Daily Archives: 9 February 2012

Fairness

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Stephen Moore, of The Wall Street Journal, asks some questions….

about taxes

Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country’s income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation….

Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?

Is it fair that nearly four out of 10 American households now pay no federal income tax at all—a number that has risen every year under Mr. Obama?

about labor

Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?

Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don’t work?

Is it fair that thousands of workers won’t have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?

Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?

Is it fair that Boeing, a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?

about individual responsibility

Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can’t afford to repay?

Is it fair that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—who never voted for Mr. Obama—will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?

Contradictions

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In an energy policy article in The Daily Caller, Deneen Borelli raises some interesting disconnects between President Obama’s rhetoric and his actions.  She points out the failures engendered by his contradictions:

Despite his class-war rhetoric, Obama’s command-and-control energy policy drains our budget to reward crony capitalists such as General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt and his fellow presidential jobs panel member and billionaire venture capitalist John Doerr.

Ironically, the Obama war on fossil fuels hurts hard-working Americans because high energy prices have a disproportional impact on middle- and lower-income households and jeopardizes U.S. manufacturing.

And although Obama has called for fairness and a level playing field, the mandates and subsidies for renewable energy he favors would stifle competition by picking winners and losers.”

Then she gets specific.

on energy

Obama’s call for more oil and gas drilling in his State of the Union address was meant to deflect attention away from his failure to approve TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama’s energy policy excludes coal. Coal now provides approximately 45 percent of our electricity, but regulations generated by the Obama EPA are imposing significant costs on utilities, costs that are forcing some power plants to close and others to spend billions of dollars in order to comply. Those compliance costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity prices.

Fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — provide roughly 85 percent of America’s energy needs. Yet, despite the failure of companies such as Solyndra, Obama is doubling down on renewable energy by calling for a national renewable energy mandate, forcing the Department of Defense to buy enough renewable energy to power a quarter of a million homes

on jobs

The president’s refusal to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, at a cost of an estimated 20,000 jobs….