Tag Archives: Herman Cain

Herman Cain Calls Out the Racist NY Times

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I was reminded today why I am such a huge Herman Cain.   Here is a man with that rare gift of clarity – the ability to cut right through to the truth.  I call it “lazer vision”.  My wife has that gift too, and it’s why I don’t try to pull even a thread of wool over her eyes.

Just to be clear, I don’t favor Herman Cain because he is African American.  I abhor bigotry of any kind, in any direction, by anyone against any perceived or actual “group”.   I couldn’t care less what color Cain, or any other public figure, is.  What I like is his strong conservative values, his business sense, and his ability to filter out all the nonsense and get down to what’s important and what’s right, with a brevity that every writer or speaker should envy.

Today’s reminder is the response he wrote to a New York Times article by Professor Adolph Reed, Jr.

Professor Reed was critical of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s decision to name Tim Scott, a black Republican, to replace Jim DeMint as the state’s US senator.  DeMint is retiring from the Senate to take a post as president of the Heritage Foundation.  Reed cynically claims that “modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress.”  He says that Scott’s politics are “utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans. Mr. Scott has been staunchly anti-tax, anti-union and anti-abortion.”  Is he saying African Americans are required, because of their skin color, to be pro-tax, pro-union, and pro-abortion?

Most putrid of all is Professor Reed’s contention that all whites are racist:  “whites . . . are inclined to vote Republican but don’t want to have to think of themselves, or be thought of by others, as racist.”  If he were in front of me, I would punch him in the nose.  I don’t “have to” think of myself as a racist?

Clear-thinking Herman Cain nails Reed and all the other Democrats who just can’t remove the tired, old race card from their playbooks.  Cain says:

So it’s worth asking, then: What, exactly, are “black interests”? To hear Professor Reed tell it, blacks are a monolithic group of people whose best interests are served when they can be recipients of redistributionist policies at the hands of big government. Let me simplify that for you: He thinks black people need welfare, and can’t make it under the kinds of free-market policies advocated by the likes of Samuel Pierce, Clarence Pendleton, Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott.

When are black Democrats going to reject the continuing insults and humiliation hurled at them by their sacrosanct political leaders and media?  When will they stand up and protest their second-class status in the eyes of their “benefactors”?  While I’m punching noses, I would certainly tweak the beak of anyone who told me I am so stupid and unmotivated that I, like anyone whose skin pigmentation is similar to mine, am not capable of feeding myself and my family without their merciful help .

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

(What they do)  They smile in your face!
All the time they want to take your place,
The back stabbers (back stabbers!)
They smile in your face!
Smiling faces, Smiling faces sometimes tell lies (back stabbers!)
They smile in your face!
I don’t need low down dirty bastards (back stabbers!)

Back Stabbers – the O’Jays

Sex, Monkeys, and Our Tax System

Posted on by Standard 1

There is a colloquialism that accurately describes our process of calculating, filing, and paying our federal taxes.  I can’t say the term in mixed company, but it involves a large number of simians all having sexual relations at the same time.

There are so many things wrong with the IRS, our tax codes, and our attitudes about how we funnel money to our government, that this is one of those “Don’t Get Me Started” things.

Too late, I started.

At last estimate, only about 36% of taxpayers prepare their own returns.  Most Americans would rather pay somebody else to file their returns than do it themselves, blindly trusting that the tax preparer will accurately calculate the correct tax.  Many advertize that they will get you a bigger refund than the tax guy down the street!  The taxpayers don’t know how to file, don’t want to know, and will do anything to avoid it, including handing over their checkbooks to a total stranger named Block.

Waterboarding?  Ha!  They should have made Khalid Sheik Mohammed fill out a Schedule D!

We are not only forced to pay part of our hard-earned money to the government, we are also forced to pay somebody else to decide how much we are forced to pay to the government!  Even though many taxpayers could file a simple, one-page “simple” form, they are too afraid.  Or they have gone to public schools, where learning about anything with a dollar sign attached is really frowned upon.

Business tax reporting is even worse.

For instance, when a business buys equipment, it can “write off” the cost over a period of years, which reduces income and, thereby, taxes.  If the government allowed the entire cost to be deducted immediately, it would seriously reduce their cash flow.  So our big-spending brothers and sisters in DC make businesses spread the cost over a number of years.  How many years?  Well, nobody knows.  There is no chart where you can look up the depreciation percentage or number of years for, say a new widget-making machine.  There are chapters and paragraphs and exceptions and alternatives and recaptures – but nowhere is there a simple chart that a human being can understand.   Only the accountants can conjure up an answer, and ten different accountants will come up with ten different answers.   The IRS doesn’t really care – ten IRS agents will come up with ten more completely different answers.

Even more strange – our tax “police” send out checks to anybody and everybody who requests a refund, without checking first to see if the filer is a citizen, has a job, or has already received thousands of refunds at the same address.  The IRS doesn’t even attempt to collect the $1 billion in past due taxes owed by federal employees – Geez, guys, all you need to do is deduct them from their paychecks!

All I can say about our tax system is HOW BIZARRE!  Candidates talk about more taxes or less taxes.  But why isn’t anybody (other than Herman Cain) talking about our crazy tax system?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Ooh baby, it’s making me crazy
Every time I look around, it’s in my face
How bizarre! How bizarre, how bizarre!

The “Grown-Up In The Room” – Still Herman Cain

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A few weeks ago I nominated Paul Ryan to the “Old Bean Counters” club, of which I am the founding member.  We “Old Bean Counters” believe in the sanctity of honest accounting.  We understand that careful budgeting and controls (fail to plan, plan to fail) results in success for businesses and for governments.  And we believe we could save the nation’s economy if we were allowed to move in and clean up the books.

Today another eloquent statement in support of fiscal sanity was written by our level-headed old friend Herman Cain.  I remain a huge Cain fan.  He gets my top grade for leadership, common sense, and patriotism.  Herman is still the “grown-up” in the room, and must be added to the “Bean Counters” club.

The War of Words: No One Wins
By Herman Cain

As someone who has spent a long career in the business world, confronting problems and solving them, I find that there’s something surreal about two weeks of political conventions in a nation that faces very big problems – and desperately needs effective solutions.

In the business world, when people are attacking each other, hurling accusations and leveling blame, the first thing a leader has to do is put a stop to that. In such an environment, it is extremely difficult to devise solutions, and it is almost impossible to implement them effectively.

Today’s political environment is exactly what I just described on a 24/7 basis. It is a never-ending war on words. And this is a war that no one wins.

This is not going to be one of those columns where the writer tries to appear above the fray by blaming both sides equally, and pretends not to be taking sides. Get real. You know perfectly well that I support Mitt Romney and that I oppose Barack Obama. You’ve read my criticisms of Obama’s policies in this space and others. I am not decrying all criticism because a) it is a healthy part of our system of government; and b) I engage in it as much as anyone.

But there’s a difference between honest criticism and simply saying anything you have to say for the sake of your own power. This is the phenomenon that was on display at the Democrats’ convention in Charlotte, and it was astounding.

Consider the fact that the Democrats apparently have decided the word “voucher” can be used in a negative way to hang a political anvil around Republicans. Repeatedly, they attacked Republicans for wanting to replace Medicare with what they call “Vouchercare.” What made this so appalling was not the mere fact that there’s nothing wrong with a voucher, which is simply premium support that seniors can use to purchase their own insurance. No, what made this so appalling is the fact that, even as the Democrats were tossing this word around as if it were a euphemism for a concentration camp roundup, the Obama Administration itself was in the process of moving 2 million seniors into vouchers as a pilot program designed to improve Medicare.

In other words, they don’t even mean what they say. They simply say it because it’s tested well with focus groups or something. Attack vouchers and land blows against Republicans. You know it’s total BS, but it works.

Another example is their constant use of the phrase “middle class,” usually accompanied by a denunciation of “tax cuts for millionaires.” You’d think, to listen to these guys, that the middle class was doing great under them – since they warn darkly of its fate in the event of a Republican victory. In fact, middle class incomes have fallen by more than $4,000 per household since Obama took office. The people who constantly drone on about the middle class have nothing to offer the middle class. But the words sure sound good.

Republicans can be susceptible to the same thing. They spent a lot of time at their convention attacking out-of-control federal spending. And rightly so. But they did that in 1994, and were handed control of Congress by voters who agreed with them. The Republican Congresses of the 1990s did control spending for awhile, which is why we got the balanced budgets that Bill Clinton attributes to his own excellence in arithmetic. But by the time we hit the new millennium, congressional Republicans had discovered that they liked spending too – and pretty soon fiscal discipline was a thing of the past. Yet here they are in 2012, saying the same words. It might win them the election. And if it does – and they remain mere words – no one will have won.

It’s easy to blame this on political consultants who poll-test every theme and concept, and put it before focus groups to see how it will play. It’s easy to blame the shallow news media, which covers the horse race and the strategy of every campaign as if there’s no such thing as governing that comes after the election.

But ultimately, it’s the candidates who choose to follow these strategies, using these words to get elected knowing full well that they don’t mean what they’re saying.

This country is in big trouble. The national debt, now at $16 trillion, is more than our entire gross domestic product. Our unfunded entitlement obligations run into the hundreds of trillions. We have 15 percent of the population on food stamps. We have 15 percent of the population either unemployed or underemployed. And the federal government is spending a quarter of our GDP every year in a futile attempt to somehow fix all this. It is not working.

Under these circumstances, it is absolutely mandatory that the nation turn to leaders who are serious about solutions, serious about honest data and willing to give it to us straight about the nation’s situation. It is still possible to fix this mess, but it can’t be done by people who are unserious, dishonest and willing to say absolutely anything to remain in power.

In the business world, you need to understand facts, test your ideas and be honest about when solutions to problems are not working. Otherwise you will never make the necessary adjustments. People who do this are respected, because they are the ones who ultimately get results. Those who are out of ideas, and offer nothing more than the same ideas that have already failed, are fired. Sometimes, if they have integrity, they recognize that they are not the right people for the job and they step aside to make room for more competent leadership.

That’s why business leaders solve problems but the political class never does. And it’s ultimately the responsibility of the voters not to put up with this nonsense. If our only response to the very real problems facing this nation is a war of words, people need to understand that is a war that no one wins.

We still need ya, Herman.  Welcome to the Bean Counters club.  And keep reminding us it’s time to grow up.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Come back when you grow up, girl
You’re still livin’ in a paper-doll world
Livin’ ain’t easy, lovin’s twice as tough
So come back, baby, when you grow up

Come Back When You Grow Up – Bobby Vee