Monthly Archives: April 2021

Manchin and the Filibuster

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Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV), says he’s against eliminating, or even “weakening,” the Senate’s existing filibuster process. He’s all about protecting bipartisanship, he claims, in a Washington Post op-ed (which is behind a paywall, so I’m citing WSJ‘s cite).

I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: there is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster[.]

On the other hand,

Some senators have floated potential changes that stop short of eliminating the filibuster altogether such as bringing back the “talking filibuster,” in which senators must be present and talking on the floor to block bills. That idea has been floated by both President Biden and Mr Manchin.

Manchin chose not to address his support for the “talking filibuster” in his op-ed. It would seem that he considers doing a talking filibuster, to be followed by a strictly party-line floor vote that eliminates all input from the minority party, not to be a weakening of the present filibuster process which blocks legislation altogether unless there’s bipartisan support.

Manchin doublespeak.

Facilitation

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Recall that the Progressive-Democrat-controlled Congress and President Joe Biden (D) enacted a $1.9 trillion Wuhan Virus Relief bill that contained a sliver of money for actual virus-related relief. The bill also included $12 billion in transfer payments for New York to “assist” that State with its budget.

This is what that bill and those $12 billion in transfers also facilitated.

The Democrat-controlled New York legislature has passed a budget deal that includes a $2.1 billion fund for illegal immigrants—including a one-time, $15,600 payment for those who lost their job during the pandemic.

Fully 17% of that Federal largesse—of average American‘ generosity—went to illegal aliens (whether us citizens agree with that or not). It’s plain that the State, at bottom, had no need for those $12 billion, since it has no need to spend the money on the citizens of New York.

Proposed Fixes for Georgia’s New Election Law

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Georgia State Congressman Wes Cantrell (R, 22nd District) has a couple.

In recent days, President Biden called the new Georgia Election Integrity law un-American, sick, pernicious & Jim Crow on steroids.
In light of this, today I am announcing my intentions to file legislation to address his concerns.
The bill will be called “The President Joe Biden Jim Crow on Steroids Voting Act.” Since President Biden seems to be very concerned about our laws here in Georgia, this bill will make Georgia’s voting laws identical to those of his home state of Delaware.
As a result, it will have 5 key features:
1. Instead of having up to 19 days of early voting in Georgia, we will have ZERO days of early voting JUST LIKE DELAWARE!
2. Instead of having no excuse absentee voting in Georgia, you will have to have the excuse of being sick or disabled to vote absentee JUST LIKE DELAWARE!
3. Instead of having plenty of secure drop boxes in Georgia, there will be no drop boxes JUST LIKE DELAWARE!
4. Instead of being able to get drink/food from a non-poll worker outside of the 150 foot buffer & drink from a poll worker within the barrier in Georgia, it will be illegal to receive anything of value while standing in line to vote JUST LIKE DELAWARE!
5. Instead of being able to vote in relative quiet in Georgia, your name will be announced out loud (and your party affiliation during a primary) so that your vote can be challenged by anyone in the precinct JUST LIKE DELAWARE!

Here’s his other.

On Saturday, Senator Chuck Schumer decided to weigh in on our new election integrity law by calling it “racist voter suppression.” He invited the MLB to move the All Star Game to New York. Apparently, Senator Schumer doesn’t know the voting laws in his home state which are much more restrictive than Georgia’s.
So in light of Senator Schumer’s concerns, I’m going to also introduce “The Senator Chuck Schumer ‘Racist Voter Suppression’ Voting Act.” This act will make Georgia’s voting laws just like New York’s.
Instead of up to 19 days of early voting, we’ll only have 9 days of early voting JUST LIKE NEW YORK!
Instead of no excuse absentee voting, we will now require an excuse for you to vote absentee JUST LIKE NEW YORK!

Cantrell added:

These politicians really should take the time to know their home state’s voting regulations before they start criticizing others, especially Georgia.

Truth.

Of course, Cantrell is serious only in ridiculing the utter dishonesty and outright racism of Biden and Schumer. I think he’s being generous, though, with his recommendation that they know their own States’ voting restrictions before they criticize others’.  I hold that they know full well their own States’ laws. No, their behavior is deliberate and their attitude toward average Americans in general and the good citizens of Georgia in particular is despicable.

Corporate Taxes

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Treasury Secretary and ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen opened her Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed with this:

When Congress enacted the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, the result was a dramatic reduction in corporate tax revenue. Over the past three years, corporate tax collections have fallen to their lowest level since World War II: 1% of gross domestic product.

Amazingly—shockingly—Yellen wrote that as if it were a Bad Thing.

Then she partially rationalized her disparagement with this:

Proponents of the TCJA said the US would get something in return for these tax cuts. Lower rates, the argument went, would lure production and investment to our shores, but that hasn’t happened—and for an obvious reason: other countries see what we’re doing and respond. When they see us lower our rates, they lower theirs to undercut us. In the end, no nation ends up more competitive. The result is a global race to the bottom….

Some of this is plain wrong. We did get trillions of dollars of corporate cash repatriated. We did get production and investment returned. And that spurred the outcome that Yellen so breathtakingly mistakes as a further Bad Thing. Other nations were spurred to compete on tax rates in order to retain their own businesses and to attract foreign investment.

Which drives the race to Yellen’s so-feared bottom.

But what is that bottom? Our Constitution specifies that the only things our Federal government is allowed, legitimately, to raise revenues for are three: to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States. Those, with the general Welfare further specified by the remaining clauses of that Article I, Section 8, also, are the only things on which our Federal government may spend our taxpayer money. The other nations, particularly those competing with us on tax rates, have their own taxing (and spending) floors.

Racing to those bottoms may be bad for Government bureaucrats like Yellen, but they’re unalloyed Goods for the citizens of all of our nations, as we get to keep more of our money and make our own spending, saving, investing, and other allocating decisions with our money—and our decisions will be far better and far more efficiently done than any of our Governments can ever hope to do.

And at that natural bottom, nations can stop trying to compete on tax policy and focus on Adam Smith’s competition—providing better quality goods and services. Which is even better for us citizens, if not for the power of Government personages.

Only a Leftist or an entrenched bureaucrat can misunderstand that.

Progressive-Democrat Obstruction at the State Level

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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is interfering with the Arizona State Senate’s audit of the county’s election materials—which have been under Senate subpoena for the audit for nearly four months (112 days according to OANN as I write on Thursday) and which subpoenas have been upheld by the courts repeatedly. The Board is actively blocking access to the secure facility housing the county’s computers and election materials, and it is demanding that the Senate, at Senate expense, transfer those materials to a separate facility for the audit.

Aside from trying deliberately to run up the cost of the audit, the county’s relocation demand is an equally deliberate, and cynical, attempt to sabotage the legitimacy of the audit’s results and findings. A proper inspection of the activities involved in and surrounding the election must be conducted in situ. That’s the only location in which the computers’ and documents’ can be set up for audit in a way that doesn’t risk contaminating or losing outright any evidence that might be found. That’s also the only way insight into those surrounding activities can be inspected, and absent that surround, the inspection—the audit—cannot be complete. The forensics aspect will be fatally interrupted.

The Arizona Senate has been patient enough. It needs to send the State Police down to Maricopa County to execute the subpoenas for the audit by seizing the county’s secure facility and allowing the Senate’s auditors to conduct the audit within that facility.

There also needs to be this item added to the audit: the computers and documents and their interactions must be carefully inspected to determine the level, if any, of tampering, of alteration or elimination during those 112 days of obstruction, with appropriate civil and possibly criminal action taken against those county supervisors if any such evidence is found.