Democrat Economic Platform

[jgaffney]

The Wall Street Journal has this:

In Raleigh, N.C., last week, Sen. Obama promised, "I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills."

Set aside for a minute that Jimmy Carter passed a "windfall profits tax" to devastating effect, putting American oil companies at a competitive disadvantage to foreign competitors, virtually ending domestic energy exploration, and making the U.S. more dependent on foreign sources of oil and gas.

Instead ask this: Why should we stop with oil companies? They make about 8.3 cents in gross profit per dollar of sales. Why doesn't Mr. Obama slap a windfall profits tax on sectors of the economy that have fatter margins? Electronics make 14.5 cents per dollar and computer equipment makers take in 13.7 cents per dollar, according to the Census Bureau. Microsoft's margin is 27.5 cents per dollar of sales. Call out Mr. Obama's Windfall Profits Police!

It's not the profit margin, but the total number of dollars earned that is the problem, Mr. Obama might say. But if that were the case, why isn't he targeting other industries? Oil and gas companies made $86.5 billion in profits last year. At the same time, the financial services industry took in $498.5 billion in profits, the retail industry walked away with $137.5 billion, and information technology companies made off with $103.4 billion. What kind of special outrage does Mr. Obama have for these companies?

I think the thing that is constant here is that Obama has promised the moon, and now he's scrambling to find a way to pay for it.

[subdjoe]

Gaff, don't you know that it is OK to hate "big oil?"
and that the only thing worse than "big oil" is the tobacco industry, which we can also hate?

How about the movie industry? That rakes in huge amounts of money, and huge profits. Maybe Mikey Moore, Al Baldwin, et al. should pony up their unfair share per Barrys plans.

I will note here that the electronics, computer, and IT industries tend in general to support "progressive" causes. Maybe that is why Barry didn't mention them.

[The New Guy]

yeah, what's the profit margin for all those hollywood progressive types?

TITANIC cost $200 million to produce but made an obscene $717 million: that's nearly $360%!
E.T. cost $7 million to produce but took in $100 million: that's a whopping 1,400% profit!

and that's just US box office figures. worldwide numbers are much, much higher! and when you factor in DVD sales, rentals, merchandising, and TV licensing the numbers become astronomical!

when is obama going to tax those obscene profits???

[jgaffney]

Lawrence Lindsay has this at the Wall Street Journal:

One of the lessons from the disastrous economics of the 1970s and the subsequent Reagan tax cuts is that everyone – particularly entrepreneurs – responds to incentives. If you take away 10% of a high earner's after-tax income at the margin, he will cut his taxable income by at least 4%. At the margin, this taxpayer now takes home 62.3% of his earnings, a figure that will drop to 47% under the Obama plan. According to a widely accepted economics rule of thumb, the entrepreneur's taxable profit would drop by 11.2%.

Now consider how the Obama plan would affect the taxes paid by such an entrepreneur with a taxable profit from his business of $500,000. Under current law, he would pay $27,148 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, plus $142,969 in personal income taxes, for a total of $170,117. If the taxpayer did not change his behavior at all, under the Obama plan he would face a $31,000 Social Security tax hike and a $11,494 hike in his personal taxes – or a 25% tax hike. But, if the taxpayer responds as the economic models predict, his taxable profit would drop to $444,000. His Social Security and Medicare tax bill would still soar to $51,580. But his income taxes, even with a higher tax rate, would drop to $132,882 for a total of $184,462.

In other words, Sen. Obama is planning on a combined series of tax hikes to produce $42,000 in tax revenue, but consensus economic modeling suggests the government's net take would rise only $14,000.

We should also keep in mind that the economic well-being of the country is not measured by how much taxes the government can collect, or even the size of the deficit. Rather, it is measured by the country's productive capacity. Our theoretical entrepreneur's 11.2% decline in taxable income reflects both less effort on his part and a less efficient use of his income in order to avoid confiscatory tax rates. Or, to put it directly, Sen. Obama's plan would reduce an entrepreneur's after-tax profits by $70,000 – $56,000 in lost profits and $14,000 more in taxes – just to produce a net revenue gain to the government of $14,000.

It is shocking to think that we have a presidential candidate who would make the private sector $5 poorer in order to make the government $1 richer. More likely, given the calculated political design of the proposal, no one in the Obama campaign told the candidate about the economic, ethical or historical consequences of his suggestion.

This indicates that what is really on offer is not some postpartisan approach to politics, but a Democratic candidate far to the left of Bill Clinton.

Funny, when you start putting dollars and cents to it, the idea starts to really stink!

[saunterelle]

Boo-hoo for the wealthy "entrepreneur."

[harpman1]

Hate achievers; envy success; take from the producers; blame the investor.

"From those according to their abilities; to those according to their needs."

Name the author of that quote.
Ask yourself if that sounds reasonable.

[subdjoe]

Jun 23, 2008 18:14:31 GMT -5 saunterelle said:

Boo-hoo for the wealthy "entrepreneur."

Those are the people who provide something like 80% of the jobs in this country. Most are not 'wealth', but not weeping either. They do what they do, have a few extras, provide a few jobs. If we drive them out of business with extortionate taxes, there go a lot of jobs.

but, what the hell, the govt. can provide for everyone, right?

[The New Guy]

yep, the dems (obama) have a great plan for the economy - taking the incentive out of success.

it is the socialist/marxist M.O. to punish the hard working and reward the lazy. great friggin' plan. it worked soooooooooo well for all the eastern bloc nations why wouldn't it work here, right?

dumb, dumb, dumb. oh, and don't forget cuba, another shining example:

youtube.com/watch?v=zvSpmV2gUWk

as i watch this video i hear obama telling us how HE is going to provide everything for us (healthcare, housing, food, education, jobs, etc.). scary, very scary!

here's another little clip for ya:

youtube.com/watch?v=aAjnnw3FgZM&feature=related

[jgaffney]

Speaker Pelosi is really starting to get on the bandwagon! Bloomberg has this:

Congressional Democrats are considering a second round of rebates to taxpayers, saying the benefits of the first checks sent to more than 100 million households this year are being eroded by rising energy prices.

``We will be proceeding with another stimulus package, and we once again hope we will work in a bipartisan way,'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after House Democratic leaders met with a group of economists to discuss the spreading housing crisis and rising gas prices.

Pelosi and other House Democrats said that in addition to more rebates a second stimulus package would probably include additional spending for roads and other infrastructure, expanded unemployment benefits, home-heating assistance for low-income families and aid for states struggling with budget deficits.

Never let it be said that the Democrat Party will shy away from a spending package. Especially, if it's 100% deficit spending!

I would pose a simple question to Madam Speaker, but she rejects emails unless you live in her district. My question would be:

If the Economic Stimulus is such a good idea,
why not make it permanent by
cutting taxes?

[jgaffney]

Well, this is really bad news for the Democrats. The American Thinker has this:

On July 12th of this year, just two and a half weeks ago, noted economist and Messiah Barack Obama stated to an adoring crowd in San Diego that the country is in a recession. Here's the quote, from an AP report on MSNBC, Obama's home network (Obama says ‘little doubt' country in recession):

SAN DIEGO - Barack Obama said Saturday there is "little doubt we've moved into recession," underscoring the country's need for a second economic stimulus package, swift steps to shore up the housing market and a long-term energy policy to reduce reliance on foreign oil imports.

That bold call was itself just two weeks removed from the release of the final GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2008, which showed a growth in GDP of 1.0%, revised upwards from previous estimates of 0.9%.

The advanced estimate for the second quarter of 2008 was just released at 8:30am this morning, and it comes in at a surprisingly strong 1.9%. Whoops -- still no recession!

That's stunning when one considers the fact that the housing and credit 'crisises', soaring energy and food prices, and rising unemployment hit the economy full force during this quarter.

It just goes to show you that while the underlying economic metrics might be wounded, the overall economy is still hanging in there. Not that the American public would have any idea about that. For the drive-by media, it's all recession, all the time.

As a recession is defined as two straight quarters of negative GDP growth, and slowing GDP growth apparently bottomed out in the fourth quarter of last year at a positive 0.6%, it looks as if we might avoid a real recession - we seem to be on an upward growth curve now.

Look for the Democrats and the drive-by media to continue to insist that the country is in a recession - if not a depression, since that is a vital component to their "President Obama to the rescue" storyline.

Perhaps Barack Obama will come out and state that the bad economic news being constantly reported by the media can't be biased or wrong and at the very least the country is in a mental recession, which is just as bad as a real one.

Oh wait, someone already tried saying that...

The Demmocrat platform relies on people being scared of their economic future. That explains the constant drumbeat of stories about sad economic news. The truth, however, is that the economy is doing fine, in spite of the shocks from oil and food prices. Good news never sells......

[subdjoe]

On KCBS radio yesterday there was a piece, along with an interview, saying that the number of homeless is down signifcantly. But I'm not seeing this being trumpeted in the media.

[jgaffney]

The American Thinker has this:

Idling behind a Lexus this morning I saw the latest bit of agitprop from the Obama campaign -- a "Got Hope?" bumper sticker. The first question that popped into my mind was, "How bad can it be if you're driving an ES 350?"

It seems that the racially polarized, economically dysfunctional country our Obama supporter is so keen to change has treated him pretty well. Maybe he's in it for the other guys. You know - the 95% who keep making their mortgage payments on time, the record breaking numbers of college graduates, the millions of Americans who consume Ipods, flat screen TVs or hundreds of other accoutrements of a society so wealthy it has no historical parallel.

I hate to burst the dystopian bubble the Leftists have persistently inflated during the nightmare known as The Bush Administration, but people have never had better food, medicine and housing than they do at this very moment. A typical home in America today has central heat and air, the cheapest car is a paragon of safety and efficiency compared with its ancestors, and people are routinely treated for, and survive, conditions which were fatal less than half a century ago.

With a few notable exceptions, it would seem that most of the people on this board are doing better than the average person 50 years ago. You wouldn't know it from some of the posts, however.