Obama’s ‘Shared Sacrifice’ (Updated)

George Rebane

You have to be a progressive or recently arrived from Mars if you don’t know that this president is the least qualified to ever have held the office, and one who reaffirms it daily.

By now we have all heard that this administration has had no clue on how to bring the economy out of its government engineered recession.  Instead, by continuing to ‘stimulate’ at astronomical levels, this ideologically calcified president has presented the country with the Great Recession that now looks like its heading for Depression2.

Through its creation and maintenance of the most uncertain business climate since the eve of WW2, the Democrats have suppressed job creation to historically low levels (unemployment is back up to 9.2% this morning), while piling on regulations that promote the progressive fictions of how society is supposed to work.

These people are not as butt stupid as they try to make themselves out to be.  I don’t believe that anyone in the Obama administration thought that spending another almost $2T would get this country going again.  All of them are aware of Henry Morgenthau telling Congress in 1939, “We are spending more than we ever spent before, and it does not work.”  FDR’s New Deal Treasury Secretary was referring to the then 19% unemployment rate, to which it had climbed from its low (yes, low) point of 14% during the Depression.  None of this history is admitted by the dirt bags, nor has it been taught or is known to the sheeple.

The latest attempt by this administration to weaken America is Obama’s current ‘shared sacrifice’ initiative, proposed to re-administer tax hikes on the “millionaires and billionaires” that were such a disaster in 1990 when a Democratic Congress last tried it with the help of ol’ Read My Lips.  The class envy spewed out of Washington works like a charm on the poor and ignorant when it is pointed out that it is the rich who just buy more jets and boats with all that squandered money which should be redistributed to them.

The Luxury Tax of 1990 put entire companies making boats and planes out of business causing the lay off of tens of thousands of workers.  The federal government wound up paying more in unemployment insurance than it ever received in additional taxes.  Creating unemployment and adding more to national debt was the only result of that class warfare exercise.

Well, not actually.  Congress repealed the disaster in 1992 and, instead, raised taxes on everyone.  The legions of idiots out there never knew the real impact of the Luxury Tax, and voted in more Democrats and Bill Clinton in 1992.  The unions took careful note of what that little interlude cost them.

Today Obama is writhing to come up with something that will once more fool the sheeple for his 2012 re-election, and his tax on the rich is again the staple that will sell to the hoi polloi.  However, this time both the private sector unions and the manufacturers are appealing to the President not to go down this path again.  No joy.

Obama is betting that the impact on his re-election chances of adding this tax on the ‘rich’ will be minimal between now and November 2012.  The economy will continue to be hurting enough so that no one will notice the additional harm that this tax will cause.  And we all must remember (because his voters won’t) that Obama’s ‘rich’ start with singles earning $200K and couples earning $250K annually.

As if this “millionaires and billionaires” tax is not stupid enough, Team Obama wants to also eliminate LIFO inventory accounting on businesses.  Nobody, including the lamestream, understands the impact of this - it’s just some technical term for bookkeepers.  But LIFO means ‘last in, first out’, and is the way that businesses account for the cost of the products they make and/or distribute.  During inflation the last widgets added to a company’s inventory cost the most; the ones added to inventory first (i.e. some time ago) cost less and are so represented on the books.  So computing profit with LIFO minimizes the reported profit amount, and therefore the tax amount paid by the business when the product is sold.

Forcing industry to go into FIFO (first in, first out) inventory accounting is another way to increase the pain on businesses which will hurt job creation, inventory planning (a more complex topic to explain), and ultimately economic growth.

And so we trundle on this summer toward lifting debt limits, more job destruction, and increased government interference in every productive enterprise in the land.  Hopefully, enough of us will eventually realize that the real sacrifice we all share is Barack Hussein Obama.

[update]  Once more confirming the above assessment, President Obama this afternoon blamed the bleak unemployment report on the "uncertainty" created by businesses "not knowing whether Congress will raise the debt limit."  That is patently a lie, as business leaders today rush to the nearest mike to refute on the air.  And since the Democrats have howled all year for an unconditional business-as-usual raising of the debt limit, the obvious Presidential finger again points to the Republicans.  Conclusion - continuing to lead the country into certain financial ruin will inspire businesses to invest and create jobs.  Socialism, behold thy name. 

Comments

[D. King]

Here it comes George!

People have no idea what this will do to destroy entrepreneurship.

Scan to 4:10 and hit play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjuP_o0Hjz0

This is the beginning of enslavement.
The E.U. already have these rules.

Fools!

[John S]

Good piece George
Some people think (and hope) our President will see the light and make the needed changes that will fix everything, I say he WILL NOT. The man is a Socialist, and "by God" he will keep doing this stuff until he gets it right, only it's wrong to begin with. He needs to move to the EU and be thier president.

[Russ Steele]

Here’s a fact that should give economists—and maybe President Obama’s political team—heartburn: Two years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim. More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic—the percentage of young people who are working—has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948. Taken together, the numbers suggest that the U.S. job market is struggling mightily to bring its next generation of workers into the fold.
This is a dangerous proposition, economically (for the United States as a whole) and politically (for the president).

[Douglas Keachie]

Double the tax breaks for the rich. That will improve the job outlook. I kid you not!