Early 2011 Observations

I read that the IRS is blaming Congress for not acting quickly enough in renewing the Bush tax cuts. Apparently now they are unprepared for itemized filings during this upcoming tax season. This seems odd for two reasons. First, this is a major bureaucracy in charge of collecting money for the government. For them to not be able rollback to a legacy version of their software platform would be unbelievable if it were not a government entity.

What is more interesting about this problem is that the Bush tax cuts extended through calendar year 2010. That’s the year we’re filing for in 2011, so there should not have been any changes in place. It seems very likely the IRS does not know what year it is.

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Once again the United States is closing in on the “Debt Ceiling” which Democrats will no doubt want to raise to a new unprecedented and previously inconceivable level. Didn’t they just do that 6 months ago? How could they spend a trillion dollars that fast? Democrats for ya. So why even bother with a debt ceiling if we just raise it every time we get close? In the NFL they have a salary cap – if the Patriots or Giants want to bring on everyone else’s expensive free agents do we just let them violate the cap? Of course not – that’s how a responsible private enterprise works. But again this is government, where rules are made to be broken.

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The new Republican-controlled House is planning to send up a repeal of Obamacare before the State of the Union. This is a silly and futile act. It’s not good enough for them to do things based solely on principle. Furthermore, all they can really hope to accomplish is to undermine the funding for the law. It amazes me how naïve our side can be. If funding for Obamacare is cut off – whether it be by legislative act or judicial decree - the law still obligates providers of health care to maintain coverage and services. When the money runs out the private sector will be forced under. It’s a catch-22. This plays right into the hands of the single-payer advocates!

We can’t win this now, and I further suggest we can only make things worse by meddling until we get the Presidency back. Can’t Republicans wait 2 years?

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ABC has threatened Republicans over the likely slate of upcoming investigations of the Obama Administration. California Republican Darrell Issa will run the Oversight Committee and has promised to bring Holder and others to task for their overt partisanship and dubious enforcement of the law. In response, a major media network has basically said, “You better not do that or else…” The message is pretty clear – if Republicans dare to expose Obama and his cronies as the partisan villains they are the “Free Press” will skewer them even worse than they already do. I imagine the ABC battle cry will be something like “The Spirit of 1996.” It’s the old trick - if you can’t beat ‘em, lie about ‘em in the press.

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I still have heard nothing about the fate of Bradley Manning. He is a traitor, this should be easy, but it will be anything but. On a related story, Obama says he is all for gays serving in the military, but is still against gay marriage, although he fully supports civil unions. I cannot fathom the depth of his inner turmoil – he must not sleep a wink. Has anyone ever straddled the big throbbing gay issue so precariously? But he has to do it to prolong alienating the few socially-conservative democrats, including Latino Catholics. You might say he knows what side his buns are buttered on.

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Now that Scott Walker is our Governor and he has solid Republican majorities in both houses, why not abolish taxes on business altogether? As conservatives we believe that prosperity is limited by government, and Wisconsin’s reputation as a high-tax state with an overbearing bureaucracy is not doing anyone any favors. It stands to reason that if we can become an ideal state in which to do business by not punishing companies for operating here we can solve our unemployment issue, and by virtue of increase of personal incomes resolve budget issues as well.

Maybe we don’t abolish all taxes on business, but at least be competitive! I have high hopes for Scott Walker – I think we all do. It may be too much to ask, but it would nice if he got a fair chance in Madison.

It occurs to me that the conservative model of nurturing investment and private enterprise is an organic process. There is inherent risk that the investment may not yield results, in which case the lower tax burden translates into diminished returns, but the laws of nature are on our side. The liberal philosophy of demanding fruit from the seed is clearly unsustainable.

Have a prosperous and healthy 2011!