Category Archives: politics

The Congressman Misunderstands

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What he misunderstands, though is a very expensive thing to misunderstand: basic economics.  Congressman Joe Crowley (D, NY), Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and member of the House Ways and Means Committee said in an interview with PJMedia‘s Nicholas Ballasy that he’s willing to “experiment” with a VAT in the US, “what effect that will have.”  And

PJM: … A traditional VAT tax that works in other countries or that other countries have, at least, do you think that could work in the United States?
CROWLEY: Well, it’s been something that we haven’t necessarily gone to in terms of—sales tax, for instance, is typically a states’ issue, you know, states have used that nominally in terms of tax purposes in terms of the impact. A VAT would be usurping that, taking for the federal government as opposed to state, and I think we’re open to talking about that and seeing what effect that will have because I do think that bringing our overall [corporate tax] rate down does make us more competitive, a more attractive place.  …   So I don’t think we have to go to 12% or to 20% per se; getting that right down is what we’re attempting to do and doing it in a way which is the least invasive or hurtful to the average working man in this country.

First, there’s a hint there: that “States’ issue” bit.  Other countries that use a VAT (which taxes an item sold at every stage of its production—at every stage at which value—as defined by the taxing government—is added to the product in production—so that by the time the end user buys the item is paying mostly tax value and not product value) are not federal republics like the US is, where the States in the federation are on an equal plain, at least nominally, with the central government in most national domestic areas, like taxing.

Second, it does no good to an economy to lower tax rates in just one area while other tax rates are increased in other areas (vis., the imposition of a VAT) to make up for it.  Total, overall taxes must be lowered, all tax rates must be reduced.  It’s the increased retention of money in the hands of citizens who work and who own businesses—shareholders—that spur economies, not the transfer of that revenue to government for spending.

Third, it’s not at all least evasive or unhurtful to force the average working man to pay a VAT-inflated price for everything he wants to buy or must buy.

Then this tidbit:

PJM: We’ll see. It’s going to be a quite a debate.
CROWLEY: It will be. There is a reason why neither healthcare nor tax reform was suggested by Democrats after the election as things we could work on right away—it was infrastructure. We did that for a reason—for some reason, that seems to have been lost on everyone.

Yewbetcha.  The Progressive-Democratic Party standard plan: get spending locked in first, then see about taxing to pay for it.

Refusal

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Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) said he would never work with a President Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his “severely conservative” agenda is laughable[.]

Then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) stated his refusal to work with President Donald Trump:

He moved so far over to the right that it’s virtually impossible to work with him[.]

If that wasn’t clear, the Progressive-Democrats have made it so:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) said congressional leaders can reach an agreement on spending, but only if the White House stays out of negotiations.

The Party of Obstruction is making another thing possible: maybe it’s time to eliminate procedural filibusters in the Senate on all matters related to spending and revenue.  Force the opposition to filibuster the old fashioned way, actually taking to the floor and speaking, instead of hiding in the comfort of the sidelines with a vote.

Disruptions

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Senator Ben Sasse (R, NE) opined in the Friday Wall Street Journal about economic disruptions and how we’re undergoing the largest one in human history.  However, he exposed a number of misunderstandings about both disruptions and about proper policy responses the current one (stipulating that it’s the largest one in human history, but its size is irrelevant to the principle involved).  For instance:

[W]e don’t have a national-security strategy for the age of cyberwarfare and jihad.

This isn’t a matter of disruption per se, though. Defense establishments always have to adapt to new strategies and weapons systems. Even political disruption which he laid off to the 17th century’s invention of nation-states isn’t all that with today’s failed states and network entities like the terrorists Daesh and al Qaeda.  What did that Treaty of Westphalia of invent away from after all?  Political entities built around clans, principalities, networked entities like the feudal, often marriage-related polities.

We also lack seriousness about tackling the entitlement crisis.

True enough.  However, this, too, isn’t about responding to disruption per se.  A return to small, limited government handles this by putting solutions to the putative purpose of Big Government entitlement largesse back where it belongs: in the hands of American individuals and our families, friends, churches, and private charities.  Government does have a role here, even a properly small, limited government, but only from the bottom jurisdictions up, and only as a last resort, not the default entry.

And what about the policy implications of the economic disruption?

Again, this has nothing to do with disruption per se.  That return to small, limited government would handle this, just fine, including Sasse’s concerns regarding education and job (re)training.  Big Government involvement, especially here, is routinely obstructive.

[O]ur politics are not yet up to the challenge.

Nor need they be; this is Sasse’s underlying false premise. What is needed is more laissez faire and less Big Government fare.

Distortions

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is upset over his administration’s having been called soft on crime by that impertinent man, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Sessions, after all, said that New York

continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the city’s “soft on crime” stance.

De Blasio’s response?  He transferred the target of the remark to the police themselves, pretending to wonder why the AG has

insult[ed] the men and women who do this work every day, who put their lives on the line and who have achieved so much?

Never mind that this is a naked distortion.  Sessions clearly laid the lackadaisical enforcement attitude on the city’s administration—which would include Da Mair (oh, wait—that’s the late Mayor Richard Daley (D).  But who can tell the difference, anyway?).  It’s the “men and women who do this work every day” who are the ones dangerously hampered by de Blasio’s position on law enforcement.

This is an example of why we can’t have nice things in Democrat-run cities and towns.

Timidity Is

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…as timidity does.  The Japan Times has it, too, as demonstrated in its editorial last Wednesday.  The editorial board is worried about Japan actually achieving an ability to defend proactively itself.  The board’s concern was triggered [sic] by a Liberal Democratic Party proposal that

Japan consider developing the ability to strike enemy missile bases.  …a response to North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches….

The board fretted that

an attempt by Japan to build up the capability to attack enemy bases could result in destabilizing the region’s security environment by giving an imagined enemy an excuse to carry out pre-emptive strikes on our country.

Never mind that the region’s security environment already is at risk from Japan’s current inability strike (back) at an “imagined” enemy who attacks (including a Japanese ally?  That’s the implication of the Times board’s term); Japan can only to receive such a strike, potentially without post hoc answer.

The editorialists did raise a legitimate Constitutional question on the matter:

In 1959, defense chief Shigejiro Ito stated that possessing offensive weapons on the grounds of potential danger of enemy attack as mentioned by Hatoyama runs counter to the Constitution.

However, Ito misunderstood the Japanese Constitution and the duty of any nation’s government.  No government may, legitimately, surrender its people, the government’s master, into slavery or destruction; government must mount the means to defend itself.  With today’s technologies, that of necessity includes the obligation (not merely the right) to act preemptively if the situation demands it.

Preemptive defensive actions thus still defensive actions, and so they are well within the bounds of Japan’s Constitutional limits on military activity.

The Times‘ board went on:

To equip the Self-Defense Forces with the ability to pound enemy bases would require advanced technologies and equipment…. Possessing these kinds of technologies and equipment could go beyond the principle of defense-only security that the nation has adopted under the postwar Constitution.

Aside from the board’s lack of understanding of the nature of self-defense and the government’s obligation to be able to act preemptively, there’s the question of the board’s limiting principle here.  Would, for instance, concluding a treaty with another nation that obligates that nation to defend (and so to conduct preemptive actions for the sake of) Japan be a close enough possession of such technologies to violate the Japanese Constitution?  Would concluding a treaty with another nation for that nation to use its technologies to advise Japan and guide Japanese systems to the enemy bases be a close enough possession of such technologies to violate the Constitution?  In both cases, after all, Japan would deliberately be making use of these apparently proscribed technologies, if only indirectly.

And:

Japan’s attempt to obtain capabilities to strike enemy bases could be reciprocated by potential enemies, including North Korea, potentially leading to an arms race between the two countries.

Stipulated.  Is that better or worse, though, than Japan leaving itself exposed to the enemy’s initiative and the enemy’s possibly nuclear initial attack?  Does the board think Japan could survive a nuclear attack, much less answer it successfully?

Does the board think northern Korea (for instance) can maintain such an arms race for a longer time than Japan before it must leave off?

The Times‘ position is just the potential hostage preemptively surrendering itself into hostage status.

And it’s shameful.