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October 15th, 2009Open Source & Copyright Free Obama's
Middle Class Betrayal The
War on Fox News A
Nice Quiet Sleep? Too
Hot Not To Note: Divorcing the GOP establishment Obama's Middle Class BetrayalBy Howard Rich As much as the Beltway chattering class refuses to admit it, Barack Obama's electoral victory last year had nothing to do with his oft-repeated, generic pledge to bring "hope and change" to Washington, D.C. Sure it sounded good at the time, but Americans have always voted based on their wallets and pocketbooks – not lofty-sounding campaign promises or rhetorical flourishes. The real key to Obama's victory a year ago – indeed his "signature" issue – was his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. "You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime," Obama promised tens of millions of Americans making $250,000 or less. In fact, candidate Obama promised the middle class billions of dollars in tax cuts, part of his whole "spread the wealth around" plan. "If you're a family that's making $250,000 a year or less, you will see no increase in your taxes," Obama promised. "Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your personal gains tax, not any of your taxes." Never mind the fact that Obama's plan would have hit income and payroll providers especially hard, rendering "middle class tax relief" irrelevant to the millions of workers heading toward already-crowded unemployment lines. No matter how you look at it, though, what a difference a year makes. As an unprecedented string of multibillion-dollar government bailouts and a viral explosion of new discretionary spending continues to wreak havoc on the deficit, does it really surprise anyone to learn that Obama's "middle class tax cut" was the very first thing to wind up on the cutting room floor? Of course not. "Class warfare" may have succeeded in getting Obama elected, but it cannot pay for the political promises Obama has made with our borrowed billions. But that is just the beginning of the great middle class betrayal. Not only are middle class American families getting no tax relief, Obama administration officials are refusing to rule out the possibility that taxes on middle class families will actually increase in an effort to help the government pay for all of this new spending. So much for Obama's plan to "bleed the rich" in order to fund middle class tax relief – now everyone must bleed as the President and his Congressional allies scramble to pay for all that "hope and change" they've created. Aside from the obvious demerits of "Robin Hood-style" tax policy (it's never a good idea to go after the people creating the jobs, is it?), the reality is that Obama's now-scrapped middle class "tax cut" would have barely made a dent when compared to costly new government mandates being forced upon American families. For example, according to an unreleased report prepared by Obama's own Treasury Department, the cost of the administration's "cap and trade" energy tax on the typical American household came out to $1,761 a year. On top of that, we learned this week that the latest multibillion-dollar proposal to "reform" the health care industry would cost the typical American family of four over $4,000 a year by the time the plan is fully implemented. Altogether, that's nearly $6,000 a year in additional energy and health care costs being heaped on American families struggling to make ends meet during one of the worst recessions in our nation's history – again, with no tax relief to offset the additional financial burden. Based on these numbers, it seems clear that the American middle class was (and is) nothing but a means to an end for Obama. It also seems clear that rich or poor, Obama's plan to "rescue" the American economy involves taxing all of us back to the Stone Age. Howard Rich is Chairman of Americans for Limited Government. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1658 The War on Fox News
ALG Editor's Note: William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1657 A Nice Quiet Sleep?By Victor Morawski Nearly half a century after the death of Alfred Nobel, Albert Einstein in 1945, speculated on the dynamite inventor's motives for instituting his peace prize: "Alfred Nobel invented an explosive more powerful than any then known — an exceedingly effective means of destruction. To atone for this 'accomplishment' and to relieve his conscience, he instituted his award for the promotion of peace." According to Nobel biographer Sven Tagil, there is scant evidence from Nobel's own writings to support Einstein's conjecture. What Einstein seems to have been dead-on about, however, were the parallels between Nobel's situation and that of himself and his fellow nuclear scientists whose creation brought about the advent of a larger peace through what became known as "mutually assured destruction." Nobel's own views on peace seem to have been anything but those of the starry-eyed utopian pacifists of the time. In fact, he strongly resisted the attempts of his long time friend Bertha Von Suttner, a known peace activist, to persuade him to join her ranks. Indeed, he once remarked to her, "Good wishes alone will not ensure peace," while suggesting to her, "Perhaps my dynamite factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses." How ironic, then, that the Nobel Peace Prize, rather than going to an American president who historically supported Nobel's own views of peace through deterrence and mutual strength — like a Ronald Reagan or, yes, even a George W. Bush — has instead gone to one whose utopian ideas for peace would have us eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. A member of the Nobel Committee that awarded Obama the prize, Agot Valle, confirmed in an October 9th Wall Street Journal article that Obama was chosen for the prize, "primarily for his stance on nuclear disarmament." She also said that the committee was strengthened in its resolve to choose Obama after his September 24th appearance before the United Nations. There the U.S., led by Obama, put forth a "U.S.-drafted resolution [which] called for "further efforts in the sphere of nuclear disarmament" to achieve "a world without nuclear weapons." One can only think that, far from following in the steps of Nobel, Obama is instead following more in the footsteps of former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who, after a series of diplomatic meetings with Hitler signed a dreamy-eyed agreement, "for our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." On the day of his return from Germany, in his view bringing what he claimed would be "peace for our time" he told the British people, "Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." The Nobel Committee would no doubt have applauded his efforts for, as Valle now says of Obama, "He is giving hope to people who believe in dialogue instead of threats of using military tools." Part of Chamberlain's negotiated price for what he thought was peace was a concession that in effect gave control of Poland and Czechoslovakia to Hitler. In an eerie parallel, the U.S. unilaterally dropped its plans recently for a missile-defense shield which would have protected much same region in Central Europe. Valle in the same interview cited above not surprisingly voiced her support for this U.S. move. Former Polish president Walesa elsewhere has said that he didn't like the policy because of the way the U.S pulled the shield without even consulting the Polish, and this on the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Poland. Walesa noted of Obama, "I could tell from what I saw, what kind of policies President Obama cultivates." Millions of Americans can, too, and they are not policies that make us feel like we can, "Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." Victor Morawski, a professor at Coppin State University, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1656
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