There are some very stupid ideas emanating from powerful people and political wannabes.
From the powerful, President Obama wants to put welfare housing in wealthy neighborhoods as a tactic to “end poverty.” He obviously wants to emulate the societal “success” of forced busing.
Let’s apply common sense to the President’s plan.
Obama wants to diversify wealthy neighborhoods by requiring land within those neighborhoods be given to the federal government for the building of Section 8 housing. Some existing housing might be co-opted.
This would not be done through any abuse of eminent domain. No, there would be no constitutional adherence whatsoever. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is ready to simply release new federal regulations that would use your tax money to overrule local zoning laws of over 1,200 communities.
If you live your life filled with hate for rich people, this is great news. If you love freedom and opportunity, this is an outrage.
Why would he do this? Because this is Barack Obama’s vision of transforming America. Perhaps he has some idyllic sugar plum fairies dancing in his head creating wealth for those living in the Section 8 apartments.
The reality that escapes this president is that the people whose personal success allows them to afford expensive homes will move. The value of the properties will drop like it’s 2008 again.
President Obama will likely disagree. Why? Magical thinking.
One of the magicians behind this big government onslaught is Julian Castro.
Castro is the current head of HUD and an architect of this plan. He is also reported to be a top candidate for Hillary Clinton’s running mate.
These three Democrats could create as much misery and poverty as the interstate highway system did to the cities it splintered.
Liberal Republicans can be just as damaging.
Donald Trump’s brilliant idea is to stop U.S. companies from manufacturing goods in foreign countries by adding a 35 percent surtax to all U.S. companies’ goods imported from their foreign manufacturing plants.
This idea is as short-sighted as The Donald’s contributions to the disgraced Clinton Foundation. When Obama pushed for a similar plan, business executives took it seriously and made plans to incorporate their businesses overseas, knowing their goods would be unaffordable when punished by Obama-Trump’s tax scheme.
The corporate tax rate is already as high as 35 percent. That’s why Microsoft, GE, Apple and more companies that support Democrats are compelled to bank a combined $2 trillion in foreign banks.
The United States is the only advanced nation that taxes profits that domestic firms earn outside its borders, and liberals such as Obama think it’s “not fair” that they keep reserves. So they try to come up with tax schemes that punish businesses whose employees work to keep the companies profitable.
Brilliantly, Obama has threatened to tax that money at a rate of 14 percent.
Brilliant, if you think GE and Microsoft should be Irish or Bahamian companies.
It’s interesting to note in the Bloomberg Business News compilation of dozens of former U.S. companies relocating to foreign countries to avoid crushing U.S. taxes that over 90 percent of their executives still live in the U.S.
Serious policy makers would reduce the corporate tax rate and make it competitive with foreign markets to encourage businesses to bring the $2 trillion and thousands of jobs back to America.
The problem seems to be politics. President Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986 lowered the top federal corporate income tax rate from 46 to 34 percent. From 1982-1986, the average unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. From 1987-1991, the average unemployment rate was 5.9 percent.
Can any of today’s self-respecting liberals ever adopt successful Reagan policies or is their slogan, “country be damned!”?
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm - 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL