Americans are naturally focused on the counterinsurgency work being performed by our forces in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent in other areas of radical Islamist activity (e.g., Yemen and Pakistan). But there are many other insurgencies raging around the world and quite a few of them are primarily criminal not political. That is certainly the case in Mexico and Brazil — both countries that have seen their authority challenged by powerful gangs of drug traffickers.
Many of the same principles that apply in Afghanistan or Iraq also need to be observed in those countries. Chief among them is the importance of follow-through — the need to do not just “clear” operations but “clear, hold, and build.” That is something that U.S. forces have struggled with in the past, as have many other armed forces. Pakistan, for example, has not followed through in the Swat Valley, where its army attacked militants last year. There has been insufficient development aid or security to keep the extremists from coming back.
I fear that Brazil might be making the same mistake when I read about its army and police making a celebrated sweep through the Alemão shantytown in Rio de Janiero — an area that has long been dominated by criminal gangs. My concern stems from this detail in a New York Times account of the recent operations:
It was also unclear how long the military and the police planned to stay, or how long they could.
Mr. Beltrame, Rio’s security secretary and the architect of the pacification program, has previously said that he did not expect to have enough officers to occupy either Alemão or Rocinha, another violent slum overhanging the city’s affluent South Zone, until next year.
If there are not enough forces to occupy the slum, then why bother clearing it in the first place? Odds are that the gangs will just come back and wreak vengeance on anyone who was seen as helping the forces of law and order. That, at least, has been the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countries such as Brazil would do well to study the lessons of counterinsurgency as they battle criminals on their own turf.
Are YOU serious? Does this REALLY surprise you, Miss Rubin? He flat out told us he was going to do this, come hell or high water. Of course he will do it. It will wreck our country, and it will give conservatives something to bash him with.
The lemmings and guilty white liberals who voted for change are about to experience it. Sadly, so are those of us willing to postpone this “feel good” moment until a more capable and responsible black candidate came along.
This is hardly shocking. One might have thought economic reality might have gotten the best of Obama and we must hope it still may but not count on it.
The extent that this will damage him politically is very difficult to gauge. To be sure it will hurt the economy, destroy jobs, crush portfolios and further depress the housing market since people without jobs or investments will be ill-situated to buy houses. However, the media will blame the resulting economic distress on a “Bush hangover” and the Republicans will have to be nimble, sharp and persistent to take political advantage.
It will “be his first sigificant misstep” unless it’s made to seem to work. If and when the economy comes out of recession anyway, he’ll take credit for it, whether or not conservatives claim that whatever recovery would have been quicker or stronger under a different tax regime.
If the economy is merely sputtering, or worse, heading into 2010, he’ll start looking vulnerable, at which point, at latest, there’s another set of big tax fights already baked into the cake. In the meantime it will be tempting for his critics, as above, to predict catastrophe, and risk putting themselves in the same position as Clinton’s and Reagan’s first-term opponents.
The only way for the Republican party to gain Jewish votes is to advocate Palestanian rights. Say what you will about Jimmy Carter, he knows which side his bread is buttered on. If Jimmy Carter is to run for president today, I wouldn’t be surprised if he still gets majority of Jewish votes. And more importantly, by advocating Palestanian rights, the Republican party will secure the votes of moderate muslims, necessary for a Republican victory.
Well, Clinton and Reagan’s first term oponents made out pretty well in the midterms. I’m counting on no such result until I see some indications of philosophical coherence and political savy from Republicans.
On balance I prefer a moderte Obama who doesn’t trash the country but will believe in the existance of one when I see him.
It will be interesting to see who will be willing to preside over the implosion of the American economy as Treasury Secretary if Barry sticks to his guns. Surely no one with a reputation for professional competence. Maybe Jim Moran is available for the job, assuming Barry and Rahm aren’t embarrassed by the brownshirt regalia.
Mr. Obama’s priority is narrowing the income gap. In order to achieve that, he has to take more from those who make more.
Simple as that.
On an individual level a $1,000 tax rebate, or unearned tax credit will do little to junp-start the economy. After all, that’s only about 3 – 4 days worth of good cocain and that’s an imported product anyways.
By the time he and the Democratic Congress get around to this the 5% will have already moved their assets and businesses to another country and you can count those jobs and tax money out.
For people who haven’t done the math, giving $1000 to each person making less than $200,000 as Obama has stated he will do, means every person making over $250,000 will pay on average $67,000 more in taxes. That’s based on 2006 IRS statistics.
The total bill for this will be $134.3 Billion per year. So what we should expect is a) the tax cuts will be much smaller than proposed or b) the budget deficit will go up much more than expected.
In any case, the impact of a tax like this will certainly cost jobs and many of them.
#5 Are you kidding? There aren’t enough (moderate muslims). It’s not even on the radar. Hispanics are the only group that will be catered to in raw numbers.
The fact that they are talking about charging ahead means that Rahm Emanuel is sure that his MSM pals will stick to the talking points and paint opponents of the tax increases as being “for the rich”.
Based on MSM reporting regarding every Bush tax cut, he is right to be sure.
Well Barack Obama won; I wish him well but have little faith that if enacted his stated policies will improve conditions in the country. The first thing that will happen is the so called “Bush Tax Cuts” will be allowed to expire: raising taxes in an economic down turn has never been a good idea and will only increase the downward spiral: couple that with his stated intent to increase the Capital Gains tax (not because it will increase revenues but because it will be “Fairer”) and corporate taxes and foreign/domestic investment will slow if not grind to a halt. Next the ban on drilling in ANWAR and off shore USA will be extended, or made permanent, further restricting fuel supplies, when new greener energy sources are admittedly 10 years away; another drag on the economy. Then a windfall profits tax will be enacted further restricting oil and gas exploration and further limiting oil and gas production. A Cap and Trade CO2 bill will be passed to “Bankrupt the Coal Companies” and the subsidy on corn based ethanol will be doubled requiring us to burn more of the food supply. The price of fuel, electricity and food will skyrocket causing further constriction of the domestic economy; and since we are the market to the world, a world wide slowdown will accelerate. If he insists on renegotiating trade agreements with Canada etc. trade will flow to Europe and elsewhere further depressing the US economy. Canada has already begun negotiations with the EU because of his stated intent to do so. These are the types of things that occurred after the market crashed in 1929 that led to a world wide Depression that didn’t end until WW2 (not a good option) brought us out of it.
“It is a puzzlement, unless we conclude he really is an ideologue who values income redistribution over all else.”
Why in the world would anybody think he’s anything other than an ideologue.
Why do people, including his opponents, keep trying to pin this guy with moderate ideas he’s never held? Read his books. Watch the church videos. Count his votes.
What is his real intent is it to help or hurt the Country.
“It is possible that the Republicans have caught their first break.”
What is this, sports? We all live in this country, and if he deepens this recession or hurls us into a depression via his irresponsible tax policy, I hardly think that any American, whatever their party or ideological affiliations, would consider it a “break.” By saying as much you’ve revealed what your priorities truly are.
The problem I see is that we’re now in recession. If the economy were growing, the effect of raising taxes on the top would be obvious. But with it going down, the effect would be to make the decline steeper and/or last longer. The problem with our economic data is it tells what happened but not what might have happened.
In 1984 when Reagan ran for reelection he bragged that there had been 13 million jobs created in his first term. As a net number, it’s correct, but the fact was that there had been 17 million new jobs; the Fortune 500 had lost 4 million for a net of 13 million.
In other words, Obama’s tax policy will impact hardest on the very firms that create all the jobs!
The tax rate war is over, and our side won. Top rates were 70% for ordinary earned and 50% for cap gains pre-Reagan. We are now at 35/15. Obama wants 40/20. Hardly a return to pre-Reagan.
To be sure, Obama’s tax rate increases are not good economics, especially in the face of a slowdown, but the adverse macroeconomic effect of these modest rate increases will be quite small.
So Rubin was hoping Obama was lying about his agenda – what a great way to start his presidency – with a LIE! Guess what Rubin – conservatives like you – when you weren’t calling him a pawn of the Islamofacists and an Anti-America, we’re trying to dictate to him good strategy – he never listened to you then and he won’t now (if we’re lucky). A better question: does a woman who writes on blogs for a living REALLY have to worry about a tax increase for those making voer $250,000 a year – or is this another Joe the Dumber – bashing the left for taxing money he’ll never make?
Well, your party of chimps is hardly one to give advice on fiscal responsibility, eh? The fact is, even when tax cuts increase short-term revenues, they don’t pay for themselves. In Republican administrations, the shortfalls have been financed by debt, which is irresponsible, and hurts long-term growth. If you don’t understand this, go back and read highlights of Greenspan’s Congressional testimony. Or pick up a textbook. To be fiscally responsible, you need to offset the costs of a tax cut for the middle class, in this case with a tax increase on the richest 2%.
The fact that you don’t understand this demonstrates why conservatives are incompetent to govern. You have become the party of Bush and Palin. Don’t celebrate stupidity and then expect you can pretend you have the smart answers. Aint going to fly, chimps.
OK, everybody, don’t plan on spending that $1,000 on anything extraneous. Once 0bama increases the corporate taxes, you will need that money to cover the higher costs of EVERYTHING you buy, because – lean closer and I’ll whisper it to you – CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES. They do not pay income tax, real-estate tax, car tax, FICA, FUTA, SUI, etc.
Oh, sure, they write the check to the Treasury Department, but any tax, regulatory fee, compliance fee, etc. is just another item in the expense side of the corporate ledger, like office rental, utility costs, equipment costs, labor costs, etc. ALL of these items get rolled into the price of the product or service the corporation provides.
So that $1,000 that 0bama wants to give everyone (even those who have no tax oblication to begin with) will simply go to covering the higher cost of living, increasing the inflation rate, meaning people will want higher salaries, but the corporations can’t afford to pay all those higher salaries, and start laying off workers, who start collecting unemployment and welfare, meaning more tax money has to go to those entitlements, meaning corporations pay more taxes, and they have to increase their prices again, and the whole cycle starts over again.
We’ve already been through this cycle. It was called the Jimmy Carter administration. For those of you who don’t remember (or probably were never told, in the liberal-run public schools) – the higher taxes, windfall-profits taxes, profit caps, etc. resulted in 21% mortgage interest rates, 13% inflation, 9% unemployment. Carter also let communism run rampant through Central America and Africa, let the Shah of Iran be overthrown by the Mullahs (yes, he was a bastard, but he was OUR bastard), leading the the U.S. Embassy 444-day takeover (much better than the Shah, eh?). Then, to protest the USSR invasion of Afghanistan, he boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics (just think, if he had boycotted the 1980 Winter Olympics, we never would have had the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid, reason enough for him to spend eternity burning in hell).
So the second coming of JC (Jimmy Carter, not Jesus Christ) has already been previewed. Excuse me if I sit this one out.
And Jacob, the Democratic administrations have shortfalls because they increase tax rates, but increase spending also, meaning they also have to finance the shortfalls through debt. This process goes all the way back to FDR, so, as intelligent as you consider yourself to be, you ain’t got nothin’ new.
“Chimps”? What a troll pit this blog has become. Are there any grown-ups on the left? Do any of them visit blogs?
““Chimps”? What a troll pit this blog has become. Are there any grown-ups on the left? Do any of them visit blogs?”
I’m sorry I called you chimps. You’re good people.
When you make it more attractive to be poor, and less attractive to be rich, lots of people will settle for poor.
I know people whose incomes fall in the range at which Obama proposes to cut taxes. I also know people whose incomes fall in the tax-hike range. You know what they are all planning to do, regardless of which group they fall into? Defer any activity that would increase their incomes! — and arrange to have less income where exposure to taxation is the highest.
Why make more and subject yourself to a higher tax rate? Why keep making what you did before, and keep less?
A lot of people can keep paying their mortgages, paying off their cars, and otherwise, make do with less in order to pay down credit cards and build up their savings — all without bringing in more income. Some can even plan on less income (like a commercial pilot friend with seniority, planning to take a cut in routes flown), calculating that the effective difference to the monthly budget will be limited, given the taxes in a higher bracket.
A lot of other people can move their investment accounts out of stocks, commodities, and currency, and into lower-yield tax-exempt bonds for the time being. They can arrange for their partnerships to defer bonuses, and make other adjustments to the basis for partner compensation.
Small business owners, already crunched by rising input costs, have an incentive to keep their own salary distributions low.
People on fixed retirement incomes can decide to minimize or cease part-time work or low-income home-based businesses — the kind of income they have declared on their 1040s, and never thought it worth incorporating to improve the tax picture for — and live on less for a while.
So Obama & Co will certainly be able to congratulate themselves that they have gotten the mid-to-upper middle class to live poorer. But doing so won’t cause the people down under the $50K income mark to live richer. Those people are going to be living poorer too, so they can stay in their homes, keep the kids in cold medicine, and build up some cash savings.
And federal tax receipts will go down.
Jacob, I would argue that Bush’s falicy was expecting to increase revenues – which his cuts did do – with zero spending restraint, hell with increased domestic spending when you are fighting a hot war. At that point, how else can you fund anything besides debt. It one of the items that actually angers the right base.
The bigger problem is this. There is not enough money above $250K to pay for Obama’s tax cut. There never was. If you add in the payroll tax it gets worse. So the number is going lower. Personally I figure 100K single and 150K married at the least. Maybe lower. The incoming Obama-ites have made some incredibly stupid economic and tax statements which has the market freaked, and it is beginning to price it in. China is also wondering if its best export market is going to start losing its disposable income, so its market is continuing its tumble. The statement that top rates used to be in excess of 70% are misleading. Capital at that time was more difficult to move, means of production were more fixed, and you really couldn’t do much about it. Now capital moves with the click of a button. China and India have 2.5 billion people and are graduating each year more smart people than we have total students. If we wish to cut our own throats, they might just let us.
Look at business inventories, and look how everyone is trying to move their activity into 08. 09 is getting softer, because business is getting the idea that Obama does really mean it, he really isn’t a capitalist, and when he said he would raise capital gains taxes because it is fairer, he meant it. Already the deferred compensation plans are gearing up. People with money will protect it, not spend it. And then Joe the Plumber won’t have anything to install at the modestly rich person’s house. Grow up people – Obama is FDR – without a global war to bail him out.
J.E. – bingo, I am hearing the exact same thing.
JEM — spot on comments yourself. I wouldn’t be too sure about Obama not having a global war either. FDR had to wait almost ten years for his.
But the government policies seriously appear to be lining up to produce another very deep economic depression. When lots and lots of people are planning to batten down the economic hatches, live on less income, and purchase much less than they have for the last ten years — well, those people are behaving EXACTLY as Americans did in 1932.
##22&23: What these sub-primates don’t understand is that froth at the maw doth not a reasoned argument make. And as for economic history… oy f***ing vey!
I am praying that some grown ups somewhere in his cadre of advisors is at least letting him know he needs to cool the rhetoric. In two or three years he may be able to increase the top rate to 40%, if the economy has begun its rebound. Most people won’t worry about that. But right now, many people feel he is coming for them and are behaving accordingly. The market is an amazing thing. It really exist on the premise that everyone trusts everyone to acknowledge it is there and not do anythign really stupid. It is maintaining a level confidence.
What Hoover and FDR did was break that confidence, and establish policies to make it worse. The market futures today were set for a big day – and it opened as such until more bad economic news hit and everyone continues the filter of I don’t know what the playground looks like next year. I am getting out. The bad economic news wasn’t all that drastic, but it wiped out what – 300 points in an hour or two? Why? Uncertainity. Financial markets abhor a vacuum. Obama, remember when those opposed to your nomination mentioned that leadership is having to make decisions with consequence? Since your election we have lost almost 1000 point – 10% – of the Dow’s value. Your first decisions haven’t been very good. Because now, everytime you or your advisers say something that isn’t “no tax increases in 09″, the market will go down. How exactly do you go after the oil companies with a tax surcharge when their earnings are going to stink next year, because economic activity is going down and you closed off the only areas they have left to search for oil. Trust me, Exxon, has more, better tax attorneys than you ever will.
Those of you that say many of Obama’s targeted upper-income taxpayers are going to lay low are absolutely correct. My husband and I are successful small business owners (2) and fall into the group being targeted to pay higher taxes. We will be meeting with a tax advisor in January to map out a plan to make sure our income stays below whatever the targeted income level finally winds up being. We’ll put every penny we can into tax deferred Simple IRA and SEP IRA plans and will look into deferring additional income by whatever legal means are available. We are certainly not the only ones – all of our friends that are self-employed are saying the exact same thing. President-elect Obama is going to have a real hard time paying for his proposed middle-class tax cut.
Lynne — Indeed. And although these arrangements won’t necessarily inflict painful hardship on you, I’m betting you won’t be doing that kitchen remodel any time soon. Or buying a big new multimedia center for the den. Or buying a new car, unless it’s a business expense and you can depreciate it.
It’s the disposable income of others that keeps most people employed. When millions of Americans arrange to have less income, that’s a whole lot less economic exchange providing employment opportunities. You can’t spend what you put in your IRAs. An individual may have “worth” of, say, $500K, with investments and home equity and collectibles added up — but that doesn’t mean he’s got $500K to spend on Chargers season tickets or an RV, a new spa or a trip to Hawaii.
Plenty of people with incomes well under $100K are already looking to 2010, and the end of the Bush tax cuts. For a lot of folks, it will make the most sense to avoid having an income much higher than it is today. If Obama makes the tax code even more favorable for incomes under, say, $55-60K, and if you can make your mortgage payment and feed the family on that, what good does it do you to move — but only marginally, as would be the case for most people — into a higher tax bracket?
For those who think typical householders don’t think this way, or this far ahead, all I can say is, you are obviously very young. I am willing to bet that just about everyone in America over 40, and a majority between 30 and 40, will be making exactly these calculations and decisions over the next year. 2010 is only 14 months away.