BZ
Category Archives: Uncategorized
New York City:
The canary in the proverbial coal mine:
RUSH: Mayor Bloomberg, state and city revenues in New York are falling because of the Wall Street collapse. State lawmakers are considering income tax increases for households earning between $250,000 and $1 million. They already pay a 6.85% income tax rate. Mayor Bloomberg, who as recently as six months ago would have supported this, had something different to say about it recently on the radio. It’s sound bite number 11.
BLOOMBERG: One percent of the people that live in the city, the households that file in the city pay something like 50% of the taxes. In a city that’s about 40,000 people so, you know, a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral. The question is, “What’s fair?” If one percent are paying 50% of the taxes, you want to make it even more? A little over half the people, half the households who file tax returns don’t pay any taxes. And about 30% of the households that file get a credit from the government. The government sends them a check. That’s the Earned Income Tax Credit.
New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.
The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.
Stating The Obvious:
In a debate with Ralph Nader, Barney Frank finally unveils the obvious.
Obama and his minions are already facing a highly unanticipated tough fight for the governorship of Virginia.
So, America: how’s Das HopenChange working out for ya?
BZ
Save The World: Eat Leaves
A Chicago Op-Ed Post YOU Need To Read:
At the obvious risk of running afoul of publishing rights, I submit this article, in full here, with complete attribution:
Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals
Have you heard the news? President Obama inherited an economic mess from the Bush administration.
You say that’s hardly news? But it’s been the message sounded over and over by the White House. Top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on one of the Sunday news shows, “He walked in the door, we had the worst economy since the Great Depression.” In San Francisco, Obama talked of being “busy with our mop.” White House heavy hitter Rahm Emanuel used the worst-economy-since-the-Depression line on a public TV news show.
Do you approve of the job President Obama has done so far?
Yes
No
Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals
White House advisers say Fox News is not newsWholesale inflation dips unexpectedly in SeptemberSeptember housing construction rises 0.5 percentObama welcomes second vote in Afghanistan
You’d think it’s October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode — maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.
Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.
Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, “We misread how bad the economy was.”
They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought. Which is it? It can’t be both — unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma.
Obama is still popular, but polls show the public losing faith in his policies. Another indicator was a ”Saturday Night Live” skit lampooning Obama for the major accomplishments of his administration — “jack and squat.” If the honeymoon is ending with the American voter, it isn’t for obsequious elements of the mainstream media. CNN prostrated itself by fact-checking the ”SNL” comedy skit.
But that’s harmless compared to the virulent campaign against Obama critics carried out by the denizens of MSNBC. Its Obama acolytes seek to demonize opponents of Obama’s policies by focusing on most marginal corners of right-wing politics like, for example, the “birthers” who deny Obama is a natural born citizen. The larger scheme is to imply Obama critics are racists.
That’s the backdrop to the story of Rush Limbaugh getting booted from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams. He was smeared on CNN and MSNBC with false accusations of making two racist comments. He is an abrasive critic of Obama, so he must be racist, or so goes the left-wing story line. I wouldn’t defend everything Limbaugh has ever said, but lies were used to blacklist him from professional football for his political views.
Recently an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being “treasonous to this country.” Remember how liberals roared in outrage at any hint of their patriotism being questioned for criticizing the Iraq War? Well, it’s the left that doesn’t shy from attacking the patriotism of those it dislikes. Recall the repulsive Moveon.org “General Betray-us” ad against Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus. Recent opposition to Chicago’s Olympic bid was cast as a sign of a lack of patriotism among Obama critics.
The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort “to marginalize” the business organization. That echoes the administration assault on the Fox News Channel: It says Fox isn’t a news organization.
The White House trying to dictate who’s a news organization. Democrats out to gut a business group. Obama media allies damning Americans as racist, unpatriotic and treasonous. Is this the America Obama promised when he campaigned to end the cynical and divisive politics of the past?
What say YOU, dear BZ readers?
BZ