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...

Brian Martin Tells Crowd, Iraq Vet to Freeze (GOP Mass Meeting Looks Like a Fiasco)

A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video last night. In the video Pat Wade (papers in her arms), a local GOP functionary, is speaking to a group of people outside the site of the recent GOP Mass Meeting here in Tazewell County. Brian Martin (grey jacket, hands in pockets), a former member of the Tazewell County Electoral Board, seems to be serving as something like her unofficial sergeant at arms while she calls out the names of individuals who have been declared qualified to enter the meeting. Then she explains to a crowd that they are being excluded and will not be allowed back in the building.

Before I go on, let's watch the first of two videos...



I feel a little empathy for Ms. Wade. I was on the Credentials Committee at the Democratic Party's Mass Meeting last fall when dozens of unexpected people showed up to support Spot Steele's effort to knock Bill Rasnick out of the nomination for the Board of Supervisors here in Tazewell County. It took an hour longer than normal to process all the paper work. When we locked the doors at 7pm, over a hundred people were still in line. Many of the people were completely new to the political process and unprepared for the time involved with such a process. We coped. We were polite, maybe even professional (I might be biased). So I have some empathy for Ms. Wade. Just a little, though...

The gentleman asking questions appears to be Richlands attorney Shea Cook. After you know that, the dialogue becomes more ironic. Shea was once the GOP nominee for Commonwealth Attorney here in Tazewell County and for the Virginia House of Delegates, I think. He just recently returned from a stint with the Army in Iraq. Now they won't even let the poor guy into the building for a party meeting. What's up with that? (Maybe he got in to speak later, but I doubt it. And this would be a good time for me to point out that I wasn't there; I just know what I've seen on the YouTube videos.)

My guess is that the organizational meltdown started early. People seem to have been let into the meeting area ahead of time; they picked seats and threw their coats on them - never dreaming they'd eventually be locked out of the meeting. There seems to be questions about the public notice process; an attorney (Cook) is asking the questions and they don't get answered in either of the videos.

My favorite part of the whole thing, though, is Brian Martin at the end of the first video. Cook asks if the people being excluded will be allowed to at least gather their possession back up that they left inside...

Cook: Are we going to be afforded the opportunity to get our coat or are we going to sit out here and freeze.
Martin: I believe that ya'll are not sitting delegates. I'm sorry.
Cook: Well, are we going to be permitted to come back in and get our coats?
Martin: Nope. You should have brought 'em out.

The crowd begins to cackle. And to my ears Brian Martin didn't sound too sincere when he said he was sorry that Shea Cook and the others weren't sitting delegates. He even seems willing to let them freeze to death. But what do I know...

Eventually, Pat Wade comes back out to explain to the crowd why their paperwork was rejected. We learn that she doesn't take heckling well.



One of the people present was Jim Talbert of Clinch Valley News fame. Since he seems to be taking notes in a fast and furious manner, it will be interesting to read his coverage of the event and compare it to the videos.

In any event, I think the county's Democrats can look back on their party's mass meeting the past fall with a little more pride. It was hectic and tense, but we handled it. There's also someone (the loser) who doesn't like the outcome. But almost everyone got to participate. By contrast, the GOP seems to have had a meltdown over much the same situation. Pat Wade's responses in dealing with the general public there don't make her look much like a public servant. And Brian Martin comes across as, well, snide.

Red Virginia has a news story on the scandal and claims that only 27 the 137 people who showed up were allowed into the meeting. Makes you wonder about the rumor that GOP members in Tazewell County eat their young...

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.

---

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.

---

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...

---

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...

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.

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...

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.

How Metaphors Make for Oversimplification (and Bad Propaganda)

I got an entertaining email the other day. It was a political story, a metaphor that was intended to give me a new way to think about why Republicans are right in their approach to taxes and money and why Democrats are wrong about those things.

Father/Daughter Talk A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of 'the redistribution of wealth.' She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying. Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.' Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.' The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!' The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the Republican party.'

In the box to the right is a copy of an email. It's making the rounds, posted on a few blogs. And there are problems with it...

The story equates academic achievement at college with people's financial place in life. You have the daughter who has a 4.0 GPA because she works hard; and you have Audrey, who is on the verge of flunking out because she "played" instead of working.

If the message was about college I'd have no problem saying that at the college level you should get the grades you earn. I'd have no problem agreeing that you have to work for your grades. I have three degrees and what amounts to about 11 years of college. But the message isn't about college; it's about wealth...

The idea that all wealth is the result of hard work on the part of the wealthy is ludicrous. The majority of truly wealthy people are born wealthy. I remember a quote from the era of the senior president Bush; someone said that George Bush thought he'd hit a triple when in fact he was born on third base. Wealth is largely inherited.

The corollary assumption of this little email tidbit is also flawed. If grades in the story are supposed to make us think of money in real life, we're suppose to draw the conclusion that people are poor because they "play" too much. Poverty comes from being lazy and immoral. But I teach at a school where more than nine out of ten kids qualify, technically, as "poor." And in kindergarten, I don't think it's their fault. I work in a county where 56% of the adults between 18 and 65 don't have jobs. Maybe a few dozen of them could run out and get jobs tomorrow; they haven't because, well, they're lazy and immoral. But there's no way that all of them could find jobs this week, or this year, without leaving the place where generations of their family has lived. And because they don't have jobs, they don't really have the resources to just up and move, anyway.

The truth is that poverty, like wealth, is more or less heredity. Grades in college might have to be earned, but poverty is something you get free from your mom and dad...

There are additional flaws in the story. It talks about redistribution of wealth as though that is an end in itself in the Democratic Party. I'm a pretty active Democrat. And I don't think redistribution of wealth is really the goal any more. I'm not sure it has been for a long while now. I think the goal now is redistribution of opportunity. Heck, it's probably not even a case of redistributing opportunities. We don't want to take anyone's opportunities away, no matter how rich they are; we want to expand the opportunities that are out there and make them more available to people who haven't had opportunities in the past.

There's some misdirection in the story, as well. I have daughters. Sometimes they believe things that are wrong - and think I'm stupid. I know how that feels. This story wants you to think of that feeling (it happens to all parents), and to feel something about Democrats instead of thinking about the arguments.

The email talks about "fairness." I've never heard that term adequately defined. But I pay seven and some odd percent of every penny I make to the payroll tax. Many rich people don't. How is that fair? I'd like to make life fair by having people who make several million dollars a year pay that same seven and some odd percent of their income to payroll tax to help support the social security system. If I pay seven percent or so, why shouldn't they? But Republicans scream and moan and call me a communist when I talk about it.

Since we're talking about fairness, let me ask this question. My wife and I pay 28 percent or so in taxes on our relatively piddly income as educators. My sister and my sister-in-law, both registered nurses, pay about the same I suspect. And yet someone who makes most of their income by trusting a stockbroker to invest their money for them pays a lower rate and calls it capital gains tax. How is that fair? I get up and leave the house at 7am, spend the day trying to figure out new ways to get fourth and fifth graders who live in poverty to actually understand what they read, go home a worry about lesson plans and such, and pay 28% while the guy who writes his stockbroker a check and then goes home to watch TV pays a lowewr rate. I can't see how that's fair. I've heard people argue about how it's somehow "good" for society. But it's still not fair.

I'd like to live in a society where kids don't go hungry, even if their parents as drug addicts. I'd like to live in a society where kids can go to college even if their parents can't read. I'd like to live in a society where military veterans with PTSD don't end up homeless. And (call me a communist) I'd like to live in a society where anyone can afford to see a doctor (and take their kids to the doctor) whether they have a job or not.

So anyway, spliting your grades with someone isn't the same thing as paying your taxes. And it was a Republican named Oliver Wendall Homes who said that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.

A Safer World: Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore Drops Out of the Presidential Race

The world is a safer place today: Former Virginia Governor James Stuart "Jim" Gilmore III ended his bid to become the forty-fourth president of the United States.

In a statement, Gilmore blamed his campaign's failure on the move to earlier primaries in some may major states like New York and California. But the Associated Press reported that Gilmore was down to only $90,000 in his campaign war chest. With more than five months before the first primary, Gilmore's campaign was simply unable to raise money.

Gilmore was governor of Virginia from 1998 to 2002. He was elected on a tax relief promise that ultimately amounted to a bait-and-switch ploy. He promised to eliminate the car tax in Virginia, and he succeeded in reducing it drastically before the end of his term. While reducing the car tax was the "bait," the "switch" occurred when his administration failed to replace those funds (as he'd promised) in local government coffers. Almost every penny collected in car tax revenue went to county and city governments, not the Commonwealth's purse in Richmond.

Gilmore's election strategy had been based on the hope that he world be recognized as one of the GOP's true conservatives - and anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-gay, pro-gun lobby, fiscally conservative candidate who wanted to shift more of the cost of public education on to local governments during his term as governor.

"I didn't run some place and pretend I was a liberal and run someplace else as a conservative. I just didn't do that," Gilmore once said. He was fond of comparing his political life to Ronald Reagan.

Jim Gilmore: the first of the major GOP candidates to drop. Good damn riddance!

Rudy Giuliani Gets Booed on Taxes

On Saturday, GOP Presidential hopefully Rudy Giuliani was in Florida where we served as Grand Marshall for NASCAR's Pepsi 400 in Daytona. Before the race he attended a town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, where about 500 people listened to him answer questions for half and hour or so. One of his answers brought jeers and boos from some people in the crowd. Giuliani was asked if he would support a flat tax proposal (proponents are using the euphemism "fair tax").

Giuliani said "no." People in the crowd (a couple of dozen or so of them, at least) made those same nasty noises in response to Giuliani's answer that many race fans make during driver introductions when Jeff Gordon gets introduced.

I found it interesting that, in a crowd of 500 people, only 25 to 50 of them vocalized negative feelings about his answer. That means that only five or ten percent of the people there felt strongly about the "flat tax" question. I also found it interesting that the Associated Press headlined a story based on the incident; but they did. Go figure...

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If you're looking for something to think about that will make your head hurt, try taxes. The issue is complicated beyond words. There's no sense discussing it much with someone unless you have at least a vague level of agreement with them about what governments should do -- by which I mean the sorts of things a governments should dabble in more than exactly which course of action governments should take on something. After all, taxation is how government pays for what it does.

Most people don't have a firm grip on the number of different governments and taxes there are that have some effect on their daily lives. If you live in a town in Virginia you almost definitely pay taxes to the town (even if you don't own property), taxes to the county the town is in, taxes to the Commonwealth of Virginia, and taxes to the Federal government. Among my favorites is the prepared food tax that most Virginia local governments charge when you buy cooked food; that tax adds an additional five or six percent to the price of your hamburger at a Wendy's or Shoney's and that money stays with the locality where the restaurant is located.

If you live in some other state, there's a good chance your county taxes you twice - once through your county commission and once through your school board. In Virginia school boards don't have that power.

I looked up the term "flat tax" online and found that not everyone agrees what a flat tax even is. On the one hand, a flat tax is technically a tax where everyone pays the same amount - like the $10 tax I pay to put a county sticker on the windshield of my car. Poor or rich, whether it's for your 30 year old Pinto or your Dodge Viper, ten bucks is what it costs. But most people mean a flat rate or percentage when they talk about a flat tax - everyone would pay something different because they earned (or spent) a different amount.

Of course, we haven't talked about what to tax yet. Some flat taxers want to tax income, some want to tax only earned income, and some what to tax spending (instead of income). That last proposal is what people mean most of the time what they talk about the so-called "fair tax." They want a national sales tax of some sort to replace income tax in America.

I've always struggled with the definition of the word "fair." I can't give you a definition of that term that satisfies me. Most people think of everyone being treated the same.

We don't treat all kids the same at the school where I work:

• Some of them we make pay for their lunch; others we give lunch to for free.
  
• Most have to take their math tests in silence and have half an hour; a few, though, get 45 minutes and some help reading the test.
  
• Some students at my school we make read their books without any sort of devices to help them; others we let wear glasses.

What's "fair" mean?

The "fair tax" proposal is attributed in large part to radio personality Neal Boortz, promoted by the organization Americans for Fair Taxation, and embodied in a bill in committee in the U.S. House of Representatives called H.R. 25.

Common question number one is how a flat tax is fair to the poor (since they have less of an ability to pay)? Not to worry; the poor will go into the grocery store and pay the new 23% sales tax on milk and bread (just like everyone else), but then they'll get a check from the government called a "prebate" to compensate them for money they spend on basic necessities (just like everyone else).

Like the old (current) tax system, there's no effort to allow for the fact that the cost of basic necessities is different in Los Angeles than it is in, say, Newberry, South Carolina. Still, proponents say the "fair tax" is "progressive." I don't know how that's "fair," but I'm not sure what they mean by the word.

One minor detail that bothers me some about the proposal that Americans for Fair Taxation has online is simple. Right now poor people don't have to do any paperwork to escape income tax. If their income is less than the amount of their deduction and exemptions, they don't have to file. Under the proposal I looked at online, poor people would have to file paperwork to get their tax rebate - they'd have to fill out a new form to get back money the government shouldn't have taken. The amount of paperwork rich people have to do would decline sharply and the amount of paperwork poor people (who generally have less education) have to do would go up. That strikes me as being less than progressive; my experience with poor people leads me to suspect that many would miss out because they wouldn’t do the paperwork.

I do know this: poor people (and many in the lower half of the middle class) generally spend every penny they get just to make it from month to month. Rich people don't have that problem. So under the new "fair tax," a couple in their thirties raising two point four children in the burbs will pay taxes on almost every penny they make just because they spend it while the doctors and lawyers in more affluent neighborhoods, even if they pay more in actually taxes, could get by with paying tax on half or less of their income. Then when you look at the government's money and you talk about what portion of it came from the wealthy and what part of it came from the average American who's just try to make ends meet while they raise their kids, you'd find that the "fair tax" reduced the percentage of the Federal budget that was paid for by the more well to do. Rich people will be happy about that.

I'll ask rhetorically, "how is that fair?" And I expect that someone will explain it to me whether the question is intended to be rhetorical or not...

The GOP Debates

I'm a Democrat. I haven't always been. But 10 years or so ago I became active in local politics and joined the Democratic Party because I found it best fit my values and world view.

The quote of the night probably came out of Giuliani's mouth a few minutes ago: "Neither party has a monopoly or either virtue or vice." Until recently that was an amazing revelation for many Republicans.

My least favorite GOP candidate? So far it's Jim Gilmore. He should be in jail for the way he raped local government in Virginia during his tenure as governor. His "No More Car Tax" campaign took pretty much every penny of tax savings out of local government coffers instead of state accounts. For Arlington and Alexandria, maybe they coped alright. But in rural Virginia Gilmore is occasionally burnt in effigy. And rightfully so...