Obama and House Dems to New York City: drop dead!

The New Neo Posted on by

Metaphorically speaking, that is, according to the NY Post:

Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state’s top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

New York is in dire economic staits and this has a chance of hitting it when it’s down, creating more economic problems for the state and especially the city. The NY Post is on the case, with several articles and an editorial explaining the ramifications for New York in no uncertain terms:

The impact wouldn’t be limited to Park Avenue swells. Much of the taxable income in the highest brackets is reported by owners of and investors in small businesses. Higher income taxes will drain the working capital of small firms, sapping the resources they’ll have to add jobs and recover from the recession.

And small businesses who fail to offer health insurance to their employees will be slapped with another tax — an 8 percent payroll tax — under the House plan.

If enacted, the House bill would be an economic double whammy for [New York], with its high average incomes and disproportionately large share of the nation’s wealthiest households — because Obama already intends to raise taxes on the very same people at the same time, undoing tax cuts enacted starting in 2001 under President George W. Bush.

New York state voted overwhelmingly for Obama, 62% against McCain’s 37%. And that was just the state; the city went for Obama by a whopping margin (I’m finding it difficult to get the total tally; this article is the only one I’ve been able to find so far with any figures for New York City as opposed to the state, and it says the Bronx went 88% for Obama, Manhattan 85%, Brooklyn 79%, Queens 74%, and much-smaller Staten Island went for McCain 52%.).

Was this the sort of change so many New Yorkers hoped for?

Back in 1975 New York City was in bad economic shape as well, facing bankruptcy. One of the main reasons for this was the swelling of its welfare rolls, the result of an an orchestrated Alinsky-esque Cloward-Piven strategy by the National Welfare Rights Organization under the suggestion of Cloward and Piven, who:

…proposed a “massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.” Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces”¦ for major economic reform at the national level.”

President Gerald Ford got a bad rap back then for telling the city to “drop dead!”, but he actually never said it; it was a headline in the Daily News.

fordny.jpg

In fact, Ford ended up bailing out the city, although the bad press he originally got helped doom his re-election chances.

Bad press is not one of Obama’s problems. Except for a few publications such as today’s Post, the leading New York City papers don’t seem to even be noticing the effect this will have on the local finances. I looked in the Daily News and the Times today to see whether they’re covering the story, and found nary a word (if you can locate anything, let me know—I’d love to be wrong about this and see some fairness in the coverage).

New Yorkers: be careful what you wish for.

Obama’s lies on the stimulus

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama lied, the stimulus died. Actually, I should have said “Obama lied or was in error, the stimulus died,” but the rhythm doesn’t scan as well.

Now he’s scrambling to rewrite history—so even if he wasn’t lying then, he’s lying now about what he said then. Will his revisions work? Karl Rove thinks not [emphasis mine]:

So what’s a president to do when the promises he made about his economic stimulus program fail to materialize? If you’re Barack Obama, you redefine your goals and act as if America won’t remember what you said originally. That’s a neat trick if you can get away with it, but Mr. Obama won’t. His words are a matter of public record and he will be held to them.

I’m not so sure that highlighted sentence is correct. Obama has gotten away with a great many rescinded words so far; why not these?

How much attention is the public paying? After all, isn’t it only the nefarious Karl Roves of the world (and we all know he’s the anti-Christ or whatever) who are pointing out how very naked this particular emperor is? I know better than to send most people I know a link to a Karl Rove piece; they would dismiss it out of hand without reading it. And yet they would believe Obama implicitly; it’s a funny world, isn’t it?

But Rove manages to catch the Obama administration in quite a few whoppers:

(1) Larry Summers originally said “You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately;” now Obama is claiming the stimulus was always going to be a very slow starter in terms of its effects on the economy. But he didn’t say that at the time.

(2) At the outset, Obama stated that most of the money “will go out the door immediately.” But now he has changed his tune, saying, “We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door.” Well, if he knew it, then he lied. Or is he lying now? Take your pick; it hardly matters.

(3) Obama creates his usual strawmen by saying stimulus opponents “felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer.” He ignores, of course, the fact that many alternative approaches were suggested; Rove describes some of them in his piece.

Obama has contempt for the American people. He believes they are not paying attention to what he was saying then and/or are unable to compare it to what he’s saying now. He also may believe they are incapable of assimilating the facts about the stimulus—or at any rate that their opinion on these or any other points no longer matters because, after all, “We won.” The “we” in this case is a combination of the royal “we” (Obama himself, that is) and the Democrats who now so strongly dominate Congress.

The WaPo has a moment of sanity on health care reform

The New Neo Posted on by

Is this WaPo editorial a portent of things to come? Let’s hope so.

The paper has turned on Congress and to a lesser extent the President, criticizing their proposal to further tax the rich to fund universal health care:

The traditional argument against sharp increases in the marginal tax rates of a very narrow band of Americans is that it could distort their economic behavior — most likely by encouraging them to put more of their money into tax shelters as opposed to productive investments. This effect could be greatest in certain states, such as New York, where a higher federal rate would add to already substantial state income taxes. The deeper issue, though, is whether it is wise to pay for a far-reaching new federal social program by tapping a revenue source that would surely need to be tapped if and when Congress and the Obama administration get serious about the long-term federal deficit…Pretending that “the rich” alone can fund government, let alone the kind of activist government that the president and Congress envision, is bad policy any way you look at it.

It’s not that the WaPo doesn’t think the rich should see their taxes increased. It’s not even that the paper is criticizing the “activist” government of this Congress and this President. It’s just that the editors think there’s a limit to how much even the filthy rich (some of whom might just be the editors of the WaPo?) can be asked to put out. According to the piece, the rich can only be tapped so many times, and reducing the deficit is a higher priority than universal health care right now.

The WaPo comes down in favor of the proposal Obama criticized so vigorously when it belonged to his opponent John McCain: ending tax breaks on employer-provided health benefits. The paper fails to note that one possible reason Obama won’t try this might be because it would make him out to be a fool and a hypocrite for being so hard on McCain.

But then again, since when has the threat of being called a hypocrite ever stopped Obama? No, the real reason he’s wedded to the tax increases on the rich may be tied to his goal of income redistribution: sticking it to the rich is so very satisfying and so fair, even when you’re one of them.

Iraq: was there ever a time before this…

The New Neo Posted on by

…when a nation withdrew from a remarkable victory, and its press and the party in power acted as though it were a defeat?

Don’t think so.

Well, with the enemy’s knowledge that Obama has no commitment to returning if the going gets rough, they may snatch victory (theirs) from the jaws of defeat (theirs) yet.

The great Wilma Rudolph

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday’s post about compelling life stories brought to mind the great runner of my youth, Wilma Rudolph. Slender yet strong, with a fluid grace; exhibiting dignity without haughtiness, and self-possession to spare; she deserves at the very least a post of her own.

Here’s a discussion of her early life and career, with photos, one of which I reproduce here. It amply demonstrates why the Italian press dubbed her “The Gazelle”:

wilmarudolph2.jpg

Wilma was a revelation, her story a testament to perseverance. Twentieth of twenty-two children? Born to a poor family? Crippling polio as a child? A mother who wouldn’t give up? Wilma had it all, before such stories became hyped cliches.

Sadly, Wilma died of cancer in her early fifties. There are many tributes to Wilma at You Tube, although unfortunately not many videos. But I’ve found and posted two.

The first, a short black and white clip of her running the 100-meter dash at the 1960 Olympics, shows how she cleaned the other runners’ clocks with style:

And then there’s this gem, which has the added plus of a stroll down memory lane with the TV program “To Tell the Truth,” and a couple of later-to-be-more-famous celebrities looking younger than it seems possible to even imagine:

Ah, those compelling life stories of which I’m heartily sick

The New Neo Posted on by

We keep hearing that Sotomayor has a compelling life story.

And no doubt she does. I happen to think that most people on earth have compelling life stories. Granted, some are a lot more dramatic than others, and contain elements that make it easier to garner sympathy for their hardships and admiration for their ability to overcome them.

For example, coming up from poverty and discrimination—as Sotomayor has—is one of those factors. And the possibility that she may indeed have been helped along the way by affirmative action doesn’t invalidate her gifts and accomplishments, which allowed her to take full advantage of whatever leg up that affirmative action may have offered her.

Of course, the life story of Clarence Thomas, her predecessor on the Court, featured poverty so grinding and deprivation and loss so profound that it makes Sotomayor’s seem like a cakewalk. We didn’t hear all that much from the MSM about Thomas’s extraordinarily compelling life trajectory way back when, however. That’s because, although his life story was about as compelling as that of anyone in public office since Abraham Lincoln, his politics weren’t—at least, not to the press.

So one of the messages we get about compelling life stories is that it depends what side of the political coin that person ends up on. If it’s the “wrong” side, the story ain’t so compelling, it’s only perplexing: how could a guy like that end up so muddleheaded?

Obama’s story is pretty compelling, too, especially his childhood and early life. Of course, then the record goes blank for quite a while during college and grad school—formative (and potentially compelling) years that one would have thought the press would be extremely curious about. So we also learn that it depends; candidates on the “right” (that is, the Left) side of the issues get to decide what part of their life stories are worth revealing and what not.

Then there’s a person like George Bush the younger. I chose him, but I could have chosen any number of politicians, some of them on the other side—for example, Al Gore. Privileged scion of a political family and wealth, WASPy as all get out—sounds more repelling than compelling, right?

I may get some laughs for writing this, but being the child of wealth and privilege has its own challenges and traps. Just look at the later generations of the Kennedy family if you want evidence, or really at any children of the rich and famous. There are abounding opportunities, yes, but there are also huge opportunities to get lost, either through drugs (or alcohol, as was temporarily the case for Bush) or selfishness or laziness or any number of other pitfalls. And yeah, it’s not going to rate a big “boohoo” from anyone when a person does fall down in that way; no one is especially sympathetic to the plight of someone who has too much. But it still takes strength to recover.

And the children of the famous are often neglected emotionally, in a way that isn’t apparent from studying the bare bones of the life story (not saying this was at all true of Bush or Gore; just that it is often true), and can cause lasting scars that are even deeper than poverty of the more pecuniary variety.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s all a cliche—“poor little rich girl” and all that. But that doesn’t make it less true. And although Bush’s story as a recovered alcoholic is extremely compelling (especially to those struggling with alcoholism), it’s about fighting internal rather than external demons. It’s garnered him more ridicule and even contempt than sympathy or admiration, this time because of a combination of his despised politics and his privileged upbringing.

Bill Clinton was another politician with a compelling story, despite his lack of minority pedigree. Although he was white, he was from the wrongish side of the tracks, with early tragedy and hardship—father died before his birth, lived with grandparents while mother went back to school to get nursing degree, and an abusive stepfather. Clinton milked this tale dry in the 1992 Democratic Convention with his “Man From Hope” biopic (even his home town had cooperated with its own “compelling” name to make his story more dramatic).

Clinton was the beginning—as far as I can recall; correct me if you remember differently—of the blatant and extended promotion of the life story through lengthy film features as part of the nomination process. I know that the attraction of a politician with a compelling story goes back at least to Andrew Jackson (take a look; his early years managed to combine some of the most dramatic elements of Clinton, Lincoln, and John McCain’s stories in one extraordinarily colorful person). But somehow I think it’s gotten way out of hand.

It reminds me of the Olympics. What do I mean by that? I used to be a big fan of the Olympics when I was young, and in the olden days the TV coverage was very straightforward: we watched the unadorned sports. Now, I’m sure there were a lot of very compelling stories there (if the early years of this lady, a personal favorite of mine, aren’t compelling, I don’t know what is). But if those stories were told at all, it was in a brief manner and was very secondary to the athletic competition that was the main attraction.

Somewhere along the line this changed. I don’t know the exact date, but the terms “up close and personal” became a joke because of the dominance of these human interest stories, which came to overshadow the original point of the whole thing, the physical feats. When the ratio of biography to athleticism reached a tipping point I stopped watching.

I’m interested in people and their stories—probably even more so than most. But I hereby go on record as being heartily sick of the glorification of the story over the substance, as though the first makes up for any lacks in the second. I’m also less than pleased with the differential treatment of such stories depending on the politics of the biographee. Don’t expect that practice to change any time soon, though—it’s the triumph of the easily accessible versus the harder business of evaluating a person’s actual accomplishments and what they might mean.

Why Honduras matters

The New Neo Posted on by

The fate of Zeleya and Honduras has dropped off the radar screen for the moment, but on Saturday Fausta filled us in on the most recent developments. The summary version: the UN, which is now mostly a vehicle to promote tyranny, wants Zeleya back, whereas patriots in Honduras are working feverishly to prevent their country from becoming another Venezuela. Obama, of course, is on the side of the UN.

Why do I keep pursuing this topic? What do we care about little Honduras?

Well, call me a nefarious neocon if you must (wait a moment; I just had to answer my phone to take a message about my next cabal meeting)—but I happen to be in favor of not only democracy, but constitutional checks on the possible tyranny of the majority in a democracy. And I would like to preserve such things even for little countries like Honduras, whose government is trying mightily and heroically to maintain its sovereignty, and to stop those who would usurp its ability to protect itself from that tyranny.

Unfortunately, our very own President Obama is among those people.

Honduras is facing something that has happened before, in many times and many places. But to recognize what’s been occurring there and what it signifies, one must know something about history, most particularly about how such power grabs occur. Then the patterns become clear.

I’ve written about those patterns before, here and here. If you go back and read both of those pieces—the first is about Chavez and Venezuela, the second is more general—you’ll see how very relevant they are to what Zeleya has been trying to do in Honduras (and see this for the very best summary I’ve seen so far of that situation).

The way is clear: tyrants very often use “democracy” as an excuse to get the people to override a constitution and grant them what turns out to be dictatorial, or near-dictatorial, powers, as well as the ability to extend or abolish term limits and stay in power longer than the constitution says (and in many cases indefinitely). Once the rules are changed about term limits, and power is consolidated and the voting apparatus compromised, staying in power is a relatively easy matter, really a trifle.

Most dictators of recent history have gone this route; the path is well worn and the methods tried and true. Zeleya was attempting to follow in the footsteps of compadre Chavez, and the government and people of Honduras knew it.

Obama knows it too, or should know it. So we come down once again to the choice of whether Obama is a fool or a knave. I vote the latter, but the former doesn’t comfort me either.

[NOTE: I’ve linked to this before, but I’m doing it again because I feel it’s so important and so misunderstood. It’s about the methods Hitler used to gain control of Germany. No, Zeleya isn’t Hitler; but this is relevant because it’s about how to gain control of a democratic country and do away with its constitution. I mention Germany because so many people seem to be under the impression that a majority of Germans voted for Hitler; they did not. But it’s a cautionary tale of the patient and step-by-step strategies by which a tyrant can gain power even in a democracy, even when he does not have the backing of the majority of the population.]

Health care reform: getting the good stuff without paying for it

The New Neo Posted on by

President Obama gave a press conference recently at the G-8 summit. In response to a question about health care reform, he said:

…whatever bill is produced has to be paid for, and that creates some difficulties because people would like to get the good stuff without paying for it.

It occurred to me when I heard those words that this is what a government option for universal coverage is about: having the poor get “the good stuff” without paying for it themselves. And yes, someone will have to pay for it, but it will be other people. Any system of universal health care that includes the poor will quite naturally have this aspect; there’s no way around it.

Even now, even without universal coverage, we have a de facto (albeit reduced) version of the same thing, with the rest of us footing the bill by way of increased hospital charges to cover the free care given the indigent using the emergency rooms there. I am not for abolishing a decent level of care for the poor, and I am willing to pay to do so, but the question is what’s the proper level and how best to finance it. But let’s acknowledge what’s happening.

It seems that it’s Obama himself who is pretending that his proposals aren’t a version of “getting the good stuff without paying for it.” But we’ve become used to that sort of obfuscation—and even duplicity—from him.

I’m not writing about Sotomayor

The New Neo Posted on by

There seems to be no point, since her nomination is a done deal and the hearings a formality. Also, I’ve written about the issues connected with her nomination several times before (see this).

But I thought you might appreciate a thread on the subject anyway—so, talk amongst yourselves.

Obama and fear itself: the small business owner

The New Neo Posted on by

Entrepreneur Dan Kennedy writes of the fear Obama’s economic policies are sowing in the business community. He offers the following quote from a board member of a community bank, a man Kennedy describes as someone not prone to wild fears and exaggerations:

The new and proposed regulations will remove every competitive advantage of the community bank, and make every bank identical, forced to operate exactly as does Bank of America,” he explained. “Then, absent competitive opportunity, all of the independent banks will be greatly de-valued and handicapped. They’ll be vulnerable and easily rolled up into the handful of remaining giants ”¦ the small bank’s wealth made into fresh food for the insatiable hunger of the big banks’ deficits and losses. This is, I and others believe, the next step in Obama’s plan to take total control of the financial system and money supply, a requirement of dictatorship.

Kennedy also reports owners of small businesses as wanting to sell and even leave the country, while the getting out is good. He says many believe that Obama is “deliberately, systematically destroying the economy as a whole and is specifically targeting small business for extinction—because it’s too difficult to exercise dictatorial control over millions of small enterprises.”

You can say they’re overreacting, and perhaps you’re correct. But I think their fears are an understandable response to the signals Obama has been giving out.

One of the reasons it’s been difficult for many people to see what Obama may be doing is distraction; there’s been such a flurry of activity on so many fronts at once. So it’s not that easy to see the bigger picture.

Obama also utters soothing words every time he does something against the interests of the business world: he’s not really trying to stifle small business. And he’s not really trying to take over (fill in the blank) the banks, the auto companies, whatever. He’s just reacting to the crisis, reluctantly doing what must be done. That’s what he says.

But successful business people are adept at reading which way the wind blows. If they hadn’t been, they wouldn’t be successful. And they sense that Obama is against them; every single policy he has championed seems to have that effect, despite his stated reluctance to harm them.

The small business owners have reason to be especially concerned: when in doubt, Obama will tax them. Need some money for health care? Tax the “rich”–those making more than that magical $250,000 number we’ve heard so much about, which for a small business just isn’t all that much.

Kennedy also describes a person he knows who is director of marketing for a private aviation company, a woman who has worked for over fifteen years in the industry. She says that because of the excoriation of the CEOs who used private jets, her business has suffered. She, like the others in the article, asked not to be named, but she said that her job now feels as though she’s “doing business in a climate of fear, almost clandestinely, as if engaged in espionage rather than commerce.”

Kennedy concludes with the following chilling words:

This is an untold story. The mainstream media would mostly refuse to report on it. But even if they wanted to, these business leaders and countless others like them would refuse to publicly talk about their views. Because they are afraid.

From free enterprise to fearful enterprise. From ambition, initiative and investment, to hoarding and inaction and exit. This the only thing Obama has actually stimulated: a climate of fear.