Monday, December 17, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, December 17, 2012


Ah... Judy...

 Right back atchya!

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10 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/little_help_here_1kW6aQ8fElj4CKwbheEV0N

President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

* YEAH, YEAH... NOTHING NEW... WE TOUCHED UPON THIS THE OTHER DAY...

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

* NECESSARY SPENDING? PERHAPS. BUT "EMERGENCY" SPENDING - IMMEDIATE RELIEF FOR THOSE WHO GOT HIT - NO... THEY COULDN'T LIMIT THEMSELVES TO THAT... THEY HAD TO PORK IT UP.

December 17, 2012 at 9:53 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://todaytravel.today.com/_news/2012/12/11/15842617-cat-fight-pits-government-against-hemingway-museum?lite

A popular tourist attraction has lost another round in the legal battle over who is in charge of the slinky creatures with nine lives and six toes roaming its grounds.

The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the government does have the power to regulate the dozens of cats that live at the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West, Fla. — a notion the attraction has fought for years.

* THE... FEDERAL... GOVERNMENT...

* FOLKS... THE INSANITY NEVER CEASES!

When he lived in the house, Hemingway — a famous cat lover — cared for a white polydactyl cat named Snowball that was given to him by a ship’s captain. Snowball’s offspring and other felines have been roaming the grounds ever since without much controversy. Court documents note that the museum has always kept, fed, and provided weekly veterinary care for the Hemingway cats, and spayed or neutered most of them “to prevent population beyond the historical norm of 50–60 cats.”

“They’re very much an important part of the history of the property. We want people to come and see it the way it was when Hemingway was here — to see it the same way he saw it, with the 50 cats running around the property,” said Dave Gonzales, a spokesman for the Hemingway Home & Museum, in a promotional video for the attraction posted on YouTube.

“Every corner you take on this acre of land, you’ll find a couple of cats either snoozing or eating or lapping up some water off the cat fountain.”

* YEP. BEEN THERE! HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!

But the government began taking a closer look at the operation several years ago, when a visitor complained about the museum’s care of the animals to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to court documents.

* THE... FEDERAL... GOVERNMENT...

* NOT CITY GOVERNMENT. NOT COUNTY GOVERNMENT. NOPE... NOT EVEN STATE GOVERNMENT.

* THIS... IS... INSANITY...!!!

In 2003, the USDA declared that the museum was an “animal exhibitor” subject to federal regulation under the Animal Welfare Act because it displayed the animals to the public for an admission fee and used the cats in its advertising. (The same act regulates circuses, zoos and carnivals.)

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

The museum balked at the decision, which would require it to do everything from cage the cats at night and tag each animal, to build “additional elevated resting surfaces” for the felines.

* I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT AMERICA WOULD BE WELL SERVED IF THOSE MEMBERS OF THE 11th CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS WERE TO IMMEDIATELY RETIRE.

The museum has the option to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

* NAH... GOVERNMENT ISN'T TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL... (*SMIRK*)

December 17, 2012 at 10:04 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324001104578161501124560508.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

One post-election budget surprise has been President Obama's resistance to John Boehner's proposal to get $800 billion in new revenue by closing tax loopholes.

* IT'S NO SURPRISE TO ME... (*SHRUG*)

Here's one likely reason: the high tax rates of his blue-state Democratic brethren.

* YEP!

One of Mr. Boehner's ideas, taking a cue from Mitt Romney, would impose a limit on annual deductions. During the campaign Mr. Romney suggested a range for a deduction cap, anywhere from $17,000 to $50,000 a year, and many liberal pundits praised the idea on equity grounds. Since the affluent tend to itemize their deductions more than do average taxpayers, and since the affluent pay higher marginal tax rates, they tend to benefit more from deductions. Ergo, limit deductions and you raise the effective tax rate of the affluent.

But suddenly liberals are having second thoughts, and our guess is that this is because residents of high-tax Democratic-run states are about twice as likely to take advantage of tax loopholes as taxpayers in low-tax states.

(For example, 44% of Connecticut filers itemize their deductions, but only some 21% of North and South Dakota residents do.)

One tax write-off in particular illustrates the point: the deduction for state and local income taxes. This allows a high-income tax filer who pays, say, $20,000 in state and local income taxes to deduct those payments from his federal taxable income.

* WHICH IS TOTAL BULLSHIT! NOTHING MORE THAN INCOME REDISTRIBUTION!

Because the highest federal tax rate is 35%, the value of the state and local deduction is enormous for high-tax states. If President Obama succeeds in raising the federal tax rate to 39.6%, the value of those deductions rises to nearly 40 cents on the dollar. This deduction certainly eases the pain of New Jersey's 8.97% top tax rate, or Hawaii's 11%.

(*SMIRK*)

One pernicious effect, however, is to favor high-tax states at the expense of the nine states with no income tax and those with low rates. That's clear from looking at the IRS tax return data for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 2010, the deduction for state and local income taxes for all states amounted to $249.7 billion.

* YEP... WE CAN "RETURN" A QUARTER-TRILLION-DOLLARS TO THE FEDERAL TREASURY!

But here's the blue-state kicker: $51 billion of those write-offs were claimed by residents of one state, California. And five liberal states — California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts — accounted for about $121.8 billion.

* ALL... BLUE... STATES...

* TO BE CONTINUED...

December 17, 2012 at 10:20 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The inequity is especially stark if we compare this to states without an income tax. The average state and local income-tax deduction claimed per tax return in 2010 was $4,109 in New York and $3,819 in Connecticut. But the average Texan claimed only about $100, and the average Florida deduction was a mere $219. No wonder New York Senator Chuck Schumer opposes tax reform.

(*SMIRK*)

Residents of states without an income tax can also deduct some of their sales tax payments. But in 2010 those deductions only reduced taxable income for individuals in all states by $17.9 billion, and in Texas by $4.3 billion and Tennessee a mere $1.2 billion. State and local property taxes are also deductible from federal income tax, and those also tend to be higher in high-tax states. The nearby table illustrates how much more residents of high-tax states benefit overall from the state and local tax loophole.

* http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AQ198A_1taxd_G_20121216180304.jpg

We believe in federalism, and if affluent liberals want to pay 13.3% of their income to live in San Francisco, that's their foolish privilege. But it becomes everyone's problem if some of that tax burden is effectively borne by residents of Knoxville, Lubbock and Orlando because of the federal tax deduction.

* YEP...

To put it another way, when Californians voted to raise their top rate to 13.3% last month, they were voting to reduce revenue for the federal Treasury and thus increase the political pressure to raise tax rates on all Americans.

* YEP...

The state and local tax loophole helps disperse and disguise the real cost of big government.

* YEP...

As Mr. Obama likes to say, this is reverse Robin Hood.

* YEP...

All of which helps to explain what appears to be the ebbing liberal support for a tax reform that reduces rates in return for fewer deductions. Democrats in Congress once supported that kind of reform. But these days they tend to represent states with ever-higher tax rates that prop up state and local governments dominated by public unions that demand ever-higher pay and benefits. The resulting state tax burden would be intolerable if much of it weren't passed off on Uncle Sam.

Mr. Obama wants to raise tax rates, rather than eliminate deductions, so his fellow Democrats can keep raising state and local taxes without bearing the full economic and political cost. Tax equity and economic growth are the big losers.

* YEP...

December 17, 2012 at 10:20 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund

A few things you won’t hear about from the saturation coverage of the Newtown, CT., school massacre: Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in past decades, despite the impression given by the media. In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929...

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

* THEN OF COURSE THERE WAS THIS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Almost all of the public-policy discussion about Newtown has focused on a debate over the need for more gun control. In reality, gun control in a country that already has 200 million privately owned firearms is likely to do little to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. We would be better off debating two taboo subjects — the laws that make it difficult to control people with mental illness and the growing body of evidence that “gun-free” zones, which ban the carrying of firearms by law-abiding individuals, don’t work.

* DON'T... WORK...

First, the mental-health issue. A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”

Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive.

“Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff.

“Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting.

* ON THE OTHER HAND...

[T]here have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, CO. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

(*SHRUG*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

December 17, 2012 at 10:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.

I spoke with Lott after the Newtown shooting, and he confirmed that nothing has changed to alter his findings.

Lott noted that the Aurora shooter, who killed twelve people earlier this year, had a choice of seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie he was obsessed with. All were within a 20-minute drive of his home. The Cinemark Theater the killer ultimately chose wasn’t the closest, but it was the only one that posted signs saying it banned concealed handguns carried by law-abiding individuals. All of the other theaters allowed the approximately 4% of Colorado adults who have a concealed-handgun permit to enter with their weapons.

“Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks,” Lott told me. “A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.”

Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

There is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms than the police. According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green State University, police nationwide were convicted of firearms violations at least at a 0.002% annual rate. That’s about the same rate as holders of carry permits in the states with “shall issue” laws.

* AND WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THAT UNLESS IT'S A SITUATION WHERE THERE'S BASICALLY NO OPTION OTHER THAN TO ARREST A FELLOW OFFICER, MOST COPS WILL PROVIDE PROFESSSIONAL "COURTESY." CHANCES ARE THAT THIS 0.002% RATE IS MISLEADINGLY LOW.

Despite all of this evidence, the magical thinking behind gun-free zones is unlikely to be questioned in the wake of the Newtown killings.

* PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS; WHAT CAN I TELL YA?

(*SHRUG*)

Having such zones gives people a false sense of security, and woe to the politician or business owner who now suggests that a “gun-free zone” revert back to what critics would characterize as “a wild, wild West” status.

In all of the fevered commentary over the Newtown killings, you will hear little discussion of the fact that we may be making our families and neighbors less safe by expanding the places where guns aren’t allowed. But that is precisely what we may be doing. Both criminals and the criminally insane have shown time and time again that those laws are the least of the problems they face as they carry out their evil deeds.

December 17, 2012 at 10:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/reading_riting_and_race_HuOzG2iaw6tOmSHkdzo8mI

Is arithmetic racist? Are English and science and art?

These might seem like stupid questions, but — speaking of stupid — a federal judge says the answer is yes...

(*HEADACHE*)

...yes they are, and slapped New York City with a judgment that could cost the school system hundreds of millions.

* WHAT IS IT WITH STUPID FEDERAL JUDGES TODAY...?!?!

The case involves a 16-year-old lawsuit...

* AH, YES... AMERICAN JUSTICE... SWIFT AND SURE...

...[and] a handful of unqualified teachers who tried to cast their own failures as a civil-rights violation — and the Lefty lawyers who have abetted their cause.

* CUE: HENRY VI, ACT IV, SCENE II.

Would-be teachers in New York must pass a state exam called the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, or LAST, to demonstrate a basic grasp of English, math, history and science. They have four hours to answer 80 multiple-choice questions, which feature short passages, graphs, pictures and poems — and they must also write a coherent essay. It’s not asking much. Teachers only have to score 67 on the multiple-choice portion, and the questions are absurdly easy. As a former city teacher told The Post, the exam is “high-school level, so anyone with a high-school [diploma] should be able to pass it, regardless of race.”

But that hasn’t been the case.

Back in the 1990s, whites passed at far higher rates than blacks and Hispanics.

* THE HORROR...!

And when the test was first rolled out, some folks who had been teaching for years were required to take it — but failed.

(*SNORT*)

They were clearly unfit for full-time teaching and were demoted to substitutes, losing salary and seniority. And they didn’t like that. So in 1996, some of them turned to activist lawyers and sued the city to have their jobs and pay restored. The case has been kicking around the courts ever since.

Their claim: Since black and Hispanic applicants failed the tests more often than whites, the tests were ipso facto racist.

It’s an embarrassing thing to believe.

The questions on the exam are race-blind and measure basic academic skills. Passing the test doesn’t prove someone will make a brilliant teacher — but no one who fails should be within a mile of a city classroom. In most ways, the SAT is harder, as it demands excellent math skills and a large vocabulary, neither of which is necessary to get certified as a state teacher.

Think about that: These teachers are crying racism over a test that’s easier than one teenagers take by the millions every year.

There’s nothing racist about the LAST.

Yet last week, in the latest twist in this 16-year-old case, Judge Kimba Wood...

* REMEMBER KIMBA WOOD, FOLKS...? IF NOT... GOOGLE HER.

...found that the LAST had a “disparate impact” on black and Hispanic applicants and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE DESK*)

The city may be held liable by individual teachers who lost pay and seniority — and Wood also demanded that a “special monitor” be appointed to investigate any exams used by the state to license teachers.

* FOLKS...

That would throw a wrench into the workings of the school system — and would likely saddle it with monumental bills of the kind foisted upon the Fire Department via its special monitor for employing similarly “racist” tests.

The teachers have another court hearing in January to seek compensation.

They don’t deserve a dime.

And teachers who can’t comprehend basic math, reading and writing should never be inflicted on a city classroom.

* ONE... WOULD... THINK...

December 17, 2012 at 11:24 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/17/nikki-haley-to-appoint-rep-tim-scott-to-senate/

* FILE UNDER: "AT LAST SOME GOOD NEWS!"

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announced Monday that she will appoint Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to the Senate.

Scott will replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who is leaving the chamber in January to head up the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“It is with great pleasure that I am announcing our next U.S. senator to be Congressman Tim Scott,” Haley said.

(*SINCERE CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

December 17, 2012 at 12:40 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578161791213136954.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett argued in a New York Times op-ed last month that tax rates don't matter to investment decisions.

He wrote that if someone comes to you with a good investment idea, no one says, "If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1%."

In the field of economics and finance you would be hard-pressed to find something more patently wrong.

Consider how every business-school student, investment banker and investment analyst on Earth has been taught to choose whether to invest in a specific project or company.

You make a spreadsheet (a napkin will do sometimes). You put in your best guess of the future cash flows, and you discount those cash flows back to the present at some required rate of return you believe reflects the risk entailed.

(Of course, opinions about the future cash flows and the proper discount rate can vary widely, but the essential methodology is ubiquitous.)

Now here's the kicker: Nobody who pays taxes and has ever done this exercise has failed (while sober) to use after-tax cash flows in this calculation.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

Nobody who pays taxes and has ever done this exercise has failed (while sober) to use after-tax cash flows in this calculation.

* THUS... TAX EXEMPT MUNIES... TAX DEFERRED MUNIES... (AND, FOLKS... THIS IS GOVERNMENT RELYING UPON THE LOGIC OF PREFERENTIAL TAX TREATMENT!)

* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WARREN BUFFETT CAN BE A REAL PIECE OF WORK AT IIMES!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

December 17, 2012 at 2:50 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING...

Somewhere in the spreadsheet there is a number, say 20%, or 28%, or a Gallic 75%, representing the taxes you'll pay on the assumed cash flow — and you only count the amount you'll get after paying this tax. If you turn the tax rate up high enough, projects or companies that looked like good investments become much less attractive and vice versa.

* DUH!

Mr. Buffett is undoubtedly right that rich people will continue to invest some amount in something regardless of the tax rate (except for a 100% rate!). He's also undoubtedly right that an investment that easily clears all hurdles will likely still be attractive after a small tax increase. But life, and the investment decision, occurs at the margin. Fewer and smaller investments will be made if the after-tax prospects are worse. It's just math and logic, unassailable and commonly accepted regardless of one's political persuasion.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

It's just math and logic, unassailable and commonly accepted regardless of one's political persuasion.

(*SHRUG*)

This sort of investment decision is just one example of how taxes affect our actions. Consider that George Lucas sold Lucasfilm Ltd., including the Star Wars franchise, to Disney this year at least partially to avoid a likely coming hike in the capital-gains tax.

(While Mr. Buffett is telling us taxes don't matter, here's proof that taxes are stronger than "The Force.")

Also consider the choice of where to retire. Opinions vary widely on how much state tax rates, high or low, affect this decision, but does anyone claim there is no effect? One simple visit to Florida dispels this misconception. When retirees choose Florida over California, it's not the heat — it's the progressivity.

I have great admiration for Warren Buffett as an investor. He has also been smart about minimizing his tax bill. From making sure his profit is in the form of long-term capital gains and not, for instance, dividends, to how he structures his bequests and charitable contributions, Mr. Buffett is perhaps our premiere national example that tax rates and tax structure affect people's investment decisions in a very real way.

(*CHUCKLE*)

Taxes matter.

They matter to business and life decisions alike.

They matter to the rich and to the poor.

They are, or at least they should be, incorporated into nearly every financial decision made.

Discussing tax policy without acknowledging this fundamental reality is bizarre. Actually asserting the opposite is willful ignorance.

December 17, 2012 at 2:50 PM

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