It’s Monday, February 20, 2012 and something, something, something.

I rarely comment on stuff posted to Facebook. Unless it’s particularly profound or blatantly silly, I’m content to leave people to their things, as I expect them to do for me.

Last week however, a friend of mine posted something that I feel warrants a response:

Okay, so go back and read that carefully.

Ready?

Here we go…

1. Yes, President Obama is the first politician to do something about health care reform.

   Captain Edward John Smith was also the first captain to ram a passenger ship into an iceberg.

   Yep Obamacare (sorry, I still call it that) does prohibit exclusion for pre-existing conditions and this is a good thing. It also let us keep our kids on our insurance for longer, which likewise is a good thing. While making health care “affordable for small businesses” is yet to be seen, (the part that gives gives tax credits to qualified small businesses doesn’t take effect until 2014) it has effectively raised health insurance costs for at least one family that I know of, mine.

   That’s not a good thing.

   By letting the health insurance industry write the bill and then effectively ramming it down everyone’s throats, we’re discovering all sorts of gems, such as requiring faith-based employers to provide health care insurance that includes things (birth control) that are contrary to their tenets of faith.

   So, I’m probably guessing that insurance execs are dancing in the streets.

2. Yep, he’s ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a fairly substantial difference between ending a war and winning a war. If we’ve won, then when exactly did our enemies surrender? In my military training, we were taught an enemy is defeated when they no longer have the will or the means to resist. Has either of these been achieved? If so, precisely when did either of these happen?

   Now, don’t mistake this for some weird, right-wing war mongering, but how is simply ending a war sans victory something we want to crow about?

   One note of praise here is that President Obama hasn’t seemed particularly squeamish when we get a terrorist or pirate in our sights. He’s been top-drawer when it comes to giving the order to whack the bad guys and as much as my fellow conservatives don’t want to, I give him huge props here.

   

3. Preventive health care? Are we talking about mammograms, pap smears and annual dental checkups? If so, I don’t think you’ll find anyone who thinks that women should not have access to these. Even free access to women who can’t afford it. Well, it’s not free in that someone has to pay for it, but we’ll just roll that into why my health care insurance costs went up.

   

   If however (and as I suspect) we’re talking about birth control and abortion, well then we should probably say so. Requiring employers to select insurance that includes contraceptives and abortions when these run contrary to the employer’s religious beliefs is a clear assault on both religion and the 1st Amendment of our Constitution.

   No, shut up. That’s precisely what it is. A woman’s right to do something does not trump my right to obey the commands of my God. If my religion forbids facilitating the sins of others, where exactly does the US Constitution permit the President to require it of me?

   Because it’s a “womens’ rights” thing, I’m just supposed to overlook that?

   I’m not saying a woman doesn’t have the right to use contraception or even to have an abortion. That however isn’t the issue at all. The issue is the President of the United States telling people which religious beliefs they can practice and which they can not.

4. Who doesn’t think that? Again, disingenuous, liberal rhetoric attempts to make something be what it is not. Had the poster maker actually read the bill they would see that it does 4 things, none of which apply specifically to women:
   
   
   
   1. Overturns the US Supreme Court Decision Ledbetter v, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company which basically set a six month time frame in which a worker must file suit for cases of discrimination where compensation is concerned.
      
   2. Resets the 180 day clock every time a worker is given a discriminatory paycheck.
      
   3. Retained the two-year limit on awards regarding discriminatory pay.
      
   4. Restored Congressional intent regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
      

   As to gays in the military, this was something that was inevitable. I’ll grant that President Obama gave the order, but I don’t see a lot of value in crediting him with something that was gonna happen anyway.

   

5. Yep, he’s investing alright. Investing our dough in outfits that go bust within a few months. Since you won’t hear about it on CNN, CBS or MSNBC, do yourself a favor and Google for Solyndra, LA-RICS and Ener1.

   

   Any other investment manager would be out on his ear for these kinds of failures, but hey, if that’s a horn you want to toot, I’ll sing right along.

6. How’s about fixing No Child Left Behind? I mean I don’t want our next president to outright repeal Obamacare, I want him to fix the damned thing! What the hell is wrong with this guy that he won’t even try to fix something that’s this busted when it’s something this important? I could have forgiven a truckload of his bullshit if he’d have just put some effort in to fixing our education system.

   You want to talk about equality? Fine with me. How’s about a kid in Isola, Mississippi getting the same quality of education as a kid in Staten Island, New York? And I don’t mean reducing the quality of the one in New York either.

   I honestly think there is a deliberate effort, from both sides to keep most of us stupid. Absent pure luck or the charity of others, dumb people can’t prosper. Elected representatives from both parties seem to have little if any interest in fixing our education system and that should infuriate us. Granting the waivers is something that can be praised, but dammit Mr President! Why not just fix the damned thing?

   As to making college more available, the federal government is actually making it cost more. Sure, during his State of the Union Address, he pitched a bitch about tuition costs, but as long as the federal student loan program is running wide-open, there’s not a thing that prevents state-run colleges and universities from jacking up the prices. Not when federally subsidized loans are gonna cover it.

   

   No, Mister President, you’re doing it wrong.

7. Okay, I’ll bite. How much, I’m talking a numerical quantification here, is a fair share?

   According to this article on NPR, people with incomes of more that $500K a year, provide about 24% of all income tax revenues. That’s about 1% of our population, carrying about 1/4th of the load.

   Bringing it a little closer to home, people with incomes of more than $100K provide about 70% of income tax revenue.

   Meaning that all the people who earn less than that are coughing up only 30% of all tax revenues.

   About half of us wind up not paying any federal income tax at all.

   

   Yeah, but how much more and who? These are questions that we can’t seem to get an answer to.

   And since we’re talking about fair share here, is there anyone who should pay less and if so, how much less?

   I know, I know, I’m arguing with a mantra here, but I had to try.

   Oh wait a minute. Are we talking about capital gains taxes here? Since most of us don’t earn a lot of income from capital gains, it might benefit us to read this Wikipedia article on the subject.

   Done? Okay, so let’s talk about that.

   So let’s say that Daddy Warbucks earns a million bucks his long-term capital gains. He’s gonna fork over 15% of that ($150,000) come tax time. In order to get the long-term rate, he’s got to tie up those investments for a period of time. Meaning that it’s not available to him. He has it invested in this and that and if he cashes it out too soon, he’s on the hook for more than a third in tax burden.

   Reckon there’s a reason for this?

   No, come on. Quit chanting and think about it. Why is there a tax incentive to leave your money invested for a longer period of time?

   

   Very good, Captain! To encourage people to keep their money invested in longer-term ventures. And why is this something to be encouraged?

   Come on, really? You need this explained?

   

   Thank you, Angry Teen. I’m glad to see at least the cast of characters is paying attention.

   We also gotta remember that the money that Daddy Warbucks invested to get his million dollar payday is money that he already had to obtain in some way. Unless he stole it, printed it himself or conjured it up out of thin air, that’s money he had to in some way, pay taxes on when he obtained it initially.

   So at least some of that dough is taxed at least twice.

   Now, let’s say Daddy Warbucks has bad year and loses a million bucks on his investment. Would you be surprised to learn that he can only claim $3,000 of that on his tax return?

   So the question now is, how much is fair? If you raise the tax rate, Daddy Warbucks and his buddies are gonna start shipping their investments overseas, to countries with a more favorable tax environment. Simply put, they’re not gonna pay more if they don’t have to.

   Still a no-brainer, or is this just a little more complex than what can be covered by chanting “tax the rich?”

8. Glad you saved the best for last.

   Yep again, I’ll agree that President Obama inherited a real mess with the economy. If you’re at all familiar with any of my previous postings, you’ll know that I railed against Bush’s economic polices, probably even more harshly that a lot of liberals.

   That being said, is it reasonable to blame the current situation on Bush?

   President Obama has had three years to fix it and for two of those years, he had a democratic majority in Congress. No one expected him to turn around anything in a day, but come on now, he’s had 1,146 days. Yes, I’ll grant that the economy is showing some signs of improvement, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that we’d be further along than we are.

   I mean if you want to take a hard look at things, examine the growth in GDP during the Obama’s presidency and then give some more thought to whether or not we’re on a reasonable path to recovery.

   But let’s talk about those 2.6 million private sector jobs he’s added.

   Explain to me exactly how the President of the United States can add even 1 private sector job.

   No, come on, just one?

   Sorry, but the sad fact is that the president can’t create a single private sector job.

   Now, if we’re talking about jobs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 , then okay. Even though congressional lobbyist wrote the bill and President Obama only signed it, I’ll happily attribute the jobs created with this to President Obama.

   

   Since it was passed, there has been about $507 billion dollars spent from this act. For the sake of argument, let’s say that every single one of these 2.6 million jobs created were a result of the stimulus spending.

   That’s about $203K per job created.

   Not counting of course the jobs that went away when Solyndra, LA-RICS and Ener1 went bust after being invested in by President Obama.

   From some quick, sticky note calculations, I’ve paid about $260K in federal income tax over my 33 year employment history, so if we stretch this “investment” out over time, the taxpayer will break even on this “investment” in oh, about 25 years or so.

   Talk about your long-term investments.

   At the time the stimulus bill was signed, unemployment was 7.2%. Now it’s 8.3%. I’m not sure how else to see this but as failure. There are some who want to say “It would have been worse without Obama.” and that’s why we should vote for him. That’s like the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac execs who want bonuses because they only lost $5.1 billion and not more than that.

   Maybe I’m just one of those mean Tea Party types, but do we really want to vote for more fail?

   Let’s move on from that.

   Yeah, sure. The economy was in worse shape than he thought when he took office. In all fairness, President Obama says they thought the economy had only receded by 3%, but later found out it was 9%.

   But come on. To be that far off? How many of us are gonna trust a mechanic who gives us an estimate of $300, but then hands us a bill for $900?

   I mean aside from the person who made today’s poster.
   

I don’t know why it’s so hard for liberals to recognize what’s being done to us. Try to stay with me here for this last bit. I’m about to get really simple and simplicity is sometimes harder for liberals (some conservatives too) than complexity.

If the irrational spending under the Bush administration is the cause of our present economic situation, then stopping what caused it is unquestionably the first step.

Let’s say your dog gets loose and finds some anti-freeze that’s leaked from a neighbor’s car. Anti-freeze is poisonous, but there’s just something about it that dogs love. Your dog comes home and gets sick. Now, your veterinarian recognizes the symptoms and tells you that your dog has anti-freeze poisoning.

So here’s a real no-brainer for you:

What part of the cure do you think involves giving your dog more anti-freeze?

We can argue until cows come home, until they leave and until they come back again about who caused the economic catastrophe we’re currently participating in. However, I don’t think the argument over what caused it would last as long.

The problem will continue and can only get worse if we continue giving the dog anti-freeze. Silly rhetoric can certainly win elections and if that’s what it’s all about then we unquestionably deserve our fate.

Four more years of President Obama is not the answer.

Unless the question is: What is not the answer?

Four more years of a republican who wants to keep giving the dog anti-freeze is not the answer either.

Unless the question is: Do you hate your dog?

So you can be proud of voting for Obama if you wish. Vote for him again if you really think staying this particular course will pan out. I know how hard it is to admit that you’ve been wrong hoodwinked all this time. I myself used to chug the political cool aid it took me a long time to finally realize that we’re not being told the whole truth by either side.

So enough with the copy-pasta rhetoric. Check things out for yourself and think, really think about what’s being said and if it’s true or not.

Oh, and do a little checking before you make a poster.

Or, you can always get another dog.