Big Red Car here. Bluebird day in the ATX and in Steamboat Springs. Alas, The Boss is in the Springs and he says he may never come home because the Spring skiing is off the chart. Nice and warm. Great grooming. Makes a Big Red Car a bit jealous really.
So The Boss has been following the debate in Washington, District of Columbia, about the budget, sequestration and the impending debt ceiling crisis. Oh, my, sayeth the Big Red Car!
Reality
So, Big Red Car, WTF is going on in Washington right now?
The President has absolutely no intention of cutting anything and will only be brought to the table by some outside force and right now there is very little that can be done to change his thinking except for another Donnybrook over the debt ceiling.
The President does not think we have a spending problem. The Democrats do not think we have a spending problem.
The President is not concerned about the deficit.
The Democrats want more and more taxes. Blood. Stone.
The Republicans are equally unrealistic — submitting a budget based upon repealing Obamacare? Really? You expect President Obama to sign into law a bill repealing what he believes to be his signature legislation? Really, Congressman Ryan?
The Big Red Car can help the Republicans see into the future —- hmmm, not gonna happen, Paulie!
The United States cannot sustain a National Debt of $20,000,000,000,000 — and make no mistake that is where we are heading.
FY 2013 revenues to the Treasury will be the largest in the history of the United States — returning to pre-recession 2007 levels, so the notion that revenue is the problem is really a bit of baloney and not even good baloney at that. This will be driven primarily by tax planning and actions at the end of CY 2012 not because there is any fundamental improvement in the economy.
The economy itself is still in intensive care when one looks at an anemic rate of growth — really 0% if one takes the width of the chalk stripe into consideration. You cannot measure things as closely as is necessary to ascertain any real evidence of growth. It is non-existent.
We have created a nanny state — look only to unemployment, housing subsidies, welfare recipients, disability filings and a myriad of other “takers” and you can see we are way beyond “creating” and deeply into “we be there already, Big Red Car”!
We have almost no job creation dynamic and certainly none that is working.
In the meantime, the President has failed to meet his February annual deadline for submitting a budget.
And, yes, we still have the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
Charm Offensive
So what is the President’s plan of action? He has launched a charm offensive — taking Republican dinosaurs out for fancy dinners. Brilliant, right?
Fancy dinners, visits to the Hill to confer with the Republican caucus and just an all around tsunami of, well, charm. And you can imagine how charming the President and the Republican caucus can be, right?
The power of charm may be overrated or not?
Let’s just try to stop STUPID
So, here we sit with the impact of Sequestration — the world did not end after all — driving truly pathetic little reductions in spending including the absolute necessity to cancel White House tours. The People’s House, mind you. Of course, the President today said it was not his decision thereby throwing the Secret Service under the bus. Ouch.
But, we did have enough money to gift $250,000,000 to Egypt in the form of unfettered aid. And 200 main battle Abrams tanks. Tanks which can only be used logically against their own people or our Israeli allies. Let’s stop STUPID.
We are going to curtail “loopholes” — which are what others call “deductions”.
Well, what kind of loopholes, Big Red Car?
Well, like the “carried interest” — the taxation of the limited partnership interest of hedge fund and venture capital and private equity and real estate promoters.
But, Big Red Car, won’t that solve all of our problems you may ask.
Well, no not really. It will generate about $20,000,000,000 versus an annual shortfall or deficit of $1,600,000,000,000 lowered theoretically to $1,000,000,000,000 by the recently enacted tax hikes.
Let’s strip off some zeros and see what that looks like on a comparative basis: $20 in savings versus $1,600 or $2 versus $160 or 1.25%. Let’s stop STUPID!
Well, the Big Red Car could go on forever but, folks, this is the bottom line — nobody in Washington is making any real progress and they can’t stop STUPID!
But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car!
Be good to yourselves, you deserve it.