Foot in mouth
“Democrats are exactly two weeks away from taking back the White House and expanding their majorities in both houses of Congress. So what in the heck are they doing?” Tom Bevan writes in a blog at www.realclearpolitics.com.
“It’s like a comedy of errors out there. Joe Biden hands McCain a tailor-made argument on foreign policy. Barney Frank goes on the most-watched business channel in America and says he’s eager to raise taxes. Jack Murtha continues to insult members of his own district in Western Pennsylvania. John Kerry cracks wise about McCain’s incontinence,” Mr. Bevan said.
“If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Democrats were trying to screw things up on purpose. The political winds are still blowing heavily in Obama’s favor. McCain has been pressing his new line of attack on taxes for almost a week now, but it looks like it might be too little, too late.
“Unless, that is, the various luminaries in the Democratic Party continue to help McCain out. Democrats would be wise to remember that in situations like this, discretion is the better part of valor. Better yet, just keep the mouths shut until November 5.”
Camouflage
“An Obama presidency could have large implications for the immediate future of the United States — or perhaps it won’t,” Edward N. Luttwak writes at www.forbes.com.
“Obama is perceived as a black candidate — and that is why he has vehement support from white liberals who believe that the Obama presidency will wash away all white sins from slavery onward. But Obama is not the descendant of slaves and, culturally, has little in common with American blacks. He is the child of an ultra-liberal mother who rejected her white identity and America itself (she preferred Indonesia), and his views were further shaped by left-wing Chicago urban politics,” Mr. Luttwak said.
“In other words, Obama is actually a ’red’ candidate in favor of as much income redistribution as possible. In Europe, that would make him a Social Democrat. In the more conservative American context, that makes him a radical, but Obama has successfully concealed that. …
“The great irony is that because of the financial crisis and the economy’s slow-down, Obama’s camouflage of fiscal conservatism will become reality no matter what. Whoever is president will have to cut the federal budget, not increase it. As for redistribution by taxing the rich, that is mostly a fantasy. As soon as marginal tax rates increase, so does the perfectly legal use of tax avoidance through tax credits for alternative energy, environmental remedies, subsidized housing and more.”
Parsing ’tax cut’
“Now we know: 95 percent of Americans will get a ’tax cut’ under Barack Obama after all. Those on the receiving end of a check will include the estimated 44 percent of Americans who will owe no federal income taxes under his plan,” Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn writes.
“In most parts of America, getting money back on taxes you haven’t paid sounds a lot like welfare. Ah, say the Obama people, you forget: Even those who pay no income taxes pay payroll taxes for Social Security. Under the Obama plan, they say, these Americans would get an income tax credit up to $500 based on what they are paying into Social Security.
“Just two little questions: If people are going to get a tax refund based on what they pay into Social Security, then we’re not really talking about income-tax relief, are we? And if what we’re really talking about is payroll-tax relief, doesn’t that mean billions of dollars in lost revenue for a Social Security trust fund that is already badly underfinanced?
“Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago economic professor who serves as one of Sen. Obama’s top advisers, discussed these issues during a recent appearance on Fox News. There he stated that the answer to the first question is that these Americans are getting an income- tax rebate. And the answer to the second is that the money would not actually come out of Social Security.
“’You can’t just cut the payroll tax because that’s what funds Social Security,’ Mr. Goolsbee told Fox’s Shepard Smith. ’So if you tried to do that, you would undermine the Social Security Trust Fund.’
“Now, if you have been following this so far, you have learned that people who pay no income tax will get an income-tax refund. You have also learned that this check will represent relief for the payroll taxes these people do pay. And you have been assured that this rebate check won’t actually come out of payroll taxes, lest we harm Social Security.
“You have to admire the audacity,” Mr. McGurn said. “With one touch of the Obama magic, what otherwise would be described as taking money from Peter to pay Paul is now transformed into Paul’s tax relief. Where a tax cut for payroll taxes paid will not in fact come from payroll taxes. And where all these plans come together under the rhetorical umbrella of ’Making Work Pay.’”
Another New Deal?
“If the pundit class is right, Americans are in for another era of big government: the New Deal on steroids,” William J. Stuntz writes in the Weekly Standard.
“In presidential debates, hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed spending were tossed around the way mere billions once were. Within a year of our first half-trillion-dollar deficit, we might see our first — wait for it — trillion-dollar deficit. We seem on the verge of socializing both health care and the credit market,” said Mr. Stuntz, a law professor at Harvard.
“But I’m starting to wonder whether the commentary has it backwards. In a socialized credit market, the government displaces banks. Governments around the world, including our own, are trying desperately to do the opposite: to induce banks to displace the government as the system’s leading lender.
“Plus, nationalizing the banks would require permanent institutional change. Every bailout and rescue package that we’ve seen over the past few weeks, and every one we will see over the next few months — no matter who wins in November — screams ’temporary.’ The packages are designed to put lots of government money into the credit system now, and to remove as much of it as possible, as soon as possible. The New Dealers liked programs with a longer shelf life.
“As for more New Dealish issues like health care, I wouldn’t bet the ranch on radical change there either — even if November produces a Democratic sweep. The reason is simple: The government doesn’t have the money.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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