By the time you read this post, it’s possible that the buffoons in Washington will have announced a deal on the fiscal cliff. Or perhaps we’ll have another month or more of fake drama.
Regardless of when the deal is announced, I fear the final result will be some sort of victory for Obama, with class-warfare tax policy that will undermine the economy’s long-run growth and reduce American competitiveness.
So let’s at least enjoy some good cartoons while taking another step in our journey to Greek-style fiscal collapse.
If you wonder why I’m feeling so glum, this cartoon is a pretty good summary of the debate. Or perhaps I should say bad summary. No wonder I’ve been wearing my red jacket to cheer myself up.
By the way, don’t think the higher taxes will be balanced by any spending restraint. Click here to see a very depressing chart about Obama’s “balanced” proposal.
At the beginning of the month, I posted a bunch of cartoons that portrayed Obama as being very dogmatic and inflexible in the negotiations, while showing Republicans as being clueless and naive. Well, here’s another one with the same message.
So true. If anyone thinks we’ll get something good out of this, such as entitlement reform, get in touch with me because I have some great oceanfront property in Kansas that I’m willing to sell you.
This one targets Congress instead of Republicans, but the idea’s the same.
And in the middle of the month, while speculating why the GOP has been losing the debate, I shared a couple of cartoons illustrating potential explanations. Here’s a Chuck Asay cartoon based on the “co-conspirator” theme in that earlier post.
The part in the final frame about the fiscal cost of Obamacare is a nasty touch, but sadly true.
All told, this is a very unpalatable situation. We’re going to give more of our income to a bunch of spendaholics, and they’re going to use the money to increase the burden of government spending and dig us into a deeper fiscal hole.
Heckuva start to 2013!
“The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that “our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress”: http://nyr.kr/10sJ7zG
Reblogged this on Another Political Blog.
Why do you expect things to turn out well for the USA when the foundation of its collectivism is comprised of deception, fraud, aggression, looting, and sanctimonious claptrap about liberty? From the start the collective was beset also with at least one glaring contradiction. And what did leadership do when they could have extirpated the glaring contradiction? They endowed their government with a monopoly upon enslavement.
Yes, that was a reference to the 13th amendment. Better read the 13th again, but more carefully, if you think that it settled the issue of slavery in the USA. As you study it, enjoy the exquisite irony that governmental sponsorship of the glaring contradiction helped to bring about the cataclysm that was followed almost immediately by the constitutional prohibition of private slavery, but not of governmental slavery.
You should acquire the willingness to recognize that the secessionists’ project of 1776, called by them the United States of America, was born bad and doomed from the start by its little vices, which includes also a feigned populism. Recogize that even at its best the USA was still quite evil and that it cannot be made into something intrinsically good by noting that other places have had or do have worse systems. But all this you refuse to do, so you suffer needlessly.
The Swiss used the American constitution as a starting point, then fixed most of its major flaws – people can vote on anything and politicians do not have a free hand to do as they wish without first convincing the population. This worked, now Switzerland is one of the safest and most prosperous countries in the world, despite the almost total lack of natural resources.
Switzerland is safe because there’s a automatic gun over every mantlepiece. It’s prosperous because of the Swiss debt brake – see http://www.cato.org/blog/swiss-style-spending-cap-would-have-prevented-current-fiscal-mess-america