Radioactive Communist Zombies

Who's Going to be Paying Taxes Under Obama's Plan?

I missed President Obama's speech Tuesday (had a prior commitment and how dare he not plan his speeches around my schedule?) but apparently he claimed only 2% of Americans will be getting a tax hike (income tax, that is, we're all getting his carbon tax hike).

But according to the Wall Street Journal, it's going to be some trick to pay for all of Obama's ambitious programs.  Even a tax rate of 100% won't pay for Obama and the Spendocrat's plans:

A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

So where's Obama going to have to to for more money?  The Chinese?  More likely you.  Maybe Paul Krugman has the answer:

And even if fundamental health care reform brings costs under control, I at least find it hard to see how the federal government can meet its long-term obligations without some tax increases on the middle class. Whatever politicians may say now, there’s probably a value-added tax in our future.

(Value-added taxes, or VAT, are very destructive to economies, especially high tech ones. And it's a tax everyone pays.)

Mr. Obama thinks he can still do it with just taxes on the "rich" but it's not going to work as the WSJ points out:

Mr. Obama is of course counting on an economic recovery. And he's also assuming along with the new liberal economic consensus that taxes don't matter to growth or job creation. The truth, though, is that they do. Small- and medium-sized businesses are the nation's primary employers, and lower individual tax rates have induced thousands of them to shift from filing under the corporate tax system to the individual system, often as limited liability companies or Subchapter S corporations. The Tax Foundation calculates that merely restoring the higher, Clinton-era tax rates on the top two brackets would hit 45% to 55% of small-business income, depending on how inclusively "small business" is defined. These owners will find a way to declare less taxable income.

So small businesses will not grow, will not employ more people, will not expand the economy as Mr. Obama hopes.

Better get ready for higher taxes no matter what tax bracket you are in.

EPA: Farms Must Control Dust

So while the EPA is planning on destroying the industrial economy by regulating carbon, it's also taking aim at farming.  Apparently there's now a "dust standard" that farming regularly violates.  After all, if you're going to be plowing, planting, and harvesting things that grow in dirt, you're going to be creating dust.  The Baltimore Sun reports:

Under rules imposed in 2006, rural areas would be kept to the same standards as urban areas for what the Environmental Protection Agency calls "coarse particulate matter" in the air.

The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council had petitioned the government to provide an exemption to farmers. They argued that evidence of harm caused by dust in rural areas hasn't been determined.

But the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Tuesday that the EPA had already provided the evidence necessary to determine farm dust "likely is not safe."

So farmers have to keep dust from leaving their property.  Which is, of course, impossible.

This is, again, part of the Clean Air Act (CAA) under which the EPA wants to regulate carbon dioxide.  As for regulating dust, the act requires that every five years the EPA to "review the newest scientific data" and ramp up enforcement of whatever some scientist finds might be harmful.

EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said the changes are not just a matter of regulating dust. They serve the public's well-being and, regardless of whether someone lives in a rural or urban area, the threshold for unsafe levels of dust in the air must remain consistent nationally.

"It's health-based," she said. "We don't look at a particular industry. The goal is to protect public health."

When counties reach "non-attainment" levels, it becomes a state's responsibility to bring the county back into acceptable levels.

But how do you stop farming from creating dust?

Once again the EPA is going to regulate the economy, this time the rural farming economy, to meet some impossible standard a bureaucrat pulled out of his. . . . ear.  The EPA is out of control.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has no intention of getting it under control.  Rather the opposite. 

The Great Depression

I've been neglecting my blog again, I know.  And it's because I'm too damned depressed.  Everything Barack Obama and the Spendocrats are doing is exactly completely, totally absolutely the wrong blanking thing.

One, spending trillions of dollars that we don't have.  I'm not a deficit hawk, but that's back when deficits were a mere half a trillion dollars, not (as the Obama Administration says) 1.75 trillion or (as others say) 2 trillion.  This is money that will have to be paid back by someone, with interest.  We are bankrupting our children's futures for a hope that massive government spending will "jolt" the economy.  But, stimulus doesn't stimulate because the money has to come out of the economy as either taxes or debt.  And the private sector could use that money to build the economy with much greater efficiency than the government.

Two, raising taxes.  Obama says he'll only raise taxes on the "wealthy" or those who make more than $250,000 per year.  Well, not really (see number three below), but let's take him at his word.  First of all, a lot of those "wealthy" are small business owners who's business profits are paid as personal taxes (single proprietor ships and S-corporations).  This of course will make it so those businesses cannot expand, hire more people, or make the economy grow.  Also, next time you want a job, go see a poor person.  It won't work.  The wealthy are those that will invest their money in ways that will grow the economy (unless they bury their money in the back yard in Mason jars).  Unless you work for the government or a charity, you are working for someone trying to get rich or richer.  Anything that makes it harder to get rich will mean there will be less economy growth, less jobs created, and less employment (and less taxes paid).

Three, carbon taxes.  The Obama Administration is calling it "climate revenue" from cap and trade lest the "t-word" come out.  But their anti-carbon scheme is a tax on everyone who uses energy which is . . . gee, everybody?  This new tax will, according to today's Wall Street Journal will raise "$78.7 billion in new tax revenue in 2012 from its cap-and-trade program. The pot of cash grows to $237 billion through 2014, and at least $646 billion through 2019."  It is expected that "climate revenue" will become the sixth largest source of revenue for the government after personal and corporate income taxes, payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) and excise taxes.  This new tax will only suck money from the economy that could be used to grow it, instead.

So maybe the Great Depression I should be worried about isn't my case of the blues, but the one this country will be going through for the next four years (at least).       

Civil Disobedence to "Stop" Global Warming Climate Change

Dr. James Hansen, who never met a global warming statistic he didn't want to exaggerate, is calling for "civil disobedience" to stop global warming climate change.  Fox News reports (links original):

In a video on capitolclimateaction.org, Dr. James Hansen is seen urging Americans to "take a stand on global warming" during the March 2 protest at the Capitol Power Plant in Southeast Washington, D.C.

"We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet," says Hansen, who has likened coal-fired power plants to "factories of death" and claims he was muzzled by the Bush administration when he warned of drastic climate changes.

"What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet. The only practical way to solve the problem is to phase out the biggest source of carbon — and that's coal."

Some are saying Dr. Hansen is violating the law with his political rhetoric.

But critics say Hansen's latest call to action blurs the line between astronomer and activist and may violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity.

And some say he's just nuts:

"Oh my goodness," one of Hansen's former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, told FOXNews.com when informed of the video. "I'm not surprised ... The fact that Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here is sad because he's a good fellow."

Theon, a former senior NASA atmospheric scientist, rebuked Hansen last month in a letter to the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, saying Hansen had violated NASA's official position on climate forecasting without sufficient evidence and embarrassed the agency by airing his claims before Congress in 1988.

"Why he has not been fired I do not understand," Theon said. "As a civil servant, you can't participate in calling for a public demonstration. You may be able to participate as a private citizen, but when you go on the Internet and call for people to break the law, that's a problem."

Dr. Hansen, who has "admitted errors" before (or fudged data).  And some say he's don't it more than once:

[Chris] Horner claimed that Hansen doctored temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe.

But all in the name of killing an economy already in intensive care in the name of some theory that man might be causing climate change (even though the climate changed before man existed and will change for the next few billion years the earth will be around).

 

I'll Miss America

The deficit for this year alone is somewhere between $1.5 and $2 trillion depending on who you talk to.  And now the Democrats Spendocrats in the House have just approved another $410 billion in "domestic spending" (Read: Pork).  That brings the spending spree to $1.2 trillion in, what, two weeks is it? 

Remember, they've already blown through anything taxes will cover with TARP and the "stimulus" package so every dime the government spends extra has to come out of debt, probably paid to the Chinese (there's a reason why Hillary didn't bring up human rights with our bankers). 

Meanwhile, Barack Obama wants to come up with $634 billion in taxes and "savings" to pay for universal health care.  And he's calling for quick "regulation reform" of Wall Street:

The economy cannot sustain "21st century markets with 20th century regulations," Obama told reporters after the meeting with lawmakers.

Right, with 19th century socialism.

Trying to turn the U.S. in to France seems to be the goal of the Obama Administration.  

So we're going to be France, owned by the Chinese.  Don't know if I should be learning French or Chinese. 

Almost Time for 24

Long day, and nothing really to blog about other than the overall state of the country.  Thomas Sowell does a much better job than I could here.

If you're not depressed, you're not paying attention (to paraphrase the old bumper sticker).

At least I can forget about it for a while and watch 24, skipping through the commercials on the DVR.  One interesting thing, the guy who told Sean that Dubuku's (or however you spell it) girlfriend had been turned knew too much.  How did he know that the FBI had met with her for 45 minutes?  Another 24 plot hole, or did someone tell him?  And the only people who knew were Larry, Chloe, Jack, and Renee.  And I don't think it was Chloe or Jack.

Okay, time to go watch this week's episode.   

Plug-in Hybrids Not Living up to Claimed Mileage

Apparently, in a desire to be green, the city of Seattle bought some plug-in hybrid cars to use, expecting to get 100 mpg or more.  But as Danny Westneat reports, it didn't happen:

Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.

It's what 14 plug-in Priuses averaged after driving a total of 17,636 miles.

So what happened?  Well, the cars were driven in the real world, for starters:

"We're not putting these cars on a test track," said Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Light, which has three of the plug-ins. "We've got them on hills and wet streets, in the cold and the hot, on short trips and long — all the conditions that real people deal with every day."

Okay, so 51 mpg isn't bad compared to a normal car.  But you have to figure out the savings from gasoline saved versus the extra cost of the car over, oh, a Honda Fit.

The problem is the extra battery costs $10,000. At 51 mpg, the plug-in saves only about $200 in gas costs annually compared to a regular Prius in the city's fleet (and that's at $4 a gallon.) It would take 50 years to make back the cost of the extra battery.

And all this doesn't count in the cost of the electricity, either.

So in the real world, plug-in hybrids don't work as advertised and aren't worth the money.  Unless you really want to polish those green credentials with $10,000 extra cash.

Obama to Cut Defict in Half by 2012, He Says

From the Washington Post:

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

Yeah, good luck with that.

As you can see from the graph in this post of mine, even cut in half, Obama's will have merely $1 trillion deficits and that will still be more than double anything Bush or Reagan ever had.

And I really doubt there's one trillion dollars available for the federal government in ending the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan and taking the earnings of those who create wealth in this nation.  As the Post describes:

Obama also seeks to increase tax collections, mainly by making good on his promise to eliminate some of the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. While the budget would keep the breaks that benefit middle-income families, it would eliminate them for wealthy taxpayers, defined as families earning more than $250,000 a year. Those tax breaks would be permitted to expire on schedule in 2011. That means the top tax rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, the tax on capital gains would jump to 20 percent from 15 percent for wealthy filers and the tax on estates worth more than $3.5 million would be maintained at the current rate of 45 percent.

Apparently Obama doesn't realize what those tax rates will do to the economy.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, he's doing exactly the wrong thing and will most likely prolong this recession until he stops (or is out of office).  Raising taxes during a recession, even if only on the "rich," will only slow the economy.

Can only hope people start blaming him for the recession as it deepens and widens on his watch.

More Killer Robots

We've talked about military robots before.  Now a study is warning that we need to program military robots with ethics lest they, in the "Terminator" scenario, turn on their masters.  As the Times of London reports (links original):

Autonomous military robots that will fight future wars must be programmed to live by a strict warrior code or the world risks untold atrocities at their steely hands.

The stark warning – which includes discussion of a Terminator-style scenario in which robots turn on their human masters – is issued in a hefty report funded by and prepared for the US Navy’s high-tech and secretive Office of Naval Research.

The report says we need to be careful about programming and testing military robots and give them "battlefield ethics." 

“There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do,” Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report, said. “Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when . . . programs could be written and understood by a single person.” The reality, Dr Lin said, was that modern programs included millions of lines of code and were written by teams of programmers, none of whom knew the entire program: accordingly, no individual could accurately predict how the various portions of large programs would interact without extensive testing in the field – an option that may either be unavailable or deliberately sidestepped by the designers of fighting robots.

The solution, he suggests, is to mix rules-based programming with a period of “learning” the rights and wrongs of warfare.

Or we might be facing robots killing humans after deciding we're too much a bother.

Feeling Stimulated?

If the stock market is any indication, Americans are not feeling stimulated by the Obama administration nor the stimulus package.  And the stock market is a good indication of where people who pay attention to the economy think the economy is headed.

Since Obama's inauguration day, the stock market has dropped 10.5% as represented by this graph:

 

So did the stimulus package help?  No, it made things worse.  In the four days since Tuesday (when Obama signed the "stimulus") the stock market has dropped 4%, as shown in this graph (the market was closed Monday):

 

 If the road to prosperity is the Obama Administration and the stimulus, the stock market doesn't agree.