printOn Monday, Sept. 19, BHO published the grandiosely titled “Living Within Our Means and Investing in Our Future: The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and deficit Reduction.” As promised after the address given to the join session a week or so earlier, this thing is supposed to explain how BHO intends to pay for his latest plan to squander an additional $447 billion without adding a cent to the 14.7 trillion-dollar debt.
Things are bad when BHO media loyalists like The Economist are unimpressed:
Sadly, the details of Mr Obama’s plan do not live up to the promising goals. On spending it relies too much on one-off cuts to the military and a laundry list of untried and controversial trims to mandatory programmes and on taxes, a frustratingly vague tax plan that sacrifices meaningful reform to the more symbolic goal of raising taxes on the rich.
This from page 2:
“The American Jobs Act would cut payroll taxes in half to 3.1 percent up to their first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level, and it would completely eliminate payroll taxes next year for any business that increases its payroll by hiring new workers or increasing wages for existing workers. The Act would also extend 100 percent expensing through 2012, allowing all firms—small and large—to take an immediate tax deduction on investments in new plants and equipment.”
This kind of incentivization is grounded in BHO’s perception of business owners as tempestuous twits—kids who need candy to make them grow their livelihood.
If consumers were flush with cash to spend, business would expand to meet the demand. Business is behaving prudently, because that’s what the market demands. If anything, a tough economy would indeed force increases in productivity: fewer and fewer workers are doing more and more of work.
I am continually astonished at the economic ignorance of not only Obama, but of his entire administration. Rarely does a day go by that I don’t read or hear about some hare-brained proposal to stimulate, kick-start, cajole, or otherwise entice people who are broke to spend money they don’t have because their income dried up in the correction Obama is determined to defer until after he’s elected.
Rip the band-aid off already! They cannot repeal economic reality any more than they can change the tides. When does the absurd central planning get replaced by sane fiscal and monetary policies?
Start with Hooverology which is “Government is responsible for creating and/or destroying jobs” – e.g. how many jobs did Rick Perry “create” etc.?? Add in a bastardized child or Keynesian economics and Reaganomics – e.g. the solution to everything economic is some combo of: (a) stimulus spending, (b) tax cuts, (c) defense spending, (d) borrowing, (e) money supply expansion, (f) cheap consumer credit, (g) growing the welfare state / “safety net” – the sick byproduct is Obammunism. Add nearly identically idiotic Republicans focused mainly on winning back power in 2012 and mostly working on Gridlocking everything with the Democrats.
Result – debt, economic paralysis, uncertainty, and hideous malinvestment.
Early this morning after listening to some of the news re the economy, I thought I had “THE SOLUTION”.
The government should, immediately, pass a new law that mandates that ALL PRICES OF ALL GOODS BE DOUBLED AND THAT ALL WAGES-SALARIES OF ALL WORKERS BE DOUBLED. It has always been the “FREEZE WAGES & FREEZE PRICES” approach, but that method did not work.
My method will work because TAX REVENUES WILL DOUBLE AS WELL and the excess can be applied to the debt…VOILA!
At that point my alarm clock went on and I awoke.
Actually, please use the LINK below for a more rational explanation:
http://mises.org/daily/5641/Its-Not-about-Consumption
I believe Round 2 is fast approaching and with possible new regs re gold purchases, etc., will Americans see another confiscation like FDR’s in the ’30s? A libertarian and contributor to WND, as is Ilana,is VOX DAY. Suggestion…read his book, “THE RETURN OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION”…then THINK.
Why in the world anybody actually listens to this yutz is beyond me. Even the dolts who voted for him.