More taxes for thee but not for me

If you want to see a bunch of hypocritical leftists squirming with embarrassment, there’s a very clever video showing what happens when a bunch of pro-tax hike millionaires are asked to voluntarily pay more money to the IRS.


I’ve even debated some of these rich, pro-tax statists on TV, telling them not to make the rest of us victims of their neurotic guilt feelings.

They definitely don’t put their money where their mouths are. There is an official government webpage where people can voluntary send extra cash to Washington, but the amount of money raised doesn’t even qualify as an asterisk in the federal budget.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that people elsewhere in the world also are not keen on the idea of deliberately giving politicians extra money to spend.

Voluntary Taxation
Bloomberg has a rather amusing story about the utter failure of a voluntary tax in Norway.

Eager to pay more taxes? Then look no further than Norway. …Launched in June, the initiative has received a lukewarm reception, with the equivalent of just $1,325 in extra revenue being collected so far, according to the Finance Ministry. That’s not much for a country of 5.3 million people… “The tax scheme was set up to allow those who want to pay more taxes to do so in a simple and straightforward way,” Finance Minister Siv Jensen said in an emailed comment. “If anyone thinks the tax level is too low, they now have the chance to pay more.” …Jonas Gahr Store, the wealthy Labor Party contender…, has so far refused to take up the government’s offer.

I’m not surprised that the ordinary people of Norway aren’t sending extra cash to their politicians.
After all, the country already has a costly welfare state financed by very high tax rates as well as lots of oil revenue. So why enable an even bigger burden of government?

But Mr. Store hardly seems a very ethical proponent of higher taxes if he’s not willing to lead by example. Again, this is not very shocking. It’s a pattern among rich leftists.

The Biggest Proponents of Higher Taxes
The state of Massachusetts has a program for voluntary tax payments, but the Boston Globe revealed that Elizabeth Warren somehow couldn’t bring herself to cough up additional money to finance bigger government.

Elizabeth Warren acknowledged this morning that she does not pay a voluntary higher tax rate on her state income taxes, a question her campaign had previously refused to answer. …state Republicans have criticized Warren, who has earned a six-figure salary and owns assets worth millions, for her previous refusal to answer whether she pays a voluntary higher rate, calling her an “elitist hypocrite” who “lectures others about their responsibility to pay higher taxes.”

And John Kerry also decided that he wouldn’t pay extra tax to his state’s politicians.

Sen. John Kerry (D. Mass.) sailed into hot water last year when tax returns revealed that he also paid the Bay State’s lower tax rate. …perhaps he intended to pay Massachusetts’ higher rate, but his calculator slid off his yacht.

Though Kerry uses tax havens to protect his wealth, and even keeps a yacht in a neighboring low-tax state, at least he’s consistent in his hypocrisy.

Though according to New England Public Radio, there are a few people in Massachusetts who actually do contribute extra money.

Lenox accountant William Keen said it’s his job to save his clients money, so he just assumes they want to pay their state income tax at 5.1 percent, and not the optional rate of 5.85 percent. 

“If somebody specifically asked to be set at the higher rate, I would do it,” Keen said Friday. 

“Nobody has ever even asked for that. It’s never even come up.” And very few taxpayers across Massachusetts do pay at that higher rate. According to the state Department of Revenue, on average since 2002, 1,200 people each year check the box on the tax form to voluntarily pay more. That’s contributed to just over a quarter million dollars to the state’s coffers each year – a drop in the bucket since Massachusetts has a budget of about $40 billion.

I think people who deliberately over-pay to government are very misguided, but it’s better to be naive than to be hypocritical. Like the Clintons. And Warren Buffett. Or any of the other rich leftists who want higher taxes for you and me while engaging in very aggressive tax avoidance.

Reprinted from International Liberty.

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review. 

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

We have met the enemy and it is us

I cannot verify the source of the quote, but it is on target. However, America is a leftwing nation.

This county-by-county electoral map of 2012's election illustrates it perfectly. Rather than coloring a county pure red or pure blue, based on which candidate got the majority, it blends red and blue together based on the number of 100-set votes per candidate per county. Very revealing:

This map also shows the relative population densities across the country; white areas have very low densities. On a usual election map, the white spaces are solid red, but it actually means little to the electoral result. I don't think any Republican can consider this map seriously and still maintain that America is really center-right. Even if the Republicans recapture the White House in 2016 (highly doubtful), their candidate will be farther to the left than any previous Republican, including even G.W. Bush, who was probably the most liberal Republican to sit in the Oval Office.

Dear Losties: thanks for going broke on our behalf

An important advisory to the members of the "Lost Generation" - you know, you 18-34 year olds who voted for Obama by 60 percent or more:

Dear Losties,

Don't look now but there's some herd culling coming down the road at you. You asked for it in November and you are about to get it. Good and hard. All the best. 

P.S. Write if you find work.

Also, start looking hard at all the money taken from what low-income jobs you can get that is funneled into the bottomless maw of the rapidly-going-broke Social Security and FICA systems. Appreciate it, really, I do. Just understand that you will never benefit from one dime you pay in.

It is we Boomers who will benefit from your "contributions." And we now feel no compunction at all about draining you dry to pay for our retirement and health care because that's what you voted for on Nov. 6.

Instead of trying to change course, you raised more sail! 
Bon voyage!

And now we have, thanks to the miracle of Facebook, a list of 10 things to tell you, O young Obama voter, when you get laid off because Obamacare is too expensive to keep you on the payroll:

1. “Hey, at least that successful Mormon businessman didn't win.”
2. “Didn’t your lady parts warn you this would happen?”
3. “Look at the bright side. Gay marriage passed in four states.”
4. “Hey, Big Bird still has a job. Isn’t that the important thing?”
5. “I am sure Obama cares deeply about your situation. Maybe he’ll send you a postcard from Hawaii.”
6. “Well, look at the bright side. Rush Limbaugh is getting a massive tax increase.”
7. “Hey! Now you’ll have more time to play with your unicorn.”
8. “Isn’t it worth losing your job to know that religious organizations now have to pay for abortions and contraceptives?”
9. “Well, now you and Keith Olbermann have something else in common.”
10. “Forward!”
And a bonus: 11. "Well, you can always move to Seattle and get stoned in the local park without fear of arrest."

I freely admit that we Boomers royally screwed the pooch from the 1960s on (although, actually, the 1960s was the Greatest Generation's fault). We have truly made a mess of things, economically, socially, spiritually. There's no dodging it. We bequeath to you a massive disaster of our deliberate making.

But remember this. I mean remember this: Since Nov. 6, you own it. There is no misfortune that will befall you in the next several years, minimum, that you did not specifically vote in favor of happening on Nov. 6.

Oh, that fiscal cliff you keep hearing so much about? The one that many Dems say would be good for their party if we all just went right on over? The one that Barack Obama evinces no interest at all in avoiding? The fiscal cliff falls into a bottomless pit. According to your favorite newspaper:

If the two parties fail to come to a deal by Jan. 1, taxes on the average middle-income family would rise about $2,000 over the next year. That would follow a 12-year period in which median inflation-adjusted income dropped 8.9 percent, from $54,932 in 1999 to $50,054 in 2011.

What's that you said? "My taxes can't possibly go up! Obama said he was going to raise taxes only on 'the rich'!"

Well, Losties, in Democrat pols' view, if you have a job, you're rich. Welcome to Screwedville, Obama voters. Here's the second-term message from your leader:

This is what you voted for. Enjoy it!

So I say to my fellow Boomers: In the immortal words of one of our favorite rock bands, Pink Floyd, "Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash." Don't worry a moment about impoverishing your grandkids. They literally asked for it. Good and hard.



But ponder this, Boomers. The worst sin of our sins was raising a generation that thinks just like we do. May God have mercy on our souls.

Down the same old road again

Sound familiar?

And remember - even at The New Yorker in 1935 they knew that economic recovery is just around the corner!

And remember when sending the government deeper into debt was unpatriotic?



Not even a month after the election, and these are already starting to appear:

A final word of wisdom:

Obama voters' wake up call, cont.

I have posted beginning just after the election that when the people who voted for Obama notice that their personal circumstances - employment, finances, health care, liberty - are all getting worse under the administration of The Won, round two, then they need to remember that worsening personal circumstances is exactly what they voted for on Nov. 6. See here, for example.

Now a few words from a D.C. lobbyist (italics added):

I told my wife the morning after the election that if the people wanted big government then let them have it as we are burrowed down in the one locale where I can continue to get paid to fight the legal and regulatory nonsense that is visited upon my clients every week. Perhaps that is a petulant attitude, but most of the folks who voted for Obama have no idea what they just did to themselves. It won’t be the rich guy who takes it in the shorts in the next four years, but the working and non working lower classes as their wages and or benefits are eroded through inflation, Obamacare hourly cut backs, and economic stagnation.

Yep.

Dear Dem voters: Now you will know

John Podhoretz:

The United States will now undergo a four-year stress test of American liberalism, as Obama will get his tax hike and ObamaCare will be implemented. Those who think Obama cared about people like them will now experience the full extent of his caring. 

Which is much what I told you the day after the election:

Before Democrat voters rejoice, they should soberly consider what this means:

• A permanent decline in your standard of living and especially that of your children,
• A permanently-growing federal government, consuming growing proportions of America's wealth,
• And expanding government control or outright ownership of the country's financial activity,
• Per-capita shrinkage of economic activity,
• An expansive federal bureaucracy, with exponentially exploding regulatory authority over the way you live your daily lives in ways you cannot even imagine yet,
• And therefore greater and greater restrictions on your freedoms to say what you want, do what you want, possess what you want, except you will have federally-funded sex lives without restriction, because Democrats think that you will acquiesce to being stripped of all your freedoms without protest as long as they pay for your sex. And they are right. You are already gladly exchanging your liberty for censure-less rolls in the hay. 
• Crony capitalism? You ain't seen nothing yet. Increasingly, government contracts and stimulus money (by whatever name) will be funneled to the ideologically pure. You, the ordinary Democrat voter, will be frozen out of this largess. You are of neither use nor concern to the Party except on election day. You are a mere prole. Get used to it.
• Diminishment of your health and shorter life spans because Obamacare is absolutely designed for the benefit of government and its licensed financial allies, not you,
• Expanding federal debt almost without end, meaning that even as your own personal income falls, you will pay an ever-higher proportion of it in taxes of one kind or another (but don't worry, you will blindly drink the Kool-Aid that only "the rich" are paying more taxes),
• "Almost without end," because the end will come to the gravy train, and it will be truly apocalyptic when it does. "Chaos" does not even begin to describe it; in fact, chaos will be the best outcome you can expect. Oh, when this happens (when, not if) you will lose absolutely everything you own. Ev. Ry. Thing. Because there is no one to bail America out.

But remember: you asked for it on Nov. 6, 2012. As H. L. Mencken said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." You just got what you want. The hard part that you cannot even fathom is now being born.

During the campaign the Dem voters I talked with almost never could enunciate why they wanted Obama to win except in the most general of terms, such as liking Obamacare or raising taxes in the rich, but they could not explain in even the most general terms how they personally would be better off. It's as if Obama's reelection would be neutral for them. But they absolutely believed that Romney's election would throw them personally into virtual slavery.

As Podhoretz points out, Obama never ran on any of the issues and he certainly did not run on his record.

He did not tack to the center, as Bill Clinton did. But he didn’t celebrate his own successes either. He went small, targeted, and contentless.

But contentless worked because that was the extent of the great majority of people who voted for him wanted or needed to consider. All Obama had to do was present himself as contentless - neutral - and Romney as the devil personified. That's what he did and it worked. 

That is also all the the next Democrat candidate has to do in 2016, too. It will work then just as well as it worked this year. 

Update: And Dem voters, when your employer lays you off or cuts your hours to part time or rejects your job application because you would be worker number 50, remember: that's what you voted for.

This, too.

America is a leftwing nation

The Edge of the Abyss - Mark Steyn - National Review Online:

I’m always struck, if one chances to be with a GOP insider when a new poll rolls off the wire, that their first reaction is to query whether it’s of “likely” voters or merely “registered” voters. As the consultant class knows, registered voters skew more Democrat than likely voters, and polls of “all adults” skew more Democrat still. Hence the preoccupation with turnout models. In other words, if America had compulsory voting as Australia does, the Republicans would lose every time. In Oz, there’s no turnout model, because everyone turns out. The turnout-model obsession is an implicit acknowledgment of an awkward truth — that, outside the voting booth, the default setting of American society is ever more liberal and statist.

Which is more evidence of why the permanent sunset of the Republican party has begun.

Republican strategists and their allies keep telling us that America is a center-right nation. I even thought so myself - until last Tuesday. But Steyn is right: Americans are predominantly, if not overwhelmingly, "liberal and statist."

This county-by-county electoral map of Nov. 6's results illustrates it perfectly. Rather than coloring a county pure red or pure blue, based on which candidate got the majority, it blends red and blue together based on the number of 100-set votes per candidate per county. Very revealing:

This map also shows the relative population densities across the country; white areas have very low densities. On a usual election map, the white spaces are solid red, but it actually means little to the electoral result. I don't think any Republican can consider this map seriously and still maintain that America is really center-right. Even if the Republicans recapture the White House in 2016 (doubtful), their candidate will be farther to the left than any previous Republican, including even G.W. Bush, who was probably the most liberal Republican to sit in the Oval Office.

The problem is not that Republicans and Democrats are not different. They are. The problem is that they are different in ways that mean that neither party enhances personal freedom of individual Americans, and instead concentrates power and wealth in their own hands.

This is what a century or so of progressivism has wrought - almost everyone in the country, at every income level, is dependent on the government to a significant (or more) degree, run by the Political Class, who ensures enough patronage is spread over a wide enough swath of the electorate to retain its power and position. Charles Murray wrote in American Exceptionalism,

The common understanding of the limited role of government that united the Founders, including Hamilton, [is] now held only by a small minority of Americans, who are considered to be on the fringe of American politics. The Founders retain their historic stature, with both liberals and conservatives quoting snippets of their writings and arguing that the Founders would be on their side if they were alive today. But as a matter of historical accuracy, it cannot be argued that the Founders’ views of the proper scope of government bear any resemblance to the platforms of either the Democratic or the Republican parties.

This is the status quo and it is not going to be reversed because the only people who still truly understand the Founders' principles of limited government, personal liberty, delegated powers and true checks and balances among the three branches of government are the Greatest Generation. They are all in their late 80s or older and are dying at an ever-increasing rate. It's an open question whether their children, the Boomers, have all four of the historical knowledge, understanding, intellectual tools and collective will to reverse the strengthening Leftism of the country. And it's a guarantee that anyone younger than the Boomers do not have even two of the four. Don't believe me? Then go here and see how readily ordinary supporters of this administration agree that the Bill of Rights should be repealed.

Understand that reversing this trend is only theoretically possible - that is, it can be imagined. But reversal is not practically possible - the concept cannot be made reality. Here is a graphic depiction of why.


The United States is substantially near the outer, red ring. This means that the difference between where the USA is now and the USSR was in 1988-1989 is, in economic operation, merely the difference between Soviet Communism and Italian Fascism. Of course, the old USSR was a full police state in fact while, as I have already explained above, we are not at that point yet.

Francis W. Porretto explains the diagram,

At each stage, the State's coercive powers are amplified by the importance and scope of the resources it appropriated in the previous stage, such that individuals and voluntary organizations steadily lose all power to resist its further expansion. The Blob wouldn't have had a chance against the State.

I can add only a single observation to this depiction: As the State swells, it ceases to perform any of its functions even marginally well. Indeed, the first functions it will slough are the ones for which we originally agreed to tolerate a pre-indemnified coercive authority: national defense, police protection, and the administration of impartial justice. In the terminal stage of its expansion, when it lays claim to all things and no one outside its corridors may do anything without first asking its permission and paying its price, the State's sole concern becomes the maintenance of its power and the perquisites of its nomenklatura.

 

Dear Ohio proles . . .

Remember, you asked for it on Nov. 6:

Ohio families receiving food stamps could get an unwelcome surprise come January: $50 less every month in assistance. 

For the 869,000 households enrolled in the program for the poorest Ohioans, that could amount to about $520 million annually out of the grocery budgets.

Remember: you are just proles to Obama.

Non voters defeated Romney

I pointed out beginning the day after the election but very directly last Thursday that it was not so much the people who voted for Obama who beat Romney, but the people who didn't vote at all. In fact, Romney was sent to the showers by the Republican base itself, too many of whom just didn't go to the polls.

Now Jim Geraghty shows that despite the multi-million vote diff between Obama and Romney, Romney was just 407,000 Votes in Four States Away from the Presidency:

On Wednesday, I added up Obama’s margin in a few key states, to get a sense of just how agonizingly short the Romney campaign finished from 270 electoral votes.

Some of those straggling precincts have reported, and so here is an updated set of numbers, according to the results this morning on the New York Times’ results map:

Florida: 73,858

Ohio: 103,481

Virginia: 115,910

Colorado: 113,099

Those four states, with a collective margin of, 406,348 for Obama, add up to 69 electoral votes. Had Romney won 407,000 or so additional votes in the right proportion in those states, he would have 275 electoral votes.

A lot of commentators, including me, have written about how near-insurmountably difficult it will be for the Republican Party to make significant (election-affecting) inroads into the Democrat voting blocs. Now, though, what else is there to conclude but that the Republicans are not making election-affecting inroads into their own base?

Update: On the other hand, there's this: "In 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, Mitt Romney got zero votes." But nothing to see here, move along.

Votes Romney didn't get

I have already posted that I think Romney was defeated by non-voters more than Obama voters ("Romney was defeated more by people who didn't vote at all than by those who voted for his opponent").

Now more confirmation:

The president's base turned out and Romney's did not. More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008. And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain.

And there were three million mostly-Republican voters who didn't vote at all.

As the WaPo posted yesterday, almost every voting bloc actually broke in favor of the Republican this year from 2008. The people who did vote this year by far were defecting from Obama toward Romney. But not enough of them did to make up for the almost-certain Republican voters who didn't vote.

Romney took turnout in his favor for granted. That's why he lost.

Update: Here's an example of insuffiicient defections: In 2008, 70 percent of single / unmarried / divorced women voted for Obama. Last Tuesday, 67 percent did (among single / unmarried / divorced women who actually voted, of course). My source, a Christian blogger, writes,

So what is it that these single / unmarried / divorced women really want these days?

Here’s what they want:

• they want taxpayer-funded contraceptives, paid for by Christians and provided by Christians
• they want taxpayer-funded abortions, paid for by Christians and provided by Christians (no conscience protections)
• they want children to be raised by single mothers, supported with taxpayer money
• they want children to be raised by same-sex couples, and harsh laws preventing anyone from disagreeing with gay marriage
• they want no-fault divorce laws, so that they can easily get out of any marriages that don’t make them happy
• they want taxpayer-funded day care, so that they can get back to their careers as quickly as possible

In other words, they want a Santa Claus federal government.

Read the whole thing.

Update: Andrew McCarthy agrees. So does Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days » Anatomies of Electoral Madness.

The permanent sunset of the Republican party is begun

The short answer: the 2012 election forms a Rubicon that, now having been crossed, this country will never cross back. Forget all the pundit talk (like Ed Rollins this morning on Fox) that elections go through cycles and this one was just another example. Forget the mid-terms of 2010. Forget the Tea party; it's finished forever.

The basic, fundamental nature and character of the American electorate has changed, and will not be changed back. Ever. The Republican Party can foresee nothing but diminishment  henceforth. There are no rising superstars who can save it. Jindal? Nope. Rubio? Nope. Rand Paul? Nope. Paul Ryan? He's done already. And there is absolutely no Republican whom Romney ran against in the primaries who has a ghost of a chance in the future.

What every Republican from Speaker John Boehner down doesn't get is that this election ("close" as it's being called, but it was not close) really shows that the Republican Party does not matter any more. For the next four years, no one will care what Boehner has to say about any issue.

The real winner of the 2012 election

Why? This morning an 85-year-old World War II veteran told me the most succinct analysis of the election that I have heard: "The people voted for Santa Claus, not Scrooge."

There is a story of a sixth-grade race for class president. Candidate Jimmy made the first speech. He promised to be loyal to the class and stand up for them if they thought the teachers were unfair. He proposed ways all the kids could work together to help each other with homework. He said, "I will be your friend."

Next, candidate Susie stood  up and clinched 90 percent of the vote with one simple sentence: "If I am elected, I will host an ice cream party for everyone after school."

Forget the split of the votes cast Nov. 6: What the data really show is that a super-majority of the American people either do not care (non-voters) or want the government's free or subsidized goodies to continue (like these). Overall voter turnout was significantly less this year than in 2008, with tens of millions of eligible voters not voting, meaning that Romney's loss (Obama's vote plus non-voters) was absolutely crushing.

There is no way the Republican Party can reinvent itself to overcome this deficit. Facts are facts: The Republicans presently can count on exactly one voting bloc:

• White men

That's it. Any parsing you read about income brackets, education or anything else don't mean squat compared to the fact that the only reliable voting bloc for Republicans today is white men, and Romney got only 60 percent of them. And start sounding taps: White men are demographically the fastest-shrinking voting bloc of all.

On the other hand, the Democrats simply own the following voting blocs:

• Women
• Married, employed women broke for Romney, but single women of all ages broke for Obama, especially unmarried women with children.
• More women voted for Obama than men voted for Romney.
• The fastest-growing women's demographic is unmarried women and right behind them, unmarried women with children. This is a permanent demographic shift. Today, 40 percent of all childbirths are to unmarried women. At least half of single mothers live in poverty and they will never vote for Scrooge over Santa Claus.
• So: Years to come will see ever-fewer women's votes being cast for Republicans and because women voters outnumber male voters by several percentage points, the gap is larger than it seems.
• Blacks
• Hispanics
• Other minorities generally

Understand that the traditional Republican appeal to fiscal discipline, America's founding principles, self sufficiency, decreased corporate regulations and lower taxes will never turn any of the Democrat blocs toward the Republicans in any but trivial numbers. There will never be a future equivalent of Reagan Democrats. Understand that Democrats always promise most of these things, too. But they keep getting the Santa Claus voters because everyone know they don't mean it and Republicans do.

The Republican Party cannot stay true to its historical principles and win again. For most of the last eight decades, the American Left has taken over, successively, American political theory, opinion leaders, university academia, the media, mainline churches, public education and finally the entire Democrat party. They Left has suffered only rare and temporary setbacks in their Great March. Now it is ensconced and it is permanent. Generations younger than the retiring Boomers literally do not have the historical knowledge or intellectual tools to grasp the concept of inherently limited government and restricted, delegated powers.

No matter who is the Democrat nominee in 2016, no matter the state of the economy, no Republican will win the White House without presenting himself as a Democrat-lite. But why will people vote for a Democrat-lite when they can vote for Democrat-heavy?

I am tempted to say that only a severe national-security crisis will turn the electorate toward a Republican candidate again. But I yield not to that temptation.

Goodbye, party of Lincoln. It was fun while it lasted. Last one out turn out the lights.

Before Democrat voters rejoice, they should soberly consider what this means:

• A permanent decline in your standard of living and especially that of your children,
• A permanently-growing federal government, consuming growing proportions of America's wealth,
• And expanding government control or outright ownership of the country's financial activity,
• Per-capita shrinkage of economic activity,
• An expansive federal bureaucracy, with exponentially exploding regulatory authority over the way you live your daily lives in ways you cannot even imagine yet,
• And therefore greater and greater restrictions on your freedoms to say what you want, do what you want, possess what you want, except you will have federally-funded sex lives without restriction, because Democrats think that you will acquiesce to being stripped of all your freedoms without protest as long as they pay for your sex. And they are right. You are already gladly exchanging your liberty for censure-less rolls in the hay. 
• Crony capitalism? You ain't seen nothing yet. Increasingly, government contracts and stimulus money (by whatever name) will be funneled to the ideologically pure. You, the ordinary Democrat voter, will be frozen out of this largess. You are of neither use nor concern to the Party except on election day. You are a mere prole. Get used to it.
• Diminishment of your health and shorter life spans because Obamacare is absolutely designed for the benefit of government and its licensed financial allies, not you,
• Expanding federal debt almost without end, meaning that even as your own personal income falls, you will pay an ever-higher proportion of it in taxes of one kind or another (but don't worry, you will blindly drink the Kool-Aid that only "the rich" are paying more taxes),
• "Almost without end," because the end will come to the gravy train, and it will be truly apocalyptic when it does. "Chaos" does not even begin to describe it; in fact, chaos will be the best outcome you can expect. Oh, when this happens (when, not if) you will lose absolutely everything you own. Ev. Ry. Thing. Because there is no one to bail America out.

But remember: you asked for it on Nov. 6, 2012. As H. L. Mencken said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." You just got what you want. The hard part that you cannot even fathom is now being born.

Update: Roger Kimball:

I fear that what an English friend just wrote me is true:

You just don’t care about being a Great Power any longer. That’s what this is about. The world should start sucking up to China instead now, as Americans have shown they’ve no appetite for world leadership any longer. You’ve had a century in the sun, and now you’ve decided to become Sweden instead of shouldering the burden. The 47% have won and you’re going to slip into social democracy and in 4 years time no-one — Christie, Rubio, Ryan — will be able to do anything about it.

RIP American Exceptionalism

Robert Stacy McCain at American Spectator, "Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption":

Even before the unmitigated political disaster of November 6, 2012, a date that will live in infamy, the prospects of salvaging the United States were not particularly hopeful. Now, however, we are permanently and irretrievably screwed.

The market reacts

Kiss your retirement plans goodbye. The Dow Jones on Monday, Tuesday and today only 57 minutes after open this morning:

No mandate? Yeah, right

Glenn Reynolds:

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

KRAUTHAMMER: Obama Won, But Has No Mandate.

1. Doesn't matter.

2. Yes, he does.

Buh-bye, Tea Party

Just to go on the record: the Tea Party movement is dead. Buried. Will not be resurrected under another name or concept.

It's over

Fox News just called Ohio for Obama. Game over.

Update, 10.30 pm. CST: Wait - Karl Rove is saying that he has spoken on the phone with a member of the staff of the Ohio secretary of state who says that with 77 percent of the vote counted, the difference between the two candidates is only 991 votes.

Joe Trippi is saying that even so, there are still a lot of Obama votes to come in the uncounted precincts.

"It ain't over until it's over," but still, I think it's over.

Update: Fox's numbers crunchers explain that the largest unreported vote is from Cleveland-Cuyahoga, hugely Democrat in history. They say that there are just not enough outstanding Republican votes left to overcome them to "99.5 percent certainty."

Oh, and you can kiss the Tea Party goodbye. They mean nothing now.

10:44 p.m. - Rove is rebutting, but his analysis is more complex than I want to try to summarize here.

10:48 p.m. - The Ohio Sec. of State's web site's server was crashed for a long time, but here is a grab as of this time:

This is a difference in Obama's favor of 30,657 votes with 85 percent of precincts reporting. Rove is saying that there are still about 770,000 votes left to count. But sorry, Karl, it ain't gonna happen.

10:58 p.m. - 86.72 percent of precincts reporting, Obama's lead is up to 45,367.

The Chris Matthews Rule

When Princess Diana was killed in an auto accident in 1997, my wife and I were hosting in our home an Army colonel whom we had known since he was a captain. Cathy, Bill and I were watching the news reports that day. I recall clearly when the announces said, "Mr. Blair's government has confirmed that the Princess of Wales was involved in an automobile accident and that her condition is very grave."

Immediately, Bill and turned to each and exclaimed at the same time, "She's dead!"

Veteran media watchers know how to decode the media. Tonight, when you watch the broadcast and cable networks start reporting vote tallies, you need to know how to decode what is being said and shown.

The basic rule: The longer an MSM leaves a state uncalled for either candidate, colored in neither red nor blue, the greater the chance they know it's going to be red. They will drag their feet as long as they can to call a state for Romney, but will pounce at the chance to call one for Obama.  Sort of like this, I can imagine.

Anchor: Let's look at Ohio: With 98 percent of precincts reporting, 62 percent of the vote is for Romney and 36 percent is for Obama. Carmen, your assessment? 

Carmen: Still too close to call, Jim! 

Only if the tabulated votes for each candidate stay within one point of each other after a state's key (meaning, most populous) precincts have reported and the total counted is well above 50 percent is there a reason for a media outlet to leave a state uncalled. If Romney is ahead, they will leave it open. If Obama is ahead, it'll be called sooner than that.

Trust me.

The Chris Matthews Rule: When 11 p.m. EST is reached, no matter what MSNBC's colored national map looks like, you will know Romney has won if Chris Matthews' face looks anything like this:

Don't worry, Chris, you'll feel that tingle down your leg again! Drink coffee. It's going to be a long night.

Two web sites in one!

The stock market has decided that Obama will be reelected! And the indices go up like a bottle rocket!

But wait! There's more!

Just before noon today, the stock market exploded higher on no obvious news.

There were some rumors that Mitt Romney had opened up a major lead in Ohio

The Wall Street Journals' Paul Vigna thinks the rumor was started by a report that came from the Cincinnati Inquirer that put Romney ahead by 92,000 votes.

However, that report has been taken down and replaced with this message:

A Cincinnati.com front-page link to a chart with dummy data, created as a design template for election results, was inadvertently posted early Tuesday morning.

It purported to show early voting totals in Ohio counties. However, no votes have been counted yet – by law counting doesn't start until the polls close.

Cincinnati.com regrets the error.

Whoops.

It's worth noting, however, that the markets are still near their highs of the day.

That's Business Insider -- two web sites in one!

Here is the Dow Jones Index for today a half hour before closing for the day:

Your guess is as good as mine.

My 2008 predictions for this day

Exactly four years ago this day I posted, "Throwing it down," in which I said,

If you think things are bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Herewith I throw down on the status quo, 2008-plus-four:

So let's see how I did:
1. The national unemployment rate, as of Oct. 3, was 6.1 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (The next release will be tomorrow.) As of early October 1012, I predict the unemployment rate will be at least two points higher, and probably close to 10 percent.

Near Hit: The October 2012 unemployment rate was 7.9 percent, or the October 2008 rate plus 1.8 percent. This does round to 2 percent, but I had set 8.1 percent as the low rate, so I claim an actual hit here.
But I was close.

2. The Gross Domestic Product will be lower than today, adjusted for inflation. The estimate for 2007's GDP is $13.78 trillion. Look for a GDP decrease of approximately $500-$700 billion.

Near Hit: GDP data are subject to revision, and since 2008, 2007's figure has been revised to $13.2 trillion. According to US Government Debt (a federal web site), here are the data (from the pages customizable charts and tables - pretty cool). The GDP for 2011 was $224 billion lower than 2007. (Interestingly, 2011's figure is $798 billion less than 2007's original figure.)

3. Tax revenues to the federal government, adjusted for inflation, will be lower than today. As the Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire and other tax rates are raised, productivity will decline as more capital is taken from the economy.

Exact Hit: Okay, the Bush-era tax cuts have not yet expired but a lot of taxes have been raised. So what has happened to revenue? These figures are not adjusted for inflation:

This year, income taxes and social security taxes are down from four years ago, even without adjusting for inflation/

4. That, in turn, means that the federal deficit will be much greater than today, and we're facing a trillion-dollar deficit next year alone.

Exact Hit: I hardly think I need to discuss this.

5. That in turn will drive the US public debt much higher. The public debt is today almost $10.6 trillion. 

Exact Hit: Near the bottom of the right column of this page is a running tally of the federal debt. As I type, it is almost 16.3 trillion.

6. Iraq will be effectively abandoned (see "Vietnam, South"). The key question is whether American security assistance will survive long enough to adequately finish training the Iraqis to defend themselves. My prediction: No. Al Qaeda in Iraq will be revived and the country will be embroiled in insurgency civil war.

Hit: There are almost no US troops in Iraq, even training Iraqis. Al Qaeda is operating nearly at will in western Iraq and much of the rest of the country. There is a domestic insurgency operating in Baghdad with numerous bombings there are elsewhere all this year.

7. Afghanistan: Obama has claimed that Afghanistan was the only legitimate target of US military response to 9/11. (Okay, he did say he would invade Pakistan, too.) This stance, of course, is proof of Obama's inability to think outside the box, especially on strategic issues. The war we are engaged in is not one against nations, but against ideology.

Obama's failure to understand the essence of the conflict will lead to severe mismanagement of operations in Afghanistan. Pakistan will become more radicalized and violence in Afghanistan will increase.

Hit: The Karzai government is one of the most corrupt on earth. Members of the Afghan security forces murder American and NATO troops. The surge there didn't work. The Taliban are not defeated nor are they even in retreat. Pakistan is becoming more radicalized militarily-Islamically and politically.

8. The Defense department's budget will be gutted of investments in major future-platform systems and high-technology programs. Current operations and maintenance accounts will be inadequate to sustain present force levels and equipment readiness (See "Carter, Jimmy."). The services' end strengths will be reduced. The armed services will face significant recruiting shortfalls as Obama's civilian-service corps are implemented and offer the same benefits as military service, but without the risks.

Hit: See "Sequestration," to take effect at the end of this year unless Congress and the president act to stop it. And they won't. Obama and the Democrats want it to happen. But even Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned strongly against allowing it to go forward. Won't matter.

What will be the result of a visibly weaker American defense establishment in global affairs? Look for an even-more expansive Russia and movements, though not outright invasion, of the Baltic countries and Ukraine. China will flex also, though I shrink from predicting actual military operations by the Chinese. Basically, Russia and China will spend the next four years watching America' economy and apparent national will decline. Moves, if they make them, will come in the spring of 2012, if they assess Obama will not be re-elected, or deep into Obama's second term if he is re-elected.

Hit: An expansive Russia? One, two, three. Russia and the Baltics, here. Ukraine? Doing pretty well, actually. China: more more assertive now than ever. especially with a modernizing navy and air force and cyberspace warfare capabilities.

That's the end of my 2008 predictions. I close with a comment left on the post on Nov. 16 that has turned out to be absolutely accurate:

Anonymous said...

It does not matter Rev. No matter what happens it will be Bush's fault. It will be Bush's fault in 2016. The major terrorist attack that occurs in 2015 will still be Bush's fault. The media will never ever be able to even question that the Messiah's programs might not be working, even when the unemployment rate is in the sevens or eights in two years and the defecit will be over a trillion. The mantra for the 2010 congressionals will be, "Well the Savior's plans just haven't had enough time to overcome the wreckage of Bush! He needs more time and more seats in Congress to accomplish this. I enjoyed your analysis and feel you may be dead on.

NOVEMBER 16, 2008 7:08 AM 

November 6, 2008 was three days after the election that year. I hold off making more four-year projections until we know who wins today - and that might take awhile.

Change? They're at it again!

Need some help deciding who to vote for? The Philadelphia New Black Panthers are always glad to help! Video from this morning at a polling place in Philly:



Someone needs to call the Justice Dept.! Oh, wait, never mind . . .

Update: Yes, the Democrats are committing voter and election fraud in Pennsylvania again. More here.

Keep calm and crush them

November 6, 2012:

Michael Walsh, Nov. 5: Crush Them

It’s not enough for the GOP to win tomorrow. It needs to win big, a win so convincing that even the Left won’t be able to explain it away. The definition of victory in war is not a 50.1 percent majority that allows the other side to keep fighting — it’s the battleshipMissouri, on whose deck the losing side signs articles of capitulation. The modern Left — the unholy spawn of ’30s gangland and ’60s academic Marxism — must be forced to its knees in surrender.