Free Republic

Another decade, another Gatsby. The actors change but the message put forward in the adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 book stays the same. The 1920s were as ephemeral as a Champagne bubble. A fake stock market, an illicit liquor business and other falsehoods made Jay Gatsby and others like him into correspondingly false millionaires. The pleasure of the rich, “careless people,” as a character calls them, came at a cost to the rest, especially the middle class, the small people, mere ants in black tie to be trampled by giants like Gatsby at their parties. The inaccuracy here starts...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says the president is traveling to Texas tomorrow because while there’s lots of gridlock and partisan infighting in Washington, the Lone Star State is home to the kind of economic growth Obama wants to highlight. President Obama will tour a high-tech high school and a chip-machine manufacturer near Austin on Thursday. So, why Texas, where Rick Perry credits Republicans for the state’s economic success?

Taxes: A new study shows President Obama's budget would significantly boost taxes on the middle class. Funny, we seem to recall him promising voters that only the rich would pay for his grandiose spending plans. According to the analysis from the nonpartisan but liberal-leaning Tax Policy Center, Obama's budget would hit wealthy families hardest, with the top 20% of income earners shouldering almost 90% of the tax hike. But families at every income level would end up paying more if Obama's budget were enacted, including those making less than $10,000 a year.

One of the first things you learn when living in New York is that what qualifies as wealthy somewhere else seems barely middle-class here. On the Upper West Side, where I live, it’s hard not to feel as if Manhattan is impossibly expensive for young professionals. The average nondoorman, one-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood rents for about $2,500 a month. Oatmeal-raisin cookies at Levain Bakery cost $4 each. A pair of sensible, unstylish walking flats from Harry’s Shoes can set you back $480. I suppose, by comparison, that the $198 chef’s menu at Jean-Georges doesn’t sound so ridiculous. New Yorkers...

When President Obama was selling his signature health care reform bill back in early 2010, he described it as the "largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history." The costs would be largely paid by taxing insurance companies "that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits" and by making "sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare." [snip] But a closer examination finds that ObamaCare's three biggest taxes — a Medicare surcharge, the so-called Cadillac tax and an insurance premium fee — will increasingly hit the middle class because of how...

White House spokesman Jay Carney “not disputing” Obama budget would “raise taxes on middle class Americans.” The White House has confirmed that President Obama’s forthcoming budget contains an income tax increase on middle class Americans. During a Friday, April 5 White House press briefing, spokesman Jay Carney replied “I’m not disputing that” when asked if a particular Obama budget proposal would raise income taxes on the middle class. The proposal in question is known as “Chained CPI.” The term is a Beltway euphemism for measuring inflation at a different, slower pace. Many tax and budget items are indexed to inflation,...

  videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0TSQaKMK2w   Jim Rogers decries the growing uncertainty and recklessness of global central planners as the world enters unchartered financial markets: For the first time in recorded history, we have nearly every central bank printing money and trying to debase their currency. This has never happened before. How it’s going to work out, I don't know. It just depends on which one goes down the most and first, and they take turns. When one says a currency is going down, the question is against what? because they are all trying to debase themselves. It’s a peculiar time in world history.I own the...

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) - Returning to the national stage, Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Saturday that the Republican Party must broaden its message to grow. "We must leave no American behind," she said in a populist speech that electrified supporters at a conservative summit in suburban Washington. "And we must share our powerful message of freedom and liberty to all citizens - even those who may disagree on some issues." Palin has maintained a low profile during last year's election. She's expected to play a limited role in the future of the GOP but shared several recommendations Saturday....

Big Government: We almost never agree with President Obama's favorite economist Paul Krugman, but he recently spoke the truth about where Obama's policies are taking the country. It should scare anyone with a pulse. Krugman, after speaking at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., was asked about the debt crisis. After arguing it's no big deal in the near term, Krugman admitted that "Eventually we do have a problem. The population is getting older, health care costs are rising ... . Something is going to have to give." What's that something?

They’re not contributing members. They take away jobs from Americans, leech off the social benefits system and commit a number of crimes besides the whole “illegal entry” deal. Jails tend to be full of illegal aliens for a reason. "Every day, like the rest of us, they go out and try to earn a living. Often they do that in a shadow economy — a place where employers may offer them less than the minimum wage or make them work overtime without extra pay. And when that happens, it’s not just bad for them, it’s bad for the entire economy....

A favorite "progressive" trope is that America's middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s. One version of this claim, made by Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary, is typical: "After three decades of flat wages during which almost all the gains of growth have gone to the very top," he wrote in 2010, "the middle class no longer has the buying power to keep the economy going." This trope is spectacularly wrong. It is true enough that, when adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the average hourly wage of nonsupervisory workers in America has remained about the...

DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the country, and class divisions are as clear as the gate around one community or the grittiness of another. From the footprint of the house to the gleam on the car in the driveway, it is not hard to guess the economic status of the people who live there. Even the landscape is carved up by class. From 15,000 feet up, you can stare down at subdivisions and tract houses, and America’s class lines will stare right back up at you. Manhattan, however, is not like most places. Its 1.6 million residents hide in...

The only way to finance a big European-style state is to have it paid for by massive taxation of everyone, mostly the middle class. Right now, we are avoiding honest debate on this fact. The central issue of our time is the debate over the size and scope of government. Two unpleasant but undeniable mathematical truths limit the feasible policy choices. The recent sound and fury of the fiscal cliff follies in the end signified nothing because the resolution was in fact just a denial of both truths.The first truth is that the current tax rates cannot support the promises...

President Obama -- along with many of the liberal Democrats in Congress -- originally defined “the rich” as couples making more than $250,000 a year. They were very specific and emphatic about how this group of taxpayers needs to pay their “fair share.” Yet, when one of the Senate’s newest -- and one of the most liberal -- members was asked to define what income groups comprise the “middle class,” she simply couldn’t do it. How remarkable: Elizabeth Warren Can't Define What Middle Class Is "It’s not a numbers issue. I know you would expect a very wonky answer from...

It apparently wasn't enough to raise taxes on 77 percent of Americans with the fiscal cliff deal signed into law by auto-pen late last night by President Obama. In a video put out by the White House, President Obama dishonestly explained what the fiscal cliff means and then proceeded to say some Americans still need to "pay their fair share." Obama said there is more he wants to do to reduce our debt in a "balanced way," because after all, the $41 in tax hikes per $1 in spending cuts apparently wasn't enough irresponsibility for him. He gloated over the...

NBC's David Gregory interviewed President Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" Sunday, and a conversation ensued that would have been more fitting for a show called "The President Meets One of His Many Mainstream Media Enablers." Let's take a look at just some of the exchanges and fantasize how different the nation's political and electoral climate might be if the liberal press were doing its job as watchdog instead of taking sides. Obama said, "We're seeing signs of recovery ... in employment numbers improving." Might Gregory have asked Obama how he can continue to put an unrealistically positive spin on...

The last year has been a tough one for conservatives. The hope that four years of failed policy would be enough to repudiate the liberal/progressive ideology of the Obama administration ended when the majority of the American public voted to maintain their entitlements -- so long as someone else paid for them. And the conservative response to the debacle has been for the various factions within the movement to declare war on each other. It's time for conservatives to give serious thought to what they believe and how they can make a more persuasive case that conservative principles offer the...

Washington -- William McGurn, the esteemed Wall Street Journal columnist and soon-to-be editor of the editorial page of the New York Post, has made an interesting observation about the fabulous Bush tax cuts that are about to lapse. They amount to a substantial sum of money for a middle-class family. For the middle class it will be a big deal if they disappear. President Barack Obama has portrayed the Bush tax cuts as a rich person's tax cut, but now he is portraying them as a huge tax break for the middle class. Of a sudden he says do not...

Fiscal Cliff Means 50% Tax Rates For The Middle Class Politics / TaxesDec 07, 2012 - 08:12 AM By: Money Morning Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: If I didn't know any better, I'd think there's a small but growing group of people in Washington who think it would actually be good if we temporarily went over the fiscal cliff. I say that because I am seeing a smattering of articles recently suggesting that somehow going over the cliff "won't be all that bad" or that we're "really just talking about cuts that need to happen in the first place." President Obama seems...

There's a lot to be said for talking about the Constitution, economic theory and what's best for the country. However, one place we conservatives have slipped in recent years is framing our policies in a way that answers the very first question on the mind of most voters, "How does this benefit me?" That needs to change. Conservatism is an ideology that benefits everyone, but it's particularly helpful to middle class Americans. If we want to bring more of those voters to the Right, we have to do a better job of explaining to them exactly how we're going to...