Political Football

President Obama says he’s going to balance the budget based on 2 Trillion dollars in savings over the next 10 years. However, the money is NOT coming from reduction in traditional spending; he’s saying it’s coming from taking what we spend in IRAQ today – projecting it until 2019 and cutting that spending – and of course, tax increases on the wealthy.

I remember one of my favorite Tennis players in the 1970′s (Bjorn Borg) as a Swedish Citizen.  As his fame (and wealth) grew he “moved” (his citizenship at least) to Switzerland to avoid the extraordinary taxes in Sweden.  The effect of raising taxes on the rich, those most capable of moving to somewhere “less taxing”, is incredibly stupid.

Now today Sweden has its problems, but Corporate taxes is not one of them. Iowa’s Federal and State adjusted rate is 41.6% (highest in the US and the World!) and Sweden’s is 28%. Sweden has been trending down for years. What will keep our wealthy people from doing the same thing? You can’t heal a moribund economy by over taxing the rich or businesses.  All you do re-distribute wealth; but that is our current President’s intent.

See? Even Bono does it!

here is a dialog Powerlineblog posted of the press conference between BHO’s press secretary and reporters where this tax savings was discussed:

REPORTER: We were told last night that [the $2 trillion savings pledge] basically refers to two things. One is the expiration of tax cuts on the wealthy that would happen next year; and two is a reduction of what we are currently spending in Iraq.

GIBBS: No, I don’t — I — I don’t think so at all. It’s an end of — it’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money . . .

GIBBS: I think that’s — I think that’s certainly a decent part of it. I don’t know, not having seen — at least not having in front of me the formal documents to know whether that’s a hundred percent.”

REPORTER: Okay. But let me ask, is it transparent to say that tax increases are part of savings? And is it transparent to say that we’re going to be saving that much from Iraq, when nobody expects that 10 years out we would be spending what we’re spending today in Iraq? Even the previous administration agreed to get out of Iraq by 2012…

GIBBS: Well, I mean, if we’re not spending the money and the money doesn’t go out the door and the money doesn’t increase the deficit, and the deficit decreases by some amount, ultimately getting you to the president’s goal of halving a 1.2 (trillion dollar) to $1.3 trillion deficit in his first four years in office.

REPORTER: But if nobody expects to spend 10 years from now what we’re spending today in Iraq, and we use that as our baseline, saying, “Oh, we’re saving because we’re not spending what we did 10 years ago,” I mean, isn’t that sort of setting up a funny money comparison?

so much for transparency.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think much of the plan either…

and how about this

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) – In giving the republican response to President Obama’s speech Tuesday night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal pointed out fundamental differences in how republicans and democrats see the economy.

Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show, Vice President Joe Biden asked, “But what I don’t understand from Governor Jindal is what would he do? In Louisiana, there’s 400 people a day losing their jobs. What’s he doing?”

But that claim is wrong if you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

“In December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation besides the District of Columbia, according to the national press release, that added employment over the month,” said Patty Granier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

Rest of the article here

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