Category: Common Sense

Is personal privacy the same thing as terrorism? You’d think so, based on some of the legislation now going through Congress. Take tax havens, for instance. Tax havens are countries where you enjoy a little lower tax rate and a little more privacy.

Before the horrific events of 9/11, the Bush Administration didn’t really favor the idea of an international crackdown on international tax havens. Plenty of other officials here and around the world did favor such a crackdown, though, but not because they were trying to stop terrorism. I mean, come on. Just because you care about your privacy, that doesn’t make you a terrorist. But some lawmakers in the Congress are using the current crisis to obscure such fine doctrinal points. They are lumping so-called “money laundering” provisions in with legitimate anti-terrorist measures. These tacked-on provisions would clamp down on international tax competition and make it easier for countries so inclined to hike their taxes.

What’s it to you? After all, maybe you’re pretty sure you won’t be affected by any of the new legislation, however ill-gotten it may be. The problem is, once that door is open, it’s very hard to close. Other forms of privacy that you regard as more important may be next on the chopping block. Maybe you’re at risk already.

Our representatives shouldn’t be deviously violating our trust by tacking controversial legislation onto bills that pertain to something else altogether . . . especially when it’s life and death. And you never know, earning the public’s trust might come in handy someday.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

O, the humanity! Again and again, I’ve talked about the unfair process of congressional redistricting. Why won’t they listen?

Here’s the deal: Every ten years, using the new census numbers, brand new political boundary lines are fashioned. These new lines are used to elect representatives at the state and congressional levels. The process has been hijacked by politicians who draw lines that benefit the incumbents. This is all done very scientifically using party affiliation, voting trends, race, income, etc. Recently a congresswoman out in California admitted that the politicians there were bribing the top line-maker with $20,000 per district. But it’s never enough.

Incumbents have come up with yet another method for derailing that most evil of democratic happenings: political competition. Seems congressional lines are not only being drawn to stack the deck in favor of incumbents, they’re also being drawn to cut out likely challengers of the incumbent. In Illinois, wiggly new district lines just happen to mysteriously eliminate potential opponents of incumbents like Congressmen Phil Crane, Tim Johnson, Bobby Rush, and Luis Gutierrez. Sure, this can happen once in a while, by coincidence but this often? And in Congressman Crane’s case it was three separate challengers who got deleted by the re-mapping.

Reforms in Washington state and Arizona take redistricting out of the hands of the politicians and guide it by non-political criteria. It’s about time we did this everywhere.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I think you remember how Congress and the President pass so-called “continuing resolutions” whenever they can’t agree on a federal budget. It’s not hard. You just take the five minutes you need to conduct a roll call and you do it.

That’s why it’s so annoying that Congress says it’s been “too busy” lately to renew a ban on Internet taxes. They are using the admittedly very serious current crisis as an excuse to let the moratorium lapse. As things stand now, there’s no sales tax on your internet service account and no tax on goods you buy over the Internet that are shipped from another state. Some retail stores who don’t do mail-order complain about this, saying it’s unfair competition. But the solution to being taxed too much is to get your own taxes reduced, not try to make sure somebody else gets socked really hard, too.

Commentators say that states probably won’t rush right away to impose lots of new Internet taxes. But that could change fast. There are lots of budget crunches now around the country. And once the foot is in the door, it will be very hard to get that door closed again. “This is no time for Congress to permit a new onslaught of taxes on the consumer, or on the tech sector,” says Representative Christopher Cox, Republican of California. True, Mr. Cox. In fact, there’s never really a good time to sucker-punch the economy. The Internet is a growing, but struggling, sector. And if you want lots of exciting stuff to keep happening there, you can’t start slapping on the shackles.
So let’s tell our congressmen to renew that moratorium on taxing the net.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

These are trying times. It is during such times that we need plenty of well, common sense. And kindness . . . as antidotes to prejudice and fear.

Like you, I’ve heard the reports of Muslim Americans and those of Middle Eastern appearance who have been harassed by other Americans: People responding to the horrific events of September 11th with prejudice and fear. I was saddened by those reports. But I was also heartened to learn of the outpouring of support and concern for those targeted. Hazim Barakat is store manager of the Old Town Islamic Bookstore in Alexandria, not far from where I live. Not long after the terrorist attacks, somebody hurled a couple of bricks through the front window of his store. Attached to the missiles were crudely written racist remarks.

Barakat was stunned and angry. But then he received 15 bouquets of flowers and dozens of cards from well-wishers. A local businessman paid for a new window. Rabbis and priests dropped by to express their sympathy and support. “The people in the neighborhood were so nice you don’t believe,” Barakat told the Washington Post. “This is like another family I have. This is my big family. I want to thank everybody.” “You have to give the credit to the people who are keeping a positive, friendly attitude,” said another Muslim man. “That’s what makes America great.” Such acts of fellowship have been repeated many, many times, all over the country. It makes you think: we’re going to make it. We’ll survive the blow, and we’ll remain who we are.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I could have saved him more than a million dollars . . . if only he’d asked me. Mayor Marc Morial of New Orleans wanted to stay on for a third term, seeing as how he had done such a marvelous job, except for the public schools, which were a disaster. So he also needed to stay on to fix that little problem.

Well, anyway, the good mayor wondered if voters wouldn’t mind too awfully much if just he personally could be exempted from the two-term limit under the city’s charter. Just him. Settling the mayor’s question actually required placing a referendum on the ballot and changing the charter.

So Morial set about raising some money from his friends to do this . . . to exempt a great leader like himself from the term limits law that had after all been intended for mere mortals. Well, voters gave the mayor an answer, all right, but not until Morial had spent $1.3 million dollars explaining just how much they couldn’t live without him. He outspent the “NO” side of the question by ten to one. He even tried the one about how after the terrorist attacks we ought not risk new leadership.

Voters weren’t buying it. By 61 to 39 percent, they decided to keep term limits just the way they are. Whether they like the mayor or not, most want to let someone else have a chance. The New Orleans Times-Picayune pointed out, “The margin of defeat was even more resounding than many political experts had predicted.” In New Orleans voters don’t accept the notion that elected officials are indispensable. They’re going on with the business of America.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Sometimes you just can’t reel in the big one. One of my favorite citizen legislators is former Congressman Matt Salmon, now running for governor of Arizona. Matt is a former congressman not because he was defeated, but because he pledged to limit his time in Congress to three terms and kept that promise.  Salmon always stood up for what he believed in, even if it meant opposing his own party. He was one of a small group of legislators who fought the good fight to stop runaway pork-barrel spending. Always, he tried to do the right thing, not the expedient thing. He still does.

In 1998, Arizona voters passed the Clean Election Act, which provides for taxpayer funding of political campaigns. Candidates get the taxpayer funds if they agree to spending limits and to do without any private contributions. But, they don’t have to take public funding if they don’t want to.

And Congressman Salmon doesn’t want to.  He’s always worked to prevent government handouts of our tax dollars, especially to spread opinions folks may not agree with. He wants Arizona voters to support his campaign individually and voluntarily not through forced taxation. It’s a principled decision, but just the same, students at the University of Arizona felt it was necessary to stage a little protest about it. One of their signs said, SOMETHING SMELLS FISHY: DIRTY SALMON.

Well, I’ve been known to make a bad pun or two about the congressman’s moniker, so I can’t really complain about that angle of it. But while there IS something fishy going on here, it has nothing to do with Salmon.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

A friend of mine recently suffered an economic setback. He lost a major client. My friend is doing what all businessmen must do when something like this happens. First, he’s trying to drum up some new business. And second, he’s spending more money than ever before. Just as fast as he can. Buying lots of expensive new clothing. Taking lots of trips he doesn’t need to take. Giving his landlord extra rent money, etc. My friend says it’s deficit spending so he can boost the local economy. Is this guy an idiot? Yes. And I made it all up. Gotcha.

Actually, I don’t know anybody at all who would behave this way, not with his own money. What people really do in this kind of case is cut expenses, not increase expenses. They tighten their belts. Yet, when it comes to the whole economy, some people want the federal government to hand out more and more money to anybody who puts in an application. And they call these handouts “stimulus packages.” But the money for the handouts has to come from somewhere, namely, from other people. Which means that those other people now have less money than they had before. Less money to pay their rent or hire new people or what have you. And of course the bureaucratic middleman gets a big cut too.

So this “stimulus” to the economy is really a net drain on the economy. If we want to help the economy, let’s make it easier for people to help themselves to plan better over the long run. That means cut spending AND cut taxes. Not just as a temporary stimulus, but permanently.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember Deena Gilbey? She was the British woman at risk of being deported after her husband died in the recent attacks. Her residency status depended on her husband’s work visa. So within days of the 9/11 tragedy, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was telling Mrs. Gilbey that with the end of her husband came the end of her legal residency.  Well, there was such an uproar, the INS backed down and agreed to let her stay. They’ll be kinder and gentler about similar cases, they say. But INS is not the only three-letter acronym causing problems for victims of the tragedy.

The IRS fears that bereaved foreign spouses will pack up and head home, along with all family assets. So they force such widows and widowers to cough up the estate tax immediately. For Americans, the tax affects everything above the first $675,000 of assets. But for foreign nationals, everything above $60,000 is affected. Brutal.

So now one Lucy Thompson also from Britain has to worry about the IRS plunging its meat hooks into her husband’s life insurance and her home in New Jersey the home where the U.S. flag hangs next to the Union Jack. If she moves fast, she might be able to protect the insurance money with a restrictive trust fund.

But why should she have to suffer this assault at all? It’s ironic. The British have been more vocal than anybody in supporting the U.S. during this terrible time. But nobody from anywhere deserves this kind of sledgehammer after losing a loved one. If what’s going on now isn’t an argument to kill the death tax, I don’t know what is.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has done a wonderful job of rallying New Yorkers in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In fact, he’s inspired the entire country. His performance has led some pundits to disparage New York City’s term limits law that requires Rudy to step down at the end of the year.

First, they suggested the law should be overturned by the state legislature or the city council under some sort of emergency basis. The mayor considered supporting such a push, but soon rejected that idea. Now the pundits say that Mayor Giuliani is the best argument against term limits. I don’t think so.

Virtually everyone can support term limits if we’re talking about Gary Condit, Bob Packwood, Rostenkowski, or any number of others. But if term limits are a good idea, they are a good idea for even the best people. George Washington comes to mind: a great and noble leader who started the two-term presidential tradition. Term limits gave us a President Jefferson, and term limits may give us a Senator Giuliani too, or a Governor Giuliani or a President Giuliani. Certainly, after he leaves office, there is no stopping Rudy from playing a tremendous role in rebuilding New York.

Recent polls show the mayor has a good or excellent rating from over 90 percent of the city’s electorate. But those same polls asked those same New York City voters if they wanted to keep term limits. Well, they do and by the same margin they passed term limits eight years ago! Oh, ask the voters . . . why didn’t the media think of that?

This is Common Sense . I’m Paul Jacob.