Conflicting Liberties: Guns vs. Life

Another mass shooting, this time in Washington, D.C., reminds us that Americans have a right not to be killed by Americans who have a right to bear arms.

Why can our legislators and courts not recognize that unfettered gun rights are infringing on our right simply to be alive? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t our right to live be unfettered at the expense of our right to bear arms?

Romney's Secret Weapon

Romney’s fiscal policy includes a secret weapon which he declines to reveal because it has a fatal flaw.  The weapon is the marvelous effect lower tax rates have on the wealthy:  it makes them want to create jobs for the middle class.  The secret is that this works only when Tinker Bell and the Tooth Fairy rain star dust and quarters down on rich people.  The flaw, as any child knows, is that this works only if we really want it to.  Tinker Bell and the Tooth Fairy will know we really want it if two-thirds of America’s voters want it to work and vote for Mitt Romney.  Since two-thirds of America’s voters cannot agree on anything, this flaw is fatal.

Similar schemes never worked for Reagan, Bush, Sr. and Bush, Jr.  Unless two-thirds of American’s voters vote for Romney, his plan will also fail, and he has already explained that 47% of us will never do that.

How Not to Stimuate the Economy

Economists, politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, executives and ordinary folk express many views on the subject of economic stimulus.  We all speak from our own peculiar perspectives.  The result is a wide variety of opinions.  One that is particularly misguided is championed by about 1% of us, the “Selfish Rich,” and the politicians they own.  They tell us that they are the investment class and that they need favorable tax treatment to encourage them to invest.  They say that stimulates the economy.

But private investment is made by entrepreneurs, some individuals, some corporations.  Some are wealthy, most are not.  They are a diverse group, but their investment decisions are primarily influenced by one thing: their perception of demand.  And demand is influenced by consumption -  consumer spending and private or public investment.   

The long period of sluggish job growth in which we now find ourselves is largely due to the fact that entrepreneurs see that demand is stagnant.  This accounts for hoarding of cash in corporate coffers and the slowness with which our economy has recovered following the sharp downturn of 2007 and 2008.  And we can do something about it.  Government is good at spending, whether consumption or investment.  And it taxes us, and tax policy influences private spending by leaving us with more or less money.  Consumer spending, which accounts for much of economic demand, is largely driven by middle class folks, of whom there are many, rather than the Selfish Rich, of which there are few. 

The immense importance of the middle class in creating demand is ignored by those proposing low taxes for the Selfish Rich.  We are ill advised to embrace their argument about who stimulates demand.  It is not the Selfish Rich, whether by consuming or by investing.  They buy yachts while others buy sedans, but they buy only so many yachts.  And how do taxes affect their investment decisions?  When we had 90% marginal income tax rates during the 1950s, I knew a wealthy man who complained bitterly about the rates at which his income was taxed.  He did not, however, give up his profession just because he could keep only 10 cents for every marginal dollar he earned.  He kept on working.  So much for high tax rates discouraging the wealthy from working hard.  And when looking for investors for a new business, a wealthy retired businessman told me that his days of making entrepreneurial investments were behind him.  He had already “made his.”  His priority was preserving capital.  Even if inflation were to be higher than the interest rates on government bonds, he left his money with Uncle Sam.  So much for low tax rates encouraging the wealthy to invest.

Beware the Koch Brothers and their like, and beware the politicians who have been bought by them. They tell us that reducing taxes for the rich will make prosperity trickle down on everyone.  That is not the case, and we have long known it to be a LIE.  In 1979 eleven Republican presidential candidates appeared at a debate in the Civic Center in Des Moines.  They were all asked to explain how they could cut taxes, increase defense spending and fight inflation.  One got it right.  Congressman John Anderson of Illinois said it was done with “smoke and mirrors.”  The other ten proposed one version or another of what Ronald Reagan most famously expounded.  George HW Bush called Reagan’s plan “Voodoo Economics.”  It later became known as “Supply Side Economics.”  It has been repeatedly discredited.   It does not work.  It sounds inviting, but promised budget cuts are killed by NIMBY attacks and prove impractical when, at implementation time, politicians find that the bath water is full of babies!

Don’t believe the Selfish Rich claim that tax cuts, particularly tax cuts for them, will stimulate the economy.  It is simply not true.  They keep saying it is true because they are Selfish.  That’s not good for anyone.

Straw Pooff

Subject:   the Iowa Republicans’ Straw Poll

To:          Des Moines Register

               National Public Radio 

               New York Times

               Wall Street Journal

14 August, 2011

I love you all and rely on you for news and information.  I write today because, as an Iowan, I know that you have put the Straw Poll in a completely incorrect perspective.  So I ask you to rely on me for a change for news and information about the Straw Poll to which you have all given too much attention.

First, it is a fund raiser.  Second, there is nothing democratic about it.  Therefore, and third, it is not important.  Like the scouting report on the new recruits for the football team which declared them all to be small, but slow, this event is meaningless, but insignificant.   And irrelevant.

So please quick treating it like a big deal! 

16,683 ballots were cast over the course of several hours during a party in Ames, Iowa on Saturday afternoon.  Those who voted either paid $30 for an admission ticket or, as was probably even more common, received a ticket as a gift from one of the candidates.  Some drove a long way to attend this party.  All went to far more trouble to attend than would be involved in participating in a normal election.  So while the participants may represent someone or something, it is neither Iowa nor the USA, and certainly not the typical Iowa or US citizen or voter.

Iowa Republicans should discontinue this event even though it raises money.   It does Republicans a disservice because it fails to represent them, and it does Iowa a disservice by undermining Iowa’s reputation as a credible host of the nation’s earliest election cycle caucuses. 

Being realistic, we should not count on Republicans to discontinue the Straw Poll.  You, however, could quit making such a big fuss over it.  It happens.  Every four years.  Please leave it at that.

How NOT To Create More Jobs in the US

If one were making a list of things Congress could do to guarantee that our nation’s economic recovery will remain painfully slow with maddeningly high rates of unemployment, the first item would be to cut government spending.

The second would be to eliminate government borrowing.

The third would be to make income taxes more regressive.

It appears Congress is concentrating its efforts in all the right places to prevent a strong economic recovery with vigorous job growth.

— David J. Nelson, Des Moines

Branstad Bullies Iowa about Biennial Budgeting

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s recent insistence on biennial rather than annual budgeting is unreasonable.  The advantage of biennial budgeting is that it requires planning further ahead.  Since there is nothing about annual budgeting that prevents planning ahead, however, this single advantage is hardly a persuasive reason to switch to biennial budgeting.  The disadvantages are several.  It is less flexible, it is less responsive to changing circumstances and it concentrates power in the hands of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative branch of government.   

Of course the concentration of power factor is attractive to Branstad.   It is convenient for him to overlook that what is important to him is also important to the legislature and to the people of Iowa, both of whom are better served by clear separation of power and the greater flexibility and responsiveness of annual budgeting.

The legislature should override his veto and adopt the budget they have carefully crafted by working through the compromises that were necessary to make it acceptable to a majority of the legislators of both parties.  Let us hope that our legislators will have the fortitude to keep Branstad from bullying them.

Relaxing gun carrying regulations = Craziness

If our legislaturers make more changes to gun laws like the ones now under consideration, we may need to change the country's name from the USA to the VSA.  (The Vigilante States of America.)