Daily Archives: 21 May 2020

A Retaliation and Response

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The Trump administration is musing about ways to stop Iran from trading its sanctioned oil to sanctioned Venezuela.

Some US officials have advocated restraint, arguing that the US should only intervene if the Iranian shipments become a permanent fixture, according to people familiar with the matter.

Never mind that restraint will guarantee that Iranian shipments become a permanent fixture, since if these officials become ascendant, they will infect all of the administration with their timidity.

No, a perfectly fine way to halt, with considerable permanence, Iranian sales and shipments to Venezuela would be to seize the tankers, offload the cargo, and then send the tankers to the breakers. That will make even this first instance very costly to the Iranian government.

Iran has warned it will retaliate if its ships are blocked, calling it an act of “piracy.” …that interference with the oil deliveries would be met with “immediate and firm response.”

The effort would provide us with useful intelligence on Iran’s methods, capabilities, and modes of operational thinking. That wouldn’t be all bad.

A Tale of Two States

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A Wall Street Journal editorial provided the comparison.

Since 2010

  • New York’s population has grown from a skosh under 19.4 million to a skosh over 19.4 million
  • Florida’s population has grown from 18.8 million to 21.5 million
  • New York’s spending has increased by $43 billion—about $570,000 for each additional person
  • Florida’s spending has increased by $28 billion—a $10,400 increase per new resident
  • New York’s spending on worker retirement benefits has nearly doubled
  • Florida’s spending on worker retirement benefits has grown by one-sixth of that
  • New York’s Medicaid consumes 40% of the state budget—twice as much as education
  • Florida spends about the same on schools as on Medicaid—and has an older population—retirees don’t flock north to New York
  • Florida’s private job growth has been about 60% higher than in New York
  • Florida’s finance job growth has been 25%
  • New York’s finance job growth has been 9.7%—and New York is supposed to be our financial city

Currently,

  • New York’s 2021 budget was for $177 billion
  • Florida’s 2021 budget (albeit not yet signed by the governor) is for $93 billion
  • New York’s spending is 35.9% Federal (taxpayer nation-wide) dollars—$63.5 billion
  • Florida’s spending is 32.8% Federal dollars—$30.5 billion

And after all this, New York still is demanding more Federal dollars—$61 billion worth—not just from the good citizens of Florida, but from the good citizens of all of the other States in these United States.

There’s one more difference between the two States: one is run by Progressive-Democrats, the other by Republicans. You know which is which.

Aside: both States use Federal dollars—the dollars of taxpayers from all the other States as well as those two—for enormous portions of their budgets. It’s time to do away with Federal transfers of taxpayer dollars from one State to another, except in time of declared regional or national emergency. Leave all those transfers in the originating States for their own use.