Three-Lane Highway

Mirrored at Another Loud Blog.

Steven Perlstein had a great article (that I missed from 3 months ago–sorry) in the Post about the constant struggle in Northern Virginia of getting out of what we’re putting into Richmond. He had a great and sneaky proposal:

Here’s how it would work: First, push through the 1 percent regional income tax. Then, dispatch the Northern Virginia delegation to Richmond with a revolutionary proposal to reduce the statewide income tax by one percentage point. Having preached for decades about the evils of taxation, Republican leaders would be hard-pressed to resist the idea. The net result would be that Northern Virginians would pay no more or no less in income taxes, but would get to keep $700 million of their own money rather than sharing it with those moochers downstate.

This goes pretty well to my point about what’s missing from the NVTA: tax relief from Richmond.

It’s really a travesty, and it makes me wonder if it would better to go back to a classic City State model like the Ancient Greeks. At least we would have only one entity to pay taxes to. Currently it’s a long list:

* HOA fees
* Town Taxes
* County Taxes
* NVTA Taxes (**NEW!!**)
* State Taxes
* Federal Taxes

Sooner or later we’ll add:

* UN dues
* Solar System Taxes
* Milky Way Galaxy Taxes
* Intergalactic Local Group dues
* Virgo SuperCluster assessment

And again, I’ll ask: How many Governments does it take to screw in a light bulb?

washingtonpost.com

Stelly plan reversal in the works

From what I understand, this is good news for the state of Louisiana.

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Reversal of 'Stelly Plan' moves through Senate's tax committee

via KATC – Louisiana Headlines on Jun 21, 2007

BATON ROUGE, La. — A proposal to reverse some of the tax changes known as the “Stelly Plan” advanced on Wednesday, which could mean breaks for Louisianians who itemize their state…

Not for a lack of trying

If corporate tax receipts are too low in the US, it’s not for a lack of trying by the US govt. Could it be that personal income has risen since 1930, thus more receipts come from personal income tax because there is more personal income? Just a thought.

My new favorite Democrat

My new favorite Democrat in the US of A just happens to represent my hometown. Nick Gautreaux of Abbeville has proposed to eliminate the personal income tax in Louisiana.

Gautreaux’s bill would keep in effect the tax rates and tax brackets on personal income taxes but would lower the amount paid by individuals by 10 percent a year until the tax is phased out by Jan. 1, 2016. For example, in the present tax year, taxpayers would pay 90 percent of their tax bills to the state and 80 percent next year.

But my favorite is this quote:

“This gives a break to the working-class people,” he said. “For the last several years we have had a surplus. . . . That tells me we are overtaxed. . . . It is time to give taxpayers a tax break. Why should government grow and add more and more programs?”

Can someone get Howard Dean on the phone? This guy needs to sit down with Nancy Pelosi and company and set them straight.

Bi-weekly Right Wing Newsletters

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Bi-weekly Right Wing Newsletters

You know how every Friday Mr. and Mrs. Jones has a little more pep in their step and is a little more open to spending money? I mean, usually Friday afternoons is gravy time right? You just get off work, possibly early, and finally receive that hard earned dough.

Yun-ju and I are beginning to realize we are not the typical Mr. and Mrs. Jones. I am still getting a measley stipend, but every other Friday Yun-ju gets paid and we are down in the dumps. She is almost on the verge of tears for every paycheck. I have to console her and wipe her tears. “Why do I work so hard so the government can take all my money?” Roughly 30% of every dollar comes right off the top. Columbus has the #17th highest “local” [LOCAL!] income tax in the country, and a 7% sales tax on top of it. All to pay for dilapidated schools and hardly any public transportation.

Plenty of cops though. hmmm.

I always find these encounters so charming, however. Every time Yun-ju rants on taxes, I think, “Oh, we really are meant to be together.”

Posted at 10:38 pm by Johnny B

	Posted by Jordan @ 11/03/2005 12:59 PM PST
	I hear you. I’m giving up 40% every check.

	Posted by Johnny B @ 11/03/2005 01:28 PM PST
	Can you claim school loan repayment off your taxable income? It’s time for you to get a mortgage and have kids, Jordan, in order to keep any of your money. Even then you’ll still get hammered!

Liberal Words I hate

“Awareness”: a perfectly good word forever ruined by liberalism. Whenever you hear a presentation or read a paper in which the words, “The goal of this project is to raise awareness…” start calculating new tax deductions.

Posted at 11:35 pm by Johnny B

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/15/2005 11:57 PM PDT
	I’ve got my CPA working overtime already. Maybe we should write a paper to raise awareness on the wastefullness of academic pursuits for the sake of academic pursuit. One of these days I’m going to do a full post on why the space program is a dismal failure, and always will be unless our PURPOSE is more than “knowledge” and “exploration”. The problem with “awareness” is that the only people that give a flying flip about academic “awareness” campaigns are other academics.

	Posted by Rothell @ 09/16/2005 12:34 PM PDT
	You guys crack me up. “Awareness” had never struck me as a particularly liberal word. But, Broussard, if that’s what you think, then consider words that for me have lost their value in contemporary Republican rhetoric. “Freedom.” Bush loves to use this word. It is like kryptnonite to the evil “TERRORISTS!” That’s what they want to “destroy.” Yeah. That always made sense to me. Bad guys rubbing their hands together, hatching plots to blow up the world because the idea of “freedom” just drives them bonkers. Other words: “destroy,” “victorious,” “resolved.” These typically come straight from the horse’s mouth, George W. Bush, whose speeches might go well as narration for a Rocky movie but not as real speech pertaining to our own reality. My favorite, though, is “terrorist.” Acts of “terrorism” have been a military strategy since the invention of war. That is a fact, not my opinion. Did the United States (and its allies, particularly Britain) drop bombs on hundreds of villages and cities in Germany during Worlds War 2? Yes. Did we do the same in Vietnam? Yes. Fact: we dropped more bombs on a New Jersey-sized country than all the bombs dropped on Europe combined in the second worlds war. What do we call that? Well the U.S. government doesn’t want to call that terrorism! But is it? (I hate to write this because these are dark days when you cannot openly discuss acts of criminality under U.S. government direction without fearing some Bush cronie is going to come and arrest you.) The plane-hijackers and suicide-bombers are terrorists. But that word should mean little to people who can think for themselves, because its sad but true that the U.S. has got blood on its hands too.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 06:46 PM PDT
	Hey Rothell, Real quick, remind me of your address. Just…uh…curious.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 07:03 PM PDT
	speaking of words…here’s a reason to be selective of what Thesaurus you buy…kind of interesting. http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2005/09/07/rogets-arab Oh and by the way, here’s some other words that I feel that the left has hijacked: “choice”–basic right applied only to women and only to the right to have an abortion…no choice of schools, or religions, or anything else. “progressive”–making sure that every single aspect of the “great society” is completely unchanged from it’s original structure established in the mid 1960’s. “nuanced”– a form of logic and reason carefully crafted to fall in line with every left-leaning thought conceived since the dawn of birth control. “enlightened”–atheist “intellectual”–atheist “priveleged”–those who pay taxes I could go on and on…we should write a dictionary.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 07:16 PM PDT
	OH and by the way…it’s interesting you mention the word “terrorist”. I really don’t really see the problem with the word as a practical matter. If I was German when we were bombing Dresden, I might indeed have called the US terrorists. And if I were a VietCong soldier, I may have indeed called the US military terrorists…but what’s your point? Are you saying it’s a matter of perspective? Of course it is. Would you rather we use less generic words? How about Islamic terrorists? Or Muslim extremists? Or ragheads? What do you want? I think terrorist is the most politically correct, practical, and precise term for the people that we are indeed fighting against. Maybe they call us terrorists, too, but what difference does that make? The whole world has been using the word terrorism since at least the 70s, and even the most politically left have to acknowledge that there is a certain type of violence or fighting or whatever you call it that can be easily defined as terrorism. Anyway, I’m having trouble getting your point, but that’s OK…I know you really don’t need one. It was indeed a great way to remind us all that the US is still evil and imperialistic, and I sure appreciate the reminder.

	Posted by john broussard @ 09/17/2005 08:54 AM PDT
	Rothell, I had thought about “terrorist” and “freedom” too. Those are fair points in that the value of the words is kind of lost for now, but #1 You’ll get no sympathy for German villagers from me. WWI was much to a more inconclusive standstill, and twenty years later there was another war. Bombing into submission was a policy is the price the Germans had to pay. #2 It was the rise of communism, not American bombing, that drove massive Vietnamese immigration. As the bad as the former was, you got to question which is worse. If America wins the war the Vietnamese would be about a million times better off…they were truly the losers there.

	Posted by john broussard @ 09/17/2005 10:12 AM PDT
	Hey Rothell, What’s your take on the German election? http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1134885

Random Thoughts

A mysterious email popped into my mailbox on April 15. It contained a single line

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43820

This link contained an interesting article about the Federal Reserve. World News Daily is pretty cool, my kind of website. I think usury is bad and all, but the abolition of the federal reserve, though constitutional, is bit weird. I mean 138 countries have a central bank. France and Canada have a central bank. Are there websites and newspapers denounce the Banque du France? Maybe so, and I haven’t heard of them.

Are the bankers at the Bank of Canada acting solely in the interests of Canadian citizens? Canadian or no, a banker is a banker.

That being said, I say sure, why not, abolish the federal reserve.

On an unrelated note, any of y’all know about health insurance, and buying it yourself. Any self-employed salesmen out there using pay-to-play or emergency insurance, or simply HMO or PPO? In fact, if any of y’all know of any insurance salesmen who knows about health insurance, I’d love to hear more about it. I’m really serious, and not being sarcastic.

Posted at 10:51 pm by Johnny B

	Posted by BP @ 04/18/2005 08:23 AM PDT
	don’t know anyone who does that, but I’ll ask around.

Big government versus corporate theft?

I’ve been a big fan of privatizing social security, at least reforming it, on the basis that the richest group of people in America are 65 and older. No matter how rich someone gets, they still benefits. I’m sure those old fogies are sending their SS checks directly to the nearest charity. Also, it sucks that people get no return on their initial investment with SS. That is essentially the government stealing from the poor to give to …whomever. So, I like privatization, but why does an American have to invest in the stock market for tax free status. I’ve been burned by the stock market big time. Am I supposed to feel good if my money is yoinked by mutual fund managers and crooked CEOs, rather than the government?

Why can’t I invest my money in other capital and allow the return on that capital to pay for my retirement? Let’s say I save up 3K a year and purchase a lumber yard with a couple of partners. Why can’t I save up my money and do that, say, when I’m forty, instead of giving it to a company managed by people I don’t know?

Posted at 10:53 am by Johnny B

	Posted by BP @ 03/09/2005 08:15 AM PST
	Three points… One, income tax is not in the least bit constituitional anyway, and neither is social security, however the former has created a monster that unfortunately needs to be fed, and the latter was a “promise” that was made to seniors 70 years ago that needs to be kept, and the only way to keep it is to get better returns than the one percent that the current fund is getting is to privatize. Two, you don’t have to put money in AOL, Intel, and Ebay stock to get decent returns. The money can easily be invested in municipal bonds and blue chip stocks and get double or triple the returns that they’re currently getting at very very low risk. The logic is that your average person doesn’t have the resources or the know-how to put their money to get virtually risk-free decent returns, and since it’s not politically feasible for lawmakers to say…”Hey let’s just get rid of that Social Security thing altogether and let folks invest their own damn money!”, the “lesser of two evils” is the one that’s going to actually keep up with inflation.

	Posted by Jordan @ 03/13/2005 05:53 PM PST
	U.S. Constitution Amendment XVI The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. You meant, income tax shouldn’t be constitutional?

	Posted by BP @ 03/14/2005 11:10 PM PST
	I stand corrected. Here’s an interesting little history…http://www.wealth4freedom.com/16thHistory.htm