Yesterday, Obama not only brought God into his Jobs plan whining but apparently he is now a spokesman for God. It will be interesting to see if this statement hurts him with voters. Most people have realized he is far from the “messiah” that was promised in ’08.

“There’s no good reason to oppose this bill, not one. And members of Congress who do, who vote no, are going to have to explain why to their constituencies,” Obama said.

“The American people are with me with this,” Obama said, intensifying his campaign to blame Republicans for inaction on bills he says could put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work and cut 9.1 percent unemployment.

I can think of a few reasons not to back this bill. The fact that every time Obama’s idea gets passed it hurts the economy, causes the stock market to drop, costs the tax payers, etc. The House has passed a jobs bill and Reid refuses to allow it near the Senate floor. Americans need to point fingers at the do-nothing Democrats who have continued to throw temper tantrums and pout in the corner since they were voted against in 2010.

We do not need a politician who thinks he is God’s gift to the people anywhere in our government, let alone the White House. Vote this fake out!!

DJ Strata

The MSM continues its double standard critiques of candidates. Obama was barely vetted during the 2008 election. Romney has barely been vetted this time around. The MSM favorites always get a pass. Then we get to the hypocrisy for the Republicans vs the Democrats. Clinton had multiple women speak up about extra marital affairs. One even occurring while in the White House. And there are many more Democrats who have gotten away with illegal or immoral activities.

But lets take a look at this supposed “situation” involving Cain. There are two women who have come out and said that they had a claim of sexual harassment against Cain over 10 years ago. The National Restaurant Association gave the women payouts to leave and keep quiet. These “claims” were never brought to a court. Cain never admitted guilt or was found guilty by a court. The payouts were quite small. Hmmm, this screams of women making unsubstantiated claims of harassment against a man for money. It happens all of the time. Any time a man is in a situation alone with a woman there is the opportunity for sexual harassment to be claimed.

Why do you think male doctors require a female nurse to be present for exams of female patients? Too many of these types of claims. Why do you think more office doors have windows into the hallways? To help cut down on these claims. Any woman who is out for revenge, is angry at someone, wants money, etc. can use this claim to get what she wants. It turns into a he said-she said situation and our society and justice system takes the woman’s side more often than not. And people exploit that.

So what that the National Restaurant Association paid off two women who could potentially damage the image of the association. All parties were required to sign an NDA to keep the potential for damage low. But then after over 10 years someone saw dollar signs and decided to trap Cain. “Cain spoke about the situation and now the NDA is breached and I can talk too.” Really? Cain was defending himself against information that was already out there. Whoever spilled the information first is in breach of the agreement. I write these things every day. Nice try.

Americans are fed up with how politics has turned into a mudslinging fest. We are tired of the negative campaigning. If you cannot campaign and win on your own merit, experience, and plans then get out of the game. DC politicians, MSM, DNC, RNC and anyone else who prefers dirty politics needs to grow up or get out of the way. If you don’t we will forcibly move you out of our way via the ballot box. Continue to under estimate the people and the power that we wield and you will end up on your ass in the streets.

Unless there is hard proof of Cain committing a serious crime once or repetitively I will support him all the way to the White House. Cain please clean house!

DJ Strata

There is a huge story out that illustrates how liberal policies to help the needy actually end up being ways for greedy left wingers to steal tax payer money and live high on all our hard work. This is just the tip of the iceberg folks:

Eleven people were charged on Thursday in an enormous fraud scheme in which hundreds of Long Island Rail Road workers falsely claimed to have disabling injuries, with some of them collecting tens of thousands of dollars in annual pensions while spending time playing golf, law enforcement officials said.

The fraudulent payouts in the scheme, officials estimate, could end up costing a federal pension agency more than $1 billion if fully disbursed.

Ten of the defendants were taken into custody early Thursday at their homes by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and state investigators, officials said. They included seven former railroad workers, including a former union president; a former federal railroad pension agency employee who helped the workers file claims; a doctor; and a doctor’s office manager. A second doctor is expected to surrender on Friday.

Think about it while your at work today struggling to make ends meet. These damn fee-loaders stole your income (in the form of federal taxes) and used it to live high on the hog. They stole food and a college education from your kids or a vacation for your family.

How about this story:

Two lobbyists with no prior teaching experience were allowed to count their years as union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of subbing in 2007, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found.

Steven Preckwinkle, the political director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and fellow union lobbyist David Piccioli were the only people who took advantage of a small window opened by lawmakers a few months earlier.

The legislation enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.

These two con artists stole retirement money from teachers! What about all those who got rich at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac when they tanked the housing market with their risky loan schemes? What about all those Solyndra’s out there blowing our money on boondoggles and oak paneled board rooms while raking in 7 figure salaries? What about the great CO2 con and how we are taxed for being a carbon based life form?

This is why the federal government needs to be dramatically cut down to size so We The People are the ones spending our money on our needs.

This has been a fascinating election cycle in one important way. All sides of the Political Industrial Complex of this nation (centered in DC, NY City and LA) have been trying to ignore the Big Elephant in the room: The American Voters and their anti-government rage.

The NY Times comes out spinning like a top today trying to find some hope for their leftist policies and any kind of deadly weaknesses in their conservative opponents (and pulease don’t try and tell me the NY Times has not gone far left over the last two decades). Buried deep into the article is this gem:

Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, but 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress — warnings for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Emphasis mine. Let that highlighted number just sink in a bit. Ponder it and roll it over. Because it underpins all the other numbers in this poll. Today 9 in 10 voters distrust government to solve problems, spend our money wisely, treat us equally, protect our freedoms and/or be semi-competent. 9 in 10!

And which party has the libertarian, small government, Tea Party heart and soul of this 90%? Which party is the party of big government solutions. Which party has an abysmal track record of big government failures from the mortgage implosion due to social engineering, to trickle down government stimulus that failed to stimulate, to mountains of generational debt?

Only those in deep denial would ignore the obvious here.

Now, translate that anti-government rage (the same one, albeit at lower intensity at the time, that hit the Democrats in 2010) to the 2012 presidential election and you have really only one champion running that represents this 90%. There is only one who is acknowledged to have the least experience with bungled government solutions.

It’s not the President – that’s for sure. He came out and admitted the obvious yesterday, basically sealing his fate:

“The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own,’” Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.

And the masses cheered! The goal of the 90% is to get government back into its minimal box so it can stop screwing things up. Yes, we want to be left alone, on our own.

Long time government and political workers are blind to opportunities outside government. Being immersed in the process of the bureaucracy and extremely inexperienced in the real world, they fail to understand when change is needed or a dangerous line has been crossed. With well intentioned ignorance the slavishly follow the established process – sometimes to horrible results.

Two glaring examples of blindered, bureaucratic thinking scar the national psyche to this day.

The first example is 9-11. President Bush enacted sweeping changes to the relationships between law enforcement and national security intelligence so that we no longer turn a blind eye to terrorists that we detect outside our borders once they come inside them to kill us. It is known as the Gorelick wall, that out dated barrier that said the FBI could not be notified of external threats now in the country, and Bush tore it down to great and silly angst from the left. If not for this classic bureaucratic communications barrier, we may have stopped 9-11 from being executed.

The 2nd example is the mortgage implosion which caused the Great Recession of 2008. At that time liberal law makers in Congress ignored warning signs that the flood of incapable home purchasers they backed in an attempt to expand home ownership was eroding the foundation of a major section of our economy (the housing market). Bureaucrats and left wing congress-critters blindly let our nation’s wealth evaporate in a burst of social engineering gone wrong, which in the end wiped out the life savings of millions of people.

There are thousands of more examples of smaller proportion out there (think Solyndra), so that 90% who distrust government have good cause for their views. And moreover, they are right.

Will Mitt Romney, with is own version of government run health care and is fealty to the Church of Global Warming/Al Gore, represent these 9 in 10 voters?

Laughable, isn’t it.

Can Governor Rick Perry and his support for in-state tuition for illegals (not even out of state rates, making a middle class Virginian less welcome than a Mexican day worker to Texas) represent them? Congress Critters Bachman, Paul or Gingrich? Senator Santorum and his desire to deny access to contraceptives (talk about your government intrusion)?

No, the one person who aligns perfectly with this 90% is Herman Cain. Buried even farther down in the NY Times poll article is Herman Cain:

Republican voters remain unenthused about their options to challenge President Obama next year, as the competition intensifies among Mitt Romney, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and other contenders. The uncertainty has provided an opening for Herman Cain, who was viewed more enthusiastically by Republican primary voters than were other Republican candidates.

Be hard to know Herman Cain leads in that poll 25-21 over Romney, with Perry at something like 6%. Cain is presented as some aberration, and after thought.

This silly denial is not going to sway the 90%. The political news media is associated with the government – no matter how much the media opines over the days when they were watch dogs over, instead of mega phones for, politicians.

The more the Political Industrial Complex rejects Cain The Outsider, the more support he will garner because it will be clear to the 90% that the one guy government does not want at the helm is the one guy who wants to tame the bureaucratic beast. And who also happens to be the one guy who lives outside the box of bureaucratic thinking.

On a side note, forget the class warfare BS surrounding the CBO’s math on income distribution:

CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:

• 275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
• 65 percent for the next 19 percent,
• Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
• 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

One thing to realize is very few people live their lives in any one level of income. In 1979 I earned a living at the lowest quintile (I was 19 and working a lot of odd jobs and going to college). Today I live in the highest quintile.  Which means I have lived the American dream – as has just about everyone in the DC area and beyond. All this graph shows is my generation (entering their 50’s) is better off than my parents generation was at the same age.

The chart is all good news if you include an age factor. More lying statistics from failed bureaucrats trying to steal you hard earned money.

If a liberal tries to tell you otherwise, realize how poorly robbed the poor sap was of a decent education – and pity the fool.

Tags: 9-11, Cain, Global Warming, NYTimes Poll, Obama, Obamacare, Perry, Romney

Major Update: Cain is getting some awesome poll numbers out today:

In Wisconsin Cain’s at 30% to 18% for Romney …

In Nevada Romney’s at 29% to 28% for Cain …

He’s gained 21 points from late July in Nevada, when he was at 7%. And he’s gained 23 points from mid-August in Wisconsin where he was also at 7%. It’s the Tea Party that continues to drive Cain’s support. He’s up 37-19 on Romney with those voters in Nevada …

H/T Stop the ACLU, who also links to a new Cain ad

– end update

As the DC Political Industrial Complex continues its efforts to anoint Romney to take on Obama in 2012, the voters are going down a completely different path:

Businessman Herman Cain is now atop the field of Republican White House hopefuls, squeaking past former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

Cain garnered 25 percent support of Republican primary voters in the poll released on Tuesday, compared to Romney’s 21 percent.

Cain refuses to fade away because voters are not interested in Romney – who simply Obama-lite. I refer to Mitt as “Robamaney” – given how close he is to Obama’s positions on a range of key issues.

Take government run health care. As long as Robamaney defends RomneyCare, there is little hope he would champion the complete repeal of Obamacare. Given he is the anointed establishment candidate, we are more likely to find him trimming on the margins of Obamacare and negotiating away our freedom to chose our own health care. Until he agrees RomneyCare should go, there is little doubt he will fold when taking on Obamacare.

And then there is how close Robamaney is to Obama on global warming – the largest attempt to fleece the people ever concocted:

John Holdren, now President Obama’s assistant for science and technology, once advised GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on environmental policy. . . .

On Jan. 1, 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants, something the Obama administration is trying to do to all states through the Environmental Protection Agency’s draconian job-killing regulations and mandates.

Romney is right in line with Obama and the left on the nonsense of global warming (a real phenomena that has happened before modern civilization in the Roman and Medieval Periods, and thus is not driven by human activities – let alone CO2 which rises in response to warming). Robamaney would tax our energy to the point our economy has no hope of recovery.

On just these two issues they demonstrate the new fronts for encroachment of big government into every nook and corner of our lives (health and energy). And on these two issues he difference between Obama and Robamaney are meaningless. They are both big government solution types.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, is a free market solution type. He is for exposing the cost (his 9-9-9 plan) and intrusion of government. He has a libertarian message of limited, quiet, on-the-side-line government. He best represents the 2010 tsunami voter, as can be seen by the Cain versus Romney numbers for the Tea Party vote (back to the CBS News link at top):

Cain’s support surged among voters who identified with the conservative Tea Party wing of the Republican party, rising to 32 percent …

Romney’s Tea Party support has held steady in October, at 18 percent …

The Tea Party vote is the libertarian, limited government voting bloc that decimated the Dems in 2010. While the term “tea party” may be declining in support, the 2010 political wave it was associated with is still out there, biding time until they can address the root cause of their angst – Obama’s liberal policies.

2010 WAS a referendum on Obama’s big government incompetence. The Democrats – the party of big government solutions – took a beating like none seen in living memory. It is why Obama is doomed to be a one term wonder and Romney has no prayer of garnering support.

And for those who naively think the abortion issue is going to apply the brakes to the Libertarian wave – forget about it.

As I noted yesterday, trading left wing, oppressive, centralized control in DC for a right wing version is just not going to fly. Very few people are going to sit out an election because, after four more years, abortion will still be a legal abomination (when performed for personal convenience) that must be considered in times of serious and complex medical situations. And those difficult medical decision must stay with the family – not government and not doctors (trust me, doctors also reach for the procedure too quick at times).

So what happens if far right voters can’t get over their abortion views central to this election? Plenty of small government independents are there to fill the void if they sit out again. The liberals have gone all in and will probably represent 35-40% of the voters when supporting Obama. The rest will be more centrist voters and will swamp the left – with or without the far right.

This is not an abortion election. This is an economic election and a limited government election. It has been that way since 2009. The anti-government tide is still out there (check out all the special elections and the failure of the left in Wisconsin). So no government mandate is going to fly.

Update: Ed Morrissey also notes this shocker poll:

The big story is the durability of Cain, at least thus far.  He’s running one of the most unconventional campaigns in recent memory — or at least one of the more successful unconventional campaigns.  As I said yesterday, Cain is drawing from a deep well of goodwill among Republican voters who love his biography and his sunny, no-nonsense approach to politics.  Voters can relate to Cain, and unless he seriously collapses, he’s not likely to lose that affection.

That connection to the voters in my mind goes beyond his biography and optimism – though that is a big part of it. He is still the only true outsider running, and all the rest keep talking about tinkering around the margins and lots of bogus promises. Stuff we have heard for decades. Cain is different.

I have to laugh at the Occupy “fill in the blank” silliness transpiring across America. Talk about your political tone deafness. Unlike The Who’s Tommy, these folks are truly deaf, dumb and blind. And I mean dumb in the intellectual sense, since they clearly can chant and spew nonsense.

While the liberal left drools over these ‘protests’ through rose-colored, nostalgic hindsight they fail to see this circus through the eyes of middle America. These protests are trying to take sovereign public land, occupy it and set up new forms of government – much like young children role playing in the tree house fort.

Take me for instance. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and relished the dying days of the protest movement of those times. I grew up with protest rock, the generation of defiance, etc. But in the end my generation learned that while it was great to have and experience fantasies, reality was very, very different. We immersed ourselves in the near-perfect future human society of Star Trek, to the militaristic oppressive world of Star Wars, from Tolkein’s Lord battle against industrialization found in the the Rings trilogy, to the communist/marxist/progressive world run amok in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four and Bradberry’s Fahrenheit 451.

We were one of the post World War II generations that had to sort out the evil of humankind from its potential promise. Imagine the dichotomy established between the Holocaust and the Moon Walk.We have seen a lot. We know the full spectrum of optimistic to pessimistic predictions. All of which were wrong. What survived all this predictive gyration? Family, neighbors, hard work and self respect that turned into respect from others.

One thing we learned is fantasy is interesting, but completely useless as a life lesson. We worked hard, carved out our lives, established our families and discovered that success is not evil, competition is not that bad and sitting on your arse stoned out of your mind is a complete waste of time. Actually, stoned is not all that fun, not compared to taking on and living life. Those who got stuck in the 60’s failed, those who moved on found the American dream.

So when I watch a tent city culture play government and cry for equality I see if for what it really is. Look at these people living in tents, calling one a kitchen and another a council center, fighting law enforcement while crime runs rampant amongst them. It’s a sad joke!

What, am I supposed to trade in my upper middle class home I worked a life time to obtain, turn in my cars and motorcycle, give up all I have to go play communist commune in a park somewhere?

Are they nuts? Herman Cain wants to change the tax code and is getting nervous ninnies taking shots at him from all sides. These silly people in these occupy zones want to replace our entire society!

Good luck with that one.

What we see in  Occupy “fill in the blank” is pathetic. If this is their vision of America’s future then I say thanks for sharing, now go back into the closet. If there ever was a better reason to just move on from the left’s childish temper tantrums, these examples of political pouting are it.

The reason protests like this are not going to work is there are too many voters like me who are neither intimidated nor impressed by these actions. Having tasted this kind silliness in our youth, and discovered the lies these leftists claim against the family, hard work, corporate competition, etc just makes it a bunch of marginally interesting nonsense.

I mean truly laughable nonsense. If I was worried about a new left arising from the ashes of Obama, Reid and Pelosi I am now quite relaxed and confident. I worry more about the desperation in the Obama White House, which is going to rue the day it surrendered Iraq in a lame attempt to hold its ever shrinking base. Even if Obama got 100% of the lunatic left vote, it represents less than 20% of the sane America Main Street.

Whenever these people decide to stop their silly role playing, the one thing they will have achieved is cementing the total mockery of the far left. I mean really kids – this is all you got?

Update: Talk about timing. Checkout the infighting by the haves (1% leadership of the OWS movement) and the have nots (the 99% of the protestors):

“The other day, I took in $2,000. I kept $650 for my group, and gave the rest to Finance. Then I went to them with a request — so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items — and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?” Smith fumed, even as he cajoled the passing crowd for more cash.

The Finance Committee dives on whatever dollars are raised by all the OWS working groups, said Smith, and doesn’t give it back.

The Comfort group has an allowance of $150 a day, while larger working groups, like the Kitchen group, get up to $2,000.

“What can I do with $150?” said Smith. “We have three tons of wet laundry here from the rainstorm — how do I get that done? We need winter gear, shoes, socks. I could spend $10,000 alone for backpacks people need. We raise all this money. Where is it?”

Like I said, what a joke.

Tags: 2012 elections, Liberal. Obakam, Occupy, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street

This goes in the ‘You have to be kidding me” category:

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

The excuse is it could not be built here in America – which is BS. Anything can be built in America.

What this demonstrates once again is how incompetent this White House is when you compare its rhetoric to its results. There is no finer measure of competence than results.

So tax payers now have blown over $500 million on Solyndra – only to see its promised new jobs disappear, and over $500 million on a fake green car now being manufactured in Finland. Anyone ever think to restrict these loans to ‘Made in America’?

This administration is failing epically because:

1. It’s ignorance of business and the free market continues to drive it into failed solutions. This group of wannabes has an elementary school level grasp about real life, which means all its good intentions will fail (if they are really good intentions).
2. It’s business ignorance is only matched by its liberal arrogance, which has become a barrier for any course corrections. While the left wondered why Bush could not admit errors, they are flaming out because they cannot see their own failures to save their political lives. They refuse to admit they have screwed up, and now the screw ups are so numerous and severe they cannot shift gears in any face saving manner – so they drive full speed ahead into the abyss.
3. This crowd in the White House believes all power is meant to be abused for gain primarily – and is totally focused on raiding the tax payers for all their politically connected cronies. Not a single proposal or plan has anything to do with bettering the lives of the people, it is all a facade to line leftist pockets. Charlatans is probably to weak a term for this crowd of pick pockets.

The frustration growing in America with DC is because no one can understand why such behavior can continue without consequences. How can so many fools be left in charge so long? Aren’t their any laws to protect us from government greed and incompetence like we have for doctor malpractice and other commercial protections? Why aren’t there criminal cases being brought for this level of abuse and theft?

America wonders how is it DC could throw someone in jail for a expired car tags, but the mismanagement of half a billion dollars (many times over) draws no punishment?

Time to dismantle the federal beast. Completely dismantle it, down to its minimal core.

Cain is turning the Political Industrial Complex on its head these days. He has come out with an exciting and potentially life saving (from an economic perspective) plan to toss out the current, busted tax code and replace it with his massively stimulating 9-9-9 plan.

But there is more good news about him. When it comes to conservative social issues he is a man of faith and conviction – and one who completely resists the temptation to play God and use the federal government to enforce his views on others. The big example being discussed today is his correct stand on abortion. He agrees  life begins at conception and how the decision about family is for the family to decide. Those on the far right better understand there will be no federal ban on abortion coming, not under Cain nor under anyone else. It is not in the cards.

If the right thinks 9-9-9 is hard to sell, they better realize a federal abortion ban is basically impossible.

This center-right, libertarian sphere Cain occupies (because it is who he is, not some political strategy he maps out) is where the majority of the nation is when you look at the center of Main Street. We have our beliefs and conviction, but we don’t want to play dictator. Must be our humbleness and recognition we never know enough to lecture others on what is right or wrong in complex situations.

The result has been that Cain has consumed nearly all the anti-Obama oxygen and win control the race for the White House. If you watched Hannity and Frank Luntz’s focus group, Cain was the real winner, while Gingrich came in as best in show.

Add to that the picture now coming out of Iowa in the latest Rasmussen polling and you can see broad support congealing around Cain day by day:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Iowa caucus-goers shows that Cain is in front with 28% followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 21%. Congressman Ron Paul is a distant third at 10% followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 9%, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann at 8%, and Texas Governor Rick Perry at 7%.

If Cain really is leading the Iowa GOP caucus voters then he has truly donned the front runner status. These are not right leanng moderates or independents (who he has already). It is even more amazing if you look at Iowans who are certain to participate iin the caucuses:

Among those absolutely certain they will show up and participate in the caucus, Cain leads Romney 31% to 18%.

Neither Romney nor Perry can climb this kind of lead if it solidifies as more and more people make their decisions. Right now the momentum is still growing around Cain. I suspect it will grow and grow for weeks to come since he has not stumbled and the initial claims about his 9-9-9 plan have only proven many people don’t understand math and taxes.

For example. when I wrote my 9-9-9 For Dummies post I was clear that anyone who added 9% income to 9% sales tax and arrived at 18% was pretty much clueless:

If you add the 9% sales tax to the 9% income tax you get 18% – and would demonstrate why you should not be a tax accountant. The 9% sales tax is applied only to the disposable income that goes to buy taxable goods. Not all of your disposable income goes to buy taxable goods! Mortgage payments are not taxable goods. There probably are exemptions for insurance, etc.

Greta Van Sustern had Cain on last night and does the unthinkable, she adds 9 + 9 and got 18%. Lord save us from the ignorant (and I mean that in a nice, but honest way)

The short version of the 9-9-9 for Dummies is this: at the $82,250 income level (top of the 25% bracket) one pays 28% in federal taxes (payroll + income). Under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 that is replaced by 9% income tax and 9% sales tax. But as I said yesterday, not all your take-home pay is used on purchases that fall under the 9% sales tax Cain is proposing. By definition you can NEVER see a combined 18% tax because 9% of your income is pulled for the income tax, leaving a maximum of 91% of your income for purchasing. (Note: for those who care, the mathematical ceiling is 17.2% of your income would go to the 9% income and 9% sales tax)

Yesterday I assumed 50% of the disposable income (left after the 9% income tax) would be used on the 9% federal sales tax.  And then I compare the difference between today’s tax code and 9-9-9. This was the result:

• Under the current system the $82,250 in taxable income results in $59,209 in actual take home pay, giving the government $23,042 of your hard earned money
• Under Cain’s 9-9-9 (from the perspective of the tax payer), that $82,250 in income results in $71,430 in take home pay, giving the giving the government only $10,820 of your hard earned money,

A difference of over $11,000 dollars in take home pay for an income of $82,250. Individual results will vary, especially when you trade off deductions – but the overall result is clear. Just about everyone will have more take home pay when ALL  federal taxes are taken into account under 9-9-9.

Greta may struggle with this, most people get it. So how do you stop a campaign that promises to level the tax paying field, give you more of your income back to spend as you see fit, and end the reign of liberalism run amok?

You can’t beat it. So far it simply sounds too good to be true. But it really isn’t. It is just too far outside the box for those still trapped in the Political Industrial Complex. Thankfully, they are not required for Cain to win or his plans to be implemented.

Tags: 9-9-9, GOP Establishment, Herman Cain, Iowa

Harry Reid’s DC arrogance has now morphed into DC moronic:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday said Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

Not sure where he gets his Kool-Aid, but it looks to be strong stuff. The unemployment rate is around 10.5% nationally (once you adjust the workforce numbers to address the population increases since 2000 and bring back into the equation unemployed workers the government stopped counting).  I can tell you most of those unemployed are citizens, not government workers.

So now we have the real ‘us vs them’ battle defined. It’s not 1% vs 99%, nor 53% vs 47%, etc. It’s 16% (government workers) verses 84% (average citizens). We all get to go further into debt with liberal spending madness, and government workers get to keep screwing up and wasting our money.

Gee, why didn’t I think of that! Pay off the government union workers who have oh, so hard!

Reid just tossed the 2012 election to the GOP. You never tell 84% of the electorate its ‘us’ or ‘you’ and expect anything but a clear ‘then you’ response back at the ballot box.

Like I said – moronic.

Update: Timing is everything!

Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.

The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046.

The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity

So while the average American struggles on $50k a year, the average DC bureaucrat not only grabs almost 30% of their income in payroll and income taxes (see here), that bureaucrat rakes in 2 and half times their salary.

Seems we have a disparity here, a new kind of class warfare.

Updates Below!

OK, it seems the GOP establishment candidates are going to try an defend the current unreasonable, unfathomable, unfair and incoherent tax code in order to fend off Herman Cain. Time for a little lesson in math. Bottom line, the Feds get their money, but under 9-9-9 we decide on where to invest it, not DC.

While one can go through incredibly detailed and useless analysis of optional tax/deduction scenarios, these can be misleading because the more complex the analysis the more hidden assumptions are applied thst can skew the result. There are simple boundary checks which show how Cain’s 9-9-9 plan really is less costly to tax payers. These ‘back of the envelope’ calculation are used in engineering all the time to bound the detailed simulations, so do not dismiss the power of an enveloping analysis.

First off, compare the apples to apples. Cain is replacing the income, payroll and many other federal taxes with 9-9-9. As a marginally well off taxpayer with a middle class income,  you pay taxes on income plus payroll taxes out of your salary. Income tax rates are applied on a whacky scale, where the first $8,350 of income is not taxed (for anyone, even billionaires), then the next $25,600 is taxed at 15% (plus a $835 (10%) charge for making $8,350), then the next $48,300 is taxed at 25%, and so on. While this Rube Goldberg math looks daunting, it is easy to collapse it down to a representative individual making $82,250 in taxable income (the top of the 25% bracket).

When you do all the adding up the realized tax on $82,250 is $16,750 (20.4%).

OK, now add in the payroll taxes. The employee side is  6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare making the payroll tax total of 7.65%.

Add the payroll and income tax together and you get 28.05, and our $82,250 income now loses $23,042 to the federal government. That’s right you started with $82,250 and ended up with $59,208.

Now, the last time I checked a 9% flat income tax is less than a 3rd of the 28% federal taxes now in place. There are no deductions that are going to drop your taxes down to a third of its pre-deduction level, so there is little reason to compute these complex scenarios – none will look better than Cain’s 9-9-9.. So on income/payroll tax alone 9-9-9 is a huge savings. Instead of $59K in disposable income you walk away with $74.8K in disposable income.

Current plan: $23K in federal tax. Cain plan: $7.4K in federal tax.

But this would also mean enormous deficits since we cannot afford to cut the tax rate by two thirds or more for those who now pay all the federal taxes on income. Note I did not say all the income taxes (a subset of the federal taxes on income. Everyone pays payroll tax, which is why it is seriously misleading to say those not paying income tax now will pay a lot more under 9-9-9.

To address this revenue shortfall Cain adds in his 9% federal sales tax. And here is his genius. We invest this money, not DC.

If you add the 9% sales tax to the 9% income tax you get 18% – and would demonstrate why you should not be a tax accountant. The 9% sales tax is applied only to the disposable income that goes to buy taxable goods. Not all of your disposable income goes to buy taxable goods! Mortgage payments are not taxable goods. There probably are exemptions for insurance, etc.

My guesstimate is 50% of the disposable income (income left after income/payroll taxes) would be applied to taxable goods – meaning the additional federal taxes for this example wage earner under 9-9-9 is around $3,370 dollars. You could spend more or less depending on your situation.

OK, the simple wrap up then is;

• Under the current system the $82,250 in taxable income results in $59,209 in actual take home pay, giving the government $23,042 of your hard earned money
• Under Cain’s 9-9-9 (from the perspective of the tax payer), that $82,250 in income results in $71,430 in take home pay, giving the giving the government only $10,820 of your hard earned money,

Anyone can see this middle class taxpayer is walking away with a LOT more disposable income. Which means they will be buying goods and services in greater quantities and energizing the economy.

And for all the math challenged (or deliberately misleading) GOP contenders on stage last night like Romney who tried to talk about state sales tax, note there is no change. If you paid 0-7% in sales tax before 9-9-9, you still pay 0-7%. But now you have more take home pay to spend, so you will see scenarios showing more taxes as you spend more. Like I said, DC gimmicks.

What you really get under 9-9-9 is a much lowered federal tax burden. Now I admit there are deductions that can lower your income, but you can do the  math and realize that while you will still spend money on those currently deductible items (like a mortgage), the amount Uncle Sam let’s you keep is not going to beat 9-9-9 in terms of income in your wallet to spend.

And that’s the kicker isn’t? Do you want to keep sending $23K of your salary to DC to spend, or do you want to spend most of that yourself? That is why 9-9-9 is so smart. The Feds still get their money in the end – we decide where most of it will be invested based on our personal needs. 9-9-9 wins right there. No more dumb, government trickle down projects. We spend, the economy booms, we make more money, etc.

Note: I did not factor in the 10.55% of payroll tax the employer also takes out for each employee (a cost that really comes out of their income level). Think about that as well when you realize labor is the largest cost in all goods and services.

Update: Much more here at WSJ

Major Update: One more thing about Cain’s trading off much lower income/payroll taxes for a sales tax. Income taxes come out all year long. Many of us have to file to get back much of our deductions. Payroll taxes get sucked out all the time (unless you are in the top 5% and make income above the limits).

Basically, the feds will not be confiscating as much money from us up front, but earning more than a third of it off the sales taxes.

Also, since small businesses (like ours) pay our taxes at our personal rate, we see a huge windfall in money we can now put to work on benefits, employee training, new hires, etc. If you don’t run a company the benefit of Cain’s 9-9-9 will not be immediately obvious – so therefore maybe it would not hurt to listen to us small business conservatives given our experiences and expertise?