That’s Right Nate

Unfortunately, the American economy is in sorry shape.   We can spend from here until Larry King’s next divorce arguing over who is responsible, but that’s really not going to get us anywhere.  The important thing is we’re in a mess and as we sputter along, we need to prioritize because unfortunately we can’t save everybody.

Think of how it works when several patients need a kidney transplant.  The hospital will screen through 4 or 5 patients in order to find not the sickest patient, but the healthiest patient.   The hospital feels that it’s important that they not waste a kidney on somebody who may die anyway, when it could save somebody else’s life.  Our economy must work the same way.

If you figure we have a choice between funding unemployment benefits and cutting taxes on the wealthy, we must cut taxes to save the rich.   They are the ones who are most likely to survive the current  recession.  If we extend unemployment benefits for the poor, they will simply use it to buy food or shelter.  As Americans, we must be wiser.

That is why, this blog is endorsing the current Republican economic policies as voiced by Marco Rubio and others.   Do not let the Bush tax cuts expire.  In fact, cut the top tax rate.  It may not help the economy, but it’ll get the rich through the crisis and at least that’s somebody.

One of the best things that has come out of the economic downturn has been a new Republican economic strategy.  Many people like myself who have found Reaganomics and the theories of Milton Friedman solid, but too soft and cuddly to be truly satisfying have embraced this new philosophy espoused by the Heritage Foundation, pundits, and Republicans in Congress alike.    Maybe Arizona’s Senator John Kyl  explained it best when he argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.”

Congressman Jack Kimble (R-CA) told reporters at a House Republican Summit last week, “Unemployment was meant as a safety net for the workers of this country.  It was never meant to be supposed to support non-workers.  The best way to get people back to work is to end this entitlement.”

I have to wonder if that’s really enough though.   Sure, cutting off unemployment and COBRA benefits will get some of the unemployed to stop laying on their couch watching Oprah and check out the want ads, but will it really get to the hard core unemployed–the ones who have made an art form out of life on the public rolls.  I think not.   To really get everybody to start looking for work, we need to start fining the unemployed.

I would say the fine should start small enough at maybe $10 a day and gradually double every week for those who are persistently unemployed.   This will give the recently laid off a couple of weeks to find something new before the big fines really start to come into play, yet still give those who are unemployed a great new incentive to get back to work again.  Now, I would never suggest imprisoning the jobless who could not pay, but I would suggest possibly public shaming or loans as a way to deal with those who refuse to pay their for share.   As Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle put it, “What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job…There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now.  We’re making them make a choice between unemploment benefits and going back to work and working up through the ranks of that job and actually building up a good wage again.”

Like many Americans, I was overjoyed to hear that about 100 teachers and staff were fired from Central Falls High School this month.  I was surprised and delighted today to learn that President Obama applauded their firing as “courageous”.  If our country is to succeed, accountability must extend to all employees whether they be cops or teachers or work for a self-storage company.  As we all know, the big enemy of accountability is the union.

Sure union advocates will point to countries like Singapore, Germany, and Japan with higher rates of unionization than we have in the United States or they’ll point out that the best scoring schools in the world are in Finland where the teachers are far more likely to be in unions than teachers in our country.   However, as a business owner I know that I need maximum profits if I’m going to do my part to grow the economy.   I’m happy to say that when George Bush fired the air traffic controllers, bosses were making 43 times what their employees were making.  Today, after 20 years of economic prosperity, employers are making 431 times what their employees are making.   This gives us the ability to hire even more workers and grow the economy even faster.

Let’s not stop at teachers if we’re going to get serious about eliminating socialist labor unions.   Just as firing teachers from schools with high drop out rates is courageous, so too would be firing all the police officers from police stations with high crime rates in their districts.   Don’t forget these cops, firemen, and teachers actually expect the taxpayers to pay for their retirements too.   I don’t see anybody lining up to pay for my retirement.   Labor unions will bring us to our knees if we let them.  I for one, don’t intend to let that happen.

Much of the AIG bonuses will go towards family expenses like cars for their children to get to school.

The American dream is in jeopardy.   Imagine what it is like to work long days and longer weeks in the hopes of getting a bonus to help get you by in lean economic times.   Now imagine that congress uses the power to tax in order to take all that money away from you simply because they resent your success.  The power to tax is the power to destroy and the Democrats in congress have no trouble wielding this power.  It is enough to make successful people simply “go Galt” and refuse to work.  Afterall, they won’t see the fruits of their own labor.  Such is the plight for dozens of employees of AIG.

American, a country which used to aspire to the success of its elite, now resents it.   Let me tell you about these bonuses.  Companies like AIG have to pay these large bonuses in order to get the top people to work for them.  Without a million dollar bonus or retention payment or whatever you want to call it, many of these guys would just go into social work or teaching.  Companies pay these bonuses because that is the cost of doing business requires it.  Its just unfortunate that since the taxpayers are paying that cost, we have to pay the bonuses.  These bonuses will help stimulate the economy though.  They represent a potential $165,000,000 in sports cars, caviar, private planes, and luxury yachts.

And how does congress react?  Well according to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), “My colleagues and I are sending a letter to [AIG CEO Edward] Liddy informing him that he can go right ahead and tell the employees that are scheduled to get bonuses that they should voluntarily return them,” Sen. Charles Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Because if they don’t, we plan to tax virtually all of [the money] … so it is returned to its rightful owners, the taxpayers.”

His fellow Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida chimed in by calling for a 90% excise tax on the bonuses, but it isn’t just the Democrats who seem to have problems with successful hard working men and women.   Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took an even more extreme position, “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

The AIG executives will get their hard earned bonuses and they will spend them, but I can promise you they won’t enjoy it.  Caviar and champagne just aren’t the same when somebody has killed your appetite.

Tom Brokaw penned the term “the greatest generation” to refer to those Americans who grew up in the Great Depression and went on to fight in World War II, as well as those who made their contributions on the home front.  These were pretty impressive people right?  Not according to the Democrats.   President  Obama said that another Great Depression such as the on that produced the Greatest Generation would be a “national catastrophe”.  This irresponsible fear mongering is designed to get Americans so scared of a Great Depression that they would be more concerned with finding food, clothing, and shelter than with the size of their government.

Fortunately, Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) has emerged as a voice of reason in the congress.  Decrying the Democratic fear mongering that looks at inactivity as a bad thing, Kyl has called Obama out for “casually throwing out some careless language.”  Words like unemployment, homelessness, starvation, and poverty panic people and take their minds off the good things that are going on in the country right now.  Ask yourself, what these things have in common (Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Jazz, Superman, The Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby).   Give up?   They’re all part of the culture of The Great Depression.  “If it’s true that adversity and hardship can bring out creativity,” said Miles Orvell, professor of English and American studies at Temple University, “then the Great Depression was one of the great creative periods of our time.”

So before you Democrats decide to panic everybody by bringing up how much trouble they will have buying their next meal, maybe you ought to remind them just how much of our American character was forged out of this time.  We need the American people to remember, Depressions can be fun.  The most important thing is reducing the size of government–food, medical care, stuff like that has a way of taking care of itself.

I believe what everybody in this country wants right now is a stimulus package that is so badly designed and bloated with ridiculous earmarks that Republicans and Democrats can join together to vote against it. I’ve seen the videos of Republicans reaching out to Democrats this past week trying to get them to join us in our condemnation of the Obama plan. I applaud them for putting statesmanship over politics.

Unfortunately, the Democrats refuse to budge. During the vote in the House very few of them were willing to join us in unity by voting against Obama’s bill. Now that it has reached the Senate it feels like the problem has grown bigger. It is important that we do not let the truly awful be the enemy of the merely objectionable. We have done a great job opposing Obama on this. It is important that in arguing for more tax cuts that we do not cave in and agree to pass this bill. If we can’t get the Democrats to go along with us, we will have to stand alone in vilifying Obama’s stimulus plan. Let’s not let our desire to have Democrats condemn the bill with us lead us to a compromise.

I’ve been relatively quiet until now about the stimulus package that the Democrats managed to ram through the House of Representatives last week, but if I had to sum up my thoughts in one word that word would be bribery.   What Obama attempts to do is use big government to give lower income people tax refunds even if they don’t pay income tax and only pay payroll taxes.  Has the world turned upside down?  How can somebody who pays no income taxes get a tax refund?  How indeed.

What Obama is tempting to do in the name of economic recovery is to bribe the working poor to become lifelong Democrats by giving them this government hand out.  What makes this plan so diabolical is that I believe the Republicans are very close to making inroads into that voting block if we can just convince them that our conservative moral values are best for the country.  When Republicans give tax cuts we give them to the rich.  The people we give tax cuts to are used to money.  They would never let a tax cut cloud their judgement.  The same cannot be said about the working poor.

The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million, new IRS data show.   Despite this Obama still won the last election.  Do you really believe the richest 400 Americans are going to see nearly that kind of increase with Obama using government to bribe the poor people?

A really insidious government bribery attempt would not stop at the poor and Obama doesn’t.  The stimulus package will spend $100 billion dollars widening the safety net for the unemployed and those without income to acquire health care.  Why would Obama do such a thing?  Obviously, to bribe the sick.  Obama’s plan will lead to an army of the infirmed and diseased shuffling down the streets to vote like some zombie onslaught in a cheesey horror film.

In short, we must not let this stand.  If Obama get this stimulus package signed it will convince a generation of poor and sick that the Democrats care about them and Republicans don’t.  As people who know this isn’t true, it is our obligation to get out there and let people know just what Obama is trying to do.  The American people are not stupid and they will not fall for this transparent bribery attempt.

By all definitions one of the oldest and the most pervasive forms of socialism in the United States is so called public transportation.  Our taxes fund it and it allows people to ride downtown in style on the government dime instead of buying a car like a patriotic American.  The auto industry sure wouldn’t need government help if every person you saw on a bus or subway was buying their own car.  Think about it.  We’re paying for public transportation and then we’re paying to save the auto industry from people not buying cars.  We’re getting it on both ends.

The Republicans get it.  Refusing to be pressured or bullied by the all-powerful bus driver union, Republican Senators have managed to drastically cut the amount of the stimulus to $10,000,000 and the House intends to go even lower.  Meanwhile, we’re spending over three times that much on good old American roads.  Instead of using our hard earned tax dollars to pay for freeloaders to ride the bus.  The Democrats say we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but have you seen how cheap gas is now?    I can’t see it going back up anytime soon.

This is a moment for Republicans to pat themselves on the back.  Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee was in awe, “The reason for the reduction in overall funding — we took money out of Amtrak and out of aviation; we took money out of the Corps of Engineers, reduced the water infrastructure program, the drinking water and the wastewater treatment facilities and sewer lines, reduced that from $14 billion to roughly $9 billion — was the tax cut initiative that had to be paid for in some way by keeping the entire package in the range of $850 billion.”

Public transportation belongs to an older era.  It is a lot like those statues of Stalin they used to have in the Soviet Union, but thankfully its time has passed.  Transportation is far too important to be left to socialism.

I am livid am I’m not alone.  Since the Presidential Election, Barrack Obama has arrogantly been acting like he has a mandate to change our entire system of economics from the one that has served us so well for the past 8 years.   He honestly believes that he has the right to give away a trillion dollars and  call it stimulus without listening to where the Republicans want the money spent.

On January 22 and January 23, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity joined with me in decrying Obama adviser Robert Reich for saying that he didn’t want the economic stimulus to only go to white construction workers, but “includ[es] women and minorities, and the long-term unemployed”.   Excuse me, but white construction workers built this country.  There is absolutely no reason that the bailout shouldn’t be limited only to white construction workers–they work very hard in all kinds of weather.   If Obama really wants to stimulate the economy he will cut my taxes.   When I have extra money I’m a very big tipper and my tips will trickle down to our service economy.

Last Friday, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told the president that the Democratic plan to give a tax credit to those who don’t pay income taxes isn’t a tax cut, but rather, a check. Obama responded that this was a common point of debate during the presidential campaign — McCain/Palin called Obama’s plan “welfare” — and voters were not swayed by Republican arguments. “I won,” Obama told lawmakers.  Excuse me?  Obama acts as if by winning the election has won some kind of political capital that he can use to do whatever he wants regardless of what the Republicans dictate.   This is policy.  We weren’t running on policy.   We were running on Joe the Plumber, Pitbulls, Hockey Moms, and Mavericks.  If we had known he was going to try this stunt, don’t you think we would have ran on something more substantial?

We need to act now.  Call your congressman and if he’s a Democrat tell him that you want him to listen to the Republicans and that you will not vote for a Democrat until they start following Republican principles.  If he’s a Republican tell him to get in there and fight.  If we don’t stop this now, over the next 4 years Obama will be making decisions that will affect all of us.

Diligent workers like these are the future of the American economy.

There was an excellent story in the Wall Street Journal today pointing out the good news of the current economic turmoil “There may have been a silver lining for the economy in the horrific December job losses reported Friday by the Labor Department. Companies are cutting back so aggressively that they actually might be increasing their productivity even in the face of a wrenching economic shock.”

Let’s face it as companies have been forced to cut out frivolities like expense account lunches and executive washrooms, the result is a meaner leaner work force ready to take on the business world of tomorrow.  You won’t see these employees gossiping around the water cooler when their company had to return the water cooler to Ice Mountain.  With the current housing crisis a cot is all it takes to reverse telecommute and live out of your office.  As workers saw many of their colleagues fired and laid off, they realized that they could take on the responsibilities of their departed coworkers with just a little better time management and eliminating lunch and bathroom breaks.

It may be time for us to reconsider whether a recession is a bad thing.  And who is responsible for this economic miracle.  I believe the Journal itself put it best, “A rise in productivity would be a potentially positive mark on the economic record of President George W. Bush, who has presided over two recessions, a dismal stock market and a housing bust. In the 30 full quarters that Bush has been president, through the third quarter of last year, nonfarm business productivity grew on average 2.6% at an annual rate. That is compared with 2% for Bill Clinton and 1.6% for Ronald Reagan.”