Tag Archives: political parties

What’s Their Limiting Principle?

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Progressives, as The Wall Street Journal puts it,

believe that every human problem can be solved with a policy tweak. A ban here, a background check there, and, voila, no more mass shootings.

But what’s their limiting principle?  What level of gun control would satisfy them?  What fundamental concept would make them believe they’ve gone far enough with their tweaks, checks, bans on an American citizen’s access to the means of defending himself and his family?  Besides their empty rhetoric of “I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t take all your guns away…,” I mean.

Some statistics would seem to give the lie to the Progressive-Democrats’ claims both about the ubiquitousness of gun violence and the purpose of these persons’ desired “controls.”

[A] 2015 Congressional Research Service report found that from 1999 to 2013 assault rifles were used in 27% of public mass shootings. The Virginia Tech shooter in 2007 killed 32 people with two handguns. FBI statistics show that of 15,070 homicides in 2016, 374 people or 3% were killed with rifles. Some 656 homicides were committed with “personal weapons” (hands, fists, feet) and 1,604 with knives.

Guns just aren’t that important to the violence humans commit against each other.  This, in turn, gives that lie to Progressive-Democrats’ claimed goals of merely wanting to “control” our firearms; our use of them is not out of control.

The Left, the Progressive-Democrats, don’t have a limiting principle.  Their tweaks, checks, bans are only first steps.  Their purpose throughout this “debate” is to disarm us completely, so that Government—one of the entities the 2nd Amendment seeks to enable us to defend ourselves against—will have the only guns.

Now, why might that be, exactly?

And this from a different angle on the Left’s desire to disarm us, from Larry O’Connor at Mediaite:

The US government is systemically racist and, through its inaction, seems willing to allow innocent, black citizens to be murdered by its police force. Furthermore, the judicial system is often rigged to protect the evil, racist officers by never punishing them for those murders. Additionally, the very same government is now in the hands of a fascist, incompetent criminal who, not only hates blacks and Latinos so much that he is willing to let the latter die of starvation and thirst [in Puerto Rico] rather than deliver humanitarian aid to them, but also calls the former [NFL player kneelers] “Sons of bitches” for protesting the racist country he oversees….

…if I really thought this country was so evil and so racist…I certainly wouldn’t want that evil, fascist, incompetent, and racist government to determine who could and could not arm themselves.

Why would a thinking American want a Government so evil to have the only guns?

The position on gun control of the Left generally and of the Progressive-Democratic Party in particular not only has no limiting principle, it makes no sense within itself.

 

h/t Grim’s Hall for the Mediaite link.

Some Early Thoughts on the Tax Reform Proposal

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…triggered by Laura Saunders’ piece in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal.

Beginning with the headline and thesis of her piece: Winners and Losers Under the Trump Tax Plan. Because Government should be about picking winners and losers instead of just protecting a level free market for all.  Sure.

Now a couple of specifics.

People with large medical or disaster deductions. Each of these write-offs on Schedule A has significant hurdles and is only available to taxpayers with large unreimbursed expenses

This one isn’t particularly relevant to tax reform. It just means that four Republican Senators who prefer preserving Obamacare intact over even a first step toward repealing/replacing it need themselves to be replaced with Republican Senators who are serious about getting rid of Obamacare and its destructiveness.

Losing the State tax deduction? That only impacts a couple of States with enormous spending habits; those citizens need to correct their State government errors.  The citizens of the other States don’t need to be dragooned into indemnifying the foolishness of those couple of States.

The mortgage deduction loses value under tax reform? Yeah, and? Punish those who don’t itemize by taxing them more (vis., not raising the standard deduction) so others can have a deduction? Beyond the cynicism of this special interest nonsense, our tax code shouldn’t be in the business of social engineering in the first place.

This proposal is a good first step in tax reform.

Now we just need to disabuse politicians that every bill is the last word on a subject rather than an interim as we move toward our goal: a flat tax in the neighborhood of 10% on all income, regardless of source, and the elimination of all deductions, credits, and other froo-froo.

The Not Good Enough Legacy

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Here are some stats regarding Obamacare’s impact on our poor, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

More than one in three of taxed [via the individual mandate penalty] households earned less than $25,000, which is roughly the federal poverty line for a family of four.

And

More than 75% of penalized households made less than $50,000 and nine in 10 earned less than $75,000.

And

Fewer families paid the tax in 2015 than in 2014, yet government revenues increased to more than $3 billion from about $1.7 billion, as the financial punishment for lacking coverage increased.

Never mind that these honest Americans can’t afford what Obamacare has on offer, they still have to pay the tax.  Never mind that what is on offer is so bad they won’t buy it; they’d rather pay a tax they can ill afford.

This is what Senator John McCain (R, AZ) has said he prefers to Graham-Cassidy, never minding that the Arizona governor (for whom McCain claims great admiration) has strongly endorsed the bill.  This is what Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) has said is better than a bill that repeals much of the funding for Obamacare and sends it instead to the States so they can set up their own health insurance/health coverage plan markets—including State-level Obamacare, if that’s their preference—never minding that States’ Rights has been part of his mantra since his first Senate election campaign.  This is what Senator Lisa Murkowski (R, AK) seems to want to preserve over Graham-Cassidy‘s elimination of her State’s exploding premiums and imploding plan provider participation.  This is what Senator Susan Collins seems to want to preserve, never minding Maine’s governor endorsement of the bill.

The WSJ pointed out that

…the point of this coercion was to substitute the government’s political preferences for individual judgment….

Just as these four Senators are substituting their own political preferences for the individual judgments of their constituents—whom the four are betraying with their support for Obamacare over Graham-Cassidy.

Remember this for the coming primary election season.

False Premise

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Budget mavens, politicians, and the NLMSM have one regarding our national tax code.  The Senate is considering a budget that sets an outer bound on the size of Federal tax cuts.

A budget with a tax plan that is revenue-neutral would effectively pay for itself, meaning any reduction in tax rates would be offset by reducing breaks or other revenue-raising measures.

No.  “Revenue neutral” must also consider what’s done with the revenue collected.  Revenue neutrality can be achieved, also, with sufficient spending cuts so that revenue collected meets or exceeds spending outflows.

Additionally, there is an underlying assumption that is carefully ignored by the politicians, budget mavens, and the NLMSM.  That is that the Federal government needs the revenue collected.  None of these worthies deign establish that need.

Manufactured Racism

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A Democratic congresswoman said drawing attention to a colleague’s first job in the fast food industry is racist.

Seriously.

Congressman Joe Wilson (R, SC) was talking up the value of a fast food job as a means of gaining valuable experience and life/work lessons while on the job, and he mentioned that Senator Tim Scott (R, SC) had started out in such a starter job in a Chick-fil-A franchise, and now he was a sitting Senator.

[Franchises] provide entry level jobs for people to have first-time employment, improve themselves, and succeed.  In South Carolina we particularly recognize this. US Senator Tim Scott had his first job at a Chick-fil-A franchise.

It’s true enough that Wilson was factually wrong about Scott’s relationship with the franchise—he was mentored by a franchisee rather than having his first job at one.  However, it’s crystalline that Wilson was not being racist in referencing Scott’s employment history.

That didn’t stop Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D, OH) from deciding to get her knickers in a twist over the reference.

I have to say this. I am trying to figure out for the life of me what Tim Scott has to do with what we are talking about today. So he worked at Chick-fil-A? So what? I mean did [Wilson] bring it up because he’s black?

No, Wilson brought it up to show the value of starter jobs of the sort a franchise can offer.

Fudge knows this.  She manufactured her beef for her own political ends.  Making up a racist beef, though, where it’s clear that no racism exists is itself racist.  She could have served her personal politics in other ways.  Unless this is her personal politics.