Today the Curmudgeon will follow-up on some recent posts:
Wall Street Journal Tax Lies
The Curmudgeon's May 4 post ("Lies From The Wall Street Journal") exposed the faulty math used by the WSJ's right wing editors to justify yet more tax cuts for the rich. Yesterday's WSJ lead editorial continued the charade, arguing that "the reall news is how well [the Bush administration's] lower rates have been soaking the rich to fill government coffers."
Those poor, poor little rich people!
The WSJ's argument is that tax revenues are up more than inflation, therefore the rich must be getting soaked.
Or, it could be that in the Bush economy, the rich are getting so much richer that they're paying a bit more in taxes. Which would you rather have: more money and thus pay more taxes, or the same amount of money and thus pay the same amount of taxes?
Anyway, the lie to the WSJ's highly selective use of statistics is exposed--or buried, depending on how you look at it--in the WSJ's news pages. Today, the WSJ--trying to trumpet a budget surplus in the month of April (which is not unusual--that's when the money comes rolling in to the IRS), notes that April 2006's tax receipts of $315.09 billion were "the second highest on record, just below the $332 billion in April 2001."
Somehow, the Journal's editors always seem to forget about those 2001 numbers, which of course, were collections for 2000, when all the stock indices reached their records and investors had huge capital gains. Since that was BEFORE the Bush tax cuts, it hardly supports the Journal's claim that all this "increased" revenue reflects that the Bush cuts "worked."
Webb Endorsements
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other national Democrats must have been persuaded by the Curmudgeon's rationale for nominating Jim Webb as Virginia Democrats' opponent to junior Senator George Allen this fall (XCurmudgeon, May 8 post). (Ok, so maybe they just follow the same reasoning.)
Reid's political action committee has given $5000 to Webb's campaign. Webb has also picked up support from Sens. Durbin, Dodd, Salazar and Tim Johnson, as well as former Senators Daschle and Cleland. (Meantime, Webb's primary opponent--Harris Miller--picked up endorsements of four Virginia state legislators, who evidently view party loyalty above winning.)South Dakota Sen. Johnson put it best: "He [Webb] is a unique candidate who can both clearly articulate Democratic values and compel voters across all demographics to vote Democrat."
Gun Insanity
The Curmudgeon's May 9 post focused on Virginia's insane gun laws, which helped let a deranged teenager armed with an AK-47 assault rifle (and six other guns) launch a frontal attack on a Fairfax County police sub-station, killing a veteran female detective and seriously wounding another Fairfax police officer a few days ago.
The story continues to unfold. We now know that the teen managed to fire off 70 rounds before police killed him. You can't do that with a regular handgun. Thanks, Virginia legislators, for letting this teen outgun the police.
We now know that the teen used high-velocity slugs, which are 10 times more damaging than regular handgun bullets and render standard police armor useless. Thanks, Virginia legislators (and NRA nutjobs) for letting this teenager have access to ammunition that increases the risk to officers on the job.
And, we now know that when police searched the teen's home, they removed at least nine more weapons--many loaded--and that did not include the guns locked in a gun case. Police found a loaded 12-guage shotgun leaning in a corner in the front hallway, a .30 caliber rifle in another hallway, and a .22 caliber hunting rifle in another corner--all just sitting out. They also found "boxes and satchels of ammunition" sitting out.
While we need to know more details, this sounds like the kind of gross negligence that is virtually untouchable in Virginia. Again, thanks Virginia legislators: if it turns out that negligence and carelessness by gun sellers and the teen's parents contributed to the tragedy, it's too bad that slain detective Vicki Armel's family will have no form of redress in the courts.
Wrong Direction on Obesity
Today's Washington Post has an editorial on "The Soda Scourge", which, like the Curmudgeon (May 5) praises the recently announced ban on soda sales in schools as a small step in the right direction.
But when it comes to additional steps, the Post is off-kilter. First, the Post says soft drinks "are among the major culprits in the nationwide epidemic of teen obesity and poor nutrition." Well, yes and no. There's nothing wrong with a little soda. The problem is gi-normous sizes of sodas-but it's not just soda; too much milk, OJ, lemonade, Gatorade or anything else (besides water) will fatten you up.
Then the Post goes on to promote advertising restrictions, and worse yet, lawsuits against school districts for offering chips, cookies and cupcakes.
Liberals love advertising and marketing restrictions--they seem to believe that ads make people do things. They don't, and as a consequence, ad restrictions are not very effective. (They never worked for smoking--raising prices did work, dramatically.)
Liberals also love lawsuits, which mainly benefit a tiny number of highly overcompensated trial lawyers. I sure don't want my tax dollars going to defend obesity lawsuits against my local school district brought by fat kids.
More effective solutions will have to come from efforts to (1) educate all consumers about proper portions of food; (2) take steps to regulate portion sizes; and (3) selectively raise prices on oversized portions (and perhaps on certain particularly useless foods that contribute to obesity).
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