Obama's National Service Plan...

The One's web site is not lacking in documentation of Obama's promises, proposals, and plans. One of these is his National Service Plan, documented in this fact sheet (PDF). You really can only understand the magnificent liberal insanity of it by reading the whole thing, but here are some things from it that jumped out at me:

• “In November, Barack Obama laid out a comprehensive plan to provide all Americans with a world-class education and give our schools a substantial infusion of funds to support teachers and principals and improve student learning. That plan conditions that assistance on school districts developing programs to engage students in service opportunities. Obama believes that middle and high school students should be expected to engage in community service for 50 hours annually during the school year or summer months.”
  
  Translation: He's going to send a lot more federal dollars to local schools, if they require every kid to “volunteer” 50 hours a week of community service. Of course, just like every other federal school funding program that's conditioned on the schools toeing the line, the vast majority of school districts will leap on this. So our kids will be headed off to a week or two of slave labor every year. This is a wonderful peek into the liberal mindset: if some group of people don't want to do what you want them to do, then force them!
  
  
• “In recent years, social entrepreneurs have been the catalyst for much social innovation in education, economic development, health and the environment. By developing innovative solutions to important social issues, social entrepreneurs provide many of the important services that address human needs, improve our quality of life, and make democracy work better.”
  
  Translation: “social entrepreneur” is lefty-speak for what the rest of us would call a government-paid meddler. Unlike real entrepreneurs, “social entrepreneurs” don't earn a profit by providing things that people want. Instead, “social entrepreneurs” take your money (through taxes) and shove things you don't want down your throat. Not my idea of a good time...or progress.
  
  
• “Barack Obama’s national service plan will cost about $3.5 billion per year when it is fully implemented. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. This plan will be paid for in part by cancelling tax provisions that would otherwise help multinational corporations pay less in U.S. taxes starting in 2008 by reallocating tax deductions for interest expenses between income earned in the U.S. and income earned abroad. The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings associated with ending the war in Iraq.”
  
  Translation: Total bullshit! This is my favorite part of the entire document – the final paragraph. It's titled A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility – and what a load of crap that is.
  
  The BS starts right at the beginning, with the notion that all the programs described in this paper could be funded for $3.5 billion per year. A more level-headed estimate would be in the range of $15 billion per year, and that's making the wholly unwarranted assumption that government spending would be done efficiently.
  
  The tax provisions he's talking about canceling were those enacted to bring U.S. tax practice into line with international practice. These provisions were intended to keep U.S.-based multinational corporations in the U.S. – and they're working. Basically what these provisions do is stop our former practice of double-taxing multi-national corporations – so that if a company is taxed on money it made in (say) France, the U.S. would not require the company to pay U.S. income tax on that money in addition to the French tax. This is how the tax code works in most of the world. Before we implemented these provisions, U.S.-based multinational corporations were picking up and moving overseas – because in many cases they would save millions or even billions by doing so. Obama could only raise money this way for a few years, because after that those companies will all be located somewhere else...
  
  And then there's that last bit of double-speak about using “savings” from ending the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq is being funded (like any war) through a series of “extraordinary” (meaning outside the budget) funding resolutions. Obama is proposing that after the war is over, we'll simply add the amount of those outside-the-budget funding resolutions to the budget, to fund this National Service Plan. Somehow in the twisted liberal world view, that constitutes “savings.” You just can't make this stuff up...