Tag Archives: politics

Democrats and Tax Reform

Posted on by
Reply

They’re plainly not interested in real tax reform, and so they’ll move to block all attempts to achieve reform that would benefit all Americans and so our economy.  This is illustrated by Senator Ben Cardin’s (D, MD) position on the matter.

Tax reform’s got to be responsible and it’s got to be progressive[.]

Pick one; these are mutually exclusive goals.  Punishing particular Democrat-disfavored groups of Americans for their success is the height of irresponsibility in a taxing venue.

On the other hand, a responsible tax reform package would lower corporate tax rates sharply enroute to an eventual elimination of corporate taxes, lower income taxes to the neighborhood of 10%-15% on all income, regardless of type or source, and eliminate most or all subsidies, credits, transfers, and other loopholes—which would have little value to the beneficiary of such distortions anyway at the lower rates.

Here’s the IRS’ (Internal Revenue Bureau then) Form 1040 from 1913, the first year of an income tax exaction after ratification of the 16th Amendment.  Not quite a post card, but it’s still pretty simple, and it’s the level of complexity we could expect for the form necessary to collect income taxes after a responsible tax reform today.

Until Democrats agree to stop using our tax code for their social engineering goals, though, don’t expect any serious effort toward bipartisanship to originate from them.

Obamacare

Posted on by
Reply

As The Wall Street Journal rightly pointed out, regarding the failed Obamacare repeal and replacement effort and the failing renewed discussions between the House Republican Conference and the Freedom Caucus of No,

The fury…suggests that some Freedom Caucus opposition is more cynical than sincere. Do its members want to appear to negotiate in good faith but insist on changes that centrists can’t accept, so they can then accuse centrists of killing the reform revival?

And

…perhaps there’s still hope for health-care reform. But first Republicans have to decide if they can accept progress that is short of perfection. If they can’t, then they’ll blow their best, and maybe only, shot at repealing and replacing a failing entitlement.

Here’s the problem, though: the Freedom Caucus of No already has betrayed their constituents once through that first failure by inflicting on them continued Obamacare instead of an improved system because the improvements weren’t perfection.

For how long will the No-ers continue to betray their employers? The No-ers are carefully eliding the back half of Reagan’s remark about half a loaf: come back tomorrow for the rest. Of course, that requires accepting the first half first….

The Syria Strike

Posted on by
Reply

One point regarding President Donald Trump’s missile strike against Syria’s Shayrat airbase, from which the barbarian chieftain Bashar al-Assad launched his gas attacks against his own citizenry—including children and babies—is often missed, but Richard Fernandez did not.

[T]he Navy’s missiles very carefully avoided the tanks of sarin gas to avoid collateral damage. This could only be possible if the US knew the location of all the poison the previous administration had already destroyed.

While a single incident doesn’t create a trend (as a stat professor I once had put it, “If your hypothesis calls for a linear trend, collect two data points”), the absence of an administration willing to do more against barbarism than tut-tutting and finger-shaking seems to be getting filled in.

But wait—there’s more.  The Navy very carefully avoided targeting the air base barracks housing Russian soldiers, also.  Which means this administration also knew another thing that the prior administration must have known as well: there were Russian soldiers present on that base that housed the chemical weapons and which facilities armed and launched the aircraft that used those chemical weapons against those children and babies.

The Russians knew of and were complicit in the continued presence of Syria’s chemical weapons and al-Assad’s use of them.  As our UN Ambassador Nikki Haley mentioned.

The Gulag

Posted on by
Reply

…is back and in full force in Russian-occupied Crimea.  Russian dissidents—Tatars, this time—are being “diagnosed” as insane and locked away in “psychiatric” hospitals.

Since the annexation of the region three years ago many ethnic Tatar activists who oppose the occupation have been arrested and subjected to abuse and imprisonment in outdated mental institutions, said Robert van Voren, a Dutch human rights activist and political scientist.

“The number of cases has increased considerably over the past few years, in particular against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian activists who oppose Russia’s annexation,” he added.

Just as in the Soviet Russian gulag, conditions are appalling and along with Russian treatment of the “inmates” are intended to retrain them to ways of which Russia approves.  Emil Kurbedinov, a Crimean civil rights lawyer focusing on Tatar civil rights and himself locked up for 10 days, had this:

Some are placed in isolation and are denied their basic needs, such as access to a toilet. Others are housed with multiple people suffering from severe mental health conditions.

The activists are interrogated about their alleged involvement in “extremism” and their views of the government. They are also deprived of the right to speak with their family, or meet their lawyer on a one-to-one basis without a guard being present.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Japanese Active Defense

Posted on by
Reply

With the growing threat to the Japanese homeland represented by northern Korea’s nuclear weapons development, Japan is considering another major change to its defense posture: acquisition of a “counter-attack” capability to allow Japan to more actively respond to an attack by northern Korea.

There are a couple of misconceptions, though, in the government’s considerations or in The Diplomat‘s presentation of those considerations.

As long as Japan acquires the capabilities recommended by the study group with close consultation with the United States, so that whatever the new capability Japan acquires will benefit overall deterrence of the US-Japan alliance, it will ultimately work to counter urgent security challenges presented by North Korea.

Japan’s acquisition of counter-attack capabilities may well benefit from consultation with us.  However, Japan’s acquisition need not be limited by, or to, such consultations; Japanese acquisitions done on their own recognizance also will work to counter urgent security challenges presented by northern Korea.

The larger misconceptions, though, are these:

On the one hand, Japan has to accelerate its investment in the capabilities to counter the North Korean threat, which is a conventional military threat. On the other hand, Japan will also have to continue the investment it began to develop capabilities to counter China’s assertive actions in the East China Sea.

The northern Korean threat is only minimally a conventional one.  While northern Korea can lob a number of conventionally armed ballistic missiles at Japan, the serious threat, the one that can severely damage the Japanese homeland and butcher millions of Japanese, the serious threat posed by northern Korea is its growing nuclear weapons capability, especially coupled with Baby Kim’s constant threats to use those weapons when he’s achieved the ability to lob them at anyone.

Furthermore, I’m not convinced the two problems presented by northern Korea and the People’s Republic of China’s aggressions in the East China Sea are unrelated.  Nor am I convinced the two problems’ causes are unrelated.

Japan would do well to acquire an active defense capability, one capable of responding more completely than merely parrying an attack (which parrying can only be imperfect, and with nuclear weapons any leakage can have devastating consequences), but in addition to the parry being capable of serious counterstrokes.  Especially since such capabilities would do well against both problems.