Category Archives: Debt

UPDATED: 'Tax Cuts Not Paid For' Says Thief

Debt, Democrats, Journalism, Media, Natural Law, Republicans, Taxation, The State

The execrable bunch that convened to Meet The Press on Sunday carried out a conversation about the irresponsible Republikeynesians’ tax policy.

Against the Republikeynesians, moderator DAVID GREGORY argued that “if you’re concerned, as Republicans say they are, about cutting spending and the deficit, you have to acknowledge that tax cuts are not paid for.”

“It’s still borrowed money,” contended Gregory, paraphrasing the Great Inflater, ALAN GREENSPAN.

Other than meekly pointing out that the problem we have is a problem of spending, Mitch McConnel, being a Republican, made various weak appeals such as that “if you push this economy further backward, we’ll get less revenue for the government, not more.” And “raising taxes in the middle of a recession on the major job generator in America, small business, is a very, very bad idea.”

TAXES ARE STOLEN PROPERTY. A tax cut, especially to high income earners who pay most of the taxes, is a return of stolen goods. To say that you need to “pay for tax cuts,” as Gregory does, is akin to a thief saying he can’t return the TV he just stole until he is in a better financial position.

On the other hand, “taxation hits the pocketbook directly; government’s borrowing and counterfeiting does so indirectly—it devalues Joe the Plumber’s labor, assets, purchasing power, and savings. Unaware of how he’s being ground down, Generic Joe keeps on consuming until he crashes.”

UPDATE (Aug. 24): “Arguing for higher taxes for the rich” is tantamount to arguing for a transfer of wealth from those who pay taxes to those who habitually consume them. It’s always an election-winning strategy given that the last group outnumbers the first. Ask Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Reuters: “Thousands have taken to the streets this summer to demonstrate against plans by Merkel’s center-right government to cut billions of euros in spending on the unemployed without imposing a similar burden on the other end of society.”

Come again? Does the correspondent mean to imply that the pain of doing without as much welfare as before is on par with having to fork out for it (without being entitled to it?)

In mobocracy, some are more equal than others.

Want proof that, the world over, “Statism begins With YOU”?

“Surveys indicate that if a national vote were held now, the opposition would crush Merkel and her allies, whose coalition lost its majority in the upper house of parliament after defeat in a regional election in May.”

Speaking of statism, HERE AT HOME, the booboisie want their “runny egg yolks for mopping up with toast” better monitored by Big Daddy.

A salmonella outbreak, and “the largest egg recall that has happened in recent history,” simply show that the fatter the feds the happier egg-scarfing Americans stand to be.

UPDATE III: Oz Is Alright, Economically (Electorally? Now That’s Another Matter)

Debt, Economy, Elections, Inflation, Political Economy

PBS reporter Stuart Cohen “thinks” that what has kept Australia’s “unemployment rate just over 5 percent,” and that country’s economy still humming,” is, in part, “government spending”—that has “helped keep Australia out of recession.”

“PETER HARTCHER, political editor, of he Sydney Morning Herald,” believes the same: “The big and searing experience out of this was that, when there was a global financial crisis, and suddenly countries everywhere were in trouble, the Australian government had enough money in the kitty that it was easily able to enact a massive stimulus massive at least in proportion to our economy.

The consequence is one of the only countries in the world that didn’t have a recession. And this experience has now been burnt into the national consciousness, and it’s put a real premium on getting back to surpluses as quickly as possible.”

[SNIP]

HARTCHER’s right about not overspending. Most people outside Washington DC would think of this as stating the obvious. But it is despite the pursuit of porkulus policies that Oz is not looking as bad as the US. The relative prudent financial management of the country’s affairs has meant that the economy can shoulder some Keynesian mischief without buckling under.

UPDATE I (Aug. 21): For those of you who are interested in events outside the USA (not a common occurrence among Americans, in my experience), here is a dispatch from the frontlines of the Australian election. I’ll provide the name of our lively correspondent, whose style you probably recognize, pending his say-so. UPDATE III (Aug. 22): He is no other than R. J. Stove (read his comment and corrections hereunder):

I woke up this morning to the news that yesterday’s election seems to have resulted in a hung parliament (the first at national level since 1940-1943).

The obnoxious Gillard – “Sickening Excuse For A Woman” (SEFAW for short), as Paul Gottfried calls her – has been given a kick in the teeth, but Tony Abbott’s Liberals (despite gains in Queensland and New South Wales) appear unable to form a majority.

It’s the Green party which is cock-a-hoop, with, I believe, nine senators now (as opposed to five previously) and with gains in the House of Reps (where it had lacked any members at all since the
1990s, if memory serves me).

Last night on TV we had the diverting spectacle of Gillard’s vile Environment Minister Penny Wong, who owes her political clout entirely to being a Chinese lesbian, being upbraided by a Greens candidate for “homophobia.” Frankly, to me the Greens are such cartoonish villains that I can’t work up all that much indignation against them.

If we absolutely must have pro-abort, pro-Third-World-immigration and pro-homosexual-“marriage” politicians at all, I prefer them to be outside rather than inside the Catholic Church or “movement conservatism.”

This is some of the latest media coverage of the poll (complete with a recording of Gillard’s cement-mixer speaking
voice).

[SNIP]

UPDATE II: By comparison, “the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 12,000 to 500,000 last week, taking economists and the White House by surprise. President Obama, on his way to a 10-day vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard, said the report underscores the need for”… yes, more government deficit spending.”

UPDATE III: Oz Is Alright, Economically (Electorally? Now That's Another Matter)

Debt, Elections, Inflation, Political Economy

PBS reporter Stuart Cohen “thinks” that what has kept Australia’s “unemployment rate just over 5 percent,” and that country’s economy still humming,” is, in part, “government spending”—that has “helped keep Australia out of recession.”

“PETER HARTCHER, political editor, of he Sydney Morning Herald,” believes the same: “The big and searing experience out of this was that, when there was a global financial crisis, and suddenly countries everywhere were in trouble, the Australian government had enough money in the kitty that it was easily able to enact a massive stimulus massive at least in proportion to our economy.

The consequence is one of the only countries in the world that didn’t have a recession. And this experience has now been burnt into the national consciousness, and it’s put a real premium on getting back to surpluses as quickly as possible.”

[SNIP]

HARTCHER’s right about not overspending. Most people outside Washington DC would think of this as stating the obvious. But it is despite the pursuit of porkulus policies that Oz is not looking as bad as the US. The relative prudent financial management of the country’s affairs has meant that the economy can shoulder some Keynesian mischief without buckling under.

UPDATE I (Aug. 21): For those of you who are interested in events outside the USA (not a common occurrence among Americans, in my experience), here is a dispatch from the frontlines of the Australian election. I’ll provide the name of our lively correspondent, whose style you probably recognize, pending his say-so. UPDATE III (Aug. 22): He is no other than R. J. Stove (read his comment and corrections hereunder):

I woke up this morning to the news that yesterday’s election seems to have resulted in a hung parliament (the first at national level since 1940-1943).

The obnoxious Gillard – “Sickening Excuse For A Woman” (SEFAW for short), as Paul Gottfried calls her – has been given a kick in the teeth, but Tony Abbott’s Liberals (despite gains in Queensland and New South Wales) appear unable to form a majority.

It’s the Green party which is cock-a-hoop, with, I believe, nine senators now (as opposed to five previously) and with gains in the House of Reps (where it had lacked any members at all since the
1990s, if memory serves me).

Last night on TV we had the diverting spectacle of Gillard’s vile Environment Minister Penny Wong, who owes her political clout entirely to being a Chinese lesbian, being upbraided by a Greens candidate for “homophobia.” Frankly, to me the Greens are such cartoonish villains that I can’t work up all that much indignation against them.

If we absolutely must have pro-abort, pro-Third-World-immigration and pro-homosexual-“marriage” politicians at all, I prefer them to be outside rather than inside the Catholic Church or “movement conservatism.”

This is some of the latest media coverage of the poll (complete with a recording of Gillard’s cement-mixer speaking
voice).

[SNIP]

UPDATE II: By comparison, “the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 12,000 to 500,000 last week, taking economists and the White House by surprise. President Obama, on his way to a 10-day vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard, said the report underscores the need for”… yes, more government deficit spending.”

UPDATED: Statism Starts With YOU! (Chuckie Misses Bush)

Debt, Economy, Healthcare, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Morality, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Republicans, The State, Welfare

The following is from “Statism Starts With YOU!”, now on WND.Com:

“Why did federal regulators not intervene sooner? A tragedy could have been averted. That was the first demand made following the accidental death of 8 spectators, and the injury of 12, at the California 200 off-road race. The derby was held in the Mojave Desert, in the Lucerne Valley. The driver of one of the racing trucks lost control of his vehicle, flipped and landed on bystanders, who are in the habit of getting as close as they possibly can to the tracks.”

“Evidently, what draws fans of desert racing to the sport, attest Phil Willon and David Zahniser of the Los Angeles Times, is the ‘the danger, dust and noise of watching 3,500-pound trucks roaring past — close enough almost to touch — and then rocketing into the air over treacherous jumps with nicknames like ‘the rock pile.'”

It’s all great fun until something goes terribly wrong. Then it’s someone else’s fault.” …

This tragedy, off-the-beaten-track, well illustrates the dynamics of state encroachment. Statism always and everywhere begins with The People.”

The complete column is “Statism Starts With YOU!”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATE (Aug. 20): “I miss Bush intensely,” said one of the main Republican ideologues, Charles Krauthammer. “Iraq ended this week fairly successfully. And the economy, Obama purchased with the stimulus; it’s his economy.”

That’s the depth of the thinking of your above-average Republican.