Feb
4
What They Said
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Feb
4
Cars for everyone!
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Now it appears that Washington will be subsidizing new cars:
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to give a tax break to new car buyers, setting aside bipartisan concerns over the size of an economic stimulus bill with a price tag edging above $900 billion. The 71-26 vote came as President Barack Obama said he lies awake nights worrying about the economy and signaled he’ll try to knock out “buy American” provisions in the legislation to avoid a possible trade war.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski led the successful effort to allow many car buyers to claim an income tax deduction for sales taxes paid on new autos and interest payments on car loans.
She said the plan would aid the beleaguered automobile industry as well as create jobs at a time the economy is losing them at a rapid rate. “I believe we can help by getting the consumer into the showroom,” she said.
The provision was attached to the economic stimulus bill at the heart of Obama’s economic recovery plan and is subject to change or even elimination as the measure makes its way toward final passage.
But wasn’t it not that long ago that liberals were claiming that tax incentives for specific purchases were fueling unsustainable bubbles?
Couldn’t the mechanism that leftists claim helped fuel the housing bubble also do the same thing to automobiles? Not only that, the argument once again comes up as to what degree the federal government should be subsidizing organizations (GM, Ford, UAW) that have proven incapable of handling basic economics. One Republican voiced concerns:
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sought unsuccessfully to derail the proposal, saying it would only increase consumer debt in a time of recession and adding that there were other provisions in the legislation to help the auto industry.
What is so hard about this, folks? The cause of this problem was too much debt and spending by businesses, individuals, and government. So why do we insist on increasing debt and spending by businesses, individuals, and government?
Here’s another conundrum for the liberal logic behind such a proposal: If tax cuts will aid the economy by reducing the burden to purchasing a vehicle, couldn’t that same logic be applied to the economy at large? Couldn’t we reduce burdens on working, saving, producing, hiring, and investing by cutting income, payroll, estate and capital gains taxes across the board?
Also, I think it may be the less-than-adoration that President Obama is getting from the World Community that he so wants to be a part of that is “keeping him up at night”.
For some crazy reason, the EU is not taking kindly to Obama’s open detest for international trade. But I thought that this guy was supposed to bring the entire globe to one big rendition of Kumbaya?! And they said George Bush was the Herbert Hoover of our generation.
As Ed Morrissey points out, Obama is much closer to Hoover than Dubya ever was. For it was the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs that made protectionism official national policy and initiated a global trade war that made a recession into the Great Depression. From the post:
Instead of working cooperatively, the major trading nations had to respond to American penalties with more penalties, and the Buy American provisions of the New Deal entrenched those divisions, making recovery impossible. The rest of the world — Europe, Asia, Latin America — would likely shut out the US and trade amongst themselves, and we would lose decades of work in building American economic strength abroad.
These actions by the President and Congress are only to give the appearance of action on our behalf. The real goals of the Democrat party are to use the recession as an excuse to consolidate power by the state and gain ground on causes they have been harping on for decades. To be honest, I am very, very worried about the next four years.
Jan
21
Letter to the President
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Dear President Barack Obama,
Congratulations on taking the oath of office yesterday as our 44th president. Even a somewhat cynical conservative such as myself can take pride as our nation finally has its first black president. There is no denying the historical significance of the moment, nor the hope and optimism that you inspire.
Watching your inaugural address, I couldn’t help but be uplifted. Just reading the text, it seems as if Ronald Reagan could have given it, save a few exceptions. It may be just me, but you seem to have been making some stark revelations about the nature of the responsibilities you inherit, and for the first time in your life, the wisdom of conservative principles are making their impression.
It was easy to criticize George W. Bush and the Republican party from your senate seat or the stump, but after having seen the choices given to you, you’re beginning to see that things are not as simple as you originally thought.
Since winning the election in November, your rhetoric has made some key departures from standard liberalism, and that is both surprising and encouraging to me. But there are some issues I want to address regarding the ambitions charter you laid out for your administration yesterday.
To hear you speaking of a “far-reaching network of violence and hatred” was one of the first times I’ve heard you reference the enemy for what it is. Your tone was markedly sharper in reference to the Islamic extremists and dictators in the Muslim world who wish us harm. It is your responsibility as Commander In Chief to protect our country and bring these murderers to justice. Yet, many of your allies will oppose your efforts now that you have begun to see the true nature of the beast. The clamor has already begun from your side to let these monsters off easy, and loyalty will be hard to find. I assure you that, ironically, the conservatives will back you in your efforts to defeat the enemy at hand, hopefully as effectively as your predecessor has.
You went on yesterday to speak of subjective experiences with a rough economy, tempered with such views as being, “subject to data and statistics.” Here and here are a few. As that information shows, we are hardly close to the great depression, or even economic turmoils of the last 30 years. I would suggest you tailor government response, if any, to the scale of the situation and not use it as a giant excuse for a pork-laden stimulus bill. It is probably too much to ask for you to see the role of government intervention as the cause of many of these problems and refrain from using it as the solution. What I do ask is that you watch any government spending like a hawk, as members of congress from both parties see Keynesian stimulus as nothing more than vote getters.
Also, Mr. President, you mentioned themes of “responsibility” and “hard choices.” Indeed there are many hard choices that we, as individuals, will have to make. You wished that “the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things” will have freedom. I was also thrilled to hear you acknowledge the power of the free market as a creator of wealth and the agent of social mobility. On this we agree, yet you are still willing to inject the hand of government in the form of taxation, subsidies, and regulation into our economy. How can you reconcile these two points? The economy will not get back on its feet until the chains of government are lifted and the power of the free market unleashed.
Finally, you warned against “protecting narrow interests” and uplifting the poor of the world. There is no greater injustice in this world than the fact that there are children literally starving to death abroad while the leading killer in this country is too much food. Yet, you have railed against the advance of free trade and prosperity (and for protecting narrow interests) by opposing or supporting the limitation of NAFTA and CAFTA, as well as trying to give unions an unfair advantage. You also said yesterday that American cannot “consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.” Surely a consumer cannot consume beyond their means, but this is exactly the kind of “hard decision” you referenced earlier, and is to be made by free individuals, not government planners through trade restrictions and taxes. For it is exactly the consumption of raw materials by the developed world that will fuel the rise of living standards in the undeveloped world.
In summation, President Obama, I look forward to your inspiring leadership while the nation navigates choppy waters. I can also see that once out of your isolated Chicago-liberal bubble, you will see that conservative solutions are successful solutions. Please don’t forget the rightful place of the individual, limited government, and freedom of enterprise in our recovery. For it is through those elements that we will collectively reclaim our zenith.
Sincerely,
Matt at Zoominac.com
