I’d raise taxes on 50 million people!
52 million tax returns in 2008 paid nothing. 50 million of those reported over $50K in income.
Doesn’t that seem wrong? Shouldn’t everybody pay something? And shouldn’t that something rise and fall with government spending?
Virginia will pass a budget that is SMALLER than 2006 – actually shrinking its spending:
But many Republicans believe that the budget crisis offers the long-awaited opportunity to pare down spending in a state that has taken on too much.
"There’s no question this is scaling back," said Del. M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights). "I think some of it is structural and won’t come back."
Naturally the Washington Post and the Democrats whine that children will die:
Many Democrats believe that the state’s new spending priorities abandon its most vulnerable residents citizens, and will have an impact that could extend well beyond the current two-year budget cycle.
What they should have written was that “Democrats had unspoken fears about how many votes they would be able to buy in coming election cycles”.
I predict Virginia will do just fine and nobody will die. In fact, I suspect they could go to 2000 budget levels with nil effect on day to day life.
Good on you VA – Bob McConnell and Chris Christie might make a great 2012 ticket!
Kudos to the Arizona Tea Party for NOT endorsing either candidate in the John McCain / J.D. Hayworth primary battle in Arizona.
Both are narcissistic careerists who should be doing other things than the peoples work.
Of course, their reasons reach higher lofts than mine… They wrote:
Roger Boone, organizer of the Flagstaff Tea Party, added, “The Tea Party should not endorse individual politicians, as their future actions may reflect poorly on our organization. We encourage our members to endorse and vote for whomever they choose, but as a group we will not endorse officially.”
That is an admirable position. It can lead to confusion as to who among the candidates upholds the Tea Party ethos. But if endorsing leads to compromise of core Tea Party principals about which there can be no compromise, then the risk of not knowing which candidates to support is minimal – you’ll know.
Good job Arizona Tea Party!
I’ve a love hate relationship with Google. Today I love them. This isn’t my note, just something found on the Internet. But it is this sort of small, obvious even, attention to helping the user that makes me love Google today.
Should be NOWHERE near a bank much less regulating them
An article at American.com explains why Canada hasn’t been hit by the housing / bank crunch as much as America has. In short… they lent to worthy borrowers and borrowers were less likely to speculate because they paid even if foreclosed.
Taken together, the features and regulations of banks in Canada outlined above create a healthy and sound “pro-lender” environment absent of political motivations for outcomes like greater homeownership, compared to the often politically motivated “pro-borrower” and “pro-homeowner” policies of the United States. While Canada’s banking system has promoted responsible borrowing and prudent lending and underwriting practices with little politically motivated interference, the U.S. banking system seems to have encouraged excessive lending to risky borrowers because of the political obsession with homeownership.
Showing that government really is bad at most things, in SPITE of political obsession over home ownership, the home ownership percent in Canada is actually HIGHER than in the U.S.
The main difference, although not highlighted very much in the article, is that there is no Fannie Mae in Canada. With nobody to buy crazy loans from them, the banks were stuck with what they sold, and they sold with diligence.
The problems we have right now stem ALMOST ENTIRELY from ill conceived government action. We would be MUCH better off if the politicians were significantly less involved in our economy.
Future voter
The cool Constitution we love and that has served us so well til 1913 was created and ratified at the point in our Country’s history when we had the fewest percentage of voters. Only propertied, free men, above a certain age, could vote back then.
Have things gotten better the more of us that voted? Clearly not. In fact, each dramatic increase in voting has brought with it more bad governance. This isn’t because poor people, woman or blacks are stupid and shouldn’t vote, but because by increasing the number of voters we turned our Democracy into a “tragedy of the commons” problem – by your vote not really counting, you don’t care about it as much.
Jamie Whyte has been thinking about this and believes the less voters, the more their vote counts, and the more they consider their vote, thus increasing quality of policies enacted:
The reason so many bad policies are good politics is that so many people vote: about 62 percent of adults at the last general election, both in Great Britain and in the United States. The best way to get more sensible policies would be to reduce the number of voters to less than 0.01 percent of the population.
But how would this happen? He proposes random selection of voters, hiding that they are voters until the last minute, and then taking them away to vote in the full public eye.
To safeguard against the possibility of abuse, these 6,420 voters would not know that they had been selected at random until the moment when the polling officers arrived at their house. They would then be spirited away to a place where they will spend a week locked away with the candidates, attending a series of speeches, debates and question-and-answer sessions before voting on the final day. All of these events should be filmed and broadcast, so that everyone could make sure that nothing dodgy was going on.
I like this type of approach. Come on admit it… you think most voters are idiots. We’ve all talked to people in line at the polling place, or who had a “I voted” sticker, that were complete morons. You walk away muttering “That idiot canceled my vote!”.
A system like Whyte’s would have issues. It wouldn’t disenfranchise as long as the selection is truly random (we all have an equal shot). But he doesn’t explain how laws are introduced and vetted prior to voting. That is why I like my idea of keeping the current Congress but adding a 3rd “Random” house that can veto.
I’m fine with Whyte’s system of picking the Random house. I’d also be fine if small random group voted in the members of the House and Senate.
We need to do something. The more we’ve increased Democracy the worse it has become.
I like Bill Frezza’s idea:
"If elected I promise to vote "No" on any bill that proposes to expand government power for any purpose. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce government spending. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce federal taxes."
Frankly, if a candidate says that, all the rest falls into place.
Trouble is… Obama would claim that his bills meet this test. Politicians lie.
A school superintendent in Rhode Island fired every high school teacher:
Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.
The union balked and refused the terms, so now she is firing the entire teaching staff of the high school and replacing them.
Exactly right. Even places that aren’t doing too bad should put down their public sector unions. Unions, especially public sector ones, pose a huge threat to states and the country. They need to be disbanded.
http://www.taylorgifts.com/item/haircut_umbrella/31222
Just $8 bucks! Portable too. I may just get one and bring it to my next haircut so I’m not ITCHY the rest of the day.
Kudos to Sen Buttars
Chris Buttars, a state Senator from West Jordan, UT has proposed controversial things before, largely related to social issues. But today, he really impressed me with his thoughts on education reform to save money.
He wants to get rid of the 12th grade:
Buttars argued before the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday that 12th grade is essentially a wasted year, with high school seniors either already taking college courses, or just playing around. The students who are ready would move on, while some type of remedial system would be available for those who aren’t.
I don’t know the merits of the proposal. I instinctively like it because graduation would be based on skill, not time in the system. But I’m happy to have it studied, honestly, before implementation.
But what I really like is his no sacred cows approach. Naturally the education establishment hates the idea – which is a plus in its favor in my book.
Fresh from the oven. Tasty good!
We’ve been eating in more. Not so much because of the economy, but because going out is a pain in the butt and is time-consuming. And, frankly, not worth the money. Just cause you can afford it doesn’t mean you want to spend money foolishly.
But most of all, we like having family dinners. In spite of last night’s where I had to chastise my daughter for part of it for being moody and bratty lately.
This “5 Minute Bread” approach sounds tasty, so I post it for my wife’s consideration:
Why Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day? Literally five minutes of effort. Throw the ingredients together, mix, pop the dough into a bucket and then into the fridge. After a couple hours of rising, I have enough for three big loaves. The dough keeps very well in the refrigerator for a couple weeks (and tastes noticeably better the longer it’s been sitting, though mine rarely makes it that long). When I want fresh bread I pull out a bit of dough, get the oven heated up and bake away. There are plenty of no-knead recipes about, but Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois perfected a process that works for me
A big hunk of artisan bread, some cheese and a sausage of some kind makes a great dinner. Or Artisan bread and a thick hearty soup. Mmm…
A urology practice opted out of the insurance racket a few years back. They love it!
I can imagine how the old guys must have felt. This is what doctoring is all about…. it is like being free for the first time.
I’d like to see more of this. Even though procedures can cost larger money than most people can pay out of pocket, financing them over time could be cheaper than paying insurance ongoing.
Combining high deductible catastrophic insurance with this approach seems the only realistic way to cut healthcare costs while letting patients decide what they will do without.
I just had a back procedure disapproved by my insurance company. I’m not mad at them, they have a job to do, and they’ve certainly done right by me in the last three years. But as I imagine a government person denying me, and how little I could do about it, I’m glad that, for now, health care single payer isn’t happening.
H/T: Carpe Diem
Home schooled, practical pistol and rifle shooting, blogging, 12 year old
My 12 year old son, Brian, has a blog now. And he has learned to post to it. We reposted a couple things he wrote for my site, and then he wrote a fresh piece on the match he shot today.
http://www.briankevinnelson.com
Bookmark it today!
Don’t voodoo me!
Liberals constantly make decisions from “the heart” that end up stopping other people’s hearts. A recent example is President Obama’s decision to permit Haitians here illegally to stay. Just as America’s liberal stance on illegal immigration has sucked Mexico’s hard workers, north, Haiti’s best and brightest have moved here too.
Vox Day feels similarly:
If Haiti needs anything from the United States, it is the 30,000 Haitians who are presently in the United States illegally, and thanks to the Obama administration, will now be permitted to stay another 18 months. Since the Haitian diaspora is made up of Haiti’s most entrepreneurial and productive individuals, Haiti is far more in need of them now than ever. Both the U.S. and Haiti would be much better off if those 30,000 Haitians were given government contracts to return to Haiti and help rebuild it than remaining in the U.S. and adding to the 10 percent unemployment rate.
This may seem cold hearted, and it is, but in a tough love sort of way. How can Haiti ever fend for itself if most of its talent is here?
This principal applies to many things liberals do “from the heart”. From welfare, to “spreading the wealth”, to pacifistic diplomacy, their “best intentions” doom billions.
I’ve got one thing to say to most incumbents
Ben Nelson, Senator (ForSale-Nebraska), and his wife were scorned and booed at a pizza place in Nebraska recently:
Other customers started booing. A woman yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” And the Nelsons and their dining companions beat a hasty retreat.
Now some would consider this unseemly, but how are we supposed to treat people robbing billions from us, our kids, our grand kids, and our great grandkids?
I think the behavior appropriate and if anything, too nice.
I don’t go to candidate meetings with Orrin Hatch or Bob Bennett, or Jim Matheson. I’ve got nothing to say to them that wouldn’t be rude.
And if I met them in a public setting, I would not be polite. They haven’t earned it.