Tax and Spend will not work!

Weekly Opinion Editorial

TAX AND SPEND DOESN’T WORK!

by Steve Fair

     There is a consensus among economists that the best income tax system is one that strikes a balance between economic efficiency and fairness. An efficient tax system is one that does the least to hurt worker production, provide incentive and is fair.  Unfortunately, there is great disagreement as to which plan best meets this criterion, but it’s for certain the current progressive income tax plan in America is neither efficient nor fair.

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     Here are five accepted systems of taxation among economists:
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     First, there is the ‘per-capita,’ or “head” tax.  This tax system requires each person to pay their per-capita fair share of the costs of government.  This is universally accepted as the most efficient and fair tax system because everyone pays the same for the same benefit derived from government.  There are no freeloaders- everyone has to pay their own way or have someone pay it for them.  It’s like a toll on a toll road- every car pays the same because they all derive the same benefit from using the road.
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     Secondly, there is the “flat” tax, which taxes each dollar of income at a single rate of percentage.  This is levied on all earned income from the first dollar and the system does not have any deductions or credits.  Herman Cain’s 9/9/9 plan is an example of a flat tax.
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     Third, there is the ‘digressive’ tax, which is a proportionate tax only on income above a certain threshold.  In other words, a portion of your income is exempt and you pay a percentage- either flat or progressive- on the income above that.
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     Fourth, there is the national sales tax or consumption tax.  Under this plan, every person living in the United States would pay a sales tax on purchases of new goods and services, excluding necessities.  Currently sixty one members of Congress, including Senator Tom Coburn, support the national sales tax. 
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     Fifth, there is America’s current system- the progressive tax, which taxes incremental income at higher marginal rates as income rises, resulting in an increase in taxes as a percentage of income as income increases.  In other words, the more a person earns, the higher the percentage of income tax they pay.

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     Advocates of the progressive income tax system say the system is fair because people with higher incomes have more to lose so they should pay disproportionately more for the protections and services afforded them by government.  They also believe that because taxes are a burden on society, everyone should share equally in that ‘burden.’   Since the more money you make means you likely don’t experience as much financial difficulty as your lower income neighbors, these folks believe higher-income people should pay enough more in taxes to equalize their ‘burden’ or sacrifice. 

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     President Obama has proposed a plan that would increase taxes on American families with taxable incomes of more than $250,000 a year.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, that is about 4 million households.  Obama’s proposal of hiking the income tax rate on the rich plays well at a campaign stop, the crowd roars, probably because most in the audience pay little or no federal income tax.   Over 50% of Americans do not pay any federal income tax!  In fact the federal personal income tax provides refundable tax credits like Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, which can reduce or eliminate personal income tax liability and  result in ‘negative personal income tax liability.’  That means many people get a refund check from the IRS when they haven’t paid a dime in federal income tax.
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     With America’s national debt  now over 16 trillion($51,000 per citizen) and  Congress and the President unwilling to cut any federal spending program, income tax increases are his primary solution to the crisis. 
What the President fails to mention is that raising taxes on the rich will not solve our debt crisis.  According to the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this new tax would yield between $4 billion and $5 billion a year, so even if we collect the Buffett tax for the next 250 years, it would not cover the federal deficit in 2011. 
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America needs a radical overhaul of our tax system.  We should implement either a flat tax or a consumption tax.  The current system is broken.  It’s been proven time and time again- we cannot tax and spend ourselves into prosperity. 

Unions will not go gentle into that good night!

Weekly Opinion Editorial

UNIONS WILL NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT!

by Steve Fair

     On the November ballot in the state of Michigan is a proposal called ‘Protect our jobs.”  In a process not unlike Oklahoma’s initiative petition process, the unions in Michigan gathered sufficient voters’ signatures to get the state question on the ballot.  If Proposition #2 is approved, it would prevent Michigan from considering right-to-work legislation.  It would also guarantee public employees the right to collective bargaining.

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     On the Protect our Jobs website, (http://protectourjobs.com/)there are seven things enumerated the proposal would do if approved.  One would prohibit employers from retaliating against their employees for exercising their rights to organize or join a labor union.  With the exception of one, the other six are currently a violation of federal labor law .  The one that is not federal law is the guaranteeing of ‘public employees’ the right to collective bargain.  

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     “Protect our jobs” is a reaction by labor unions to what happened in Wisconsin last year when Republican Governor Scott Walker signed a bill that eliminated collective bargaining for public workers in his state.  Last week, a county judge in Madison, Wisconsin overturned the law.  In his opinion, Judge Juan Colas also said the law violates the equal protection clause by creating separate classes of workers who are treated differently and unequally.  This ruling was not unexpected and Governor Walker has already stated it will be appealed.

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     Kristine Michaelson, an RN and a member of the Michigan Nurse’s union is an advocate for public employee’s unions and says on the POJ’s website; “Collective bargaining is what built this country and collective bargaining is what has obtained a lot of benefits for people that they don’t even realize. The 15-minute break – that is not a law; that has been negotiated. People died to have the weekends off, they died for the 8-hour day. And a lot of these things that have been fought for many, many years ago are being lost and just taken away in the blink of an eye.” 

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     Humm! Did our founding fathers and other ‘heros proved in liberating strife’ die for the fifteen minute break as Nurse. Michaelson states?  To even address the absurdity of the statement seems a waste of time, but the rights in the U.S. Constitution do not include the guarantee of a job to every person. 

The Constitution doesn’t guarantee any American the right to a job that pays you what you think you are worth.  It guarantees Americans the liberty and opportunity to place their skills into the marketplace where they are brought and sold.

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     As a wise man once told me, “We all work for ourselves. If we don’t like our job or the wages, we can always quit and find someone who will pay for our services.”  No truer words were ever spoken.  I realize that is a lot easier said than done.  Most people stay in their dead-end jobs because of fear.   They are unwilling to take the risk of not having a job.  Some employers take advantage of those people and underpay them.  But the truth is, those tyrannical short-sighted employers ultimately reap what they sow in lost productivity.

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     Mistreating of employees was the reason came into existence.  In the late nineteen century, employers were mistreating workers(long hours/low wages) and there was no government oversight- no federal labor laws. Disgruntled employees organized and negotiated with their bosses for better wages and working conditions- including the 15 minute break.  Initially labor unions made a difference and working conditions and wages improved.  But unions have long since outlived their usefulness.  Most of the gains unions helped workers achieve during their inception are now federal law.  Many large unions now exist only to protect lazy member workers who are the least productive from getting fired.

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     But big labor will not go down without a fight.  Now, their battleground is to work to protect public employees, who are already protected by federal law and who work for the taxpayer. They fight right-to-work laws- which give the worker the choice as to whether they join a union or not.  Unions know that without mandatory compulsion membership, they would die.  They use union dues to support the liberal left agenda and give overwhelmingly to Democrats. 

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     Governor Mitt Romney says, “Workers should have the right to join unions. But unions should not be forced upon workers. And unions should not have the power to take money our of their members' paychecks to buy the support of politicians that are favored by the union bosses.”

NO GOD?

Weekly Opinion Editorial

NO GOD?

by Steve Fair    

      Last week, at the Democrat National Convention, the Party resolutions committee presented a platform that left the word ‘God’ out of the platform and made no reference to Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. 

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     Defending their decision to leave out the Creator in their platform, one Democrat Party official said, “The platform includes an entire plank on the importance of faith based organizations and the tremendous work that they do. Further, the language we use to talk about faith and religion is exactly the same vocabulary as 2008. I would also note that the platform mentions: ‘faith’ 11 times; ‘religion’ or ‘religious’ 9 times; ‘church’ 2 times and, ‘clergy’ 1 time.” 

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     GOP challenger Mitt Romney said omitting a reference to God suggested Democrats were out of touch with mainstream America. Republicans also said omitting a reference to Jerusalem showed Obama was weak on Israel.
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     Congressman Paul Ryan said, “It’s not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision, but I guess you would have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform.”
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     After the outrage from the public, Obama campaign officials said President Obama personally intervened to change language in his party’s platform on Jerusalem and God. 
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     A resolution was offered from the floor by former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, to amend the platform to restore those references to God and Jerusalem.  If you watched the proceedings on TV, you heard many of the delegates in the hall boo after the convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, rule that the amendment had been approved.  Violating every conceivable rule of order, Villaraigosa called for a voice vote three times before finally ruling the amendment had passed by a two thirds majority.  From viewing video of the vote, it was clear adding God back into the platform was not the will of two thirds of the delegates in the hall, but the Mayor declared the amendment passed anyway.
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     Passing the amendment upset atheist. Hemant Mehta, chairman of Foundation Beyond Belief, who wrote in his “Friendly Atheist” blog that the Democrats showed some “backbone” by initially leaving God out of the platform. “Belief in God is a personal choice and there’s no reason to include reference to one faith or one system of belief in a platform designed to represent a large, far-from-monolithic party.”  “You knew it wasn’t going to last,” he added.  I agree with Mehta.  It takes courage to publish what you truly believe- even if it is wrong.  
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     Here in the Sooner state, some Democrats thought the initial idea to remove God from the platform was over the top.  In an article in the Washington Examiner, James Wright, a Democrat from Oklahoma City was quoting as saying, “As a Democrat, it bothered me that God was left out of our platform.  It bothers me even more that my fellow Democrats booed when God was added. I always thought there was room in the Democratic Party for everyone, even God.” George Clark, another OKC Dem said, “Despite what people might say, our country was founded on Christian beliefs. Because of that, we have freedom of religion. Democrats booing God it is a slap in the face to that freedom. No one’s higher power should be booed. Not ever.”
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     So why did God, who was only referenced once in the Democrats’ 2008 platform disappear in the 2012 platform?
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     According to John Green, a University of Akron professor of religion and politics, it was because the Democrats have a problem with ‘God talk” because  their voter base includes a substantial number of nonreligious people but also a diversity of religious people with varying approaches to God, doesn’t have a clear and simple conception of the divine.  So rather than risk offending anyone in their Party, the platform committee decided to leave God out.  
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     In the only platform that will endure for eternity- the Holy Scriptures, David wrote in Psalms 14:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”  The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:25: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. “  
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     Republicans are far from perfect.  We have the same depraved, wicked heart that a Democrat has, but we do recognize our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from God.   

Will we be better off in four years?????

Weekly Opinion Editorial

WILL YOU BE BETTER OFF FOUR YEARS FROM NOW!

 by Steve Fair

     

     When Ronald Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter he asked the question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”  With run away inflation, record unemployment, and an uncertain economic future, Reagan struck a nerve with the voters and won the election in a landslide with President Carter winning just three states. 

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     Many are comparing the current economic climate in America with 1980, and there are a number of similarities.  For example gasoline has doubled in price in the past four years, unemployment has doubled, and there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight, so way is President Obama still hanging onto poll numbers that suggest he could be re-elected?  Three reasons:

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    First, he was a transitional figure.  President Obama is a young, energetic figure whose appeal to youth is he would provide hope and change.  The specifics on what that hope and change were unclear, but by Obama’s own admission, he was able to capture ‘lightening in a bottle,’ in 2008.  He will not be able to duplicate that again this year. 

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     Second, the vast majority of minorities vote as a block for him.  It only takes about on third of the rest of voters to give him the election.  Unfortunately our electorate consists of this many liberal ideologues- social and economic- that bind together in elections better than conservatives. 

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     Third, Obama is winning the sound bite war and easily obscuring his own record with the barrage of negative attacks on Romney that are so far going unchallenged.  Amazing that Romney is being attacked for being successful in business.  Ads that portray those who vote for Romney as being racist are inappropriate and over the top, but are never challenged by the main stream press. 

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     The question of this election should be: “Will you be better off four years from now if Obama is re-elected?”  Based on what he has done, what will he do in his second term?  What is Obama’s vision for a second term?  His campaign slogan is ‘Forward.’  There is little talk of what the country would move forward toward, or the specifics.  On economic policy, the President has said his vision is to “create an economy built to last.” But this talking point has, even to Democrats, begun to wear thin.  “Nobody really knows what that means,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who handled Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial campaign in 2010.
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     The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change, one of the few issues that he thinks could fundamentally improve the world decades from now. He also is concerned with containing nuclear proliferation. In April, 2009, in one of the most notable speeches of his Presidency, he said, in Prague, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He conceded that the goal might not be achieved in his lifetime but promised to take “concrete steps,” including a new treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons and ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.   In March during a meeting on Nuclear weapons at the White House with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Obama said, "This is my last election ... After my election I have more flexibility."  "I will transmit this information to Vladimir," said Medvedev, Putin's protégé and long considered number two in Moscow's power structure.

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     It is also likely the President would tackle immigration reform, which means amnesty with no repercussions or penalties. Obama has also said that he hopes to have the time and the attention to address a more robust foreign aid agenda for developing countries than he was able to muster in his first term. Translated, that means sending more of your tax money to foreign countries. 

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     Would we be better off four years from now with Obama as President?  Absolutely not!  If re-elected, he will tax and spend America into bankruptcy, disarm our military, open up our borders to illegals and destroy what liberty we have left.   I would urge every American to see 2016-Obama’s America.  It will give you a idea of what frames his thinking and it’s not the civic rights movement of the 1960s.