Mar 21 2009
Obama’s fiscal hypocrisy
Last week, I was appalled to see the congress that I voted for (at least partially) proposing a bill that amounts to little more than the government robbing some of its citizens. I am talking of course about the House Bill aimed at taxing corporate bonuses at 90%. Even more appalling than the idea of the government being able to pick and attack a specific group of private individuals is the retroactive nature of this bill. If the government is able to pass this bill, which by nature is highly unconstitutional, there is nothing to stop them from passing any other retroactive bill.
What do I mean? They are passing a bill to tax people after the fact. Previously, unless I am seriously mistaken, when the government passed tax laws it did not take effect until the following year. This bill intended, mostly to attack AIG executives, would create precedence where the government could randomly decide to alter taxes that you have already paid.
Did you get that? What if you were to wake up tomorrow and discover suddenly that the amount of money you paid in say…2005 was no longer enough. Your tax bracket had been changed retroactively. You owe the government now an extra $1,000.
Sound impossible. Maybe. But maybe not. Either way, the power to create new laws in order to punish people for doing things completely legal when they were done, is a power that no government should ever have. This is the kind of policy once passed by a monarch thousands of miles across an ocean. This is the kind of policy that once inspired a group of New Englanders to storm a harbor, and cast casks of tea into the ocean. This is policy straight from the playbook of King George.
Moreover, from this congress and from this administration, it is complete fiscal hypocrisy. I do not approve of what AIG did, but I disapprove far more of what our government is attempting to do.
Yesterday, President Obama released on the Whitehouse webpage a summary of his Fiscal Responsibility Summit. In the introduction Obama speaks almost angrily about the 1.3 trillion dollar debt inherited by his administration. He further remarks about the burden this debt places on the American tax payer, and states that we cannot continue accruing debt in this manner.
What is the current debt of our nation? According to http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/, a site dedicated to keeping track of our national debt, our debt currently sits at just over 11 trillion dollars. At its current level, 1 out of every 10 dollars spent by the American taxpayer goes straight to paying off debt. In essence, our government has run up an 11 trillion dollar credit card for us that is charging us 10% APR.
Does this need to change? Absolutely.
However, the extremely odd thing about this summit, and the extremely odd thing about Obama’s position is that he complains about the debt yet plans to double it by 2019. If you do the math on Obama’s budget planning, then by 2019 the American taxpayer will be spending 2.4 out of every 10 dollars that they pay in taxes just trying to pay off the national debt.
Where is the fiscal responsibility? If you can find it, let me know.
