Sunday, October 5, 2008

Random Rantings for a Friday

Our Federal Government at Work
Not only did a three-page, $700 billion bailout (or rescue, if you prefer) become an $800 billion 452-page monstrosity, in last week's vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden gets a free pass by the main-stream-media, while Sara Palin has been hammered repeatedly by the same media.

After a week has gone by since the passage of the bail-out, the stock markets reaction was been negative. I know my meager portfolio has suffered the worst loss of my life, so far.

Yet, about 50 percent of Americans are supporting the party that put all this mess into motion: The Democrats. Amazing, isn't it?

Outrage
Besides being the title of a book by Dick Morris, an e-mail circulating around the Internet today claimed that it was published in the Wall Street Journal. As usual, this was a fabrication; I could find no such article. However, I did find another interesting article in my search for outraged stories in the WSJ.

In Defense of the Rich
If you're lucking enough to make more than $153,000 per year, you're in the top 5 percent. This is an important statistic, because Obama is so wrong in his tax proposals. He states that he will cut taxes for 95 percent of all Americans, and raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. This will require a complete overall of the progressive (not meaning liberal, but the more you make, the more you pay) tax structure.

But this mantra of soaking the rich can be counter-productive. The top 5 percent of all wage earners pay 60 percent of all income tax; the top 1 percent, 40 percent of all income tax.

The majority of these folks are small-business owners, the same small-businesses that create most of our jobs. If you raise taxes on these people, growth will be -- at least -- slowed.

The only sane tax policy is a simplified flat-rate tax system. And we need to get the corporate tax rate down -- at least to European rates -- so our companies quit moving overseas.

Larry Elder pretty sum it up in his Defense of the Rich.

Have a nice weekend.

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