Tag Archives: political parties

Works for Me

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has taken his State hostage and, reminiscent of a scene in Blazing Saddles, involving his Cleavon Little character counterpart, is threatening that if he doesn’t get billions in Federal dollars, “the…hostage…gets it.” (“Isn’t anybody gonna help that poor State?”)

During a speech detailing the state’s annual budget, Cuomo requested at least $15 billion in federal funding—or the state will likely have to implement a number of undesirable measures, including tax increases.

And

Cuomo said the state has proposed temporarily increasing the top rate by two percentage points to 10.86%, from 8.82%. A wealthy resident in New York City would pay a top rate of 14.7% in combined taxes….

“Temporarily.” Sure.

But the very threat is Cuomo’s admission that his State already plenty of money; it just needs reallocation. Cuomo’s State has no need of Federal—which is to say, the money of us non-New York citizens.

More Bigotry of the Progressive-Democratic Party

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This time as espoused by President Joe Biden (D). In describing one way his administration would fight the Wuhan Virus situation, then-President-elect Biden said this:

Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses, women-owned businesses, and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.

He went on to call this “equal access to the resources needed to reopen and rebuild.”

That’s not equal access; that’s preferential access. And that preference isn’t based on merit or actual need, it’s based—in Biden’s own words—on race and gender. Progressive-Democrat disapproved of Americans are to be sent to the back of the bus—if they’re allowed to board at all.

This is a racist- and sexist-based form of “assistance.”

Biden also commented on working to get around “systemic barriers to relief.” As a Supreme Court Justice has already noted, [t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. The concept easily extends to sex and to all other forms of non-merit discrimination.

The Progressive-Democratic Party, now as openly espoused by its head, has chosen not to do so.

Too Much Dependence

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…on the central government in DC.

Sunday’s Wall Street Journal had a piece decrying the problems with getting the Wuhan Virus vaccines “the last mile” into folks’ shoulders. They’re right that that’s a serious problem. Even though the Federal government is behind schedule on getting vaccine doses into the States’ hands, those States have the bulk of those delivered vaccines still in the refrigerators, uninjected—they’re vastly behind schedule.

The States and locals, though, are mischaracterizing the problem. Typical is this:

Jeff Duchin [Health Officer & Chief, Communicable Disease Epidemiology & Immunization Section, Public Health], Seattle and King County, WA, said the federal government succeeded in helping fund and purchase vaccines that were developed in record-breaking time, but said it didn’t do nearly enough to ensure that the “last-mile” distribution efforts would be successful.

He’s badly mistaken, and that’s dangerous for Washington’s citizens, and the error itself is dangerous for all Americans. That “last mile” is, and can only be, the responsibility of the States. The Federal government has no authority there.

That’s the nature of our federal republic structure of governance.

The States—Progressive-Democrat-run and Republican-run alike—had been told for months that vaccines would be available by the end of the year. Where was their planning? Even if they didn’t believe the ability to execute commitment, or the commitment itself, that prior planning would have been useful whenever the vaccines arrived. The States chose not to bother.

“Elections Could Be Avoided”

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The Italian government is in crisis—which is to say things are proceeding normally for the Italians, since that government has been stably unstable since the end of WWII (66 separate Cabinets in those 75 years).

The latest round is Matteo Renzi taking his Italia Viva party out of the four party coalition government (have I mentioned stability?) that currently is in charge and is nominally led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the major coalition parties, the 5-Star Movement and the Democratic Party (the Free and Equal party is the fourth coalition member). The withdrawal included the resignations of two IV cabinet ministers, which eliminated the coalition’s parliamentary majority (don’t ask. This is Italian politics).

A couple of things ensue from Renzi’s move: coalition parties attempt to negotiate a new coalition agreement with Italia Viva. If that fails, President Sergio Mattarella assemble a “national unity” government to deal with the Wuhan Virus situation. It Mattarella failed, the only option would be national elections.

That brings me to what drew my eye and to the point of this article.

Renzi said, in the aftermath of his collapsing the coalition government, that (quoting from OANN‘s paraphrase) he thought elections could be avoided.

Elections could be avoided. Avoid letting the people choose their own government whenever possible.

This is an all-too-typical attitude of European politicians. They’re in charge, not the people.

This is the Europe Progressive-Democrats want us to emulate.

An Empirical Test?

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Ex-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ex-entrepreneur Andrew Yang now is running for mayor of New York City, and he wants to implement there his Universal Basic Income scheme.

We can eradicate extreme poverty in New York City. If you put just a little money in their hands it can actually be what keeps them in their home and, again, avoids them hitting city services that are incredibly expensive.

Or not.

Keep in mind that demand is not the number of people who want a product, it’s the amount of money being spent for the product.

The problem with giving unearned money to everyone—using the $1,000/mo, or $12,000/yr, from his Presidential campaign for concreteness—is that you increase demand (this time artificially) by those $12k/yr. Since production won’t increase much—the money representing demand won’t be earned from production, it’ll be printed, or it’ll come from taxes, or it’ll come from borrowing (future taxes)—the result will be pure inflation.

That inflation will rise to fully absorb those $12k, leaving buying power where it was before the UBI started getting handed out. The $2 candy bar will cost $24, and the UBI will be completely absorbed. The recipients will be no better off than before.

In fact, everyone will be worse off. Inflation will leave everyone’s buying power fundamentally unchanged, but money taken out of the economy by those taxes or that debt will lead to an overall reduction in economic activity. Taxes or debt (either one) will reduce businesses’ ability to innovate—which is jobs—or to give bonuses/pay raises—which is jobs—or to improve existing plant—which is jobs—or to hire more employees—which is jobs—since absent innovation, there’ll be reduced ability to expand.

Or, Yang is onto something.

If so, what better place to run the test than in the aftermath of Bill de Blasio’s New York City?