Money for Nothing

The Current Tax System takes money from me in the form of higher prices for goods (because corporations pass on the expenses to me, the consumer) as well as income tax and various other federal taxes I might have to pay from time to time.

The Fair Tax eliminates that in favor of a 30% increase in the prices of goods (or a 23% rate on the total price of goods if you prefer). In theory I buy a steak sandwich, and the government takes its cut, 23% of that money goes to government. This is ok, because the companies involved will, under the pressure of the invisible hand of Adam Smith, be forced to lower the prices on their goods. Ian responding to a post down the page, claims that prices will drop 20 to 30%. That's a pretty big drop, in exchange for an increase of 30%. In fairness I've seen other people using 15% as the amount prices will drop.

And of course you won't be paying income tax anymore, so your paycheck will get fatter. And you get a prebate, which in my case would be an additional $196 a month (since I am single).

So prices would go up a little, maybe. But after the invisible hand steps in, they would be maybe 15%, maybe 10%. Heck they might even be about the same as they are now. And I'll have a lot more income, and a prebate.

Hmmm. Maybe this fair tax is pretty good after all. It's too bad I'm the sort of person who doesn't believe you can get something for nothing.

Oh if you are looking for a good website on Fair tax policy, you might check out Americans for Fair Taxation's website. By Fair Taxation, of course they mean the Fair Tax. Whether or not that is really fair, is hard to say.

A Non - Fair Tax related Post

Don't worry I got plenty more posts on the Fair Tax coming, I'm sure. But for a moment let's look at Douglas McKinnon. He thinks that Terrorists are bad. Hard to argue with that.

When it comes to fighting terrorists, our fellow citizens continually wonder what part of “We plan to exterminate America” our politicians don’t understand? They know that unless destroyed, these Islamists will never stop until their stated goal is achieved.

OK there's a few questions here. Absent some cartoonish super-villainy, do Terrorists actually have the power to exterminate Americans? No.

So Bryant does that mean you think Terrorism is no big deal? No. I think it is a big deal but I think you need to put it in it's proper perspective.

Can we actually destroy the Islamists? No. To say that we can is a childish fantasy or contemplation of Genocide.

At any rate, Douglas McKinnons belief that Terrorism works completely in Republican's favor is also a bit of a childish fantasy; I think Americans will consider how the first 7 years of Republican Terrorism fighting has gone.

Writing about the Fair Tax

Is proving profitable.

I am not as it turns out an economist. But I will note a few points worth making.

The people pushing the Fair Tax, in general, want to see drastic cutbacks in the power and scope of Government. One can assume that if the Fair Tax failed to generate the revenue of our current tax court, forcing dramatic cuts in government programs and services, they would not be displeased.

This makes me, as a non-economist, a bit suspicious. Just as I'm suspicious that people who hate Social Security are really working on saving it. Which explains why I find Bruce Bartlett more believable than those who are defending the Fair Tax.

I also don't get this whole pre-bate idea. I guess the theory is that at the beginning of the year you get a check from the Government - a fixed check based on how many people who live in your home and not based on your income. This supposedly changes the tax from being regressive (i.e. hitting poor and working class families harder than wealthy families) to being progressive.

I'm not sure I see it myself. If me and Bill Gates both get $3,000 in January, it doesn't really offset the fact that Fair Tax eats up some 20-30% of my income and 2 - 3% of his. But maybe I'm missing something

I've gotten a link from a website entitled The FairTax Pledge that makes the connection to Scientology a bit more plausible. It is a recently formed website dedicated to promoting the Fair Tax.

The wording needs some work but what we have to do is pledge our vote the candidate who will actively support the FairTax regardless of their or our party affiliation. Now I'm not typically a 'single issue' type of voter but when it comes down to it, getting the FairTax passed is one issue I'm willing to take my vote across the party line.

While I disagree with the Fair Tax, you have to admire people willing to work for a cause they believe in. I have no doubt this community genuinely believes that the Fair Tax will make things better for America.

I disagree with them of course; I think the chance of any Fair Tax being passed is slim, and I think it would be a very bad thing if any Fair Tax did pass.

Revelations

Glenn Greenwald is brilliant which is why I keep linking to him. Here's his take on values voters and the Craig scandal.

The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.

Hard to argue with that.

The Bush Policy of Secrecy

Good article by Jacob Sullum over at Townhall on the bush administrations reflexive need for secrecy, as embodied by the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnel. He gets to the heart of why Bush needs/requires secrecy.

Judging from this example, Bush administration officials feel duty-bound to withhold information when it might be useful to critics of the president's anti-terrorism policies, because those policies are necessary to protect national security. But they believe the very same information can -- indeed, should -- be released at a more opportune time, when it will help the president pursue his policies.

There it is. Secrecy is important because it protects the President and his Policies. Very cynical but seemingly accurate.

More on the "Fair Tax"

Here's the theory.

Your local widget factory makes widget.

Currently they have to pay taxes - Payroll Taxes, Corporate Taxes, Capital Gains Tax, whatever. And instead of paying those taxes they pass on the taxes to you.

Let's say, for imaginary purposes, that such taxes add up to 30% of what you pay for your widget.

Now we move to a Fair Tax - which gets rid of Payroll Taxes, Corporate Taxes, Capital Gains tax and whatever. They are all gone. The only tax is the extra 30% you have to pay for your widget.

Fair Tax proponents believe that at this point those companies will immediately drop the price on all their products by 30%, to reflect the fact that they don't cost as much to make.

I think that companies will happily pocket the additional 30% in savings, giving bonuses to themselves or making investments or what not.

What do you think?

Got this listening to the joker filling in for Rush Limbaugh this week, where several people called in to make this point.

The Fair Tax Debunked

This Fair Tax is getting a fair amount of play right now, particularly because Governor Mike Huckabee is making it a big part of his run for the Presidency. But in fairness the idea has been around for a while; essentially the idea is to get rid of the IRA and impose a national sales tax. Anyway conservative economist Bruce Bartlett has written an article for the Wall Street Journal taking it apart. I particularly like the bit where the Federal Government will end up paying the Fair Tax on purchases they make.

Under the Linder-Chambliss bill, the federal government would have to pay taxes to itself on all of its purchases of goods and services. Thus if the Defense Department buys a tank that now costs $1 million, the manufacturer would have to add the FairTax and send it to the Treasury Department. The tank would then cost the federal government $300,000 more than it does today, but its tax collection will also be $300,000 higher.

This legerdemain is done solely to make revenues under the FairTax seem larger than they really are, so that its supporters can claim that it is revenue-neutral.

Yeah that doesn't sound entirely right. Anyway it's well worth checking out.

Found this article via the Daily Howler, which is always worth checking out.

Why Republican Candidates look like they Suck but Really don't

Such is the theme of Michael Medved's latest article. He gets through it without noting that because of President Bush's cratering, the prospect of any Republican getting elected is not, shall we say, guaranteed. Still it is full of nice up beat paragraphs like this.

If there’s one sentiment that seems to unite desperate Republicans in the run-up to the campaign of 2008 it would seem to be profound discomfort, if not outright disgust, with the current field of Presidential candidates.

Of course while that sentence puts a smile on my face, I have to admit it might not for our Republican friends.

His analysis is that there are too many Republicans and none of them are big names. So they tend to blend together, like the 9 little dwarfs David Limbaugh was writing about the last time around. He also notes that Democrats are a lot more fired up about their candidates. He attributes this to the first angle - we have the first serious black candidate and first serious woman candidate and first serious Latino candidate. Sorry Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun, and Elizabeth Dole - you just aren't serious. Apparently.

I wonder how long Obama will be "serious" if he doesn't get the nomination. A week? Week and a half?

Anyway it's a heartening article for those who don't want Republicans in the White House in 2009.

Interesting Comments

Hugh Hewitt is talking about the Senator from Idaho that has gotten in trouble soliciting sex in an airport bathroom. Apparently the Senator plead guilty on the theory that this would be the quick way to solve this problem (or that is what he is claiming now). Well Hewitt doesn't think much of that theory.

. . . even if I did believe him, this would make his judgment too flawed to be in the United States Senate in a time of war. He has to go.

It would be interesting to consider who else's judgment is to flawed to be in the US Senate in a time of war. Probably everybody to the left of Lieberman I would guess.

Josh Marshall also commented on this story with a point worth considering as well.

Look, I wouldn't want to bring my 4-year-old son into the airport bathroom and stumble across two people having sex, gay or straight. It's tough enough getting in and out of the john without him touching every dirty surface or contributing to the mess with an errant aim. But sex didn't happen here. Even the propositioning is murky at best. And short of a proposition involving sex for money, what is illegal about inquiring about sex? Tactless, maybe. But criminal?

That's a fair question, in all honesty.

Pulling out of Iraq

Interesting article over at Commondreams by Johann Hari (reprinted from the Independent) on how we might extricate ourselves from Iraq, reading from a plan by George McGovern. Step one; admit that as a nation we made a big mistake invading Iraq. Seems unlikely, unfortunately. We Americans have been trained to see ourselves as the good guys in this sort of situation. The best we can probably muster up is a weak "We meant well" style of apology.

But admitting our culpability in the current Iraq situation is a necessary step in extricating ourselves from it.

There must then be a commitment to dismantle all permanent US bases on Iraqi soil, and to allow Iraqis to own their country’s oil - with royalties paid equally to every citizen, in a regular cheque, like they do in Alaska.

The US then needs to convene a regional conference, at which it pledges to pay full-whack for an international stabilisation force to police Iraq, manned exclusively by Muslim countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan. These countries will need all sorts of financial inducements to send troops. Tough. Pay them.

Strong words. But the plan could work.

Telling it Like It Is

This is from a New York Times editorial.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally done something important to advance the cause of justice. He has resigned.

Dead straight, mate!

Presented without comment (but with an explanation)

Doug Giles latest article is on immigration, pondering why illegals choose to come to America.

I’d get sick of mariachis playing their big guitars and singing through their noses at me in restaurants. I like peace and quiet when I eat an enchilada with my lady. I don’t want three chunky Julios butchering their guitars in my face, singing “Frito Bandito” at the top of their lungs while I’m masticating with my Maria in public. Comprende?

. . . Getting paid in drinking gourds, chickens and corn tortillas after pouring concrete for 18 hours a day in 119 degree heat would get real old muy quickly.

. . . I’d also be looking to relocate in the States if I were a punk criminal/piece of Samsonite/worthless scum bucket/Darwinian holdover from anywhere in the world. Why? It’s quite obvious. America has more stuff and better stuff for the criminal’s clutches.

Look, sombrero and donkey theft in Guadalajara is only fun for the first two, maybe three times, and after that the buzz wears thin. In America, however, there are all kinds of toys to steal and plenty of people, places and things to use and abuse.

Protecting Shoplifters

Conservatives, when it comes right down to it, don't care how you earn your money. Whether or not you make your money fleecing the stupid, poisoning children, scamming the elderly, or shooting Wolverine repeatedly with a gauss gun, they don't care. In fact it's every American's God given right to earn money by fleecing the stupid, poisoning children, scamming the elderly or shooting Wolverine repeatedly with a gauss gun.

So it's not surprising to see Kevin McCullough arguing against Security Systems put in place to stop shoplifting. He does so in the name of "decency."

See if the owner of the hotel, the proprietor of the lingerie boutique, or the manager of any of the major shopping hot spots in Manhattan decided he wanted to drill a hole that allowed prurient viewing of your wife, fiancé, mother, sister, daughter or niece - in a space they would otherwise have reasonable expectations of privacy in - then he could do it, just for kicks, and there is no legal recourse you can take in response.

That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Well that's what McCullough and his "shoplifters lobby" want you to think.

Their solution is a law that would criminalize installing cameras in what are traditionally private areas - dressing roomsa and bathrooms - for the purposes of entertainment. The legislation is vague enough that it could people for using those cameras legally if they looked at a naked or underclothed woman.

Of course if you put cameras in a dressing room you are going to see a naked woman eventually. But why are those cameras there? Because the dressing room is a great spot to stash goods that you want to shoplift out of the store. Given privacy in dressing rooms, shoplifters, properly equipped, can quickly and easily remove any security devices and hide the items around their body.

I don't know why McCullough is pro-Shoplifter. I suspect he has a poor moral character. But when you fight for a law that will make shoplifting easier, it's not necessary to know why to know that it's a bad idea.

Rush Limbaugh Speaks

I referenced this yesterday; these are Rush Limbaugh's thoughts on how American Blacks and Hispanics look at the American Justice system.

When he says no dog deserves to be mistreated, and blacks and Hispanics don't deserve to represent a majority -- do you think, Mr. Hayes, that who ends up in prison is because of a lottery based on prejudice and race? I guess they do. They cannot possibly think that, Snerdley. So you're telling me that a large percentage of the African-American population in this country believes that who ends up going to prison is a lottery, and you're more likely to get picked and sent to jail if you're black because this is still 200 years ago and slavery is still running rampant and this is how it's manifesting itself?

Well, I'll tell you what, that's pretty sad and it's no wonder these people are continually upset and angry.

How could Rush Limbaugh come to this insulting and frankly insane opinion? Well according to him racism is over.

It's a tricky thing to say I can't understand it. I know everything there is to know about slavery and I know and I have seen in my younger life blatant racism right in front of my eyes. It's not a stranger to me. What I also see is that those days don't exist anymore except in the minds and the imagination of people who for some reason can't let go of it because it entitles them to be victims or whatever. There are plenty of successful, wowie zowie successful, black people in this country who have abandoned that way of thinking.

The existence of a few successful black people doesn't prove that racism is over. And, more to the point, doesn't address the structural injustices in our legal system. But I suppose he's not interested in addressing that.

History Burns

President Bush is invoking Vietnam and the killing fields of Cambodia to prove that we need to be in Iraq. Go read this post by Gareth Porter over at The Huffington Post to show what kind of crap this is.

Now!

American Justice

Caught a bit of the Rush Limbaugh show, where he was talking about the NAACP and the Michael Vick situation. In comments on Michael Vick, the interim head of the NAACP had the temerity to suggest that our legal system discriminates against blacks and Hispanics. Rush's response was entertaining. He asked if Black people think that people get arrested on a lottery - his point being that Black people commit more crimes and that's why they are in jail.

That's not the whole story though, of course. Both Judges and Juries tend to be harder on Black and Hispanics, which isn't that hard to understand. It's easy to emphasize with a person who looks like you, a person you could imagine being. On the other hand if the person is definitely an other, well, it's a lot harder getting into their head or even trying to.

I can see why Rush wouldn't mention that though - it's easier to make fun of black people and Hispanics if you give them stupid positions.

Winning is Losing

Republicans have decided that the Surge is working. And they've also decided that Democrats are seeing the progress. From those two Brookings institute guys (who always supported the war) to Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton (who have admitted that the military campaign my be producing some results, while not being enough to actually win) Democrats are finally admitting that this war is Winnable. Or such is the theme of Cal Thomas's latest article.

This presents a problem if you are what Republicans believe we Democrats are. See in their minds, we are already out in favor of losing the war in Iraq. I mean that practically our signature issue - "Let's Lose in Iraq!" And now that we are winning Democrats are going to have to very quickly jump to the other side of the fence if they want to retain their credibility with the American people.

Of course retaining or gaining credibility with people who believe that Democrats want to lose in Iraq seems like a losing proposition anyway.

I think the Republicans might be popping out the champagne a little early; it's still unsure how things are going to shake out in Iraq. The truth is that the political problems in Iraq are not yet solve, and may not be solvable in any reasonable time frame.

Presented Without Comment

I had a Barbie doll once, Cheryl, and you'd pull the string on the back, "Math class is tough." You know the stereotype.

Rush Limbaugh, August 21, 2007

Retread Articles

One of the frustrating things about this format is that when a story pops, all the conservatoids rush to write about it. Moreover, there are certain tropes that even in the absence of a specific trigger will be written about regularly.

Take the idea that Democrats want the US to lose in Iraq. I've written on that some 10 times in the last few months, and probably rejected about twice that number of articles on the grounds that I just wrote about it. Today Ken Blackwell takes on this theme.

The Iraq War may have helped the Democrats win Congress in 2006, but now developments both in Iraq and here at home are putting the Democrats -- and especially Hillary Clinton -- in a position where they might try to redefine "victory" and "defeat" to help their political fortunes at the expense of our national interest, to our nation's shame.

Once again, it turns on whether or not you think the Iraq war is likely to be a success. Many if not most Republicans apparently do; many if not most Democrats do not. If you think the war is going to be a success, you have to get angry at those who want to pull out; conversely, if you think the war is going to be a failure, you have to get angry at those who want to keep throwing bodies in that particular meet grinder.

As I've pointed out already. Some 10 times or more. Very frustrating.

In There Hands

I'm posting a lot today; I guess I have a backlog. I wanted to underline this editorial at the New York Times, written by seven who are serving in Iraq.

Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

Well worth reading, and I have to salute these soldiers for taking a position that will probably cause them a certain amount of trouble.