The American People Voted For Big Government. Now, Let Them Pay For It!

 

 

  

"The only way this will change, is when we simply run out of money."

Rebar on December 29, 2012 at 1:00 PM

And people.

Baroness Thatcher was only partially correct when she said 'The problem with socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people's money."  She overlooked two other very critical of things about socialism.  The first is self-evident.  The second, less so but ever so obvious when one considers the history of human behaviour throughout civilisation.

THE FIRST:

In order to get money from other people, you must first HAVE other people.

Socialism doesn’t just require other people’s money. It requires OTHER PEOPLE. By the 1970s, the welfare hammock in Europe had become so luxurious that people just stopped having children. There isn’t a country in the 27 members of the EU that has a fertility rate of 2.2, which is considered the replacement rate or the number of children per woman necessary to keep the population steady. NOT ONE. In Spain and Greece, the FR is so low that each successive generation will halve the population. Croatia is down to 1.1 and the Slavian countries are nearly as bad.  Germany has offered to PAY women to have children.

 

So, what do you do when you can’t be bothered to give birth to the children to pay the taxes to keep you in the style to which you’ve grown accustomed? Why, you import your "children," silly! Of course, you are SOOL when your “children” arrive and find out that they actually don’t feel like working to pay the exorbitant taxes to keep old, white people in the styles to which they think they are entitled. Besides, that luxury, welfare hammock looks pretty good.  When in Rome, do as the Romans and let 'the evil rich' eat cake and the bill!  La dolce vita and all that!

In the US, not only has our FR fallen below the replacement rate for the first time in modern history, we currently don’t have enough people pulling the cart. Look at the worker-to-benefit-recipient ratio for Social Security:

Fact: There were 159.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1940.

Fact: There were 16.5 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1950.

Fact: There were 5.1 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1960.

Fact: There were 3.7 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1970.

Fact: There were 3.2 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1980.

Fact: There were 3.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1990.

Fact: There were 3.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2000.

Fact: There were 3.3 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2005.

Fact: There were only 1.75 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2010.

THE SECOND:

Homogeneous societies are more apt to share with one another than heterogeneous ones. 

 Marx and Engels wrote about this. I think it probably explains why Scandinavian-style welfare states have succeeded so far while the Soviet Union failed. (There are, of course, other issues, too. The Scandinavian countries have small populations and are wealthy due to natural resources that they have wisely exploited. On the other hand, they are now beginning to face problems because of decades of lax immigration that has allowed alien cultures and religions to make demands on them that are taxing the society and the welfare state). 

As European countries became more “multi-kulti,” the native populations became more conservative, in the European sense, and less socialist. In other words, they supported denationalisation, freer markets, less government regulation, etc, because they realised that more socialism meant they would have to share with people with whom they had little in common. Call it bigotry, racism, xenophobia or whatever.  I don't care and it doesn't matter.  Go to China, either Korea, Japan, Cuba or a kindergarten class and you will likely see the same phenomenon.

For this reason, I doubt that a European-style socialist state would last for very long in the US. It would have to be more totalitarian and even that failed in the USSR because math and economics do not bend to the diktats of dicKtators or politburos. The Chinese Communist Party has been smart enough to realise this. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been wise enough to understand that people will not settle for economic freedom.

A Few Thatcherisms:

“Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to Conservative Central Council, 15 March 1986

“I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society — from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to Small Business Bureau Conference, 8 February 1984

“The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.”

-  Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech in Perth, Scotland,

13 May 1983

“No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, London Weekend Television Weekend World, 6 January 1980

“Pennies don’t fall from Heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Speech at Lord Mayor’s Banquet,

12 November 1979

“Imagine a Labour canvasser talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in, on freedom’s side of the wall. “You want to keep more of the money you earn? I’m afraid that’s very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can’t have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That’s very divisive. You’ll send your child where we tell you.”

-  Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to Conservative Party Conference, 13 October 1989

 

“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.”

-  Margaret Thatcher, Thames TV This Week, 5 February 1976

“If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.”

- Margaret Thatcher, "My Kind of Tory Party," Daily Telegraph,

30 January 1975

  

“And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain — and Britain and Socialism is not the same thing. (...) It’s the Labour Government that has brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease — they’ve run out of other people’s money.”

- Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Conservative Party Conference,

10 October 1975

      

 “No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain vis-à-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as 'the sick man of Europe'...To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.”

- Baroness Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, 1993

 

“They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation."

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, interview with Douglas Keay on 23 September 1987, Woman's Own, published 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10.

 “My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, The News of the World,

20 September 1981

 

“Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, interview for The Sunday Times, 

1 May 1981

  

“I think, in a way, the fact that we went through that winter was a rather shattering experience for many many people and particularly the trade unions. Because the whole of public opinion was massively against them and I think they'll think twice before they go through that again. Those particularly in the part of the public sector dealing with the social services. Yes we do have to get across to them that every penny we provide to the public sector, the non-marketing public sector, has to be earned for us by the marketing sector, whether it's public or private. All of those in the public sector, who are not in the business side of the public sector, depend upon the success of business enterprise. And what is in danger of happening is that so much seems to be going into public sector pay, that the private sector is being drained of resources that it needs. That's another reason why we simply have to stick and say I'm sorry there's only so much money, there isn't any more. And we just do have to stand and say no. But equally, I think we have a duty to explain. Some people then say to me, ah, you've got a pay policy. Of course I have. My pay policy is for the public sector to live within what the nation earns. It was called good housekeeping and living within your means long before it was called a pay policy.  There really is no alternative.”

- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Press Conference for American correspondents in London, 25 June 1980

I agree with Mr Thiessen, but would go further; however, I wish to start with some words from Thomas Jefferson:

“I hope a tax will be preferred [to a loan which threatens to saddle us with a perpetual debt], because it will awaken the attention of the people and make reformation and economy the principle of the next election. The frequent recurrence of this chastening operation can alone restrain the propensity of governments to enlarge expense beyond income.”

- Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1820

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

- Thomas Jefferson

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

- Thomas Jefferson

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Ludlow, 6 September 1824

“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.’”

- Thomas Jefferson

That said.

DOUBLE ALL TAX RATES and start taxing social security (regardless of additional income), medicare, medicaid, food stamps, Obamaphones, you name it.

The country voted for a European-style welfare state. Fine. It’s time that it got European-style tax rates to pay for it.  Here are some examples of what they pay:

* Denmark has the highest tax rate in the world with a 48.9% tax-to-GDP ratio.  In contrast, the US's ratio is 28.2%.  If Sandra Fluke decided to practise in Copenhagen, her marginal tax rate (based on Georgetown Law's average salaries after graduation) would be about 59.2%, in addition to a 1.5% church tax and a 25% VAT. 

* A senior level nurse in a London hospital earns approximately $49,000.  She will pay around $10,500 in income taxes, $6,039 in National Insurance  taxes, a 20% VAT, council taxes, and other assorted taxes…in an area where it is more expensive to live than in Manhattan or San Francisco.  

* In Sweden, ALL income over $76,586.78 is taxed at 25%, but the average marginal tax rate is 57.77% due to the additional municipal, church and funeral taxes.  That doesn't include the 25% VAT.  On the bright side, Sweden is a cool place to die.  There are NO inheritance or estate taxes.  Also, if you live off of dividends/capital gains, you pay a 30% tax rate, but you don't have to pay municipal, funeral, or church taxes.  Warren Buffett's secretaries would pay a MUCH higher marginal tax rate in "Socialist Sweden" than she does in the allegedly "plutocrat-ruled" United States.

ELIMINATING THE BUSH TAX RATES ON THE TOP 2% WILL RAISE ABOUT $80 BILLION PER YEAR. THAT'S IT!!! FURTHER, EVEN IF THE RATES STAYED THE SAME, THE TOP MARGINAL RATE WOULD **STILL** RISE BY 3.8%. 

The “We can have all of this and get the ‘evil rich’ to pay for it” BS that Obama the Medicine Man sold to the country needs to be exposed for the cr@p that it is. Time to belly up to the bar and pay the tab. From now on, pay first, drink later.

It’s time that EVERYONE put some skin in the game… including Peggy Joseph and the Obamaphone woman.

If Americans want a big government, make them pay for it. We’ll see just how big of a government they really want. I suspect that we will find that they want a much smaller government once they are on the hook for the taxes needed to support it. Right now, they believe that they can have a free lunch and stick the “evil rich” with the tab. Unfortunately for the clueless, there aren’t enough “evil rich” people to pay for the lunch to which the moochers believe they are entitled.

The Bush tax cuts took 3 million low income Americans off of the tax rolls. How did they repay Republicans? By voting for Barack Obama and other Democrats. Make them start paying for that "Obama stash" and make 'em pay until it hurts.

For FY2012, the government spent $3.7956 trillion. Eliminating the Bush tax rates on the top 2% is estimated to bring in $80 billion, ceterus paribus.  Ending the Bush tax rates on the top 2% will pay for 7.69* days of Federal government spending.

$80 billion isn't chump change, but it is pretty miniscule when we are talking about trillion dollars deficits.  There is one FACT that all but the utter loons recognise:  

WE SIMPLY CANNOT RUN TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS IN PERPETUITY.   

Unlike Greece, there's no Germany to bail us out.  We WILL collapse and it will happen sooner than you think.

In 2010, John Kitchen of the U.S. Treasury and Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin published a study entitled "Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World—and At What Cost?"   According to Kitchen and Chinn, by 2020, every penny of revenue received by the U.S. Treasury would be consumed by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt service, which confirms what has been forecasted by the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the non-partisan the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.   More frightening, the duo's research found that it would take 19% of the rest of the world's GDP to finance the Federal government should it continue on its present trajectory. 

 

 

NINETEEN PERCENT OF EVERY DOLLAR EARNED BY EVERY OTHER CITIZEN OF THE WORLD!!!     

 

 

For the momentary relief of the residents of "My Progressive Little Ponyland," Kitchen and Chinn did say that getting the rest of the world to spend 19% of its GDP buying United States debt was "do-able," BUT JUST LIKE "MY PROGRESSIVE LITTLE PONYLAND" IS NEVER GOING TO BECOME REALITY, THE WORLD SO TOTALLY ISN'T EVER GONNA BUY 19% OF OUR WORTHLESS PAPER EVERY YEAR FOR INFINITY.  NEVER. 

A future that presumes the rest of the planet will sink a fifth of its GDP into U.S. Treasuries is no future at all.  And, isn't it ironic that Progressives would even presume that they would?  America isn't so exceptional.  Remember?  So, why would the rest of the world bank with us and not, say, the BRICS?  The hypocrisy is stunning, too. Progs always say that we are 5% of the world's population, but use 25% of its resources, which, according to them, is a very bad, racist, oppressive, selfish, and mean thing to do.

Evidently, being 5% of the world's population and expecting the equivalent of the Coolies to build our modern-day railroads, which are known as Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, free college, subsidised housing, cradle-to-grave welfare, etc., by demanding that the rest of the world spend 19% OF THE GLOBAL GDP EVERY YEAR ON U.S. TREASURIES beginning in 2020 while we sit on our couches eating Krispy Kremes watching American Idol while our solar-panel-generated air conditioners are blasting away because "we are so trying to save the planet, man" is perfectly acceptable.

 

 

"Just like we’ve tried [the Republicans'] plan, we’ve tried our plan, and it worked. That’s the difference.”
- President Barack Obama 

 

 

Obama is referring to "Clinton's Plan."  He wants to return to "our plan" (Clinton/Democrats) because "it worked;" yet, Obama's plan is NOT Clinton's Plan. If he wants to truly return to Clinton's plan, fine. 

 

 

Let's return to the Clinton tax rates for EVERYONE and Clinton's SPENDING levels.

 

It seems to me that Obama and his fellow Social Justice, class warriors only want one part of the Clinton Plan equation and the one that will have the least impact on the most critical issue facing the country: our out-of-control spending that has resulted in a staggering national debt and more than $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

In the end, Obama's Plan isn't serious.  It's not about governing.  It's not about economics.  It's not about "math."  It's about spite, envy and hatred cloaked in the name of "fairness."

 

And, if there was any question about Obama's philosophy, it was answered in the Democratic debate that was moderated by Charlie Gibson. Gibson asked Obama if he would raise capital gains rates even though history has shown that revenue actually falls when CGRs are increased. Obama said that he would "for the purposes of fairness."

 

The reason for taxes is supposed to be to raise the funds to pay for the necessary functions of government, not to punish people. 

I don't think the government should be in the "fairness" business.  Obama does...even if it means LESS money for the government to spend.

 

 

Let's fly this fiscal cliff.  It's nothing compared to the coming DEBT WALL.

Me, Thelma.  You, Louise.