Hedgehog Party

Joe the Plumber

The recent exchange between Barack Obama and Joe the Plumber was quite revealing.  What it revealed was...neither Obama or McCain understand tax policy or the workings of the economy.

In case you somehow misssed it, Joe the Plumber accused Obama of raising his taxes.  Obama responded that he "wanted to spread the wealth around and give others a chance."

What it revealed was Obama's apparent lack of understanding of who is taxed when the "rich" are taxed.  Small business would be hit hard by these tax increases.  The very rich (as we have explained many times) would largely avoid them.  Since small business is responsible for most of the job creation, a weakened economy would be weaker still.

McCain took on the issue and probably gained a few votes.  But he missed the point as well.  Instead of pointing out the potential loss of jobs.  He talked about redistribution of wealth.  Pretty vague stuff if you are trying to win middle class votes.

Neither of these candidates seem to understand the effects of tax policy on mainstream economics.  Obama seems to be caught up in grievance politics.  McCain seems to be caught up in big corporate and Wall Street issues.  None of this promotes essential economic growth, and it certainly does not appeal to the average swing voter.

The Hedge tax is a much better answer.

The Solution to The Systemic Crisis

http://caseyresearch.com/pdfs/20081019_Crisisnoxsell.pdf

This is a article by the Casey Group...a hard money advocacy.  Ignore the bias and anti-national tone, and take a close look at the charts...especially the one where the Feds have added toxic loans to the federal balance sheet.  The main point is that for the past 10 years, all of the chickens have come to roost in the federal balance sheet.

This tendency to stuff the fiscal and monetary folly into the public financial ledger is not new.  We have done this for the past 100 years.  What is new is that we are doing it at such a rate that there seems to be no way to purge the toxins from the system without a massive upheaval.  That would include the destruction of the US credit rating and very hard times.

Prior to "The Rats are in the Cheese," I concluded that there were too many degrees of freedom for our legislature in the writing of taxation and spending legislation.  Our legislative process has devolved into serving a series of narrow interests rather than the broad interests of the electorate as a whole.  The tax code I proposed would force our representatives to craft legislation that required broad consensus rather than pandering to our special interests that have virtually ruined the integrity of our financial system.

This issue is truly non partisan.  It is truly a systemic failure enabled by a tax and spend regime that is exploited by all parties on behalf our special interests.  It is quite discouraging in the midst of our current crisis to see a series of proposals that are just extensions of what has become routine.  But rather than blame one political group or politician consider this:  there really is no other way to acquire and hold office in our country. 

There is literally no politician suggesting that we have a structural problem.  Instead, all sides try to ride to victory on the imagined poor character of their opponent.  Make your voice heard in the wilderness.