Don's Tuesday column

            THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   3/27/2013

Tea Party, polling, tax and budget facts

Todd Cefaratti, in “Americans favor Tea Party principles over progressive ideas by 2-to-1 margin,” (March 7, dailycaller.com), wrote that the Tea Party is here to stay and is ideologically prepared to advance its agenda for the long haul. Look it up by title or go to Polecat News and Views (DonPolson.blogspot.com); scroll down to that March 13 post. For a lot less scrolling, click on the “tea party protests” label and it’s the 4^th item down.

Cefaratti writes: “Liberals bounce back and forth between dismissing our efficacy and blaming us for our role in thwarting their agenda. Recently, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich discussed at length a supposed Tea Party conspiracy to ‘eviscerate the U.S. government’ (and called us) ‘plotters’ in a conspiracy to ‘dismantle pieces of [the government]’…” (DP: Reich is a leftist loon!)

“In a recent survey done by NSON, a non-partisan polling agency, Americans identified with the Tea Party principles of limited government, free markets and personal responsibility by a margin of 2-to-1 over the progressive principles of big government, higher taxes, more spending, more regulations and more government programs. In the poll, 47.8% chose ‘Tea Party principles’ while 20.6% chose ‘progressive principles.’” Leftists and Democrats took heart back in January, when “Rasmussen polling found only eight percent of Americans identify as Tea Partiers” but respondents were quizzed on their active involvement in the movement, not support for Tea Party principles.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell summed up the media/Democrat strategy: “It begins by ignoring (any conservative organization). Make them go away that way (and) you’re done. Phase two is to ridicule them. Phase three is try to destroy them. Phase four is you have to accept the reality that they’re there.” Remember, Gallup polling has found Americans self-identify as “conservative” over “liberal” by about 2-to-1 for as long as the question’s been asked.

Other related items I found: In a March 12 bar graph in the Daily News, the results of a March 4-7 poll by McClatchy-Marist revealed that Americans have greater support for the Republican “approach with the budget deficit” than for President Obama, by 44% to 42%. Obama’s disapproval was higher than approval, 48% to 45% and both Republicans and Democrats have disapproval numbers twice their approval. Republicans bear more blame for gridlock than Obama (45% to 37%) but this and all polling must be put in perspective. Voters give majority support, in polls I’ve seen, for conservative ideas but will change their minds when told that they are Republican ideas, such has been the effectiveness of the demonization by the Obama/Democrat/media propaganda machine.

I would love to see a pollster ask if voters agree with Obama’s dismissal of balancing the budget in an ABC interview. “President Obama rejected calls to balance the federal budget in the next ten years … ‘My goal is not to chase a balanced budget just for the sake of balance … We’re not gonna balance the budget …’” Yes, I left out his blather, lies and nonsensical plans for “growing the economy, putting people back to work (with) controlled spending (and) a smart entitlement program” (cue laugh track). His fabricated talking points about the Ryan plan are not worth dignifying. He strikes me as an extremist wanting to spend us into economic oblivion.

Illustrating the futility of trying to achieve a balanced budget via tax increases, a Daily News bar graph (11/9/2012) showed 9 different taxes that would have risen in January, together with the effective rate increases. They would have added $536 billion in revenue to the 2013 federal budget. That’s a little more than half of the annual trillion-dollar-plus deficits we’ve had since Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama came to town (Bush never signed a budget with a trillion dollar deficit). The graph stated, “The tax changes could cost almost $3,500 per household” which proves how much money (over $7,000 per household) the big-spending Democrats will need to achieve balance with taxes alone.

A McClatchy chart, based on OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) data, shows why America has dropped far down the list of desirable nations for corporations. In 1992, we were 13^th (lowest) in combined federal, state and local tax burden on corporations; in 2012, we topped the list with the highest rate. Funny thing: that rate was 38.9% then, and is 39.1% now; while America padded taxes up a bit over 20 years, the other nations all cut and slashed theirs, sometimes by half. Create a favorable tax environment (are you listening, Sacramento?) and businesses will come.

Finally, I found “Millions of fed dollars going unused” (2/26 Daily News) to be an astounding example of perverse fiscal policy and deceptive language. It described open-ended food stamp spending, with money borrowed from China or future taxpayers, as “increasing nutrition” while “Tehama County is missing out on $9.86 million in economic activity.” The endless-welfare-spending advocacy cabal is disingenuously trying to persuade us that the “big rock candy mountain,” with unlimited “rainbow stew,” “free bubble-up” and money trees, will bring abundance across the land and make everyone healthy, wealthy and wise. Good grief! What balderdash! Remember, the deficit can be ascribed entirely to income redistributive welfare programs over 50 years of futile efforts to end poverty with “other peoples money.”