Miscellaneous Crazies

President Obama argues that unless there are tax increases the debt negotiations won’t succeed. He fails to understand that he has increased taxes very significantly in the past two years. The number of regulations has increased by about 20% under Obama. These are “taxes” in that they confiscate money from those who are regulated. Moreover, there are many explicit tax increases in his health care law.
The US corporate tax rate is 36%; in Canada it is 16%. The US has the highest corporate tax rate of all industrial nations. The people earning more than $200,000 pay about 70% of all income taxes in the US. So how does this comport with Obama’s claim that to increase taxes on the “rich” is only fair. We know that fairness is in the eye of the beholder. But, isn’t having all citizens put “money in the game” of paying for what the government does “fair”?

Alan Blinder in the Wall Street Journal today sounded just like what he is, a very confused Keynesian. How can the Keynesians ignore the fact that a trillion dollar stimulus policy had no effect? How can tan they ignore the fact that the Fed’s 500% increase in monetary reserves – the monetary base – has had no effect on the real economy?

Robert Higgs has demonstrated that regime uncertainty will retard economic growth. President Obama’s rhetoric has done exactly the same thing that FDR’s did, scare anyone looking at investing in the US to look elsewhere or to hoard money.