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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (61716)	1/28/2013 10:45:59 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Neville Obama? Please don't let him succeed.

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (61716)	2/16/2013 12:15:07 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Respond to of 71588

Obama's No-Growth State of the Union By Larry Kudlow - February 16, 2013 By far the best line from this week's dueling State of the Union messages came from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Nice and simple, and right to the point: "Presidents in both parties -- from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan -- have known that our free-enterprise economy is the source of our middle-class prosperity." That's a brilliant summary of pro-growth policies, on the supply-side and in a free-market context. Kennedy slashed tax rates and held down the budget. So did Ronald Reagan, who borrowed Kennedy's ideas: smaller government, lower tax-rate incentives and a thriving middle class, where the economic pie grows ever larger. In short, the Kennedy-Reagan policies were (SET ITAL) growth (END ITAL) policies. On the other hand, while President Obama quotes John F. Kennedy, he doesn't draw the dots to Kennedy's supply-side tax reforms. He does mention the phrase "tax reform," but he's not talking about lowering rates across the board while broadening the base to reduce deductions. Rather, he means penalizing companies that operate overseas and favoring companies at home that do what he wants them to do. Think of it as taxation as a form of industrial policy, replete with tax targeting. This is decidedly (SET ITAL) anti-(END ITAL) growth. And while opposing the sequester spending cut, Obama wants another $800 billion in taxes. More (SET ITAL) anti-(END ITAL) growth. Even with my low expectations for the speech, I had hoped President Obama would follow through on his occasional pledge for corporate tax reform. But he didn't. As a result, he missed a great growth opportunity. In fact, the president's State of the Union message had no growth elements at all. No growth message in a precarious economic recovery that is averaging 2 percent, grew only 1.4 percent last year and actually contracted in the fourth quarter. Where's the growth, Mr. President? He could have proposed lowering business tax rates from 35 percent (really 40 percent when you figure in the states) to 25 percent. He could have suggested that small businesses, now paying 40 percent, be made eligible to become C-corps, so that their tax rates also drop to 25 percent. He could have proposed repatriating roughly $1.5 trillion of corporate profits overseas, bringing them back home with a tax holiday, or even better, a permanently lower rate. Doing so would be like putting free money into our domestic economy for new investment and job creation. But he didn't do it. Instead, he wants to penalize companies operating overseas and somehow reward manufacturers who create jobs at home. But what exactly is a manufacturer? Define it, Mr. President. And does Obama actually think he can overturn the entire interrelated global economy? I don't think so. Former Obama economist Austan Goolsbee tells me again and again that the president is for a full-fledged tax reform. Well, you'd never know it from his latest State of the Union message. Instead of real tax reform, we got an incredible array of government intervention, spending and regulating. More green energy. More housing subsidies. Another $50 billion for infrastructure. A higher minimum wage. Manufacturing hubs. And more money for the education unions, where the compensation goes up and school scores go down. It was a liberal wish list that will expand the government reach deeper into the private economy and society. You know, if this stuff would have worked to promote growth over the past four years, well, it would have already worked. But obviously it hasn't worked, given the weakest recovery in modern times going back to 1947. Obama even threatened Congress with a new Energy Security Trust, funded by taxing oil and gas companies. He also pushed for climate-change legislation, along the lines of Lieberman-McCain cap-and-trade (and tax). Failing that, he'll unleash the EPA -- which means energy costs will skyrocket and the coal industry will be destroyed. And where was the Keystone pipeline, Mr. President? That's an easy growth- and job-creating measure. And what about high-tech drilling and fracking for natural gas on federal lands? Another easy growth- and job-creating policy. No, this was not a growth speech. This was a government-planning speech. And it was completely unlike the growth message delivered by Rubio. Here's one more from Rubio: "Raising taxes won't create private-sector jobs. And there's no realistic tax increase that could lower our deficits by almost $4 trillion. That's why I hope the president will abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy." Rubio delivered an economic primer on the quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. President Obama outlined his scheme for government collective action to transform the country into his liberal progressive vision. It's a wonderment that a freshman senator can get the story so right, while a second-term president can get it all wrong. Lawrence Kudlow is host of CNBC's The Kudlow Report and co-host of The Call. He is also a former Reagan economic advisor and a syndicated columnist. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics. realclearpolitics.com

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (61716)	2/24/2013 12:25:41 PM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Buck still stops with president Nolan Finley February 24, 2013 at 1:00 am Playing the crisis card won't work forever for President Barack Obama. At some point, the people will expect their leader to lead. And the president hasn't yet demonstrated the will to do so. Instead, he answers monumental moments such as the upcoming sequestration deadline with brinksmanship and blame-gaming. For now, the approach is working. A Pew/USA Today poll last week found decisively more voters blame congressional Republicans for the failures of Washington than fault the president. No shock, since a derelict media is still faithfully carrying the White House's message that the GOP is the obstacle. But the same survey indicates a growing weariness with these serial crises, and a strong desire for Congress and the president to resolve the debt and deficit. For that to happen, Obama must decide that fixing the economy is a higher priority than destroying the Republican Party. Last week, the president again played Henny Penny, warning Americans that the sky will fall if Republicans don't derail the automatic spending cuts Obama himself demanded to break an earlier stand-off. If the cuts kick in, the president claims, the poor will go hungry, thousands will be thrown out of work, the country will be left more vulnerable to attack. Those are the pronouncements of a campaigner, not a leader. A leader would have reassured the American people the economy won't collapse if Washington is forced to cut a meager 3 percent from discretionary spending, and empathized that for most households, such belt-tightening is routine. A corporate CEO would be laughed onto the street if he made the claim Obama did that in a $3.6 trillion budget, he can't find $85 billion in savings. Squeezing budgets is a basic job skill in private sector C-suites. Instead of threatening to fire first responders and defense workers, a leader would have offered, say, to chop the $24 billion in ineffective green energy subsidies. Or he might have set aside the $50 billion in new spending contained in his State of the Union address. A leader would have dusted off the two-year-old General Accounting Office report that identified $100 billion in duplicative and wasteful spending and sat down with the GOP to find the sequester savings there. But Obama is not a leader, and his goal is not to resolve the crisis; it's to exploit it. If he can maneuver Republicans into a position where they either have to accept the blame for whatever consequences the spending cuts bring or cave in to yet another tax hike, the harm done to the economy is a fair trade-off. The ploy will likely work once again, since Republicans seem more interested in keeping their seats than standing for their principles. But a leader can't shirk leadership forever. The buck still stops on the president's desk. Ultimately, Americans will hold President Obama accountable for the damage done on his watch. nfinley@detnews.com (313)222-2064 Follow Nolan Finley at detroitnews.com/finley, on Twitter at @nolanfinleydn and on Facebook at nolanfinleydetnews. detroitnews.com