The Patriot Post Brief 4-16-2012

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The Patriot Post Brief 4-16-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election." --Thomas Jefferson

Opinion in Brief

"Let's do the math. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this new ['Buffett Rule'] tax would yield between $4 billion and $5 billion a year. If we collect the Buffett tax for the next 250 years -- a span longer than the life of this republic -- it would not cover the Obama deficit for 2011 alone. As an approach to our mountain of debt, the Buffett Rule is a farce. And yet Obama repeated the ridiculous claim again this week. 'It will help us close our deficit.' Does he really think we're that stupid? Hence the fallback: The Buffett Rule is a first step in tax reform. On the contrary. It's a substitute for tax reform, an evasion of tax reform. In three years, Obama hasn't touched tax (or, for that matter, entitlement) reform, and clearly has no intention to. The Buffett Rule is nothing but a form of redistributionism that has vanishingly little to do with debt reduction and everything to do with re-election. ... For Obama, fairness is the supreme social value. And fairness is what he is running on -- although he is not prepared to come clean on its price. Or even acknowledge that there is a price. Instead, Obama throws in a free economic lunch for all. 'This is not just about fairness,' he insisted on Wednesday. 'This is also about growth.' ... Three years ago, Obama promised universal health care that saves money. Today, he offers a capital gains tax hike that spurs economic growth. This is free-lunch egalitarianism." --columnist Charles Krauthammer1

For the Record

"In an address this past week, Obama cited a couple of Reagan speeches from June 1985, in which the former president quoted a letter from a wealthy executive who grumbled that he paid less in taxes than secretaries or bus drivers. ... With a tongue-in-cheek flourish, Obama referred to Reagan as 'that wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior.' ... Rather than raising the capital-gains tax on successful investors or punishing wealthy people ... Reagan wanted full-bore pro-growth tax reform that would slash rates for everyone, simplify the tax system with only two brackets and eliminate tax shelters that allowed people to avoid paying any taxes at all. Obama's duplicity in misquoting Reagan was chronicled nicely by Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post. Kessler pointed out that Reagan said: 'We want to cut taxes, not opportunity. ... By lowering everyone's tax rates all the way up the income scale, each of us will have a greater incentive to climb higher, to excel, to help America grow.' ... The Gipper had nothing to do with punishing rich people or jacking up the capital-gains tax, which is probably the most important investor-class tax on risk and entrepreneurship. ... Instead of rewarding success, Obama punishes it. Instead of economic growth, he talks about tax fairness, which is a euphemism for redistributing resources from private hands to the government sector -- the exact opposite of Reagan." --economist Larry Kudlow2

The Gipper

"Any system that penalizes success and accomplishment is wrong. Any system that discourages work, discourages productivity, discourages economic progress, is wrong. If, on the other hand, you reduce tax rates and allow people to spend or save more of what they earn, they'll be more industrious; they'll have more incentive to work hard, and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine that energizes our national progress." --Ronald Reagan3

Government

"While it isn't true that the rich are not paying their fair share, it is true that you are subsidizing Warren Buffett's Medicare. This is but one of the many injustices and inefficiencies of our current health care system that will only worsen if Obamacare is not repealed or overturned by the Supreme Court. ... Yet with the very next breath, Democrats nearly always argue that the pre-Obamacare health system was a 'free-market' system that failed. On the contrary, the pre-Obamacare health system was already badly distorted by government. The open-ended Medicare entitlement, which pays for every medical expense incurred by the elderly, without regard to income, is an invitation to overuse. Consumers have no incentive to shop for value and thus, have no idea what the care they receive even costs. Medicaid is even worse. Those with employer provided insurance (about 80 percent of the population), likewise have no incentive to economize on health care consumption or shop for value, since someone else pays the bills. ... Republicans missed an opportunity to reform health care in a free-market direction during the early years of this century. If the court spares us from Obamacare, they may get a rare second chance and thus avoid the rationing, crippling expense and decline in quality for which we are otherwise headed." --columnist Mona Charen5

Political Futures

"Obama's inflationary policies have driven up the stock market and driven down the unemployment rate, thanks to massive workforce dropouts. Oil prices will undoubtedly drop precipitously at a convenient moment, so long as Obama makes OPEC countries a few promises on Israel behind the scenes. If there is to be a crystallizing moment, it will come on foreign policy. Obama's foreign policy has, if possible, been more damaging than his domestic policies, which simply doubled down on Bush's spending addiction. Obama's foreign policy is different in kind: It sees America as a nasty force in the world, a country in need of a lesson. And America may well get that lesson. Hence Obama's dramatic attempts to undercut Israel on taking out the Iranian nuclear program. If Obama is forced to choose between his hard-left and Islamist allies and an American public largely friendly to Israel, he will reveal himself to be the radical he truly is. This election cycle started with the promise that it would be run on economics. It will be run on economics, for the most part. But if Romney is to win, he will win on foreign policy." --columnist Ben Shapiro6

Re: The Left

"The authenticity of conservative women has always been under attack by radical orthodox feminists, but perhaps not as brazenly as by someone with such direct and frequent access to the corridors of the White House message machine as Hilary B. Rosen. ... [Ann] Romney, sneered Rosen, 'never worked a day in her life' outside of the home and should have no voice on women's issues. ... In 1992, Hillary Clinton mocked women who stayed at home and 'baked cookies and had teas.' In 2004, blueblood Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, sniffed that first lady Laura Bush ... never 'had a real job -- I mean, since she's been grown up.' ... What's striking about Rosen's latest ideological sniper attack is that she is not some lone-wolf operative on the fringes of Beltway influence. She works with former White House communications director Anita Dunn at the D.C.-based strategic communications consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker. That's the same company that promoted the anti-Palin smear movie 'Game Change' and that represented liberal Georgetown law school student activist and manufactured War on Women poster woman Sandra Fluke. Smack dab at the intersection of progressive agitation and Democratic Party campaign-season maneuvering." --columnist Michelle Malkin7