Obama The Class Warrior – “Potholes” Will Drive Businesses Away

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So we have Obama out on the campaign trail trying to drum up support for his economic plan to bring down the deficit. His plan…tax the wealthy.

And the more class warfare he can drum up the better.

The thing is, raising taxes won’t fix the deficit. It’s not enough. Everyone in the financial world knows it’s not enough. Take, for example, the S&P:

Standard & Poor’s on Monday downgraded the outlook for the United States to negative, saying it believes there’s a risk U.S. policymakers may not reach agreement on how to address the country’s long-term fiscal pressures.

“Because the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable,” the agency said in a statement.

In an interview with CNBC, David Beers, S&P’s global head of sovereign ratings, said the agency has been “struck increasingly by the difference in how other governments are dealing with fiscal consolidation.”

Little wonder Obama and crew tried their best to persuade the S&P against the warning:

The Obama administration privately urged Standard & Poor’s in recent weeks not to lower its outlook on the United States — a suggestion the ratings agency ignored Monday, two people familiar with the matter said.

Treasury Department officials had been discussing with S&P whether the ratings agency should change its outlook on the United States to “negative” from “stable,” an indication that the country could lose its crucial AAA rating in coming years over its soaring debt levels.

Treasury officials told S&P analysts that they were underestimating the ability of politicians in Washington to fashion a compromise to curb deficits, a Treasury official said. They argued a change in ratings was not needed at this time because the debt was manageable and the administration had a viable plan in the works, the official said.

But S&P analysts told Treasury officials on Friday that they were unmoved — and released a report that expressed skepticism that the political parties could come together on how to bring spending in line with revenue.

The “debt was manageable” and the administration had a “viable plan in the works.”

Yeaaaah. We heard his plan last week, and again yesterday, when he did his best to scaremonger and make absurd assertions:

Businesses will leave our shores…not because of high taxes and regulation but because of POTHOLES? Wow! (and don’t forget about our bridges collapsing)

Did you hear anything in that little speech that would make you believe he will cut spending?

It’s simple really. The Obama plan (if you can call it a plan) relies on higher taxes and the assumption of unrealistic growth. There isn’t enough wealthy to put a dent in the deficit, our economy won’t be growing enough to stave off the debt:

The Obama Framework likely uses the same higher growth assumptions as Obama’s February budget. When CBO re-ran that budget using its own gloomier forecast, it found the Obama plan raised $1.7 trillion less than it claimed. Ryan uses the CBO numbers. So a back-of-the-envelope estimate — adjusted for similar economic assumptions — finds the Obama Framework would only save $3 trillion vs. $6.9 trillion for the Ryan Path over ten years. And nearly 2/3 of Obama’s savings comes from higher taxes (net interest).

And once Obama starts to tax the middle-class (which they will have to do once they realize the wealthy can’t fix the problem) our economic growth will only get worse.

But hey, actually doing something about our deficit and spending might cost votes, that’s all that matters to Obama.

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I had a chart showing which country spent how much per student to get what they got in achievement.
Well, can’t find it.
But a country that spends less than 1/2 of what we do right now is in the top 4 of this chart.
And this one, too. (Charts #53 and 54)
Thing is, Obama has no interest in improving kids’ educations.
All he wants is to save and/or create more union teaching jobs as our population stays static.
If you look at everything Obama wants, union workers are not too far behind all of it.
Heck, they even fill pot holes!

@Nan G:

I would say, if Obama was simply a democrat, with liberal tendencies, that he was just following the script of previous successes for his party in elections. However, because of the obvious socialist bent to his politics, speeches, writings, etc., one can guess that his goal isn’t simply that of remaining in power, but of the destruction of the American way of life, to include the destruction of the Constitution.

I’ve said numerous times that before any talk of tax increases begin, that a serious discussion of spending cuts needs to happen. Obama isn’t just continuing the modest spending increases of nearly every year of Presidency since our country’s founding, but is, in fact, engaging in massive spending increases, increasing the baseline budget’s of the past few years by a Trillion-plus dollars. Has there been any positive impact on the economy due to the Stimulus? No, there hasn’t. Jobs are still going away, meaning government revenue is still dropping, and it has nothing to do with how much or how little one earns and pays in taxes.

And any spending cut must be discussed within the boundaries of Constitutional limitations on the government. It must NOT be discussed as somehow taking away from the “needy”, whether they be children, women, or old people, or anywhere within the population of the U.S. They must NOT be demogogued to death by one side or the other. Everything must be on the table, including defense spending. No playing politics with any proposal. No playing politics concerning any cuts suggested.

A school system that teaches capitalism by having actual capitalists give speeches and capitalist book reading would have a great effect on the future generations. The tax base would expand and future adults would be more well off. For some reason that seems like a cheap effective alternative to the joke we call “education”. The foolish things they teach these days only help a small percentage of the population. Nobody can tell me that teaching capitalism would be bad for students, if people don’t want students to be educated in capitalism; they must hate poor children! (By wanting them to stay poor)

The other thing that is crucial to a country’s survival is a knowledge of the values of that country and strict adherence to them. The best way to do this would be to make history an constitution/bill of rights study mandatory in all schools.

Aside from that I am pretty much opposed to compulsory education. So was thomas Jefferson.

@Zac:

One problem I see, Zac. Not all who are considered capitalists, are truly capitalist.

One thing the left rails on, and I agree to a point, is that there are corporate influences in government, trying to obtain an unfair advantage within the industries they compete in. Now, I said I agree to a point, and that point is that liberals tend to think that only Republicans engage in helping those corporations, while the truth is that both sides of the aisle engage in this practice. Then, the liberals paint this as ‘capitalism’, trying to change the word’s meaning to that of obtaining special favors from government.

And the end result is, that stupid, ignorant people believe jackholes like Michael Moore who says capitalism is evil. Nothing could be further from the truth, and your suggestion is well received, as long as the capitalists in question are not those like the CEO’s of GM, or Chrysler, or the big financial firms, or GE, or any of the other corporations that continually seek to obtain special favors in the form of unearned benefits, or unfair advantages over competitors.

John Galt, I agree and don’t feel corporate welfare is a product of capitalism. Capitalism, the true capitalism is really in my opinion the purest form of personal responsibility. Is it not the goal of every parent to teach their children personal responsibility?

I know a few people that are considered well off because of investments or profitable ventures in capitalism. What surprises me are the ones who will talk ether about EPA regulations or taxes being too high; yet out the other side of their mouth will praise Obama and other liberal ideas. I’m not sure if I explained the major source (not the only source mind you) of their problems if they would be willing to except it. To be honest I can’t say I blame them. Capitalism is a wonderful thing, no mater what politics people choose to follow, capitalism is right for us all. Instead of protecting medicare/social security/compulsory education for future generations, we would be wise to ensure that our children and our childrens children can enjoy the benefits of capitalism. No one would argue that Americas future should not be a prosperous one. Why should individual Americans not be prosperous as well?

Let’s do our part. For the children.

Looks like we’ll know soon enough.

Because of a law passed in Feb last year and signed by Obama, the U.S. legal debt limit is $14.2940 trillion.

According to the Daily Treasury Statement released today (PDF) , the portion of the national debt subject to this legal limit is at $14.268365 trillion.

That leaves the U.S. Treasury with the authority to borrow only $25.635 billion before it hits the debt limit.

US Treasury Sec Geithner told Congress the public debt of the United States increases by approximately $125 billion every month.

So, we should be hitting our debt ceiling limit in about a week!

According to some recent increased spending, we could be at the limit in 3 days.

Businesses will leave our shores…not because of high taxes and regulation but because of POTHOLES? Wow! (and don’t forget about our bridges collapsing).

Anyone who thinks serious trouble isn’t coming as a result of long-term neglect of our national infrastructure might want to look into the extent of the problem.

As to why 2.8 million U.S. jobs have been moved overseas since 2000, and another 1 million are projected to go by 2014, the answer is simple: American workers cannot compete with dirt-cheap labor working in settings largely free of basic health, safety, and environmental regulations. Apparently American workers will have to trade away wages, benefits, and quality of life to provide a potential for the same level of corporate profits. Or we’ll have to think of some other solution.

Of the 1 million U.S. jobs soon to be lost, 450,000 are skilled technical jobs.

This reminded me of something. Please allow me to take you back in time. Nine years ago Robert Rubin tried to lean on the Bush administration to save Enron. It failed.

So when anyone you encounter tries to stick Enron on Bush again, please stick this in their rebut them with this article.

@Greg: Geez, Greg, did you major in tangentialism in school?

Anyone who thinks serious trouble isn’t coming as a result of long-term neglect of our national infrastructure might want to look into the extent of the problem.

I presume you mean the Obama administration, who paid lip service to this in its pathetic “stimulus” bill.

Obama has taken the hill named “Most Divisive President in history.”

I have yet to hear one speech of his during which he does not tell an outright lie. NOT ONE speech.

The company he keeps, and the company he has kept but pretended to disown, would never have been accepted in any other Presidential candidate. Yet here he is continuing his embarrassing embrace of people like the slime Al Sharpton who makes a living making African Americans feel trodden upon instead of using his pulpit to inject the community with positive encouragement.

Obama’s insults to his fellow Americans on the conservative side of the political divide should make all citizens blush. It certainly stirs confusion in the perspectives of foreign nation looking in, wondering what has happened to the Nation they all once envied, . . . were jealous of, but envied nonetheless.

Obama is given phrases to use that are taken from the pages of his socialist ancestors such as Marx, in order to incite class warfare, and it works. Repeat them often enough, and it really works. People can get riled up and do.

There is NO LIE too big that can’t be told to incite the soft minds of the “proletariate.”

The “Tax the rich” refrain is an example of a deceptive, and stupid attack on small business which the Wealthy could care less about, but which the dumb-and-getting-dumber supporters of Obama swallow wholeheartedly.

Obama is feathering his nest as Clinton did. That’s all that matters to him. I just don’t see him as being any deeper than that. He doesn’t actually care that much. His puppet masters on the other hand have grander plans to destroy the fabric of the Nation as the world watches in amazement.

@DrJohn, #9:

I presume you mean the Obama administration, who paid lip service to this in its pathetic “stimulus” bill.

What I meant was that it’s not a good idea to reduce the serious issue of a rapidly deteriorating national infrastructure to a matter of potholes.

The Ryan budget would cut national infrastructure and transportation spending by 37 percent, science and technology research and development spending by 28 percent, and education and training spending by 53%.

This seems more like a path to accelerating national decline than to to future national prosperity.

@Greg:

As to why 2.8 million U.S. jobs have been moved overseas since 2000, and another 1 million are projected to go by 2014, the answer is simple: American workers cannot compete with dirt-cheap labor working in settings largely free of basic health, safety, and environmental regulations.

Greg, one problem with your assertion; If what you claim is true, then the exodus would have started long before it did, and be much worse than it is now. What has really changed, within the economic dynamics of the world, to cause such an exodus of jobs? The corporate tax rate has stayed relatively high compared to other industrialized nations, and many times higher than those nations just climbing into that category. And when it hasn’t increased, or it has dropped, the top-line income for the top tax bracket hasn’t changed. Since 1993, the top tax rate of 35% has stayed at a level of $18.33 Million, meaning that more and more companies, as they gain net income, fall within the top tax bracket, and I don’t think I need to tell you that $18 Million in 1993 is NOT the same as it is now, in 2011. In order to compete, economically, companies send portions of their jobs overseas, by contracting out to foreign companies to do the work that used to be done in-house.

Is it about profits? Damn right it is, because for many companies, if they didn’t reduce their overhead somehow, they would go right out of business. Profit is not a four-letter word. It is simply a difference between the gross and net incomes, yet liberals bandy it about as if anyone in business seeking a profit, is evil and greedy. Yet, without a profit, a business can not stay afloat for very long, meaning jobs won’t stay around either.