Tax Rhetoric

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Fox News yesterday (one of the news shows, of course, not an opinion program) exposed me to one of the far-right talking points on taxes. The anchor was convinced that "no one is talking about lowering taxes for the rich." Instead, Republicans just want to "maintain the current tax rate" by extending the temporary Bush tax cuts. In contrast, President Obama wants to "raise taxes" by letting those tax cuts expire.

This is the kind of rhetoric that anyone even vaguely interested in truthful public discourse should be willing to come together to publicly condemn. Temporary tax cuts, like those that Bush instituted, are sold to the public based on the fact that they're temporary. That is, the "baseline" (against which we measure future 'increases' or 'cuts') after passing a temporary cut is the lower rate for X years, and then the original rate after that.

For the conservative establishment to turn around and now suggest that temporary tax cuts should be the permanent baseline and that simply letting temporary cuts expire constitutes a tax increase is an insult to reason, logic, and the American people. And to see it on a show that bills itself as journalism...

Chicago Primaries

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Early voting in the Chicago primaries is currently going on (until Thursday, I believe) and you can vote at any of the locations in the city. (Incidentally, the closest place for University of Chicago students is probably Ward 20, Coleman Library, 731 E. 63rd St. Open Mon. thru Sat., 9 am-5 pm.

You can look at a sample ballot here. I'm planning to vote in the Republican primary, for which I make the following endorsements:

Ron Paul for President. Based on how the primary's been running lately, this is the rather obvious choice. Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich are all simply unacceptable. Congressman Paul isn't the perfect candidate, but I think he'd be alright in all those realms which the President has direct control over, and that he'd lack the support in Congress necessary to institute most of his crazier ideas. (The other reasonable option, for those whose biggest concern is money in politics, is Buddy Roemer. He doesn't seem to have any bound delegates on the ballot, though, so I'm not sure what's up with that.)

For Congress in the 1st District, there's a surprisingly clear best option: Frederick Collins. He's a moderate Republican and former police officer, who takes remarkably reasonable positions on basically everything. The only strongly objectionable thing is the suggestion that we should have a single flat income tax rate. But he has basically the most reasonable statements on the right to choose and same-sex marriage that we can expect from a Republican these days. By contrast, Donald Peloquin has basically no information on his website that's useful in evaluating him as a candidate. And this is a good reason not to vote for Jimmy Lee Tillman.

Harold "Noonie" Ward, the only candidate for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Commission, seems worth supporting.

The Chicago Bar Association rates James Gerard Riley 'Qualified' (the middle of three rankings), which is good enough to get my vote as the only candidate for a Supreme Court seat.

Since I can't find anything about Jacoby W. Crutcher Jr., the only candidate for Ward Committeeman of the 20th Ward, I won't be voting for him.

And that's all. Sparse Republican ballot here in Chicago...

Refuting Santorum on Universities

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

This piece by Todd Gitlin at the Chronicle of Higher Education is worth reading. It refutes Santorum's suggestion that universities are indoctrination camps which help strip students of their religious faiths, and offers the following explanation for the rhetoric:

In the world according to Rick Santorum (and Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh), the university-educated are the real One Percent who lord it over the Lord’s people. These fancy folks dare not call themselves by their true name—a French word, not accidentally, with one of those tricky accent marks over the initial é, and how appropriate for a concept so radically un-American. This élite is made up of secular zombies who smash sacred tablets, sneer at hard-working people, use fancy words, and otherwise try to convince the world that they are entitled to lounge around the ski slopes noshing on multigrain bread and Chilean sea bass while Joe the Plumber is busy whacking at government tentacles so that he can afford a decent steak.

UPDATE: This CHE-Brainstorm piece is also worth reading on a different of Santorum's claims regarding universities: namely that college isn't necessary for everyone. As the article points out, most jobs nowadays require (or benefit) from some form of post-secondary education.

Joseph Kony

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

The following video has been making the rounds. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should:



And you should also read this article, a critique of the charity, Invisible Children, that produced the Joseph Kony video and others like it. Tumblr seems to be getting flooded, so here's an excerpt if you can't get the article to load:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending. 

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on supporting African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

I don't know what the right answer is. The article's critiques regarding support for the Ugandan military rings true, as does the point that advocacy may be less important at this point than direct aid. Maybe it's wrong—maybe Invisible Children is going about this exactly the right way—but it gives me pause.

There's one thing the video's right about, at least: this needs to end. I just don't know what the best way to go about that is. So talk about it, discuss it. Please, let me know what can be done, or if all of these concerns about Invisible Children are misplaced and the organization really is the one to support in order to end the exploitation of children.

(H/T: LAB and CAD).

Bennett for Judge in Texas

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Mark Bennett, a criminal defense attorney and law blogger in Texas, is running for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as a libertarian.

I've had sharp disagreements with Bennett's views over the years, and I've occasionally written about those disagreements. But I also think he's the right man for a judgeship. He has the kind of "libertarian" views that are dangerous in the executive or legislative branches ("Less government equals more freedom; I see it as a zero-sum game") but that are almost exactly right for dealing with criminal law.

Bennett also has the philosophical bent that distinguishes great lawyers from great memorizers and performers. And finally, Bennett brings criminal defense experience to a court largely made up of prosecutors in a state that executes far more people than any other each year. It can only be an improvement.

A Bid By The Kochs To Take Over Cato

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Jonathan Adler has the story. Pretty damning stuff, and another good reason to be suspicious of the Koch brothers role in directing public policy in this country.

Betting on Intrade Can Disqualify Voters

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

I ran across an interesting tidbit when looking at voter qualification rules in Wisconsin:

You are ineligible to vote in Wisconsin if you...Have made or become interested, directly or indirectly, in any bet or wager depending upon the result of the election.

It would seem, then, that betting on Intrade or similar sites would, at least in principle, disqualify people from voting in Wisconsin. If enforced, that could have a significant impact on crowd-sourcing projects like Intrade by excluding a significant portion of the voters from a certain state.

Does anyone know if similar requirements exist in other states or if they're ever enforced?