Don't Judge the Player by the Team

I don't know the reasons behind the current strike by National Football Referees, but it sure has raised eyebrows and blood pressures. Officiating sporting events, professional or amateur, has never been an easy thing. Nor has it ever been without controversy.

I suspect that the majority of those who officiate professional sporting events receive hate mail, possibly even death threats. Players who commit errors that lead to their team's defeat do.

Fans gather after a game to scrutinize every play, every decision on and off the field, and every call made by every official. Heated arguments erupt between fan bases of opposing teams. Rivalries sometimes boil over into violence. Sports fans can be very devoted, spending a great deal of their time examining the statistics of an individual player and his or her importance to the game.

So why don't we see the same devotion and passion among people when it comes to choosing their political representatives?

I'm an Orioles fan. I like to know if Adam Jones can hit sliders down and away. I want to know how Matt Wietters bats against left handers.

Politically, I want to know if my congressman will support my views. I want to know my representative's stand on the issues. And, just as I will demonstrate my support for a good ballplayer and my lack of support for a poor one, I will support those who prove to me that they will represent my views in congress.

To do that, I need to understand the issues. I need to see how a given politician reacts to these issues. How else can I make an educated vote? I read the opinions of sports analysts from different organizations to better understand a play or player. I need to do the same with issues and politicians  before I vote.

Sadly, a great many people I know don't see past the party affiliations of the candidates. It's like rooting for a player on your home team regardless of his lack of hustle, his lackluster play on the field, or his inability to follow the manager's orders.

I appreciate ballplayers on many teams. I want my home team to win, but that doesn't stop me from acknowledging the fine play of a player on another team.

If we followed the issues and the politicians as strongly as we follow our sports heroes, we might not be in the fix we're in right now.

For Richer, For Poorer - Tax Equality?

Here are a few hypotheticals for you.

1. You're rich. It's tax time, and you can reduce your tax bill by simply following the opportunities written into the tax code. You don't have to break the law, just follow it.
2. You're middle class. It's tax time, and you can reduce your tax bill by simply following the opportunities written into the tax code. You don't have to break the law, just follow it.
3. You're barely getting by, living week to week, getting by on a minimum wage salary, subsidized housing and food stamps. It's tax time, and by just filling out the tax form properly you need not pay any taxes whatsoever.

What do you do? Is there any difference in your actions if you are rich, middle class, or in abject poverty?

Does being poor give you a righteous entitlement to take advantage of the law and thus pay no taxes?
What about being rich, or middle class?

Here are two more.

1. You own or run a multi-national corporation. It's tax time, and you can reduce your corporate tax bill by simply following the opportunities written into the tax code. You don't have to break the law, just follow it.
2. You own a small business. Your business barely survives year to year. It's tax time, and you can reduce your small business tax bill by simply following the opportunities written into the tax code. You don't have to break the law, just follow it.

Is there a difference? Should there be?

In order to function, any government, like any household, like any business, needs income. That's why we have a tax system. Over the years ours has become labyrinthine, full of deductions, loopholes, escape mechanisms. About 71% of all taxes in the United States are paid by 10% of the population. Nearly half of the workforce pays no tax at all.
After all, you can reduce your tax bill by simply following the opportunities written into the tax code. You don't have to break the law, just follow it.

So whose to blame for this situation? We are.

Both political parties have had opportunities, periods when they controlled both houses of congress and the presidency, even a super-majority. And yet, here we stand. We can blame "special interests," but the truth is we have had the power all along and have not acted. Everyone believes their Senator, their Representative, their President, is the one that will act in our best interest.

And guess what? They have.

Alexis de Tocqueville noted,

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. "

Every time we vote to extend tax breaks to businesses, that is what we are doing. But also, every time we extend the welfare net we are doing the same.

What do you think?

State of Stealth

A battle is being waged in the state of Maryland over the state's desire to expand casino gambling. Huge in the rhetorical arguments of both sides is the claim that more casinos equals more money for education.
History, and the state constitution, teach us one thing. The amount of money collected through the collection of taxes on gambling will equate to a commensurate rise in the total state budget, but the necessary funds for education would have been found regardless.
Look at it this way.
Suppose the state budget included $100 million dollars for education. The state tells us that we don't have sufficient funds to give our children a quality education. Okay, you say. The state promises to allocate the taxes collected from the casinos to education, so give me more gambling statewide.
The first year's tax collection nets $50 million in casino taxes, and you see the education budget rise by $50 million. Ah, you say to yourself, the state was telling the truth. The money did go to education.
But this is a half truth.
You see, the state is obligated to provide a quality education for our children. If that meant to raise the education budget by $50 million that would have occurred whether or not the casinos were taxed. Without the casino tax, either discretionary spending would have suffered, or other taxes would have been raised to cover those discretionary items.
Let's say you live on a fixed income and the cost of food goes up. What do you do? If you have no way to increase your income, you need to pull money from somewhere else in your budget to cover that increase. Maybe you give up going out to the movies. Maybe you cancel your cable subscription. But you still eat. Cable is discretionary, eating is not,(although you can do a better job with the cash you have for food by making better choices at the grocer.)
A less that ethical individual would go to the local food bank and ask for food but not reduce their discretionary spending, thus having their cake and eating while watching the movies too.
This is precisely what the state is doing.
I'm sure spending on education will rise.
But at what cost to the citizens? The casino money came from the citizens in the first place.
Can you say "Stealth Tax?"

Agenda or Responsibility

The Associated Press reported on May 27^th, 2012, that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli was using the state’s pension fund as a cudgel to influence employers to create company policy to ban discrimination against homosexual or transgendered employees.

Shareholders have the right to present resolutions to companies in an effort to have their voice heard. Often this is done by a group of individuals upset with the company’s performance, perhaps stock prices are not where they were expected to be, or dividends are down.

What DiNapoli is doing is trying to force Exxon Mobil, a U.S. Corporation, to follow the Comptroller’s liberal agenda. Exxon says the measure is unnecessary. The AP quotes Exxon as saying the company already prohibits discrimination of all kinds, referring to itself as a “Meritocracy.”

But DiNapoli wants to add what for him is a feel good policy to the corporation that explicitly focuses on homosexuals and transgendered individuals. He says he has a “double bottom line” for the funds he is entrusted with on the part of all state employees. The income’s important, but so is his social agenda.

In a time of economic uncertainty, shouldn’t his focus be solely on his responsibility to do the best for state pensioners, and not on his own far left agenda?

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/ny_comptroller_thomas_dinapoli.html

From Kingston, with Love

There’s a heart shaped, painted wooden sign, stuck in the ground somewhere in the town of Centralia PA. Somewhere in town is the best way to put that, I think, since most of the town’s landmarks have been gone for a long time. The sign reads, to Centralia, with love from Kingston New York.

Fifty years ago, the Centralia fire department set fire to a town dump to help clean up the town for a Memorial Day Celebration, and the fire burns to this day. The town sits above a great many abandoned coal mines, and not long after igniting the blaze the mines caught fire as well. Sulphuric steam rises from breaks in the asphalt that was once Route 61.

A fight ensued between residents who wanted to evacuate, and those who didn’t. The evacuees won out, and by the 1980s over a thousand people had moved away, their homes reduced to rubble by bulldozers.

But some residents refused to leave. It seems not all of the homes and lives were in danger. But for whatever reason, the state decided a few years ago to revisit the issue and ordered those remaining to leave. For those souls who have lived in Centralia without incident for the past 50 years, this is nothing more than a land grab for the coal beneath their feet.

At best this is a well intentioned effort to help landowners. Then again, how often has eminent domain been used for the benefit of property owners?

Oh So Special Interests

Time and time again, we read of "special interest groups" lobbying Congress. President Obama derided special interest groups during his election campaign, declaring they would have no place in his administration. The political left, and I would include the President in this category, are particularly vociferous in their condemnation of special interest groups. Over and over again, the print media and the major television broadcast networks fret over the meddling influence of "big business" over Capitol Hill.

What goes unspoken through the vast majority of these outlets is the influence of left leaning organizations.

The latest salvo in the influence peddling and meddling wars comes from the Service Employees International Union, a 2.1 million member strong organization that spent $85 million in support of the current president's election, and plans to spend an equal amount on his re-election.

The union hopes to field 100,000 workers in eight key battleground states to push our sitting president into another term.

For his part, President Obama has reached out to plenty of special interests during his administration. After deriding Mitt Romney for dealing with private equity firms, the president sidled up to the head of the Blackstone Group, garnering a fundraising dinner.

ABC News' Political Punch commented,

The Obama campaign has framed its about-face decision to support a pro-Democratic super PAC as an effort to counteract “unlimited money from special interests,” particularly corporations, allowed in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

So in framing the argument, the president sees all interests other than those supporting his agenda as special interests. His comments are disingenuous at best. In February of 2011, he banned contributions from

"corporations, political action committees and federally-registered lobbyists offering to help pay for the event. (referring to the 2012 Democratic National Convention)."

It was good PR. But the ban on PAC money only referred to the convention, and in that regard, the president has been true to his word.

http://votesmart.org/interest-groups

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/19/labor-union-limits-focus-to-8-battleground-states/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-courts-private-equity-cash-at-new-york-fundraiser/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/obama-to-benefit-from-special-interests-via-super-pac/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/obama-ban-2012-convention_n_818992.html

Slots for Tots

Gambling has become a national obsession. The promise of millions of dollars annually has cleared the way for casinos in many states. The state of Maryland now has five casinos, the largest and most lucrative, recently opened adjacent to the Arundel Mills Shopping Center.
Slot machines were legalized in a number of Maryland counties back in the 1940s, generally with the promise that proceeds would pay for children's education and lower property taxes. Stories of bankruptcy, theft, and malfeasance soon followed. Several public officials admitted being approached by interested parties to sell their votes for pro-gambling initiatives. By July of 1968 gambling was once again illegal in the state.
But the lure of a cash flow without raising taxes on the public soon brought a state-wide lottery, with the promise (can you see it coming?) of better educations for the children of the state. Then in 2008, voters (again warned that their children's education would suffer without it) voted for casino gambling.
Before the first slots were set in place, State Senate President Mike Miller began saying that five casinos were not enough. If children were to continue to receive a quality education, a sixth casino (in his home county) would be needed.
Before the largest casino was opened, a state official remarked that revenues were not what they'd expected, and therefore table games should be added to the casinos. Who could argue with such logic? After all, you wouldn't want the children to suffer, would you?
The sad truth is that Maryland is no different than any of the other states with lotteries and/or casinos. Raising taxes on the citizenry costs votes, offering fun and excitement doesn't. But what of the real cost? How about the families devastated by bankruptcy, divorce, or jail time for a loved one because of addiction to gambling?
Gambling is a stealth tax that disproportionately reaches into the pockets of those least able to afford the loss of income. That's not to say those who are well off do not gamble, or suffer from the effects of their gambling. They have the luxury of disposable income.
Casinos are the worst form of taxation. With smiles, bright lights, and good food they promise riches and glory one token at a time.
And the children's education? Somebody please show me a state where the education budget went up in direct proportion to the amount of taxes generated by gambling. The truth is this is a shell game. The money exists for the education budget. Monies that would have been allocated for education are redistributed into other departments, leaving the gambling receipts to cover the load.
Some refer to gambling as the "stupid tax." It's more of a luxury tax. One that a lot of people don't have the luxury to afford.

For a nice study of gambling in MD:
http://maryland-politics.blogspot.com/2008/11/marylands-sordid-slots-history-about-to.html

Some info on the effects of gambling:
http://www.troubledwith.com/AbuseandAddiction/A000000707.cfm?topic=abuse%20and%20addiction%3A%20gambling