Freedom Line Blog

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

In CFIF’s Liberty Update last week, we highlighted how President Obama isn’t so much “pulling us out of the ditch,” but rather setting our nation’s car on fire.  Instead of spending his time claiming credit for our inevitable cyclical rebound, Obama should recognize that his policies of higher spending, taxation, regulation and debt are only subduing it. To illustrate, we contrast the remarkable gross domestic product (GDP) growth during the Reagan recovery delivered by tax cuts, reduced regulation and a stronger dollar versus our current stagnation and possible “double-dip” recession.

Comparing unemployment trends then versus now provides another vivid illustration of the toxic effect of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic agenda.  From December 1982 to June 1984 – the first 18 months of the Reagan recovery – U.S. unemployment plummeted rapidly from 10.8% to 7.2%.  In contrast, over 13 months since our current economic rebound commenced in July 2009, U.S. unemployment has stagnated from 9.4% to its current 9.5%.  Of course, it is theoretically possible that unemployment will plummet by three percentage points over the next five months to match the Reagan recovery, but not even Joe Biden is silly enough to predict that.

It’s no mystery how to unleash America’s economic vigor and bring recovery:  less government and more economic freedom.  It’s just a matter of electing leaders who will actually pursue it.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Ohhhh, so ~now~ they tell us?  White House allies are instructing operatives to abandon the claim that ObamaCare will reduce healthcare costs and the deficit.  Instead, they now seek to persuade the electorate that we can “improve it.”

According to Politico, the messaging conference call and PowerPoint presentation acknowledges the failure of the promises shamelessly fed to the public by ObamaCare advocates:

The presentation’s final page of ‘Don’ts’ counsels against claiming ‘the law will reduce costs and the deficit.’  The presentation advises, instead, sales pitches that play on personal narratives and promises to change the legislation.”

If this doesn’t make you angry and ready to line up at dawn to vote this November, have your pulse checked.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

The latest survey of 53 economists by The Wall Street Journal offers a clear message.  Namely, no more government “stimulus,” and extend the soon-to-expire Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, not just those earning under $250,000 annually.

Of 48 polled economists, 30 flatly rejected calls for any form of additional fiscal or monetary “stimulus.”  Only 6 economists encouraged more Obama-Reid-Pelosi style fiscal stimulus, only 5 suggested additional monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and just 7 suggested both.  On the issue of taxes, fully 32 of the polled economists called for extending all of the current lower tax rates, in a sharp rebuke to Obamanomics.  Only 3 economists supported an end to the Bush-era tax cuts, and only 11 agreed with Obama and Timothy Geithner in their campaign to raise taxes on those individuals and small businesses reporting income over $250,000.  Unlike Obama and Geithner, economists recognize the destructive effect that raising taxes on individuals and small businesses in the top income segments will have.

As Stephen Stanley of Pierpoint Securities summarized, “the economy needs government to get out of the way.”  Well said.

On this date in 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 at his Rancho del Cielo property in Santa Barbara, California.  Sponsored by Congressman Jack Kemp (R – New York) and Senator William Roth (R – Delaware), the bill amended the Internal Revenue Code in order “to encourage economic growth through reductions in individual income tax rates, the expensing of depreciable property, incentives for small businesses, and incentives for savings.”

Did it ever.

By reducing tax rates and unleashing American dynamism, the U.S. witnessed two consecutive years of remarkable growth.  For the eight quarters spanning 1982 and 1983, we saw gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.1%, 9.3%, 8.1%, 8.5%, 8.0%, 7.1%, 3.9% and 3.3%.  Compare that to our current cyclical recovery, in which the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda of higher spending, regulation and taxation has subdued our rebound to 1.6%, 5.0%, 3.7% and 2.4% (soon to be revised downward to an estimated 1%).  Obama, Pelosi and Reid like to claim credit for our inevitable cyclical recovery from the last downturn, but the truth is that they’ve only managed to stifle it while adding trillions to our debt.

They should instead take a trip down memory lane and correct course according to the crystal clear Regan example.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

As November’s elections loom increasingly dire for Democrats, their mainstream media waterboys desperately recast the American electorate as “anti-incumbent” rather than the more accurate “anti-liberal” or “anti-Democrat.”  Today’s latest example:  The Washington Post, perhaps liberals’ chief media waterboy, reacted to last night’s primary elections with their daily political newsletter headline “Senator’s Win Tests Anti-Incumbency Theory.”

The Post’s Dan Balz bizarrely claims that a Democratic incumbent beating a Democrat challenger endorsed by Bill Clinton somehow alters our assessment of America’s mood:

Senator Michael Bennet (D) of Colorado turned back a sharp challenge from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff on Tuesday night on a busy day of primaries that offered fresh clues about the anti-establishment mood of voters…  Bennet’s challenge was seen as the latest test of anti-incumbent sentiment in a year in which two Senators and four House members have been defeated.  His victory proved that the benefits and resources of incumbency can offset the liabilities that many officeholders are carrying this year.”

Earth to The Washington Post, MSNBC and other liberal media sirens:  American voters aren’t simply “anti-incumbent,” they’re anti-liberal.  They’re not simply looking to replace incumbent liberals with other liberals, so one Democrat beating an alternative Democrat doesn’t rebut that fact.  After all, you don’t tend to see trusted conservative incumbents like Senators Jim DeMint (R – South Carolina) or Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma) needing national political figures to parachute in to rescue them as Senator Benet did.  Americans’ revulsion toward the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda is threatening liberal incumbents, not incumbents generically.  You’re not fooling anyone other than yourselves.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Already navigating a turbulent economic sea, Americans are bracing for the single largest tax increase in history this January 1.

Democrats fighting for their political lives believe they have a winner soaking “the rich,” but we’ve noted the destructive effect that raising taxes on the top bracket will have on the struggling economy.  Not only will they hit small businesses (which create most new jobs in America) particularly hard, but individuals in that bracket carry a disproportionate burden of consumer spending, which makes up 70% of our overall economy.   In this video clip from CNBC, even often left-leaning Don Peebles considers tax increases for the highest income bracket a destructive idea:

If we spend more money paying taxes, then we will have less money to invest, less money to employ workers…  We can’t take a bad situation and make it worse by taxing people more at a difficult time.”

Liberals cannot win this debate on the substance, so they instead hope to win on the rhetoric by framing the issue as “the Bush tax cuts.”  But Bush will have been gone from the White House for two full years by the time the tax increases hit.  We’re not debating new tax cuts, and Bush is long gone.  Rather, what we’re talking about are looming tax increases.  Namely, Obama’s tax increases.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Is there any periphery bounding the absurdity of the desperate political left?

The Obama Administration’s 2009 “stimulus” continues to prove itself a failure.  It promised that unemployment would peak in October 2009 at 8%, and would be down to 7.3% by now.  Instead, we remain mired near 10%.  Further, second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) was revised downward just last week to 2.4%, a slowdown from 3.7% in the first quarter and 5.0% from the fourth quarter of 2009.  Meanwhile, we’re $1 trillion deeper in debt, and the administration admitted last month that its second year deficit will reach an astounding $1.5 trillion, exceeding even its first deficit of $1.4 trillion.

Yet according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “the administration’s original sin was not spending enough.”  Commenting in today’s Wall Street Journal, Reich bizarrely adds that the Democrats’ 2009 filibuster-proof Senate supermajority somehow constituted “a fragile 60 votes” constraining Obama’s ambitions, and says that the problem with ObamaCare was that it was “not nearly large or bold enough.”  Not large enough?  Take a look at this ObamaCare flow chart, which looks more intricate than a nuclear reactor.

So how much would have been enough to satisfy Reich, anyway?  Two trillion?  Three trillion?  Ten?  It all recalls the popular bumper sticker – “Don’t Tell Obama What Comes After ‘Trillion.'”

Seems like someone at the Associated Press read our commentary “Raising Taxes on ‘The Rich’ Will Harm the Economy” from last week’s Liberty Update.  Either way, we couldn’t help but note an AP headline “Economy Weakens as Wealthy Spend Less” released today.

The AP story begins, “Wealthy Americans aren’t spending so freely anymore.  And the rest of us are feeling the sqeeze.”  The story goes on to lament that the economy appears to be slowing as “the rich” spend less:

Think of the wealthy as the main engine of the economy:  When they buy more, the economy hums.  When they cut back, it sputters.  The rest of us mainly go along for the ride.”

Noting that the Obama Administration seeks to increase tax rates on that critical income segment, the AP report states ominously that, “the wealthy may be keeping some money on the sidelines due to uncertainty over whether or not they will soon face higher taxes.”

The good news is that there’s still time for the Obama Administration to wake up and smell the same coffee the AP is smelling.

We note in our Lunchtime Liberty Update this week that the Obama Administration’s class warfare campaign targeting “the rich” will inflict further harm on our economy.  Not only would such tax increases hit small businesses (which create most new jobs in America) particularly hard, it would also penalize the income segment that accounts for 1/3 of consumer spending, which itself accounts for 2/3 of the nation’s economy. Confiscating even more of those dollars may sound fine on a teleprompter, but it will bring destructive consequences in the real world.

Now, a new study by Barclays Capital highlights another potential harm.  According to their analysis, Obama’s plan will cause a 9% drop in the S&P 500 and a 900-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  As noted in this morning’s edition of The Hill, that would result from the Obama Administration’s focus on taxing upper income segments:

The Barclays report attributes the potential stock drop to President Obama’s plans to increase taxes on wealthy individuals, who are the country’s chief investors.  The report claims high earners are likely to shift their investment strategies because of the coming tax increase.  ‘According to the Fed’s 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, 75 percent of stock market wealth is held by families in the top percentile of income,’ the Barclays report states.  ‘From a behavioral standpoint, if the government follows through on its plan to raise dividend and capital gains taxes for the highest income earners, it could influence the asset allocation decisions of an important investor class and potentially bring about a shift away from equities, with negative knock-on effects for the economy.'”

Interview with CFIF’s Timothy Lee on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago, as well as the Obama Administration’s cozy relationship with BP.

Listen to the interview here.

Earlier this month, we noted the sad irony that leaders from welfare states like Germany now lecture President Obama about fiscal discipline.  At the recent G-20 summit in Toronto, Obama attempted to strongarm other industrialized nations into more of the deficit-inflating “stimulus” spending that has failed here, but to no avail. Germany has actually announced budget cuts, whereas Obama admitted that this year’s $1.5 trillion deficit will exceed even last year’s $1.4 trillion pit.

Yesterday, German labor market data provided additional evidence that they were right, and Obama was wrong.  For the thirteenth consecutive month, German unemployment fell, and Germany has now recovered its jobs lost during the recession.  Meanwhile, U.S. unemployment remains near its recessionary high at 9.5%, compared to Germany’s 7.6%.  Obama continues to employ his mindless “jobs saved or created” talking point, but Germany suggests that fiscal discipline and spending restraint are the better course.

Perhaps Obama can go on the German version of “The View” and explain to them why his agenda works better despite the stark evidence.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

Amid the flurry of inanity brought upon this nation by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is important to stop and smell the roses of triumph.  One arrived today when the Senate blocked, at least for now, the DISCLOSE Act. 

That act would violate the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association in its attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s correct Citizens United v. FEC decision, while effectively exempting politically powerful labor unions.   Obama, Pelosi and Reid will surely follow with their usual bromides about “the people versus the powerful,” but the fact is that the DISCLOSE Act is nothing more than a scheme to enable the powerful, namely partisan Big Labor, at the expense of everyday citizens.  It’s a welcome victory for free speech and freedom of association, and a stinging defeat for an Obama Administration that manages to pioneer new realms of cynical partisanship on a daily basis.

Remember when Barack Obama preposterously claimed that ObamaCare would reduce the deficit, rather than exacerbate it?  Last week, in admitting that this year’s total budget deficit will exceed last year’s, the Obama Administration included a noteworthy admission.  Namely, that ObamaCare is already adding to his unsustainable deficits.  As reported by The Wall Street Journal:

The White House said the health-care law, heralded as a powerful deficit-tamer in the long term, is expected to add $51 billion of debt between now and fiscal 2012. Those increases more than offset modest savings through 2020.”

Reasonable people knew it was just a matter of time until even Obama admitted that ObamaCare compounds the nation’s deficit.  But who knew that would only take four months?