Those who know more about this than I have spoken, and while I would like to agree with them, trying to figure out if they’re going to take my right or my left arm isn’t making me feel any better.
In November, the United States may take its strongest lurch to the left since 1933. The Republicans easily could lose 10 seats in the Senate. The relative turnout numbers in the Democratic and Republican primaries are consistent with a landslide victory for either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama.Assume that this scenario plays out, and that the Democrats sweep into office behind either the nation’s most aggressive nanny or its most liberal Senator (or both). What sort of consequences can we expect?
From a tax perspective, the Democrats will be constrained. All of their beloved “middle-class tax breaks” will be inoperative unless the Alternative Minimum Tax is curtailed. The tax increases that they plan for high-income taxpayers will serve mostly to make up for lost revenue from reforming the AMT. There will be essentially nothing left over for new spending.
This means that from a spending perspective, the Democrats also will be tightly constrained. They will start with a fiscal deficit. After claiming for the last eight years that Social Security does not need to be fixed, they are going to find that in order to meet its obligations Social Security is going to absorb funds from other programs (or require tax increases).
How can the Democrats implement policy changes without large spending increases? The answer is regulation.
And that would seem to be the path both HRC are talking about in the “Dem-Speak†(also known as “Double Thinkâ€).
It is sad how at least half of the American public cannot think far enough ahead to see that raising regulations on how corporations costs them money. Arnold King at the above link lists out just a quick few of the regulations most likely to be down the pike of an HRC or Obama Administration.
The first couple are on the subject of heath care, and after reading them, you may want to go to your doctor and ask him/her to hook you up with four years worth of some serious psychotropic meds.
Especially what with Obama talking about “Patriot Corporationsâ€.
Rob at the SayAnything blog has the skinny on what that particular (D) administration would consider “Patriot Corporationâ€.
So what do you have to do to become a “Patriot Corporation?†You have to roll over for the unions, pay out the nose to provide your employees with health care, keep production costs high by not outsourcing parts of your business to areas with cheaper labor and pay what Obama and his fellow liberals define as “decent wages.â€
Oh and if you’d like to pretend to get ahead on the dough to hopefully help ease the mental pain of your future consumer costs, you can wager on just how high the new tax rate is going to be in 2011 here.
Don’t bother attempting to educate leftists with facts such as that “The Top 20% of income earners account for 40% of overall consumer spending, which is a total of 66% of economic activity”.
They just hate facts like that and will accuse you of being an oppressor, which means that you are obliged to knock out their teeth and they don’t have health care, so what are you gonna do. Better to just not go there.
“Patriot Corporations” as so described practically and in all intents and purposes defines the Fascist State, wherein companies are leashed to the State in such a way – Jonah’s book has it quite right.
Every time I try to think of Economics like a Democrat, I come up with – Tax Cuts.
Want to keep people buying American so as to save those spendy union jobs? Give people enough $$$ to spend to buy the more-expensive US products. How do you do that?
Tax Cuts.
Want to prevent US Corporations from farming out work overseas? How do you do that? Give them a bump on the bottom line with Tax Cuts.
Want to make sure that employers provide health insurance to their employees? How do you do that? With a Tax Credit.
Hmmm, it would seem that the more taxes we cut, the more Patriotic the whole economic outlook becomes, and with more business being done, the impact on the Treasury’s bottom line isn’t too bad, might even result in increased inflow to the Treasury if done correctly (Reagan did that).
With more actual tax receipts coming in, maybe there WILL be enough $$$ to “save Social Security”.
End social security. I’ve seen the “benefits” and they aren’t worth the cost. There is no way in hell I could ever live long enough to get back what I will put in. I have my own retirement accounts and can manage them better than Uncle Sam. If someone doesn’t save, well then that is their problem, not mine.
Jimro