Tag: Income Taxes

Hunter Biden Announces that His Taxes are Under Investigation by the Feds…an Investigation Which Actually Began in 2018

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Per Axios.com…

Hunter Biden announced on Wednesday that his taxes are under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware. Why it matters: The president-elect’s son’s foreign business dealings came under scrutiny during the presidential campaign. He said in a statement that he was “confident” the investigation would show no wrongdoing. President Trump’s attempts to investigate Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings have been a central line of attack by Trump and his allies. What they’re saying: Hunter Biden wrote in a statement, “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors.” The Biden-Harris presidential transition team wrote in an accompanying statement: “President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.”

Hunter Biden was the point of the spear in a Foreign Policy scandal which is just a small part of what will go down as the most corrupt Presidential Administration in history, making the Warren G. Harding Teapot Dome Scandal pale in comparison.

Per Breitbart.com,

Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, allegedly acted as the “personal attorney” for Ye Jianming, the chair of a major Chinese energy firm, in a deal to buy a 14% stake in a Russian state oil company facing U.S. sanctions. The stunning accusation was made by Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of the Biden family, during an interview Tuesday evening with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Bobulinski explained that he was to have been the CEO of a new firm, Sinohawk, that was to be a joint venture between CEFC — the “capitalistic side of the Chinese government” — and the Biden family. He said he met with Joe Biden in 2017 to discuss the arrangement, contradicting Biden’s denials on the campaign trail. However, the deal fell through, he explained, partly because CEFC tried to buy a 14% stake in Rosneft, the Russian state oil company. At that time, Russia faced sanctions because of its invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea in 2014. The Financial Times reported that the CEFC deal was to help Rosneft find new markets “as relations deteriorate with the west.” That deal, too, eventually fell through, as CEFC was investigated for corruption by China and other countries as well. Bobulinski recalled that in July 2017, Chinese premier Xi Jinping was in Moscow for meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bobulinski recalled that he was shocked to learn of CEFC’s interest in Russia, which placed Sinohawk in a precarious position. In September 2017, once CEFC had announced the deal to buy a stake in Rosneft, and the $10 million that CEFC was supposed to have invested in Sinohawk had never materialized, Bobulinski grew more concerned. In October, he said, “I did reach out to Hunter Biden … asking him, ‘Hey, listen, they haven’t funded the $10 million, have you done something that I’m not aware of? Have you gone around us? Have you started a parallel discussion with Chairman Ye that I should be conscious of?” Bobulinski said that Hunter Biden informed him, via text message, “I’m acting as the personal attorney to Chairman Ye.” “Hunter Biden is now telling me,” Bobulinksi recalled, “that he’s meeting personally, one-on-one with Chairman Ye in his $50 million penthouse in New York, and if he can’t meet him, he’s picking up the phone and calling him, but they only discuss things in person. “You can imagine my frustration,” Bobulinski said. “You’re acting as the personal attorney to Chairman Ye while they’re tendering for 14% of the Russian state-owned energy company, a deal valued at $9 billion? What am I missing here?” Hunter Biden is reportedly licensed to practice law in the state of Connecticut.

So, boys and girls, wrap your heads around this:

Joe and Hunter Biden are guilty of the very thing that President Donald J. Trump was investigated for by a Special Counsel, his minions, and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House of Representatives: COLLUSION!

Joe Biden lied to American voters concerning his involvement with his son’s nefarious foreign deals, which makes him a security risk to our Sovereign Nation who should never have been able to run for President of the United States of America.

To say that Sleepy Joe is compromised is putting it mildly.

He and his heathen son are both as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

Another thing, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was chosen in May of 2017.

His investigation was underway while the Biden Crime Family was brokering deals for personal gain with our two biggest enemies.

Given the fact that this Father and Son enterprise had been in “business” since Biden was Vice-President, and that several prominent Democrats were on lists to be contacted by the Bidens about certain endeavors, it sheds a whole new light on the sham impeachment of President Trump.

Were the Democrats attempting to cover their own dealings with the Biden Crime Family?

It’s certainly possible.

And, the Democrats’ love affair with the Chinese Government continues to this day with the revelation that Representative Eric Swalwell, a now-Former Member of the House Intelligence Committee was sleeping with a Chinese Spy named Fang Fang (I’m Serious). I wonder if she was any relation to the girl named Chew Mee in the Roger Moore Bond Movie “The Man With The Golden Gun? But, I digress… While they were accusing President Trump of collusion, the Democrats were literally in bed with Communist China.

Calling the Democrat Elite a bunch of hypocrites does not even begin to cover the depth of their corruption.

God protect us.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Another Big Nothingburger: New York Times Releases Unsubstantiated Story Claiming Trump Only Paid $750 in Income Taxes in 2016 and 2017

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment
https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/1310376178063159297?s=20

FoxNews.com reports that

President Trump lambasted a New York Times report that said he paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the past 15 years, calling the story “fake news” and arguing that he paid large federal and state taxes.

“Its fake news, it’s totally made up,” Trump said Sunday during a press briefing less than an hour after the story broke in the newspaper. “Everything was wrong, they are so bad.”

According to the New York Times report, Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $750 in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected and $750 again his first year in office.

The disclosure, which the Times said comes from tax return data extending over two decades, comes at a pivotal moment ahead of the first presidential debate Tuesday and a divisive election.

Trump, whose net worth is claimed to be in the billions, denied that he paid such a small amount in taxes.

“I’ve paid a lot and I’ve paid a lot state income taxes too,” he said.

Even before being elected to the White House in 2016, Trump was heavily criticized for not releasing his tax filing. He has claimed multiple times that he is under a routine audit by the Internal Revenue Service and will release his filings once the audit is over.

“I’m under audit,” Trump said Sunday. “They’re doing an assessment.”

A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, also denied to the New York Times that the president paid such a small amount of taxes – saying in a statement obtained by Fox News that Trump “has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015.”

“The New York Times’ story is riddled with gross inaccuracies.  Over the past decade the President has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government,” Garten said. “While we tried to explain this to the Times, they refused to listen and rejected our repeated request that they show us any of the documentation they purport to be relying on to substantiate their claims.”

He added: “Obviously this is just part of the Times’ ongoing smear campaign in the run up to the election.”

The New York Times did not release the copies of Trump’s tax filings they had received, saying they were protecting sources.

The once-proud “Grey Lady” has become a laughingstock, being driven straight into the ground by Trump Derangement Syndrome-stricken Modern American Liberal Writers and Editors, determined to somehow stop President Trump from being relected.

The New York Times, like the rest of the Main Stream Media, has gotten so desperate to bring down the juggernaut that is President-elect Donald J. Trump that that they have adopted the strategy of publishing unsubstantiated lie after unsubstantiated lie in order to assuage their own hurt feelings after their failure to aid lousy Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton in her quest to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

The depth of their grief and the blind rage of their ensuing temper tantrum has, without a doubt, wiped out any vestiges of journalistic integrity that remained after decades of being the Propaganda Arm of the Democratic Party.

I can remember my late Daddy (Southern colloquialism for male parental unit) bring home the National Enquirer, the Star, and even the Weekly World News from the grocery store, to read with his morning coffee.

Compared to the anonymous source-driven lies constantly being peddled by the Main Stream Media about our 45th President, The Weekly World News’ legendary stores about “Batboy”, in retrospect, now seem like Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalism.

The good news is that the majority of Americas are not buying the B.S. that the MSM is selling.

Average Americans are winning the war against the “New Fascism” of the Tyranny of the Minority and the Propaganda Arm of the Democratic Party known as the Main Stream Media by the sharing of information through Social Media.

Americans are now living in a time when the Main Stream Media’s blatant propaganda is no longer believed at face value, as the evidence which refutes it is appearing in the live videos and photographs being shared on Facebook and other Social Media.

In this age of instantaneous communication via Social Media, Americans have become their own on-the-scene-reporters, often foiling the planned use of propaganda by outlets such as The Times, simply by being there and sharing the event with their friends on Facebook or Instagram.

That contrary and factual information is then disseminated through the use of that same “New Media” to reach Americans from coast-to-cast, nullifying slanted stories delivered through the Traditional Media, sometimes even before they are released.

In this wonderful Technological Age that we are living in, average Americans have the ability to share information at the “speed of reality” itself. A fact which is the cause of great consternation and falling ratings to those news outlets who are attempting to be the Vanguard who ushers in the installation of a Far Left Democrat Ruling Class culminating in a Biden Presidency (for at least a couple of weeks, then they will boot him out for Kamala Harris).

Marshall McLuhan once wrote that

The Medium is the message.

He was saying that mass communication influences the way that we see things and that those bringing it have to be perceived as being trustworthy in order to be believed by those receiving their “message”.

Unfortunately for The New York Times and the rest of the Main Stream Media, their history of pandering to Liberal Causes, the Democratic Party, and the Clintons, in particular, is well-documented and has led to their being dismissed by average Americans as, as Trump remarked, being known as purveyors of “fake news”.

Equally unfortunate for the Liberal Media, is that fact that Americans have become our own news reporters.

And therefore, propaganda does not work as well as it used to.

Americans no longer implicitly trust the Main Stream Media.

By continuing to immerse themselves in soul-searing grief and self-pity over the fact of the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, they continue to distance themselves from the majority of American Thought.

Their Fake News Stories and the rest of their behind-the-scenes maneuvering and other Political Machinations have produced nothing but epic failure.

Donald J. Trump is still the President of the United States of America.

All that the Democratic Party and their Propaganda Arm, the Main Stream Media have left is, now sing along with me, boys and girls, (who remember the song)…

Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinkin’ and Prayin’…

Until He Comes,

KJ

The National Liberal Temper Tantrum Continues: “Astroturf” Marches to be Held Today Over Trump’s Unreleased Tax Returns. Guess Who’s Funding Them?

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

george-soros-quotes

As Americans are scrambling to find our receipts and complete our tax returns by Tuesday’s Deadline, some among us are still participating in a National Temper Tantrum over the Fair and Legal Election of Citizen Statesman Donald J. Trump, who is now serving our nation as its 45th President.

Foxnews.com reported yesterday that

Democratic lawmakers and liberal activists plan to ring in Tax Day with nationwide protests this weekend meant to pressure President Trump to release his tax returns — with organizers hoping for the biggest anti-Trump showing since January’s Women’s March. 

On Saturday, thousands are expected to attend ‘Tax Marches’ in approximately 150 cities, including several affiliated events overseas.

“Whether people support him or not, [releasing his tax returns] is something that people think he should do. I think there is a chance something like this could move him,” said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs at Public Citizen, one of the groups organizing the marches. 

The president’s supporters, however, see the marches — and the persistent tax return focus — as a waste of time. 

In Colorado Springs, Trump backers plan to hold a counter-protest on Saturday. For them, what is in Trump’s tax returns pales in comparison to what could be in his tax plan. 

“Their whole message is they want to see the president’s tax returns. I care far more about his policy than his tax returns,” Trevor Dierdorff, El Paso County Republican Party chairman, told the Colorado Springs Gazette. 

Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, said during a recent House Ways and Means Committee hearing that the pressure on Trump to release his returns is a “political mission,” arguing the kind of bombshells Democrats are seeking wouldn’t even be in such documents. 

The protests, if nothing else, could make for a rowdy scene in cities across the country, reminiscent of the Women’s March on inauguration weekend. 

As many as 25,000 are expected to attend the rally in Washington, D.C. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will be among the speakers.

Two of the largest events are expected in Seattle, site of the World Trade Organization protests of the 1990s. In addition to the expected 25,000 marching in “Tax March Seattle,” as many as 7,000 Black Lives Matter activists plan to come out for their own rally focusing on Trump’s tax returns.

There also is a protest planned in front of Trump Plaza in West Palm Beach, Fla. The protest will move to Bingham Island, directly adjacent to the Mar-a-Lago resort where Trump is staying for the weekend. According to their Facebook page, about 1,000 are expected to attend.

While organic in nature, the marches are being organized under the umbrella of several liberal activists. The partnering labor unions and activist groups range from the well-known — MoveOn.org and Common Cause — to more obscure players like the Endangered Species Coalition. 

Gilbert contends the events could build support for an agenda beyond Trump’s taxes, such as tax fairness and economic justice.

She said Saturday’s events are focused on transparency and accountability, issues that unite Americans — and noted that bills have been introduced in numerous states that would require presidential candidates to disclose their taxes.

The idea for the march has its roots in the response to a January appearance by White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway. Asked her thoughts on an online petition demanding Trump release his tax returns, Conway replied that the White House would not release his tax returns and the issue was of little concern to Americans.

“We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him,” she said on ABC News’ “This Week.” 

The comments lit up social media and grassroots organizers began circulating plans for this weekend’s events.

According to the Facebook post by organizers of a rally in London, the goal is to be “in solidarity with the struggle of our American brothers and sisters and in protest of the xenophobia, isolationism, destruction to our planet, economy and future, and rising tides of division in Europe” and to offer “hope for a more inclusive, peaceful tomorrow.”

Voters may be split on the tax return issue. An April Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll found 53 percent of voters want Trump to release his tax returns, and 51 percent believe his returns are either very or somewhat important to them.

Whether it resonates beyond Tax Day — which is typically April 15, though the IRS is pushing the deadline to Tuesday — is unclear. But Democrats in Congress continue to use tax returns as a wedge issue. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said not releasing the returns would make getting bipartisan agreement on tax reform “much harder.” 

House Democrats attempted to give the issue legs before leaving on recess by filing a discharge petition, intended to force a vote on the matter on the House floor.

“Only with the release of President Trump’s tax returns can we be sure the American people are the president’s top priority,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., in a statement after the petition was filed. 

House Democrats also are pushing for a vote on a bill sponsored by California Democrat Anna Eshoo that would require Trump, as well as major-party nominees, to submit their previous three years of tax returns to the Office of Government Ethics or the Federal Election Commission.

In a much-hyped segment, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow also recently aired a leaked copy of part of an old Trump tax return.

But it wasn’t exactly damning. The files showed Trump paid $38 million in federal income tax in 2005 on more than $150 million. The effective rate of 25 percent was higher than the rate paid by former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. 

As Rachel Maddow found out, much to her televised embarrassment, concerning our 45th President’s Tax Returns, there is no “there”, there.

So, why are these protests being held?

And, who is behind them

In the preceding article, please note the paragraph which I underlined. One of the organizations involved with funding these marches is MoveOn.org.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, MoveOn.org was formed in 1998 as a supposedly “bipartisan e-mail group” in order to send a petition to Congress to “move on” past the planned  impeachment of President Clinton. It rose to national prominence for its strong disapproval of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A Liberal Political Group based in the United States, MoveOn.org has played the role of a National Community Organizer and Democratic Propaganda Machine, whose “foot soldiers”, paid and unpaid, are estimated to number over 2,000,000. The group’s publicly stated mission was to promote “grassroots advocacy” through various political activities including running a PAC, voter registration drives, and political advertising (especially in swing states).

It’s covert mission is more nefarious.

MoveOn.org supported the Democratic nominees for the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and played a part in the failed attempt to stop George W. Bush’s re-election effort, raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates. It is one of several 527 committees who supported John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in the 2004 U.S. presidential election; others include America Coming Together and the Media Fund.

Like numerous other Far Left Political Organizations, a major funder of MoveOn is Former Nazi Collaborator and Hedge Fund Billionaire, George Soros.

George Soros and a partner ponied up $5 million to MoveOn.org, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions in the failed attempt to oust President George W. Bush.

After funding the election of the worst United States President in History, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), the “Evil Puppetmaster” went on to finance the racist movement known as Black Lives Matter, which during the 2016 Campaign, joined with MoveOn.org, in an effort to violate the First Amendment Rights of Donald J. Trump and to prevent him from becoming President of the United States of America.

Soros and his minions failed.

Now, they are attempting to exact their revenge through a series of orchestrated marches featuring paid participants.

It should be noted that, according to various sources, during the Nazi Occupation of Hungary in the 1940s, Soros reported his own countrymen to the Nazis (National Socialist Party of Germany), facilitating their removal via “the long train ride from which very few ever returned”.

Soros began his modern “philanthropic activity” in 1979, establishing the Open Society Foundations in 1984. These “foundations” (i.e., political organizations), fund a range of global initiatives “to advance justice, education, public health, business development and independent media.”

It is through this “philanthropic activity” that Soros has funded the ongoing “civil unrest”, the seeds of which were planted in Ferguson, Missouri.

An article published by the Washington Times, on January 14, 2015, titled “George Soros funds Ferguson protests, hopes to spur civil action”, reporter Kelly Riddell went into detail about Soros’ “Community Organizing”…

… Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson, according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations.

The financial tether from Mr. Soros to the activist groups gave rise to a combustible protest movement that transformed a one-day criminal event in Missouri into a 24-hour-a-day national cause celebre.

“Our DNA includes a belief that having people participate in government is indispensable to living in a more just, inclusive, democratic society,” said Kenneth Zimmerman, director of Mr. Soros‘ Open Society Foundations’ U.S. programs, in an interview with The Washington Times. “Helping groups combine policy, research [and] data collection with community organizing feels very much the way our society becomes more accountable.”

…Colorlines is an online news site that focuses on race issues and is published by Race Forward, a group that received $200,000 from Mr. Soros’s foundation in 2011. Colorlines has published tirelessly on the activities in Ferguson and heavily promoted the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and activities.

…Mr. Soros gave $5.4 million to Ferguson and Staten Island grass-roots efforts last year to help “further police reform, accountability and public transparency,” the Open Society Foundations said in a blog post in December. About half of those funds were earmarked to Ferguson, with the money primarily going to OBS and MORE, the foundation said.

So, why is the “Evil Puppetmaster” pouring so much into this Manufactured “Shout  Trump Down” Movement?

Soros is merely protecting his investment.

Per the Chicago Tribune,

Over the past few years, Soros’ charities have given between $1.5 million and $6 million to the Clinton Foundation. Soros’s biggest contribution this year is a total of $7 million to Priorities USA, the main super-PAC supporting Clinton. Another $1 million went to American Bridge, an opposition-research group. And last week [actually months ago], he announced he was putting $5 million into a new super-PAC known as Immigrant Voters Win. The group is part of a coordinated $15 million voter-turnout effort, first reported in the New York Times, that is targeting Latinos and immigrants in Colorado, Nevada and Florida.

As I have previously written, I firmly believe that America is now fighting a new war against fascism.

It’s not a war that is being fought with guns and bullets, But instead with state referendums, Congressional votes, Executive Orders, judicial activism, and FAR Left-sponsored and organized Political Activists.

And, it’s not our Brightest and Best who are dying on this field of battle, but rather, it is our Constitutional Freedoms which are dying an ignoble death, pierced by the arrows of socialism and political correctness.

Whether Soros and his paid-off “Special Snowflakes” like him or not, does not matter.

Donald J. Trump was legally elected as the next President of the United States of America.

These repeated attempts to circumvent the will of the American People though these Orchestrated protests is an exercise in intimidation that has not been seen since the days of the Russian Revolution and Germany’s National Sociality Party.

Gorge Soros will not stop until President Trump and the American Values which he represents have been eliminated for the National Scene and we are returned to the rule of a figurehead of his choice and the anti=-America Culture which Soros attempted to install during the reign of Barack Hussein Obama.

Soros almost bankrupted Great Britain.  In fact, he is well-known and despised in several European Nations for his Machiavellian Machinations.

And now, desperate after the loss of his next Presidential Puppet, the Queen of Mean, Hillary Clinton, Soros has thrown caution to the wind and has become more overtly involved in the attempt to depose President Trump than ever before.

George Soros is a traitorous, evil kingmaker who needs to be deported immediately for the continued strength and stability of our Sovereign Nation.

Of course, do not attempt to tell a Modern American Liberal that.

After all, it’s not Fascism when they do it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama’s Tax Revenues Set Record. Economy Still Stinks.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

monopoly2Obama’s second term economic policy is based on the Beatles song, Taxman:

Let me tell you how it will be. It’s one for you, nineteen for me.

CSMonitor.com has the story:

An impasse over the shape of the federal budget keeps boiling down to this basic plotline: Democrats say the solution to high deficits must include more tax revenue, while Republicans say the fundamental problem is spending.

Failure to reach a middle ground has prompted automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester” to go into effect. This wasn’t Plan A, or even Plan B, for either side.

As the politicians look for a way forward, conservative lawmakers say that new budget projections make their case for them. Federal tax revenue is forecast to hit a record $2.7 trillion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

“Spending is the problem, which means cutting spending is the solution. It’s that simple,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State on Saturday, as she gave congressional Republicans’ weekly address to the nation. She cited the CBO forecast of record revenues.

Case closed?

Not so fast. The budget numbers tell a more complicated story – one that makes fiscal politics difficult for both parties.Yes, if $2.7 trillion in revenue materializes this year, that would set a record. It would surpass the prior peak of $2.6 trillion, set back in fiscal year 2007 before the recession began.

But that doesn’t mean federal tax receipts are fully back to normal.

Economists generally compare taxes and spending to the size of overall economy. That’s because demands on government often increase as the economy grows and population rises. And the value of tax receipts needs to be adjusted for inflation, to give a real sense of purchasing power.

Tax revenue will total 16.9 percent of gross domestic product this year, the CBO predicts, compared with 18.5 percent of GDP in 2007. It looks as if it will take another year, until 2014, for tax revenue to get back to 18 percent of GDP, which has been the average level since 1973.

But here’s the big issue: There’s no level of tax revenue or federal spending that’s automatically the “right” level. Yesterday’s averages don’t tell us what tomorrow’s should be.

And most signs point toward difficult choices ahead. Entitlement programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are taking up an ever larger share of federal spending.

Is spending “the problem”? Yes, in one sense. If federal outlays could be steered permanently back to their 35-year average of 21 percent of GDP, much of the national-debt problem would be solved.

But the answer is no in another sense. In polls, Americans are generally reluctant to see cuts in those major entitlement programs. They don’t call Social Security or Medicare “the problem”.

That is because Baby Boomers, like myself, understand how a great president can turn around this nation’s economy. We lived through it and we told our children how it happened.

When President Reagan entered office in 1981, he faced actually much worse economic problems than President Obama faced in 2009. Three worsening recessions starting in 1969 were about to culminate in the worst of all in 1981-1982, with unemployment soaring into double digits at a peak of 10.8%. At the same time America suffered roaring double-digit inflation, with the CPI registering at 11.3% in 1979 and 13.5% in 1980 (25% in two years). The Washington establishment at the time argued that this inflation was now endemic to the American economy, and could not be stopped, at least not without a calamitous economic collapse.

All of the above was accompanied by double -digit interest rates, with the prime rate peaking at 21.5% in 1980. The poverty rate started increasing in 1978, eventually climbing by an astounding 33%, from 11.4% to 15.2%. A fall in real median family income that began in 1978 snowballed to a decline of almost 10% by 1982. In addition, from 1968 to 1982, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 70% of its real value, reflecting an overall collapse of stocks.

President Reagan campaigned on an explicitly articulated, four-point economic program to reverse this slow motion collapse of the American economy:

1. Cut tax rates to restore incentives for economic growth, which was implemented first with a reduction in the top income tax rate of 70% down to 50%, and then a 25% across-the-board reduction in income tax rates for everyone. The 1986 tax reform then reduced tax rates further, leaving just two rates, 28% and 15%.

2. Spending reductions, including a $31 billion cut in spending in 1981, close to 5% of the federal budget then, or the equivalent of about $175 billion in spending cuts for the year today. In constant dollars, nondefense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. Moreover, in constant dollars, this nondefense discretionary spending never returned to its 1981 level for the rest of Reagan’s two terms! Even with the Reagan defense buildup, which won the Cold War without firing a shot, total federal spending declined from a high of 23.5% of GDP in 1983 to 21.3% in 1988 and 21.2% in 1989. That’s a real reduction in the size of government relative to the economy of 10%.

3. Anti-inflation monetary policy restraining money supply growth compared to demand, to maintain a stronger, more stable dollar value.

4. Deregulation, which saved consumers an estimated $100 billion per year in lower prices. Reagan’s first executive order, in fact, eliminated price controls on oil and natural gas. Production soared, and aided by a strong dollar the price of oil declined by more than 50%.

These economic policies amounted to the most successful economic experiment in world history. The Reagan recovery started in official records in November 1982, and lasted 92 months without a recession until July 1990, when the tax increases of the 1990 budget deal killed it. This set a new record for the longest peacetime expansion ever, the previous high in peacetime being 58 months.

During this seven-year recovery, the economy grew by almost one-third, the equivalent of adding the entire economy of West Germany, the third-largest in the world at the time, to the U.S. economy. In 1984 alone real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in 50 years. Nearly 20 million new jobs were created during the recovery, increasing U.S. civilian employment by almost 20%. Unemployment fell to 5.3% by 1989.

The shocking rise in inflation during the Nixon and Carter years was reversed. Astoundingly, inflation from 1980 was reduced by more than half by 1982, to 6.2%. It was cut in half again for 1983, to 3.2%, never to be heard from again until recently. The contractionary, tight-money policies needed to kill this inflation inexorably created the steep recession of 1981 to 1982, which is why Reagan did not suffer politically catastrophic blame for that recession.

Real per-capita disposable income increased by 18% from 1982 to 1989, meaning the American standard of living increased by almost 20% in just seven years. The poverty rate declined every year from 1984 to 1989, dropping by one-sixth from its peak. The stock market more than tripled in value from 1980 to 1990, a larger increase than in any previous decade.

For all of you Liberal idiots who dared tried to compare the Manchurian President to the Gipper:  Y’all need to quit smoking the Hopium.

Obama failed efforts toward “fixing” our economy, remind me of Rosanne Barr singing the National Anthem: tone-deaf, flat, and extremely painful.

Until He Comes, 

KJ