A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Sowell: Americans are “slaves to words”

Few people can dissect the passing cultural, political and economic scene quite like Dr. Thomas Sowell.

I'd get sick of citing his work if he ever got sick of penning the most lucid, discerning columns in America.  His effort this week focuses on the problem most Americans have when it comes to being able to look past the lofty (but utterly empty) rhetoric of politicians and pundits.

We could definitely use another Abraham Lincoln to emancipate us all from being slaves to words. In the midst of a historic financial crisis of unprecedented government spending, and a national debt that outstrips even the debt accumulated by the reckless government spending of previous administration, we are still enthralled by words and ignoring realities.

President Barack Obama's constant talk about "millionaires and billionaires" needing to pay higher taxes would be a bad joke, if the consequences were not so serious. Even if the income tax rate were raised to 100 percent on millionaires and billionaires, it would still not cover the trillions of dollars the government is spending.

More fundamentally, tax rates-- whatever they are-- are just words on paper. Only the hard cash that comes in can cover government spending. History has shown repeatedly, under administrations of both political parties, that there is no automatic correlation between tax rates and tax revenues.

Dr. Sowell continues:

When the tax rate on the highest incomes was 73 percent in 1921, that brought in less tax revenue than after the tax rate was cut to 24 percent in 1925. Why? Because high tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring in as much hard cash as lower tax rates that they do pay. That's not rocket science.

Then and now, people with the highest incomes have had the greatest flexibility as to where they will put their money. Buying tax-exempt bonds is just one of the many ways that "millionaires and billionaires" avoid paying hard cash to the government, no matter how high the tax rates go.

Most working people don't have the same options. Their taxes have been taken out of their paychecks before they get them.

Rich people need an incentive to put their money back into the economy.  At the heart of the Left's weak-spot on this issue is the categorically false assumption that wealthy people owe it to the rest of us to use their capital for society's benefit.  They don't have to do anything with it.  They can bury it in the back yard, stash it in their freezer, or, if we play our legislative cards right, they can be presented with an incentive to re-invest their dough back into the economy.  The Left fails to grasp this, and when they are control the purse strings and tax rates of the nation, we all suffer for it.

Back in the 1920s, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon pointed out that people with high incomes were simply not paying the high tax rates that existed on paper, because they were putting their money into tax shelters.

After the tax rates were cut, as Mellon advocated, investments flowed back into the private economy, producing higher output, rising incomes, more tax revenue and more jobs. The annual unemployment rate in the next four years never exceeded 4.2 percent, and in one year was as low as 1.8 percent.

Despite political demagoguery about "tax cuts for the rich," in human terms the rich have less at stake than working people. Precisely because the rich have so many ways of avoiding taxes, a high tax rate is likely to do them far less harm than it does to the economy, on which millions of people depend for jobs.

If Americans began to refuse to envy those with more and refused to cease helping (and giving to) those with less, our financial woes and all of the sickening class warfare would end.  To afford and (somewhat) sustain the collectivist dreams of progressive liberals you need Christian birthrates, a Protestant work ethic, and free market enterprise.

But what if our "collective" goal became once more to promote liberty, an entrepreneurial spirit, personal responsibility, and civic duty instead?  We wouldn't need to over-tax any group of people and progressive liberalism would go gently into that good night it belongs.

Greece: The Logical Result of Socialism, Secularism

"When people don't believe in God, they don't begin to believe in nothing: they begin to believe in anything."  -GK Chesterton

"The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen."  -Dennis Prager

The nation of Greece has issues.  It is a secular society.  It has a socialist form of government.  It is broke.  It has one of the lowest birthrates in the Western world.  And now, as a result of all these factors (which are the result of their own decisions over the past 50 years), their nation is falling apart in front of our very eyes.

From The Wall Street Journal today:

"A largely peaceful protest Wednesday by tens of thousands of Greeks against new government austerity measures was marred by violence in central Athens late in the day, when hundreds of youths wearing ski masks hurled water bottles, firecrackers and other objects at police who responded with tear gas and pepper spray...Throughout the day, public services across Greece ground to a halt as civil servants, teachers and hospital staff walked off the job, in one of the biggest demonstrations in months. Central and local government offices were closed, hospitals and ambulance services were operating on skeleton staffs, and schools and universities were shut for the day.

Transport services also were disrupted, with ferry and rail services suspended after dockworkers joined the strike. Public transport around the capital, Athens, operated on a reduced schedule, and flight operations were hit by a four-hour walkout by air-traffic controllers. Journalists also joined in the strike, leading to a blackout of all radio and television news programs."

When enough of a society is employed by the federal government, that society can shut down anytime the union bosses that control those government workers decide they don't like the government's policies.

The story continues:

The strike, the second to be called this year by the country's two main umbrella unions, comes just days before the government is due to present Parliament with €26 billion ($37.4 billion) in further spending cuts and tax increases to slash the budget deficit over the next five years.

"These neoliberal and barbarous policies, which are driving workers and society into poverty for the benefit of creditors and bankers, are taking us back to the last century," said public sector umbrella union Adedy in a statement. "They must not pass!"

Tell me what recent events in the mid-western United States sound eerily familiar to these in Greece?  Tell me if there is any difference between the nonsense we hear from union chiefs here in America and the nonsense uttered by these fools in Greece?

Probably the most disturbing and illuminating quote from this WSJ article comes from a candid dental technician:

Vassilis Theodorakopoulos, a 53-year old dental technician who works for the country's main public health-care fund, said he was protesting a 20% cut in his salary, as well as a plan to expand the working week for public servants to 40 hours—in line with the private sector—from 37.5 currently.

"Personally, I don't think there should be a difference between the public and private sector," he said. "What we are fighting for is a reduction in private-sector working hours."

People are shutting down their government not only because they would possibly have to work 2.5 more hours per week, but because they also want the law of the land to be such that private sector workers can't work more than 37.5 hours per week.  This is madness!  As I've reported before on this blog, in various socialist European states there are actually laws in place that disallow private businesses from staying open later than their competition.  This race to mediocrity is chilling.

But, even more chilling, is the break-neck speed with which we are heading in Greece's (and Europe's) general direction.  When you grow the size and scope of the federal government - even in the name of compassion, fairness, and equality - the individual, private citizen grows less and less significant.  The entrepreneurial activity of society's most productive members is squelched and discouraged.  Religious life dwindles.  Culture decays.

At our core, mankind was made to work.  To create.  To innovate.  And ultimately, to worship their Maker.  Take away, disrupt, or distort any of these things and your civilization is on the path to ruin.

It's not too late to change, America.  We don't have to hate our political enemies, but we must start to take offense at the Left's ideas/policies, and take action every 2, 4, and 6 years at the voting booth.

According to a poll published in the center-left Ethnos newspaper earlier this month, 67.7% of Greeks think the government should proceed with economic reforms, and 63.7% supported the need for privatization or other measures to exploit state-owned assets. A further 59.7% said they supported abolishing the current life-time job guarantee for public servants.

We must not allow for a tyranny of the minority.  Unions comprise less than 10% of the workforce in this country.  Enough is enough.

Krauthammer on union battles in WI, OH, and IN

Nobody does it like the German-hammer:

The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and soon others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics have yielded singular clarity.

At the federal level, President Obama's budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions crying, "Hell, no."

A choice, not an echo: Democrats desperately defending the status quo; Republicans charging the barricades.

Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the Legislature.

Dr. Charles continues:

Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic Party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. The Democrats' strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion.

Hence the import of the current moment - its blinding clarity. Here stand the Democrats, avatars of reactionary liberalism, desperately trying to hang on to the gains of their glory years - from unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking.

Obama's Democrats have become the party of no. Real cuts to the federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell, no.

We have heard everyone - from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?

Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?

Here's more from Chuck on Special Report with Brett Baier: