Libertarian Leanings

Judge Sumi Rules Again

Wisconsin Judge Maryann Sumi issued another order to block the collective bargaining law.

"Further implementation of the act is enjoined," Sumi said.

"Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of Act 10 was enjoined. That is what I now want to make crystal clear."

She warned that those who violate her order could face court sanctions.

In response to Attorney General Steven Means, a Republican who said the law was already published and in effect, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, a Democrat from Kenosha, expressed shock.

"It's just startling that the attorney general believes you should not follow court orders anymore," he said.

But according to one Marquette University law professor, that may not be the real issue.

Richard Esenberg said he was not surprised by the ruling but criticized the judge.

"There is applicable Supreme Court precedent that a court has no authority to enjoin the publication of a law," he said. "The state has repeatedly cited that law to her and as far as I know she has not only failed to explain herself about why she feels she has the authority, she hasn't even acknowledged there is an issue. That just leaves me speechless."

Esenberg was referring to a 1943 state Supreme Court opinion that said courts could not interfere with legislation until it is published and becomes law.

Unless there is some later Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, Judge Sumi would seem to be the one ignoring the courts.

Rubio On The Debt Limit

Marco Rubio says he won't vote to raise the debt limit.

We're therefore at a defining moment in American history. In a few weeks, we will once again reach our legal limit for borrowing, the so-called debt ceiling. The president and others want to raise this limit. They say it is the mature, responsible thing to do.

In fact, it's nothing more than putting off the tough decisions until after the next election.

There certainly need to be policy changes such as the ones Rubio proposes, but there also have to be some changes in the way Washington does business.  The incentives are skewed in a way that promotes higher spending with no regard for the consequences. 

Detroit -- The Progressive Plan For America

Since its heyday in the last century, Detroit has lost more than a million people to urban flight.  In 1950 the Motor City population peaked at 1,849,568.  Today it stands at 713,777.  The 2010 census delivered a blow when it determined that the city had fewer than 750,000 inhabitants.  It's a magic number, 750,000.  Below it, Detroit no longer qualifies for certain federal and state aid.

Urban flight is nothing new.  But a million people?  William McGurn reports in the Wall Street Journal:

"Detroit is a classic example of how a culture that was legendary for enterprise and innovation was slowly eroded by toxic politicization from the 1960s on," says the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Michigan-based Acton Institute. "It's been class warfare on steroids, and the inevitable result is that so many Detroiters who had the means—black and white—have fled the city."

[...]

What happened to this Detroit? In many ways the answer is liberal politics and expanding government. In the 1960s, for example, Detroit became one of Lyndon Johnson's "Model Cities." That meant it was on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of federal dollars to transform a nine-mile-square section of the city. It would be just the first of many government-funded redevelopment schemes that left behind one of the most blighted urban landscapes in the nation.

Notwithstanding its failures, government continued to grow while city services—e.g., police and fire protection—continued to decline. Whites moving to the suburbs took much of the tax base out of the city in the 1960s. The latest census numbers show that blacks are now following in the path of the whites before them. Apparently they don't like crime and the lack of decent schools for their kids either.

What's left is the city so embarrassingly exposed by the census figures, a place that people are fleeing as fast as they can. Think of all the dysfunctional measures you can: poverty rates, unemployment, crime, failing public schools, falling home values. Detroit has them all, and most of its indicators rank among the worst in the nation.

It's the progressive plan for America.  Dependent constituencies mean progressive majorities.  Detroit is a huge dependent constituency, for sure.  Welcome to the progressive future.

War On Fox

Media Matters, a George Soros funded media attack machine, plans to sabotage Fox News.

The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.

The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.

I suppose what we're about to see is a response to James O'Keefe's highly successful stings of ACORN and NPR.  But O'Keefe's work has been effective because his targets unveiled ugly truths about themselves.  What is Media Matters hope to reveal about Fox and Rupert Murdoch?

“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.

The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”

In an interview and a 2010 planning memo shared with POLITICO, Brock listed the fronts on which Media Matters — which he said is operating on a $10 million-plus annual budget — is working to chip away at Fox and its parent company, News Corp. They include its bread-and-butter distribution of embarrassing clips and attempts to rebut Fox points, as well as a series of under-the-radar tactics.

They must be quaking in their shoes over at Fox. 

Media Matters, Brock said, is assembling opposition research files not only on Fox’s top executives but on a series of midlevel officials. It has hired an activist who has led a successful campaign to press advertisers to avoid Glenn Beck’s show. The group is assembling a legal team to help people who have clashed with Fox to file lawsuits for defamation, invasion of privacy or other causes. And it has hired two experienced reporters, Joe Strupp and Alexander Zaitchik, to dig into Fox’s operation to help assemble a book on the network, due out in 2012 from Vintage/Anchor. (In the interest of full disclosure, Media Matters last month also issued a report criticizing “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy’s criticism of this reporter’s blog.)

Sounds like the usual progressive strategy.  Make stuff up.

Update:  A Washington Examiner column by Mark Tapscott asks if Media Matters is breaking the law.

Since Brock classifies Fox News as the "leader" of the Republican Party, by his own description he is involving his organization in a partisan battle. High-priced K Street lawyers can probably find a federal judge or a sympathetic IRS bureaucrat willing to either look the other way or accept some sort of MM rationale such as that it is merely providing educational information about a partisan group.

But in the IRS application for 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation status, Section VIII, Question I asks the applicant: "Do you support or oppose candidates in political campaigns in any way?" (Emphasis added).

Under Brock's definition of Fox News, it appears he is setting MM on a course of actively opposing all Republican candidates. Brandon Kiser at The Right Sphere blog argues that this new statement of MM's mission means it must change its tax status.

Beyond the partisanship issue, explicitly declaring that your purpose as a tax-exempt non-profit public foundation is to interfere with the commercial interests of somebody else's legal business enterprise falls nowhere within the scope of purely educational activities.

In my wild fantasies I dream of Brock facing criminal charges for tax fraud.  But even if a case could be made, which I strongly doubt, who in this administration would bring it?  And who cares anyway.  Let him butt heads with News Corp. and we'll see who gets the headache. 

A Lesson In Crony Capitalism

Or The U.S. Government Under Democratic Control:

But Nobody Pays That
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: March 24, 2011

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

Let's be fair.  There's more at work here than just a talented and aggressive tax department.

The head of its tax team, Mr. Samuels, met with Representative Charles B. Rangel, then chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which would decide the fate of the tax break. As he sat with the committee’s staff members outside Mr. Rangel’s office, Mr. Samuels dropped to his knee and pretended to beg for the provision to be extended — a flourish made in jest, he said through a spokeswoman.

That day, Mr. Rangel reversed his opposition to the tax break, according to other Democrats on the committee.

The following month, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Immelt stood together at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem as G.E. announced that its foundation had awarded $30 million to New York City schools, including $11 million to benefit various schools in Mr. Rangel’s district. Joel I. Klein, then the schools chancellor, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who presided, said it was the largest gift ever to the city’s schools.

Not bad.  Pump $30 million into your favorite congressman's district and get $3.2 billion from Uncle Sam, courtesy of all of us not so influential taxpayers.  That was in 2008 when Congressman Rangel was still Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.  Rangel assured everyone then that there was no connection between his sudden change of heart on corporate taxes and the $30 million donation.  We can take that to the bank.  Or, more accurately, GE can take that to the bank.

What A Surprise... Not!

A Washington Examiner editorial expresses surprise and dismay that Jamie Gorelick is on Obama's list to head up the FBI.  The editorial highlights Gorelick's career.

First, there was her tenure as deputy attorney general under Janet Reno during President Clinton's first term. Reno described Gorelick as Justice's "chief operating officer" from 1993 to 1997. She was a key Reno adviser during the horrendous events in Waco, Texas, in which David Koresh, 76 of his Branch Davidian followers (including 20 women and children) and four federal agents died in an unbelievably bungled assault intended to end a 50-day siege. The Davidians were immolated in an inferno apparently ignited by pyrotechnic gas grenades used by the government in the assault.

Next came Gorelick's move to Fannie Mae, where as vice chairwoman from 1997 to 2003 she was paid in excess of $26 million. During her time at Fannie Mae, Enron-style accounting techniques were used to make the government-chartered mortgage corporation appear to be in better financial shape than it was. As a result of the cooked books, Gorelick was paid more than $800,000 in bonuses in 1998. She was among multiple former Democratic operatives then working at Fannie Mae who received substantial additional compensation for their exertions in what later proved to be a $10 billion scandal. Shortly before the scandal became public, Gorelick told Businessweek that Fannie Mae was "managed safely ... Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions." It was also during these years that Fannie Mae began investing heavily in the subprime loans and unsecured mortgage securities that were at the heart of the Great Recession of 2008.

Finally, and most seriously, there is the matter of "Gorelick's Wall" and 9/11. Gorelick was a member of the 9/11 Commission and became a focus of critical attention during its hearings when it became known that during her DOJ tenure she imposed a policy of radical separation between the FBI and the nation's intelligence agencies in terrorism investigations. According to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "Gorelick's Wall" was a key reason why "we did not know an attack was coming." By barring such contacts, Ashcroft told the commission, "our agents were isolated by government-imposed walls, handcuffed by government-imposed restrictions, and starved for basic information technology. The old national intelligence system in place on September 11 was destined to fail." Gorelick refused to resign from the commission despite the obvious conflict of interest.

Gorelick is emblematic of Obama administration governance and its relentless promotion of cronyism and corruption.  What a perfect fit.  If what we're looking for is someone to put FBI resources to work for Obama's re-election and for the Democratic party, Gorelick has got to be at the top of the list.  That Obama would consider nominating a person with Gorelick's record is no surprise.

No Bias At NPR

So says Steve Inskeep in the wake of James O'Keefe's damning video of NPR fundraising executives discussing a potential $5 million gift from phony donors who posed as wealthy Arabs with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

I congratulate Mr. O'Keefe for upholding his values: faith in the power of video to mislead. As columnist Michael Gerson noted in the Washington Post, by selectively misquoting the executive's words, rearranging events, and other devices, Mr. O'Keefe made him sound sympathetic to Islamic radicals and unfairly tarnished NPR with "an elaborate, alluring lie."

The video tape clearly captures former NPR executive Ron Schiller accusing the Tea Party of being "seriously racist, racist people."

On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Inskeep doesn't say what's misleading about that, but as co-host of NPR's "Morning Edition" he speaks with some degree of authority.  Or maybe that would be bias.  Whatever it is, NPR should not receive any more tax dollars.  If it's the professional, well run news organization that Inskeep claims, it will stand on its own.  They can fund their bigotry without my help.

Majority Favors A Flat Tax

A Rasmussen poll out yesterday reported that 64% of Americans believe that middle class taxpayers pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than wealthy Americans.  But that's not the important part of the survey results.  My emphasis below.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of adults favor a tax system where everyone pays the same percentage of their income in taxes, up 10 points from last year at this time. Twenty-six percent  (26%) oppose such a system, and another 19% are undecided about it.

With a clear majority of adults in favor a flat tax, now is the time for tax reform.  I propose a 20-20 tax plan -- 20% with a $20,000 exemption.  The first $20,000 of taxable income would be exempted, with taxable income being total income minus any actual expenses incurred earning it.  A 20% tax rate would apply to the what's left.  So, taxable income of $20,000 or under would result in $0 income tax due.  A taxable income of $25,000 would result in a net of $5,000 subject to the 20% rate and $1,000 due in income taxes, which equates to an actual tax burden of 4.00% of total income.

Under that formula the tax bill for a someone with $100,000 of total income would come to 16.00% of income.  At $150,000 the percentage of taxes paid would be 17.33%.  As income rises the percentage of taxes paid rises, always getting closer but never reaching the maximum 20%. 

Let me point out that this is actually progressive, but in a smooth arc rather than in abrupt and sharp steps.  That means there are no arbitrary points along the income scale where there is reason to limit income in order to avoid paying taxes at a higher rate.  Once past the $20,000 exemption, every dollar is taxed at 20%.  The tax code would impose no arbitrary impediments to economic growth.

The tax code might also be used to do away with minimum wage laws and dramatically reduce the welfare bureaucracy if we adopt Milton Friedman's concept of a negative income tax.  Any working adult with an annual income below the level of the standard $20,000 exemption would receive the difference as a tax credit, so that no one would have an income less than $20,000 -- or whatever the exemption would be. 

I used 20% and $20,000 because 20-20 is kind of a catchy name, but the numbers don't matter so much as the concept.  We could cure a lot of ills with a simplified and sensible tax code.

They're Not Optimists

They're just misinformed.

Yet some economists still see a silver lining for Japan’s economy in the wake of the disaster, claiming reconstruction efforts will create jobs and stimulate growth.

They’re not optimists; they’re just misinformed.

Larry Summers managed to put his foot in his mouth last week when asked about the effect of the earthquake. The former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, former Harvard University president, former Treasury secretary and now ordinary professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told CNBC the earthquake and its aftermath “may lead to some temporary increments, ironically, to GDP as a process of rebuilding takes place. In the wake of the earlier Kobe earthquake, Japan actually gained some economic strength.”

General Theory of Nonsense

Tidbits

By formally asking the U.N. Security Council to approve a no-fly zone, the Arab League is implicitly asking for U.S. military intervention in Libya.

For the proverbial "Arab street," the defeat of the Libyan uprising would be a dispiriting coda to this springtime of democratic revolutions. If he survives, Gadhafi will have taught other dictators that the next time young people demand accountable leadership, turn your guns on them and exploit American diffidence.

Japan:  it's not Chernobyl, but it's not nothing either.

On passing out candy.

What explains such unspeakable evil? What sort of human being deliberately butchers a sleeping baby, or plunges a knife into a toddler’s heart?

As news of the massacre in Itamar spread, candy and pastries were handed out in Gaza in celebration.

Andrew McCarthy asks, "Do you think the State Department noticed that no one in Arizona, Mexico, or even Mars took to the streets to celebrate the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords?"

Drill, Baby, Drill.  The "answer to many of our energy problems lies literally under our feet."  But then, there are reasons we aren't going after it.

So how's that Wisconsin recall going?  The one in Florida went pretty well.

Tennessee is not Wisconsin.

Clear evidence of voter fraud in New Mexico.

Pro-choice... on light bulbs?