Category: National

Political Sacred Cows

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It is a political reality that in Utah if you wish to become Governor, Senator, or representative of House District 1 you must pledge allegiance to Hill Air Force Base (HAFB). (If you want to be a representative of districts 2, 3, or 4 it doesn’t hurt to pledge allegiance to HAFB either.)

This point was made clear again yesterday as the topic emerged for the democratic candidate for Governor and both his comments regarding HAFB and the comments of other political figures in the state were aired. This tweet by my state senator started a conversation that got me thinking about our sacred cows:

“If there is another #BRAC, #Utah needs seasoned Congressmen like Rob Bishop and Orrin Hatch to protect #HAFB–not a freshman Governor #utpol” –Todd Weiler

National politics

Politics vs Economics

I was interested in the idea of six economic policies that economists across the spectrum support and politicians across the spectrum oppose. It’s not that I am surprised that there are big ideas that make perfect sense from an economic perspective which are politically unpopular – after all, doing what has been deemed to be politically possible has led us to a dire economic position. Once I read the six policies I found my reactions to be interesting.

Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, which lets homeowners deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages. I have to admit that is one deduction that I have always wanted to keep but the fact is that it is not economically beneficial overall. The people who benefit the most are those who least need the deduction.
End the tax deduction companies get for providing health-care to employees. This is one that I have long felt should be enacted. Many people are unaware of this deduction but I think if they understood how it works and what effect it has on our health care costs they could realize that it should be eliminated.
Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. I can easily see why this one is politically unpopular but, like the deduction for providing health care for employees the net effect is to remove capital that would otherwise be used to create jobs or increase wages.
Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. I can easily see why this is politically unpopular but the logic is the same as eliminating corporate taxes. I especially liked their explanation on this one: “Taxes discourage whatever you’re taxing, but we like income, so why tax it? Payroll taxes discourage creating jobs.” For those who are squeamish about this they go on to encourage the creation of a progressive consumption tax to replace it – this isn’t simply a starve the government proposal.
Tax carbon emissions. This is the first of their proposals that I am not sure I support. I recognize their justification for the policy but I’m not sold yet. This is really just a new version of a tobacco tax and I’m not sure that taxing tobacco has really accomplished what proponents might have hoped. Also, I consider that such a tax might distort the market in adverse ways that we have not yet considered.
Legalize marijuana. I’m not a fan of the war on drugs but like the carbon tax I am not prepared to jump on board with this idea yet. I have heard the arguments and I recognize a certain amount of logic behind it but I am dragging my feet for now. I figure that to be intellectually consistent anyone pushing such a proposal should at least include taxing marijuana like we tax tobacco and like they are proposing to tax carbon.

So there they are. Six proposals and I really like at least four of them. The other two would take some convincing.

Tags economics, government, policy, taxes

National politics State

Perspective on Palin Endorsing Hatch

Post author By David
Post date May 23, 2012
No Comments on Perspective on Palin Endorsing Hatch

I was a little surprised at the news that Sarah Palin had endorsed Orrin Hatch. It’s not that I had expected her to endorse Dan Liljenquist, just that I would not have expected her to see an entrenched, entitled incumbent as the type of person who could fix what’s wrong in Washington. As I thought about it however I realized that there were a few things that might show her endorsement to be a very hollow one to begin with. First and foremost being that she probably knows absolutely nothing about Dan Liljenquist. In other words her endorsement of “Mr. Balanced Budget” is probably as meaningful as Mitt Romney’s endorsement which came back before Senator Hatch even had a challenger. Here are a few key things to consider about this endorsement and what it shows about this race.

Palin endorsed Hatch because he asked for her endorsement (see here). I strongly suspect that Dan Liljenquist never did. What is really happening with this race is that the reality behind it is quite different than the way it is being painted. Hatch and the GOP establishment players are painting this and every other challenge to an incumbent as a tea-party extremist challenge to the status quo. I will not make any attempt to argue how true that is for the various races around the country but let me illustrate the differences between how this race is framed versus what is actually happening.

Tags 2012, Dan Liljenquist, Orrin Hatch

National politics State

We Need a New Generation in Washington

Post author By David
Post date February 1, 2012
No Comments on We Need a New Generation in Washington

Investors Business Daily has a pro-Hatch propaganda piece up that deserves a few tweaks.

First, the headline says that republicans must gain control of Congress for the economy to recover. Do we really need to remind everyone that Republicans had almost uninterrupted control of Congress from 1995 to 2007. Had Republicans retained control of Congress beyond 2007 does anyone really believe the economy would not still have gone into the great recession?

Second, IBD claims that re-electing Orrin Hatch is crucial if Republicans regain control because “Orrin Hatch will be the first genuine free-market conservative to {become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee}.” Yes, the same Orrin Hatch who cosponsored PIPA until it was politically untenable and wanted to blow up the computers of anyone with pirated software while his own website was powered by an unlicensed copy of software is now “a genuine free-market conservative.” The author, Ernest Christian, claims that all the prior chairmen of the committee whom he had worked with were either liberals or moderates. I’ll take him at his word on that but his description of moderates as “too often … unwilling to make a clear-cut choice between the free-market principles of conservatives and the big-government desires of liberals” is perfectly descriptive of Hatch. The fact that Mr. Christian has been working with every SFC chair since 1970 shows what is really going on here – it’s one old political dog going to bat for another.

For those who want to see the economy truly recover there is only one answer – we need a new generation of conservatives in Washington and we need enough of them there to change the way the rest of the Republicans act in office. As soon as we say “new generation” you know that Orrin Hatch will never fit that bill – he’s as entrenched an incumbent as you’ll ever find.

Tags 2012, Dan Liljenquist, Orrin Hatch, Pursuit of Liberty, senate

National politics

Campaign Platform of the President the Nation Needs

Post author By David
Post date January 26, 2012
No Comments on Campaign Platform of the President the Nation Needs

The other day I was sitting on a bus with time to let my mind wander. I was thinking about our presidential campaign season and the ideas being promoted by our current candidates – including our current president – when I found myself considering what kind of a president I think our nation needs – specifically I began to formulate what ideas he would offer in seeking the presidency. I decided to write up the platform ideas that came to mind. I’d love to hear what others think of this. I have written this in the first person not because I claim to be this candidate but because I would expect a candidate to articulate the platform from a first-person perspective.

Any budget proposal that I submit will not exceed actual tax revenues for the previous year. Any budget bill that I sign will be paid for, either because Congress has passed a budget that does not exceed the tax revenues for the previous year or because they have clearly raised the necessary taxes as part of the bill to pay for any spending over the amount of taxes collected in the preceding fiscal year.
I will not attempt to expand the powers of the presidency. I will stick to my constitutional duties. I will refrain from using the extra-constitutional powers that have previously been granted to the president, such as the ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial, and request that Congress officially revoke those powers from me and future presidents.
I will insist that Congress fulfill their constitutional duties. One major part of Congress fulfilling their duties is that I will order all regulatory agencies to enforce only those things that Congress has passed into law and not to enforce regulations created by regulatory agencies based laws passed by congress where those regulations were not specified in the bill. I will not sign bills in which Congress leaves the authority to specify particular regulations to other bodies such as regulatory agencies.
I will not sign any bill into law, nor allow any bill to become law without my signature, unless it has been made available for public review and comment for a total of no less than seven days prior to becoming law. The seven days counts only the time after the final version of the bill is made available. That time may include any combination of time before the bill is passed by Congress and time after the bill has been passed by Congress. In other words, Congress may choose to pass bills without allowing seven days for public input but the only way I would act on a bill without seven days of public input would be to veto the bill. I will also not sign any bill into law unless I have had time to read the bill in full.
As commander-in-chief of our military I will seek to maximize our national defense. The emphasis there is on the words “national” and “defense” – all military spending and activity will be focused on defending our nation in the most effective ways possible. We will seek to improve our defensive abilities wherever possible. If the use of military force ever becomes necessary under my watch I will act decisively with the intent to end the conflict as quickly and effectively as possible.
I will not run a campaign for a second term. I will simply do my job as President. My campaigning will not exceed participation in scheduled debates and defending myself against any false accusations that are made by those who hope to replace me. If that is not enough to win me a second term then I do not deserve a second term.

As I considered the ideas that I wrote I asked myself whether any of the current candidates would ever articulate a platform like this. My conclusion was that none of them would. I suspect that some Ron Paul supporters would argue that Dr. Paul runs a platform not unlike this. I’ll admit that he comes the closest but I am still not sure that what he would do fully correlates to what I think we need in a president – which may indicate that I have not fully fleshed it out above. Either way – I’d love to hear thoughts on the platform I have outlined.

Tags 2012, Pursuit of Liberty

National

Marginal Logic for Same-Sex Marriage

Post author By David
Post date August 15, 2011
No Comments on Marginal Logic for Same-Sex Marriage

I’m a big fan of the CATO Institute and their perspective on constitutional government but no matter how much I may generally agree with them, that cannot give them a free pass to use use absolutely terrible logic to promote a position. You’ll have to take my word for it that I would dislike the use of terrible logic to promote a position I agree with but in this case Robert Levy uses this terrible logic in support of one of the worst ideas ever promoted in this nation (in my opinion – I recognize that is very subjective). With that introduction – lets break down the flawed logic in Marriage equality: religious freedom, federalism, and judicial activism.

Levy addresses what he calls “three jurisprudential issues that are central to the debate over same-sex marriage: religious freedom, federalism, and judicial activism.” Unfortunately those three jurisprudential issues are not the core of the debate over same-sex marriage. They are one step removed from the core of the debate but they are the focus of the legal wrangling because the proponents of same-sex marriage have declared the debate of the core issue, namely whether same-sex marriage is beneficial for society, to be resolved in the affirmative. This is a critical re-framing of the issue because if that core issue were truly resolved in the affirmative it becomes much easier to make the arguments in these satellite issues and thus produce the intended legal outcome for proponents.

Tags gay marriage, Pursuit of Liberty

culture National

Failure of the American Voter

Post author By David
Post date July 1, 2011
No Comments on Failure of the American Voter

I’ve been thinking about the massive disconnect between the abysmal ratings that Congress enjoys (8% approval I recently read) and the virtual invincibility of Congressional incumbents (incumbents consistently win 90% of the elections where they seek reelection).

I realized that the apparent disconnect was not as stark as it first appeared (11 out of 12 disapproving of Congress while 9 of 10 chose to reelect their Congressional representatives). The reality is that eleven out of twelve people people disapprove of Congress but only five out of twelve vote for someone new when given their current member of Congress as an option.

The fact that six out of twelve voters disapprove of Congress and yet they consistently vote the same people back to represent them over and over again is evidence of a colossal failure on the part of the voters of this nation. They fail to recognize that Congress is working exactly as designed given the input they provide at the polls in November of each even year.

Tags civic participation, congress, public opinion

culture National State

Selective Enforcement of Law

Post author By David
Post date April 26, 2010
19 Comments on Selective Enforcement of Law

photo credit: ThreadedThoughts

In a not-particularly-surprising move, Arizona passed a very strict law giving police broad powers to crack down on illegal immigration. Equally unsurprising is the backlash from those who worry that rights will get trampled in the enforcement of this law. The biggest complaint is against the provision allowing police to stop anyone they suspect of being here illegally and have them prove that they are legal residents.

I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue that such authority would never be abused. More disturbingly to me, 60% of people favor this law despite the fact that 58% of people in the same poll believe that the rights of some citizens will be infringed upon by the enforcement of this law. If we assume that all 40% of people who do not favor this law are among the 58% who fear the rights of citizens will be infringed then there is almost 1 in 5 who is willing to infringe on the basic rights of citizens in order to enforce our essentially arbitrary immigration laws.

Tags Arizona, Elevated, immigration, KVNU FTP

National State

Repeal vs Lawsuit vs Nullification

Post author By David
Post date April 23, 2010
13 Comments on Repeal vs Lawsuit vs Nullification

photo credit: Smabs Sputzer

Ever since the passage of that rancid piece of legislative sausage labeled health care reform Republicans have been talking about repealing the bill. Some even talk about “repeal and replace” as their goal. Alongside that rhetoric (and that’s pretty much all it is at this point) there has been the action taken by the Attorneys General of many states to file suit against the constitutionality of the bill. My purpose here is not to discuss the issue of health care reform; rather, it is to talk about the differences between these two legal paths out of this reform as well as another path which is fundamentally different—nullification—which thus far has not been actively pursued by most opponents of the bill.

Tags Elevated, health care, issues, thoughts, Utah

National

If McCain Were President

photo credit: Wigwam Jones

After another year of domestic turmoil and political shenanigans, a year of watching President Obama in office rather than out on the campaign trail, I find myself frequently having the thought “if only McCain had been elected President instead.”

The thought came again today but unlike previous times I feel like sharing what would likely have happened in a McCain administration to this point.

If McCain had been president he would not have received the Nobel Peace Prize and Justice Souter would not have retired so he would not likely have named any justices to the Supreme Court by this point in his presidency. As far as issues that he would have dealt with that Obama has been dealing with I would like to address health care legislation, auto bailouts, stimulus, and Iran.

Tags 2008, Elevated, McCain, Obama, president