Barbara Boxer – Private or Public “Wealth” Investment?

by Tina Grazier

Barbara Boxer took to a podium recently to trot out the usual Democrat class envy shtick. She claims the old, the poor, and the young will suffer and die if those eeeevil Republicans fail to raise taxes on the rich. She says that Republicans have been calling “the rich” America’s “job creators” and she knows that’s wrong. (see video below) Flanked by a giggling Chuckie Schumer, she dons her clown hat to boldly proclaim she’s “checked it out” and it’s really small business owners that create most of the jobs in America…not the rich.

Where on earth has this woman been?

Republicans have only been harping on that very thing for a number of decades now. So okay, she’s finally on board about small business but, is that it? Is that the sum total of what makes business and a strong economy possible? I mean, is the woman too dumb to realize that money left in the private sector is important too? Is she too dumb to figure out that when government is greedy and oppressive it hurts all business? Does she not realize that when government threatens to make energy expensive it hurts small business as well as big business? Is she blind to the fact that small businesses need customers?

Thanks to the absolute idiocy of big government spending, high energy prices, draconian EPA regulations, another big government entitlement program, and constant uncertainty about higher taxes Americans aren’t much in the mood to play customer. Is Barbara Boxer too ignorant to realize that we already know she and her big government colleagues will let the Bush tax cuts expire making everyone’s tax burden (including the rich) significantly higher…or that the new taxes in Obamacare are set to kick in starting in January 2012? I’m afraid folks she just may be that dumb:

The real problem for Boxer and her Democrat buddies is they own the failed recovery.

They own the failing economy, the high debt, the unreasonable and unmanageable deficit, the terrible job numbers, the rising prices on goods and services, the sluggish (near dead) housing market…and, because they own it they would do anything to get Republicans to cave on taxes and make a deal with the White House. That way, they reason, the economy and all of the associated problems will be shared by both parties equally come election time next year.

Republicans would be happy to share the responsibility for turning this failure around.

But only on terms that won’t take us down the same old big government, big spending, big class envy path…we’ve tried it that way for years now and it’s still not working! In fact, Republicans are well aware of the very real ongoing economic probems that must be addressed. Since the 1990’s they have been warning about the un-sustainability of the entitlement programs that Democrats created and championed! Republicans are, and have been, ready to make reforms that would work for all Americans and that create incentive for personal responsibility. All that is needed is a genuine willingness on the part of Democrats to participate in the process and adequate political pressure from the electorate. Sadly, democrats prefer politics and power! I have more confidence in the electorate.

In the past two years Republicans in Congress are the only ones that have been willing to address this nation’s economic problems.

They have submitted a reasonable budget. They have submitted a plan to resolve our debt problems AND reform Medicare AND pay down our debt. They are ready to discuss reform to social security and to make both of these big government entitlement plans sustainable in the short term and transform them to work in the future. They have passed a debt-ceiling proposal and sent it to the Senate…where it was declared dead on arrival by a “do nothing” Democrat controlled Senate.

Democrats, by contrast, spent months creating and ramming through an expensive healthcare bill while the country languished and suffered through a failed recovery.

Democrats didn’t bother to submit a budget, which is required by law, in either of the 2 years that they held a super majority in Congress. The President submitted a laundry list this year and, acting like he’d accomplished something, called it his “budget proposal”…the CBO laughed at the absurdity of the Obama budget saying, “We don’t estimate speeches”.

Barbara Boxer is out making speeches because class envy is the only thing the Democrats have left in their little bag of tricks.

Boxers speech is a lame attempt to convince the American people that the rich hide all of their money in a secret vault and are just too stingy to share it! The very idea is simply preposterous! Barbara Boxer doesn’t get the absurdity, but Americans are smarter than Barbara Boxer. They know that most of the money belonging to “the rich” is invested or saved and as such is put to work in the economy. This represents real investment that is the fuel that ignites the engine of our economy.

Scrooge is a beastly characature who adds lots of lovely drama to make a wonderful story; he does not represent reality.

The rich will always be with us, as will the poor. The beauty of the American ayatem is that the poor have a chance to move out of poverty when opportunities are not stifled by too much government. Opportunity can take a poor man from rags to riches; we in America should be doing a better job of teaching him how.

Those who are old enough to recall the movie, “Brewster’s Millions” will remember how difficult it was for the main character to rid himself of wealth. The lesson, of course, is that money creates opportunity, wealth and abundance. Wealth left in the private sector is put to work creating opportunity and innovation. When government takes too much from the private sector, or threatens to take too much, this vital economic vehicle begins to stall.

A few more years of political dominanace by Obama and Democrats and America’s vehicle will be operating at a dead stop.

Wealth in the private sector, as savings, investment, and charitable giving, becomes funding for the next big idea, the next medical cure, or treatment for those suffering terrible diseases. It helps to build schools and other projects in the form of municipal bonds. It becomes a baseball stadium or a new wing at the college or museum. It expands the local hospital, shelter or daycare center. It funds a science lab, a research facility, a marine aquarium. It builds housing developments. It helps to fund growth and expansion projects for companies both large and small. It becomes a loan opportunity for those in the lower and middle classes to buy houses, cars, boats, college educations, or to start a small business. And all of this activity translates into jobs, not temporary shovel ready jobs but lasting permanent jobs. And all of that activity spells confidence about the future for the American people who then begin to feel comnfortable as consumers again.

But is it fair that the wealthy have so much?

Well, no…quite frankly, it is not fair. But people know that life is never fair, we know it is useless to wallow in petty covetousness, and we know that a real opportunity to live life as best we can is more valuable than an envious attitude or pipe dream. The rich do get to spend a great deal of money on luxury items for themselves. But we can easily see that even this money trickles into the pockets of those who work at the hotels, salons, restaurants, golf courses, and stores that the rich frequent. It trickles into the pockets of those who build or sell luxury homes, boats, cars, furs, jewelry, furniture, make up, and clothing. It moves into the pockets of advisors, lawyers, insurance agents and even into the coffers of the TAX COLLECTOR! Yes it flows to government too!!!

And here’s some good news that even the simple minded Barbara Boxer and her wealthy “tax the rich” friends can appreciate. There is an alternative approach to getting money for government from the rich. It’s a voluntary program. Barbara should know that rich people (anybody really) can
send cash gifts to the government whenever they want…year, after year, after year! No…Really!!

Financial gifts can be made by check or money order payable to the United States Treasury and mailed to the address below:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

They even accept credit cards:

Got a few extra bucks for Uncle Sam? Since 1961, the U.S. government has accepted donations in cash or check from private citizens who wish to help pay down the national debt, currently at $13 trillion. (old news)

Now the U.S. Treasury has made it easier to donate–via credit card. In January, the department’s Bureau of the Public Debt began to accept payments via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover at: Pay*gov – Treasury Direct

When asked whether encouraging Americans to use credit–taking on personal debt to pay national debt–sent the wrong message, a Treasury spokesperson tells NEWSWEEK, “We make it as easy as possible to donate.” She adds, “There are many people who pay their credit cards off every month,” but had no further comment.

Well all righty then! Ms Boxer can take off the silly clown hat and relax.

All she has to do is notify her rich friends about this donation option and everybody wins. They certainly don’t seem to mind donating big bucks to fill Democrat campaign coffers; why wouldn’t they be equally willing to send more cash to government? In fact…if this has been an option since 1961 why haven’t all those blowhard rich Democrats donated extra bucks to our government? Why haven’t Tom Hanks, Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, or Warren Buffet made extra donations every single year? It’s a good question…I’ll bet their accountants and lawyers would tell them it’s a boondoggle way to invest their money.

If you’re still thinking Barbara Boxer is on to something with her silly pitch about taxing the rich ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. Have the trillions of dollars spent since Obama was elected helped to make America stronger?

2. Have problems in housing and real estate improved?

3. Are there more job opportunities…or
fewer job opportunities now and how is that confidence level doing?

Are we better off overall when money is spent by government or is money put to better use when spent, saved, and invested in the private sector?

This is the question Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama, and the rest of the Congressional Democrats (and probably a few Rhino Republicans) don’t want you to ask, much less answer, because awareness in the voting public will lead to BIG LOSSES for the tax and spend crowd in 2012.

It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, the rich, the middle class or our grandchildrens pockets…big government just doesn’t work. Private investment does.