Bravo To Rachel Maddow?

I rarely agree with MSNBC Commentator Rachel Maddow, but I was quite impressed with her recent expose on President Obama's continuation of the Bush Administration's policy of "Preventative Incarceration" and "Indefinite, Prolonged Detention." Simply put, American Citizens who are deemed a threat can be incarcerated without formal charges, without due process for an indefinite period of time. The President stated that "there may be a number of people who can't be prosecuted for past crimes, but none the less pose a threat," which holds troubling implications. While I have zero sympathy for criminals and jihadists, due process and rule of law are fundamental to America's legal traditions and value system. Even the most despicable citizens should be subject to a swift and fair trial. If found guilty, they should be subject to the harshest punishment allowed  by the law and if found innocent, they should be freed. History shows that when the state is allowed to engage in unchecked "emergency measures," the liberty and property of its citizenry will not remain secure for long.

The Real Problem With The Bush Tax Cuts

Over the last few years the Bush Tax Cuts have become the great bogeyman of the left. Indeed they are correct that Bush's tax policies have had a negative fiscal impact, but not for the reasons that they commonly hold. A close look at the hard numbers show that the problem is not that the "rich aren't paying their fair share of taxes," but rather that a record number of Americans are paying no federal taxes. According to CNN and Yahoo News, this number has approached 47% of tax payers. And in spite of Bush reducing the tax rates for higher tax brackets, their share of total contributions have steadily increased.  According to the Tax Foundation, in 2008 the top 1% earned approximately 20% of national income, while being responsible for the payment of nearly 38% of taxes.
While the figures are fairly straight forward, their implications are up for debate. Personally I believe that having a growing number of Americans not contributing to the government services that they enjoy will increasingly have a negative fiscal and political impact. To address our growing fiscal ills, taxes may have to be raised on upper income brackets, but without expanding the tax base to include at least some of the net tax consumers, this will barely dent our national debt. And on a broader level it will further erode civic involvement. Common sense and basic economics dictates that those who do not pay for goods and services will have little or no incentives to:

1.  Economize their use of the said goods and services.

2. Ensure their efficient and cost effective production and distribution.

3. Control the growth of government spending.

4. Increase their personal productivity (through education, hard work, saving and investment) in order to afford their desired level of consumption.

5. Vote for fiscally responsible candidates.

But it's always easier to master the use of empty sound bites rather than lean about and apply accounting and economics to current affairs, so keep on ranting about the "greedy rich" rather than the out of control inflation of government spending.

I choose STDs & Smoking..

I am neither a big fan of sexually transmitted diseases nor of cigarettes, but I am aghast that Bushbama's original stimulus plan included $400,000,000 for the prevention of STDS and $75,000,000 in anti-smoking. While these are laudable goals and IF these programs were effective there would be long term economic benefits, they hardly constitute an immediate economic stimulus. Clearly, Bushbama and many Democrats are using the stimulus bill as an opportunity to push through their pet programs, without subjecting them to normal legislative debate.

In addition, Bushbama's stimulus bill is directing $87,000,000,000 towards Medicaid and $45,000,000,000 in funding other government health care programs. The question is not if we agree or disagree with this particular segment of the "stimulus bill. The question is if a policy that will ad billions to an already mind-boggling deficit should be decided through the debate and votes of our legislature. If you answered "yes," the second question is: What does it say about a leader when he uses a crisis to circumvent the normal legislative process? I believe the answer is that Bushbama and many of his democratic cohorts have very little regard for the democratic process.

You don't have to be an Ultra-Orthodox Jew to choose STDs and Smoking over a giant pork sandwich filled with many questionable ingredients...especially when your children and grandchildren will be paying for it for decades to come.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/dems-drop-anti-smoking-st_n_163266.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE50S05320090129