Maybe Everyone Should Pay the Same As That 47%

Sometimes, you don't need anything other than the headline to summarize total hypocricy.  Or you can break it down to show that the President's lying about the percentage of taxes versus cuts.  of course, this is nothing more than a campaign document.  He's better at that than governing, so maybe this will work.  Of course, that leaves us wondering if he thinks people will ignore the economy, since he's doing it.

Hey, Let's Try One More Idea Everyone Will Ignore

President Obama continues his campaign to propose legislation for no reason other than to set up his campaign theme...

President Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a "Buffett Tax" on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday.


Such a proposal, among suggestions to a congressional supercommittee expected to seek up to $3 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years, would appeal to his Democratic base ahead of the 2012 election but likely not raise much in revenues.

Whew -- at least we know the real goal of the proposal is to get him re-elected, not to do anything crazy like raise revenues.  That campaign theme gets torched by Ed Morrissey...

What happens when the cost of risk equals the cost of relatively risk-free income?  People stop taking risks and shelter their capital.  When capital stops being risked in new ventures, economic growth slows and stops, jobs either never get created or start disappearing, and we get stagnation or recession.  That capital doesn’t sit on the sidelines forever, either; eventually capital moves to other markets, which means that even when conditions improve, we won’t see that capital return to our markets.  On top of that, the vacillation on tax policy and hostility towards capital holders amplifies the incentives to move capital out of the US.

That’s why the “new AMT” won’t end up generating anywhere near what the Obama administration will claim.  It’s a nakedly political act designed to bolster Obama’s class-warfare demagoguery and credentials, and it’s a policy that will inevitably lead to a deeper economic crisis in the US.

Well, at least we know the country is in shape to weather another economic crisis -- we're getting plenty of practice.

The American Jobs Act, Part II

Rep. Louie Gohmert becomes my comic hero of the day by swiping the name of the American Jobs Act for his own bill...

Texas GOP Rep. Louis Gohmert officially introduced the American Jobs Act of 2011 on Wednesday afternoon.

"My bill is not the president's bill, it's a real job creator," Gohmert told The Hill, shortly after filing his two-page alternative to the president's plan, under the same title.

Gohmert said that he read the president's 155-page jobs plan, when it was emailed to lawmakers on Monday afternoon.

Calling the president's plan a "disaster," Gohmert said that he checked to see "who filed the 'American Jobs Act' for the president, here in the House, since we had to do it 'now, right away," but discovered that the plan had not been officially introduced in the House.

So, at 1:20pm Gohmert filed his own version of a jobs bill, under the title included on the president's legislation distributed to members of Congress two-days prior.

Unfortunately, it appears that you can use the name on multiple bills, so this isn't quite as awesome as it could have been.  But still, a few thoughts...

1.  Yes, it's a cheap political stunt.  Guess what?  So is Obama's bill.

2.  Gohmert's bill has at least as good a chance of passing as Obama's.  Both have been blasted by Democrats, but Gohmert's has not drawn any derision from the GOP.

3.  No Dem has introduced this in the House?  I thought we needed to pass this now!!!

4.  Seriously, is it a further sign of incompetence that they haven't even introduced the bill that Obama wants passed yesterday?  Or are Dems running away as fast as they can?

5.  Yes, Gohmert will be reported to Attack Watch.  I'm sure they'll get around to rebutting him... and if it's based on how well they do everything else, that should be in 2013.

6.  Jon Stewart is right -- the American Jobs Act is a ridiculously dumb name.  But perhaps someone else (like Ron Paul) can introduce a bill with that title that advocates the drowning of kittens or something equally ludicrous, so people can run ads saying, "Representative Pelosi voted FOR the infamous American Jobs Act.  The American Jobs Act mandated the drowning of kittens!"

The Interweb Is Not What You Thought It Was

So apparently the Internet is not 50% porn.  Three thoughts:

1.  This is contrary to the wishes of teenage boys everywhere.

2.  Damn, the economy really does suck.

3.  I blame Al Gore for this.  Either there's four percent too much, or way too little, and it's clearly his fault.

Stimulus II: Revenge of the Rotten Economy

Megan McArdle hammers Obama's obvious cyncisim in sending a jobs bill to Congress that has absolutely no chance of passing either the House or Senate...

If the president were serious about providing stimulus, he would pay attention to the work of his old CEA chair, and pay for the jobs bill by decreasing the growth rate of something-or-other in the future by 0.2%. This is also what he would do if he were serious about getting any part of it through Congress. Instead he is apparently sending them a less-stimulative bill designed to be maximally embarrassing to the GOP--which by definition means minimally politically viable.


You can say that Obama has no choice, because the GOP is just so damn obstructive that they won't pass anything anyway. As it happens, I disagree--I don't think that he could have gotten the whole thing through, but the GOP would probably have given him a few pieces to avoid looking like total jerks, and while that might not have done too much for Obama's re-election chances, it probably would have meant a lot to the schmoes trying to make their mortgage payments in a tough economy.


But say it's true. If it is, I really wish that Obama hadn't wasted my Thursday evening, and that of 31 million other Americans, listening to a jobs plan that was only designed to produce one job--a second term for Barack Obama. I mean, I don't blame him, exactly. But I get a little pang when I realize that I could just as well have spent that time bleaching the grout in the master bath.

Ouch. And keep in mind that McArdle's prone to be sympathetic to Obama.  Keep in mind, the tax hikes proposed here couldn't pass a fully Democratic Congress in 2009 when originally proposed as a financing mechanism for Obamacare.  At this point, you have to start to wonder if the Obama Administration believes the magic bullet solution for every economic problem is a tax increase on some group they define as rich.

Actually, they probably know it doesn't solve anything.  They just think it sounds good politically (I am making the dangerous assumption that this adminstration is thinking, and actually making some intelligent choices when doing so).  Jon Stewart had a point when he mocked the name of the American Jobs Act -- it's so transparently set up as a campaign vehicle that one would expect more in the name... until you remember these are the same geniuses who thought Obamacare would be bill that created jobs.

Depressing Stat of the Day

Okay, this pretty much blows my mind...

As for Detroit itself, the official unemployment rate was 14.1 percent in July; the true unemployment figure in the city might be as high as an astounding 50 percent. The Big 3 automakers were the city’s top employers as recently as 2007; as of November 2010, the city’s five top employers were the Detroit Public School system; the City of Detroit; the Detroit Medical Center; the Henry Ford Health System (a non-profit, managed care health care organization); and the US government.

But remember, the auto bailout was a raging success.  Nothing else to see here, just move along.

If This Is In the Jobs Speech, Let's Just Cancel It

Of all the dumb ideas...

President Obama said during a Tuesday radio show that hiring discrimination against the jobless "makes absolutely no sense" and that he supports legislation to ban the practice.

Sybil Wilkes, a co-host of the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," asked the president about long-term unemployment and businesses that tell applicants, "If you're unemployed, we don't want to hear from you."

Obama noted that the long-term unemployed have a tougher time landing jobs and said a stronger overall economy would make employers less choosy. "But we have seen instances in which employers are explicitly saying we don't want to take a look at folks who've been unemployed," the president said.

"Well, that makes absolutely no sense, and I know there's legislation that I'm supportive of that says you cannot discriminate against folks because they've been unemployed, particularly when you've seen so many folks who, through no fault of their own, ended up being laid off because of the difficulty of this recession."

I give up.  I frigging give up.  Probably the worst part of this pandering statement is that Obama actually gets it right that the way to make employers less choosy would be to have them hiring in a stronger overall economy.  But instead of actually pursuing that goal, he'd rather try to impose a solution that forces them to hire one group of people over another.  Government picking winners and losers instead of the marketplace, again.

There is a decent chance that the President was merely saying something to soothe his progressive base.  If so, it's still stupid, but it's understandable.  But if he's honestly going to support creating a protected class consisting of long-term unemployed people, he's officially validating the view point that says he's clueless on business issues because he's never worked in the private sector.

Are You Ready For Some... Really Stupid Political Posturing?

You know, this administration is good at one thing -- creating the circumstances for really stupid petty fights with the opposition.  But this is getting ridiculous...

President Barack Obama sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid requesting a Joint Session of Congress on September 7th at 8pm to present his economic growth plan to the nation.

Obama writes that it is his intention "to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order."

Obama's announcement conflicts with a long-scheduled debate between the Republican presidential candidates at the Reagan Library sponsored by NBC and POLITICO.

Asked whether the White House chose the date to coincide with the GOP presidential debate, White House Press Secretary said "No, of course not."

If Jay Carney delivered that line with a straight face, he's a better poker player than me.  Let me count the ways this is moronic. 

To start with, the two sides are bickering over whether Obama cleared the date with Speaker Boehner's office prior to announcing it, as this tweet and a later tweet from CBS' Mark Knoller indicate.  Neither side looks good on this, as it looks like the White House picked the same night as the GOP debate for reasons that look petty and political (or just incompetent, if they didn't know the conflict existed)*, and Boehner didn't say no before the President's people announced the date.

* While I don't doubt this White House capacity for incompetence, they're generally on top of one thing -- trying to get the Preisdent re-elected and keeping track of the campaign events.  In fact, presidential campaign politics may be the one thing that they understand best.

This gets even more ridiculous when you consider the backdrop.  The press has been asking for the date and type of speech the President planned to give for the better part of a week, so one presumes everyone knew that it was important.  even more so, the White House has been hyping this as an important domestic policy address, and it should be, since it's addressing the pressing issues of unemployment and the sputtering economy.  In that context, one would expect something more than petty political headgames.  I would say more, but Allapundit beats me to the punch...

You know what the worst part of this little power play is? It’s not that O is so petty that he’d try to bigfoot his competition. That can be excused, sort of, on “politics ain’t beanbag” grounds. It’s not that his jobs plan won’t do much to help or that everyone — everyone — knows that the speech will reek, filled as it’ll surely be with the usual tedious bromides from the “adult in the room” about how mean Congress is, etc. By now, expectations for Obama are so low that it’s almost impossible for him to disappoint. It’s not that doing this is actually quite stupid politically, since it risks turning the GOP debate from a Perry/Romney/Bachmann free-for-all into a free-fire zone for attacks on Obama’s economic plan. Said one Democratic consultant, “It’s a bad idea [and] seems a little small. And it suggests perhaps his jobs plan wont be that appealing because now the coverage will be about the strategy and not the substance.” It’s not even that he’s suddenly demanding the gravitas of a joint session, signaling a crisis of utmost national urgency, after having jerked around on this singularly important issue for two and a half years. Better late than never, I guess.

The worst part is that, with the economy on the brink of a double-dip and consumer confidence falling off a cliff, this guy’s mind is still so preoccupied with the campaign that he can’t muster a moment of presidential leadership without counterprogramming it against a Republican primary event. He could have given this speech at any point. Six months ago, the day after the debt-ceiling deal was struck, last week, yesterday, today, tomorrow, the day before the Republican debate, the day after. Any of those would have been fine — the earlier the better, of course, given the magnitude of the problem — but that doesn’t occur to him because his own reelection is ever foremost in his imagination.

The only good news -- the President and Boehner agreed to move the speech to Thursday night, which means we can immediately dull the pain caused by the speech by watching the first game of the NFL season.*

* New thought: perhaps President Obama really wanted to be forced to take Thursday night by the GOP, so it wouldn't look like this rabid Bears fan was trying to shoehorn in on the Packers' opening night game, when he secretly wanted to do so.  In that case, I applaud you, Mr. President -- if presented with a similar opportunity to undercut the Dallas Cowboys, I would do the same damn thing.

If I have to bet, the backdrop of political pettiness and chaos is not going to help create confidence in whatever proposals the President proposes.  It's not like much confidence exists -- we don't have any evidence that the President knows squat about fixing the economic and unemployment problems -- but it's pretty dumb to undermine whatever might exist.  Of course, maybe they're just lowering expectations.  To which, I'd note that they can't get much lower.
 

Next, We'll Appoint Lenny Dykstra as Treasury Secretary

Great news.  The new incoming chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors is the author of a study published back in the early 1990's that purportedly proved that a higher minimum wage did not necessarily lead to higher unemployment.  This contradicts standard economic theory and actually provides the answer to a question that's always been in the back of my mind -- why do liberals always want to raise the minimum wage when it seems certain to hurt low-income workers by reducing the number of available jobs?  This study might support an answer.

Except that it was only one study, and it wasn't repeated.  And according to subsequent reviews of the study, it was flawed and its conclusions were wrong.

Well, at least we know the type of advice Obama's getting on economics will remain consistently crappy.

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

Somewhere in the White House in the last 24 hours, someone saw the Quinnipiac poll results and said, "Inconceivable!" At least, that's how I picture the response to this...

American voters are split 45 - 45 percent on whether Barack Obama's first year in office is a success or failure and split 35 - 37 percent on whether the U.S. would be better off if John McCain had won the 2008 election, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. As he marks the first anniversary of his inauguration, President Obama's approval has slipped slightly into an even 45 - 45 percent split for the first time.

By a 43 - 30 percent margin American voters think Obama has been a better President than George W. Bush, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds. Voters blame Bush more than Obama 55 - 20 percent for the current economic conditions, but they say 35 - 24 percent that Obama's policies have made the United States less safe than those of his predecessor. Another 38 percent say safety is about the same.

(hat tip: Hot Air) I'm thinking that B+ grade looks more and more like grade inflation. Then again, the President used to be a law professor, so that's to be expected.