I think there is very little argument that the country is in a hole. A deep, deep hole. So why, finding the country in this hole, a hole much deeper than he ever imagined, does Barack Obama find the need to not only keep digging but to bring in new tools to dig even faster?

Such is the case with the president’s misguided plan to create a new tax on banks and his blatantly misleading statements used to sell the proposition to the voting public.

The president is reinvigorating yet another attempt at all out class warfare. The “haves” versus the “have nots”, the “us” against “them” mentality that worked so well for him in the campaign. But make no mistake about it. This new tax has absolutely nothing to do with, as the president said, getting “our money back”. This is a political decision designed to help a failing Democrat Party reignite the victim mentality amongst the voting public that has worked so well for them in the past. The deception behind this plan is profound and the misdirection being used to sell it is so subtle yet complete that it would make even Siegfried and Roy take notes.

“We want our money back” said Barack Obama. What he neglected to say is that most of the banks that received TARP funds have not only already given us our money back, but have given us an additional $8 billion in interest. To say that all these banks owe an additional debt for the emergency funds they received ignores the fact that some, like Goldman Sacks, didn’t want or need the TARP money and only took it because they were forced to do so. It also doesn’t explain the fact that some of the financial institutions being charged this new tax never took TARP money in the first place.

It is indeed the battle cry of a president so diminished in his handling of every task set before him, like the war on terror, that now in an effort to regain some form of stature he must return to the old time tested war on class. Barack Obama talks about Wall Street as if it was located on the moon. He puts Wall Street and the financial institutions in a different class as if they have no bearing in the lives of those on Main Street. To believe that, as proven once again today by Obama’s comments, is to be completely ignorant of just how our economy works.

Excluded from this new tax are the bailed-out, UAW run auto manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler as well as the genesis generators of the financial collapse Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On September 30th, 1999 the very liberal New York Times published an article by the editor of their Washington Bureau Steven A. Holmes warning of the possible catastrophic consequences of the new policy being undertaken by the Clinton administration in forcing lenders to loan to unqualified buyers under the direction of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. In September of 2008, after the collapse, the equally liberal Senator Chuck Schumer all but admitted that it was this inane policy of lending money to people who could never pay it back that was the cause of the financial pandemic. Schumer said “Oh, the lowly mortgage, who would have ever thought that the lowly mortgage has brought us to the brink of financial ruin?” Uhhh…Steven A Holmes of the New York Times did Senator, along with past Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and a host of other economists worldwide. Those who did not think it were the Democrats, like Chuck Schumer and his pal the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank. It was Big Bad Barney who told Fannie and Freddie that the only reason for their existence was to lend to subprime and minority home buyers. Congressman Frank supports the president’s new tax. With his economic track record that in and of itself should be enough to tell the American people that it’s a bad idea.

Once again proving his ignorance of anything economic Barack Obama said the banks being hit with this new tax would not be able to pass this new $90 billion expense on to consumers through increased fees because it would make them uncompetitive with the banks not being charged. This comment is beyond stupid on any number of levels, not the least of which is constitutional. This may be why the president warned the banks not get their lawyers involved fighting against the selective and unfair tax.

In order to stimulate the economy and create jobs businesses need to have access to credit. In order for banks to offer that credit they need to be solvent and profitable. Adding a new tax on the driving force of the economic recovery at a time when unemployment is at 10% and consumer confidence is nonexistent is like dousing the embers of the backyard barbeque with a fire hose. Class warfare is a fine tactic for a community activist but it can be fatal to the economy for the President of the United States.

In November we the people need to take away this guys shovel or the hole we are in will look like the penthouse when he’s done.

Unfortunately the fools perpetrating this virulent assault on common sense are not confining themselves to a single month. No, this complete disregard for reality has marched steadily through the halls of Congress for the past 9 months and from all appearances will continue its disastrous trek unabated with guiding support of a president who obviously has no grasp of economic reality.

The latest attempt at redefining ridiculous is the Obama administration’s call for Congress to approve a special $250 payment to all seniors on Social Security. $250 may seem like a paltry sum to get upset about, but when you multiply this 2010 midterm election vote incentive by 50 million Social Security recipients it becomes a much more ominous total at just shy of $13 billion. The insanity driving this madness is so profound that I fear some form of medication may be in order.

By the rules that govern Social Security payments seniors will not be entitled to a cost of living increase this year. AARP CEO A. Barry Rand said, “For nearly 35 years, millions of Americans have counted on an annual increase in their monthly Social Security checks to make ends meet.” With idiotic statements like that I can only assume what the A. stands for.

The problem with A. Barry’s statement is that in 2008 seniors received the largest percentage increase in their Social Security COLA since 1982. That 5.8% increase was driven largely by skyrocketing energy prices. Inflation figures this year have turned negative thanks to the equally dramatic reduction in energy costs. By law Social Security payments cannot be decreased, but taking last year’s increase versus this year’s negative inflation into consideration seniors are already money ahead.

Sure it’s nice to get free money and there will be a plethora of camera hungry Democrats and their supporters like AARP’s A. Barry Reid to say that seniors “deserve” this money to help offset other expenses. But the money isn’t free and it isn’t being given to help offset anything but negative poll numbers for the 2010 election.

Democrats know they are in hot water for the $1.4 trillion national debt they have amassed thus far with absolutely no positive impact on the economy. They also know that Republicans will resist this attempt at bestowing yet another stipend of Obama Money and further increasing the already untenable deficit. What better way to attempt to get back into the good graces of 50 million senior citizen voters than to send them more “free money”.

Seniors, for the most part, are only looking at their entitlement and will not look at the overall impact this senseless spending will have. Very few will even attempt to understand the ever tightening choke hold this exponentially expanding debt will place on their grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond.

This use of the national checkbook to garner favorable results in the midterm elections borders on a criminal abuse of power. While it may prove to be a defining moment, Republicans must expose this sham for what it is and oppose it at all costs.

While the country languishes in the abyss of a near economic depression, NASA spends millions to hit the moon with rocket ships. While the streets of our major cities are strewn with the lifeless victims of gang warfare our government sends hundreds of millions to countries like Ireland to help keep the peace in their streets. And while millions of able bodied Americans continue to struggle to find employment in an economy that is forecast to remain inhospitable for at least the next 12 months our Democrat led Congress and community activist President wants to add even more to the debt by sending bribes to the elderly.

Social Security is scheduled to pay out more this year and next then they will be taking in thanks to the huge increase in unemployment. If the President and Congress truly want to help seniors they need to focus on that issue rather than continuing to inflate the debt and delay the recovery.

I would say that the Democrats are spending like drunken sailors, but drunken sailors spend their own money.

Barack Obama recently complained that Americans were being unfair in their criticism of his fiscal policies and his vision for the future. He said folks are mad at him for not eliminating the national deficit he inherited within the first six months of his presidency. But when you inherit a debt in the billions and within six months raise that deficit level to a projected $9 trillion there may be more than a little disingenuous, butt-covering, deflection in that assessment. At least I hope so. If Obama truly believes Americans are upset because of what he hasn’t done rather than by what he has done, or at least is trying to do, we are all in for a long three years.

With his approval rating dropping faster than Barney Frank’s pants at a Fire Island barbeque, Obama finds himself in completely unfamiliar territory. This personable community activist qua ghost written autobiographer qua political rock star has never had to face even feigning disapproval much less outright rebellion. Mostly because he has been carefully schooled in the fine art of duplicitous political rhetoric over real accomplishments and the exploitation of his almost unparalleled duende.

Mainstream media outlets like ABC, NBC, CNN and the New York Times are going to great lengths to prop up Obama’s policies, with ABC and NBC going so far as refusing to air conservative backed commercials criticizing it. Their goal is to convince Americans that it is recalcitrant Republicans creating the public tempest. But as usual these supposed barometers of national sentiment are completely missing the point. The days of Bill and Hillary claiming a right wing conspiracy are long gone. Obama is in the enviable position of not needing a single Republican vote to change his vision into law. It is Congressional Democrats, fearful of having to find a real job in 2010, that are now the biggest roadblocks to this caravan to nationalized medicine and socialized government.

While it has become apparent that mathematics was never one of Barack Obama’s best subjects, many House and Senate Democrats are working the numbers and they don’t like how they are adding up.

Americans voted for change, what they got was more of the same Democrat tax and spend. The nearly one trillion dollars passed under the banner of stimulus has done nothing but increase the country’s need for foreign investment to buy our ever growing debt. Even the Cash for Clunkers program, which actually stimulated new car sales, was so poorly run that it only increased the light of reality caste on government operational inefficiencies. If the government has a meltdown trying to handle a simple car rebate program how are they going to handle the entire nation’s healthcare?

This complete ineptitude has caused our consumer driven economy to languish in a quagmire of fear, causing discretionary spending to be reduced to all time lows and sending tax revenues into a downward death spiral. While Obama’s approval rating has dropped significantly it is still being artificially supported in the high 40% area by an almost 100% approval rating in the black community. As the reality of dramatically diminished tax receipts cripples the budgets of state, county, city and local governing bodies, deep cuts in the tax supported welfare programs within the minority communities will quickly erode Obama’s manic support. Once support begins to waver in the black community there will be a mass defection that will surpass even that of a stained blue dress and the definition of sexual relations.

Democrats had been banking on the historic cycle of recession and recovery to cover for their trillion dollar spend-a-thon. But their spending only helped to fuel a longer and deeper recession ending any hope of a normal recovery. The only answer this White House has for the prolonged spending-induced pain is more spending. Americans aren’t buying it and fearful Democrats in Congress aren’t willing to take a bullet for it.

So how will we know when the tide of black support has truly begun to ebb? Simple, when you begin to hear blacks referring to Obama by the most insulting, derogatory term they can use.

No not that one.

They will start calling him white.

How do you keep people from focusing on the results of your current actions? By keeping them focused on what was happening back when you were promising different results.

The latest assault on the previous administration is now hitting the news wires in the form of Congressional Democrat’s outrage at the lack of information shared by the CIA regarding secret plans to thwart al Qaeda. The operative words in the previous sentence are secret and plans.

After the 9-11 attacks, then President Bush authorized the CIA through a legal pronouncement known as a “finding” to proceed with an initiative to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives. After having identified al Qaeda as the perpetrators of the deadly attacks I find it not only logical but compulsory that the President and the CIA look at all options to bring this Muslim declared jihad back into the laps from which it came. But Democrats in Congress are now up in arms because funds were spent and possible training provided to carry out this initiative without prior Congressional approval. I only wish they were equally upset that al Qaeda carried out the attacks without first getting their consent.

The current CIA Director Leon Panetta repealed the initiative this past June and according to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee acknowledged that the plan was not properly vetted with Congress. While I believe this long time political hack turned CIA Director may have played into the hands of his Democrat masters by claiming the program was improperly vetted, I see his actions as being purely politically motivated rather than a true infringement of the Constitutional right of Congress to be informed.

The first key is the wording used stated that Congress was not “properly” informed. It has previously been made abundantly clear that Congress was informed by the CIA that all options were on the table and were being considered. It is not incumbent upon the CIA to inform a committee of media loving Congress members as to the exact details of any planned initiative until such a time as a workable plan is actually formulated and a course of action decided. It is imperative that any plan such as this be kept top secret and obviously the more people informed, particularly people who love to talk about things they know very little about, the better chance for a leak of information to the press and therefore to our enemies as well. Furthermore, as has been made abundantly clear by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congress members have a very convenient memory when it comes to information that might prove to be controversial after the fact.

This initiative was approved in 2001 and cancelled on June 23rd of 2009. No action regarding the plan was taken. To that end, some of the possible actions included in the original initiative were dismissed as unattainable in the planning stages long prior to the new administration and director taking over.

What we are witnessing now is the Democrats desperate efforts to misdirect the American public’s attention so as to defuse any backlash for the dismal results of their reckless and ineffective actions. We are now staring into the face of a $3 trillion deficit with absolutely no economic improvement to show for it. Our troops are being relieved in Iraq by well trained Iraqi troops proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bush plan in Iraq worked exactly as promised. The new age of détente and diplomacy that was promised by Obama as the cure to all our international woes has done nothing to ease tensions in the Middle East or with such rouge nations as Iran and North Korea. If anything the situations there have gotten worse, once again proving the Bush policies were exactly what the situation mandated.

The Democrats ranting about the need for a “Truth Commission” regarding waterboarding and harsh interrogation techniques did not bring them the desired results and if anything began to seriously damage their credibility. You haven’t heard Nancy Pelosi mention waterboarding lately, have you?

This major brouhaha will run its course as well, with Congressional Democrats damning the Bush administration’s successful efforts to bring peace and safety back to our shores and an obedient Democratic hack Leon Panetta giving them all the ammo they need and further depleting our intelligence capabilities.

My only regret is that the CIA was unable to devise a satisfactory plan to bring some al Qaeda heads back on a pike.

Having a community activist as president has opened the door to activism from every sector of the economy directed at every possible target both legitimate and otherwise. The president and his troubling alliance with the activist group ACORN is a perfect example of which I speak.

ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. They are supposedly concerned with a passel of issues such as fair housing, workplace reform, fair pay and predatory lending. They have however recently focused much of their attention on voter registration, some legitimate and some far from it. But because most of their “mistakes” in signing up the dead to vote are staunch Democrat voters they are now in line to gain a lion’s share of the $1 billion the president has set aside to conduct a new national census. My guess is if they get paid by the name this county will have a census population of about 216 billion by the time the counting is done, and most of them will be living in poor urban areas.

Like I said, it’s good to be an activist with an activist president.

In a recent story from the Wall Street Journal they discussed what they called an “Activist Financier” named Bruce Marks. Mr. Marks is supposedly a “campaigner on behalf of homeowners facing foreclosure”.

As where in the past folks looking to negotiate with a bank on behalf of someone who is not paying their mortgage may have attempted a diplomatic and reasonable approach, Mr. Marks will have none of that. He spends most of his time screaming insults into a phone, making threats and then slamming down the receiver. “I’m tired of borrowers being screwed!” he yelled into the phone. “You’re incompetent!” and then he hangs up after threatening to get the banks CEO involved.

Mr. Marks owns the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. His NACA has been able to intimidate the four largest mortgage lending banks into an agreement to work with his counselors to arrange lower payments for struggling homeowners. He does it by posting pictures of bankers on the internet emblazoned with the caption “Predator”, releasing their home addresses and phone numbers along with pictures of their houses and filing their yards with furniture as if they were being evicted. He has also gone so far as to leak banker’s private divorce settlement papers to the press. There appears to be absolutely nothing Mr. Marks won’t do to the benefit of the poor homeowner, oh yes, and his own for profit company as well. You see along with everything else Mr. Marks is a mortgage broker as well with 40 full time brokerage employees.

Marks maintains that banks the are problem and that if they check a person’s credit worthiness and find it suitable there should be no need for a down payment. He also suggests that banks should limit payments to what homeowners can afford.

All this sounds very valiant on behalf of Mr. Marks and his for profit organization but the reality is, like so many of the false claims of activists, it just isn’t true.

At recent rally held by Mr. Marks at which his counselors attracted some 10,000 people to an arena for mortgage renegotiations a representative of NACA told the crowd “What happened is not your fault. The mortgage crisis is the result of abuses and exploitation by Wall Street”. Wow, that sounds like it could have come right out of the White House.

But if the recent rash of government forced mortgage adjustments and the renegotiations through strong-arm tactics by the likes of Mr. Marks have shown us anything it is that most of the people who are in default on their Fannie Mae inspired subprime mortgages should have never been given any kind of mortgage in the first place. In most cases these “struggling homeowners” are incapable or unwilling to keep their mortgage current regardless of the terms.

It is always in the best interest of the bank to keep the mortgage holder in their home rather than foreclose. But as banks struggle to find new more accommodating terms for these loans, 75% of the modified subprime loans currently are, or will be in default again within the next 12 months. But as was the case in the original feeding frenzy to sign up unqualified buyers, mortgage brokers like Mr. Marks get paid up front. Maybe that’s why Mr. Marks is such a strong advocate.

The astounding failure rate of these renegotiated mortgages was reported by Fitch Ratings which analyzed mortgages bundled into securities between 2005 and 2007. This ominous report once again proves the folly of the Democrats attempt to install welfare into the home mortgage market.

Does Wall Street carry any responsibility? Sure. But the biggest failure of Wall Street was not in their desire for profit but in their misguided faith in congress to do the right thing. No oversight, political hacks in positions of authority, blatantly false bookkeeping to garner both favor and undeserved bonuses in the millions of dollars and a Democrat controlled banking commission that allowed it all to happen.

As for Mr. Marks, he’ll just keep screaming at bankers all the way to the bank.

Like I said, it’s good to be an activist when there is a community activist in the White House.