Naughty and Nice

By William L. Garvin

Santa's workload got a lot lighter this week with all the additional names that popped up on his Naughty List. First there was Eric Holder, our nation's premier law enforcement officer, saying that the difference between a lie and misleading Congress was the state of mind of the liar, er, uh, misleader. Of course, this didn't really lighten Santa's bag because Attorney Holder is permanently on the Naughty side because of his incompetence and intransigence in the Fast and Furious fiasco.

Also ensuring permanent enshrinement on the Naughty side of the list is the esteemed ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With her perpetually straight face she blithely intoned that extending the unemployment benefits would "make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy." Looks like Pinocchio will soon be second best when it comes to prominent proboscis projection. Apparently her muse continues to be the unnamed macroeconomists who have driven this economy into unparalleled debt with their astronomical spending.

Also on the Naughty List are all the pundits who hailed the drop in unemployment from 9.1% to 8.6% as proof that the Obama Economic Doctrine is working. Buried in the fine print (or completely ignored) is the fact that the only reason the rate dropped is because 315,000 workers simply gave up and stopped looking for work and are no longer counted. By this simplistic liberal logic, if everyone stopped looking for work, unemployment would be zero and happy days would be here again! Few of the unemployed and the underemployed who heard the President chortle that the shovel-ready projects "weren't really as shovel-ready as we thought" saw any humor or reason for levity. The President added salt to the wound by promising to veto the Keystone Pipeline job opportunities that would be created by the 1,700 mile project. Since there are already more than 2.5 million miles of pipeline in existence in the U.S., his environmental concerns appear to be primarily a strategy for keeping the green group money flowing into his campaign coffers.

Then there's the matter of the Federal Income Contributions Act (FICA) or Social Security "contribution" or newly coined "payroll tax." Whenever Republicans are in charge, Dems weep, wail, and moan about the impending demise and impending fiscal insolvency of the Social Security trust fund. All the while, they demagogued the issue and sabotaged any efforts at reform. This has resulted in a current unfunded liability of nearly $7.9 trillion dollars. So this year's 2% reduction in the payroll/social security tax meant $105 billion less into the fund; next year it will be $119 billion less. Our congressional leaders have proposed "paying" for this reduction by imposing a new "fee" (not a tax!) on mortgages. That should really help the housing industry where sales are at their lowest point in ten years despite the fact that home values dropped another 5.8% this last year! Would someone please send these economic ignoramuses back to school?

Also in need of remedial education is the Congressional Black Caucus and its "Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act." Their plan will "create 5 million jobs." Undoubtedly they are using the same macroeconomists employed by Nancy Pelosi and their "out of thin air" numbers. They might as well have said they would provide jobs for all 13.9 million unemployed and the other 6.2 million who have flat given up. How will they do it? You already know, don't you? They will impose another $800 billion in taxes on millionaires and $350 billion in taxes on investors. Here we go again, another trillion dollar redistribution of wealth shenanigan that will fail in every way except for increasing dependency on Big Government. Please give them a lump of coal and an Economics 101 Basic Primer on finance in their stockings.

On the "Nice List" are the names of nearly 1.5 million men and women who have served admirably in Iraq over the last nine years. Welcome home and THANK YOU! Also on this list are the countless men and women who are still in harm's way. We look forward to wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in person as soon as possible. Stay safe!