Just three days after the State Department issued a travel warning for Ukraine, it began promoting a campaign urging Americans to visit the country….
The later, pro-travel video doesn’t even mention that immediately prior travel warning—not even to say, “Go visit colorful Ukraine, just don’t go to these provinces.”
Not even the Left hand knows what the Left hand is doing.
…if the money were left in your hands to put toward your own retirement. WalletHub has looked at the differing state and local tax bites that they charge you for the privilege of living in their fair states. Not surprisingly (to some of us) Red states take a sharply lower bite out of your money than do Blue states, as the figure below illustrates. 
But what does this mean in practical terms? I looked at how the tax money could be used for an individual’s or family’s retirement program were the money left in the pockets of the earner. Even though this study indicated that Wyoming’s state and local tax bite was the lowest, at $2,365, I used Texas’ more middling $5,193 take (middling because, even though Texas was rated as having the 7th lowest collection rate, the difference between Wyoming and Texas was $2,828, and adding that to Texas’ number got me to the neighborhood of DC’s $8,034, which was ranked 37th lowest) as my baseline because that’s where I live.
I also made a couple of heroic assumptions: working from WalletHub‘s assumption of a single filer, I fleshed that out to say he’s just turned 30 (yeah, he’s late to marriage), and he can afford to set aside the amounts identified below in his retirement program (actually, he chooses to afford, since he already can afford—he’s paying the taxes already). Those amounts are the differences between the state and local taxes he’d pay in the state indicated in the table below and the taxes he’d pay in Texas. I also assumed our young man can get a 3% return on investing his money, thereby roughly matching historical inflation. As a 30-year old, he’ll work for 37 years before retiring. Finally, this is a static analysis; it assumes no tax differential changes over those 37 years.
|
State, Local Taxes |
Tax Difference from Texas |
3% Investment Return |
|
New York |
$4,525 |
$172,300 |
|
California |
$4,316 |
$164,400 |
|
New Jersey |
$3,637 |
$138,500 |
|
DC |
$2,841 |
$108,200 |
Even with that middling difference between Texas and DC, DC’s “state” and local tax bite is worth more than $100,000 over our man’s remaining working lifetime were he allowed to keep his money. What does he get for that extra tax money taken? A higher cost of living, and not much else. More restrictions on individual freedom and responsibility—gun laws, for instance—and a denser population; although lots of folks like that part.
But think about what our man can do for himself with all that extra money—like visits to states with denser populations for all those attractions, while living more cheaply when he’s done with his vacation. And more support for charities of his choice, through means of his choice, rather than those of government’s choices.
In light of the NLRB’s ruling that Northwestern football players can join a union, I have a number of questions and concerns.
How many other college semipro sports will unionize? Will athletic departments survive the costs of unionization? Will ticket sales?
What will the NLRB’s ruling do vis-à-vis Title IX?
How will the vast majority of college and university programs that don’t make money from their athletic departments will survive? How will those programs within athletic departments that don’t make money survive–will the “football” union be willing to subsidize them? Even were they willing, will they have the money to do so for all?
Will academic students now be forced to pay union dues, since they “benefit” from the “football” union’s…bargaining? Will other student athletes in other sports?
Unionized semi-pro athletes who happen to attend college represent a fertile training ground for future union membership. This ruling sets up that farm system.
And as The Wall Street Journal cites NLRB’s Peter Sung Ohr [emphasis added]:
[C]ollege players aren’t student athletes who get an academic scholarship in return for competing in a sport. They are “employees” and thus eligible to have a union collectively bargain with their university employer. Mr Ohr explains that college players spend 40-50 hours a week at their sport during the season, often more than on class work, and that they are essentially paid for their work via a scholarship that covers tuition, fees and room and board worth about $61,000 a year.
Not a trace of irony there. No, Sir.
The WSJ added this parting point:
Don’t look for the football players to give up their gourmet training tables in solidarity with the geeks majoring in pre-med.
Be all right with me if colleges shut down their athletic programs, converted them all to IMs, converted existing athletic scholarships to academic scholarships of the same value, and stopped offering athletic scholarships altogether. Put the “student” back in “student athlete.”
Justice Stephen Breyer asked why the government couldn’t provide the companies the same accommodation it offered nonprofit religious organizations. In those instances, the government effectively picks up the cost of the challenged methods.
“You’re talking about a very open-ended increase in the cost to the government,” [Solicitor General Donald] Verrilli said.
Related to that is Justice Elena Kagan’s worry that “everything would be piecemeal. Nothing would be uniform.”
There’s a hint there, folks. If a thing is too expensive, or too confusing or hard, for government to do right, maybe government shouldn’t be doing it.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) has committed the dastardly deed of posting on his Facebook and Twitter feeds, references to a Biblical verse: Philippians 4:13. The meaning of this verse, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” is less important than Scott’s purpose in posting it and the hue and cry raised over it by the atheists of the Left. Walker’s Press Secretary Laurel Patrick, had this to say of that purpose:
While [Governor Walker] frequently uses his social media to engage with Wisconsinites on matters of public policy, he also uses it to give them a sense of who he is. This does just that—it was a reflection of his thoughts for the day.
On the other hand, Freedom From Religion Foundation really has its collective knickers in a twist.
This braggadocio verse coming from a public official is rather disturbing. To say, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” seems more like a threat, or the utterance of a theocratic dictator, than a duly elected civil servant.
A threat? Really!? And where is the diktat involved here? In what way is Walker ordering anyone else to do anything?
In what way is a man required to check his ethos—or his religion—at the door when he goes to work? Should Walker also check his Judeo-Christian requirement to help the least among us at the door, too?
Come to that, where is the FFRF on government welfare—that use of taxpayer dollars, that use of FFRF members’ tax dollars—to support this Christian effort by government?
This would be bad parody, except that the FFRF and other If-It-Offends-Me-It-Must-Be-Unconstitutional crowd are deadly serious. Instead, it’s just a disturbing level of paranoia.