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Welcome to Jarret Herrmann, a new contributor to PD!

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, campaigning in Florida detailed his plans to, among other things, colonize the moon and declare the celestial body the 51st state after building, and I believe this is the exact quote, “a sweet-awesome moon fort”. He then challenged the other candidates in the Florida debate by boldly declaring “Everything but the podium is lava.”

In all seriousness, this is a needless provocation towards another space race with infinitely higher stakes at a time when the U.S. can absolutely not afford to fund such an outlandish competition. Could we make it to the moon, and have a sustainable colony there by 2020? Absolutely! If we work together with our allies and, I’m not afraid to suggest this as a Socialist, share. Yes, it might seem tempting to point up at the sky and declare “Dibs” but it’s both childish and insane.
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President Obama has rejected plans to go forward with the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried unrefined heavy crude from Canada’s Alberta tar sands fields down to Louisiana, to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Incredibly enough, it was the U.S. State Department that made the “recommendation,” citing inadequate time for study of a more ecologically-acceptable pipeline route than the current one through Nebraska. The State Department, not the Department of Energy, the Interior, or the EPA. Go figure that one. (Some arcane technicality about crossing the 49th Parallel, or some such.)
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Republicans and conservatives alike have broadly assailed President Barack Obama’s economic policies that have centered on multiple spending packages intended to stimulate hand-picked sectors of the economy, including the automotive industry, construction, and green energy. Additionally, his policies have provided the unemployed with unprecedented time on the government dole, which some would consider being paid to not work. These policies have wildly failed by most measures, especially by the primary measurement set forth by the Obama administration–that unemployment would not exceed 8%. However, since the first full month of the Obama administration, unemployment has never been below 8%!

Now a prominent Republican has a plan of the same ilk. Rick Santorum would, like Barack Obama, create most favored industries. Any company that claims to “manufacture” would pay no income tax. Much like the current President’s policy of “stimulating”, Santorum’s plan is a de facto stimulus for manufacturing that would cause the limited amount of capital in the market to be used in a less efficient manner as it would be if all businesses were treated equally.

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A guest post from Edgar Harris.

Many of you may have heard of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). SOPA is a new bill that recently came out of the House Judiciary Committee. Its intent is obvious, to put a stop to online piracy. In particular SOPA “specifically targets foreign website primarily dedicated to illegal activity or foreign websites that market themselves as such”.

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Speechless?  Yeah, I was too when I first read the headline on The Daily Caller.  Apparently Cain has completely lost his mind since “suspending” his presidential campaign due to allegations of sexual harassment and a 13-year extramarital affair.

This is the very same Herman Cain that did not know whether he was for or against Obama’s Libya policy and falsely claimed that the Taliban was playing a role in Libya’s new government.  This is also the same guy that insisted that leaders don’t need to know anything about world affairs, they just need to provide clarity and a competent staff.  In an interview with The Daily Caller, Cain had this to say about the expertise needed to be Secretary of Defense:

You don’t need to have defense expertise.  You don’t even need to have military expertise.  You need to have leadership expertise.  That’s what I would bring to that job.

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A guest submission from Blythe McCuistion

For some it’s abortion. For others, it’s taxes. For others still, it same-sex marriage. Here’s the thing- Everyone has an issue.

My issue? Women’s Rights.

I support this by participating in multiple forms of activism and…by not voting people into office that hate me.

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Why the “War on Poverty” is losing and will always be a losing battle.

The headline above is the headline of an Obama Administration press release distributed only a few minutes.

I do not care what the issue is, the attitude and actions of legislating by executive order rather than by the process established by the Constitution is wrong. The President of the United States dictating laws from his desk are the actions of just that–a dictator.

Corporations physically conduct the tax paying transactions, however in reality, corporations do not pay taxes, their customers do. If the tax, or regulation, for that matter, bill increases, corporations do not absorb the cost out of the goodness of their hearts, they pass the increased cost along to their customers. A simple example that has recently effected a majority of Americans is the cost of Dodd-Frank. It limits the transaction cost of using a debit card to a level below the current market rate. This is why you are seeing free checking disappear at banks or a charge being assessed to have a debit card.

In reality, corporations exist for one purpose, and one purpose alone: To make money. That is it. If a corporation were not successful in making money, any other stated purpose for its existence would be irrelevant as it would cease to exist. Now watch as the Occupy Wall Street crowd is confronted with this fact.

Rick Perry has outlined today what some entities are referring to as a “flat tax”, but nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Perry’s plan is intended to gain the attention and fervor of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan while at the same time appeasing multiple groups.

The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate. The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents.

In other words, if you are part of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income taxes today, you still won’t pay any income taxes. Everyone whose effective tax rate is higher than 20 percent would take this option, which includes most of the top 20 percent of income earners and very few others. Additionally, every high income earner using the mortgage interest tax credit on a multi-million dollar jumbo loan will continue to benefit and drive the effective 20 percent no-so-flat tax rate down.

In other words, this plan would actually be a disaster for revenues and this is where Perry’s plan only begins to stumble.
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Mitt Romney has a plan. Herman Cain has a plan. Now Ron Paul has published a plan.

These plans are not entirely comparable, as each addresses different issues, so note that this post is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis. Rather, it is intended to show that the plans cannot necessarily be compared.

Romney’s plan is focused on supply side, or job creation, not federal spending or receipts (somewhat assuming the job creation helps to fix those issues).

Cain’s plan is intended to be revenue neutral, but does not reduce federal spending, leaving us at our current deficits and adds yet another means for the federal government to tax Americans (also somewhat assuming job creation through his simplified plan fixes the spending issues).

Paul’s plan cuts both revenue and spending, but more so spending to the point of a balanced budget within three years without addressing all the loopholes in the federal income tax while reducing the corporate tax to 15%, rather than 9% plus 9% sales tax (which may be seen or unseen in total retain prices, dependent upon price elasticity).

Despite the plans not being exactly comparable, if there would be one to select, it would be Paul’s plan. It is mathematically impossible to reduce our debt by increasing taxes (revenues). Paul’s plan addresses this through significant budget cuts. Additionally, I would much rather see a 15% corporate tax than yet another tax in the form of a national sales tax because the federal government rarely relinquishes any means of taxation.

Highlights of Paul’s plan are after the jump. Read more

This is where jealousy gets you, the attitude of “he has more stuff than me, so I should have some of his stuff”. These “protestors” are like a giant band of five year old children that think everything in life should be fair, despite any effort–or lack thereof–they might make in life. If these “protesters” would simply get off their hind quarters and provide something of value to these millionaires and billionaires they hate so much, the rich folks will pay them for the value provided, and not be (in their words) “hoarding” their wealth.

From CNN:

Occupy Wall Street is on the move … uptown.

Why uptown? Because that’s where the rich folks live!

Organizers are planning a march on Tuesday that will visit the homes of JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) CEO Jamie Dimon, billionaire David Koch, hedge fund honcho John Paulson, Howard Milstein, and News Corp (NWSA, Fortune 500) CEO Rupert Murdoch.

The millionaires and billionaires are being targeted for what event organizers called a “willingness to hoard wealth at the expense of the 99%.”

President Obama goes around telling lies like this one:

Well you know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher makes me a warrior for the working class, I’ll wear that charge as a badge of honor. Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade.

When in reality the middle class, or middle quintile, of earners under current law pay an effective (“effective means actual percentage of income paid in taxes, after all deductions) federal tax rate of 14.1% compared with the top 20% of earners paying 25.5% of income in taxes and the Warren Buffets of the world, or top 0.1% of earners, pay 30.4%

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has paid the state of Oregon a $5 million bonus for signing up so many of its citizens on food stamps!

While to President rails on the rich, he is also working to increase dependency on the government. Although both parties have long championed the purchase of votes through social programs, Obama seems to be taking class warfare to a new extreme as his method to keep himself and further bring his party into power.

Considering that a majority of American pay no federal income taxes, it is not hard to see where this is going. Maybe we should review how similar tactics worked out when another world leader referred to one class of his people as “bloodsuckers, vampires, and plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine.”

Let me ask you something. How well would a construction worker do his job if he was handed a scalpel for his daily responsibilities? Obviously not very well. This morning I was watching the construction going on across the street from my Foggy Bottom apartment and it reminded me of all the times I have heard we need to use a scalpel instead of a wrecking ball when it comes to our budget.
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Enjoy this guest post from an anonymous (for employment reasons) PD regular:

Each politician has an answer to our economic woes that attempts to lay out their own philosophy and set themselves apart from the crowd. President Obama is trying to create a program that will save his own job in 2012, while the Republican candidates are trying to contrast themselves with both their competitors and the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Some refuse to spend a penny more on government programs, others want to raise taxes to pay for their programs, still others abjectly refuse to raise anything that looks like a tax. All of this tinkering is well and good, but with the partisan divide in Washington and throughout the country, the country needs a vision of where it is going, not what they are wearing enroute. The details obviously must follow, but they mean nothing if leadership does not spell out the direction overall.

Here is what I would preach as a vision, with some simple fixes to get us going. The rest of the details can be handled after the initial steps and direction are laid out.

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Once again, it’s been proven that the Government can’t arbitrarily determine free-market winners and losers. In spite of Liberals’ desperate desire to push for a “Green” jobs-based economic recovery, ushering in a brave new era of a coal- and oil-free energy world where mankind lives in total harmony with nature and doesn’t so much as leave an intrusive footprint on the earth to evidence his existence, it just ain’t gonna be so.

Not yet, anyway.
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Who knew the famed game show host was also interested in politics?



Last night in the CNN Tea Party Debate (I am still trying to figure out how CNN and the Tea Party came together), Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry had a heated exchange about Perry’s attempted Executive Order to require all twelve year old girls in Texas to receive an HPV vaccination.

As most PD regulars know, I am no fan of Rick Perry and certainly not one to defend him, nor am I defending him now, but Bachmann made a couple of assertions that were blatantly false.

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Highlights from John Merline at Investor’s Business Daily:

When he says: We need to put politics aside and pass the three pending trade bills.

What he means is: I’ve been holding these bills up for more than two years, but I want to make it look like it’s the Republicans’ fault, and I know I can count on my lap dog media friends not to call me on this blatant falsehood.

When he says: We need to focus on jobs.

What he means is: After $830 billion in stimulus spending, an auto bailout, cash for clunkers and several other multibillion-dollar “jobs” bills, none of which has worked, we need to try more of the same, but please don’t call it a stimulus.

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