Michael Graham: About Those Millionaires Not Paying Their “Fair Share”

Obama deflected the charge of resurecting the class war the other day by saying:

“If asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor,”

He lies to the American people by suggesting that Billionaires don't pay the same rate as regular people. Well, they don't. THEY PAY A HIGHER RATE!

as I pointed out in a post the other day, IRS data shows they do pay a higher rate.

Krugman's Social Contract and the Coming Class War

and in a post today by radio talk show host Michael Graham, more IRS data to prove the point. The post is so good I am posting it here in it's entirety (without his permission. I hope that's OK Michael.)

About Those Millionaires Not Paying Their “Fair Share”

Economist Veronique de Rugy continues to fight the media-driven ignorance on taxes and who pays them.

In 2009, millionaires made up 0.1 percent, or just fewer than 240,000, of the 140 million tax returns filed that year. Despite their small demographic imprint, the magnitude of their contribution in paid taxes is hard to overlook. Over the past ten years, millionaires have paid 17 to 28 percent of total income tax returns per year.

Also note that, under evil George W. Bush and his “tax cuts for the rich,” the share of the income tax bill went UP—not down—by about 60%.
Add all the other facts about the people earning 20% of the income but paying 30% of the income tax bill, and I ask you again: How much more do they have to pay before you’ll call it “fair?” If they pay double their share—40%—would that be “fair?” Triple? 60%?
The LAST thing angry extremists like Elizabeth Warren want is “fairness.” They want “equal outcomes” for the hard-working and the lazy; for the smart and the dumb; for the risk-taker and the coward. Everybody gets to share the wealth.
What could be less “fair” than that?

Micheal Moore's Class Warfare

Can you imagine if some Tea Party spokesman came out and said:

"The people coming to these town hall meetings are mad! They are sick and tired of their tax money being wasted. They are sick of the welfare state and they are not going to take it any more. If the government doesn't change,there could be violence.No one wants to see that but that's what could happen"

Holy crap! Oh my god! Nancy Pelosi's head would have exploded.

Just speaking your mind at a town hall meeting was a violent threat in their minds. And now, real threats of violence, and real acts of intimidation are ignored by the main street media. The same band of propagandists who wanted you to think those Tea Party were crazy and violent are now telling you, " uh oh, These Marxists might be violent, we better appease them!".



But it's OK when the class warriors on the left threaten you with violence.

The violent left is getting impatient with Obama.

Krugman's Social Contract and the Coming Class War

Coming to the defense of Elizabeth Warren, and foreshadowing the go for broke rhetoric that is to come in 2012, Paul Krugman become a class warfare denier.

The Social Contract

This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. And Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan responded with shrieks of “class warfare.”

OK. Stop right there. Could someone please first make the case that the rich do not pay their fair share? Could someone please tell me what that fair share is?

I guess not. Paul Krugman doesn't even make an attempt to answer either of these question. He does cite a meaningless statistic though.

Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent. No, that isn’t a misprint. In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.

So what? That means such an individual's share or tax burden increased by 480 percent. Right? Good for everybody!

From the Wall Street Journal

Let's actually look at some hard data, and make the case that top earners pay more than their fair share.

If we were really talking about a fair share, then everybody would pay the same percentage. A flat tax. And as you made more money your contribution would rise proportionally. But, as you can see from the chart nearby, the data bears out that the more you make, the larger your piece of the pie becomes.

So we already have the system that Paul, Elizabeth and the other Marxists are haranguing for.

How much is enough?

There isn't enough. There will never be enough. Why? Because this is a class war.

Paul goes on to say:

Which brings us back to those cries of “class warfare.”

Republicans claim to be deeply worried by budget deficits. Indeed, Mr. Ryan has called the deficit an “existential threat” to America. Yet they are insisting that the wealthy — who presumably have as much of a stake as everyone else in the nation’s future — should not be called upon to play any role in warding off that existential threat.

I can't decide whether this is extraordinary hyperbole, or an out right lie. THEY DO CONTRIBUTE Paul!

I am so sick of the class warfare, whinny sanction of the victim crap that if it would actually solve everything, I would capitulate. Fine. Sorry rich people, I know it's unfair, but we have to shut these people up and fix all of our problems.

The fact of the matter is that it would not even come close. There just aren't enough rich people to pay for the prolific spending the government is doing. This turns out to be further evidence that this is class warfare. These people are un-serious about solving problems. It is class warfare, and if you think "so what? I'm not rich", guess what. They are coming for you next.

From the Wall Street Journal

Like I said. There just aren't enough rich people to pay for the prolific spending the government is doing. So where will they go next?

So to all of you 'tax the rich' cheer leaders, what are you going to say when the political class turns around and says 'OK, now it's your turn to pay your fair share'?

The Class Warriors won't be happy until we are all unhappy.

Right, Wing-Nut!: Elizabeth Warren: A Poison To The Body Politic

Great minds think alike.

While I was putting together my own version of the Elizabeth Warren video rant, the Jersey Nut put into words a well articulated disection of what is going on in the video.

Go read it.
Right, Wing-Nut!: Elizabeth Warren: A Poison To The Body Politic

No need for me to duplicate, but I will share my video with commentary. 

---

Al Gore's High School Logic

Just like Jason from Halloween, or Hillary Clinton, just when you think you have slayed the evil monster, they come back to life. Just like in the movies.

How is it that we are still talking about Global Warming as settled science? But just like any other religion, if you use logic or ask thoughtful questions to one of it's true believers you need to expect a caustic reaction if it challenges their belief system.

So it goes with Al Gore. Since the climate gate scandal broke he's been livid.

High School Physics

That's how Al Gore described the science of climate change this week, by which we suppose he meant it's elementary and unchallengeable.

I think that is both precious and prescient. It reveals and seems to advocate the simpleton logic behind the pseudo-scientifc belief that man made carbon causes Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever ails you.

Even if the data had not been manipulated and it actually did show that that an increase in carbon coincided with an increase in temperatures; that's your scientific theory? Really? It is foolish logic on par with the reasoning that the earth is flat. It has to be flat! Otherwise the oceans would have spilled off and we would have no oceans! That's what the "scientific minds" of the day thought when a flat earth was considered settled science.

What about the 4 billion years of climate change before man even showed up? What about the ice age, and then the warming, and then the next ice age and so on and so on. How did all of that happen without man made carbon? You can't explain to me how or why all of that climate change took place, but you're positive that this time it's because of man made carbon. Great. Fine. Thanks, but I need to speak with the Jehovah's witness waiting behind you. Have a nice day.

Well, Mr. Vice President, meet Ivar Giaever, a 1973 physics Nobel Laureate who resigned last week from the American Physical Society in protest over the group's insistence that evidence of man-made global warming is "incontrovertible."

In an email to the society, Mr. Giaever—who works at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—wrote that "The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me . . . that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

Mr. Giaever was an American Physical Society fellow, an honor bestowed on "only half of one percent" of the members, according to a spokesman. He follows in the footsteps of University of California at Santa Barbara Emeritus Professor of Physics Harold Lewis, a former APS fellow who resigned in 2010, calling global warming "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist."

It's a fraud because they pretend their belief is based in science, while it is nothing more than a belief system on par with any other religion on earth.

One of the least savory traits of climate-change advocates is how they've tried to bully anyone who keeps an open mind. This is true of many political projects, but it is or ought to be anathema to the scientific method.

Climate Change Denier is just a code word for heretic. The fire and brimstone label pinned on those who would even dare question the idea that man made carbon is responsible for climate change.

Global Warming is Real!

Right, Wing-Nut!: Redefining "Civility" Down...

Right, Wing-Nut!: Redefining "Civility" Down...

So "civility", like so many words in the Age of Obama, has been redefined, to mean you are forbidden to speak ill of of me, but I am free to say the most horrible, hateful, and untrue things about you that my imagination can conjure up.

My thoughts exactly!

If you are an actual thug, who actually uses violence to advance your cause you can use violent rhetoric as long as your cause is favored by the left. 

"War!"
"We like a good fight!"
"Let's take these sons of bitches out!"
"President Obama! This is your Army!"

But if you're merely a fed up citizen who is concerned about deficit spending that has no end in sight then don't even think of using words like

"Target"
"Lock and load"

You'll make Nancy Pelosi and Patches Kennedy cry.

The Audacity of Hate

Where are the Cries for Civility?

 

---

Change You Were Dumb To Believe In

"When I said ‘change we can believe in’ I didn‘t say ’change we can believe in tomorrow.’ Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy.”

-Barack Obama

---

---

Even kids know it's wrongt to hide behind fine print.

Obama Finally Creates Bipartisanship Through Dissapointment

It's expected that over at the Wall Street Journal you will find critiques of president Obama's policies a little more in depth than at left leaning lame stream media outlets. Yesterdays opinion piece by Brett Stephens was notably pointed though well said.


Is Obama Smart?

"I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

Stuff we have come to expect from our promiser-in chief. But just like he explained last week that he never meant that change would come tomorrow or next week, it appears that many are wondering if he really has 'got game'.

Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent.

Again, not surprising coming from the WSJ. But it appears that the sentiment is not purely partisan. Support on the left is becoming shaky. Especially from Hillary supporters who held their nose and voted for Obama anyways.

Hillary Told You So

At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.”

“Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer.

At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American from the Bronx was complaining about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the implacable hostility of congressional Republicans when an 80-year-old lawyer chimed in about the president’s unwillingness to stand up to his opponents. “I want to see blood on the floor,” she said grimly.

"Blood on the floor". Glad to see that the left is staying the course with their appeals for civilty and their discomfort with rehtoric that could be seen as threatening or violent. But we'll save that for a different post. This post is about the left becoming unnerved with the Obama administrations continued dissapointments.

In his New York Times Sunday Review essay “What Happened to Obama?” Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen summed up the president’s lack of experience with devastating succinctness.

“Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he occasionally, as a state senator in Illinois, voted ‘present’ on difficult issues,” wrote Westen, author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

The presidential scholar Matthew Dickinson went even further with a post under the headline “Run, Hillary, Run!” on the blog Presidential Power. “She did warn you,” Dickinson reminded his readers.

“Remember that 3 a.m. phone call? Remember the warning about the rose-colored petals falling from the sky? Remember about learning on the job? Sure you do. Doesn’t a part of you, deep down, realize she was right?” wrote Dickinson, a political-science professor at Middlebury College. “If I heard it once this last week, I heard it a thousand times: You were duped by Obama’s rhetoric—the whole ‘hopey-changey’ thing. And you wanted to be part of history, too—to help break down the ultimate racial barrier. That’s OK. We were all young once. But now it’s time to elect someone who can play hardball, who understands how to be ruthless, who will be a real ... uh ... tough negotiator in office. There won’t be any debate about Hillary’s, er, ‘man-package.’”

Wow! Is a Hillary run a possibility? During her run for the presidency, at many different points when others pronounced her demise, I never bought in. I always knew, and wrote that Hillary is like Jason from the movie Halloween or a vampire from any vampire flick you want to select. When you think Hillary is dead, DO NOT TURN AROUND AND DROP THE KNIFE, STUMBLING AWAY THINKING THAT YOU HAVE VANQUISHED THE MONSTER!

Until I see a decapitated Hillary, who has been dragged into a church and surrounded by a ring of garlic will I ever count Hillary Clinton 'out'.

Obama: The great Communicator?

Here is Charles Krauthammer's dead on short analysis of Obama's AAA downgrade speech.

“He went out there with the Dow minus 400. After he spoke it went down to minus 600. He looked weak, plaintive, and small: weak and plaintive because he comes out there and he blames the Tea Party, Europe, Japan, Middle East -- probably God because he's the author of earthquakes -- everybody except him.”
-- Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report w/Bret Baier” 8/8/2011

Pretty much sums it up.

My big take away was the mostly "Nothing to see here" message that he pursued. After weeks of posturing, scare tactics, and partisan sniping suddenly the downgrade of the credit rating for the USA is no big deal. It wasn't even a week ago that the democrats were howling about the eminent danger of a downgrade, and so reasoned that the Tea Party should just shut up and raise the debt limit. Obama got what he wanted in exchange for a paltry 1 trillion dollar cut in government spending over ten years, and the USA was still downgraded. Mainly because S&P had already warned the government that it need to see a 4 trillion dollar ut in advance of the deal. The worst case scenario that would mean Armageddon for the US economy happened anyways, even though the debt limit was raised.

Obama Bid to Boost Confidence Falls Short

"Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America," Mr. Obama said. "No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country."

What?!?!?!?  Nothing to see here?!?!?!?

What about the disaster that would occur if we were downgraded?

It is becoming apparent to both the left and the right that this president is over his head. More to come on that.

Obama Gets A Grade: AA+

Sounds pretty good right? Well it's not.

America Gets Downgraded
A spend and tax policy mix always leads to economic decline.

Friday's downgrade by Standard & Poor's of U.S. long-term debt to AA+ from AAA will be the first of many such humiliations if Washington doesn't change its economic and fiscal policies.

Unfortunately Washington doesn't get this. All weekend long democrats have been blaming the Tea Party for the downgrade. Ha! What a hoot! a real ROTFLMAO! Unfortunately there are people who believe this partisan propaganda. In our new upside down world reality the Obama administration can put this talking point out there despite logic and facts, and people will still prefer to believe the lie.

So let's think about the Tea Party's guilt in this national embarrassment. For over a decade Democrats and Republicans have been spending like drunken sailors. Then a third party almost arises, but then loosely aligns themselves with old school spendaholic Republicans so that they might have more than a snowballs chance in hell to win some seats in the House and the Senate. Their stated mission is to reduce Government spending and save the country from the fate we are witnessing in Greece. Ergo, the downgrade is the fault of the Tea Party. Yep! Just like the villian in Saturday morning Scooby-doo cartons used to say "Those meddling kids! I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for them".Yep. Nobody would have figured out that massive runaway deficit spending would eventually collapse like a Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.

Yet is there anything that S&P said on Friday that everyone else doesn't already know? S&P essentially declared that on present trend the U.S. debt burden is unsustainable, and that the American political system seems unable to reverse that trend.

This is not news.

The very idea that if the Government had just quietly raised the debt ceiling with no debate, then everything would be just fine is laughable! Think about these numbers.

The Bush Presidency and previous GOP Congresses contributed to the current problem by not insisting on domestic cuts to finance the cost of war, and by adding the prescription drug benefit without reforming Medicare. But as recently as 2008 spending was still only 20.7%, and debt held by the public was only 40.3%, of GDP.

Pretty bad huh? I remember the Hate Bush Party (sort of the opposite of the Tea Party) freaking out over this. My own mother lamented with crocodile tears about the horrible debt her grandchildren were going to inherit.

In the name of saving the economy from panic, the White House and the Pelosi Congress then blew out the American government balance sheet. They compounded the problem of excessive private debt by adding unsustainable public debt.

They boosted federal spending to 25% of GDP in 2009, 23.8% in 2010 (as TARP repayments provided a temporary reduction in overall spending), and back nearly to 25% this fiscal year. Meanwhile, debt to GDP climbed to 53.5% in 2009, 62.2% in 2010, and is estimated to hit 72% this year—and to keep rising. These are all figures from Mr. Obama's own budget office.

From 40% to 72% in three short years. If pre 2008 spending drove you to the Hate Bush Party, then why isn't your head exploding today! Where is the seething hate? Even my mother no longer seems to be overly concerned about the debt her grandchildren will inherit despite these eye popping numbers.

But what is even more astonishing is the notion that if it were not for the darn Tea Party, everything would be fine. Standard & Poors would have never taken notice.

Yea.....riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

Think of it in real world terms. If you get a credit card and you pay your bills your credit score goes up. But, If you keep adding more credit cards and piling up more debt, at some point your score will go down, even if you are paying your bills. Your income to debt ratio makes you suspect in your ability to catch up on your bills. That's what happened to America on Friday. And it's not the Tea Party's fault, it's the fault of all those who would not listen to them. I hate to be the one to say it but "They tried to tell you so".

And as for yesterday's collapse in the stock market, it is my opinion that the correction is due more to the recent announcement that first half GDP number that was less than 2% growth. How could the market claim it is more valuable (11000  in January to 12750 in July) if the GDP is not growing at a similar rate? Hmmmmm... My stocks must be over priced. I'm outa here!

Obama was right about one thing yesterday "It's not rocket science".