Now, to try to cover their black eye, the democrats are scrambling to try to tax the bonus money away from the AIG execs, and any other companies that receive bail out money.  The disappointing thing is that many of the House Republicans have joined in on this pitchfork like assault on the company, without any thought of the consequences.  Fortunately, this time it is Senate Republicans that are making the congress slow down and reconsider their actions.  The democrats are trying to hurry the legislation through, taxing 90%+ of the bonus money.

According to an article posted at Fox News, the bill would not only tax bonuses in the future, but would be retroactive to January of 2009.  Isn’t that a great idea?  The government deciding that they can go back in time and take money away by taxes that you earned in the past?  Now, I know that many people are upset about these bonuses, and I am one of them.  But, can we not see the precedent that is set by this thinking?  There are at least two principles that are very serious in nature here.  First, the idea of the government taxing 90-100% of any one’s income is ludicrous.  Secondly, the idea of taxing money that was made before legislation was passed.  Simply put, if the government decides that you make too much money, then they can pass legislation to go back and get “their share.”  Of course, we invited this kind of problem by electing a man that promised class warfare–taxing people more if they make more than a predetermined amount of money ($250,000 currently).

The bottom line here is that the government needs to stop helping.  None of this would be an issue if they had not foolishly decided to spend nearly $800 billion to bail out companies that were practicing bad business and running themselves out of business.  AIG would not have tanked the whole economy…they would have restructured, and cut the fat.  They would have cut out the unprofitable sections of the business, and probably would have recovered.  But, even if they failed, some other company would step up to fill the void.  It happens every time if the government doesn’t decide to “help”.  That is why we are a capitalist nation, not a socialist nation.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, socialism has never worked, and the Obama Administration’s new flavor isn’t working either.  It just causes more and more problems.

We do not need more legislation trying to fix a bad problem.  This administration messed up.  They appointed Geithner (who is supposed to be the smartest man in America, and yet can’t figure out how to pay his own taxes) to the Treasury Secretary.  He has blown every opportunity to improve the economy, only making it worse.  It is time to stop trying to fix things with bad principles.  But, I know that probably isn’t going to happen.  We will see more of the same in the months ahead.  We will see the congress rushing to try to fix things that they “didn’t see coming” and yet are so obvious to the rest of us.

Note to companies:  if you don’t want the government running you, don’t take their tainted money!

Seriously, if you can get past the revolting view behind the president, you might hear a bit of what he is saying.  There is some irony to the speech.  The whole speech is about how much more of your (and my) money he is intending to spend.  This is beyond the almost 900 billion that he spent last week, and the 200 billion that he spent this week.  Oh yeah, and then he had a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House yesterday.  Dick Morris said in an interview yesterday, “That’s like having Mike Tyson convene a summit on domestic violence.”  Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.  It would be funny if it were not so serious.  Ok, it is funny.  We might as well laugh, cause the government will be laughing all the way to the bank.  Probably the bank they will be bailing out next week.  Ok, I said seriously, but I guess I really didn’t mean it.

I am amazed that people think that all of this spending is going to be a good thing.  President Obama just told us in this speech that he wants us to have a “cradle to the grave” society.  We have to make sure that everyone has everything that they need from the time that they are born until they die. From this speech, all I have found out is that we are in a world of hurt financially.  There is no way, without huge tax increases that we can possibly pay for all the pet projects of this President.  But, we might as well get ready for it, as there is no way to stop it with the current political environment.

Now to his great plan for the deficit.  He tells us that he will cut the deficit in half over the next four years.  Folks, there is only one way for that to happen.  Tax increases are coming.  If you believe this line that your taxes aren’t going up unless you make over $250,000, then I have some property you might like to buy.  You see, Obama is still saying that 95% of working families will get a tax cut.  Do you ever wonder how 95% can get a tax cut when only 62% pay taxes?  If you do that math, it means that people who do not pay taxes will be receiving a check.  Folks, it is not from the government they are getting that check, it is from the 62% of us that already pay!  If you can’t figure out what that is called, let me help you out.  It’s socialism.

I think I must be watching a Saturday Night Political special.  The man impersonating the president just made the statement that he was proud that they passed the recovery plan that had no earmarks.  No earmarks?  I guess he didn’t read it either…like all the rest of the democrats that voted for that monstrosity.

Obama tries to act like he is going to be tough on terrorism?  You have to be kidding me!  There was no one tougher on terrorism than President Bush, and we know that because we have a prison full of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.  At least we did.  Until President Obama decided that we need to shut it down, regardless of the fact that all investigations have shown that it has been run in compliance with the Geneva Convention.  President Obama promises that he will make us safer?  How?  By allowing the terrorist to walk out of prison and back into the general populace, just like he did yesterday?  Let’s ask the family members of the USS Cole whether this was a bright idea or not.

Folks, the “other shoe” dropped for me yesterday.  I was trying to figure out why the dems had to push the spending bill through, and inserted so much garbage that should have been voted on in the general budget.  I got the answer when I found out that the president was going to cut the deficit in half over the next 4 years.  Then, I heard that the bailout was not a part of the “budget”.  That’s right, it doesn’t count in the deficit, even though it is nearly a trillion dollars on the books.  So, they got their spending, without having it go against the budget.  I think I will do that with my “budget” at home.  I’ll just count my spending on my pet projects as not being “in the budget” so that I don’t have to worry about it when I pay my bills.  Yeah, it doesn’t work that way, and it shouldn’t work that way with the Obama administration either.  They intentionally put their earmarks in the bailout so that they didn’t have to try and get it passed in the budget.  Dishonest?  Yeah.  There is also hypocrisy in the complaint that he “inherited a trillion dollar deficit”, when he was a part of bringing on that deficit (he voted for the budgets as well), and he spent a trillion dollars himself!  I guess if the Republicans are responsible, then it is bad, if the Democrats are responsible, then it is good.  Here’s a newsflash–Both are bad!

This speech was proported to be “Reaganesque”.  There is no way that President Obama will ever be like Ronald Reagan.  I’m not sure why he wants to be.  It is funny to me how he tries to allign himself with the greatest of Republican presidents (Lincoln and Reagan), when in fact he is nothing like them.  The media has him as one of the greatest presidents ever, even though he has only been president for 35 days.  It’s not possible to be among the greats in that short a period of time, but it is possible to be one of the worst.  He is well on his way on that side.  He has spent a tremendous amount of money for things that are unnessesary.  So, Reaganesque?  Not so much.  I wish he would compare himself to the presidents that he is really like–FDR maybe?

Now, I am waiting on Bobby Jindal to speak.  I am hoping that he is going to be the answer fo those of us who are conservative fiscally and morally.  He is already turning down the stimulus money–more should do it!  We are only 35 days in…but there is some hope in 4 years!

We saw the same thing when it came to auto makers.  Once the government stepped in, they had the right to start implementing further regulations that will drive the manufacturing costs up.  But, don’t worry, since the government will be a big part of the industry, I am sure that the cost to us as consumers will not be affected…yeah right.

Now, with the bailouts that are currently proposed, Obama feels that he has the right to step in and limit the salaries of the executives.  $500,000 is to be the “cap” for all executives of companies that accept this money.  Now, that is a lot of money to me…but it is not a lot of money for an executive of a major company.  So, the bottom line is, these companies who accepted government money will not be able to hold an executive that is worth anything, as they will go to a company that will pay them “market value” rather than “Obama value.”  So, struggling companies will then lose any hope of attracting executives that may be able to get them out of the problems they now face, leading to more struggles.  They will end up with sub-par execs, who will basically perform at a sub-par level, causing the companies to be sub-par companies.  The bailout will ensure the downfall of most of these types of companies.  Only in a case where there is some company loyalty for the execs will there be any kind of success.

The bottom line is that this type of bailout is not good for a free market economy.  I am no economist, and I am sure there are some ins and outs that I don’t understand.  However, allowing the government to interfere with free enterprise, controlling salaries, and implementing restrictions that are not helpful to the market, will destroy more companies than it will help.  In fact, if we are going to be a free market society, then the idea of a bailout should be scrapped completely.  If a company cannot make it, then they should be forced out of business.  Some say, “But these companies are too big to fail!”  Wrong.  if they were “too big to fail” then they would have sound business practices that would ensure that they continue successfully.  Loans from the government could be a possibility, but those loans would have to be just that.  They would have to be paid back, and the government would not be able to impose ridiculous regulations.

We are heading further down the socialistic path than most people would like to think.  And, in the next 4 years, we will go further than most will want to go.  And, before all the liberals start blasting me for going against this bailout and not the “Bush Bailout”, realize I was against that one too! I am so glad that the house republicans stood up against this bill.  We will see if the senate republicans have the guts to stand up for conservative principles too!