Progressives and Taxes

Posted on by
Reply

Look no further than California for the latest example of foolishness.

That state’s latest budget counts on at least $500 million from that state’s auction of carbon credits under its cap-and-trade…business…to balance its budget.

There’s a problem with that bait-and-switch…business…though.  As California’s Supreme Court ruled in its 1997 Sinclair Paint Co opinion, regulatory fees can’t

exceed in amount the reasonable cost of providing the protective services for which the fees are charged

or be imposed for

 unrelated revenue purposes.

This is a preview of Progressives and Taxes. Read the full post (240 words, estimated 58 secs reading time)

A Tax YGTBSM

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT), in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last Friday, had this tidbit while writing more generally about the IRS.

Look at the Earned Income Tax Credit.  Whether you like this refundable credit or not, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration reported in April that improper payments account for 21% to 25% of total EITC payments in 2012.  Take the percentage of improper EITC payments and apply it to the approximate $1 trillion we’ll spend on ObamaCare premium credits in the decade beginning 2014.

And on funding for a program the IRS is supposed to administer, he added this:

This is a preview of A Tax YGTBSM. Read the full post (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Counterargument

Posted on by
Reply

Via The Spirit of Enterprise comes this plain language advertisement for Texas as the place to be for business (for freedom generally, say I as a proud citizen of Texas).  Naturally, I had to hear it via SoE, no business fool, Governor Rick Perry (R); he has no need to run it in Texas, no need to preach to the choir.

Another thing I’m not hearing in Texas: ads from California or Illinois making the case for high taxes and regulation and litigation and big government and so those states are the happening places to be.

This is a preview of Counterargument. Read the full post (151 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

A Thought on American Foreign Policy

Posted on by
Reply

The following thought was quoted by David Feith, in a recent The Wall Street Journal op-ed, from a 1975 Daniel Patrick Moynihan essay called “The United States in Opposition.”  Moynihan’s essay was published just before the Democrat became the US Ambassador to the UN.

It is time, that is, that the American spokesman came to be feared in international forums for the truths he might tel.   The point is to differentiate, and to turn their own standards against regimes for the moment too much preoccupied with causing difficulties for others, mainly the United States….  Such a reversal of roles would be painful to American spokesmen, but it could be liberating also.  It is past time we ceased to apologize for an imperfect democracy.  Find its equal.”

This is a preview of A Thought on American Foreign Policy. Read the full post (143 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

Racism of the Federal Government

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s another example of the WilsonianObaman government’s racism.

The EEOC is haling Dollar General and a US unit of BMW into court, charging them with racism for the heinous practice—seriously—of using background checks to screen those convicted of

Murder, Assault & Battery, Rape, Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse (Domestic Violence), Manufacturing of Drugs, Distribution of Drugs, [and] Weapons Violations

from job applications.

Just to add racism to the EEOC’s racism, in the BMW case, there’s this: 70 black and 18 non-black contractors had criminal convictions, and the company declined to hire any of them.  The EEOC is only suing over the blacks’ non-hiring.  The non-blacks can go hang.

This is a preview of Racism of the Federal Government. Read the full post (158 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Laughingstock

Posted on by
Reply

That’s putting it mildly.  “Futile” also applies.  I’ve written earlier how President Barack Obama reduced himself to a laughingstock and is reducing the United States as a whole to a laughingstock.

Now those in Syria who’ve been begging us for help speak derisively about us as a result of Obama’s…behavior.  On the heels of Obama’s belated acknowledgment that his bright red bunting strewn upon the beach sands had been stepped on and over; followed by his decision to send small arms to Syrian rebels (which all of Arabia already is providing them) with which to fight al Assad’s helicopter, artillery, and tank assaults (supported by Hezbollah fighters and Iranian soldiers); coupled with Obama’s continued refusal to send the rebels the weapons with which to defeat those helicopters and, artillery tubes, and tanks; and his continued refusal to suppress al Assad’s air force in any way, the rebel beneficiaries of the Obama Munificence had this to say:

This is a preview of Laughingstock. Read the full post (379 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Red Lines and Retreat

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday, President Barack Obama finally acknowledged what we’ve known—what our allies have demonstrated to us—for some months: that Bashar al Assad has been using chemical weapons on his own people for as long as a year and a half.

Obama’s big, wide, squishy red line, drawn last August during the Presidential Campaign season, has been crossed, he finally admits (coincidentally, the day after former President Bill Clinton said

This is a preview of Red Lines and Retreat. Read the full post (338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

A Whistleblower

Posted on by
Reply

I offered this first as a comment to a Spiegel Online article.  Here it is with slight modifications to support its stand-alone status here.

Edward Snowden, of Verizon metadata and PRISM outing fame, thinks of himself as a whistleblower, and so do many who agree with him that the US’ PRISM program and its program for collecting metadata from cellphone providers are terribly wrong programs.

This is a preview of A Whistleblower. Read the full post (507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Farm Bill Fail

Posted on by
Reply

One of the more controversial provisions the Senate bill [a farm bill that will cost $955 billion if passed] covers is crop insurance.  In the past, farmers have been able to purchase an insurance safety net if their crops fail.  Under the bill, the government would kick in another $5 billion of insurance per year—bringing the total to $12 billion a year—which would cover the deductibles and cushion the blow farmers would have to pay.

And

The House version spends more money on crop insurance, but less for food stamps and conservation efforts.

This is a preview of Farm Bill Fail. Read the full post (191 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)