Pruning Government

A couple of days ago on Sunday, I wrote about the desirability of closing out a number of large federal agencies. Fortuitously, this afternoon I ran across this article in the AtlanticWire which describes the city of Colorado Springs doing essentially this on the city level.

So, instead of merely suggesting the possibility of reducing the size of government, we have before us an actual example where the electorate chose this path and are, it seems, making it work. I am encouraged.

Steyn: Tax Injustice

The always-interesting Mark Steyn, writing for National Review Online, has some trenchant insights about how few of us pay federal income taxes. He cites the Tax Policy Center saying that in 2009, 47% of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax. He concludes:

When you think about it, 53 percent of American households props up not just this country but half the planet. (snip) A relatively tiny group of people is writing the check for the entire global order. What proportion of them would need to figure out that the game’s no longer worth it to bring the whole system crashing down?

Arthur Laffer was right, higher tax rates bring in less total revenue because they discourage earners.

Repeating History

Starting in January, 2009, the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a clear majority in the House, and a newly elected Dem President. It was a perfect time to deliver things that a clear majority of Americans wanted, and thereby cement their hold on power. Did they do this? No.

Instead they did a whole series of unpopular things, culminating in the health care revision bill. The technical term for this political behavior is "overreach." The result is that their popularity has never been lower, a Gallup poll finding we reported on April 9.

In 2008 pundits were writing that the GOP was so badly damaged that it would spend 20 years wandering in the wilderness as a minority party. Two years later the same pundits are seriously considering whether in 2010 the GOP will retake majority status in the Senate and House.

Oddly, all the GOP did to effect this head-snapping turnaround was to say "no" to everything the Dems proposed. I fear we must give most of the credit for this dramatic change in fortunes to the Dems. With breath-taking accuracy, they metaphorically shot themselves in both feet.

This seems to be something Dems do when given too much power, for example in first two years of the Clinton presidency leading up to the electoral cataclysm of 1994. It's a fascinating example of the axiom that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Broder: Tax Rise Coming

David Broder, the dean of the U.S. political commentariat, writes for The Washington Post that after the fall election Congress will have to get serious about the gap between expenditures and tax revenues. He expects to see proposals to raise taxes in one of several ways. I daresay he is correct in this prediction.

Broder reports that the national government will be spending 25 percent of gross domestic product while only taking in in taxes 19 percent of GDP. The issue will be closing this gap which represents 6% of GDP.

The gap can be closed in two ways, tax more or spend less. I am in favor of spending less. To do so might involve closing a number of federal agencies, like Transportation and Education. Does anyone seriously believe that the nation would grind to a halt without either of these?

Would farmers stop planting corn or wheat if there were no Department of Agriculture? Would you go live under a bridge without the Department of Housing and Urban Development? Would your local mall close because there was no longer a Department of Commerce?

You get the idea. Go see a complete list of federal agencies at this website, there are hundreds: http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml. How many agencies do you believe we can do without? I'm guessing it will be a lot. Then share your findings with your congressperson. You can be useful without even attending a tea party.

Finally, we would probably have to stop increases in the entitlements, maybe even means test some of them. That is hard, but worth it. Raising taxes tends to stifle our economic growth and development, and thus stifle the creation of jobs and wealth. Jobs and wealth are what we need. GDP needs to grow.

BTW, Rasmussen Reports finds that 66% of their poll respondents believe Americans pay too much tax.

Charlie Cook Glum

Political prognosticator extraordinaire Charlie Cook doesn't see much hope for the Democrats this fall:

For the trajectory of this campaign season to change in their favor, two things need to happen -- unemployment must drop significantly, and the public's attitude toward the new health care reform law must become much more positive. Neither seems likely, though.

See the article in National Journal, there is a lot more to absorb.

Shariah

Frank Gaffney has written a disturbing article for Townhall.com. Its title is "The Real Reason They Hate Us" and it describes in considerable detail the beliefs and plans of Islamofascism, aka "Shariah." The sum and substance of the article is that Allah requires them to hate and subjugate us.

I won't try to summarize it here, go read it if you have a strong stomach. You'll need the strong stomach because you may end up wondering if anything short of genocide will solve the problem. I don't claim to have the answers.

Quote of the Day

Jonah Goldberg, writing for National Review Online, about the drive toward "Europeanization" of the United States:

Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America.

His basic question is if the U.S. becomes like Europe, as the Obamacrats seem to desire, what country will step up to fill the role now filled by the U.S.? What country will subsidize Europe the way the U.S. does now? Read the whole article, it is a good one.

Gallup: Dems Down, GOP Up

I know Rasmussen has been telling you this for months, but some of you think he is biased. Here is Gallup telling you the same thing.

The public favorable view of the Democratic Party is down to 41% whereas their favorable view of the Republican Party is up to 42%. The article says this difference between the parties isn't significant, and I agree. However Gallup says:

Americans' favorable rating of the Democratic Party dropped to 41% in a late March USA Today/Gallup poll, the lowest point in the 18-year history of this measure.

That drop, friends, is highly significant. Gallup tells us why we should care about these poll results:

The images of the two major parties have particular significance in a midterm election year.

Ratings like these for the Dems are often accompanied by terrible electoral results.

China Property Bubble

See this Bloomberg article reporting an interview with ace hedge fund manager James Chanos. He is not optimistic about the property market there. For example, he says:

The world’s third-biggest economy may need to keep up the pace of property investment because up to 60 percent of its gross domestic product relies on construction.

Describing China as being "on a treadmill to hell," Chanos concludes:

They can’t afford to get off this heroin of property development. It is the only thing keeping the economic growth numbers growing.

I particularly hope my friend Allan gets a chance to see this article.

Sea Ice Melts Late

For thirty-one years satellite photos have tracked when the polar sea ice begins to melt. This year, 2010, is the latest the melt has started, beating the former record in 1999. See this Bloomberg article in Business Week for more info. I conclude it will be difficult to attribute this cold winter data point to global warming.

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Our view is that weather changes, it always has. The world has had ice ages, and spells much warmer than now, long before humans had the ability to influence global weather.

Are we now influencing the weather? How can we know? We believe the appropriate policy response is to develop ways for mankind to cope with climate changes in either direction.

Quote of the Day

President John Adams is widely believed to have said:

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

I love a quote that puts down lawyers and Congress in one sentence.

Good News

COTTonLINE links to a lot of bad-news articles from around the globe. Every now and then we run across good news; David Brooks has provided some in this New York Times article.

Brooks uses U.S. demographics for the next several decades to project a reasonably positive future for the nation. He notes:

The U.S. remains a magnet for immigrants. Global attitudes about immigration are diverging, and the U.S. is among the best at assimilating them (while China is exceptionally poor). As a result, half the world’s skilled immigrants come to the U.S.

And he adds:

The U.S. now accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes.

This sounds like good news, even though Brooks doesn't mention that we get a lot of unskilled immigrants from Latin America. Keep smiling.

Political Humor Alert

Jay Nordlinger, writing in National Review Online, about the adherence of American Jews to the Democratic Party:

If Obama bombed Tel Aviv and mandated the eating of pork, American Jews would stick by him: because the liberal-Democratic faith is the strongest faith of all.

A State of Nature

This article by the East Africa bureau chief of The New York Times in Foreign Policy describes the "wars" in that region that seem to go on and on without end. His basic point, these are not wars as we know them but rather banditry:

Even if you could coax these men out of their jungle lairs and get them to the negotiating table, there is very little to offer them. (snip) All they want is cash, guns, and a license to rampage. And they've already got all three. How do you negotiate with that?

The author scarcely mentions the influence of tribalism which also plays a role here. The behavior described sounds like it comes from X rated versions of the Mad Max movies. This is bad business.

Trouble in India

India has been living with an internal Maoist insurrection for decades. Apparently the national government has at long last decided to get serious about trying to stamp it out. In the short run casualties will almost certainly increase.

See this Wall Street Journal article for details. The article doesn't mention that the rebels are often referred to as Naxalites, named for a village where the movement is thought to have started.

History Lesson

We are seeing articles like this one from Reuters in which President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan blames NATO for his country's troubles, especially the U.S. He even threatens to join the Taliban. Karzai apparently thinks we have no choice but to put up with his bad boy behavior.

Someone should remind Karzai of what happened to President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam when he became seriously inconvenient. Diem was ousted and murdered in a U.S.-backed coup.

Like Vietnam, Afghanistan is a violent place. Karzai doesn't want to discover the point at which he becomes seriously inconvenient.

Quote of the Day

Bronwen Maddox, writing for the London Times, about the bailout of Greece by the EU:

This is the eurozone’s central weakness: it is a currency union between 16 very different economies with no political union.

Well said.

Upside Down Foreign Policy

Go here to read Charles Krauthammer's excellent summary for RealClearPolitics of the various ways in which the Obama administration has been rude, dismissive, and/or antagonistic toward U.S. allies. And he doesn't even mention our recent disconnect with Israel, our long-time ally in the Middle East.

Many have noted this policy thrust and wondered if it is random or if there is a reason for it. I don't claim to know what (or indeed whether) they are thinking in the White House and the State Department.

However I have a guess about the underlying motive. My guess is simply an extension of the feelings Michelle Obama shared with us in a moment of ill-advised candor: "For the first time in my adult lifetime I am proud of my country." (source: ABC News here)

Perhaps, like his wife, Obama is so contemptuous, so ashamed of all prior U.S. presidential administrations that he rejects out of hand any nation that had the poor judgment to be our ally during those administrations. That would explain being rude to our former allies and friendly to our former enemies. Perhaps he thinks our enemies were correct in opposing the U.S. as it then was, that they showed good judgment where our allies did not. Sad, if true.

Poll: Politics Related to Sports

This CBS News article reports the results of a poll which relates political party preference to which sports you watch on TV. In general, sports viewers tend to be more Republican.

Breaking the findings down into which sports people watch, Republicans watch golf, college football, NHL and NASCAR. Democrats watch pro wrestling, tennis, pro soccer, and the NBA.

Unfortunately for Democrats, wrestling fans don't much vote. See the article for more details.

Poll Shift

This article in Politico chronicles a dramatic shift in public opinion concerning which party will do a better job with the national economy. In August, Democrats were ahead 52% to 39%, today Republicans are ahead 48% to 45%. That means public opinion has shifted by seven percent in less than 8 months. More to the point, people say the economy is the most important issue on their agenda and the GOP is ahead on that issue.