Tag Archives: political parties

Regulating State Tax Incentives

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There Ought to be a Law was the title of an old Reader’s Digest humor column: every little pet peeve came in for a jokingly recommended law barring it.  Because More Government is always the solution.

Barton Swaim, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, actually takes that seriously, and he wants to apply it to the idea of States and cities offering businesses tax incentives to get them to build in those jurisdictions.  He wants the Federal government to…regulate…what those State and local jurisdictions can do to entice businesses.

He’s even holding up the European Union as a paragon in this venue.

The European Union imposes significant restrictions on how much member states or regional governments can offer companies to entice them to expand or relocate.

This is the same EU, keep in mind, that is constantly trying to bully low-tax member nations to charge more and higher taxes, rather than encouraging high-tax member nations to lower and lessen theirs.

Never mind that, though.

Why couldn’t Congress impose a simplified version of this principle on state and local governments?

It’s true enough that many of those incentive deals the States and locals turn out to be lousy from the States’ and locals’ perspective.  Why, then, shouldn’t the Federal government dictate to the States and local governments what those bodies should do with their own citizens’ and residents’ money? For their own good, you see.  Besides, isn’t it the Federal government’s money, anyway, and not those citizens’ and residents’?

Be more like Europe, and be more infested with central diktats than we already are. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Because, after all, States (and the local jurisdictions within them), to paraphrase John Jay, have the same relationship to the Federal government that counties have to the States: mere political jurisdictions set up to facilitate enforcement of Federal laws.

Federal republic be damned.

Sure.

Tax that Rich Man Behind the Tree

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Now the Progressive-Democrats, in their fever pitch to increase taxes, want to tax phantom profits.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D) [is] reviving plans to make capital gains taxes due annually….

Another Progressive-Democrat, Jon Summers (ex-Communications Director for ex-Senator Harry Reid (D, NV)) rationalized this chimera tax this way:

We’re spending way more money, billions of dollars more, a year than what we are actually bringing in in revenue. We’ve got a debt of $22 trillion, a record debt that has only skyrocketed under this administration. So, Democrats are trying to come up with a solution to bring some sanity back[.]

No, they’re not.  They just want to tax anything they can dream up. Were they serious about trying to come up with a solution to bring some sanity, they’d look for ways to cut spending—but that’s literally inconceivable to them.

Most Americans—the vast majority of us with a sane understanding of revenue flows—know that there are no gains, capital or otherwise, unless and until the underlying asset is disposed.  Until then, any perceived change in value is nothing more than hope or dismay.

Most Americans—the vast majority of us with a sane understanding of the American sense of property—know that the asset, the unrealized gain or loss, and the eventually realized gain or loss are those of the asset owner; they’re private property.

Sadly, Wyden and his cronies don’t believe that.  They act as though the asset and the associated money is Government’s, and those men of Government only let a citizen use the things for a time.

Timidity

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Progressive-Democrat Mayor (South Bend, IN) and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg used to insist that, in addition to Black Lives Mattering, Blue Lives and All Lives Matter, also.

Not so much, anymore.

What I did not understand at that time was that that phrase just early, into mid-, especially 2015 was coming to be viewed as a sort of counter slogan to Black Lives Matter….
And so this statement that seems anodyne and something no one could be against actually wound up being used to devalue what the Black Lives Matter movement….

What utter, timid nonsense.

The devaluing was only in the fetid imaginations of those demanding the meanings of words be changed to suit their whims and not be kept in their true meanings.

All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter do not in any way devalue the fact that Black Lives Matter or alter the premise of the Black Lives Matter movement that black lives matter.  Proclaiming the one in no way devalues the other; the two exist easily side by side without contradiction, without dialectic.

Buttigieg’s meek apology for uttering truisms is just his surrender of our lexicon to a narrow, activist move.

The governments of both Russia and the People’s Republic of China are well-known for their doublespeak and their…alteration…of the meanings of words and phrases to suit their political wishes.  Would a President Buttigieg further surrender our lexicon to them and speak using only terms and meanings of which they approve, too?

Is this another example of Progressive-Democrat flexibility to be offered to our enemies?

Releasing the Mueller Report

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The Progressive-Democrats in Congress are in full uproar over the Mueller report—they want it released right damn now, and they want it unredacted. They’re not alone on the first; all of us want the report released as soon as possible.  Which leads to the second: it’s illegal to release grand jury proceedings and classified intelligence information, both of which are present in the report.  The Progressive-Democrats, of course, know this; they just don’t think laws or regulations matter when they become inconvenient.

AG William Barr also agrees with that first part.

Mr Barr has made clear that he appreciates the public interest in seeing as much of Mr Mueller’s report as possible.

Barr should emphasize that appreciation by releasing the (redacted as required) Mueller report to the public a week or more before he releases it to the public’s elected employees in Congress.

Then there’s the House Intelligence Committee MFWIC:

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff recently tweeted that “Barr should seek court approval (just like in Watergate) to allow the release of grand jury material. Redactions are unacceptable.”

How disingenuous. Were Schiff serious, he’d seek court approval—and an associated release order—himself. He’s just cynically posturing.

Oversight

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Congressman Richard Neal (D, MA), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, has demanded the IRS turn over some years of President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns.  He centered his demand thusly:

“Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, has a duty to conduct oversight of departments and officials,” Mr Neal said.

That’s an interesting argument. If it’s coequality that creates the oversight duty, then the coequal Executive Branch has an identical duty to conduct oversight of House (and Senate) Committees and members.

Hmm….