Hennessy's View

Our present crisis is  the result of:

• Too much borrowing
• Too much spending
• Too much government control
• Too much taxing

Those who argue that America needs to borrow, spend, regulate, and tax more are simply wrong, wrong, wrong.  Their argument is absurd  on its face.

The way to increase revenue to government is to increase the economic activity of the people.  You do that by giving the people maximum control over their destinies.  They will pursue their dreams. In the process, they will fund a responsible and constrained government.

When the government borrows money, it determines for you how you will spend your future earnings.  That, too, is wrong.  Morally wrong.  Make them stop.

Write and tweet your senator and representative today.  Tell them “Stop spending my future. Balance the budget. #tcot”

NOTE:  Welcome to  Nice Deb, whom I met at Smart Girl Summit this weekend.  Please read her blog every day.

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I’ll be honest with you: I’ve lied.

Usually out of desperation. I’ve lied to those closest to me—those most willing to forgive the thing I lied about. 

I’ve also told the truth to my own detriment.  In the long run, the latter works best. In fact, telling the truth works best in the short run, too.

So maybe Obama’s desperate. Maybe he knows that the debt ceiling debate is the beginning of the unraveling of Americum Sovieticum, his life-long dream. In desperation, then, he’s simply making stuff up.

How do I know Obama’s lying?

The last time 80 percent of America agreed on something, the question was whether or not to get baby Jessica McClure out of the well. So when I hear that 80 percent of Americans support something, I assume it involves human life.

But somewhere, somehow, Barack Obama has found data revealing that 80 percent of Americans want—demand—a tax increase.

For the life of me, I cannot find these people.

I can find this Rasmussen poll indicating that 55 percent oppose a tax increase as part of a debt ceiling package.

I can also find a Gallup poll that finds only 32 percent would agree to tax increases as part of a deal.

Maybe the President saw this Quinnipiac University poll – with a questioned designed to elicit a particular response.  The question enticed 62 percent of 2,311 registered voters to accept some taxes on the wealthiest Americans. 

So, perhaps, Obama merely took that 62 and round up to the nearest . . . 80?

But there’s also the media defensive panic.

When conservative presidents are caught lying or being morons, conservatives tend to admit, well, maybe he shouldn’t have said “mission accomplished.” 

When leftists find their leftist president being a deceitful dolt, they obfuscate.  Huffington Post, New York Times—all the usual suspects—have scrubbed their sites of references to the President’s lie. (At least, my searches found nothing.  Then, again, I try to not to spend too much time on those sites.)

Instead, the left talks about this being the time to bring taxes into the equation.

Two people who get it . . . clearly:  Mark Steyn and Charles Krauthammer. 

Steyn, as usual, picks apart the stupid in “No Bargaining With Obluffer.”

Krauthammer destroys Obama’s credibility by pointing to Obama’s long and recent history of demanding more debt at any cost.

How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February, when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April, when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?

All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one.

So I lied again.  Eighty percent of Americans don’t read Hennessy’s View every day.  Not yet, anyway.

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The federal budget deficit in the month of February 2011 exceeds the deficit for all of 2007 by 40 percent.

Simply staggering.

Yet Senate Democrats refuse to cut more than a paltry $6 billion. They refuse because they seem bent on collapsing the American system – the economy, the government, and the people themselves.

But at least the Obama administration stands by with its arms folded as gasoline prices skyrocket at the their fastest pace in history.

(h/t Drudge Report)

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Last week I wrote about Creating Shared Value. In that post, I pointed to a Harvard Business Review article by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer. If you haven’t read both my post and the Michael Porter piece, please do so now.  I’ll wait.

Now that you’re up to date, let me add the Tea Party angle to this. 

Though Porter did not dwell on government’s role in Creating Shared Value (CSV), he did point out that government must reform for CSV to succeed.  Here are a few of the Tea Party reforms necessary if Porter’s (and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s) vision is to succeed:

Stop Vilifying Business:  Both parties fail to defend business when business is unfairly attacked.  Instead, politicians tend to jump on the populist bandwagon, piling on companies and industries. One example:  the regulation of cable television in the early 1990s.  Responding to false claims that cable companies were gouging customers, Congress stepped in and imposed regulations that caused cable rates to increase faster and customer satisfaction to tumble. 

Stop Picking Winners:  General Motors, Chrysler, Bank of America, Citigroup, and dozens of other banks and businesses should have failed.  Only illegal and inappropriate government interference in the market saved these companies, transferring financial responsibility from the owners to the tax payers.  Regardless of future performance, our economy is worse off than it would have been had government stayed out of the mess.  Moreover, innovation and ideas that might have improved the world and increased sustainability are lost because government’s clunky hand manipulated the markets.

Stop Creating Entitlements: Welfare reform gave us a few years of federal budget surplus. With Barack Obama’s historical and dangerous deficits, the last thing we needed was a new entitlement. But Obama and the 111th Congress gave us just that with health control.  John Mackey of Whole Foods pointed out a system that many employers offer that reduces healthcare costs and makes good insurance affordable for everyone.  Were affordable health insurance Obama’s actual goal, he would have embraced the high deductible solution. Instead, he outlawed it.  Government must eliminate all entitlements, not make new ones, if CSV is to succeed.

Reform the Tax Code:  Most of the our favorite tax breaks—designed to change behavior—will go away in order to pay off massive deficits brought about by entitlements and political handouts.  It’s time, then, to flatten out the tax code.  That means establishing in a tax-free income level (say $20,000), and a tax rate (say 18 percent).  The new 1040 looks like this:

Income:________ – $20,000 = _____________ * 0.18 = Tax Due ______________

Creating Shared Value is a business strategy.  Fully embraced, it offers the possibility of remarkable growth for companies, communities, and economies.  It rejects the notion of trade-offs, like clean air or full employment. Instead, it means clean air because of  full employment.

Companies can reach CSV only if government gets out of their way.  And if companies get out of their own ways.  But Michael Porter has advanced a strong argument for the later.  Now it’s time for the Tea Party to encourage government to do its part.

How else can government help advance Creating Shared Value by reducing its size, scope, and cost?  Leave your thoughts below in the comments.

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Last week, the Illinois legislature passed a massive income tax increase on individuals and businesses.  Overall, it represents about a 67 percent income tax increase.

In response, neighboring states of Wisconsin and Indiana have wisely mounted massive campaigns to suck businesses and people out of Illinois.  Even New Jersey’s fabulous governor, Chris Christie, plans to fish the Land o’ Lincoln for some business transplants.

One state bordering Illinois has been notoriously silent.  Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has done nothing to steal business and residents away from Illinois.

Is Nixon being lazy?  Or is he just being a good Democrat?

While we’re at it, why isn’t St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay beating the bushes on the East Side?  The city needs business and people desperately, but Slay has been as silent as Nixon.

Look, people, I realize that we have a lot of friends in Illinois.  My wife is from GC.  Most of her family lives in Madison County.  But businesses and workers are going to flee to the state.  Illinois dropped from the 23rd best tax state to the 36th in one step.  With Democrats in charge of the legislature and the governorship, this increase is only the beginning.  Illinois taxes will rise until the people in Illinois elect tax cutting budget hawks.

In the meantime, Jay Nixon has an obligation to put Missouri’s economy ahead of Democrat party loyalties.  Missouri needs to follow the leads of Indiana, Wisconsin, and New Jersey by campaigning for fleeing Illinois businesses and people.

*UPDATE* Over on United for Missouri, Emily Iles explains the extraordinary dangers to Illinois’ economy this tax hike poses.

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