So, what could be wrong with universal background checks?  Polls have been done that show upwards of 90 percent approval of such a law, yet there are some major organizations that oppose it.  Why?

Really, the only credible argument that I’ve seen that opposes it is that a “universal background check” law would require some kind of gun registration system, either centrally or distributed, to track whether the background checks have been done.

People on the left have pooh-poohed this notion of a universal registration system.  I have a friend who, on Facebook, had this to say about a registration system:

“Gun nuts are so stupid. UNIVERSAL background checks are not linked to gun registration… but for [sic] sake of argument lets say it was, why is everyone afraid of gun registration? Oh because after gun registration then the government is going to confiscate my guns. Then after the imaginary gun registration and imaginary gun confiscation…then the government is going to take over everything and….SOCIALISM …..AHHHH!!! This fear of gun registration is so silly to me. It [sic] coming from a place of unrealistic paranoia…everyone keep in mind that GUN REGISTRATION is not actually being proposed.”

So, I have a few questions: first, is a registration system actually a part of the proposed legislation in Congress? And secondly, is it right to be concerned about a universal registration system for guns? Does gun registration lead to gun confiscation?

Is a gun registry system a part of the proposed gun control legislation?

To answer this question, one must understand a little bit about the background check process, and what the government can and cannot do.  When a licensed firearms retailer does a background check, they are submitting an individual’s personal information to the FBI to run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).  The NICS system either approves or denies the person the ability to buy a firearm, giving the licensee a unique identification number to record the background check.  The NICS system is then required by law to delete any personal information about the person whose name was run in the background check.

The licensed firearms dealer is then required to keep accurate records of the transaction, including the name, age, and place of residence of each person that buys a gun from them.  They are then required by law to immediately respond to ATF trace requests, and their records can be perused at any time by federal authorities.

So, in essence, we have a distributed gun registry today, with the exception of private sellers.  Under the bill under consideration in the Senate today (S.649), a private seller who wanted to sell his gun to someone would have to transfer his gun to a federally licensed dealer, who would then run the background check on the buyer, and then transfer the gun to the buyer upon a successful completion of the background check.  There are some exceptions in the Senate bill, as written today:

• Gifts between spouses, between parents and their children, between siblings, and between grandparents and their grandchildren.
• Guns that are left in wills.
• Temporary transfers at home (if you loan someone a gun at your own home for shooting).
• Temporary transfers at the range or while hunting.

Bottom line on this question: the federal government is NOT allowed to keep background check information, but it does require its federally-licensed gun dealers to keep all that information, and they can come and get it at any time for their gun tracing program.  So, while there is an incomplete database of firearms owners today (because not everyone buys their guns from a gun dealer), after the law is passed, there will be a complete, distributed database of firearms owners that can be accessed at any time by the federal government.

Note: It really has to be this way, too.  If you don’t have record-keeping in the background check process, then the background check system has no teeth.  If the law were written in such a way that private sellers could run their own background checks, but didn’t have to keep the same records as the gun dealers, then how would the law be enforced?  It would be unenforceable.  The law would have no teeth.  A person could run a background check on his brother, and then give the gun to someone else, and the government would have no recourse.  In order to have truly universal background check system that are enforceable, the government must have some kind of universal registry.

Is a gun registry system something to fear?  Does a gun registry lead to gun confiscation?

Why do the “right-wingers” and “gun nuts” (or “gun rights advocates,” if you must refer to them that way) cry “Gestapo” when the topic of a gun registry is brought up?  My friend Broc says it’s no big deal; thoughts of gun confiscation is “coming from a place of unrealistic paranoia,” he says.

Being that this is a purely hypothetical situation, I guess the only way to confirm whether a gun registry leads to gun confiscation would be to find examples (contemporary or in history) where a registry has led to confiscation.

Here are some examples that I found:

• Canada just recently (February 15, 2012) passed a law to dismantle its nationwide firearms registry, because of an uproar over the government confiscating weapons as bureaucrats added weapons to the banned weapons list.  You can watch a video below of a Canadian newscaster who discusses the Canadian firearms registry and its implications for the United States.  Time elapsed from registry to confiscation: 19 years.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_52pMg8qQcc
• Australia has had a national gun registry since the 1930s, and in 1996 passed a gun control law that banned all semi-automatic guns.  Though the Australian Constitution does not allow the government to take property from its citizens without just compensation, the government confiscated all semi-automatic weapons under a buyback program which paid each owner an average of $500-some dollars for their weapon.  Time elapsed from registry to confiscation: 66 years.
• In California, where every firearms owner is required to register their firearm, the state confiscated SKS rifles in 1997 based upon the registrations, unless an owner could prove that they acquired the rifle before June 1, 1989.
• The United Kingdom, which has had a gun registry since 1921, banned all semi-automatic centerfire rifles, as well as pump-action shotguns in legislation passed in 1987, and then all handguns above .22 caliber in 1996, and then finally all .22 caliber handguns in 1997.  All firearms owners were required to surrender their guns in exchange for payment.  Time elapsed from registry to confiscation: 76 years.
• New York City passed a gun registry law in 1967, requiring everyone who owned a semi-automatic rifle or shotgun to register it.  In 1991, Mayor David Dinkins banned the possession of many of these, and police have gone door to door to collect these weapons. Time elapsed from registry to confiscation: 24 years.
• In New Orleans in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, police were dispatched to confiscate firearms, according to the New York Times, including legally registered firearms.
• In 2011, the new South African regime passed the Firearms Registration Act, which required all firearms to be re-registered.  In the process of re-registration, more than half of the applicants were denied, and forced to turn in their guns.  Time elapsed from registry to confiscation: >2 years.

These are just (relatively) contemporary examples.  There are others that are historical, including the Weapons Control Act of 1938 in Germany which made it illegal for Jews to own firearms.  This was used, in conjunction with the 1928 Law on Firearms and Ammunition, which required gun registration and licensing, to strip Jews of their firearms.  We all know how that turned out.

It’s okay, though, because according to President Obama, “I am constrained by a system our founders put in place,” so he won’t be taking away firearms in the United States.  And I believe him.  There’s very little chance that he will confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens (though they might in California).

But that’s not to say that it won’t happen in the future (oh, no! It’s the slippery slope argument!).  It has been done time and time again in history (as shown above).  Those on the Left are defensively stating today, “We don’t want to take away your guns! We love hunters and sportsmen.  We just want to make sure that criminals don’t get them.”  They don’t want to take away guns; neither did those that passed registry laws in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, New York City, South Africa, Germany, Russia, Turkey, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bermuda, Cuba, New Zealand, Greece, Ireland, Jamaica, etc.  And I believe them; they don’t want to take away guns… today.

First, I went to the website of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and downloaded the full state scorecard report.  The Brady Campaign ranks each state (except for a couple of states from which there isn’t much data) on its gun laws, and how strict they are.  They rate things like:

• Gun Dealer Regulations
• Limiting Bulk Purchases of weapons
• Record Retention
• Crime Gun Identification
• Laws on Reporting Lost/Stolen Guns
• Background checks on all gun sales
• Permit to Purchase
• Ammunition Regulations
• Assault Weapons Ban
• Large Capacity Magazine Ban
• Child Safety Locks
• Access Prevention
• No Guns in the Workplace
• No Guns on College Campuses
• Not a CCW Shall Issue State
• No State Preemption

(You can see a description of the categories here)

The score scale is from 0-100, and the top ten states with the “best” (strictest) gun laws are:

Given those rankings, one would expect that gun violence in these states would be the lowest among all the states.  So, I looked at the FBI data from 2011 (the same year that the Brady Campaign had rated the states), and found an aggregated spreadsheet of all the FBI info on the Guardian UK website, and found the following ranking of states (in this case, the #1 state has the lowest incidence of gun homicide per 100,000 residents):

So, only two of the top ten states with the strictest gun control laws made it into the top ten states with the least gun violence (Hawaii and Rhode Island).  At least the rest of the top ten states were above average, and made it into the top 25, right?  Wrong.  Here’s where the strictest states ranked in gun violence among the states:

Only 4 of these states were above-average when it comes to gun violence.

Interpreting the Data

There’s only a few possible explanations for this data:

1. 2011 was a really bad year for gun violence in the states that have the strictest gun control laws.  This data is a fluke.
2. Since there’s no uniform minimum standard of gun laws across the United States, the “bad” laws in some states cause a rise in gun violence in the states with “good” gun control laws.
3. Strict gun controls laws have minimal effect on gun violence.
4. There are other causes of gun violence (other than guns) that aren’t accounted for in this data.

It’s also possible that some gun laws have an effect on gun violence, but once those basic laws are in place, additional laws have very little or no effect.  It’s interesting to look at a geographical map of gun violence in the United States.  It seems that there are pockets of high gun violence, and pockets of very low gun violence.

It looks like there are regional pockets of violence.  It also looks like the states that have very low violence and low violence vary widely as to where on the Brady scale they lie.  Some, like Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah, are among the worst-rated on the Brady scale.  Others, like Washington, Oregon and Colorado score fairly well on the Brady scale.  This lends credence to the third and fourth interpretations of the data–that most gun control laws don’t have a large effect, and there are factors other than guns that have a greater influence on gun violence.

Discussion Question: Do you see more evidence for the effectiveness of gun control laws?  If not, should Congress and state legislatures be pursuing stricter gun laws?

The Claim

Here’s the situation as a liberal might explain it:

In an economy that has 10% unemployed people, the government ought to provide an income for the unemployed. By doing so, those unemployed people will necessarily go out and spend all of that money, creating a demand for goods in the economy. A business owner in that economy benefits from that demand (he sells goods to the unemployed), and in turn has profits that go up, and in turn hires another person to help in his business, removing someone from the unemployment rolls.

The business owner also orders more supplies, which creates demands for more raw goods, which in turn employs more people at other companies. At every point in the economic food chain, more goods and people are in demand, and employment increases, the economy improves, and revenues to the government increase.

So, any money that might have been borrowed in order to pay the initial unemployment benefits is gained through economic growth, and the debt is easily paid off, thereby justifying the initial debt.

The middle class emerges once again. The unemployment rate nationally is reduced dramatically. Tax receipts spike. The deficit drops. Everyone wins.

In other words, the government, by borrowing money, can create enough demand to jump-start an economy, and by jump-starting the economy we can pay off debt.

There are several problems with this economic theory:

1. Demand-side economics only take into account short-term goals.
2. Demand-side economics cannot be sustained.
3. Demand-side economics don’t work well when accumulated debt it already holding down the economy.
4. Demand-side economics doesn’t take into consideration other forms of demand.

Why Demand-Side Economics Don’t Work

First, demand-side economics only take into account the short-term. There is a trade-off to borrowing money. When you borrow $250,000 in order to buy a house, sure you inject $250,000 into the economy. However, with that comes some trade-offs. First, you’re locked into those monthly payments for 15 to 30 years. Second, you end up paying $379,443 for the house, not $250,000, depending on your term and interest rate. Third, you might find yourself unable to move if you can’t later sell the house.

Similarly, in a national economy, if we borrow $1 trillion to “stimulate” the economy, we’re locking ourselves into those debt payments for the long-term (see discussion of debt and the economy below). We are also paying a LOT more money for that $1 trillion in the future, which decreases future demand (if you paid for your house in cash, you would spend the $129,443 in interest savings on other things in the intervening 30 years). Finally, by increasing our debt, we will find ourselves unable to other things in the future, if we are paying an increasing amount of money on debt payments. Today, the U.S. is paying between $360 billion and $460 billion per year in debt interest payments, and that is while interest rates are an average of 2.2%. If interest rates rise, as they are expected to do, our interest payments will skyrocket. For every 0.25% rise in interest rates, our interest payments on our national debt will increase $41 billion.

The second problem with demand-side economics is that they cannot be sustained. Stimulus packages, as we’ve seen, don’t always work as we expect that they will. The $787 billion stimulus of 2009 did very little to boost the economy (though liberals will say that it kept us out of a depression), and certainly hasn’t caused enough of a boost to the economy where we can pay back the $787 billion in debt. In fact, I can’t think of any scenario in history where a stimulus has been done, and the debt has been paid back. I’m open to anyone pointing out if I’m wrong on this point. However, it seems to me that when we borrow money for stimulus, we continue to pay interest on that debt ad infinitum.

The third problem with demand-side economics is that it doesn’t work well when accumulated debt is already holding down the economy. In theory, economic stimulus might create demand in an economy, as Keynesians/liberals claim. However, I think it’s more appropriate this way: “economic stimulus might create demand in an economy that’s not weighed down by debt.” A study was done by two Harvard professors, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, that found that when a nation’s debt reaches 90% of its annual GDP, the economic growth is, on average, 1% lower than when its debt was under 80% of GDP. In other words, a high level of national debt makes it very hard to create economic growth. Many countries in Europe have seen this in the last few years. Japan has had this problem for the better part of 20 years.

The comparison to a family budget doesn’t work very well in this category; but the comparison to a large company may work pretty well. If you have a large company, it could be to your advantage to borrow some money in order to make an investment in equipment or in a marketing campaign, to gain market share or to introduce a new line of products, for example. Many financial advisors will say it’s risky to borrow in order to do these types of things, but we’ll say our hypothetical company will do it anyways. When you have a small amount of debt, this can work splendidly. If your gamble doesn’t pay off, then you can pay for the loan out of profits for the next few years until the loan is paid off. However, if you’ve continually borrowed and borrowed, each time on the “next big idea,” then you will reach a point when your “next big idea” doesn’t pay off, and you cannot make the loan payments, and you default on the loan. Then you’re forced, as a company, to liquidate part or all of the business to pay off the loan, at which point other loans may be called, and your company goes under. Similarly, borrowing money when you’re debt-to-GDP ratio as a nation is at 20% is a much different gamble than when your debt-to-GDP ratio is over 100% (as our is now). Your risk as a nation is higher, and if your gamble doesn’t pay off (as in the 2009 stimulus plan), then you’re stuck with an increased debt that you really cannot afford.

The fourth problem with a demand-side economic model for government is that it doesn’t take into account other (and perhaps better) types of demand. When the government spends money, it’s deciding where that money goes, necessarily making a choice as to what is the best sort of “demand.” In the case of the Obama administration, it decided that the following were the best types of demand to create:

• Increasing food stamp payments
• Construction projects – high speed rail, highway improvements, public housing projects, renewable energy investments
• Increases in Pell grants
• More teachers
• Aid to balance state education budgets
• Payroll tax credit
• Increasing the number of weeks of jobless benefits (unemployment)
• Aid to states for Medicaid spending

Cynically, I think that most of the stimulus spending went to sectors where there was a political motivation to spend money, not where there was an economic motivation to spend money (state government, construction, education). This is the fundamental problem with government-supplied demand-side economic policies: it doesn’t send capital where its use would have the greatest economic effect; it sends capital to where its use has the greatest political effect, often to the detriment of the economy.

An Alternative Economic Solution

Liberals do have a point when it comes to demand. Demand for goods and services is a driver of economic growth. However, pushing money into areas in which it otherwise (in a free market) would not be used is an inefficient use of capital. Capital will, in a free market, find its most efficient path to create economic growth, while the government does not. If, instead of confiscating capital from the private sector in the form of taxes or debt, the government were to leave capital in the hands of the private sector, current and future demand would be created, in the most efficient way possible.

In the initial example above, if the government were to refrain from increasing taxes to fund their stimulus (I’ll deal with borrowing below), then the private sector has that much money with which to create demand in their own ways. For example, if the business owner doesn’t have to pay taxes to pay for the stimulus package, then he might have enough money with which to hire an extra employee, or to start a new product line, or to finance an expansion of his business to another community. Instead of the government dictating where the demand is created, the individuals, businesses and communities are instead creating the demand that boosts the economy.

But what about the government borrowing to fund the stimulus? What could possibly be wrong with that? Borrowing, while creating an immediate demand, decreases future demand. Not only does the government have to pay back the stimulus money at some point, but it also has to pay it back with interest. Our $787 billion stimulus in 2009 will cost us $17.3 billion each year, every year, until we pay back the money, which we are unlikely to do (given our track record of paying back our debt). That $17.3 billion is demand that is removed from our economy every year. That decreases our annual GDP by 0.1% each year, which is not insignificant, given that our annual GDP growth is about 1.3% in this sluggish economy.

Bottom line: Government borrowing to fund stimulus packages may temporarily increase economic output (though not necessarily, as we saw in the 2009 stimulus), but actually decrease economic output over the long run. High government debt also decreases economic output, though to what extent is still yet unknown.

Discussion question: Why do you think liberals fall for the demand-side (Keynesian) economic theory?

Well, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child was not passed by the Senate (thankfully), but now a new treaty is coming before the U.S. Senate: the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  It’s equally bad, and should not be approved by the Senate.  Here are ten specific problems with this treaty.  I’m reprinting these ten reasons from ParentalRights.org’s president Michael Farris (you can see the original PDF version here):

1. Any remaining state sovereignty on the issue of disability law will be entirely eliminated by the ratification of this treaty. The rule of international law is that the nation-state that ratifies the treaty has the obligation to ensure compliance. This gives Congress total authority to legislate on all matters regarding disability law—a power that is substantially limited today. Article 4(5) makes this explicit.
2. Article 4(1)(a) demands that all American law on this subject be conformed to the standards of the UN.
3. Article 4(1)(e) remands that “every person, organization, or private enterprise” must eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability. On its face, this means that every home owner would have to make their own home fully accessible to those with disabilities. If the UN wants to make exceptions, perhaps they could. But, on its face, this is the meaning of the treaty.
4. Article 4(1)(e) also means that the legal standard for the number of handicapped spaces required for parking at your business, private school, or house of worship will be established by the UN—not your local government.
5. Article 4(2) requires the United States to use its maximum resources for compliance with these standards. The UN has interpreted similar provisions in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to criticize nations who spend too much on military issues and not enough on social programs. There is every reason to believe that the UN would interpret these provisions in a similar fashion. The UN believes that it has the power to determine the legitimacy and lawfulness of the budget of the United States to assess compliance with such treaties.
6. Article 6(2) is a backdoor method of requiring the United States to comply with the general provisions of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This treaty enshrines abortion rights, homosexual rights, and demands the complete disarmament of all people.
7. Article 7(2) advances the identical standard for the control of children with disabilities as is contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This means that the government—acting under UN directives—gets to determine for all children with disabilities what the government thinks is best.
8. Article 25 on Education does not repeat the parental rights rules of earlier human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This is an important omission. Coupling this omission with the direct declaration of “the best interest of the child” standard in Article 7(2), this convention is nothing less than the complete eradication of parental rights for the education of children with disabilities.
9. Article 15’s call for a ban on “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” is the exact same language used in the UN CRC which has been authoritatively interpreted to ban any spanking by parents. It should be noted that Article 15 is not limited to persons with disabilities. It says “no one shall be subjected to … inhuman or degrading treatment.” This means that spanking will be banned entirely in the United States.
10. The United States, as a wealthy nation, would be obligated to fund disability programs in nations that could not afford their own programs under the dictates of Article 4(2). This is what “the framework of international cooperation” means.

Please call your Senators and ask them to vote No on this terrible treaty.  Click here to find out how you can take action.

Here’s what he said about the impact of the increased taxes on small business:

“When it comes to taxes, for example, there are two pathways available.

“One says, if Congress fails to act by the end of the year, then everybody’s taxes automatically go up – including the 98% of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year. Our economy can’t afford that right now. You can’t afford that right now. And nobody wants that to happen.

“The other path is for Congress to pass a law right away to prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of anyone’s income. That means all Americans – including the wealthiest Americans – get a tax cut. And 98 percent of Americans, and 97 percent of all small business owners, won’t see their income taxes go up a single dime.

“The Senate has already passed a bill like this. Democrats in the House are ready to pass one, too. All we need is for Republicans in the House to come on board.”

If it’s not going to affect practically anyone, why are those stupid House Republicans dragging their feet??

Well, it turns out, those 3% of small businesses are pretty important to our economy.  The Investors Business Daily explains,

“But this is, to put it politely, deceptive. By jacking up taxes on the most successful 3% of small businesses, Obama will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, shrink U.S. output and force companies to raise prices.

“As usual, the data tell the story.

“America has some 34.8 million small businesses, according to a recent Treasury Department study. Sounds like a lot, until you consider that 30 million of them employ no one other than the owner.

“Of the remaining 4.8 million that do employ workers, 1.2 million have incomes above $200,000 — where Obama’s tax hikes kick in.

“Here’s the rub: Those 1.2 million small businesses that will be hit by Obama’s small-business tax are the nation’s most prolific job creators, accounting for 54% of all private-sector positions — or 77.6 million in all.

“And while they make up just 3% of all small businesses, they earn 91% — or $341 billion — of all profits reported by the small businesses with workers. “They are the most successful and therefore the biggest job creators,” as the Heritage Foundation recently pointed out.”

Hmmmm… I hope that somebody tells the president that he’s about to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs.  Maybe he’ll be too busy selling his tax hikes to the public to pay attention.

Discussion Question: Are you in favor of raising taxes on our nation’s most prolific job creators?

Last Tuesday, Democrats won four seats from the Republicans, and held on to one competitive seat near St. Louis, while Republicans held one competitive seat. Here are the new members:

Tammy Duckworth – 8th Congressional District (Republican to Democrat) – The 8th congressional race was probably the most publicized of the races. Incumbent Rep. Joe Walsh was a controversial Republican member of Congress who was closely associated with the Tea Party. Walsh had originally decided to run in the 14th district, challenging Randy Hultgren for the seat, but later decided to run in the 8th district to avoid a member-on-member primary fight. Duckworth, who had run for Congress in 2006, and had lost to Peter Roskam, had been appointed the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and after President Obama won his first term in 2008, was appointed the Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She also has a list of “firsts” for Congress: first Asian-American elected in Illinois; first disabled woman elected to Congress (she lost her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her helicopter in Iraq in 2004); first member of Congress born in Thailand. She won the race by a convincing 55-45%. She will be 44 years old when she takes office.

Brad Schneider – 10th Congressional District (Republican to Democrat) – Schneider ran in another competitive district. Bob Dold, the incumbent congressman, had defeated Democrat Dan Seals in 2010 to replace Mark Kirk, who won the U.S. Senate race in Illinois that year. The National Journal ranked Dold as one of the most vulnerable incumbents in 2012. Despite being endorsed by the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald, Dold fell to the Democratic wave. Brad Schneider is a management consultant who ran his own consulting firm, Cadence Consulting Group, until he decided to run for Congress. His lack of income from his business was an issue in the campaign. He won the district by a very slim 2,500 votes. He will be 51 years old when he takes office.

Bill Foster – 11th Congressional District (Republican to Democrat) – Foster was in the unique position of running for his old job. He was elected to Congress in 2008 to represent the 14th congressional district after Dennis Hastert resigned from Congress (after losing his speakership). Foster was unseated in 2010 by Randy Hultgren in a hard-fought race. In the 2010 redistricting, Hultgren’s district was made substantially more Republican, so Foster decided to run in the new 11th district, a competitive (but Democratic-leaning) district. He ran against Rep. Judy Biggert, a 7-term incumbent whose district was eliminated in the redistricting. Biggert faltered in the debates, allowing Foster to take the advantage. Foster is a physicist who worked at Fermilab for 22 years, and was on the team of scientists that won the 1989 Bruno Rossi Prize for cosmic ray physics. He won the district 58-42%. He will be 57 years old when he takes office (again).

Bill Enyart – 12th Congressional District (Democrat to Democrat) – the 12th district in Illinois became a competitive district when representative Jerry Costello (D) decided to retire rather than run for re-election. Enyart did not run in the primary election, but was selected as the Democratic nominee after the primary winner, Brad Harriman, dropped out of the race due to illness. Enyart was selected by a 13-member committee to replace Harriman. He ran against Jason Plummer, who was the 2010 Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. Enyart was a member of the U.S. Air Force before joining the Illinois Army National Guard, and was appointed to lead the National Guard in 2007 by Governor Blagojevich. He has promised to work to fix the flaws with the Affordable Care Act when he gets to Congress. He won 52% of the votes in the race. He will be 63 years old when he takes office.

Rodney Davis – 13th Congressional District (Republican to Republican) – Davis was one bright light for the Republicans in a day full of sadness. Davis ran to succeed Congressman Tim Johnson, who had held the seat for 12 years. Johnson ran in the primary race, and had a near-certain chance of re-election. But, after he won the primary election, he announced that he would retire from his seat in Congress. Rodney Davis was selected to replace Johnson on the ballot by a 14-member committee made up of Republican County Chairmen. Davis was the campaign manager for Rep. John Shimkus’ first re-election campaign, and then joined the congressman’s staff. Davis won the race by a slim 1,287 votes. He will be 43 years old when he takes office.

Cheri Bustos – 17th Congressional District (Republican to Democrat) – A former reporter and editor for the Quad-City Times and former alderman on the city council of East Moline, Cheri Bustos ran in a three-way race to challenge incumbent congressman Bobby Schilling, a pizzeria owner from Moline, Illinois. She defeated Freeport mayor George Gaulrapp and Augustana College executive Greg Aguilar in the primary, and then waged a fierce general election race against Schilling, defeating him 53-47%. From her policy positions, she seems like a run-of-the-mill Democrat: she strongly supports the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), opposes extending the Bush tax cuts for the top tax brackets, supports the DREAM Act, supports a contraceptive mandate, and opposes free trade acts (calling them in one debate “NAFTA-like”). However, she supports a 10% pay cut for all members of Congress until the federal budget is passed. She will be 51 years old when she takes office.

So, Democrats gained 4 seats in the House of Representatives in 2012. The Illinois House delegation now has 12 Democratic members and 6 Republican members, a shift from the 11-8 majority the Republicans had in the last Congress.

These new members of Congress join the other members of the Illinois congressional delegation:

1st Congressional District – Bobby Rush (D)
2nd Congressional District – Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D)
3rd Congressional District – Dan Lipinski (D)
4th Congressional District – Luis Gutierrez (D)
5th Congressional District – Mike Quigley (D)
6th Congressional District – Peter Roskam (R)
7th Congressional District – Danny Davis (D)
9th Congressional District – Jan Schakowsky (D)
14th Congressional District – Randy Hultgren (R)
15th Congressional District – John Shimkus (R)
16th Congressional District- Adam Kinzinger (R)
18th Congressional District – Aaron Schock (R)

President Obama has planned a meeting with congressional leaders for next week. Commentators are talking about the disastrous effects of the fiscal cliff if we should go over it. But what does it really mean? How does it really affect you and your life? Here’s a short primer on the fiscal cliff.

Overview of the fiscal cliff

When people talk about the fiscal cliff, they’re mainly referring to several tax increases that are set to take effect in 2013, and a number of tax cuts that are set to expire at the same time. Here’s a short list of the main ones:

• The Bush tax cuts expire – $156 billion)
• The payroll tax holiday expires – $125 billion
• Failure to patch the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) – $88 billion
• Expiration of business expensing – $48 billion
• Expiration of other tax extenders – $40 billion
• New Obamacare taxes – $36 billion
• Expiration of 2009 stimulus – $11 billion
• Estate tax increase – $10 billion

These are annual amounts. So, over 10 years, this is a $5.1 trillion tax increase.

So, what does this mean for you, personally? Well, here’s a few specifics about the income tax increases:

• The bottom tax bracket goes away (and starts getting taxed at 15%. So, if you make under $17,900 (as a married couple), then your taxes will go up by 5%.
• The second tax bracket remains the same, so if you make between $17,900 and $60,550, your taxes will remain the same (except for the first $17K of income).
• The 25% tax bracket goes up to 28% (incomes between $60,550 and $146,400, married)
• The 28% tax bracket goes up to 31% (incomes between $146,400 and $223,050, married)
• The 33% tax bracket goes up to 36% (incomes between $223,050 and $398,350, married)
• And new tax bracket is created (39.6%) for incomes above $398,350

Here are some dollar amounts for you: if you’re married, in the middle class, you’ll pay between $895 more and $4,666 more in taxes next year. If you’re married and making $250,000/year, you’ll pay an additional $7,774 in income taxes in 2013 (with a total tax bill of $66,084.

Furthermore, the payroll tax holiday is also set to expire, going back to 6.2% from 4.2%. That means that if you make the median 2012 U.S. income in 2013, you will pay an additional $1,001 in payroll taxes. These are real numbers!

Economics

If the fiscal cliff hits us (and there’s a good possibility that many of the taxes will, including payroll taxes and Obamacare taxes), the economy will slow down. How much the economy slows down depends on which taxes are allowed to increase, and which ones are not.

For example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which released a report on Thursday, says that if all the taxes planned for 2013 are implemented, it would slow GDP growth by 2%. Compare that to our current economic growth of ~1.5%, and you can see that we’re in negative growth, which means recession.

According to a New York Times article, a different analysis by Moody’s Analytics predicts that the fiscal cliff would create an economic slowdown of 3.6%, even higher than the CBO predicted.

However, if only the income tax increases on the highest tax brackets are implemented, says the CBO, the economy would only slow down by 0.25%, which is more palatable to economists, but still 16.7% of our total economic growth for the year! (Take note, those of you who re-elected President Obama because you thought it wouldn’t hurt the economy to tax the rich!).

The good news for the country, though, is that if the fiscal cliff actually happens, it will bring more revenue to the national treasury, and the government won’t have the high deficits that it’s had in the past few years. The deficits will only be about half what they were last year.

Politics

Now, for all of you who are now saying, “Oh, my goodness, I’m going to pay thousands of dollars more in taxes next year,” take heart. Both Republicans and Democrats want to save you. President Obama doesn’t want to raise taxes on the lower and middle classes. He only wants to raise taxes on the top income earners.

However, both parties want to find a way to end the payroll tax holiday, because it’s really hurting Social Security to not have that money going into the fund. So, you’ll likely see that tax go back to what it was. For those outside of Illinois, it will hurt only a little bit. However, for those in Illinois, who saw the payroll tax holiday offset by a 2% increase in the Illinois state income tax, you’ll actually get hurt again by the expiring payroll tax cut. For those in Illinos, it’s just a plain old tax increase, not a return to the old rates. The problem is, do you blame Governor Quinn now, two years after he implemented the income tax increase? Or do you blame President Obama for the “new” tax?

Many of the tax increases listed above will be used as bargaining chips by both sides, and some will end up coming back. The Obama tax increases are likely to be implemented, because they’re part of the president’s plan, and Republican lawmakers want people to feel the impact of the Obamacare law.

If I had to guess, I would say that the “compromise” that the two parties achieve in regards to the fiscal cliff will look much like this: Obama will allow all the Bush tax rates to continue, including the rates for the top brackets. In exchange, he will get the Republicans to concede to a return of the payroll taxes to their 2009 levels, and then will try to blame those new taxes on the Republicans once they hit. Republicans and Democrats will come together to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax law, putting another patch on it for a couple of years. The Obamacare taxes will be implemented. And, after it’s all done, President Obama will call for a new stimulus spending package to help the economy, which is still in the doldrums.

Fiscal Sanity Elusive

In short, politicians will come up with a short-term fix to the tax code, and each go their separate ways, blaming the other for the bad state of the economy. Instead of dealing with the long term problems of our deficit and debt, they will continue to be short-sighted panderers. Instead of fixing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, they will punt the costs into the next generation.

While you wait for Congress and the President to do their jobs, consider checking out the Fiscal Cliff Tax Calculator by clicking here, and find out how much more in taxes you’ll pay if they don’t act.

Discussion Question: How well do you think Congress and the President will deal with the fiscal cliff?

“The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work.”

President Obama also struck a unifying tone in his victory speech:

“A long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president…

“Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.”

Bill Clinton’s Example

How does President Obama go about moving past the politics as usual? As President Obama presides over the divided Congress that Americans chose on Tuesday, I would suggest that he take a page from the most popular Democratic president in recent history, Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was soundly beaten in the 1994 mid-term elections, and both houses of Congress switched to Republican control. Republicans gained 54 seats in the House, and 9 seats in the Senate in 1994, gaining control in both houses. In 1996, even as Americans re-elected Bill Clinton by an overwhelming majority in the electoral college (379-159), they also elected 3 more Republican senators, and gave the Republicans another majority in the House. However, in all cases, Clinton found a way to work with both houses of Congress in those subsequent 6 years, and much was accomplished, including:

• Taxpayer Bill of Rights (1996)
• Small Business Job Protection Act (1996)
• Welfare Reform Act (1996)
• Defense of Marriage Act (1996)
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPPA (1996)
• Balanced Budget Act of (1997)
• Taxpayer Relief Act (1997)
• Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act (1998)
• American Inventors Protection Act (1999)
• Children’s Health Act (2000)

In addition to these major pieces of legislation, Congress and Bill Clinton worked together to balance the budget for the first time since 1969. How did Bill Clinton do this? And what can President Obama learn from his predecessor’s success?

Triangulation

The main reason for Clinton’s legislative and executive success was, in large part, due to his policy of triangulation. Basically, triangulation was Clinton’s way of staying above and out of the political fray. He borrowed policies from both sides when designing major legislation. His famous “the era of big government is over” statement is a classic example of triangulation; he took a foundational Republican value–small government–and embraced it as his own. He also embraced deregulation, balanced budgets and welfare reform, enabling a tremendous amount of bipartisan legislation for which he could take a lion’s share of credit.

Will President Obama pursue a policy of triangulation when it comes to the Republican House? Clinton’s triangulation was borne out of necessity; American voters had soundly rejected many of the over-reaches of his first two years. President Obama governed from the far left for his first term, with relatively little success after the Republicans regained control of the House. Here are the pieces of major legislation that were passed in 2011 and 2012:

• Leahy-Smith America Invents Act
• Korea Free Trade Agreement
• Columbia Free Trade Agreement
• Panama Free Trade Agreement
• Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act
• National Defense Authorization Act
• Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act
• Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act
• Continuing Appropriations Resolution (CR)

Seriously. When a list of the largest legislation that you pass in two years includes a bill to refurbish federal buildings, you know that you haven’t accomplished that much.

President Obama recognized, in his victory speech, that there are many things that will require Republicans and Democrats to come together. There are many significant problems that we need to pass, and we can’t wait four more years until a new president comes in to lead. I suggest that, instead of taking the “I won, you lost” attitude of his first term, a Clintonesque conciliatory stance toward compromise might serve the president much better.

I can’t wait to see if he’s willing.

Discussion Question: Do you think that President Obama will be willing to compromise with Republicans in his second term?  Or is it all just talk, like his first term?

This list if far from comprehensive, and there are some that you might think, “That’s a stupid reason,” but you only really have to agree with one reason on this list to vote for Romney or against Obama. At times, I’ve added links to news stories or blog posts, for your enjoyment.  Here’s the  list:

1. Mitt Romney believes in a second American century, like the 20^th century was the American century.
2. Mitt Romney is very good man who has a good character and a great vision for the country.
3. Romney is a turnaround specialist, that knows how to prioritize tasks and attack the most important problem first. He’s actually turned around companies.
4. President Obama is the least generous political person I’ve ever seen in American politics at the national level. To those who oppose him, to those across the aisle from him.
5. He is the most partisan president that we’ve had in recent history. We’ve always passed large pieces of legislation with at least some opposition support. He wants no part of bipartisan governance.
6. President Obama acted in a very unpresidential way when he attacked Paul Ryan’s budget when it was unveiled. He invited him to sit in the front row of a speech, and then castigated him about his budget, while Ryan was sitting directly in front of him.
7. Obama made the statement: “I won.” Made to Eric Cantor and other Republican leadership when they came to him with ideas on how they could work together.
8. President Obama’s full-throated attack on Roman Catholics, especially in regards to the HHS mandate that all Catholic organizations must provide sterilization, morning-after pill, etc., in opposition to their closely-held beliefs.
9. He will not, cannot, never has accepted responsibility for any of the fiascos that have been made in the course of his presidency. He refuses to accept responsibility for anything.
10. Barack Obama blames straw men. He invents arguments that are not made, by people that do not exist. He never takes on the actual arguments that are made, but instead lines up the straw men, and lights them on fire.
11. Obama won’t deal with the truth. He gave, for example, a massive stimulus to the Congress. He’s responsible for its failure. Nobody knows where all the money went. That responsibility lies with Obama, and he won’t deal with it.
12. Van Jones and the other czars. These unaccountable and unsupervised attempts to broaden his executive power are reason #12.
13. Solyndra. The recipient of $500 million in a sweetheart deal ended up in bankruptcy. An epic waste.
14. The Boeing plant in Charleston, SC. The National Labor Relations Board said “No” because the unions in Washington didn’t want the plant built in a “right to work” state.
15. Remember the raid on Gibson Guitars? They took everything that Mr. Gibson had made in his plant, accusing him of illegally importing some wood from India.
16. Mitt Romney has successfully raised a wonderful family, along with Ann Romney. What does this tell you about his character?
17. Mitt Romney has held a government job, but he’s never gotten a government paycheck. As governor of Massachusetts, he didn’t take a salary, and he won’t as president.
18. Mitt Romney can read a balance sheet. Do you think that Barack Obama can read a balance sheet?
19. Mitt Romney has run a very complicated set of businesses.
20. Ann Romney. She’s remarkable. She’s overcome incredible trials in her own life—MS and breast cancer. She’s raised 5 boys.
21. Paul Ryan. It shows that Romney’s judgment is reliable. It also says he’s very serious about the budget, deficit and debt.
22. Joe Biden. It shows that Obama doesn’t have very good judgment. He’s a national joke. Most people love Joe for his smile and effervescence. You don’t want him to be president. He’s the guy Obama picked first, which says something about Obama’s judgment.
23. Israel. If you are a supporter of the state of Israel, you really cannot support President Barack Obama. It’s not just Obama’s testy relationship with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama’s hostility from Day One to Israel has been omnipresent. He simply does not like the state of Israel.
24. Obama’s particularly tense relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. He left Netanyahu in the basement of the White House, saying, “Let me know if anything changes.” He also refused to meet with Netanyahu while he was at the U.N., even though he had time to play golf and do an appearance on The View.
25. What happened when Iran revolted? Obama did nothing for the Green Revolution. People on both sides of the political spectrum urged him to stand by those who were standing up for democracy in Iran, but he did nothing. The Iranian revolution was suppressed by the radical Iranian government.
26. The “leading from behind” doctrine. The president invented a new approach in foreign affairs called, “leading from behind.” This lead to months of chaos in Libya, which gave birth to the killing of our ambassador in Benghazi.
27. We see leading from behind from Obama in Syria. He held up the Assad regime as being a model partner in peace. Everyone knew that Assad was a butcher, and that Syria was a police state. Everyone knew that Assad was our enemy, except Barack Obama. Tens of thousands are now dead.
28. The bow to the Saudi king. Stylistic, but important.
29. The bow to the Japanese emperor. Stylistic, but important. He does not seem to realize that when he goes abroad, he represents the full power of the United States. This subservience in protocol telegraphs an appeasement in policy.
30. There’s been no progress in regards to North Korea. It’s arming the world’s despots and crazies, and is completely immune to Barack Obama. Not only have they not disarmed, they are increasingly marketing their arms of death.
31. There’s been no progress in regards to Russia, either. Barack Obama thought he could talk to Putin. He whispered to Medvedev that he will have more flexibility after the election.
32. President Obama screwed Poland. Romney will redeploy the missile defense in Poland. We’d done that deal under the Bush administration, and without notice, Barack Obama screwed the Polish government and the Czech government. This was a horrific foreign policy mistake to two of our most treasured allies.
33. He screwed the Czech Republic (see above).
34. He pulled down our nuclear deterrent. The cuts in our nuclear deterrent have been deep under President Obama. We’ve cut our deterrent to the bone. We have to remodernize. President Obama has not done that.
35. President Obama has abandoned Iraq. Even if you believe that the Iraq war was ill-advised, when it was over, it was won. The surge worked. We had won the war. Commanders suggested to Obama that 10,000-15,000 troops remain in Iraq to help with the peace, but Obama ignored them. When confronted with a modicum of difficulty, Obama got mad, and ran away from Iraq. Since we left, Iraq has been periodically rocked with sectarian violence. That’s Barack Obama’s responsibility. He cut and ran from Iraq.
36. President Obama has announced a firm withdrawal date for Afghanistan. He’s put the Taliban on notice about how long they have to hold on before they can take the country back. Barack Obama is getting out, date certain, regardless of the recommendations of his commanders. He does not listen to his generals on the grounds.
37. Barack Obama cut the F-22 program. This air force fighter is the most superior airplane in the world. There will be nothing that will equal it in a generation, and President Obama closed the program down. We had air superiority for the foreseeable future, and Obama ended it. It was supposed to be replaced by the F-35, but the delivery of the F-35 (a cheaper aircraft) has been stretched out as well.
38. President Obama has threatened our naval power. Our national security depends on our naval superiority. Our navy is supposed to be at a minimum strength of 313 ships, at a minimum under Obama it’s at 282 ships. It might go as low as 250 ships, if Barack Obama’s spending plans are kept.
39. President Obama cut the Marine Corp by 20,000 marines.
40. President Obama cut the Army by 80,000 troops. Our military is being cut down to the bone. The defense policies of Barack Obama are undermining our national security. Mitt Romney has promised to restore our military to where it needs to be to ensure our national security.
41. Mitt Romney experience at Bain Consulting and Bain Capital. The records of both are extraordinary. Bain Capital was perhaps the most successful investment firm in the 1990s, when Romney was at the helm. Successes like Staples. This experience taught him about creating jobs and about the economy.
42. Mitt Romney has a lot of church experience. Everyone’s probably aware that he’s a Mormon, and did a 2 1/2 year stint as a missionary. He volunteered a lot, even with small kids, as an executive, as a governor, and throughout the Salt Lake Olympics. He volunteers his time. He has given and given and given.
43. Mitt Romney’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. George Romney. Lenore Romney ran for Senate (and lost). You may know whether you had good parents or bad parents. Mitt Romney had two of the best parents. George Romney was an extraordinary American. He had a deep sense of public service, and this shows in Mitt Romney.
44. Mitt Romney’s charitable giving. It’s huge. He’s given away $30 million over 20 years, and that’s not counting what he might have made if he’d kept that money (the opportunity cost of charitable giving). Mitt Romney is the most generous of any presidential candidate. And it’s not timed for political gain. His giving goes back 20 years. He gave sacrificially even when he was poor and in business school.
45. Barack Obama’s gaffes. They embarrass me. Everyone makes a gaffe every once in a while. But he can’t help but fall on his face. Corpse-men. 57 states. We can put an end to this in November. He’s as gaffe-prone as Joe Biden. These are the types of gaffes that make you really hope
46. President Obama has deceived the country about the deficit and debt and his plan to raise taxes. He’s insisted that the deficit and debt can be solved by raising taxes on people making $250,000 or more. That’s a lie. Some people say that it will raise 10% of the deficit. Some say that it will completely collapse economic growth. But no one says that it will raise more than 10% of the deficit.
47. President Obama’s treatment of President Bush. Not that he doesn’t call him for advice, or stuff like that. Just his constant whining and blaming of President Bush. It was cringe-inducing in the first year. But now, he continues to blame George W. Bush for his failures. It teaches (especially young people) never to own what they’ve failed at.
48. President Obama’s refusal to do anything remotely approaching a realistic budget. Year after year he sends up budgets that his own party will not vote for. This year, the Democratically-controlled Senate did not get ONE vote for his budget.
49. President Obama’s refused to do anything about Social Security. Everyone knows how to fix Social Security, but President Obama won’t do anything about it. Social Security remains on the rocks.
50. President Obama has refused to do anything about Medicaid. It’s bankrupting the states. The states can’t take care of their poor under this program. President Obama has done nothing, because it involves tough choices.
51. He won’t speak the truth about the Fort Hood massacre. It involved a Muslim doctor that no one would blow the whistle on, because of political correctness. President Obama still refuses to speak truth about this issue.
52. The president’s elitism in things as small as how he pronounces “Pakistan.” This pronunciation reminds that the president thinks he’s just smarter than everyone.
53. An aggravation: his pretended touch about sports. He can’t name one favorite White Sox player, even though it’s supposedly his favorite team. He has time to do his brackets during international crises, but it’s this attempt to be all things to all people at all times.
54. His paralysis in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill. He didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. Louisiana begged him for permission to do something to save their coast lands, but he was absolutely paralyzed. Also on the killing of bin Laden. Why did it take so long to green-light that mission?
55. His over-reaction to the Gulf oil spill. After the situation was resolved, then he acted to shut down drilling in the region. The gulf oil rigs moved away, and tens of thousands of jobs were lost.
56. He embarrassed us in England, when he gave the Queen an iPod of all his speeches.
57. The Cairo speech. He was going to reset relations with the Muslim world. This speech was perceived as weakness, and has brought home seeds of havoc and cruelty across the Muslim world, and now the Muslim Brotherhood rules in Egypt. He has lost Egypt. He began his foreign policy with a repudiation of George W. Bush with his speech in Cairo, and now he cannot go to Cairo, because it would be too dangerous.
58. Enormous spending. He’s spent more in 4 years than George W. Bush did in 8 years. He’s irresponsible beyond any measure of responsibility.
59. Dodd-Frank. It’s been a death-knell for small banks. It has stalled the growth of small businesses across the United States. His assault on the banking sector has been unprecedented.
60. Fast and Furious. The idea of walking guns into Mexico is absurd. And it killed a U.S. border agent, as well as at least 16 Mexican nationals (that we know about).
61. The cover-up of Fast and Furious. He is working with the Department of Justice in order to prevent the release of documents related to the program. He’s still trying to dodge questions about Fast and Furious. He insists it wasn’t his fault, and trying to blame it on Bush.
62. Barack Obama still wants to close Gitmo. He still refuses to recognize that the international terror threat is still alive and well, even though Osama bin Laden is dead.
63. President Obama wanted to, and indeed allowed, the trial of one terrorist in New York. He got a conviction on one count, instead of many. He wants to criminalize terrorism. President Obama would like to bring all trials of terrorists into the United States.
64. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Whether you are for or against the act itself, you’re probably on the side of the Constitution. If a bill is passed by Congress and signed by the president (Clinton), and hadn’t been struck down by any appeals court in the United States, the executive branch should continue to defend the law in court. President Obama has stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act. The Act hasn’t been repealed, and it hasn’t been overturned by the Supreme Court.
65. Recent executive order on immigration. Immigration law is set and passed by Congress. The current law doesn’t allow for an exemption for those children that came with their parents at a very young age. In addition to lessening the job prospects of citizens and legal immigrants, the order runs roughshod over constitution prerogative. Obama has been making up the laws as he’s been going along.
66. Justice Sotomayor – lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Has voted with the far left, and will continue to vote with the far left for the rest of her lifetime.
67. Justice Kagen – lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Has voted with the far left, and will continue to vote with the far left for the rest of her lifetime. There will be retirements ahead in this term. These two justices are an indication of what President Obama could do in the next four years with one, two, or three more appointments to the Supreme Court.
68. President Obama jammed Obamacare down the throat of America after Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat specifically to provide a 41st vote to kill it. Despite enormous majorities against Obamacare, the president pushed it through. What does it say about his indifference to the people he leads?
69. President Obama chose to tax inactivity with Obamacare. The Supreme Court has now ruled that it’s a tax. It’s a tax on people who just sit at home and do nothing. You don’t have to do anything to get hit with this tax. Imagine the far-reaching effects of this choice. Now that the president has been blessed in this regard, imagine what he will do with it.
70. The decision to give the IPAB board control over health care decisions. This board is going to decide what’s going to count under Obamacare and be reimbursed, and what’s not. And if they decide that something’s not worth covering, then you’re out of luck. If they don’t want to give you chemo drugs, then it won’t be reimbursed, which will drive some chemo drugs out of the market. If the IPAB doesn’t think that a baby or small child with some disease or birth defect isn’t worth paying for, then you’ll be out of luck.
71. When he had the chance, when he could have done it easily, he did not reign in the trial bar. He didn’t add medical malpractice reform to Obamacare, which could have made it bipartisan.
72. He did not remove a single barrier to the interstate commerce objection to the trafficking in health insurance plans across the United States. There are legal barriers to selling health insurance across state lines, and they should have been removed, but they weren’t.
73. President Obama cut Medicare by $760 billion. The system is broken, and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have said that the program must change for those who are under the age of 55. They are going to put the money that President Obama looted from the program.
74. Obamacare itself is a failure. Tens of millions of Americans will not get insurance under Obamacare, or will lose the insurance coverage that their employer currently offers them. It’s not universal health insurance. It doesn’t fix the problem is said it would fix. It won’t ease emergency room congestion. It’s a big government disaster.
75. Mitt Romney works pretty well with Democrats. He was elected in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and he worked effectively with the Democrats in the legislature to fix education and health care in Massachusetts. He can and will work effectively across the aisle. He won’t end up in the partisan gridlock that’s come along with the Chicago politician who hasn’t had to work well with others, and can’t work well with others.
76. Mitt Romney deals candidly with issues. He gets datasets. He consults experts. He was elected by Democrats because they had a huge deficit, and he dealt with the issue quickly.
77. Mitt Romney answers questions. He answers every question without reservation. He doesn’t have a story to keep straight.
78. President Obama filibusters in press conferences. His average answer is more than 7 minutes. He won’t answer questions, because he’s afraid of the answers he’s obliged to give. He’s so insecure of his own positions that he rambles on and on.
79. President Obama blew the Chicago Olympics. He brought back contempt. He should not have lobbied for a city that was not prepared and not going to win.
80. President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He ought not to have accepted a price for that which he could not bring and has not brought: peace.
81. The Chinese have been manipulating their currency for a decade. The president did nothing about it until Romney started campaigning for it consistently. It drains jobs. The president finally brought a trade case, but it’s too little, too late.
82. President Obama has done nothing in China to stop the suppression of the Christian house church movement in China. Our human rights record on this issue is horrible. We’ve done nothing to protect those churches under President Obama.
83. President Obama lied about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi in a Univision interview, long after everybody (including Susan Rice) had admitted it was a terrorist attack. We know that it was a terrorist attack, and the president continues to try to place blame elsewhere.
84. President Obama hides from the media. He will not engage in the kind of press conferences that are routine. Every time he does, he absolutely falls on his face, so his response is to hide. He ought to be doing a lot more than he does. When was the last time you heard him on talk radio? I thought he was president of the entire nation.
85. Mitt Romney is routinely willing to take the tough questions from the media.
86. He sent back the Winston Churchill bust. It’s small, but it happened. He denied it, but it happened. Then he retracted.
87. Jay Carney and Robert Gibbs. Robert Gibbs was perhaps the worst press secretary in the history of press secretaries. His relentless partisan and acrimonious comments set a horrible tone for Washington.
88. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Those are the president’s friends. You’ve never heard the president rebuke either of them. Pelosi’s “we have to pass it to see what’s in it” comment. Reid’s lying about Mitt Romney’s tax records. Reid’s refusal to pass a budget. Pelosi for her incessant demonization for people that disagree with her.
89. President Obama let’s the National Education Association obstruct education reform. The NEA also holds back pension reform, even for younger teachers.
90. The president likes to say that he saved the automobile industry. That’s not what he did. He saved the UAW union. That, more than anything, grates on the people who held bonds in the old GM and Chrysler. He spent $85 billion save the union workers pensions. In a regular bankruptcy, the unions would have gotten 75-90 cents on the dollar for their share, and the bondholders would have gotten a haircut, but they wouldn’t have been totally crushed, as they were under the president’s bailout. The president sold out to the UAW. And, GM stock is not remotely close to paying back what the U.S. taxpayers paid for it. He’s hanging on to a bad investment so he doesn’t have to face the music about a failed intervention.
91. He hasn’t cut one department or bureau. He’s been president for 4 years, and has run up trillions of dollars in spending, and he has not found ONE department or bureau to shutter. If he had, don’t you think you’d have heard about it?
92. We are continuing to fund the national public radio system and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, even though they are now unnecessary and we don’t have the money to continue to do it.
93. EPA War on Coal – is trying to crush the use of coal in the U.S. because of their cross border pollution rule. The president admits it. The EPA enforces it. It’s forcing thousands of coal workers out of work, and thousands of workers who are involved in the production of electricity out of work as well.
94. EPA has declared war on fracking–the ability to drill down and sideways to extract natural gas–even though there’s no environmental impact. Their objection is theoretical: they don’t want the use of carbon at all in the energy resources in the U.S. They don’t want the economic boom in North Dakota to continue into Pennsylvania and Ohio. They want to stop it in its tracks.
95. EPA is attempting to impose cap-and-trade by regulation. Cap and trade is so radical and so inefficient that it could not get out of the super-majorities that were in place in the first two years of Obama’s term. So, he’s trying to impose it through executive branch regulation, and that will roll forward in the blink of an eye as soon as his second term starts.
96. President Obama blames George W. Bush for everything. Everything that goes wrong in his presidency he blames on President Bush. Aren’t you tired of it?
97. 8% unemployment for 42 consecutive months. His Council of Economic Advisors promised that if Congress passed the stimulus package the unemployment rate would not go above 8%, and in fact it’s not been below 8%. The largest extended period of massive unemployment in the U.S. since the Great Depression.
98. Mitt Romney will slash the size and scope of the federal government. He will start to reform the federal mandates. He will begin the long and arduous process of reforming entitlements.
99. Mitt Romney is committed to 340 ships in the U.S. Navy. In a speech to the Citadel last year, said that we’ve got to go to 340 ships, we’ve got to build 9 per year instead of 5, and we’ve got to build the sort of ships that we need, instead of the types of ships that President Obama is deploying. We’ve got to maintain a blue-water navy that is second to none.
100. The People’s Republic of China – they are large and growing, they are not our friends. They are bent on domination of the east and beyond. They are building a blue-water navy with assymetrical warfare capabilities. They manipulate currency. They manipulate trade. They steal intellectual property. They aggressively persecute minorities in their nation. They are doing whatever they can to intimidate Japan. If you think that the PRC is just fine, by all means vote for Barack Obama, but if you think that is a threat not just for the next five years, but for the next fifty, and that someone has to look at it clearly and coldly and do something about it, then vote for Mitt Romney.

In speech after speech last week, like one in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President Obama said,

“This has nothing to do with me wanting to punish success; we love folks getting rich… but I do want to make sure that everybody else gets that chance as well… I believe that we should make sure that taxes on the 98% of Americans don’t go up, and then we should let the tax cuts expire for folks like me, the top 2% of Americans.  Anybody making over $250,000 a year, including me, would go back to the tax rate that we were paying under Bill Clinton, which, by the way, was a time when our economy created nearly 23 million jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and created plenty of millionaires to boot.”

So, I decided to go through the IRS data and do the math.  Warning: this is a bit wonky, so turn off your music and buckle down…

First, I started with income and tax data from the IRS for 2009:

The top 1% are pepole that make more than $343,927.00 (in 2009).

The top 5% paid $507B in taxes in 2009 (or 58.7% of all income taxes).  These people currently pay a 33% marginal rate, and an average 20.46% tax rate.

If we raise the marginal tax rate on the highest bracket to 39.6% (the rate under Bill Clinton, as referenced by the president), and the ratio remains the same between actual and marginal tax rates, the average top earner will actually pay 23.15% in taxes.

That means that, in 2009 dollars, we would bring in an additional $66.8 billion in revenue to the federal government coffers.  If we adjust that for inflation, we bring that up to $70.9 billion in 2012 dollars.

However, this exercise assumes two things: first, that we’re really raising taxes on the entire top 5%–anyone making above $154,643, which has not yet been suggested by any Democrat, Republican, or by the President; second, it also assumes that the people whose taxes are raised don’t adjust their behavior to lower their taxes due the government.  This goes contrary to economic theory, both on the right and on the left.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  If you lower taxes on something, you get more of it.

So, letting the “Bush tax cuts” expire for the people that make over $250,000 will bring in less than $71 billion in federal revenues.  Will that close our budget deficit?  In 2012, President Obama proposed a budget that included $3.729 trillion in spending, with a deficit of $1.327 trillion.  Given that deficit, $71 billion in additional money amounts to 5.3% of the deficit.  Every little bit helps, but really?  Do we really want to adopt a tax policy that arguably curbs economic growth by taxing small business owners, just so we can shave 5% from our deficit?  Our economy is already only growing at an anemic 2% annual rate; do we want to begin to tax ourselves into another recession?

In order to close the deficit by “taxing the rich,” we would have to raise the income tax rate so that the rich would close the gap, right?  In order to take $1.327 trillion from the top 5%, we would need to have their actual tax rate be 53.5%, which means having a top marginal tax rate of 91.52% for everyone making over $154,643 (and this is before any state or local taxes are taken out).

Let’s say that we tell the quite-a-bit-less-than-rich that they have to share the sacrifice of our budget deficit, too, and raise the tax rates on everyone in the top 25% (anyone making above roughly $71,000).  To take $1.327 trillion from the top 25%, we would need to have their actual tax rate be 25.77%, which means having a marginal tax rate of 43.89% for everyone that makes more than $71,000.  Does anyone want to do that?  To put that in perspective, if I’m making $71,000 in Illinois, I would pay:

• $18,296.70 in federal taxes (25.77% actual tax rate)
• $3,550.00 in state taxes (5% actual tax rate)
• $4,402.00 in Social Security taxes ($8,804 if I’m self-employed)
• $1,029.50 in Medicare taxes ($2,059.00 if I’m self-employed)
• Local taxes may vary, but between $3,000.00 and ~$10,000.00
• Total taxes: between $30,278.20 and $42,709.70
• Which leaves between $40,721.80 and $28,290.30 to live on

In other words, we could have a tax system that takes almost all a person’s money over $150,000 per year, and we still would barely close the budget deficit that we currently have.  Or we could have a tax system that takes over half of a person’s income if they make over $71,000 per year.

But Democrats tell us that this is all for the common good, right?  We all need to share the sacrifice, right??  Let’s go ahead and raise taxes so we can close the budget deficit so the government can help those that are poor and needy!

Discussion Question: Does anyone still think that we can tax ourselves out of our deficit and debt problems?