under the hammer

President Barack Hussein Obama made the rich paying their fair share of taxes the focal point of his campaign. But the question that I have not been able to find the answer to is: Now, after the tax increase, are the rich paying their fair share?

Obama raised taxes on the rich; was that enough? The White House press office has not responded to that question. I have read both that now the rich, according to Obama, were paying their fair share, and that the rich were not yet paying their fair share and taxes needed to be increased more on the rich.

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Now that we have been over the fiscal cliff and then pulled back to what is supposed to be safety by increasing taxes on the rich and giving a tax break to everyone else, a lot folks are shocked that their paychecks are smaller. Or, I should say, a lot of folks who make less than $450,000 a year are shocked to find that their paychecks are smaller.

Although most Americans reportedly received a tax cut in the fiscal cliff deal, paychecks went down. In 2011, a 2 percent reduction in the Social Security payroll tax was enacted. This was done to put more money in people's pockets with the hope of getting the economy going, but that 2 percent reduction was allowed to expire. So payroll deductions went up 2 percent causing most paychecks to go down.

One might assume from that action that the Obama administration is no longer interested in improving the economy or for people having more money in their pockets.

The government giveth and the government taketh away.

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It looks like our leaders in Washington are going to have just long enough to go home, take a shower and change clothes before the next fiscal crisis, which is going to be about raising the debt ceiling that is currently at $16.4 trillion.

Obama has said that he is not negotiating and the Republicans say he has lost his mind if he thinks they are going to raise the debt ceiling without getting some spending cuts.

Obama has a point. Every time the Republicans have gotten up to the edge and looked over the fiscal cliff they have run away screaming and given Obama what he has wanted.

If this time the Republicans actually put on their big boy pants and are ready to negotiate, they have to be willing to go over the cliff. But to convince Obama that this time they are not going to get scared and cave in they probably will have to put a stop on borrowing money for a while. Certainly the federal government can rearrange payments so that not being able to borrow $1 trillion right away is not going to put the government up for sale.

The first order of business will be that Obama will decide that the men and women in the armed forces cannot be paid. Then they will probably run out of money to buy bullets for the troops in Afghanistan. But I'll bet the federal budget against a doughnut that no matter how bad it gets the federal government will not run out of money to fuel up and fly Air Force One and Air Force Two.

Speaking of air travel, wouldn't it be great if the federal government ran out of money to pay all the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) guards, or at least the funds to pay the electric bills on the naked body scanners? Air travel would increase overnight.

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Good news for North Carolinians who live in the northern portion of the state, but bad news for the North Carolina state government, is the proposal in Virginia to eliminate the state gas tax. The tax is currently 17.5 cents, compared to 37.5 in North Carolina. And if Virginia lowers its gas prices by an additional 17.5 cents, then it may be worth a drive to Virginia to fill up.

It might not be a good time to be opening a gas station in Eden, Stoneville or Norlina.

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Former Gov. Bev "Dumpling" Perdue proved in her last week in office that not only was she a lousy governor, she's not a very nice person either.

Perdue had said she would make a decision on the clemency request for Janet Danahey before leaving office. She did make that decision, and her decision was to do nothing.

To make a decision regarding clemency was her right as governor and I don't disagree with the outcome. What proved she was a lousy governor and not a good person is that she didn't announce her decision.

In 2002, Danahey started a fire in the Campus Walk Apartments that killed four people. She started the fire on purpose, but said she had no idea that dousing a couch in lighter fluid and lighting it would catch the building on fire.

Perdue was under a lot of pressure from both sides – those who think Danahey has served long enough and those who think she needs to serve her full life sentence without parole. A one-sentence statement would have prevented all of those involved from being on pins and needles right up until Gov. Pat McCrory took the oath. Perdue knew that whatever she decided would be controversial. But she was getting paid to make those decisions and take the heat.

Fortunately for the State of North Carolina, Perdue is no longer holding any office of importance and the best thing for the state would be for Perdue to retire from public life. But somehow these bad pennies have a habit of turning up again and again.

Since, so far, Perdue – unlike her predecessor former Gov. Mike Easley – has not been convicted of any felonies, she may not go down as the worst governor in the last 50 years. But it will still be a close call.

A political system that puts a political hack like Perdue and a crook like Easley in the governor's mansion is broken. Maybe McCrory and the Republican legislature can fix things because the North Carolina political system needs serious repair.

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There is an excellent example of why the federal government is currently borrowing $1 trillion a year to cover its out-of-control spending: Greensboro is desperately trying to spend $5 million that it received from the federal government to make houses more energy efficient.

Basically, the grant is supposed to be used to insulate buildings, fix windows and make repairs that will make the buildings more air tight, except Greensboro can't seem to spend the money.

Since 2010, when the program started, Greensboro has spent $2.4 million. Now Greensboro says that it can spend the other $2.6, if not before the fast approaching May deadline, then shortly after.

Does anyone think that last $2.6 million will be well spent? Furthermore, everyone in Greensboro is eligible for money regardless of their income level. If Obama is so worried about the rich not paying their fair share, why is he giving the rich a rebate for fixing up their homes and businesses – something they would do anyway?

It is true that $5 million is a drop in the bucket of the federal budget, or not even a drop in the bucket. But all those tiny particles together fill the bucket. All you have to do is multiply that by every city and town in the country and then by every federal program.

There are so many programs. The federal government spends billions on public transportation from buses to trains and subways. The federal government paid 80 percent of the cost of The J. Douglas Galyon Depot, which is the renovated bus and train station, as well as 80 percent of the outrageously expensive new bus maintenance building, and 80 percent of the cost of every bus out there on the streets.

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Greensboro would have never spent $20 million on a luxurious new bus maintenance facility, except it was free money. The same goes for the Galyon bus and train station. It was done because it was free for the city, and for that reason the city spent far more than it would have ever considered spending.

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Banning assault weapons because of the tragedy at Sandy Hook is like banning sports cars because a drunk while driving a sports car lost control and ran into a school bus.

But if sports cars were to be outlawed, the first question to ask is – what is a sports car? This is the same question that has to be answered in the assault weapons case. A sports car has no set definition, but sports cars do have common features. Assault weapons are called assault weapons because they look like assault rifles, not because of the way they perform.

Just as you can argue that nobody needs a 30 round magazine, you can argue that in a state where the top speed limit is 70 mph, nobody needs a car that will go 150 mph.

But people want fast cars and people want guns. Far more people die in this country from automobile accidents than from gunshot wounds. Automobile deaths could be drastically reduced by reducing the size of motors, increasing the size of cars and requiring far more safety features. The government could require each driver to be outfitted like a NASCAR driver with the helmet, gloves, jumpsuit and head restraints. It would make running to the grocery store for a gallon a milk a much longer procedure, and far more expensive, but it would greatly reduce deaths.

A nationwide speed limit of 20 mph would also greatly reduce deaths, except there might be an increase in deaths from road rage.

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The fact that Alex Jones of Infowars was detained by the TSA can be interpreted a couple of ways.

Jones is a loud-mouthed conspiracy theorist who has made a good living being a loud-mouthed conspiracy theorist. But in this country, being a loud-mouthed conspiracy theorist is a perfectly legal and somewhat respected way to make a living.

It is not hard to set off the TSA guards. They are for the most part poorly educated and poorly trained. Their response all to often is to detain people, make them believe they are in big trouble and intimidate them into submission.

This technique is the opposite of what is needed with someone like Jones.

He may have instigated the confrontation, which has no doubt enhanced his reputation with his followers. But maybe he didn't instigate it. Maybe it was instigated by the TSA because they knew who he was and wanted to make a point. It is certainly a possibility and if it is true then things are getting pretty scary.

Sen. Rand Paul, who has been highly critical of the TSA, has also been stopped by TSA personnel. Rand was detained on his way to the Senate, which seems to violate the constitutional protection that members of Congress have, but nobody seemed concerned about that.

If the TSA is targeting people who are critical of the organization then the entire government is in bigger trouble than anything the fiscal cliff or deficit has to offer.

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It would appear that President Obama likes a fight. Why else would he nominate former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense? Hagel is one of those individuals who has the ability to make everyone mad.

It appears that he shares Obama's feelings toward Israel, which are not warm. Obama does everything he can to shun Israel, but puts a smile on his face and pretends that he supports our country's most important ally in the Middle East.

Republicans dislike Hagel because he not only opposed military strategies like the surge in Iraq, but said it was "The most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam."

He has complained about the "Jewish lobby," which doesn't endear him to many in the Jewish community.

Obama has been pretty successful at getting what he wants through the Senate, and the Democrats do have a majority, but Hagel should be an interesting battle because the conservative Republicans oppose him and the liberal Democrats seem to love him.

It is astounding that Hagel is a Republican. If you read the editorials supporting him it is like a who's who of the left. His supporters consist of folks like New York Times editorial writer Thomas Friedman.

The Senate has produced some weird anomalies like Hagel, who is nominally a Republican but supported Obama in 2008 and supports Obama's policies toward the Defense Department, which is to dismantle it.

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I realize that I'm fighting a losing battle here, but if the government is going to ban some kinds of guns at least we should be able to talk about what is being banned in sensible terms.

No one is talking about banning "assault rifles." although you will read that in every publication from the lofty New York Times to the lowly News & Record. Most journalists don't know the barrel of a gun from the trigger, so for them writing about banning firearms is like a Neanderthal writing about banning cars with automatic transmissions.

Assault rifles are fully automatic and have been effectively banned in the United States since 1934. They were banned back when the big national issue was Prohibition, and no one is talking seriously about legalizing them.

What some people want to do is ban "assault weapons."

The term assault weapon was more or less invented by the Clinton administration when it wanted to ban guns that look scary.

Take the plastic stock off most of the assault weapons that were banned by Clinton and replace them with a walnut stock and you no longer have an "assault weapon." The gun will fire exactly the same, but it theoretically wouldn't look as scary so it would not be banned.

To talk about banning assault weapons first someone has to define what an assault weapon is. Then it would be helpful if they could give some reason why those guns should be banned when rifles that perform the same functions, but look more like hunting rifles, are not.