A Voice of Sanity – RobertRinger.com

By Wayne Allen Root

Now that Barack Obama is in the Oval Office, it would seem like an ideal time to talk about the greatest challenge facing his new administration – the triple whammy of economic meltdown, credit crisis, and a crisis of consumer confidence. All of them have combined to create the “Perfect Storm” – what appears, to a small businessman like me, to be The Great Depression, Part II.

Obama believes that the way to get out of an economic toxic disaster caused by too much government spending and debt is to spend more and go further into debt. Interesting logic.

I, on the other hand, have an economic stimulus plan that is unlike any ever offered before. Instead of raising taxes on the successful Americans who create virtually all of the jobs, I want to give taxpayers a one-year “Income Tax Vacation.” Yes, I want to suspend income taxes for 2009 and tell the IRS to take the year off. I can hear the liberal tax and spenders screaming right now.

But before I get into the details of my stimulus plan, let me explain where the liberal tax and spenders have gone wrong in their thinking.

Liberal tax and spenders complain that we cannot possibly allow the Bush tax cuts to become permanent.

Why? Because the federal government cannot afford it. The cost? About $400 billion per year. Until recently, that sounded like a lot of money. But now we all realize that $400 billion is chump change.

How is it possible that we could afford to spend $80 billion on a bailout for one company (AIG), almost $50 billion (and counting) on a bailout for the failed Big Three automakers, $7 trillion in total bailouts – but $400 billion in tax cuts is unaffordable?

How is it possible that our new president could give away almost one trillion dollars in an economic stimulus package without hesitation, but $400 billion in tax cuts for millions of hardworking Americans is unimaginable?

When Obama campaigned for president, his position was that extending Bush’s tax cuts would be unaffordable and irresponsible. Yet, it turns out that when Obama wants to spend a cool trillion dollars on his pet project, it’s available, reasonable, and necessary.

They say that a tax cut is a “giveaway to the rich,” and that it’s “unfair” and “greedy.”

Really? How can it be a giveaway when it’s our money in the first place? The real giveaway is Obama offering a “tax cut” to the 40 percent of Americans who paid no taxes last year. The real giveaway is the millions of people (virtually all Obama supporters) who are on welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, housing assistance, free school breakfasts and lunches … the list goes on and on.

And as for the “G word” – you mean it’s greedy to want to keep more of your own money, but it’s not greedy to ask government to give you someone else’s money?

Obama calls tax-cut “spending,” claiming that tax cuts add to the budget deficit.

Wrong! Letting people keep more of their own money does not increase government spending. It isn’t the government’s money in the first place. It belongs to the taxpayers, so it shouldn’t even be in the budget.

If someone steals your car, then has a change of heart and gives back your four tires, would that be a “giveaway”? Would you thank them for being so generous and “fair”? Would you say they increased the spending in their personal budget by giving you the four tires that they just stole from you? I think not.

When President Obama spends a trillion dollars on building infrastructure-or when he spends a trillion dollars giving away money to people who don’t pay taxes-the liberal tax and spenders don’t consider that to be “government spending.” Why not? Doesn’t it add to the budget deficit? But letting taxpayers like you and me keep more of our own money – which isn’t spending at all – that is blamed for busting the budget?

Now, into this miasma of misguided thinking enters Barack Obama with his first big act as president – an almost trillion-dollar stimulus plan (which I predict he’ll expand dramatically after only a few months in office).

He wants to build infrastructure with a large portion of it – highways, bridges, and schools. With the rest, he will send government checks to millions of Americans who’ve never paid taxes, and millions more (including government workers) who have steady jobs.

So why give them a check? The people who need the money are small-business owners who are struggling because consumers have stopped buying. Unfortunately, they made too much money last year, so Obama has disqualified them.

Oh, and just for good measure, Obama will spend a bunch of “leftover” money on creating 600,000 government jobs that will bankrupt taxpayers not just today, but for decades to come. Those 600,000 new government employees will be getting bloated salaries, pensions, and health benefits for the next fifty years.

This is Obama’s version of Economics 101: Massive Spending + Massive Debt = Economic Recovery. Good luck to all of us. We’ll need it. Because it’s not going to work.

In Part II of this article, I’ll tell you what will.

(Wayne Allyn Root was the 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate. His new
book, to be released by John Wiley & Sons in May, is entitled The Conscience of
a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution With God, Guns, Gambling & Tax
Cuts. He also happens to have been Barack Obama’s college classmate (Columbia
University Class of ‘83). For more of his views and commentaries, and to watch
his many media interviews, please visit his website at:  www.ROOTforAmerica.com)