Memo to America: Raising Taxes on Rich People Doesn't Work

This is for all the silly, foolish people who buy into Barack Obama's rhetoric that raising taxes on "millionnaires and billionaires" will somehow solve all our problems. 

'T'wont work. Never has, never will. Case in point: rich people leaving Britain to avoid paying higher taxes. Said one conservative member of Parliament, “Labour’s ideological tax hike led to a tax cull of millionaires. Far from raising funds, it actually cost the UK £7 billion in lost tax revenue." See article in The Telegraph, below, for details.

Is anyone surprised? Are you kidding me? Of course they're going to leave! People with wealth are too smart to put up with this nonsense. There's nothing intrinsically altruistic about the wealthy. They've worked too hard to just lie down and let the government waltz in and pick their pockets. The Warren Buffets can pontificate all night long until the veins in their necks bulge about how they would gladly pay higher rates, but don't you believe them, not for one blue state second. These are the ones who can hide their money or just up and leave town, if they want. That's what's happening in California. People are high-tailing it out of town. Going to places like Texas. Even those phony-baloney Hollywood liberals are taking their business out of state. And why shouldn't they? California is robbing us blind. It's the bottom line that matters. End of story. 

Raise taxes on the rich? And for what, by the way? To what end? Come on, smarty pants. Let's look at this situation logically. Even if Barack Obama got what he wanted and was able to raise the tax rates on those nasty millionnaires and billionaires, the amount of revenue generated would fund the government for eight days. In fact, you could take every nasty millionaire and billionaire's last dime and it wouldn't make a dent in the national debt. Barack Obama has outspent all previous presidents in his first term than any of them did in two terms. And he's not stopping. He won't even discuss spending cuts as we approach this so-called fiscal cliff. This is absurd! This is a sham! This is mockery!

Nevertheless, there he is, folks, your wonderful president, your hero, your savior, Mr. Barack Obama himself, out on the campaign trail three weeks after the election, blaming the nasty Republicans for our fiscal problems and calling on everyone to support his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy. 

Yoo hoo, Mr. President, the election's over. It's time to stop demagoguing and start governing. 

Foolish, silly people, you're so proud of your little vote, aren't you? I hold every single last one of you, 18-years old on up, for what you've done, for your gullibility, for falling for this charlatan once again. Because if Barack Obama is good at anything, he's good at campaigning. Yes, we get it, we who lost, we get it. We were beaten by the best. He's a terrible president, but he's a master campaigner. He's an amazing community organizer (I say this with disdain). He's brilliant at dissembling, demonizing, propagandizing, so brilliant that most people--most well-meaning, genuinely nice people, people I'm related to even--have no idea that they're being manipulated, that they were played for fools. Not a clue. 

Doesn't matter, though. A vote is a vote, elections have consequences, and now we're stuck, and we're all going to have to live with this decision to give this narcissistic, arrogant, divisive, charlatan another four years.

"Two-Thirds of Millionnaires Left Britain to Avoid 50% Tax Rate" (Robert Winnett, The Telegraph)

Four More Years

Because...

Last night I drank an entire bottle of wine, sitting in the kitchen listening to Mitt Romney lose the election one swing state at a time.

This morning, I have a headache.

Here are just a few random thoughts.

·      I have some very specific reasons for voting for Mitt Romney. Do Obama supporters have theirs? I'm working on a theory that most people, if asked, could not give their reasons. Some day I'd like to ask people who voted for Obama in 2012 to fill in the blank: I voted for Obama because_____________. I am not a betting person, but I'd be willing to bet real dollars that they could not complete the sentence. Theirs, I'd wager, was an emotional vote, not a rational, reason-based vote. Real dollars. 

·      Some people celebrate Obama’s win the way fans cheer for their team. But  we are not two teams. We are America. What if Obama’s re-election is not good for America?

·      One of my liberal friends on Facebook basically suggested I get a life (take up a musical instrument?) Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard says something similar. In saying “good riddance” to the 2012 election, he writes, “What’s worrisome, perhaps only to me, is that too many people take politics too seriously. More than a few folks I’ve run into in recent years are obsessed. They’re political junkies in the non-metaphorical sense. They’re addicted. It’s fine to be concerned about this year’s presidential race. It’s enormously important. And it’s smart to keep up with the news. But there’s a limit. Politics isn’t life." 

·      Another of my Facebook friends nudges me toward God: “Society will continue to run. God’s purposes will continue whether it includes a strong America or a weak one. Society will continue in its disordered love to make attachments and idols about them. We will continue to believe lies. But if there is any value in the Incarnation, it is the grace of God stepping into our lives to turn our heart toward Him and say, In spite of it all, You are enough.”

·      OK, so I admit, I'm a political junkie. And I also admit my faith took a bit of a beating last night. My good Christian friends posted or texted things like, “God is still on the throne.” While I don’t think I stopped believing this, I do admit to being found muttering last night, somewhat despondently, “So I guess you have turned your face away from America after all.”

·      Of all the people who voted to re-elect Barack Obama, it’s the twenty-somethings that irk me more than anything. Some of their Facebook postings (“Congratulations, Mr. President! “We Won!” “Get over it, Obama-haters!”), for example, suggest they they don't have a clue about what just happened. To these young people, all I can say is, Be careful what you wish for. You just re-elected a man to office who has nothing to show for his first term and who offered no new ideas about how things would be different during his second. This is now your America.

·      More than anything else about this election, the thing that has distressed me the most is the media. Those who voted to re-elect Obama did so, I believe, for two reasons: the lies they heard (about Republicans in general and Mitt Romney in particular) and the truth they didn’t hear (about the Obama administration in general and Barack Obama in particular). Both of these factors can be traced to a corrupt (yes, I did say corrupt) and left-leaning (yes, provable, proven) media who did everything in their power, including concealing information (yes, provable) in order to protect from scrutiny and/or promote Obama. This aspect of the 2012 election, and also the 2008 election, is what frightens and disturbs me the most, especially since the twenty-somethings who are jubilant this morning don't seem to appreciate how dangerous this is. 

·      Is America doomed? I guess I'm thinking so. I have many sunny and optimistic friends. But I’m not so optimistic. Civilizations rise, civilizations fall. America has been a dominant player on the world stage for a long time. It appears, however, to be in decline, militarily and economically. There was an extremely good chance that Mitt Romney could have altered the trajectory of this decline. As a Christian, I prayed for him to be given this chance. But, to be honest, as a Christian, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that these prayers weren’t answered. After all, there is a Biblical time-table for human history, and America’s place in this history is looking more and more like a footnote, especially with Barack Obama at the helm, steering us leftward, possibly into obscurity.

Those are my thoughts for now. Here are some additional musings from the conservative punditry:

Michael Barone: One America tends to be traditionally religious, personally charitable, appreciative of entrepreneurs, and suspicious of government. The other tends to be secular or only mildly religious, less charitable, skeptical of business, and supportive of government as an instrument to advance liberal causes . . . there are going to be many Americans profoundly unhappy with the result of this election, whichever way it goes. Those on the losing side will be especially angry with those whose candidate won . . . Now the two Americas disagree, sharply. Government decisions enthuse one and enrage the other. The election may be over, but the two Americas are still not on speaking terms.

Jedidiah Bila: I always hear "We are a center-right country." No. A center-right country does not elect Barack Obama twice. Time to re-evaluate."

Mark Steyn: A lot of the telly chatter is about how Republicans don’t get the shifting demographics: America is becoming more of a “brown country,” as Kirsten Powers put it on Fox. But New Hampshire is overwhelmingly white — and the GOP still blew it. The fact is a lot of pasty, Caucasian, non-immigrant Americans have also “shifted,” and are very comfortable with Big Government, entitlements, micro-regulation, Obamacare and all the rest — and not much concerned with how or if it’s paid for.

Kevin D. Williamson: The lessons of Ohio are that Barack Obama is a skillful demagogue, that the ancients were wise to number envy among the deadly sins, and that offering Americans a check is a more fruitful political strategy than offering them the opportunity to take control of and responsibility for their own lives.