Saturday, January 28, 2012

State of Polarization


Using the State of the Union address to make yet another re-election speech President Obama put his campaign on center stage. We were given no list of accomplishments or vision of the future. According to the President America is stronger than ever. According to the President we are respected overseas, recovered economically, fiscally sound and anyone who says different "doesn't know what they are talking about." Like Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary President Obama hopes that by making a false statement again and again it might become true or at least believed.

President Obama then decided to discuss "fairness", a term that Newt Gingrich has been shamefully throwing around the GOP primary as well. President Obama and Newt Gingrich want America to become more "fair". This is a very loaded term. The GOP believes that the playing field should be level. We believe that the government should not give a leg up or head start to anyone. That goes against our proud tradition of competition, equal opportunity, and free markets.

What Democrats and Newt Gingrich are actually saying is that they support a very base and populist idea of fair. They want there to be a fairness in outcomes i.e. incomes. According to their definition of "fair" we are entitled to have what we need and anything above that we should funnel back to the government so they can decide where to invest and often times squander our money. They believe that they are better suited to allocate the wealth of Bill and Malinda Gates who just this week alone committed $650 million dollars on top of their already donated $750 million dollars to fight curable diseases. The GOP believes that The Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation is a force for good and that these two savvy investors and dedicated philanthropist will do ten times the good directing their own money than congress could do with twice the amount.

This proposition to take more from those that have thrived under free markets is a fundamental shift in American thought. President Obama said that we can't afford not to tax people who make over $250k a year at a much higher rate than those who do not while paying down government deficit and increasing entitlements. The President is right on this point. We can not afford to keep borrowing from China without taking more from the investors and entrepreneurs of America i.e. those who have some excess to invest and risk a.k.a. the job creators. We can not grow the pet projects of congress and the President without taking a higher percentage of American capital. We can not go on expanding government without expropriating the investment capital of America. The GOP agrees with the President at long last. We can't go on with the government entitlements and deficits. And to pay for ruinous ideas with the very investment capital from the free market would only compound the downward spiral the President has taken the country and leave more Americans without jobs or futures.
Lastly, the President, with no foot to stand on, started borrowing from Republicans. Notably from presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and even Abraham Lincoln. Quoting President Lincoln the President said, "government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more." Sadly the President and the democrats believe they can do just about anything better than the citizens including spending their hard earned money on ideologically driven misadventures a la Solindra.

From what we see this week the one thing that the Obama Presidency is not big on is charity...at least with their money. They want to be generous with your money and keep theirs to themselves. They want to be investors and risk takers with your money but without accountability. If it works, great, if not, it won't change their lifestyle or bottom line. The two highest ranking democrats, President Obama and Vice President Biden, along with Newt Gingrich have been attacking Mitt Romney as an out of touch fat cat only to discover that he donated roughly 13% of his income from 2010/11 to various charities including his church. Keep in mind that these investments were first taxed at the average 30% corporate rate and taxed a second time at the capital gains rate of 14%. In contrast the President donated a miserly $2,350.00 dollars in the year 2000 representing 1% of their hefty income. In 2011 the President donated a slightly more respectable 5.7% of his $4.2 million dollar haul. Worse still the Vice President has donated and average of $369.00 dollars a year for the last decade. So please re-elect Ebenizer Scrooge and Jacob Marley so they can take your money and give it to the causes they believe in because they certainly aren't giving any of their own.

Please check us out on Facebook and If you like what you see, please "Like" us. You can find us here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The state of polarization has always existed and will exist for the foreseeable future. The war between "equal outcome regardless of merit" and "equal opportunity and merit-based rewards" has been waged from the beginning when Lucifer rebelled against God (Book of Revelation). That war continues here on earth and the battle is currently quite pitched.

Terrye said...

I just could not watch this thing. I knew what he was going to say anyway.

Publius Nemo said...

Terrye. Apparently 27% of the viewers switched him off after the first five minutes so you didn't miss anything. Sad display of partisan politics.