Tag Archives: political parties

SALT Tax

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Short, brief, sweet, and redundant.

One thing threatening serious tax reform—which is to say making permanent the tax rate reductions that otherwise expire near the end of this year, reducing those rates further, and flattening the rates further—is the kerfuffle over the SALT (State And Local Tax) tax deduction cap, currently at $10,000.

I sympathize with the Representatives and Senators, especially the Republican ones, in those States most impacted by the cap. Their wealthier constituents want the cap raised significantly if not eliminated. These politicians, though, must understand that as members of our national Congress, their responsibilities to our nation as a whole runs a very close second to their responsibilities to those individual constituencies.

The business of cap raising/eliminating is nonsense for a couple of reasons. One is that there is no reason at all for the rest of us taxpayers to subsidize those in States with profligate spending and already high taxes. Those Congressmen would do better using their Federal influence and bully pulpit to convince their State and local governments to mend their spendthrift ways and lower their tax rates—the latter which several States (tellingly, mostly Republican led) already have done or are doing.

The other reason is that, aside from empirical evidence that lowering tax rates actually increases revenues to the Federal government from the increased private economic activity that results from more money being left in the hands of us private citizens, revenue reductions—if any—from lowered tax rates is easily covered by reduced spending in general and reduced, if not eliminated, subsidies and tax credits for “green” energy solar and windmill farms, battery cars, federal deductions for non-federal tax collections, and other such tax engineering froo-froo.

Indeed, with sufficiently reduced spending, badly needed increased spending on national defense still could occur.

Raising the SALT tax cap wouldn’t be tax reform, it would be tax deform. In fact, reform here would be eliminating the SALT deduction altogether.

End Congressional Oversight of the District of Columbia?

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Washington, DC, delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) wants an end to Congressional oversight of the District of Columbia, and she’s moving to revive earlier legislation that would to do so.

The congressional review period for DC bills is onerous for the District, and rarely even used by Congress, causing DC bills to be unnecessarily ensnared in congressional bureaucracy for months[.]

It’s already the case, though, that the oversight is so rarely used—only twice in the last 30 years has Congress moved to overrule a DC-passed ordinance—that the district already is, functionally, self-ruling.

However.

The move, even were it a good idea, would require an Amendment to our Constitution. Here’s Art I, Sect 8 on governance of the District of Columbia:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings

Holmes has a beef, in that there are too many bureaucrats involved, and it is much to slow to get anything done. Those 60 days to review an ordinance proposal are patently excessive, especially in this day of computers and Congressional staffs so bloated that staffers are scratching for things to do. I’ll go out on a limb: it shouldn’t take more than a week (Sundays excepted) to do the review and either approve or reject the ordinance.

Those interferences, those delays, badly want reduction.

There is a Parallel

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Virginia Republican legislators are looking at updating and tightening Virginia law regarding fentanyl deaths.

Under current case law, it is difficult to charge a drug dealer with the murder of a user who died from fentanyl they had purchased unless they are in the proximity of that dealer, according to GOP legislators.

Thus:

State Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-New Kent, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Virginia hopes to address that legislative insufficiency.
“This [new] [law] would say if you sell the drugs, it doesn’t matter if you’re in physical proximity,” he said.

When a person is killed in the course of a crime of which he’s a victim or bystander, all of the participants in that crime are as guilty of murder as is the one who did the actual killing. This is well established case law.

It’s eminently sensible that participants in a drug activity (and not just involving fentanyl) during the course of which or as a result of which a person is killed by the drug should all be guilty of the murder as is the individual who was proximately involved in that killing. Bullets and knives have, in the main, pretty prompt effects from having been delivered in the moment. Drugs, though, have prompt effects when taken, the taking often is delayed. Hence the need to expand that proximity to the dealer bit. The drugs the dealer delivered might well have their prompt effect later, when the addict takes the metaphorical bullet/knife stab.

Unfortunately, though, this law has little chance of passage in the current Virginia legislative session: the Progressive-Democratic Party will hold a one-seat majority after a pair of special elections are completed. Party has shown over the last four years that it has no stomach for punishing criminals, lacking even the stomach to hold them in jail pending trial, or even to bring them to trial at all.

A Singularly Bad Idea

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Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) has introduced a resolution that would propose a Constitutional Amendment that would apply term limits to Congressmen. Congressman Ralph Norman (R, SC) has introduced a companion resolution in the House.

The amendment would limit US senators to two six-year terms and US House members to three two-year terms. The two-page resolution states that after the amendment is passed by Congress and ratified by the states, the amendment would go into effect “within seven years after the date of its submission by the Congress.”
The resolution proposes that after a member of the US House has served three terms, they aren’t eligible to be reelected to the House. After a US senator has served two terms, they are no longer eligible to be elected or appointed to the US Senate.

This is a bad idea. It’s not suboptimal, it’s bad. There is no legitimate reason for our government to dictate to its sovereign—us citizens—who we will choose to represent us in our government, not even via Constitutional Amendment. Beyond that, there is no legitimate reason for a current generation of citizens to limit who future generations might choose to represent them in future governments, not even via Constitutional Amendment.

The concern about longevity, built-up seniority, and the perks and power of incumbency is very legitimate and amply justified by the abuses of so many current and immediately past Congressmen.

However, our Articles of Confederation, which got many things wrong—it was, after all, a first draft of a self-governing, non-monarchist, form of government—did get the matter of term limits and the power of incumbency and seniority absolutely correct. Here’s what Article V of those Articles had to say on this matter:

[N]o person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years[]

Congress under the Articles was unicameral, and a Congressional session and a delegate’s term of office were for one year only. Thus, a delegate could serve in Congress for no more than three years of a six-year period.

That is easily adaptable to our current bicameral Congress with its Congressional sessions lasting two years (so a Senator’s term spans three sessions). One adaptation would be to limit a Representative to three terms of any six and a Senator to two terms of any four, with a Senator wishing to stand for the House being limited just one term in the House until six Congressional sessions had transpired, and a Representative wishing to stand for the Senate being ineligible to do so also until those six Congressional sessions had transpired. I’d also bar the Congressmen of either house from serving in any other Federal government capacity or work for any lobbyist, whether for pay or pro bono, except that such alternative work bars the six sessions from counting until he’s left those positions.

That Amendment, based on the Articles’ limits, would satisfy the problem of incumbency and seniority without presuming to dictate our choices of whom to select to represent us.

Woke-ism

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A Wall Street Journal article centered on Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau resigning (being updated, as this article was published very shortly afterward) closed with this:

Liberal lawmaker Wayne Long said the Liberal Party under Trudeau has swung too much to the left on the political spectrum, much like the Democrats in the US.
“I don’t want to use the word wokeism, but we’ve doubled down on things where we’ve come out as a moral authority,” said Long, who isn’t seeking re-election this year. “People are tired of it. It doesn’t mean that they’re right and we’re wrong, but reality bites, and reality sometimes sucks.”

The Liberals still are unable to recognize that their policies are plain wrong and destructive. They’re only willing to say they were unable to sell their stuff to the public. Much like the Progressive-Democratic Party at home.