What does Rick Santorum have in common with Tony Raines; besides both having no shot to win (I couldn't find any on Pinny or 5dimes
for Raines) in their respective races… both are involved with the
Daytona 500 this weekend. Slick Rick has purchased a ride on the hood of Tony
Raines #26 car in hopes for a little recognition. I guess when you are
having trouble piecing together campaign money; a good bang for your
buck strategy would be to spend a little precious cake on the hood of a
car that has no shot in hell to win the race. Who the hell is his
campaign manager? HR Pufnstuf? Maybe, he is hoping for a crash? Wouldn’t that be
ironic? Santorums sponsored ride crashing much like his presidential
hopes will be when people finally start to understand this sociopath.
This poor guy will be the butt of many jokes this week and maybe
that’s a good thing for Santorum. Other then religious zealots and some
backwards Tea Partiers who obviously don’t grasp the economic aspect
(the only aspect) of the Tea Party, Santorum is a laughing stock. A
little time away from some of the monologues each night might not be a bad thing? Slick Rick is a guy who wants to grab the wheel from Tony Raines clutches and
bring our country back to the century it was invented in. So, in reality
it’s actually a good move made by Santorum to side up with some fly by
night driver with no chance like himself. It shows he at least has a
sense of humor.
Remember the movie Dumb & Dumber? When Lloyd and Harry "found" a suitcase with a few million dollars and they spent it on anything and everything and then replaced each item they bought with a piece of paper... an IOU?
Now, Harry and Lloyd have no money, they, like our government, are broke losers (I was referring to the movie actors as losers but this will play here as well). How do you suppose they pay it back? They would borrow it? But from whom? What if they borrowed from the people that now hold the IOU's, you know, the people whom they "borrowed from" initially? Lets keep this scenario for an exercise later, bare with me until then.
With the stroke of a pen, President Obama extended the
payroll tax cut this past Wednesday, putting between $20-$2000 dollars back
into the pockets of working Americans each week. While I firmly believe cutting taxes is
always a good measure, I have to question this particular measure, as how to pay
for it; just doesn’t make sense.
It was the same logic of George Bush Jr who cut taxes,
slashing revenue and dramatically expanded government. Sure, it’s more money
back in peoples pocket but it’s going to be much more expensive down the road
in the form of interest payments on the accumulation of budget deficits that
end up making the public debt liability in the national debt.
When you cut taxes, it has to come from somewhere. So,
anytime you cut taxes and do not make cuts in existing programs or services to
pay for them its not really a tax cut, it’s a loan at interest with dollars that are becoming worthless by the day. To call it a tax cut, while
already in a 1.3 Trillion projected hole without cutting a single thing from even
the deficit, further expanding the budget deficit is counterintuitive if not
just flat out a lie. Unlike the Bush and the Republican favored (and flawed theory)
of supply side economics, coupled with increase spending, the means to pay for
this tax cut comes right out of the coffers of… Social Security.
"Obama believes that the first place to look for ways to strengthen
Social Security is the payroll tax system. Currently, the Social
Security payroll tax applies to only the first $97,500 a worker makes.
Obama supports increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered by
Social Security and he will work with Congress and the American people
to choose a payroll tax reform package that will keep Social Security
solvent for at least the next half century"
The reason we had a surplus in Social Security was a payrolltax
raise (the opposite of what’s going on here with Obama’s tax cut) by
Ronald Regan. I’m not a big fan of “the Gipper” like so many are, that call themselves
a fiscal conservative (because he wasn’t one). However, he knew baby boomers
where going to retire and need to collect from a diminished population numeric wise;
thus a surplus was needed. He then, proceeded to raid it in 1987 as did George Bush Sr following him and lest not forget Bill Clinton. Hell, this goes back to LBJ in the sixties if you want to see who is culpable for raiding social security.
According to the Social Security Administration, as of 2010, Social Security should have had a 2.6 Trillion dollar surplus, but I find that odd? How can the federal government put into its budget each year a bill for Social Security when the FICA tax is already being removed from your paycheck to pay for Social Security? Is this not the essence of double taxation? So, where is this surplus? It’s been raided and spent and
replaced with IOU’s (bonds) with things like wars in Afghanistan/Iraq and
other toys that politicians want - but don’t want to pay for… like this tax
cut. In other words, it's a gigantic slush fund used by politicians to keep their feet from the fire.
(Image by MIT OpenCourseWare.)
In 2005 George W even had the chutzpah to admit it... while raiding it!!!
“There is no trust fund, just IOUs that I saw firsthand that
future generations will pay—will pay for either in higher taxes, or reduced
benefits, or cuts to other critical government programs.”
It’s rather humorous to me that this is the only measure
where you will find bi-partisan support in such a partisan political scheme
that is Washington these days. Its also why I write my blog, to show this type of fraudulent partisan logic, as if there was really a difference on the important issues. Why the bi-partisan support? Because
its politically expedient for both parties.
The Democrats can say they are
helping out Joe-six pack with more money in his pocket, while the Republicans
can hold up their oath to Grover Norquist. The best part of this tax cut is it
comes out of an existing program that so many people & elected leaders from both “sides”
rail on for not being solvent. We have heard about the entitlement tsunami that
is coming… I wonder why?
Now, both parties can appease to their constituents so that they
can be reelected; totally disregarding what the cost/benefit factor is. The "rich" (anyone over 110K), who won’t
collect social security anyway, can get some of their money back. Joe-six pack
can break even now, to make up for the rising gas prices and other commodities and maybe even save spend a few dollars (literally a few) at Wal-Mart buying Chinese
trinkets or Snuggies (never mind, they are via China as well). It’s a win-win. I
guess.
But don’t tell that to Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
“I never thought I would have to see the day when a Democratic president of
the United States
and a Democratic vice president would agree to put Social Security in this kind
of jeopardy. Never did I ever imagine a Democratic president would be the beginning of
the unraveling of Social Security.”
Now think back to the beginning with the movie exercise. We, are the person that the suitcase belongs to. Harry and Lloyd are your local congressman and President and Senator... not only do they borrow the money, but they do so at interest or whats called the coupon, through bonds (IOU's). How can we have an outlay (and subsequent budget deficit and then subsequent accumulating national debt) for social security in the budget each year with FICA coming out of our checks to pay for it?
Because of this budget deficit you will also incur a bill that will be an interest payment on the principal of the national debt, which again, is an accumulation of every budget deficit in our history. This is simply because you are spending more then you're collecting in revenue. So, unlike Harry and Lloyd, we are not just going to borrow from the suitcase owner to payback the IOU's we replaced the initial money with. No, the government takes it one step further and promises to pay back those IOU's with future obligations, ie taxes and the circular logic continues. This will go on forever if drastic measures are not taken to stop this, but without strict terms limits, I cant see that happening. After-all, intergovernmental debt doesn't have to be paid back, right? In the words of Lloyd Christmas:
Its as good as money sir, those are IOU's... go ahead and count it, every cent is accounted for.
Add another log (or two) to the fire. India,
Russia, Turkey,
China, Japan,
South Korea and
now Pakistan
and Australia are
all continuing to trade with Iran
despite US
sanctions passed on through on December
31, 2011. A similar set of sanctions was set in place by the
European Union on January 23 of this year. This resulted in a move by Tehran
to stop sending crude to both Brittan and France.
Iran, who is a member of both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic
Energy Agency feel they should be
able to pursue Nuclear power for domestic purposes, whether that is true or not
is anyone guess and is totally irrelevant, as far as we are concerned here in the states.
As we have heard ad nauseam, the sanctions were put on Iran
based on their developing nuclear weapons program going online and posing a
threat to destabilize the region. Iran
says it’s for peace, the US
doesn’t believe them and because of that, the west led by the US,
continues to escalate toothless sanctions on Iran.
Iran has taken a progressive approach to combating sanctions
from the West, thus the new sanctions put in place on New Years eve 2011 come
across as a either a gross miscalculation by our intelligence (where have we
seen this movie before) or our State Department (again, same movie, same script…
different actors) in dealing with the supposed weakness or Iran; its inability
to make enough Gasoline.
Tehran has used
multiple tools to soften the blow of sanctions well in advance. First, there
was the 2007 Gasoline Rationing Plan put
into place by President Ahmadinejad. Three years later, in 2010, came a
massive reduction of subsidies on gasoline, resulting in a quadrupling of price overnight across the entire
nation of Iran, prices went from 0.38 cents per gallon to $1.44.
All the while, Iran's dearth of refining capacity (that the
sanctions were thought to have been targeting) and the need to import 40% of
their gasoline was being addressed and dramatic changes were being implemented.
Iran has spent and will continue to spend billions
on modernizing their current refineries while putting into motion the building
of seven new refineries. As a contrast, the US hasn’t built a new refinery in 36 years
(that plays a big role at what you pay at the pump).
Here we have Iran looking to build seven refineries in the
next few years. This will not only allow them to supply their own oil, it was
also give them more economic freedom as they will not have to subcontract out
the refinery process of raw crude to other gulf nations. Iran went from importing 40% of its gas five
years ago to now just 5% coming way of importation.
With all this
development and concentration on energy independence; Iran is posed to be a net exporter of Gasoline by 2015. That is a rather dramatic turnaround in just a few years time and a
testament to the Iranian’s diligence and prudence on addressing their achilles
heal.
Let’s get back to
that script and movie theme once again. It was the buildup in 2002 to the Iraq invasion that the US (after multiple sanctions on Iraq and refusing anything outside of the fact
that Iraq had WMD’s) went to war to hold up UN sanctions despite that fact that the
UN never approved of the war in the first place. Then, shortly after the
invasion, the script was flipped to "giving the citizens democracy" or "freeing them from a
big mean dictator". Or was it that "he supported terrorists"? I can’t remember the order for
excuses as they were then, as they are now, in dealing with the new posterboy for dollar interference... totally irrelevant.
The bottom line is
this. We go after them with sanctions and they ultimately don’t work. There is
only one other alternative; Iran will get a taste of what both of its neighbors
got. Like Iraq, this isn’t about Nuclear weapons. It is about oil. However, above all, this is about protecting the petrodollar. Iran has made all the right moves and either we
are severely underestimating them or it’s just a big dog and pony show for the
inevitable. Either way, regardless if its Obama or Romney or Santorum… Iran is next.
Santorum has and will always be a big government "compassionate"
conservative and his record clearly shows that. He will never shrink
government. Because Santorum thinks that government should be involved within every aspect of our lives. Not
only the handling of our taxes and defense of our contracts and borders but he also favors ADDED government power in the business of defense and regulation of morality.
Anytime the government gets involved or makes any move its costs the tax payer. Government as we know creates nothing, all they can do is tax & spend (borrow & spend is more like it). So, with Santorum getting heat this week in an add put out by Ron Paul, in which it calls the former Pennsylvania Senator a "Fake" Conservative, he had to come out and show he wasnt fake and that he was genuine; as his clear rise in the polls would indicate.
Could there be a better time for the Vest to continue to prove his
conservative credentials then the last debate of the primary season last
night in Arizona? I dont think so, and CNN clearly understood what was
going on as it didn't take
long for John King of CNN to fire a 85mph fastball - belt high for Dr
Paul. Within minutes, King asked Dr Paul why his ad this week was calling Santorum "fake"? Ron Paul simply said:
"Because he's a fake".
The good congressman then went on a bit of a rant, on how exactly he thought the Vest was fake and then Santorum's rebuttal was bunch of fluff and rankings from all sorts of conservative organizations supposedly ranking Santorum as some type of fiscal hawk (sic). It was a little later in the debate where Santorum outed himself. Here is the text:
SANTORUM: As Congressman Paul knows, I opposed Title X funding. I've
always opposed Title X funding, but it's included in a large
appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things,
including...
(BOOING)
... the funding for the National Institutes of Health, the funding
for Health and Human Services and a whole bunch of other departments.
It's a multi-billion-dollar bill.
What I did, because Title X was always pushed through, I did
something that no one else did. Congressman Paul didn't. I said, well,
if you're going to have Title X funding, then we're going to create
something called Title XX, which is going to provide funding for
abstinence-based programs, so at least we'll have an opportunity to
provide programs that actually work in -- in keeping children from being
sexually active instead of facilitating children from being sexually
active. And I pushed Title XX to -- to accomplish that goal.
So while, yes, I -- I admit I voted for large appropriation bills and
there were things in there I didn't like, things in there I did, but
when it came to this issue, I proactively stepped forward and said that
we need to do something at least to counterbalance it, A; B, I would say
that I've always been very public that, as president of the United
States, I will defund Planned Parenthood; I will not sign any
appropriation bill that funds Planned Parenthood.
Here, you have someone who is self described as "the most fiscally conservative senator in the Congress in the -- in the 12 years that I was there", who was also rated "high" in ratings from both the National Taxpayers Union as well as Citizens Against Government Waste actually admitting he was in favor of creating new spending. Not only did he help pass legislation worth billions that he (allegedly) didn't like, he trumps that, with actually admitting to adding more spending for new programs to counter the spending of existing programs he doesn't like. My heads hurts just typing that. Lets try this....
Santorum doesn't like Title X (planned parenthood) but he passes it anyway as a rider on another bill worth billions he does like but because he isn't satisfied with the spending of Title X, he creates (spends) Title XX to satisfy his quest for divine mortality be offsetting Title X.
Nope, this still makes no sense and that is the point. It cant make sense because my logical fiscal conservative brain doesnt compute that as fiscally conservative. That my friends is the antithesis of a fiscal conservative. How does spending new money to offset already spent money create anything but more debt and bigger government? It doesn't. And again... that is the point. That is the very definition of a big government whore... thats what Santorum is, and the Tea Party will line up to support him?
