More on Obama's Budget

Obama's Brilliant Policies

Breaking Down Obama's Budget

Perhaps the most obvious of financial truisms is that there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all national budget. And with the economic forecast looking more incoherent than ever, it's also the most problematic of truisms for President Barack Obama and his $3.8 trillion spending plan for 2011.

I know it, he wants to escalate Federal spending at a time when sources of revenue are way down.  The Democrats answer to everything is to throw money at it, even if they have to borrow to do it.  They think they can borrow their way out of debt.

[See Obama Retirement Proposals Tell a Sad Story.]

On the one hand, the economy is stumbling back from a savage recession, helped along, the Obama administration vigorously claims, by ambitious government stimulus plans. But at the same time, record deficits have forced the administration to temper its spending and to toe a contentious line.

I'm glad that the author stated it this way, "the Obama administration vigorously claims," I could not have said it better myself.  Of course anyone who knows anything about economics will understand two basic facts: 1) the economy goes through cycles of growth and recession.  2) Government does not generate wealth, it draws wealth from the economy which is where production occurs.

Given those facts, if anything all that Obama is doing is slowing down the recovery.  After all, he has to draw money from the economy in order to fund his spending programs, which in turn do not generate wealth but rather redistribute it, thus hampering the economic principle of money flowing to places where it is most efficiently utilized.  If he let the money stay in the economy it would probably recover faster.

As was expected, the budget that emerged from these dynamics has unleashed a mixed bag of emotions and compromises. Wealthy Americans and big business bemoaned yesterday an estimated $1.9 trillion in tax increases, even as small businesses and low- and middle-income families gladly accepted a host of proposed financial incentives. Meanwhile, NASA buried its hopes of getting back to the moon and in return was given an amplified budget. Here's a more complete look at the winners and losers in the president's budget:

In order for the economy to prosper, and for new jobs to be created, the money has to be allowed to flow where it is most efficiently utilized, and demand has to dictate the goods and services that are produced.  Otherwise what you have is a command economy, where innovation is stifled because people work out of fear rather than a incentive or a desire to fulfill their ambitions.  When the government takes over everything, force becomes the only compunction in performance because wages are fixed, and even if they were not the only things that money can be spent on are government products, so the wages become meaningless.  The Democrats are only concerned about fueling the machine of government, they don't care at all for the future of the country or the opportunities that are available for people in the private sector.  As to the socialist redistribution of wealth, it certainly will not help.  Taking money away from businesses that employ people will not help create any new jobs.  Giving it to "small businesses" will not help either, if a product is useful then it will sell itself without government subsidy.  If the product is worthless or pointless then why should tax money be used to subsidize it?  How is that not a dead end?  As for giving money to the poor, that is just pure communism.  How about laying off of the taxes so that employers can hire more people?  The only reason why Democrats throw money at poor people is to bribe them to vote for them.  What they really want to do is create a permanent underclass that will continually furnish them with votes.  Well I'm poor, and I have gotten hundreds of dollars thrown at me by the Democrats, and I will still never vote for them.

Losers

The moon. Obama's budget would put an end to Constellation, a NASA program whose goal it is to get Americans back to the moon by 2020. Critics have called the proposed elimination of the program a major blow to NASA and to space exploration in general.

Which was a brilliant idea.  If memory serves, the plan was to eventually establish a permanent colony on the moon which would be used as a jumping off point for colonization of the rest of the solar system.  I have always been an advocate of Space Exploration.  In fact Space Exploration, Military, and Interstate roads are government programs that I actually approve of, the only ones that I approve of.  Why?  Because the benefits of those things are apparent and useful to everyone.  But since I realize that some of my readers are liberals, I will go ahead and explain the utility of each.  Interstate highways make it so that you can drive from Montana to Texas.  The Military can protect you from invasion, yes they do have an actual function.  Space Exploration leads to technical innovation in a variety of fields, from transportation, to computer tech, to food preparation.  Yes, the microwave came about in order to provide astronauts with a means of cooking their food in zero-G.  In addition, space exploration can provide relief for overpopulation and cleaner methods of production.  Those three things benefit all sectors of society, while the Democrats "social programs" only benefit one sector, and it's a sector of non-producers.

"The president's proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of U.S. human space flight. The cancelation of the Constellation program and the end of human space flight does represent change--but it is certainly not the change I believe in," Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, said in a statement.

I too am immensely disappointed that Obama has done this but not at all surprised.  I anticipated that it was only a matter of time before he did.  This is a typical result of the short sighted self centered myopia which afflicts most people on the political left.  Their entire concern is getting into power and staying there, they care nothing about the future, the well being of the people, or the progress of science. 

Obama's new model for NASA involves an increased focus on the development of engines, fuel technology, commercial applications, and robotics. In fact, despite its plans to scrap Constellation, the Obama administration has actually proposed increasing NASA's overall budget. Over five years, NASA would get $100 billion.

Why scrap the program if he is going to increase the budget?  This man makes no sense.  I don't buy for one second that he is interested in commercial applications when everything he does is geared towards nationalizing the private sector.  He probably just wants them to find ways to make airplanes run on vegetable oil for fuel, which would be a great idea, but colonization and expansion ought to take precedence.  Historically, empires are the most productive and successful during states of expansion and colonization.  Why?  Because the colonization effort generates new jobs and funds itself in the process.  Harvesting the natural resources of a new area eventually recuperates the expenses in man power and equipment. 

Howard McCurdy, a public affairs professor at American University and an expert on space policy, says that scrapping Constellation would not harm overall exploration prospects so much as it would draw attention away from the moon and toward more distant parts of the galaxy. "If the new model works, we might not want to go back to the moon," he says.

Brown noser.  I fail to see the relevance in quoting this man.  Looking at new places through a telescope is not nearly as valuable or conducive to scientific progress as actually GOING there.  Right now, interstellar travel is not feasible, but it will never become so if all people do is look through telescopes.  In order to come up with new innovations for travel one must actually travel.  Inter-solar travel is a necessary precursor to interstellar travel.  Setting up a colony on the moon would be a brilliant beginning, as it would lead to new innovations and provide an excellent staging point for further exploration and colonization.  It would lead to traffic between the earth and moon for starters, which would lead to innovations in fuel efficiency and speed, which would lead to colonizing other planets and moons, which would lead to more innovations, which would eventually lead to moving beyond the solar system.  I think that the real reason why Obama is against this is because he's against progress.  So the future isn't Star Trek, it's the Soviet Union.  In Soviet Russia, escalator is ice on stairs and rails.

The rich. Under Obama's proposal, Bush-era tax cuts would be allowed to expire for individuals making more than $200,000 per year and for married couples who earn more than $250,000. Obama has also proposed increasing from 15 percent to 20 percent the capital gains tax rate for Americans in those wealth brackets.

"The tax hikes are basically on the rich," says Gerald Prante, an economist with the Tax Foundation. "They're the biggest losers."

No, the biggest losers are all the people who can't get jobs because employers cannot afford to hire as many people anymore.  Reduction in revenue means a reduction in the size of the staff that employers can have.  Someone needs to school these Dhimmicrats. 

Meanwhile, Obama is also trying to reduce the tax breaks that families with over $250,000 get when they make charitable contributions. "Currently, if a middle-class family donates a dollar to its favorite charity or spends a dollar on mortgage interest, it gets a 15-cent tax deduction, but a millionaire who does the same enjoys a deduction that is more than twice as generous," the budget reads. "By reducing this disparity and returning the high-income deduction to the same rates that were in place at the end of the Reagan Administration, we will raise $291 billion over the next decade."

That's great, let's also discourage voluntary giving.  Because everyone knows that bureaucrats are so much more caring than people involved in charity and missions work.  The deduction for the millionaire is not more than twice as generous, those things are based on percentages and he probably actually gets back a much smaller percent of the money he donates.  Also, the millionaire is already paying more taxes.  People who have been duped into voting for Democrats may actually think that the Democrats are being generous, but they're actually being thieves.  It's only generosity if you're giving of yourself, and the Democrats are giving away other peoples money.

In a related move, the budget would end the preferential tax treatment that hedge fund and private equity managers receive, forcing them to pay normal income taxes on their profits. Previously, they had been allowed to pay capital gains rates. This would bring in $24 billion in additional tax revenue over 10 years.

Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, says that this plan predates the backlash that hedge funds have experienced in the wake of the Bernard Madoff saga.

I have a better idea, why not eliminate the income tax (which is unconstitutional to begin with), and institute the Fair Tax where people are taxed based on how much money they spend?  If you must have taxes at all.  Of course there is going to be a backlash when you start forcing people to pay more money.  How could anyone be happy about that?

"I think it was a concern just because those folks were making lots and lots of money and being taxed at a very, very low rate relative to other high-income individuals," he says. "So it was raised mostly as an issue of high-income people facing low tax rates, not as an issue of [backlash] against the financial excesses that we saw."

Blather... blather...

Banks, oil companies. Obama's much-anticipated bank tax also made it into the budget. The tax, which would be imposed on the nation's largest financial institutions, would produce $90 billion over the course of a decade.

Obama giveth and Obama taketh away.  So first he throws money at them, and now he's going to take it back.  Clearly this man has no idea what he's doing, which isn't surprising considering that he has the most incompetent staff of any president in US history. 

The budget also targets oil and natural-gas companies, which would lose $36.5 billion in tax cuts over 10 years. "We cannot continue to ignore the clean energy challenge and stand still while other countries move forward in the emerging industries of the 21st century," Obama said in the introduction to the budget.

So now we get to pay even more for gas then we have so far.  Doesn't look like this policy is conducive to moving anywhere, literally, much less forward.  New methods of propulsion aren't going to appear just because it costs people more money to go to work every day. 

Prante says that the oil and bank taxes are both part of a larger populist agenda. "Like banks, they're not very popular," he says of oil companies.

Wrong, no one wants to pay even more for gas.  Some of us actually have to work for a living.

Winners

Space commercialization. The budget gives NASA $6 billion over five years to use toward helping private companies build commercial ships capable of carrying humans into space. "NASA's not very good at manufacturing and running things in a conventional sense," says McCurdy. "They're not a very good airline company. So the concept is that as these technologies become mature and talent becomes dispersed, activities are spun off into the commercial sector."

This funding could touch off a tidal wave of proposals from private companies that are eager to tap into the space industry. It also represents the shifting dynamics that NASA has been facing ever since the moon landing.

"When we flew to the moon, the astronauts all wore [matching] suits and...worked for NASA," says McCurdy. But since then, corporations have been gradually intruding.

What corporation actually has a space program, and how is it a corporate endeavor if it become nationalized?  Because that is what we're talking about when a government agency becomes involved.  This is all just a smoke screen to cover the fact that Obama wants to stunt space exploration and expansion. 

Small businesses. The spending plan would increase the Small Business Administration's 2011 budget by upwards of 20 percent. At the same time, it would also push up from $2 million to $5 million the maximum size of the SBA's signature 7(a) loans, which are given to startups and existing businesses.

This is addressed in the fourth paragraph of my commentary.

Meanwhile, community banks would get access to $30 billion to lend out to small businesses. The money would come from the funds that Wall Street firms have paid back to the government in the aftermath of the $700 billion bank bailout.

Who will guarantee those loans?  They are counting on an economic recovery but if there isn't one then the debt will still be there, and if there is one then it doesn't necessarily follow that the losses will be recuperated.

[See Obama Courts Small-Business Owners.]

Elsewhere in the budget, small businesses get a number of tax benefits, including breaks for companies that hire new workers. These measures, along with the others, keep up the tone that Obama set in the State of the Union, when he made small businesses a priority.

Right, tell that to Joe.  If a business has something to offer of value then it can stand and grow without Federal subsidies.  If it doesn't have something to offer then it should be allowed to fail.  Why not just lower taxes on the businesses that are already doing well so that they can hire more workers?  Because with the Democrats it's all about control, and they know that if they provide businesses with subsidies then they can also attach conditions which give them more CONTROL.  They don't care if successful businesses that provide valuable services might suffer or fail, they just want to be in control of as much of everything as they can.  Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven right?  That's the mentality they have. 

"It appears that there's certainly a good amount of emphasis being placed on small businesses in this budget," says Molly Brogan, a spokesperson for the National Small Business Association. "I think overall it came out pretty well."

Low- and middle-income Americans. The budget calls for a one-year extension of the Making Work Pay tax credit. This credit offsets Social Security payroll taxes and is worth $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples. Around 95 percent of the country's workers are eligible.

I still have yet to see Obama give his definition of "Middle Class" and "Lower Income."  Basically what this amounts to is a socialist redistribution of wealth.

At the same time, Obama is also looking to permanently extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which affects parents and students who are paying for college tuition. The credit gives $2,500 per year to single filers who make less than $80,000 and to married couples who earn less than $160,000. The budget would also increase tax breaks for families who have child-care expenses.

Or he could just cut taxes to everyone, but that will never happen with the Democrats in charge.  Of course he does all this because he wants people to have the impression that he is cutting taxes, when he is really just burying the cost of it elsewhere.  He will first eliminate some of the previous tax cuts so that overall it will amount to no loss of revenue for the IRS.

Overall, though, the proposed credits do little to expand the safety net that low- and middle-income families already have. Instead, for the most part Obama is proposing an extension of his previous policies. "The proposals are not very different from what they were last year," says Williams.

I really hope that during the next election Obama and friends will be flushed out and the next group will reverse all of his policies.  Not that I worship or put my faith in government or a particular party, but these policies are backwards and parasitic. 

And now, just in case anyone didn't understand I'll try to make it nice and simple with some visual aid.  As a result of Obama's policies, this is not the future...

French Government bans Burka

French report calls for burqa ban

Avatar & Racism

- Near the end of the hit film "Avatar," the villain snarls at the hero, "How does it feel to betray your own race?" Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.

The antagonists are white in this movie.

Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, "Avatar" is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.

Of course the antagonists are all white, and the protagonists are all... alien, but the cultural similarities and the nature of the conflict are somewhat analogous to "white people vs. Native Americans."  But again, if there is any racist theme self evident then it is that the white people as villains is being rehatched.  If all of the other humans were white but the hero is black I would bet any amount of money that NONE of these people would be so vocal.  But imagine if the majority of the villains had been black, then there would be an even greater uproar over alleged racism but different evidence would be cited as support.  To individuals steeped in liberalism it is thoroughly acceptable to have all the villains be white and the heroes something else without being racist, but if it's a white person helping out some other group then it's racist all of a sudden. 

Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have said things such as the film is "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and that it reinforces "the white Messiah fable."

That is not a white racial fantasy.  Clearly white people are depicted as the antagonists, having one be the hero might have been an attempt at fairness, even though it's still hugely unbalanced given what the majority of the antagonists are, and even though in the end the hero was no longer even white, or human for that matter.  I think it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is a sci-fi flick, and as stupid as I think the story might be, there are absolutely no grounds for accusing James Cameron of being denigrating towards any non-white race.  This is just more of the "white people are out to get us because they're white" thought process and propaganda. 

The film's writer and director, James Cameron, says the real theme is about respecting others' differences.

A story which he could have told without making all the villains white.

In the film (read no further if you don't want the plot spoiled for you) a white, paralyzed Marine, Jake Sully, is mentally linked to an alien's body and set loose on the planet Pandora. His mission: persuade the mystic, nature-loving Na'vi to make way for humans to mine their land for unobtanium, worth $20 million per kilo back home.

Like Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves" and Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai" or as far back as Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 Western "Broken Arrow," Sully soon switches sides. He falls in love with the Na'vi princess and leads the bird-riding, bow-and-arrow-shooting aliens to victory over the white men's spaceships and mega-robots.

Adding to the racial dynamic is that the main Na'vi characters are played by actors of color, led by a Dominican, Zoe Saldana, as the princess. The film also is an obvious metaphor for how European settlers in America wiped out the Indians.

EXACTLY, and none of these whiners have a problem with that aspect of the film, while I do.  It's a theme which is overused and does nothing but encourage hatred of white people.  Movies are designed to get people involved emotionally, so if all the antagonists belong to a specific group and the antagonists are designed to be disliked, then what sort of sentiments will the average person have toward that group?  If A = B and B = C then A = C.

The race of the majority of the actors who portray the protagonists adds nothing to this alleged "dynamic" because they are covered in makeup and prosthetics which completely obscures their actual physiognomy.

The only possible way to know the race of the people underneath the makeup is to look at the credits.  And assuming that the casting is intended to convey any kind of message, the obvious one is "white people bad--non-white people good."

Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as "Seven Pounds" and "Hotel for Dogs," said that "Avatar" was "beautiful" and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.

I don't see the relevance in consulting with that person.  She wasn't even in the movie and obviously Zoe Saldana, who btw did an awesome job as Uhura, did not feel that way, nor did the other actors who participated in that movie.

But she said the film, which so far has the second-highest worldwide box-office gross ever, still reminded her of Hollywood's "Pocahontas" story — "the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior."

I dislike the use of the term "Indian" in reference to Native Americans because they are not at all the same.  The term is misleading and inaccurate.  Whenever I, and any educated scholar, historian, or anthropologist says "Indian" it is in reference to persons from India, not Native Americans.

"It's really upsetting in many ways," said Lee, who is black with Jamaican and Chinese ancestry. "It would be nice if we could save ourselves."

She's either a colossal ignoramus or she is deliberately being misleading.  She must be unaware of the Will Smith movies where Will Smith saves the world, movies like Independence Day (which I hated), Men in Black (which I thought was great), and I-Robot, plust the others which I haven't seen.  When I watch a Will Smith movie, it never crosses my mind to complain about how a black guy is saving white people because I don't have a collectivistic and/or victim mentality where I percieve that an entire race is out to get my collective.  I just see a great actor doing a good job and providing me with valuable entertainment, and Will Smith is a good actor.  Furthermore, it's pretty sad how this person is part Chinese, and seems to be so ignorant of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Lee. 

Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of the sci-fi Web site io9.com , likened "Avatar" to the recent film "District 9," in which a white man accidentally becomes an alien and then helps save them, and 1984's "Dune," in which a white man becomes an alien Messiah.

I see no value in quoting this person either, who is also either woefully ignorant or trying to spread disinformation.  Dune was a book written by Frank Herbert, which he later followed up with more books creating a series.  His son Brian Herbert continues to expound upon the Dune series.  Anyone who has actually read Dune will realize that there are no aliens in the series other than different animal life forms.  It is true that the Fremen are descended from Moslems but Islam is a religion not a race.  The cultures and races in Dune are structured a bit differently than modern humanity, but the character Newitz is talking about (Paul Muad Dib) is not necessarily white, or at least not in the Indo-European sense.  Paul's father, Leto Atredies, is described as having aqueline features and olive skin.  That description is more applicable to Mesoamerican and Indian than it is to any person of pure Indo-European descent.  As far as the movie Newitz is talking about, I actually own that movie, and all of Fremen are played by white actors and look no different than Paul Muad Dib.  Newitz is a liar. 

"Main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color ... (then) go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed," she wrote.

Not all white people are out to get people of other races, nor are their principle motives always racist.  This type of generalization is going to stymie creativity. 

"When will whites stop making these movies and start thinking about race in a new way?" wrote Newitz, who is white.

This statement is so absurd that I almost have nothing to say.  Newitz is clearly a racist person, and I would say that she knows nothing about the history of sci-fi either.  If she wants to see how depiction of race has changed she needs to look at some of the older productions, like the original Flash Gordon series.  Things have definitely changed, but just because someone does not automatically follow her absurd and non-rational line of reasoning does not make them racist.  For a sci-fi commentator she is woefully ignorant about the history and development of the genre.

Black film professor and author Donald Bogle said he can understand why people would be troubled by "Avatar," although he praised it as a "stunning" work.

I'm troubled by it but for different reasons, I am going to reserve judgment on this man's opinion simply because he has not stated what aspects of the movie he finds troubling.

"A segment of the audience is carrying in the back of its head some sense of movie history," said Bogle, author of "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films."

Bogle stopped short, however, of calling the movie racist.

"It's a film with still a certain kind of distortion," he said. "It's a movie that hasn't yet freed itself of old Hollywood traditions, old formulas."

Which traditions and formulas might those be?

Writer/director Cameron, who is white, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that his film "asks us to open our eyes and truly see others, respecting them even though they are different, in the hope that we may find a way to prevent conflict and live more harmoniously on this world. I hardly think that is a racist message."

Clearly not everyone wants to live harmoniously with others.  There are plenty of people who think that others should be punished because of who they might be descended from, and/or think that they are entitled to free handouts just because of their race. 

There are many ways to interpret the art that is "Avatar."

What does it mean that in the final, sequel-begging scene, Sully abandons his human body and transforms into one of the Na'vi for good? Is Saldana's Na'vi character the real heroine because she, not Sully, kills the arch-villain? Does it matter that many conservatives are riled by what they call liberal environmental and anti-military messages?

Well since the media and entertainment industry have almost exclusively shown contempt for conservatives, I would say that to the industries it does not matter.

Is Cameron actually exposing the historical evils of white colonizers?

That is certainly what it looks like, but all the average person is going to take away from this is that "white people = bad."

Does the existence of an alien species expose the reality that all humans are actually one race?

It should but obviously that concept was lost on people.  It would have been best if the antagonists were portrayed with a high degree of racial diversity.  If they had done that I would probably not have any basis for criticizing the movie. 

"Can't people just enjoy movies any more?" a person named Michelle posted on the Web site for Essence, the magazine for black women, which had 371 comments on a story debating the issue.

Good point.

Although the "Avatar" debate springs from Hollywood's historical difficulties with race, Will Smith recently saved the planet in "I Am Legend," and Denzel Washington appears ready to do the same in the forthcoming "Book of Eli."

And there is no complaining about how race is dealt with in those movies. There is only complaining directed against whites.  White people need to start becoming more vocal about all the racism directed against them, not that any of those movies mentioned above are racist, but the racism in the media and academia needs to be dealt with.  Also the racism of the government, like affirmative action, which is institutionalized racism. 

Bogle, the film historian, said that he was glad Cameron made the film and that it made people think about race.

"Maybe there is something he does want to say and put across" about race, Bogle said. "Maybe if he had a black hero in there, that point would have been even stronger."

If the hero were black there would have been absolutely NO complaining. 

___

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press.

Dreams of Obama