Author: Redactor

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy too much government

Prop 13 Declared Innocent

You hear it all the time: California’s in such a mess “because of Proposition 13.”

You probably wonder how that initiative, passed way back in the ‘70s, could be so key.

Well, it was the first of a long line of voter-instigated tax limitation measures, and it made politicians ache with frustration. Politicians LIKE spending money; Proposition 13 limited, somewhat, their greedy quest for ever more money to spend.

But did it really unbalance California fiscal policy?

Chris Reed, writing in the San Diego Union-Tribune, explains how nutty this charge really is:

[S]ince shortly after Prop. 13’s adoption, property tax revenue increased by 579 percent. That is not a typo. It went up 579 percent.

During the same span, population went from 24 million to 38 million — an increase of 58 percent.

Reed checked his numbers against the inflation rate, and found that “property tax revenue has increased by more than triple the combined rate of inflation and population growth.”

He did a little more checking and learned that property tax revenues went up faster than any other major revenue source!

So Prop 13 simply cannot be the reason for California’s impending bankruptcy. Though the measure limited tax rate growth, and helped homeowners, it did not unbalance the budgets.

Humungous increases in spending did. Politicians need look no further than their own projects.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Law to Be Named Later

Nevada’s legislators have long desired to do something that they haven’t been able to do.

I understand. It happens in baseball. Two teams want to trade a player, but can’t decide who to trade for that player. So, one team hands over, say, their left-fielder for “a player to be named later” from the other team.

These deals require tremendous trust.

I wonder how much the people of Nevada trust their state legislature.

I wonder because what their legislators want is to make the ballot initiative process much, much harder to use.

Years ago, the federal courts struck down a requirement that petition signatures be gathered in three-fourths of Nevada’s counties. So the state legislature passed a new law requiring signatures from every county.

Yes, the court struck that law down, too.

Nevada solons came back with legislation mandating that petitions be gathered in each of 42 legislative districts. This makes a petition drive actually 42 drives — greatly increasing costs and the opportunity for error.

Worried that scheme wouldn’t pass court review, legislators amended the bill to require petitions to come from every U.S. congressional district. But only for this election cycle. There’s a kicker: By 2011, legislators will create “petition districts.” How many districts? They’ll decide later . . . as many as they determine can get away with.

The bill passed in the last days of the just-completed session. It’s sort of a policy to be named later.

Unlike that bill, this is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders tax policy

Hope for the Hopeless

Illinois is hopeless. When John Tillman hears people say that about government in the Land of Lincoln, he gets pretty peeved.

Tillman, head of the Illinois Policy Institute — a think tank offering what it calls “liberty-based public policy initiatives” — doesn’t think battling big government is hopeless at all. For instance, the Institute helped generate support for transparency legislation that passed.

And last week, as the state’s legislative session closed, Governor Pat Quinn’s proposed 50 percent income tax hike was soundly defeated . . . by the state’s very blue legislature.

How did that happen?

Well, the first step is always to believe enough in your fellow citizens to wage a fight for their “hearts and minds.” Hope helps.

Next step? Getting the facts out.

The argument for huge tax increases is always that government can’t survive without the additional money. In a series of media appearances and grassroots events, Tillman and the Institute kept talking about sensible ways to cut spending.

Governor Quinn talked about the painful consequences if government didn’t have more money. Tillman spoke about the painful consequences if working families, already paying high taxes, had to fork over still more dough.

Kristina Rasmussen, the Institute’s Executive Vice President, published a report entitled, “Would My Family Pay Higher Taxes Under Governor Quinn’s Plan?” The answer for the average Illinois family was: Yes — 17 percent more.

Hope wins again. Helped by hard work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
judiciary

I Don’t Rule the World

Last week I had some fun with Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s comment to the effect that she was able to make better judicial decisions than a white male because of her experiences as a Latina.

I don’t take offense “as a white male.” I object as a rational human being.

But while Judge Sotomayor continues to catch flak, I must say, bashing white males has become rather commonplace.

Being rational, not so much.

For instance, Kathleen Parker, a usually reasonable columnist, had this to say in defending Sotomayor’s statement:

“Could a white man get away with saying something comparable about a Latina? Of course not. After Latinas have run the world for 2,000 years, they won’t be able to say it ever again.”

So the reason it is open season on white males is because we run the world?

You see, I’m a white male and I’ve never ruled the world. Not even for one minute.

I don’t even want to rule the world. I don’t even want to dictatorially rule my own house — that’s done by a a nice oligarchy of my wife and me, with a barking veto from the dog.

I’d like my freedom, though, and to have a democratic say in my government.

Oh, and to be judged on my demonstrated character . . . not blamed for what some other guy with similar skin hues did two thousand years ago.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling general freedom too much government

No Smiling, No Hugging

Things sure have changed since I was a kid. It used to be okay to smile. Encouraged even. And hugging someone was considered nice, friendly, compassionate.

Today, in my home state of Virginia, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or DMV, is discouraging smiles. No, not just discouraging smiles, wiping them out entirely.

The DMV is telling people not to smile — or say “cheese” — when getting their photos taken for their drivers’ licenses. If they do smile, the picture cannot go on their license and they have to take another.

And all over the country, public schools are banning hugging.

Why the official suppression of friendliness and good cheer?

Well, in schools the administrators apparently cannot tell a friendly hug from a sexual grope, or a jovial high-five from a bullying slap.

So they’re outlawing all touching.

When I was in school, I don’t remember any rules against hugging or holding hands or even kissing — unless folks got carried away. And we trusted teachers and principals to make the judgment as to what was going too far.

Now, any touching invites what one administrator calls a “gray area.”

The DMV may have a better excuse to suppress smiles and grins and such: They are developing facial recognition software, and smiles get in the way. It’s all to protect us from identity theft, they say.

And yet isn’t it odd that protecting us makes us less human? Can that really be protection?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

Big Brother Plays in Traffic

One of my favorite uncles used to jokingly tell us kids to “go play in traffic.” In reality, not so good for kids. Or for politicians.

Maryland’s recent Senate Bill-277 brought this to mind. It authorizes the installation of cameras to monitor and ticket for speeding near highway work zones and schools. Legislators insist that the cameras will slow down traffic and bring in needed revenue.

How do voters feel? Well, according to a report at TheNewspaper.com “no photo enforcement program has ever survived a public vote.”

Voters tend to regard speed cameras as simply another scam to grab yet more money. The cameras also remind one of Big Brother.

So, how come legislators don’t listen to the people? Maybe one reason is that as TheNewspaper.com also reports, “[P]arties with a direct financial interest in automated ticketing showered members of the Maryland General Assembly and the governor with $707,725 in gifts and campaign cash.”

Oh.

Fortunately, Maryland voters have the right to referendum: They can petition to place this legislation to a vote of the people.

And that is exactly what the group Maryland for Responsible Enforcement is now doing.

Similar battles are being waged in other states. There’s an effort to take away the 200 speed cameras now on Arizona roads; Montana legislators just banned such cameras in Big Sky Country.

Maybe Big Brother should “go play in traffic.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets too much government U.S. Constitution

Stop Unconstitutional Stomping

Here’s an idea about how to help businesses survive in this troubled economic climate: Stop allowing an unaccountable regulatory board — unclad by even a fig leaf of constitutionality — to ride roughshod over public companies.

In the wake of the Enron scam and other financial scandals several years ago, Congress enacted a packet of onerous new regulations. This Sarbanes-Oxley legislation created a regulatory board, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, to issue arbitrary edicts, impose arbitrary penalties, etc.

One problem with this star chamber is that its officers are neither appointed by the executive branch nor approved by Congress, as required by the Constitution.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Free Enterprise Fund want this practice to end. CEI explains that if the president were obliged to appoint and dismiss members of this board, as required by the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, “he will be on the hook for their policy failures, and thus have an interest in making them develop sound policies. . . . He won’t be able to blame the red tape on an unaccountable agency. . . .”

But the two organizations are not merely publishing op-eds and issuing press releases. They have filed suit, taking their case against the oversight board to the courts. And now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

At last, this oversight board gets some much-needed oversight.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

The Motorhome Diaries

The Motorhome Diaries, or MHD, is a documentary project by Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, and Adam Mueller.

Jason are both former heads of Bureaucrash, a website that lampoons government bureaucracy and big, intrusive government in general. This crew has been touring the U.S. with his crew to interview fellow freedom fighters. The video annals of their journey are posted at the motorhomediaries.com website. Interviewees include David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, and Congressman Ron Paul, last year’s most interesting Republican presidential candidate.

Now the MHD team is documenting not freedom fighters, but, apparently, the fighters of freedom fighters.

In Jones County, Mississippi, a police officer pulled them over allegedly because he had trouble reading their vehicle’s tags. Soon the police demanded to know “where the drugs are,” and began ripping the trailer apart. There were no drugs.

Adam was handcuffed for trying to tape the proceedings. The other two were also detained. Jason managed to send a few Twitter messages to supporters while all this was happening, and received an outpouring of support. At the moment, the situation remains unresolved.

I know only one side of the story. But the blow-by-blow account posted at the MHD website is chilling. Visit and see for yourself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights Ninth Amendment rights Tenth Amendment federalism U.S. Constitution

Sotto Voce Sotomayor

Last week, former Congressman and presidential candidate Bob Barr sent out a simple admonishment to his Twitter list: “Let’s have a real debate on Judge Sotomayor, not hysterics. . . .”

Unlikely. Appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor is precisely the kind of jurist to divide us. She’s said things that seem racist and sexist and absurd. But, then, if I criticize her for those things, her supporters will call what I say racist or sexist or absurd.

And none of us want racism, or sexism, much less absurdity.

Let’s try sympathy, instead. It’s not easy to promote a constitutional philosophy consistent and widely acceptable at a time when much of what the federal government does belies — abridges — repudiates! — the Constitution itself.

Take the First Amendment. It begins, “Congress shall make no law . . .” No ambiguity. And yet Congress makes all sorts of law regarding speech, including regulating speech about politics, negating the whole point of the First Amendment.

What part of “no law” don’t today’s jurists understand? In many cases it’s the part where the states have power to fashion their own solutions to problems. It’s called the Tenth Amendment. And it’ usually ignored by all mainstream legal experts, along with the Ninth.

I’d like to have a quiet debate on this. Sotto voce, you might say. The opposite of hysterically loud.

That would be more important, even, than a debate about Judge Sotomayor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

Twitter Not Always Annoying

You’ve probably heard of Twitter, now that Oprah has. It is a “micro-blogging” tool that lets you keep in touch with people by sending messages of 140 characters or less, maybe 30 words. Senders are supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing right now?”

This sounds like a lot of people telling each other they’re hunting for a renegade sock or catching the bus. But people and imagination being what they are, savvy practitioners assure us that Twitter has been put to a very wide variety of uses, not all of them snooze-worthy.

I was sold as soon as I heard how it was used last year to help get innocent men out of jail.

James Karl Buck, an American grad student, was arrested in April 2008 while covering an anti-government protest in Egypt. So was his translator, Mohammed Maree. Conciseness being the better part of valor, Buck sent a one-word “tweet” to his “followers” on Twitter. To wit: “Arrested.”

Recipients knew that Buck was in Egypt covering a political demonstration. So comprehension was immediate, action swift. Soon, Buck’s college hired a lawyer to represent him. Soon thereafter he sent another message: “Released.”

His Egyptian translator, Mohammed Maree, was not so lucky. Buck worked hard to help his friend. Twitter was one of his tools. Three months later, Mohammed was free as well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.