Articles tagged as

Taxes

Bar Stool Economics

Left wing tax policy and the class warfare rhetoric they use to advance it crumbles in the face of even the most simplistic analysis.  Take the left wing war on the wealthy.  They argue that the rich do not pay their fair share even though the rich pay most of the taxes.  Here in New Hampshire the Mark Fernald wing of the democrat party apes this ridiculous technique on the matter of New Hampshire property taxes, a notion upon which the social justice mavens and the Granite State "Fair Tax" Coalition are meant to agitate.  But neither claim holds water and this cross post from CNHT explains why.
 
Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100 and If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

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Manchester Needs a ‘Full-Time Refugee” Coordinator?

Liberals love to spend money. No doubt about it. Especially when the money they are spending taxpayer money. Despite tough economic times for the rank and file taxpayer, City Hall liberals are still crafting ways to generate new spending in an effort to expand the almighty nanny-feifdom of city government.

Is The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Just Another Left Wing Front Group?

 

The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition claims to be a non-partisan, non-profit group whose mission is to convince the people of New Hampshire that we need a broad based income tax.

What that works out to is using percentages and formulas with a focus on deception, misdirection, and Alinsky-like class warfare rhetoric, to corral (see also ‘Guilt’) enough support to dismantle a system that for years has made the state of New Hampshire one of the best places to live and work in the nation; for quality of life, low overall tax burden, health, safety, low crime rates, job opportunity and freedom.

You might ask yourself why someone would start a non-profit to mess with that kind of success?  What kind of crank sees a state ranking on top in almost every category and decides, let’s mess that up?  The answer? Democrats and social justice junkies who can’t advance a a massive and nearly irreversible spending agenda without a broad based tax.

So to get to Moscow on the Merrimack the partisan, left leaning, New Hampshire Council of Churches formed what is now known as the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC). It is run to this day by social justice-activist clergy and radical leftists and progressives ‘attracted to the idea’ of pretending an income tax would not ruin the New Hampshire Advantage.

Of course the only people it “attracted” were tax and spenders.

There is not one person on their staff, their advisory board, or leading their list of affiliated groups that is not either a democrat, working for the democrat social-justice agenda, or who is not a large dollar donor to democrat candidates or causes.  How you can possibly claim to be ‘non-partisan’ under these circumstances defies belief, yet they continue to make that claim and it is time to call them out on it.

My mission here, and in posts to follow, is to show you who runs this scam so that you can grasp what their real motivations are.  To grow the size and reach of government by defining ‘fair’ to mean more taxes and more spending on the radical left wing agenda.

Part I  The GSFTC advisory Board: “More Progressives than you can shake a stick at.”

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How Much Is Enough? (And Other Problems With Left Wing Policy)

How much Is EnoughWhy can’t democrats trust their own constituents to do the right thing?  Their first response to every problem is to institutionalize it with more government, typically as far up the legislative food chain as possible.  That means as far away from you as they can manage, even to the point of giving control to unelected bureaucrats you can’t punish, just to keep you from messing with it.  They entrench it in a bureaucracy, make it impossibly inefficient and expensive and then refuse to let anyone touch it ever again, while charging you more and more to maintain it.

The only reason I can think of for that kind of knee jerk behavior is that Democrats use themselves as the template for the rest of us. The left by their very nature must be selfish, insecure, inconsiderate and un-trusting. Only people so un-giving of themselves or simply incapable of volunteering their time and energy would have to mandate volunteerism and "giving" by legalizing the taking of other peoples time or property through mandates.

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No New Jobs? It’s no mystery!!

President Obama, Fed Chairman Bernanke, Secretary Geithner, and the President’s economic advisers can’t understand why our economy isn’t creating jobs.  It is no mystery to me or, I suspect, to anyone who has created, run, or even seriously thought about running a business.  Unfortunately there is little business experience in the Obama administration.  

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Geithner Can’t Justify Doing That

I’m not sure which is worse. The fact that Geithner thinks we need to do this at all, or the fact that he seems to believe that what he says is in any way moral or that it will, as Mr. Geithner claims to believe–improve growth. Growth of government and taxes yes, but nothing else grows.

Rent-seeking is generally companies sucking up to Govt; what do you call it when our Govt goes rent-seeking to OTHER countries’ Govts?

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."            – President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09   I know that lots of companies use their … Read more

Another Whack at RGGI

..what I find particularity perverse is that “Republican” Senators in New Hampshire could be tying themselves to the Massachusetts compromise as the tipping point at which staying in RGGI would then no longer make sense.

Facebook Doodlings – On Barney Frank and Estate Taxes

Leigh MacNeil, a while ago, started a rant as Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA, or concerning truth in advertising, Democrat Socialist-MA): Double Dip Estate Tax Not Punishment because Heirs Didn’t Do Anything  to Deserve It I added on: They [Liberals like Frank] absolutely believe that an individual CANNOT be successful outside the support system that society … Read more

Right To Work – “Dear State Legislator”

I realize most of the (Merrimack) town delegation supports right to work but as we approach the override vote I wanted to impart these remarks. If any business but a union demanded $50.00 every month from every employee, for benefits and used some of that money to finance its mostly one-party political action funding, there would be hell to pay. No one of any political party would support that. Now imagine if they had to do it or they could not work there?

Is John Lynch In Trouble With Democrats?

The progressive socialists who pull the big red levers at party headquarters invest a good deal of political capitol on bashing big business and the men and women who run them so how do they reconcile their figurehead democrat pimping the potential for 1500 new manufacturing jobs in the state, created by some evil, free market, fortune 100 company?

New Hampshire Got Jobs!?

How about some jobs? New Hampshire is reporting an April unemployment rate of 4.9%. … This is unlike last year when the initial “improvement” we saw was actually the result of workforce decline–people had stopped looking or receiving benefits and dropped out of the equation.

NH Senate Should BEG Our forgiveness on RGGI

Fools!God has a sense of humor.  Just days after Republican State Senators in New Hampshire bent over backwards to the green lobby (and refused to leave RGGI) a major green lobby advocate (George Monbiot) announced that none of their ideas work. (Ideas like cap and trade for example.)  Now, just days after that, a highly credentialed European scientist who was on the Anthropogenic Global Warming Government money "Gravy Train" has a message to those who continue to support CO2 mitigation of any kind, and in particular the failed variety like RGGI…

..to those who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: Sorry, but you’ve been had. Yes, carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it’s so minor it’s not worth doing much about.

So who is David Evans?  Here’s his bio from the article.

David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees, including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering.

Is this speaking truth to power?

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

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A Funding “Solution” For Democrats Concerned about Budget Cuts

Remember all that stuff we didn’t have to have in the New Hampshire budget before 2006 when the democrats started piling it up into what has become our Billion dollar budget deficit? I don’t either. I’m not even sure what they spent it on which is why I am convinced I can do without it. All this caterwauling is clearly just cover for keeping the bloated bureaucracy alive so they can milk it for union campaign contributions.

It Isn’t Easy Being ‘Green.’

It Isn't Easy...The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a reflection of failed ‘Green’ policy, the shadow of an idea that doesn’t work on so many levels that even prominent members of the Green movement have begun soul searching over their own contradictions about the ideas which encouraged it’s genesis (and its goals) in the first place.

Perhaps the best, and most recent example, comes to us from Walter Russell Mead in his review of George Monbiot’s recent admission that "…because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed."  A  "thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it." 

Why is it always the really smart people who are so stupid?

Mead sums it up: "regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions."

Greens like to have it both ways.  They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions.  Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony.

…

More, Monbiot also acknowledges the contradictory and inconsistent nature of the green solutions.  He acknowledges that there is no prospect for democratic politics to impose the draconian limits on consumption and economic activity that green dogma requires.  Every ‘solution’ the greens have come up with has a fatal flaw of some kind; none of it works, none of it makes any sense.

All of this is true, whether it comes from a prominent intellectual of the movement like Monboit, some dopey, indoctrinated public school kid, or say…a misguided New Hampshire State Senator who can’t read the writing on the wall and is afraid to educate his own constituents on the costs of failed policy.  Policy whose expense and waste do not go down if we continue to pursue them.

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Quick Note To Those Seeking A Reasoned Political Debate

The first step would be to advance a theory where government didn’t have its fingers in every single pie. If the state left more decisions to local and individual control there would be a lot less to debate, and less heated rhetoric, because it would be none of the political classes damn business.

GrokTalk! Saturday May 7th , 2011

GrokTalk!Live Streaming local and National News with opinion you could only get from GraniteGrok.

EMail: GrokTALK@GraniteGrok.com     Call us!  603-524-7478

This week…

NH State Senator Gary Lambert. On today’s program Senator Lambert will will talk to Skip about his position on RGGI and why he is against repeal. Campaign site, State Senator page

Chuck McGhee – from Resident power.  Resident power (A GrokTALK! Sponsor) is a new company trying to take advantage of the deregulated electricity market to bring cheaper power to New Hampshire’s homes and businesses.

Dr. Cooper -Liberty Harbor Academy (pending confirmation): Liberty Harbor Academy is a new and different concept of high school designed for the student who the traditional academic model does not fit.

Ann Marie Banfield – Working with experts in education from across the country, she offers valuable insight into problems and successes in education.

A Grokster or two?  You never know who might call in. Hey! You could call in. Join us.

Learn more about our guests on the Jump

This week, GrokTALK! is brought to you by:

Resident Power

 

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All Hail King Reggie (RGGI)

…you can make excuses, legislate give backs that will only grow the taxpayer funded bureaucracy to manage them, tie our exit to yet another outside power (like some other state), or just bend over and kiss King Reggies….ring. Yes.  All hail king Reggie.  Long may he tax us without fear of retribution.

RGGI Must Die!!

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a Tax. It is broad based, affecting every aspect of our lives. And it is a tax beyond our constitutional control. These added costs, this tax, is set outside the state and can be affected by third parties and secondary markets, none of whom answer to any elected or appointed official in that we can elect or remove form office. No one will ever get to testify at a hearing before any of these actors moves to increase our taxes; they will simply go up with the cost of credits sold through RGGI.

LIBERALS AND FISCAL DENIABILITY

Pig_Donkey_Grok.jpg

Since the beginning of the year, countless editorials and opposite editorial pages across the Granite State have been one large veritable whine-fest…A seemingly never-ending weeping and gnashing of teeth over cuts in various line items of the state budget. Hand-in-hand with all the pissing and moaning, is the rank demagoguing of New Hampshire House Republicans for the choices they are making. If Liberals are good at nothing else, they are certainly adept at blaming everything bad on Republicans, even after it was they who made the mess.

 Noticeably absent from all of this cacophony, noise, caterwauling and fit-pitching is any reasonable alternative or meaningful way to fund all these sacred cash cows that each their loyal patrons willingly advocate for keeping and maintaining. It is as if there is no budget shortfall or structural deficits realized. Call it fiscal deniability.

 “Those evil Republicans! They are cutting (“insert esteemed cash cow here”).

And, in predictable fashion, the noisy screeching of the liberal magpies checker the ambience with demagoguery and finger-wagging, replete with the requisite vitriol of class warfare.  Like sculptured nails on a chalk board, the tax-and spend liberals still offer no reasonable suggestions even when they run out of steam.  We would be remiss to overlook the much-heard faux straw man charges like, “Republicans hate children,” or, “Republicans are stealing from the working class.”

 A week ago Friday the esteemed fishwrapper, The Concord Monitor weighed in with an editorial admonishing its’ readers that, Killing ‘car tax’ will make things worse. When House Republicans sought to repeal the motor vehicle registration surcharge, The editorial

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