Welcome back to Veep Thoughts, in which Harris discusses an impressive range of topics in a uniquely unimpressive way.
THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON — Kamala Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee. She’s also a woman, and the “daughter of a woman, and a granddaughter of a woman.”
On the issue of protecting firefighters: “One of the best ways we’re going to keep our firefighters safe, is to have more firefighters.” What about fertility rates? “Women are getting pregnant every day in America,” she says, “and this is a real issue.” And inflation? “We have to understand what that means, that’s about the cost of living going up.” The woman has a gift.
Unfortunately, most of the remarks highlighted this week come from before Harris’s coronation as the nominee since she hasn’t done an interview yet. She did, however, release a recorded video with her running mate titled, “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on tacos, music, and the future of America.”
Harris may be avoiding interviews, but she did make her first economic policy speech on Friday. Addressing a crowd in North Carolina, she touted her plan on price controls price gouging, or, as she termed it, “price gaging.”
While the speech was light on details, those who tuned into CNN beforehand heard all they needed to know about Harris’s signature policy proposal. No, we’re not joking.
“We’ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of countries before. Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, etc.,” Washington Post columnist and CNN economics commentator Catherine Rampell said of Harris’s plan to impose price controls on groceries. “It leads to shortages. It leads to black markets.”
She wasn’t the only prominent voice to denigrate Harris’s proposal. Former Obama administration economist Jason Furman did so in a New York Times piece published Friday morning.
“This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” Furman told the outlet. “There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.”
Thankfully for Harris, she has a top-notch communication team ready to push back on her critics. It now includes our favorite political communicator, Ian Sams, the architect of Harris’s disastrous 2020 campaign who is referred to as the “Forrest Gump of political failure” and best known as “the guy who modeled ‘Grillary Clinton’ aprons on Hillary Clinton’s campaign website” in 2016.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Storyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story2024-08-19 09:50:262024-08-19 14:11:04VEEP THOUGHTS: Some of Kamala’s great ideas
Many of our readers sent us a link to a column written by Geoffrey B. Higginbotham, Major General, USMC (Ret.) on the history of the Harris family and of Kamala and her husband Doug Emhoff.
For your knowledge and interest about the Biden VP. Here is a timely editorial that exposes the hidden background of Kamala Harris from the Combat Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee that is posted here with permission of the author. CVFC PAC supports the election of US military combat veterans to the US Senate and House of Representatives. The editorial begins:
Kamala Harris’ father was an avowed Marxist professor in the Economics Department at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Both of Harris’ parents were active in the Berkeley based Afro-American Association; Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were the heroes of the Afro-American Association.
The group’s leader, Donald Warden (aka Khalid al-Mansour), mentored two young Afro-American Association members, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale; they created the Maoist inspired Black Panther Party which gained strong support from Communist China; the Black Panther Party served as the model for creation of the Black Lives Matter Marxist organization Khalid al-Mansour subsequently went on to arrange financing and facilitated for Barack Hussein Obama to be accepted as a
student to matriculate at Harvard Law School.
Following her graduation from college, Harris returned to California and subsequently became the mistress of the 60-year-old married Speaker of the California Assembly, Willie Brown, Jr. Brown’s political campaigns were supported and funded by Dr. Carlton Goodlett, the owner of The Sun Reporter and several other pro-Communist newspapers.
Brown was elected as Mayor of San Francisco, and strongly endorsed Harris’ Marxist political philosophy; he guided Harris’ political rise in California politics, leading to her election as California’s Attorney General. Willie Brown, Jr. was a well-known long-time Communist sympathizer. Willie Brown, Jr. was initially elected to public office with the substantial help of the Communist Party USA.
Today, Willie Brown is widely regarded as one of the Chinese Communist Party’s best friends in the San Francisco Bay Area.
While serving as San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris mentored a young San Francisco Radical Maoist activist, Lateefah Simon, who was a member of the STORM Revolutionary Movement; Simon currently chairs the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board. Simon has always been close friends with the founder of Black Lives Matter Marxist Domestic Terrorists, Alicia Garza, as well as STORM member and avowed Communist, Van Jones. Harris has been openly and aggressively supporting Black Lives Matter Marxists; Kamala Harris is still closely associated with Maoist Lateefah Simon and Marxist Alicia Garza.
Kamala Harris’s sister Maya Harris was a student activist at Stanford University. She was a closely associated with Steve Phillips, one of the leading Marxist-Leninists on campus and a long-time affiliate with the League of Revolutionary Struggle, a pro-Chinese Communist group.
Phillips came out of the Left, and in college he studied Marx, Mao, and Lenin, and maintained close associations with fellow Communists. Phillips married into the multi billion dollar Sandler family of the Golden West Savings and Loan fortune. He funded many leftist political campaigns, and the voter registration drives in the Southern and South Western states in order to help his friend, Barack Hussein Obama, defeat Hillary Clinton. Phillips has been a major financial sponsor for Kamala Harris’s political campaigns for various California elective offices.
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff works for the law firm DLA Piper, which “boasts nearly 30 years of experience in Communist China with over 140 lawyers dedicated to its ‘Communist China investment Services’ branch. He was just appointed to Professor at Yale to school future lawyers in the fine points of Communism. When she was elected to the US Senate, Kamala Harris appointed a Pro-Communist Senate Chief of Staff, Karine Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was active with the New York-based Haiti Support Network. The organization worked closely with the pro-Communist China/Communist North Korea Workers World Party and supported Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the far-left Communist former president of Haiti and the radical Lavalas movement.
Fortunately for Harris, but potentially disastrous for the Republic, elected office holders are not subject to the security clearance process. If the FBI did a Background Investigation on Kamala Harris, she never would have passed, because of her 40-year close ties with Marxists, Communists, Maoists, and Communist China. Harris would never have been approved for acceptance to any of the 5 Military Service Academies, been appointed to a US Government Sub-Cabinet position, or would have been approved to fill a sensitive position for a high security defense contractor. Yet, since Joe Biden was elected, Harris could be a heartbeat away from being President.
The US constitutional Republic is being threatened by the People’s Republic of Communist China (PPC) externally, and by their very active espionage operations within the United States. The People’s Republic of Communist China (PPC), with 1.4 billion people, is governed by the 90 million member Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that has been working with Russia to destroy the US Constitutional Republic for over 70 years.
If the American voters read the background information (in Trevor Loudon’s article) on Kamala Harris, they would never support her election as Vice President of the United States. Joe Biden is suffering from the early onset of dementia and will continue to decline in cerebral awareness; he will never be able to fill out a four-year term of office. Since Biden was elected, the Socialists, Marxists, and Communist who control Kamala Harris, are planning to enact provisions of the 25th Amendment, in order to remove Joe Biden from office, so Harris can become the first Communist President of the United States.
Since Biden was elected, because Biden would not be up to it, Kamala Harris would lead the effort to appoint very dangerous anti-American Leftist, Communist, Socialists, and Marxists to fill highly sensitive positions in the Washington Deep State Bureaucracy. She would fill all appointive positions in the US Intelligence Agencies, in the Department of Homeland Security, in the Department of Defense, in The Justice Department, the Department of State, the FBI, the CIA, most cabinet positions, the National Security Council, and in the White House Staff.
American voters must alert their fellow Americans that Kamala Harris is a very serious National Security threat to the very survival of the US Constitutional Republic; she has been a fellow traveler of Marxists, Communists, Maoists, Socialists, Progressives, and Chinese Communists for over 35 years. President Trump had much more background information on Kamala Harris than we presented here, and he was correct, when he accused Kamala Harris of being a Communist subverter.
Geoffrey B. Higginbotham
Major General, USMC (Ret.)
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2024-08-05 14:14:242024-08-06 12:01:47‘The History of Kamala Harris’ by Geoffrey B. Higginbotham, Major General, USMC (Ret.)
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2024-07-27 07:35:392024-07-27 07:40:5176% of ALL Personal Income Tax Goes to Servicing the $34 trillion National Debt
The Biden administration’s analysis of its revenue proposals for fiscal year 2025 argues targeted tax hikes that disproportionately affect white people would ease racial wealth inequality.
Increasing taxes on capital gains and income-based wealth would reduce racial wealth inequality for black and Hispanic families, the Treasury Department outlined in the analysis published in mid-March. The Treasury points out that white families disproportionately hold assets subject to capital gains tax or are in a higher tax bracket, meaning a hike in those taxes would benefit black and Hispanic families.
The Biden administration argues for taxing capital income for high-income earners at “ordinary rates,” increasing the top rate from 37% to 39.6% for those who earn more than $1 million a year. Taxes on net investment income would also be hiked by 1.2 percentage points to 5% for those who make over $400,000 per year, bringing the total top marginal rate to 44.6%.
“Taxing capital gains at 44.6% at the federal level — not to mention state taxes — would be economic suicide,” Preston Brashers, research fellow for tax policy in the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Before the tax ever took effect, investors would rush to pull their money out of equities subject to such exorbitant tax rates. U.S. businesses would be starved for capital, and business activity would slow to a crawl. Ultimately, corporate income and capital gains income would fall off a cliff, so the net result would be less tax revenue, not more. The middle class and working class would be slammed with mass layoffs and lower real wages.”
The Treasury estimates that white families are the recipients of 92% of the benefits of preferential rates on capital gains and qualified dividends, compared to 2% and 3% for Hispanic families. Only 0.4% of white families, less than 0.05% of black families and 0.1% of Hispanic families will be affected by the proposed rule change on capital gains.
“So, if President Biden’s goal of redistribution is to make the rich poorer, his proposal would be successful,” Brashers told the DCNF. “But if the goal is to lift up the middle class, the plan would fail spectacularly. Note, even the Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center use estimates that imply that the revenue-maximizing long-term capital gains rate is about 28%, so it’s clear that Biden’s proposal is on the wrong side of the Laffer curve.”
The proposal also calls for establishing a minimum 25% income tax that includes unrealized capital gains for those with wealth over $100 million. The Biden administration argues that the wealthiest taxpayers utilize their stake in unrealized gains to lower their total income and reduce their tax liability, but taxing unrealized gains may force many business owners to sell stakes in their company if they are not liquid enough to pay the burden.
“The wealthy already pay far more than their fair share, while the tax burden on large corporations ends up landing on individuals across the economy, including low-income individuals,” Chris Edwards, the Kilts Family Chair in Fiscal Studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF.
The Biden administration also calls for ending a “loophole” that allows families to postpone their estate tax burden by creating trust assets that benefit multiple future generations and are not taxed on the death of the beneficiary. Around 30% of white families receive an inheritance that would qualify as of 2019, compared to 10% for black families and 7% for Hispanic families.
“Left-wing Biden economists seem unable to appreciate that raising taxes on capital hurts labor. Capital and labor work together to produce economic growth,” Edwards told the DCNF. “They are complements. The Biden economists seem to hold the Marxist view that capital and labor are bitter enemies, and that the only way that labor can win is for the government to crush capital.”
The Biden administration is also proposing to expand the child tax credit, temporarily increasing the amount given per child and permanently restoring the full refundability provision. The Treasury argues that it will ease racial disparities since a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic kids have benefited from it in the past.
“These proposals would also increase the fairness of the tax system by addressing some of the features that have historically reinforced racial disparities,” the proposal reads. “Over time, these proposals are expected to increase wealth accumulation by low- and middle-income families and reduce racial wealth gaps.”
The proposal was released in conjunction with calls from the Biden administration to drastically increase spending for fiscal year 2025, adding at least $14.8 trillion to the national debt by the end of a presumptive second term for the president.
The national debt has continued to grow rapidly under President Joe Biden, totaling more than $34.55 trillion as of April 26, up from $34 trillion at the beginning of the year, according to the Treasury Department.
Huge government spending is also putting the U.S. economy at risk of stagflation, with first quarter growth only totaling 1.6% while inflation remains high at 3.5% in March year-over-year.
“This hints at the false view that sadly underlies much of the Biden administration’s economic policy: high-earners only achieve success through luck, and low-earners can only achieve success through government handouts,” Edwards told the DCNF. “That is an appalling, un-American view.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the DCNF.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2024-04-30 15:30:522024-04-30 15:37:48‘Economic Suicide’: Biden Admin Justifies Tax Hike Based On Racial Criteria
The do nothing Socialist Republican Party continued its reckless spending of our hard earned tax money by handing the corrupt Ukrainian government $69.84 billion dollars. This means the Ukrainian government officials will still be able to take their vacations to Italy and Greece this summer and get their pension funds refilled. Also the Ukrainian fire department and basket weaving grandmothers will also get paid.
Does anyone know what happened to all the past tax payer money our republican socialist and communist democrat party gave to Zelensky the president of Ukraine? A man who has blocked new future elections in Ukraine which is on par with the communist dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela.
What’s interesting is that our own government contractors like Lockheed Martin and others only received $23 billion to restock our republic’s weapons for self defense. So House Speaker Johnson and his pal Comrade Joe Marxist Biden continue to put Ukraine “first” and America “last”.
This is the norm for the worthless fraud republicans working with their communist democrat pals in congress. Inflation will never get under control with these low IQ cockroaches running the republic. Which means the value of my house will continue to rise exponentially. Which is good for me but not for our economy.
As an after thought note – The U.S. Army is requesting $185.9 billion for fiscal year 2025 budget request an increase by a dismal $400 million. Not that the Army needs the money considering nobody is joining the ranks of this once powerful patriotic branch of the armed forces.
Patriotic Americans who once considered a military career do not want to take showers with guys who think they are women playing soldier, nobody is interested in the woke indoctrination, even our Space Force is led by a guy wearing a thong and red lipstick.
Americans are also sick and tired of watching the dismantling of history with the renaming of army bases. Even our powerful diesel tanks are being converted into green new deal battery powered shells so we don’t pollute the air of our enemies.
The Republican party has pretty much dissolved into an abyss of Socialist ideology by refusing to block all this garbage as they wander far off the conservative path thumbing their noses at their constituents who elected them.
The real grass root conservative republicans are hard working Americans that have been stabbed in the back multiple times by these scum liberal Republican in Name Only socialists.
Rep. Mike Gallagher has just quit Congress. His final act was to vote in support of giving our hard earned tax dollars to the corrupt Ukrainian government. Good riddance to him.
Rep. Jake LaTurner, R-Kan., has also announced that he will not seek re-election this fall. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, announced in October 2023 she would not seek re-election. She has been collecting a tax payer paycheck since 1997. A career politician indeed.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee and has served for nearly 20 years, she announced in February 2024 she would not run for another term. Lastly Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has thrown in the towel.
So the fake news media will no doubt announce the republicans are losing their grip on power by a thin margin when in all reality nothing has changed in the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. There is no ideological difference between the Republican and Democrat members of Congress. So losing republicans changes nothing. The Communist agenda continues to advance.
I estimate during my 40 year affiliation with the GOP before terminating my R to the Conservative Party of Florida I spent over $250,000 of my own money helping republicans get elected plus I helped raise over a million dollars with my political affiliations in Texas and Montana during the Bush year’s and thereafter after.
My hard work got me some nice invitations such as breakfast in the White House with the Bush administration folks. It was a nice experience to meet Condoleezza Rice but looking back all I did was help advance the socialist destruction of our republic.
Not anymore. We can make a difference though by electing Trump in November 2024. If you want to secure our republic and give Trump the authority to veto all the crap expenditures being pumped out of the Congress vote Trump. Stay strong patriots.
After doing nothing to secure America’s Southern border, reauthorizing FISA to spy on the American people without a warrant, fully funding Joe Biden’s DOJ that has indicted President Trump 91 times, and giving Biden’s political gestapo a… pic.twitter.com/8ZnQB5ry5j
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 20, 2024
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Geoff Rosshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngGeoff Ross2024-04-21 15:02:592024-04-23 06:44:11The Republican In Name Only Socialists Just refilled the Corrupt Ukrainian government Pensions
As we the tax paying citizens of America approach the 2024 tax season, we are witnessing a growing anger against the federal government.
Washington, D.C. doesn’t give a damn about you, they just want your money to spend on everything and anything that keeps them in power.
All three branches of government are wasting our money in different ways.
Big Government Writ Large
Let us look at a list of our top criticisms and recommendations of the Big Federal Government spending troika.
Truths and recommendations (a short list):
They tax us more and more and then spend furiously on things that do nothing for the American citizen. BTW, when was the last time you saw a tax cut?
The growing national debt, now reaching $34+ trillion. Printing money isn’t the answer, cutting government spending, except for mandatory items like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, is.
Spending more and more money to support illegal aliens, a.k.a. illegal migrants/drug cartel members/foreign terrorists/child traffickers/drug traffickers, who are coming across our borders by the thousand each and every week.
Spending billions on foreign wars, with the exception of fully supporting the state of Israel. It’s time to defund foreign wars and use that money to build up our own prosperity.
Buying foreign oil and natural gas when we have abundant amounts right under the ground and off the shores of America.
Investing in private green companies that waste our tax dollars and then go broke.
Bailing out students who took out federal government loans to go to college or university. What are we teaching our children about taking responsibility for their own debts? We need to return student loans back to the private sector.
Using our tax dollars to fund foreign entities, e.g. the PLO, and even terrorists organizations, like Hamas, via our monetary support of the United Nations and U.N.R.W.A.
Funding federal department that are unconstitutional, e.g. the Department of Education.
Stop over paying our federal elected officials, their staff, appointed members of the various departments and their staffs and the growing numbers of federal employees, e.g. the IRS armed agents. Cut the pay at every level.
Wasting our tax payer dollars to attack we the people, via a two-tiered and militarized justice system, that seeks to destroy our Constutional Republican form of government.
Finally, making us taxpayer fund a bloated Executive Branch, Congressional and Supreme Court staff. Cut each branch in half and you will see half the damage done to we the people.
The Bottom Line
Many today are addicted to a bloated, corrupt, and wasteful big government.
It’s past time to cut government and with it government spending.
Time to implement the Fair Tax and get rid of the federal income tax.
We live in the free state of Florida. Florida gets its income from a state 6% sales tax. Florida has a multi-billion dollar surplus.
Get the idea?
Time to defund, defang and damn the federal government to hell.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2024-03-03 15:29:512024-03-04 05:45:42Are You Sick and Tired of Sending Your Tax Dollars to a Federal Government that Doesn’t Give Damn about You?
The winners of November’s presidential and congressional elections will quickly face decisions on extending tax cuts scheduled to expire after 2025. President Biden and Republicans support starkly different tax plans.
Republicans generally want to extend all expiring tax cuts from the 2017 law former President Donald Trump signed. The price tag: $4 trillion over a decade.
Biden proposed extending Trump’s tax cuts for households making under $400,000 annually but said the rest should expire. Beyond that, he would raise taxes further on top earners and corporations. That plan, including tax increases the president hasn’t fully detailed, would generate more than $2 trillion beyond current forecasts.
That $6 trillion gap is on the ballot, and the ultimate resolution will affect family budgets, corporate profits and the federal government’s fiscal health amid rising debt.
If the upcoming election in November is reminiscent of the 1993 movie “Grumpy Old Men” with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, you might want to also re-watch “The Bad News Bears” with another four years governed under what we colloquially call Bidenomics. It isn’t a dollar’s worth of difference between the two parties, it’s more like $6 trillion at stake when you pull the lever in November.
Embedded within this discourse between the two parties lies some potential deception when you peel back the artichoke and really analyze the numbers. You should never be fooled by percentages and always look at the real dollars coming out of your pocket.
Consider, for instance, a purported 5% increase in capital gain rates for 20% to 25% — a seemingly modest adjustment. However, a deeper examination reveals that this type of tax change would translate to a 25% increase in taxes in actual dollars and not 5% as might be reported. This basic arithmetic underscores the gravity of the electoral choices right around the corner.
Here’s an example. If you had a $100,000 gain and paid 20%, you would owe $20,000. If you had a $100,000 gain and now paid 25%, you would owe $25,000. The difference between $20,000 and $25,000 isn’t 5% … it’s 25%! Here’s why this simple math problem should have you think twice come November.
Depending on how the presidential election goes, taxpayers might be paying Uncle Sam trillions more. (iStock)
As a retrospective glance, the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” ushered in a sweeping paradigm of pro-growth tax reforms, marked by several pivotal provisions. Noteworthy among these were the reduction of top marginal tax rates from 39.6% to 37%, a significant expansion of the standard deduction, and the implementation of State and Local Taxes (SALT) for itemized deductions, among others.
Yet, these beneficial measures are poised to expire by the end of 2025, wiping out $4 trillion in tax relief. Moreover, if the current administration’s proposed tax reforms materialize, an additional $2 trillion of burden may be imposed upon Americans already grappling with inflationary pressures.
Consider the ramifications: Under the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” the standard deduction, which Forbes estimates is utilized by nearly 90% of filers, was doubled, offering substantial relief particularly to middle and lower-income families.
The potential reversion to pre-2018 figures if these tax cuts expire at the end of 2025 would inflict financial hardship on many, not just the wealthy. Millions of middle-class Americans would see a pay cut.
Suddenly, the GOP and Democrats agree on taxes Video
Similarly, the prospect of reverting to a top tax rate of 39.6% and the proposed adjustments to raising federal income taxes and inheritance taxes won’t squeeze enough out of the lemons to make lemonade.
Absent an extension, the estate tax exemption levels could plummet by as much as 50%, jeopardizing the intergenerational transfer of wealth painstakingly accumulated by families. You did great the last seven years, so what? Get ready to give it back.
The proposed revisions to Social Security taxes also loom on the horizon, with discussions revolving around imposing a 6.2% unlimited Social Security tax on incomes exceeding $400,000, akin to an indefinite Medicare tax.
The president continues the rhetoric saying that, “I’m a capitalist, but pay your fair share.” Fair share! In 2022, it’s estimated by Statista that 40.1% of Americans paid no federal income tax. Here’s a question? Is paying zero fair?
Yet, these beneficial measures are poised to expire by the end of 2025, wiping out $4 trillion in tax relief. Moreover, if the current administration’s proposed tax reforms materialize, an additional $2 trillion of burden may be imposed upon Americans already grappling with inflationary pressures.
How many of those that paid no income tax got money back in tax credits and other structures from the government. When the president says wealthy people need to pay their fair share what he means is help pay more taxes to support all of those who don’t pay any. Isn’t that right?
It’s not that long before each of us must hit the ballot box in November. Before you press the button and cast your vote, there may be 6 trillion reasons to consider the future of how much of your hard-earned money you keep.
The Constitutional Republic of the United States is currently being run like a Communist Venezuelan “Democracy.”
The interest alone on the out of control U.S. national debt is approaching the annual appropriations price tag for our military and national security defense expenditures.
The U.S. national debt is climbing at an astronomical pace and has shown no signs of slowing down despite the heightened scrutiny on government spending.
The national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — fell to $34,088,375,076,993.31 trillion as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is down about $21 billion from the $34,109,378,375,744.03 figure reported the previous day.
By comparison, just four decades ago, the national debt hovered around $907 billion.
The Congressional House Republican and Democrat Communist ran Uni-Party control all expenditures from the Treasury Department.
So the buck stops with those individuals in the Uni-Party congress approving the appropriations currently burying our nation in debt. Instead of a balanced budget they continue to fund useless back door Continuing Resolutions.
Our fractured political system Is ran by two incompetent political parties with massive corruption and the rampant tax and spend fleecing of the American tax payer will probably eventually collapse our economy.
The fake news media continues to blame former President Trump for adding 2 trillion plus to the deficit for his tax cuts instead of blaming the congress for failing to stop the insane spending.
This intentional internal attack on our republic by the Uni-Party Communists will eventually lead to another civil war in my opinion.
Our founding fathers did make sure to include a 2nd amendment in our Bill of Rights to prepare for and approve of this eventuality.
Right now we also have political prisoners incarcerated for trying to bring attention to a massive fraud election via a peaceful (for the most part) constitutionally protected 1st Amendment protest on the Capital on January 6th 2021.
Now in February 2024, Instead of securing our borders with walls and razor wire the Communists are trying to decide how much money to borrow from Communist China to build walls and put razor wire around judicial buildings in the swamp filled Washington, D.C.
This tax payer expense is for Trumps upcoming banana republic trial initiated by Biden’s Marxist weaponized Justice Dept.
Apparently the Biden Administration is afraid of we the people initiating action to protect Trump from their illegal fraud prosecution of our former President vice securing our borders.
As an example, over 7.7 million Venezuelans have left Venezuela, a nation that the United States Congress and Biden economic policies are emulating.
Where can Americans flee now to escape political persecution and the economic turmoil headed our way if our nation collapses like Venezuela?
My Venezuelan wife was granted asylum in the republic of Colombia for 10 years before relocating to Florida to be with me via the “legal” immigration process.
Let’s not destroy our republic with the Biden Uni-Party Marxist agenda as there is no place else left to go.
The majority of the 800,000 Venezuelans and two million plus Cubans living legally in the USA support Trump.
Those who have been granted U.S. citizenship will no doubt be voting for him. They have no place else to go for freedom.
So take a stand and vote in November 2024 to return Trump back to the White House. Our children and grandchildren are depending on us and Trump to keep them free.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Geoff Rosshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngGeoff Ross2024-02-03 07:25:372024-02-03 15:23:01The Congressional Uni-Party Continues to Bury America, like Venezuela, Deeper and Deeper into Debt
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is directly responsible for massive “waste and abuse” of taxpayer dollars in his handling of the crisis at the southern border, according to a new report by the House Homeland Security Committee first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Under Mayorkas’ leadership, the use of hotel rooms to house illegal migrants instead of taxpayer-funded beds in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, along with the cancellation of former President Donald Trump’s border wall construction, have resulted in massive overspending and waste on the American taxpayers’ dime, according to the report. The report marks the final portion of Committee Chairman Mark Green’s investigation into Mayorkas that kicked off in June.
Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green filed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, a move that Democrats killed. The Homeland Security Committee is set to take up the proceedings early into 2024, a committee staffer told the DCNF.
“In keeping with the House of Representatives’ vote last month to refer articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas to our Committee, we will be moving swiftly into impeachment proceedings in the new year,” the committee staffer said.
ICE projected that each bed costs $142.44 or less in its fiscal year 2024 budget request to Congress, according to the report. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has contracted companies to help house illegal migrants in hotels, a much more costly decision.
“From halting construction on a bought-and-paid-for border wall to leaving detention beds empty and empowering anti-enforcement officials at ICE, Secretary Mayorkas’ reckless decision-making and open-borders policies have led to the waste and abuse of billions of taxpayer dollars,” Green said in a statement to the DCNF.
The administration awarded a roughly $86 million contract to house illegal migrant families at hotels for the cost of $392 per night. An April 2022 inspector general’s report found that “ICE did not adequately justify the need for the sole source contract to house migrant families and spent approximately $17 million for hotel space and services at six hotels that went largely unused between April and June 2021.”
“ICE’s sole source contract with Endeavors resulted in millions of dollars being spent on unused hotel space,” the inspector general reported.
Additionally, the committee’s report found that states are having to bear the brunt of the costs of housing illegal migrants that DHS is “purposefully passing.” Each day, it costs New York city roughly $339 to house each family and $184 for single adults.
“Our most recent report showed how cities and states across this country are paying the financial price of those policies. What this evidence shows is that the federal government is also wasting taxpayer resources on a massive scale. This latest report provides much-needed transparency for the American people, who should not be forced to pay the cost of Mayorkas’ refusal to enforce the law any longer,” Green said.
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http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-12-21 10:56:552023-12-21 10:59:01Mayorkas Enabled Huge ‘Waste And Abuse’ Of Taxpayer Dollars In Handling Of Border Crisis, GOP Probe Finds
Reminiscent of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars Obama dispersed to failed green energy ventures, a struggling solar energy company that received millions from the Biden administration is about to fold. The northern California firm is called SunPower and it is dedicated to energy storage and solar power. Last summer the Department of Energy (DOE) gave it a $6.7 million grant and earlier this year it received a $1.4 million contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This week SunPower shares are down sharply following a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing warning of “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue operating.
Public funds poured into its coffers as part of an aggressive—and costly—plan to make America green. It began when Biden was vice president and, though the Trump administration halted funding such dubious projects, the money resumed flowing under Biden despite documented failures that have fleeced the American public out of huge sums. They include bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, among the most marked failures in the Obama-Biden administration’s effort to force costly alternative energy on consumers. The northern California company received an outlandish $529 million from the government despite the “serious concerns” of U.S. Treasury officials about the risky investment. The controversial deal was suspiciously rushed through for a politically connected entrepreneur that raised large amounts for Obama’s campaign. Judicial Watch investigated the Solyndra scandal and sued both the Obama and Biden administrations for records involving the costly back door deals that led to the loss of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
A number of other green energy endeavors also failed to take off after receiving hefty investments from Uncle Sam. Among them is Fisker Automotive, a southern California startup that went under after getting nearly $200 million of the $528.7 million that the Obama-Biden administration promised it. The electric car company assured that thousands of jobs would be created in the region hit hard by unemployment and touted innovative plans to develop two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that could go up to 300 miles on a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. When the government’s multi-million-dollar allocation was announced Biden, then vice president, put the company on a pedestal, saying “the story of Fisker is a story of ingenuity of an American company, a commitment to innovation by the U.S. government and the perseverance of the American auto industry.” Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu guaranteed Fisker would “save hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline and offset millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions…” It never materialized.
Another green business that went under after receiving generous government funding under the Obama-Biden administration is ECOtality, another California company that was supposed to make charging stations for electric cars. After getting nearly $100 million from Uncle Sam, it collapsed. A startup called Vehicle Production Group (VPG) went bankrupt after losing $50 million in taxpayer funds awarded under Obama-Biden. VPG was supposed to create special vans for the disabled that run on compressed natural gas. Here is how the Obama administration justified funding the experiment with public dollars: “This project invests in a socially and environmentally responsible product that will create new jobs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and help the U.S. maintain its competitive edge in the automotive industry.” The DOE eventually took the page down, but the wording is straight from the agency’s announcement promoting VPG. Another scandal-plagued green auto program known as Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) received tens of millions of dollars under Obama-Biden with no results.
The Obama administration also launched a multi-million-dollar program to create “green jobs” that will never exist. Back in 2013 a federal audit revealed that the government has blown half a billion dollars to train workers for the fantasy positions to fulfill Obama’s promise of creating 5 million green jobs over the next decade, which predictably has not materialized.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2023-12-21 04:36:212023-12-21 04:38:12Another Green Energy Co. Failing after Getting Millions from U.S. Government
As Congress kicked back into session following the Thanksgiving break, Republican lawmakers are making their position crystal clear regarding continued aid to Ukraine: if the Biden administration wants billions of additional dollars for Ukraine’s war against Russia, it must include legislation to provide solutions for the spiraling crisis at America’s southern border.
Since President Biden took office in January 2021, the explosion of illegal immigrants flooding America’s southern border has been unlike anything seen in the history of the U.S. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the total number of apprehensions of illegal border crossers from 2021 through fiscal year 2023 is a staggering 8.3 million. This does not count the number of individuals who escaped capture (gotaways) during the same time period, which is estimated at 1.7 million. Therefore, the number of illegal border crossers during Biden’s presidency so far is over 10 million, a total that is larger than the individual populations of 41 states.
Notably, this number includes 1,586 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) that were apprehended. In fiscal year 2023, 736 KSTs were captured, the largest number ever recorded in a single year. In addition, almost 50,000 criminal noncitizens were apprehended during fiscal year 2023, the largest total in history. Alarmingly, the 1.7 million gotaways over the last three years is only an estimate, so it is unknown how many more KSTs and other criminal noncitizens managed to escape detection and enter the U.S. interior.
The rate of illegal border crossers shows no signs of slowing. On Monday, Fox News reported on trains seen in Mexico heading to the U.S. with hundreds of migrants openly riding on the top of rail cars. In addition, CBP announced they would be temporarily shutting down vehicle processing at ports of entry in Texas and Arizona in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol in taking illegal border crossers into custody. Just last week, CBP reported 15,300 illegal crossings at the Tucson Sector in Arizona, the highest ever weekly total.
The crisis has led Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), to demand that the Biden White House do something to stem the tide as a condition of continuing to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia. On Monday, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to discuss the situation.
“[We need more than] just legislative fixes, because we have a lawless administration,” he contended. “We have a president that wants an open border. And so we do need to change the law … [such as a] Return to Mexico policy … but we absolutely must make any funding to Ukraine contingent on actually securing the border. And that means benchmarks, metrics. The metric we should use is [the] number of migrants entering America, no matter how they come in, whether they’re encountered and processed and released, or whether we detect them as gotaways. … So, no [Ukraine] funding until you actually achieve those benchmarks on a month-by-month basis.”
Johnson went on to argue that the border crisis will not be solved simply by throwing more money at the issue, which the Biden administration has argued in favor of.
“[Q]uite honestly, providing this administration more money at the border, they’re just going to speed up the processing and dispersing,” he pointed out. “That’s been their whole goal. That’s why they think their policy is [a] success. [They say] we don’t have a crisis on the border. [They]’ve just gotten really efficient at encountering, processing, dispersing more than six million illegal immigrants into this country during their administration. So no, we don’t need [to give them more] money for the border.”
As to the question of whether at least 41 GOP senators will hold the line on the southern border crisis, Johnson expressed uncertainty, while also emphasizing the severity of the border issue.
“I’ve been making the point now for literally months that we need to stop taking whatever the Democrats want and finding just enough Republicans to join them to pass their priorities,” he underscored. “That has to end … particularly when you’re looking at an open border being a clear and present danger to America. Democrats [and] the president obviously want funding for Ukraine. A lot of Republicans do. I’m certainly sympathetic with the courageous people of Ukraine. But what must come first is our own homeland, our own national security. … So you’ve got to set your priorities, and our top priority has to be to secure that border. This is the only leverage we have with a lawless administration. We must use that leverage. And so all we have to do is make sure that 41 Republicans deny cloture on any bill that doesn’t include strong metrics that require … President Biden to secure the border [and] meet those metrics before money starts flowing.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-11-29 14:20:592023-12-01 04:15:48GOP to Biden: No Ukraine Funding until Southern Border Is Secure
The Republican Study Committee’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget will propose amending key welfare programs, including several that provide cash directly to recipients.
The budget, excerpts of which were obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller ahead of its Wednesday release, directs all federal welfare programs to include work requirements and limits cash payouts to recipients. It also converts several programs into state block grants and eliminates marriage penalties throughout the welfare system.
“For too long, the Left has pushed Americans into dependency on government welfare programs. Strengthening work requirements for those receiving government benefits empowers individuals through a good job and raises them up from dependency to self-sufficiency,” RSC Budget and Spending Task Force Chair Ben Cline said in a statement to the Daily Caller. “People want to support themselves and their families rather than prolong their economic hardship. It’s time to get Americans back to work and leave the disastrous policies of President Biden and the Left in the past.”
Government handouts during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic have helped contribute to labor shortages, economists generally agree. COVID-19 relief packages initially gave recipients a $600 supplement to their unemployment insurance, effectively an increase of $15 per hour. Many Republican-led states ultimately rejected the American Rescue Plan’s unemployment expansion, and their job numbers rebounded faster than those states that maintained the expansion.
The RSC budget would cap unemployment insurance payouts at the recipient’s previous salary level. It also mandates that work-eligible recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families actually be employed. The current structure of the program requires states to meet a certain workforce participation rate in order to receive funding that they can then distribute. The RSC plan also prohibits states from using TANF funds to pay for other programs.
In addition to strengthened work requirements, the RSC budget also promotes marriage by eliminating tax penalties for married couples who access welfare programs and entitlements. Economists from across the political spectrum have noted that cohabiting adults living just above the poverty line receive more benefits from programs like Medicaid, SNAP, the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit than married couples.
House Republicans are already gearing up for a protracted battle with the Senate and White House over the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations process. The Fiscal Responsibility Act set budget caps for FY2024 discretionary domestic spending at FY2022 levels, and limits FY2024 defense spending to a 3.3 percent increase. Some members, however, want to limit all discretionary spending to FY2022 levels, a goal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Appropriations Committee chairwoman Kay Granger have said that they will pursue by writing appropriations below the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s caps.
Senators in both parties have argued for spending levels to be set at the caps, with Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Susan Collins of Maine saying members would “go up to” the caps. Others, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, worry that a House budget would limit defense spending.
The RSC budget would cut spending by $16.3 trillion over ten years, according to an RSC aide, and reduce taxes by $5.1 trillion over the same period.
Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard that President Joe Biden has nominated to head the World Bank, told Axios Wednesday that both the bank and the private sector needed to spend “trillions” to combat both climate change and poverty.
Banga has been aggressively campaigning for the job, meeting with officials from 37 different governments in the past three weeks, Axios reported. The World Bank faces competing pressure from wealthy and developing countries over whether to focus on combating climate change or poverty mitigation, but Banga said he does not view the two goals as inherently opposed to one another.
“I think it’s a fallacious argument that says, either-or,” Banga said to Axios. “I have every intention of focusing the bank and its people on the idea that this is an intertwined challenge.”
The efforts to combat both climate change and poverty would cost “trillions of dollars a year” each, and the private sector would need to be a “constructive part of the solution,” Banga told Axios.
A group of developing nations including Russia, China and Iran signed a letter in February calling for the World Bank to “avoid measures” that might jeopardize its triple-A credit rating, the Financial Times reported. Banga said that the “only way” the World Bank can effectively combat climate change is if it maintains its triple-A rating, according to Axios.
Biden’s decision to nominate Banga, a former Wall Street executive with little background in climate issues, drew significant pushback from some environmentalists, who had been calling for a nominee that would aggressively tackle climate issues.
Banga was nominated after Trump appointee David Malpass — who is married to Daily Caller News Foundation president Adele Malpass — announced he would step down early from his role as the bank’s head on June 30.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-04-01 08:26:132023-04-01 08:45:55Biden’s World Bank Pick Calls For ‘Trillions’ In Climate Spending
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reelection campaign spent over $1.6 million to oppose a climate initiative that would raise taxes on millionaires to help low-income Californians buy electric cars. Despite this, Newsom, who is a multimillionaire, has previously touted his administration’s efforts to rapidly cut carbon emissions and get more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road.
Newsom, who boasts an estimated net worth of around $20 million, signed a bill in September to codify ambitious emissions reduction targets and praised the California Air Resources Board’s decision to ban all gasoline-powered car sales by 2035. However, Newsom’s campaign gave $1,617,216 to the “No on 30” committee, which opposes Proposition 30, a ballot measure that institutes an additional 1.75% tax on individuals that make over $2 million a year to help disadvantaged Californians buy EVs, according to campaign finance disclosures filed Tuesday.
Newsom aims to make his state’s auto industry “all-electric” by 2035 and will spend $10 billion of taxpayers’ money to “aggressively fight the climate crisis” by phasing out gas cars and building EV infrastructure. The Democrat called Proposition 30 an irresponsible “special interest carve-out” and argued that the proposed law was designed to “funnel” state income tax to Lyft, a large rideshare company, according to a statement Newsom’s campaign provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Newsom aims to make his state’s auto industry “all-electric” by 2035 and will spend $10 billion of taxpayers’ money to “aggressively fight the climate crisis” by phasing out gas cars and building EV infrastructure. The Democrat called Proposition 30 an irresponsible “special interest carve-out” and argued that the proposed law was designed to “funnel” state income tax to Lyft, a large rideshare company, according to a statement Newsom’s campaign provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“California’s tax revenues are famously volatile, and this measure would make our state’s finances more unstable − all so that special interests can benefit,” Newsom said in the statement. “Californians should know that just this year our state committed $10 billion for electric vehicles and their infrastructure, part of a $54 billion nation-leading package to fight climate change and build a zero-emission future.”
A small percentage of California taxpayers would fund Proposition 30’s EV initiatives as only 35,000 of the state’s residents reported adjusted gross incomes greater than $2 million, according to 2019 statistics published by the state’s Franchise Tax Board.
Although the measure could help Lyft by raising money to help the company’s drivers buy electric cars, environmentalists began drafting the measure before the company became involved, CEO of California Environmental Voters Mary Creasman told CBS News. A Lyft spokeswoman previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that none of the $3.5 billion to $5 billion in tax revenue generated by the law was “earmarked” for the rideshare industry.
Californians will vote to implement or reject Proposition 30 on Nov. 8.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-11-03 15:04:202022-11-03 15:08:12Gavin Newsom Shells Out $1.6 Million To Stop Climate Measure That Would Raise Taxes On The Rich
House of Dragon, like its predecessor Game of Thrones, is The Godfather of epic fantasy. Westeros is a land where power rules and individual rights do not exist.
The first season of HBO’s House of Dragon is nearing its conclusion, and the Game of Thrones prequel has not disappointed.
Based on George R. R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood, the new series depicts House Targaryen’s efforts to rule the Seven Kingdoms amid its own internal power struggles. The story takes place about 170 years before the events depicted in Game Thrones and centers on Rhaenyra Targaryen, a princess who’s named heir to the Iron Throne by her ailing father King Viserys. This puts her at odds with her uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) and later her infant brother, who also have claims to the throne.
While I was initially skeptical that House of Dragon would bring back the magic of Westeros, the series has managed to live up to the hype (so far). The show’s writing and acting are superb, and just like GoT, the series explores power and morality through the gritty lens of realism. The realism is conveyed not just through the show’s ample sex and violence, but also the promise that the hero might actually not win or may not do the right thing. House of Dragon, like its predecessor Game of Thrones, is The Godfather of epic fantasy.
Viewers may be pleased to notice that, with the exception of the size of Targaryen dragons, almost nothing has changed in the Seven Kingdoms, even though nearly two hundred years have passed. Armies still fight with swords and arrows. Most of the people are still poor. Soldiers ride horses. Farming is presumably the primary occupation for the vast majority of people who are not lords or ladies.
To understand why so little has changed in Westeros, one need only look to our own world. Though many of us have personally witnessed massive change and innovation in our own lifetime, this was the exception, not the rule, in history.
A Wealth Explosion
Economist Brad Delong has noted that the standard of living didn’t change much for most of the last two thousand years, and GDP figures from Our World in Data confirm this.
In 1 AD, the GDP of the entire world was less than $182 billion (in 2011 US dollars). A thousand years later, global GDP was higher, but not by much—an estimated $210 billion. A few hundred years later, the world’s GDP was actually lower. Four hundred years after that, in 1700, the world’s total GDP was still only about $640 billion.
In other words, the world had changed very little over a period of 1700 years, at least in terms of material wealth.
That changed the next century, however. By 1820, global GDP had increased to $1.2 trillion. By 1870 it was $2 trillion. On the eve of World War I, global GDP was $4.74 trillion and by1950, despite the two most catastrophic and deadly wars in human history, it was up to $9 trillion. By 1998, it was $58 trillion and by 2013 it was $101 trillion.
The evidence for this miraculous growth in wealth is visible all around us. From automobiles and computers, microwaves and laundry machines, to sunglasses, TVs, and cell phones, most middle-class families own goods that were scarcely imaginable a century ago. Things as vital as toilet paper, toothpaste, and hot showers are available to most of the people in the world.
‘Peace, Easy Taxes, and Justice’
It’s no coincidence that the rise in material wealth the world witnessed over the last 250 years coincided with the global rise of capitalism.
When Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, he offered the world a roadmap to wealth creation. It was surprisingly simple. Peace and trade—not brute force, coercion, or the yolk of slavery—was the formula.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things,” Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
The formula might be simple, but its execution is not. The world of Westeros shows us why.
While many of the characters in Game of Thrones and House of Dragon are interesting, and some are even good, it’s impossible to miss that Westeros is a land defined by war, injustice, power, and plunder.
In the first season of Game of Thrones, we see the Crown is basically bankrupt. King Robert is spending money the Crown doesn’t have, and “beggaring” the realm in the process, placing an immense burden on his people (who will eventually be the ones to pay off the Crown’s debts). Over the course of eight seasons, viewers witness what is largely a bloody power struggle to rule.
House of Dragon offers its own examples. We quickly see that the Crown is a source of aggression, not benevolence. In the very first episode, Daemon Targaryen, the king’s brother, descends on Flea Bottom (the most poverty-stricken party of King’s Landing) with his Gold Cloaks (i.e. the city watch) to bring “law and order” to the district.
“My brother’s city has fallen into squalor. Crime of every breed has been allowed to thrive,” he says. “No longer. Beginning tonight, King’s Landing will learn to fear the color gold.”
In the darkness, men are accused by the Gold Cloaks—”thief!” “raper!”—and rounded up. They are not tried, but executed on the spot. Daemon himself takes at least one man’s head. All it takes is the accusation from a Gold Cloak.
While there is some fuss the next day over Daemon’s actions, the king’s council ultimately overlooks the carnage, reasoning that Daemon’s actions, draconian though they may be, project strength and power.
This is why nothing changes in Westeros. It’s a land where power rules and individual rights do not exist. Whatever wealth people manage to accumulate can simply be taken from them by anyone—whether it be their lord, pirates, or the Crown itself—who has more power than they do. The king’s justice is rarely to be found.
Adam Smith was correct when he observed that the formula to wealth creation is surprisingly simple: easy taxes, peace and the adequate administration of justice. But Westeros shows us this is hardly easy to achieve, especially where power is concentrated and those who wield it are rarely held accountable.
Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-10-17 14:23:032022-10-17 14:24:59What House Of Dragon Can Teach Us About Power And Wealth Creation
