As the sight of the electoral gallows focuses the mind of Obama and the Dems, they will continue their frenetic spending - or try to - but now aimed at business. Right. But the big question on all of this is how on earth they plan to pay for it, from Obama's $100 billion plan to permanently extend the research & development tax credit to his newest whopper, the $50 billion infrastructure plan. (Does anybody remember Monty Hall frantically moving about the audience at each show's close? The pre-election Obama has him beat.)
For a little insight, here's this gem in the Bloomberg story on Obama's gazillion-dollar stimulus, please-God-can-I-buy-your-vote plan:
"The White House will propose to pay for the new spending by eliminating tax deductions for oil and gas companies..."
Of course they will.
This is the same plan they have to pay for the R&D tax credit proposal. Here's the excerpt from the blurb on Politics Daily:
"It would be paid for by closing corporate tax breaks for multinational corporations and oil and gas companies."
This is so preposterous as to be downright hilarious. Does anyone actually believe it? Hey - let's tax the oil companies - they're unpopular! Forget the fact that it'll increase everyone's cost of energy, it'll sell. And while we're at it, let's tax the Grinch, Darth Vader, mean people - and anyone who cuts me off in traffic!
In the coming weeks, you'll see lots of promises as the Dems get more panicked about their dire election prospects. As the bidding gets more frenetic, you can expect to see even more promised taxes on the oil companies to pay for it - anything for a vote, right? But the fact is that it's not going to happen and if it does, we'll all pay more for our energy, the Democrats' gift that will keep on giving long after the polls are closed.