Montana was admitted into the United States federal union as the 41st state on November 8, 1889. On the same date in 1960, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century, becoming the 35th president of the United States.
Huh?
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist wrote recently in The Denver Gazette, that the proposition “would result in the largest tax hike in Colorado history.”
Yet, the ballot title begins: “SHALL THE STATE REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES FOR HOMES AND BUSINESSES, INCLUDING EXPANDING PROPERTY TAX RELIEF FOR SENIORS . . . ?”
“Democrats have advertised Prop. HH primarily as a property tax cut that will save homeowners hundreds of dollars per year,” explains Colorado Public Radio’s Andrew Kenney, “which is true.”
But Kenney goes on to plainly present the rest of the story, that HH would also “raise the state spending limits created by TABOR, allowing the government to eventually keep hundreds of millions, and then billions, of dollars more tax money each year instead of refunding it.”
TABOR stands for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which voters passed by citizen initiative back in 1992. Under TABOR, government spending growth is limited, with excess revenue returned to taxpayers. Prop HH is designed to offer immediately small property tax relief attached to letting the legislature grab much bigger money from not providing refunds in the future.
Norquist correctly dubs it “a bait-and-switch tax hike scheme.”
It’s the usual stock-in-trade of the political class. The difference in Colorado, however, under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, is that politicians are required to ask voters for permission . . . to hornswoggle them in this way.
Politicians have been asking for higher taxes again and again for years. (Not to mention going to court in a failed attempt to overturn TABOR.)
But voters have the final say. Today.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer — and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).
The U.S. Congress overrode President Richard M. Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution on November 7, 1973. This resolution ostensibly limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval, hence Nixon’s veto. Nowadays, however, it is often referred to as the expansive terms for the “Imperial President’s” license to engage in military conduct.
What is that “one job”? It is “to pass twelve appropriations bills and a budget. We aren’t doing that, which is why we are $33 trillion in debt.”
Katherine Mangu-Ward, at Reason, fleshed this out: “In theory, the president proposes a budget, Congress passes a budget resolution, and then various committees put together a dozen separate spending bills. They’re debated and voted on, and then the president signs them into law by October 1.”
The practice, however, is a bit different: “What happens instead is that the members of the House careen into each fall full tilt, screaming at each other until they throw together some kind of stopgap measure to fund the federal government for a little while longer until they can get their act together to generate a big, messy omnibus bill that no one will have time to read.”
But it’s worse: “When they can’t manage even that, we get a shutdown.”
To prevent a shutdown, but also not fall back into the usual iterations of the continuing resolutions, the new House Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R.-La.) has floated the idea of a “laddered” CR. According to The Epoch Times, this plan “would spread the due dates over a period of time rather than having all the bills come due at once.” Think of it as an ultra-weak echo of the responsible budgeting process.
Will it work? Will Congress manage this merest hint of responsibility?
In ten days, it’s go time — or, no-go time — again.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
On November 6, 1913, Mohandes K. Gandhi was arrested for participating in a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
The price of justice is eternal publicity.
Arnold Bennett, Things That Have Interested Me, 2nd series (1923), “Secret Trials.”
On November 5, 1781, the second session of the United States in Congress Assembled began, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This “Second Confederation Congress,” as it is popularly known, ended on November 2, 1782.
And on that Fifth of November, 1781, John Hanson of Maryland (pictured above) was elected to serve as president of the United States in Congress Assembled. He would become the first president of Congress to serve a full one-year term as specified under the Articles of Confederation, for the second session of the Confederation Congress. Of course, this presidency was nothing like the presidencies under the Constitution. Hanson merely presided over Congress.
On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony defied the law to vote, and was later fined $100.
On November 4, 1879, American humorist Will Rogers was born. Aside from his cowboy act, and his work as an actor in Hollywood, he gained much fame for being a topical comedian “just reporting what’s in the papers.”