"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" - Albert Camus

Friday, September 10, 2010

Political Ramifications Of Bush Tax Cuts

Little did G.W. Bush realized that the temporary tax cuts he pushed for in 2001 and 2003 would become the final undoing of Democrat prospects in 2010 elections. 

With unemployment rate still at its recession high (though we are told time after time that the recession is techically over) and projected to top out at 10.1% in the coming months, Democrats of all stripes are running for the hills as they should.  It must be a terrifying prospect to face constituents during an election year when you have voted for over $2 trillion dollars in highly unpopular spending bills like the Stimulus and Obamacare - especially when one has exacerbated the economic woes exponentially and the other sown the seeds of a single payer (Britain like) healthcare system that will eventually destroy the best healthcare delivery system in the world unless somehow undone. 

The voters are beyond angry as witnessed by the 10+% advantage the Republicans enjoy in the congressional generic ballot - yes the same RINO Republicans (in most cases) who have betrayed their party's principles and paid for it in 2006 elections.  As further evidence of bad news, polls clearly and consistently show that president and his policies are nothing but a liabilty for any Democrat candidate regardless of their tenure in Congress.

The latest progressive politicians that have publically asked for all of Bush tax cuts to be extended include Senators Nelson, Bayh, Conrad, and Lieberman (I) as well as over 4 dozen House of representatives members who come from red states and almost all Democrat challengers to Republican held seats.  Those conveying the inappropriateness of letting any of the tax cuts expire in the precarious situation that the U.S. economy is in includes the recently resigned Obama OMB director Peter Orszag and former Obama Council of Economic Advisors Chairperson Christina Romer (though political Romer differs in her views than the economist, which is no surprise for anyone who knows the intellectual dishonesty of progressives). 

That leaves only the hardened leftists like the president and long discredited economist Paul Krugman among a relatively few awoved socialist politicians and academicians who believe that the Bush tax cuts for the richest (those making over $250,000) should be eliminated.  Now, it is hard for a thinking person, who knows that most of those 'rich' are really small businesses who file under personal income tax schedule, to understand how anyone could not see the contractionary effect of raising taxes on the producers/job creators of the society, but don't lose sight of the fact that ideologically driven motivations of the President and his ilk defy all common sense.

Thus, I view the political ramifications of Bush cuts among the few that has benefitted the conservative/libertarian cause.

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