"just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

I don't want to spend much time or energy on the Sexual Harassment complaint against Democrat Fmr. Vice President Al Gore.

While these things rather glaringly highlight the opportunistic hypocrisy of the left, there is usually very little that I could or would even want to add to the stories.

But there is something that I saw in a Byron York article that caught my attention.

See: Sex complaint against Gore is detailed, credible

Finally she got away. Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her "to just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

If Gore were a Republican, the left would be ripping him to shreds over this. Instead, we see them trying to dissuade this woman from pursuing her complaint by telling her that if she does, the world is going to die a horrible death, and it will be all her fault.

Its almost funny.

But they were serious.

5 to 4 - The Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right of US citizens to keep and bear arms.

See: Gun rights extended by Supreme Court

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and the four liberals, opposed.

The article's headline is an insult. The Supreme Court did not extend gun rights. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right of US citizens to keep and bear arms.

The ruling is a must read.

See: MCDONALD ET AL. v. CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, Et Al.

The following is excerpted from the ruling, starting at page 23.

After the Civil War, many of the over 180,000 African Americans who served in the Union Army returned to the States of the old Confederacy, where systematic efforts were made to disarm them and other blacks. See Heller, 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 42); E. Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863–1877, p. 8 (1988) (hereinafter Foner). The laws of some States formally prohibited African Americans from possessing firearms. For example, a Mississippi law provided that “no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife.” Certain Offenses of Freedmen, 1865 Miss. Laws p. 165, §1, in 1 Documentary History of Reconstruction 289 (W. Fleming ed. 1950); see also Regulations for Freedmen in Louisiana, in id., at 279–280; H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 233, 236 (1866) (describing a Kentucky law); E. McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction 40 (1871) (describing a Florida law); id., at 33 (describing an Alabama law).18

Throughout the South, armed parties, often consisting of ex-Confederate soldiers serving in the state militias, forcibly took firearms from newly freed slaves. In the first session of the 39th Congress, Senator Wilson told his colleagues: “In Mississippi rebel State forces, men who were in the rebel armies, are traversing the State, visiting the freedmen, disarming them, perpetrating murders and outrages upon them; and the same things are done in other sections of the country.” 39th Cong. Globe 40 (1865). The Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction— which was widely reprinted in the press and distributed by Members of the 39th Congress to their constituents shortly after Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment19—contained numerous examples of such abuses. See, e.g., Joint Committee on Reconstruction, H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, pp. 219, 229, 272, pt. 3, pp. 46, 140, pt. 4, pp. 49–50 (1866); see also S. Exec. Doc. No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 23–24, 26, 36 (1865). In one town, the “marshal [took] all arms from returned colored soldiers, and [was] very prompt in shooting the blacks whenever an opportunity occur[red].” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, at 238 (internal quotation marks omitted). As Senator Wilson put it during the debate on a failed proposal to disband Southern militias: “There is one unbroken chain of testimony from all people that are loyal to this country, that the greatest outrages are perpetrated by armed men who go up and down the country searching houses, disarming people, committing outrages of every kind and description.” 39th Cong. Globe 915 (1866).20

Union Army commanders took steps to secure the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms,21 but the 39th Congress concluded that legislative action was necessary. Its efforts to safeguard the right to keep and bear arms demonstrate that the right was still recognized to be fundamental.

The most explicit evidence of Congress’ aim appears in §14 of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, which provided that “the right . . . to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens . . . without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery.” 14 Stat. 176–177 (emphasis added).22 Section 14 thus explicitly guaranteed that “all the citizens,” black and white, would have “the constitutional right to bear arms.”

It is an important ruling.

4 of the 5 Supreme Court Justices opposed it.

Elena Kagan is now up in front of the Senate for her Confirmation hearing.

If she were on the Court, how do you think she would have ruled?

Senator Robert Byrd Is Dead

I will not praise the man.

Here is the Press Release from the Governor of West Virginia.

June 28, 2010

STATEMENT FROM THE GOVERNOR
REGARDING SENATOR BYRD

Contact: Sara Payne Scarbro, 304-558-2000 or sara.e.payne@wv.gov

Gov. Joe Manchin today released the following statement after learning about the passing of U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd:

"Gayle and I are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and great senior Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

"Like all West Virginians, the news broke our hearts. Sen. Byrd was a fearless fighter for the constitution, his beloved state and its great people.

"He made a significant mark as a member of Congress in both our state's and nation's history. His accomplishments and contributions will define history for eternity.

"Our hearts and prayers go out to his daughters, friends and loved ones, his committed staff and to the people of West Virginia; we have suffered a terrible loss."

- Gov. Joe Manchin

He is dead.

A requiem for the man.

May God have mercy on him.

May God have mercy on all of us.

Is There A Soros Connection To The Offshore Drilling Moratorium?

From: The Drilling Ban Is Soros' Bonanza

If the moratorium stands and energy prices rise, the only ones to profit will be foreign-owned companies such as Petrobras and investors such as George Soros, who has an investment in the oil giant in the neighborhood of $900 million. Yes, the same George Soros who also is a major investor in the Democratic Party and President Obama's 2008 campaign.

Soros would love to see domestic offshore drilling shut down and those three dozen deep-water rigs sitting idle shipped off to the coast of Brazil. He has a huge investment in both Petrobras and the Democrats. He expects a return on all his investments.

While we track the trail of oil gushing from Deepwater Horizon, we should also follow the money that will be gushing into George Soros' bank account, courtesy of the U.S. government and the American taxpayer.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From: Moratorium Won’t Reduce Drilling Risks

Nor is it clear, if the moratorium went into effect, the pullback would be all that temporary. For one thing, the moratorium is contingent on a special commission making yet more safety recommendations in six months, but there is no guarantee they’ll be done by then. Meanwhile, there are only so many floating rigs in the world, and Brazil, for instance, has just embarked on a $200 billion drilling program. (You read that right: $200 billion.) It takes a month to move an idle rig from the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil, where it will likely stay for years. So a six-month moratorium would quite likely have far greater effect on American oil production that it would seem at first glance.

So again,- What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From an article in the Wall Street Journal, published in August of 2009.

See: Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

And again we should ask, - What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[UPDATE - Monday, June 28th, 2010 - 13:00]

Wow.

JCM at Correspondence Committee just pointed me to a post that he put up on this subject back on Saturday the 19th.

See: c2 saturday a.m. BULLDOG

I don't think any of this was planned. Obama is relying on process instead of action. A process which bolsters his contention that fossil fuel is bad, and that we need huge "investments" (read taxes) to get to alternative energy sources.

The drilling moratorium sounds like "action" but again is process, a process which directly or indirect benefits some of his closest advisors.

The advice he is getting is both process oriented, and tainted.

The result is not fixing the problem, but supporting other agendas. I do not believe it is a conspiracy in that there was or is a "plan." It is like with much of the left a "distributed conspiracy" that a bunch of individuals with similar goals, working each on their own little piece to push events in a way that matches their worldview.

A perfect storm of events, personalities, ideologies, and agendas driving the outcome toward what they prefer.

I agree. Not a conspiracy so much as tainted advice and the natural outcome of a group of people working from a shared world-view.

There is also a lot at stake.

I think that we should keep all of this in mind along with the tenacity the Administration has displayed in its efforts to keep the Moratorium in place, even after it has been overturned by a federal court.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve? Why the urgency to reinstate it?

The Gulf Of Obama Oil Spill Crisis

The Gulf Oil Spill Crisis belongs to Obama and the Democrat Party, not BP.

Politics, nothing else but politics, made the spill much more of a disaster then it needed to be. For that, the blame belongs to Obama and the Democrats, not BP.

BP was blocked from bringing in outside assistance by the Democrat Obama Administration. From that point forward, the responsibility for the disaster belongs to no one but Obama and the Democrat Party.

See: Avertible catastrophe

In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

(You should read the whole thing. I would have quoted the whole thing, which covers more than I have cited, but the Financial Post deserves the traffic. Give them a visit. It is worthwhile.)

For some people, specifically meaning Obama and the Democrat Party, politics is more important than effectiveness. BP may have been the source of the spill, but they are not the reason it has become a disaster. Obama and the Democrats own this disaster because they prevented BP and other outsiders from helping to mitigate it.

The Obama Administration is the most partisan administration that this nation has seen since Johnson, and the most progressive since Wilson. For them, Politics trumps everything. Obama and the Democrat Party are the reason this spill has become a disaster.

Remember that in November.

Repay Obama and the Democrat Party for their role in turning the Gulf of Mexico into an ecological disaster zone.

How President Obama lost "big-time" to the Rolling Stone

From its very beginning, even in its very title, the Rolling Stone article The Runaway General never seriously pretended to be anything but a hit piece written to make Gen. McChyrstal and his staff look like a bunch of cartoon-ish clowns on the very verge of going full-tilt maverick.

The President had an obligation and a duty to be The Commander In Chief AND The President Of The United States in this affair, carefully weighing the evidence and carefully considering the consequences of his words and actions on our nation's interests, our efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In my judgment, he failed miserably when he accepted the General's resignation and with his remarks in the Rose Garden.

The Runaway General was an article written with the intent of creating a destructive division between the General and his state-side superiors. President Obama made the article succeed in that. President Obama gave the Rolling Stone the win, without even much of, or any real fight at all.

President Obama should have turned the situation around and made it clear that our success in Afghanistan was not going to be jeopardized by an over the top and ridiculous hit piece produced by a silly music magazine with its extremist attempt to make the General and his staff look like idiots.

The President could have then made the observation that while commanders in the field may have differences of opinions with their civilian leadership back home, they understand and are fully committed to our nations tradition and principle of the primacy of civilian leadership over the military.

He could have further remarked that it is natural for every General, and in fact, every President, to want to provide our soldiers with all of the tools, materials and troop levels necessary to assure overwhelming victory in the field, but it is the unfortunate nature of political reality that it is not always easy or even possible to provide as much material and personnel support to the troops in the field that we would all like. He could have made a half-humorous aside at this point that he is personally very glad that no shitty little Rolling Stone reporter has overheard and misreported his private complaints about the difficulties he has had in providing the military with everything that they have have asked for in their efforts to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The President should have then berated those people in his Party and in the press who have tried to liken Gen. McChrystal to Gen. MacArthur, pointing out that at no point in any part of that stupid execrable article or in any other report about Gen. McChrystal from anywhere else, did he actively engage in the same kind of blatant and extra constitutional attempts to undermine the President's authority and our nations tradition of Civilian leadership of the military in any way or fashion resembling the excesses of General MacArthur.

The President should have then concluded by expressing his confidence in the abilities of Gen. McChrystal, his staff and his efforts to help make Afghanistan a successful, productive and peaceful nation.

Instead, Obama FUBARed it.

This was a Sister Souljah moment for President Obama and he flubbed it "big-time."

Speaking Truth To Power

Rolling Stone has profile of Gen. McChrystal that may cost the man his job.

See: The Runaway General

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

I think that the problem here for Obama is that while his cohorts on the left will scream for Gen. McChrystal's head to be served on a platter, many Americans will think that Gen. McChrystal comes out of this looking better than the President.

Some on the left may hope that the "Gen. McChrystal" brouhaha will help distract the public from the President's poor performance in the oil spill crisis, but what they risk is that this will have a synergistic effect against the President's and the Democrat's poll numbers. Bad times two, is really bad.

Failure in the Gulf and Failure in Afghanistan are not things that will help Obama and the Democrats look good.

How far away is November?

Jimmy Obama Carter

Do you remember that grand speech that Obama gave in Germany during his campaign? Left-Europe loved him for it. Obama was the man they would vote to have has America's President.

Enough American voters agreed with them to put Obama in the White-House.

Half way through his first term, those same left leaning Europeans are now comparing Obama, rather unkindly, to Jimmy Carter.

See: Will Obama Be the 'Jimmy Carter of the 21st Century'?

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:

"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the 21st century."

"In his speech, Obama tried to make a virtue of an emergency. He said a shift to new energy sources was now a 'national mission.' Just as the nation once mobilized its powers for World War II, now it needs to conquer its devilish dependence on fossil fuels … If Obama wins this debate, and achieves a true shift in energy dependence, then his name will perhaps be mentioned again in the same breath with great American presidents."

"Politically, though, it's fraught with risk. His opponents have already charged Obama with using the Gulf catastrophe to advance his climate agenda in Congress. Republicans rely on the tendency of Americans to prefer cheap fuel and big cars with a certain level of power. Over 30 years ago, after all, another president called for smarter American energy policies in a televised speech from the Oval Office. He wanted to know, 'Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?' That president's name was Jimmy Carter."

The bloom is off the rose.

The Pending Crisis And Growing Analogies To Greece

From the “Are we having fun yet?” files comes this bit of happy commentary from Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

See: Greenspan Says U.S. May Soon Reach Borrowing Limit

“The federal government is currently saddled with commitments for the next three decades that it will be unable to meet in real terms,” Greenspan said. The “very severity of the pending crisis and growing analogies to Greece set the stage for a serious response.”

Greece?

That will suck.

Is TARP Failing?

While the country is focused on the high theater of the BP show trial taking place in the hallowed halls of congress, other things are very unwell in Obama's happy rainbow farting unicorn land.

See: More Than 90 Banks Miss TARP Payments

More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations.

The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.

The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter. In February, 74 banks deferred their payments; 55 deferred last November.

That is a scary trend.

Shakedown

I think it's a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown--in this case a $20 billion shakedown.
- Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) June 17, 2010

"We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden, . . . "

See: American on mission to kill bin Laden arrested

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — An American armed with a pistol and a 40-inch sword was detained in northern Pakistan and told investigators he was on a solo mission to kill Osama bin Laden, a police officer said Tuesday.

The man was identified as 52-year-old Californian construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner, said officer Mumtaz Ahmad Khan.

He was picked up in a forest in the Chitral region late on Sunday, he said.

"We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden," said Khan. But he said when officers seized the pistol, the sword and night-vision equipment, "our suspicion grew."

Not sure what to say about this.

I wonder if his world has a sound track playing in the back ground of his mind.

HT: Render at Correspondence Committee

Prayers for Abby Sunderland.

Somewhere out in the middle of the storm tossed Indian Ocean is Abby Sunderland.

Word came today that she has suffered a series of knockdowns and now her emergency beacons are on with no other word from her.

Single-handing around the world is very dangerous no mater how old or young you are.

Weeks ago, Jessica Watson successfully circumnavigated the globe, becoming the youngest person to do so.

Abby Sunderland was making the same attempt, but was eclipsed by the superior media support that Jessica was able to garner. With Jessica's success, Abby's goal changed from being the youngest, to just being one of the successful.

Abby is now in serious trouble.

Very serious.

There will be plenty of time later to analyze and second guess her choices and her decisions up to this point.

Now is the time for prayers for Abby's safety and for luck for the rescue teams on the way out to find her.

See: Abby Sunderland Feared Lost at Sea

And: California teen girl in trouble on solo world sail

And: Abby's Blog


UPDATE

See: Abby is Fine!

We have just heard from the Australian Search and Rescue. The plane arrived on the scene moments ago. Wild Eyes is upright but her rigging is down. The weather conditions are abating. Radio communication was made and Abby reports that she is fine!

The BP Gulf Oil Spill, Regulatory Capture and Government Failure

As the BP Gulf Oil Spill crisis drags on, the calls and screams to have people criminally prosecuted will become ever more shrill and demanding.

Who and what is ultimately to blame?

Looking at BP's role and lobbying efforts in American politics reveals something very interesting about the nature of political systems and the human condition.

See: Feel the Rage

The liberals' fury at the President is almost as astounding as their outrage over the discovery that oil companies and their regulators might have grown too cozy. In economic literature, this behavior is known as "regulatory capture," and the current political irony is that this is a long-time conservative critique of the regulatory state.

The Nobel economist George Stigler of the University of Chicago was one of the concept's main developers, and it is a seminal plank of the "public choice" school of economics for which James Buchanan won the economics Nobel in 1986. Ronald Reagan warned about this in different words in one of his farewell speeches.

In the better economic textbooks, regulatory capture is described as a "government failure," as opposed to a market failure. It refers to the fact that individuals or companies with the highest interest or stake in a policy outcome will be able to focus their energies on politicians and bureaucracies to get the outcome they prefer.

See: Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

Making government more powerful, makes it more corruptible.

Government is corruptible because people are corruptible. There is no getting around or away from that fact.

As government grows and is given more control over the details and minutia of our daily lives, the scope of corruptibility of the government grows with it.

When the government makes a law, a rule or a regulation regarding a behavior, it affects peoples lives. Laws, rules and regulations are created with the specific intent of affecting peoples lives. Since laws, rules and regulations affect peoples lives, they create an incentive for those most affected to be able to influence those that are making the laws, rules and regulations.

There is a give an take to this. Everyone has things that they want. Everything becomes negotiable. Anything can be bought if the price is right and a seller has something that a buyer wants.

The process that this all gets worked out in, where the negotiations are made, the horse trading is done and back room deals are dealt, we call politics.

People's property and lives are at stake. The costs and prices become greater as the scope and power of the laws, rules and regulations increase.

The end results can be disturbing and very predictable.

How is that "Hope and Change" working for you?

It seems it ain't working so well for Obama's "progressive" supporters.

See: Progressives Ask: Is It Obama, Or Is It Us?

Left-wing activists described the year leading up to Barack Obama's election as exhilarating, empowering and exciting.
Now, if you ask progressives gathered for the America's Future Now conference in Washington, D.C., about the first year and a half of his presidency, they say:

"Frustrating."

"Sobering."

"Brutal."

At least, those were the reactions of, respectively, union activist Nick Weiner, University of Minnesota political science professor Dara Strolovitch, and Steve Peha, who heads an education reform consultancy.

"I had hoped for something different," Peha explains. "I had hoped for the president who ran for office, and not so much the one who's in office."

Peha says he's a pragmatist -- he knows that campaigning and governing are different. But "what I wish is that President Obama had worked a little less for his ideal of bipartisanship and a little more for the people who elected him," he says.

This is the prevailing feeling at this week's America's Future Now conference. And no one is hiding it.

There are several things to remark upon here.

One, the Obama administration has easily been the most partisan administration that this country has suffered through since Johnson. His "take it or leave it" strategy for ramming through his health-care scheme is example enough of that. On that charge, the progressives are talking out their ass. They wouldn't know what "bipartisanship" was if it reached across the isle and slugged them.

Two, Obama is the most progressive President this country has had since Woodrow Wilson. Again, his health-care scheme is proof enough of that. We could also talk about his high tax policy and his regulatory policy per Cap and Trade. Then there is that whole financial crises fiasco created by the progressive geniuses Barney Frank and Chris Dodd that Obama managed to make much worse. He even seized control of GM for goodness sake. GM is now a government run enterprise strait out of the Mussolini play book. What do the progressives want! Any more progressive and and this administration would be considering controlling political speech by taxing internet news aggregators or bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" to radio.

Three, Obama cannot realistically satisfy his hard left supporters. These are the people on the fringe of reality, more inclined to look at working through the constraints of the law and the constitution as backsliding and evidence of a spiritual weakness. These people were going to turn on him no matter what. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the schadenfreude while watching his own snakes turn on him.

Heh. . . Here is some "Hope and Change" good and hard you "progressive" dip-shits.

An Economic Collapse in 2011?

Art Laffer discusses the predictable results of raising taxes.

See: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse

On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts.

Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.

Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

We are more broke then we know.

Economics is an exercise in dynamic behaviors. People change their spending, investing and working behaviors when the tax code is changed. They will make decisions with the purpose and intent of keeping as much of their money as possible.

Expect people to behave rationally, even if that means working less because they can keep less of what they earn.

Hat tip: LuciusSeptimius @ Correspondence Committee