Muda69

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/430526-schools-shut-down-in-wva-as-teachers-go-on-strike

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Schools in West Virginia shut down on Tuesday as teachers began a strike to protest new state legislation which would increase the number of vouchers for charter schools in the state.

Union leaders say the legislation was put through without consulting teachers and would damage public education in the state.

The West Virginia State Senate and House passed different versions of the bill, but both include the boosts for charter schools.

“We are left with no other choice,” Fred Albert, president of the American Federation of Teachers’ West Virginia chapter, said of the strike. 

Almost all the state's 55 counties canceled school Tuesday. Schools in Putnam County were scheduled to remain open as of Monday night.

"It is important that our students continue to have the opportunity to learn in a safe and secure environment," Putnam county said in a statement. "Each day our schools provide much for the students we serve such as a safe and caring environment, meals, and the opportunity to participate in various extra-curricular activities."

Union leaders said that the length of the strike will be “day-to-day.”

County superintendents will plan alternative schedule plans with parents, West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine said in a statement.

“I regret that circumstances have led to the announcement of work stoppages in many counties throughout the state," Paine said. "I am working diligently with all parties to advocate for a prompt resolution. Though this is an uncertain and emotional time, we cannot forget that the best interest of students must be our top priority."

Last year, West Virginia teachers successfully protested for nine days, securing a 5 percent pay raise across the state.

Scofflaws who demonstrably care nothing about the children under their charge.  Yet another example while public sector unions themselves should be illegal.

1 minute ago, DanteEstonia said:

Until the debt is paid off.

My share.

And how can the debt be paid off if spending continues to rise and rise and rise?

Exactly what is "your share"?   40% of your gross income?  50%?  75%?

3 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

Or, just raise taxes.

And exactly how long can that go on?  How much more in taxes are you personally prepared to pay?

If We Can't Cut Entitlements, What Can We Do?: http://reason.com/archives/2019/02/19/if-we-cant-cut-entitlements-wh

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Thanks to the overspending of Congress and successive presidential administrations, America's debt totals $22 trillion, and it is projected to grow faster and larger in the years to come. Legislators have been shielded from the consequences by three decades of low interest rates and the fact that the United States is still one of the best places in the world for foreigners to invest. However, a time will come when no level of cheap debt will make up for Washington's fiscal recklessness.

Permanent low economic growth, stifled entrepreneurial spirit, and high unemployment are looming—not to mention the risk of a full-on, debt-driven financial crisis.

The way to prevent such outcomes is clear. We must deal with the drivers of our future debt: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But for those who think it is not politically feasible to tackle entitlements, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently published a report with a broader range of suggestions. They include limiting highway and transit funding to expected revenues (translation: don't spend more than you collect), eliminating Head Start, and creating a federal value-added tax (VAT).

 

Disappointingly, many of the CBO's alternatives are meant to grow government revenue rather than shrink government expenditures. All told, the report details $15.9 trillion in tax hike options vs. $5.7 trillion in spending cut options. Nine of the top 10 "savings" come from tax increases, including a 5 percent VAT (which may eventually hit 20 percent, as has happened in Europe), a carbon tax, and an increase in the maximum taxable earnings for the Social Security payroll tax. These off-the-shelf options are worrisome. Given the choice, politicians will likely opt to take more of our money rather than to confront special interests and reduce the size of government.

On the spending side, the largest savings would come from establishing caps on federal outlays for Medicaid and from cutting $50 billion a year over 10 years from the Department of Defense. But even these "cuts" would be against a baseline that assumes an ever-rising level of spending. In other words, many of them would simply slow the speed at which government grows, not reduce the total spent.

All in all, the CBO's suggestions reflect a failure of imagination. Could the agency not have come up with a few bold spending reforms? Terminating the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy should all be on the table, for example. Or we could combine them into a single Department of Cronyism. Surely that would save a billion or two.

Agreed.  The goals should be to cut the size, scope, and spending of the federal government by at least 25%.   Eliminating unconstitutional cabinet-level agencies like Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy is a good start.

And the politicking and calls for softening up the rules begins: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-eagle-scout-sydney-ireland-carolyn-maloney-state-of-the-union-20190205-story.html

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Washington, DC - Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 2019 - Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-12) & her State of the Union guest, Sydney B. Ireland pose for a photo in the Congresswoman's Capitol Hill office. (Liz Lynch for New York Daily News)

 

WASHINGTON — Sydney Ireland wasn't wearing white at the State of the Union like Democratic women lawmakers who wanted to show their solidarity in front of President Donald Trump with the suffragists who secured the right for women to vote in America.

The 17-year-old Manhattan girl was wearing her Boy Scouts green and khaki uniform because she wants to be a trailblazer for her generation, perhaps the first girl in America to be named an Eagle Scout by Scouting BSA, which until recently, was the Boy Scouts of America.

Ireland started Scouting when her older brother Bryan was in the Cub Scouts. She just wanted in on the cool stuff he was up to. And her troop let her, through an unofficial auxiliary for girls that included all the same activities as the boys, she said.

But then came the leap to the Boy Scouts, and she realized she was not getting any recognition for doing the same things as the boys.

 

"I found out that girls couldn't officially earn anything," she recalled, sitting next to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who dressed in her suffragist white with an "ERA Now" pinned to her chest.

So she started advocating for full inclusion for girls. The Scouts said they would do it back in 2017, and finally did it Feb. 1 this year.

"I feel that she has achieved a great thing," said Maloney, whose own cause right now is finally getting the Equal Rights Amendment ratified and added to the U.S. Constitution. "How many of us really change policy in this country? She's made it easier and better for all the girls coming after her, and changed the whole environment."

Ireland still has one major hurdle. She's done all the work required to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, the pinnacle of Scouting.

But Scouting BSA appears unwilling to recognize her documented achievements, such as being elected the senior patrol leader of her mostly male troop. It wants her to start from scratch.

"Sydney, like all girls joining Scouts BSA as of February 1st, will absolutely have a chance to become an Eagle Scout," a spokeswoman said. "We are proud that Sydney Ireland was one of the first girls to join Scouts BSA on February 1st, and we will be proud to see her grow in Scouting, attend the World Scout Jamboree and be one of the first female Eagle Scouts in the inaugural class that will be celebrated in 2020."

Ireland is hoping for a little better.

"With this new Scouts BSA, I think that they should start off on the right foot, and award young women, like myself, the accomplishments that we've achieved," Ireland said. "It's kind of mitigating the accomplishments of young women, including myself, who have been fighting for this for years, and accomplished the Eagle Scout before 2020."

Ireland said she was inspired along the way by the battle by gay Scouts to get recognition and inclusion, and she sees the latest acceptance of girls as a last step for the venerable institution into this millennium.

"They've been very behind in their policies, and they're finally recognizing that all people should be treated equally and have equal rights," Ireland said. "It's taken them a long time to realize that, but they're finally recognizing that regardless of sexuality, gender, race, anything, that people should have the same opportunities, and the same opportunities to achieve the Eagle Scout, which opens up so many doors that previously were not available to people that are gay, and women."

Maloney said much the same a week earlier when she reintroduced an ERA, an act to elevate women to the Constitution that was first proposed in 1923, about a dozen years after the Scouts launched for boys.

So this young lady tagged along with her brother while he was in a Boy Scout troop and claims to have completed the same rank requirements (ranks in Boy Scouts are Scout, Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, 1st Class, Star, Life, Eagle).   The national BSA is basically saying "sorry, since you couldn't officially join a scout troop until 2/1/2019 everything you did previously is null and void.  You have to start over from scratch."   Now there is whining, complaining,  and probably a lawsuit,  due to a troop, and it's adult leadership, basically going rogue.  All so a young lady could try and be the "1st female Eagle Scout".

*sigh*

Never mind that she's wearing a political button on her uniform in complete violation of BSA policy.

1 minute ago, gonzoron said:

Not a dodge. It's not up to me to educate the uneducated.

Again, nice dodge.

Questions for Those Who Believed Jussie Smollett: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/jussie-smollett-beating-case-question-for-believers/

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The “we reported the Jussie Smollett case responsibly” contention has been blasted to smithereens. Twitter accounts and headlines in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times reported as fact Jussie Smollett’s wildly implausible allegations, and many other journalists did so as well, not to mention the innumerable activists and celebrities who piled on. So, a question for all of the above. Why did you believe Jussie Smollett? Let’s try to catalogue the red flags.

1. Had you ever heard of Jussie Smollett before the alleged January 29 attack?

2. Do you think it likely that fans of President Trump had?

3. Smollett has said that his public anti-Trump statements were the likely reason for the attack. Is it really true that he was an especially prominent anti-Trump voice?

4. Did you think it strange that Smollett or his representatives were, from the beginning, telling TMZ a different story than they told the police? He or his representatives told TMZ the attackers yelled, “This is MAGA country.” This was news to the police.

5. Related to (4), don’t you think that if Smollett’s supposed attackers had yelled, “This is MAGA country,” he would have told the police in his initial interview with them, right after the alleged assault?

6. How did Trump-loving racist homophobes know that Smollett would be at a Subway sandwich shop at 2 a.m.? Smollett has said going to the Subway was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

7.  t was extremely cold in Chicago the night of January 29. Assuming Trump-loving racist homophobes wanted to track down and attack Smollett, and maybe knew where he lived, as the shop was close to his apartment, wouldn’t they have waited for more agreeable weather?

8. How likely do you think it is that attackers would shout, “This is MAGA country” in Chicago, a place that no one thinks is MAGA country?

9. If Smollett’s supposed attackers did not know he was going to be at that exact spot at that exact moment and would have been willing to attack any random gay and/or black man in Chicago, how difficult would it have been for them to find a gay and/or black man to assault without going to the trouble of a 2 a.m. attack on a frigid night? Couldn’t they have just waited outside a gay bar on a summer night?

10. Don’t you think for the attackers to have yelled a racist slur as well as a homophobic slur as well as having a bottle of bleach as well as having a noose sounds a bit overdetermined, like bad television writing?

11. Smollett supposedly received a viciously nasty letter threatening him with lynching a week before the alleged assault. Is it likely that either two separate racist parties wanted to attack him at essentially the same time or else the January 29 attackers would telegraph their intentions with a letter?

12. Don’t you think it strange that Smollett had a phone with him, yet didn’t call the police on that phone to inform them what had happened and which way his attackers had fled?

13. Don’t you think it strange that his attackers fled without much harming Smollett or robbing him?

14. Related to (13), did it not occur to you that the whole alleged attack looked a bit like the criminal equivalent of a press release, meant to send a message rather than accomplish anything?

15. If you were beaten up, would you somehow remember to pick up your Subway purchase afterward?

16. If you were subjected to a vicious, racist, homophobic, life-altering attack that included a hint of lynching, would you really leave the rope draped around your neck and calmly walk, not run, home?

17. Would you then walk past the security desk at your apartment building without telling anyone what had happened?

18. Would you wait 40 minutes before informing the police what had happened?

19. Smollett said he kept the rope around his neck to preserve evidence for the police. Yet in the police report filed on the night in question, he was quoted as saying he was reluctant to make a police report at all. Why would he preserve evidence to bolster a report he didn’t intend to make?

20. Why, as an outspoken gay black man with a long history of casting aspersions on Trump, would he not immediately file a police report about an incident that seemingly confirmed his worst fears?

21. If you were beating up somebody who was on his phone, would you maybe take the phone away from him so as to eliminate the possibility of a witness overhearing what you were doing?

22. Have you noticed that alleged Trump-related hate crimes seem to have a tendency to turn out to be fiction?

23. Did you think it odd that Smollett refused to give police his phone?

24. Did you think it odd that Smollett didn’t give police his phone records for two weeks, and when he did, they were heavily redacted, as though he might be hiding something?

25. Chicago reporters on the case began relaying that their sources in the police department were skeptical about Smollett’s claims soon after the alleged assault. Did you not notice?

26. Did you take away any lessons from Covington?

27. If not, why?

Just now, gonzoron said:

If I were to start my own private education establishment, I would be happy to charge you for my knowledge. I'm sorry you

but it's never too late to learn.

Nice dodge.

Respect:  Clinton Central Bulldogs.  Cannelton Bulldogs.

Animosity:  Peru Tigers. Lebanon Tigers.  

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

Of course it can’t. It never has been throughout the course of human history. 

Please elaborate.

Washington Imperialists Fret Over Trump's Troop Withdrawals: http://reason.com/archives/2019/02/18/washington-imperialists-fret-o

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"The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December," Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) announced in a wave-making Washington Post column in January, just prior to being sworn in. Why that particular month out of the president's tumultuous first 24?

"The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly," Romney wrote, "the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president's thoughtless claim that America has long been a 'sucker' in world affairs all defined his presidency down." In other words, it's the foreign policy, stupid. When the White House takes minor steps to ratchet back Washington's default posture of global interventionism, it's greeted as a catastrophe.

It is amazing what Washington's proverbial "adults in the room"—as both Mattis and Kelly were frequently characterized as during their Trump tenure—consider to be a red line of presidential comportment. Sure, Trump can impose reckless and unconstitutional bans on legal U.S. residents from certain majority-Muslim countries, consciously enact a family-separation policy as an immigration deterrent, and call trade wars "good and easy to win," all while averaging 10 lies a day and acting like your boorish-if-occasionally-hilarious Uncle Bob. But contemplate withdrawing a combined 9,000 troops from Syria and Afghanistan, as Trump did in December, and suddenly no one's laughing.

 

"We are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries," warned Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.) at the time.

"Never been more alarmed for the nation since coming to DC over three decades ago," tweeted Bill Kristol of the recently shuttered Weekly Standard.

Mattis resigned within hours of Trump's announcement that all 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria would be withdrawn, saying in his resignation letter that the president has "the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects." Kelly, who worked both as Trump's secretary of homeland security and as his chief of staff, told the Los Angeles Times in an exit interview that his performance in the latter position should be measured by what the president didn't do—namely, withdraw troops from abroad sooner.

"When I first took over [in August 2017], he was inclined to want to withdraw from Afghanistan," Kelly told the paper. Instead of cutting and running, the president added 4,000 troops at the urging of Kelly and the military brass. Eighteen Americans have died in the country since then.

By most reported accounts, Trump's December decisions—the details of which were still being contested at press time, not least by Trump himself—came off half-cocked, poorly coordinated, and sold with a combination of hyperbolic bluster and blunt truth telling. In other words, they were in keeping with how the current president does just about everything.

But because the moves involve life and death, and because the political class is inherently accepting of lethal force abroad, mainstream Democrats joined disappointed Republicans and never-Trump conservatives in declaring that this flawed process for once cannot stand.

"This country's national security decision-making process is more broken than at any time since the National Security Act became law in 1947," former Obama administration National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote in The New York Timesin December. "Cutting and running from Syria benefits only militants, Turkey, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Russia and Iran."

Rice's former boss Hillary Clinton—in a tweet that served as a timely reminder of her comparatively more interventionist instincts—also asserted that "this President is putting our national security at grave risk."

If there's this much freakout over the withdrawal of four figures' worth of troops, imagine what would happen if the president got serious about our 26,000 in South Korea, 54,000 in Japan, and 64,000 in Europe.

By the time the U.S. overthrew the Taliban government in December 2001, a total of seven Americans had died in the war there. That number is now north of 2,300. "There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy," foreign affairs author Robert Kaplan wrote in The New York Times on January 1, "facts that Washington's policy community has mostly been unable to accept."

Trump is routinely accused, with good reason, of distorting the facts and failing to face reality. It's time for his critics to take a good long look in the mirror.

It sounds like the military-industrial complex has not been able to control Mr. Trump as much as they thought they could.

20 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Apparently Racism can't be a 2 way street.....

Not according to at least one individual here on the GID.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2019/02/18/rfra-same-sex-marriage-indiana-discrimination-russiaville-mike-pence/2903487002/

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Bailey Brazzel and her wife Samantha weren't trying to make a political statement last week. They were just trying to file their taxes.

But when the owner of a Russiaville tax service refused to help because the same-sex couple was married, Brazzel said she felt she had to make some noise.

"I went in there to have my taxes done, not push my beliefs on her," Brazzel, 25, said. "It's not professional to me to turn someone away because they do something differently than you would like."

Nancy Fivecoate, owner of Carter Tax Service, said she's been harassed and abused after Brazzel spoke to media and posted on Facebook about her experience. Fivecoate said she is the one being persecuted for her beliefs.

"I've never repeated her name to anyone ... I haven't answered social media," Fivecoate told IndyStar during a phone conversation. "I've done absolutely nothing except (follow) my religious beliefs. I can not put my name on that return."

This is the latest skirmish in a culture war ignited by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. There have been controversies involving cake bakers, pizza makers and now a tax preparer who have refused to serve same-sex couples based on the religious beliefs of business owners and employees.

That's allowed under state law, unless a local ordinance says otherwise. 

Brazzel said Fivecoate has prepared her taxes for the last four years. She and Samantha married in July. This is the first year they filed a joint tax return.

On Tuesday they went to Fivecoate's office, when she turned them away.

"My taxes don't have anything to do with our marriage," Brazzel said. "If you are going to run a business, you should be professional enough to do business with people from all types of backgrounds."

 

Fivecoate said she was polite and respectful to the couple. She gave them the name of another tax preparer who would serve them.

"I am a Christian and I believe marriage is between one man and one woman," Fivecoate said in a statement emailed to IndyStar. She said she has prepared taxes for gay clients, but that she objects to same-sex marriage. 

"The LGBT want respect for their beliefs, which I give them. I did not say anything about their lifestyle. That is their choice. It is not my choice. Where is their respect for my beliefs?"

In most parts of Indiana, including the Russiaville address where Fivecoate's business is located, there is no law that would prohibit a business from turning away a gay couple because of their sexual orientation.

....

Brazzel said she and her wife went to another tax service and filed their taxes. Even if the law doesn't agree, Brazzel said she and her wife were victims of discrimination

"It was shocking to us," Brazzel said. "We hear about it all the time but nothing like that ever happened to us."

Fivecoate said everyone deserves respect, and she should not be forced to do something that runs counter to her beliefs.

"I have my religious beliefs, she has hers," Fivecoate said. "I respect hers, she should respect mine."

Private parties should be able to consort with whomever they please.  Individuals and business owners should be able to serve, or not serve, anyone they please,  guided by the marketplace and constrained by competition. Customers who object can take their business elsewhere. Usually, although not always, that process leads to fair outcomes.  As it did here.

https://mises.org/wire/our-disastrous-obsession-equality

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One of the principal aims of the progressive (i.e., leftist, liberal, socialist) movement is equalization of income and wealth. They think it’s unfair, even immoral, for some people to have more when others have less. They especially decry the existence of billionaires but their lament oftentimes extends to millionaires as well, sometimes even to anyone who has more wealth than someone else. They want to the government to equalize income and wealth by taking away money from those who have it and either give it to others or simply retain it in the government’s coffers for general expenditures.

Leftists have convinced themselves that people are poor precisely because other people are rich. Of course, under a tax-and-redistribute political-economic system, theoretically that could be possible. That is, the state could tax people and then give the largess to, say, a corporation, enabling it to become wealthy through this corporate-welfare largess. Or the state could grant a monopoly to a firm to provide some good or service, enabling the firm to become wealthy owing to the lack of competitors.

In an unhampered market economy, however, which is what we libertarians favor, the only way that someone can become wealthy is by providing goods or services that other people are willing to buy. The more successful the seller is in satisfying consumers, the wealthier he becomes.

Thus, financial success in a genuine free market society cannot conceivably be the cause of someone’s else’s poverty. In fact, it’s the opposite: The more successful the firm, the better off people at the bottom of the economic ladder are.

First, consider the jobs the firm is offering to people. Those jobs provide income and security to employees. As the firm succeeds in satisfying consumers, it expands its operations. That means offering jobs to more people.

Second, consider the products and services the firm is offering to people in their role as consumers. The more products and services the firm is offering, especially if prices begin diminishing owing to increased supply, the better off consumers are.

Third, by increasing revenues and profits, the firm is adding to the overall level of capital in society, which brings about increased productivity, which means increases in prosperity and the overall societal standard of living.

Thus, in a genuine free market there is a harmony of interests between business owners, investors, employees, and consumers. They all have the same interest in maintaining and expanding the success of the firm. The fact that some people are getting wealthier than others is quite irrelevant when we consider that everyone is better off than they were before.

What really is the real driving force behind the socialist movement for equalization? Envy and covetousness. Leftists simply cannot stand the fact that some people have more money than they do. Even if forced equalization through the power of the state to tax the rich makes everyone, including the poor, worse off, that’s okay with socialists. All that matters is that the rich no longer are rich.

We have seen the socialist equalization mindset play out in communist countries. For example, when Fidel Castro took the reins of power in Cuba, he didn’t settle for just taxing the rich. He knew that that would reduce wealth inequality but not eliminate it. He decided to go for full equalization. He took everything — everything! — from the rich. Money, bank accounts, homes, and businesses. The communist government took ownership of everything. Everyone went to work for the government.

After a while, most everyone was equal in terms of income and wealth — that is, equally poor. In fact, most everyone was now on the verge of starvation. (The exception, of course, entailed certain privileged Cuban government officials.). By taking control over all the businesses and having government bureaucrats run them, the government destroyed not only the entrepreneurship that drives a free-market economy but also the private accumulation of capital, one of the keys to rising standards of living and prosperity.

Thus, the socialist equalization obsession ends up destroying the economic foundation for a genuinely prosperous society. More important, it destroys the liberty of the citizenry. That’s because in a genuinely free society, people have the natural and God-given right to accumulate as much wealth as they want and to do whatever they want with it.

Agreed.  Socialism destroys freedom.

Leftist Tax Schemes Bash the Rich, but Depend on Their Success: http://reason.com/archives/2019/02/15/leftist-tax-schemes-bash-the-rich-but-de

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Nineteenth century historian Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science" because of its predictions about scarcity and poverty. Those are immutable features of all societies, which explains why his snarky term remains widely used. Modern economics writer Thomas Sowell captured the same idea, but expanded upon it. "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it," he wrote. "The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics."

In other words, even though the laws of economics are as unchangeable as the laws of physics, the laws of politics remain unchanged, too. Elected officials will always promise more free stuff for the populace that is affordable once, they say, the rich pay their "fair share." They claim the increased tax rates and new spending will not have any ill effect on the economy, either. These old ideas are making a big comeback as the Democratic Party's progressive wing expands its influence in Washington, D.C. Free-market folks need to start pushing back.

I promised not to pay attention to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the lefty Democratic Congresswoman from New York, given that her half-baked ideas do not merit serious debate. However, conservatives have picked on her every move, thus turning her into a star. So now we have no choice but to pay attention when she says, "I do think a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don't have access to public health is wrong," as she recently told a reporter.

 

We actually are discussing whether the government should allow the existence of billionaires. Here is an economic conundrum. The progressive experiment depends on wealthy people's continued economic success. California, which smugly touts itself as the national resistance to the Trump administration, is particularly dependent on tax revenues from billionaires and capital gains taxes. Earth to Ocasio-Cortez and others who share her views: Those universal healthcare proposals that California Democrats are cooking up could not move forward if not for the large share of wealthy people existing in the Golden State.

A CNBC News report from late December focused on how that month's stock-market drops were "very bad news" for California's state budget. The market has largely recovered, but the article noted a fact we should all keep in mind: "(T)he state's top 1 percent of personal income tax earners—roughly 164,000 tax returns—generate about half of the personal income taxes in California." That sounds like they are paying well beyond their "fair share."

No wonder the Franchise Tax Board zealously polices whether high-income Californians who claim to have moved out of state actually have moved their permanent residences elsewhere. No wonder state officials noticed when 138 residents fled after voters approved Proposition 30 tax increases in 2012. That is a small number in a state with nearly 40 million people, but it matters if they are particularly wealthy. Last year, even Democratic legislators expressed concern after the federal tax bill reduced deductions for wealthy Californians.

This progressive approach to income taxes is reminiscent of their approach to tobacco taxation. They want fewer billionaires to exist and want to level the playing field by approving punitive, confiscatory tax rates. Every time they increase these income-tax rates, however, the state becomes more dependent on the revenue from the wealthiest people. Likewise, lawmakers pass more tobacco taxes to discourage smoking, but instead the states have become addicted to tens of billions of dollars in revenue from their sales. A CBS report from 2012 found that only 3 percent of the money from taxes and settlements were funding anti-tobacco programs.

Here are some more dismal truths. Government officials want as much revenue as possible so it can spend it with wild abandon. There will never be enough to satisfy them. In California, record-setting revenue has not stopped the calls for new taxes—on commercial properties, for instance—to fund ever-more costly programs.

Government is like rust. It never sleeps. Thinking of Ocasio-Cortez's statement, maybe it is more like ringworm: it keeps spreading unless one takes definitive steps to stop it. Returning to the old days of super-high tax rates is a fool's errand. As the Cato Institute's Chris Edwards wrote, "globalization has dramatically changed the economy over recent decades," leading to movable tax bases that can escape the clutches of the big spenders.

Increasing the top rate from 37 percent to 70 percent, as Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives now are proposing, means a massive wealth transfer from the private to the public sector. This is the new big push from the left. The right deserves brickbats, too, given the Trump administration's soaring deficits and its own costly spending priorities. This is a dismal situation, but I prefer Sowell to Carlyle. The problem is politics, not economics.

On 2/16/2019 at 10:19 AM, DanteEstonia said:

...were taught by Mr. Beal.

or by socialists like Dante Estonia.

On 2/16/2019 at 9:45 AM, Irishman said:

Just one question...is this how capitalism is supposed to work? 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/02/15/amazon-pays-no-2018-federal-income-tax-report-says/2886639002/ 

Crony capitalism at work.  Reducing the size, scope, and power of government will eliminate most of this.

2 minutes ago, Irishman said:

That is a great story. Thank you for sharing. I hope you don’t mind, but I merged the two topics. 

Sure.  My bad, I didn't know this topic has already been created.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/25983010/who-says-rob-mendez-head-football-coach

9 hours ago, gonzoron said:

It's always been desolate in Arcadia. Nanny government didn't build Arcadia an airbase and a school, then take the airbase and all the nanny government employees away.

At least it's now home to a nanny government prison.  Sorry that you are so salty that desolate northern Hamilton county and it's government school didn't get all that juicy DoD cash like the Maconaquah government school corporation used to get.  At least you have all those rich farmers, staying fat and happy off of those Farm Bill checks.  My M-I-L was a UPS driver for decades, her route was mostly southern Tipton and northern Hamilton counties. 

I'm not too bent out of shape concerning Grissom. Defense is a legitimate function of the federal government per the Constitution,  but we spend WAY to much on the military.  And frankly once the cold war was effectively over having Grissom as an active duty SAC base made no financial sense.

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

Libertarian "turns" Republican. Announces bid for President 2020. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-massachusetts-governor-challenge-trump-gop-nod-140048696--election.html

Wrong thread.  Please start another concerning Republican candidates for 2020.

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

That's about all that's left in that desolate place.

Yeah.  Bunker Hill reminds me of Arcadia.

The bogus "national emergency" is also more ammo for the impeachment crowd.

Indiana finally has its first national park: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2019/02/15/indiana-dunes-becomes-national-park-after-century-long-effort/2882357002/

Quote

After more than 100 years of trying, Indiana has its first national park.

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an omnibus spending bill that, among many measures, included changing the name from Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Indiana Dunes National Park.

The change was part of a several hundred page omnibus appropriations bill that also included funding for the controversial border wall pushed by President Donald Trump.

Previous to the name change, the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore was one of 418 "national park units." Now it is part of an elite group of 61 parks across the country that Americans make lifelong commitments to visit.

"This designation is long overdue and will be a significant benefit to northwest Indiana and a benefit the entire Midwest region," Ritchea said.

Hmm.  It will interesting to see what changes will be made to the National Lakeshore property.  It currently is not one contiguous area, but scattered among several parcels of land in northwest Indiana.  Kind of like the Hoosier National Forest in the southern part of the state.

Trump Wants To Raid an Asset Forfeiture Black-Box Fund To Build His Border Wall: http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/15/the-asset-forfeiture-fund-trump-wants-to

Quote

President Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the southern U.S. border will partially rely on the Treasury Department's asset forfeiture fund, according to news reports, but that money comes from a secretive fund potentially rife with civil rights abuses.

Among other sources, the Trump administration reportedly plans to use $600 million from the Treasury Department's Asset Forfeiture Fund, which holds revenues from asset seizures by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Since 2014, ICE and CBP have seized more than $4 billion worth of property that was allegedly used in crimes, according to government records obtained by Splinter. Among the seized assets were human remains. The Treasury Department's forfeiture fund had a balance of $2.2 billion as of fiscal year 2017.

 

But it's unclear how many of those cases were criminal forfeitures, in which the property was forfeited after the federal government obtained a criminal conviction against a defendant; and how many were civil forfeitures, wherein the government seized property on the mere suspicion that it was connected to criminal activity.

...

Civil asset forfeiture has been roundly criticized by civil liberties groups and a wide, bipartisan swath of lawmakers at both the federal and state level because of abuses just like these. More than half of all U.S. states have passed some form of asset forfeiture reform over the last decade in response to similar cases.

A 2017 report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that, between 2012 and 2014, the IRS seized more than $17 million from innocent business owners using obscure anti-money laundering rules and civil asset forfeiture. The inspector general found money seized and forfeited by the IRS was legally obtained in 91 percent of a sample of 278 structuring investigations it reviewed. As Reason reported:

The investigation was launched in 2014, when media investigations and several lawsuits by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm, highlighted the cases business owners who had their life savings seized by the IRS for violating anti-"structuring" rules.

The rules are intended to stop money launderers from evading federal banking regulations by making small cash deposits under $10,000, but IRS agents ruthlessly pursued cases against small business owners when there was no other evidence or indication of criminal activity. For example, The New York Times profiled the case of Carol Hinders, an Iowa woman runs a small, cash-only Mexican restaurant. In 2013, two IRS agents showed up at Hinder's door and told her the agency was seizing $33,000 from her bank account for structuring violations. She was never accused of a crime.

In response to public outrage, the IRS announced in 2014 it was changing its asset forfeiture policies to only pursue cases where there is other evidence of criminal activity.

The IRS has previously released some limited data on structuring cases to the Institute for Justice, which leads them to believe the Treasury Department is intentionally stonewalling them.

"We know that they have this information, and we know that they can give it up, but they don't want to give us the entire database," says Jennifer McDonald, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Justice, "which leads us to believe that there is something they don't want us to know about these funds."

Mr. Trump stealing money from a fund of stolen money/assets.  Beautiful.

1 hour ago, foxbat said:

COBOL is my unemployment/retirement golden ticket.   With the vast majority of COBOL programmers dying off and the vast number of systems that still are running it, I could always do a little COBOL consulting work if things ever get thin in retirement.  

Same here.  I haven't done any real programming in COBOL for several years, but it is like riding a bicycle.