Category Archives: morality

The Obama Fiscal Cliff

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Here is a table of the effects of the Obama tax increases that will follow from President Barack Obama’s drive to put us all over the fiscal cliff.  The data are compiled from a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Category

Income

Post-Cliff Tax Rate

Tax Rate Increase from Pre-Cliff

Tax Dollar Increase from Pre-Cliff

Remarks
Unemployed Person Under $10,000 8.4% 55% $159
College Student $10,000-$20,000 7.5% 38% $308
Lower-Income Working Couple $20,000 – $30,000 5.5% 9,809% $1,423 From $15 refund to $1,423 tax payment—loss of Bush tax cut 10% bracket
Retiree Household $30,000 – $40,000 5.1% 42% $540
Higher-Income Professional $150,000 25% 25% $6,662 This also represents just under 25% of the total increase from the Obama tax hike
High-Income Couple $350,000 29% 20% $13,847 Loss of the AMT and higher dividend and cap gains taxes
Very High Income Households $1,000,000+ 39.7% 24% $254,637 Total share income taxes paid by these earners actually goes down due to the disparate impact of the Obama tax increase on the lower incomes

Obama’s Plan B desire for going over the fiscal cliff is going to hurt the least among us—the antithesis of our country’s Judeo-Christian imperative—and it makes his Evil Rich relatively better off.

Mass Shootings

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In the aftermath of the Newtown, CT, school massacre, there’s been a push to reapply a ban on “assault” weapons—whatever those are; not even the military has any such.  The term is purely legalist, cooked up in the back halls of Congress, and subject to change with the winds of political convenience.

One of the excuses used for this foolishness is one that Peekskill Mayor Mary Foster repeats:

We have seen a proliferation of these tragedies after the ban on assault weapons expired in 2004.  We cannot allow this to continue.

Let’s look at some actual facts.  The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel published some of those just last August.  The graph below is built from their data, which cover roughly 35 years—from 1976 through 2010.

Note:   Mass shooting defined by the FBI as the shooter killing four or more people in a single incident (not including the himself), and typically in a single location.  Data compiled from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program by James Alan Fox, criminology professor at Northeastern University; US Census Bureau; Journal Sentinel research

Hmm….  Pop quiz time, and no peeking below: who can identify from this graph the period of effectivity of the “assault” weapon ban?

I didn’t think so.

The ban ran from 1994-2004.  The incident rate during that period is the same as the rates both before and after.  The number of victims per incident varies wildly—but is unchanged, in average or variability, over the same three periods.

Maybe it would be better for concerned communities to put trained, armed guards on duty in locations where there are masses of people—like schools and shopping malls, maybe.

Maybe it would be better for folks sitting in leadership positions—like, say, Mayor Foster—to think with their brains, rather than their emotions, and to consult some actual data.

Good Faith Negotiations

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Here’s another example of good faith, Progressive style.  This occurred in the failed fiscal cliff “negotiations:”

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table.  What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said.  “I get that for free.”

It’s certainly true that a number of chuckleheads, as one Republican participant called them, let themselves be confused into thinking that voting to preserve the present tax rates for 99.8% of Americans was the same as voting for a tax increase—even though the Great Grover Norquist had given permission for such a vote.

But the fact is, that President Barack Obama has been discussing in bad faith all along: he wants the cliff.  With the cliff, he gets tax rate increases all across the board, he gets to gut Defense spending, and he gets to blame Republicans for the economic and security disaster that will result—all Progressive dreams.  And that blame is as important to Obama’s ego as are the tax increases and the Defense cuts.

It is unfortunate that the GOP has chosen to be complicit in this shameful affair, but there it is.  They’ve emasculated themselves with an idiotic civil war, and they’ve rendered themselves impotent for the next two years.  Look for the Progressives to retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House in 2014, and to retain the White House in 2016.

Had the Republicans been able to pass Plan B in the House, those chuckleheads would have achieved three things: they would have voted for the present tax rates for nearly all Americans, they would have put the onus on the Progressives—as Speaker of the House John Boehnor (R, OH) put it

[T]he president will have a decision to make.  He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history

—to come up with an honest counterproposal.  And put the failure of the negotiations squarely on the shoulders of the Progressives in the Senate and the White House.

Now, Republicans don’t have anything at all for the debt ceiling debate other than an understanding of how to fail.

Congratulations, guys.

A Bit More on Welfare

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…and the insidious trap that it is.   Some states are increasingly shifting the funds they offer for college tuition assistance toward merit awards and away from simple economic need.  Georgia, for instance, calls one of its programs HOPE—Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally.  The Wall Street Journal says

In its 19 years, the program has given out $4.9 billion in merit-based aid to 710,000 in-state students.

Here’s the kicker, though [emphasis added]:

Sarah Beck, a University of Georgia junior, is a typical recipient.  She says her mother, a teacher, and her father, who worked as a nuclear engineer, didn’t have to worry about saving for college because “we knew HOPE would be waiting for me.”

No personal responsibility or commitment at all.  Just use OPM.  She’s not at all alone in this trap, though:

[S]ome students at her school arrive with new cars, paid for by parents who didn’t have to pay tuition.  The cars are known as “Hope-mobiles.”

Unneeded cars, paid for with the benefit of OPM.

Critics of the move decry the loss of funding for low income students who don’t measure up academically.

Shannon McGhee, the associate director of financial planning at Mercer University, [says] African-American and Hispanic students are most likely to benefit from need-based plans because “they have not necessarily had the same educational opportunities as their white peers.”

This may be a valid beef, but her solution is wrong.  Throwing college money at these students will not give them the educational opportunities that already have passed them by.  It will not make up for that lost ground and make these students academically qualified (much less meritoriously so) for college.  The appropriate solution to this shortfall is to improve the educational system in the K-12 arena so all students are competing on the same ground.

But that would take away from “welfare” spending.

The Irrationality of the Gun-Control NLMSM Press

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Here are some rather palpable examples, via The Daily Caller:

LaPierre [National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne] as delusional as any dictator. His speech against music videos, hurricanes has the feel of a Castro rant or Mugabe tirade.
— The Huffington Post’s Jason Cherkis

In Wayne LaPierre’s defense, tone-deafness is a serious condition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Americans.
— New York Daily News’ Josh Greenman

Wayne LaPierre should have just given this speech to an empty chair on a stage
— The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill

No two ways about: This is gross, awful, dishonest.
— Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall

What is this NRA guy talking about? Blame hurricanes. Blame media. It’s so strange.
— Politico’s Ben White

This is nuts.
— Talking Points Memo’s Ryan J. Reilly