Two Islamists in the U.K. drove their BMW 3 series onto a sidewalk and hit an off duty, out of uniform soldier. Then they beheaded him and dropped his body in the street while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” To top it off, the police took 20 minutes to respond.
Think any of this will get serious coverage in the U.S. media? Never mind. I answered my own question.
There are interesting rumblings in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. You might almost think the left was getting ready to admit there’s a problem….naaah. That’s not going to happen.
States were $1.38 trillion short of having enough to pay their public-employee retirement bills in 2010, the last year for which totals are available for all 50 states, according to the Pew Center on the States. That was up 9 percent over the previous year….
The problem’s roots go deep. For years, experts say, many states increased benefits to buy labor peace and skipped making required contributions to pension funds when times got tight, hoping that the performance of those funds’ investments would make up the difference….
The need to find a way to fund the growing cost of all those pensions is real, pollster Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College warned - “the state is sitting on this volcano.”
And yet, he said, the volcano goes unnoticed by the villagers. Pension reform has not emerged as an explosive issue that moves voters…
Unnoticed? Not so much. And the problem is much worse when you look at the bigger picture, which includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. Conservatives, particularly libertarians, have been talking about this for years. In fact, the first paragraph could have come verbatim from the Tea Party. The left has certainly tried not to notice. To the minimal degree they have even engaged the issue, it has been to deny there is a problem, and accuse conservatives of being racists who are out to get the poor and middle class and trying create an “on your own” society.
What will happen is predictable. The left will fight reforms, kicking and screaming. The GOP will buckle completely or, at most, tinker with the funding or cost-of-living formulas and the problem will continue to compound. Eventually, when the bill comes due, there’s no money left, and there is no choice but real (deep) cuts, the pensions and social programs the left created to “help” the poor and middle class will be drastically pared back.
And the poor and the middle class who were naive enough to depend on the left’s “help” will be screwed.
Of course. That is the inevitable result of depending on the left.
DHS has published a video describing what people can do in an active shooter situation. It deserves much ridicule, which it is already receiving.
I’d like to point out one detail that is particularly worthy of contempt. If you are not able to escape or successfully hide, the narrator suggests you should consider using objects to defend yourself. As he says this, the video shows a person grabbing a large pair of scissors.
Scissors.
To use against a loon with a gun.
So, let me get this right. The official position of the Department of Homeland Security is to encourage people to defend themselves with scissors against a guy shooting his way through their office. Let me take a wild guess and speculate that DHS does not encourage private citizens to carry or use a gun to defend themselves.
Because, you know, someone might get hurt. Just grab those scissors and wait for the professionals to show up.
Out of curiosity, do you think any of the grownups at Sandy Hook Elementary had access to scissors?
The left has been arguing for years that the Bush tax cuts went mostly to the wealthy and that the Obama deficits have been caused not by over-spending but by the Bush tax cuts. Those of us who pointed to the actual numbers indicating otherwise were (at best) ignored but usually attacked.
Well we have now rolled back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy while leaving them them in place for everyone else. And the affect on the deficit is…virtually nothing. The estimate is that the new tax will raise about $60 billion per year (in reality tax receipts will be “unexpectedly” lower right on schedule of course). And we’re still looking at $1 trillion-plus annual deficits.
It seems to me there were two kinds of leftists making the it’s all Bush’s fault argument: those who lied and those who were willfully duped.
The left is pushing hard to close any freedom loopholes they can find. The target this time is assault weapons. Assault weapons are a menace and must be banned, they say.
Pretext - “a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason.”
From the FBI’s 2011 crime data:
Pretext.
Apparently the Delaware taxpayers are getting hosed because of a deal the state signed with Fisker. That would be the same Fisker the US taxpayers are getting hosed for.
This statement from the governor’s office really ticked me off:
“It has not worked out the way he had envisioned,” [Delaware Gov.] Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi acknowledged Monday in a statement to FoxNews.com. “We didn’t know and couldn’t have known about the underlying technical and financial problems.”
We “couldn’t have known about the underlying technical and financial problems”?!
Yeah, you could have, you moron. There’s this thing called “due diligence.” It’s what you do when you are investing your own money to make sure you are not throwing your money away in a company with “underlying technical and financial problems.”
Apparently it’s not what government does when it’s spending your money.
A few random pieces of sarcasm in response to calls for gun control after yesterday’s murder spree:
Yesterday’s mass shooting at a Connecticut kindergarten hit awfully close to home. Mrs. Manifesto and I are beginning to look at kindergartens for Little Girl Manifesto. Plus we have friends in Connecticut, having gone to school in New York.
Already the predictable and vague calls for more gun control are beginning. Funny how few of these people are specific about what they want. I’m guessing a lot of these people want to ban guns but correctly realize (1) that’s not going to happen, (2) it makes them sound like crazy radicals, and (3) they realize the less-than-full-ban proposals they throw around would not have make a lick of difference in this case.
When dealing with one of these people instead of immediately responding with data or getting bogged down in the amoeba-like “guns are icky” argument, push them for more details. Respond with questions rather than counterarguments. Get them to admit they want a ban. Or get them to lay out some other policy idea. Then poke their specific assertions full of holes.
You’ll tie them into knots faster than you can say “NRA Life Member.”
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit frequently calls on conservatives to “punch back twice as hard.” He has also embraced the idea of raising certain taxes, specifically ones that will disproportionately hit blue states (such as reducing the deductibility of state income taxes).
Along those lines, I have taken a few of the features and taxes from Obamacare and used them as inspiration for a new set of taxes and regulations that would hit well-heeled lefties hardest.
HHS Contraception Mandate:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
Obamacare Tax:
Counter-punch:
The top 100 U.S. university endowments have a total value of $310 billion and the top 100 U.S. foundations have assets totaling $244 billion. I am outraged that they exploit tax loopholes and pay no taxes. It’s time for them to pay their fair share. Fix the fiscal cliff - tax the rich!
So, Obama has been reelected. It is going to be a tough few years. Here is what to expect:
What happens next?
We need to neutralize the legacy media. Their shameless advocacy for Obama and against Romney really hurt. Relying on talk radio and the many great conservative websites is not going to be enough to neutralize the media. We need need our ideas represented and treated evenly on the pages of print media and TV. It does not matter how top-notch the conservative alternative media is if the people who need to see it don’t. That is going to be a long-term project and at this point I don’t know how to make it happen.
We need to reestablish a presence in pop culture. Many of us, myself included, have generally ignored pop culture. This is probably a mistake. Someone, I don’t recall who, once said “politics is what we do; culture is the air we breathe.” The constant barrage of anti-conservative/anti-Republican messages received by low-information voters has really taken its toll. The fact-free nature of the messages makes it galling but no less dangerous.
Traditional conservatives and libertarians need to focus on common ground: individual liberty and free markets. We need to deemphasize social issues. Like it or not, women (particularly single women) fell for the “war on women” nonsense. They basically freaked out because Obama convinced them that Romney was going to take away their birth control. This was nonsense of course but the legacy media actively abetted the lie.
We need to make a strong moral (rather than strictly data-driven) case for free enterprise. See the outstanding work of Arthur Brooks for example. We understand the economic data and why free markets make everyone better off. But many people don’t think that way. They need to feel, not look at data. They need to feel intuitively that free markets give them a better life.
We need to convince minority groups (who from what I have seen voted in the 75% to 93% range for Obama this time) that progressivism is bad for them. That’s going to be a very complex operation, I’m afraid. A one-size-fits-all approach probably won’t work. We will need to tailor our message differently for different ethnic and immigrant groups. But most importantly, it needs to be more than “outreach.” It has to be permanent and sustained, we need to become part of each other’s political consciousness.
In short, we have a lot of work to do.
The Democrats have kicked off their convention in the otherwise lovely city of Charlotte, NC to defend a failed presidency and try to convince people that more progressive policies are just what we need.
In related news:
Think your cell phone bill is too expensive? What about your cable bill? Most people do.
That’s because if you are like most people you are paying for things you don’t want or need (an unusably large number of minutes for your phone or hundreds of channels you don’t watch). It’s pretty intuitive that when you pay for extras you don’t want because you have to buy them to get what you do want, it raises the price above what you could be paying.
Well congratulations. You now understand one of the reasons (though far from the only reason) why ObamaCare is going raise the cost of health insurance. It’s loaded up with coverage mandates for things you might not choose to buy yourself.
I am not a gossip. So I am not going to repeat the continuing rumor that #HarryReidIsAPederast.
Not surprisingly in the wake of the Aurora movie theater shooting my lefty dominated Facebook wall had many calls for more gun control. One friend posted a particularly bad poster that was filled with basic factual errors.
I posted a response gently correcting the record. Another lefty reacted to my comments with a borderline incoherent, utopian screed about not needing guns and the second amendment not being relevant anymore.
Before the “conversation” was completed the original poster deleted the thread. Of course - we wouldn’t want to have to face any dissent, would we? But, as always, the left’s conspicuous unwillingness to engage with reality is their loss, not ours. We know how to debate this issue, they don’t.
Anyway, the conversation was deleted before I could preserve it. But here was my first response to the loopy utopian. Not surprisingly she did not even try to address the questions in her follow-up.
What is not needed: this gun or any gun? If just this gun, in what way is it different from any other? If any gun, why are guns not needed? Are there no criminals who prey on the weak and the innocent? Are there never natural disasters or civil disturbances where civil society breaks down?
In what way is the second amendment not relevant for our times? First, see above. Second, violent crime happens with or without firearms. While any one person is not likely to be the victim of a violent crime, that is small comfort to those who are. Crime happens. I am still recovering from spine surgery, how is it moral to force me to defend myself by hand against a criminal who is younger, faster and stronger? What about my petite wife? What about my aging mother? Why do police carry guns if they are irrelevant? Do police in countries with strong gun control laws still carry guns? Why, to take one example, did gun crime soar in the UK after Tony Blair gutted private gun ownership? Why has gun crime dropped in the U.S. at the same time that an increasing number of states enacted concealed carry laws?
If the second amendment is no longer relevant, why is free speech relevant? Freedom of religion or assembly? The right of protection against self-incrimination or unreasonable searches and seizures? If you like these other rights, why are they different? If it is morally acceptable for you to trash a right I care deeply about but you dislike, why would it not be acceptable for me to do so to a right you care about? How is this compatible with a respect for individual rights?
I trust you will be able to provide a good response for each of these questions. These are, of course, some of the essential questions that many of us who support the second amendment have wrestled with (no, we’re not just a bunch of rednecks). In fact, for many of us the answers are actually what drove us to support the second amendment.
UPDATE: Sebastian has marked up the very poster that produced the discussion. I made similar points in my original response on Facebook.
There is an interesting post at Zero Hedge arguing that the statutory tax rate on the middle class in high tax states (read: blue states) is 75%. This might be slightly high but I think it’s basically accurate.
Above a rather modest $34,600 in taxable income and up to around $106,000, the [statutory] middle class tax burden in high-tax American locales is 75%:
Social Security and Medicare: 15.3%
Federal income tax: 25% (28% above $83,600)
State income tax: 5% (mid-range)
Healthcare insurance: 15%
Property tax: 15%
The Social Security, Medicare and federal income income tax rates are indisputable. They add up to 40%-43% but let’s stick with 40%.
State income taxes vary but in looking at charts of state income tax rates by income, 5% is a reasonable approximation for the middle class. But even if someone insists this is too high, it would only drop the statutory tax burden by a percent or two. So, the total is up to 45%.
Pegging the property tax rate at 15% is arguably a bit high. As an example, let’s take the median property tax ($7,500) and the median income ($67,000) for New Jersey. That’s about 11% of income. However clearly 15% is quite likely depending on exactly what a person’s income/tax bill is. But let’s go with the exact median, 11%, and the total comes to 56%.
Now we come to healthcare. I’m sure this is the one that will get the biggest push-back. However, I say tough luck, lefties. You won the ObamaCare policy fight and you now own the healthcare system. We now have (partly) private ownership of health insurance with government control. HHS will effectively determine through minimum coverage requirements (read: by fiat) what the cost of health insurance will be for all of us. We no longer have the option of purchasing a cheap policy. Plus, ObamaCare places enforcement of the insurance mandate with the IRS and the Supreme Court declared it a tax. So, lefties, you broke it; you bought it. Health insurance is a mandatory expense required of us by the federal government. It is a tax and the math is as follows. For 2011, the U.S. median income was $51,400. The average healthcare cost for a family of 4 was $19,400 of which $8,000 was paid out-of-pocket. $8,000 is is 15% of the median income. Using the out-of-pocket expense only, frankly, is playing it very conservative. Now that health insurance is a federal requirement, it is reasonable to argue the employer portion should be counted as well (just like the Social Security tax).
That brings the total statutory tax rate for the middle class to 71%, if you take my more conservative property tax calculation. If you agree with the Zero Hedge calculation it’s 75%.
Plus, this does not include sales taxes, excise taxes, investment taxes, local wage taxes and the cost of regulatory compliance, which are passed on to taxpayers.
I can already hear the lefties shrieking that nobody actually pays a 71% tax rate. I will acknowledge that this is only the statutory tax burden and the effective tax rate is lower.
However, this is a story that still matters a lot. First, is that the left feels it is somehow morally justifiable to claim a prior right through coercion to 71% of a family’s income. Second, the only reason the effective tax rate is 71% is through deductions, credits and exemptions that have proliferated in the past few decades, primarily at the federal level. But it is much easier to change these tax modifiers than it is to change the actual rates. When our debt crisis hits, who knows what will happen with the tax code. If the availability of tax modifiers are reduced, the left will simply argue that they tax rates are unchanged and they did not raise taxes. No doubt the luminaries in the legacy media would happily shill for them.
This is something we need to be shouting from the roof tops.
As I previously mentioned, ObamaCare the Obama HealthCare Tax will prove to be temporary. It is not fiscally sustainable. When our inevitable fiscal crisis hits in full, ObamaCare the Obama HealthCare Tax will have to be gutted if it is still around.
The left can blather all it wants about how it’s going to save money, but it is plainly untrue.
We’re not going to save money by requiring everyone to have gold-plated health coverage. Before ObamaCare the Obama HealthCare Tax, you could buy more or less expensive health coverage, with the big cost differences being driven by what’s covered, what the out of pocket share will be, etc. Under ObamaCare the Obama HealthCare Tax, HHS will be requiring much more extensive coverage than is now required. That will raise the cost of healthcare, not lower it.
We’re not going to save money by covering more people because people who have coverage consume more healthcare services. For example, when Massachusetts expanded coverage to nearly everyone ER usage went up, not down. Furthermore, being covered does not save money in itself. Consider two people, one insured and one not insured, who suffer the same injury and receive $10,000 of care in the ER. The insured person’s $10,000 bill goes to the insurance company. The uninsured person’s $10,000 bill goes to the uninsured person. There’s a $10,000 bill either way. Okay, you say, but the insurance company can negotiate a discounted rate. True, but cash-paying patients have tremendous leverage to negotiate discounts as well. There is no savings here either. But what if the uninsured person does not pay? Won’t the cost of the care be passed along to everyone else? Yes, some of it will. But there is still $10,000 of care being consumed. Whether it is paid for by a private insurance company, an uninsured person, a tax-payer funded plan, or the cost is eaten by the healthcare provider or cost-shifted to everyone else’s insurance premiums, it does not change the fact that healthcare services were consumed. Covering more people does not reduce healthcare spending.
And we’re not going to save money through prevention programs because, in aggregate, prevention programs cost more money than they save. Most people in a prevention program would not have developed the condition the program is intended to prevent. Money is saved on the minority of individuals who the prevention program succeeds on. But in aggregate the costs of the programs generally exceed the savings. This is an open secret in the healthcare industry. Prevention programs may be worthwhile for other reasons but it is not because they save money.
ObamaCare The Obama HealthCare Tax will raise the cost of healthcare, not lower it.
The left managed to save the ObamaCare Obama HealthCare Tax. But do they even realize what a price they paid to accomplish this?
There’s a new precedent for striking down statutes on federalism grounds. There’s a new precedent expressly limiting the scope of the commerce power. There’s a new precedent limiting the use of the necessary and proper clause. To the extent there is any new taxing power created (which is debatable), it is one that (1) will result in future uses being labeled as taxes, and (2) creates taxes which cannot be shifted to “the wealthy” and must apply to all tax payers.
ObamaCare The Obama HealthCare Tax is bad policy. There is no doubt about that. But, if it has not been clear from my comments thus far, I have been much more concerned about the potential impact of the commerce power/necessary and proper arguments. The left was soundly defeated on those points. They saved their law in the short term at the price of new constitutional limits on their schemes.
The left won on the policy issue. ObamaCare still stands (but shall now be rebranded the Obama Healthcare Tax). But I think the left won the battle but lost the war.
There were three arguments for the individual mandate:
The first two are constitutional issues. But, as argued, the third was not.
On the constitutional issues, the left lost big. The court expressly foreclosed on the left’s attempt to expand the federal government’s power. The very argument that left alternately ridiculed and ignored for 3 years, in fact, won: the commerce power has real limits and does not allow Congress to compel commerce in order to regulate it. Don’t underestimate how rare it is for the modern court to limit the commerce power.
In upholding the individual mandate as a tax, the court moved the decision out of the constitutional realm. It was pretty clear that if the individual mandate could be interpreted as a tax, it was constitutional. The question was whether, as a matter of interpretation of existing precedent, it could be construed as a tax. While I think the court got that wrong, it’s not earth shattering as a matter of law. It literally is something that, if written differently, could have been accomplished and we would never have been able to challenge it.
The left gained nothing in managing to save a policy that they could have had anyway. But in the process, they made constitutional arguments that crashed and burned. The court has now placed a rare hard limit on the power of Congress to regulate commerce. Constitutionally, this case was all lose, no win for the left.
But look at the bright side, in the end the Obama Healthcare Tax is just temporary. It will have to be repealed or rewritten when our debt crisis hits.
The Supreme Court held that the individual mandate is valid as a tax. But it also specifically held that the individual mandate would violate the commerce power.
Chin up, libertarians. That’s a huge win. Congress is going to be significantly boxed in.
As one of the live bloggers at SCOTUS Blog put it:
The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should be understood as a major blow to Congress’s authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition.
Plus, Obama is now going to have to campaign on “remember how I said I wasn’t going to raise your taxes…”
UPDATE: As I think about this more, the lefties may want to rethink their excitement. This may be the worst possible outcome for them. Since the law was upheld, the base won’t be riled up in November. But the the court squarely rejected the left’s commerce power, and necessary & proper arguments, which were by far the most threatening to our freedom. Now the Dems look ridiculous like liars because the provision they said wasn’t a tax has been declared a tax by the court. Obama and crew are on the hook for a middle class tax increase when they said they weren’t going to raise taxes on the middle class.
So, let’s review. They’re saddled with a tax that they said wasn’t a tax, and a tax increase that they said they wouldn’t do. They lost big on the most important constitutional issues and won only on a constitutional route that will sharply limit their ability to do anything like this in the future. And, oh by the way, the law that was upheld by the court is really unpopular. Good luck in November!