I just made another report to Attackwatch.com:

Here’s an unfair attack on Obama’s jobs plan. It lists all these tax rates which conflicted with his assertion that the rich pay less than the poor in taxes, obviously a Conservative trick.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

I just heard a fun story on NPR. It was accidentally so contrary to their usual approach to things. It was an interview of this NGO guy who has spent like 20 years in developing world digging wells and latrines. His current endeavor is to change the way these organizations try to help people – based on his own mistakes.

They tried like hell to frame the conversation in a – we all need to buy compost toilets – type of thing, but the main message that slipped out was a pro-capitalist one.

Basically, what water organizations have been doing is sweeping in, building some kind of well, assembling a little local village committee to control the well, and training several locals villagers to repair and operate it. You know – the ideal social model Liberals so badly want to believe in… Or in the case of one small village, they just put one lady in charge who was then ostracized when the equipment failed in a way she couldn’t fix. Gee… And I get anxious when my web servers are down…

The trouble with this model is the obvious one to any idiot who has spent time outside of a suburban home or university. The people trained to maintain the well die, move away, or just don’t do it, or don’t know how to do the tough stuff. Or, something happens, like a flood, and that’s that.

However, a model sprang up from villages that just wanted to pay someone to maintain their well. Organically, some of the guys trained to care for local wells started traveling around, maintaining wells for a fee. They do a good job because they know what they’re doing, can get the parts, and all that horse shit. So one day, this one area gets flooded. All their water points are destroyed. What happens?

The nasty capitalist traveling plumbers swoop in and get to work – fix like 100 water points in a few days, the only ones left broken are still under water. People are trying to gather up their lives, can’t get to their money, all their shit has washed away – but hell – they got clean water to drink. The bill’s in the mail.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward was spotted Saturday urinating in a public restroom where, after the customary two shakes, he spent the time to shake his penis a full third time – all the while oil continues to poor from the Deepwater Horizon well.

Hayward had already angered many hillbilly Americans by sighting facts about their ravenously litigious nature, and how it would likely create numerous bogus claims for compensation for the oil spill. He also caused numerous Louisianans to spontaneously soil themselves after claiming that out of all the people in the world, he himself wanted to see the crisis resolved the most because, “I’d like my [fancy] life back.”

Burt Whitney, a retired shrimp fisherman from Biolabatry, LA, said Hayward’s indulgent post-urination activities show once again how out-of-touch, in comparison, he is with the financial and emotional suffering along the gulf.

“He wanted to get his life back,” Burt said. “I guess he got it.”

Even though Burt no longer runs a shrimp boat, and lives nowhere near the beach, he does plan to sue BP for the irreparable damage to his old-man nostalgia.

A Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the estimated value of products at each stage of production and distribution. And like all taxes on business, it’s passed on to the consumer – making everything more expensive.

A VAT is similar to a sales tax in who actually pays it, but the difference is that the VAT hides the amount the consumer pays. When you look at your receipt from the grocery store you can see the sales tax. It’s right under the subtotal. When you buy a car there’s a special line just for the sales tax.

But the VAT is charged at each state of production and shipping. It’s not marked anywhere for you or me to see. With a VAT, the auto manufacturer would be charged based on the value of the car when it’s sold to the dealer. The shipper for the car would be charged a VAT for the value of the shipping. The subcontractors, the companies that make all the parts for the car, would be charged a VAT for the parts they manufacture. And the producers who make the material the parts are made of, they would pay a VAT too, as would the shippers, as would the producers of the packaging material.

And this huge and complex system would apply to most everything. All the materials and equipment everywhere in between the above process would carry the VAT hidden in its price – everything from tools to toilet paper.

This is why sneaky politicians like the VAT. They can make promises of monetary gifts to get into office, once in office establish expensive entitlements and pass huge goody bills for their friends, and pay for it by raising the VAT without anyone noticing. Historically that’s what has happened in Europe anyway.

If a sales tax is raised everyone sees it. But you can raise the VAT quietly, incrementally, with few people raising a fuss.

So why am I bringing this up? The US doesn’t have a VAT. We have income and sales tax. Well, I bring it up because the US is spending huge amounts of money, adding to the immense pile of debt, and otherwise over the past couple years has been moving in the direction of of a European style of heavy tax/entitlement. Also, Obama says the VAT is, “on the table” with regard to fixing the county’s serious budget problems.

And seriously, what else is there? Is anyone going to cut precious programs in this Liberal climate? Hell, we’re passing new ones. The answer Obama and his Dems have offered to EVERY problem so far is a huge pile of cash or a huge new bureaucracy – but usually both. He promised (pfft) not to raise taxes on anyone making less than blah blah. But he can’t raise income taxes on the rich anymore. They’re already on the down slopping side of the bell curve. (raising their taxes will result in lower tax revenue) What else is there?

So watch out for the VAT. It’s a sneaky tax. Every tax is bad for the economy – but this one dodges accountability with the consumer. It hits everyone including the poorest, which is actually good for the Democrat’s style of campaign/governance. They can suck money out of our society then distribute it back as the clumsy, slow, expensive bureaucracies see fit – VISIBLY – so the politicians can take credit for ‘giving’ assistance to people in need.

The poor are already paying that sales tax. It’s just hidden from them right now in the form of all kinds of corporate and income taxes passed on from producers of goods and services. The only difference under the fair tax is that you would KNOW how much you’re paying. And the majority would be less inclined to allow elected officials to make expensive promises and billing a minority.

It would be correct to assume the tax burden would be spread out equally based on use of services, so the more services you use the more taxes you pay. But for people below the poverty line, the truly needy, there would be a tax credit equal to their tax burden. So essentially the poor would continue to not pay taxes, but if they do find a path to prosperity, they won’t be penalized for it with taxes on their efforts.

If Billy-Bob earns under the poverty line and plans on staying right were he’s at the rest of his life, he shouldn’t care what the rich guy pays. Or, he might care because he’s interested in more Santa Clause. If he’s interested in prosperity he’s likely a prospect for supporting the Fairtax. If not, no use trying to convince him of anything. He’s the anchor voting block of the Democratic party.

I’m not interested in convincing welfare-check watchers to lose faith in Santa Clause. There are plenty of people interested in bettering themselves we can appeal to. Even the lowliest non-welfare hillbilly has his designs on that empty garage down the street he could start doing brakes out of – or that hippy-hole house across the street he could fix up and rent – or some goofy Shamwow idea. As of today, his first several years in those ventures would have any profits consumed by taxes based on his pursuit of prosperity.

Politics – I think – is just like sales. You have to go after qualified buyers. (On a side note, I think that might be a reason for my recent visceral contempt for Obama. He so reminds me of some of the arrogant and belligerent top-sales-guy speakers I’ve had to listen to as sales conferences. They’re so totally sold it’s a crazy religion/magic show.)

This is a good one. Pelosi is trying to sell the health reform bill as something helpful to the economy. lol She’s like that sales person who will swear to the patron dying on the sales floor that this juicer will fix the problem. lol Or the idiot on the radio talking about how calcium supplements will prevent cancer – but you have to take his special coral calcium, you can’t just take Tums. Oh what? You’re not worried about Cancer? Everyone in your family dies of heart disease? Well – it just so happens that my coral calcium will prevent heart disease – yes – it’s a heart-health supplement actually.

We all know, and it has been said over and over again, that our economy needs something new, a jolt.  And I believe that this legislation will unleash tremendous entrepreneurial power into our economy. — Pelosi

This reminds me of a skit by that Canadian comedy group – The Kids in the Hall:

The car won’t start, so the ‘husband’ gets out and kicks the tire. He looks to the ‘wife’, now in the driver’s seat. “Try it now.” Nothing. He opens the hood, “Try it now.” Nothing. He closes the hood. “Try it now.” Nothing.

He ends up changing the tire, and I forget what else, everything but fix the damn engine, but it’s about the same as Pelosi’s logic when it comes to economics. Nothing about passing a bill that forces companies to provide health insurance if they have more than 50 employees will stimulate entrepreneurship.

*sigh*

It’s just ridiculous. This is something around a 10% increase (probably more) in employee costs. That might not seem like much to a foolish congresswoman who’s never had to earn a living, but when you realize that a successful business is usually functioning on a profit margin of single percentage points, and that most entrepreneurial ventures fail, and that the ones that do succeed do so only after several years of losing money – you’ll understand how difficult these fancy new taxes will make it to do the things our economy needs us to do: innovate, risk, and invest.

The only entrepreneurial powers this will unleash are new solutions to keep your staff under 50 members.

Overall I don’t think the specific concern (“if doctors would be required to accept forced-on-us healthcare plans”) would become a huge problem. I know what this argument is getting at though. Medicare doesn’t pay doctors as much as private insurance. If their was a government option, it would pay as much as medicare. Cuts in medicare spending are a constant threat to control costs. “Cuts in medicare spending” translates exactly to paying physicians less for specific services. I’d be a lot more concerned if the government option was still part of the bill.

I’m not sure if private insurance will start paying doctors less if this bill passes. The way I understand it, private insurance companies pay more because of competition. They want patients to buy their insurance; doctors won’t accept insurance that doesn’t pay them well; they pay well so doctors will accept their insurance and patients will buy it. It gets more complicated with insurance through an employer, but that’s the basic idea. Hospitals and doctors accept medicare for a number of reasons. Money is one. A lot of the rest is pure human compassion.

As far as the federal government requiring physicians to accept a specific type of insurance… We doctors pay for our own training, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The government had better pay us back if they want to put such financial limits on how we practice. We’re not government employees. Besides, we have a monopoly on medical know-how. That’s a lot of power. They’d better not try to push us around.

This is an example of one of the worst conditions ever. Parts of the brain that allow a person to move are damaged, but parts responsible for sensation and cognition still function to a degree. It can be hard to diagnose, but this fMRI stuff will probably make the diagnosis a lot easier. As far as the ethical stuff is concerned…we’re standing on the doorstep of a catastrophe in the healthcare system, directly related to rising costs. This condition is rare compared to the number of people who truly become vegetables because of less selective brain damage. I cared for armloads of them at St. Elsewhere.  It costs ungodly amounts of money to keep someone with either condition “alive.” Costs have to be cut somewhere. Metaphorically speaking, we either cut mammography for 40 year old mothers with early breast cancer, or we stop keeping vegetables “alive,” even if there is the off chance they have a spark of consciousness somewhere.

I side with the mothers.

I like this term. It seems inflammatory – I know. But it is an honest description of a necessary mechanism of any universal systems of healthcare. We can’t just shovel money at hopelesscases involving patents who are more than likely not even fully present. And at some point, any such system will have to assemble a group of qualified people – a panel – to investigate and determine what represents a “hopeless” or non-feasible case.
If your politics isn’t benefited by the word “death” you can play with the semantic. Call it Life Panels if you want. Let’s wrap it in numerous layers of ambiguous arbitrary catch-phrase description. Regardless, the necessity remains and the debate is valid. Not adding guidelines for the mechanism in a bill establishing universal healthcare changes nothing. Universal healthcare at our stage of medical technology requires death panels.

Scott Brown elected Massachusetts State Senator

Do you think a woman who had posed nude could ever achieve national political office?

Disaster in Haiti

The only hope long term for Haiti is a deadly disease that only affects jerks. That’s the only hope for a lot of developing nations criminally ruled by jerks. The CIA got close with AIDS, but they didn’t realize back then that butt-sex and being a jerk were not mutually inclusive. Ah well, dreams for the next conservative administration.

‘We are the world’ Haiti relief recording session begins

These people need to be stopped. Send your money to Red Cross.

State of the Union address

I don’t know why people take Obama’s speeches to seriously. I mean, they were never meant to be taken literally. His message is one of hope and change. We can all learn valuable lessons from his speeches but – lol – you can’t apply those ideas directly to policy – that was never the intended purpose of his message.

Toyota Recall

Yeah! Another fat-cat scapegoat! Yeah, let’s get’m! Whoohoo!

Obama getting tough on China for trade agreement infractions

I’m getting tough on my credit cards too. I’m taking a different approach though. I’m paying off the debt – or at least trying.

Underpants bomber now talking, encouraged by parents

Wow Obama administration! Way to go getting the kid to ignore his lawyer’s advice. If only all terrorists had responsible parents. And thanks for telling us about it too. Now all of America knows how great of a job you’re doing protecting us. Hey, so have you gone ahead and put Al Qaeda on the list to receive your FUCKING news letter yet?

Sarah Palin to receive $100k speaking fee for Tea Party Convention

Only a Liberal would find this controversial. She’s a Conservative from Alaska. What do you think she’s going to do with the cash? Buy something with it? You give those people a rifle and a pair of boots – a few years later they’ve got a city with a shipping port. Watch, she’ll invest in some unknown little jackass somewhere and turn another baby-blue state red. Astroturf my ass… U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A

Healthcare reform bill stalled

Ok guys, I get it. You got caught up in all the inaugural excitement. We elected Obama assuming “change” meant a thoughtful approach, but you thought we gave you a mandate to turn the country on its keel. So you went after you’re dreams: single payer, sky-rocketing business costs, and reduced carbon output. I can’t blame anyone for going after their dreams. And hey, at least you go that juicy stimulus!

But those darn Democrats, they got in your way. Single payer was compromised into single payer under a different name – then into a public option. Then even that was compromised – first into some fancy long winded name coined by Pelosi that essentially meant public option, and finally, a year later, into nothing more than a list new regulations – more similar to the Republican alternative to Hillary Care than the brilliant progressive stride we were all assuming would slide through. (Eh, regardless of the naïve math and unfunded state Medicaid mandates) And to add insult to injury, you have to buy some of those Dem votes too.

And darn-it – you could have passed it. Hell, you could have passed a bill covering sea lions FFS. I know you’d like to blame the Republicans, but shit man – you knew you had all the power and that’s how you wrote the bill. No Republican could have voted for that thing any more than you guys could all climb on board with invading Iraq! Or – wait. You got tricked on that one – hu? Well, you know what I mean. You can’t blame the dog you’re walking when you walk into a pole – even if he was enthusiastic about it.

So the question is: What now. Indeed, this bill is shot to shit. Stack that monstrosity on the back of the toilet in the staff bathroom. But what now? Should you pole-vault over the wall with Pelosi? Should you try to come to some reasonable consensus with a few reasonable Republicans? Should you keep this unorganized circus with your ring leader off in his own ring singing his poems?

I’m not sure what you should do. I’d like to see some actual reform though.

Congress to cut funding for KSM trial in NY

Every time anyone asks Obama or anyone in his admin a question about trying KSM in civilian court, they duck the question and assure us he’ll be convicted and executed. So if this is just going to be a $1 billion show trial – why not just “have the trial” (wink-wink)? You know – take a few days off, “have the trial,” print up some transcripts and stuff, execute the bastard, and use the $1 billion on some new Predator drones or something.

Don’t ask don’t tell – once again up for debate

What part of “don’t ask don’t tell” is so hard to understand?

Fairness

Let’s start with the semantics – my favorite part of politics [ facetiousness detected ]. We are talking about the FairTax Act. If we judge this Act by the standards held by recent legislation – like the American Clean Energy and Security Act, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – I have to assume that the FairTax Act taxes people unfairly and is not specific to America.

So, despite traditional congressional naming conventions, could the FairTax Act be in some ways fair? It certainly depends on your perspective. Essentially a FairTax would abolish income tax, capital gains tax, and all other types of earnings taxes – and replace them with a federal sales tax, levied by current state systems. Certainly, anyone under the assumption that the rich should be taxed more because they have more will see the basic concept as unfair. But the FairTax act includes tax credits that would make all purchases up to the poverty level – or something – tax free. Still, squeezing successful people for money would be more difficult, because they’d have to spend it for uncle same to grab his share, which means he won’t be able to write a quick bill that taxes the sox off the rich to set up entitlements. Some won’t see that as fair.

If you’re a person who believes it’s government’s job to provide certain services, and a person’s tax share should reflect that person’s use of those services – then the FairTax might be fair. It just depends on how you calculate it. Everyone is a consumer and benefits from government services about equally in that regard – national security, roads, infrastructure, regulation, law enforcement, and so on. Entrepreneurs benefit even more by doing business with the aid of such services. But then, we all have the freedom to innovate and do business. That’s one of those freedoms provided.

And if you’re one of those people who believe each person should simply pay an equal share – with exceptions for those who simply can’t afford it – then the FairTax is exactly fair. You’re only taxed for what you spend – what you use. You’re free to work as hard as you like, make as much money as you like, and you still pay as much tax per unit of stuff used as the next guy.

No rational person can use ‘fairness’ in deciding legislation – the word is vague and arbitrary. Obama used it in his campaign for crying out loud. For some it seems fair for five friends to split the bill five ways. For some it’s fair that each person pays only for what they order. And to some, like Obama, it’s fair for the guy with the highest income to pay the whole bill and also give the guy with the lowest income money for lunch tomorrow. The FairTax is like paying for what you order plus a little extra to pay for the friend who forgot his wallet.

One definite fair thing about the fair tax is how government spending would be conducted. The FairTax act requires taxes be revenue neutral. In other words, if government spends more they have to visibly tax more. No more of the Obama-type free gifts for everyone – I’ll make the rich pay for it. This would help resolve a big weakness in democracy: The majority electorate voting for monetary gifts from the minority. For example: the false idea that we can all have free healthcare would be a harder snake-oil to sell.

Likewise there would be direct visible ramifications to irresponsible spending and pork-laden bills of all types – no more free money.

Viability

Viability of the FairTax is something fun to ponder. I mean, if it’s viable to have the IRS – a country-sized bureaucracy – lording over every productive/profitable move we make, slicing off a piece of every inch of progress we make – then shifting taxes from income tax  to a streamlined spending tax should be perfectly viable – mathematically. Nothing should cost more. Right now we pay for a company’s taxes when we buy its products. Under the FairTax we’d pay the same taxes but they’d be visible.

You might worry about a tax on spending causing a reduction in spending – which would be BAD in this economy. And it might cause a reduction in spending if we abruptly switched. But – fundamentally – a FairTax would lower prices.

How? How would a 23% sales tax reduce the cost of goods? Well, we’re already paying that 23% tax, but in a less efficient way and based on our output and not our consumption. Once the punishment for productivity is removed, there will be more productivity – obviously. And productivity leads to efficiency, innovation, and investment – which all make everything cheaper as it has been since the concept of The United States of America began.

Of course this concept goes both ways. People will see the punishment for spending. Rather than having 1/3 of their wages taken they will see a 23% tax. This will cause people to reflect longer before making large purchases and people will be overall less inclined to make purchases. (which may be a good thing long term because people will stop buying garbage and start demanding better and healthier stuff) And of course, this affect will be at least somewhat offset by the fact that people are bringing home 1/3 more cash to spend.

And from Uncle Sam’s and stat’s perspective – revenue cash flow wise – the continuous nature of sales tax is a goodthing. We just saw California keel-over and about die because they are so reliant on rich-people income taxes, like capital gains tax, which dries up completely during recessions.

So the concept is certainly viable. The implementation would have to be realistic of course. So the guys who give Obama his numbers would have to be killed and fed to dogs just to be sure. And this is assuming Obama’s agenda is at least partially crippled, since all his ideas will require a lot more than a silly 23%.

This system could also lend some extra flexibility. For example, in times of war the tax could be raised slightly to pay for it. This would lessen war debts and spread the sacrifice around. Or maybe it could be used as a market control – like how the Fed manipulates interest rates. When the economy gets too hot you could raise the sales tax. When it gets too low, you could lower it. We would just have to keep the lesson learned from the past few decades about not abusing market manipulators. (The idea of Fed controls was to soften peaks and valleys. Instead we used them to heighten peaks.)

Likelihood

As far as legislation goes, FairTax is highly thought-out, conceptually and actually. It has loyal support, mostly on the right, but including one Democrat. And it’s claimed that the FairTax Act is non-partisan.

Of course, the FairTax is by no means non-partisan. Sure, by Obama’s standards of bipartisanship this bill, like the House healthcare reform bill, is bipartisan because is does include support by one democrat. But seriously, passing the FairTax Act would be a total and unmitigated disaster for the long held agenda of the Left. It would also make getting elected a true nightmare for Democrats. There’s no way in hell the Liberal Democrats will let something like this pass – if they can at all help it.

A FairTax would make it impossible to specifically tax millionaires and billionaires. And without all that lute there’s no way to finance – or pretend to be able to finance – all the bright ideas and experiments the Left would like to try. And without all that lute, Democrats can’t make their promises to “the little guy” – promises like free healthcare, free homes, free education, high paying low skilled jobs, and all the other impossible yet expensive proclamations.

So any effort to actually pass the FairTax will have to come from the Right. But Conservatives – as the name implies – are not enthusiastic champions of any monumental change. The average Republican in office today is totally engaged in slowing down Obama’s attack on business.

Right now the momentum is in the total opposite direction of the FairTax. We have energy taxes coming down the congressional chute. We have a healthcare reform bill being finalized in secret – because its public support has taken ill – and who knows what kinds of taxes/fees/penalties will emerge from that pile of dirty-porky-compromise. And the current Washington idea of ‘fair’ is to spread the wealth around.

HOWEVER – momentum has a nasty and abrupt habit of shifting direction, especially when crazy Liberal face-lift enthusiasts from San Francisco are running roughshod over congress and spending every oz of the Liberal savior’s political capital in his first few months in office – trying to force-feed the country the most belligerently partisanspreader load of legislation seen in recent history.

And if we know anything from recent history, we know that the population is averse to such behavior. We can add that to the economic climate, the fact that our economic policies and current legislative efforts are crippling business, the slow realization that Obama is a tentative and inexperienced leader, the perception that he’s gentle with national security while people’s underwear is being weaponized, the general creeping feeling that his charming personality really isn’t going to de-nuke and otherwise save the world, the abuse of the dollar, the porkroast cook-off and spending-spree they’re having with all our tax dollars – and created dollars – and you will soon see a backlash against whatever and whoever is most prominently in charge of whatever.

And if the FairTax manages to ride that backlash – assuming it’s hard enough – we might see it make it to law. It will have to be a hard backlash though, fed by worse than the semi-permanent 10% unemployment we have. Another one trillion in ‘stimulus’ won’t hurt.