I’m not a hater, but what I deeply dislike is when politicians offer solutions that have little to do with the problems at hand. You see, I’m a problem solver. You should study a problem, and develop a solution that fixes the problem. Then implement the solution. It’s really not as tough as it sounds. And when you explain it like this, it doesn’t even sound very tough.

Example 1: In 2000, candidate George W. Bush ran on a platform of tax cuts. Why? Because at the time the federal government was running a surplus (though the surplus was created by social security payments, a topic we’ll get around to soon). Bush wanted to give this money back to the people who had earned it. Then to pull us out of recession, President Bush pushed through these very seem tax cuts and tax reforms in an effort to stimulate the economy.

Did the Bush administration study the recession and develop a solution for the problem? No. For the right, tax cuts are always the solution.

Example 2: Most liberals in this country want a single-payer, government run health care system. Is the cost of health care going up? Are people struggling to afford it? Are there problems with the current system? Then we need universal health care.

Did the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration study the problems with our health care system and develop a strategy to fix the problems? No. For the left, universal health care is always the solution. And since they couldn’t get universal health care, we got ObamaCare. A system designed to push us towards universal health care in the future.

So here we are today. Unemployment remains above 9%. Economic growth is stagnant at best. The economy appears headed towards a double dip recession. But the President has a plan. Stimulus four! Or is this stimulus five? Six? I’ve lost count.

For the President, he has two solutions looking for problems. How convenient.

One, the President wants to spend more money on creating jobs. He refuses to call it economic stimulus because that wouldn’t be politically popular. This time he wants to spend approximately $450 billion. How will he spend it? Sending money to the states to help pay for teachers. More infrastructure investment — though this time he wouldn’t call them shovel ready jobs. Extend unemployment benefits and the temporary payroll tax reductions. And some targeted tax cuts and tax credits for small businesses that will do little to create jobs.

How will he pay for it? That’s easy. Another solution looking for a problem. Tax increases. The administration has proposed that we’ll raise the $450 billion in tax revenues by cutting oil subsidies, and closing loopholes so that the rich “pay their fair share”.

Spend now and raise taxes later to pay for it. Solutions looking for problems.

The President has repeatedly said that his bill should be passed “now” because these are ideas that Democrats and Republicans have agreed upon in the past. And if the bill is not passed, it’s because the GOP is putting party before the economy.

He’s partially right. These are ideas that politicians have agreed upon and tried before. That doesn’t make them the right thing to do. Matter of fact, we have already tried most of these recommendations before. It was supposed to prevent us from exceeding 8% unemployment. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. We had the first stimulus of more than $800 billion. We’ve printed money with QE1 and QE2 to the tune of about $2.3 trillion. The President and Congress have already passed cuts in payroll taxes and extensions to unemployment. Through tax cuts, stimulus spending and monetary policy, we have injected trillions into the economy. It hasn’t worked. Keynesian economics has failed.

Why? Because it doesn’t fix the problems at hand.

We have long-term systemic problems that the President has failed to offer solutions to fix. And many of his own policies have actually exasperated these problems.

We badly need tax reform in this country. The President has discussed cutting loopholes on corporate taxes and lowering the corporate tax rate which is among the highest in the world, but has never actually submitted a plan that does this. His own deficit commission recommended this same approach for corporate AND personal incomes taxes — closing loopholes and lowering tax rates. The President won’t do it. Why? Because you can’t play the class warfare card if you fix the tax system.

We badly need entitlement reform in this country. The President has discussed that Medicare is a long-term financial problem that needs to be fixed. It’s unsustainable in its current form. He’s right. But where is his plan? I can’t find it. And he won’t even discuss fixing social security which is every bit as unsustainable as Medicare.

We badly need regulation reform in this country. The President has said that he agrees, even writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal discussing his plan to cut needless regulations. He named Cass Sunstein as his regulation czar, spent months evaluating government departments, and has come up with $10 billion in savings over the next five years. It has been estimated that government rules and regulations cost the economy approximately $1.75 trillion per year. Not to mention the mountains of new regulations being written by the EPA, and implemented by ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank banking reform legislation.

We badly need a balanced budget in this country. It’s not all Obama’s fault, but in the last few years our national debt has jumped by trillions of dollars, and our debt-to-GDP ratio has jumped to almost 100%. This is a bad number. Really bad. When you see the economies failing in Europe, that’s because their debt-to-GDP ratios have exceeded 100%. Spending is on an unsustainable path. The credit ratings agencies have warned that we must stabilize our debt-to-GDP, and that a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan is only a “good down payment”. Where is the administration’s plan to stabilize debt-to-GDP? I can’t find it.

Well, I’ll take that one back. The President’s debt commission put together a plan to stabilize debt-to-GDP. The administration just ignored it.

It has been estimated that big business has somewhere between $2-3 trillion sitting on the sidelines, much of it kept overseas. How do we get this money back in play in our own economy? By fixing our long-term systemic problems. Only then will this money be invested into our economy. And only then, will we once again be headed in the right direction.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office has a backlog of 700,000 applications. In 1990 it took approximately 18 months to process an application. Today it takes nearly three years to process an application. Clearly the system needs to be fixed. But will fixing the system really create jobs? Some experts think so. From IBD:

Sen. Patrick Leahy, co-sponsor of a reform bill, says it will create 200,000 jobs. Obama’s patent office head, David Kappos, told lawmakers “millions of jobs are lying in wait” for “a job creation engine (to be) turned loose.”

But no one knows for sure how many new jobs, if any, the reforms passed by the Senate and the House this year will create.

Leahy’s office could not give a source for the 200,000 number. And a White House backgrounder on patent reform only said it is “key to winning the future.”

Business economist Everett Ehrlich, in a 2009 analysis, found the reform could create 100,000 jobs over five years. Economists say the U.S. needs about 100,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with labor force growth.

A New York Times Op-Ed last year said cutting the patent office backlog could yield “at least 675,000 and as many as 2.25 million jobs,” but called this a guess.

“It’s hard to calculate the job effects of this reform,” said Philip Johnson, Johnson & Johnson’s chief intellectual property counsel and a reform backer. “Jobs related to patents are pervasive and there are a lot of ripple effects.”

But not everybody likes the proposed reforms:

But more patents don’t always mean more jobs. In the last three years, the U.S. has granted more than 620,000 patents, almost as many as in the booming 1980s.

“Will it help small businesses that create the most jobs? I think we would question that,” said Molly Brogan of the National Small Business Association.

Currently, the first person or firm to invent something is the rightful patent owner, even if someone else files for protection first. Under the reforms, the first person to file wins the patent.

Advocates say the reforms will remove uncertainties that undermine R&D efforts. The reforms also aim to cut the patent office backlog by protecting patent fees from congressional raids.

Critics say the “first to file” switch risks skewing patent awards toward large companies that tend not to be big job creators. They point to a 2009 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found Canada’s 1989 switch to “first to file” shifted “the ownership structure of patented inventions towards large corporations.”

Kappos says these concerns are unfounded. Of 3 million applications over seven years, he said, “Only one independent inventor’s filing would have received a different outcome under the first-inventor-to-file system.”

The Irony of Reform
While I certainly support the concept of speeding up and streamlining the patent process, I suspect these job projections are exaggerated. Patents are getting processed, and it’s hard to imagine that processing them faster will create millions of jobs that would not have existed otherwise. What I find ironic in this conversation is that many have complained that burdensome and unnecessary government regulations are one of the many things holding back our economy. And in this case, the administration appears to agree that streamlining the regulatory process would be a boon to the economy. It’s too bad they’re not willing to apply this approach across all government rules and regulations.

Now we’re starting to see Democrats discuss this as well. The far left has been critical for some time that the President hasn’t been liberal enough, though I’m not exactly sure what they expected. I think like many, including myself, they had misinterpreted what type of liberal the President would be. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Mortimer Zuckerman published a strong article on the President’s lack of leadership. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report, a publication that is largely considered left of center by those of us who follow media bias. I don’t know enough about Zuckerman to tell you if he’s a moderate or a liberal, but he supported the election of President Obama, and has given thousands to Democrats over the years. His op-ed is worth the read. Here are a few key parts of his article.

Zuckerman discusses the President’s position during the recent debt ceiling debate:

Since the president is the one who represents all of America and all Americans, the buck stops with him rather than with the Congress. It is the president’s job to offer a coherent program for the twin threats of a static economy and an unsustainable explosion of our debts and deficits. But the only core issue on which he took a clear position in the recent debt-ceiling negotiations was that it would have to include new taxes on the wealthy—and he didn’t even hold to that.

He made the politically tested and calculated statement that if you raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires you could solve the problem. This is not so. Even for those who support higher taxes on the wealthy, as I do, we must remember that we have an income tax system in which fully half the “taxpayers” pay no tax at all, and in which the variety of loopholes cries out for a real reform of the tax code. Even if the government instituted a 100% tax on both corporate profits and personal incomes above $250,000 per year, it would yield enough revenue to run the government for only six months. Why? Because under Mr. Obama’s presidency, government spending has swelled to 24% of GDP from 18%.

I have made similar arguments in the past about the need for significant tax reform, not just closing a few loopholes here and there as the President has recommended. Zuckerman continues to discuss the President’s lack of leadership in developing a plan to tackle our country’s problems:

Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission appointed by the president in 2010 to devise a plan for dealing with the fiscal crisis, put it well: “It is one that is completely predictable and from which there is no escape.” The president said he would stand by his commission, but as of today he’s remained silent on its many proposals, seemingly unable to speak honestly on the subject.

Zuckerman also discusses the disillusionment from the President’s supporters:

The president appears to consider himself immune from error and asserts the fault always lies elsewhere—be it in the opposition in Congress or the Japanese tsunami or in the failure of his audience to fully understand the wisdom and benefits of his proposals. But in politics, the failure of communication is invariably the fault of the communicator.

Many voters who supported him are no longer elated by the historic novelty of his candidacy and presidency. They hoped for a president who would be effective. Remember “Yes We Can”? Now many of his sharpest critics are his former supporters. Witness Bill Broyles, a one-time admirer who recently wrote in Newsweek that “Americans aren’t inspired by well-meaning weakness.” The president who first inspired with great speeches on red and blue America now seems to lack the ability to communicate any sense of resolve for a program, or any realization of the urgency of what might befall us. The teleprompter he almost always uses symbolizes and compounds his emotional distance from his audience.

We lack a coherent and muscular economic strategy, as Mr. Obama and his staff seem almost completely focused on his re-election. He should be spending most of his time on the nitty-gritty of the job instead of on fund raisers, bus tours and visits to diners, which essentially are in service of his political interests. Increasingly his solutions seem to boil down to Vote for Me.

Clearly the president will have to raise his game to win a second term, especially if the Republicans find a real candidate. Will voters be willing to give him another four years? Like many Americans who supported him, I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country.

Well written Mr. Zuckerman. You can read his entire op-ed here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have to admit that I often agree with Candidate Obama more than I agree with President Obama. Then Candidate Obama called President Bush “unpatriotic” and “irresponsible” for adding $4 trillion in debt during his eight years in office. I wouldn’t have called Bush unpatriotic, but agree that it was irresponsible. (On a side note, most of that deficit spending happened during Bush’s last two years in office while the Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and we were heading into the recession.)

And in case you’re not paying attention, the budget proposed by the White House earlier this year would have added nearly $10 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years (read this from The Hill).

And from CBS News:

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch.

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term.

But of course, none of this is President Obama’s fault. He continues to blame Bush. He blames the Republicans. He blames the Tea Party. He blames business. He blames the economy. He blames the banks. He blames the tsunami in Japan. He blames the Arab Spring. He blames the collapsing economies in Europe. Did I miss anyone?

I keep thinking back to the early Reagan years. He too inherited a mess from his predecessor. In November of 1982, unemployment stood at 10.8%. By the time the election rolled around just two years later, unemployment had dropped to 7.2%. Why? Because Reagan had a pro-business plan to grow the economy. And grow the economy he did.

We’re also getting rid of absurd and unnecessary paperwork requirements that waste time and money. We’re looking at the system as a whole to make sure we avoid excessive, inconsistent and redundant regulation. And finally, today I am directing federal agencies to do more to account for—and reduce—the burdens regulations may place on small businesses. Small firms drive growth and create most new jobs in this country. We need to make sure nothing stands in their way.

You can read his op-ed from January in the Wall Street Journal here.

Another more recent quote from President Obama:

What I have done — and this is unprecedented … is I’ve said to each agency … “look at regulations that are already on the books and if they don’t make sense, let’s get rid of them.”

This week the administration has announced its plan to update government rules and regulations. You can read this post on the White House’s website from Cass Sunstein, the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. According to Sunstein, “Over the next five years, the monetized savings from just a fraction of the reforms announced today are likely to exceed $10 billion.”

Now a few facts to put this into perspective. From Investors.com in an unrelated article from June:

Government regulations come with costs. Compliance is a heavy burden. During a news conference in which Hartzler spoke of “horror stories” caused by rules, she referred to a Small Business Administration estimate that says government regulations cost the economy more than $1.75 trillion a year, about 12% to 14% of GDP and half of what Washington is now spending — $3.456 trillion — in a year.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has been keeping up with federal regulation for years through its yearly “Ten Thousand Commandments” reports, believes the cost is closer to $1.8 trillion because agencies spend an estimated “$55.4 billion (on budget) to administer and police the regulatory enterprise.”

Let’s see, we make changes to save businesses $10 billion over the next five years, compared to the $8.75 trillion that will be spent on compliance. And that does not include the thousands of new rules and regulations that are still being written from ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank banking reforms.

And on a side note, PolitiFact gave the President a “Pants on Fire” for his claim that his approach to cutting red tape was “unprecedented”.

Who are “our enemies”? This is the post-racial president who was supposed to unite our country?

And here’s a quote from Jon Stewart during an interview with Terry Gross from NPR: “I would imagine, you know, Beck and Palin are easier punching bags, and we can think of it as, oh my God, I’m so scared if they take over. And you know what? We’ll be fine. You know, we had a civil war. Just – we’re not that fragile, and I think we always have to remember that people can be opponents, but not enemies. And there are enemies in the world. We just need the news media to help us delineate. And I think that’s where the failing is, that the culture of corruption that exists in the media doesn’t allow us to delineate between enemies and opponents. And that’s where we sort of fall into trouble.”

Can we elect Jon Stewart instead?

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
The majority of Americans want Washington to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I think the administration has the right approach on this one. They would prefer we settle this in Congress than in the courts. I’ve been a longtime supporter of gay rights, and hope that we’ll do the right thing by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But doing so through legislation in the Congress is a much better course of action than allowing our courts to make this decision for us. Now if only Congress would do the right thing.

Thoughts on Juan Williams and NPR
I’m a fan of NPR. I think in many respects they do a tremendous job with their reporting. I’ve listened to their morning broadcast on KPR literally thousands of times — almost every weekday morning for the last 15 years. As a former employer and business owner myself, I have had to hire and fire a lot of people over the years. Let me tell you, firing people sucks. I will defend NPR’s right to fire people all day long. But I want to make a couple points.

1. If you listen to the entire exchange between Juan Williams and Bill O’Reilly, it’s very clear (at least to me) that Williams is not an “islamophob”. He certainly said something that can easily be taken out of context without hearing the full exchange. And he said something that’s not “politically correct”. It made me cringe the first time I heard it. But I’ve seen enough of Williams over the years to be confident that he’s not prejudice against Muslims.

2. NPR did not fire Williams because he expressed an opinion (and technically, this was not an opinion, but a personal feeling). NPR has long allowed their reporters to express opinions in the media. CEO Vivian Schiller never bothered to speak with Williams directly before making her decision, or after.

3. Schiller’s public comments were reprehensible. Did you see her quote? Schiller told an audience in Atlanta on Thursday that Williams should have kept his comments about Muslims between “himself and his psychiatrist.” The feedback against Schiller and NPR has been substantial. Schiller later apologized for her comments, but never apologized to Williams directly. (This is called “cover your ass” in legalese.) As a former employer myself, I can tell you that this is complete incompetence. You should NEVER make a comment like this about a former employee.

4. So why was Williams fired? NPR has long disliked Williams’ association with Fox News. Williams, an admitted liberal, does not neatly fit into NPR’s perception of what a liberal should be. I suspect that NPR has long considered firing Williams, and was waiting for the right opportunity. And they quickly pounced on Williams’ “politically incorrect” statement.

5. People will argue that Williams is an islamophob and deserved to be fired for his comments. But when I see such broad support for Williams, I wonder who was really offended by his comments? I’ve seen support on the left from people such as Whoopi Goldberg and Bob Beckel. I’ve seen support on the right from people like Karl Rove. I’ve seen support from moderate Muslims. From Republicans and Democrats alike. And if the reactions among NPR’s own audience is any indication, then NPR has a big problem on their hands.

6. I’ve long believed that we should eliminate public funding for the media. We’ll see if this becomes the triggering point for defunding NPR and all publicly funded media.

Midterm Elections
I’ve been following the polls, but find it difficult to predict what the outcome will be in the upcoming election. So I’m not going to try. The general consensus is that Republicans stand a good chance of taking back the House, and a much slimmer chance of taking back the Senate. The polls attempt to determine “likely voters”, but with a midterm election, that’s a tough thing to determine. Dick Morris generally has a pretty keen insight into the polls and voter behavior. He predicted months ago that the Republicans would win huge gains this election cycle, and take back both the House and the Senate. We’ll see. That might prove to be hopeful thinking on his part. Morris has become a very outspoken critic of the left.

I wrote a post back in January about how Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts could help President Obama win a second term. My comments still seem relevant given the likelihood that Republicans will make gains in Congress. If you missed it the first time, you can read it here.

European Socialism
Are you watching the meltdown in Europe? This has been building for months. In France, the government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. And the unions are rioting in the streets. But it’s not just France. Several countries in Europe have all come to the same conclusion — that an entitlement society is financially unsustainable. Countries across Europe are enacting huge cuts in benefits and spending, and are eliminating hundreds (if not thousands) of government programs.

I’ve long considered writing a post explaining that socialism is a failed economic model, but just haven’t gotten around to it. It’s the road that the President and Congress have been taking us down these last two years. Though technically, state capitalism is a better description of what we’re becoming than socialism.

The same thing could happen here if Congress ever decides to restore fiscal discipline.

The Federal Budget
I find it incredibly irresponsible that Congress has failed to pass a budget for 2011. And it’s not just that they failed to pass a budget. They didn’t even attempt to pass a budget. Many have predicted that the Democrats will pass a budget after the midterm elections when they return in December. The thought being that passing a budget before the elections would only hurt the Democrats at the voter booth.

My take? I don’t expect them to pass a budget in December either.

Why? Because they don’t want to be on the hook for what comes next. Once a budget is passed, then we’ll compute the upcoming budget deficit for 2011. There is no way to avoid a budget deficit next year. As our national debt increases, we will soon be approaching our national debt ceiling again. (Last January I wrote about Congress raising the debt ceiling by $2 trillion in order to push that next increase beyond the 2010 midterm elections. I was right.)

So what happens next? Call my cynical, but I think this has been the plan all year. Let’s assume that the Republicans take back the House and the Senate. One of the first things they’ll have to do is pass a budget for 2011. And unless their initial budget includes SIGNIFICANT spending cuts (which the President will never sign), then Congress will soon be faced with another vote on the debt ceiling. There will be no way around raising the debt ceiling again.

The Democrats will then scream “See, they’re the same old Republicans”.

What comes next? Have you been watching Europe?

Our government has responsibilities. We may have differences of opinion about how BIG the role of government should be. But virtually all Americans agree that the government has to protect us (military and consumer protection) and help those of us who need a little help along the way (typically termed as welfare programs though they exist in many forms). To fulfill these responsibilities, the government requires money. And they generate money by taxing us.

So what is redistribution of wealth? That’s when the rich pay a higher rate in taxes (or pay a heavier tax burden) than the middle class or the poor to pay for programs that are mostly for the BENEFIT of the middle class and the poor.

When Redistribution of Wealth is Good
So why is redistribution of wealth good? Because we have more needs and more priorities for our federal government than what can be achieved without redistribution of wealth. The rich must bear a larger financial burden to fulfill these obligations. And they do. And truthfully, most of them do not complain about it. They understand that it is needed and required of them. (They DO complain when tax money is wasted, as they should. Or when the government is growing at an unsustainable rate. But that’s another discussion that’s not relevant here.)

We need to understand that almost EVERY federal expenditure IS redistribution of wealth.

Do you want to be able to mail a letter for $.44? Did you know that the USPS reported a $3.5 billion loss for its fiscal third quarter this year? Who makes up the difference? The rich through their taxes. Who pays for the military? Who pays for farm subsidies? Who pays for the research of green energies? Who pays for cancer research? The rich.

The Bush Tax Cuts
Even the republicans, who typically complain the most about redistribution of wealth, engage in it. Many (mostly on the left) criticize that the Bush Tax Cuts were “only for the rich”. The numbers do not back up this claim. As an example, in 2000, the top 20% of earners paid 81.2% of ALL income taxes. In 2004 (following Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts), the top 20% of earners paid 85.3% of all income taxes. Bush shifted a greater tax burden to the rich, and decreased the tax burden on the poor.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Yes, Bush cut tax rates on the rich. But he cut taxes on ALL Americans. And comparatively he reduced the tax burden on the lower 60% of wage earners. His tax policy removed the burden of income taxes from many Americans all together. The Bush Tax Cuts furthered the cause of redistribution of wealth.

(For more info on the Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts, read this from the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.)

When Redistribution of Wealth Becomes Bad
I have attempted to make the case that redistribution of wealth is not bad. That it is required if we’re to pay for the federal programs that are important. (Discussing the size and scope of these programs can wait for another day, and is another issue entirely.) The goal of our tax policy should be to provide enough money to the federal government to fund our priorities. But when the GOAL becomes redistribution of wealth, then we’ve lost our way. Raising taxes on the rich because somehow they don’t DESERVE to keep the money they’ve earned is when redistribution of wealth becomes bad. I was reminded the other day of this exchange between ABC’s Charles Gibson and then candidate Obama during a debate with Hillary Clinton (see full transcript here):

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton,” which was 28 percent. It’s now 15 percent. That’s almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

“Fairness”. This really gets to my disagreement on tax policy with the far left. “Fairness”.

Let’s ask this question in a more hypothetical way: “Candidate Obama, would you be in favor of lowering taxes on the rich if by doing so it would increase tax revenues to pay for your social programs?” According to his comment above, the answer would be “No”.

Tax policy is no longer about generating revenues to pay for social programs. It is NOW to be designed to punish the rich. Candidate Obama does not care if a lower tax rate on the rich generates GREATER tax revenues than a lower tax rate. Why? Because allowing the rich to keep their money is not “fair”. Those increased tax revenues from the lower tax rates can help pay for social programs — welfare, education, health care, etc. But that doesn’t matter. What MATTERS is taking MORE money from the rich, even if it’s to the detriment of total tax revenues, and the detriment of social programs.

That’s when redistribution of wealth becomes bad.

“You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you — and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here’ — the decision has to be made.” This is from President Truman’s farewell address to the American people given in January 1953.

President Obama has continued to blame “eight years of failed policies” for our current economic climate. Never mind that the democrats have been in control of Congress since the 2006 election. Never mind that recessions are cyclical and unavoidable. But now President Obama has stated that the war on terror, and the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, is to blame for our current lack of prosperity. Hhhmmm, one trillion spent over the last decade fighting terrorism, or this year alone where we have a $1.3 trillion deficit due largely to out of control spending from the White House and Congress. And projections for another trillion plus next year in deficit spending.

Where does the buck stop? I guess with Obama it still stops with the last guy.

Click here to view the embedded video.