Driessen -- Second thoughts on warming

Paul Driessen, senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and its Stop the War on the Poor campaign and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power -- Black death," wrote an interesting commentary in today's Washington Times called "Second thoughts on warming." He opens with:

President-elect Barack Obama wants to phase out coal-based electricity generation, switch to renewable energy and follow Europe's lead on climate change. That could prove difficult.

Coal generates half of all U.S. electricity. Wind provides less than 2 percent of all electricity and cannot be relied on when it's needed. Europe's lead can't even be defined, much less followed.

He describes the "leadership" offered by Europe:

• The Kyoto Protocol called for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. At this time, Spain is 37% above that level, while Austria is 30%, Denmark 19%, and Portugal 17% above the target level. The EU changed its goal in 2007 to an emission cut of 20% by 2020. Now many countries believe that too ambitious.
• German Chancellor Merkel promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in 2006. Now she wants more nuclear and coal power plants and wants to reduce emissions restrictions on chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement, and auto industries.
• Austria and Italy also want emissions requirements eased.
• The Eastern Bloc nations all want exemptions from emissions restrictions. They depend upon coal for 90% of their electricity and believe Communism held their economies back for 50 years and now they want to catch up.
• Britain finds 5.5 million households living in "fuel poverty" due to climate taxes and high energy prices. Many factories are threatening to shut down for the winter.

Driessen says "Following these examples makes sense. But that's probably not what Mr. Obama or environmentalists have in mind." You can bet that they have no interest in a rational plan.

• China and India are rapidly building coal-fired electric power plants and are rightfully mostly concerned with combating poverty. They figure they can better respond to any warming that might occur later if they are not so poor and technologically backward.
• African nations are putting their priorities rightfully on having affordable and reliable energy, safe water, modern hospitals, refrigeration, and the reduction of lung and intestinal diseases. Wind and solar power are not high priorities.

Meanwhile in the U.S.:

• Emissions are 23% above the Kyoto Protocol requirement, had we signed it.
• But, the growth of our emissions since 2000 is only 0.2% per year.
• Al Gore flies only private jets, owns a fancy houseboat, and uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans use in total in a year.
• Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade will cost more than $7 trillion. Now, many Democrats want a cap-and-trade law which will cost much more.
• Hydrocarbons provide 85% of U.S. energy [and will all be hit hard by cap-and-trade, causing hydrocarbon energy cost to soar. All other energy costs will also soar due to increased demand for these other forms of energy.]
  
• The EPA wants to micromanage our complete energy system and hence the entire economy.
• Even without further new restrictions, we face brownouts and blackouts at unprecedented levels in 2009.

Obama will not be following Europe's lead on this. HE, Pelosi, and Democrat Congressional Socialists will be setting new records in insanity. When winter comes and we cannot afford to heat water so we can take showers, then we will be following BO and the French. This odor emissions problem will not be addressed with anything like the urgency which should attend to it. The good news is that we will be keeping our buildings so cold that we will perspire less. Chatter, chatter, shudder, shudder......The new U.S. energy plan is plenty of covers and some serious bundling. Uhhh... you had better have some company under those covers to share body heat with.

Fein -- Redistribution blather

Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer, has written an interesting commentary called "Redistribution blather" for the Washington Times on 11 November 2008. He says,

Morality and economic prosperity militate in favor of turning the prevailing progressive income tax scheme on its head. They also argue against government redistributions of wealth through spending, including the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Act of 2008, which was championed by President Bush, Mr. McCain, and the president-elect alike. It lavishly rewards the prodigal, financially irresponsible, and politically connected at the expense of the thrifty and prudent.

He notes that barriers to voting by the masses have been reduced and the checks against majoritarian tyranny have become less effective. The progressive income tax and massive redistribution programs have allowed politicians to purchase the votes of much of the middle and lower classes. The rich retain influence by making campaign contributions and by providing advertising and think tanks. The politicians then squander many billions of dollars winning the affections and allegiance of the rich, the middle class, and the lower class. Then Fein produces a great argument on the morality of progressive taxation:

In any event, the "ability to pay" standard is morally obtuse. At present, most income is obtained through private market transactions. Income is earned by doing things other persons want done, i.e., giving them satisfaction. The willingness of a private individual to pay from his own resources is the best proxy ever invented for fixing the economic value of the thing provided. Every other standard is hopelessly subjective.

Individuals who earn high incomes through private transactions are thus the true "Good Samaritans" because they give the greatest amount of satisfaction to others. Someone who slaved 24 hours a day digging a hole to nowhere that no one wanted would be economically barren and might be whipped for refusing to do things that others wanted done. So much for Karl Marx's labor theory of value.

By any sensible moral yardstick, high-income earners should be taxed least because they generate the greatest amount of consumer satisfaction. Low-income earners should be taxed most because they create the least social good. Moreover, taxation reduces the amount of the thing taxed by raising its cost. High taxes on low-income earners would reduce their numbers by giving tax relief for earning more.

Then another juicy comment:

An individual whose diligence, industry and wisdom have earned great personal wealth by satisfying the wants of others stands on a higher moral plane than an individual whose indolence, indiscipline and criminality have plunged him into abject poverty.

For my part, I will not propose an anti-progressive income tax with say the first dollar earned at a 39.6% rate, the second dollar taxed at a 36% rate, the third dollar earned taxed at a 33% rate, etc. Well ... at least not as long as government does not insist on doling out more welfare benefits to the lower income groups. No... I am willing to go along with a system with a flat tax rate of say 10%. I understand that it is said that a flat rate of 17% would be needed, but that assumes that we will continue the many redistributionist programs we already have. So either we slash those programs and go with a 10% flat income tax rate, or we keep the redistributionist programs and adopt an anti-progressive income tax. Thems my terms!

But really, Bruce Fein is on to something here. Besides making it apparent that he has probably read Ayn Rand, he is staking out the moral position from which we will probably have to start if there is to be any hope of ending up with a flat income tax. The socialists claim we are our Brother's Keeper even when we do not know our brother and their numbers are too fantastical for any one mother to have borne them all. We need to finally apply the counterbalancing truth in order to get any justice at all. That truth is the truth I quoted Fein on above. We need to start the Anti-Progressive Tax League and parlay that into something approaching a moral income tax.

Steele: Restoring Confidence in the GOP

Living in Maryland, I have watched Michael Steele develop from Lt. Governor to Senate candidate for the Republican Party. He was a good man then, but sometimes given to assuming too large a charity role for government. Since then he has served as chairman of GOPAC, a Republican organization which develops young politicians and helps them win elections for state and local offices. Michael has also been a Fox News commentator for some time. In his post-Senate run period, he has been developing as a better and better spokesman for the rights of the individual and for limited government. I have long been reading GOPAC e-mails from him and have been increasingly impressed by him.

I read in today's Washington Times that he and Newt Gingrich are vying to become the chairman of the Republican National Committee, though the article said neither is admitting to seeking the position. If this is true, while I have some respect for Newt Gingrich, I am rooting for Michael Steele. The main reason is his understanding of the principles of good government and that society is best when it allows individuals to manage their own lives. But, I also believe he is needed to galvanize Republicans into an improved dialog with African Americans and Hispanic Americans, who should be voting for Republicans for the same reasons that many European Americans do.

Michael published a very good article today in The Wall Street Journal called "Restoring Confidence in the GOP". It is very much worth your taking the time to read it in its entirety. If he becomes chairman of the RNC, the Republican Party will become much better because of it.

Veteran's Day

I always work on Veteran's Day and I am always a bit grouchy on Veteran's Day. As an optimist, I do not particularly like myself on Veteran's Day. But it is a rough day.

My father served as a Navy aviator in the Pacific Theater of WWII and then had a 22-year career in the Navy. Growing up, we lived in many communities, so I always thought of myself as an American, not as a Virginian, a Texan, a Rhode Islander, or Jersey kid. Dad went on cruises to the Western Pacific, the Caribbean, and to the Mediterranean Sea. He was the skipper of VA-75, an attack squadron. Dad and his squadron flew 12-hour flights at treetop altitude to fly under radar deep into the USSR. These would have been one-way trips in war: they did not have enough fuel to return. Then he was a student at the Senior Naval War College and then an instructor at the Junior Naval War College. In 1963, he retired and took a job with American Airlines at their maintenance base in Tulsa, OK.

I was always proud of my Dad and of his dedication to American freedoms. He and I were both proud of his service in the Navy and I was happy to do my best to help him in his work by being the man of the house when he was away on a cruise. But my Dad's service was never adequately appreciated by most Americans.

While in graduate school, starting work on my Ph.D. degree in Physics, I received my orders to report for induction into the Army. They were delayed so I could finish the year in which I was enrolled and I reported for duty in June 1970. I would rather have continued my graduate work, but I was healthy and a proud American. I served a bit over 12 months in Vietnam.

I did not think the Vietnam War was enough in America's interest to justify a draft, but I did then and do now believe that the fight we entered into was in the best interests of the South Vietnamese, most of whom did not wish to live under a totalitarian Communist regime. This of course is predicated upon the condition that we stayed the course until the war was won, which pernicious Democrats and socialists refused to do. The way in which Congress abandoned the South Vietnamese is one of the most dishonorable of all American actions in our history.

In February of 1972, I returned to graduate school. There were some people who treated me as though I were a normal graduate student, some who treated me with a measure of extra respect, and there were some who assumed that I was a baby-killer and had perhaps made a practice of raping women. Women students were commonly the most unkind of all. The Physics Department faculty was generally great, even though some opposed the war. But overall, a returning Vietnam veteran was not well-received on campus.

The socialists are at it again in their opposition to the Iraq War. This time, they are trying not to treat the veterans of that war as badly as they did those of Vietnam. I believe they actually embarrassed themselves a bit with respect to their behavior after Vietnam toward veterans. Or maybe they just realized in time that it had not been particularly smart politically. Nonetheless, when your country largely repudiates the reasons for which you fought your war, you will feel unappreciated as a veteran. The socialists like to blame the war on Bush, despite Saddam's making a regular habit of shooting at American aircraft and despite Congress stating that there were 23 reasons for our continuing the war with Iraq. Yes, continuing the war which Saddam had never stopped fighting as he violated the Armistice he had signed over and over again.

I do not know of a war, outside of one or two fought with Indians, that any American veteran should not feel proud of his participation. Certainly the present Iraq War and the Afghanistan War are both efforts our veterans should be proud about. I wish to be among those who thank you for providing security to other Americans and for your efforts to act as honorable Americans under trying conditions. Thank you.

I will be less grouchy on Veterans Day when almost all Americans come to appreciate that freedom is the exception in man's history, while anarchy or tyranny are the commonplace. In order to avoid the horrors of the commonplace, we have to have a clear idea of what our individual rights are and be adamant in defending them. We need to understand our much ignored Constitution and choose to live by it. And we sometimes need to fight for our freedoms, as our veterans have done. The fight is a constant one in the realm of ideas and a not infrequent one in the realm of weapons. American heroes are badly needed in both realms. My hat is off to all of you who are veterans of these conflicts.

Home Foreclosure Rates, Economic Freedom, and the Election

It strikes me that it would be interesting to examine the very uneven incidence of home foreclosure rates in the states and see if there may be any lessons to be learned about those states attitudes toward economic freedom and how they voted in the presidential election. So, which states had the highest 2007 foreclosure rates in number per 1000 mortgages? I have indicated which way the state voted in the presidential election using red for McCain and blue for Obama. The second number is the ranking for economic freedom from my post of 8 November 2008. I have looked for more recent mortgage foreclosure rates, but have not been able to find a complete set for all the states, so the 2007 rates will have to do for now.

Nevada 33.8, 6
Florida 20.0, 28
Michigan 19.5, 43
California 19.2, 47
Colorado 19.2, 3
Ohio 18.0, 44
Georgia 15.7, 11
Arizona 15.2, 21
Illinois 12.5, 27
Indiana 10.3, 23

All other states had 2007 foreclosure rates per 1000 mortgages below 10. South Dakota and Vermont had rates as low as 0.1. Maine's rate was 0.4 and West Virginia's was 0.5. The foreclosure rates are very unevenly spread across the country. Attempts to help people avoid foreclosure on the part of the federal government will involve huge transfers of money from some states with no problem to a few states with a really bad problem.

We will note that the average economic freedom index ranking of these states is 25.3, so the degree of economic freedom does not correlate well with the mortgage foreclosure rates. But, the Republican presidential candidate usually wins the vote in the states of Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, and Indiana of this set of states, if he is to be victorious. Yet of these 7 states in which Republicans are usually very competitive or winners, McCain lost in all but two. One of these was his home state, which one ought to be able to assume he would win. So of 9 remaining high mortgage foreclosure rate states, McCain won only one, Georgia. Of six remaining states which the Republicans usually have to win to win the presidential election, he won only one.

These usually competitive states have 72 electoral college votes, which would not have been enough to have won McCain the election. But, if we give Missouri to McCain, which still seems to be undecided, then McCain only would have needed to have won North Carolina, which he barely lost. In fact, Missouri had a mortgage foreclosure rate of 9.1 and North Carolina had one of 7.4, both of which are on the high side for the remaining 40 states (Yes, Obama, after the ten states listed, there are only 40 more, not 47 more.), so these two states may have gone into the Republican column without the sense of economic distress that these high foreclosure rates brought about.

Of course, it was not primarily the Republicans who were actually responsible for these foreclosure rates. The Democrats have been the prime movers in limiting home building which drives up home costs and forces more people to obtain subprime mortgages if they are to get a home at all. In some of the Rocky Mountain and other western states, the excessive Federal ownership of land plays a major role in driving up the cost of housing. This is a factor in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and in California. Again, the Democrats are more responsible for this. But, the people have a delusion that the party with control of the presidency is in power and responsible for all problems. Consequently, the high foreclosure rates worked against the Republican presidential candidate more than the Democrat candidate.

Of course, there were many problems with McCain in other respects and this one factor was probably not enough to explain the results. But, it was probably not of trivial importance either.

57 States and Africa

Could it be that the unattributed claim that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country was simply made up by Democrats in an attempt to counterbalance Barack Obama's thought that there were 57 or more states? Of course, even if Sarah had thought any such thing and I doubt she did, I cannot understand how this would actually counterbalance Obama's mistake. After all, she was trying to be Vice President of the United States and he was aiming to be President. While knowing that Africa is a continent is pretty important, it is even more important that the President should know how many states are in the United States. If the Vice President were not to know this, the Vice President would at least have time to learn it on the job as Vice President. Apparently, the Governor of the 50th state of Alaska already knew this! And she has executive experience too!

Economic Freedom and the Presidential Election

The Pacific Research Institute in association with Forbes produced the U.S. Economic Freedom Index, 2008 Report by Lawrence J. McQuillan, Michael T. Maloney, Eric Daniels, and Brent M. Eastwood and I have been intending to discuss it for some time. Then I thought that it might be interesting to correlate it with the results of the presidential election, which can now be done.

The report says, "Economic freedom is the right of individuals to pursue their interests through voluntary exchange of private property under a rule of law. This freedom forms the foundation of market economies. Subject to a minimal level of government to provide safety and a stable legal foundation, legislative or judicial acts that inhibit this right reduce economic freedom."

They set up 35 indices including such factors as tax rates, state spending, occupational licensing, environmental regulations, income redistribution, right-to-work and prevailing-wage laws, tort reform, and many others. They then assumed that people want to be free, so they search out locations, governments, and situations where freedom reigns. So they made migration their metric for deciding which index among the 35 they had set up as possible good indicators of economic freedom they would use to rank the states for economic freedom.

The formula for the Index is: Index = (0.2313 x Fiscal Score) + (0.2159 x Regulatory Score) + (0.1894 x Judicial Score) + (0.1208 x Government Score) + (0.2426 x Welfare-Spending Score)

The net migration score for the 20 freest states was 27.36 people per thousand. For the 20 most economically oppressed states the net migration score was 1.17 per thousand. For every one place improvement in state rank, a state's net migration per 1,000 people typically increased about one person.

The results of this economic freedom study are given below with the presidential popular vote result for each state, as State, Economic Freedom Score, 2008 Rank, 2004 Rank, 1999 Rank, McCain Vote %, Obama Vote %.

South Dakota, 14.54, 1, 15, 5, 53%, 45%
Idaho, 14.81, 2, 4, 1, 61%, 36%
Colorado, 14.91, 2, 14, 45%, 53%
Utah, 15.16, 4, 5, 3, 63%, 34%
Wyoming, 15.39, 5, 9, 4, 65%, 33%
Nevada, 15.70, 6, 12, 20, 43%, 55%
Oklahoma, 16.74, 7, 6, 18, 66%, 34%
New Hampshire, 17.07, 8, 7, 6, 45%, 55%
Virginia, 17.07, 9, 3, 2, 47%, 52%
Kansas, 18.06, 10, 1, 10, 57%, 41%
Georgia, 18.22, 11, 19, 12, 53%, 46%
North Dakota, 18.56, 12, 18, 21, 53%, 45%
Montana, 18.56, 13, 21, 26, 50%, 47%
Arkansas, 18.82, 14, 23, 15, 59%, 39%
Missouri, 18.90, 15, 10, 13, 50%, 49%
Alabama, 19.03, 16, 25, 11, 61%, 39%
South Carolina, 19.08, 17, 13, 16, 54%, 45%
Wisconsin, 19.15, 18, 38, 37, 43%, 56%
Mississippi, 19.28, 19, 28, 9, 57%, 43%
Delaware, 19.61, 20, 8, 7, 37%, 62%
Arizona, 19.78, 21, 11, 25, 54%, 45%
Iowa, 19.88, 22, 16, 24, 45%, 54%
Indiana, 19.92, 23, 14, 22, 49%, 50%
Hawaii, 19.92, 24, 35, 39, 27%, 72%
Nebraska, 19.93, 25, 20, 23, 57%, 41%
Minnesota, 20.92, 26, 44, 43, 44%, 54%
Illinois, 21.16, 27, 46, 36, 37%, 62%
Florida, 21.16, 28, 22, 30, 49%, 51%
Tennessee, 21.18, 29, 26, 19, 57%, 42%
Oregon, 21.24, 30, 29, 41, 42%, 56%
Texas, 21.32, 31, 17, 8, 55%, 44%
Lousiana, 21.36, 32, 40, 31, 59%, 40%
Massachussetts, 21.72, 33, 41, 47, 36%, 62%
Maryland, 21.73, 34, 27, 35, 38%, 61%
Maine, 21.81, 35, 30, 42, 41%, 58%
North Carolina, 21.87, 36, 24, 17, 49%, 50%
Washington, 21.92, 37, 31, 40, 41%, 58%
West Virginia, 22.55, 38, 32, 32, 56%, 43%
Connecticut, 22.66, 39, 48, 46, 39%, 60%
Kentucky, 22.71, 40, 39, 29, 58%, 41%
New Mexico, 22.82, 41, 37, 28, 42%, 57%
Vermont, 22.87, 42, 36, 34, 32%, 67%
Michigan, 23.08, 43, 34, 27, 41%, 57%
Ohio, 23.34, 44, 43, 33, 47%, 51%
Alaska, 23.38, 45, 33, 38, 62%, 36%
Pennsylvania, 23.88, 46, 45, 45, 44%, 55%
California, 23.89, 47, 49, 44, 37%, 61%
New Jersey, 23.94, 48, 42, 48, 42%, 57%
Rhode Island, 24.18, 49, 47, 49, 35%, 63%
New York, 27.39, 50, 50, 50, 37%, 62%

Of the top 25 freest states by economic freedom ranking, McCain won 16 of the states. In the most oppressed 25 states, he won only 6 states. The voters who consistently pursue restrictions upon our individual economic freedoms, were fairly consistent in choosing the socialist Obama. Of the six states that gave McCain 61% or more of the vote, five were ranked in the top 16 by economic freedom index and four were ranked in the top 7 by economic freedom. The other state was Alaska, whose people think of themselves as being self-reliant and independent, but who are massively on welfare. It will be interesting to see if those states voting for Obama tumble in future economic freedom rankings.

The states of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Virginia have consistently had top ten rankings in all of the three evaluations in 1999, 2004, and 2008. Until this election, all of these states had voted Republican in the last several presidential elections. Now that New Hampshire and Virginia have defected to the socialist candidate, I expect to see them fall out of the top 10. Indeed, they are barely hanging in there now, both having lost position steadily since 1999. There are other states whose economic freedom ranking has steadily fallen also: Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, New Mexico, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Delaware, where I have ordered them from most oppressive to least oppressive. Of the 11 falling states, 8 are already ranked 29 or worse.

There are a few steadily improving states as well. These are Nevada, North Dakota, Montana, and Hawaii. Then there is one state which has been remarkably consistent: New York. It has ranked dead last as the most oppressive state of all in each of the last three evaluations. Most of us will realize that this means it is ranked #50, but for Mr. Obama's sake, I will point out that the last rank is not 57. 57 is the number of Heinz varities, Mr. Obama.

South Dakota at number 1 has no corporate income tax, no personal income tax, no personal property tax, no business inventory tax, and no inheritance tax. Companies are moving into the state. In 2007, the Small Business Survival Foundation ranked South Dakota the best business climate for entrepreneurs. Forbes magazine says Sioux Falls is the best smaller metro area for business and careers. The Milken Institute says it has a low cost of doing business.

The freest states are in the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain states, while the most oppressed are in the Northeast. South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois have all made major improvements in economic freedom in the Upper Midwest. But, Indiana has fallen somewhat and Michigan and Ohio are both very bad and falling. The fact that Indiana and Ohio have fallen may say a lot about why they voted for Obama and these states may be hard for the Republicans to win in the future given their poor attitude toward economic freedom.

The states with the biggest drops were Texas, Alaska, Delaware, North Carolina, and Arizona. Again, these rapid drops may be a harbinger of future defections to the socialist Democrats of Texas and Arizona and the continued loss of North Carolina.

Among those states having values which have given rise to more economic freedom, the Republicans should find states it will be particularly beneficial to try to swing into the Republican column before the next election. Among these states are Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin, Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, and Florida. OK, maybe Illinois will have to wait until they do not have a socialist Native Son in the presidency. A determined and consistent effort in these states might well provide a big payoff in the next election or two. Meanwhile, the Republicans should make a strong effort to improve the economic liberty of Texas and Arizona, so they will not lose them in the future. They should do the same in North Carolina in an effort to recover it.

Obama's Coming Disappointment

When Obama starts exercising the duties of the Office of the President, after lying that HE will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, HE is in for a great disappointment. You see, HE believes HE is going to have 57 states to boss around. HE will find out that 7 states have disappeared.

Some commentators have said that HE faces more severe problems than any President upon assuming office! This is nonsense. HIS problems are small compared to those of Lincoln, but HE may think HE has the same problem as HE wonders about the missing states. Did they secede?

Come to think of it, we used to have a regular secession of states threatening to secede in the first 80 years of the republic. In some cases, this may actually have put some pressure on the federal government not to interfere too much with state affairs or those individual rights which some states sometimes tried to protect from the government. True, in the case of slavery in the South, the states were terribly wrong, but when South Carolina had earlier protested tariffs, she had a good case. When New England protested trade restrictions with Europe, she had a good case. In these cases, the states were acting to protect the rights of their citizens. So, will we ever see some Red States threaten secession to impede the march of socialism coming from the Blue States? Will Obama actually have an aide come to him to tell him that Oklahoma and Wyoming have seceded? These good states voted more than 2 to 1 for candidates other than the socialist Obama.

Obama: Students Required to Serve

Since my earlier post just before polls opened on election day on Obama and his plans for numerous governmental service agencies and goals for students to perform community service, his website as President-Elect put out a call for service which changed the wording for student service from "set a goal" to "require." Apparently, enough people got hot over that that the "require" was quickly changed back to "set a goal."

Unfortunately, the goals of the highly socialist education profession and the teacher's unions are such that HIS setting goals for involuntary servitude will be enough that many more public school systems will add a requirement for community service for graduation.

I live in Maryland, The Free State. This is a joke left over from long ago when Maryland was notable for a higher degree of religious freedom than was found in most colonies and then in the states soon after our independence. Now, it is one of the more tyrannical states of the union. Maryland already requires students to perform community service as a requirement for high school graduation and proudly proclaims itself the first state to have such a requirement. I believe that the requirement is 50 hours, but none of the state or county school board websites I have visited spell out what the requirement is. They spell out the subject requirements clearly, but then they usually have the statement that attendance and service-learning requirements must also be met. Yes, slavery is called service-learning.

I can only imagine the hue and cry if the history books were to describe the slavery of African-Americans before the Civil War as a service-learning requirement.

The highest education official in the state of Maryland has just called for making the high school graduation requirement in the state 100 hours of community service. It appears he is already responding to Obama's call for setting a higher service goal.

Our American tradition has always limited government's role to some subset of human interactions and relationships and to a portion of our community affairs. We did not conflate government with society, but instead had the concept that society was much broader in scope than government. The socialists seek to eradicate this idea and seek to subsume all the relationships and interactions of a society into a broadly expanded government role with government regulation, control, and direction for all human activities. The "service-learning" high school graduation requirement has several purposes:

• To force students to obey government not only in school, but also in required activities outside school.
• To accustom students to conflate government with society.
• To make them believe the dogma that charity must be provided by government or its mandatory requirements and that it cannot depend upon voluntary acts of charity by benevolent people.
• To reduce the budget costs of some government services by bringing in free student labor.
• To complement the socialist teaching of history which emphasizes the malevolent and uncharitable aspects of human nature and overemphasizes the number of people who do not fare well under a Capitalist system.

Thanks again to Robert Bidinotto for making me aware of the change Obama made from "setting a goal" to "require" in one of his 7 November 2008 posts.

Reynolds: Obama's Tax Deceptions

Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, published an article called "Obama's Tax Deceptions" in the National Review (Online) on 4 November 2008. Some of the interesting facts about Obama's "95% of workers and families will get tax breaks" plan are:

• About 81% of households will owe less tax. Obama made up the 95% number.
• About 10% of households will owe more taxes, so the plan is a soak the 10% plan.
  
• The top fifth of income earners will pay an average 3.4% more, or about $7,727 per year more.
• Married couples filing jointly will be hit the worst.
• Obama wrote in the Wall Street Journal on 3 November that "If you work, pay taxes, and make less than $200,000, you'll get a tax cut." Untrue! Single workers making more than $80,000 will not get a tax cut. Neither will joint returns over $155,000. Liar, liar, pants on fire!
• The Making Work Pay Credit applies on income up to $8,100 and will provide as much as $500 per earner. But it phases out for income exceeding $75,000 or joint incomes exceeding $150,000. Biden was right that tax cuts apply for those with income up to $150,000, if this is joint income.
• HIS child care credit phases out as incomes rise from $30,000 to $58,000.
• HIS exemption for seniors phases out as income rises from $50,000 to $60,000.
• HIS 50% savers credit dies at $75,000.
• HIS $4,000 college tax credit phases out with family income from $100,000 to $120,000.
• A worker earning in the $30,000 to $43,000 range, loses as much as $5.17 for each additional $10 he earns, due to these tax breaks phasing out. This is not a great incentive to earn more if one now earns in this range.

Thanks again Alan for your great research!

Rahn: Is It Constitutional?

Richard W. Rahn, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth, wrote a very fine article which appeared in the Washington Times on 5 November 2008 entitled "Is It Constitutional?" Rahn discusses the unconstitutionality of the government's financial industry bailouts. He expects the Supreme Court to have to make a ruling on this issue and that it will find the bailout to be unconstitutional. I hope he is right.

He also has a good discussion of what is wrong with the concept of "active rights", which is the same as what Obama has called "positive rights," which are supposed rights that justify using governmentally weilded force to make one person do things for the sake of another.

John Smith the Creator

One of the really good things to come out of this election was the rise of Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and Cory the Well Driller. Each has built or intends to build a business and each is making or doing something that responds to the needs of others. None of them want handouts from government. They just want to be allowed the freedom to work incredibly hard to produce and create things that others want to purchase from them.

They all have the temerity to think that no one deserves to receive the wealth they created and Obama wants to spread around to others who have not worked as hard and taken the risks they have. I like the fact that each has been identified as a producer and creator of wealth and jobs. These are good men and many people seem to have responded positively to that. There are still good Americans who are not bent on mooching off others and are proud of their ability to be productive and creative.

One of the tragedies in America is that we do not call the parasites who want to receive the money Obama wants to spread around, Sally the Parasite, Joan the Moocher, and Greg the Bloodsucker. We are a nice people who rarely assume that those who produce and earn little most likely deserve to earn little. In reality, there often are good reasons why some Americans earn little.

Of course, many who earn little are also learning the skills or developing the business that will one day allow them to have a very good income. Our upward mobility in America is largely unheard of in other countries around the world. Many of the poor are on their way to wealth. If we spread the wealth as Obama wants to use force to do, then many Americans who want a chance to become wealthy will never be able to do so.

Obama Usurps the Presidency

A few hours ago, Senator John McCain conceded the 2008 Presidential Election to Senator Barack Obama. Obama will clearly win the Electoral College vote. Our Constitutional system of government says that this is the way the presidential election is won. So, how can I say that Obama has usurped the presidency?

The unique American innovation in government was that the individual holds sovereignty over his own life and that all rights are individual rights which are owned by the individual. These rights are not granted to the individual by government, but they are a consequence of the nature of man. Man, by nature, must utilize his mind to understand reality and to find ways to alter his environment so that he can survive and flourish. The act of using your mind is a very individual effort. Our rights derive from the needs we have as a result of this requirement.

Living in society can offer man many advantages, since trading ideas, goods, and services can be very beneficial to the individuals involved. People working together can provide one another enhanced security from threats and minds work differently, so different people can solve different problems. There is much to the saying that two minds are better than one. But, these interactions and trades are well known to work most efficiently when they are as voluntary as possible. Envy and avarice commonly cause many people to try to steal the wealth created by others who have used their minds more effectively. When a society of individuals begins to give free reign to this envy and avarice to allow some to take what they want without having used their own minds and hard work to create it, then society quickly loses its advantages. Indeed, societies often fall into orgies of the brutal use of force.

History is full of illustrations of this. Medieval Europe faltered under a heavy yoke of Christian mysticism and ubiquitous Robber Barons, while a freer Middle East largely prospered and generated much knowledge. The United States rose from a wilderness and became the manufacturing and agricultural envy of the world by WWI. Czarist Russia, with huge land mass and resources, remained primitive. Nazi Germany rose and fell very quickly. Stalin's USSR and Mao's China moblized masses of people, but remained primitive. Pol Pot's Cambodia was a bloodbath. The lack of property and other individual rights in Latin America kept those countries from coming close to developing their potential. Chavez's Venezuela is falling apart and Cuba fell apart long ago. Africa, with its dictators and socialist states remains primitive still. Europe, the envy of the world after the Enlightenment, fell in esteem as it became highly socialist in the 20th century, when it also suffered the bloodbaths of WWI and WWII, before the anxieties of the Cold War. Now, it commonly suffers 10% unemployment and the people are so depressed that they do not have enough children to even come close to maintaining the populations of most European countries. Europe is clearly in decay.

For a long time, most Americans in the Northeast, on the Pacific Coast, and in a midwestern cluster of states including Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, have wanted the United States to be more like Europe. Obama is exactly their man. HE, like most Europeans, is a pessimist. HE believes most people are oppressed by a few wealthy individuals made up mostly of white males. HE believes these oppressed masses are individually helpless and can only better their condition by turning to elite leaders who will use government power ruthlessly to force the wealthy to spread around some of the goodies they have taken from the many helpless people. HE does not believe in the creation powers of the individual mind. HE also does not believe in the sovereignty of the individual, which derives from his need to use his mind. HE believes, as do most Europeans, that government gives rights to individuals and that government is the source of sovereignty. Perhaps, it is slightly more accurate to say that he believes that sovereignty lies in the collective of all the people, rather than in each individual. There is little practical difference in these two concepts, however. Both the fascist/nazi socialist Hitler and the communist Stalin and Mao believed the same thing, that sovereignty lay in the collective people.

As I have pointed out many times, the Constitution of the United States was formulated to so limit the powers of government that it could not mess with the sovereignty of the individual. That remarkable, miraculous document makes no sense except in the context that sovereignty lies in the individual and that individuals have rights whether government is good enough to recognize them or not. The Declaration of Independence clearly and explicitly made this declaration, which was much more important than simply declaring independence from and war on King George III. The Constitution's purpose was to secure American's independence from all despots and all forms of tyranny. Among these forms of tyranny was any democracy which did not honor the rights of the individual. The Founding Fathers were very clear on this subject.

The President is the head of the Executive branch of the federal government. His principal job is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. This means his principal job is to see that the government recognizes individual sovereignty. He must be committed to governing the government's use of force strictly so that it does not violate the rights of the individual. Anyone taking on the execution of the President's Office is a tyrant and an usurper to the degree that he does not honor the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If he fails in this, our own Declaration of Independence makes it clear he is a despot and that the people, or any part of them, or any individual have the right to rebel and overthrow him for the very same reasons they had the right to rebel against King George III.

Of course the President is not the only officer of the federal government charged with preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution. The entire Congress and the federal courts are also charged with this same task. For each of the three branches of government, this is their primary purpose and function. For a long time, none of these branches have done a decent job, because all of them have failed our Constitution. In doing so, they have failed the American people. But, because we have so democratic a republican government, the people have failed their own great Constitution. Of course, this means the American people have failed themselves. They have failed to guard their own sovereignty.

In his victory speech, Obama once again made it clear that HE does not think Americans are principally individuals. HE says we are something more than that. Well, in a way we used to be more than that. We were a people who understood that we were sovereign individuals and that we were able to manage our own lives. Now, it is clear that we are mostly just like European socialists who beg governments to give them goodies. We used to create wealth and security for our families and friends. Now, we will fight one another to see who can steal the most from others. We used to live in respectful harmony. Now, we will live in constant angst. Perhaps, like Europeans, we will even lose the will and confidence to procreate.

Clearly, we have given up on growth and we have chosen decay. The human being either grows or decays. America long brought on constant change with growth generated by using our individual minds and freely trading the ideas that resulted. These ideas provided a cornucopia of goods and services. Now America will change more slowly by decay and our minds will stultify under the threat of ubiquitous force. It has always been so historically and we have chosen to relive sad and uncertain times. We have chosen to return to more primitive times.

National Involuntary Servitude

Obama is calling for Universal Voluntary Public Service. But, clearly no voluntary service will be universal, so what is HE planning? The plan is for many forms of national involuntary servitude.

HE will start training Americans to submit to many calls for involuntary servitude by making it a requirement for high school and college graduation. HE says HE will "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year." "All"? How will this be achieved without making it mandatory?

First, the socialists in control of the blue-collar teachers unions can do almost anything they want to do in the public schools. One measure of proof of this is the public schools that have had Obama Days. Of course, the curricula in Social Studies, English, and History classes are the bigger proof of their control. Many school districts and some states (Maryland being one) already require public servitude from students as a graduation requirement. Obama will extend this to the red states and make this requirement more universal even in the blue states. HIS requirement is also a heavier load of hours of service.

The requirement in college will almost certainly be wrapped up in the student loans almost everyone needs to go to college. College expenses are incredible and constantly skyrocketing, due to the administration of almost every college by caring socialist faculties and administrators. If they care so much, why do they not control the cost of a college education? Well, they are simply being the consistent hypocrites we have come to know and love on our socialist left. These are the same socialists who constantly tell us they care about the disadvantaged and poor, but who give pitiful little to charities. Charities have to turn to mean-hearted non-liberals for the bulk of their income. So, socialist college administrators can use the high cost of college to force would-be students to take out loans that require 100 hours of servitude per year.

Michelle Obama said, "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone....Barack Obama will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual -- uninvolved, uninformed." Well, my life as usual is what it is because I chose it. How about you? As for Obama's requiring us to be informed, it is clear from HIS campaign propaganda that what HE means is that we will be subject to constant propaganda and the BIG LIE. Those who do not get it, such as yours truly, will be sent to re-education camps? What if some of us cannot be re-educated? Does he have a special tax for those who cannot be re-educated? Perhaps a carbon tax on our breathing (we emit CO2) which will be so high that it will bankrupt us and put us out of business?

Obama says, "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Hitler had such a force of brown-shirted thugs.

Obama says, "People of all ages, stations and skills will be asked to serve." What kind of government incentives will they be given to do so? HE may be coming for more us than just the students.

The Obama quotes come from an editorial in Investor's Business Daily on 31 July 2008, which Paul Cohen pointed out to me.

Obama: I Want Electricity Costs to Go Up, Up

A tape from earlier this year has surfaced in which Obama pledges to make it so expensive to operate a coal-fired power station that anyone building one will go bankrupt. Presumably HIS plan to heavily tax plants for their CO2 emissions will bankrupt already built power plants as well. Those who mine coal and transport it will lose their jobs in droves. Such a tax will also have to apply to natural gas and to oil-fired power plants, though they emit somewhat less CO2 per BTU of energy. Perhaps this means that some natural gas and oil-fired power plants will survive the socialist Obama's attack upon industrial society and upon the comforts of our homes.

But, these costs have to be passed on to consumers, ....or, the electric companies will hemorage money and will soon be unable to keep generating electricity. Their electricity distribution systems will age and deteriorate. The power companies will not be able to afford to replace old transformers and old, corroded power cables. Power delivery will become ever more unreliable.

Presently, 50% of our electric power is generated from coal, which is also the cheapest source of electricity except for hydroelectric power. Natural gas produces another 20% of our electricity. What does Obama intend to replace 50 to 70% of our electricity generation plants with? Taxpayer subsidized wind and solar power! What a Joker you are Obama! Where is Batman when you need him?

Old people on fixed incomes will not be able to afford to cool and heat their homes. Obama will create new federal programs to provide heat and air-conditioning to those HE favors and the rest of us will be taxed and taxed to pay for their power use. American industries power costs will skyrocket and they will not be able to compete in the world market. The unreliable delivery of power will cost companies huge amounts of money in downtime, destroyed product, and procedures that will have to be redone. American jobs will disappear. A few jobs in alternative energy industries will be generated by tax subsidies, but millions more jobs will be lost. Americans will be hurting as much when they pay their electric bills each month as they did when they were paying $60 or more to fill up their car tank. Of course, with no drilling in the U.S. in places that actually have oil being allowed, the cost of filling your gas tank will increase again.

Why will we have these added taxes on the use of energy? The reason is a completely unproven hypothesis that CO2 emissions will cause catastrophic global warming. Well, we have had increased CO2 for the last 10 years and the temperature has not increased. In the history of the world, much higher CO2 emissions have often occurred during ice ages. Often times they occur as the result of a previous warming of the oceans, which then start emitting more CO2. In any case, most people would benefit from a slight warming, if it were to result. Growing seasons would be longer. Fewer people would want to move to Arizona and Florida. Some warming is not a catastrophe, contrary to the hype.

In fact, now that we are in a sunspot cycle with very low sunspot activity and the next cycle is likely to be long and of very low sunspot activity, the earth is much more likely to cool off. Such a low sunspot activity period is thought to have caused the Little Ice Age. It is particularly insane to pursue drastically damaging economic and tax policies with an already weak economy for the wrongheaded reason of preventing global warming when the earth is not warming and is probably going to be cooling!

Barack Obama is both insane and insanely destructive. HE is anti-capitalism and anti-individual. HE is thoroughly a dogmatic socialist with no understanding of reality. But, HE is a brilliant demogogue and a strangely effective liar. It is clearly a victory of our socialist public schools and our universities that HE is taken seriously and that HIS nonsense is not widely unmasked. Most of our younger people simply have no reasoning ability anymore and are easy victims to carnivores such as HIM. African Americans, who have largely adopted a culture with little regard for learning and knowledge, are following HIM in droves. Unfortunately, HE is so lacking in understanding and wisdom, that HIS presidency will soon be regarded by most as even worse than the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter. The first Black president will be so completely an otherworldly being that the apparent triumph for African Americans will be an American Tragedy. And this is a shame, especially since there are African Americans who would be good presidents.

Obama's Misrepresentation of Corporate Taxes

As I have pointed out in earlier blog posts, the U.S. corporate tax rate is essentially tied with that of Japan as the highest in the world. This puts considerable pressure on U.S. companies to expand their operations abroad, rather than in the U.S. and it causes them to outsource more work to such countries as India and China. Obama calls this a corporate policy of exporting jobs. Well, it is, but only in response to government policy that corporate taxes should be so high that they are forced, yes forced, to export jobs. What is worse, corporate taxes are actually set above the rates that would maximize corporate tax revenues to the government. What is the point of that? Clearly, it is simply one of demogogery. It is highly irrational.

Obama likes to claim that McCain simply wants to give tax money to corporations rather than to the middle class. HE fails to observe that many middle class people work for corporations or they have corporations for customers (disclosure: I have corporations for customers.). He rails against giving tax breaks to companies who export jobs, but the effective policy to prevent this is to bring our corporate tax rate more in line with those commonly found in other industrial and rapidly developing nations abroad. This is what John McCain is advocating and Obama calls this a $200 billion gift of additional tax breaks to some of the wealthiest corporations in America. Obama claims that McCain is giving Exxon-Mobil an additional $4 billion in tax breaks.

Alan Reynolds has considered these claims by Obama in an article called "Obama's '$4 Billion for Exxon' Myth," which was published on 1 November in the Wall Street Journal. His major points are:

• The $200 billion tax break for corporations is flat out wrong. An estimate by the liberal Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center based upon a static view of tax revenues is that the cost will be $78 billion per year over the next 10 years. In fact, this static estimate is surely much too high. Lower corporate taxes result in changes of behavior, making more profit available for taxation.
  
• It is very misleading to claim that McCain will give Exxon-Mobil $4 billion of additional tax breaks. He will because he will lower the corporate tax rate for all companies, but he is also taking away tax breaks more specific to the oil industry, which will cause Exxon-Mobil's already very high taxes to go up by $5 billion in 2013.
• In the U.S., the combined federal and state tax on corporate profits averages 40%. In the 97 countries surveyed by KPMG, the average corporate tax is only 25.9% and has been dropping. In the European Union the average is only 23.2%. The decrease of tax rates in the European Union has led to an increase in tax revenues! Countries such as Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark have rates between 12.5 and 25% and collect taxes as a share of GDP which are much larger than the pitiful 2.1% corporations pay in the U.S.
• Jack Mintz of the University of Calgary estimates that combined federal-state corporate tax rates higher than 28% collect less and less revenue as the rate increases. Kimberly Clausing of Reed College thinks corporate tax revenue is maximized at a combined rate of 33%. Kevin Hassett and Alex Brill of the the American Enterprise Institute found the revenue maximizing rate is falling with time and is about 26% now.

John McCain is proposing to cut the federal part of the corporate rate to 30% in 1010-2011, to 28% in 2012-2013, to 26% in 2014, and to 25% thereafter. He is also proposing the immediate expensing of equipment presently written off in 3 - 5 years, though the interest on any money borrowed for the purpose of buying the equipment will not be deductible.

So, if one were to believe that it is important for the federal government to have more tax revenue to pay for its programs, what would be the rational policy to pursue on the corporate tax rate? Well, it would be to decrease the federal rate from the present 35% rate to no more than 25%, since now state rates average about 5%. This would make the combined federal and state rates about 30%, which is a bit higher than the tax maximizing rates according to Jack Mintz and to the AEI researchers.

Obama's desire to keep the corporate tax rate at world highest levels will lead to higher government deficits as he adds program after program to the federal budget and it will force companies to "export American jobs abroad." What kind of idiocy is this? Well, it does play well with the ignorant and the uninformed. It is an effective path to power. This is the point. Obama is not stupid, HE is wrong-headed, but HE is not stupid. HE is without a conscience. HE is committed to promoting socialism, no matter what ills HE calls down upon our society and no matter how many groups HE puts at each other's throats.