Redstate

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Bob Samuelson has arrived to save us from our lack of testicular fortitude. He’s bipartisan and even-handed in calling people in both parties “Gurlie-Men.” Stalin may have self-selected the moniker “Man of Steel”, but his kung-fu is weak next to that of Bob Samuelson. Samuelson is Economist, hear him roar!

The substance of his seven-step plan would certainly do well in front of a cast of characters that manned one of the former Soviet Union’s Central Committees. Fortunately, our modern politicians are a bunch of quiche-swilling panty-waists, when compared to the mighty Bob Samuelson. This troglodytic trouser-load of centrally planned monkey-wrenching will never see the light of day, once the copies of today’s Washington Post have been discarded along with the skeletal remains of the fish which they wrapped at the market.

But just for the fun of it, let’s examine the sordid details of how Bob Samuelson would run our lives more capably than any of us ever could ourselves. We start with Item one:

“Enact an energy tax equivalent to $2 a gallon on gasoline -- introduced over six years, or about 33 cents annually. The purpose: to increase tax revenue and induce Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles.”

Oh, Goody! Bob Samuelson will help me shop for my next car. It’s special when someone really cares. Either that; or he’ll convince me to move to Jefferson County and fire up a still so that I’ll have an affordable liquid to pour into its gas tank.

”Raise federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars from the present 27.5 miles per gallon to 40 mpg by 2020 and make similar increases for light trucks and SUVs. If fuel-efficient vehicles are to be favored, they must be available.”

That Bob Samuelson; he sure goes in for detail. He not only wants to help me choose the right car to drive, he also wants to tell Ford, GM or Honda how to build the sucker. With the Mighty Bob on your side, who needs Mr. Jeeves?”

”Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production. This would help offset declining U.S. output elsewhere.”

It sure would. Bob has a good idea here, but then again, he just to throw the Righties a bone on this one to be bipartisan. That’s how logic snuck into this entire boondoggle.

Increase the top tax rate on dividends and capital gains (profits on stocks and other assets) from today's 15 percent to at least 25 percent.

The streak of good ideas ended at one. Now we’ve got a bunch of IRAs and 529’s swirling down the crapper because the stock market just stalled out. He seems to have not noticed how Toyota performed vis-à-vis Ford and GM at raising capital when Japan was not taxing capital gains at all, and the US was taxing them at a much higher rate.

Also, drilling ANWR does require equipment, which in turn requires capital investment, which in turn requires a healthy and purring equities market to raise said investment capital. So much for Bob’s one good idea.

Require Congress to cut $1 of spending for each dollar of tax increase until the budget balances. After that, tax and spending changes would have to offset each other. Higher spending would require higher taxes -- and vice versa with exceptions for recessions.

Blither. Bob’s already introduced an artificial inflation in commodity prices via his gas tax and also tanked the equity market. Good thing he wrote that recessionary escape clause in. Czar Bob is probably going to need it.

Require the Congressional Budget Office to confirm spending cuts -- and if they're not made, mandate automatic cuts to all non-defense programs, including Social Security and Medicare (Social Security checks would shrink, Medicare premiums would rise).

This is all fun and games until Ted Stevens or Robert Byrd start treating the CBO staff like Nixon used to treat his Attorneys General. The CBO can inform people of Congressional malfeasance, but they are not protected enough to serve as a watchdog.

Also, there is an inconvenient document known as The US Constitution. It expressly empowers the House of Representatives, not the CBO to direct the expenditures of the Republic. We could get into a tacky argument about appropriations, obligations, outlays and expenditures. The Framers did not. Their intent was clear. If Czar Bob doesn’t approve of The Bridge to Nowhere or National Missile Defense, he should empower future US Presidents with a Line-Item Veto.

Raise the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare gradually to 70 by 2029. At 65, people would have to buy into Medicare (that is, pay for coverage) until they reached eligibility for subsidized benefits.

This serves as an actuarial cop-out. Panzi schemes are inherently unstable equilibriums and tend to fail. Medicare and Social Security will likewise come down in ruins. Besides, if you really want to wax health care expenses, do as the Brits and impose a maximum Medicare age of 70, not a minimum.

So on the specifics, with the notable exception of ANWR, Samuelson’s ideas predictably stink because they fail to acknowledge The Law of Unintended Consequences. The man’s concept of a Knock-On Effect, extends no further than the boundaries of a rugby pitch.

What causes greater disconcertion is the thinking behind Samuelson even offering to solve all our problems and centrally plan our lives. The man had to have noticed the colossal failure of centrally planned dictatorships to the right and left. When Pinochet invited Milton Friedman to clean up his dog pile of an economy, he wasn’t a visionary. He was admitting to his own all-encompassing failure. The same holds true of Gorbachev and Glasnost.

When the crack-pot scribes offer us seven-point plans to solve all our problems from within the confines of The Capital Beltway, America’s governance has truly turned for the worse. The truly sad aftermath of the 2006 Congressional Elections won’t be the corrupt Republican Congress getting thrown out. It will be instead, the revivification of the myth that all problems can be solved by an activist Congress; ensconced in Washington, DC.