"Kids for Cash"

This is a book subtitled “Two Judges, Thousands of Children, and a $2.8 Million Kickback Scheme.”  It was written by William Ecenbarger, published by The New Press, and retails for $26.95.

The subject of the book is the scheme by Luzerne County Judges Ciavarella and Conahan to send thousands of children to a juvenile detention facility in return for kickbacks.  The average length of the sentencing hearing was four minutes.  Public defenders, teachers, and court employees who knew about the scheme did nothing.

Both judges are now in prison.  I’m not sure of the length of their sentences, but I think that a life sentence in this case would be appropriate.  

The book is reviewed in today’s New York Times Book Review section. I’m not planning to buy it.  I don’t think I could get through it.

Spring peepers

Every year about this time the spring peepers, which are small frogs, emerge from winter hibernation and begin their “peeping,” a mating call.  We have heard them every year peeping from our old farm pond, now a part of Beltzville State Park.  They were as reliable a harbinger of spring as the shadbush blooms, dandelions, and crocus flowers.  

Last night and tonight I heard one solitary frog peeping.  No frogs answered.  There won’t be any mating with one frog.  What we are doing to this planet is a travesty.  

Gideon v. Wainwright

American Government 1 was the intro political science course at San Jose State.  Some of my colleagues didn’t like to teach it all that much.  It was the course freshman and sophomores took to fulfill their general education requirement in social studies.  

I loved to teach it.  It was such a positive story.  Gideon v. Wainwright, Roe v. Wade, the Voting Rights Act--Supreme Court decisions and Congressional laws that advanced democracy and helped our country live up to its ideals.

This is the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright.  Gideon was accused of breaking into a pool hall and stealing cigarettes and change.  He couldn’t afford an attorney, and he was found guilty.  He sent a hand-written petition to the Supreme Court saying he thought he had been denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial.  The Supreme Court looked at his petition and agreed.  In its decision, the Court said if you can’t afford an attorney, one must be appointed.  

This week Anthony Lewis died.  He was the Court reporter who wrote the classic about the case entitled Gideon’s Trumpet.  Mr. Lewis must have been so disappointed.  In Houston three people have been sentenced to die in trials in which their court appointed lawyers couldn’t even stay awake.  Some states give their public defenders to the lowest bidder.  Many poor people stay in jail for months with no public defender. The Gideon decision is pretty much ignored. 

Roe v. Wade--meaningless in North Dakota and other states.  The Voting Rights Act--meaningless in state after state.  Gideon v. Wainwright--no longer meaningful in state after state.  I think to teach American Government today would be really depressing.

Poster Boy

Qu’eed Batts was 14 when he committed a murder in Easton in 2006.  He was in a gang at the time, and the gang ordered the killing.  He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. 

On Tuesday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that life-without-parole sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.  Batts will get a new sentence hearing with a minimum, but the irony is the sentence could be a minimum of 150 years.

The Morning Call ran a picture of Betts on the front page at the time of his initial sentencing.  He was a child.  He couldn’t vote, drive, sign contracts, buy beer, or join the army.  He couldn’t quit school.  He was not considered an adult for anything except a prison sentence.

Does anyone think that Batts at age 24 or 34 or 44 will be the same person he was as a 9th grader?  Does anyone think a 14-year-old boy understands the consequences of his actions in an adult way?  

At least one person does.  The Northampton County First Deputy District Attorney Terrence Houck said, “I don’t think Batts should ever get out.  He’s the poster boy for life in prison.”

Matrimony

Next week Linda and I will be attending a wedding of a high school classmate of mine.  (Class of “60, Palmerton High School.)  She must be close to my age--70.  Judging from the picture she sent us, her fiance is about the same age.  She’s a widow, he’s a widower.  They don’t plan to have children.

We are looking forward to the wedding and the reception, although I don’t think their marriage will affect us in any material way.  If my classmate was marrying another woman, that wouldn’t affect us either.  What is the big deal about marriage equality?  Why is this even a problem?  I don’t get it.

Feral Pigs and State Stores

Pennsylvania State Senate President Joe Scarnati has sponsored a bill stating that captive feral pigs are not wild animals.  The effect of the bill is to remove the captive pigs (which are used for “canned hunts”) from the purview of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  The Game Commission is set to vote on a policy to eradicate all feral pigs from the state.

Why would Republican Scarnati wish to protect these pigs?  Because he has two businesses in his districts which cater to hunters who get some kind of kick from shooting feral pigs and will pay for the privilege.  Scarnati says its about jobs.

I have two comments.  If the Senator is so concerned about jobs, will he oppose the privatization of the State Stores, which would cost thousands of middle class jobs?

Secondly, is it worth protecting a non-native animal that is destructive of native plants and animals, an animal noted for escaping from preserves, to satisfy a few hunters and some businesses?  Incidentally, according to an article in the Morning Call, feral pigs are estimated to cost approximately $1 billion in damages annually.

Scarnati’s bill passed the Senate on a 32-18 vote.  Maybe the House will kill it.  And maybe those feral pigs will fly.

Assault rifles

A number of Carbon County Democrats have organized a volunteer group known as the Community Outreach Association.  The Association rents an office on First Street in Lehighton, Pennsylvania.  I’m proposing the following for a poster to be put in the window, and I’m soliciting comments.  The poster would read as follows:

Assault rifles are good for

• shooting up movie theaters and killing patrons.
• blasting away at Congressional town halls.
• killing elementary school children.
• raising millions of dollars for the National Rifle Association from their manufacturers.
• compensation for tough guys who really aren’t secure in their masculinity.
• hunting game.  Oh, wait.  You can’t use them to hunt game, only people.

Tell the National Rifle Association you are tired of them being a mouthpiece for gun dealers and manufacturers and mass murderers.  Use your outside voice.

Six Days a Week

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the Congress the power “...to establish Post Offices and post Roads.”  The Constitution doesn’t mention the F.B.I. or the C.I.A. or the I.R.S., but it actually mentions the Post Office.

Today Linda and I attended a rally at the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton to support the letter carriers in their effort to keep post offices open six days a week.  The U.S. Postal Service, which has been losing money, has proposed ending Saturday service.

The reasons the U.S.P.S. is losing money are many.  It is in competition with the internet.  (When’s the last time you wrote a letter?) It serves rural areas where few people live.  It must deliver a piece of paper from Florida to Alaska in three days for half a buck.  It provides a service that in most countries is not expected to make money--that’s why it’s a government service.  But the main reason it is in the red is because it has been required to fund pensions many years into the future--something no other federal agency is required to do.

When have you heard of a business in trouble deciding the way to regain profitability was to reduce service to its customers?  

Finally, guess which business in the U.S. employs the most U.S. veterans?  Not Wal-Mart.  Not Starbucks.  It’s the United States Postal Service.  

March madness indeed

College sports are fun to watch, but there are some problems with the system.  The big basketball elimination tournament going on now generates about 90% of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s operating budget.  The fourteen top NCAA executives were paid almost $6 million dollars last year.  The president of the NCAA was paid $1.1 million.  

CBS gets almost $1 million a minute for the Final Four broadcasts.  Over $100 billion (yes, billion) goes through Las Vegas on March Madness betting.  And what do the “college athletes” get?  

An article in The Nation (April 1, 2013) proposed some reforms.

1. workers comp protection for athletes who are injured.
2. scholarships guaranteed for four years.
3. ceilings on coaches’s salaries, and stipends for the athletes.
4. minor league NBA and NFL teams, so colleges don’t have that responsibility.
5. abolish the NCAA.  It is not about college education.  I think we all know that.  It’s a business that exploits its athletes.

Mission accomplished?

A few days ago the Morning Call asked various people to comment on the success or failure of the Iraq War.  Amazingly, a number of contributors argued that the war was a success, mentioning the end of Saddam Hussein.  Ok, I’ll give you that.  

Here’s a few items on the failure side.  The “shock and awe” campaign in which a major city was bombed for the world to see.  The mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.  The failure of the occupation to restore electricity and sewage.  The looting of one of the world’s finest museums of antiquity.  The de-emphasis of the war in Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to regroup.  The continuing violence between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq.  The waterboarding.  The indefinite incarceration of prisoners at Guantanamo without the semblance of legality.  The use of private contractors instead of trained American troops.  The lack of proper care at home for wounded veterans.  The billions spent.  The death of 100,000 Iraqi civilians.  And finally, the loss of 4,400  American soldiers and the maiming of thousands more for an unnecessary war based on lies.

Some of the same people who led us into that fiasco want to start a war with Iran. 

Pennsylvania State Stores

Sometimes you do things that you know will have no effect, but it just makes you feel better for having done them.  I assume the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed legislation today to privatize Pennsylvania's state run liquor stores.  I also know this is a popular move--a clear majority of the state's voters approve.  Nonetheless, it is a bad idea.  Here's my letter sent to my state representative, Doyle Heffley:

I’ll make a few predictions about the sale of the State Stores.  First, the bill will pass.  Even though many Republican legislators have doubts about the policy, because of the way campaigns are funded through the legislative campaign committees, they will all fall into line.  

Once the State Stores are sold, the following things will happen:

• Alcoholism will go up.  The pressure to sell will outweigh good sense.  This does not happen when clerks are public employees.

• Drunken driving will increase.  The proposal even allows the sale of alcoholic beverages at gas stations.

• Police will be called for more crimes involving alcohol.

• Underage drinking will increase.

• The variety of wines and liquors available will drop as outlets concentrate on just a few of the most profitable brands.

• What were good paying middle class jobs will become minimum wage jobs.

• The state will lose an annual source of revenue for a one-time windfall.

• And finally, in a year or two, scandals will erupt as payoffs are made for licenses.  This is Pennsylvania, after all.

I know you plan to vote for this bill.  My final prediction is that in ten years you will look back and realize what a mistake this was.  Unfortunately it will be too late.

That's the letter.  It has occurred to me that with all the campaign contributions pouring in from the wine and liquor outlets, Heffley could love the bill in spite of the social problems it will have created.

Ivory and dope

China seems to have an insatiable demand for ivory.  I’ve been reading articles in the last few weeks discussing how ivory carvings in China are so popular that a huge market has grown up for illegal elephant tusks.  African elephants by the thousands have been killed to satisfy the demand.  How can Chinese people be so short-sighted and so stupid as to doom these elephants for some decorative trinkets?

My intention was to lambaste China for being so selfish and shortsighted.  Then I thought about Mexico.  30,000 Mexicans killed in drug wars.  People decapitated.  Villages terrorized.  Government officials corrupted.  And for what?  So American drug addicts can put cocaine up their noses or inject some heroin into their veins.

I have no sympathy for ivory carvers.  But I also have none for drug addicts.  If you want to get high, buy a bottle of vodka.  It’s legal and you won’t be destroying a county.  If you like the thrill of illegality, grow your own marijuana.  There is no excuse whatsoever for destroying a country to feed some drug habit or killing elephants to satisfy a desire for ivory.  No excuse whatsoever.

Ag Gag

Ok, I’m continuing “Ag Week” one more day.  My friend Kim forwarded me an article about states banning hidden cameras on farms.  Nebraska, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania (of course), Tennessee and California have all had bills introduced to make it illegal to take pictures of farm operations without the consent of the owner.

Agribusiness is worried that animal rights activists will expose cruelty on factory farms.  Instead of addressing the cruelty issue, state legislators are going after the people who expose the cruelty.

To read the whole article go to <http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/states-move-ban-hidden-cameras-farms/story?id=18738108>.  

By the way, if you would like to videotape my chickens, you are welcome to do so at any time.  You have my permission.

Nutrient Management Plan

I’ve been notified that I must have a nutrient management plan for my flock of 20 chickens.  It had been 21, but a hawk killed one yesterday.  Nutrient, by the way, is the word now used for manure.  The plan must detail just what I am doing with the manure, including what fields on which it is being spread.  I must keep a record of each load and when it is applied.

I really don’t have a problem with the requirement. I am in the watershed for Beltzville Lake, and it would be unfortunate if chicken manure, with its high nitrogen and phosphorous content, washed into the lake.  The algae bloom now occurring in Lake Erie is largely the result of run-off infused with agricultural fertilizers.

What bothers me is that while I am required to have a manure management plan for my 20 chickens, Texas oil companies are allowed to pump millions of gallons of chemical-laced liquids into our ground without even telling us what those chemicals are.  They don’t even have a severance tax on the gas their fracking process removes.

Obviously Pennsylvania has different standards for different people.  Perhaps I didn’t give a large enough contribution to Governor Corbett.

This ends “Ag Week” after only three days.  Readers are demanding that I get back to attacking the N.R.A. and Ted Cruz and the Koch Brothers.

Goodbye to Kansas populism

Kansas, now a hotbed of Tea Party reactionaries, was once a center of radical prairie populism.  In the late 1800s Mary Elizabeth Lease crisscrossed the state, exhorting Kansas farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.”  “Sockless Jerry” Simpson, an opponent of large banks, advocated public ownership of the railroads and universal suffrage, and was elected to the House of Representatives three times.

Now I read in Lancaster Farming that a Kansas senate legislative committee is hearing testimony on a bill that would allow “out-of-state ownership of corporate farms in Kansas and eliminate the authority of county commissions to block development of corporate swine and dairy operations.”  Conservative governor Brownback supports the change.  Both houses of the Kansas legislature are controlled by Republicans, sympathetic to agribusiness rather than family farms.

The President of the Kansas Farmers Union, which represents family farms, said this:  “Every time a 2,000-cow dairy goes in, it takes 20 dairy farmers out of a community.  That is not economic development; that is rural depopulation.”

I should point out that the people of Kansas elected these corporate lapdogs.  Maybe people do get the government they deserve, but I still feel bad for the Kansas family farmers.

Ag Week on Sajeonogi

Well, maybe not all week, but at least for the next few days I’ll be writing about some agricultural issues. 

Daylin Leach, a Democratic State Senator from Wayne (near Philadelphia) has introduced a bill to require labels in Pennsylvania for genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs, in grocery stores.  Earlier this month Whole Foods announced that it would require labels for any genetically-modified food.

According to an article in Lancaster Farming by Chris Torres (3/16/13), Leach’s bill is opposed by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and the PennAg Industries, both representing large agribusiness.  An executive vice president of PennAg industries said such a policy would put Pennsylvania at a competitive disadvantage and force some companies to move out of state.

GMOs are probably safe and may represent a boon to agriculture.  Nonetheless, I have two comments.  First, if GMOs are so great, why not label them?  Why shouldn’t consumers be informed?  Secondly, I am so tired of business threats to move away if we don’t do exactly what they want.  If company workers want to join a union, the company will move to Thailand.  If New York passes a gun control measure, Winchester will move its manufacturing plant to Mississippi.  If Palmerton wishes to limit large buildings on Delaware Avenue, local business will move out.  It gets tiresome.

Milkweeds

I probably should be commenting on the reprehensible Ryan budget or talking about the new anti-gay pope, but instead I want to tell you about a small and easy step you can take to help the environment.

If you have milkweeds on your property, don’t pull them out or spray them with herbicides.  Allow them to grow.  They are the food for monarch butterflies.  Monarchs migrate to Mexico in the winter.  They once covered almost 60 acres of tree branches in their Mexican winter habitat.  You may have seen pictures of thousands of trees totally covered with butterflies.

Last year they covered less than four acres.  One problem is that most midwestern farmers are planting “Round-up Ready” corn and soybeans.  Those are genetically modified crops that are then sprayed with Monsanto’s herbicide Round-up.  It kills every plant except the soybeans and corn.  It kills all the milkweeds.  The monarchs, lacking food, then die.

A world without monarch butterflies is a diminished world.  Let your milkweeds grow.

The Sovereign Citizen Movement

One of my alert readers made me aware of a group called the “Sovereign Citizen Movement.  I looked them up on Wikipedia.  The FBI classifies them as anti-government extremists, and I’d have to agree with that.  This is a group of about 100,000 people who believe they are not subject to any federal, state, or municipal laws.  I won’t get into the arcane and twisted reasoning of the group; you can look it up yourself. 

Just think--there about a 100,000 people in this country who are living in a fantasy world.  Were they home schooled?  Are they continuously drunk?  Meth addicts?  Mentally challenged?  Unfortunately, probably quite a few of them own assault weapons.  

Does Canada have people like this?  Or Belgium?  Or Finland?  It seems as though the U.S. has a greater percentage of whackjobs than other countries do.  Where do we go wrong?

Falkland Islands

My Ph.D. dissertation was about the efforts of a United Nations committee to speed the granting of independence or self-government to colonial people. I once was an expert on really obscure colonies such as the Cook Islands or Niue.  I should point out that some colonies that the U.N. thought should be independent actually wanted to continue their ties to their colonial overlords.  For example, the residents of Greenland seem to be quite happy to have Denmark conduct their foreign affairs.

This week the residents of the Falkland Islands, also known as Malvinas Islands in Argentina, voted overwhelmingly to remain British.  You may remember a war over these islands when Margaret Thatcher was the British Prime Minister.  The vote this week was 1513 in favor of retaining British rule, with four people opposed.

Argentina dismissed the vote, calling the voters “settlers” and claiming the islands for Argentina.  My belief is that people should get the government they want. It is called “self-determination.”  It is a principle of the U.N., and it deserves respect.  Argentina, home of Juan Peron and the “disappeared ones” under the rule of the generals, should shut its mouth and respect the wishes of the people on the islands.

Knives on planes

Boys raised on farms carry pocket knives.  They are good for cleaning fingernails, peeling potatoes, or cutting the strings on straw bales.  I have one in my pocket as I type this.

But, being the sophisticated air traveller that I am, I knew the TSA representatives (I almost wrote “goons,” but they are just doing their jobs) would confiscate my knife, so I packed it in my suitcase when we flew to California in February.

On the way back I forgot.  I was already in the line when I realized my pocket knife was in my pocket, just where it was supposed to be.  I slipped it into in my backpack, which goes through the Xray machine, but I knew they’d spot it.  They did. I was flagged and told I could go back and put it in my suitcase.  Are you kidding?  Go through the whole hassle again.  So I lost a pocket knife.  

As you may guess, I welcome the new procedure which allows people to carry small knives and sports equipment on planes.  I think the whole TSA process is nuts.  Think of the millions of people who have to take off their shoes because ONE guy had a bomb in his shoe--WHICH DID NOT EXPLODE.

We have become a nation of paranoids and wimps.

The New Pope

There’s probably an unwritten rule that atheists should not write about religion, but I will anyway.  I know already who the new pope will be.  He will be old, male, and somewhat out of touch with the world, but not in a good way.

In a recent book entitled “Why Priests,” the devout Catholic Garry Wills questions the whole idea of the priesthood.  He believes that the eucharistic meal was, for early Christians, a real meal, and he credits Thomas Aquinas with emphasizing the magical power of turning wine into blood.

Wills, who studied for a number of years in a Jesuit seminary, says he has nothing against the priesthood, but wants to reassure Catholics that they can have a more direct relationship with God.  To me he sounds a lot like Martin Luther, and I am not sure how his book has been received by the Catholic hierarchy.  (But I have a pretty good idea.)

My hope is that the new pope, whomever he is, will move the Catholic church away from the insiders in the Vatican and toward a more open and tolerant church.  

Aid to Egypt

The Republicans have a rule that you never criticize a fellow Republican.  Since I am not a Republican, I will criticize the Obama administration for the second time this week.

There have been at least two letters to the Morning Call editor asking why, during the first week of the Sequestration, the U.S. has given hundreds of millions in aid to the Egyptian government.  I’m sure the aid to Egypt was for good strategic reasons, and I know that a few hundred million is chicken feed to the overall sequestration amount, but the symbolism is important.  

There are times when I think this administration is tone deaf.  This is one of them.

Congressman Dent and Straight-Party Voting

Republican Congressman Charles Dent, representing a portion of our neighboring Northampton County, has introduced a bill to ban straight-party voting in federal elections.  According to the Morning Call, 15 states, including Pennsylvania, allow straight-party voting.  I personally avail myself of this feature, pressing the big D when I vote.  I liked it even better when we had the machines with the little levers.  When you pulled the D, all the levers clicked down automatically.  I really loved that sound.

Why is Dent doing this?  He says it’s not good for democracy if some voters aren’t educating themselves on all the candidates.  What he is really worried about is that he represents a district in which a majority of voters are Democrats.  If they press the D for a straight Democratic slate, he loses.  (If only they had.)

Here’s my suggestion for Congressman Dent.  If you really want to reduce polarization in Congress, speak out publicly against gerrymandering.  Most analysts agree that gerrymandered districts are the main reason for one-party representation.  The day Congressman Dent publicly criticizes the gerrymandered districts in Pennsylvania is the day I’ll believe he is sincere.

John Brennan--wrong man for the CIA

The Senate has confirmed John Brennan to head the CIA, and that was a mistake.  Brennan spent most of his career at the CIA.  He worked for the Bush administration, reporting for Bush’s daily briefing, and he was the main guy behind the drone targeting for the Obama administration.

He said he was not involved the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, and that he had privately told people he opposed the torture.  If you oppose a policy like that, you resign from government.  You go public.  You call the Washington Post.  You contact CNN.

Obama should not have appointed him; the Senate should not have confirmed him.  Now he heads the very agency that committed waterboarding and sent prisoners abroad to be tortured at so-called “black sites.”

A 6000-page Senate Report on the activities at Guantanamo has been compiled, but it’s classified.  I’d like to see it, and the American people deserve to see it.  I’d like names named, and people punished.  I wonder if Brennan is mentioned in that report.  Of course, if he is and the report is released, his name will be “redacted.”  That’s the way we do things now.

Genocide in Arkansas

The Arkansas legislature passed a bill over the veto of the Democratic governor banning abortion after 12 weeks.  The legislation was called the “Human Heartbeat Protection Act.”  Ultrasound can pick up a heartbeat after about 12 weeks of pregnancy.

When does human life begin?  I can’t answer that.  Life begins, I suppose, at conception, but when you think human life begins depends on a variety of factors, including religion, medical science, and personal opinion.

What I do know is that the sponsor of the Arkansas legislation, State Senator Jason Rapert, compared the 50 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade to the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda.  

It is almost beyond belief that someone would compare the genocide in Nazi Germany or the butchery in Rwanda with a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy.  I find that personally offensive.  It is a belittling of millions of victims of genocide and it trivializes the very word genocide.

Why should we let politicians in Arkansas decide women’s health issues?  They aren’t doctors, and they surely aren’t God.

Waste

The Carbon County Office of Solid Waste has been busy the last few days removing the blue bins used for recycling paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, and other material.  Later this month the Office of Solid Waste will itself be disbanded in one of the most short-sighted government actions I have ever seen.

Scores of residents will drive to their recycling bins in Mahoning or Parryville or other locations throughout the county and find an empty space.  Some townships, such as Towamensing and Lower Towamensing, will continue some types of recycling, but much of the waste that had been recycled will end up in landfills.

Even more amazing, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has been reminding consumers and businesses that as of January 24, they could no longer put electronic devices in their trash.  This is a result of a law passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in 2010 stating that computers, laptops, and televisions must be handled separately from regular trash.  In Carbon County, we have no method of disposing such material. I have no idea what we will do with this type of trash, but I’m sure many people will dump it illegally.

If the program is restarted, and at some point I predict it will be, then we will have the additional cost of replacing the bins and the additional problem of the re-education of our citizens.  What a waste.

The flat tax that isn't flat

This morning I got into a discussion (well, argument) at the Kresgeville Post Office.  A patron was extolling the positive features of a flat tax, so everyone would pay something.  Then he proclaimed, “At least that would be fair.”  

I pointed out that a 10% tax on a $30,000 a year income would be much more burdensome than a 20% tax on someone who made $3 million a year.  He disagreed, so I knew he was a Republican.

Then he said, we should make more use of the sales tax.  In Pennsylvania everybody pays 6%.  

Here is a quick primer on taxes.  If poor people pay a greater percentage than the rich, that is a regressive tax.  Think lottery or cigarettes.  I know, I know.  Poor people shouldn’t gamble or smoke, but they do, and you have a regressive tax.

A progressive tax is one that takes a greater percentage from the rich than from the poor.  The federal income tax is supposed to be an example, but at least one year I paid a higher percentage than President Reagan.  With the loopholes and deductions, the progressiveness breaks down, but at least in theory the income tax should be progressive.

A flat tax takes the same percentage no matter what the income.  Interestingly, a sales tax is not a flat tax.  Here’s the reason.  Let’s say it is the end of the year, and we will add up all the sales taxes paid by someone making $40,000 a year and someone making $4 million year.  We will find in almost every case that the person making $40,000 has paid a greater percentage of his or her income than the person making $4 million.  The $4 million guy has not spent that $4 million on taxable goods (unless he is really stupid.)  The $40,000 guy will, because he has to. 

The Dow

Last week the Dow passed the 14,000 mark.  We are getting close to the all-time record.  And here is the headline at the top right page one of today’s Times.

RECOVERY IN U.S. LIFTING PROFITS, NOT ADDING JOBS

__________________________

WALL STREET IS BUOYANT

__________________________

A Gulf is Widening as Federal Budget Cuts Take Effect

The Republicans in Congress are wrecking this country.  What amazes me is that they seem to be proud of what they are doing.

Elephant tusks

I generally admire the Chinese very much.  What was a Third World country in 1950 has become an economic powerhouse.  The one child per family policy prevented a population explosion that would have had negative global implications.  The Chinese government is relatively stable, its educational system provides a model for the U.S., and its economic prosperity is the envy of much of the world.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of Chinese culture that I find reprehensible.  The attempt to eliminate Tibetan culture is one; the constant harassment of “dissidents” is another.  One of the biggest problems I have with China, however, is the almost complete lack of environmental consciousness.  

A front page article in today’s New York Times discussed the huge market in China for ivory carvings using elephant tusks.  30,000 elephants killed last year just to satisfy the Chinese market for ivory carvings.  This is a country where the government can be as brutal as it wants to be.  How about a law that anyone who buys a carved elephant tusk receives the death penalty?  That should protect the elephants.  Am I serious?  I am.

Progressive Summit

Today Linda and I attended the Progressive Summit held in the Harrisburg Hilton. We had a full day of workshops and speeches organized by Keystone Progress.  It was wonderful to be with a group of Pennsylvanians from all across the state who believe in economic fairness, racial and gender equality, and true democracy.  

We learned how to frame issues, how to advance our positions, and how to present our ideas to voters who share our ideals, but who have been bamboozled by the right-wing.  We came back from Harrisburg fired up, ready to go.

Republicans win on sequestration

First, the cutbacks aren't dramatic.  It isn't like the government shut-down engineered by Gingrich during the Clinton administration, so it won't be noticed by many of us.  Secondly, the cutbacks will fall on the people who do not donate to PACs, have little or no political power, and are already near the bottom of the income scale.  People like that can be ignored.

The lines at the airports may get longer, but they are already long; people will shrug, and shuffle along. The hot meals at some schools will end, but it won't affect the wealthy.  Kids won't get vaccinated, but those are poor kids.  People will be laid off, but it won't be the people at the top who are making the decisions about whom to ax.  The economy will stagnate or go downhill this quarter, but it is the President who gets the credit for a bad economy.

Remember, it is the Republicans who want to cut programs and slash spending.  They have no incentive to bargain or compromise.  They can sit back, watch the problems develop, and then blame President Obama.  That's their plan, and I think it will work.