Dear President Obama,

I have some deep concerns about your recent change in policy vis-a-vis top tier tax cuts. I do not see this change as positive, moreover I do not see it as being fiscally responsible.

I understand that you are the President for ALL of America, and thus represent ALL American view points. I applaud your recent efforts to try and find some middle ground with the upcoming Republican Congress. However, I think your are selling this particular point too cheap. If you are going to “sell out,” then I believe you should get something more than unemployment extensions in exchange for the top tier tax cuts. There is a fine line between reaching out, and caving in (no doubt, some would say they are the same thing). I believe you have crossed this line.

Since there are a lot of voices supporting the conservative rhetoric that tax cuts to the wealthy are good fiscal policy, please allow me to provide an alternate view. I believe a closer following of the European “austerity” movement is in order. I suggest you kill all Bush era tax cuts. ALL of them. Every single one. When confronted by opposition to such a position you could simply say, “The price for being an American citizen just went up. And it has gone up for ALL Americans, not just for the poor and middle class.” To be honest, what I would prefer you to say would be the more simple, “Quit your belly-aching,” or “There aint no such thing as a free lunch,”  but I understand that both concepts are a bit too divisive for you to say.  Mores the pity.

I am a small business owner (sole proprietorship), and unlike a lot of other Americans, my business has been doing very well the past couple of years. Although I am not in the $250k/year range, removing the Bush era tax cuts will hit me harder then average citizen. So what? It is a distinct privilege to own a business and to make money in this country. I would not mind paying more for it. Well, that is not quite true. I would mind. However, I also understand that sometimes the river rises, or the rains don’t come. What I think is missing from the modern political rhetoric on this topic is this simple truth; there is no right to owning a business or making money in American. It is a privilege. And with this privilege comes certain responsibilities. Only a fool would buy the best tractor, and condition the soil to perfection, only to plant the cheapest seed.

Please, Mr. President. I urge you to reconsider your stance on this topic.

Thank you for taking the time to view my email, and give it all the consideration your busy schedule allows.

Sincerely,

Eric Tolladay

The other day, I showed up at a client’s office in the morning, and several of us got to talking about art and such. As this kind of conversation often does, something was said that reminded me of a song, in this case, “I’m Big in Japan.” Not the version you probably know, but the Tom Waits song from the CD, Mule Variations. Well I thought it would be fun to play the song on my iPod, so I set the songs order to alphabetical by title, and searched for it that way. I was busy, and didn’t want to mess with the iPod anymore, so I just kept listening in alphabetical order when the song was over. Sort of a fun way to do random songs.

Several days, and 490 songs later, I’m still in the B’s. In fact, I’m up to the Chemical Brothers “Block Rockin’ Beats.

490 songs just to get from BIG to BLO.

Awesomeness!

A response to a post in political talk forum on the value of cable vs satellite television.

We Americans have gone from a country of people who do things, to a country of people who need to be entertained. The change has not suited us well. Even worse, we act like it is our God given right to have 24/7 entertainment provided to us on a silver platter. Big brash shows, big brash food, big brash tvs. We, as a country, are getting more and more fat and lazy. More and more passive rather than active. And our entertainment is getting more and more tawdry, while our disdain for educated or cultured refinement grows.

Join me brothers in our fight against the norm. Rise up against the tyranny of the ordinary. Trod the road less traveled. I would rather see 100 disgruntled tea partiers, than 100 couch potatoes.

As I write this there is a lot of talk of the assault weapons ban making a come-back, and this had my gun owning friends worried. Worse still, I find their worry is translated into the same arguments used before, back when Republicans had a majority in both houses of Congress, and the Presidency. Well for gun owners, times are tough, and the world has moved on to a new reality. In an effort of “cross the aisle” support, I thought I would offer my advice to my gun owning friends, to help them through what looks to be a painful transition.

The Football Metaphor (with apologies to those lads who know football as footy)

Think of yourself as a fan of a major professional football team. Not just any team, but a dynasty team; one with multiple Superbowl trophies under it’s belt, and many fine pro-ball players sporting Superbowl bling on their fingers. Now imagine that your team just got beat in the Spuerbowl, for the first time in 8 years. Ouch! Sure it hurts to loose, and sure the feeling of loss is rather novel, but that does not mean your team is completely destroyed. You still have a lot of fine players on the roster, and you still have the same old excellent coaching staff. But even with all those things on your side, sometimes you still loose. Try to remember that the other teams want to win just and much, and that there is always next year. As we all know, crying in our beer is cathartic, but it doesn’t really help. What we need is to rethink our game, and start up with some new training.

First of all, it’s time for a new defense.  Running a tight defense, trying to keep the opposing team from making big running plays, works well if you have the best offense. And lets face it, Republicans have always run a good offsense. As long as you can outscore the other team, your defense really only has to contain the opposing team, not stop them. This works well, as long as you have the best offense on the field. If you can force the other teams to make bad passes, while keeping their running game to a minimum, then your offense can come in an outscore the other guys.

And for the past 8-10 years, that has pretty much been the goal of gun owners. Minimize the weaker opponents, and concentrate on allowing your party to win. And for all that time, it worked really well. You had a good offense (Republicans got elected often, and to majorities), and you could easily contain any movement from your opponents with your tight defense.

That was then, this is now. Now you are facing a whole new team. Last year in the off-season (is there an off-season in politics?) the other side got themselves a new quaterback. And guess what? He has got a real arm on him. Say what you want, Obama can throw spectacular passes. And he has enough fast talking guys on his team to get under them.

In effect,  another team now has the better offense.

So its time to open up your defense. Right now its better if you can limit the other team to a small running game, and defend more against the passing game. Because if you don’t, they are going to pass the ball right through your defense, and you are going to loose again this season. You’ve got to control the ball by rethinking what you are going to defend, otherwise, your in for another loss. Your offense is not going to out-pass this guy,  so your defense has got to take up the slack.

What does this mean in the real word? Well, for starters, you’re going to loose on the assault weapons ban. Really. I know it hurts, and I know you think this means the camel’s nose is under the tent, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Democrats have the votes, AND the momentum. So you might as well know it going to happen, and deal with it. If you try to hold tight, it you try to defend this issue like it is the end of the world, you are going to loose. It’s an ugly truth, but it is still the truth.

But that is not the end of your game, its just the first few yards. What you want to defend against are large bans on guns, not selective bans on certian types of guns. No matter what you do, some of these are going to pass. It’s better to let them go, and defend against the bigger plays, than to try a goal-line defense on the 50, and watch helplessly while the other side passes the ball deep. Because sure as shootin, that is what is going to happen if you kepe to the old defense.

So here’s your stratgy for 2009, and for all the years until you get a stronger offense: Defend against the deep game, and worry less about the short game. Take the sort game on the chin, in excange for containment on the long game.

That, and start shopping for a better quarterback.