Sounds familiar

From a CNN Money article ("CBO chief: Budget outlook 'daunting'"):

The gist of his testimony went something like this: The outlook is bad under current law and daunting if many current policies are extended as expected. And even that may understate the fiscal problem the country faces, because it doesn't factor in potential effects of debt on economic growth.

Where have we heard this before? From a variety of places such as those 'angry radicals' in the Tea Party movement, the 'unpatriotic' Libertarians and the 'racist' conservatives. My only question is: why would the administration suddenly be so transparent with their assessment? Oh, that's right, because they only have so much control over the CBO. Well, that too will change...

Tax 'em till they bleed

A new title for Big Brother has welled up from what seems to be his favorite pastime: Taxer in Chief. Yes, Mr. Obama has found another opportunity to place yet another levy on the banking industry: Obama calls for bank tax as next step in reform.

Mr. Obama may or may not be aware of a fact mentioned now several times on this and other blog sites: taxes to industries are paid for by the consumers of such industries. In order to save us, the tax payers, from future financial ruin due to risky investment activity, Big Brother has proposed a tax which, ultimately, will be paid by us, the tax payers. How sweet of him.

All of this activity moves us further from the true source of risky investment activity: government intervention. Had Congress not interfered with the government entities known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, creating an environment where risky investment became less risky for the actual lenders in the name of creating opportunity for the underprivileged, we would be looking at a significantly lessened recession. In fact, we would likely not have been introduced to the concept of bail outs had Mr. Obama and his congressional cohorts refrained from their typical shenanigans. Naturally, his solution to the aftermath of such government intervention is further legislation and taxation. I suppose he believes we can never have too much of a good thing. I, for one, disagree.

Salt of the earth

Following in New York city's footsteps, the Ministry of Information has begun assailing the use of salt by the American public: Study: Americans eat too much salt. Naturally, Americans are too stupid to know what to eat, much less how the food they eat impacts their health. To the rescue comes Big Brother to save us from our stupidity. Of course, to grease the wheels of the impending social interference, we are to be subjected to the unending justification of the loss of our freedom prior to the saving actions of Big Brother. I don't see my local government attempting such an encroachment on my rights, but I don't doubt the testicular fortitude of the federal government to exercise the demons of sodium from my diet. Thank goodness for the Ministry of Information and their objective dissemination of the talking points of social engineering. How else would I know that I am about to have another right trod upon?

Still wondering why?

Three women are currently on a hunger strike in Raleigh, North Carolina. Theirs is an attempt to gain support for a U.S. Senate bill designed to ease the path toward gaining legal residence. The interesting thing about these women is that they are in this country illegally: Illegal immigrants on hunger strike.

How is it that these women are not arrested for their immigration status? Well, unless the federal government arrests them, their freedom is guaranteed, at least until they break some other law. For those who wonder why Arizona passed a law allowing law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of individuals stopped for other violations, your explanation can be found in this story. These are three women who openly flaunt their immigration status yet have no fear of incarceration because the federal government, tasked with protecting our borders from unlawful incursion, has opted to ignore its responsibility.

Some will argue that these women in particular, brought here as children by parents who remained past expiration of their legal status, should be granted special consideration for their circumstances. To this I would ask: where does special consideration end? Should we next consider excusing illegal parents of children who are born here and, therefore, are citizens themselves? After all, wouldn't these poor children be better served having their parents around to raise them? After that, should we give special consideration to those who, having remained illegally for some time, now find themselves indigent due to poor health? We certainly wouldn't feel good about returning them home in poor health.

We have laws for a reason. If we find the laws to be unjust, then we should change the laws. However, we should not excuse those who violate the laws simply because we can justify their actions in some loosely moral way. In the case of immigration, our efforts should involve building a fence with wide gates to deter illegal passage while accommodating those who wish to come, and stay, legally.

The Unavoidable

“The years of debt and spending make this unavoidable,” said British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in defense of an increase to the Value Added Tax (“VAT”). So, rather than addressing the spending to alleviate the debt, the British government has decided to increase their reach into the pockets of the British people. This, of course, is the natural progression of oppressive government taxation: take and spend as much as possible until your level of spending forces you to take more. The value added tax, ironically, is the next revenue stream proposed by the current U.S. Congress.

In short, the current proposed U.S. VAT seeks to tax the final step in the process, consumption, on top of each other step (i.e. payroll, income, corporate, capital gains, sales, etc.). Even the title is misleading, since it implies that the tax is related to value, which it isn't. It is simply a creative way to suck more blood from the stone in order to keep the vote purchasing mechanism well greased.

As I am a small government Libertarian, I see the need to have some method for paying for government, albeit on a much smaller scale. What we must do is streamline the tax structure while eliminating the ability for bureaucrats to manipulate the system for vote generation. The answer to this is the Fair Tax, where all other methods of government funding are eliminated, replaced by a single consumption tax that is fixed (i.e. not vulnerable to increase to pay for government fiscal irresponsibility). By placing the burden of tax payment on all consumption, we eliminate loopholes currently exploited by illegal aliens, criminals and those wealthy enough to hide their taxable income in the most creative ways. In this way we also remove the power of taxation from the people who spend the money, forcing them to work within the constraints of available funds.

TANSTAAFL

Paying The Piper

Although I covered this issue in my equally obscure blog of several years ago (Maximum Wage), I thought it worth revisiting in light of comments made in this piece: Minimum Wage Hikes Deserve Share Of Blame For High Unemployment. At the time, the minimum wage in the U.S. was $5.15. I engaged in a discussion with someone who couldn't see the harm in raising this wage one dollar per hour. On the surface, this seemed a reasonable thought. After all, what is a dollar between friends? However, as I pointed out at the time, it amounted to a nearly 20% increase to the minimum. Money has yet to be found springing forth from trees.

The Bush administration, in its finite wisdom, allowed the newly crowned liberal congress of the time to pass a bill that would increase the wage in each of the next three years. The change in the years from 2007 to 2009 was $.70 per hour per year. The first year amounted to an increase of nearly 14%. The second was an increase of 12% from the previous year, 27% cumulatively. In 2009, the increase amounted to 10.7%, a mere 40.8% cumulatively. This means that any business employing people at the minimum needed to increase their payroll for these people by 40% over that three year period. Why do we have an employment problem? I can't imagine.

Four years later, we sit mired in an economic slump from which there appears little relief. After eight years of general ineptitude, we are now subjected to a more specific economic ineptitude seldom rivaled. Nations around the world are waking up to the fiscal reality of social engineering while our current incarnation of Big Brother takes us down that same path. The minimum wage is another of the many examples of such engineering at work. While there's no reason to expect this or any administration to come to its senses about the minimum wage, there is little doubt that such tampering has had an impact.

Tilting the Scales

It seems that a federal judge in Port Chester, New York, felt that the lack of Latino representation in village trustees warranted providing each Hispanic in the village with six votes: Residents get 6 votes each in suburban NY election. That's right, not just one, not even just two, but six votes each. This, according to Judge Stephen Robinson, will put the village more in line with the Voting Rights Act. In other words, in order to ensure that the village elected Latino representation sufficient to account for the fact that half of the village is Latino, a federal judge provided that half of the population with six times the number of votes. In what level of hell does this make any sense to anyone?

Of course, for those who think it does make sense, perhaps you'd like to institute similar lunacy for other underrepresented members of society. After all, more than half the voting public is female, yet female representation is significantly less than that of male representation. Of course, until at least ten percent of all elected officials are openly gay, we should provide the gay community with as many votes as it takes to get their fair share of elected representation.

This is yet another example of social engineering twisting the intentions of a fair and open voting system by attempting to manipulate the outcome. Instead of inspiring greater participation by the Latino contingent of Port Chester's voting public, we'll artificially create an environment where the outcome is “fair”. Rather than seeking more Latinos to run for office, we'll simply ensure that every Latino who does is given a downhill path toward selection.

And what of the non-Latinos in Port Chester? When all the trustees are now Latino (assuming, of course, that at least six run for the positions), where will the voting rights of non-Latinos be? Will the next step be to have this federal judge, or other “impartial” third party, make all the selections for this post? Stranger things have happened. At the very least, I think I know from where our current President's next Supreme Court nominee will be coming.

Dark at the end of the tunnel

The U.S. economy continues to suffer under the yoke of oppressive government intervention and regulation. As a solution, Congress proposes more of the same: Democrats' tax bill moves toward vote in US Senate.

While I am glad not to be one of those seeking employment in this economy, I don't see how indefinitely extending benefits to the unemployed does anything more than remove incentive to gain employment. We can wring our hands all we want over the situation, but we will not improve it without changing the way we do things.

Of course, the solution to paying for this extension involves a new tax. This levy is meant to target those greedy fund managers who profit from managing investments. Clearly these gluttonous denizens of Wall Street can do with a 65% tax on their income earned trying to make investment and growth a reality. While I don't have a specific concern for these particular targets of the government tax machine, the fact is that this tax will join the ever growing pile of regulatory suffocation known as the U.S. Tax Code, never to be heard of again, at least not publicly. I have two words in response to this: Fair Tax.

I have a right...

Congressman Bob Etheridge, Democrat from North Carolina's 2nd district, refused to answer questions from some students on a sidewalk in D.C. ("Congressman Assaults Student on Washington Sidewalk "). Repeating the question "who are you?" and stating that he has "a right to know", the congressman grabbed and held onto one of the students while the other student continued to film him.

The congressman was correct: he does have the right to know who is asking him questions. He also has the right to refuse to answer, to ignore, or to even dismiss those asking questions. What he does not have a right to do, however, is assault someone simply because they asked a question. By striking out at the student's camera and then grabbing the student, he commits a crime for which any other citizen would be subjected to legal action, providing further evidence that our elected officials seem to believe that the law over which they preside does not actually pertain to them.

TANSTAAFL

Retail sales dropped “unexpectedly” in May. I have to ask: who doesn’t expect this economy to worsen? I would submit that anyone within reach of a microphone who is telling us that the economy is recovering does so without any conviction. At the risk of sounding like a broken record: nothing this administration, or this congress, has done will provide long-term recovery.

What I find amazing, at least in this article ("
Retail sales drop 1.2 percent in May"), is a statement like this: “The big drop raises new worries about the durability of the economic recovery.” There are no new worries, only the same old ones. There is no expectation of durability or recovery, at least not by anyone paying attention to the actions of Washington.

What do I mean by stating that this administration has done nothing to contribute to the long-term stability and/or growth of this economy? Prior to this president’s ascendancy, we heard the economy described as a depression, the worst since the 1930’s. Since he took office, he and his cohorts in Congress have written, passed and/or signed budget busting legislation related to healthcare, climate change and Wall Street “reform”. They propose to pay for all of these things through both borrowing and higher taxes. Borrowing creates future taxes and higher taxes stifle growth. What of these actions addresses the supposed depression upon which Mr. Obama ran his campaign?

Of course, they rarely use the words “higher” or “new” taxes, unless the words are accompanied by “on the wealthy”. While it may be a tired old mantra to many of us, it is the play on which much of their past success has been built. Make no mistake, however: a tax on anyone is a tax on everyone. Higher taxes on the oil companies translate into higher costs at the pump. Higher taxes on industry lead to higher costs of goods. Higher taxes on “the wealthy” lead to less investment by those people, leading to fewer jobs, leading to higher unemployment, leading to a higher tax burden on those who remain employed. Put simply, and by wiser people than I, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

Oh Helen

This week, long time White House correspondent Helen Thomas retired due to the backlash caused by comments she made in relation to Israel. While her comments were lamentable and emblematic of her political naivete, they should hardly surprise anyone familiar with this particular fixture of the press corps. In fact, her statement proves once again that we are all equally endowed with both the ability and the right to express our ignorance.

Ms. Thomas had a long career of providing agenda driven responses to the news of the day. While this is also lamentable, it is equally recognized as a Constitutional right. Free speech, as with free press, does not preclude anyone from lying, distorting, confusing or otherwise misstating facts. Speech is only an issue when it is being manipulated by those in power. While Ms. Thomas may have, at times, willingly endorsed political positions which closely aligned with her own agenda, she did so out of her own choice.

Her decision to step down was almost certainly influenced by her employers, people subjected to the cold reality of a capitalist system that would punish them financially for not achieving this feat. While this is the fairest possible system, putting into the hands of the people the ability to support as they see fit, it also has the consequence of muffling the unreasonable views to which she has a right. Fortunately, she still has the ability to express her ignorance as a private citizen.

We Didn't Mean Us...

When Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives, they did so with the stated intention to “drain the swamp” of corruption. Naturally, Democrats somehow believed that corruption was an attribute of Republicans only. This may be a revelation to them, but power’s corruptive influence knows no political, racial or ideological boundaries.

One of the methods for addressing what they claimed to be a right wing propensity for corruption was to create the Office of Congressional Ethics, proving that even politicians periodically create necessary and sensible devices to address their own abuses.

Now a subset of Democrats, specifically within the Congressional Black Caucus, is attempting to weaken the ability for oversight by this independent group because members of their caucus have been targets of its investigations (Black lawmakers want to limit new ethics office). Presumably Democrats have discovered that being humans themselves, they are equally prone to abuses of power and they're none too comfortable with that idea. While the leadership of this party are not supporting the effort, the push is no less an example of the hypocrisy to which we are regularly subjected by our elected officials.

Hate Speech is Double-Plus Ungood

On May 7th of this year, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (“NHMC”) wrote a letter to the FCC further emphasizing their desire for the agency to investigate and counteract “hate speech” in the media. In total, the phrase “hate speech” appeared over forty times in the eleven page letter.

In the spirit of transparency, I've altered their summary, replacing the term “hate speech” with “thought crime”, since that is a more accurate description of their ultimate goal with this effort:


NHMC et al. respectfully request that the Commission grant NHMC’s Petition for Inquiry on thought crime in media, filed in January of 2009. NHMC’s Petition urges the Commission to examine the extent and effects of thought crime in media, including the likely link between thought crime and hate crimes, and to explore non-regulatory ways to counteract its negative impacts. As NHMC has awaited Commission action, hate, extremism and misinformation have been on the rise, and even more so in the past week as the media has focused on Arizona’s passage of one of the harshest pieces of anti-Latino legislation in this country’s history, SB 1070.

As outlined in NHMC’s Petition, the current media landscape is a safe-haven for hate and extremism. Many communities and individuals do not have the information they want and need to intelligently engage in our democracy. This shortage of information is exacerbated by the vast media consolidation that has unfolded over the past two decades. Studies show that media consolidation diminishes ownership opportunities for people of color and leads to less diversity of voices; this yields a media in which people of color are under and misrepresented. As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve. In this same atmosphere thought crime thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television programs masquerading as “news.”

The Internet gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than before. Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye. Even worse, sometimes anonymous Internet speakers hold their information out as news, leaving the public with the difficult job of discerning fact from fiction.

For these reasons, as the Commission deliberates how the public interest will be served in the digital age, it should consider the extent of thought crime in media, and its effects.

While opportunities to tear into this argument abound, I will stick with the very simple point that attempts such as these have shown a propensity to turn on those in whose name the effort was made. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is explicit in its defense of speech and the press for a very simple reason: because citizens need to be able to speak out against the government if freedom is to persist. Allowing for a government agency, like the FCC, to circumvent the Constitution and abridge free speech is an affront to all American citizens, including those who seek to silence others through efforts such as this.