is the path the Left-Elite goes down, of course, because it’s easier to spew poisonous class warfare rhetoric than to admit failures and change course in such a way that would involve diminishing some of their own power over the citizenry. Despite the fact that it’s been mathematically proven time and again that if we taxed every ‘rich’ individual at 100% it wouldn’t even make a dent in our national debt, the political elite continue to bite the hand that feeds.

Take, for example, this thought experiment from The Wall Street Journal in response to President Obama’s speech in April that he gave in lieu of submitting a palatable budget. (At the time of this writing, it has been 856 days since Democrats passed a budget because the President’s proposal was rejected in the Senate unanimously).

Per WSJ:

“Assume that tax policy confiscated all the taxable income of all the “millionaires and billionaires” Mr. Obama singled out. That yields merely about $938 billion, which is sand on the beach amid the $4 trillion White House budget, a $1.65 trillion deficit, and spending at 25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record.”

Of course, beyond the fact that taxing all of these nefarious  “millionaires and billionaires” isn’t a sustainable solution to our systemic overspending problem, the President’s ‘plan’, doesn’t take into account the collateral damage. Maybe the reason I’m so incensed by all of this is the personal angle. While there was no net job creation in August per the aforementioned report, my full time job was created last month, in Texas mind you, by none other than a few ‘horrible’, ‘selfish’, ‘uncaring’ rich guys. And guess what? They’re a brilliant, well-meaning, incredible group of individuals whose success I find inspiring. They’ve created an opportunity for me to further my career in a meaningful way; a scenario that wouldn’t exist if more of their earnings were confiscated by a greedy government that just can’t seem to get enough (and continues to spend significantly more than it takes in).

The achievements of people diligent enough to acquire the kind of wealth these ‘awful’ rich individuals have should be held up as models – not torn down for political agendas that prey on jealousy and insecurity. Unsurprisingly, that same rhetoric serves to enhance dependency on government and thus the power of elite, often rich, hypocritical politicians. That correlation should be suspect and revealed at every opportunity.

Ultimately, the absolutely wretched job numbers for August reinforce something that those of us paying attention already know: class warfare policy exists in direct opposition to job creation. If we keep demonizing success, bailing out failure, and creating a culture of dependency, anticipate the economy “unexpectedly” faltering even further.

Originally published at RLC.org

Liberty Republicans, given our belief that wealth creating market based initiatives are superior to those subsidized by taxpayers via government, are often accused of opposing green energy and other so called pro-environment schemes. Many on the left seem to believe that if you’re for the pro-growth policy of letting investors and entrepreneurs hash it out in the private sector without government interference, it in turn means you must have no regard for the environment.

As a libertarian who is very much pro-environment and extremely interested in alternative energy and ecological stewardship, I of course reject that premise. I’d contend that part of the problem with our energy and environmental policies are the fact that as government gets bigger, elected officials don’t hesitate to jump into bed with giant corporations, in turn, yielding a firestorm of status quo protection behind closed doors. Yet in the meantime, to coddle various constituencies, while the aforementioned cronyism disguised as capitalism distorts the market, politicians offer shallow “green” initiatives subsidized by redistributing our money, all while suppressing legitimate alternatives that could potentially compete in the market.

For example, the 2006 documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car?, points out the fact that the oil industry, through its lobbying group Western States Petroleum Association, financed campaigns to suppress the EV1 car in the marketplace, and worked closely with the federal government to see that its needs were met. If an electric car cannot compete in the market on its own, or without the aid of a legislative mandate (as in California), then it should fail. But if legitimate greener alternatives are being suppressed by corporatism, that’s highly problematic. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining that more intervention from the federal government of the United States, the world’s most powerful monopoly, will solve the problem of giant corporate interests, who are friends to DC politicians, suppressing market competition.

(more…)

On the surface, it seems valid for conservatives to be concerned primarily with lowering taxes. After all, less taxation means that people are able to keep more of what they earn – incentivizing new wealth production, job creation, etc. Of course, it’s ideal for tax cuts to be implemented in conjunction with equal cuts in spending; a point most conservatives (at least those outside the beltway) agree on in theory. However, the focus always seems to be more on taxes than spending. Sometimes, especially within the soundbite culture of politics, it’s hard to tell if people are even distinguishing between the two extremely different matters – which is highly problematic in and of itself.

I will always agree that it’s wrong to raise taxes during a recession. There’s no doubt in my mind that doing so will cause a great deal of suffering, and eventually lead to overall less wealth for the government to tax – sending us down the inevitable path to collapse that socialist policy necessarily leads to. However, unlike many fellow right-wingers, even including good libertarian friends of mine, I can’t get behind a compromise with Democrats to extend current tax rates when the proposal contains new spending. While I wholeheartedly support the extension of current tax rates as a stand alone issue, at this point in time with a serious debt crisis looming, said extensions need to be, at the very least, deficit neutral. (And deficit neutral they would be if voted on alone).

On the politics of this matter, I agree with Ken Taylor at Red State in his analysis of the current tax rate deal, and what the GOP must do when our new elects are sworn in:

(more…)