Idol Chatter

It’s April 15th and that means it’s tax day here in the US.  You need to file today (your return or an extension).  When we look at how much we pay in taxes we have to wonder how this amount could go up if the current administration continues to spend at a hectic pace.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the wealthiest 5% cannot pay for the spending increases contemplated in the budget Obama wants with a modest increase in the tax rates.  That means that either less must be spent or more will see taxes increasing.

So think about how much more you want to pay the next time you hear the administration touting how the full budget must be approved.

In what seems to almost be his trademark style, President Barack Obama is taking Europe by storm in what is his first visit as our President.  His wife, Michelle, our first lady is making an almost equally impressive impression as she meets with England’s Queen as well as normal school girls.

What is not clear is whether there is any real progress being made in a cohesive effort among the world’s leading countries to end the current recession.  Certainly the President brought enough staff to get that job done but the likelihood of accomplishing anything meaningful in such a short time frame is not probable.

Meanwhile the economy continues to show us a mixed bag.  Home sales are increasing but prices are lowering.  Unemployment continues to increase and has been recently reported as high as 8.5% but in March the stock market posted a 20% increase.  It is likely that we will continue to see a lot of volitility until all facests of our market start to move in a more unified upward trend.

President Obama campaigned on a message that he’d be the agent of change for America.  And he’s shown that in full force in his few weeks in office.  But when voting for change, how many Americans figured they’d be voting for the implementation of the Obama cult, the new, apparently required religion the President and his staff have for America?

One of the hallmarks to any cult is the requirement that there is no dissension.  No contrary views are tolerated and if you speak against the cult leader that is considered a threat, not just to the leader but the cult community as a whole and those dissenters are quickly eliminated.

In this writer’s opinion, the Obama administration has adopted a cult mentality.  They rode in on a wave of optimism and took every opportunity to blame every ‘bad’ issue on the prior administration, whether there was any truth to it or not.  Well that’s not so surprising I guess, you could call that business as usual in our Nation’s captial. I found it interesting, however, to see the Wall Street Journl come forward questioning who’s really to blame for recent events (read that article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604419092515347.html) but this article will, not doubt, be labeled as wrong by team Obama.

What is most frightening is that the tactics adopted by the Obama team to stem any negative feedback continues to grow.  President Obama has taken every option to try to publicly ostracize republican congressmen and senators who do not agree with him (which would, of course, be most of them as Obama’s policies lean heavily towards socialism).  Then there was this weekend’s incident where Rahm Emanuel publicly labeled Rush Limbaugh as the official voice of the republican party.   Most of us republicans who heard Ralm’s comments sat back and asked “since when did the Republican party anoint Rush as it’s party spokesman?”

Well, folks, here’s the plan.  Rahm knows (as so does President Obama) that Rush does NOT represent the party.  Mr Limbaugh is an outspoken member of the Republican party, no doubt, but to say he represents us as our party spokesman would be crazy unless your plan is to make being a republican a matter of public embarrassment.  Look with Rush’s personality, it’s easy to demonize him.  By labeling this outspoken, far right, now demonized person as the party’s ‘voice’ you create public hatred of all republicans.

Moreover, the current socialistic Obama agenda creates labels treating those who have worked hard, seen success and, as a result, have accumulated a little wealth as greedy, perhaps unethical individuals who should now be punished with much higher taxes.  The socialistic agenda focuses on providing national healthcare (certainly we all want affordable healthcare – it’s just how we get there that should be debated) over tax breaks and clear incentives that would keep small businesses afloat.

If one wonders why we need all this spending, do it quietly as any public dissension is quickly squashed.  The American public should be clearly told just how big Obama’s budget will grow the deficit.  The deficit will grow by many many times what it was under Bush and there is no funds to cover it.   Obama’s administration must hope that sales of government securities will close the gap over what Obama wants to spend and what is likely to be covered by tax collections.  Did you know that nearly half of the proposed budget is not going to be covered by normal tax collections?  How long do you think it will take before the view of who are considered wealthy drops to much lower levels.  It’s easy to snub our noses over those making $200,000 getting taxed more heavily but what happens when that threshold drops to $100,000 or $75,000 or lower?  How long do you think it will take before we are all paying much higher taxes?

Mark my words, when any of this is mentioned in the public media, the Obama administration will act quickly and promptly to not only criticize alternative points of view, they’ll demonize those folks.

So beware.  The new era of socialism is at hand and being mandated as our new creed.  Wave so long to the era of policial debate.  Wave so long to a true two party system of government.  If you are not with Obama, you are against America.  The cult of Obamaism is winning.

In reading all the back and forth commentary on whether Caroline Kennedy should be seriously considered for the senate seat that Hillary will vacate if appointed as Head of State, it seems that Senator Clinton is silent on the matter.  Now it’s not unusual for a senator vacating their seat to weigh in on potential replacements so one has to wonder what Hillary really thinks.

While Senator Clinton had to be disappointed at Caroline’s backing of Obama, can that be part of the silence?  Or, perhaps it is just that Hillary isn’t going to back a woman without any iota of relevant experience despite the famous last name. Hillary is too savvy to get caught up in a silly game of political tit-for-tat.

In the end it’d the governor’s decision to make.  Governor Paterson seems to be unimpressed with Caroline when caught with the retort, “How is she a front-runner?”

Today regular programming was interupted to bring us breaking news.  What happened?  Was the US attacked?  Did another major financial institution declare bankruptcy?  Did some notworthy public persona commit some unspeakable crime or at least some significant gaffe?

Truth is none of these events happened.  Nope.  What as so important was that the President Elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle made their first trip to the White House.

Are you kidding me?  This is considered news?

Why I needed to see the President elect and his wife enter the White House in real time is totally beyond me.  Why I needed to know that they have a $100,000 budget to redecorate the private quarters and the oval office is also totally beyond me.

With all that is going on in the current environment one would hope that we could actually concentrate on real news.  Leave the President elect and his lovely family alone for just a day.  I’m sure they would enjoy that as much as I would.

Looking a little worse for wear, President Elect Obama held his first press conference yesterday.  In a discussion that seemed halting at times and certainly not the smooth delivery we’ve grown accustomed to, the Obama basically admitted that fixing the economy was going to be a difficult job and require a lot of time.  Like we didn’t know that already.

And Obama clearly made a gaffe when he said in relation to talking to past presidents that “I’ve spoken to all of them,” he said, after a pause adding, “… that are living. I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances.”  That required an apology when someone pointed out to him that while Nancy Reagan was into astrology she did not hold seances.

The only time Obama seemed to lighten up was when the conversation turned to what kind of dog would the Obama family be taking to the White House.  I’m not sure America really cares much about this subject but then again, you gotta love puppies!

The election is over and for some of us, not a moment too soon.  The most important element of election night after, of course, the announcement of Barack Obama as our 44th president was the gracious nature of the speaches made by both McCain and Obama that evening.

After the last six months of negative ad after negative ad – from both parties – one began to wonder if we had any civility left in us.  Tuesday evening fortunately gave us reason for hope in that regard.  Both men praised each other and as they delivered their praise it seemed to this writer that both honestly meant every word of it.

This turn moves us as a nation to a higher standard, a higher moral ground that cannot help but restore our confidence in ourselves and have the rest of the world more grateful for the more meaningful, intelligent discourse.

Thank goodness… and thank you to both honorable men.

It may be just me who thinks that Obama is sounding a bit weak in his McCain-Bush comparisons – but then again, maybe not.  Newsweek online just did a comparison of many of McCain’s proposals that have no relation to anything Bush has proposed.  Some of these ideas include:

— McCain wants to use half of the $700 billion financial rescue package that Bush signed into law to buy up troubled mortgages at full face value and then negotiate easier loan terms.

— McCain has called for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox because he has “betrayed the public’s trust.” Bush appointed Cox in 2005 and has stood by him.

— McCain has proposed sweeping changes to the health care system, replacing existing income tax breaks for worker’s health coverage with refundable tax credits of up to $5,000. Bush had proposed replacing income tax breaks with a standard deduction for health insurance, but it was not as large a proposal as McCain’s and it died in Congress.

— McCain differs with Bush in several ways over energy policy, points that his campaign argues would have a big impact on the economy. Among them: McCain supports a mandatory cap-and-trade approach to cutting greenhouse gases, which allows industries to either reduce their pollution or to purchase credits from companies exceeding pollution targets.

— McCain wants to eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits.

On the flip side, Obama want disparately to avoid any ties to the concept that he’s part of the ‘Tax and Spend’ Democratic Liberal group.  But his voting record is with the Democratic majority 96% of the time as reported by the Washington Post – Is he really his own man?  Of course that’s when he does vote.  Again according to the Washington Post, Senator Obama only has only exercised his vote a little over half the time:

Barack Obama has missed 303 votes (46.3%) during the current Congress.

While Obama shows a clear lead in the polls this last week before the vote, one wonders who it is that the US public is really voting into office.