Oh Nancy

I have been amazed at how utterly ignorant politicians seems to be when it comes to economic principles. I have witnessed high school students who understand the basic concepts of supply and demand and the effects of increased taxation on business etc. They have explained to me that the minimum wage increase is likely to cause either higher prices on products and/or fewer jobs as employers lay off workers to offset the net income change. They get it why don't politicians? Believe me I am not interested in returning to a time when the factory owners hired children to do dangerous work and paid them little to compensate. I am not advocating for a return to a time when you could be fired for complaining about a wage that was below subsistence level. What I would like to see though is a government which is careful not to change things when they are going well, and apparently some people think that the status quo is not good enough. Nancy Pelosi had a few things to say about the recent surge in the stock market.

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Nancy Pelosi condemned the new record highs of the stock market as "just another example of Bush policies helping the rich get richer". "First Bush cut taxes for the rich and the economy has rebounded with new record low unemployment rates, which only means wealthy employers are getting even wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class."

She went on to say "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this really means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets."

When questioned about recent stock market highs she responded "Only the rich benefit from these record highs. Working Americans, welfare recipients, the unemployed and minorities are not sharing in these obscene record highs". "There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class". "Profits from the stock market do not reward the hard work of our working class who, by their hard work, are responsible for generating these corporate profits that create stock market profits for the rich We in congress will need to address this issue to either tax these profits or to control the stock market to prevent this unearned income to flow to the rich."

When asked about the fact that over 80% of all Americans have investments in mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and the stock market she replied "That may be true, but probably only 5% account for 90% of all these investment dollars. That's just more "trickle down" economics claiming that if a corporation is successful that everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper benefit from higher wages and job security which is ridiculous". "How much of this 'trickle down' ever get to the unemployed and minorities in our county? None, and that's the tragedy of these stock market highs."

"We democrats are going to address this issue after the election when we take control of the congress. We will return to the 60% to 80% tax rates on the rich and we will be able to take at least 30% of all current lower Federal Income Tax tax payers off the roles and increase government income substantially. We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest."

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied "We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans"."

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Let me summarize Nancy's school of economics: low unemployment rates mean that workers are being exploited. Spending money to rebuild a ravished country is bad. We should tax the rich at %100. The stock market is evil. Rich people are evil. Illegal immigrants should be supported by tax payers to the level of middle class. Wealth redistribution is the answer.

It is odd how she is so interested in making everyone equal and yet requested and received her own jumbo air force jet to fly her from Washington to San Francisco; the jet has been called "Pelosi One." She makes me want to shake her so hard that she suffers from shaken Congresswoman Syndrome. I don't feel as though I need to debrief her absurd remarks because they are so absurd, so I will just leave it at that.