One of my many frustrations of working in Washington is dealing with perpetual-motion-machine assertions. The classic example is Keynesian economics, which is based on the notion that you magically create additional economic activity by having the government spend money instead of allowing the private sector to decide how it gets spent (in an especially bizarre display of this thinking, Nancy Pelosi actually said that subsidizing unemployment was the best way to create jobs).
Another example of this backwards analysis can be found in the debate over the IRS budget. The President is resisting a GOP proposal to modestly trim the IRS’s gargantuan $12.5 billion budget and his argument is that we should actually boost funding for the tax collection bureaucracy since that will mean more IRS agents squeezing more money out of more taxpayers.
Here are some excerpts from an Associated Press report about the controversy.
Every dollar the Internal Revenue Service spends for audits, liens and seizing property from tax cheats brings in more than $10, a rate of return so good the Obama administration wants to boost the agency’s budget.House Republicans, seeing the heavy hand of a too-big government, beg to differ. They’ve already voted to cut the IRS budget by $600 million this year and want bigger cuts in 2012. …IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the committee Tuesday that the $600 million cut in this year’s budget would result in the IRS collecting $4 billion less through tax enforcement programs. The Democrat-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass a budget cut that big. But given the political climate on Capitol Hill, Obama’s plan to increase IRS spending is unlikely to pass, either. Obama has already increased the IRS budget by 10 percent since he took office, to nearly $12.5 billion. The president’s budget proposal for 2012 would increase IRS spending by an additional 9 percent — adding 5,100 employees. …Obama’s 2012 budget proposal for the IRS includes $473 million and 1,269 new positions to start implementing the health care law.
Unlike Keynesian economics, there actually is some truth to Obama’s position. The fantasy estimate of $10 of new revenue for every $1 spent on additional bureaucrats is clearly ludicrous, but it is equally obvious that many Americans would send less money to Washington if they didn’t have to worry about a coercive and powerful tax-collection bureaucracy that had the power to throw them in jail.
This is an empirical question, at least with regards to the narrow issue of whether more IRS agents “pay for themselves” by shaking down sufficient numbers of taxpayers. Reducing the number of IRS bureaucrats by 90 percent, from about 100,000 to 10,000, for instance, surely would be a net loss to the government since the money saved on IRS compensation would be trivial compared to the loss of tax revenue.
But that doesn’t mean that a reduction of 10,000 or 20,000 also would lead to a net loss. And it certainly does not mean that adding 10,000 or 20,000 more IRS agents will result in enough new revenue to compensate for the salaries and benefits of a bigger bureaucracy. Even left-wing economists presumably understand the concept of diminishing returns.
But let’s assume that the White House is correct and that more IRS agents would be a net plus from the government’s perspective. The Administration would like us to reflexively endorse a bigger and more aggressive IRS, but public policy should not be based on what is a “net plus” for the government.
There are two ways to promote better tax compliance. The Obama approach, as we’ve read above, is to expand the size and power of the IRS. Up to a point, this policy can be “successful” in extracting additional money from the productive sector of the economy.
The alternative approach, by contrast, seeks better compliance by lowering tax rates and reforming/simplifying tax systems. This course of action boosts compliance by making evasion and avoidance less attractive. People are much less likely to cheat if the government isn’t being too greedy, and they’re also more likely to comply if they think there is less waste, fraud, corruption, and favoritism in the tax code.
Let’s now put this discussion in context. Obama wants more IRS agents in large part to enforce his new scheme for government-run healthcare. Yet that’s a perfect example of what I modestly call Mitchell’s Law – politicians doing one bad thing (expanding the IRS) only because they did another bad thing (enacting a health care bill that made the tax code even more convoluted and punitive).
So instead of making the IRS bigger in response to a bad healthcare law, why not repeal that bad law and shrink the size of the IRS? Even better, why not junk the entire tax code so we can replace the IRS with a system that is honest and fair?
And if these big steps are not immediately feasible, at least cut the IRS budget so that awful laws are enforced in a less destructive manner.
This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video has additional details about the national nightmare we call the IRS.
Damn. Can't sleep. I must share a true story:
During my fertile years, I made a point of having my annual PAP smear, pelvic and breast exams, and getting my pills refilled, at a local women's clinic which also provided abortions. I thought they needed my support.
Every weekday morning, women seeking access to the clinic's driveway had to pass a group of 5-10 dedicated sidewalk protesters, mostly retirees and mostly Catholic, who stood quietly by, held up signs, and prayed their Rosaries. No big deal.
Free speech, free assembly, and they stayed on the public side of the property line. Occasionally one of the group led the Rosary with a megaphone. Again, free speech. Stressful and annoying to listen to for hours on end, but it's their right.
But the real circus was on Saturday mornings, when local fundamentalist churches sometimes brought out protesters by the busloads. They were well-armed with megaphones and powerful lungs, and shrieked at women entering the driveway: "DON'T KILL YOUR BABY." They sometimes attempted to block the driveway and used cameras to intimidate women entering the clinic. Women had to run a formidable gauntlet just to enter. So the clinic had escort volunteers and a security guard for the weekends.
Anyway, women would go there for all sorts of reasons: abortions, birth control pills, pelvic exams. But of course it was assumed by the Conservanazirepubliscum that each and every woman was cheerfully marching in there to terminate her pregnancy, so they shouted at women on a regular basis: "DON'T KILL YOUR BABY!"
But one Saturday morning I realized that they were only shouting at PARTICULAR women.
I pulled in for my exam appointment and to have my pills refilled. I drove past the screamers, drove up the driveway and into the large parking lot in the rear, safely surrounded by private property.
A moment later, another, younger woman pulled into the adjacent parking, space: she was attractive, tall, slender, lovely ... and African- American. While I gathered my things, she got out of her car. I called out, "be careful, those guys are whacked. Be sure to lock your car." She did so, and walked toward the clinic's entrance. I could hear the crowd singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children," but I noticed something -- they did not scream directly at her. In fact, they glanced at her and completely ignored her. She entered, and the door closed behind her.
I was about 20 steps behind this young woman. But as my WHITE baby-makin' hips approached the door, the screams began in earnest: "DON'T KILL YOUR BABY! DON'T KILL YOUR BABY! PLEASE COME TALK TO US! WE'LL ADOPT YOUR CHILD!"
I had started to open the clinic door, but my blood boiled. I let go of the door, and I marched to the foot of the driveway. I went nose-to-nose (just on the clinic's side of the property line) with the Alpha Screamer. I made a theatrical gesture of clearing out my ears, and snarled, as I pointed behind me: "I didn't hear you say that to the woman who entered before me! Or did I have wax in my ears and I missed that?"
He did not respond, but resumed yelling "PLEASE DON'T KILL YOUR BABY! WE HAVE WET MOTHERS! WE CAN ADOPT!"
This time I shouted back: "You didn't answer my question! WHY DIDN'T YOU URGE THAT BLACK WOMAN NOT TO HAVE AN ABORTION? WHY DIDN'T YOU OFFER TO ADOPT IT? YOU DON'T WANT BLACK BABIES, DO YOU?"
I was again ignored, and screamed at not to kill MY imaginary baby.
So I said, "What if I wanted to keep a baby? What if I didn't want to give it up for adoption? Would you help me then? Would you help pay my bills? And help me finish college?"
Again, I received no answer, just more shouting.
I whirled on my heel, flipped them all a double-handed bird, and marched into the clinic. As I approached, I noticed a couple of people peeking out the door.
In a much, much calmer voice, I asked the packed waiting room (about 50/50 black and white): "How many of you African-American women were screamed at not to have an abortion?"
Not a single hand went up.
Then I said, "How many of you white women got screamed at?"
EVERY HAND went up.
I said, "Fucking racists. They want white babies, and they want us to GIVE them to them to brainwash. They don't care what happens to black women or black babies." Then I sat down.
This spurred a discussion about the venomous sexism and blatant, undisguised, shameless racism all rolled into one big, stinking shitpile of hatred and herded into church busses. The KKK in Jesus T-shirts. Two busloads of 'em. EVERY SATURDAY. Most of the women there were in tears. One of their male companions bolted out the door to give the screamers a piece of HIS mind.
I started volunteering as a clinic escort after that -- I'd been through non-violence training, but I was also belted in a martial art and not afraid to use it to defend myself or another if I absolutely had to.
When Operation Rescue came to town, the same observations were made by all clinic volunteers: minority women did NOT get yelled at to give up their precious bundles of joy for adoption. But EVERY white woman was body-blocked and otherwise interfered with as she attempted to enter the clinic. All of us clinic defenders came away bruised simply by body-block contact with those lunatics (the idea is to surround the woman and get her safely inside). I had bruises even though I had worn motorcycle leathers for the job.
My Granny used to call such hypocrisy, "The Devil in a Sunday hat." Wise words, those.
So...this throws another bag of Ugly into the fray. Sexism and racism. A desire for total control over women, and for a permanent underclass. It makes me so sick I can't sleep. Didn't get any sleep last night either.
Y'all, "The Handmaid's Tale" really is coming if we al don't get off our butts and DO something.
BenchCraft, LLC announced that it's going to debut its Concert Series, a brand new line of recliners with an integrated sound product, at Substantial Stage Market on October 17-22, 2009. Concert Sequence recliners function two built-in stereo speakers along with a subwoofer constructed specifically to create a total collection of sound. It's tactile motors which can both vibrate with all the sound or be chosen independently being a massage process, and separate controls that make it easy for for person changes to be designed to the volume, bass/treble, and therefore the tactile/massage element. The process, that will possess a starting up cost level of $699, may also encompass a mini audio jack so customers can connect to their many audio resources (i.e. iPods, MP3 players, cell phones, and so forth.). To that end, Sinning mentioned that Berkline may also be introducing in choose motion
bench craft company reviews
furnishings its new eCoupled know-how option--a wireless charging station for electronic units such as cell phones, MP3 players, and laptops. Developed by Fulton Innovation, it eliminates the require for electrical power cords by creating an electromagnetic conduit blended with an intelligent command technique that perpetually monitors electrical power movement so many gadgets from totally different manufactures can charge simultaneously. eCoupled know-how can be safe and sound for digital gadgets for the reason that it delivers only the quantity of electrical power
bench craft company reviews
needed to help keep a equipment at peak energy ranges, so there is no threat of overcharging. Although the number of products compatible with this particular technology is restricted, Berkline expects that a lot more and much more brands will move toward incorporating the ability to connect on the eCoupled function
The Bench Craft Company offers no excuses for your really hard effort and perseverance that they commit themselves to to be able to retain on their own as the leader in nationwide onsite golf course residence
bench craft company reviews
marketing. No excuses for furnishing their consumers with the most complete coverage for his or her bench craft company reviews advertising dollar whether it be locally or nationwide. No excuses for delivering golf program properties by far the most seamless plan for producing added earnings inside most non-intrusive manner, when enhancing the high quality of your services and the encounter of their golfers on their home. Bench Craft is committed to being the perfect and then the most significant at what they do, promoting on golf program bench craft company reviews venues.
In an age wherever nobody
bench craft company reviews
desires to consider obligation for anything, Bench Craft helps make alone fully responsible for your accomplishment of their marketing clientele, and that is why their customers and nicely as Bench Craft continually working experience wholesome progress rates and profit margins. A business won't be able to be anymore
bench craft company reviews
powerful than their buyer, so it will be aim of Bench Craft for making sure that each individual customer gets the most suitable plausible venue for presenting their buyers
bench craft company reviews
services and solutions, whether or not it be locally or nationally. This dedication to high-quality is what sets Bench Craft aside from its competition, and dollar for dollar can make its advertising products several of the most important from the sector.
The golf programs bench craft company reviews that Bench Craft Company performs in concert with, obtain companies and services at no price tag. Bench Craft Company product sales crew straight funds this strategy for every golf program by acquiring sponsors for each products. Regional vendors and players from the neighborhood receive sponsorship priority and golf course management functions closely with Bench Craft to acknowledge potential sponsors. Bench Craft’s very effective
bench craft company reviews
technique gives you golf programs a totally free of cost alternate that also eliminates expenditures consequently of design and style changes, program modifications, theft and vandalism.
As currently being a definite added benefit, every course is guarded below a $3,000,000 liability policy. The organization can accommodate essentially every last golf program. Also, Bench Craft Company operates collectively with all branches for the Armed Forces, as well as state, county and metropolis golf programs. This vary of golf programs gives you Bench Craft’s people with the most detailed protection of golf program properties during the United states of america.
The forward
bench craft company reviews
pondering Visionaries at Bench Craft Company produced a strategy that garners the awareness and participation of not just its very own revenue workers, however the sponsors, golf program management and also membership and patrons. There’s just one Bench Craft Company, really don't fall for rip off plots by imposters working a rip-off.
bench craft company reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment