Grab Bob Barr's Coattails
Link: Townhall.com::Bob Barr Enters the Race::By William Rusher.
So it seems very likely that, come November, conservatives will find on their ballots not only the names of McCain and assorted liberals but that of a staunch fellow conservative resolutely opposed to big federal spending and military involvement in the Middle East. Most will realize, of course, that Barr has no chance whatsoever of actually becoming president. His role, therefore, is inevitably that of a spoiler -- a person whose only serious function might be to put Obama in the White House. That will be more than enough to turn most conservative voters against him. But a few -- perhaps a dangerously sizeable few -- will vote for Barr.
Barr, of course, knows all this, and he admits that his real hope, strategically, is "to strengthen the ability of the Libertarian Party to be a permanent, viable force in American politics."
Which is all very well, but it's a high price to pay for four or eight years of Obama as president of the United States.
I don't know if the price is that high. With Obama on the left and Barr on the right, the real issue for conservatives is which one is McCain closer to. Many may see the race as Barr vs. McBama. Could helping McCain win be too high a price to keep Obama out?
Of course Barr still won't win, but Libertarians could use his relatively high profile candidacy to seek net gains in other ways. Republicans have recently lost several Congressional seats in interim elections that were thought safe. Voters obviously wanted "change" even if the only other choice was a Democrat. What if there had been another option in those races?
The party should take advantage of a high profile Libertarian presence on the presidential ballot, and go all out to win local, state, and even congressional races. Many conservatives not ready to make the leap to a Democratic candidate in their districts might find a Libertarian more palatable than either. If at all successful, winning a handful of seats could give it real power as a swing vote on many issues.
A spot on the presidential ballot is fine, but the essence of libertarianism is bottom up, not top down.
Posted by Doug Murray at 12:57 PM May 15, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Suspect Diagnosis
James Taranto pointed this out in Toronto's Globe and Mail:
More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors' group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan.
Given that the system these women are being sent to also lacks a "national birthing plan", the doctor's group's diagnosis may not be accurate. In fact, they said, "the problem is due to bed closings that took place almost a decade ago, the absence of a national birthing initiative and too few staff," implying mistakes on the part of the system that does exist.
The advantage of not having a "national plan" is seen when a local hospital, the bottom tier of the system, decides to close beds and or reduce staff. It only affects its own clients, who can usually find nearby alternatives quite easily. But when such a decision is made at the top of the system, it affects everyone and alternatives exist only for those who can leave the country.
Posted by Doug Murray at 08:17 AM May 7, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reaping what you sow
You delegate to the State the power to restrict your neighbor’s behavior…and then the state uses that power to restrict your behavior!?!?!
Oh noz!!!
Posted by Doug Murray at 01:51 PM May 4, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
Geekery
I just took a database class during which the instructor tried to tell a joke. He started telling how Noah took two copies of every animal aboard the ark. I though, "What a geek! Surely he meant two instances."
Guess it takes one to know one.
Posted by Doug Murray at 11:34 AM May 3, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
Veep choice is important
Maybe our best hope is that McCain chooses a decent running mate.
How about John Bolton?
I don't plan to vote for McCain if I can help it, but that could cause me to reconsider.
Posted by Doug Murray at 11:28 PM May 2, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
Old becomes New
Today I received an email from a tech firm pushing a webcast about one of the current latest things in networking - centralized computing.
Learn how thin clients are simplifying corporate computing environments and helping companies deal more effectively with their IT security, management, and budgeting needs.
When I got into IT it was on an IBM midrange computer. Each workstation was a "dumb terminal", the "network" was a more or less direct connection to the computer via twinax (if you don't know, you don't want to,) and all the computing was done on the System 34. It was secure because it wasn't hooked up to anything else.
Then PCs started turning up with desktop modems, software and internet connections: EDP DP IS IT shops feared losing control of computing. It's been a struggle, but we've made headway with proxies, firewalls and switches, got help and incentive from the spammers, hackers and even Senator Sarbanes and Congressman Oxley.
Now the advance of technology lets us give users dumb terminals thin clients, do all the work on a central computer server and any contact with the outside world has to go through us.
That was a close one.
Posted by Doug Murray at 07:18 PM Apr 7, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
Way to go, Joe!
Yesterday the Smithsonian awarded Joe Kittinger its highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Trophy, for jumping out of a perfectly good helium balloon - at over 102,000 feet.
A
few years ago he and I worked in the same building and occasionally
shared an elevator (must have been quite a come-down for him), but I
had kept up with his doings since the 1960 leap; test pilot, fighter
pilot, POW, record-setting balloonist, entrepreneur and barnstormer.
When Life Magazine
published the cover above I
was 11 years old and a space junkie since Sputnik . From the accompanying article I learned he
had attended the Bolles School in Jacksonville, about a mile from my
house. Instant hero.
In my opinion, of course, the award was long overdue.
Great video of his Excelsior jumps on YouTube.
Posted by Doug Murray at 12:57 PM Apr 3, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
No Offense
Warren Meyer posts on the Right Not To Be Offended, but the best part is in the comments.
You do have the right to not be offended. Simply stop caring about what everyone thinks of you! If everyone operated under the premise that only their own opinion of themselves matter, they won't constantly be offended by what things strangers may be saying. The only person making these people feel offended is themselves---hence, they need to grant themselves the right to not be offended rather than letting a higher authority take away everyone else's explicit first amendment rights.
But you can go even further and embrace the offense. British soldiers once tried to anger colonials, naming them after the simpleton in a song called "Yankee Doodle". Instead of becoming angry they took on the name with pride and often still do.
To the PC crowd, this would be counter-productive, though. Their offense is not about the power an insult can have over its target. It's about self-proclaimed victims using it as a tool to gain power over others.
Posted by Doug Murray at 12:36 PM Apr 1, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
The Answers
Earlier this week Jerry Bowyer had seven questions for the Fair Tax crowd. Unfortunately it was the weekend before I could answer them for him.
Why do you think that a sales tax is less prone to corruption and complexity than an income tax?
Okay, he actually had eight questions because this is two. Complexity and corruption each need their own answers.
Complexity is relative. A sales tax can become complex as demonstrated by the recent need for Florida to establish a commission to review its sales taxes and simplify exemptions. But states in the U.S. Have had sales taxes since 1930 and I don't know of any that require a two page form, numerous tables, pages of supporting schedules, and the assistance of accountants and lawyers to calculate and pay.
With a sales tax, there will be corruption, but I've seen no convincing evidence that there will be more than we have now. At the state level sales taxes are often ignored or manipulated, but that is generally on resale transactions, which are not taxable under the fair tax plan. Sales taxes on new items should be relatively easy to track and enforce.
Are sales taxes, where they are currently in operation, simple and free from special interest lobbying?
No, they're not. But with a tax based on the amount of the transaction rather than estimates involving depletion allowances, depreciation methods, mileage allowances and other arcana, there will be fewer opportunities for low visibility favors.
A Value Added Tax (VAT) is guaranteed to be complicated, since it is applied at each level of production and may even have different rules in each case. The fair tax avoids this type of complexity by taxing a product once at the point it leaves production
The current income tax has taken a long time to become what it is. Perhaps 90 years hence the sales tax will need replacing, but it is unlikely that even then it will have become the hydra that we have today.
Does it apply to non-profits?
HR 25 Section 706-(a) NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS- Dues, contributions, and similar payments to qualified not-for-profit organizations shall not be considered gross payments for taxable property or services for purposes of this subtitle.
More people can take deductions for charitable donations, including to churches, than under the income tax since you don't have to consider itemized deductions. In fact it is not even necessary to track them because they are realized each Sunday morning when the cash hits the collection plate.
Actually, I have a problem with this one. It is the beginning of the kinds of special exemptions found in many state sales taxes. It puts the government in the position of deciding who is qualified to get special treatment which in turn gives it control over them. That is why I believe, for example, that we have gotten the tax treatment of churches exactly backwards in the past. We've even had recent cases of the IRS investigating churches over political speech from the pulpit. But I realize this puts me closer to the fringe than most fairtaxers.
Are used goods, non-taxable?
If so, this means less goods production, more yard sales, eBay stuff, etc. Won’t this hurt traditional retailers and goods producers?
Supply and demand should largely compensate for this. As demand for untaxed used goods rises so will their prices until they reach an equilibrium with new products. And some goods, such as food and services, don't have much of a used market.
Why wouldn’t this encourage evasion through rehabilitation? After all what exactly constitutes New vs. Used? If I repair a car, it’s used, but what if I upgrade it? New engine, but old chassis, is that new or used?
At the consumer level, I don't understand the problem here. When you buy a new engine to put in the old chassis you pay the sales tax on it. Whoever buys it from you is buying a used vehicle. I'll admit that for a business this could be problematic. If a professional refurbisher buys a used chassis, rehabs it, and sells it, I can see that the chassis could be considered raw materials and his ultimate sale might be taxable.
This is hardly evasion, though. One of the biggest pluses to the fair tax is that it does away with the income tax's penalties on wealth creation and savings. Preserving the utility of goods results in savings just as surely as stuffing money into an IRA.
What about the transition period?
Before the sales tax takes effect, won’t there be a buying binge? Afterwards, won’t there be a buying drought?
I'm not sure, but it sounds like Bowyer is assuming that on implementation day, prices will rise 30%. Many Fairtaxers claim that since the it replaces the hidden taxes already in prices, they will stay the same.
I don't believe either claim. I would expect prices to rise some but considerably less than the 30% of a fair tax. At the same time workers would see their take home pay increase by at least 8% as Social Security, Medicare and income tax withholding disappear. Even with higher prices the net result would resemble the fairtaxers prediction.
A common question is, "How can you be sure prices will come down?" Maybe Bowyer is, in fact, describing the mechanism. A buying binge would create upward pressure on prices and we could see the beginnings of his 30% increase even before implementation. The "drought" would then bring prices down to the new level.
As an IT professional, I have often seen difficulties in transitions, but rarely to an extent that would justify not going forward.
Isn’t it true that the rate is not really 23% but 30% at least, because it’s tax-inclusive?
The underlying idea of the Fair Tax is that it seeks to replace hidden taxes with a single visible one.
Before the Fair Tax 23¢ of every dollar spent finds its way to the Federal treasury. With the fair tax 23¢ of every dollar goes to the Federal treasury. Whether you want to call that a 30% tax on a 77¢ price or a 23% tax on a $1.00 price is semantics.
How do we determine the interest portion of mortgage payment?
This is laid out in section 801 of HR 25. Essentially, the portion of any interest rate above that on the Federal debt (not the funds rate set by the Federal Reserve) is taxable. That will minimize the ability to game the system by pricing houses low and mortgages high. A market effect that would also inhibit such arrangements is that they would have to include severe prepayment penalties.
The Fair Tax has it's share of difficulties: it isn't even fair. But even with its problems it is vastly superior to the income tax that exists today. Making the change would not be easy, but imagine what it would be like if people with names like King or Washington had let that be reason enough not to try for something better.
Posted by Doug Murray at 01:52 AM Jan 14, 2008 Permalink | Comments (0)
