Recovery.gov / A Primer on Socialism doublespeak

I spent an hour or two this afternoon crawling around the website, recovery.gov that President Obama announced in his speech to Congress this week. This is the new website that will allow Americans to see where their money is being spent. Ahem.

On this website, Americans are invited to provide feedback in a section called Share your Recovery Story. "Tell us how the Recovery Act is affecting you. What's working? What isn't? We want to hear from you." So I clicked on the link and submitted the following:

The "economic crisis" hasn't impacted me, but the government's response to it has. I am one of the few Americans who has met my responsibilities (reference para 7 of your 2/24 speech)...graduated high school though coming from a broken family having worked in the tobacco fields when I was 15 and in a restaurant kitchen my last two years of HS; graduated in the top 10% of my class at the United States Naval Academy; served my country as an F-14 RIO during the 80's during which time our Operations tempo broke the back of the USSR; left the service in 1990; put myself through an MBA program while working full time and raising a family and now looking forward to my older child graduating from Boston University in May '09 and my younger child graduating from UConn in May '11.

My pay has increased each year since I’ve worked because I produce and my results have been valued by my employer.

My family now finds itself approaching that now-dreaded annual income of $250,000. Of the $220,000 I earned last year, $71,000 will go to some taxing authority, $70,000 went to my children’s college tuition, $20,000 went to pay my mortgage honorably, leaving my family of four $59,000 for other expenses.

I have worked my butt off since I was a child and have achieved some level of prosperity, but have never been a pay-check or two away from hard-times. I don't have much in the bank, yet because of what I earn NOW, you view me as "wealthy" as if I inherited money from a rich uncle. What I have I have earned. I have invested in private schools for my children because the public schools are a failure. I live in the same small house I bought when I left the Navy and have never missed a mortgage payment. I paid full-price for college for my children because our government said I "earned too much". I could not even deduct any portion of the $70,000 I paid last year in tuition payments because I "earned too much". I have never asked for a hand-out and am not now, but your "recovery" plan will make many Americans beggars - begging for whatever scraps you throw them. I am sickened by the damage you have done to the fiber of this once-great nation by your systemic, comprehensive creation of a welfare state.

When I hear your oratory that you “fighting for the middle class” I sense that you are fighting me. Why? Aside from playing by the rules and having never asked for a hand-out, what have I done to incur the wrath of my government? Why is my example not the one that you want to show-case? Instead, you have waged war on me and are poised to tax me into chains.

I also left a note asking if the feedback this site receives from Americans will be made public, ya know, in the interest of transparency. I mentioned that failure to do so would further expose the new Administration to the legitimate claim of hypocrisy regarding transparency.

While exploring this shallow, Potemkin Village of a website, I stumbled upon Vice President Joe "nobody messes with Joe" Biden's website for his Middle Class Task Force. I provided feedback to this website asking what this task force uses as its definition of "middle class". Is it an upper and lower income level based on a certain family size, an education level, an age bracket? I also left feedback asking about another term used on this website and in all of the stump speeches - ah, you guessed it, "Working American Families".... I work 60 - 70 hours per week, have never drawn a penny of unemployment relief and am an American and I have a family. Does that qualify me? Oh, by the way, I made over $200K last year...does that disqualify me? Am I a non-working American who works 60-70 hours / week? Hmmm.

Fortunately, this website has offered transparency as well as the socialism.gov website - I mean, recovery.gov website, so I'm sure I'll get an answer real soon - right about the time that we see the first wave of the 3-4 million jobs being created (approximately two weeks after NEVER!)
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Kimberley Strassel wrote a great piece in Friday's Wall Street Journal entitled Obama: The CliffsNotes Decoding the President, which I encourage you all to read. Building on the shtick she used in Friday's piece, here are my contributions to cutting through the doublespeak of socialism.

"We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than ever." Translation: We will create non-value-adding make-work jobs and extort more money from the productive sectors of the economy to pay for these sham jobs, we will win in the 2010 mid-term elections and we will exterminate any vestiges of independence, liberty or freedom by emasculating the nation's producers, enfeebling the minds of our school-age children and crippling all in-between with every conceivable form of welfare handout.

"A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future." Translation: Productive Americans created wealth and were allowed to keep more of it than they had prior to the Bush Tax cuts. Inadequate confiscation means during this time period prevented the seizing of this wealth by the government and the distribution of this looted wealth to prospective Democratic voters.

"put people back to work and put money in their pockets." Translation: Take an otherwise healthy young man and pay him 40 hours a week to dig holes from 7:30 am - 4:00 pm each day. Take another otherwise healthy young man and pay him 40 hours a week to fill-in holes from 4:00 pm - 12:30 am each evening. Pay them each a "living wage". Assign a local government supervisor and a bureau in Washington to report on the job growth.

"...as we make hard choices" Translation: Hmmm. Some choices are good for Americans but difficult for politicians and there are some choices which are hard on Americans but are good for politicians. Which do you think we're looking at?

"This plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs" Hey, hey, hey, what happened to just "create" 3.5 million jobs? And wasn't it north of 4 million jobs, too? Translation: When this pig of a spending bill bill flops over on its side and starts bloating in the summer heat, I can claim that millions and millions of - perhaps even a gazillion - jobs were saved even if not a single meaningful, productive, sustainable job was created.

"There are 57 police officer who are still on the streets of Minneapolis tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make." Translation: Producers from cities and towns nowhere near Minneapolis were forcibly required to empty their pockets and send the fruit of their labor to Minneapolis because the people of Minneapolis could find NO GOVERNMENT SPENDING - NONE that was less important than cops on the street. So instead, a baker in Manchester, NH, a plumber in Saratoga, NY and a manufacturing forman in Louisville, KY have less money to share with their families because of this bill.

"95% of the working households in America will receive a tax cut" Translation: If you make more than $250,000 then you can not number yourselves among the "working households" in America. If you are among the referenced 95% of the population, you will receive "a" tax cut (what was it, $13 / week?) but then you will be taxed in every conceivable manner. We will raise your electric bills through a CO2 cap and trade scheme, we will raise your gas tax, we will increase taxes on cigarettes, capital gains taxes on the few stocks you might sell...we will tax everything you do, BUT, because of this bill we will be able to claim that we provided you "a" tax cut. Enjoy it. Don't spend it all at once.

"The concern is that if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins." Translation: Yea, yea, yea so the Community Reinvestment Act encouraged (oh alright, coerced) banks into making loans to people they knew couldn't repay them, but that is sooooo 20th century... this time we'll do the same thing but we'll have super-duper government oversite so, what could possibly go wrong?

"These banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or to each other." Translation: The banks are calcified with fear that the government will, again, force them to make loans that are BAD loans, all under the banner of "the common good". When allowed to enter into only those loans that the bankers view as advantageous, there is NO fear. The fear is that the great unwashed Democratic base will not get "free" money loaned to it because the racist bankers actually insist on a down-payment for a mortgage and evidence that the mortgagee can pay-back the loan.

"We will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times." Translation: We will send in auditors with rectal-scopes for as long as is required for banks to display "confidence". If they don't willingly display that confidence, we will make them an offer that they cannot refuse. [Note to young readers: If you're wondering, "But, gee, Mr. Powers, I thought in a free society one conducts business transactions only by free will with the assumption of gain from such transaction. This doesn't sound like the bankers are being given a choice. Where is the freedom and liberty there?"]

"But I also know that in a time of a crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment." Translation: If you don't have a crisis, keep telling the media that there IS a crisis. This way one can use emergency measures and everyone will think the President is brave, courageous, bold and decisive. It is the perfect storm needed to seize and consolidate power. It's also the excuse to tell Republicans, "Talk to the hand. La laa laa". Take a peak at Dick Morris' piece from The Hill on 2/24, "It’s Obama spreading panic".

"It's about helping people" Translation: It's not about getting out of people's way and letting their future be limited only by there aptitude and inclinations. Noooo. It's about identifying your potential voting base and giving them stuff and identifying your potential enemies and eviscerating them. If you can do the latter in order to accomplish the former, then you have created the perfect solution.

"We will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years." Translation: We will extract a gazillion dollars from producers' wallets to fund renewable energy science fairs across the country and increase the amount of renewable energy from zilch to insignificant.

"We will invest... " Translation: We will take from producers and spread this loot to our political base. We will force industries to make products that no one will buy.

"We can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold." Translation: If you thought health care was expensive now, wait until it is free. Health care is a commodity like shoes or automobiles for which there is a producer (your doctors, nurses, etc) and a consumer (the patient). Simply directing that everyone will have shoes ("Universal foot coverage") will not increase the supply of shoes. Now if we go beyond universal foot coverage and tell the shoe makers how much they can sell their shoes for, do we think we will have more shoes in the market or less? Hmmm... If you think free health care is a right that must be given to everyone, what does this say of the value we place in those who produce the commodity called health care? And why stop at health care? Why not say that every American has the right to a certain amount of money per hour of work regardless of its value? Ohh... right, we already have that... Read the great article from The Objective Standard entitled "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America" by Paul Hseih

Stayed tuned for next week's lesson...

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Before you go, you've got to read the great Review and Outlook piece from Friday's WSJ, entitled "The 2% Illusion - Take everything they earn and it still won't be enough". Summary: If the Administration is going to wage class warfare against those making over $250,000 per year, then why stop at 39% or 42% - take every penny above $250K... a marginal tax rate 0f 100%. Outlaw annual earnings above $250,000 - got the picture? So, take all of that loot and...it's still not enough to pay for the Obama spend-a-thon. So, 95%-of-Americans-who-will-get-a-tax-cut where do YOU think this money is going to come from? Even after taking ALL of the money earned above $250K, it's not enough... what will the government do when it can't soak the rich any further?