Fiscal Cliff versus Fiscal Abyss

I would say that anyone who pays attention to politics or watches TV, should be grossly saturated with the political pundits new popular phrase "the looming fiscal cliff". The caveat to that, is that it is a gross over-estimate of the average American's ability to pay attention let alone understand what is happening, even while being slapped in the face with it.

Doubt me? I present exhibit A: Google Searches for "Who is running for president" spike on election day... in the graph, 100 does not represent hits, but rather 100% or the highest hit rate.



So yeah, over $1 Billion spent on the presidential campaigns, saturating the airwaves for months, and some of these registered voters still had no idea... scary isn't it?

Anyways, back on topic - Fiscal Cliff.

This of course, is in reference to the imminent expiration of Bush era tax cuts, 5% across the board for all taxpayers, the expiration of the 2% Social Security tax holiday, and the increase in capital gains tax rate, from 15% to 20% across the board, and some earners (over $200k/year) paying an additional 3.8% on their capital gains.

http://apiexchange.com/index_main.php?id=8&idz=236

In the above article, it also describes the source of this 3.8% tax increase... from the healthcare bill, aka "Obamacare", passed in 2010:

Beginning in 2013, the national health care reform legislation that became law in March, 2010, imposes a new 3.8 percent tax on certain investment income. The new tax will apply to single filers with incomes over $200,000 and married taxpayers with incomes over $250,000.

This rhetoric being thrown around the nation's capital, is that if we do not raise taxes on the richest Americans, those who our Pretender-in-Chief claim can afford it (ie, anyone making over $200k/year) that all these wonderful tax increases expire on EVERYONE. That, and the deep deep mandatory spending cuts that are supposed to be automatic after the failure of the bi-partisan "Super" committee last year to arrive at a resolution to taxation and spending cuts.

You remember that of course, don't you? Where the Republicans refused any deal that would raise taxes and the Democrats refused to talk about spending cuts unless tax increases were on the table? And lest we forget, what resulted in the formation of the "Super" committee to begin with, where the Republicans staunchly refused to consider debt ceiling increases, and then caved in when our Messiah went public with scare tactics claiming if we did not raise the debt ceiling, that as early as the next month, people would stop receiving social security checks?

End result, Republicans caved and approved the debt ceiling increase, "Super" committee failed, automatic spending cuts are to take effect and tax increases go up automatically, and we, the American people get screwed!

And now here we are, with these Republicans having committed to a pledge 20 years ago to not raise taxes on anyone, now agreeing to go back on that agreement.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/23/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html

In that article, one Senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss is renouncing his pledge in the interest of saving his country... or so he claims.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," said Chambliss, who faces re-election for a third Senate term in 2014.

Referring to Norquist, who has vowed to oppose candidates who break the pledge, Chambliss said that "if we do it his way, then we'll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."

In response to Chambliss, Norquist told CNN that the senator "wrote a commitment to the voters of Georgia."

"He got elected and re-elected making that commitment," said Norquist. "He's never promised me anything."

Essentially, as most politicians are known to do these days, he promised one thing to those who elected him, then once elected, spits on that promise and goes about business as usual, telling himself whatever lies he needs to, in order to sleep at night and live with whatever remnants of a shriveled conscience remains in his dark soul.

But broken promises aside, the more revealing detail is his belief that raising taxes on the "wealthiest" Americans, will fix our debt issue.

And don't drink the "Cool"-aid presented in this article, where it claims:

Obama's victory this month with a slightly stronger Democratic majority in the Senate and a slightly weaker Republican majority in the House signaled general public acceptance of the president's main campaign theme: raising more tax revenue from the rich as part of a deficit-reduction package.

Obama in 2008, beat McCain by a score of 69.5 million to 59.9 million, roughly 9.5 million total votes. In 2012, Obama only beat Romney by a score of 64.9 Million to 60.5 Million or roughly 4.5 Million total votes. The long and short of that, is Obama lost almost 5 million votes he had four years earlier, and his challenger, gained over half a million votes. A win is a win, but it by no means implies general acceptance of his policies, but rather the exact opposite, that his views have lost favor with a large chunk of the voting population who used to back him.

Enter my next exhibit: Wall Stree Journal Article - November 28th, 2012.
In the interest of not receiving any copyright or infringement "cease-and-decist" emails, I will not copy and paste the entire article, though it warrants it. Instead, the summary of the article, is that the $15.9 Trillion deficit tied to our fiscal cliff discussion, and the $1.2 Trillion 2012 deficit immediately tied to it this year, is actually a staggering 86.8 TRILLION DOLLARS. That is the true debt the government owes not just to other countries and other people, what they always talk about, but how much they owe in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unfunded government pensions.

This number, 86.8 TRILLION DOLLARS is over five times (5x) our entire GDP. That means, our government would have to take EVERY dollar earned by EVERY person/family making over $200k/year (ie, the "richest" Americans who can "afford it") AND EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR earned by EVERY corporation in America, JUST THIS YEAR to cover THIS YEARS true deficit of roughly 8 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Of course, after you raped every corporation and "richest" family of every penny they owned, there would truly be nothing left next year to take from either of them. This would amount to a farmer eating all their wheat one winter, then wondering how they were going to grow crops since they did not hold out any for seed the following season.

So looming "Fiscal Cliff" or already here "Fiscal Abyss"? The answer is easy, unless you are one of those voters who had to look up who was running for president the weekend before the election...

That didn't take long...

So on Tuesday, the people spoke, and what they said was "Obama for President". Actually, that's the loose translation; what they actually said was "Baaaaahhhh". But you get the idea.

So there were two options. The first,  go to bed Tuesday night, wake up Wednesday and realize the world didn't end, business as usual and go about living, with a relatively oblivious and unchanged perception of reality. Or the second, scream the sky is falling, set your hair on fire and run around like chickens with our heads cut off. You know... act like most liberals do when they do not get their way, all because "The One" was re-elected, when a monkey should have been able to defeat him this election (enter Romney, an all new class of monkey).

Like watching the news these days, where you turn on MSNBC, listen to it, then turn on FOX, and after listening to it, add them together, divide by 2, to approximate truth - the reality of day to day life should be somewhere between oblivious blissfulness and the Michael Jackson in a Pepsi commercial squealing with his hair-on fire-antics.

So what happened? Page one, first paragraph, first line, first word from the liberal playbook, happened...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-arms-treaty-un-idUSBRE8A627J20121107

First line of that story: "Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected..." Emphasis on HOURS!

Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade

Long story short:
1. essentially, the UN Disarmament committee "moved quickly" following Obamas win...
*I'll bet they did*
2. Talks broke off back in July but not because Obama was running for re-election...
*Oh really?*
3. UN Officials REALLY REALLY wanted to vote before the election but Hurricane Sandy precluded it...
*And I have lake front property in the Sahara*

But typical gun-control lobby shenanigans aside, this next quote almost made me vomit.

Jeff Abramson, director of Control Arms, a coalition of advocacy groups, urged states to agree on stringent provisions.

"In Syria, we have seen the death toll rise well over 30,000, with weapons and ammunition pouring in the country for months now," he said. "We need a treaty that will set tough rules to control the arms trade, that will save lives and truly make the world a better place."

Here's a little known secret this guy apparently isn't aware of... The Syrian military already had guns and ammo and is the ones killing their own citizens, the 30,000 civilians of their country. So who is using these guns and ammo "pouring" into their country now? THE OPPRESSED CITIZENRY.

So why would some archaic neanderthal of a non-humanitarian want to stop weapons  from flowing into Syria now (since the rest of the world has turned a deaf ear to their citizens cries for help)? There is only one reason, to eliminate any opposition to the existent government structure.

Geniuses like this do not care about what people are using the guns for, to save their lives and their famlies lives from brutal dictators circa Nazis vs Jews. All they see is a chance to solidify the powers of government, to control people and to run their lives on every level, and without an armed society to fight back, they will win.

What did our founding fathers, the original, they the people, think about guns?

Let us ask Thomas Jefferson:

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST TYRANNY IN GOVERNMENT".

Or maybe George Washington:

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have SUFFICIENT ARMS AND AMMUNITION to maintain a status of independence from ANY who might attempt to abuse them, which would include THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT".

Can James Madison shed some light on the issue?

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

Remember that "Give me liberty or give me death" guy, Patrick Henry?

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

And finally, good 'ol Noah Webster, of Webster's Dictionary fame...

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."

And now how about a Dictator to play devils advocate for me?

"History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall."

Thank you, Mr. Hitler...