I didn’t realize how nice and quiet the political scene has been until the freak show returned to DC today.

Claiming there’s only one President at a time, Mr. Obama refused to comment on the Israel-Gaza conflict while centrally planning the entire US economy with his new team. There were moments the members of his team seemed to look a bit confused, as if thinking “Does our new boss have any clue what the f*** he is doing?”

He soon answered the unspoken question by naming Leon Panetta as the new head of the CIA. It’s the year of the clueless in Washington! Heck, we’ve been safe for over 7 years, why not play roulette with the lives of Americans?

It’s starting to look like the change we were waiting for is defined as “The same old faces we’ve seen in Washington for decades, only this time we’re playing musical jobs!”

But there are a few new faces. Harry Reid defiantly came out in defense of Al Franken’s vote stealing while vowing to stop Roland Burris (whose appointment may be embarrassing but is still legal) from being sworn in.

Yet some things never change. Like Nancy Pelosi’s face, no matter what emotion she attempts to convey.

News is breaking that Barack Obama will consider a $310 billion tax cut as part of the stimulus package he’s looking to implement. That sounds like a good thing, right? But it may all be smoke and mirrors….just another way to spread the wealth, only with bipartisan support.

Mr. Obama knows the Republicans will balk at any big spending package so it sounds like he’s throwing them a bone in the form of “tax cuts”. According to the Wall Street Journal some of these tax cuts will go to those who pay no income tax.

The largest piece of the overall tax relief would involve cuts for people who pay income taxes or who claim the earned-income credit. It would serve as a down payment on the “Making Work Pay” proposal Mr. Obama outlined during his election campaign, providing a credit to offset Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes of $500 per individual or $1,000 per family.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama said he would phase out a similar tax-credit proposal at around $200,000 per household, but aides said they haven’t settled on an income cap for the latest proposal. This part of the plan is similar to a bipartisan initiative launched in early 2008, which sent out checks worth $131 billion. (Emphasis Mine) Read full story.

Republicans should demand more detail before supporting these so called tax cuts. First of all, Social Security and Medicare weren’t designed as welfare systems, they were billed as insurance for our old age. (Basically it’s a big Ponzi scheme that depends on the young paying into the system to pay for the old. If today’s workers stop paying the payroll tax won’t we simply be making those programs more insolvent?)

Furthermore, not everyone paying Social Security and Medicare payroll tax pays income tax. By giving those individuals a tax cut what they’re really doing is redistributing wealth, just as Obama promised to do. Without knowing the income cap for these tax breaks there’s no way of knowing if they’ll have any stimulative effect on the economy.

Unless you’re Barack Obama. Obama can have things any which way he wants without serious questions from most of the media. When it comes to the economy, he told Congress he wants a stimulus package on his desk for him to sign on day 1. As if spending along the lines of a trillion of our dollars is a simple task that needs no deliberation.

But when it comes to showing support for Israel, mum’s the word. That’s when we hear “There’s only one President at a time.” Does the president-elect support Israel’s right to defend itself? Will he continue the US support of Israel? We don’t know and neither does Israel. It would be nice if he could send some sort of signal.

The bookies give Sarah Palin a slight edge over Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee to win the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination. But to win the nomination, she’d have to run. Unless Obama’s job performance is so abysmal that the media and most Americans stop driking Kool Aid, that’s not likely. As pointed out by Allahpundit at HotAir.com:

We’ve been over this. Barring a catastrophic first term, The One will be heavily favored for reelection, leading young’uns like Jindal and Palin to bow out and bide their time until 2016. (Even Palinistas as devout as Coulter agree that she should wait, as do you guys.) Mitt might run since he’d be 69 and facing a crowded, charismatic field in 2016, but unless he stands a real chance to win, I figure he’ll pass too in the interest of avoiding further expense and aggravation. Result: A Huckabee-Pawlenty snoozefest, leading grassroots conservatives to tear at their hair in anguish and boredom until some dark horse like Mark Sanford jumps in to make things moderately more interesting. Exit question one: Can you feel the excitement? Exit question two: Might Mitt run, conceivably, out of some sense of party loyalty even if he thought he was likely to lose?

As we found out in 2008, the economy is always an issue and having a candidate that actually understands economics would be winning strategy. But hey, what do I know?

Not everyone believes the economy’s going to get better in 2009. Noriel Roubini thinks we’re in for a prolonged recession. 2008 could end up looking like a good year. Shudder!

Move over Paris, there’s a new celebrity in town. Barack Obama’s the biggest celebrity in the world and the tabloids love him. We can expect more swooning and drooling from the media in 2009.

Don’t expect the media to suddenly become honest or unbiased in 2009. They’ll continue their slanted reporting of the Israel/Hamas conflict and Barack Obama will continue with his free pass from the media. There’s no doubt Cuba’s fifty years of oppression and tyranny will be overlooked while myths and outright lies will make the news.

Newspapers will jump aboard the bailout bandwagon. How can Obama and the Dems not fork over our money to them after all the free advertising?

Cheers!

There’s not a single tax liberals don’t like. Now that Americans are finally enjoying a little relief at the gas pump, Thomas Friedman believes, naturally, that Barack Obama should increase federal taxes on gasoline.

How many times do we have to see this play before we admit that it always ends the same way?

Which play? The one where gasoline prices go up, pressure rises for more fuel-efficient cars, then gasoline prices fall and the pressure for low-mileage vehicles vanishes, consumers stop buying those cars, the oil producers celebrate, we remain addicted to oil and prices gradually go up again, petro-dictators get rich, we lose. I’ve already seen this play three times in my life. Trust me: It always ends the same way - badly.

So I could only cringe when reading this article from CNNMoney.com on Dec. 22: “After nearly a year of flagging sales, low gas prices and fat incentives are re-igniting America’s taste for big vehicles. Trucks and SUVs will outsell cars in December … something that hasn’t happened since February. Meanwhile, the forecast finds that sales of hybrid vehicles are expected to be way down.”

Have a nice day. It’s morning again - in Saudi Arabia. Read the rest of the whiny rant.

Like Mr. Friedman, I dislike enriching America’s enemies. But I do like my SUV and my husband likes his truck. Trucks and SUV’s are popular and profitable for the auto makers. Americans like big, safe vehicles. We like big, powerful engines. We don’t like little death-traps on wheels.

Rather than sensible proposals, like allowing drilling and exploration here at home, liberals want to direct behavoir through taxation. Mr. Friedman whined because he doesn’t think Barack Obama will impose this new tax on the American people. I’m not so sure, as I remember Mr. Obama saying he’d like to see the price of gas increase. He only wanted it to happen slowly, so the sheep, I mean voters, wouldn’t notice.

Labor unions gave nearly half a billion dollars to Democrats to give them complete control of the federal government. They certainly expect something in return. It isn’t the squeakiest wheel anymore, it’s the deepest pockets and the unions have deep pockets and Democrats know it.

I have to wonder if union members are happy knowing their hard earned dues are being funnelled to Democrat candidates? Do they get a secret ballot to vote on where their union dues are spent? Ha! Just kidding! Not that they shouldn’t have a say, but I really doubt they do.

Workers should have the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to unionize or not. How would you like a thug showing up at your door, saying you had to sign a card right there in front of him? Sounds intimidating, doesn’t it? If they do that to enough workers, voila! You’re in a union with someone else taking a chunk out of your check.

Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, argues that the entitlement mentality taking over our great nation could destroy our economy. I tend to agree. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street Journal was on the kitchen island and my seven year old noticed a picture of Sponge Bob on the front page of the Marketplace section. The headline was “SpongeBob Weeps Over Cable Spat”. It looks like Nickelodeon, along with quite a few other channels, will be dumped by Time Warner while we’re all ringing in the new year.

My seven year old proceeded to read about it and informed my four year old of the news. A few minutes later he ran to me crying, telling me there won’t be any more SpongeBob on TV.

I’d be more than happy to pay an extra quarter a month so my little guy can watch SpongeBob on television a few days a week. During this holiday season, instead of making spirits bright Time Warner is making children cry.

Bah Humbug!

1/1/09 Update: The clock struck 12 and Nick stayed on so all is good for the kids. A last minute deal between Time Warner and Viacom kept SpongeBob alive for Time Warner customers.

A liberal pundit was on TV earlier arguing that the free market is dead and we’re going to see government take over of more and more sectors of our economy. He said it’s what the people want and he knows we want this because Americans voted for Barack Obama.

The problem with his theory is that most people didn’t know what they were voting for, other than hope and change.

Barack Obama has promised an overhaul of the US health care system. Unfortunately, this will lead to rationing of care and huge federal debt to be paid for by our children and grandchildren. I’m sure that isn’t what people voted for.

Sure, Americans want the best medical care at the lowest possible price. But Americans also tend to be unrealistic and willing to believe promises that can’t be kept. As Thomas Sowell pointed out, politicians are good at promising the impossible. Delivery is another story.

Just look at the economy. We’re in a recession. Many economists believe recessions, in the long run, are necessary.  We can’t live in an overinflated bubble forever, especially when the bubble grew out of control due to government interference in the economy. Bubbles burst. The economy is cyclical, it has its ups and its downs. Corrections are part of the natural cycle.  But that’s not the sort of thing the people want to hear.

So we get politicians promising to print money to create jobs and save the economy. They promise to give us things that are expensive, like health care and a monthly check. So what if we already do that for retirees, the disabled and the impoverished. They aren’t going to get votes by promising to continue an existing entitlement. That wouldn’t win over any new voters.

What they fail to tell the people is that the money they spend has to come from somewhere. They can’t keep printing money and raising taxes without serious economic consequences. But those inconvenient little truths don’t fit the hope and change narrative.

Sooner or later the people will figure out what they voted for. And they aren’t going to like it. Thankfully, like the economy, politics is cyclical. Let’s hope this political cycle is a short one.

It’s the time of year when people like to focus on the positive. Things aren’t all bad!

Although politicians are behind the 8 ball on the issue, it looks like 2008 was the year Global Warming was Disproved. Isn’t that great news? We’re not all going to fry!

We may be in for a few rough years, but Americans are resilient. We’ve survived all the (failed) socialist programs brought to us by the political class. We’ll survive this, too.

If you simply need a good chuckle, Burt Prelutsky provides it with Wit And Wisdom Through The Ages. My favorite was G. Gordon Liddy describing a liberal as “someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.”

I hope you can find a silver lining and have a happy, safe and healthy New Year!

A new poll shows that 60% of New Yorkers are opposed to Governor Paterson’s proposed obesity tax on sugary sodas. That would be good news, but New Yorkers are fickle when it comes to tax hikes.

Many New Yorkers are elated that the governor is considering a tax increase on the wealthy. They’re even rejoicing. The Working Families party believes “It’s economically and morally sound to require wealthy New Yorkers to pay more in order to prevent even deeper cuts to schoolchildren, the elderly and the disabled.”

It’s too bad the Post Standard didn’t include comments from anyone who finds increasing taxes on one person to pay for benefits of another person is economically and morally unsound.

But neither proposal may be necessary because Senator Chuck Schumer has come to the rescue! He came to Albany today promising $18 billion in pork for New York from Obama’s planned stimulus package. These liberal Democrats are so generous with other people’s money!

I’m sure all of you who live in states with sound budgets and controlled spending are thrilled to be part of a union where you have the privlege of paying for states like mine, with no fiscal discipline. But at least we New Yorkers can say California’s worse.

Did you hear that Chrysler bought full page ads in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and USA Today to thank Americans for the bailout? I heard that the total for the ads would have come to between $500,000 and $600,000!

Can you believe the complete nerve and stupidity of these people? They took our money and turned around to use it to rub our faces in it! It’s no wonder Chrysler needed a bailout. There’s no voice of sanity in their management to tell them this ad buy was a bad idea.

I say “Boycott Chrysler!”

David Axelrod, aide to Barack Obama, appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and was asked about President Bush’s tax cuts. Mr. Axelrod answered “And whether it, it, it expires or whether we repeal it a little bit early we’ll determine later, but it’s going to go.  It has to go.”

In the video above Stephen Moore from the Wall Street Journal argues that tax receipts went up after President Bush lowered taxes (and also John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan) because the tax cuts spurred economic expansion.

President Bush’s tax cuts lowered taxes for every taxpayer, not just the rich. So when Barack Obama allows the Bush tax cuts to expire he will be raising taxes on every tax payer. That’s not a wise thing to do during a recessession. As Mr. Moore said, we need tax policies that make poor people rich, not rich people poor.

Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.

2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan. Read the rest of this entry »

While American families are tightening their belts across the land, the federal government is printing and spending money as if there’s no tomorrow. And we can expect the incoming administration to ramp up spending to levels no living soul has ever witnessed.

Sunday morning the Syracuse Post Standard printed excerpts from an interview with newly elected congressman Dan Maffei (D-NY). (As of this writing the article is not available online.) Mr. Maffei is worried about the Syracuse Symphony and other non-profit organizations. I have nothing against the symphony, rumor has it that my late grandfather played violin in in the Syracuse Symphony. Maffei’s comment that left me concerned was: Read the rest of this entry »