October 29, 2006

The Democrats And Taxes

According to such cartoon characters as Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, should they manage to get enough of their fellow travellers elected so as to have a majority in the House of Representatives, with Pelosi expected to become Speaker of the House (well, Halloween is almost upon us, so what's a good scare among friends?), one of the first priorities of the Democrats will be to stamp out the Bush tax cuts and roll back our taxes to 1990s levels.

If I were an enemy of the state, I would utterly destroy my hands applauding this ambition. Unfortunately, I am a patriot who loves America, to say nothing of the fact that I am also an American who lives and pays taxes here, so I must convey the blatant fact that I am not a fan of this intended tax increase.

I understand the Democrats' need to tax me into the ground. Well, not exactly understand it, per se, but I realize that the Democrats have a serious problem with their fellow Americans being able to keep some of the money they earn and are fixated on the concept of raising taxes whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Some people are into sky diving, some people collect butterflies, some people are passionate stamp collectors, some people love archery, some tennis, some throwing rocks at passing cars, some surfing porn websites, some collecting sea shells, some climbing trees, others mountains.... Democrats are into raising taxes. It's what they do, just as sucking blood is what mosquitos do, or what leeches do.

It's not their fault, it's simply who they are.

They particularly like to tax those who are successful, like the rich and like large, prosperous corporations, and are very much like Robin Hood -- they take from the rich, and give to the poor. It makes them feel good -- hell, it makes them feel great -- stripping a big company of its investment capital plunges them into ecstasy.

Back in the 1980s, during the Reagan Administration, the greatest President in my lifetime stopped the bloodsucking practice of penalizing American business for its success, allowing it to keep its investment capital in order to put it to work, and lo and behold, despite the Democrats' criticism of what they fondly referred to as Reaganomics, our economy exploded into a dynamo of successful professionals, low unemployment, newly created millionaires and prosperous companies.

This trend continued through the Bush 1 Administration, but then, alas and alack, American voters sent Bill Clinton, a Democrat, off to the White House.

Keeping to the sacred tradition of Democrats, he raised taxes, as usual targeting the rich.

Before the end of his second term (he was actually reelected, go figure!), we were plunged into recession. The unemployment rate soared, businesses struggling to stay afloat transferred record amounts of their production to outsourced labor pools and after Algore, Clinton's Veep, lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, the newly elected President engendered massive tax cuts.

Naturally the Democrats, dismayed that Americans were being permitted to keep more of their earnings, mounted yet another of their innumerable bumper-sticker friendly campaigns -- "The Republicans have given tax cuts to the rich, screwing the poor as always!"

That was worth, at the very least, a good chuckle, since every American taxpayer was entitled to the cuts. The Democrats somehow managed, once realizing that they really couldn't produce any low income working folks who were being either neglected or recieving the fid, cited poor people on welfare and other premature social security venues who weren't benefiting from the tax cuts, the fact that these people didn't pay any income tax to begin with notwithstanding... they actually forced the government to give something "back" to these noncontributors as well.

Meanwhile, the tax cuts enabled corporate America and smaller business people to use the "surplus" equity to expand existing business and create new enterprises.

The result has been a major rebound in our economy and a serious decrease in the unemployment rate that is still adjusting downward. America is again flourishing!

But let's not be too confident, friends, okay? We still haven't had this year's elections, so we don't actually know where we stand.

We're pretty confident about holding a Republican majority in the Senate, but there has been a lot of negative conjecture regarding the House majority after 7 November. Personally, I believe we'll hold our majority there, as well, though we'll have a few less seats.

But...

Should the Democrats gain a majority in the House Of Representatives, they will raise taxes, and you can bet your bottom dollar, assuming you still have one, that the late 1990s recession will return even more quickly than it went away.

Of course, the Democrats will find a way to blame Bush....

Posted by Seth at 04:27 PM | Comments (29) |

October 25, 2005

Walmart{I think I've been here before}

Yes, I have. I have defended Wal-Mart before.

And not for any in-depth political reasons, either. Just for topical observations I made a couple of years ago, when I spent some time in rural Illinois.

You know, you go to some of these extreme "fly-over zone" towns, the ones that subsist off outlying farms and a few totally locally owned businesses, and you see places in which there are no, and I mean NO job openings to speak of. A lot of families are simply clinging to their homes and eating on budgets that rate genuine pity...

There's a Wal-Mart in town, luckily, that employs hundreds of locals in the entire range of retail. Most of the people who live in town are poor.

Wal-Mart is sort of a nucleus: It supports the locals -- not just the economy, but the people. It sells them the luxuries higher income, large city residents enjoy at a fraction of the price that they can afford while simultaneously furnishing the means to buy.

Sure, a lot of people have reasons to share as to why they hate, or disapprove, of Wal-Mart. I'm personally pretty bottom-line when it comes to Retail. Wal-Mart is Retail with a vengeance; it employs an awesome amount of people who might not otherwise have any work at all or people who haven't got any credentials but possess strong business, supervisory or merchandising aptitudes and affords them the opportunity to move ahead in the company's hierarchy.

Right, Wal-Mart is a corporate dynasty, but it is positive -- it contributes to our economy on every front.

The left don't like that, because they don't believe that individuals who work hard, sacrifice and succeed should live any better than those who live off government largesse. Except, of course, for themselves.

Bummer.

Most of Wal-Mart's inventory originates in China. China is our enemy, though no-one in the media seems to explore that fact, but on the other hand, the more capitalist ventures we share with Beijing firms, the more people we can place in China and the better HUMINT we can harvest. I'm all for that, given the fact that we will eventually have a reckoning with them, and it won't be small potatoes.

But back to Wal-Mart -- I was actually inspired to write this post by another post by Raven, of And Rightly So fame.

Wal-Mart's greatest crime was the crime of success, the prime target of liberals, whose actual agenda is socialism, but the term "liberal" sounds better. Heh.

Think of the left as a pack of wild dogs with mange, a significant percentage rabid, descending upon any newsworthy "target of opportunity," for the sole purpose of transforming the U.S. Constitution into the Communist Manifesto.

WTF are they thinking!?

Posted by Seth at 07:27 AM | Comments (4) |