Is Obama a muppet or the puppet master?

Those that know me well, know that, during the election, I had the opinion that Obama was a muppet. May argued he was left wing, and that may be true. Other argues that he was more center-left. Though I believed that he was likely far more left then his words, what he said and what he believed was of little consequence in this election. Besides foreign affairs the President if mostly a figurehead. He has little to do with writing or enforcing law. In this case a figurehead for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

I hoped that I was wrong or even if I was right that he would have a mandate and the quest for power would allow him to manage congress. But like the old Star Trek episode, "Patterns Of Force" where they "instituted a theoretical form of Hitler's National Socialism upon the lawless Ekosians because he believed that it is the most efficient system of government ever devised", the government has taken over and supplanted the figurehead.

Obama talked about "fixing roads" and "helping the states" yet the stimulus bill is full of pork and pet projects that dwarf the valuable spending. Now we have a "funding bill" that is full over 4900+ earmarked projects. So I, I believed that I was right. That he had no power and no control over the Congressional leadership and that they he was a puppet to the puppet masters.

At least I thought I was right until Tuesday and Wednesday. He spoke the other night about restoring the upper tax brackets to those under Clinton. To cut spending in non-critical programs and cut the deficit in half in 4 years. Then the news about his plan began to release on Wednesday including 650+ Billion to begin universal healthcare. The numbers simply do not add up. Then the tax increases began to to leak; including limiting home interest deductions [that should help the housing market]. A total "estimated" budget of 3.7 trillion on tax payer funded income of 2 trillion. If the economy contracts a bit more and/or the price tag goes up (duh) then we are talking about government spending on a pace that is double revenues. This does not include the "one time" spending in the bailouts. So we are looking a deficits that would require tax revenues to double or triple in the coming years.

There is no amount of taxation on "the rich" that can cover that bill. Since over 40% of wage earners already pay zero income tax, this burden will be carried by the ever decreasing population of the employed "wealthy" [which will now be defined as anyone that makes over the median income]. The GDP of the US is estimated to be 13.75 Trillion dollars in 2008. So we are talking about taxation at 30% of all GDP (higher to cover the bailouts). To put that in perspective: taxation has never been over 20% of GDP. In fact it is well understood that tax revenue and GDP are tied tightly together at about 18.5%. [I have found reputable sources that have out tax burden at about 30% already. Based on 13.75 Trillion in GDP and 2.67 Trillion in revenue..my simple math gives me 19.4%] . So we will need to get from 2.67 Trillion to well over 4 trillion [note that none of this includes growth in already expanding government programs].

Now it is possible that we will not actually pay for this. Seems that "paying for things" is simply out of vogue right now. But either we will pay for it or our children and grandchildren will pay for it with interest.

Based in these simple facts, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the puppet is part of the game (that reminds me of a Twlight Zone episode). That he is using his popularity and oratory skills to say what we want to hear and then turn around and sell us out. So it looks like, some where right, he is a left wing liberal and intent on creating a socialist republic within the United States with an overall tax burden of 40+%. Either that, or his economists have failed 5th grade math and they are completely inept (since they don't pay taxes maybe this is the lesser of two evils). 2010 is coming, I pray we will not be too late.