They must think you're really stupid!

During the election campaign then candidate Obama agreed with John McCain that spending cuts were necessary but that they required a scalpel as opposed to a hatchet. He has remained, sadly, true to his word. (Unlike his word about opposing pork barrel spending).

After presiding over a massive debt run-up, both actual and planned, it would seem bigger cuts are necessary - to the point of rolling back the recent budget-busting plans. Actually, that should be patently obvious.

But for many, it is clearly not. And for those many who gave President Obama his mandate, these cuts are for you. It fully displays the contempt elite Democrats and the White House hold for you. They think you are stupid enough to fall for this. Here's why.

Those who see the need for spending cuts will not be placated or fooled by this charade of a $100 million spending cut versus a 2010 budget spend of $3.5 trillion. We haven't been fooled, but you have.

To put it in perspective via analogy, suppose you decided that instead of a new $20,000 car you decided to buy a pricier $35,000 model. You did this because the slick salesman who sold you on the expensive model promised he would sharpen his pencil and knock some money off the price and you'd get more for your money. Its a far better deal. So he rolls up his sleeves, works his magic and gets a price reduction for you. He takes it to his boss (because its above his pay grade) and gets agreement. Boy are you getting a deal! Your car has been reduced by $1! You only have to pay 34,999! But don't listen to your brother-in-law telling you its a rip off. Our commercials (the press) wouldn't lie. This is an awesome opportunity!

Those ratios are the equivalent of what the President is doing with this bogus cutback decree.

The press will now shamelessly try to start selling Obama as a fiscal restraint guy. Watch MSNBC tonight to see (if you can stomach it). They will do it with straight faces because they want the car sale too, or else they are just as stupid as the voters who somehow believed that they were going to get something for nothing.

You've been duped. You were wrong to vote for this pack of jackals (car salesmen is too good a description for these people). Face up to it because you've already bought the car now. You need to get into the right mind set before you realize that on top of it all, the car is a lemon.

Enjoy.

Obama - Deficit King

Fox News is reporting President Obama is shifting gears already with the stinkulus bill coming to him for signing. After getting what he wants, what he pushed for, he's going to start claiming spending is out of control? Let's not let this get any traction.

With a $787 billion stimulus package in hand, President Barack Obama will pivot quickly to address a budget deficit that could now approach $2 trillion this year.

He has scheduled a "fiscal-responsibility summit" on Feb. 23 and will unveil a budget blueprint three days later, crafted to put pressure on politicians to address the country's surging long-term debt crisis.

Speaking Friday to business leaders at the White House, the president defended the surge of spending in the stimulus plan, but he made sure to add: "It's important for us to think in the midterm and long term. And over that midterm and long term, we're going to have to have fiscal discipline. We are not going to be able to perpetually finance the levels of debt that the federal government is currently
carrying."

There's no point in adding opinion here is there? It's just ludicrous to try and take this message seriously. Unfortunately that is what the MSM is going to do, and it's up to the conservative blogosphere, and conservative Main Streeters to fight back on this. While the Republicans in Congress seem to have found their voice, we can't expect the MSM to have found their ears for that voice. Everything that can be done to fight the possibility of President Obama gaining traction as a deficit fighter has to be done. Yesterday I mentioned the next fight for conservatives. This is it. And it's important, highly important that we do not allow the President, Democrats and the MSM carry the meme on this - President Obama is not a fiscal responsibility champion.

Everything that can be done to point out that he pushed hard for an $800 trillion deficit, that he had Geithner push for more, that he's not keen on the details of the spending being transparent, MUST be done.

A concerted effort has to be in place prior to February 23rd to discredit Obama's credentials as a budget tamer before the image takes hold. But it also needs to be done in a way that does not somehow play into Obama's hands. We don't want to make it look like he's concerned about this image shaping so he's doing this to prove his bona fides on fiscal responsibility. That just plays into his hand. There needs to be concrete proof that he's wasteful and unconsidered in his fiscal approach.

Perhaps pointing out something like this;

In 2007, suffering yet another year of Budget deficits, Illinois' Governor would propose a Gross Receipts Tax that would impose a tax on Gross Revenue of business and services rather than Gross Income. The bill was opposed by nearly every business group, consumer group and legislature in Illinois. The tax would have been the largest tax increase put forth by any state in history and many experts testified that the tax would have destroyed Illinois' economy. To give you an idea of how the tax would have worked, take for instance an individual real estate agent. If this agent had sold $1 million in real estate during the year, they would have expected pre-tax commissions of $35,000 - $70,000.

The GRT would have imposed a 1% tax on the gross sales, or around $10,000. Although the tax was 1% of Gross Receipts, the tax to the agent would have been as high as 30%. For business dealing with high volume, low profit margin items such as real estate, automobiles or furniture, the tax would have destroyed their profits and operating incomes. When it became apparent the bill would fail, the Governor advised his supporters to vote against the bill to save their re-election bids. Senator Obama, although questioned repeatedly, refused to acknowledge whether or not he supported the GRT.

Ultimately, we have to ask the question - why the sudden interest in fiscal sanity? The reason I suspect, is to use it as a prelude to a massive across the board tax increase to finance the deficit caused by the stimulus bill about to be passed. As an added bonus for President Obama , if inflation starts to heat up in 2010, the tax increase can be used as a form of coolant on that inflation or hyper-inflation and thereby smooth things over.

Don't forget President Obama is a liberal, and that tax-and-spend mentality is still there. The only difference from his predecessors is that he is started out with the spending and will worry about the taxing part later. It's the political version of shoot-first-ask-questions later. It's cart before the horse. Except both the cart and horse are facing the wrong way on a one way street.

The 'Vision thing'.

In a post yesterday, Matt Lewis talked about what idea conservatives need to focus on, with an eye towards a providing new Contract with America. I thought I'd add my two cents worth here.

One quick note - whatever the vision is, I think the time has come to not only articulate a vision, but provide voters with a clear road map instead of platitudes and vague ideas. In 4 years, people will likely be asking "How did Obama plan to get us there? He never really told us." If you can't contrast against that, the ideas might sound like hollow promises.

1. Matt mentions science and math. How is it possible to disagree with that? Obama mentioned on the campaign trail music.

Really? Really? What tripe! You want to teach students to fiddle while America burns, Mr. President-elect?

The impacts of being the party of math and science however are far reaching. It impacts education policy. And that in turn may provide an opportunity for in-roads in ethnic communities. Asian communities for example are likely to appreciate the attention on these ares as they keenly understand their importance. No racial comments please, I'm generalizing of course.

But another area of impact is translating the emphasis on these into a realizable economic benefit. For example, patent protection, while not sexy is important. The Chinese violate copyright laws systematically. There needs to be a more robust effort to protect the innovation that results from the focus on the hard sciences. Likely this will affect trade policy.

2. Free trade. Republicans often blindly follow the doctrine of free trade. It's good in theory, but in an imperfect world, it needs to be a finely managed march towards free trade. China does not deserve it's preferred partner status. Why support a blind allegiance to an idea, when practically applied it's taking American jobs. We need to explain the benefits, manage the transition and ensure that equal access, equal playing field free trade is followed.

Free trade has proven very effective. But it has not come without certain pitfalls that need to be addressed and managed.

3. Industry. The Republican party has a huge untapped opportunity to get unions to come onside. Not by pandering to their immediate priorities, but rather by embracing re-industrialization. More factories mean more jobs. More jobs mean more votes, period. Regardless of whether union leadership buys in, union members understand that supporting industry is supporting job opportunities.

We don't want to impede business from taking advantage of cheaper labour, but as we have seen, that often comes at a cost of quality. American workers can produce quality given the opportunity. And I'm sure there are ways to produce quantity cheaply too. Leverage that science agenda, improve the means of production through automation and create volumes that can't be matched in a sweatshop of 5,000 offshore workers.

Promote tax policy that encourages tax breaks for on shoring, and/or heavily favours R&D.

The economy is shifting to a service based economy. Good. But without a sustainable base of production, the country is doomed. You can't offshore all of your production indefinitely. If there's a net capital outflow, it's not sustainable indefinitely. And while services can be exported, clearly it can't be done at the same rate as the importation of goods. Not at this point in time anyway.

There's also a national security risk of becoming a service-dominated economy. What if our clothing and automobile suppliers decided to cut us off? With insufficient means of domestic production it would come as a shock to the system.

So being the party of productivity and re-industrialization has it's logical and populist appeal. As the economy shifts, make sure that domestic production specializes sustainable industries. Do not cede production of the automobile, electronics, defense, communication, transportation, medicine or even resources to foreign interests. Specialize and be the best.

4. Hispanics. Matt is right about the Hispanic community. The numbers don't lie. Not only is this group key as a segment of the population, look at the electoral college potential. If Republicans can keep the south and Florida onside and make inroads in the southwest, particularly California, the potential impact is clear.

I have argued elsewhere that outreach is heavily underplayed by Republicans. It's a missed opportunity. Hispanics have a natural fit with Republican ideology. But we don't sell them on that. Amnesty for illegals may be an issue, but it is not an issue if the broader picture is properly framed. Hispanic (or any) families have the same basic needs from government. Schools, hospitals, crime control, job security and freedom to be who they are. These are basic human needs. If you emphasize the importance of family to a Hispanic voter, do you think he's going to argue with you about it? Probably not.

This is simply a variation of the "all politics is local" argument. Local, in a different context - ethnic/cultural. The Republican party missed an opportunity recently to address the NAACP. Why? Outreach is the key.

Go to community events. Go to churches. Go to their associations. And talk to them. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Invite them to participate in Republican events. Inclusively. Sponsor their events. This is Basic 101 stuff.

This dovetails very well with being the party of family, security and freedom.

On that last point, an aside. Why is it that people would want to give the same group that managed to create the current financial crisis the keys t their 401k's? Could anyone manage it better on their own. Even by throwing darts at an investment dartboard seems like it would have yielded better results.

Fiscal Responsibility. Let's take another crack at this one. Balanced budgets. Innovative solutions to the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. I'm sure there are myriad ways out of the mess. Let's table some and pick the best ideas.

While on the subject of finance, what about becoming the party of banking? Every great empire has had its financial vehicles to leverage. Controlling international money flows is key to a prosperous empire/nation. Smarter banking. Stronger banks. Perhaps the Fed could benchmark it's prime rates based on criteria of banking stability. Just a random thought. Anything to bolster the foundation of stronger banking institutions is good.

Energy. Yes, energy independence is an imperative. Drilling wherever possible, clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power should be at the forefront. Yes, hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels and other alternative sources should be investigated. But they may take 10, 20, 50 or 100 years to come to fruition. The country doesn't have that time to spare.

Those areas I think are good starting point.