Category: Common Sense

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Cruz “Loses”

Koch Brothers, Ted Cruz, political, politics, collage, photomontage, conspiracy, secrets, LA Times, Campaign Finance

When Sen. Ted Cruz gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, last week, he ruffled a few feathers. Calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar in front of everybody is just not done. “Elder party statesmen have not been amused,” the Los Angeles Times reports:

On Sunday, 81-​year-​old Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the GOP’s most senior senator, opened the chamber’s session with a reminder to colleagues of the ground rules.

“Squabbling and acrimony may be tolerated on the campaign trail,” said Hatch, who urged senators colleagues toward comity and decorum, and to keep their egos in check.

Cruz defended himself. “It is entirely consistent with decorum … to speak the truth.”

The “squabble” was over the Export-​Import Bank, mainly. Cruz blurted out how McConnell had betrayed his own party members in the Senate by cutting a backroom deal for the crony-​capitalist moral hazard that is the Ex-Im.

Regardless (or because of?) Cruz’s truth-​telling, the Senate rebuffed Cruz and “voted to advance the Export-​Import bank and deny the presidential hopeful a vote on his amendment.”

Crony capitalism continues.

But note an odd aside in the LA Times’s account. The paper went out of its way to identify Ex-​Im as “opposed by the powerful Koch brothers but supported by a bipartisan coalition of business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

The Kochs were brought up … for what reason?

So vilified by the left, these days, the Kochs are a red herring … which the Times threw into the issue like an Erisian apple, nudging Democratic readers not to sympathize with Cruz.

We can’t have his anti-​crony-​capitalist stance attract Democratic readers, now, can we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Import-Export Boogymen

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Common Sense general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Forget Frankenstein

Import Export

Some proposals are so shocking and not common that, no matter how rational or sensible, we cannot legitimately call them “common sense.”

Could this be one?

You tell me.

Congress is right now struggling to pass a highway funding bill. Authorized funding by the federal government on roads ends with the passing of this month, July. So, blogs Scott Shackford at Reason, “the legislature has to pass something. Because the legislature has to pass something, people are trying to squeeze everything into it.”

And our illustrious president wants to revive the recently dead, the Export-​Import Bank. “When he was a senator, Barack Obama knew the program was nothing but corporate welfare,” writes Shackford. “But now as president, he has flip-​flopped and is trying to keep the institution alive.”

I don’t know if the prez will ultimately succeed, cajoling Congress to revive the monster by stuffing it into the roads bill, but at least “Sen. Marco Rubio has introduced an amendment to the highway bill that would kill the bank and unload its assets to the treasury.”

Go, Rubio! Getting rid of the Ex-​Im Bank is just anti-​crony common sense.

So what’s the “uncommon” sense? This out-​of-​the-​mainstream notion: We don’t need a federal transportation bill at all. It’s not as if states cannot secure funding for roads. (They already do.) Devolve the whole Interstate system back onto the states!

Radical? Maybe. But the federal government just spends and spends without much sense. Distribute the responsibility for roads to the states; let Congress figure out how to manage its remaining tasks.

For a change.

I think this is … Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Import Export

 

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Common Sense folly free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Fifteen or Fifty or Zero?

Finding the Right Balance

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell just stumbled into a truth. Raising minimum wages could be disastrous. Depending on the rate.

While “Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and a host of other well-​intentioned liberals want to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour,” she calls the proposal “badly misguided.”

And yet she says that the current federal wage floor, at “just $7.25 an hour … is absurdly low.”

Why, this Friday, she notes, marks six years since the last minimum wage hike!

Rampell recognizes that raising the minimum wage to $50/​hour would cause unemployment, massively. She also realizes that, in many low-​wage states, the mere $15 rate would do the same. But raising “the federal minimum wage to $10.10”? Might work! “This is a trade-off …”

Yes. Stop right there. Trade-​offs, indeed.

She wants us to think about getting the rates right.

Employers and job-​seekers do that already, in the marketplace. If businesses don’t pay enough, the workers will move on to employers who will. Force businesses to hire workers for more than their productivity? Unemployment results.

A minimum wage rate helps some and hurts others. Rampell admits that, appearing to “accept” 500,000 people losing their jobs as collateral damage to boost wages for others.

Her proposed fine-​tuning of rates supposes that politicians have greater knowledge about the “proper” price of labor than employers and job-​seekers. Moreover, she ignores the inevitable political game, whereby politicians take credit for rewarding some, while hiding the costs imposed on others.

Finding the “right minimum wage” rate is mainly about hiding the victims … so voters won’t notice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Finding the Right Balance

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

C Is For Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon

Every writer can count among his loyal readers at least one curmudgeon. I have several. Today we consider the criticism of one special curmudgeon.

Let’s call him “Mr. C.”

Mr. C. agrees with my last several invokings of Common Sense. But he wonders, “Sure the [insert expletive here] of Republican presidential candidates are annoying, but never forget: the best Democratic candidate is worse than the worst Republican candidate.”

Mr. C. doesn’t mind ridiculing Trump, or questioning the savvy of Santorum. But, he tells me, “the very existence of a self-​professed ‘socialist’ on the Democratic side suggests just how bad things have gotten.”

I don’t disagree. But should I agree with Mr. C. when he insists that “to call oneself a ‘socialist’ at this point in time is worse than calling oneself a ‘Ku Kluxer’”?

Further, Mr. C. informs me, it’s not just the candidate whose initials are “B.S.” who says outrageously commie, er, socialistic things.

“Hillary C.,” he insists, “trumps both Elizabeth Warren [who isn’t running] and B.S. with a whole wheelbarrow load of b.s. She just came out for ‘encouraging’ profit sharing by a business with its workers.”

What could be wrong with that?

Mr. C. has an answer: “All sorts of businesses engage in employee profit-​sharing, aiming to encourage the proverbial ‘skin in the game.’ But forcing this is bad for many reasons.”

Again I agree. Mrs. Clinton’s proposal is just a sneaky way to play Robin Hood, without addressing the real issue behind all other issues, a lagging, red-​tape bound economy.

Or, as was told to another Mr. C. years ago, “It’s the Economy, Stupid.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Curmudgeon

 

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Common Sense

Bribing a Legislature

Eyman

Just when big government boosters in the Evergreen State thought it was safe to raise taxes, Tim Eyman and the group Voters Want More Choices have returned to the streets with Initiative 1366.

When his previous and similar effort, I‑1325, fizzled last year, opponents were ecstatic, celebrating Eyman’s perceived obsolescence. Seattle Post-​Intelligencer columnist Joel Connolly wrote a year ago that, “the promoter may finally have exhausted his 15 years of fame.”

Eyman appeared down and out. Enemies rejoiced. And yet, a year later — just weeks before the deadline to turn in petition signatures to put issues on this November’s ballot — it appears Eyman’s latest initiative will easily qualify.

So now opponents squawk about all the money he has raised, and are back to hilarious and hyperbolic hyperventilating:

  • Tim Eyman “belongs in a trash bin”;
  • “I want Tim Eyman to die in a f — ing fire”;
  • I‑1366 is a “destructive, hostage-​taking initiative” and “”

If this be blackmail, make the most of it: “This measure would decrease the sales tax rate unless the legislature refers to voters a constitutional amendment requiring two-​thirds legislative approval or voter approval to raise taxes, and legislative approval for fee increases.”

You see, the court will not allow the people to set a two-​thirds vote mandate on the legislature. But the people can cut the sales tax. So I‑1366 would cut the sales tax by a penny … unless legislators do the right thing and give the people a vote on a constitutional amendment to establish the two-​thirds legislative vote or a vote of the people to raise taxes.

Clever. That is how you deal with rogue insiders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Eyman

 

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Common Sense

Not Just Fiddling in Ferguson

Body Cam Initiative

The Missouri General Assembly adjourned its 2015 legislative session about a month ago, “having passed,” The Washington Post reported, “virtually none of the changes activists sought in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown.”

“Nothing has changed,” acknowledged State Rep. Clem Smith.

The Post story concluded, “Advocates plan to use the results of a state commission on Ferguson, expected to wrap up its work in the coming months, to engage lawmakers during the summer and work with them on pre-​filing bills for the next session.”

Wait … until next year?

Denise Lieberman, a senior attorney for the Advancement Project and co-​chair of the Don’t Shoot Coalition, conceded that, “Long-​term policy change takes time.”

Hmmm, experience tells me “time” isn’t always a friend to reform. Political change can happen incrementally, of course, but more often it rushes forth when people have both had enough and decide to take the initiative.

Ahem — I’m talking about the ballot initiative.

No waiting.

This afternoon, a committee of seven Ferguson, Missouri, citizens, led by Nick Kasoff, will file a ballot measure to require on-​duty Ferguson police to wear body cameras. The charter amendment also mandates greater transparency for criminal justice information, while providing privacy protections.

Liberty Initiative Fund, where I work as president, is proud to have provided the Ferguson group with model language. We’ll also work with Kasoff on gathering the roughly 2,500 signatures of Ferguson voters on petitions required to place the issue on the ballot and win early next year.

You don’t have to wait, either. Liberty Initiative Fund helps people across the country take the initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Body Cam Initiative