The Very Gray Lady

The New York Times is again trying to sell the Boston Globe newspaper after disposing of many of its other communications properties.  This is a sign of the dowager phase of what was once a great paper.  Now it has sunk to being mostly a stenographer for the Democrat party.  A perfectly repugnant example of same is its Republican slam-piece in last Sunday’s magazine section, see: Can the Republicans be Saved from Obsolescence  A liberal friend (like many of them these days) sent me the following editorial from the New York Times which typifies this paper’s declining standards (see: Why Taxes Have to Go Up) ... in order to set me straight.  Surprise, surprise … it once again proselytizes for higher taxes on the wealthy … I suspect to help dig Obama out of the predicament he has gotten himself into by having previously signed the government spending sequestration bill due to kick in on March 1^st.. This (not-too-well-written) editorial’s  tag line is:

Raising taxes at the top is neither punitive nor gratuitous. It is a needed step, both to achieve near-term budget goals and to lay the foundation for a healthy budget in the future. As the economy strengthens and the population ages, more taxes will be needed from further down the income scale, both to meet foreseeable commitments, especially health care, as well as unforeseeable developments, from wars to technological challenges. But there will never be a consensus for more taxes from the middle class without imposing higher taxes on wealthy Americans, who have enjoyed low taxes for a long time.

Now the fiscal cliff deal which was just passed in January and signed into law by Obama, raises the tax rate on “millionaires and billionaires” (those single earners making over $400K per year) to almost 40%.  Tasting blood, Our Dear Leader wants to extract another hundredweight of flesh from these same taxpayers … and then (read the editorial again more carefully) move the taxing scythe into the middle class … all without cutting discretionary or entitlement spending.  According to Obama and the Times, all we have is a taxing problem, not a spending problem.  This is ideological Alzheimer's disease.

The rest of this editorial is mostly half-truths or outright mendacity … e.g.s, “On the spending side, Republicans are resisting cuts to defense.” (Are not the Republicans willing to permit the looming budget sequestration which includes draconian defense spending cuts … on top of the already-existing D.O.D. one-half a trillion dollar cuts over the next decade … see: Huffington Post Story?) And another, “[Republican spending reductions] implies brutalizing cuts in nondefense discretionary areas, like education and environment, which are already set to fall to their lowest level as a share of the economy since the 1950s.”  As anyone with a frontal lobe can see, this is pure fiction.  The environment and education were hardly on the federal government’s radar screen in the 1950s.  And you can find other truth bendings in this editorial without any eyestrain if you care to look.

So, what was once the news standard of this nation’s intellectual elitists is now a crone feeding sardines to all the neighborhood cats  and serving tea and scones to anyone who’ll grace her door and listen to her relate her past glories.

Bending the Curve

The words keep echoing in my head from Obama’s rhetoric surrounding the passage of Obamacare … “With this law we are bending down the health-care cost curve.”  Now anyone with enough sense to tie their shoes knew then that this was a lie.  How could the country pick up the cost of health insurance for 16 million more people, insure children on their parents’ policies up to age 26, and force insurance companies to accept any new policyholder even with a preexisting condition … and have this all cost less?  Now guess what?  As this legislation is being phased in (conveniently after our last Presidential election), American health-care insurance premiums are skyrocketing ... in some states by as much as a 100% … see: Wall Street Journal Story,  ABC News Story, and Forbes Magazine Story  (Read as many of these as you can up until the time you start crying.)

There is a new term circulating on the right ... the “low information voter” which is a polite way of recasting what Stalin used to call a “useful idiot.”  Yes, the cold light of dawn will eventually reach those people who believed our “Bullsh..tter-in Chief” and they will then wonder what happened to them.  But it will be too late.  As they say … you can’t unscramble an egg.  So we will have to try to live with one more crushing social entitlement program … up until the time when we can’t.  And then the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling brouhahas will appear as though they were nothing more than tremors prior to the 9.5 fiscal earthquake that will swallow up this country … except, that is, for that little oasis somewhere near Chicago.

The Debt Ceiling

Now that going over the fiscal cliff has been avoided through a tax rate increase on big earners, the next national financial crises are two-fold.  First Congress must address the increase of the debt ceiling sometime over the short term … and secondly, there is a massive mandated sequestration of government spending that was originally attached to the fiscal cliff legislation and has only been postponed by two months … see: CNN/Money Story.  It seems that the Republicans, with their typical political tone-deafness, have decided that they will stand and fight their spending-cuts battle on the field of the debt-ceiling increase.  Stupid them!

Why would conservatives fight such a battle over the debt ceiling when they know that they will be forced to surrender for no other reason than to maintain the bond rating of the United States?  In such a fight Republicans are obviously at a strategic disadvantage.  However, in a fight over spending sequestration, the Republicans hold the high ground.  This is because, by doing nothing, the administration will be forced into significant spending cuts because it no longer has the leverage of threatened tax rate increases.  Yes, these spending cuts are also very painful for the Defense Department … but I am reasonably certain that the Obama Administration will politically find a way to ameliorate those particular spending cuts … with the happy assistance of the Republican House of Representatives.

So the Tea Party members in Congress need to acquire some more political savvy and choose their pugilistic arenas somewhat more carefully ... and it should not be the debt-ceiling fight.

Thumb in the Eye

President Obama’s timing is exquisite.  Just as the United States is Thelma-and-Louise-ing over the fiscal cliff, he decides to rescind the cost-of-living pay freeze on government workers that he imposed back in 2010 … see: Huffington Post.Story. This almost one percent increase in the cost of government salaries clearly sends a clarion message that he could not care a tinker’s fart about reining in government spending.  All he wants to do is to continue to bloat up things in Washington … and he wants, nay needs, tax increases in order to do it.  He is giving a thumb in the eye of the those in Congress who are concerned about his style of tax-and-spend Federalism.  And he is doing it in his typical cagey end-run around the powers of our legislature … daring them to deny themselves a pay increase … even suggesting that this is a near-bribe in order to get his way.

And of course our Senate is following suit in that they just voted a $60.4 billion relief package for hurricane Sandy victims which is strewn with all kinds of constituent goodies that have nothing to do with the hurricane.  How in the world will our government ever get even close to balancing its checkbook if they continue to pay disaster insurance claims when they have never extracted insurance premiums in advance from said victims? (See: WaPo Story). The answer is never.  That is, “never” until such time as our government totally runs out of money.  And the time of our fiscal Armageddon is rapidly approaching.  Still, our national media paints the Tea Party and other fiscal conservatives as the antagonists in this drama.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  Their thumbs are also aimed at the public’s eye sockets … only many of us don’t yet realize it.

The Eggnog Solution

The leader of the free world, a petulant Barack Obama, commenting on his and Congress’s  lack of a fiscal-cliff solution, said before he left for three weeks in Hawaii: “Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols” … attend a luau … do some body surfing ...

Merry Christmas!

A Jolly Old Elf

Today we got a little coal in our stockings (going over the fiscal cliff), but we also were given one huge early present … the world does not seem to be ending as per the Mayan calendar.  Thank you Santa Claus!

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

The world will come to an end.  That is, if you start counting the days of Christmas from the Advent (December 13^th).  So the ninth day in this sequence is December 21^st or our winter Solstice … which also just happens to be the last day of the Mayan long calendar  … see Telegraph Story ... which you also need to swallow.  Many doomsday believers do think that the Mayans knew much more than we ... and that this coming 12/21/12 will usher in the Apocalypse.  To me the fascinating aspect of the Mayan calendar was that it took into account where our solar system was relative to the Milky Way galaxy … see: Mayan Calculations … not that they necessarily knew that one was part of the other.  Fascinating stuff!.

And we are worrying about the fiscal cliff and why are these nine ladies dancing?  Poof, poof piffle!

Cliff

No, this blog entry isn’t about Cliff Clavin … you know that obnoxious know-it-all from the Cheers TV series.  It’s again about the fiscal cliff and some more thoughts from another know-it-all, me.  I have previously indicated that I thought that going over the fiscal cliff might be a good idea (see: The Fiscal Cliff).  To me, this event seems increasingly likely … and my previous rational for accepting this outcome was based upon the notion that this might be the only way that the Republicans could force discretionary spending and entitlement cuts on the Democrat administration … none of which, it now appears, President Obama is willing to propose ... let alone implement.

Yes, the Republicans are likely to be blamed for the consequences of this event … and the Democrats are also likely immediately to propose legislation to cut tax rates for those making less than $250,000 ... which would then partially obviate the tax increases that just occurred.  How does this play out?  I suggest the following strategy for the Republicans:

1)      Once the fiscal cliff occurs, go along with the Democrats and vote for the new Bush-style tax-rate cuts on 98% of the American public … particularly if they are to be made permanent.  This way Republicans can stay true to their pledges of never increasing tax rates ... yet garner some gratitude of the middle class.  (The tax increases for the upper 2% would have occurred without their assent ... as part of the fiscal cliff plunge.)  This middle-class tax-cut passage might also remove some of the sting of the expected ensuing economic slow-down.  If and when this occurs, the Republicans can point to the increased taxes on small businesses as the culprit. 

2)      President Obama will have gotten what he wanted on the revenue side and thus a lot of air will have gone out of his rhetorical balloon.  Of course he will then be forced to govern under enormously reduced discretionary and entitlement spending … a good thing.  The Republicans, having given up on revenue increases, may well have the upper hand politically in restoring any truly-needed government spending … particularly for the military.

3)      There might be … just might be … somewhat of a thawing of relations between Obama and Congress and, as a consequence, there could then be progress on the serious issues of fixing the flaws in Obamacare and slowing much of Obama’s “progressive” agenda.  (Nah, this is just wishful thinking.)

So, Republicans be not afraid of this fiscal cliff.  It just may be that you can win by losing.