Stubborn Facts

End The Corporate Income Tax?

Rafique — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:21:59 +0000

But the most compelling reason to eliminate the corporate income tax is that it doesn’t target those with the most ability (or obligation) to pay. A company’s owners won’t necessarily be the ones who bear the tax—corporations might decide, for example, to pass on the cost of the tax to employees in the form of smaller bonuses. And even if you could guarantee that the fat-cat managers and the owners bear the brunt of the tax, those “owners” aren’t necessarily rich—they could be retirees invested in pension funds, or small shareholders.

She continues, with a compelling solution:

Democrats are looking at ways to lower the rate and “close loopholes” so that more corporate revenue, particularly profits earned abroad, gets hit by the tax. But Uncle Sam could collect at least as much revenue in a more progressive and less distorting manner by eliminating the thing entirely, and raising taxes on capital-gains and dividend income (which were previously kept low to ease the negative impact of “double taxation”—taxing corporate profits first as corporate income, and then again as shareholder income). That might not provide the moral thrill of demanding that corporations cough up their “fair share.” But with so many real advantages, it’s an idea that both left and right ought to be able to get behind.

Makes sense to me. It seems simpler, and more direct. It would be a hard sell for some, but it's something to think about.

Profiles in Tyranny

Rafique — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:52:51 +0000

Via Michael Totten, Foreign Policy has done a photo essay of the 21 least-free places on Earth, according to Freedom House. It's interesting to note, that as brutal, tyrannical, and totalitarian as the Iranian regime is, it's not even the worst one.

Just something to think about.

Some Basic Math on Healthcare Reform

c3 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:18:28 +0000

Yesterday VP Biden announced an "agreement" between the administration and major hospital groups to trim payments by $155 billion as part of over all health care reform. Details were scant and it wasn't clear if that over one year of ten years.

This is one of a serious of public "agreements" between the Obama Administration and major healthcare "players" In March we learned of an agreement in principle between the Administration and major health care organizations representing physicians, insurers and others to save $634 billion. Its not clear how much of this $634 b includes the later specific "agreement" with hospitals and drug makers and others.

We've also heard of an agreement between the administration and Big Pharma to reduce costs by $80 billion over ten years.

Now to be clear we have heard of additional costs in this Herculean effort. The President has already stated it will take at least $630 billion over 10 years to get universal coverage accomplished.

He's also promised to fix the payment adjustment methodology, Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR),that Medicare has in place. This formula has anually triggered lowered payments to physicians. Each year after much lobbying from physicians, this adjustment has been "adjusted" to ease or eliminate the pain.

OK, so lets do some back of the envelope math. First we'll make some big assumptions. 1) The announcement of $634 billion from doctors, hospitals etc announced in March doesn't include the later announced reductions AND that it will be an ANNUAL reduction 2)any announcement of savings over ten years will be assumed to save one tenth of that amount annually.

And the final BIG assumption/statement is that we AT A MINIMUM spend 50% more per capita than the next highest spending country with no additional health benefits BUT WITH universal coverage (I'm referring to Switzerland). So our target is an over 33% reduction in health care expenditures.

READY?
In 2006 the US spent a little over $2.1 TRILLION dollars on healthcare. So we'd need to save about $700 billion annually. The Obama administration has announced savings of $155 b from hospitals, $8 billion annually from Big Pharma and $634 b from doctors, hospitals etc. That all totals $797 billion. Hey We're there!.... but wait a minute. We're going to spend $63 b annually to expand coverage and some other undefined amount to "fix' physician payments.

SO If all these come to pass and there are no other additional costs we might be getting somewhere. I know you all may be a bit skeptical that the Obama administration can actually get this done. And your skepticism might be reinforced by this statement from Rep. Waxman,chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee regarding the agreement with hospitals

We're certainly not bound by that agreement. The White House was involved, and we were not

And also if we'd like to examine a recent state example of such a large effort, lessons from Massachusetts might give one pause. These include incomplete success at "universal coverage", runaway costs,and coverage and benefits cuts to reduce the deficit.

I thought I saw you lurking in those details!

The view from Alaska:

Simon — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:35:22 +0000

Dennis writes, in comments on a post this weekend:

I didn't vote for her in the primary, or in the general election, because I thought she wasn't qualified. I sometimes think that the word "qualified" for higher public office really means 'not a part of the upper class political structure'. It makes sense in part. How could anyone who doesn't hobnob with the elite power structure have the knowledge and wherewithal to govern, which is in a large part hobnobing with the elite power structure?

I and a huge majority of Alaskans would say she has done a good job on the issues she has taken on. Alaska lives and dies by the oil patch. She squeezed quite a few sheckels out of the oil men, and reinvigorated a gas pipline that had been on hold status for a decade. I'm sure that was made easier by high gas and oil prices. She rooted out the old guard Republicans who were pretty corrupt, but her Republican predicessor Murkowski was almost universally disliked which probably made that job easier. The state is fiscally sound (believe it or not that wasn't the case recently), but with $100 oil for a lot of her term I'm not sure that speaks to Palin's abilities. She has cut next year's state budget by 7%, but the budget was bloated beyond belief. I would have been more convinced if she had used the scissors her first year.

The point? I'm not a huge Palin fan, but she hasn't made any large missteps in her times as mayor or governor. Both the claims of how wonderful or how terrible she is seem way off the mark of what I see from up here. People like Jon obviously don't even take the time to research the facts. People like Simon seem to be projecting the ideal of what they see to be good governance on her. I'd say the truth lays somewhere in between.

This is how I see Palin:

1. She is smart. I watched her dismantle the opposition in the primary and general. I felt genuinely sorry for them. She was using a notebook at the televised debates, but the facts were at her command, and she used them like a razor. If I hear someone say she is stupid or crazy, there is not much reason to listen anymore, since they don't know what they are talking about. Could she make the proper decisions in high level negotiations? I doubt it, but I figure it would only take her a couple of months to reach Obama's level of expertise (who is doing a reasonably good job of it IMO).

2. She is ambitious. I'm far from an insider but it is common knowledge she is pretty ruthless when someone is standing in the way of her agenda. She doesn't seem to be power mad, but she has stepped on quite a few toes on the way up.

3. This is completely heresay (in fact anything I'm saying here has at least 3 or more filters. I've never met the woman, or know anyone who has had regular dealings with her) but I've heard from people who should know that she has an extrodinary amount of common sense. If she thinks it will work it most generally does. Sometimes against the consenus common sense.

4. She talks funny. Sorry Palin lovers - she does. I'm not sure how she can ever communicate effectively to the mass until she does better with her syntax. I'm guessing that this is what brings out the bile in a lot of people. I mean you could break a finger trying to diagram one of her sentences! But if you listen (you don't have to interpret, just listen) what she is saying is not that hard to understand. Whether you agree with it or not. And to me at least she does sound a bit whiny. She is getting a raw deal from the media, but that's life.

5. She is personally socially conservative, but has made no effort to make social conservatism a part of the state's agenda. The internet rumor mill on this point has been astoundingly off base.

6. She is an outsider. The plus is that power corrupts, and 10 term senators are walking proof. The minus is that the POTUS is not an island. She has no connections. Washington is hardball, and she would be on the field by herself.

I have no insight to why she quit other than what she said, and agree with others who say that this is an insurmountable obstacle to her ever running for president. But I can tell you that I am interested in what she will do in the future, and wish her well. Frankly I hope she litters the ground with a whole lot of bodies along the way. It's time to clean up the political genepool.

"Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is."

Rafique — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:11:19 +0000

From Stanley Fish, who offers up an answer to the question of the meaning of Palin's (and Sanford's) behavior. Maybe, it's exactly what they said it was:

I did not vote for Sarah Palin in the November election, and had I been a resident of South Carolina, I wouldn’t have supported Mark Sanford. But I find their failings and, in the case of Sanford, sins more palatable than the behavior of the pundits who are having so much fun at their expense.

Both Republican governors made rambling and sometimes halting statements of about 18 minutes (is that the canonical length for this kind of thing?), and in response the commentators speculated endlessly about why they had said what they said. The one explanation they didn’t seem capable of coming up with was that they meant it, that their words were coming from the heart, from an interior that may have been fissured and rocky, but was nonetheless (dare I use the word) genuine.

He continues:

The commentators thought they were covering the latest chapter in the male-politician-who-can’t-keep-his-pants-zipped saga. What they were really covering (although they just couldn’t see it) was the latest chapter in the “all for love” saga, with earlier chapters featuring Antony and Cleopatra, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. (O.K., so his stage is not as large as theirs, but it displays the same drama.) Sanford’s actions were without doubt foolish, reprehensible and incredibly maladroit, but they were also real.

So what’s the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.

You know what? He has a point. It doesn't justify their behavior, but maybe Palin really just doesn't want to be Governor anymore. Maybe Sanford is just lovesick. I don't know, but it's entirely possible to make choices that may lead the one's political doom, and yet be choices one believes in. I'm defending Palin, but like Fish, I'm just throwing it out there. If Palin is running for President, then her choice doesn't seem wise to me, although maybe she's not running for President. Maybe she just doesn't want to be Governor anymore.

HT:Althouse

Read carefully

Simon — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:36:55 +0000

Read between the lines of this from NLJ's Marcia Coyle:

The headline decision of the term — [Ricci v. DeStefano] the race discrimination challenge by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. — will not have the greatest practical impact, said a number of employer- and employee-side lawyers. That title belongs to the only employee victory of the term — a retaliation case brought by a worker who testified in her employer's investigation of a sexual harassment charge.

Notice it? If Crawford v. Metro Govt. of Nashville is the only employee victory of the term, then Ricci is implicitly branded as somehow not a victory for employees. Really?

"[S]urvival meant understanding what you could not control, and what you could."

Simon — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:54:28 +0000

I think that’s what Palin is doing. Her political career is, for now, out of control, largely due to both a malevolent media that cannot do her the very barest of courtesies by leaving her children out of their line of fire, and to the pissant little busybees who look for any excuse to file spurious charges at her. She wears a jacket on a cold day, and finds herself facing “ethics” charges because the manufacturer’s name was visible. There have been more than a dozen “ethics” violations charged to her, and all of them have been dismissed, as filed without basis by “ethical watchdogs.”

It’s tough to govern and not go broke when the other side has decided to nibble you to death – and to build up a “record of questionable ethics” against you while they do so. The left and the press, who one might characterize as “at war” with Palin and her family, have tossed together a mess of Palin narratives (she’s “stupid,” they’re “trailer-trash,” the daughters are “sluts,” she looks like a “slutty flight attendant,” they are cornpone, she is inept, she “can see Russia from her window” and oh, yeah, she’s really her son’s grandmother, and one of her “slutty” daughters got pregnant just a few weeks after giving birth to that retarded kid that everyone wishes she [or her daughter, winkwink] had aborted) and they have created an enormous battle-hill out of all of that.

And I suspect Sarah Palin has looked around and decided, no – she is not going to die on that hate-constructed hill. I think she’s going to do her thing, forge her own path by her own lights, and eventually head back into politics on her own damn hill – and with (one fervently hopes) a hum-dinger of a speech-writer.

The Anchoress mulls Palin's resignation.

Palin's resignation speech

Simon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:35:35 +0000

Transcribed on her website; I've also reproduced it below the fold.

In the comments: Theobromophile has about the same reaction as I do:

I get the Team Sarah emails. They had been desperately trying to raise money to help Sarah with her legal bills. One of my thoughts about this, prior to reading her speech, was that the resignation was to allow her (and her family) an opportunity to bring an abrupt halt to the ethics investigations (as she will no longer be the Governor) and to allow her to use other methods to raise money to pay those bills. (It would be terribly ironic to commit an actual ethics violation in an attempt to raise money to pay one's lawyers to fight fake ethics violations.)

Governor or not, those bills need to be paid.

When I read her speech, the subtext that I heard was that it is all about ensuring that the investigations stop. It's eating up all of her time, her money, and Alaska's money. She may have thought that she would be dead in the water anyway come 2012, because three more years of this would bankrupt her family, make it impossible for her to function as Governor, and give ammunition to her enemies about wasting time and money.

Alarmism

Simon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:31:32 +0000

Via Patrick Madrid, I read this by Ann Miller:

A resolution, H.J. Res. 5, was introduced into committee on January 6, 2009 which seeks to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, thus removing term limits for U.S. presidents.

Yes, you read it right. Democrat Representative Jose Serrano of New York wishes to allow unlimited terms for President Obama.

An instinct to keep close eye on this most aspirational of Presidents is laudable, but the alarm is undue. The unfortunate proposal to eliminate Presidential term limits has been floated in every Congress for which records are available online, and was doubtless routinely offered before then. It has been floated in Democrat and Republican Congresses alike, during and after both Democrat and Republican administrations, and with bipartisan support. And in every instance, it has sunk. See H. J. Res. 8 (110th Congress, 2007) (introduced by Mr. Serrano); H. J. Res. 24 (109th Congress, 2005) (introduced by Mr. Hoyer, for himself and mssrs Berman, Sensenbrenner, Sabo, and Pallone); H. J. Res. 25 (108th Congress, 2003) (introduced by Mr. Hoyer, for himself and mssrs Hyde, Frank of Massachusetts, Sensenbrenner, Berman, Sabo, and Pallone); H. J. Res. 39 (107th Congress, 2001) (introduced by Mr. Hoyer, for himself and mssrs Hyde, Frank, Berman, Sensenbrenner, Sabo, and Pallone); H. J. Res. 17 (106th Congress, 1999) (introduced by Mr. Serrano, for himself and Mr. Shays); H. J. Res. 19 (105th Congress, 1997) (introduced by Mr. Serrano); H. J. Res. 71 (104th Congress, 1995) (introduced by Mr. McNulty, for himself and Mr. Shays); H. J. Res. 107(103d Congress, 1993) (introduced by Mr. McNulty).

Suoxi

Simon — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:00:00 +0000

This hit piece on Sarah Palin makes one wish that Rule 11 applied to journalists. It's actually a clever tactic: the piece is so long that responding to the entirety is quite a mouthful, but so diffuse that there's very little to bite on at particular point. What follows, then, is not a systematic refutation so much as a few observations arising from points that caught my highlighter.

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the article is Purdum's inability to keep his story straight. What is claimed in one passage is later conceded or contradicted, as expediency requires. For example, a claim that "[p]erhaps no episode of Palin’s governorship has drawn more attention than the one that came to be known as Troopergate" is followed with another claim, scant paragraphs later, that "[p]erhaps nothing has caused a bigger stir than Palin’s nomination of Wayne Anthony Ross to be Alaska’s attorney general."

Other examples abound. Discussing the Couric interview, he tells us that "[b]y all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare." What he means, as most Fifth Graders should be able to tell you, is not "all" but "most." Palin's account differs. The danger with a categorical statement is that any counterexample will defeat it, leaving it to appear that you either missed or ignored the counterexample. Despite John Bloom's misplaced skepticism, either is damaging to your credibility: falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

Purdum's own account differs, too. Barely three paragraphs later, he writes, begrudgingly, that in advance of her debate with Biden, "Palin worked hard, and the results were adequate[; her] ... performance against Biden was nothing like a disaster." So she was willing and able to prepare, Purdum now tells us. Granted, he could try to reconcile these statements by claiming that he meant that Palin was unable to prepare prior to the Couric interview, changing her mind (and apparently capacity) thereafter. If that was meant, it wasn't said, and the author of a hit piece is in no position to ask the benefit of the doubt. What's more, that would be a strained reading, a fortiori given Purdum's snarky remark later in the piece, characterizing the 2006 gubernatorial debates, that "[s]he apparently didn’t like preparing for debates back then either."

Setting aside the choice of rhetorical overstatement over accuracy (like a mistaken categorical statement, a real poison-in-the-well choice if caught), we are left to wonder: just whose "accounts" does his sample includes? Was it, perchance, the people responsible for prepping her? Think about their incentives. Most people agree that the Couric interview did not go well; if your job was to prepare Palin for that interview, and you're asked what went wrong, your choices are admit failure or blame Palin and/or Couric.

The same inability to keep his story straight plagues Purdum's argument that "[t]he narrative that the McCain campaign employed to explain Palin’s selection and to promote her qualifications—that she was a fresh-faced reformer who had taken on Alaska’s big oil companies and the corrupt Republican establishment, governing with bipartisan support—was never more than superficially true." It was never less than fundamentally accurate, and is not seriously disputed by Purdum's article. And Purdum blithely (perhaps accidentally) ratifies the narrative later in his own article, reporting that Palin had promised three big things, and ... she achieved them. She increased oil taxes; she won the legislative framework for a gas pipeline...; and she signed significant ethics reforms. In all three efforts she won strong cooperation from Democrats. 'The Democrats were in love with her. She slew the oil-company Gorgon, and came in on the magic carpet of oil-tax reform and ethics. The Democrats were intoxicated because she wasn’t Frank Murkowski.'" He also writes that "[i]n a climate where the sitting Republican governor, Frank Murkowski, had become the most unpopular figure in the state, and where the F.B.I. was swarming over Alaska, pursuing the corruption probe that later ensnared the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, Palin seemed like a breath of fresh air." Why should we take seriously anything claimed in this article when the author can't even keep his story straight within the article?

Al Franken Is Now The Senator From Minnesota.

Rafique — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:05:07 +0000

It's over.

Discuss.

Let me get this straight....

Pat — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:41:28 +0000

Let me get this straight... it's vital that we not interfere with the internal affairs of Iran, when its citizens peaceably assemble to protest their government, and their government slaughters them. But when the Supreme Court and Congress of Honduras declare that their President has acted unlawfully by seeking to unconstitutionally extend his term, which would make him a dictator-for-life, essentially, then it's appropriate for the President of the United States to take a very public position on a complex point of Honduran constitutional law, calling the actions of the Supreme Court, Congress, and Army of Honduras "not legal" and a "coup"?

Only a blind man could fail to see that Zelaya was planning to rig a plebiscite to declare himself President-for-life. The Honduran constitution specifically prohibits that, and in fact declares that any person who even attempts to remove the 2-term limitation on Presidential office-holding immediately loses the right to his office. They've seen that happen before in other Latin American countries.

How is what President Obama has said anything other than supporting a potential dictator over the actual democratic institutions of Honduras? Say it's a complicated issue. Say the U.S. wants nothing more than a peaceful outcome. Say that the U.S. is concerned both by Zelayas' refusal to abide by the rulings of the Honduran Supreme Court as well as the actions of the Supreme Court, Congress, and the military. But don't pick THE WRONG SIDE and give them aid and comfort. If Germany had deposed Hitler in 1934, would we have worried about the legalities, or been grateful that a man clearly intent on becoming a dictator had been thwarted?

"[Australia] is preparing to kill its ... carbon-emissions scheme"

Simon — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:51:12 +0000

Following the lead of its friendly neighbor to the east, which "last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program." "Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as 'deniers.' The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S." Whodathunkit?

Safford Unified School District v. Redding

Simon — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:17:12 +0000

Redding, a minor, was accused of distributing non-narcotic drugs in violation of school rules. School administrators first searched her belongings, and then, believing that "students ... hid[e] contraband in or under their clothing," had her strip to her underwear, "pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants" to see what might fall out. Slip op. at 2, 10. Nothing did.

Arguing that this second search violated the Fourth Amendment, Redding's parents sued the school district. The district court concluded that there was no Fourth Amendment violation and dismissed the case, and a Ninth Circuirt panel affirmed. But in an en banc rehearing, that court reversed the panel, agreeing with the Reddings and rejecting the defendants' claim of qualified immunity.

On appeal, eight Justices of the Supreme Court agreed with the Reddings and the Ninth Circuit's en banc opinion that this "strip" search violated the Fourth Amendment. Justice Thomas dissented on this point. All parties agreed that the school had "[r]easonable suspicion that Redding was in possession of drugs in violation of these policies," and whereas the majority believed this justified only the first search, Thomas concluded it "justified a search extending to any area where small pills could be concealed." Slip op. at 17 (Thomas, J., dissenting).

A violation does not necessarily permit a lawsuit, however. "The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Pearson v. California, 128 S.Ct. 1702, _ (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). The majority, speaking through Justice Souter, agreed with the District Court and the Ninth Circuit panel in concluding that the search's unconstitutionality was not clearly established at the time of the violation. Since this meant that all defendants had qualified immunity, the suit was foreclosed.

Justices Stevens and Ginsburg, dissenting on this point, argued that the search's unconstitutionality was clearly established and would allow the suit. On that second question, the majority is quite obviously right and Justices Stevens and Ginsburg are wrong. Look at what happened in the courts below. If it wasn't clear that this search violated the Fourth Amendment to the district court, or to a panel of the Ninth Circuit, or to the five dissenters in the en banc rehearing (including Chief Judge Kozinski), all learned federal judges considering the question after the fact and with due deliberation, then the idea that the law was sufficiently clear to a middle school's disciplinary staff, acting in the moment, is not only mistaken, it is farcical.

[This post has been modified]

Friday open thread

Simon — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:58:27 +0000

It's a great day for America, as Craig Ferguson would say. It's Friday! And we haven't had an open thread for a while, so here we are. Ladies & Gentlemen, Weird Al:

In the works: more Seventh Circuit Bar meeting posts; posts on Caperton, Polar Tankers, and the Indiana Supreme Court's decision in Burke v. Bennett. Watch this space.