Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Newt Gingrich: The Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate Points at YOU!!!!!

The Fling, Fickle Finger of Fate is this blog's unauthorized (no connection with anyone from the old "Laugh In") reincarnation of the old "Laugh In" award for conspicuous stupidity that came to light in the previous week.


For one of the few times in memory this week, the Finger (represented by a statuette of a pointing INDEX finger) wavered. In fact, it continued to waver even after the Saturday cut off date. See the earlier entry today on the tax plans of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity (the same plans endorsed by most Rubicons and conservatives, as they eabandon the Reagan idea of SIMPLE, low tax rates).


The Finger wavered because these conservative/Republican tax proposals are better than President Obama's (and Nancy Peolosi's) "stimulus" measures. President Obama is proposing more tax increases than he is proposing tax relief, and the "stimulus" is missing from what the Democrats are doing. You just have limited tax relief ($13 per week payroll tax credit used to lower withholding, for example), and passive spending OVER YERS (probably intended to be over decades)--not "stimulating" the econonmy so much as increasing the size and influence of Big Government. The Gingrich/Limbaugh/Hannity tax plans would at least stimulate the economy quickly, and by helping the productive people in the country (rather than spreading government money around in a clueless manner).


And these conservative tax measures (eliminating the capital gains tax temporarily or permanently, drastically lowering the corporate income tax, and a tax holiday for both income taxes and payroll--Social Security--taxes) are not new. However, this blog's author heard Rush Limbaugh accurately call Obama's payroll tax credit a "transfer payment", and then heard Limbaugh--the very next day--endorse a payroll tax holiday (just as much a transfer payment). That did it.. The Finger began to home in on Gingrich, Limbaugh and Hannity, and gradually pointed firmly in that direction. Theretofore, with some reluctance on the part of the blog's author, the coveted/dreaded Finger goes this week to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Newt Gingrich for these wrong headed tax gimmicks intended to convince (fool?) people that Republicans have a better quick fix to the economy than the Democrats. There probably is no "qucik fix"


There is a better "fix". That is to go back to the old Reagan tax rates that led to the prosperity of the 1980's and 1990's. That means a top individual and corporate rate of 28%. You could even lower the "middle class" rate from 15% to 12%. If you made these rates permanent, and promised to keep them that way--in a simple tax code--it would do more for a lasting recovery than anything Republicans and conservatives are now proposing. Of course, President Obama and the Democrats are proposing to ruin the country. That is why borth Rush Limbaugh and myself hope that President Obama and the Democrats fail to get their policies enacted. As Hillary Clinton once said, you are being patriotic when you fight against policies you believe are ruining the country. She, of course, was talking about Iraq. Limbaugh and I are talking about socialistic/fascistic ("socialism with a capitalist veneer")/Communistic policies that have never worked in the history of man (because they rely on central planning, and no central planner is good enough), and will never work.


Limbaugh and Hannity have good intentions and generally the right instincts (favorable things I refuse to say about Newt--n his present "kiss-up-to-the-media incarnation). They have just somehow been led off the right track--returning to the pre-Reagan days of Republicans favoring tax GIMMICKS favored by business instead of simple, low tax RATES. These gimmicky tax proposals are not only bad polidcy, but they are bad politics. Sure, President Obama and the Democrats are probably going to give conservatives a major opportunity here by pursuing the wrong policies. But conservatives and Republicans will not make permanent gains if they revert to the pre-Reagan Republican Party, which was limited by its lack of overall vision--limited by constantly seeming to favor ONLY business and Wall Street.


Award ceremony (a virtual ceremony, taking place entirely in the imagination, without graphics--that being the reason I suggest you use the image of Dick Martin presenting the old "Laugh In" award as a visual aid to help your imagination):


Imagine Dick Martin thrusting the statuette of the Finger at the camera and saying: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Newt Gingrich, this is for you. You deserve it. As Rush says with regard to leftists (accurately), good intentions are not enough. It is not enough to care. You need to be right. In urging these timmicky tax proposals, which only complicate the tax code and cannot be passed anyway, your are wrong. It is not enough to be more right than President Obama. In the end, that will merely lead to disaster.