Deep Thoughts

Your Personal Voting Style

My dad taught me that my job as a voter was “to hold your nose and vote” for the least offensive candidate. He implied that all candidates would be offensive at some level.

Now The Electorate is much more sophisticated. This list shows the voting styles  of the 21^st Century voter. Which one are you?

Momentum Style

    “We always vote the Y ticket.”

 Sheep 

“My boss/neighbor/priest/mail carrier said to vote for Candidate X.”  (Baaa.)

 Emotional

“I love Candidate X!” (Chris Mathews’s tingly feeling up the leg. Also why so many females voted for Bill Clinton.)

Similarity

“X is like me on most issues” (Rationalization of the emotional style.)

 Pragmatic

“X is the best person for our specific problems.” (Assumes voter’s knowledge–facts not in evidence.)

Idealistic

“X is best for the country” (Assumes voter’s wisdom–also not in evidence.)

Self-Interest

“Who be given me my check?” (Easiest group to lampoon but probably the smartest, once you get passed the Ebonics.)

Electability

“Given the other party’s candidate, X is the one most likely to win for us.”  (This is what happens when you watch too many polls on CNN. It is also the most “realistic” approach to the election process.)

Game Theory

“If we vote for Ron Paul, it would split the Republican vote and Obama will get elected again.” (Game over.)

Fatalistic Game Theory

“If we do not vote for Ron Paul, he will run anyway. That would split the Republican vote and Obama will get elected again.” (Game over.)

Utopian

“Then we will enter the Dark Ages. Welfare recipients will run loose in the land. Eventually–100 years or so–a new age will dawn. Then we will all do the right thing, all of the time. Government as we know it will become unnecessary and cease to exist.”  (Of course this is Heaven, meaning we are all dead.)

A Modest Proposal to Save America

Americans badly need jobs. Indeed, the current Wall Street Sit-In & Cannabis Faire shows the frustration among our educated yet unemployed citizens.

The government has spent heavily on job creation and failed miserably. The few jobs created have been quite expensive—between $200,000 and $1 million each.

Instead, how about creating 7 million new jobs that cost only $74,000 apiece? This will happen if we pay working illegal immigrants to leave.

And they will leave if we pay them enough. I propose paying each working Illegal $100,000 to leave and never come back. They would be required to take their spouses and children with them.

How many would leave? Say 90 percent took the money and left. That would leave 10 percent, who would be either highly successful or criminals. For the successful, let them buy a path to citizenship, say at $200,000 each. For the criminals, locate and deport them.

These wonderful benefits would occur:

> 7 million jobs would open overnight

> Our economy would grow faster. Americans who took over the jobs would not be sending money to Mexico. More earnings would be recycled into our economy.

> Local government service costs would be reduced. California alone is spending over $10 billion a year on Illegal immigrants.

> This huge cash influx into Mexico will raise their living standards and quash the drug cartels.

> Heroin availability in the US would dry up.

Here is how the numbers shake out. All number in billions

$630 cost to pay 90% to leave

    less 70  - citizenship purchases by successful Illegals

    less   7  - reduced costs of Illegals’ criminality

    less 10  - 50% reduction in Heroin use

    less 25  - reduced state & local support costs for Illegals

$518 net cost of program or $74,000 per newly employed US citizen.

Of course, the border must be sealed. The US military will need to be repurposed from foreign adventurism to guarding our border. Also, we would need a meaningful guest worker program: short term, no families, etc.

Result: America would be back on track for the best possible 21^st Century!

Effect on unemployment rate. An estimated 7 million workers in the US are here illegally. Our current 9.1% unemployment rate is based on 14 million out of work. Replacing the illegals with US citizens would lower the unemployment rate to 4.55%.

Ideal GOP candidate

Are the Republicans diverse or what?  We got a black guy, a Texan, two Mormons, one and a half women, and a slightly addled older fellow.

How do we turn these candidates into a perfect President. Let us pick and chose the best of each.

Attention-grabbing piercing voice and friskiness: Sarah Palin

Hair: Donald Trump.  (Larry King proves it is not a rug.)

Strong jaw for handling illegal immigrants: Rick Perry

Simplifier of our horrible tax system: Herman Cain

Unstoppable force against public employees: Chris Christie

Professor of how the US actually works: Newt Gingrich

Jaundiced eye on the Federal Reserve: Ron Paul

Ability to stay on message: Michelle Bachmann

Face man for all public appearances: Jon Huntsman

(This guy looks like a movie star. And he speaks Chinese.)

Actual ability to do the hardest managerial job in the world:

Mitt Romney

Impeach Incompetence

Does our President have the skill set necessary to lead us? Does the President have the understanding and wisdom–gained through years of experience and stored knowledge–to “make the right calls”? Is he competent?

We have had no Federal budget since he took office. His government has caused problems in housing, over-regulated the environment and wasted our time with a healthcare bill that will be repealed. We are saddled with a tax system as mystifying as The Da Vinci Code.

§ Unemployment is over 9 percent.

§ Meanwhile, many newly hired bureaucrats smother businesses and citizens with nonsensical regulations.

§ His healthcare bill is an incomprehensible mess. Many analysts feel it can never be implemented due to its complexity. Businesses of all size are delaying hiring until this is resolved.

§ His energy policy is “don’t produce any”.

§ Over 1/6th of our families are on food stamps.

§ The President wants the most successful of us to pay even more taxes. Meanwhile the bottom half of all earners pay no income taxes at all!

The President has no solutions for any of this. He is, by definition, incompetent to do his job. Under a Parliamentary system–as in Britain–the government would have collapsed and Obama would be gone.

But not here. We must wait until January 2013 until corrections can be even started.

This is 18 months, folks–far too long for us to suffer under today’s global economy.

The only solution is to stipulate that incompetence is also a High Crime and Misdemeanor. And impeach the president.

To those of you who say this would be unfair, what about the unemployed and the foreclosed? How about the elderly who are about to get their “entitlements” cut? [Entitlements being a new name for insurance programs into which Americans have paid their whole lives.] Worst of all, what of the unborn generations who are already saddled with insurmountable debt?

We cannot afford our current president. Obama is a self-exposed Know Nothing. Lacking competence, all he can do is waste our time with endless speeches on the wrong issues that throttle American commerce and growth.

To impeach the House needs only “a simple majority of those present and voting”.

Let’s get to it.

Saving The Golden Goose

July 12, 2011

Over the last 803 days Congress passed the most complicated piece of nonsense in our history: ObamaCare. And failed to produce a Federal budget.

This is akin to buying a Ferrari on credit while your house is on fire. It should be clear that our system is broken.

Washington does do a great job of milking that goose that lays those golden eggs: the U. S. economy. Unfortunately, ever increasing government spending has stifled the jobs recovery.

But Obama is pledged to keep the spending going at all costs. So he must raise both the U. S. debt ceiling and more taxes. To rally us he has become a valiant class warrior against corporate jet aircraft.

Gosh, I don’t have a jet aircraft, so he must be right! Let’s tax ‘em!!

Of course, this diverts our attention from the fact that he has already caused the “largest tax increase since 1993.” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial. Taxes buried in ObamaCare will add “…some $438 billion in new revenue over 10 years.”  [“Taxes Upon Taxes…” WSJ, July 11, 2011]

Worse yet, these taxes phase in on confusing schedules, meaning they are hard to understand and they will be many times higher 10 years out.

Finally, having no business experience and no business sense whatsoever, Obama wants more taxes now with “promises” of undefined spending cuts in the future. Wow, that will help jobs, won’t it? I don’t think so.

Here’s how this “trust me plan” plays out:

Yep, the government is never to be trusted on promises of down-the-road spending cuts.

With entitlement and war costs on autopilot, where can the government make meaningful cuts? A recent column by Victor Davis Hanson offers one simple solution: Eliminate the Department of Agriculture.

What good would that do? Well, Hanson claims that this department’s budget–$130 Billion–is higher than the gross profit of all agricultural activity in the United States. Much of it goes to handouts to people who do not need them. Any remaining important activities–say, food inspection–could be farmed out to other, more efficient agencies.  [ “The Department of Food Subsidies”  June 28, 2011]

And this is only one Agency.

Let’s see: $130 Billion a year times ten years is $1.3 TRILLION. Sounds like a good start, doesn’t it? Perhaps the EPA should be next.

Hopefully, this will reanimate our goose that lays those amazing golden eggs.

Spanking Grandma

The usual suspects are decrying Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget solution. MSNBC, Huffington Post, and the Daily KOS all claim it won’t work.

If Ryan’s solution were ever adopted, it would get watered down by plenty of Washington horse-trading. Entitlements would get batted around, big time.

I dislike the word “entitlements”. It lumps together all kinds of welfare with worker/employer-funded health care and pensions: Medicare and Social Security.

Ryan claims “no one over 55 will be affected” by his plan. The horse-trading might well change that.

Elected elites have used federal money for years to lock in certain voter blocks. While they want Senior vote, Democrats are even more covetous of the yet-to-be tapped votes, such as Illegal Immigrants. Democrats would cut some Senior benefits to garner these other voter blocks.

Thus, the Democrats would be happy to give Grandma a financial spanking.

How will Grandma’s benefits be cut? One clever rouse is “means testing”. This turns an insurance program into Welfare. That was not the long-term promise of Social Security and Medicare. In fact, since we paid for these programs, means testing is actually theft from the beneficiaries who paid into them.

Subtle regulation changes can cut benefits, also.

It is well known that SS and Medicare have been mismanaged. But I don’t care. If the government makes changes, I want the option to withdraw my paid-in-funds and go it alone.

And my paid-in-funds are substantial. At age 65 the present value of my own and my employers’ paid-in-funds for Medicare and Social Security exceeded $600,000.00.

Then, there is the unfair consumption tax. These go by many names: national sales tax, transaction tax and ad valorem tax. Seniors must receive a waiver from any type of consumption tax.

Why should not Seniors pay these?  Because Senior money has already been taxed under different schemes. Were they to be charged a consumption tax of any sort, it would be a “double jeopardy” situation. This must be understood and not allowed.

While Ryan’s plan is silent on consumption taxes, he has proposed them in the past. There is a lot to be said for consumption taxes: they force off-the-grid citizens to pay their fair share. Pimps and drug dealers are Americans, too.

If the Underground Economy paid up, we might be able to allow Grandma to live out her life in peace.

[Author’s note: This post analyzes issues and forecasts outcomes that are not on the table. Nevertheless, a sage once said that when you are older, “you pretty much know how things are going to turn out.”

Don’t believe this? Then read my previous blogs.]

“Cause I’m The Taxman”

For the first time in 36 years I filed my own taxes. Man, was I spoiled.

Of course, the whole process is a foolish waste of time. First, you have to “gather your tax records”. (Gather? We aren’t talking about rosebuds here.)

I mean, you have already paid exorbitant prices all year, and then you have to suffer from your repressed memory. It is like testifying against your rapist.

Then you must “input your data.” I was happy—at first—that my Wizard would be handling the job. I pictured a little fellow in a pointy blue hat doing the work. 

Wrong. Instead I got hundreds of screens asking arcane questions about whether I was a Native American Drumming Injury Survivor or a Retired Armenian Railroad Engineer.

Who cares? Well, it turns out for every bizarre question there is some voter or other who gets a special tax deal. These deals are called Loopholes.

So my Wizard tried to cram me through as many of these Loopholes as possible. If I qualify, I am supposed to be overcome with Joy. Then make a political donation or vote a certain way or feel good that the U.S. is sacrificing Marines in Afghanistan “so Mrs. Mohammed can vote.”

I didn’t, I won’t and it is time for the Marines and every other American in the Middle East to come home.

Today Congressman Paul Ryan rolled out his budget solution. Tax simplification is part of his plan. Sounds good to me.

But tax simplification will never happen. Too many elected elites are locking in their jobs with endless special tax deals. Loophole really means payola for votes.

My tax return and I are off to the Post Office—hopefully to beat the government shut down. I do not want my return to be “tardy”.  Which would doubtless put me in the “detention” of an IRS audit.

Next year I am going for the free solar panels and the free electric car and maybe even the free heating duct replacement. After all, mine are pretty old.

It just makes so much sense, doesn’t it?

Has Your Mental Activity Been Appropriate Today?

The latest ObamaCare ruling has let the cat out of the bag. A judge has finally ruled that the Federal government has the right to regulate our mental activity.

Yes folks, you heard it right. On February 22 Judge Gladys Kessler of the D.C. district court ruled that ObamaCare is legal because the Constitution’s commerce clause allows regulation of "mental activity, i.e., decision-making."

1984 has finally arrived.

George Orwell famously described an all-powerful government, monitoring one’s every thought. Poster everywhere warned, “Big Brother is Watching You.” Science Fiction or so we thought.

Now the NSA monitors phone calls for “key phrases,” security cameras see everything, we confess our crimes on Facebook and Spokeo.com serves up our most private histories.

Is the government monitoring our Skype traffic and peering back at us through our WebCams?

I must go now. I have been called to a trial of some sort. I do not know my crime yet. I am sure they will tell me.

Citizen Franz Kafka

Unions – Protecting the Little Guy Too Much?

Here’s an intriguing thought: Unionism violates American fair play.

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty. [From “Unions vs. the Right to Work” Robt. Barro, WSJ Feb 28, 2011.]

The “union shop” is further un-American. As a condition of employment, one must “join the club.” An analogous situation would be a neighborhood that required membership in—and tithing to—a particular church!

More amusement is provided by Liberal hypocrisy on “sustainability”. They demand energy from the sun and wind under the guise of non-depletion of resources: sustainability. Simultaneously, their appetites for unfunded entitlements and public employee largesse are hopelessly unsustainable.

What does this mean? Under the banner of Idealism, Liberals are just another special interest, demanding endless handouts. At best this is vote buying; at worst it is theft.

Back to unions. Perhaps we need a sequel to On the Waterfront.  This Brando classic featured “crooked union bosses using their power and wealth to exploit, oppress and manipulate the workers.”

For the sequel simply change “workers” to “taxpayers”. Let’s call the film On Wisconsin.

Why Allow Public Employee Unions?

Do you understand why we have public employee unions? I do not.

Is it to correct mistreatment? Those of us awake during history class recall the strike breaking violence and unsafe workplaces in the early 20^th Century. But not for public employees.

Job security? Public sector workers have much more job security than the rest of us. They are not fired due to low profits, mergers or global competition. In fact some even have “tenure” –basically lifetime employment for no reason I can figure out. Again, they have always had more job security.

Pay? Yes, we thought public employees accepted lower pay for job security and a kinder and gentler, non-competitive work environment. But surprise, surprise: turns out their pay and benefits are measurably higher.

Then there are the teachers. The world has changed: more working moms, fewer manners in the classroom, fewer supplies and all kinds of mandated distractions–example: AIDS training-that make teaching harder every year. But public school teachers work–and certainly work hard–for only 9 months a year and get paid for 12. Not bad.

Furthermore, they often tell me they are “professionals” and therefore know best how to teach. Then in their next breath they want to be able to strike for higher pay. Something is wrong here. I’d suggest they pick one status or another: (a) union or (b) professional. You cannot be both in my book.

Even President Franklin Roosevelt was against public unions. “Meticulous attention,” the president insisted in 1937, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason? F.D.R. believed that “[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” [from CCNY Professor Daniel DiSalvo]

So now where are we?  Public employees are breaking the bank, especially with their outrageous, unfunded pensions. A Stanford study calcualted that California’s unfunded pension liability exceeds $500 billion.  This is six times our entire annual budget. This can never be paid.

What is being done?

Today. the Wisconsin legislature is voting to nullify state worker collective bargaining. Also, to require sustainable pensions and health care contributions.

>Ohio Gov. John Kasich is pushing a bill to outlaw strikes by public employees, dump the anti-competitive "prevailing wage" that jacks up costs of contracts and get rid of those who walk off the job.

>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is taking on teacher unions and several other public employee groups at once.

>In New Mexico, Susana Martinez is limiting state services for illegal immigrants, angering public unions.

>Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is initiating public-employee pension reform.

Unfortunately, this is only nibbling around the edges of the problem. I predict/suggest the following:

1. Eliminate pensions for all new hire public workers. Most taxpayers do not have them; why should public workers?
2. Renegotiate all existing pensions to a sustainable level. This will include higher employee contributions, eliminate spousal pensions and reduce final salary basis.
3. Employee won’t renegotiate? Fine, return all monies to them they have put in with interest and they are out of the program.
4. Implement private business efficiencies into state government, primarily to reduce headcount.
5. Change Federal law to allow states to go bankrupt.
6. Institute draconian punishment for elected officials who approve fiscally unsustainable programs.

Otherwise, we are stuck with this: