Yes, 0bama (yes, that’s a zero) was in fine form in the final debate,  showing the nation and the world that he is stone-stupid.  Sadly, McCain was too much of a gentleman to pick up the stone and smash 0bama between the eyes with it.  I am not.

0bama has been spouting this nonsense for a while, not just at the debate:

Now, Senator McCain, the centerpiece of his economic proposal is to provide $200 billion in additional tax breaks to some of the wealthiest corporations in America. Exxon Mobil, and other oil companies, for example, would get an additional $4 billion in tax breaks.

I asked this question of our resident leftists, but none had the nerve to answer me — even the stupidest of mammals learns to be wary of someone who hits it with a sledge-hammer when it sticks its head out of its hole.  McCain should have asked it of 0bama:

Senator 0bama, what do the oil companies do when the price of crude oil goes up?

We all know the answer — they raise the gas prices.  So now comes the follow-up in the one-two punch:

Well, then, Senator, what do you expect them to do when you raise their taxes?

We all know the answer to that, too — they will raise the gas prices.  Thank you very much, Senator 0bama.  Let’s keep following this line of reasoning:

OK, then, what has happened to gasoline prices in the last few weeks?

Well, they’ve come down.

Why?

Crude oil prices have come down.  So, having beaten him about the head and shoulders, it is time for the coup de grace:

So, what should we expect to happen when their taxes come down?

It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to figure this stuff out, folks.  (Disclaimer: I am a rocket scientist.)  This is nothing new or revelatory.  Adam Smith wrote about the pass-through effect of taxes on profits in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article II.  The whole book is worth the read, though it goes over 1000 pages.

Another stupidity is the idea of a graduated corporate income tax rates — if a company makes $50,000 a year, it should be taxed at a 15% rate, but if it makes $100,000 a year, it should be taxed at a 34% rate.  So, let us say that I have a company with two government contracts, each earning $50,000.  Assume each contract will require an outlay of $500,000, so I will get a 10% return on my investments.  If I break up the company into two entities, one for each contract, my taxes will be $15,000.  But if I have a single company, the taxes will be $22,250.  I’ve invested the same amount of money, done the same work, and made the same profit.  But in one case I pay $7,250 more in taxes.

Is that stupidity, or just insanity?  After all, liberalism is a mental disorder.