Recently in Public Policy Category

Just when I thought the Leftists couldn't get any more brazen ( or stupid), they proved me wrong. The latest round of stupidity comes from the state of New Jersey, where Governor John Corzine signed a bill into law that forces each community to build affordable housing. Never mind market forces, never mind the plans the various towns and cities may have in regards to such housing, the Big Brother of the State of New Jersey has decided for the municipalities exactly what they'll build and how much of it they'll build.

It's central planning at it's worse, and we have plenty of examples just how poorly central planning works.

It is not the government's function to build housing, and local governments are supposed to be run by the people who live in the communities which elect them. The state has no business telling municipalities to build housing at all, much less "affordable" or "low income" housing.

It is nothing less than unadulterated socialism.

And that's the idea, isn't it? That has certainly been the trend in New Jersey since John Corzine became governor.

He helped sell the idea to the electorate that an income tax would create relief from the high property taxes people were paying in order to fund their schools. The income tax was enacted, the state started collecting those taxes, and property taxes went up. The monies collected through the income taxes went to fund programs other than education, giving the state government inordinate control over the peoples' money while saddling them with a heavier burden many can barely afford to pay. How many more social programs were created with those extra tax funds? Will any of those taxes go to build that affordable housing? Maybe. But you know if the state does provide such funding there will be strings attached to them that will end up costing any community foolish enough to apply for them into doing things the townspeople will have to pay for against their will. It's a slippery slope.

It may sound like making sure towns build affordable housing is a good idea. But who has better idea what's needed and where than the individual towns and cities?

We have a problem here in New Hampshire with the lack of affordable housing for the average wage earner. During the last housing boom most of the housing built was for upper-middle and upper income buyers. Not much was built for moderate or lower income families. There wasn't as much money to be made from building that kind of housing during the boom, so not all that much was built. I have no doubt the same was true in the other states.

While demand for the big houses has waned, there's an untapped demand for low and moderate income housing. Starter homes, whether stand alone or condominium style, could open another avenue for housing. There are plenty of people I know that would love to own their own home but have been priced out of the market, even with the declining home prices. They aren't looking for big houses with a three car garage and a couple of acres of land. They want a place that has a couple of bedrooms, one or two or one-and-a-half bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and maybe a dining room. That's not much, but it means a lot to a family if it's theirs.

But this is something that should be done by private industry, not by the government. This should be housing built to be purchased, not rented out and/or subsidized by local or state government. The towns know where it's needed. The towns know how much may be needed. This is something that should not be decided at the state level. It is not something that should be "centrally planned" by the state. The last thing any of us need is a government mandate to do something many people at the local level already want to do. We don't need the socialist agenda to tell us to do something we're already doing on our own, and doing it cheaper and better than "The State" could ever do it.

New Jersey has made a mistake, and I believe they will end up becoming yet another victim of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Over the past few years I've come to loath the term "fair share", particularly when it comes to income taxes. Both Democrats and Republicans have used this term, though it means different things to each party. Partisan kind of guy I am, I'm going to focus more the Democrat's definition of the term.

We've been hearing more and more Democratic rhetoric claiming they're going to make sure "the rich" pay their fair share of income taxes. That's all well and good. But what exactly does "fair share" mean? For that fact, what does "the rich" mean? First, let's take a look at what the rich are paying in income taxes.

...the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.

So the top 10% earners pay 71% of all income taxes collected and those making less than the median income level only pay 2.9%. The only way taxes on "the rich" could be increased without having an adverse effect on the economy is to redefine "the rich" as anyone with a job. Or maybe the plan is to create a confiscatory tax plan to soak even more capital out of the economy. That will work, right?

It's been tried in other countries before and all it managed to do was cause a flight of capital and a major downturn in their economies. Just ask the British what their economy was like in the late 70's into the late 80's. Top tax rates were 98% and everyone with money found ways to move it out of the UK in order to prevent the government from confiscating their wealth. The economy collapsed, the jobless rate rose to levels not seen since the Great Depression, factories closed, and countless people were forced onto welfare.

One of the biggest problems I've found most Democrats wishing higher tax rates tend to have is that they believe the myth that wealth is a zero sum condition, that wealth is finite. If someone got richer it must be because someone else became poorer, as if the rich stole it from the poor. That may have been true when wealth was based upon the possession of precious metals and other limited specie. However, those days are long gone. That still doesn't stop them from wanting to "take it back" and return it to the people from whom the rich supposedly stole it.

Wealth is something that can expand to include more and more people, lifting everyone out of poverty. Or it is something that can be taken away by the state, reducing everyone to a state of poverty. (At times I wonder if that's exactly what the Democrats want. If nothing else it gives the government total control over everyone's lives. Their philosophy seems to be that government is the answer to all problems, even the ones that government cause. It's a shame that government is so clueless and stupid, incapable of running anyone's life better than people can run their own. We've seen enough examples of that throughout history.)

In any case, the claim that the rich aren't paying their fair share is correct. I won't disagree with that statement because it's true. That's because the rich are paying more than their fair share. Even the IRS says so. They shouldn't be penalized by being forced to pay even more based upon the ignorance of those in Congress and those seeking even higher office.

Note: I actually wrote this Monday night, saved it, but never posted it. I guess I could blame a mind half-asleep.

Any of you that have read this blog for any amount of time know that over the years I've spent quite a bit of time in the UK. I've almost always enjoyed my time there, whether I was visiting for business or to spend time with friends or loved ones. Like many others, I've noticed the changes taking place there. Unfortunately too many of those changes haven't been for the better.

Another person noticing the less than welcome changes is Rachel Lucas, who enlightens us with a story of the laws of decency and of criminal jurisprudence turned upside down.

When a law abiding citizen is brought before a court for her efforts to stop a bunch of young hooligans from vandalizing a World War II memorial to Britain's fallen, you know the society is in deep trouble. Instead of the miscreants being punished for their crimes, they appear to enjoy protection by the courts. As one of them said to her during one confrontation earlier in the year when she tried to prevent them from continuing their vandalizing of public property:

"You can't touch us, we're 15, we can do what the f*** we like."

That's someone who needs some serious time behind the woodshed, getting acquainted with a hickory switch. I know if I had ever mouthed off to an adult like that when I was 15, I'd catch hell from every adult within earshot, and then catch even more once I got home. Those boys need some discipline. It's obvious they aren't getting any at home.

This poor woman's situation reminded me of an experience I had with the older son of my ex-fiancée about 10 years ago when we were riding the Underground (that's "subway" in American English) between her home and central London. The poor kid was being picked on and roughed up by some of the young toughs riding the same train he took daily. This day was no different except that this time I was there.

They started their taunting almost from the time they boarded the train. Then they made the mistake of trying to intimidate me. (I have to confess to a somewhat dark period in my life. Nothing all that shocking, but it taught me a lot about handing idiots like this. You see, I used to work in Boston's notorious Combat Zone when I was in my late teens, a part of town lined with strip joints and other places of ill repute. I dealt with scumbags far worse than the jerks on the train.)

I won't go into details about my less than proper public actions and not exactly polite words to the young bullies. Let's just say that they decided it would be best if they get off at the next stop and took another train. They also decided to leave my ex-fiancée's son alone from that point on. All it took was some proper discipline applied with just the right amount verbal reinforcement and the problem was solved.

If the UK doesn't get on the ball and start enforcing their proper laws, instilling discipline, trying the criminals and leaving the law abiding citizens alone, the UK will cease to exist as a civilized nation. And that would be a shame.

Last week I wrote about Senator John Warner (R-VA) and his idea to re-impose the National Maximum Speed Limit and why it was such a bad idea. I have no idea how far his efforts to do so will go. But even if he tries and fails, there may be another way we will see the hated 55MPH speed limit make its return, and neither Congress or state governments will have anything to do with it. Instead it may make its reappearance as a regulation created by the Environmental Protection Agency.

What kind of nonsense is this? How is it they can be allowed to set speed limits on the nation's highways when they have no part in traffic regulations and laws? By using a back door.

That back door has to do with CO₂ emissions from cars and trucks. If they slow vehicles down the amount of CO₂ emissions will decrease. Never mind the fact there may be additional costs associated with the lower speed limits they have ignored, one of them being time. After all time is money and the longer it takes people or cargo to get from Point A to Point B, the more it can take its toll on the economy.

Never mind the extra cost might be minimal, there's still the idea that this course of action was decided upon by a friggin' bureaucrat rather than our duly elected representative to Congress or our state legislature. The EPA is sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong and where it has no jurisdiction. Nowhere in its charter is it stated they have control over the highways and byways or the laws and regulations governing them.

If the Agency's aim is to lower CO₂ emissions, would the lower speed limits apply to electric cars? Why should they be forced to drive at a lower speed if they have no emissions? (Yes, I know that ultimately they do have emissions due the the smokestack gases from fossil-fired power plants. But what if you live in an area that uses little, if any fossil fuel for power plants? Much of New Hampshire's electric power comes from nuclear and hydro, with a few coal and natural gas plants, as well as 5 biomass plants. Does that mean we'd get a pass for electric cars? Of course not.)

This proposal by the EPA is merely an end run around the legislative process, usurping the powers of Congress and the state legislatures. We should let them know in no uncertain terms to back off. Another approach is to take them to court. Yet another is to string a few of 'em up, to let them know of our displeasure. (No, we wouldn't hang them until they are dead. Just until they're mostly dead. Of course, with a bureaucrat that might be hard to do because so many of them are already mostly dead...from the neck up.)

It will be interesting to see how Barack Obama is going to be able to justify higher taxes and more government spending when a study by Keith Marsden of the Centre for Policy Studies in London shows that countries with lower government spending and lower taxes have better economies and higher tax revenues than countries with higher government spending and higher taxes.

As Keith Marsden exaplins:

In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan embraced the ideas of a small group of economists dubbed "supply-siders." They argued that lower taxes and slimmer government would stimulate growth, enterprise, harder work and higher levels of saving and investment. These views were widely ridiculed at the time, dismissed as "voodoo economics."

My study, "Big, Not Better?" (Centre for Policy Studies, 2008), looks at the performance of 20 countries over the past two decades. The first 10 have slimmer governments with revenue and expenditure levels below 40% of GDP. This group includes Australia, Canada, Estonia, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Korea, Latvia, Singapore, the Slovak Republic and the U.S.

I compared their records to the 10 higher-taxed, bigger-government economies: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Both groups cover a representative range of large, medium and small economies measured by their gross national incomes. The average incomes per capita of the two groups are similar ($27,046 and $30,426 respectively in 2005).

The early supply-siders were right. My findings firmly reject the widely held view that lower taxes inevitably result in cuts in public services, slower growth and widening income inequalities. Today's policy makers should take note of how tax cuts and the pruning of inefficient government programs can stimulate sluggish economies.

While Obama and the Democrats might try to dispute the conclusions of Marsden's findings, there's too much evidence that says frugal lean government is far better and more efficient than big spending bloated government.

The problem with any government, and national government is that the bureaucracies that take care of the day to day operations have the unfortunate tendency to expand in size and cost over time. The "mission" of any bureaucrat is to expand their portion of the bureaucracy and hence, their power. The main purpose of any bureaucracy is to be self-sustaining and grow as large as possible to ensure its own survival. It is not, as many believe, to serve the public (meaning the taxpayers).

While any government agency had as its original reason for being to serve the public as efficiently as possible, bloat and creeping inefficiency is inevitable. It's a natural progression that very few bureaucracies are able to avoid. Every so often they must be trimmed back, made leaner and more responsive to the needs of the people and the government. One of those ways is to do away with the excess staff and functions the particular government agency has taken upon itself in its effort to make itself indispensable.

But there are plenty holding elected government positions that have come to believe bigger is better, and that throwing more and more money at a problem will cure it. In reality all any of that extra money does is perpetuate the problem while increasing the size of the government agency or department whose duty it is to deal with the problem. The problem won't be solved, but there will be plenty of people employed by the department that's supposed take care of it.

Claiming income inequalities can be solved by higher taxes and more government programs only exacerbates the very 'problems' Big Government proponents say they can remedy. Every time it's been tried it has ended in dismal failure, in the process making things far worse than if they'd left things alone. The situation then causes them to call out for even more taxes and more programs to solve the problems their first efforts created. It's a vicious cycle that can only be broken by showing the people the folly of such claims and getting them to demand action. It's something Ronald Reagan did and, despite the best efforts of the Democrats in Congress, proved that making government smaller and less expensive would bolster the economy while increasing revenues at the same time.

It's a shame the Democrats haven't learned that lesson, or worse, have chosen to ignore it.

It has become less and less understandable to me why the US is not developing the vast energy wealth that lies off our coasts and under the very ground that is America. There have been a number of opinion pieces expounding why we should or should not make use of our own energy resources. I've even had lunchtime discussions with a co-worker about this topic. He's a firm believer we should drill for our own oil because it will merely delay the time it will take us to move beyond an oil economy. I countered that we can ill afford to leave our supply of needed energy in the hands of foreign powers not friendly to the US.

Let's face it, folks. There are a lot of people in the US doing their darnedest to make sure we remain dependent upon foreign sources of oil even though we have very large domestic sources rivaling those of all of the oil exporting nations combined. So what's keeping us from actually developing our petroleum resources?

Our Congress and some of our former presidents.

At this point in time, is there another country on the face of the earth that would possess the oil and gas reserves held by the United States and refuse to exploit them? Only technical incompetence, as in Mexico, would hold anyone back.

But not us. We won't drill.

California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill - in 1969.

We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of - the caribou.

In 1990, George H.W. Bush, calling himself "the environmental president," signed an order putting virtually all the U.S. outer continental shelf's oil and gas reserves in the deep freeze. Bill Clinton extended that lockup until 2013. A Clinton veto also threw away the key to ANWR's oil 13 years ago.

Our waters may hold 60 trillion untapped cubic feet of natural gas.

And that's barely scratching the surface of what we have sitting under our own soil. But we can't touch it. Not a single drop, not a therm, not a cubic foot, not one bit of it will be used because Congress has decided it would be bad for us and our economy if we were to achieve the ability to tell the Middle Eastern oil klepto-theocracies and Venezuelan dictator-in-waiting Hugo Chavez to eat their oil. The logic of this escapes me. No has been able to explain to me how putting our economic safety into the hands of countries that have no love for us in any shape or form is the right thing to do. Oh, I've heard the platitudes and the uneducated economic theories why this self-imposed economic threat is supposed to be good for us, but not one of them rings true and almost all of them I've heard have been disproven time and time again. Yet here we are. It's madness.

Even if we were to start drilling and exploring today, the first barrels of oil from our own wells wouldn't be available for at least 5 years, and more likely 10 years. This time lag makes it crucial for us to get started now, while foreign oil supplies are still available. Waiting until they are cut off, either from changes in hostile governments policies, or worse, due to war, is foolish. No, not foolish, but stupid.

Maybe it's time to tell Congress to stop being so obstructionist and allow us to develop our own petroleum resources, relinquishing the hold foreign sources of much needed oil presently have on us.