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Geithner to Head Department of Irony

January 14, 2009 |

You can't make this up. Timothy Geithner, President-elect (God I'm sick of hearing that term) Obama's incoming Secretary of the Treasury, is President of the New York Federal Reserve - you know, the private bank from which our government borrows all of the money in existence, at interest? Yeah, that one.

It should be noted that this arrangement creates an obvious paradox: if all legal money has to be borrowed from a single bank with owed interest payments, and every dollar borrowed will just increase the amount the government owes to the private bank, and the amount of money in existence will never be enough to match the amount of money owed back to the bankers...

Where does the money to cover the interest payments come from? Your Federal income tax, of course. This outrageous facet of the "arrangement" is second to the fact that the implication of this is that the government (and you) are owned by the private bankers.

It seems Timothy failed to pay more than $34,000 in federal taxes while he worked for the International Monetary Fund. Hmmm...wonder how that happened.

The kicker is, according to the Wall Street Journal, Geithner was aware of the owed taxes in 2006, when the IRS audited his 2003-2004 taxes and concluded he "owed taxes and interest totaling $17,230." Yet in November of 2008, just after the Messiah was selected (I mean uh, elected), it came to light that Geithner had failed to pay the exact same taxes for 2001-2002.

So Geithner paid the taxes he owed for 03-04 when the IRS notified him, but not until November 21st of 2008 (coincidentally the very day he was named Treasury appointee) did he pay them for 01-02.

Either way the Obama team tries to slice this, it's embarrassing in the most hilarious way. Their official position is this:
"The Obama team said Mr. Geithner's taxes have been paid in full, and that he didn't intend to avoid payment, but made a mistake common for employees of international institutions."
So he's an international banker who's "unaware" of the IMF's regulations establishing the responsibility for paying payroll taxes, despite being a director of the institution.

At best, and as unbelievable as it may seem, he doesn't completely understand the system. While that's one way in which he's no different than the rest of us, does that sound like a good appointment to the Treasury, the department we're told is in charge of "overseeing" the IRS?

At worst, he's a tax cheat. Again I ask, does that sound like a good appointment?

The funny part is, the media is trumpeting this "outrage" over Geithner's tax missteps, while completely ignoring the other "complications" to his appointment, namely that as President of the Federal Reserve of New York and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he not only oversaw the Wall Street meltdown, but is quite literally one of the men responsible for the economic situation in which we find ourselves.

I know you're a puppet Obama, but marionettes are much more fun to watch.

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Obama Prefers Fairness Over Facts

October 10, 2008 |

Something that should have sounded a few more Leftist alarm bells was Barack Obama's explanation for his support of raising (read: doubling) the capital gains tax.

Charlie Gibson confronts Obama and clues him in to the fact that every time the capital gains tax has been lowered, the government actually collected more money in tax revenue. Likewise, when the tax was raised, government revenue went down. Barack's response? It's not about providing the government with more funds. It's about fairness.
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.
Obama doesn't see taxation as a way to finance the activities of government (which it's not, but that's a separate story), but rather the instrument with which the government can mandate fairness. This is the man who says he's going to cut taxes for 95% of Americans, which is curious considering that 40% of Americans don't earn enough to pay income taxes.

Gibson presses him again later, and while you might be thinking that Obama played the fairness card because he couldn't deny the facts, well...he does exactly that.
GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

OBAMA: Well, that might happen, or it might not. It depends on what's happening on Wall Street and how business is going.
That's like saying, "Wow you know, every time we increase taxes on businesses, they cut jobs and raise their prices to make up for the increased tax liability. But you know, let's try it again. 'Cause it might happen, or it might not."

Are you starting to see a relationship between the likelihood of an Obama presidency and the plummeting of the stock market?

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Biden to Wealthy Americans: Pay Higher Taxes You Unpatriotic Snobs

September 18, 2008 |

Alright, so maybe my headline is a little sensational, but remember, this is coming from Joe Biden - the man whose Senate majority leader said that the income tax is "voluntary."

Biden is now telling Americans who will pay higher taxes under Obama's economic plan that "it's time to be patriotic." Patriotism apparently means allowing the Federal government to take a larger slice of your paycheck. I apologize in advance for the "Biden smile." Watch:



I would assume most Americans would rather elect someone who will better handle the money Uncle Sam is already taking from them, rather than someone who demands they relinquish more of their income to prove their "patriotism."

This is of course completely disregarding the fact that Biden's point about paying higher taxes to help an economy in crisis is completely baseless. Taxes have nothing to do with the credit crisis, the housing market, or government bailouts. Apparently Joe wasn't aware of this inconvenient truth, as he uttered what would be considered a gaffe (if a Republican said it):
"We should try to correct the problems that caused this. And what’s caused this? The profligate tax cuts to the very, very wealthy that John wants to continue. What’s caused this is the failure to have regulation so that, in fact — John talks about these CEOs getting these big bailout packages."
Sorry Joe. You're talking about two separate issues. Oh, and if you want to talk about CEOs getting big bailout packages, I can think of two Fannie/Freddie CEOs who fit the description: Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, currently serving as Barack Obama's economic advisers.

If Democrats really wanted to increase the amount of money flowing into our already-bloated government, they'd keep their mouth shut about "tax cuts for the rich." But alas, they aren't taking more money from the rich to fund government - they're redistributing it in the form of tax credits, which is what you get when you create a "tax break" for someone who doesn't pay taxes.

That's called buying votes, and while there is a growing portion of Americans opting to vote for a living rather than work for one, don't look for Biden to question their patriotism.

Update: McCain has already pounced on Biden's monumentally clueless statement, releasing this ad...


Something else I find interesting (though not surprising) is the fact that the media is only focusing on Obama's plans in regard to income taxes; no one is talking about what effects his capital-gains and corporate tax increases will have. Does Obama think that businesses will just suck it up and eat the higher costs? They won't.

If your company's cost of doing business goes up because you're forced to hand over more of your capital to the government, how are you going to offset that cost? You'll either have to raise prices on consumers (particularly affecting the middle-class, Obama), eliminate jobs (which puts more people out of work, Obama), or pack up shop and move overseas (which is what you claim you're trying to prevent by raising taxes in the first place, Obama).

In fact, depending on how much of a bite Uncle Sam is taking out of your resources, you might do all of the above. If I may use Barack's own words...he just doesn't get it.

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