:: Bee Blogger ::

:: Sunday, March 23, 2003 ::

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Editorial: Paying for tax cuts " . . . If you've been wondering who would pay for the big new tax cuts for the rich that President Bush is pushing, wonder no more. The Republican budget writers in Congress have started to supply the answers: Poor children, veterans, the elderly and any middle-age person counting on Social Security and Medicare when he or she retires will pick up this bill. . . . "
Truth vs the Bee

• I have not 'been wondering who would pay for tax cuts'. The premise is absurd. Try to follow the twisted logic that the IRS and liberals use to argue that no one should ever have their taxes cut:
  
  • The government is owed the maximum possible tax that can be calculated. (most people would argue the opposite - they are owed the minimum)
  • 
    The amount less than the maximum is called a tax expenditure, as if the government is 'spending' money they haven't collected, and to which, under their own rules, they are not entitled. ( a fish expenditure would mean eating the fish you never caught)
  • 
    The amount less than the maximum possible tax has to be made up by other taxpayers who weren't able to avoid paying the maximum. In other words, taxpayers as a whole owe whatever the government spends. .
    
  
  This rationale illustrates the disconnected, special world in which tax collectors and leftists live. What if a company counted as assets the difference between the list price and the discounted price? Their accountants would go to jail, as should most congressmen. Taxpayers do not owe whatver the government spends. The government is not entitled to spend any more than they collect. If they do, it's not the taxpayer's responsibility. It's the government's responsibility. And the government will simply print more money to make up the difference.
  
  The fact is that the freeloaders will never notice anything different if taxes are cut, because


• No cuts in spending will occur. Future increases just won't be as big as the liberals want.
• Liberals call any reduction in spending growth a "cut". They assume that taxes and spending should always increase and that taxes are always too low until taxes reach over 100%
• The proposed tax cuts impose hardship on no one. Not one tax eater will have a penny cut from whatever handouts they are currently getting
• Wealth transfer is not a legitimate function of government. The recipients of wealth transfers are not entitled to the money. They should be grateful they get anything, and they should be happy to see taxpayers get tax cuts - because that is where true prosperity is generated.

If the liberals are truly concerned about "the poor", they are free to open their wallets and write additional checks to the government to make up for the supposed "cuts". Don't hold your breath.


:: doctorfixit 8:56 AM [+] ::
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Speaking for party, Matsui blasts Bush's tax-cut plan
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Sunday, March 16, 2003
"WASHINGTON -- Sacramento Rep. Robert Matsui, delivering the Democratic Party's weekly radio address Saturday, blasted away at "reckless Republican tax cuts" as the Bush administration's only answer to "a steady stream of bad economic news."
Matsui's five-minute address said the administration's proposed elimination of federal taxes on corporate dividends favors the rich and will bring little relief to average Americans . . .

"Picture an out-of-work dad trying to feed his family, or a working mom whose salary has remained flat even though the bills keep adding up," Matsui said. "Will a dividend tax break help these families? Of course not. And most economists agree that this plan won't stimulate the economy or help lift the stock market. But it will add to the national debt."

Matsui was selected by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to deliver the address, which was carried nationally over radio stations. Matsui is a senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and heads his caucus' fund-raising arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."

Reckless, schmeckless, I will take any tax cut, any time, for anyone. Out-of-work Dad might have been able to keep his job if the democrats hadn't taxed it out of existence. He might have kept the job before that if Matsui's NAFTA scheme hadn't exported it to China. Mom's paycheck stays flat because every time she gets a raise Matsui is there with a new tax that eats it up. The dems don't seem concerned about the national debt when they spend trillions of dollars paying for illegal alien terrorists on welfare. Yes, we should get rid of deficits - by cutting spending on social programs. Matsui is understandably frustrated that his party is out of power and he will probably leave office after 30 years without having a major new tax named after him.

:: doctorfixit 6:22 AM [+] ::
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True or False Quiz - World Events

• T/F - America is not responsible for the fate of Israel
  
• T/F - The Palestinians have been rejected by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.


• T/F - Muslim hatred of Israel is independent of the Palestinian conflict.


• T/F - Iraq is a direct threat to the existence of Israel.


• T/F - Powerful Jewish political influence in the United States is centered in the mass media, Hollywood,and large cities.


• T/F - The Muslims' most powerful animus against America is based on America's support of Israel.


• T/F - The Israeli/Palestinian conflict will never be settled until there is a clear and complete victory by one or the other.


• T/F - The Palestinian people have a legitimate claim to the land of Palestine.


• T/F - Israel is a political entity created by the British.


• T/F - The land of Israel/Palestine has been contested throughout history by many cultures.


• T/F - Israel has no strategic or other national security importance for the United States.


• T/F - America's survival may depend on its ability to extricate itself from the Israeli /Palestinian conflict.

:: doctorfixit 11:36 AM [+] ::
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Baby Butcher Boxer Fights For Partial Birth Abortions

Sen. Barbara (Baby Butcher) Boxer led the Senate fight to protect the "right to choose" to have babies' brains sucked out after the baby has been pulled almost all of the way out of the mother's body. For years Boxer has been the champion of the radical liberal program promoting infanticide. Statistics show that minority babies and female babies are most often the victims of infanticide by abortion. Female babies are murdered in the womb by parents who desire to have male babies, thus in practice abortion discriminates more against females. The ghoulish partial birth method is never medically necessary, and is not recognized even in the morally bankrupt medical profession as a legitimate medical procedure, but is always performed for the sake of convenience. Boxer has never sponsored any significant legislation in the Senate other than measures promoting infanticide.

:: doctorfixit 4:43 PM [+] ::
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The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Former President Carter warns against war on Iraq

The Associated Press
Published 4:28 a.m. PST Sunday, March 9, 2003
NEW YORK (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says a unilateral attack on Iraq would not meet his criteria of a "just war" and would violate "basic religious principles" and "respect for international law."

Jimmy Carter claims the mantle of religiosity to enumerate principles of a "just war" theory with the intent of showing that concluding the Gulf War is immoral. The problem with Carter's theory is that no war could ever be won under his conditions. Under his terms, "just war" is code for surrender and appeasement.

As we have seen in the Middle East, the failure to prosecute war to conclusion is unjust. It subjugates the people on both sides to unending strife. War is meant to be fought vigorously to a swift and clear conclusion that resolves the matter and allows the parties to resume in some manner afterwards. Even if the conclusion of war is the annhilation of one side, there is finality and life goes on. The kind of war that Carter envisions would be like an unending hostage crisis. In post feudal Europe the rules of war had evolved into an arcane sort of mating dance that resulted in situations where hardly anyone actually fought or was killed. The downside was that tensions and disagreements were never resolved, and Europe was in a perpetual state of war for centuries, until WWI . In WWI the combatants still played by the old rules, but the technology had evolved, with the resulting slaughter on an unimaginable scale. Pacifists interpreted this as reason for still more and stricter rules. The inevitable result is analogous to what happens when small forest fires are continually stamped out. Sooner or later a conflagration erupts that is impossible to control ,and the devastation is orders of magniture greater than had the natural process of small fires been allowed to do its work.

:: doctorfixit 3:03 PM [+] ::
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OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today
"Stupidity Watch
Anna Quindlen, the columnist who was too insufferable even for the New York Times, has this to say in Newsweek:

George W. Bush appears to be a man who takes slights seriously and responds pugnaciously, a guy who holds a grudge. "There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE," he said of Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks. Wyatt Earp in the White House. Quiet diplomacy does not appear to be his instinctive mode. "

She's my personal reason for un-subscribing Newsweak.

:: doctorfixit 4:49 AM [+] ::
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Steinberg's Wealth Transfer Schemes Continue - Bee Editorial page 4 March 03


"Affordable housing". "Smarth Growth". "Sprawl". These code words appear frequently in the Bee and are used to promote the liberal agenda - a relentless attack on private property, and a constant drive for more government intrusion in our lives. Steinberg and the Bee propose a simplistic, knee-jerk liberal solution - force developers to sell a percentage of their units at below-market prices. Who pays for this giveaway? The other buyers in the development are stuck paying more for their homes. For them, housing becomes less affordable. Plus, the forced addition of below-market housing lowers their market value. And they get to pay the costs of bureaucracy to administer all this.

Mr. Steinberg needs to spend a week in the South Bronx to learn what happens to cities where government programs distort the housing market. Simplistic wealth-transfer schemes will only make housing affordability worse for the people who pay taxes. They and their jobs will look for places where the government won't screw them over. Real housing affordability will result from increasing the supply of housing, reducing immigration, eliminating job-killing laws and regulations, and lowering taxes.

:: doctorfixit 12:48 PM [+] ::
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'Diversity' for thee, not me townhall.com
Thomas Sowell (back to story)
March 6, 2003

My favorite salesman in my favorite camera store in Palo Alto, California, happened to mention that he lives in the town of Tracy. That is about an hour and a half drive to work in rush hour traffic. Why was this man spending three hours a day on the highway? Because housing prices are so high in Palo Alto -- and up and down the whole San Francisco peninsula.

This is not due to supply and demand in a free market. It is largely due to rich busybodies who have promoted severe restrictions on the building of housing under a variety of high-sounding names like "open space" or "environmental protection." I don't begrudge such people the inheritances that have allowed them to live their whole lives without ever having to lift a finger to support themselves. But it is galling that they are imposing huge costs on hundreds of thousands of other people who have to work for a living.

People used to complain about "the idle rich." But the idle rich did not do the kind of harm being done by today's busybody rich, who feed their own egos by bankrolling political crusades on the left which hurt the very people that the left claims to care about -- working people, minorities, and children.

:: doctorfixit 12:44 PM [+] ::
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Mayor-council pay panel hits bump
City attorney says the elected officials retain some control.
By Tony Bizjak -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Monday, March 3, 2003

Traditionally, Sacramento's mayor & many of the council council have, by strange coincidence, received salaries as workers in State government under a cozy arrangement where they really aren't expected to do much. But how can they possibly be doing their jobs as State workers AND City officials at the same time? The answer is, they are probably doing neither very well. The move to a full-time mayor may appear to be an admission that this game is up, but it's really more of an end run around the city charter's wek mayor - strong city manager form of government.

:: doctorfixit 6:39 AM [+] ::
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sacbee.com news archives Search for racial profiling comes up empty handed - but this doesn't stop Sacto racialists from continuing the witch hunt. Published on February 19, 2003, Page B1

"A string of residents urged the Sacramento City Council at its meeting Tuesday night to reject a police consultant's view that there probably isn't much racial bias happening in traffic stops - at the same time urging the city to continue its groundbreaking study of the potential of bias."

Actually, the consultant said there was no evidence of profiling. Using the term "profiling" for the keyword to find the continuation of the article, the Bee implies just the opposite. The article describes how the Council bowed to presssure from racialists and will continue the search for bias in the police department (until a consultant is found who will provide a report finding bias. The interesting thing is, that since Chief Venegas has gotten rid of so many of the white cops, you wouldn't expect "profiling" to be a problem.)

The article doesn't mention why cops make more stops in high-crime areas, which automatically leads to more blacks and hispanics being stopped. The article also doesn't explain why Asians are somehow exempt from the so-called 'profiling'. Nor does it mention how much money is being wasted on this marathon fishing expedition.

The goal of the racialists is to get proportional representation in the criminal justice system - by giving a free pass to violent criminals. The way to put an end to this expensive nonsense is to pass the Racial Privacy Initiative and ban the government from keeping any statisatics on "race" or "ethnicity". We need to put the racialists out of business and get on with the business of busting criminals of every race.

:: doctorfixit 3:22 PM [+] ::
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The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Driving home perils of smoking

Rather than do the correct thing and delare tobacco a dangerous addictive drug, the California legislature seizes on an orpportunity to expand governmental intrusion into the home, at the same time creating another lucrative opportunity for trial lawyers to file lawsuits pitting neighbor against smoker.

"This is the only crazy bill I've seen this year," said state Assemblyman -- and smoker -- Dennis Mountjoy, R-Monrovia, who sits on the Assembly Housing Committee. "It's a total attack on my freedoms. If the people of California want to ban smoking then step up to the plate and ban smoking. We know it's not healthy. But let's not bite away at our freedoms, one bit at a time."

:: doctorfixit 3:03 PM [+] ::
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The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- lawmakers reward lawbreakers, punish native born students, with yet another wealth transfer scheme.

:: doctorfixit 2:55 PM [+] ::
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