Pawlenty outmaneuvers state Democrats

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) is trying hard to balance the budget by rejecting the tax and spending bills from the Democrat-controlled legislature, but they just cannot understand "no means no." This is what Minnesotans would have to put up if Gov. Pawlenty relented:

...A new top income tax rate of 9% (the fourth highest in the nation); across-the-board income tax increases; sales taxes on Internet downloads; the end of the local property tax cap (enacted only last year); alcohol taxes; cigarette taxes; eliminating the deduction for an organ donation (no joke); and killing the home mortgage interest deduction.

But he stood firm and plays the trump card of "unallotment" -- a power granted to the governor to "take away any state spending for which there is no money to pay." (What an idea, right?)

This is the type of leadership we need in this recession. Minnesota may have a clown for a Senator, but the governor is serious about helping Minnesotans.

Angry voters reject California budget propositions

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California lawmakers face a greater budget battle ahead as angry voters soundly reject five of six measures to ease budget shortfall.

And the only proposition that was approved? Blocking pay raises for state lawmakers and elected officials in times of deficit.

That says a lot, doesn't it?

The polarizing president

Remember Obama's promise of bipartisanship during the campaign? Remember his message of unity at the inauguration? Well, that may be kind of hard when he's the most polarizing president in the first few months of his term:

The Pew Research Center reported last week that President Barack Obama "has the most polarized early job approval of any president" since surveys began tracking this 40 years ago. The gap between Mr. Obama's approval rating among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) is 61 points. This "approval gap" is 10 points bigger than George W. Bush's at this point in his presidency, despite Mr. Bush winning a bitterly contested election.

Part of Mr. Obama's polarized standing can be attributed to a long-term trend. University of Missouri political scientist John Petrocik points out that since 1980, each successive first term president has had more polarized support than his predecessor with the exception of 1989, when George H.W. Bush enjoyed a modest improvement over Ronald Reagan's 1981 standing.

But rather than end or ameliorate that trend, Mr. Obama's actions and rhetoric have accelerated it. His campaign promised post-partisanship, but since taking office Mr. Obama has frozen Republicans out of the deliberative process, and his response to their suggestions has been a brusque dismissal that "I won."

Karl Rove in this WSJ piece also points out the fact that even moderate Democrats in Congress decided to join the Republicans to oppose the budget. Ironically, if any unity has been shown in Washington, it's from the Congressional Republicans.

Obama's email fail

Remember when Obama enlisted his campaign army to push his massive budget? The same army that helped him into the White House?

Well, John Caldwell at The Next Right does some math and gives us a glimpse of Obama's massive email FAIL.

Gibbs vs. Cramer

W.H. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs seems to be getting more and more questions about TV personalities dissing the President's economic policies. The latest comes from CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer where he calls Obama's budget plan "the greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

Ouch. The capitalists at CNBC seems to be getting on the White House's nerves lately. Just a few weeks ago it was Rick Santelli, surrounded by traders on the floor, who blasted Obama's mortgage rescue plan.

And how does Gibbs spin Cramer's criticism? Says Gibbs:

If you turn on a certain program it's geared to a very small audience. No offense to my good friends, or friend at CNBC. But the President has to look out for the broader economy and the broader population.

Jim Cramer has a very small audience? What comes out of Cramer's mouth can move markets. Well, I guess Obama has the same influence as it seems everytime he opens his mouth, the Dow dips a few hundred points...

Rising inequalities in America?

Here's more evidence of liberals high on President Obama's multi-trillion dollar budget proposal. E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post griping about inequalities:

The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.

Politicians will say lots of things in the coming weeks, but they should be pushed relentlessly to address the bottom-line question: Do they believe that a fairer distribution of capitalism's bounty is essential to repairing a sick economy? Everything else is a subsidiary issue.

Dionne and many liberals seem to lack a clear understanding of capitalism. Capitalism works when the individual has the will and opportunities to work hard and accumulate wealth. Everyone can have the same opportunities, but not everyone has the will. Liberals tend to forget this facet and bring in the government as the Great Equalizer. That is socialism, not capitalism.

Capitalism is never fair because there will always be lazy punks who make the wrong decisions and waste their talents. Socialism wants to be fair, but that means taking money from the responsible members of society and feeding it to the lazy punks. No, thanks.

Government, please just stay out of the way. All I want is economic freedom and opportunities to work for my wealth.

Liberals hail the Obama budget

Liberals got their man into the White House. He's spending money like never before, at the same time blaming that he "inherited" the economic troubles. Then he proposes a budget that'll dig a deeper hole for Americans.

But the liberals are ecstatic -- somebody like Robert Reich over at The American Prospect:

It's about time a presidential budget unequivocally redistributed income from the very rich to the middle class and poor. The incomes of the top one percent have soared for 30 years while median wages have slowed or declined in real terms. As economists Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez have shown, the top-earning one percent of Americans took home eight percent of total income in the 1970s; as recently as 1980, they took home nine percent. After that, total income became more and more concentrated at the top. By 2007, the top one percent took home over 22 percent. Meanwhile, even as their incomes dramatically increased, the total federal tax rates paid by the top one percent dropped. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top one percent paid a total federal tax rate of 37 percent three decades ago; now it's paying 31 percent.

Fairness is at stake but so is the economy as a whole. This Mini Depression is partly the result of a widening gap between what Americans can afford to buy and what Americans, when fully employed, can produce. And that gap is in no small measure due to the widening gap in incomes, since the rich don't devote nearly as large a portion of their incomes to buying things as middle and lower-income people. The rich, after all, already have most of what they want.

Do you notice the brazen endorsement of socialism? During the presidential campaign, Obama lost some points when Joe The Plumber confronted his income redistribution tendencies. But now that the man is at the Oval Office, liberals aren't even embarrassed to write "income redistribution."

Also notice the syndrome of wealth envy. Anytime a person mentions fairness in an economic context, you know you're talking to a liberal. It's not fair, as Mr. Reich points out, that the rich already have most of what they desire. Never mind exploring how much blood and sweat the rich had to pour out, how much sacrifice they had to make, how much failure they had to endure, etc., before becoming wealthy.

Obama's crazy budget

President Obama and his team delivers us a budget today: $3.55 trillion for 2010, and he's wanting to spend $3.94 trillion this year. Yes, trillions.

Starting in 2011 productive Americans will see tax increases like never before. Here's a brief breakdown from ABC News' Jake Tapper.

The WSJ also kindly points out how seriously bad this is:

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

That boggles the mind. There is no way we can catch up to this massive deficit and debt. What worries me even more is that we'll be down a spiraling path of careless spending without the will to repay. It's like those people who are in credit card debt for tens of thousands of dollars. They get depressed and hopeless, and to a point indifferent to their financial well-being as they give up any effort to pay back.

Are you scared yet?