Comments on Metaphors about Grades (and the Bush Tax Cuts)

Note: I blogged back in November about an email that was making the rounds. The email compared grades to income in a lame attempt to make GOP economics look more moral. The comments I've been getting are now longer than the original post and have strayed far from the original topic - the validity of the parable contained in the email. So I decided to bring it up to the front of my blog to make it easier to find...

This is in response to the comment here on April 11 by thecarlsoncrew...

Keeping in mind that this discussion is about whether the parable/fable above is flawed or not…

• The parable makes it sound as though people make money because they work hard. But you agree with me that while financial success is tied to hard work, it is not directly tied (there are other factors, and that those other factors – like education - may in fact be more important than hard word itself).
  
• The parable makes it sound like people are poor because they’re somehow immoral (lazy, stupid, or maybe both). But you agree with me that laziness and stupidity are not the only reasons (or even the main reasons) for poverty and that each individual’s situation is unique.

My question about whether you knew anyone in the $1 million+ a year category was a question about perspective. It usually comes as revelation to people when they realize that they don’t really know anyone that we’re talking about. Most people don’t.

You dispute my numbers. You’re allowed. The Heritage Foundation numbers that you gave show that the family right in the middle of the third quintile saw their income go up by $356 in 2006. My numbers had that family’s income going up by $400 in 2004. Are things getting worse?

You mention poverty rates; I haven’t looked closely at those. You compare poverty at one point in Bush’s term with poverty at another point in Bush’s term, and I’m not sure what the point is. While poverty was down, the change didn’t seem significant to me and it’s not clear either that the change reflects a trend or that poverty is still down two years later (we’ll see, when those numbers get released).

You’ve mentioned unemployment numbers. Unemployment is a slippery concept, but it is basically the percentage of the workforce that does not have a job. Unemployment is a slippery concept for a number of reasons. It doesn’t measure under-employment. But more importantly, the number doesn’t take into account individuals who have been without a job for more than a certain period of time (two years, I think). So, for example, in the county where I teach, the unemployment rate is at about 8%. But about 50% of working aged adults (18-65) are without a job. It takes a national depression for this to happen on the national level, but in a micro-economic setting low OFFICIAL unemployment numbers can be a sign of despair because it means that people have given up and stopped looking for a job. For that reason you will sometimes see a distinction made between real unemployment and official unemployment.

I’m not sure how my numbers are “suspect” – what exactly that means. Maybe you think those numbers are just plain made up. I’ll freely admit that numbers can be juggled. To readers without much background in statistics, using percentages will make the top numbers look smaller than they are and the bottom numbers look bigger than they are; using real dollar amounts for disaggregated groups will make the bottom look smaller and the top look bigger (even given the same data). And neither will actually be inaccurate. If the data doesn’t make your point clearly enough, disaggregate it differently. Looking at tenths of the population instead of quintiles would make the poorest people look even poorer. Examining the top 1% makes the rich look richer (or helps more clearly define just what “rich” is).

We’ve talked about so much that it’s hard to keep track of what we’re talking about.

• This thread began with the worth of the parable; I think you’ve agreed with me that the parable has flaws.
  
• I was taken to task for my view that most wealth is inherited (and that was the point at which you entered the discussion). We’ve agreed that wealth is difficult to quantify and that there aren’t many statistical sources on it. My contention, I suppose, is based on my minor in sociology years (decades) ago as an undergraduate. I’m not prepared to forsake it at the moment, but neither can I support it with data. I’ll have to look around more. It is clear that the number of self-made gajillionaires in the Forbes 400 is increasing; but I’m talking about the richest million or so people in society, not the richest 400. The people on the Forbes 400 list are interesting precisely because they are statistical anomalies…

Now we’re discussing the Bush tax cuts and the fairness (however that’s defined) of taxes today. Presumably we’re having the discussion because we were talking about the relationship between income (and, debatably, by implication wealth) and hard work. Maybe we got to the Bush tax cuts because it’s hard to resist the temptation to talk about taxes whenever we talk about income. Maybe we got to the Bush tax cuts because I think the parable is misleading and I think there’s a lot of similarly misleading propaganda out there about the Bush tax cuts (which would make it my fault) – although I think you brought up the numbers on who pays what percentage of taxes.

So let’s start by talking about the nature of taxes. I like quoting Oliver Wendall Holmes (a Republican, by the way): “Taxes are the price you pay for living in a civilized society.”

I teach elementary school. I specialize in disabilities. I’m never heard an adequate definition of “fair” – one that everyone agrees on in all its details when applied to real life. That said… If we accept the idea of a tax on income (which includes FICA, various capital gains taxes, and all the other things that go onto a 1040 and the forms that accompany it) I would think that “fair” means that if you make 10% of the income you pay 10% of the income taxes and if you make 25% of the income you pay 25% of the income taxes. In other words, we tax income (not people). If we go beyond that as a society, if we decide that we want to be progressive and shift the tax burden so that those who can least afford it pay a smaller relative chunk of taxes than those with the most resources, our current system begins to come into focus. Not that our current system is perfect in its details. But the concept of a tiered system with people at the top paying more (a higher rate) than people at the bottom is the conceptual result. In that context, let’s talk about some of what you’ve said…

You said: …the facts of Bush's tax cuts are that he targeted the middle class more than any other group. The 'rich' still got more money back (dollar-wise), but the percentage was much smaller. I don't understand how this can be construed as unfair, unless you're talking about it being unfair to the 'rich'...

Bush threw everyone a bone. That’s how he got it passed. There are more middle class people than any other economic group in the country (depending on your definition, of course) so it’s easy to say that more people in the middle class benefit from the tax cut than any other group. Easy, but misleading.

I’m going to quote from the NY Times, from a couple of pieces that report on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports. I suspect that you’ll say that the NY Times is “left-leaning.” Editorially, I’d agree. But I’d hope that they can’t go too far astray in a news report on a CBO document.
“Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study” cited in the NY Times on Jan. 7, 2008. “Tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.” The article goes on to say that, “Economists and tax analysts have long known that the biggest dollar value of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts goes to people at the very top income levels. One reason is that two of his signature measures, tax cuts on investment income and a steady reduction of estate taxes, overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest households.” The article goes on to say that in 2004, middle quintile income earners saved $1,180 on their taxes on average over what they would have paid without the Bush tax cuts. The key here is that they paid less than they would have without the Bush cuts, but according to the article their rates actually went up slightly, so that they still paid more than they did the previous year. By way of contrast, households in the top one percent saw their actual tax rates go down (not just increase less) by about 4.5%. They paid an average of $58,000 less under the Bush tax cuts than they would have without it. In other words, I still paid more in taxes after the Bush tax cuts, while the top 1% paid less. And for every dollar they got out of it, I got two cents.

That’s the Congressional Budget Office (though it’s filtered through the NY Times). Where did your “facts” come from? (Not my college sociology professor, I hope…)

Another NY Times article I found interesting was a December 15, 2007 report on a CBO document that looked at income growth from 2003 to 2005 (right after the Bush tax cuts too effect). The increase alone in the income of the top 1% of taxpayers was more than the entire income of the bottom quintile. While the entire bottom quintile made about $383 billion in 2005, the top 1% made $1.8 trillion. That’s 18.1% of all income earned. And it means that for every dollar a household in the bottom quintile got, a household in the top 1% brought in about $93. I don’t think that either hard work or intelligence are the largest factors in a discrepancy that size.

The NY Times piece said that CBO documents “showed that in 2005 the top 10 percent, top 1 percent and fractions of the top 1 percent enjoyed their greatest share of income since 1928 and 1929.” It added that “On average, incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by $465,700 each, or 42.6 percent after adjusting for inflation. The incomes of the poorest fifth rose by $200, or 1.3 percent, and the middle fifth increased by $2,400 or 4.3 percent.”

And look at that! There’s my $200 for the bottom quintile, listed in both a real dollar amount and a percentage.

Finally, according to the Times, “The top 1 percent paid 27.6 percent of all federal taxes in 2005…” In the context of the progressive system I’ve described, with the biggest income disparities since before the Great Depression, and in light of the fact that they made over 18% of all income, I don’t think I feel badly about that…

You want to argue that having rich people around benefits the rest of the society and you say it in a way that reminds me of Reagan’s “trickle down” theories. And yet wealth is gradually becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few, not more widely disbursed. I think the rich might pay less than they ought to for their yachts, and there is only one active commercial diamond mine in the U.S. I don’t think many in our middle class make their living off of gem mining here in America.

You said: And, of course, the principle is the same for the middle class as it is for the wealthy - the more money they lose to taxes, the less they have to spend. That means that the more the wealthy are taxed, the less they spend…. Hogwash! They made more than they did last year, after taxes – despite carrying 27% of the income tax burden. The people in the class I’m talking about, that top 1%, are not going to deprive themselves of anything because of the amount they’re paying in taxes. (And I suspect that you have nothing in the way of consumer data to show otherwise.)


Carlson, I’m touched by your invitation to join the wealthy with you, and with your concern for my financial status. I’m doing okay. Like many people, I worry a little about the future, about retirement. No one has a crystal ball. But I’m standing here in the fourth quintile with my three college degrees and, well, life is better this year than it was last year. It’s not hard to predict that it will be better still next year. I live in a moderately nice house that I actually own, have broadband Internet access at home, drive a good SUV without much rust on it, eat fairly well, vacation in the summer, have decent health insurance and even a dental plan, - and I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth (despite the poverty of the region), Central Appalachia. My concern for public policy on this issue is not rooted in some deep seated wealth-envy. I think the current economic environment stacks the deck against economic success for the communities I serve. Personally, I wouldn’t object to being obscenely rich; but I think modest comfort is a more reasonable goal since both my wife and I have chosen careers in public service. But who knows; perhaps I’ll write a book…

The L-Curve

In light of the most recent comments at my previous blog on the email about grades and income ("Welcome to the Republican Party..."), I thought this video was fascinating.

Enjoy...

Aftermath of a Primary

I'm home. The clothes are ready for tomorrow. The coffee's made and the lunches are in place. I've checked my email and replied to the messages of the day that need any attention. I've had my shower and I am now sipping a small glass of an adult beverage.

I've been up for 16 hours and on my feet for most of that. I'm tired.

Streamlined reporting procedures let me get home a little earlier than I expected.

Of the 137 people who voted in my precinct, 98 voted in the Democratic Primary and 39 in the GOP Primary. In my Precinct Clinton got 81 votes, Obama 15, Edwards 1 and Richardson 1. On the GOP side, Huckabee got 31 votes and McCain got 8.

I plan to watch a few minutes of TV and then be in bed by 9:30 or 10pm...

Primary Elections in Virginia

Tomorrow I'll work the polls in Virginia. I am a poll worker in my home precinct of Adria, in the Northern District of Tazewell County.

So I'll get up at about 4:15am to be at the polling place about a mile away by 5am.

I think I have everything together for tomorrow. My clothes are ironed (a nice deep blue shirt to wear with my suit). The alarm is set. I have a few things to take with me to work on if the traffic gets slow. My lunch is made. I have a can of Pringles, some bread and cheese, and a couple of bottles of water in a cooler.

I'll get to vote after we set up the polling booths and open up, since I'm working in my own precinct. John Edwards will still be on the ballot. he drew 10% of the vote in Oklahoma on SuperTuesday despite having dropped out a week earlier. I don't really car whether Obama or Clinton gets the Democratic nomination. I'll probably cast my ballot for Edwards.

The biggest tension tomorrow will probably be over the procedure that requires voters to declare whether they want to vote in the GOP primary or the Democratic primary when they present themselves. The two are separate events (taking place at the same locations on the same day, true), and the worker who checks identification and marks voters off will give them a card that tells the people who's managing the voting machines which ballot to load - the GOP or the Democratic one. We expect some voters to object to having to declare their party...

Voting stops at 7pm. It will take between an hour and 90 minutes to wrap up the paperwork and break down the machines (assuming all goes well). I should be home by 9pm, making it a 16 hour day.

Primaries & Caucuses: SuperTuesday and the Saturday Stumble

For a variety of personal reason, I never really got around to commenting on SuperTuesday. But now that the dust has settled a little, there are some things worth saying about each party's race for the presidential nomination.

I haven't heard much comment on voter turnout.

• In Colorado, about 120,000 people turned out for the Democratic Caucuses; the GOP drew only about 55,000 people. Colorado went for Clinton in 1992 (but not in 1996), for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and for Johnson in 1964. In the last 12 elections that state has gone to the Democrats just three times.
  
• In Georgia, 1,046,000 people voted in the Democratic Primary. Only 958,000 people voted in Georgia's GOP Primary. Georgia went for Kennedy in 1960, Carter in 1976 and 1980, and Clinton in 1992 (but not in 1996).
  
• In Missouri only about 585,000 people voted in the GOP Primary compared to around 820,000 in the Democratic contest. Missouri has gone to the GOP in seven of the last 12 presidential Elections.
  
• In North Dakota the Democrats drew almost 18,000 caucus goers, compared to only about 9,000 for the GOP. North Dakota hasn't voted for a Democrat in November since 1964.
  
• In Oklahoma the Democrats drew over 400,000 voters to their primary while the GOP only saw about 330,000 come out. Like North Dakota, Oklahoma hasn't voted for a Democrat in November since 1964.
  
• Democrats in Tennessee drew 614,000 voters to their primary, while the GOP managed to get out only about 547,000 (even with favorite son Fred Thompson running). Tennessee went for Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Carter in 1976, and Johnson in 1964, but they've gone to the GOP in eight of the last 12 elections.

The question: Will this translate to the November election? Maybe...

The trend continued in Louisiana, where over 350,000 people voted in the Democratic primary yesterday and only and only about 155,000 voted in the GOP race. The state went for Kennedy in 1960, Carter in 1976, and Clinton twice, but has gone to the GOP two-thirds of the time since 1960.

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Did SuperTuesday have winners? Well, it certainly had losers on the GOP side. Fred Thompson placed fifth in his home state. I'll go back to the actor metaphor I heard somewhere a while back and say that Mike Huckabee seems to have gotten the part that Fred Thompson tried out for.

Romney fell victim to a combination of factors. There was the fact that the Conservative vote was divided three ways. That made it easy from McCain to pull out a win in states like Missouri and Oklahoma. In a head-to-head race with just the two of them, Romney might well have beaten McCain out of those 90 or so delegates. Romney fell victim to high expectations; he was expected to do better than he did, and that made it difficult to justify staying in the race. I think Romney also fell victim to his own ambitions in as much as he's more committed to being president someday than he is to being president now. He could be perceived as having hurt the party by staying in, so he suspended his campaign.

While McCain carried the day, the biggest GOP winner may well turn out to be Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor is now the only choice for many Conservatives and logic choice for the anti-McCain block. Huckabee picked up the endorsement of Dr. James Dobson, champion of the Religious Right. And Huckabee's two wins yesterday testify to his new status as Last Conservative Standing. Mathematically, it's still possible for Huckabee to win the nomination (especially is Romney releases his delegates to vote however they want). It's not very likely, but it's possible at the moment.

On the Democratic side, SuperTuesday proved that the Clinton-Obama race really is a tie. That translates to a win for Obama. And that momentum carried him to three new wins yesterday. More and more, the focus of the Democratic race is on SuperDelegates since it doesn't look like either candidate will get enough delegates from the primary and caucus process to win outright.

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The Saturday Stumble is the name pundits giving to the performance of McCain and Clinton yesterday. If McCain is not careful, he could end up being offered a position as Huckabee's VP. If Hillary is not careful, she could just plain lose.

No one seems to stay a front runner for very long...

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In case you hadn't noticed:

• Fred Thompson endorsed John McCain.
  
• Ron Paul made some statements to the effect that he probably really would support the GOP candidate (he refused to rule out running as an independent during a Washington Post interview a few weeks ago).
  
• NYC Mayor Michael Bloomburg seems to have shut up about running for President as an independent now that it looks like the GOP will nominate a moderate candidate.
  
• President Bush said yesterday that McCain wasn't a moderate and endorsed McCain's credentials as a true Conservative.
  
• Conservatives from Ann Coulter to Dr. Dobson are suggesting that their people should just stay home in November and left the Democrats have the White House if McCain is the nominee.
  
• And Mike Gravel is still technically a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

But who cares about trivia...

Super Tuesday First Blood: Huckabee Wins WV Caucus

West Virginia's GOP Caucus today was a draw in the first round of voting. Mitt Romney spoke to the convention and pulled 44% of the votes. Huckabee drew 33% of the vte int eh first round. John McCain drew only 15% of the vote on the first round and Ron Paul was eliminated from the voting under WV party rules because he drew less than 10% of the caucus vote.

On the second round of voting Huckabee passed Romney and drew 52% of the ballots - the majority needed to collect WV's delegates to the GOP National Convention later this year.

The win gives Huckabee all 18 of the state's delegates in this winner take all contest.

Farewell to Edwards

I was disappointed today to hear that John Edwards had withdrawn from the race for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. I thought he was the best candidate. I've said recently here that I thought he was in a three way race that no one would win, and that as long as no one won, it didn't really matter who had the most delegates.

But Senator Edwards sees things differently, I suppose. And so for all realistic and practical purposes it is now down to a two candidate race. That means that in all likelihood, one of those two candidates will win outright before the Denver convention.

And I no longer really have a preference as to which of the two it is...

Also Ran: Rudy Giuliani

With 95% of the vote counted in the GOP Florida Primary, Rudy Giuliani managed to squeek by Mike Huckabee for third place. And that's not good enough.

Most news sources are now reporting that Giuliani will drop out now. The former NYC mayor had adopted a strategy of ignoring early races in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina where he was unlikely to win and betting everything on Florida. When he came up with that strategy he was leading in the polls in Florida. But time passed, the spotlight moved, and Giuliani's strategy came back to bite him.

Giuliani will endorse John McCain tomorrow in California, according to the Associated Press.

As I sit at my keyboard listening to the pundits on television, McCain seems to have already won the nomination. They talk abotu his electibilty and the winner-take-all states that he's going to take on February 5th. We'll see if they're right...

Why John Edwards is Still a Serious Candidate

John Edwards lost in South Carolina. He's lost in all the primaries and caucuses so far. But the question becomes, how is that relevant?

It may not be. The simple truth is that the Democratic nominating process is being held by precinct and Congressional district this time around - not by state. True, all the precinct in a state may vote on the same day, but the relationship almost ends there in most states. John Edwards may have lost in South Carolina, but he still left the state with eight new delegates committed to vote for him on at least the first ballot in Denver when the party has its nominating convention.

At the moment, after events where delegates were awarded in four states, Barack Obama has acquired 63 delegates committed to him through the primary/caucus process. Hillary has 48 and Edwards has 26. That means that Obama has gotten 46% of the hard delegates who are required to vote for him in the first round of balloting. Hillary has gotten 35% and Edwards about 19%. How many delegates do they need? Two Thousand and Twenty-Five (2025)...

We're a long way off. It doesn’t look like Edwards can come in first. But it doesn't look like anyone can win. And that means that Edwards could end up as the compromise candidate on a second (or third) round of balloting at the convention. He could truly end up being the nominee based on the support of the "grown up wing " of the Democratic Party after all the blood is mopped up from the Clinton-Obama fight.

Of course, he's not along in that. After a first ballot in which no one achieves the magic number of 2025 votes, we could end up with Bill Richardson or Al Gore or Mark Warner or, well, use your imagination...

If Edwards withdraws and the race becomes a two-candidate race, either Hillary or Obama will most definitely win. Personally, I think both of those candidates have electibility issues in the general election. And they look determined to cripple each other before the Democratic Convention.

Let's hope Edwards hangs on until Denver.

Some Thoughts on the Race Before the GOP Vote in Florida and the Dems in SC

First let's talk about Rudy. I saw a story early in the week on a Giuliani meet and greet gone bad. Ron Paul's people have been after Giuliani since at least July, when he was booed over his tax statements at a town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida.

Giuliani showed up at TooJay's Original Gourmet Deli in Palm Beach Gardens on Tuesday. Ron Paul supporters held up signs that made TV footage of Giuliani look like an ad for candidate Paul. Then when Rudy tried to take questions, the Ron Paul supporters started to chant "Ron Paul! Ron Paul!" It was so loud, according to the Associated Press, that "no one cold think, much less speak."

Could things get worse? Always, of course. Abortion protestor showed up. Giuliani has the most pro-choice position and history of any of the GOP candidates. Rudy gave up and left...

The NY Times endorsed McCain this week. The Times felt compelled to explain why it had not back Giuliani:

Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? ... What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?

That man is not running for president.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking....

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Ouch!If you're a Giuliani supporter, that's gotta hurt a little...

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I saw bits and pieces of the GOP debate last night. Huckabee was asked a question about cutting taxes and made some interesting remarks on China....

Huckabee blew his own horn for a few moments about how great a governor of Arkansas he was on taxes. Then he changed the subject and discussed his perspective on the concerns of average Americans over the economy.

"...frankly, in talking about the stimulus package, one of the concerns that I have is that we'll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese. And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that's been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package."

Huckabee suggested that a public works project to strengthen America's infrastructure would be money better spent. Of course, it wouldn't be spent as quickly (the point of a stimulus package).

"I'd like to suggest that maybe we add two lanes of highway from Bangor all the way to Miami on I-95. A third of the United States population lives within 100 miles of that... This nation's infrastructure is falling apart. And if we built those lanes of highways -- with American labor, American steel, American concrete -- I believe it would do more to stimulate the economy."

He called it "a long- term stimulus package that I think would have more impact on the American long-term future."

Huckabee's China statement sounds like he thinks there's something wrong with stimulating China's economy. If we manage to stimulate our own economy (which seems to be the goal) why do we care if someone else's economy happens to benefit, too, as a side effect? Globalization has made it hard to isolate the American economy from other economies, and I'm not sure why we want to.

As for borrowing money from China, China held $386 billion worth of US Treasury bonds in November (the last month for which figures are available); that's down from a high of about $420 billion in March of 2007. It's about 16% of our Treasury Bond debt held by other countries. So borrowing money (by selling Treasury Bond) is basically the way the Bush Administration is paying for things. Why should this be different?

Later Sen. McCain was asked a question about the economy. McCain said this:

We will clean up our act and we will regain the confidence of the American people as being careful stewards of our tax dollars, and we will fix this problem with having to borrow money from China, because then we will balance our budget...

What puzzles me is why no one mentions Japan. China may hold 16% of our Treasury Bonds, but Japan holds 25%. We owe Japan $194 billion more when those bonds come due than we owe China. Doesn't that make Japan the real problem?

The China discussion went on. Romney called China tough competition: "They're going to be a much tougher competition, China is, competitor, than we have seen from Europe in a long time."

Giuliani said that China was both an opportunity and a warning, but mostly an opportunity: "I think we have to look at the rise of China as a wonderful opportunity. I see 20 (million) or 30 million people coming out of poverty in China every year. To me, that's 20 (million) or 30 million more customers for the United States." Giuliani seemed to have the most developed and thought out policy on China. And the most positive.

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On the Democratic side, John Edwards came out of the Democratic Debate in SC with a new constituency. He now leads "the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party," according to one news source. Clinton and Obama, in other words, acted like children...

Alaska's former senator, Mike Gravel, has returned to the campaign trail after beating something like the flu. Of the nine candidates still running in the two major parties, he's the only remaining candidate without at least a couple of delegates committed to him. Gravel has been out of the Senate since 1981 and now lives in Virginia. Senator Gravel is campaigning in Florida and doing his best to get Bush and Cheney impeached in his spare time.

Kucinich Drops Out

Dennis Kucinich has dropped out of the presidential race and will instead focus on keeping his Congressional seat for Ohio. A six-term incumbent in the House, Kucinich has four challengers lined up to try and beat him out of his own party's nomination for that Congressional seat this year. He has less than six weeks before Ohio's March 4th Democratic primary...

Kucinich was never in danger of becoming the Democratic nominee for President. My guess is that many people doubts about his personality were reinforced when he admitted during one of the debates that he'd seen UFO's.

McCain Wins South Carolina (And Conservatives Still Don't Have a Candidate)

The voters in today's GOP Primary in South Carolina could be divided up into four many demographic groups: there were Moderates, there were Conservatives, there were Evangelical Christians, and there were Retirees. About a quarter of the voters were moderates, according to exit poll data, and John McCain garnered two-thirds of their votes.

That means that of the 33% of primary voters who went for McCain, about half called themselves moderates. Older voters, according to the Associated Press, also tended to cast their ballots for McCain.

But the majority of South Carolina's GOP voters described themselves today as either Conservatives or Evangelical Christians (most of whom qualify as Conservatives, as well).

So why did the most moderate of the GOP's candidates win South Carolina? Simple: Conservatives still don't have a favorite son. They split their vote four (or maybe five) ways and diluted their power as a voting block.

You might say that Conservatives are more concerned today about their differences these days than about their similarities. Evangelical Christians are looking for a candidate with a faith based message and they think they've found on in Mike Huckabee. He carried the Evangelical vote for the most part. But the Fiscal Conservatives who are more concerned with financial policy than religion don't much like Huckabee because they question his record on taxation and spending during his tenure as governor of Arkansas. Those voters split their ballots between Romney and Thompson. And while Evangelical voters might be willing to accept Thompson as a candidate, they have a problem with Romney's Mormon religion. Romney has failed in his bid to attract the support of Evangelical voters.

Perhaps the most important factor in the South Carolina GOP Primary was McCain's ability to draw some voters from every camp. He gained a degree of acceptance among both Evangelicals and Fiscal Conservatives.

It is worth noting that Mike Huckabee is the darling of the misnamed "Fair Tax" crowd at the moment. The only other candidate that supports that proposal in Ron Paul. And if Ron Paul's people had voted for Huckabee, their four percent of the vote would have made Huckabee the winner. That's assuming a lot, I know. If bullfrogs had wings...

Ron Paul finished fifth in the race. And Giuliani came in a distant seventh.

After South Carolina: Fred Thompson Stays In

Fred Thompson said he needed to finish at least second in today's South Carolina GOP Primary to say viable. He finished third, with only about half the votes of second place Mike Huckabee. In the Nevada Caucus today Thompson finished fifth, about 100 votes behind Huckabee.

Just the same, Thompson say, well gosh, he reckons he'll say around a while longer... The question is, why? And how long will that while be?

Thompson entered the race late with high expectations that he would be met by adoring crowds who would sweep him to victory. The crowds never showed up, proving that politics is at least as much about work as it is about personality. He lags nationally behind Romney, McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani - all of whom were out shaking hands and asking for votes long before Thompson tossed his hat into the ring.

In South Carolina Thompson was something of a spoiler, dividing Conservatives and Evangelical Christians today who might otherwise have mostly voted for Huckabee or Romney. John McCain, who won in South Carolina, would be glad to see Thompson keep doing that at least through the February 5th Super Tuesday ballots.

If Thompson hopes to eventually play the role of either spoiler or kingmaker, it is unclear who would get his support at the Republican National Convention. A tone of bitterness is developing between the Thompson and Huckabee camps as the two groups compete for the title of "Most Strongly Against Abortion." And Thompson disagrees with McCain on important issues like immigration.

For now he's making speeches that could be taken to mean he's staying in, or that he's putting his house in order before he drops out.

Perhaps Thompson would make Romney a good vice presidential candidate to increase the Boston Mormon's appeal in the south during the general election. But there are a lot of delegates left to county before it comes to that.

In the mean time, Thompson is beginning to smell like a Thanksgiving turkey that's been left in the oven too long...

After Nevada: Duncan Hunter Drops Out

California Congressman Duncan Hunter was counting on doing well in the West. Today he finished seventh in Nevada, and the congressman has decided that Rudy Giuliani is going to have to find someone else to keep the NYC Mayor and former GOP frontrunner from being last in state primaries and caucus events.

Hunter's message voters during the campaign has been straitforward, but almost monotone. He harped on the immigration issue at the expense of most other issues. He also tried to appeal to military voters; Hunter is a Vietnam era veteran.

Hunter's campaign spokesperson blamed the media for Hunter's withdrawal from the race, comparing media coverage to the hit TV show "Survivor" and saying that Hunter had been voted off the island...

He plans to return to Congress and work on immigration policy, he said.

The Issues: Taxation

It occurred to me recently to try and articulate what I think the major issues are in the current Presidential election., Over the next few weeks I hope to write short pieces on what the issues are (for me) and how I feel about those issues. At the moment I can think of four. They are (in no particular order): taxation, the war, education, and health care.

American stand, I think, at a crossroads in terms of the nature and philosophy of taxation. It's not a very sexy issue. It is an issue primarily because a group on the far right of the political spectrum wants to do away with income tax and replace it with a "fair tax" that would charge everyone a flat rate in the form of a sales tax at the cash register.

The "Fair Tax." Genius. That's a better name than No Child Left Behind. Someplace along the way, Conservatives have learned that if you give an idea a really good name you're more likely to be able to make it a law. But I digress...

There are a bunch of things wrong with the "fair tax," as I see it. The most important is that it is a ploy, a disguised effort to control government spending by reducing revenue. I say that because the analysts that I've looked at all seem to agree that the proposal in Congress now would drastically reduce federal revenue. The result of that would be either a) a world in which Congress cut existing programs willy-nilly because it simply could no longer pay for them or b) the Reagan deficit, multiplied several fold. I would bet on "b," but neither is a pretty choice.

I'm not going to dignify this proposal by calling it a "fair tax" again; for several reasons, it's not fair. So we'll refer to it from here on as the sales tax proposal.

The reason the sales tax people have gotten as much traction as they have is simple: the tax system in America is complicated, convoluted, and seems to facilitate tax avoidance for the rich. Ron Paul is in favor of this proposal; Ron Paul is a fruitcake from outer space. But Mike Huckabee is also in favor of it; he uses it ironically to promote his image as a populist.

I found this definition of populism at Answers.com: "A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite." Call it part of being an enigma for candidate Huckabee: a Baptist preacher in a rock & roll band, the Republican populist...

The sales tax proposal is a bad idea because it makes taxation voluntary to the extent and degree that you can live on less than you make. Those in then upper class who make obscene amounts of money and squirrel much of it away for a rainy day (or a trip to the Italian Riviera) don't pay taxes on much of it - they get away with not paying their fair share. It also means that middle class Americans who live beyond their means by making purchase on credit cards can conceivably make pay more than their fair share in a give year; if they make $70,000 and spend $85,000 they pay taxes on the $85,000 they spent.

In addition to reducing the flow of revenue into the federal government (the real agenda for the sales tax, in my view), the result of the above situation will be that the burden for paying for government will be shift more onto the middle class. That makes the use of this tax to promote an image of populism truly ironic.

Of course, rejecting the sales tax proposal doesn't solve the problem. The truth is that taxation in America is broken and does need to be fixed. And spending in America really is a problem. The question is one of who can come up with proposals to fix the current system. John Edwards (a populist and a Democrat) and a few others have suggested closing loopholes and addressing some specific aspects of the tax code. Why should someone who makes their money in the stock market pay a lower rate in capital gains tax on their 1040 than a teacher, nurse or secretary pays on their salary? Why should the average Joe pay the payroll tax on almost every penny he makes while the CEO of some company pays it only on the first $62,700 and is off the hook for the rest of his $400,000 annual salary?

Fix the loopholes and the system produces more revenue and seems more fair. If the system produced more revenue, the actual rates might could be reasonably reduced.

The purpose for taxation and the manner in which Americans are taxed - these are among the most important issues on the table this election. And I don't think most Americans realize that...

The Rise of the Superdelegate

Tim Kaine is a superdelegate. So are Jim Doyle and Janet Napolitano. When the Democratic National Conventions starts on August 25, 2008 in Denver, the three of them will get to vote for who the party's nominee for President should be. But it won't be because of the results of a primary of caucus in their state.

These three (and many others) get to serve as superdelegates at the contention because of some elected office or party post they hold. In their cases, they are superdelegates because they are state governors and Democrats. Kaine is the governor of Virginia, Doyle is the governor of Wisconsin, and Napolitano is the governor Arizona. All three have endorsed Barach Obama to be the party's nominee, but they are technically under no obligation to vote for him...

There will be 792 superdelegates at the convention in Denver. The convention will have a total of 4,040 delegates (including the superdelegates). Primaries and caucuses will send 3,248 delegates to the convention. That's a little more than 80%. To win the nomination a candidate must get 2,025 delegates. So in theory, a candidate could win the nomination with only 38% of the elected delegates from primaries and caucuses if they managed to get all the superdelegates to vote for them.

The status of delegates from Michigan and Florida is currently in doubt. Without including superdelegates from those states, Hillary has 158 superdelegates who have voiced an interest in voting for her. Obama has 71, Edwards 27, and 514 superdelegates have not yet said who they might vote for at the convention in August.

You can find a list of the superdelegates here...

Giant Sucking Sound Heard Across Midwest as Romney Campaign Is Resuscitated

Residents of surrounding states heard a loud sucking sound at a little after 8pm local time tonight coming out of Michigan. That was about the time that major news sources predicted the winners in the Michigan Presidential Primaries - and the sound was Mitt Romney's campaign breathing life back into its almost dead body. The sound was actually heard (faintly) as far away as South Carolina and even created gentle breezes in places like California and Florida.

Okay, I'm being a tad sarcastic I suppose. But Michigan was a "must win" for Romney. And his win does little more than further muddy the question of just who the GOP frontrunner is. For the next 24 hours, I guess the frontrunner is Mitt Romney. But the question on everyone's lips since the race started seems to be, Where'd the "mo" go?

Momentum, the big MO, seems to disappear quickly in this GOP race. Mike Huckabee seems to have more of it than any other candidate. He went from "Mike who?" at Thanksgiving to the Iowa Caucus winner in January. The momentum of that win has placed him a respectable third in New Hampshire and now Michigan - states he wasn't expected to do well in. Next up is South Carolina, a state where Huckabee and Romney will compete for the Conservative Christian vote the way they did in Iowa. When we woke up this morning, Rasmussen Reports had McCain leading in South Carolina; that lead was built in part on momentum from the New Hampshire win and McCain's numbers will now go down. Huckabee, Romney, and Fred Thompson were all competing for second spot - separated by 3 percentage points in the survey. If Fred Thompson pulls out a win (or even a second place), the GOP race will go from a three man to a four man field of frontrunners - five if you count Giuliani, which I don't at the moment...

So let's talk about Giuliani. But what's to say? He finished sixth in Iowa and Michigan, fourth in Wyoming and New Hampshire. A poll yesterday said that McCain was leading in Florida (they like old people there), but that statistically it was a four way tie between McCain, Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee. If Thompson were to win South Carolina, Florida would become a five way tie...

NPR had a cute story about a sand sculpture in Myrtle Beach, SC. Six GOP candidates were sculpted in beach sand there. Duncan hunter must be irritated that his face was not included. With 83% of the Michigan vote counted, hunter got less than one percent of the vote in the GOP Primary there...

Richardson Drops Out; GOP Debate in SC

Amidst all the other things going on, I've neglected to mention that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson dropped his bid to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2008. Richardson placed fourth in the Iowa Caucus and in the New Hampshire Primary.

I liked want I knew of Richardson. Sorry to see him go...

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The GOP debate Thursday night was more animated than the early debates back last year. I learned that:

1.) John McCain thinks that some of the jobs that have left Michigan are gone forever. Mitt Romney thinks he's wrong. So what does that mean? McCain thinks we should help displaced workers retrain and that we're going to have to find new jobs (probably new types of jobs) to replace the ones that have moved or disappeared. Romney thinks we can get auto jobs and textile mill jobs back (that's what it sounds like to me).

2.) Fred Thompson wants to fight about who gets to claim the Reagan model. He called Mike Huckabee a very nasty name: liberal.

3.) Rudy Giuliani wants people to think that he has been as strong a supporter of the Iraq War as John McCain. John McCain says Giuliani's wrong.

4.) And Ron Paul is worried that the recent incident where the U.S. Navy was confronted by "aggressive Iranian speedboats" in the Strait of Hormuz could be used to justify expanding the war in the Gulf; he compared it to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964 that expanded the Vietnam War.

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So in case you've lost track, the Democratic Party has five candidates left: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel.

Hillary is the Democratic front runner. Or maybe Obama is, it's hard to tell. Edwards is still in it (for now). Kucinich is still irritating. And Mike Gravel's time off should end about next weekend.

Technically, there are eight Republicans still running for that party's nomination. In alphabetical order (by first name) they are: Alan Keyes, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, and Willard "Mitt" Romney.

Huckabee is the front runner; at least he was for a few minutes last week. Maybe McCain is now, but that depends on what state you're in and which poll you read.

Of course, we all know after New Hampshire how accurate polls are; Obama was supposed to win by 10% to 15% of the vote there and lost instead.

Romney wants to be the front runner; if he wins Michigan on Tuesday, he might be the front runner. And if he doesn't, he's toast. Giuliani thinks he's the front runner, but he hasn't actually run for anything yet - at least not in a state where delegates have been at stake already. Fred Thompson is not the front runner and probably will never be. Ron Paul is mostly a potential spoiler, but is still around. And Duncan Hunter is just Duncan Hunter.

There are other candidates. The Libertarian party has eight people trying to get their nomination. Ron Paul was on the ballot in 1988 (I think) as the Libertarian candidate and got one half of one percent of the national vote in the November election. The Green Party has five people looking for its nomination, including former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, from Georgia. The Constitution Party has three. The Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party both have named candidates already. The Unity08 Party is thinking about nominating NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And I found a list of 19 independents that are running - none of whom I've ever heard of.

And don't forget, Ralph Nader is still alive and out there somewhere...

The Scariest Candidate for President: Ron Paul

If you listen to National Public Radio like I do, you probably heard a lot this week about GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Among my favorite sound bites, there was the description of how jut a few weeks ago Huckabee was in a tight race with Margin of Error. Now he seems to have gotten the part in the Conservative play that Fred Thompson was trying out for.

No one really knows what he'd really stand for as President. He took a soft view of immigration as governor and is now promoting a hard line on the issue. He wants to cut taxes as President (don't they all?), but his GOP rivals want to make him out to be a tax-and-spend liberal while governor. And then there's religion...

As tempting as it is to talk about Huckabee at the moment, the most frightening candidate on the campaign trail today is not Mike Huckabee. Its GOP candidate Ron Paul. His political positions are both extreme and dichotomous:

• He would overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for states to outlaw abortion.
  
• He would abolish the U.S. Department of Education (along with a large number of other federal agencies).
  
• He would work to legalize marijuana.
  
• He would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq (the only GOP candidate to make that claim).
  
• He would do away with Medicare and Medicaid.
  
• He would have America withdraw from both the United Nations and NATO.

His positions are dichotomous to such an extent that it would easy to call him schizophrenic. But that's not really true. He may draw from both the far left and far right, but he holds his positions with unwavering consistency.

Who is Ron Paul? Think of Barry Goldwater having a child with Frank Zappa: that's Ron Paul.

The 10-term Texas Congressman and obstetrician has been on the November ballot for President once before. He beat Zappa for the Libertarian Party's nomination in 1988.

The guiding principal of Ron Paul's political philosophy is simple. If the U.S. Constitution doesn't expressly grant the federal government the right or responsibility to dabble in something, then it should get out.

That philosophy has earned him the nickname "Dr. No" because he casts a no vote on almost so many issues, like appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. He voted "no" on the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007. He voted "no" on implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. You get the idea...

Paul has been criticized (perhaps ridiculed would be a better word) for his position on the economy and on monetary policy. In his view, the government shouldn't be involved in either. Ron Paul would close the Federal Reserve. Most other countries (and all of our main competitors in the world market) would have central banks that could manipulate their currencies and set monetary policies; America would not.

Ron Paul's position on taxation is not unique to him. But he would close the IRS, eliminate income taxes for individuals and corporations, and create a federal sales tax that (to start) would be about 23%. A recent NPR story on Huckabee examines some of the flaws of that "fair tax" plan. Their conclusion was that the poor in America would be a little better off under the plan (provided the "pre-bate" provision of the plan actually worked), but that the rich would be much better off and the big losers would be America's middle class.

So picture an America where much of the work of the federal government simply stopped. Welfare, education, health laws, etc. would differ greatly from one state to the next and the federal government would have almost no power. No one could whine about FEMA doing a bad job after the next hurricane because FEMA wouldn't come at all. And while it might be legal to smoke marijuana to relieve the pain associated with your chemotherapy, Medicare wouldn't pay for it (or anything else) because Medicare wouldn't exist.

Not yet convinced that Ron Paul is the most frightening candidate? Go back 35 years and consider what the 1970's might have been like if Paul's suggestions now on NATO had been followed then. My bet is that we'd all be speaking Russian today, or at least trying to learn it so that we could get a job in our own country...

Romney, Religion, and the Speech

If you follow the presidential election campaign it would be hard not to know that Mitt Romney gave a speech today about religion. It would be almost as hard not to know that John F. Kennedy gave a (some would say) similar speech on September 12, 1960. You probably know that they both gave their speech in Texas.

Why Texas? The Romney campaign is trying to win Iowa. So why not give the speech in Iowa. My guess is that Texas was chosen as a way of increasing the number of parallels that could be drawn between the two Massachusetts politicians, Romney and Kennedy.

Both men are from the same state. Except that Kennedy was born and raised in Massachusetts and Romney is from Michigan and moved to Massachusetts at the age of 24 to attend Harvard. If Harvard had been in Providence, Romney might have ended up as governor of Rhode Island.

Both men ran for president. The candidacy of both men faced or faces opposition because of their religion. Both men gave a speech about religion, in Texas.

The parallels end there. However much Romney would like to acquire some sort of "glory by association" from President Kennedy on this issue, Mitt did not give the Kennedy speech - not by a long shot...

As a small example, take this quote from the John F. Kennedy's speech:

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind...

Romney seems to agree with the pragmatic issue of the Kennedy speech. Romeny said this: "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith." But compare Kennedy's larger vision to Romney's speech:

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator...

As Romney's philosophy on the relationship between religion and government is fleshed out he makes the statement that "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." For Kennedy, we are free and we have religion; the two do not need to be connected. For Romney, it seems as though we are free because we have religion and we keep our religion because we are free. Many in the Republican Party would agree with him.

The most insightful quote from Romney's speech is this: "It's important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions." Emphasis added. Romney is talking to churches and their members; he is trying to associate himself with the Religious Right by reassuring them that he shares their values even if their theologies differ on minor details (like the incarnation or the nature of God.)

Kennedy sought to decrease the influence of religion in politics; Romney wants to promote it. It's just that, with the people who are already doing that Mitt has to convince them that he's one of them. I doubt he accomplished that.

Mitt Romney did prove a couple of things today. He proved he can give a great speech. And he proved that he is not JFK.