Obama cultists…er, supporters…stunned that their taxes went up

Hey, I know: after four years of economic stagnation, let’s vote the guy back in.  Cuz Bush sucks.  And Romney’s rich. Or something.

This just in: Romney’s STILL rich.  And you’ll never be.  Anywho:

Sometimes, watching a Democrat learn something is wonderful, like seeing the family dog finally sit and stay at your command.

With President Obama back in office and his life-saving “fiscal cliff” bill jammed through Congress, the new year has brought a surprising turn of events for his sycophantic supporters.

“What happened that my Social Security withholding’s in my paycheck just went up?” a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?”

Shocker. Democrats who supported the president’s re-election just had NO idea that his steadfast pledge to raise taxes meant that he was really going to raise taxes. They thought he planned to just hit those filthy “1 percenters,” you know, the ones who earned fortunes through their inventiveness and hard work. They thought the free ride would continue forever.

So this week, as taxes went up for millions of Americans — which Republicans predicted throughout the campaign would happen — it was fun to watch the agoggery of the left.

The beauty of it:

But in fact, it was Mr. Obama who enacted the “holiday,” and, to be clear, the tax cut that he pushed throughout the campaign — remember? 98 percent of Americans will get a cut under his plan? — was really the extension of the Bush tax suts. Thus, it was Mr. Obama who raised taxes on millions of Americans, not Mr. Bush.

How many Americans? The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington put the total at 77.1 percent of all wage earners. In fact, “More than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes. Among the households facing higher taxes, the average increase would be $1,635, the policy center said,” according to a Bloomberg News article. Hilariously, the tax burden will rise more for someone making $30,000 a year (1.7 percent) than it does for someone earning $500,000 annually (1.3 percent).

But, but, but…hey, gotta run, American Idol is on.

Strategy: Give Obama and the Democrats (and America) what they want

OK, America.  You voted for the smooth-talking brutha over the evil rich white guy.  Presumably, that means you want you sum Obamanomics.  Fine.  Choke on it, b#tches.  RB at the Rightsphere echos my sentiments:

So what do they [the GOP] do? They’re stuck in a no-win situation. The answer is simple: Give Obama what he wants. All of it. Don’t negotiate. Just say “Put your plan up for a vote and we’ll pass it. You will own everything that happens moving forward. We’ll do it your way.”

People are saying that even if the GOP did what I just said they should do, they would get blamed for the disaster that will ensue. I disagree. Democrats and the media will TRY to blame them, but they will discredit themselves in the process. Obama will have gotten everything he wanted. We know it will fix nothing and probably make things worse, but the GOP will have no part of crafting the bill. Make Democrats do it all. The GOP should just show up and vote for it. Any attempts to claim the GOP influenced the bill, and thereby sharing in the blame, will be debunked by the facts. There will be no way to say “well, this could have worked if only…” because the GOP will not have changed anything. There will be no magical alternative out there that “could have been if only the GOP hadn’t stopped it” line anymore.

Now, this part is the tricky one. From the moment they pass the legislation Obama wants, they must be disciplined in pointing out that every failure of this new law to fix the fiscal and economic problems it was meant to fix was a Democrat / Obama idea. The GOP must be diligent in highlighting how they had zero impact on the final version of the bill. Everything Obama and the Democrats wanted went in without opposition from the GOP. Obama and the Democrats own every single line on every single page.

Over and over and over again, the case will need to be made that the GOP washed their hands of the matter and let Obama and the Democrats have their way to avoid the fiscal cliff. Did you lose your job because of the higher tax rates? The GOP had nothing to do with it. Oh! Are prices higher for everything? The GOP had nothing to do with it. What’s that? Federal revenues didn’t go up? Ask Obama about that, he’s the one who said they’d go up. Etc. Etc. Etc. …

Don’t fight ObaMao.  Our American Idol obsessed electorate voted for this economic illiterate and fiscal fool in this past popularity contest…er, “election.”  Let’s see just how successful his efforts will be…hint: they won’t be.  But I think the GOP should get all Pontius Pilate on America and wash its collective hands, saying “This is what you voted for.  We will have no part in this.  The resulting pain is NOT our fault…it’s yours, quite frankly.”

There has never been a country that has taxed itself into prosperity.  Socialism has failed everywhere it has ever been tried.  But hey: We have a cool cat who goes on The View and Letterman as our prez, so maybe this time, it’ll be different!

Quote of the day, “Romney’s acceptability” edition

Nice summary by Ace of how the debates have altered the race:

Obama had successfully used ads and media allies to paint Romney has a heartless vampire, a soulless robot, a bloodthirsty warmonger.

The story of the debates has been Romney using completely free media to undo all that Narrative, and all that money spent.

I think that Obama was only up because he had gone negative on Romney so hard, as part of the “Kill Romney” strategy they announced 8, 9 months ago.

People do not like the way things are. They do not like the economy and are sick of Obama’s excuses.

So Obama poured hundreds of millions of dollars into ads to paint Romney as unnacceptable.

Well, in four debates (including Ryan), the Romney-Ryan team as painted themselves as perfectly acceptable, even appealing.

That means that the election returns to… the economy people don’t like, and the endless excuses people are sick to death of hearing.

Indeed.

Biden makes the case for electing Romney

Heh.

Rebuttal to Obama’s laughable “we tried our plan, and it worked”

Really, champ?

Obama on the economy: Our plan “worked”

If, by “worked”, he means that he meant to destroy the American economy, then I’d have to agree with him.

“You didn’t build that”

Thanks to George for alerting me to this…LOL!

Romney responds to Obama’s attack on entrepreneurs

Well done, sir.

Obama: If your business succeeds, you sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with it.

This cretin’s hostility to private enterprise has never been more clear, other than to his mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging sycophants.  From a campaign speech in Ohio:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Apparently, if you succeed in business, it’s because of Al Gore.  Or something:

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Um…the Internet was invented by the Al Gore, or the Dept. of Defense, whichever you choose to believe.  I’m pretty sure e-commerce wasn’t factored into their decision-making process.

The Internet may have been started by the government, but the boom of Internet business has been 100% the doing of entrepreneurs, NOT the government!  This Marxist jackass would be well served if he’d recognize that.

Please, America…get this despicable vermin out of the White House in November.  Please.

Obama 2008: adding $4 trillion in debt in two terms unpatriotic. Obama 2012: adding $5+ trillion in one term…look, shiny object!

I question his patriotism.  Hey, I’m only using HIS own definition!

New Romney ad smacks Obama for his stupid “the private sector is doing fine” assertion

Team Romney is hitting this economic ‘tard pretty good these days, huh?  Does President Jack@ss really think that the reason the economy hasn’t recovered is due to not enough government spending?  Seriously?

New Romney ad takes Obama to task for crony capitalism, economic ignorance

Well played, Gov. Romney.

Spain stops wasteful subsidies of green energy. In related news, green energy industry collapses in Spain.

Well, isn’t that strange?  It’s almost as if an idea that couldn’t be sustained by the free market was doomed to failure…almost, that is.  Details:

Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January. The surprise move by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy one month after taking office helped pierce investor confidence in stable aid for clean energy acrossEurope.

“They destroyed the Spanish market overnight with the moratorium,” European Wind Energy Association Chief Executive Officer Christian Kjaer said in an interview. “The wider implication of this is that if Spanish politicians can do that, probably most European politicians can do that.”

Spain’s $69 billion of investment in power capacity from 2004 to 2011 was about triple the spending per capita in the U.S. in that period, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. Most of the 2012-2013 spending will be for the legacy of projects approved before the aid cuts to wind, solar, biomass and co-generation. …

Investment in solar photovoltaic alone is headed to skid to as little as $107 million in 2013 from $879 million this year and $1.5 billion last year, New Energy Finance estimated. For new wind projects, investment should plunge to $963 million in 2013 and $244 million in 2014 from $2 billion this year.

Listen, I’d love nothing more than to flush oil for good.  But until the free market can determine how to make alternative energy widely available and inexpensive, I want my gas, and I want it cheap.

Headline of the day, “AP’s media bias” edition

Yes, this is the actual AP headline:

Is GOP trying to sabotage economy to hurt Obama?

Read the intro:

By CHARLES BABINGTON | Associated Press – Sat, May 19, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Are Republican lawmakers deliberately stalling the economic recovery to hurt President Barack Obama’s re-election chances? Some top Democrats say yes, pointing to GOP stances on the debt limit and other issues that they claim are causing unnecessary economic anxiety and retarding growth.

ObaMao’s big government borrow-and-spend policies have been crap, with no positive results and a plethora of negative results.  So Americans elect the GOP to control the House, as their way of expressing displeasure with (among other things) B.O.’s and the Dems’ way of dealing with the economy.  So when the Republican House – again, elected by the people to stop Obamanomics – decides to stop the runaway borrow-and-spend Greece-like policies…they’re trying to sabotage the economy?

Um, yeah.  They’re trying to sabotage something that hasn’t friggin’ worked in nearly four years, and the AP treats it as though it’s a given that Obamanomics works and those mean ol’ Republicans are trying to “sabotage the economy” just to hurt Obama.  Because Obama’s economic policies couldn’t possibly harm Obama…nope, it’s those economy-sabotaging Republicans!

Nope…no liberal media bias!

California named the worst state to do business, for 8th year in a row

Why, it’s almost as if businesses are averse to burdensome regulations and oppressive taxes or something!  Almost, that is.  Excerpt:

So much for the idea of West is best. In an annual survey, executives ranked California as the worst place to do business for the eighth year in a row.

Chief Executive magazine has only been conducting its survey for eight years. Texas has been top-ranked every year.

The survey considered responses from 650 business leaders, who graded states on factors such as taxes, regulations, living environment and more.

Texas and second-ranked Florida have the highest migration rates in the nation for 2001 through 2009. California has lost 1.5 million people over the same period.
…
Its 10.9% unemployment rate is only lower than Nevada’s and Rhode Island’s. A third of U.S. welfare recipients live in California, the report noted. High state taxes and bundles of red tape make operating a business in the state unaffordable to many companies, critics say.

Last year, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs elsewhere — 26% more than 2010. Most chief executives in Silicon Valley said they won’t expand in the state, according to the survey.

Interesting observations here.  Note the performance of the red/reddish states…

Also in the top 10: North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Utah.

… and blue states.

California narrowly edged out New York in what the survey called “the ninth circle of business hell,” sharing the bottom five spots with Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan.

I’m sure the crushing regulations and taxes of the blue states have nothing to do with their rankings whatsoever.  Right?

“If I wanted America to fail…”

…then I’d vote for Chairman Zero and other members of the Jackass Party.

Axelrod makes the case for voting AGAINST Obama and FOR Romney

Romney’s team is already all over this.  Check out this 0:29 video clip:

Wait…what?  OMGosh!  😆

Tweeted Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul: “@davidaxelrod’s right: choice IS btwn growing economy vs continuing down down [sic] road we’re on.”

Dude…I agree with Axelrod on something.  I need a shower.

Oh my! Did Obama pay a lower tax rate than his secretary?

Why does Obama hate women?  😆

President Obama paid a total federal tax rate of 20.5 percent on a gross adjusted income $789,674, a rate that may come in below that of his secretary.

Obama has spent the past week touting the Buffett Rule, which calls on those who make $1 million – just a little more than Obama made – to pay at federal tax rate of at least 30 percent. The rule was inspired by Buffett’s comment that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary.

The most recent information about salary regarding Obama’s secretary is for his former secretary, Katie Johnson, who is listed by the White House as having made $90,000 in 2010.

According to Wikipedia, Johnson is 31 years old and now attends Harvard Law School. I don’t know about her personal life or what her deductions would be, so I can’t assume any children or deductions.

On a $90,000 salary, she would pay $16,578 in federal taxes, $3,780 to Social Security, and $1,305 in Medicare taxes.

That adds up to a total federal tax burden of $21,663 on $90,000 in adjusted gross income, or a tax rate of 24 percent, well above Obama’s rate of 20.5 percent, even though Obama’s 2011 salary was nearly nine times the 2010 salary of his secretary.

That blasted 1%-er! LOL!  😆

Obama and the UK want to release oil from their strategic oil reserves

What, the algae isn’t coming along as swimmingly as The One thought it would?  Anywho, details:

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the possibility of releasing emergency oil reserves during a meeting on Wednesday, two sources familiar with the talks said, the first sign that Obama is starting to test global support for an effort to knock back near-record fuel prices. Obama raised the issue during a broad bilateral meeting at the White House, according to a UK official with knowledge of the discussion. 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is intended to buffer against supply problems in the case of a national emergency.  In this case, we’ve identified what the “national emergency” really is, via NRO:

The “emergency” would seem to be Obama’s poll numbers. Then again, this seems to be a Democratic candidate tradition; Al Gore called for the same move while running for president in 2000.

Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been sold five times in its history: Most recently in 2011 during the conflict in Libya; in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina; a sale of  $227 million worth of oil during fiscal year 1996 to reduce the federal budget deficit; in 1990-1991 during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and a small “test sale” in 1985.

I’m confused, though.  Chairman Zero has been telling us that there’s nothing a president can do to affect oil prices.  Then why bother doing this, if that’s true?  Unless, of course, it’s not policy-based, but #ss-saving-based.

Exit question: If drilling is, as B.O. and his minions absurdly insist, a “faulty short-term solution”, then just what the h3ll is releasing drops from the oil reserve?

Obama’s Energy secretary: Nope, I have no desire to lower gas prices

I don’t want to ever hear a liberal lament gas prices.  When Uhhhhh-bama was running in 2008, he said he’d be totally cool with higher gas prices.  So when a liberal complains about the cost of fuel, I’d simply remind them that B.O. is only sad that gas is at $4 and not higher.

Anywho, his environut Energy Secretary said he didn’t care about high gas prices.  Of course, considering this is the same tool who said he wanted Europe’s ludicrous gas prices here, this should come as no surprise:

High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.

“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.

“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied. “We think that if you consider all these energy policies, including energy efficiency, we think that we can go a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we’ll help the American economy and the American consumers.”

There you go.  Just keep them tires inflated and get tune-ups, people.

Newt blasted Chu and had some career advice:

“President Obama must announce today in his Nashua address that he is firing Secretary Chu and replacing him with a pro-American-energy appointment,” said a statement from Gingrich, who cited a POLITICO story about Chu’s appearance before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

“If he doesn’t, then the American people will know the president is still committed to his radical ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy,” Gingrich added.

“Yesterday [Obama’s] secretary of anti-energy Dr. Chu literally testified in Congress that he did not favor lowering the price of gasoline, that they had no alternative policy to lower the price of gasoline and that his goal was to get us on to other things,” Gingrich said.

“Dr. Chu is apparently a brilliant scientist,” the Republican presidential hopeful said. “I’m for allowing him to go back to science as rapidly as possible. In fact I suspect the American people would chip in to buy the airplane ticket later on today.”

Oh, here’s a kneeslapper: Chu said he’s been a pretty awesome steward of our money, giving himself a good solid A-.  Yeah…an A-minus:

CBS News counted 12 clean energy companies that are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five have filed for bankruptcy: The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.

Throw in the Keystone Pipeline decision, and it’s clear that this administration is lethally hostile to American energy production.

Here’s the thing: These morons think that if gas gets too expensive, people will demand alternative energy.  But here’s the thing: we HAVE been demanding alternative energy, since the Carter years (which seem to have apparently returned).  But until alternative energy is mass available, fills our energy needs in the same or better ways as fossil fuels, and doesn’t cost us an arm and a leg, it is NOT going to happen!  Driving up the cost of energy by refusing to increase domestic oil production is like refusing to get a job (boy, liberals can relate to that, huh?) because you’re waiting to win the lottery: stop wasting your time, because it isn’t going to friggin’ happen!

Please.  For the love of God and all that is holy.  Get his economic illiterate Marxist ideologue the hell out of our House come November.

UK raises taxes on rich, revenue drops half a billion

When the left gets these fool-brained ideas, the results are always predictable.  From Eurotrashland:

The Treasury received £10.35 billion in income tax payments from those paying by self-assessment last month, a drop of £509 million compared with January 2011. Most other taxes produced higher revenues over the same period.

Senior sources said that the first official figures indicated that there had been “manoeuvring” by well-off Britons to avoid the new higher rate. The figures will add to pressure on the Coalition to drop the levy amid fears it is forcing entrepreneurs to relocate abroad.

The self-assessment returns from January, when most income tax is paid by the better-off, have been eagerly awaited by the Treasury and government ministers as they provide the first evidence of the success, or failure, of the 50p rate. It is the first year following the introduction of the 50p rate which had been expected to boost tax revenues from self-assessment by more than £1billion.

And naturally, since B.O. likes to emulate the Euros, he wants to copy their model of economic ignorance and implement it here.  Because hey, we just know it will be different here, right?

So the Brits raise the tax rate on the “better-off” to 50%, and wouldn’t you know it, they take their money to more tax-friendly climes?  Not only did the UK government NOT get the amount of extra revenue they thought they would…they got less than last year!  That’s not even mentioning the fact that the money that was “manoeuvred” is now parked or working elsewhere instead of working in the UK economy.

Atlas shrugging just a little?

Government dependency spikes under Obama

Or, as Pelosi would say, big time economic “bang for the buck”!  Details:

The American public’s dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.

The conservative think tank’s annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that were “traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families.”

The increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show.

The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps, the study found. …

For those of you on the left, government dependence is a bad thing!

Numbers are racist.  Or something.

Obama spokestool: People leaving the workforce is good for the economy

Just so you can understand Liberalese: “unemployment” is bad, but “not working” is good.  Got it?

Just when I thought there couldn’t be a bigger fool than Gibbsy, Carney proves me wrong.  Observe:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained that the number of people dropping out of the work force, which artificially depresses the unemployment rate, can be regarded as an “economic positive.”

“A large percentage of that is due to younger people getting more education, which in the end is an economic positive,” Carney said. “This increase in the number of people leaving the work force has been a trend and a fact since 2000, because of an aging population, which is not to say this is wholly — that’s not to say that I would wholly disregard as an issue.” Carney had been asked about the 19 million underemployed or unemployed Americans, and about people who had left the work force.

Ah, I see.  People going to college and racking up massive amounts of student loan debt (which they later march, drum, and push old ladies down steps over having to repay) while earning degrees in such incredibly useful and productive subjects like Women’s Studies or Sanskrit is a net positive for the economy.  Got it.  Thanks for the clarification.

Anywho, continuing:

“I think some of those who, I suppose, don’t wish us well politically have tried to make a point about this,” he also said. “The facts are that in these most recent numbers, this is not an issue of people leaving the work force; the numbers are positive across the board.”

“This is not an issue of people leaving the work force”?  Um, yeah…it is.

So how is the labor force participation rate looking today?

At 64 percent, it is well below the peak of 67 percent during the dotcom bubble, and significantly below the steady state of 66 percent we saw during the 2000s. Given the Baby Boom retirement and other demographic shifts, CBO projections expected it to be declining – 65.3 percent at the beginning of 2012. We are now 1.3 percentage points below that demographic estimate, the equivalent of 3.2 million “missing” workers. If the “missing” people were in the labor force, the unemployment rate today would be 10.4 percent, not the current 8.5 percent.

Look at it this way: if a hospital loses a number of sick people because they died, they could claim the drop in sick patients as a “net positive” for their hospital, right?

NY Times loses $40 million last year

Heh.

It couldn’t be the quality of their newspaper, or lack thereof, now could it?  Nah.

Of course, since B.O. is good about doling out money to his constituents, and since Democrats have floated the idea of bailing out friendly fishwraps before, it seems like the Old Gray Hag should go kneel before Chairman Zero and ask for their own bailout.  No sense parroting his talking points and polishing his knob for free, right?  There’s bills to be paid.

Reuters sees great news in new unemployment numbers; realists, not so much

al-Reuters goes to bat for their boy:

Job growth surges, jobless rate near 3-year low

The economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to a near three-year low, giving a boost to President Barack Obama as campaigning heats up ahead of November elections.

Hey, that’s awesome news!  Except for the fact that it isn’t:

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. …

Again, when people stop looking for work because the economy sucks way too bad to be producing jobs at the levels needed to perpetuate a recovery, those people simply aren’t counted against the unemployed.  A hospital has a certain number of sick people, but when some of those sick people die, you don’t exactly see the hospital celebrating the drop in the number of sick people there, now do you?

Expect more stories like this: Chairman fiddles while the USA smolders, and the MSM is dutifully doing its part in this election year to get ObaMao re-elected.

California about to run out of cash

But hey, these mouthbreathers want to keep putting Democrats in charge, so with all due apologies to my conservative friends trapped on the Left Coast, my sympathy fuel tank is on fumes right now.  Details:

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

New state motto: Sure, we’re bankrupt, businesses are fleeing like crazy, our taxes are oppressive, we have rolling blackouts, and no one here speaks English anymore…but hey, at least Republicans aren’t running the show, right?

Obama in SOTU: We partnered with private sector for electric car batteries. “Partner”: We’re filing for bankruptcy.

And ObaMao’s Reverse Midas touch continues:

An Indiana-based energy storage company that received a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant from the Energy Department filed for bankruptcy Thursday.

Ener1 is asking a federal bankruptcy court in New York to approve a plan to restructure the company’s debt and infuse $81 million in equity funding. …

The Energy Department, in 2009, approved a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant for EnerDel, a subsidiary of the company that develops lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. The grant was part of a broader program aimed at promoting the development of electric-vehicle battery technology.

President Obama touted the program in his State of the Union address this year.

“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” he said.

The company is now trading for $0.02 per share.  That’s our money, going down the crapper for more “green energy” boondoggles.

Please get this jack#ss out in November…we can’t afford four more years of this idiocy.

Warren Buffett and his secretary still misleading America

That poor woman!  She has to pay a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss!  Yeah, about that…

Warren Buffet’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, served as a stage prop for President Obama’s State of the Union speech. She was the President’s chief display of the alleged unfairness of our tax system – a little person paying a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss.

Bosanek’s prominent role in Obama’s “fairness” campaign piqued my curiosity, and I imagine the curiosity of others. How much does her boss pay this downtrodden woman? So far, no one has volunteered this information.

…

Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.

The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.

We must wait for further details to learn how much more than $200,000 she earns. The tax tables tell us about average ranges. For all we know she earns closer to a half million each year, but that is pure speculation.

Look, that meme has been tackled a billion times.  Buffett paid taxes on income, then used that after-tax income to invest…then had to pay taxes again, this time on money generated from his after-tax investments.  When your primary source of revenue is from profits resulting from investments made with after-tax income, your tax rate isn’t going to be the same. 

Capital gains tax rates are lower, and when they were cut during the 1990’s (reluctantly by Bubba), the stock market ROARED to life as investors flocked to it.  As a result of the new influx of investors and investor activity, revenues to the government increased after the capital gains tax rate cut.  Wait…you mean cutting taxes increased revenue to the federal government?  Yeah, go figure.  Turns out that decreasing certain tax rates promotes economic activity and increasing certain tax rates discourages economic activity.  Who knew, right?

So, Warren Buffett pays his secretary between $200-$500k a year in salary.  Good work if you can get it, I suppose.  So I’m thinking that maybe this “my billionaire boss pays a lower tax rate than I do” schtick is just a tad old…and disingenuous.  Besides, Warren Buffett is more than welcome to send more money to D.C., but he hires accountants and tax planners to avoid doing just that…all while complaining that he doesn’t pay enough.  My turbocharged Hypocrisy Tolerance fuel tank is on fumes, I’m afraid.

Obama promotes tourism by disrupting it

Buffoon.

Hey, Mr. President! You’ve just destroyed the Keystone XL pipeline project and thousands of new union jobs. What are you gonna do now?

“I’m going to Disney World.”

No, it’s not another Obama vacation. He’s flying Air Force One down to Orlando this morning on business.

His people say the Democrat has some new ideas on how to increase tourism to Florida and probably the entire 57 states (Heh! – CL) . Naturally, this requires another Obama speech.

And what better place for a campaigning president to go lecture needlessly on improving tourism than the iconic institution that figured it all out decades ago, Walt Disney Resorts? 

But here’s the problem with Obama going to Disney’s Main Street: They have to halt all tourism there for him to be seen encouraging more tourism, close the whole place down to tourists for much of the day while he’s there and before. Even Disney employees are being barred.

Seems appropriate that he’s giving us his recipe for economic success in Fantasyland, no?  😆

Bain Capital contributed more money in last six years to Democrats

I look forward to the spin from the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) over this.

Democrats have accepted more political donations than Republicans from executives at Bain Capital, complicating the left’s plan to attack Mitt Romney for his record at the private equity firm.
…
The sums collected by Democrats from managing partners and other senior executives at Bain could hamper the Democratic message that Romney is a corporate raider who does not care about workers, charges based on his record as CEO of Bain.

Democrats could be forced to justify attacking Bain — which specializes in buying companies and boosting profitability, often by laying off workers — while accepting campaign funds from the same executives who made the cost-cutting decisions.

“They’re going to have a difficult time explaining why they’re padding their war chest with contributions from the same executives that they’re accusing of hurting jobs,” said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Right.  Because Democrats are loathe to be shameless hypocrites, right?