I never thought I’d be quoting Chuck Norris about Obama’s tax policy, but he has a nice rant that includes a collection of the President’s more offensive statements.
Sort of akin to the list I put together in this post (which also includes some preposterous statements by Secretary of State Clinton).
Here is the key part of Norris’ recent Townhall column.
Obama claims to support free enterprise, self-reliance and individual initiative, but his actions say otherwise. He has forced on America a federal takeover of health care, increased oppressive regulation of private business and sustained massive government spending, and he has expanded our nation’s welfare rolls by 32 percent. He even attacks corporations while accepting campaign funds from the same ventures he condemns. (Ironically, Obama has accepted nearly $120,000 from Bain Capital executives, is the top recipient of funds from BP, has investments in Chinese companies and through a Cayman Islands trust, and staffed his own Cabinet with wealthy CEOs.) In 2008, Obama famously told Joe the Plumber of his plans to confiscate money from small businesses: “It’s not that I want to punish your success; I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you — that they’ve got a chance at success, too. … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” In 2010, he arrogantly remarked, “I do think at a certain point, you’ve made enough money.” In July, Obama attacked business again, saying, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” (As I explained in an earlier column, that “somebody” to whom Obama referred was in fact the federal government.) In other acts of class warfare, the president embraced the anarchist Occupy movement, pitted labor unions that heavily fund his campaign against the private sector and blatantly condemned capitalism. Meanwhile, Obama likes to say his tax increases would affect only “millionaires” and “billionaires,” but the actual hikes would hit couples with incomes of $250,000 or higher.
The final point about disingenuous use of the English language seems trivial, but shouldn’t. We’re so used to politicians lying that we give them a pass for medium-level dishonesty.
Anyhow, the Chuck Norris column is a good companion to my video on class warfare.
Last but not least, allow me to call your attention to my effort to give the President a remedial lesson about class warfare and the Laffer Curve.
[…] Chuck Norris vs Barack Obama on Class-Warfare Tax Policy […]
[…] Chuck Norris vs Barack Obama on Class-Warfare Tax Policy […]
[…] I said “no” because there are worse options, and I specifically explained that Obama’s class warfare agenda is even more destructive. […]
[…] I said “no” because there are worse options, and I specifically explained that Obama’s class warfare agenda is even more destructive. […]
Hey Zorba, is there a Chuck Norris joke somewhere in that enormous post? Come on, you must have a favorite….
.
“At some point you have made enough money”:
I totally agree with it, but would add “And that is why it is so difficult to keep competent people employed” thereby coming to the exact opposite conclusion as to what Americans must do to maintain top prosperity and avoid an already set path to decline.
Marginal happiness already decreases with marginal income/wealth all by itself. No government intervention needed, it is an embedded feature of this universe and the humans that we are. Taxing wealth and income decreases marginal happiness and motivation to continue producing even more. With a forty five percent marginal tax rate (combined federal-state) and a likely additional forty percent marginal inheritance tax at the end, a competent person already has few incentives left to keep working, few incentives to contribute to GDP, few incentives to create and produce life changing technologies and products. Why not pull back partially (or even totally as the many French in the Caribbean attest to) and enjoy your short time left on this planet?
In short, even at current total taxation levels where the collective either directly or indirectly consumes close to fifty percent of an individual’s effort, there are ALREADY many millions of competent Americans with suppressed motivation levels — and even many more millions of even more competent Europeans idling about, and that is why Europe is ahead of the US on its path to decline. Suppressed at the top because of low marginal happiness with increasing income, exacerbated by progressive taxation, and suppressed at the bottom because redistribution partially insulates one from the consequences of mediocrity and thus again decreases the marginal motivation to contribute to America’s prosperity. Top that off with centralized planning which in the name of favoring grandiose collectively chosen unimaginative paths to prosperity suppresses the fringe exploration paths that in the end lead to true disruptive surprise real choices, and you have the making of a sub-par growth trendline to decline of two percent in a world that is aggregately growing at five percent per year.
So, you may ask, have we currently run out of motivated people? Has innovation and production stopped? Has nothing been invented and produced in America lately? Yes, but unadulterated motivation to produce at both the high and low levels of the competence scale is what ultimately makes the difference between a robust five percent annual growth trendline (a trendline that will keep Americans on top of the worldwide prosperity scale – something they seem to take for granted at an almost metaphysical level) and the current sub-par two percent growth trendline (once the economy recovers that is). A trendline to decline. And imagine what the growth rate tredline will be after four more years of Obama leveling incentives to produce, at both the high and low end of the human populous competence scale.
My message to Americans is: Your per capita production does not have to reach mediocre worldwide levels for American standard of living to collapse. It only has to be knocked the top spot you now seem to take for granted and your economic dynamism, standing in the world, and the prosperity this entails will crumble. You’re in for a rude awakening dear American!
America still innovates more than most nations, but that is about to change soon. What you see is momentum. With America having fallen to number eighteen in economic freedom, and a very negative outlook (imagine what another four years of Obama will do to that rank), America’s innovation engines will soon be outcompeted by more fertile environments in other nations. Amongst other production decimating effects, the Lings and the Guptas of the world will stop coming to America (to the protectionists’ myopic short-lived delight) and wil compete with America from foreign lands financed by foreign capital. Americans will become cut off from the virtuous production cycle. Once the tide turns on American top production incentives, and it is about to turn soon, once the pendulum starts swinging in the opposite direction, it will be impossible for America to dig itself out of the hole. It will require the American people to regurgitate all the HopNChange and other statism they have so enthusiastically supported in the past two decades, and then some. All this just to get the pendulum swinging in a favorable direction again and then have the patience to wait for a few years to see results. Anyone who thinks that will happen is living in a deep delusion. What nation, what populous ever accomplished such a U-Turn feat?
The two versus five percent growth trendlines are all you need to know about America’s future. Everything else is a distraction. Riding a sub-par growth trendline of two percent, the relative standing of EVERYTHING in America will eventually decline. Everything you take for granted in America will decline. It is only a matter at which point you eventually cry uncle. But crying uncle will be futile at that point. Desperation will keep you locked into the policies of an ever more wretched Pitchfork Democracy, where Greece is today. You will have thus completed the journey of HopNChange. Congratulations!
The fact that half of Americans seem to support HopNChange, tells me that the remaining half don’t know much either about where the once most prosperous country is the world is now headed. The only path to maintaining top worldwide prosperity is to stop disincentivising the already mediocrily motivated productive people AND stop attempting to insulate the middle class from the consequences of mediocrity (the third rail of politics and the irreversible path to decline). The mediocrity of producing twice as much as the average world citizen but demanding and expecting a standard of living six times better than the average world denizen (whatever the ratios are, one, two, six, my point is that there is a growing disparity there between reality and American expectation/demand).
Thus, In my view Obama is best summarized as:
The president that will suicidally attempt to temporarily insulate the American middle and lower class from the price signals necessary to compete in the global marketplace, and doing so by destroying incentives amongst the fewer remaining Americans who can still can compete and win in the global marketplace. He will then top disincetivisation with the unimaginative homogenizing and harmonizing of centralized bureaucratic planning – the wellspring of political motivation and power. The destiny of decline is now cast in stone.
“Let the rich be rich and don’t insulate the mediocre from the consequences of mediocrity”. These are clearly not choices that the American people are ready to admit to any longer. Therefore America’s path to decline is now set, regardless of who wins in November. If Romney wins, the decline will still continue, albeit at a slower pace, setting the stage for another round of HopNChange down the line. Once a nation reaches this stage, there is no escape.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity…..twice!
Queue the Chuck Norris jokes now…. LOL!