The problem with the Obama administration rewards failure and punishes success.
- When the financial industry failed:
Obama was there to bail them out. - When GM failed:
Obama was there to bail them out. - When homeowners over-extended and failed to pay mortgages: Obama was there to bail them out.
- When Americans failed to find jobs:
Obama bailed them out with extended unemployment.
But what happens to the Americans that managed to succeed and make money rather than lose it? Obama chastises this group as the greedy, evil rich people. And to punish these people for being successful, Obama increases their medicare taxes, increases their income taxes, increases their capital gains taxes, limits their itemized deductions, and even hopes to implement a windfall tax if you’re just too damn successful. That’s 3.8% + 3-4% + 5% + reductions in itemized deductions. So in addition to the over 50% that you already pay in taxes, Obama wants to take another 12.8%!
And don’t forget – the state of California plans to increase taxes too…
Let’s put incentives in for being a benefit to the system rather than benefits for being a drain on the system.
First of all, TARP and the EESA were enacted under the Bush Administration. Bush then used executive power to change the rules about how the money was spent, and Paulson handed it out with virtually no regulation or assurances. Obama inherited that plan. Obama placed more protections and controls on the loans. A lot of the money has been repaid since Obama took office.
Second, the “Mortgage Bailout” was really a reward to the predatory lenders that convinced tens of millions of home buyers that they could afford ridiculous mortgages. The lenders get the dollars from the taxpayers AND have a much better chance of being repaid for the bad mortgages. The homeowners are still on the hook, and in some cases will pay more in the long term because the mortgages are extended to offset the lower payments.
Third, finding jobs is hard when there aren’t enough jobs.
Fourth, I’m not sure I’d call any of these things “rewards”. A “safety net”, perhaps. A reward suggests that people will intentionally fail to get the reward. If a kid doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street and gets hit by a car, do you withhold medical treatment because you’d be “rewarding his failure”?
Whoops- I hadn’t actually intended to publish this. It was more of a rant to myself. I wonder what happened. Ok – well it is out now.
Obama extended all of these programs, even those he didn’t initiate.
Each one of these, individually, has a justification. But in aggregate, there is a pattern here of rewarding those who fail. The analogy to medical treatment is invalid because money and health are not the same. At the end of the day it’s about taking from those who are successful at the game and giving to those who fail.
How do we keep the American dream alive, if after you spent your lifetime achieving the American draem, the government decides to take it away and give it to someone else that didn’t work hard, didn’t play by the rules, and otherwise failed?