Author: CS Admin

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Common Sense education and schooling folly general freedom tax policy

Money (for Us) Good, Profit (for Them) Bad

Teacher's Union

“One thing that we’ve done,” Dennis McBride of Support our Schools-​Wauwatosa told a crowd at a free event hosted by the non-​profit Wisconsin Public Education Network, “is we’ve made sure every time one of our legislators pops up his or her head above the foxhole, we’re there to shoot at them.”

The crowd laughed, reports the watchdog John K. MacIver Institute, which ran the story under the headline, “Panelist Jokes About Shooting Legislators at Public Education Summit.”

No worries, though: it was just a metaphor.

The genuinely kooky thoughts were less figurative.

One speaker encouraged the audience never to say the two words, “Scott Walker,” for fear of giving “the Wisconsin governor” higher name-recognition.

“Some of the first voucher supporters,” asserted Jonas Persson of the Center for Media and Democracy, “outside of this kind of new right core group of ideologues and wealthy entrepreneurs, were white supremacists.…”

Incredibly, he insisted that this movement “drew most of its support from, quote, ‘white flight areas*.’”

Somehow, no one mentioned voucher program successes, or the grassroots support for vouchers in African-​American communities.

“The ultimate goal is about breaking down public schools and to be honest with you,” said Jennifer Epps-​Addison of Wisconsin Jobs Now/​Schools and Communities United, “it’s about profiting off of the education of our kids.”

Heavens! Making a profit by serving parents and children “consuming” education? Unthinkable.

Meanwhile, Epps-​Addison pushed the “Wisconsin Freedom Compact,” which calls for doubling the tax dollars going to public education.

Will she guarantee that no one will profit from that?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article contained the term “white flight Aryans” in Jonas Persson’s quote. After review of notes and audio recordings, the phrase has been corrected to read “white flight areas.” The context and overall significance of Persson’s statements are not changed, but the quote is updated for accuracy.

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Teacher's Union

 

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Common Sense general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy term limits

Conflicts Perplexing Prominent Politicians

In Disguise

When does the same old song-​and-​dance, performed by yet another self-​selected committee of the political elite, become “a unique process” that “Nobody’s ever done …”?

When the much-​liberal Denver Post reports the “much-​respected” Daniel Ritchie saying so.

Every election cycle for a decade, it seems, a cabal of big-​spending politicians and big-​receiving special interests form a “prominent” and “bipartisan” group to propose making citizen initiatives more difficult, weakening term limits, and circumventing the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (or TABOR, which limits spending and requires voter approval for tax increases).

This cycle’s iteration is “Building a Better Colorado,” now being formed for a September launch by Ritchie, the former Denver University chancellor.

Sunday’s Post provided the group of “prominent civic and business leaders [not to mention politicians]” ample coverage: “The project — developed behind the scenes for months and detailed in exclusive interviews and documents obtained by The Denver Post — is perhaps the most concerted effort in recent memory to address what organizers see as inherent conflicts in how the state is governed.”

Conflicts?

“Those conflicts, they say, are impeding Colorado’s ability to build new roads, put more money in classrooms, engage an increasingly disenchanted electorate and prepare for the future.”

“I’ve seen this game played too often in Colorado,” remarked the Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara. “It’s like a Kumbaya committee. We are going to get all these people who are marginally diverse and at the end of this long process … the conclusion is to raise taxes.”

While the “new” group isn’t “advocating any specific policy outcome” and plans to engage the public at town hall meetings, the meetings’ agenda has been pre-​set … by “experts.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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In Disguise

 

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Common Sense crime and punishment folly general freedom national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Cannabis and Kings

Jack boot, photomontage, collage, James Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/

The over-​riding reason to end the War on Drugs is to re-​establish the rule of law in this country.

From Nixon and Reagan to the present time, America has vastly increased the population of prison inmates, many of them for drug offenses. The “land of the free” shouldn’t boast a larger population (per capita and total) of unfree persons than any other nation on the planet.

Further, in the mania to apprehend contraband drug users, producers, and traffickers, we’ve pretty much lost Bill of Rights protections on our lives and our property.

We’ve armed nearly every conceivable division of government against us, turning local, state and federal police “services” into police state apparatuses that hound and steal from portions of our population — which turns them from citizens into fearful, resentful, servile subjects. Meanwhile, the use of civil asset forfeiture and other policing for profit schemes corrupt our police forces in a serious and fundamental and “King Georgish” way.

Sam and John Adams, Toms Jefferson and Paine — they’d all be aghast at what we have become.

But what of the growing tide to legalize/​decriminalize marijuana? Reading a report by Steven Greenhut in Reason, it becomes apparent that not every step moves us towards a rule of law. Some steps in “regulating and taxing” cannabis may be more about using crony capitalism to choose winners and losers.

Let’s use some common sense from lessons learned with alcohol — er, with regulating alcohol, that is. Keep marijuana away from the kids and keep the over-​regulation of marijuana away from adults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Jack boot, photomontage, collage, James Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

 

Categories
Accountability Common Sense government transparency national politics & policies porkbarrel politics tax policy too much government

The Spenders’ Eternal Excuse

Gluttony

Most modern welfare states have a huge problem: their politicians promise more than government revenue covers. So they borrow and borrow until they can borrow no more.

And then they go down. Like Greece has gone down. Banks are closed there, and the people suffer.

The problem is over-​spending and over-​promising (the latter being merely committing to future over-​spending, so let’s just call it all over-​spending). But when you confront a partisan of such extravagance — whether that person be a politician or a constituency beneficiary or an ideological socialist or social democrat — the most common defense is: THEY WOULDN’T LET US TAX ENOUGH.

The “they” in such defenses could be an opposition party, or a constituency, or … “the evil rich.”

But anyone with something other than a lump of coal for a brain knows the real truth: responsible people don’t make such defenses. If a political difficulty gets in the way of the extra revenue needed for something promised, it’s practically the same as an economic difficulty, so the excuse falls apart.

Say again?

If you cannot get enough revenue for your favorite program, it doesn’t matter whether the people who are the source of your “needed” revenue are broke — have nothing to give — or they simply balk at giving. The point is, you don’t have the revenue. The responsible reaction would be: cut back on spending.

Responsible people budget; irresponsible people blame others for not having the wherewithal to spend and spend and spend.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Gluttony

 

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Accountability Common Sense folly general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

Republican-​Required Referendum

Politicians in a jar

Last November, Nevada Republicans scored a “stunning” political sweep. The party’s incumbent governor rolled up a 40-​point win, while the GOP gained majorities in both the Assembly and Senate — the first time Republicans have controlled all three since before the Great Depression.

At the same time, voters crushed a ballot measure to create a 2‑percent gross receipts tax on businesses taking in over $1 million, by a whopping 78 – 22 percent. Gov. Brian Sandoval ® and GOP legislators opposed the tax.

My tax-​fighting friend Chuck Muth, president of Citizen Outreach, must be happy as a clam, living the easy life.

No?

Mere months after that vote, the solidly Republican state legislature passed — you guessed it — a gross receipts tax. And with it, for good measure, all stuffed into Senate Bill 483, the Republican majority also made permanent a whole slew of taxes passed as temporary measures back in 2009.

The total tax increase — ahem, to celebrate the Republican trouncing of Democrats — turned out to be the largest in Nevada history: $1.1 billion.

I wish this story of betrayal were shocking, not par for the course. But as we all know, the lack of surprise signals the depth of the problem.

Thankfully, Silver State citizens have what Ralph Nader calls the “ace in the hole”: statewide initiative and referendum.

Two referendum measures have been filed. One would repeal the gross receipts tax. The other, filed by Muth’s “We Decide Coalition,” places the entire billion-​dollar-​plus tax hike onto the ballot.

“It’s time for these elected elites to stop using Nevadans as ATM machines,” Muth recently wrote.

Yes, time for Nevadans to crank up the machinery of democracy … starting with 55,000 signatures on petitions for each measure.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Politicians in a jar

 

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ballot access Common Sense general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies responsibility term limits U.S. Constitution

The Quadrennial Distraction

Citizen Action

As the leading Republican candidate for the presidency ascends into the air in a helicopter filled with kids, and makes his most astute declaration yet — “I am Batman” — it becomes clearer than ever how distracting these presidential campaigns are.

Much of American Big League politics is theatrics, with some pandering for good measure. Of course, all people running for the presidency are by definition over their heads, at best … posturing attention-​seekers at worst. Fretting about what they believe and “would do” if voted in as President of these United States is mostly a waste of time. Experience tells us that what they promise is perhaps the least likely outcome of all.

What is more effective? Affecting the political environment by getting together with like-​minded folk to advance principled causes closer to home. As a side effect of your activism, a successful issue in a single city or region — especially one that spreads — can have a dramatic influence on present and future presidential wannabes.

With organization and consistent activity at the local level, your voice can be heard. But you have to do something. That activity doesn’t have to be to “run for office”; you can turn up the volume by proposing (and sometimes opposing) ballot initiatives, constitutional and charter amendments in the state, county and city where you live.

There is so much to be done at this level that could create political climate change, which in turn would invariably make federal-​level candidates better, that it seems a shame to see us so focused on long shot bets.

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Citizen Action