Thomas Sowell |
Sowell: Can Republicans Talk?
Posted by
Jim Spence
on Thursday, December 2, 2010
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From Townhall.com - Guess who said the following: "It is incredible that a system of taxation which permits a man with an income of $1,000,000 a year to pay not one cent to his Government should remain unaltered." Franklin D. Roosevelt? Ted Kennedy? Nancy Pelosi? Not even close. It was Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury under conservative Republican President Calvin Coolidge. What was Mellon's point? That high tax rates do not necessarily result in high tax revenues to the government. "It is time to face the facts," he said. Merely having high tax rates on large incomes will not bring in more tax revenues to the treasury, because of "the flight of capital away from taxable investments." This was all said in 1924, in Mellon's book, "Taxation: The People's Business." Yet here we are, more than 80 years later, still not facing those facts. It is not just a question of what Andrew Mellon said. It is a question of hard facts, easily checked in official documents available to all-- and ignored all these years.
Internal Revenue Service data show that there were 206 people who reported annual incomes of one million dollars or more in 1916. But, as the tax rate on high incomes skyrocketed under the Woodrow Wilson administration, that number plummeted to just 21 people reporting a million dollars a year in income five years later. Read full column here:
Locksley Survives
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Jim Spence
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Mike Locksley |
Locksley Survives
NM Budget: Good News and Bad News
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Jim Spence
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John Arthur Smith |
NM Budget: Good News and Bad News
N. Korea Protected by Great Wall of China
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Jim Spence
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International News
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From Bloomberg - China’s refusal to condemn North Korea for its expanding nuclear program and its attack on a South Korean island limits the retaliatory options for the U.S., Japan and South Korea. “Not much can be done,” said Sue Mi Terry, deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council from 2007 to 2009. “China is the key, but when it comes down to any kind of action, they are not willing to play ball,” Terry said in an interview. “So I believe the situation is going to get worse.” China has refused to back a bid by the U.S. and Japan in the United Nations Security Council to condemn North Korea’s latest provocations, Japan’s Ambassador Tsuneo Nishida said in an interview. “The Chinese have always been resistant” to directly accusing North Korea of wrongdoing, Nishida said. “This is always the argument.”
Kim Jong II and Hu Jintao |
With the Security Council deadlocked, the U.S. plans to host high-level talks next week with South Korea and Japan. President Barack Obama’s top military adviser called on China to use its influence to persuade North Korea to end its “deeply destabilizing behavior.” “China shares a relationship with the North that is not matched anywhere else in the world,” Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday at the Center for American Progress in Washington. Read full story here:
N. Korea Protected by Great Wall of China
Two GOP Senators Onboard With Debt Commission Plan
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Jim Spence
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Mike Crapo |
From Bloomberg - Two Republican senators on President Barack Obama’s debt commission endorsed a plan by its co- chairmen, putting half of the 18-member panel on record in support of a $4 trillion budget-cutting proposal. Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Mike Crapo of Idaho said today that, while they didn’t like many elements of this week’s revised proposal, the nation’s fiscal challenges are so severe they must put aside their objections.
Tom Coburn |
“I would have written a totally different plan,” Coburn told reporters. “I can’t have my way” and “our country deserves us to sacrifice like the call we’re going to make to everyone else to sacrifice to accomplish what we have to accomplish and that is to get out of this hole.” Read full story here:
Two GOP Senators Onboard With Debt Commission Plan
Home Sales Jump - Light at the End of the Tunnel?
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Jim Spence
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Economics,
National News
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From Bloomberg - Pending sales of U.S. existing houses unexpectedly jumped by a record 10 percent in October, indicating the industry at the center of the last recession is stabilizing as the job market improves. The increase in the number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes followed a 1.8 percent drop in September, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. Another report showed claims for jobless benefits over the past month on average dropped to a two-year low. Combined with figures showing chain-store sales topped estimates last month, the reports added to evidence the world’s largest economy is strengthening, sending stocks up for a second day. Cheaper borrowing costs, lower prices and more jobs may entice homebuyers in coming months, helping the real-estate market regain its footing after the end of a tax credit caused demand to slump. Read full story here:
Home Sales Jump - Light at the End of the Tunnel?
Progressive Weighs in on Document Theft
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Jim Spence
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From Progressive.org - The single biggest Wikileaks revelation is not that the Saudis are still funding Al Qaeda, or that Hillary Clinton ordered the State Department to spy on foreign diplomats and the U.N., or that many Arab countries favor an attack on Iran. No, the real eye-opener is the reactionary impulse of people in power to repress those who disseminate information. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the disclosure “not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community.” Rep. Peter King echoed her comments, saying, “This is worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it’s worse than a military attack.”
Matthew Rothschild |
All right, just wait a second here. Pearl Harbor was an attack on America. 9/11 was an attack on America. The Wikileaks document drop was not an attack on America. Our nuclear weapons are not on heightened alert (at least I sure hope they’re not). The Pentagon isn’t calling up more troops. No one was killed; no one was injured. Read full column here:
Progressive Weighs in on Document Theft
NMPolitics.net: Nina Martinez Still In For GOP Chair
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Jim Spence
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Nina Martinez |
NMPolitics.net: Nina Martinez Still In For GOP Chair
Deficit Reduction Committee Issues its Final Report
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Jim Spence
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Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson |
Deficit Reduction Committee Issues its Final Report
Blackwell: Guarding Jimmy Carter's Tongue
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Jim Spence
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Ken Blackwell |
From Townhall.com - Fans of Hollywood’s imaginative take on American politics may remember the movie, Guarding Tess. That 1994 comic hit featured Shirley MacLaine as a former First Lady who was being guarded by a Secret Service detachment headed by Nicolas Cage. Tess was something of a composite figure, part feisty Bess Truman, part liberal activist Eleanor Roosevelt, and part small town belle Rosalynn Carter. Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, no part of Tess could be mistaken for a Barbara Bush or a Nancy Reagan. Even the fictional former First Ladies have got to be on the side of the Hollywood donor angels.
Jimmy Carter |
The movie reminds us that when we elect a President, we get him and his missus for life. We provide Secret Service protection for the President, of course, but for the ex-Presidents, too. Ever since communist guerillas kidnapped and murdered ex-Premier of Italy, Aldo Moro, Americans have recognized that our former Commanders-in-Chief could require guarding. Read full column here:
Blackwell: Guarding Jimmy Carter's Tongue
Alford and Menzies to Appear on NewsNM
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Sports Staff
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Steve Alford |
Marvin Menzies |
The Rio Grande Rivalry renews in men’s basketball Saturday as the New Mexico Lobos and New Mexico State Aggies tip off in the Pan-American Center at 7:05 p.m. Both head coaches, Marvin Menzies of the Aggies and the Lobo’s Steve Alford will appear live on the News New Mexico radio program Friday morning to preview the rivalry game. Alford is scheduled for 8:30 and Menzies at 8:45.
Alford and Menzies to Appear on NewsNM
Towery: Gridlock You Can Believe In
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Jim Spence
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Matt Towery |
Towery: Gridlock You Can Believe In
Dems Divide and Conquer Strategy Doomed Today
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Jim Spence
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From Bloomberg - House Democrats are pressing ahead with a vote on extending 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for middle- income taxpayers over the objections of Republicans who say that passage would harm the economy by causing an implicit tax increase for those with higher incomes. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said his chamber would vote today on a bill that would continue the tax cuts on the first $200,000 of an individual’s annual income and the first $250,000 for a married couple filing joint returns, even as some Democrats signaled that they might vote with Republicans. Unless Congress acts to extend the cuts, taxes will increase across the board on Jan. 1. “It is a shame that what we have agreement on is being held hostage by that on which we do not have agreement,” said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat. Read full story here:
Dems Divide and Conquer Strategy Doomed Today
OPEC: $100 a Barrel a Fair Price for Crude
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Jim Spence
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From Bloomberg - The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to change its output quotas when it meets in nine days time and $100 represents a “fair” price for a barrel of oil, Venezuela’s energy minister said. Gas-exporting nations also need an OPEC-like body to “regulate” prices, Rafael Ramirez told reporters today. The Venezuelan is one of several ministers attending a meeting in Doha of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a gas producers group that does not set supply quotas. Libya’s top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, said yesterday in Doha that OPEC is unlikely to change its oil production quotas at the oil group’s Dec. 11 meeting in Quito, Ecuador. Instead, oil ministers from the 12-nation group will seek tighter compliance with OPEC’s existing output guidelines when they meet, Ghanem said. Read more here:
OPEC: $100 a Barrel a Fair Price for Crude
U.S. Ready to Borrow for IMF
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Jim Spence
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From CNBC.com - The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday. "There are a lot of people talking about that. I think the European Commission has talked about that," said the U.S. official, commenting on enlarging the 750 billion euro ($980 billion) EU/IMF European stability fund. "It is up to the Europeans. We will certainly support using the IMF in these circumstances."
"There are obviously some severe market problems," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In May, it was Greece. This is Ireland and Portugal. If there is contagion that's a huge problem for the global economy." Read full story here:
U.S. Ready to Borrow for IMF
Harbison: We the People
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Jim Spence
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Jim Harbison |
TEA Party members will be tracking legislative actions against their political promises. Liberal members of these elected bodies will also be monitored. Those that want to increase the size of the government, erode our Constitutional rights, nationalize private businesses, and continue the spending that increases the national debt will be targeted for defeat in the next election cycle. No one person can tract the activities of all the elected officials nor should they try. A more sensible and realistic approach, using military terminology, is to “divide and conquer” all those who oppose our Constitution and our capitalistic economic system. This type of strategy will enable many people to individually track a single issue, organization, or elected or appointed government official and report back to the larger political action group. There are sufficient conservatives and TEA Party members willing to pursue this strategy. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the influence of the TEA Party and politicians across the entire political spectrum should be cognizant of it. The 2011 local elections afford conservatives an opportunity to significantly change the direction of the City Council. There will be three City Councilors (Silva, Small, Connor) and the Mayor up for re-election. It is time for us to elect individuals that want to preserve the culture, history and traditions of Las Cruces, encourage job growth, and insist on improved financial stewardship of our tax dollars. Those who continue to advocate more government, social and economic programs (means taxpayer funded) will be shown the exit door in November.
“We the People” will no longer allow our elected officials “who know better than us” to create policies that infringe on our individual rights or govern without our input and consent.
The TEA Parties throughout the State of New Mexico are organizing a rally to coincide with the opening session of the State legislature on January 18th. Their intent is to inform the legislators, new and old and all parties, that there is a major political force that will hold them accountable and demand fiscal responsibility be returned to the State of New Mexico and the National government as well. I would encourage conservatives and TEA party members to participate and remind our representatives that they were elected to protect and serve us. While our government isn’t perfect, most of us believe it is the best in the world and that it only requires an occasional “tweaking” and not the massive changes advocated by the current administration. If you do not support the total transformation of America or our well proven economic system get involved and work to insure your elected official works to preserve and maintain the unique form of government that makes so many people around the world want to become Americans.
Harbison: We the People