Category Archives: politics

Argument by Non Sequitur

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Kentucky’s State House of Representatives passed, by a large margin (69-20) a bill that would outlaw most abortions, contingent on the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade.

If passed by the State’s Senate (expected) and signed by the Governor (also expected), it’ll have legal problems, though.  Major ones will be what constitutes “overturning,” how an actual overturn would be discriminated from serious modification of Roe‘s ruling, and since Roe is medical technology oriented, a restatement of the threshold for viability.

Still, though, the arguments for and against the bill are instructive.

State Congressman James Tipton (R), speaking for the bill, put the matter starkly:

Not one of us, man or woman, has the moral authority to take the life of an unborn.  There is no other medical procedure that I know of that the goal is to intentionally take the life of an unborn child.

On the other hand, State Congresswoman Mary Lou Marzian (D) insisted that this sort of bill (indeed, any bill that limits abortion) constitutes an unacceptable intrusion into the private medical decisions of women.  But she was unable to answer—or chose to avoid—questions about the unborn baby’s right to life or about the medical decisions, private or otherwise, of those representing the unborn baby’s interests.

And these objections by Marzian to Kentucky’s bill are just cynically irrelevant:

If you want to go have a colonoscopy, should we get ourselves involved in that? If you want to take Viagra, should we get ourselves involved in that?

No life is in the wind in those procedures, though.  Only one life even is involved in these utterly non-lethal procedures.  Marzian, et al., know this.

Fines and Negotiations

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The FTC and Facebook seem to agree that Facebook messed up with the way it handles user personal and private data; now they’re dickering over the fine to be assessed.

It [that fine, rumored to be in the multiple billions of dollars] would be the largest fine the FTC has ever imposed on a technology company, although the two have yet to settle on the exact number….

What is there to negotiate, though? Assess the fine, and if Facebook wants to negotiate argue the matter, let it do so in open court in an appeal of the fine.  That, unlike these kinds of “negotiations,” will occur in public, in front of customers and potential customers, with all that’s implied by the implications of pre-trial discovery results and public testimony.

Isn’t Zuckerberg all about transparency these days?

“Goosed” Paychecks

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Senator Ron Wyden (D, OR), Finance Committee Ranking Member, had this bit:

It looks like the Trump Treasury Department spent 2018, an election year, goosing people’s paychecks by under-withholding, and it should have been obvious that the bill would come due eventually[.]

Never mind that the IRS also warned taxpayers—and their employers—to carefully check their existing withholding arrangements, especially in this period of large changes to the tax code.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) was just as disingenuous:

Many Americans depend on their tax refund to pay bills and make ends meet….

Never mind that large tax refunds, far from being a savings account (that pays even less interest than a bank savings account), is an interest free loan to the government.  Leave it to a Progressive-Democrat, with his constant demands for OPM, to insist that this interest free loan to Government of a citizen’s money is entirely appropriate.

Keep in mind, too, that these are the same politicians who will work to prevent the tax reform’s current personal income tax cuts from becoming permanent.  Because the money in those paychecks isn’t the citizen’s; it belongs to Government.

Goosed paychecks?  Those could be permanently increased paychecks—because of the so far lowered income tax rates—but for those Progressive-Democrats.

Truth and Truth

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A college basketball player at the University of Wisconsin has taken to sitting on the bench during the pregame national anthem playing.  Her rationalization is this:

I’m going to speak up about things that are harming my culture and my people.

She certainly should speak against iniquities, but she needs to understand that her culture is American, and her people are her fellow Americans.

Full stop.

You Need to Pay my Taxes

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No.  No way in H E Double Toothpicks.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo [D] visited the White House on Tuesday to urge President Donald Trump to rethink a provision in the 2017 tax overhaul that Cuomo says is prompting a sharp decline in state revenues.
The Democratic governor met with the Republican president to discuss the $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes—known as SALT.
Cuomo said the cap is prompting wealthy residents to flee New York and contributing to a recent drop of more than $2 billion in tax receipts.

If there’s a drop in State tax receipts from this, there are two intertwined parts to the obvious solution, and they don’t include raising the Federal taxes on everyone else so New York (and New Jersey and California) can continue their profligate ways.  Those two parts are reducing the States’ current usurious tax rates to more reasonable levels and reducing spending to fit within those collection levels.

Then step back and watch the increased economic activity that will result increase the prosperity of all the citizens of the State—and enjoy the increased revenues to the State that will result from the increased economic activity.

Aside: the AP‘s own distortion: Residents in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California could see substantial increases in their federal tax bills this year because of the deduction cap. No, they won’t.  They may well see their total Federal and State tax bill go up, but that’s due entirely to the increase taxes owed the States from their high tax structure.