by Bill O'Connell on January 27, 2012
President Obama, always on the campaign trail, is now on the road trying to explain why his class warfare strategy is not class warfare. In his State of the Union address, he once again invoked the “Buffett Rule”, which is little more than a fig leaf to allow Obama to raise taxes. But what about some other “Buffett Rules”?
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by Bill O'Connell on January 12, 2012
Tim Bishop likes manufacturing. The manufacturing of campaign issues, that is. In his effort to manufacture a campaign issue around overseas outsourcing, he got a lifeline from the White House yesterday when President Obama held an “insourcing” forum yesterday to encourage companies to “bring jobs back to America.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Insourcing for Dummies” describes the effort.
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by Bill O'Connell on December 30, 2011
In his recent telephone town hall meeting, Tim Bishop expressed his support for the continued payroll tax holiday but making it clear that it would have no impact on the Social Security Trust Fund. Money for Social Security would continue to go into the trust fund from other sources. What other sources you might ask? I may have an answer for you.
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by Bill O'Connell on December 27, 2011
Tim Bishop has submitted legislation to punish firms that use overseas call centers. He is desperate. He needs an issue that he hopes will sneak him past the electorate into office for another two years. Outsourcing worked for him last time, so he is trying to put lipstick on that pig and pass it off as bold, new thinking. What I am thinking is when is Tim Bishop ever going to represent the people who actually live in his district?
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by Bill O'Connell on December 14, 2011
Congressman Tim Bishop held an online town hall meeting to hear questions from constituents and give his answers. Perhaps he thought this a safer forum than a live town hall meeting. Last year’s meeting in Setauket did not go well and was soon viral on You Tube.
I will comment on three of the topics from that meeting: the payroll tax cut, regulations, and manufacturing jobs.
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by Bill O'Connell on December 11, 2011
With the economy in shambles and his campaign sound bites and early interviews as president coming back to haunt him, President Obama has ramped up the class warfare rhetoric. Let’s put the lie to these strategies.
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by Bill O'Connell on November 22, 2011
Drawing by DonkeyHotey
Rather than do their job, Congress and the President designated a super committee to do it for them. The committee failed miserably. But what exactly were they shooting for?
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by Bill O'Connell on November 11, 2011
Photo by shannonpatrick17
First we were told we had to pass the stimulus bill because if we didn’t unemployment would rise to 9%. The good news was that there were hundreds of shovel ready project raring to go. Later we learned that “shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.” $800 billion dollars of squandered stimulus dollars later, unemployment is at 9%. But what about a real shovel ready project that doesn’t need taxpayer dollars?
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by Bill O'Connell on November 10, 2011
photo by cliff1066
Just because Democrats are statically stuck on stupid, why do they think everyone else is? What I am referring to is static analysis of changes to the tax code. Democrats always want to have any potential changes statically scored. In other words if Democrats raise rates 10%, naturally, the government will get 10% more revenue. If on the other hand you cut tax rates 10%, a very bad thing, tax revenues will fall 10%. The problem is that they have been proved wrong every time. In other words, Democrats believe that if they raise tax rates you will be too stupid to change your behavior in response.
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by Bill O'Connell on November 4, 2011
Photo futureatlas.com
With several proposals to overhaul the tax code on the table, it will be interesting to hear how the Obama team will respond. In the plans put forth by Cain, Perry, and Gingrich, people grasp the flat tax part pretty easily. With Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, a common sticking point is the last nine, the national sales tax. Whether intentional or not, it seems to me that they don’t understand it.
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