Face The State Staff Report
Coming off the most brutal election Republicans have seen in a generation, the Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell and Denver radio personality Mike Rosen didn't mince words as they spoke to a group of rising conservatives at a Denver event Friday.
RosenFTS File Photo
The Leadership Program of the Rockies brought Mitchell and Rosen to speak before its 2009 class, which took place the Denver Athletic Club. The day's focus was the free market and the impact of tax policy on growth and job creation.
Rosen, an 850 KOA host, predicted that Obama's tax plan would bring devastating consequences to the U.S. economy and that 2010 would serve as a comeback year for Republicans. According to Rosen, the top five percent of U.S. taxpayers already pay 60 percent of the nation's total income tax burden. If Obama's policy goals come to fruition, half of the nation would no longer pay income tax.
While Obama has described his proposed policy shift as a tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans, Rosen disputed the description, noting that many beneficiaries of the plan - who already don't pay income tax - would become eligible for a refundable tax credit, indicating further wealth distribution that Rosen described as a government handout.
Mitchell also lectured about Obama's tax plan and said if implemented, it is going to make America look more like France and Germany, where he alleged that high tax rates impede economic growth. He asserted that raising America's top tax rate will immediately hurt the ability of American corporations to compete.
The two didn't see eye to eye on the recent approval by Congress of a $700 billion plan to bail out Wall Street's faltering investment banks. While Mitchell called the proposal a "misguided scheme," Rosen said while it wasn't perfect, "at least it was something."
And while Rosen expressed admiration for the libertarian ideology of those like the Cato Institute, he encouraged participants to think practically. He drew the line at extending a bailout to the nation's three largest automakers, including General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, who are all facing bankruptcy. Rosen attributed the downfall of the companies in part to union contracts that prevent competition. By filing for bankruptcy, car manufacturers would be able to reorganize and renegotiate union contracts. According to his research, Rosen said the average GM employee makes $150,000 a year in salary, benefits and a generous retirement package. "That's about $75 an hour," he said, calling such compensation "ridiculous."
WWWWWWHAAAAATTTTTT!!!!!!
On November 20th, 2008 Maximonious says:
Republicans delusions are not delusions, but cold hard logic derived from facts.
Fact: The entire public policy content of the demoncat party is centered upon corruption.
Fact: demoncats are the cause of the housing bubble, the ensuing credit crunch crisis, the demise of The Big 3 Auto makers (can you say "TOO much of taxes and unions"?), the high costs of everything we buy including milk, lemons, wheat, sugar, education, gasoline and so much more.
Fact: demoncats practice liberalism/socialism/marxism and THAT is what is destroying America.
When did you lose your will to think for yourself?
Post-election GOP
On November 18th, 2008 purplepatriot says:
Republican delusion runs deep. The nation is in dire straits entirely as a consequence of GOP incompetence and corruption. The GOP's fundamental ideological notions that the private sector knows best, that it can be trusted and that "government is the problem" have been completely discredited. At last, the GOP has been held accountable by the electorate. Maybe there is a God after all.
And yet Republicans like Rosen and Mitchell do nothing but whine about taxes and unions. It's amazing. Given no capacity for open-minded self-evaluation, the Republican party's moral and ideological bankruptcy may last a very long time.