Fleeced

Dick Morris, Eileen McGann

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061983306
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Proceso político

Here are the facts:

The United States has released 425 terrorists from Guantánamo, at least 50 of whom have returned to the battlefield to fight our troops.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say they're fiscally responsible. But each has called for $1 trillion in tax increases over the next ten years—and dressed them up as tax cuts!

Mainstream Media has been given marching orders from the Society of Professional Journalists: never refer to "Islamic terrorists" or "Muslim terrorists." And they are obeying! Whenever our brave agents disrupt a terror plot, The media dismisses the culprits as a gang of idiots—lulling us into a false sense of security.

If the liberals win the 2008 election, they will cripple talk radio—forcing stations to give equal time to left-wing programs, and insisting that liberals play a key role in station management.

Up to a quarter of all state pension funds in the United States are invested in companies that are helping Iran, Syria, North Korea, or the Sudan—for a total of nearly $200 billion.

The Do-Nothing Congress is still doing nothing—and the worst offenders are the presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, and McCain, who never show up for their day jobs as senators... except to pick up their $165, 000 paycheck!

Is it any wonder that Americans feel fleeced at every turn?

As more and more critical problems develop that need national attention, the White House and Congress appear to be AWOL.

Who's calling the shots instead?

Big business, big government, big labor, and big lobbyists. And their self-serving agendas are doing nothing to help the ever-increasing number of American people who are losing their homes, paying credit card interest rates higher than 25 percent, and finding their jobs increasingly outsourced to foreign countries.

In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced—by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS.

With their characteristic blend of sharp analysis and insider insight, Morris and McGann call offenders of all kinds on the carpet—and offer practical agendas we all can follow to help turn the tide.

1

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

What Would He Do?

This book will expose a disastrous array of fleeces that are conspiring to rob the American people of their money, their security, and their way of life. The worst among them, however, is what we’ll all have to go through if Barack Obama takes office on Inauguration Day in January 2009. There’s a strong chance that a Democratic winner would be accompanied by an overwhelming congressional majority, consolidating Democratic control over both houses. We believe that as many as fifty-eight Democrats will be elected to the Senate and the Democrats will extend their domination of the House. The beleaguered Senate Republicans may find it hard to summon the forty-plus votes they would need to sustain a filibuster and stop Obama from fulfilling his agenda. He would be able to do his will. But what will that be? Where would he take our country?

Obama would take the country sharply, suddenly, and dangerously to the far left. He would raise taxes immediately and substantially: increasing the top bracket to at least 40 percent, lifting the cap on Social Security taxes, and doubling capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends. He would roll back the increases in the threshold for the inheritance tax passed under Bush.

But his catastrophic intervention in our society would hardly end there.

Obama would open the door wide to illegal immigrants and make it easy for them to become citizens and voters.

• He would socialize medicine in America—through a federal insurance program that would include illegal immigrants.
• He would weaken the PATRIOT Act in important ways and would increase our vulnerability to terrorists.
• He one would weaken the standards Bush imposed for improved public education.
• He would lower penalties for some of our most dangerous drug criminals and give many a free pass to leave prison.

And, most important, Obama would pull out of Iraq unilaterally, without conditions, and leave it to its (likely bloody) fate. If it became a base for terrorists, he is likely to do little more than to wring his hands and blame President Bush. During the primary season, Obama has been relatively clear about what he would do as president. The trouble is that most voters haven’t been listening to what he’s been saying. Enthralled by his charisma, enraptured by the idea of electing the first black president, thrilled to have an alternative to the deadly oscillation of Clintons and Bushes in the White House, the voters have allowed the specifics of Obama’s agenda to get lost along the way. They have missed the dangerously radical substance that lies behind his attractive rhetoric.

For Obama has done much more than merely promise to end the current political style in Washington and to bring the “audacity of hope” to the nation’s politics. During the campaign, he explicitly outlined an ultraliberal agenda—one that runs even further to the left than what Hillary was willing to own up to.

Whereas Hillary flip-flopped on the war in Iraq, Obama was quite clear: he wants out, regardless of the price in lost credibility or Iraqi lives.

Whereas Hillary hid her planned tax increases, Obama is quite explicit about them: he would nearly double the capital gains tax and the tax on dividends while raising Social Security and income taxes sky-high.

Hillary forced us to read between the lines to see what she would do as president. With Obama, it was all there in plain sight; we just needed to look—and pay attention.

After all, paying attention to the specifics of what Obama says he will do is vital. We must understand the policies and programs he would bring with him to the White House.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of presidents: ideologues and pragmatists. Ideologues have a clear agenda based on their political philosophy; they see their election as an opportunity to implement it. Pragmatists, on the other hand, take office with no clear idea of what course they will adopt until they get there. Clearly, Hillary Clinton is an ideologue—and the evidence we have so far suggests that Barack Obama is one as well.

But Bill Clinton was no ideologue. He was the ultimate pragmatist—and this is the crucial respect in which he differs from Hillary. Bill Clinton, for example, campaigned on generalities: he promised to enact a middle-class tax cut, to “end welfare as we know it,” and to focus “like a laser beam” on the economy. Once he took power, however, it became clear that he had no set agenda in mind. Shortly after the election he convened an economic “summit” in Little Rock, Arkansas, with one central mission: for others to tell him what to do. For days he sat and listened as experts propounded their solutions; then, after arriving in Washington, he convened a nonstop parade of policy meetings to try to settle on a concrete agenda. What emerged was a hodgepodge. First he decided to increase the deficit in order to stimulate the economy. Then he decided to cut the deficit and raise taxes in order to bring down interest rates. But the fact is that the zigging and zagging produced a good and solid economic expansion—a stroke of very good fortune.

But the core of Bill Clinton’s approach to governing was the quotation from Franklin D. Roosevelt that he often recited: a commitment to “bold, persistent experimentation,” seeing what worked and discarding what did not.

But if presidents such as FDR, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton took office with only a vague sense of what they would do, many presidents were ideologues—like Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and George W. Bush—who had clear agendas in their minds as they laid their hands on the Bible to take the oath of office.

Lyndon Johnson, empowered first by a national outpouring of grief and guilt after John F. Kennedy’s murder and then by a massive electoral victory in 1964, moved quickly to pass JFK’s civil rights bill and then implemented a program of domestic spending to combat poverty that he’d envisioned ever since his days as a New Deal congressman from a poor district in Texas.

Ronald Reagan had formulated his plan to increase defense spending, challenge the Soviet Union, slash personal income taxes, and cut discretionary federal spending decades before he reached the White House. When he was inaugurated, his team—led by Budget Director David Stockman—went to work to shape implementing legislation and get it passed by a compliant Republican Senate and a shell-shocked Democratic House.

Most recently, George W. Bush knew what he would do with the power of the presidency from the day he first imagined running. Bush’s commitment to cutting taxes, moving the federal judiciary to the right, empowering the energy industry, and finishing his father’s work in toppling Saddam Hussein predated his inauguration and likely even his declaration of candidacy. When 9/11 struck, it required little more than extending his original agenda for Bush to embark on a global moral crusade to promote democracy—an ideology that informed every aspect of his policy and program.

But what about Barack Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics. Is he a pragmatist or an ideologue? He’s young enough that it’s hard to know for sure. But a close examination of his record offers us some clues. He talks like a pragmatist, but would likely govern like a left-winger.

Is the real Obama the one who calls for decreasing the partisan confrontations in Washington or the one who advocates collecting hundreds of billions of dollars more in taxes—particularly on capital gains and for Social Security—than even Hillary did?

Is the Obama who calls for ending the brutality of American politics more authentic than the one who stands so fervently for immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq and who backs a major weakening of the PATRIOT Act?

As he campaigns, Obama goes out of his way to reject the leftist stereotype of the angry populist and talks about embracing a politics of adjustment and compromise. But a close reading of his proposals and suggested policies leave no real doubt about his leftist mind-set. If he wins, America will experience a decisive turn to the left.

There have really been only three times in the past eighty years that American politics has lurched sharply to the left or the right. FDR’s first-term legislative program of 1933–1936, which included the establishment of Social Security, securities regulation, recognition of labor unions, federal intervention in agricultural policy, and a host of other initiatives, was such a time. So was Lyndon Johnson’s domestic program of 1964–1965. And, on the right, Ronald Reagan’s program of 1981–1982, with its sharp tax cuts, rollback of federal regulation, reduction of domestic spending, and strengthening of national defense, was an equivalent moment.

If Barack Obama is elected, we believe that a fourth such time will be upon us. The legislative program he will pass in 2009–2010 will be a lurch to the left equal to those of the Roosevelt and Johnson administrations.

Barack Obama has always been a child of the Left. A community organizer, a civil rights lawyer, a strongly liberal state senator, and the single most liberal member of the Senate (according to the nonpartisan and respected National Journal), he is to the left of even Hillary on a host of issues:

• Whereas Hillary supported invading Iraq and backed the war until she started to run for president, Obama has always opposed it.
• Whereas Hillary told people—out of camera range—that she wants to raise Social Security taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year, she publicly opposed such a step. Obama, however, is quite clear that he wants the hike to apply to those earning more than $97,500.
• Whereas Hillary backed a 5 percent increase in the capital gains tax, raising it to the 20 percent level at which her husband’s administration left it, Obama wants to erase Bill Clinton’s capital gains tax cut and raise the rate to 28 percent.

But at the core of Obama’s belief system is a commitment to income redistribution. This is one of the great debates in American politics: some political figures believe we need to raise taxes to decrease the deficit. Others, somewhat more liberal, believe we must do so to increase spending on social and security needs. Then there are those, like Obama, who believe that progressive income taxes should be raised to redistribute income from the rich to the poor and middle class.

The United States already uses its income tax to reduce the inequalities in our society. The richest 1 percent of our population earns 16 percent of our total national income but pays one third of our federal income tax. And the richest 10 percent earn one-third of the income, but pay two thirds of the tax. The poorest half of our citizens pay less than 3 percent of the total federal income tax burden.

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TAX PAYMENTS BY INCOME GROUP IN THE UNITED STATES

Income Level	% of Total Income	% of Total Income Tax Payments
Top 1/10 of 1%	9%	17%
Top 1%	19%	37%
Bottom 50%	13%	3%

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Obama would undoubtedly make the income tax a far more potent tool for reducing income inequality. And he would use the extra money to increase spending on health care, child care, education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a variety of other social programs. But that would not be his main reason for the increase. His key motivation would be to redistribute income.

We all must realize one thing: if the Democrats retake the White House in November, our wallets will be considerably lighter once they’re finished with us.

TAXES: GOING UP?

Obama believes deeply in higher taxation of those considered “wealthy”—a broad definition that appears to start at a household income of $100,000. Not since the income tax was originally proposed in the United States by the Populist Party, in the late nineteenth century, as a way to level incomes, have such enthusiastic proponents of taking from the rich and giving to the rest of the country come this close to the presidency.

John McCain, after initially opposing the Bush tax cuts, has repeatedly voted for making them permanent and opposes any tax increases. For those who wonder if there is any real difference between McCain and Obama, on this issue the answer is simple: ask your wallet!

Obama regularly criticizes the Bush tax cuts as benefits “for the wealthy.” But he aims his tax hikes on all those who make more than $100,000.

Here’s what he’d do to us.

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OBAMA’S TAX PLANS

• Raise the top bracket of income taxation (on family income of $200,000 or more) to at least the 39.6 percent rate that Bill Clinton imposed in 1993 (up from the current 35 percent under the Bush tax cuts).
• Impose Social Security (FICA) tax on all income, not just earnings under $102,000 as at present.
• Raise capital gains taxes. Obama wants to almost double them from the current 15 percent to 28 percent.
• Double the tax on dividends from the current 15 percent rate to 30 percent.
• And end the planned elimination of the estate tax and, most likely, lowering the threshold of which estates can be taxed, perhaps to as low as $1 million.

Source: New York Sun.

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Together, these proposals would be crippling to our economy. Here’s how.

The Democrats’ Antijob Tax Plans

Increasing the FICA tax by applying it to all of a person’s income would force companies to pay a penalty for paying any employee more than $100,000 a year. With Democrats squawking about income inequality, what could be better designed to widen the gap between the rich and the middle class?

Doubling capital gains taxes would directly hit the stock market and the real estate industry precisely when they are most in danger of suffering a major depression.

Doubling the tax on dividends would make people less likely to invest in companies that create jobs.

Increasing the top bracket in personal income tax rates to almost 40 percent would mean less incentive to work and produce.

Of all the Democrats’ likely tax proposals, it’s the increase in the capital gains tax that would hurt the most. Obama wants nearly to double it to 28 percent, the level that prevailed before Bill Clinton signed legislation cutting it down to 20 percent. The tax now is 15 percent.

Just think of what that increase would do to our economy: it might well trigger a stock market crash and devastate the already slumping real estate industry. Obama’s plans to raise capital gains taxes strike fear into the capital, real estate, and equity markets. Who would want to hold on to their stock or real estate until after Obama is elected, knowing that they’ll have to pay the government 28 percent of the profits they make from selling then as opposed to only 15 percent if they sell now?

Individual stock market investors, who hold a fifth of all equity assets, face great pressure to sell before the capital gains taxes go up. Congress knows that raising capital gains tax rates is a touchy subject. In the past, it has always imposed the increases retroactively for months before the bill was finally passed. It does so to avoid spooking the markets and sending them into a collapse due to panic selling while the bill t...