Performing The Miracle Of Turning Unlimited Debt Into Unimaginable Prosperity

Alright gang, Christmas is over.  Time to face the music.

If you haven’t read Kyle Becker’s The Progressive Bible: Obama’s Genesis, you really should.  Here’s just some of his parody:

In the beginning Obama promised to create a heaven on earth. 

And his believers’ minds were without form, and void; and awe-struck looks were upon the faces of the asleep. And the Spirit of Obama moved upon the faces of the believers. 

And Obama said, Let there be debt: and there was debt.

We learn today that the Chicago Messiah plans to return early from his annual vacation to Hawaii in order to take part in talks to avert the fiscal cliff.  Congress is also due to return to the capital on Thursday.

“God only knows” how a deal can be reached now, said Speaker John Boehner.

If negotiations between His O’liness and Congress collapse completely, 2013 looks like a rocky year.

Taxes would jump $2,400 on average for families with incomes of $50,000 to $75,000, according to a study by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Because consumers would get less of their paychecks to spend, businesses and jobs would suffer.

At the same time, Americans would feel cuts in government services; some federal workers would be furloughed or laid off, and companies would lose government business. The nation would lose up to 3.4 million jobs, the Congressional Budget Office predicts.

Several tax breaks begun in 2009 to stimulate the economy by aiding low and middle-income families are also set to expire at the beginning of 2013.  For example, the alternative minimum tax would expand to catch 28 million more taxpayers, with an average increase of $3,700 a year. Taxes on investments would rise, too. More deaths would be covered by the federal estate tax, and the rate climbs from 35 percent to 55 percent. Some corporate tax breaks would end.

If the nation goes over the fiscal cliff, budget cuts of 8 percent or 9 percent would hit most of the federal government, touching all sorts of things from agriculture to law enforcement and the military to weather forecasting. A few areas, such as Social Security benefits, Veterans Affairs and some programs for the poor, are exempt.

The New York Times has an article in today’s paper that cites noted research economists at the Bank for International Settlements, Stephen Cecchetti and Fabrizio Zampoli.  They say, “The United States, along with the rest of the industrialized West, has been on an unsustainable fiscal path for decades.”  They predict that unless radical reforms are adopted the public debt will exceed 400% of GDP.

Such debt levels are wildly implausible, as creditors would likely stop lending to Western governments long before such levels are reached. Some politicians and economists may want to put a fig leaf on it, but the projections by Cecchetti and others mean that the West is effectively bankrupt.

I’d like to personally thank all those f%#king low-information voters for perpetuating this financial morass by re-electing The Protector of the People as Long As They Know Their Place and Belong to The Right Unions.

Here’s A Pen, Sign Your Surrender

I loved that line so much; I pinched it from John Gordon Steele’s piece at Commentary Magazine for the title of this post.

Steele concludes his post with this pearl of wisdom: 

“Obama’s utter disdain for any ideas but his own is going to be the ruin of this president and that ruin might not be that long in coming. Too bad it is the country, along with his place in history, that has to suffer for his hubris.”

Obama’s budget plan is “mainly tax hikes,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters today in Washington. “We’ve got some serious differences,” he said. During a phone call yesterday, Boehner said, he and the president were “frank” about “how far apart we are.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said Obama’s focus on higher tax rates for top earners has made a deal tough to reach.  “The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table the only thing left is varnish,” McConnell said.

When I conceived this Photoshop™, I considered Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol because he loved money more than life itself.  Obama loves money; your money—my money—our children’s’ and our grandchildren’s money.

The second character in the ‘shop is of the bitter, grouchy, cave-dwelling Grinch who had a heart two sizes too small.  He’s there because Obama “seems to think that if all he talks about are taxes, and that’s all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control.”

The third character, Uncle Sam wearing handcuffs, represents a helpless country unable to fend off the significant negative economic, employment, and social consequences of going over the fiscal cliff—the effects of which, in many cases, would mean long-lasting if not permanent damage.

And finally, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks himself, laughing his ass off as he warns Republicans against using the debt ceiling as a bludgeon in this debt battle.  In the spring, when the Chicago Messiah seeks to raise the debt ceiling, we can only hope they refuse to pay him any attention.

Bring Me The Head Of Bill Kristol

In a tersely worded blog post, BigFurHat wrote, “Hey Kristol, this is not a TAXATION PROBLEM, you goddamn moron. And to allow the left to frame the debate as if this is the problem means that you need to go away now. We need people on The Tee Vee that know how to properly converse AT, not WITH, the left.”

His fiery post was prompted by Bill Kristol’s comments on Fox News Sunday’s panel discussion in which he predicted that “Republicans will have to give in much more than they think” because of President Barack Obama’s overwhelming electoral defeat of Mitt Romney.

The comment which has drawn fire across the dextrosphere was, “The leadership in the Republican Party and the leadership in the conservative movement have to pull back, let people float new ideas. Let’s have a serious debate. Don’t scream and yell when one person says, ‘You know what? It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.’ It really won’t, I don’t think.”

“I really don’t understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000—make it $500,000, make it a million. Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of them live in Hollywood?” Kristol insisted.

To dissect his logic one needs to refer to the exit polls on Election Day.  Question:  Should income tax rates increase for all?  52% Obama, 44% Romney; increase only on income over $250,000—70% Obama, 29% Romney; not increase for anyone—23% Obama, 75% Romney (Sample:  5179 respondents).

Then we need to check the veracity of his assertion that half of the millionaires voted Democratic and half live in Hollywood.  According to Roll Call, here are but a few millionaire Democrats:  John Kerry (D-MA) worth $193M, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) worth $81M, Mark Warner (D-VA) worth $76M, Jared Polis (D-CO) worth $66M, Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) worth $55M, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) worth $53M, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) worth $46M and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) worth $35M.

Some of the more notable titans of business who donated to our re-elected emperor, according to Forbes, include:  Microsoft’s Bill Gates at $61B, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett at $44B, Oracle’s Larry Ellison at $36B, NYC Mayor Nanny Bloomberg at $22B, Obama Puppetmaster George Soros at $20B and Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg at $17B.

We would be remiss if we didn’t include the richest African-American actors like Samuel L. Jackson with a healthy $150M,  Morgan Freeman worth $90M, Chris Rock worth $70M, and James Earl Jones with a tidy sum of $45M.

How about those Hollywood types who always presuppose to tell the great unwashed how we should think?  Glad you asked.

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have a combined net worth of $100M, the nubile Roseanne Barr worth $80M, Alec Baldwin worth $65M and let’s be sure to include in our list Steven Spielberg whose net worth is $80M and Angelina Jolie is worth $23M.

And last, but not least, One-Percenter and corpulent movie-maker Michael Moore has $50M in the bank.

At first blush, it would be magnificent payback to the loudmouths with all the loot to feel the pain of higher taxes.  Admit it, it would.  But it wouldn’t stop there.  This regime is hell-bent to continue spending money like its water.  Without cutbacks on spending, raising revenue from taxing “the rich” won’t even put a dent in our national debt.  Moreover, once the Republicans agree to “reach across the aisle” they will undoubtedly become accomplices in the fiscal calamity.  They must avoid the “poisoned pawn” gambit.

In effect, Kristol is calling for Republicans to take the offered chess piece creating what could easily become a fatal mistake and thus, I say, bring me the head of Bill Kristol.