Obama's War on Capitalism and Non-Profits

Those of you who hoped for a moderate Obama presidency didn't have to wait long to be proven very, very wrong. In a few short months Obama has declared war on the freedoms that make this country great. His plans to start paying for his unprecedented spending binge are truly frightening. He is declaring war on achievement, on private-enterprise, on housing, on non-profit organizations - on capitalism (just a word that describes freedom in the economic sense) in general.

For those of you who make $250k+, you're going to get hammered. Good thing we live in a world where what happens to these people makes no difference to us. Oh wait. If big investors have their capital gains taxes raised from 15 to 20% - that encourages people not to invest, costing us jobs and keeping our 401ks down. Obama wants to eliminate the deduction for home mortgage interest - pretty much the worst thing you could do to the housing industry.

Most alarming of all, Obama wants to limit the tax deduction the rich get for giving to charity. This will harm the fund raising efforts of every non-profit organization in this country (most of whom are already struggling in this economy). The proposed changes are estimated to cost non-profits about $4 billion a year. Obama is saying, "Don't give non-profits your money, give it to me instead - I can spend it better."

"If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.” - President Obama

Apparently Obama is not aware that families earning less than that have utility bills. Obama's plans for a cap and trade system will impose massive new taxes on energy companies. His plan states that he will use this cap and trade system to provide tax credits for working families. These working families will pay the increased tax on their energy, and then get it back from their most merciful president.

Obama's policies are all anti-growth. They will slow the economic recovery and change this country for the worse. His presidency will end (hopefully in four years) with an enormous debt and a much bigger and more oppressive government.

Happy Thanksgiving

A couple days late, I know, but here's a good Thanksgiving story (from Rush Limbaugh) that has nothing to do with this photo:

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford... But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness... And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims -- including Bradford's own wife -- died of either starvation, sickness, or exposure.

When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were collectivists! Now, Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action.

Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. ... Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years -- trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it -- the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future. Here's what he wrote: 'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice.' That was thought injustice. Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been'... In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves... So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.

The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration'... Do you realize what we face in next year's election is the equivalent of people who want to set up these original collectivists communes that didn't work, with nobody having incentive to do anything except get on the government dole somehow because the people running the government want that kind of power. So the Pilgrims decided to thank God for all of their good fortune. And that's Thanksgiving.

Yeah Capitalism!

I recieved a comment to my last post that I feel the need to respond to (although I do appreciate all comments). I was only trying to make the point that the rich pay the vast majority of the taxes and so we shouldn't get upset when they benefit from tax cuts. Please read the comment before continuing. Ok, let's go. I know many people in the top 10% of income. How many became wealthy by exploiting the poor? 0, zero, nada. In fact most of them became wealthy by providing products or services that people wanted at good prices. These products/services made their lives better. But wait, there's more: because they were successful in providing these products/services they needed employees. These employees got good jobs (at least better than their other options, or why else would they work there?) and improved their quality of life. Who's getting exploited here? As far as the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer argument, it's simply not true. The rich always get richer because they put their money where it will appreciate. Show me a time when they don't get richer and I'll show you a depression. The poor are also getting richer. Read my previous post on the subject for the hard data, but compared with the data from 30 years ago, the poorest fifth of the U.S. are better educated, spend more money, are in better health, and live in bigger homes. I'm not arguing that the tax burden should be spread equally, but stop hating the rich when they are they are paying far more than their fair share. One last thought, just because Adam Smith wrote it, doesn't make it true. I'm a Calvinist, but I don't support burning people at the stake.