Tag Archives: political parties

Some Labor Day Questions

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First published in 2015, I’ve updated it for today.  In an ideal world, I’ll be able to update it again next year, with a more optimistic tone.

The Wall Street Journal asked some questions on Labor Day 2012, and supplied some answers.  Here are some of those questions and answers, which remain as valid this Labor Day.

  • Q: How are America’s workers doing? Not good. Over the past decade, over the ups and downs of the economy, taking inflation into account, the compensation of the typical worker — wages and benefits—basically haven’t risen at all. … The Labor Department recently said that 6.1 million workers in 2009-2011 have lost jobs that they’d had for at least three years. Of those, 45% hadn’t found work as of January 2012. … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that unemployment is still two percentage points higher than normal….
  • Q: Things ARE getting better, though. The US economy is creating jobs, right? Back in December 2007 when the recession began, there were about two jobless workers for every job opening.  When the economy touched bottom in mid-2009, there were more than six unemployed for every job.  At last count, the BLS says there were 3.4 jobless for every opening.
  • Q: How much of this elevated unemployment is because the unemployed just don’t have the skills that employers are looking for right now?  …the bulk of the evidence is a lot of the unemployment really is the old-fashioned kind: the kind that would go away if the economy was growing at a stronger pace. Mr. Bernanke said as much at the [2012] Jackson Hole conference….

The Democratic Party President has taken a bad situation and done little to improve it, even though he’s had four more years in which to do so.  He has, though, actively attacked businesses—the hirers—demonizing them, (over)regulating them, demanding to raise taxes on them.

At least as importantly, the current Democratic Party Presidential candidate has vowed to continue these Democratic policies, and to extend them.  Even with nearly eight years of empirical data demonstrating the bankruptcy of these policies.

Under the new Trump administration, the jobs situation seems, at least superficially, to be improving, although still too slowly.  The headline unemployment rate is at an historic low; however, the labor force participation rate—the denominator in that headline rate—remains at an historic low, also.  And, wages aren’t growing as they would in a normal, more robust economic recovery.

Further, the Federal Reserve Bank management, aided and abetted by the Progressive-Democratic Party Representatives and Senators, are highly resistant to removing job- and job growth-restricting regulations that were emplaced 10 years ago (under Dodd-Frank, for instance) with the ostensible purpose of mitigating the Panic of 2008.  With that dislocation long behind us, those regulations no longer serve a useful purpose.

Happy Labor Day.

The Left’s Favored Antifa

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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page editors closed their Monday opinion piece with this remark:

The mainstream left ought to denounce it [Antifa’s censorious criminality] as much as the right should reject white supremacists.

The right does denounce white supremacists—and all bigots, not only white supremacists. We get called out by the dishonest Left and its NLMSM for not denouncing only the white supremacists.

Did I say “dishonest Left and its NLMSM?” That the Left chooses to embrace its hate groups and bigots rather than denounce them demonstrates the accuracy of the characterization.

That the Progressive-Democratic Party leadership, including in particular Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA) (and the rest of the California contingent, come to that) is studiously silent on these attacks—including Sunday’s Antifa attack, which Berkeley’s police chief permitted—shows clearly where the Party stands on free speech and on freedom generally.

Update: Wednesday–three days after Antifa’s assault–House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi got around to issuing a statement that’s being masqueraded as a condemnation of Antifa:

The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.

Notice that: it’s not a condemnation of Antifa, it’s a condemnation of those “calling themselves Antifa.”  Yet the KKK, neo-Nazis, Nazi-wannabes, the NLMSM’s made-up “alt-right” are all Conservatives in her eyes, those of her cronies, and the NLMSM.

Still, her…statement…is more than others of the Progressive-Democratic Party are willing to do.  I’ve seen no statement, however weasel-worded, from House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD), from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), from Senators Diane Feinstein (D, CA), Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), or Dick Durbin (D, IL), or anyone else from the Left.

Corporate Taxes

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The US has one of, if not the, highest tax rate on businesses in the world, at 35%.  As a result, our internationally operating businesses book their profits in their overseas jurisdictions and leave those profits there.  This much is well known.

Republicans want to lower the corporate-tax rate and let companies bring future global profits home without paying US taxes on top of foreign taxes. They are searching for a way to do that without giving companies an incentive to move more operations and profits to countries with far lower taxes.

Or so they say.

Republicans seem to be moving toward gerrymandering our corporate tax law even further, with the claimed goal of encouraging our businesses to repatriate their overseas profits.

As part of that overhaul, Republicans want to exempt foreign corporate income from US taxes to a large extent.  …  The 35% rate would come down and the minimum rate would be set below the new U.S. corporate tax rate.

The rationale for such a “minimum tax?”

A minimum tax would act as a “safety net” against companies trying to pay little or no tax on some foreign income, said Ed Kleinbard, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California.

On the other hand,

The countries that use tax systems Republicans want to emulate allow their home companies to bring back cash with little or no tax. They use a variety of rules to prevent companies from seeking to pay less tax by moving operations or profits abroad, but generally don’t have minimum taxes on active foreign profits.

But this misses the point.

And

The original House GOP plan to address foreign profits and prevent erosion of the US corporate-tax base was border adjustment….

This misses a separate point.

The first point: lower our corporate tax rate to the lowest in the world.  The Trump administration’s proposal of a 15% rate or House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R, WI) proposal of 20% would come close to that (only Ireland’s 12.5% rate would remain lower).  Or eliminate corporate income taxes altogether, say I; a business’ tax bill is paid, in the large main, by the business’ customers anyway in the form of higher prices—and the final customer is the American consumer, who would benefit from lower prices.

Either of these would not only disincentivise our businesses from leaving their profits overseas, they would reverse the flow: foreign businesses would flock to set up shop in the US because of the tax advantages they’d obtain—the same advantages that currently encourage our businesses to set up “over there.”

The second point: it isn’t the government’s money; there is no legitimate “corporate-tax base” to erode.  There wouldn’t even be a drop in revenue to the Federal government: the ensuing flourishing economy would generate more revenue for the government than any revenue reduction from lowering or eliminating the corporate income tax.

And: it isn’t gerrymandering to simplify and lower the corporate tax rate, nor is it gerrymandering eliminate the tax rate altogether.  There isn’t any need to play games when so simple a solution is, or should be, so easily implemented.

Congress Has 12 Days

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There are 12 days left after their 5 September return from vacation, driven by the Obamacare requirement for health plan providers to commit by 17 September to selling their health plans for the next year or withdrawing, for Congress to pass a potful of legislation.

Two proposals regarding Obamacare are in the offing.  One would shore up the funds transfer of Federal dollars to those providers who are losing money in ObamaMart, and the other instead would send that money as grants to the States to help them generate their own health coverage plan programs.  This one also would eliminate the Individual Mandate.

Also looming is the debt funding deadline that necessitates raising the debt ceiling to pay currently committed-to bills.

Also: an immigration bill that rationalizes our immigration policy is in conference.  It severely restricts green card issuance (which is foolish IMNSHO), but it has the beneficial effect of that rationalization.

Also: an infrastructure restoral bill is under construction.

Also: bills to withdraw counterproductive, if not outright mendacious, Federal rules and rulings in the EPA, DoEd, Labor, etc that were intended to destroy whole industries (can you say, “coal,” boys and girls?), cancel rule of law on campuses, much too excessively favor unions over management (NLRB), and on and on.

Twelve days of Christmas?  Or is the Grinch coming? [/snark]  Not all of those necessaries have that 12-day deadline, but all of them need to be done quickly, since Congressmen—of both parties and in both houses of Congress—are too (how to put this delicately) chicken to do anything substantive in an election year.  Even were they around in DC doing their jobs instead of hiding out on their various campaign trails.

One More Bit Related to Charlottesville

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…and the attack on Southern heritage (according to some, who have nothing to do with any hate group) or on symbols of slavery and oppression (according to some others, who also have nothing to do with any hate group).  This one is by Steven Hayward of Powerline:

So we seem to be on our way to tearing down every statue related to the Democratic Party’s largest achievement in American history—the Confederate States of America. Funny how the Confederate battle flag, and now statues, didn’t start to come down until Republicans became ascendant in southern states. Democrats who had a monopoly grip on the South for decades had lots of time to take these steps, but didn’t. You’d almost think they were opportunists.

RTWT