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Lies My President's Friends Tell Part 1
by A.X. Perez
[email protected]

Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

I don't want him. However, he won the election more or less fair and square. As much as some question his eligibility to run and thus his legitimacy, a large enough plurality voted for Barack Hussein Obama for him to win the election. He may not have won legally, but he won fairly under current rules.

These rules include the permissibility of lies and misrepresentations by the candidates and their supporters. these lies remind me of a line from the old Adventures of Brisco County TV series "He cheated fair and square." If the lies had died with the election there would be no problem. However, one in particular may influence political debate in the near future and therefor needs to be exposed and dissected.

The lie was uttered by Former President William Jefferson "Slick Willie" Clinton. As I remember it he said Mr. Obama favors "asking the richest among us to give a little more." The point was that Mr. Obama would ask the wealthier citizens of the US to pay a little bit more in taxes while keeping everyone elses' taxes low.

This lie had many parts. The first was the word asking. Taxes are not asking. They are a government gun held to your head, legalized protection racketeering. "Stand and delver" should be the heading on every tax bill. Asking the richest among us to give" indeed!! How about armed robbery and asking people to vote to support the crime.

As for only slightly raising taxes for "the richest among us" while cutting or keeping everyone else's taxes down, dream on tovarisch. Back when, I was invited to take holy orders and declined, I am not good enough at celibacy or obedience to want to be sworn to them. I am much better practiced at poverty and continue to increase my understanding of poverty and skills in living poor. I have no doubt that in spite of this my family's meagre savings and middle class income will result in our qualifying as part of that wealthiest cohort.

Many Americans will be surprised to discover that they are "the richest among us." Without heroic spending cuts the Federal government will have to raise our extortion payments by about $10,000 dollars per annum per person, not family ( back of the envelope calculation of what it will cost to pay off deficit for the year plus pay down existing debt to zero over ten years.). Anything less, accompanied by robust spending cuts, will fail if you are trying to tax your way out of our current Federal mess. While obviously the government will not take such extreme actions, it does mean that a lot of people who thought they were not rich are going to be wealthy for the purposes of having their taxes raised instead of cut.

It means that class hatred and invidiousness will become defining characteristics of America's political discourse, especially as programs to fix the economy fall short, as taxes rise, as private efforts to fix the economy crash and burn. The rich will blame the poor for destroying the investment capital needed to fix the economy and the poor will accuse the rich of holding out and not releasing the funds to keep government largesse flowing and invest in fixing the economy. States will be spared the trouble of seceding as the US disintegrates in government debt and class war.

Or we can come up with a new debate and discourse, something that won't happen until we reject Slick Willie's lie.

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