One Little Victory...

It has been difficult to tear myself away from Bloomberg over the past couple of days as I'm sure many of you would agree...

Still, this sad episode in our country's history has one small silver lining: The House voted down the $700 Billion Bailout Bill on Monday, September 29th, 2008. This is very good news, indeed...

You and I just avoided buying the Banks' mortgage portfolio offal and converting it to US Government (and taxpayer's) ownership. The idea being the Banks would have their books cleared of bad mortgages and the renewed mark-to-market valuations would allow them freer access to lending capital and hence greater credit liquidity in the marketplace.

Yes, the taxpayers courtesy of George Bush, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Paulson and all the supporting members of Congress want to sell you a sh*tload of bad paper while their PAC and corporate supporters get to freshen up their books to continue this shameless money grab. Sounds good, no?

So back to that silver lining... The failed measure came after Nancy Pelosi chose to use the event to restate partisan rhetoric and blame assignation to the House Republicans. She was rewarded with not only 133 House Republicans, but also 95 of her fellow Democrats voting down the measure. Let there be no doubt that there was tremendous pressure from the voting populace for the Congress to, just once, do the right thing...

Here's the voting record for those who are interested:

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=63183&cat=0

The "Friends of Liberty" in the equation are those that voted "nay"... Some names from that column include: Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Duncan Hunter, Conyers, Duncan, Forbes, et al. They are to be congratulated for now.

Notable supporters of adding another $700B to our more than $9 Trillion in public debt are: Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Tom Tancredo...

But let's explore the most disturbing two supporters of this bill: They are your two presidential candidates Barry Obama and John McCain

McCain stated: "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with," McCain said on ABC's This Week. "The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option."

Obama, in a typically non-committal statement was able to offer: "My inclination is to support it... While I look forward to reviewing the language of the legislation, it appears that the tentative deal embraces these principles"

Wow! Now why would these guys support this poor excuse for legislation? Well, McCain has rather nervously endorsed this out of caution and fear of appearing uninvolved and unaware in terms of the economy, especially as the media has chosen to paint him into a corner on that issue.

With Obama, the case worsens... Stanley Kurz of The National review brings the association with ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) into clearer light, as he writes:

"According to the New York Times, Obama’s memberships on those foundation boards, “allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants” to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn, “whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.” As best as I can tell, Acorn maintains both political and “non-partisan” arms. Obama not only sought and received the endorsement of Acorn’s political arm in his local campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn’s endorsement for the presidency, in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing ties to the group."

So who cares if he is associated with ACORN?

You do! Michelle Malkin reports on her website the following:

"...Lindsay Grahamnesty told Fox that the Mother of All Bailouts includes a reported $100 million more in funding for the left-wing housing entitlement thugs and heavily tax-subsidized fraudsters at ACORN. Under the original bailout proposal, apparently, a large portion of any repayment of the $700 billion would go to Barack Obama’s good friends at ACORN with a smaller allocation to debt repayment. Readers heard him say it was 20 percent."

Aware of this and many other potential re-election threatening issues attending the Bill, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted the issue down, as the following CBS news report suggested before the vote took place.

Regardless, House Republicans are saying that unless the possibility of ACORN seeing any money from this bailout is eliminated, there's no deal. "Doling out favors to ACORN and other liberal special interest groups are a non-starter for House Republicans," said Behner spokesman Kevin Smith. "If Rep. Frank wants to keep ACORN in the bill he can secure the necessary Democratic votes for passage because he'll need every one of them."

Bottom line: We dodged a bullet for the moment. Tomorrow is likely to bring a new, revised Bill with other flaws, but for now our nation's maxed-out Credit Card avoided a $700B charge

Best,

Mike

Your Reading List...

Why am I pimping these books?



Because I feel they represent a quantum leap forward in terms of documenting true IRS reform and creating a natural limit to wanton US Congressional spending.

What is Fairtax?: The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including:
- A progressive national retail sales tax.
- A prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.
- Dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality.
- Repeal of the 16th Amendment through companion legislation.

Have a readthrough of the following title:


http://www.amazon.com/FairTax-Answering-Critics-Neal-Boortz/dp/0061540463/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b


Neal Boortz and Georgia Congressman John Linder defend their initial treatise entitled "The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS" and give readers an alternative to the current state of Progressive (Regressive?!?) US Tax Code.


Highly recommended for folks from both sides of the aisle.

I also council you to explore the Fairtax website at the link below:


http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer


Best,


Mike

Taxation without representation...

Econ 101: Profit = Revenue - Cost

Given above, how will increased cost drive a business (or an nation's economy)?

Given less profit, how will a business ever find a way to increase investments, increase payroll, fund R&D and most importantly, pay you more $$$?

Either we (and I mean all of us) pay the tax or the employer does, either way, the money is left to congress to spend, which I think you would agree has been a very bad idea over last 8 years under both Demo and Republican leadership...

Read this (This breaks down the actual positions of each candidate in a mater-of-fact, unbiased manner (that will certainly appeal to the data junkie in you!):

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/election_issues_matrix.cfm

Obama has clearly stated (and when I say "he" has stated, I mean his PAC bankrolled speechwriters) that he will both raise taxes and raise spending (socialism, no?). Whereas John McCain has stated the opposite: cut spending and balance budget in four years/reduce taxes... sure, he may be unable to actually achieve that, but the Libertarian in me likes the candidate who at least speaks to this approach.

BTW, the tax hit really comes in once you hit $100K in salary once you factor for Obama's increase in FICA taxes, so the $250K utterance is yet another dubious statement from the candidate among many...

Let us revisit the Profit = Revenue - Cost model, but this time apply to the US Govt. (or more specifically the US Congress' Budget)...

Obama promises to increase both taxes and spending. McCain, promises to cut taxes and cut spending (if you ask how McCain will cut spending, I will grant you that one - I haven't heard his details either!). However, Obama essentially promises to blow up the P=R-C model above and continue to sell US T-Bond paper to our "friends" in China and Saudi further bankrupting the USA and our children. (I find it is people with children who can understand these precepts the best, because of the generational implications).

The only way to dig ourselves out of this mess is to pay down the National Deficit and strengthen the US Dollar. Any other approach misses the mark and dooms us and our children. On top of that, Barry wants to pull money out of the tax constituencies that pay over 95% of the entire tax revenue stream - the upper fifth of the tax base and the corporations - the very people and organizations who actually create jobs, large-scale innovation, currently saddled with paying the highest corporate tax in the world already!. Remember, income tax was intended to be a "temporary" tax to support the WWII effort and then be removed after the War. It never was...

Now people like Barry (and McCain, to a lesser extent) make their living by disbursing it to their PAC pals. This is where Obama really loses me, BTW: He portrays himself as "a man of the people" while his largest supporters are Fannie/Freddie, GE, Hedge Funds, I-Banks, etc. He is every bit in the pocket of the PAC's as McCain is...

To set context: this is written by a lifelong Democrat who has finally severed ties with the party... I have for years adopted a Libertarian approach (less government = better for the population). After Barry has lined up with his Corporate/PAC donors, we can see where his bread will be buttered and that is an untenable combination of Populist and Corporate Socialism. Does McCain represent the "best" solution? Absolutely not! Do I like Bush? No chance - he will be seen as the worst president in history (until/unless Obama takes office where he will quickly make Bush look like a Tiberius to his Caligula)...

I'm just asking good people to follow a path of independent thinking and a path of Liberty. When you do this, you find McCain is the only viable candidate of the two, as poor a selection as we have been given.

Best,

Mike