Vote for Me!

Well, it turns out the President couldn't leave bad enough alone.  Instead of simply being satisfied with raiding Social Security to fund his so-called "Jobs" plan, he decides to double-down and raise taxes as well on everyone making more than $200k per year--you know, the Millionaires and Billionaires!  [I guess he thinks that anyone making less than that is too stupid to realize that $200k doesn't make you a Millionaire--"Ooooh, you make $200k, you must be a Millionaire!"]

So now the net effect, if you can believe it, is a tax increase!  You can't make this stuff up!  Here's how it works:  (1) reduce payroll taxes and thereby reduce amount going to Social Security so Social Security liability increases--net effect zero, then (2) reduce deductions for anyone who is a Millionaire--you know, the guys making more than $200k--which, to anyone with a brain, is the same as raising taxes and would predictably result in job losses.

If the tax increase was going back to Social Security, then the whole charade would just be a thinly veiled "tax the Republicans, bribe my base" strategy.  But nothing has been said about returning anything to SS, so I'm not really sure what the strategy is--my best estimation is that it's a "fool my base by telling them I'm going to give them money that I will take from rich people but will really be taken from their own Social Security and use the money that I actually take from the middle-class, which by this point is mostly Republican, to pay for more Democrat pet projects--you know, vital ones like repaving the Delaware Turnpike for, what, the 10th time in the last 10 years using, of course, union labor" strategy.

The sad thing is that if the President hadn't passed Obamacare, the country would by now be well into a recovery (just look at long bond yields, which began to fall immediately after its passage, for evidence).  And now he wants to raise taxes as part of a Jobs plan!  Is he really that clueless about how economies work?

Ultimately, my take on the President's Jobs program is that it's all just a show anyhow.  Like I've said before, it appears to me that he really has just given up.  He likes the perks but by now knows he's in over his head.  Weeks of vacation while the country waits for his Jobs pronouncement?  80+ rounds of golf in less than three years?  Is this guy President or King?  [Any golfers out there? Even for the President it probably takes most of a day to play a round (motorcade to and from golf course, 4+ hours to play, lunch...etc.).  At that rate, 80+ rounds is nearly 3 months of golf!  If I hadn't seen his swing I'd swear he was practicing for the Senior Tour!]

All that being said, at this point, I think that the only thing President Obama really cares about is being re-elected (like I said, he likes the perks) and that he's gone back into the one mode he understands:  election mode.  He knows the Republicans won't accept higher taxes and is just using the whole situation to support his new campaign slogan:  "I tried."