Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Ross Perot? Who? What?

And you thought President Obama had funny ears.
"United We Stand America" was Perot's big movement. We need an episode of "Where are they now?" or something. I still say the tea-party/Randian element of the Republican Party will soon be as forgotten as Ross Perot and his crowd - which did have its effect helping to tip two elections to Bill Clinton. Of course I have the sneaking suspicion that a lot of Ross's folks ended up in the tea party. They just forgot their graphs and charts.

Forbes Magazine on-line, of all places, just published an article on the theme that President Obama may be one of the best, perhaps the best, president for the economy in history! (h/t Phil). Imagine that! Of course, he inherited a mess that gave opportunity to improve and any improvement would look good compared with the economic disaster W Bush left us from the surplus budget he inherited. And remember this - it's called the Great Recession not the Great Depression II. Somebody did something right.

And by quirky coincidence of history, Steve Forbes was running for the Republican nomination in those days on his Flat Tax which, IMO, made about as much sense as Cain's Chilean 9-9-9 plan (which is how you call for an emergency in Britain, fyi). 

Lest anyone jump in here with Forbian defense of the flat tax, may I remind you that the simple problem is that a flat tax is regressive on the poor. Basic life commodities cost pretty much the same for the poor or the rich, i.e., food, energy, water, etc. I mean, you can eat pomegranate and lobster tails every meal. But the difference in price from rice and beans is not as astronomically high as the difference in minimum wage and the income or net worth of the 1% (ask an economist or mathematician to explain this - I don't do Math). After basic commodities are purchased, the wealthy still have a lot of sweet moolah to spend on whatever. The working poor, not so much.

Lest anyone argue the fairness of religious tithing at 10% across the board, let me remind you of one little detail - Law of Consecration. Ta-Dah! Until the rich give their all, they're not getting through that needle's eye. (Don't even start with the crawling business!).

Bottom line, because of the growth of the economy and the modifications on tax revenue, the deficit as a percentage of GDP is significantly down and shrinking daily. So I think things are actually looking up and our President is doing just fine. Actually, more than fine according to Forbes.

And we need to ask the people like Senator Mike Lee, supposedly elected to stop Obamacare, "Hey! What's your next trick?"

3 comments:

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