Evidently, this guy just quit his job at Reuters to become a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.  That’s really a shame…. because he was perhaps the most insightful journalist Reuters had on staff:

At its core, Obamanomics is about the top-down redistribution of wealth and income. Government spending on various “green” subsidies and programs, along with a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions, would enrich key Democrat constituencies: lawyers, public sector unions, academia and non-profits.

Oh, and Wall Street, too. Who was the exclusive financial adviser to Solyndra when it was trying to secure the $535 million loan from Washington? Goldman Sachs. And had the cap-and-trade scheme been enacted, big banks stood ready to reap billions from the trading of carbon emission credits.

No wonder many Democratic strategists predicted their party’s 2008 landslide win would usher in a generation of political dominance. Obamanomics, essentially, would divert taxpayer dollars to the Green Lobby – and then into the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party. This is what crony capitalism is really all about: politicians enriching favored businesses, who then return the favor. Or maybe it’s the other way around, Who cares, really. It’s an endless, profitable loop for both.

via James Pethokoukis | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com.

I’m in the middle of moving apartments… so until more free time opens up on my schedule, you’ll have to settle for someone else’s brilliant ideas.  (not that you should complain).

This from the Wall Street Journal:

Here in the U.S. we have just gone through three weeks of arduous negotiations between the President and Congressional leadership over spending, taxes and a U.S. debt ceiling above $14 trillion…

 

President Obama’s primary contribution, after he joined the talks, was to insist that the deal include tax increases, of all things, amid high unemployment and weak growth. A relatively more sensible deal with spending cuts alone was achieved only after House Speaker John Boehner announced he could no longer do business with the White House. Congressional Democrats and Republicans then cut a compromise.

 

In the wake of the debt deal, liberal economists are now complaining that the downward pressure on spending violates the Keynesian commandment to flood a faltering economy with government outlays.

 

We’ve done that. From the first months of the Obama Presidency, billions of stimulus have been injected into the economy, budgeted federal spending has grown toward 25% of GDP and the Federal Reserve has poured oceans of cash into the markets.

 

The Keynesians have fired all their ammo, and here we are, going south. Maybe now President Obama should consider everything he’s done to revive the American economy—and do the opposite.

 

At what point does the left admit that massive government spending and borrowing aren’t the solution?  And how in hell are we supposed to trust the government to run our health care system when it has clearly shown its inability to credibly manage large-scale finances… when it has failed to nurture the larger econnomy?  I’d love to hear an answer.

What he said:

Obama’s tax obsession becomes understandable when you realize the long game he’s playing: Big Taxes to fund Big Government. Decade after decade. See, it’s an almost universal belief among left-of-center journalists, economists, policymakers and politicians that Americans must pay higher taxes in coming years to cover the medical expenses of its aging population – not to mention all sorts of brand new social spending and green “investment.” Dramatically higher taxes. On everybody. And if we have a debt crisis, maybe those tax increases come sooner rather than later…

And to reach such a stratospheric level of taxation, these groups are calling for unprecedented tax hikes via millionaire surtaxes, higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco, securities transaction taxes, higher taxes on capital gains, higher taxes on corporations, higher death taxes, carbon taxes, and gasoline taxes. None of which, supposedly, would hurt economic growth. Even worse, all those tax hikes would still fail to balance the budget. And when you move past 2035, taxes would almost certainly need to go even higher.

That is the high-tax future the liberal establishment has in store for America. No wonder Obama rejected his own debt commission last December.

via James Pethokoukis | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com.

To all my liberal friends… this one’s for you:

…[W]ritten by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, [the latest economic report] chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus”… the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

And this number could be much higher if you calculate in all federal spending on this economic downturn…

This from Phillip Klein at the Washington Examiner:

It turns out that even if we brought tax revenues back to the historically high levels that existed at the end of the Clinton era, we’d still wind up with unsustainable deficits using the White House’s own definition of “sustainable.”

In 2000, the last full-year of President Clinton’s administration, tax revenues were 20.6 percent of GDP, according to the CBO… But the CBO’s long-term fiscal outlook released yesterday predicts that by 2035, total spending will reach a stunning 33.9 percent of GDP if lawmakers pursue their predictable course. That means even if revenues returned to the coveted pre-Bush tax cut levels, there would be a 13 percent difference.

…So let’s be clear: when Democrats talk about revenues needing to be part of the solution, for them to really be part of the solution, taxes as a proportion of the economy would have to exceed record levels. And not just marginally, but by a substantial degree.

I’m kinda getting tired of arguing with liberals about this.  We don’t have a revenue problem… we have a spending problem.