Some thoughts - Tragedy, Comedy, Tragedy, ?

A cursitory review of recent proposed legislation from the House of Representatives can only lead to one conclusion, when Republicans talk about lowering regulations against business they are talking about gutting environmental regulations, more political code.

 

The 2012 national comedy! One of the key platforms of Governor Romney is the overturning of Obama’s key legislation.  Unfortunately for Mr. Romney this is virtually the same piece of legislation that he passed while holding the only public office he ever held as Governor of Massachusetts.  In fact Obama modeled Obamacare on Romneycare.  SO Romney and Obama are the ONLY American politicians who have passed comprehensive healthcare reform and that major legislation is the main object of contention between these 2 candidates.  It’s a little hard to believe.  

 

The Legend Romney Hood explained - many clients are quite surprised when I tell them that approximately 25% of American tax filers get more back from the IRS then they paid in, yes that is correct, taxpayers for whom the IRS sends refunds in excess of what was withheld from their W-2’s.  For these tax filers and the corrupt politicians that support them the IRS has become a de facto Federal welfare agency.  Most Americans find this astounding, on top of the 50% + of American’s who do not pay any income tax, we now find that half of them actually have a negative tax liability.

Now how does this relate to the Presidents Legend of Romney Hood?  It turns out that Mr. Romney has proposed an end to the refundable tax credits (the earned income tax credit, college tuition credits, dependent child credit, etc) that allow these fliers to have a negative tax liability.  This proposition is being cast as a tax increase by the President.  OK, let’s review once again the pretzel logic in the legend of Romney Hood, Mr. Romney proposes that we end the role of IRS as federal welfare agency, that no taxpayer get a refund greater then what they paid in.  The filer never paid taxes in the first place, in fact had a negative tax liability and now that he or she is not going to receive this unwarranted “refund” any longer is being cast as a tax increase in the current presidential race. 
Can anyone doubt that by the end of this campaign will have seen these 2 midget’s and their sundry super PAC’s will duke it out and reach heretofore unseen depths of falsehoods, obfuscation, corruption, cynicism, crony capitalism and pandering in their race to be leader of the free world.

 

I think Paul Ryan has the ability to be a real game changer; we will see how Romney embraces and uses Representative Ryan as we move forward

Revisiting Afghanistan

I thought it might be instructive to revisit Afghanistan as we sit on the verge of (perhaps) electing a new president who feels our efforts there need to be increased. 

Even after our “withdrawal” we continue to spend millions of dollars a day in nation building (let me be clear, the primary job the military should ALWAYS be the destruction of nations NOT the “building” of them).  We apparently continue to spend money and blood in Afghanistan because a small group of international criminals (al-Qaeda) used that as a base of operations over a decade ago.  The US military estimates that there may be a little as 50 al-Qaeda members currently in Afghanistan, yet we are still there.  While America itself is in need of “nation building” we have spent over $443 billion dollars in Afghanistan since 2001, and it has cost over 1800 American lives and almost 16K in American injuries all to make sure that this small band of international criminals don’t set up shop there in the future.  The Pew Trust reports that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed more to growth in U.S. debt than any other policy since 2001 except the Bush tax cuts.

We fight al-Qaeda like they are a standing army when they are really more like the mafia.  They can set up shop instantly, practically anywhere in the World (including inside the U.S.) and fighting them like they are a traditional enemy is inefficient and stupid.  On the other hand it plays very nicely into Washington’s culture of corporate welfare and crony capitalism and I suspect that beyond the insane Republican sub-culture of the neo-cons that is sadly, often what Afghanistan and the “war on terror” is really about, pork and lining the pockets of friends and supporters.

As much as I would love to “hope” that Mr. Obama’s 52^nd birthday be spent out of public office I live in real fear of Mr. Romney and his fleet of neo-cons sailing into the White House.