The Buffett Rule and War on Women

As President Obama heads to Columbia this morning for the "Summit of the Americas", a lot of controversy has been infused into the US Election campaign.  With Mitt Romney as the presumptive front runner, the Obama Administration keeps dwelling on Romney's wealth.  It has now challenged Mitt Romney to release his tax returns back to the year 2000, instead of one year.  Earlier this week Obama made another pitch for the buffet rule and Hilary Rose attacked Ann Romney for never having worked a day in her life.

"Guess what: his wife has never really worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kind of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.  He seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women, and I think that comes across, and I think that that's going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn't really see us as equal."

As expected, this statement became subject of a backlash.  Ann Romney raised five boys and chose to be a stay at home, a choice many women make.  The Obama Administration has disassociated itself from the comments, despite the fact that Rosen is  a top Democratic Party strategist and party operative, whose firm advises the Democratic National Committee (DNC).  The comments prompted Barbara Bush to weigh in and it took a tweet by Michelle Obama for Rosen to give a halfhearted apology.

Ann Romney, who is a MS survivor, defended her position as a stay at home mom.  

“I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”

Even Michelle Obama felt compelled to weigh in.

“Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected. –mo.”

While the U.S. has the highest capital gains tax rate in the world, the President again invoked class warfare by staging another photo op with millionaires during an appearance before thousands of students at Florida Atlantic University.  

“I want folks to get rich in this country. It’s wonderful when people are successful. That’s part of the American dream, but we have to understand the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent has climbed to levels we have not seen since the 1920s. The folks benefiting from this are paying taxes at the lowest rates in 50 years. That’s wrong. That’s not fair. We have to choose the direction this country will be going in.” 

The Senate is expected to vote on the measure on Monday and it is a foregone conclusion that it will fail.  Obama keeps talking about fairness, yet 50% of Americans don't pay income tax, while the top 10% pay 50% of taxes.  How much does he expect them to pay?  

The tax would do little to pay down the deficit.   By the end of the year the U.S. will have an accumulated debt of $16 Trillion and the President's policies have done little to cut the deficit.  

It appears that in order to deflect criticism off his record, the President has decided to invoke class warfare, pitting the rich against the poor, declare a war on women and dividing the country across racial lines.  He has demonized big oil, continued to invest in failing green companies and has not put forward any realistic proposal to fix the continuing high unemployment.  For the first two years of his term, the President had a Democratic Senate and  House of Representatives, but continues to blame Republicans for his failed policies.  When will the President accept responsibility for his Administration?  After all he has almost been in office for four years.  The "blame everybody, especially George Bush" is getting old.