Monthly Archives: December 2014

The PRC and Language

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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

So says the People’s Republic of China government, too. Here’s the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, on banning puns from news media, other programming, even advertising:

Radio and television authorities at all levels must tighten up their regulations and crack down on the irregular and inaccurate use of the Chinese language, especially the misuse of idioms[.]

After all, puns and idioms could lead to “culture and linguistic chaos.” Can’t have that. Order, dammit. Especially the government’s definition of order. The PRC government’s incumbents do clearly understand that language is thought.

Pass the Bill, Anyway

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…and force President Barack Obama to sign it or to veto it. On the record. Either way, it shapes the 2016 elections, and if Obama actually signs, it’ll be good for the country.

Obama has said he’ll veto

a potential agreement to permanently enact tax breaks on business investments in new equipment and research and development as part of a plan that would renew dozens of expired tax breaks for businesses and individuals both.

Obama threatened his veto even before any such plan actually has been developed and floated. Because you have to veto the bill before you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the bill writing.

Obama said, through his Deputy White House Press Secretary, Jennifer Friedman, that he would

veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families[.]

This, of course, is nonsense. Corporations don’t pay a lot of taxes, anyway; they pass what they pay on to their customers, including working families and unemployed families, in the form of higher prices. Contra Obama, the best way to help families is to leave more money in their pockets through lower taxes and to put more money in their pockets by getting government out of the way of the economy, so that growth can occur, hiring can occur, pay raises can occur.

Pass the bill, and force Obama to do something besides talk.

Obama’s Lawless Immigration

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President [Barack] Obama’s temporary amnesty, which lasts three years, declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance on Obamacare’s health exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who hire them won’t have to pay a penalty for not providing them health coverage—making them $3,000 more attractive than a similar native-born worker, whom the business by law would have to cover.

Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) is unimpressed.

If it is true that the president’s actions give employers a $3,000 incentive to hire those who came here illegally, he has added insult to injury. The president’s actions would have just moved those who came here illegally to the front of the line, ahead of unemployed and underemployed Americans.

Indeed. But either that was Obama’s intent, or he simply doesn’t care. After all, there are no more elections that concern him. Or the worst case: both of those considerations apply.