comMITTed to Romney!

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

A president of the United States orders the chief executive officer of General Motors to resign. The same president is further ordering Chrysler to merge with Fiat, the Italian firm specializing in flimsy cardboard boxes on wheels.

This new reality should send a chill down the spines of all Americans. The federal government has begun to run U.S. companies.

President Obama said Monday, “my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan.”

To that confident assertion he added these stern sentiments:

“They must ask themselves: Have they consolidated enough unprofitable brands? Have they cleaned up their balance sheets, or are they still saddled with so much debt that they can’t make future investments? Above all, have they created a credible model for how not only to survive, but to succeed in this competitive global market?”

Who is in a better position to know the answers to these questions? Rick Wagoner, the GM CEO for nine years and former GM chief financial officer who has been with the automaker since the late 1970s, even running one of its foreign affiliates in Brazil, and who holds a Harvard Business School MBA?

Or President Obama, a former community activist from the south side of Chicago with a great rhetorical gift?

The president answered that question this week by ordering Wagoner’s firing.

Imagine if it were not GM, but your own small business employing a handful of people.

How would you like the country’s highest-ranking elected officeholder telling you that he and “my team” know better than you about cleaning up your balance sheets and competing against your rivals? How would you like being ordered by the government to fire the person you hired as manager of your company?

Does an entity that is itself $11 trillion (and climbing) in debt have any right to criticize a private business for owing tens of billions, let alone to claim it can do better running that business?

The same arrogance was heard regarding Chrysler. The president announced that, “we’ve determined, after careful review, that Chrysler needs a partner to remain viable.” Why was Fiat picked? Because the Italian firm “after working closely with my team, has committed to building new fuel-efficient cars and engines right here in the United States.”

In other words, its politics are right.

The merger will operate under a deadline with Washington holding a gun to Chrysler’s head: “We’ll give Chrysler and Fiat 30 days to . . . reach a final agreement,” the president said. “But if they and their stakeholders are unable to reach such an agreement, and in the absence of any other viable partnership, we will not be able to justify investing additional tax dollars to keep Chrysler in business.”

It should now be clear: Federal bailout funds are a corporate narcotic. Once a company starts taking them, a chemicallike dependence develops. The addict does whatever will bring in more of the drug. Ultimately, like heroin, the short-term euphoria gives way to decreased function for the recipient, even destruction.

More importantly for the American people, letting Uncle Sam become a corporate drug dealer — with taxpayer money the addictive poison being peddled — also places Washington in a position of dictatorial control over the private sector.

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Do we even need to say “We told you so?”

CEO Waggoner is gone, they are talking pre-packaged bankruptcy, Larry Kudlow at CNBC is going ballistic over the need to restructure the auto industry’s cost structure and lo and behold, Mitt Romney looks like a rocket scientist because he flat out nailed it in his Op-Ed piece in the NYT, that goes back to November of last year.

As you now, we are all unabashed Mitt Romney partisans here at Committed to Romney and today’s developments clearly demonstrate why that is so.

~~John Cronin~~

The New York Times

By: Mitt Romney

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

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In the weeks after Obama’s election I thought there was at least a chance that he had played the Left big time. I thought, this guy talked the talk and walked the walk for over twenty years, courting the lefties to get there help in ringing the doorbells, stuffing the envelops and writing the checks to fund his campaigns but now that he is securely ensconced in the Oval Office, he doesn’t return their phone calls anymore.

That was then and this is now. Since the Inauguration, Obama has lived up to his advance billing as the most leftist President to ever occupy the White House and he is getting the reaction that we conservatives have been predicting for weeks: Tea Parties. Everywhere. On a shoestring. In parks. On waterfronts. College kids organizing events. Retirees. Stay at home Moms.

Any successful politician has got to have a good feel for what the folks are thinking, what they want from government. The current occupant of the Oval Office is either the most tin eared President ever, or he knows full well exactly what he is trying to accomplish and is openly defying the will of the taxpayers in order to pull off an internal coup and hand this country over to the Socialists who have been trying to bring this country to it’s knees for over a century.

The strength and ferocity of the expected backlash is something to behold. It reminds me of the days after 911, when people around the country started flying American flags, on their cars, the front porches of their homes, applying them to their clothing. Nobody told them to do it, it just seemed to come naturally. The Tea Parties have developed the same way. Because Obama’s reckless policies produced such a potentially explosive mixture, all the mixture needed was a spark to set off an explosion. As you all know, that spark was provided by CNBC’s Rick Santelli. Now it’s a movement.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2199738/posts

By: Patrick J. Buchanan

In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives.

Yet, his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the right.

The real Mr. Obama has stood up, and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the United States Senate.

Barack has no mandate for this. He was even behind John McCain when the decisive event that gave him the presidency occurred — the September collapse of Lehman Brothers and the market crash.

Republicans are under no obligation to render bipartisan support to this statist coup d’etat. For what is going down is a leftist power grab that is anathema to their principles and philosophy.

Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21 percent of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II.

Add that 28 percent of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12 percent spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40 percent of the economy in 2009.

We are not “headed down the road to socialism.” We are there.

Since the budget was released, word has come that the U.S. economy did not shrink by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but 6.2 percent. All the assumptions in Mr. Obama’s budget about growth in 2009 and 2010 need to be revised downward, and the deficits revised upward.

Look for the deficit for 2009 to cross $2 trillion.

Who abroad is going to lend us the trillions to finance our deficits without demanding higher interest rates on the U.S. bonds they are being asked to hold? And if we must revert to the printing press to create the money, what happens to the dollar?

As Americans save only a pittance and have lost — in the value of homes, stocks, bonds and other assets — $15 trillion to $20 trillion since 2007, how can the people provide the feds with the needed money?

In his speech to Congress, Mr. Obama promised new investments in energy, education and health care. Every kid is going to get a college degree. We’re going to find a cure for cancer.

Who is going to pay for all this?

The top 2 percent, the filthy rich who got all those Bush tax breaks, say Democrats. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.

Those paying a federal tax rate of 35 percent will see it rise to near 40 percent and will lose a fifth of the value of their deductions for taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

Yet, two-thirds of small businesses are taxed at the same rate as individuals. Consider what this means to the owner of a restaurant and bar in Los Angeles open from noon to midnight, where a husband and wife each put in 80 hours a week.

At year’s end, the couple finds they have actually made a profit of $500,000 that they can take home in salary.

What is the Obama-Schwarzenegger tax take on that salary?

Their U.S. tax rate will have hit 39.6 percent.

Their California income tax will have hit 9.55 percent.

Medicare payroll taxes on the proprietor as both employer and salaried employee will be $14,500. Social Security payroll taxes for the proprietor as both employer and employee will be $13,243.

In short, U.S. and state income and payroll taxes will consume half of all the pair earned for some 8,000 hours of work.

From that ravaged salary they must pay a state sales tax of 8.25 percent, gas taxes for the 50-mile commute, and tens of thousands in property taxes on both their restaurant and home. And, after being pilloried by politicians for having feasted in the Bush era, they are now told the tax deduction they get for contributing to the church is to be cut 20 percent, while millions of Obama voters, who paid no U.S. income tax at all, will be getting a tax cut — i.e., a fat little check — in April.

Any wonder native-born Californians are fleeing the Golden Land?

Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a “lead indicator” of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Mr. Obama’s election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic.

The president says he is gearing up for a fight on his budget.

Good. Let’s give him one.

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From liberal CNN

(CNN) — These are extraordinary times, and like a lot of Republicans I believe that a well-crafted stimulus plan is needed to put people back to work. But the Obama spending bill would stimulate the government, not the economy.

We’re on an economic tightrope. The package that passed the House is a huge increase in the amount of government borrowing. And we’ve borrowed so much already that if we add too much more debt, or spend foolishly, we could invite an even bigger crisis.

We could precipitate a worldwide crisis of confidence in America, leading to a run on the dollar or hyperinflation that wipes out family savings and devastates the middle class.

It’s still early in the administration of President Obama. Like everyone who loves this country, I want him to adopt the correct course and then to succeed. He still has a chance to step in and insist on spending discipline among the members of his own party.

It’s his job to set priorities. I hope for America’s sake that he knows that a chief executive can’t vote “present.” He has to say yes to some things and no to a lot of others.

As someone who spent a career in the private sector, I’d like to see a stimulus package that respects the productivity and genius of the American people. And experience shows us what it should look like.

First, there are two ways you can put money into the economy, by spending more or by taxing less. But if it’s stimulus you want, taxing less works best. That’s why permanent tax cuts should be the centerpiece of the economic stimulus.

Second, any new spending must be strictly limited to projects that are essential. How do we define essential? Well, a good rule is that the projects we fund in a stimulus should be legitimate government priorities that would have been carried out in the future anyway, and are simply being moved up to create those jobs now.

As we take out nonessential projects, we should focus on funding the real needs of government that will have immediate impact. And what better place to begin than repairing and replacing military equipment that was damaged or destroyed in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Third, sending out rebate checks to citizens and businesses is not a tax cut. The media bought this line so far, but they’ve got it wrong. Checks in the mail are refunds, not tax cuts. We tried rebate checks in 2008 and they did virtually nothing to jump-start the economy. Disposable income went up, but consumption hardly moved.

Businesses aren’t stupid. They’re not going to invest in equipment and new hires for a one-time, short-term blip. What’s needed are permanent rate cuts on individuals and businesses.

Fourth, if we’re going to tax less and spend more to get the economy moving, then we have to make another commitment as well. As soon as this economy recovers, we have to regain control over the federal budget, and above all, over entitlement spending for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This is more important than most people are willing to admit.

There is a real danger that with trillions of additional borrowing — from the budget deficit and from the stimulus — world investors will begin to fear that our dollars won’t be worth much in the future. It is essential that we demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the value of the dollar. That means showing the world that we will put a stop to runaway spending and borrowing.

Fifth, we must begin to recover from the enormous losses in the capital investment pool. And the surest, most obvious way to get that done is to send a clear signal that there will be no tax increases on investment and capital gains. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be extended permanently, or at least temporarily.

And finally, let’s exercise restraint in the size of the stimulus package. Last year, with the economy already faltering, I proposed a stimulus of $233 billion. The Washington Post said: “Romney’s plan is way too big.” So what critique will the media have for the size of the Obama package?

In the final analysis, we know that only the private sector — entrepreneurs and businesses large and small — can create the millions of jobs our country needs. The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mitt Romney.

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