Tag Archives: Martin O’Malley

Is There Room For A Moderate In The Democratic Party?

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The stage for the Democratic Party held a declared socialist, an undeclared socialist, a former governor who taxed rainfall, someone whose issue was bringing the metric system to America, and a former Republican. Jim Webb is the former Republican. He is also known as a very common-sense politician who tends to be toward the middle of the political spectrum. USA Today posted an article today stating that Jim Webb has dropped out of the Democratic race for President and is considering a run as an independent.

So what are the implications of this? First of all, I suspect Jim Webb has already received a number of telephone calls from major Democrats asking him not to run as an independent. His running as an independent would give moderate Democrats an option in the Presidential race. If the Democrats feel sufficiently threatened by Jim Webb as an independent candidate, I am sure he will be told that he is a contender for Vice President.

I seriously doubt that Jim Webb will run as an independent. Although I respect him as an independent thinker, the amount of pressure brought to bear to prevent that run will, I believe, prevent him from running.

However, this has been a very unpredictable election cycle. Stay tuned.

There Is A Third Democrat Candidate For President

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There are three Democrat candidates who want to run for President in 2016–Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley. Bernie Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist. His voting record is generally in line with liberal ideas. Hillary is running on her accomplishments as Secretary of State, and Martin O’Malley is running on his record as governor of Maryland.

Bernie Sanders wants to make college tuition free, end income inequality, raise the minimum wage, and cut taxes for the middle class. There is no mention of how he is going to pay for any of this. He also says he stands for much higher taxes on businesses and rich people. The man is obviously unfamiliar with the Laffer Curve.

Hillary on March 11, 2014, described her accomplishments as Secretary of State as follows:

My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I’m glad you asked! My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know, the remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn’t do that and I’m proud of that. Very proud. I would say that’s a major accomplishment.   Hillary Clinton 11 March 2014

That makes my head hurt, but maybe someone can figure out what she said.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today on Martin O’Malley’s record as governor of Maryland. The headline of the article read, “From the ‘rain tax” to the ‘flush tax’: 40 times Martin OMalley raised taxes.”

Do we really want any one of these people running our country?

Taken To The Woodshed For Telling TheTruth

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about some recent comments by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. On “Face The Nation” yesterday, Governor O’Malley told Bob Schieffer that he couldn’t say that we were better off now than we were four years ago, but “but that’s not the question for this election.” Really? (or ‘seriously?’ as my three-year-old granddaughter likes to say)

Here is the video:

The logical question at that point was, “Then what is the point of this election?”

Today Governor O’Malley has changed his mind.

According to the article:

A day after saying, no, the country was not better off than it was four years ago, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley reversed course on Monday and said, yes, indeed it was.

“We are clearly better of as a country because we’re now creating jobs rathare than losing them,” O’Malley, a Democrat, said on CNN’s Starting Point. “But we have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That’s why we need to continue to move forward.”

He then motioned to a panel that included Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, among others. “Is there anyone on this panel that thinks we’ve recovered all we lost in the Bush recession? Clearly we’re moving forward, we’re creating jobs, unemployment is down, job creation is up. And that job creation would not happen without the president’s leadership.”

I get it–it’s George Bush’s fault. These people are getting so desperate they are becoming comical. We need to make sure no one votes for them out of sympathy.

This is the chart posted at Hot Air:

The Republicans are echoing Ronald Reagan:

I am sorry (but not surprised) to see the failure of the Obama Administration in so many areas. President Obama has done nothing that had a positive impact on our economy, and he has treated many of our friends around the world badly. I celebrate the fact that America elected a black President, but I fear that because President Obama has done such an inadequate job in the office that it will be difficult in the future for a black man to convince Americans that he is qualified to be President.

 

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The Cost Of Raising Taxes In Maryland

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Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley pushed through a millionaires tax that went into effect in 2007 and expired in 2010. Yesterday CNBC reported that during that time Maryland lost approximately $1.7 billion in lost tax revenues. The tax imposed a rate of 6.25 percent on incomes of more than $1 million a year. Approximately 31,000 residents left the state during the time the tax was in effect.

Obviously, there is no proof that the people who left the state left because of the additional tax, but if you look at population growth in various states, you find that statistically, states with the lowest tax rates are growing and states with the highest taxes are losing population (e.g. Californians are migrating to Texas). On December 19 of last year, I posted an article (rightwinggranny.com) about the migration of people from states with high taxes to states with low taxes.

The December article at rightwinggranny stated:

There are also some interesting statistics on what happened in Maryland after the state passed a millionaires’ tax in 2008–there was a 33 percent decline in tax returns from millionaire households. The article also reports that Maryland lost $1 billion of its net tax base in 2008 because of out-migration.

There is a point at which raising taxes is counterproductive. President Obama’s statement yesterday that he would keep the tax breaks for people making under $250,000 a year was interesting for a number of reasons. First, it contradicts his previous statement that it is unwise to raise taxes during a recession (technically we are no longer in a recession, but we currently have a very weak economy). Secondly, it changes the subject–instead of looking at the impact President Obama’s policies have had on the economy, this debate will stir up class envy and paint the Republicans as the party of the rich. This is getting old.

Raising taxes in a weak economy is economic suicide. The Obama Administration knows that and knows that the President will not win this debate, but as long as we are talking about raising taxes, we are not talking about the President’s record on the economy.

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