More Americans Say They Want Small Government...But...

...is it already too late? Have we unleashed the monsters of the apocalypse on our republic? And, if we want smaller government, why aren't we holding the clowns who refuse to read their own damn bills accountable? Why? Here is the hopeful but perhaps too late news from Michael Barone:

The financial system collapsed. Housing prices cratered. Unemployment is at a record high for the last quarter-century. The Democratic president has a solidly positive job rating.

And yet we Americans have not suddenly become collectivists. The economic distress of the 1930s led Americans to favor less reliance on markets and more on government. The economic distress of the 1970s led Americans to favor less reliance on government and more on markets. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect, as many political liberals have been predicting, that the economic distress of the late 2000s will produce a shift in the 1930s direction. But it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Or so the polling evidence tells us. Last month's Washington Post/ABC poll reported that Americans favor smaller government with fewer services to larger government with more services by a 54 to 41 percent margin -- a slight uptick since 2004. The percentage of Independents favoring small government rose to 61 percent from 52 percent in 2008. The June NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reported that, even amid recession, 58 percent worry more about keeping the budget deficit down versus 35 percent worried more about boosting the economy. A similar question in the June CBS/New York Times poll showed a 52 to 41 percent split.

Other polls show a resistance to specific Democratic proposals. Pollster Whit Ayres reports that 58 percent of voters agree that reforming health care, while important, should be done without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 56 percent of Americans are unwilling to pay more in taxes or utility rates to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

It's interesting that on these issues and many others independents are responding more like Republicans than Democrats. That's the opposite of what we saw up through 2008, when independents were almost as critical of the Bush administration and Republican policies as Democrats.

This apparent recoil against big government policies has not gone unnoticed by Americans. Gallup reported earlier this week that 39 percent of Americans say their views on political issues have grown more conservative, while only 18 say they have grown more liberal. Moderates agreed by a 33 to 18 percent margin.

However, here is where people just seem to not get it. Votes have consequences people. So what the following says about American voters is that, even though the Dems promised to do the destruction they are now doing, you went ahead and voted for them because, well, there's now way they can do all that....uh...hello. Some Wiemars thought that about a paperhanger from Austria, and look what happened:

Voters continue to think pretty highly of Barack Obama. But these numbers suggest that they are responding more negatively to Democratic proposals that have a chance at passage than they did to Democratic platform planks that were, until the 2008 election, only political rhetoric. The $787 billion stimulus package, the cap-and-trade bill's utility rate increases, the public health insurance package -- all these seem to generate more apprehension than enthusiasm.

So does the prospect of doubling the national debt, as the Congressional Budget Office estimates, from about 40 percent of gross domestic product to about 80 percent. That's about where it ended up after World War II. Americans evidently regard our current economic situation, though negative, as not enough to justify the magnitude of deficit spending that was appropriate in an all-out world war.

Folks, if you don't want bigger government, call your reps! Get active in the system! Burn the phone lines to DC down! Call TShirt Ted in Cbus and tell him the riot act! Don't just throw your hands up! The majority is with us! Now get up off your a$$es and do something about it!

Another Reason for the Left to Hate Wal-Mart...

They know how to do economic stimulus right....and they don't need the government to bail them out! Here is the story:

Walmart Stores Inc is awarding approximately $2 billion to its U.S. hourly employees through financial incentives, including handing out $933.6 million in bonuses on Thursday, after the world's largest retailer gained market share amid a recession.

In a memo to Walmart employees obtained by Reuters, Walmart CEO Mike Duke said the retailer is awarding roughly $2 billion to U.S. hourly employees, which includes $933.6 million in bonuses, $788.8 million in profit sharing and 401(k) contributions, millions of dollars in merchandise discounts, and contributions to its employee stock purchase plan.

Walmart is "awarding $933.6 million in bonuses, $788.8 million in profit sharing and 401(k) contributions, millions of dollars in merchandise discounts, and contributions to its employee stock purchase plan.

"While economic challenges forced others to step back, we moved forward," said the CEO Mike Duke stated in the memo. "Duke said Walmart now needs to 'accelerate and broaden all of our efforts.' … A year ago, Walmart said it awarded almost $1.2 billion in financial incentives to its U.S. hourly employees, including more than $636.4 million in bonuses." So if you add that up, $3.2 billion in bonuses the last two years from Walmart.

Boy, the libs are going to be p.o.ed. Capitalism without union domination and subversion doing well, AND EXPANDING! YIP YIP YAHOO! Thank goodness for Wal-Mart.

Hey, do you think the Wal-Mart CEO read the proposal before he signed off on it? I bet he looked it over far more than our idiotarian inept, incompetent, petulant punk of a chief executive looked over the stimulus bill. Where the hell was we will look line by line, etc.? Nice to know they know how to run things at Wal-Mart. There may be hope for humanity after all....

Taxachusetts Looks to Tax Harvard

From our friends at GetLiberty.org:

The elite Ivy League colleges and universities – those bastions of self-proclaimed enlightenment providing much of the impetus for the expansion of government – are now under attack from their own creation

Rev. Harvard, meet Dr. Frankenstein.

Today, the ravenous monster of unbridled government is banging at the door of Harvard University and eight other Massachusetts institutes of higher learning. It seems that the monster has cast its greedy eye on imposing a 2.5 percent annual “assessment” (liberalspeak for “tax”) on colleges with endowments over $1 billion. Harvard currently has a $34 billion endowment – so its “contribution” (as the liberals like to call such things) would be a tidy, tasty $850,000,000.

And one can almost hear the monster salivating.

Now, let’s be clear at the outset here: Americans for Limited Government is adamantly against taxing “tax-exempt,” not-for-profit organizations. For the government of Massachusetts to even think of doing so is a shame and a sham. It is illegal, and should remain so. But, the real story here is the bite-the-feeding hand culture of Big Government, which these liberal institutions are in such large part responsible for creating.

It is, in fact, an irony that cannot be overstated. A 2006 survey of 1,269 college faculty members from 719 institutions from across the country found that college professors are disproportionably registered as Democrats, 46% to 32% for the general public. And they are disproportionably liberal, 48% to 22% for the general public.

That comes as no surprise, of course, to any parent who has ever sent little Johnny or Jane off to college only to have him or her return home spouting some economic balderdash only an ivy hall recluse could possibly believe. Fortunately, the youngsters’ subsequent entry into the real work-a-day world quickly disabuses him or her of such bleary-eyed econobabble.

So, to a large extent, we expect college faculty members and administrators to have only the vaguest notion of the damage they do with the vacuities they teach. But, alas, what happens when those vacuitious chickens come home to roost?

Enter Harvard University’s esteemed Associate Vice President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs, one Kevin Casey, who in response to the Massachusetts’ legislative proposal scrambled to the podium to breathlessly proclaim:

“You’d be taxing success here … Over time, this would put us at a real competitive disadvantage, which would drastically hurt the Commonwealth.”

Well, no kidding, Kevin! Ya think? To quote Winston Churchill, “Here, surely, is the world’s record in the domain of the ridiculous…” Suddenly, it has dawned upon the Harvard literati that onerous – yes, even ruinous – taxation puts those who are seeing their pockets picked on a daily basis at a “competitive disadvantage.”

What do Mr. Casey and his august colleagues think it has done to American business over the past several decades to see their success taxed at the second highest rate in the industrialized world? Do they think it might have put our struggling manufacturing base at a “competitive disadvantage”?

And how about the American family? Do Mr. Casey and his fellow “Havard” Peckniffian poohbahs ever stop to think of the “competitive disadvantage” it puts Mom and Dad at when they have to compete with their own government for the money to buy their children food, clothes, and the very roof over their heads?

Somehow, I doubt it. And, frankly, even if they did, I doubt they’d really care. Because, you see, up until now, the monster hadn’t fixed its covetous gaze upon them.

So, at least now, we can be thankful that Mr. Casey and his cronies have finally been forced to strike a blow for limited government and tax freedom at one of the nation’s most liberal institutions. But, if they truly want to make amends, then like their literary progenitor, “the agony of their feelings should allow [them] no respite.” In short, they have a lot of damage to help undo.

Assuming their sincerity, we have a few suggestions. First, perhaps they might want to drop the all-too-trendy course, “Economics of Climate Change,” and replace it with something a little more real-world – like “Taxing Success: Why It Is Stupid, Immoral, an Counterproductive.” What do you think, Kevin? You seem to have caught on to the concept; now maybe you teach the course to the Harvard students who have been led astray.

But, the making amends shouldn’t stop there. What about all of the illustrious alumni who didn’t get the message against “taxing success” before they went out to do the same to wretched excess? Guys like Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold and Barack Obama? Maybe it’s time they returned to the Crimson for a little remediation. How about “Competitive Economics 101”?

After all these years of watching the deans and denizens of Harvard promote Big Government’s gargantuan appetite, it is remarkable to see them striking a blow for fiscal restraint – even if only in a transparent attempt to assure their own survival. Like the demented doctor of yore, the descendents of the good reverend are now looking into the “dull yellow eye of the creature” they helped create. Now, perhaps, having belatedly learned a lesson they failed to teach, they will finally help euthanize the monster of their own making before he devours us all.

ALG Editor’s Note: Interestingly, Mr. Casey served as the Boston office Chief of Staff for Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA), a big fan of tax increases. Where were Mr. Casey’s principles against “taxing success” then? Apparently, liberals are only in favor of progressive taxation when it does not apply to them. We get it.

Good times, I say... It is about time these liberal bastions start getting a taste of their own medicine. They've been preaching the anti-business rhetoric for decades and only now that Big Government is coming for them, do they realize that taxing the bejesus out of somebody is detrimental to growth.

That New Ad Over in the Sidebar

It has been awhile since I've done a "capitalism post" but with the new ad that will be appearing soon, I thought I'd better do so...

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