Today, President Obama unveiled a new logo, seen above, that will be used to identify projects paid for by the porkulus bill. Okay. Whatever. But look at the logo for a minute. See any problems?

Well, first off, it is obviously an “O” shape and reminiscent of Obama’s campaign logos. That should probably bother me, but at this point I couldn’t care less.

More importantly, what’s the deal with the marijuana leaf? Are we going to grow our way out the recession? Or is Obama betting that if we’re all high enough, we just won’t care. I’m joking, somewhat, but seriously was there any money for agriculture in the porkulus bill? I don’t get it.

Most importantly, what’s the deal with the gears? Does anyone in the administration realize that the gears don’t match and could never mesh? I’m not a mechanical engineer, but I am a thinker and I am quite certain that those gears could never actually move anything–which is a completely accurate and appropriate symbol for the porkulus bill.

Haven’t I written this a post a few times before?

The National Journal reports that Ron Kirk, President Obama’s appointee for the U.S. Trade Representative, failed to pay approximately $10,000 in taxes last year. My personal favorite amongst the infractions is his claiming season tickets for the Dallas Mavericks as a write-off.

Is this ever going to end? If you’re proposing the largest tax increase in U.S. history, you might want to find some people who actually paid their own taxes for your cabinet. But, clearly, paying taxes just wasn’t on the checklist for the team vetting Obama’s appointees.

I stumbled upon this on YouTube, and I have to say it is utterly fascinating and such a remarkable contrast to America in 2009. The whole thing is worth watching, but the most interesting part is when she takes questions from the audience. Contrast the way she deals with the audience, particularly the first questioner in Part IV, with the way a certain chief executive recently dealt with a somewhat similar situation. I include the clip I’m referring to at the end.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

By the way, Phil Donohue is actually pretty good here. Instead of playing the angry-Naderite that he has been in recent years, he is fair to Rand, asks decent questions, challenges her appropriately, and gives her a fair hearing. Imagine if Rand were alive today and invited onto The View!

And for the sake of contrast, here is the now-famous clip of President Obama with Henrietta Hughes at a townhall meeting in Fort Myers, Florida on February 10, 2009 :

The Audacity of Grope

Some people draw comparisons between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this article, and pay special attention to the first public comment at the end of page, which proclaims that Obama is the “reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln” and “has a holly mission.”  (That’s the way they spelled it. I think/hope they meant “Holy” mission. I’m not sure what bugs me more: the creepy idolatry or the bad spelling.)

I’ve never understood the comparison. Okay, fine, they are both from Illinois, but so is Rod Blagojevich.

Let me put it in S.A.T. terms: “Lincoln” is to “saving the Union” as “Obama” is to:

(A) community organizing

(B) voting “present” 129 times in the Illinois legislature

(C) co-sponsoring a unanimous resolution with Dick Lugar

(D) all of the above

At any rate, I was doing some casual reading and happened across the following quote from Lincoln that might shed some light on the issue:

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence . . . I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.

Hmm . . . I think that about settles the issue.

A must-read article from the Wall Street Journal.  Key passage:

Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can’t possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama’s new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and “the wealthiest 2%.” Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That’s about 7% of all returns; the data aren’t broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% — about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 — paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Clinton famously declared that “the era of big government is over.” Last night, in his first address to Congress (not technically a State of the Union, but close enough for government work), President Obama made it clear that the rumors of Big Government’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

What angered me the most about Obama’s speech was its fundamental dishonesty. He announced the largest, most activist government in American history, but cloaked it in the rhetoric of fiscal discipline. Let’s look at a few examples:

As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President’s Day that would put people to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government—I don’t.

Barak Obama doesn’t believe in bigger government? That’s like Henry VIII saying he doesn’t believe in divorce. How about this one:

I’m proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks.

Even the Associated Press, one of the many mainstream media outlets that is totally and completely in the tank for Obama, doesn’t believe that one, as was previously explained here. Another one:

Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.

This is a lie on so many different levels. First, and most obviously, the porkulus package that he just signed into law last week doubled this year’s deficit. Therefore, cutting it in half in the next 4 years only gets us back to where we were 2 weeks ago. Second, as best explained by Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation here, Obama plays with the proper baseline for the budget, turning a $500 billion budget increase into a decrease. Third, the two trillion in spending cuts that he referenced are not from line-by-line programs cuts, but rather from ending the war in Iraq and repealing the Bush tax cuts (i.e., raising taxes). Here’s Robert Gibbs explaining how that works:

REPORTER: We were told last night that [the $2 trillion savings pledge] basically refers to two things. One is the expiration of tax cuts on the wealthy that would happen next year; and two is a reduction of what we are currently spending in Iraq.

GIBBS: No, I don’t — I — I don’t think so at all. It’s an end of — it’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money . . . I think that’s — I think that’s certainly a decent part of it. I don’t know, not having seen — at least not having in front of me the formal documents to know whether that’s a hundred percent.”

REPORTER: Okay. But let me ask, is it transparent to say that tax increases are part of savings? And is it transparent to say that we’re going to be saving that much from Iraq, when nobody expects that 10 years out we would be spending what we’re spending today in Iraq? Even the previous administration agreed to get out of Iraq by 2012…

GIBBS: Well, I mean, if we’re not spending the money and the money doesn’t go out the door and the money doesn’t increase the deficit, and the deficit decreases by some amount, ultimately getting you to the president’s goal of halving a 1.2 (trillion dollar) to $1.3 trillion deficit in his first four years in office.

REPORTER: But if nobody expects to spend 10 years from now what we’re spending today in Iraq, and we use that as our baseline, saying, ‘Oh, we’re saving because we’re not spending what we did 10 years ago,’ I mean, isn’t that sort of setting up a funny money comparison?

A tax increase is really a spending cut? Mr. Orwell, please call your office. Finally, there’s this fib:

In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. But let me be perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if you family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.

This is really the crux of it all. He’s selling this agenda using populism, class envy, and antipathy for the rich, but truth is, as explained in detail by the Wall Street Journal here, you could confiscate all of the income of the so-called rich—a 100% effective taxation rate—and still not have nearly enough revenue to pay for all of his spending. Guess who’s going to see their taxes go up then?

I sent a link to my last post to Namasté Solar, and they emailed me a very polite response. In the interest of fairness, I am reprinting the entire message here:

Whether solar energy is worth investing in at the federal level is open to debate.  We welcome this debate.  We would like to provide you with the following clarifications:

• In our business area in Colorado, approximately 50% of the cost of a solar electric system is paid for via a rebate program administered by the local utility, Xcel Energy.  The rebate program is funded via a rider on customer utility bills, which was instituted as a result of Amendment 37 in 2004 which was directly approved by voters and created a renewable energy requirement.  The renewable energy goals were doubled by the state legislature in 2007.

• Federal subsidies only cover 15% of the cost of a typical solar electric system since the tax credit is applied after the utility rebate.

• The cost to the consumer after all subsidies is typically $10,000 – $20,000, leaving substantial room for competition to drive down costs.

• Namaste Solar competes in the same market with companies who have traditional business models.  We are #1 in market share and we have been profitable since our second year of business (2006).

Best regards,

Dan Yechout

Co-Owner

This doesn’t really change my views, but I respect them for responding.

Namasté is a Sanskrit greeting popular on the Indian subcontinent. It literally means “I bow to you,” but has been given numerous other translations, such as “the light in me honors the light in you.”

The word has had two recent and notable appearances in American popular culture—neither particularly flattering. On the television series Lost, namasté is the chosen greeting of participants in the “Dharma Initiative,” a group of hippies who abandoned civilization to travel to a magical island in hopes of forming a utopian sub-society but instead were slaughtered by the mysterious “Others” indigenous to the island. On the internet, satirical blogger Dan Lyons used the greeting as a trademark for his quasi-fictional alter-ego, Fake Steve Jobs—a maniacal, billionaire CEO trapped between the stresses of his ego, hippy roots, and drive to create the coolest electronics products on the planet.

Last week, President Obama injected the word namasté into the American political lexicon when he traveled to Denver to sign his $787 billion stimulus bill into law and honor a company called Namasté Solar. The symbolism of this move was lost on most mainstream and new media commentators (with the notable exception of Glenn Beck, who inspired me to look into the company more deeply). But small details some times illuminate larger truths. Hopefully the Obama White House did not put much thought or vetting into their choice of Namasté Solar for the bill signing. If they did, the message of their chosen symbol is quite disturbing. The story of Namasté Solar reads like an Ayn Rand novel. The company is not a business so much as a quasi-socialist experiment, one that is failing dramatically.

According to the company’s website, Namasté Solar is “an employee-owned electric company dedicated to the betterment of the planet by bringing clean, reliable, and affordable renewable energy technologies to homes, businesses, and nonprofits.” The company prides itself on its “values-based business model and reputation for philanthropy,” as well as its commitment to “maintain the highest standards of environmental stewardship, customer satisfaction, employee morale, community involvement, and professional integrity.”

Okay, fine. That’s all very nice. The annual reports for most Fortune 500 companies probably contain the same empty rhetoric. So what?

At Namasté Solar the rhetoric is not empty. The company has put these principles into effect in its day to day operations. It has a “democratic process for decision-making” that ensures “each co-owner’s voice is heard and every one has equal opportunity to discuss and debate.” The company also donates 1% of its annual revenues to community charities and has “a flat salary structure whereby no one earns more than twice what anyone else earns.” Every employee gets six weeks paid vacation every year, and no one works more than 50 hours per week. The goal of these policies is “holistic wealth,” which it defines as wealth that “[b]enefits all stakeholders equitably—customers, employees, investors, communities, and the environment—as opposed to inequitably benefiting any stakeholder(s) at the expense of any other(s).”

The problem is that some of Namaté’s “stakeholders” are being treated “inequitably”—namely, U.S. taxpayers. Even before President Obama’s stimulus package, Namasté was being heavily subsidized by tax incentives. The company’s website has a full page explaining the “rebates and incentives” available to its customers. It details different tax scenarios for “residential,” “small commercial,” and “large commercial” customers, and concludes that “state and federal incentive programs can reduce your total ‘out of pocket’ costs for a solar electric (PV) system by as much as 60-70%!!!” (emphasis in original).

With such generous government subsidies, you would expect Namasté Solar to be a runway success, but it’s not. At the bill-signing ceremony, the company’s CEO explained that although there is “overwhelming” demand for solar installations, in recent months the company has frozen hiring, “slashed” budgets, cut work for subcontractors, “slashed budgets again,” and is having “difficult and challenging conversations” about layoffs.

Now, alas, hope and change have arrived. The President’s stimulus package contains even more federal subsidies for solar installations. According to the company, “[t]he most immediate assistance to homeowners and businesses in the stimulus package is the creation of grants through the Department of Treasury for 30% of the cost of solar property placed in service during 2009 and 2010. This replaces the investment tax credits with up-front cash.”

With this background, I believe that President Obama’s choice of Namasté Solar as the thematic backdrop for the bill signing is disturbing.

From the outset, the company’s “business” practices are simply irrational. For example, mandating that no one in the company make more than double any other person is just silly. Employees should be compensated based on the value they bring to the company. Is the CEO’s value to the company only twice that of, say, the company’s most junior janitor? I think not, but if I am wrong the CEO is most certainly incompetent. A flat pay scale is not—to use the company’s word—”equitable.” Either the CEO is being underpaid or the janitor is being overpaid, or some combination of the two. Such an arrangement is “equitable” only if merit and economic value are excluded from the calculus.

I am not, however, challenging Namasté’s right to run its business poorly or irrationally. To the contrary, I whole-heartedly support their God-given right to pursue happiness in any way they choose. I think they will fail, but I hope I am wrong and wish them the best of luck in their endeavors.

But my ambivalence towards their internal practices fades as the tax subsidies underwriting those practices increases. The next time I am working late or on a weekend, and half of the fruits of my labor are being taken by government taxation, I will surely recall that Namastè’s employees never work more than 50 hours per week thanks to taxpayers like me.

Some might argue—seemingly validly—that the indirect tax subsidies that Namasté receives pale in comparison to the huge, direct bailouts we have seen in recent months. Of course, some of us opposed those bailouts, too. Thus, the fact that Namastè’s subsidies are smaller gives little comfort.

Moreover, in an important sense, this is an unfair comparison. Take the proposed bailout of the auto industry as an example. Imagine that before any bailout consumers who buy GM cars receive 60-70% of the purchase price in the form of tax rebates. Would any policy-maker seriously argue that such subsidies are too parsimonious? Does anyone believe that turning the rebates into upfront grants would save the industry? Is such an industry worth saving? The point is that the bailouts may be larger in absolute dollars, but on a size-adjusted basis Namasté’s subsidies are far more substantial.

There is another difference between the bailouts and the unprecedented subsidies that Namasté receives. Even amongst those who have supported them, the bailouts have been portrayed as a necessary evil. By contrast, President Obama plucked Namasté out of obscurity and made it the defining symbol of the economic “change” he is trying to effect. The message the President was sending was honorific, normative, and—in my view—downright scary. Does President Obama believe that the path to our economic salvation lies in subsidizing failing companies to the tune of two-thirds of their gross sales? Does he believe that traditional business metrics such as value, efficiency, and (dare I say it?) profit should be replaced by “holistic wealth”? Is Namasté being praised for its economic potential, or for the fact that, as its name is meant to imply, it is a “business” that attempts to embody trendy leftist values?

Simply put, I do not want a business to “bow” to me or “honor the light” in me. I want it to provide me with the goods and service I need and desire as cheaply as possible with the highest possible quality. If a business succeeds in that goal, I will be fiercely loyal to its brand and will patronize it regularly. The business will make money, employ people, and grow the economy, and my needs will be satisfied efficiently. If I want enlightenment, or to learn about honoring another soul, I’m not going to look to a business (or to the government). I will look to my God, my family, and the most cherished values they both have taught me. By choosing Namasté Solar as a symbol for his first legislative victory, I fear President Obama has something different in mind.

I just love this guy. Here is Rick Santelli responding to Robert Gibbs and clearly not backing down from the fight.

Is Santelli’s act a little over the top? Of course it is. But he’s dead right on the facts and political philosophy. And we’ll need more passion like that in the coming years.