CNNMoney.com has posted an opinion piece, originally in Fortune Magazine, that should scare the fire out of you. The piece is entitled: VAT Trap: The inevitable fix for the deficit. Here's an excerpt:

The gigantic deficits the Administration is projecting are appalling, and they provide a chilling look at our future: America is hurtling towards a fiscal trap that is forcing us into the only option we'll have to restore budgetary sanity: A Value-Added Tax.

Unfortunately, no one really wants to address it. Nancy Pelosi has spoken admiringly of a VAT, and on the Right, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee wants the levy to replace the income tax. But so far, it's mainly a favorite of a cadre of economists at universities and think tanks. White House budget chief Peter Orszag recently dismissed it as an idea that's "popular with academics but not seriously considered by policy makers."

But it's never gotten much support in the U.S. for two reasons. First, it's a regressive tax: Low-earning families pay a bigger portion of their incomes than the wealthy. And second, the VAT -- first introduced by a French civil servant in 1954 -- has fueled the rapid growth of government in France, Germany, and even Japan. In fact, no other country spends the kind of money we're planning to spend without a VAT.

First of all ... Mike Huckabee is NOT pushing a VAT. He is a proponent of the FairTax. You would expect the reporters to know that .. but then again, it takes actual research.

The trouble here is that the political class may well manage to implement a VAT ... mainly because most Americans still don't know of and understand the FairTax. Trust me, there are plans afoot to change that. More on that next week.

The liberals are achieving exactly what they have sought for so long ... bigger government. More people than ever are relying on the government, and therefore the taxpayers, for their income. Some of these people are just pure leaches. Obama is in the process of wiping out the gains made by welfare reform programs while Clinton was in the White House and the Republicans were running the congress. Many more of these people, though, are government employees ... government employees earning compensation they could not match in the private sector. As Rich Lowery puts it, this is a Boom-Time for government employees.

Examples? We got 'em: More government employees are earning over $100,000 than ever before. During the first year and a half of the recession, the number of government employees earning more than $100,000 INCREASED from 14% to 19%. Here's another example. When the recession began, the Transportation Department had one person who earned more than $170,000 a year. Now there are 1,690 people in the Transportation Department alone who are earning more than $170,000 a year.

At a time when local and state governments are struggling to keep their budgets a float - many are raising taxes and/or cutting programs - they have actually added 110,000 employees to their payrolls since the recession began. At the same time, the private sector has lost 6.9 million jobs. And when private companies are cutting back on expenses and compensation, benefits for government employees have actually grown at a rate of three time that of private employees.

All of this probably has something to do with the latest news that a majority of workers who are union members now work in the government sector.

Since we're talking about our wonderful Imperial Federal Government .... Here are some shocking facts to keep in mind:

- The cost of our federal government is 25% of our total economy (GDP). This is compared with the average of 20.7% of the GDP during 1970-2009

- If you include the cost of state and local government, the total cost of government is almost 40% of our GDP

- Since 2008, the cost of our federal government has increased by one-fourth

- By 2020, Obama will have increased the federal government by one-half on a per family basis

- Before the recession, federal spending totaled $24,000 per household

- By 2020, Obama would raise that to $36,000 per household

Just remember these numbers folks. They have meaning.

You've heard the hype. You probably also know by now that the latest employment numbers from our keepers in Washington show that unemployment is going up ... and almost 10%.

Our wonderful Democrats are poised to pass what they call a "jobs bill" next week. What's in it? Tax breaks for a business IF you hire someone or IF you give an employee you already have a raise. Wow! It's almost enough to make you go out and start a business just so you can hire someone, isn't it?

Ready for a lesson in rational thought? I promise - for you liberals - this doesn't hurt.

Let's say you own a small business. Got it so far? Now ... you would love to be in a position to grow your business, which would mean hiring more people. But there are a few things working against you; not the least of which is the prospect of some pretty hefty tax increases coming up. You report all of your business income on your personal tax return. At the end of this year Obama and the Dems are going to raise those taxes by at least 5%. They're also talking about various fines and penalties if you don't provide your workers with health insurance, and expansion of various laws such as family leave. There's a lot of uncertainty out there, and periods of uncertainty are not periods during which smart businessmen - and you certainly think you should be counted as a smart businessman - would expand a business.

So ... along comes this ill-prepared community organizer/president who tells you that he will give you a $5000 tax credit if you will just hire someone to work in your business. Trouble is, (1) you don't need an additional worker right now because your business isn't growing; and (2) if you do hire an additional worker it is going to cost you at least $50,000 when you consider salary, matching Social Security "contributions", unemployment insurance, workers comp and other expenses. So ... here's your choice. Do you spend $50,000 or more of money you really don't have right now to hire an employee you don't need just to get a $5000 tax credit? No? Somehow I didn't think so.

If you want to get these small companies to start hiring again, just take their necks out of the tax guillotine.

I know ... I'm freaking brilliant. Listen to your other favorite talk show hosts today. Tell me it doesn't sound like they're reading from this page.

The Democrats are at it again. Class warfare. Democrat Senators Barbara Boxer and Jim Webb are determined to go after executive bonuses at companies that received TARP money. They introduced legislation - the Taxpayer Fairness Act - that would impose a 50% "fee" on bonuses over $400,000 from companies that get at least $5 billion in TARP funds. Why $400,000? Because that matches Barack Obama's salary as president.

Senator Webb assures us that "this is not class warfare. This is not going to run the gamut of all executive bonuses." Barbara Boxer says, "There is an outcry out there ... People are hurting from the residual effects of Wall Street ... This bill is symbolic, but it's real."

Not class warfare? Like hell.

It's this easy. We want these companies to succeed, right? We want them to pay all of their TARP funds back, right? Does it occur to you that these companies might need some of the best executive talent out there? Does it also occur to you that there is competition for this executive talent? So put yourself in the place of some business wizard who is being recruited by two major businesses; one that took TARP funds, and one that did not. Is he really going to go with the company that is subject to the Democrat's "Taxpayer Fairness Act?" Hardly.

If you're not smart enough to get it at this point, then you need to stop reading Nealz Nuze and click here.

It's been a while since we have heard from Democrat South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. He's the one who said that blacks are more likely to be hurt by global warming than other Americans. As inane as that comment may be, it is nowhere near as dangerous as his latest. James Clyburn says, "We're not going to save our way out of this recession ... We've got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that." Isn't it wonderful that the same man who thinks that global warming is going to affect blacks the most knows that most economists thinks? What a valuable man to have in the Congress of the United States!

This is the third ranking Democrat in the House, folks. Man is he absolutely dead wrong. Perhaps Clyburn would like to read a report from The Heritage Foundation: Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics. Here are just a few examples of how government can't spend its way to prosperity:

• During the 1930s, New Deal lawmakers doubled federal spending--yet unemployment remained above 20 percent until World War II.
• Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 stimulus spending bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world)--yet its economy remained stagnant.
• In 2001, President Bush responded to a recession by "injecting" tax rebates into the economy. The economy did not respond until two years later, when tax rate reductions were implemented.
• In 2008, President Bush tried to head off the current recession with another round of tax rebates. The recession continued to worsen.
• Now, the most recent $787 billion stimulus bill was intended to keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. In November, it topped 10 percent.

If you have the time you might want to read the full Heritage Backgrounder. Just click on the link we cleverly provided above. This will give you some good information you can use when arguing with ObamaBots and Dems who think that the congress simply must pass another hundred-dollar stimulus bill or we're all gonna die.

Here's what bothers me. The party of government, not the party of freedom is in control right now. Economic liberty in the United States is on decline. We're number 8 right now on the top ten list. When you have a political party and a president who believe that America's greatness comes from government running the show .. you're only going to get government solutions to economic problems. The private sector really doesn't have a role to play for these people.

Here's the question. Sure, we need spending to get ourselves out of this economic mess. But who should do the spending? The government, or you?

Let me try to rephrase the question. Which type of spending do you think would most benefit a free economy and enhance economic liberty:

1. Tell the government to go seize massive amounts of money from private Americans and private sector companies. Then hand that money to a few hundred elected officials and government bureaucrats with marching orders to get out there and spend that money to put the American economy in growth mode again.
2. All the tens of millions of people who actually earned that money to keep it, and then let them go into the marketplace and spend that money as they, and not the political class, see fit.

In other words: Do you want politicians, with an eye to reelection, to make the decisions on how your money is going to be spent; or would you rather see the people who earned the money make these decisions for themselves. Do you want political hacks to select the economic winners and losers, or do you want that decision made by free people working and spending in the context of a free economy?

Are these questions really that hard?

Barack Obama has officially unveiled his budget, and we got what we expected: more taxes on the evil, filthy rich. Over the next ten years, taxes on the rich, the investors, the job creators, the entrepreneurs, will rise by $1 trillion. Imagine what those people could do with $1 trillion, compared to your federal government. Rather than investing or growing their businesses, what if they ... heaven forbid ... spent it on private airplanes, yachts, or maybe even to grow their businesses? Okay? Stick with me. So we have $1 trillion and let's say the average price of a nice small-end yacht is about $2 million. That means that these evil rich people could purchase 500,000 yachts with this money. Evil right? Well think about how many people it takes to maintain a yacht. You need people to clean it, you need someone to fix things, some may need a captain, others may want a chef or a security guard. Someone needs to scrape barnacles off the bottom. You've employed several people right there. How much did it cost to purchase a slip to dock that sucker? Did your local government make money off that? How about property values .. did they increase because people like the sights of big ole boats parked in their canal? How many people did it take to manufacture all of the parts to build the boat? The guy who drove the truck carrying the boat? The salesman who made a commission off the sale?

Are you starting to get my drift here?

Think about it. These Democrats DO want taxes to increase ... but only for individuals earning over $200,000 a year. These Democrats DO want capital gains taxes to increase ... but only for individuals earning over $200,000. They DO want you to be able to claim personal exemptions and itemized deductions ... but not if you earn over $200,000 a year.

And they say that they want our tax system to be more "fair"?

Let's get to the REAL problem with Obama's tax increase on the evil, disgusting, noxious, putrid, decadent, nasty, filthy rich. It's really sad that most Americans don't realize this - government schools would be the main reason - but MOST of the jobs in our economy come from small businesses. A small business is defined as a business that employs 499 or fewer people and reports its business income on a personal tax return. Included would be privately owned businesses, Sub-S corporations and various incarnations of LLCs and partnerships. Now since these are businesses, and since they are reporting their income on someone's personal income tax return; and since that particular individual income tax return is, more likely than not, going to show income of over $250,000 ... this is precisely the person who is going to be nailed with Obama's tax increase.

I don't care how much you slobber and drool over each and every word from or picture of Barack Obama ... facts is facts. Obama's tax increase is going to hit the very people we're now asking to spend some money to create jobs so that America can get back to work. The Community Organizer can't have it both ways. Either the government takes the money from these businesses and then spends that money to get politicians elected; or that money stays in the hands of the individuals and businesses who earned it and THEY spend the money.

What's more important? Actually creating private sector jobs and growing the real economy of our country, or pandering to the jealousy of those who simply have not worked hard enough or made the decisions they needed to make in order to become rich themselves?

Today Obama is going to propose his budget. He says that he is going to tackle record deficits by implementing a spending freeze ... on select domestic programs ... and by eliminating redundant programs.

One of the cuts we can expect is the "Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit," which allows eligible taxpayers with children to get a portion of the tax credit paid out in their paychecks throughout the year. The reasoning? Only 3% of Americans are eligible for the program and the error rate is high. Meanwhile, we the taxpayers pay $80 billion a year in Medicare fraud. That's 20% of every dollar that's spent on Medicare goes to fraud. In Obama's world it makes sense to eliminate a program like the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit .. but do nothing really meaningful about Medicare fraud.

Another question about this big-deal spending freeze. A spending freeze means something completely different to politicians and government than it might mean to you. Each and every program affected by Obama's glorious freeze has a built-in spending increase from year to year. In the past both Republicans and Democrats have decided to roll back the amount of pre-ordained spending increases and then called their move a spending freeze or cut. Let's get the straight story from the White House. Will actual spending be frozen? Or are they just going to stick to the pre-determined spending increases and call them freezes.

How easy this is for Obama. You spend a year in office boosting spending on these programs to the stratosphere .. then you announce a freeze ... and the media applauds.

One man has found a creative way to deal with debt collectors. He sues them for violating consumer rights laws.

"I already paid them off," he says. "The government took my money without asking me and gave it to the banks. And since I owe the banks money, but they already got my money from the government, I say we're even."

What do you think? Is he just another dead beat? Is he just using the rule of law to his advantage? 

It's no coincidence that Barack Obama made a blistering speech yesterday painting our financial institutions as the source of all that is evil in the United States. Obama lost healthcare. His signature issues is toast. He needs something else .. and he needs it quick. This is all about getting the people back on his side. Most Americans aren't particularly fond of their banks or credit card companies. They don't like the bank fees when they bounce a check, and they don't like the penalties when they fail to pay their bloated credit card bills when they're due. Banks send you letters with tiny print saying things you can't understand. Banks are an easy target for a demagogue.

Obama is now proposing the most sweeping and onerous new regulations on banks and financial institutions since the 1930's What happens as Obama is delivering his "Banks are evil, we are good" speech? The stock market drops to its lowest level in months. Oh ... but I'm sure one thing had nothing to do with the other.

Obama's populist assault on the world of high finance, coupled with China's tightened lending, has left Wall Street in a state of uncertainty. Is this the way to grow jobs? Think about this. All the new regulations PrezBO proposed yesterday ... tell me how they're going to grow our economy and create jobs? The only jobs created by Obama's new regulations are government jobs --- government regulatory jobs.

By the way .. before we go any further .. let me just say for the record (for all of you moonbats) that this dip has nothing to do with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Nor did I ever say that there would be a stock market rally if Scott Brown were to win. So let's just drop that whole bit right now.

Moving merrily right along ... It certainly looks like The Community Organizer really wants to jump on the wealth envy bandwagon. This must be what he means by "getting back in touch with the American people." Obama has been complaining about "obscene bonuses" for weeks. He says, "Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail. ... We simply cannot return to business as usual."

On top of the new taxes he has already proposed for the financial industry, Obama now wants the government to limit the size and complexity of major financial institutions. In other words, the president wants our imperial federal government to limit risk. Jamie Dupree provides us with a little more detail as to what that means. The proposal would:

1. Limit the Scope-The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit. .

2. Limit the Size- The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector. The President's proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.

Obama is ready to die on this hill. He says, "If these folks want a fight ... this is a fight I'm ready to have." The Democrats are positioning themselves to make them look like the good guys, fighting for the little man, while the Republicans are trying to defend Wall Street and big corporations. I can see it already ... this next election is going to be all about wealth envy. But then again, when isn't it?

Now .. consider this. What financial institutions out there took enormous risks over the past few decades contributing greatly to our economic problems? Well those institutions would be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Is Obama proposing new regulations to reign in the excesses of these two government-protected, quasi-public corporations? I'm not seeing it, are you?

With Obama's big push to get people back to work, there will be a big push for "green energy" jobs. This is nothing new for Obama, despite its fancy new packaging. A large part of the $787 billion stimulus bill was devoted to green energy and green jobs. But it has failed to make a dent in the unemployment rate. In fact, economists say that "green energy is proving to be no miracle solution to the nation's monumental unemployment problems. And prospects for future growth are extremely modest.

This is because a lot of green industries are still in experimental stages. In this economy, industries like this need investors to grow. But guess what? Obama and the Democrats want to tax the tar out of the evil rich .. the same people who would be likely to invest in green energy technologies. So because the market is down and green energy has yet to prove itself as a money-maker, people aren't investing and therefore jobs aren't being created.

But don't bother explaining this to a liberal. To them it is all about wealth envy and political correctness. Logic and economics be damned.

Yesterday I told you about Obama's new tax on financial institutions that took TARP money. Let's get one thing straight ... Obama continues to refer to this as a "fee." This is just a fancy was of saying "tax." We are taxing the very institutions that we want increase loans and stimulate our economy. But Obama insists that "We want our money and we're going to get it back." But wait? Haven't these banks and financial institutions already paid that money back? Well .. what does that matter.

He is just playing into wealth envy, folks. Pure and simple. I would sure like to see Obama answer a few questions ..... like why he doesn't plan to limit executive compensation at institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which took $100 million in taxpayer money, never intend to pay it back and are in fact still losing money for the taxpayers.

Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas gets to the point: "To think that banks will loan more money if you tax them is beyond economic ignorance." That's because this tax has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with wealth envy and politics. Easy as that.

But the banks aren't going to go down without a fight. They argue that Obama's next tax is going to cost the economy as much as $1 trillion in lost lending. A financial industry leader explains, "The money to be collected is capital being pulled out of the banking system that could support ten times the amount in new lending ... That's because $1 in capital supports $10 or more in lending. So the tax will pull not $90 billion in lending capacity out of the banking system, but $1 trillion in potential lending."

Know this. Obama is anti-capitalist to his core. He does not now and never has liked free enterprise. Capitalism is "the enemy" to Barack Obama. He is dedicated to the destruction of America's free market economy ... to be replaced by a centrally planned and government-controlled economy. If he isn't stopped your way of live will be all but destroyed. He's gone past being an inexperienced joke.

Slobbering Barney is up to his same old tricks again ... playing up the wealth envy rhetoric. He is going to hold a hearing on January 22nd to address the issue of "outsize" compensation in the financial industry. He wants Congress to figure out ways to more ways to curb "excessive" compensation. Slobbering Barney says, "The question of compensation, particularly in the financial industry, is a legitimate cause of concern in the country as a whole and we are going to address it."

This is just another part of the Democrats move to centralized economic planning; and trust me, it will just be the beginning. Democrats are merely testing the waters. They're tired of an economic system where the decisions on which elements of the free market thrive, and which elements don't, are dependent on the free exercises of choices by tens of millions of consumers ... all acting without government coercion or control. If you love power and government a free economic system just doesn't work for you.

Barney has more on his plate. He's also very excited about the prospect of raising taxes on the evil, filthy rich. He says that all of these bonus recipients are among the beneficiaries of the Republican cut in the top marginal tax rate. Frank says, "We should be increasing the marginal tax rate at that level of income." So now we have a limit on compensation and an increase in taxes. This bodes well for the achievers and the job creators.

New taxes, of course.

Big news from The Community Organizer today! Big news from the man who considered the private sector to be "the enemy!" What do we have? Today Barack Obama is going to propose a new tax on banks. Now of course Obama doesn't want the media to present this as yet another new ObamaTax ... so he's calling it a "fee." Yeah ... get this ... the "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee." He will tell us that the tax is designed to get back the TARP money. But wait ... it gets worse. This tax would be imposed on banks that have already paid back all of the TARP funds they received!

Did you know that the US taxpayers are now profiting from our bailout of the banking industry? That's right. Not only have most of these companies paid back the loans but they are paying interest on the loans. The loans to the banks are paying off .. but check out the government bailout of AIG and the auto industry. Or maybe you would like to look more carefully at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Obama wants the taxes on banks because he's mightily upset at the bonuses being paid to some bank executives. Hold on here! Did you know that the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting paid as much as $6 million for 2009? Yet the taxpayers have sunk $111 billion into the mortgage giants and experts say that we will NEVER recover those investments. In fact, Obama just pledged "unlimited financial assistance" to Fannie and Freddie! Meanwhile on Wall Street, executive compensation has been limited to $500,000 with at least half of that in the form of company stock. Bonuses are already being taxed at about 50% in the form of an income tax.

Now here's something I haven't seen addressed in the media yet. Let's say Obama gets his grand new tax. Let's say he gets his nine or ten billion dollars from these banks ... banks that have already paid back their bailout funds. Do you really think that Obama and the Democrats will actually use that money to pay down the debt that was incurred with the TARP bill? Are you kidding me? That money will NOT be used to pay down our national debt. It will simply be used to pay for more government programs designed to do nothing other than buy more Democrat votes.

We know that some of the most frequent guests at the White House happen to be union bosses. Principle among them is Andy Stern, the HUGWIC of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Well .. there was another visit yesterday, and the union bosses came bearing some bad news for Obama: Democrats need to do something quick about the economy or risk a repeat of their 1994 defeat.

Duhhhhhhhh.

Consider yourself warned, President Obama.

The problem here is that the unions have a different idea of what we can do to help our economy. For example, in a Q&A just yesterday in Washington, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka predicted the Employee Free Choice Act (the card check bill) would pass in "the first quarter of 2010." He then said that this would help to create jobs. He could not be more wrong. Studies show that the card check bill is a jobs killer - likely increasing the US unemployment rate and decreasing job creation.

The Community Organizer has a bit of a problem though. He's pushing the idea of hitting golden health insurance plans with a rather hefty tax ... this to pay for his ObamaCare. Unions, thanks to their coercive nature, have a lot of those gold-plated health insurance plans. They aren't happy. There's gonna have to be a quid pro quo ... will it be the forced unionization bill known as "card check?"

This, my friends, is yet another reason businesses are holding back on job creation. They don't want to start expanding a workforce that is then going to bully its way into unionization.

Unions are a scourge. SEIU is nothing but the shock troop front for far-left Democrats. Yes .. I know they have their good moments. But any good done by unions in this country is vastly outweighed by the harm. They are collectivist associations ... gatherings of men and women who are willing to give up their individual liberties for the safety of the collective.

... or not.

Sorry, but the $797 billion stimulus just isn't doing the job. Well .. at least not the job on jobs. We covered that yesterday. Soviet-style centralized planning isn't going to do it either. Small businessmen - the people we will depend on for bring the unemployed back to work - are cowering in their offices waiting to see just what The Community Organizer and his Democrat-Socialist followers are going to do to them. Will it be more taxes? That's almost a certainty. But there's so much more on the table. We have the penalties for businesses who don't provide health insurance; the looming threat of Cap and Tax; expansion of eligibility for onerous laws like the Family Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. There is absolutely no reason for these small businessmen to stick their necks out. None.

Obama and the Democrats know this .. they're not stupid. The problem is that the very idea of lowering taxes or abandoning future tax increases goes against every fiber of their political being. They just have to find another way .. and that seems to be even more spending. That's right ... we're not spending ENOUGH money we don't have. So .. up next ... another $28 billion to spend on infrastructure projects.

Wait! Now Obama has a new problem! There's a study out there which says that stimulus spending on infrastructure has had no effect on local unemployment. It has also had little effect on the construction industry, which has already seen a $75 billion stimulus. You can read details of the study here, but this is the bottom line: Since the stimulus bill was passed almost a year ago, there has been no connection between stimulus money spent and the number of construction workers hired or fired. If you compare counties that received the most stimulus money per capita for road construction, and those that didn't receive any money ... there is no, I repeat, no difference in unemployment trends between the counties.

We'll wait for The ACORN Administration's spin on that one.

When it comes to all of this government spending and stimulus and supposed jobs "created or saved" ... the Obama administration has done a really lousy job of keeping track. You will remember months ago when the administration was hit hard for its "interesting" technique of counting stimulus jobs.

Well it seems that they have taken that message to heart, and so they changed the way that they are counting jobs as "created or saved." Only, now it may be even worse. ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

In a little-noticed December 18, 2009 memo from Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag the Obama administration is changing the way stimulus jobs are counted.

The memo, first noted by ProPublica, says that those receiving stimulus funds no longer have to say whether a job has been saved or created ...

In other words, if the project is being funded with stimulus dollars - even if the person worked at that company or organization before and will work the same place afterwards - that's a stimulus job.

So .. there you have it. If a company receives any stimulus funds whatsoever - if a worker in that company receives a paycheck contains so much as one dollar of stimulus funds - then that is a job considered to be "created or saved" by the Democrat's stimulus bill.

Come on my friends! How much longer do we tolerate this nonsense from the people up there in Washington with the power to use deadly force to attain their goals? Are you ready to get engaged?

Some new unemployment figures came out at the end of last week, and they weren't encouraging. It was just about a month ago that unemployment figures showed a miniscule improvement ... and, as you would suspect, the ObamaBots were out there telling us all about how Obama's stimulus program worked and things were looking up. There was one particular tall and bald (which means he doesn't have a TV show) radio talk show host who said that the numbers would be back up at the end of the year. Funny how those things work out.

If things don't start looking good soon the Democrats will go into meltdown mode. They know that carrying 10% unemployment figures into the general election is not going to help their cause. The trouble is these people are so wedded to their big-government agenda and their war against the private sector that they simply cannot bring themselves to make the moves that need to be made to bring the jobs back. The voters have to make those moves ... the Democrats will not.

Obama's chief economic dog washer Christina Romer says, "The sense that we need to do more (to promote job creation) is overwhelming." Well, she's right. Trouble is, the Democrats have exactly the wrong idea of what they need to do.

If Barack Obama wants to do what is best for his fellow Democrats and their chances in the November elections, he will do something about unemployment and he will do something quick. While unemployment remains at 10%, the real unemployment rate is 17.3%. Obama and his team believe that the way to solve this is to spend MORE money. Just last week, Obama announced details of his "green jobs" program which include $2.3 billion in tax credits for companies that create "green jobs."

Green jobs? Now think about this for a moment. What we have here is simple central planning. Do you remember the days of the Soviet Union? Well, since I have a young listenership and readership, perhaps you don't. But I remember in the 60s and 70s when the Communist leaders in the Soviet Union and in Communist China would proudly announce their five year plans for this, that and the other thing. They have five-year plans for agriculture. They had five-year plans for housing. They had five-year plans for pretty much everything --- including jobs. The government decided where the jobs were going to be in the Soviet economy. The private sector played no role, because there was NO private sector.

Well doesn't that sound suspiciously like what The Community Organizer is doing now? We need jobs .. oh my do we need jobs. And what does Obama do? Let's see .. he has two basic choices. Let the private sector lead job creation, or lead job creation through government incentives and programs. What does he choose? Well .. there you have it. Let's put a tax credit out there for companies that create green jobs.

Now Obama comes by this honestly. Never forget that this man who, by his own admission, gravitated toward Communist student groups and Marxist professors during his formative college days. Never forget that he once referred to the private sector as "the enemy." This is a man who lives, breathes, eats and excretes government. He believes that America's greatness flows from government ... and that more government (and that means more centralized government planning) makes America that much greater.

Why has our private sector worked so well to create the highest standard of living civilization has ever seen? It was the lack, not the presence of centralized planning that brought us here. Millions of consumers leave their homes every single day with ballots (dollar bills) in their pockets. These tens of millions of consumers scatter throughout the marketplace casting ballots. They cast ballots for consumer goods and services all the way from $5 energy drinks to accounting services. Those who offer these consumer goods and services in the marketplace either adjust their offerings to meet the expectations and desires of those tens of millions of consumers, or they fail. The battle for consumer attention is going on hour after hour, day after day. Winners advance, losers either change their game plan or fall by the wayside. The economic winners expand and add jobs. The losers contract and eliminate jobs.

Now we have a president with a different idea. The consumers don't get to pick the winners and losers with their dollars. Those decisions will come from the White House .. and right now the White House chooses [ta da!] GREEN JOBS!

In the real world If the companies offering green products and services capture the attention and the ballots of the consumers .. then green jobs it is! If not, then these companies should fail and the jobs should go away. Obama wants to change these laws of the marketplace. So did Marx.

Romer is right. Something needs to be done .. and done fast. But Marxist-style central planning is not the answer.

Some basics: Where do the jobs come from? Small businesses, that's where. Small businesses - generally defined as companies that employ 499 or fewer people and who report their business income on someone's personal income tax return. These small businesses account for about 80% of all jobs, and are responsible for over 70% of all jobs being created today. You want jobs? This is where you get them; America's small businesses.

But what is Obama doing to or for America's small businesses? The National Federation of Independent Business' recently conducted a survey of small and independent business owners. Here's the finding:

A major concern is the level of uncertainty being created by government ... The "turbulence" created when Congress is in session is often debilitating, this year (2009) being one of the worst. Themes include "tax more," "tax the rich even more," "VAT taxes," higher energy costs due to Cap and Trade. Mandates and taxes for health care ... Uncertainty is the enemy of the real economy as well as financial markets."

Uncertainty? Can you put yourself into the head of a small business owner? This poor man or woman is anxious to expand his business. He has dreams of growth. He's also sitting on some money right now that he could use to hire more people, expand his production or business space ... he's ready to rip. But there's a problem. That problem is Democrats. He just doesn't know what they're going to do to him. The possibilities are not encouraging:

• He knows that he is going to be nailed with a 5% tax increase when the Democrats allow the Bush tax cuts to expire.
• One version of ObamaCare calls for another 5.4% tax increase on his business profits to pay for health care.
• The Democrats want to make it easier for his workplace to be unionized.
• He's going to have to pay a penalty if he doesn't provide health insurance for his employees.
• If he does provide health insurance the premiums are sure to go up.
• The Democrats Cap and Trade program will cost him even more money.
• The Democrats want to expand the Americans with Disabilities plan and the Family Leave Act to include his company.
• The Democrats are threatening to raise both his Social Security taxes and his Medicare Taxes.

And this is the type of economic climate that will encourage you, as a small businessman, to take that chance and undergo an expansion program?

In the NFIB survey 27% of small businesses - our main job creation machine - say that taxes are the second most important problem they face. One year ago that figure was 17%. There's some change you can believe in. More small business owners worried about their tax burden.

Now Obama and the Democrats want to present their tax increases simply as tax increases on the evil, puss-filled rich. They know this plays well with their voter base. Punish those rich bastards! After all, they cheated to get that money and they don't pay their fair share in income taxes anyway. (Hey, there's a reason Democrat voters are largely poor - and it's not because they weren't "fortunate")

Obama's tax increases will nail individuals making more than $500K a year and couples making more than one million. Who are those people? The Tax Policy Center can tell you. There are about 300,000 joint filers out there who earn more than $1,000,000 a year. Now ... listen up ... 90% of them are small business owners. Can you wrap your head around this? Obama's plans to increase income taxes on those evil people making more than a million a year is going to nail small business owners. Those are the people who create the jobs. If you were a small business owner in this category would you be rushing to expand your business right now? Or would you be hunkering down waiting for the situation in Washington to become more friendly?

Something Obama could do immediately. He could, but he won't. He could put an end to this healthcare takeover right now. He could say that we need to back off and start over .. but only after the economy is on the way back to health and people are once again employed. That would be the mark of a true leader .. .but remember, Obama isn't a leader; he's a RULER. (Remember the "ready to rule on day one" comment?) The last thing employers and investors need right now is the uncertainty of more taxes or higher costs associated with the kind of healthcare reforms being sought by Democrats.

But this is not how the Democrats see things. They genuinely believe that MORE government involvement, more government spending and more government jobs will somehow turn the tide for our economy. Based on history, they couldn't be more wrong. This is from the Cato Institute:

It was the private sector, not a government-jobs program, that transformed the wild American continent into a phenomenally prosperous economy. Before the Great Depression, the Roaring Twenties had prosperity and all-time low unemployment without big government-jobs programs.

If government jobs were the secret of success, the Soviet Union wouldn't have collapsed, because it had nothing but government jobs. Communist China, glutted with government jobs, would have generated more income per capita than Hong Kong where, at least before the Communist takeover, there were hardly any government jobs. But Hong Kong's per capita income was about 20 times higher than that on the mainland.

Increasing the number of government jobs did nothing then and does nothing now to revive the private sector that pays all the bills, in large part because of the depressing effect of the taxes required to pay for government jobs.

Elections have consequences. The last one certainly did ... as will the next one. Are you in the game?

If you will recall back in December, Obama's pay czar announced pay limits for those evil corporations that received bailout money. Employees of bailed out companies can no longer earn a base salary of more than $500,000. Not only that .. but at least half of that salary would have to come in the form of company stock.

Now let's move on to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They have received more than $111 billion in taxpayer money to stay afloat. In fact, the Obama administration has since pledged "unlimited financial assistance" to Fannie and Freddie. Are you sitting down? OK ... then hear this. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Their two CEOs are getting paid as much as $6 million for 2009.

Didn't know that, did ya? Why would you when our lamestream media has been mum on the subject. They felt extremely compelled to harp on AIG and other evil corporations for private jets, salaries and bonuses ... but when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, according to Newsbusters, ABC and CBS offered a total of three brief mentions totaling 175 words and NBC didn't say a thing about it.