Planet Wingnut News for Saturday

Bill O'Reilly urges Obama to hire him so he can institute a national sales tax
Master economist Bill O'Reilly last night proposed that, to shrink the federal deficit, President Obama adopt the Bill O'Reilly Bold Fresh Economic Recovery Plan: halt "runaway" federal spending, keep the Bush tax cuts, and best of all, institute a federal sales tax.
O'Reilly wants just a 2 percent tax to last only two years. He thinks that'll close the deficit and get the dollar back on solid footing.

He brought on Neil Cavuto afterward. And say what you will about Cavuto, he's not an economic dunce. Like some people. And he tried to explain to O'Reilly that sales taxes don't work that way; they actually would suppress economic demand at exactly the time it needs to be rising.

This went whistling right over O'Reilly's head (duh). What Cavuto left unmentioned, of course, is that a sales tax is one of the most regressive taxes known to man; the tax burden resulting from consumption taxes disparately falls on the lower and middle classes. Guys with big mansions like Bill O'Reilly, however, are perfectly fine coming up with more taxes for working stiffs to pay.

A "federal sales tax" is what's otherwise known as a "consumption tax." It's worth remembering that, back in 2003, George W. Bush floated a similar idea (the suggestion then was to replace the entire income-tax system with a consumption tax), it was shot down pretty quickly.

Hatch: If GOP Controlled Government, We Would ‘Get This Country Under Control’
Thursday night, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) delivered an hour-long speech on the Senate floor condemning the Democratic health care reform bill and accusing Democrats of displaying “the arrogance of power” in trying to pass health reform before the holiday recess. Hatch predicted that if Republicans had 60 votes and control of all three branches of government, they would “get this country under control”:

This will become one more example of the arrogance of power being exerted since the Democrats secured a 60-vote majority in the United States Senate and took over the House and the White House. I dream some day of having the Republicans have 60 votes. I’ll tell you one thing, I think we would finally have the total responsibility to get this country under control and I believe we would. But we never come close to that. There are essentially no checks and balances found in Washington today just an arrogance of power with one party ramming through unpopular and devastating proposals on after the other.