Photo by Pargon
We need a vibrant and growing economy, but we are being led by someone who believes in all things that make America mediocre.
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“Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly.” – President Obama commenting on a police incident in Cambridge, Mass. involving Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates
“We don’t know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions,” – President Obama speaking about Major Nidal Hasan after he killed 13 at Fort Hood.
“There is no credible evidence so far that this attack was more than at least one person, the driver,” said Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “After that there is no evidence that anyone else was involved. It may be, but we can’t say that it is.”…“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commenting on the Times Square bomber
“You know, at this point I have no information that it’s anything other than a one-off,” – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commenting on the Times Square bomber
“The odds are quite high that this was a lone wolf.” – New York Senator Charles Schumer commenting on the Times Square bomber
“Rep. Andre Carson said he and Rep. John Lewis had racial slurs yelled at them as they left the Cannon House Office Building, with protesters chanting what he referred to as “the N-word” fifteen times.” – CBS News report on the Health Care Vote. Andrew Breitbart put up $100,000 to anyone who came forward with video or audio proof of Carson’s accusations. To date, no one has come forward.
The New Year has begun and hopefully, we haven’t broken all our New Year’s resolutions yet. There is still a lot of talk about fairness and inequality. It is the last best hope of a message for the progressives and it is time we did take a look at fairness.
Tom Daschle, before he could sneak through the confirmation process without anyone noticing his tax “problem” tried to explain that the free use of a car and driver were an honest mistake. It didn’t work and he withdrew with $140,000, give or take, in tax liabilities.
Now we learn that Rahm Emmanuel has lived rent free in the home of Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro and her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenburg. The value of such rent is estimated at over $100,000. At the same time, Emanuel, as the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee gave polling contracts of over $500,000 to Greenberg. Granted, Greenberg had had similar contracts before, but they are usually re-bid each election cycle.
Where Does Emanuel Come Out
So how does this play out? Will Emanuel end up like “Turbo Tax” Geithner or Daschle? Is he safe on home base, because he’s already working in the administration, or will he have to face the reality of Daschle that actions have consequences? It will be interesting to see how Obama explains this one away. Will he tell us again about the openness and honesty of his administration or will he have to start explaining his glaring inexperience?
President Barack Obama
“Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game,” is what Casey Stengel reportedly said while watching his team, the New York Mets. The same could be said of the Democrats when it comes to paying taxes. The Democrats are the ones who rail against tax cuts for the rich. They don’t believe in lower tax rates to stimulate the economy, but if these wealthy Democrats find taxes problematic, they just don’t pay them.
We now hear of another nominee, Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader, has a $140,000 tax problem. $140,000! Most Americans would like to make that in income, let alone owe that in taxes. This follows on the heels of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner paying back taxes of $34,000 and Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes the tax laws, paying $10,800 in back taxes. We’d probably have a balanced budget if all these rich Democrats only paid the taxes they owe rather than fighting against tax cuts for everyone.
Here’s Daschle’s excuse for his tax problem:
“Mr. Daschle told committee staff that he had grown used to having a car and driver as Senate majority leader and didn’t think to report the perquisite on his taxes, according to staff members.”
Two things come glaringly into view here. First is the overall arrogance that these “public servants” feel they deserve privilege. They have no concept that in the real world not everyone has a car and driver provided by their employer. In this case the employer is all the Joe Sixpacks out there. The second thing is that these problems were discovered and fixed, in the cases of Daschle and Geithner, only after they were nominated for positions in Obama’s cabinet. So, what if they weren’t nominated? Do you think that this tax revenue that is legally owed to the government (you and me) would still be in their pockets?
We have the chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws failing to pay his taxes. We have the Treasury Secretary who oversees the Internal Revenue Service failing to pay his taxes. We have the former Senate Majority Leader who ran the senate that passes all laws failing to pay his taxes. Do you think it’s too hard to figure out how to comply with our tax code?
It’s time to scrap the tax code and go to a simple flat tax that you can file your return on a post card. Let’s put the $200 billion that Americans spend each year on tax compliance back into the economy. Let’s make sure that all these rich Democrats pay the taxes they owe. Do these two things and we probably won’t need a stimulus package.
