Maryland Malcontent

So what's the big deal about Iowa?

2012-01-04T11:19:00.001-05:00

Last night the State of Iowa held its Republican caucuses. According to the N.Y. Times, more than 120,000 Republicans took part. That is fewer people than vote in the Republican primary in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Why does everyone make such a big deal about a contest in which such a small population votes? Further, the views of Iowa are hardly representative of the nation as a whole. And what is even more ridiculous, the results are not even binding on Iowa's 25 delegates to the Republican National Convention later this year.

So, it appears to me that this whole proceeding is virtually meaningless. Yet, we now have Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney headed to New Hampshire (yet another small State not representative of the nation) in the lead for the GOP nomination, with Ron Paul close behind. Let's take a closer look at these 3 candidates.

Rick Santorum surged to the front in Iowa, so let's look at him first. Among other things, he has said, "We’re not looking for a chief executive officer. We’re looking for a commander in chief." Apparently Mr. Santorum is not familiar with the U.S. Constitution, in which Article II, Section 1 states, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Section 2 of the same Article details that this executive power entails, with Commander in Chief being only one of them. He is a supporter of a Personhood Amendment to the Constitution (see ref 1). This amendment would declare that life begins at conception, and that the fertilized egg is immediately considered a person in the eyes of the law. This would give the Government the power to investigate all miscarriages to ensure that the mother didn't do anything to cause the miscarriage, thus committing murder. It would allow the Government to investigate all birth defects to ensure the mother didn't do anything during pregnancy that could have cause the defect, thus causing malicious harm to a person. It would allow children to sue their parent for child neglect while in the womb if they found out their mother smoked, or drank, or did anything else not considered healthy while pregnant. This might even be a simple as not taking prenatal vitamins. He also claims to want to make big cuts in spending, yet he is proud of all the pork barrel legislation and earmarks he sponsored (see ref 2).

Mitt Romney has been at or near the front of the GOP field since the beginning of the campaign. He is the most moderate (if there is such a Republican being anymore) of any of the GOP candidates. The thing that most Republicans are wary of is that he is a Mormon and not an evangelical Christian. Of greater concern is that he has repeatedly lied about various things he has said or done (see ref 3). He claims to be a businessman and that's what America needs as President right now. Yet a number of his businesses went belly-up (see ref 4). In fact that was the purpose of Bain Capital (the company he headed). It bought companies, cut costs (i.e. laid off workers), and bankrupted many of them, all while generating massive profits for the owners of Bain Capital. Is that what we need for America?

Where to even start with Ron Paul? If you listen to Ron Paul in short spurts, he makes a lot of sense. The problem is, he keeps talking. That's when you realize he is way out there somewhere. He issued newsletters under his name for more than 10 years that were often racist, but now he says he doesn't know where the material for those newsletters came from. He has suggested that women that are sexually harassed on the job should just quit (see ref 5). He has stated that he would like to see the 16th Amendment repealed (the one allowing the Federal Income Tax). He wants no taxes whatsoever. He has not stated how the Government would pay for anything that it does, though he believes there should be little to no Federal Government. Basically, his policies come down to "every man for himself."

It is no wonder why almost half of the Iowa electorate was undecided right up until the vote. Do you really want any of these candidates? Of course, does it really matter? As I already pointed out, Iowa's 25 delegates are not mandated to follow the vote anyway. On to the next meaningless primary. See you in New Hampshire.

References
1. http://support.ricksantorum.com/executive-branch-actions
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6XCZz2X1Y&feature=player_embedded
3. http://www.realchange.org/romney.htm
4. http://gerarddirect.com/2011/12/22/mitt-romney%E2%80%99s-dirty-little-secrets/
5. http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/01/ron-paul-says-victim-sex-harassment-bears-some-responsibility-for-resolution/fyCUfBYPwVLj4eLcE4YnPI/index.html

The latest Republican Debate

2011-12-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

The Washington Post does a nice job of fact-checking of the debate that was held on 12/10/11. So I won't focus on the areas that they already covered.

One big issue that I do want to focus on is Rick Perry's discussion of the drone that was shot down / crashed / or otherwise captured in Iran. Mr. Perry was all upset that now Iran would be able to reverse engineer the drone, and that our enemies would have access to that technology. He said that President Obama had two choices. He could either go into Iran and take back the drone, or he could go into Iran and bomb it such that there was nothing left for them to reverse engineer. He then said that President Obama took the third option which was to do nothing.

Given that the drone was in Iranian airspace, that was already technically an act of war. Does Mr. Perry really think that it would be a good idea to send a rescue group into Iran to retrieve the drone, thus risking American lives and also initiating further war activities with Iran? Does he really think that dropping bombs in Iran on the drone would not be considered even further aggression? Does he think that Iran would just sit back and do nothing? If they were not capable of immediately striking back against the U.S., they would attack our surrogate in the area, the Israelis. Does Mr. Perry think that would be a good thing?

I, for one, support the restraint that President Obama showed in not escalating the situation. Oh, does Mr. Perry approve of the way the U.S.S. Pueblo situation was handled back in January of 1968? Does he think that President Johnson should have gone into North Korea to get that ship back, or gotten us into war with North Korea? If he does, then I am sure I don't want Mr. Perry as Commander in Chief.

Congress and the Payroll Tax Fiasco

2011-12-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

Congress is once again tied up in knots over extending the Payroll Tax Cut and how to pay for that. The Democrats have proposed a surtax on incomes of over $1 Million per year. The Republican balk at that tax increase due to their pledge to Grover Norquist. Instead they would rather allow the Payroll Tax to expire, as somehow that increase on the middle class doesn't count against the Norquist pledge. Amazingly though, allowing the Bush era tax cuts to expire does count as a tax increase with respect to the pledge. It's enough to make your head spin.

In any event, I have a very simple solution to the problem. Permanently lower the Payroll tax to 4.2% but remove the earnings cap on the tax. Currently, only the first $106K of income is subject to this tax. What this means is that if you make more than this, your effective tax rate is much lower than someone who makes less. By removing the earnings cap, we would make this a "flat" tax. Now the GOP seems like they like "flat" taxes, so there should be no objection to removing the earnings cap, unless of course they are hypocrites. The additional income from taxing the amounts over $106K not only would pay for the reduction in the rate, but would make Social Security solvent for decades to come.

Does anyone expect that this idea will be picked up by Congress? I don't. Yes, I have sent this idea to my Representative and both my Senators, but I have found that ideas that make sense have no place in Congress.

Not so "Super" Committee failure

2011-11-22T10:10:00.001-05:00

The so-called Super-Committee of the Congress admitted yesterday that they had failed to reach any kind of compromise to avoid the automatic cuts. This should not have surprised anyone, as both sides are dug in on their positions. So, I thought I would offer my solution to the Government deficit and overall debt problem.

Historically, both spending and revenue have been in the 18 - 20% of GDPrange, with spending typically outpacing revenue by some amount, hence thedeficit and long term debt. Currently the country is running at about 24% of GDP forexpenditures and 14.5% of GDP for revenues. It is easy to see that we need toboth cut spending and increase revenue to solve the problems.

As for where to make cuts, lets start with Defense. The U.S. spends about43% of all money spent by all countries on Defense. It spends more than thenext 17 countries combined. I submit that we could cut our Defense budget byhalf and still not alter the security of the country. So how to do that?

1) Get the troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, and whereverright now, not 3 months from now, or 3 years from now. The people in thoseplaces will go back to killing each other whenever we leave, so it may as wellbe now. It is time for the U.S. to stop be the World Police.

2) Close at least 50% of our overseas bases. There is no way we need all ofthem. Some are nothing more than housing for families of deployed soldiers. Whycan't those families live in the U.S.? Most of these bases are legacies of World Wars I & II. As noted above, the U.S. cannot afford to be the World Police, so lets not try.

3) Cancel the weapons programs that the Pentagon has said they don't wantand don't need, but have been forced down their throat due to earmarks in thebudget process.

4) Buy a few less cruise missiles and B2 bombers and the like until we canafford them again.

What else to cut? A recent study found more than 200 programs that areoverlapping among various agencies. Lets figure out how to get rid of theduplication. My experience as a Government contractor shows that there areoften duplicate programs within an agency, let alone across agencies. Give theagency heads incentives to make the duplications go away (for real, not justhide them).

Lets end the subsidies for oil, gas, agriculture, and whatever else. Thoseare expenses that the Government can't afford anymore. Let the corporate world fendfor itself.

As for Social Security, it has not added a penny to the deficit. Itcurrently has a trust fund of more than $2.6 Trillion. Yes, if something isn'tdone soon, that Trust Fund will empty, and then it will add to the deficit.

Solution: remove the earnings cap on the FICA tax. That way all earners pay thesame percentage, instead of having a higher percentage tax on the lower incomefolks than the higher. This is the most regressive tax the Government has.Those that want a flat income tax should jump at this, as it would now be a flat FICAtax. This change alone should keep the Social Security Trust Fund flush formany years to come, without any other changes.

On the revenue side, let's start by allowing the Bush tax cuts (all of them,not just those over $250K) to expire. Let's eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction for anything other one's primary residence. If you want a vacation home, that's fine, but no interest deduction. Tax capital gains as ordinary income. Impose a 0.25% transaction tax on all stock, bond, options, futures, and any other kind of derivative security purchases and sales.

Finally, many of the problems our economy has have been caused by theoutsourcing of manufacturing and jobs overseas. As the jobs are lost, peoplecan't afford to buy the products, and more is outsourced. This just becomes anever ending cycle, and we're nearing bottom. Laws, possibly tariffs, need tobe put into place to encourage bringing these jobs back to the United States.That will also help the export/import balance for the country. With theresultant job growth, there will be increased tax revenue. Once we start payingdown the actual debt (not just reducing the annual deficit), then we can lookat reducing tax rates again.

It is time for the 2 parties to stop bickering about their positions and work together for the good of the country. The ideas above certainly would be a good place to start.

Police Brutality in California

2011-11-20T16:27:00.001-05:00

During a peaceful Occupy Movement demonstration on the campus of UC Davis, police came in and without any provocation began to pepper spray the students. These students were simply sitting there doing nothing. See the video for yourself.

What is this world coming to when people are not allowed to peacefully protest? Are we going to see another Kent State massacre soon?

Whether you agree or disagree with Occupy Movement, you should agree that there is no excuse to use force such as pepper spray on students that are just sitting there. The officer that did this should not be just disciplined, but arrested and charged with one count of assault for every student he sprayed. Further, if the head of the UC Davis police force does not take this action promptly, he or she should be fired. The University administration, starting from the very top needs to ensure that those responsible are charged, and that measures are in place to make sure this never happens again.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-17T10:58:00.001-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street and related Occupy movements have gotten a lot of press over the last month, after an initial press blackout. I have some mixed feelings about this movement.

People have the right to peaceable assembly guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution. However, that does not mean they have the right to camp in public parks and trash them, which is what has happened in some locations. The police do not have the right to beat up non-violent protesters, which has happened in Oakland and other place, and they do not have the right to detain journalists doing their job, which has happened in New York City. Clearly, both sides need to be more responsible to prevent this movement from escalating to the riots that were seen in the late 60's.

Which brings me to today's planned protests. The group in New York City is planning to occupy the Brooklyn Bridge, simply to snarl traffic to bring attention to their group. The group in Washington, DC is planning to do the same with the Key Bridge in Georgetown. In Los Angeles, they plan to occupy one of the major intersections there as well. If the Occupy movement wants to turn the public against their efforts, all they have to do is carry out these protests today. Everyone whose commute is affected will not be amused at the cause of the delays. Personally, I am very happy not to have any of those places on my commuting route.

The Occupy movement has legitimate gripes about the banking system and Wall Street. While a bank robber that nets $800 from a bank robbery gets sentenced to 2 to 5 years in jail, a banker that defrauds hundreds of millions of dollars has his or her company sign a consent decree with the SEC, without admitting guilt, and pays a fraction of the amount netted in fines. Where is the fairness in that? Wall Street market makers have be caught "front-running" trades. This is where they see an influx of buy orders coming in, and rather than help to smooth the ups and downs of the market like they are supposed to do, they buy for their own account first. Then they execute the other buy orders, the preponderance of which causes the price of the stock to rise. Finally, they sell the stock they bought earlier, for a nice risk free profit. Market Makers are not permitted to do this, but every one of them that has been caught (and there have been several), has gotten off with a fine and a promise not to do it again. Apparently the lesson that we should learn from this is that if you are going to rob a bank, make sure your take is in the millions of dollars. You'll stay out of jail that way.

Clearly, I support the Occupy movement's right to protest those kinds of injustice. However, resorting to tactics such as tying up traffic in knots is only going to get the public to go against them. They should cancel their plans for this afternoon's street protests, and perhaps change them to be rallies at local or Federal Government offices instead.

Welcome

2011-11-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the return of the Maryland Malcontent. A few years ago I wrote this blog, but over time I put less effort into it and finally deleted it.

I find myself debating more and more issues on Facebook now, so I have decided to restart the blog. I hope my former readers will return and that anyone that reads this blog enjoys it. Please feel free to leave comments and to debate with me on any issue. I only ask that the debate be kept professional. No profanity, no name calling, etc.