Is it Time?

Posted on 22 May 2013 by eehines

Fox News is asking the question, “Is it time to overhaul the IRS?”

I say, no, but not for any of the reasons offered by Fox. It’s time to overhaul our tax code to simplify it to a single flat tax at, say, 10% with no deductions, credits, subsidies, exceptions, differences depending on source of income, or what-have-you, and that everyone pays.

How much money did you make from all sources (wages, cash payments, interest, capital gains, dividends, gambling, etc)? Pay 10% of that total. Based on 2007 numbers (i.e., pre-Panic), that actually would increase revenue to Uncle Sugar by a substantial amount. That’s only a static analysis. Considering the ripple effects on our pocketbooks and so on our economy—which would take off—that would yield an even more substantial amount of revenue for the government.

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This is Amazing

Posted on 21 May 2013 by eehines

What a breathtaking failure to communicate. Regarding the IRS failure to perform, The Wall Street Journal reported this tidbit over the weekend.

The Internal Revenue Service’s watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups….

The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. He said he didn’t reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages….

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Another Obama Sequester Fail

Posted on 15 May 2013 by eehines

Recall that California’s gas and oil industry has been shrinking for years. It’s a slow shrinkage, but in the present political clime—the green political clime—it’s been inexorable. This graph tells the tale (ignore, for this post the loud contrast with Texas).

Now this administration’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for leasing and permitting of Federal lands to oil and gas producers, is claiming that it’s helpless to reverse this trend—the sequester, you see. The BLM has announced that it

will stop scheduled oil and gas leasing on public lands for the rest of the fiscal year. At least two auctions of more than 3,000 acres with promising oil deposits have already been canceled.

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An Honest Citizen

Posted on 15 May 2013 by eehines

…and a Government Citizen.

The Federal government is required to certify whether an act of terrorism has occurred so businesses can determine related loss recovery. One outcome of this is that if a business did not specifically buy terrorism coverage, a formal designation of terrorism could make it harder to recoup a loss.

Now consider the Boston Marathon attack. Lots of small businesses that were impacted by that disaster did not buy terrorism coverage.

Enter, stage left, the Government Citizen:

Boston Mayor Tom Menino told reporters at a press conference Saturday that he has confidence Obama will not sign anything that would hurt businesses impacted by the bombings[.]

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Clinton’s Signature

Posted on 9 May 2013 by eehines

Much has been made of the fact that memos that, among other matters, denied requests for additional security for the Benghazi consulate went out over then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s signature. In particular, the Left insists that it’s entirely routine for others to affix the boss’ signature to correspondence which the boss never actually sees, much less reads, before that correspondence goes out.

The Left is correct in this. In large organizations, it is a commonplace practice for subordinates to generate and transmit correspondence that the boss never sees but on which, because of the subject matter involved, the boss’ signature is required in order to give the necessary weight to the correspondence. State is no different in this regard.

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Obama’s Regulation Costs

Posted on 8 May 2013 by eehines

Heritage Foundation estimates that annual regulatory costs increased during Obama’s first four years by nearly $70 billion—with more regulations in store for term two.

And that’s just the 130, or so, so-called major regs. President Barack Obama’s EPA accounted for $45 billion all by themselves.

So much for Obama’s “commitment” to cut the red tape in Washington.

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He Built This

Posted on 28 April 2013 by eehines

President Barack Obama and his DoT folks, abetted by the press, have done their best to create a commercial travel problem out of the Obama Sequester. The press, including “fair and balanced” Fox News, are focusing on the ATC Controller furlough-caused 1,600 delays per day since the furlough scheme went in.

What the press cynically omit to mention is that ATC Controllers handle 28,500+ commercial, 27,000+ general aviation, 24,500+ air taxi and charter, 5,000+ military, and 2,000+ air cargo flights, or more than 87,000 flights each day.

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The Boston Lockdown

Posted on 23 April 2013 by eehines

While the second terrorist in the Boston Marathon bombing still was being hunted, Boston and a number of surrounding suburbs were put on lockdown, as police recommended (strongly) that everyone should stay indoors while they searched for the terrorist, a terrorist who, as it turns out, had escaped the perimeter the police had set up to enclose a small part of the city.

During that lockdown, Boston took a number of hits, and so I have some thoughts about the pros and cons of the matter.

Pros:
- easier to spot the terrorist on the move (which the police never did)

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2nd Amendment Rights and Steamrolling

Posted on 22 April 2013 by eehines

President Barack Obama, in his dismay that he couldn’t dictate his position on gun control via demagoguery, expressed his dismay thusly:

The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.

The Senators who voted against it are cowardly and had “no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this. It came down to politics.”

“A minority was able to block it from moving forward” through “this continuing distortion of Senate rules.”

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Meddling with Science Education

Posted on 19 April 2013 by eehines

Now the educators are politicizing the “science” to be taught our children. Newly released national science standard “proposals” will include the pseudo-science of manmade climate change as a “core concept.”

The new standards claim

Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming)

without any regard for the lack of actual science, or even data, to support that thesis.

On the other hand, some of the objections to this politicization miss the point and, if these objections are the ones that successfully defeat the nonsense, they’ll create their own problems. There is, for instance, the worry that

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