Bob Bauman's take on Obama

I'm not a fan of Barack. A junior senator from a podunk state whose only claim to fame is that of an excellent public speaker. Toastmaster accolades aside, he's a typical Democrat. "Tax-and-spend and damn the consequences, because more government is always good government!" Sad, he seems to have a personality that could help make a difference; instead he's just more of the same.

Obama's Legislative Broadside
When I served in the U.S. House of Representatives I received "Dear Colleague" letters everyday urging me to co-sponsor bills other congressman had written. I usually declined, preferring to introduce my own bills. My belief was, and is, the fewer laws the better.
But in the case of "The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act," S.681, it appears that Senator (and wannabe president) Barack Obama (D-Ill) decided to go along for the ride with the notorious Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) who has made a career of attacking offshore tax havens with all sorts of false charges. His most recent lie was that Americans' use of tax havens costs the government US$100 billion in lost taxes annually. As a co-sponsor Obama claimed: "This is a basic issue of fairness. We need to crack down on individuals and businesses that abuse tax laws so those who work hard and play by the rules aren't disadvantaged."
Among other enormities, this "Stop Tax Haven Abuse" bill creates an unprecedented blacklist of 34 named offshore jurisdictions. These are the jurisdictions senators presume to be tax evasion sites because they have high degrees of financial secrecy guaranteed by law (including such shady places as Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein). To say the least, it's unusual, and short of declaration of war, for the U.S. Congress to consider creating an "enemies list" of friendly nations based on nothing more then the radical ideas of a few politicians.
Well, the tax havens blacklisted in S. 681 have not taken kindly to the defamation of their jurisdictions. They're also not pleased that a potential candidate for president of the United States is one of their attackers. Peter Niven, chief executive of Guernsey Finance, expressed disappointment with the bill: "The reason we don't like it is because they chose us as an uncooperative jurisdiction, which we definitely are not."
Alden McNee McLaughlin, Cayman Islands minister for international financial services policy, said his government "deeply resented" suggestions that its offshore status made it "illegitimate. We seek to dispel the idea that somehow because we are not located onshore we are illegitimate. There is nothing about our industry which is intended to enable U.S. investors or corporations to use these products that we have to evade taxes," he told The Financial Times .
But the bitterest reaction to Senator Obama's co-sponsorship came from a well-known columnist for the Caribbean Net News , Gilbert Morris. After a detailed review of the neglect of Caribbean nations and their people by the United States, especially by past candidates for president, Morris said of Obama: "Even before he has begun, he has launched a salvo against the interests of the Caribbean - without in this case having educated himself on the issue." He accused the Senator of more than "hypocrisy" saying "Instead, it is blind idiocy."
Morris questioned the claim that the IRS loses US$100 billion annually due to alleged offshore tax evasion, noting that "between The Bahamas, Caymans, BVI and Bermuda, these financial centers invest nearly US$6 trillion dollars in the U.S. economy. A US$5 trillion, nine hundred billion dollar return on US$100 billion is - to my mind - an excellent return" He also debunked the repeated claim that offshore havens are used by terrorists, noting that terrorist "...financing has occurred primarily in onshore centers, in OECD member countries, at the leading banks in the world, under the noses of the very agencies now attacking offshore centers."
So much for Obama's early foray into foreign policy. Perhaps the senator should read bills before he lends his name as a co-sponsor. Knowledge would seem to be a major requirement for a president -- or even a U.S. senator.