Crabby thoughts on tax day

I did not go to a tea party today. Too many bright young people who are worried that maybe they really don't understand the interplay of Rule 18(a) and subject jurisdiction. What was it that I said about the Asahi factors? They'll do fine but they need a bit of clarification. It's what they pay for.

I don't agree with everything I read on the signs at the various demonstrations. We don't need to abolish the Fed (although its turning out that the Fed had a lot to do with our recent unpleasantness) and I'm still not ready to call the President a socialist, although his lurch to the left has surprised even me.

But there's a point here that is not defined by some of its more extreme manifestations. Just what are we doing? The Obama budget numbers are staggering. It doesn't do to say that the deficit increased during the Bush administration and that the GOP Congress abandoned fiscal responsibility. To paraphrase the Boss, Obama's here and they're all gone. Obama is doubling down on Bush's fiscal inattention. What he has proposed is not serious. It can't be sustained and, at some point, he's going to have to tell us what he really has in mind.

What is frustrating is the refusal to acknowledge facts. Obama is raising taxes on people making under 250k. He can't do what he wants to do without raising them a whole lot more. The Bush "tax cuts for the rich", in regards to the ordinary income tax, were actually an across the board reduction. (Capital gains and dividends taxes are another matter but actually resulted in the collection of more taxes and present a different set of issues.) The income tax is not rigged against the middle class. It is, in fact, highly progressive. (In fact, it could be argued that part of the GOP
's political problem stems from the fact that almost half of us pay little or no income tax.) You can claim that it should be even more progressive, but facts are pesky things.