By now you’ve heard that President Obama is instituting a “fee” entitled the “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee” in an effort to secure additional federal funds.  I call “shenanigans” on this. 

First, it’s a tax.  The administration would rather it be called a fee so they can cower behind it when showered by the accusations that the President broke yet another campaign promise about raising taxes (remember, 95% of us would see no increase in taxes).  But plain and simple it’s a tax. 

Second, and please read this carefully and remember it: corporations DO NOT pay taxes (or fees) to the government.  Period.  Their shareholders, employees and customers pay those taxes.  So when President Obama imposes this new TAX on banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions, get ready to feel it.  You’ll feel it when your ATM fees go up a quarter per transaction.  Or your monthly account charge goes up 50 cents.  Or your interest rate on your checking account drops another tenth of a percent.  Or your 401k investments in these corporations drops a tick.  We the people are going to pay this tax, plain and simple.Tax incidence falls upon the group that, at the end of the day, bears the burden of the tax

Third, this only will exacerbate the current economic problems.  People get taxed more so they have less (perceived or real) capital to spend and invest.  Therefore, spending goes down (anyone not believe me then go look at the consumer spending report for December – lower than expected, which, really who didn’t expect spending to be lower*).  Lower spending which is reduced purchasing of goods and services equates to less revenue for corporations which means less corporate taxes and less sales tax revenue for the government.  Queue the Clairol commercial here – and so on, and so on, and so on.

This administration doesn’t know what they are doing.  A recent poll shows that only 39% of likely voters would likely or definitely re-elect President Obama at this point in time.  There’s a reason why we tag this administration as the Obama Amateur Hour.

You should know the definition of insanity by now: continuing to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

* On a side note, one of the items reported with the consumer spending report was that sales of automobiles was lower than expected in December.  No duh, sherlock!  Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program artificially moved the December (and likely more into early 2010) sales to the left.  We told you about that here.  Germany experienced it first hand and this administration STILL DID IT.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.