I give you my first reaction to the State of the Union speech earlier this evening.
1) The leading point of the speech was taxes on banks. Banks we want to lend money. For to hard lend money with not money given to government man. I'm sure that last sentence makes more sense than what President Obama is proposing.
2) He proposed taking $30 billion of the money returned on the TARP fund, which we borrowed from China, and giving it back to banks to loan, so we can apparently tax it? Ummm?
3) President Obama laid the groundwork for "stimulus II" calling it a jobs bill while praising (in very undertoned words) the original "stimulus" package. I'm willing to bet Tiger Woods' affairs created more jobs than the original "stimulus", much of which hasn't even been spent. He wants more.
4) The tax credit to small businesses which hire people. It sounds good, and almost pro economic. If I have to wait till the end of the year to realize a $20,000.00 tax credit to hire a secretary that makes $36,000.00, why would I hire her? Especially given that I have to pay social security taxes on her that offset the tax break and that I will likely be forced to pay for her health care. Oh, and I don't have a firm number on the tax break (nor does anyone), but I'm guessing it won't be $20K per job. Now if I could keep $20K in what I pay in taxes, I might use it to get business which might grow my own company so that I would want to hire people who might help me grow. And in case you stumbled across this blog without knowing me, I am a small business (and a large midget).
5) Elimination of capital gains taxes on investment in small businesses. Sounds good. It's a canard. You planning on investing in a 503(c)? Good luck with that, since if you could buy it, it wouldn't be a 503(c). Care to buy into my business? Again, you can't, I'm not publicly traded nor would I allow it even if I could be. Most small businesses launch off loans, not public investment which is what capital gains deals with. This could work, it would just take the money saved in taxes just to create enough jobs to check each capital gains exemption to figure out the size of the company it was invested in.
6) The President continued to talk about infrastructure spending as stimulative. It doesn't work. Build a bridge, themn come back tomorrow and ask what you can do for pay at that bridge...Construction is fine, infrastructure is neat, but it is not a sustained work. This is, again, "stimulus II".
7) President Obama used the term "the lost decade" in reference to the years under George Bush. Google that term people. It's what happened to Japan after they did what Obama is doing.
8) "I am not interested in punishing banks." Really? You may want to look at your policies.
9) We can't allow bankers to take risks which threaten the health of the economy. So we should substitute the government's acumen on banking decisions? We should eliminate the idea of risk and reward? We should keep government from bailing out bad risks....oh, wait, he couldn't have meant that.
10) California solar panels and other "green jobs". Every one he mentioned I think I've heard a story about their failure or how they have succeeded only through subsidies. He mentioned a window factory in Philadelphia. I seem to remember one a block down the street that was cheaper but didn't get money.
11) You disagree with the overwhelming evidence of global warming. Silly you, paying attention to evidence.
12) He's proposing to freeze in place double digit increases in spending on a lot of federal agencies, you just can't go over the 43% increase.
I'm getting tired of this and I imagine whoever is reading this is too. There's tons more but I'll leave it here for now.
I'm done for now. I'm starting to post the plan in increments come this weekend. the first will be immigration.
Agreed on point 1. Sentence 2 makes no sense.
ReplyDeletePoint 7. I did think of Japan when he was talking about a lost decade and thought it very bad to call the Bush admin a lost decade. Of course that would also include the last part of Clinton, when he was reforming welfare and moving to the center, wouldn't it?
Did you notice that he wants to give money to community banks so they can loan to small businesses? So he wants to force small banks to take government money so he can control them as well.
Number 2. The TARP fund consisted of money borrowed from China (so we should probably give that back), but he wants to give it back to more banks for lending, while he is poposing taxing banks. Better?
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