Wednesday Warren Warning - Self Serving on Tax Policy

Elizabeth Warren casts stones at a rigged tax code. On her website she recently posted a blog piece that started with this:

Huge corporations hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists to create, expand, and protect every last corporate loophole.

That's how we end up with a tax code that makes teachers and bus drivers and small business owners pay, but that allows some huge American corporations to make billions of dollars and not pay a single dime in taxes.

Simply put, the tax code is rigged.

She neglects to mention that the tax code is also rigged in favor of unions and other liberal special interests as well. She neglects to mention that the U.S. tax code is tens of thousands of Byzantine pages.

She is pandering to the liberal base by saying that the tax codes need to be fixed. Unfortunately her solutions involve yet more legislation, not simplification, not standardization - just more special rules for special circumstances. And we'll need more auditors and IRS agents no doubt, to enforce the new rules.

Of course the tax code needs changing. But how about something to simplify it and make it harder to cheat, harder to avoid, and perhaps even welcoming in terms of businesses and consumers. How about a simple national sales tax or Value Added tax of some percentage that replaces income tax for both consumers and corporate taxes? Liberal elites like Warren argue that the notion is unfair to the poor because they pay a higher portion of their net income to necessities which means that the tax will hit them harder. But aside from them therefore having some skin in the game (to paraphrase Michele Bachmann), what about the notion of some sort of sales tax rebates for those hardest hit? Nope - not up for discussion. The reason is simple. A Byzantine tax code requires a volume of additional tax lawyers versus a simpler tax code and therefore keeps that industry intact. That serves the political class like Warren far more than it does the under-served she claims to represent.

Streamlining government reduces costs and puts more money back in the hands of voters of every class. Simplify the tax code simplifies life for every American, including the poor and disadvantaged who benefit from not having to jump through hoops for subsidies or who can't afford expensive tax lawyers like elites can.

So who is really benefitting from your political positions Senator Warren? My guess, it's you and your friends. The tax code is rigged, your ilk rigged it Senator Warren, and you seem quite content to keep it that way by keeping voters in the dark about the true situation and the real solutions.

Immigration, Crime, Money

One of the things that irks me about the notion of legalizing 8 million illegal immigrants at once is the fact that if even only 0.1% of them are criminals (a decidedly low percentage based on normal rates of criminality), that equates to letting 8,000 felons into the country. That's bad.  But in reality, it's far worse.  Given the felony equivalency of America, that's over half a million felons or potential felons coming in.

If the statistics hold true, and 1 in 15 Americans (yes, I know these people are not Americans but the criminality rate in Mexico and Central America may not be that different if the system and the tracking were up to par with America's) have been to prison.  At that rate 533,333 future prison system detainees.

Too big to succeed

Too big to fail should not only not be applied to big business, but to government as well. The very notion that something is too big to fail is of course laughable. From the Titanic to the Lehman Brothers, examples abound - bigger does not mean indestructible. Alan Greespan once said, "If they are too big to fail, they are too big." Given the miniaturization effort that prevails in many electronic devices, smaller can be better. Some companies grow too quickly or grow beyond what is efficient and then they implode. RIM, with it's Blackberry devices is one example. Just when is too big, actually too big? The answer varies from industry to industry, company to company. But what the free market does with a wicked efficiency is take care of that problem. A company that develops irrational hubris, or a disrespect for the marketplace, will soon be replaced by more responsive customers.

 At least that's what would happen minus market distortions, often imposed by government. Which brings me back to the government aspect of too big to fail. Governmental agencies, from the EPA to the IRS have developed that hubris, and have managed to insulate themselves from the consequences. They are too big to fail, but failure is what culls inefficiency. Government doesn't hold itself to accountability the way the market holds private industries accountable, so they have become not too big to fail, but rather too big to succeed.

Robin Williams, R.I.P.

Robin Williams was a wonderful comedian who will be missed. Setting aside his politics, he was a philanthropist and someone who was able to bring a smile or laugh to so many people. One of my early teenage memories was his stand-up comedy album which came out shortly after his Mork and Mindy breakthrough TV role. While in 1984 he played in Moscow on the Hudson, an ode to American liberty, and it was a wonderful performance, I personally thought in the same period his role in The Survivors was equally moving, if not a little off-beat.

Robin Williams suffered from depression.  If you know someone suffering from it, please give them your moral support.

Sunday Links

Short and sweet this morning, mostly without the usual descriptions and/or comments on each link.  Here's some good reads for your Sunday.

Critical thinking - or not:

Nobody knows if robots will create more or less jobs than they take.

Hamas and the irony impaired.

Immigration:

Paying to educate more illegal immigrants?

World view:

"Threats proliferate under Obama".

Anti-Semitism resurgent?

ISIS run amok: Obams's fault?  Apparently, and Putin as well.

Cut and run has its own consequences

It's Obama's world:

Yes, they can take what you have because...fairness.

Bias lawsuit surprise.

Obama: Less Bread, More Circuses

Second looks, necessary or not:

Yet another second look at Mitt Romney?

A second look at Big Bird.

Tax inversions - maybe friendlier tax law is the fix,huh? I cannot stress this one enough!

The Stopped Clock: Liberals getting a couple of pieces of it right:

A few airstrikes aren't going to cut it - so say...Feinstein and WaPo?

GOP standing in the way of Obama means they take their Constitutional role seriously.

Domestic Caesarism? I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him....

Saturday Learning Series - The Federalist Papers

Continued from last week's lecture on Ratification, today's lecture via Tom Woods' youtube series covers the Federalist Papers.

Liberals often talk about the Constitution needing updates (president Obama has been no exception).  But often you find they don't even have a solid grasp on the details.  Knowledge is power, so this stuff is very much worth knowing.   That's especially true when you are discussing it with liberals who want to change or undo parts of the Constitution.