Stranger Passing Through Put Up A Sign

All the Dishonesty, All the Time(s)
The debate over whether to reduce tax shelters and preferences for the rich is one of the most volatile in Washington and will move to the presidential campaign, now that repeated attempts in Congress to strike a grand bargain over spending cuts and an overhaul of the tax code have failed. 


A handful of billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates have joined Democrats in calling for an elimination of the breaks, saying that the current system adds to the budget deficit, contributes to the widening income gap between the richest and the rest of society, and shifts the tax burden onto small businesses and the middle class. Republicans have resisted, saying the tax increases on the wealthy would harm the economy and cost jobs. (NYT, 11/27/2011)


Here the Times fudges the issue of tax hikes and tax shelters using Ronald Lauder as the punching bag. Apparently unable to find a rich Democrat who engages in legal tax avoidance, the Times settles on Lauder, a contributor to Republicans. The Republican position has been no tax hikes on the rich or anyone else for that matter. But Republicans have endorsed reform of the tax code to eliminate various deductions, loopholes, and shelters.  You would not learn the distinction from reading this article. We suspect that Buffet and Gates utilize every known tax avoidance strategy their bevies of lawyers and accountants can muster up. 



First, successive rounds of Tea Party-driven budget cuts this year have clarified this tradeoff: unless taxes go up on the wealthy, Medicare and Social Security must be cut drastically. (NYT, 11/27/2011)


This literary gem focuses on the political genius of New York's Chuck Schumer who is pushing this canard. Of course as has been pointed out, you could confiscate all the wealth of the top 1% and Medicare and Social Security would not be fixed. 



Can't See the Forest
He wants to see, among other things, “a Robin Hood tax” on all financial transactions... (NYT, 11/28/2011)


This from Kalle Lasn, the Canadian who is the true spiritual leader of OWS (sorry Elizabeth Warren). 


Under Water
He badly underestimated the length of this economic crisis.... (Nicholas D. Kristof, NYT, 11/26/2011)


Having seen this repeated in several Liberal columns of late, we now know that this likely comes directly from the Obama re-election campaign. Goes like this: Given a ticked-off electorate, Dems know that they cannot run on Obama's economic record. Therefore they have to do some kind of a mea culpa. The softest way to spin this disaster is to say that Obama erred only in not realizing how bad things were. Of course, it had nothing to do with his policies! A variation is to say that the economy that Obama 'inherited from Bush' was much worse. Of course, the Blame Bush argument is losing steam with voters as we approach the end of Obama's term.


Appeasement
Los Angeles has been relatively accommodating to its Occupy group compared to other major cities, with (Los Angeles Mayor Antonio) Villaraigosa at one point providing ponchos to campers when it rained. But after the collapse of negotiations aimed at persuading protesters to relocate voluntarily, the mayor said last week the encampment would have to go. He said he hoped to avoid violence that erupted in other cities when police used force against Occupy protesters. (NYT, 11/28/2011)


Will the Bloombergs, Quans, and Villaraigosas learn? The Occupiers will take the free stuff you give them and still not obey. We think not, hence the pepper spray.


Make the Case
If the case for man-made global warming is really as strong as the so-called consensus claims it is, why do the climategate emails show scientists attempting to stamp out dissenting points of view? Why must they manipulate data, such as Mr. Jones's infamous effort (revealed in the first batch of climategate emails) to "hide the decline," deliberately concealing an inconvenient divergence, post-1960, between real-world, observed temperature data and scientists' preferred proxies derived from analyzing tree rings? (James Delingpole, WSJ, 11/28/2011)


One has to search hard for an article on the latest Climategate scandal revelations! Now if there had been a new accusation made against Herman Cain we know it would have been front page news.