Response to SOTU

This is what I wish Joni Ernst would say but probably can’t.

Obama’s tax reform is nothing but retribution for those who don’t vote for him.  The big increase in capital gains taxes will hurt the middle class most.  Who takes Capital Gains treatment?  The conventional wisdom is the wealthy investors who sell stocks.  But the folks who depend on cap gains rates are those who sell some big lump once or twice in their lifetimes.  Farmers who sell a piece of land to retire.  They don’t have a fat pension and have poured their lives into that farm.  Small businessmen who sell the business and thereby preserve the jobs of those who work there.  The owner worked his butt off and put it all into the business while living very modestly.  The homeowner who lost her job during the recession, couldn’t sell the house, and rented it for a few years.  Now she has an buyer.  These people will get hammered with 28% cap gains.  Obama knows this.  Does he really care?  Or is this just a cynical game to shaft the people who don’t vote for him.  Small businessmen and farmers vote 90% Republican. When Charlie Rose interviewed Obama and told him that lowering, not raising cap gains yields more government revenue, Obama said he still wanted to raise the rate for “fairness”.

And making trusts go through probate?  40% of the people in America either have a trust or will benefit from it.  Once again, the upper and middle class sets up trusts to avoid the confiscatory 45% estate tax.  There are 2 million people who die each year.  Do you know how many pay estate tax?  7300. It’s a tax that raises hardly any revenue.  Why do we still have it? Some finance guys say everybody who has $100,000 worth of assets needs a trust in order to avoid typical 15% lawyer fees on their estate. A trust is like a personal corporation whose only business is to invest the owner’s money.  Taxes are paid on the earnings. When the owner dies, a beneficiary becomes recipient of the earnings but there is no confiscatory estate tax.  If we outlawed this, the smart rich would literally set up family corporations to do exactly the same thing. Then Obama would have no choice but to disallow corporations, which of course would crash our economy.  Does Obama care?  Or is it just a cynical game of payback.

So what will put America back to work?  We the people.  Our President said, “you know we can’t just drill our way to cheap gas prices.”  Oh?? Americans did it anyway, while he was channeling billions of your tax dollars to cronies who had shell green companies that failed and left people without jobs.   The US economy is coming back despite his resistancy.  Never underestimate Americans.  Our auto companies are coming back and would be doing better if his bailout hadn’t sold Chrysler to the Italians, and Cash for Clunkers hadn’t artificially raised used car prices 20%.  He is trying to kill the coal industry and our electricity rates have gone up an average of 30%.  He tried to ban offshore drilling and became the only President in our history who was slapped with contempt of federal court.  Lower middle class people who spent  their few dollars on a bare bones healthcare insurance now find themselves recipients of free Medicaid.  But try finding a doctor.  Few doctors will take Medicaid patients because reimbursement rates are so low.  Obama just doubled the number of people on Medicaid. Please take a number and get in line.  EPA and Labor regulations are killing our jobs. Do you know that for 7 straight years, the number of business closures in America has exceeded business start-ups.  That’s the first time in our 239 year history this has ever happened.  And yet America has started to grow despite his administration kicking and squealing against the real world things that make our country work.  It’s just like those hogs I used to work over used to kick and squeal about getting neutered.

Speaking of -- how about our commander in chief going to war against Islamic Terrorism.  It seems to still be alive and well and beheading innocent people.  Release the marines instead of the Gitmo prisoners. Stop giving Iran and the Norks a pass on nuclear weapon development.  Support Israel and Ukraine.  America needs to re-up.  Otherwise I will have to tell all those valiant soldiers I served with that they fought in vain.  You golfed while Fallujah burned, Nero.   

Now the good news.  America is going to win again.

Here’s how.  The Republicans have our own tax reforms and IRS reforms coming.  We will pass bipartisan tax cuts designed to grow small businesses and make new jobs.  We will put a stop to his overreaching regulations.  We will repeal and replace the ACA.  If the court finds the President’s dictates unconstitutional, we have a fix waiting for passage.  Military spending will increase so we can protect our country.  Social Security Disability needs to be fixed.  And we guarantee that every year we will plop a bipartisan budget on the guy’s desk.  If you don’t sign it, you live with the shutdown.  On immigration, we are going to pass legislation to secure the borders, then will pass a bill to stop visa overstays.  Only once these two illegal flows are stopped, will we go on to status of those already here.  We will okay Keystone pipeline and stop the EPA from demanding 20 different grades of gasoline be refined when 5 should do. Oh, and we are going to specifically enumerate some things that are best handled by the states. We’ll replace 23 entitlement programs for welfare and turn them into block grants for the states to use.

There’s a beginning. I don’t like to give long speeches.  Watch what we do, not what we say.