Claims that Mississippi is just a federal welfare case are simply liberal propaganda

    I'm sick of hearing the old saw that Mississippi receives three dollars in federal "aid" for every one dollar we pay in taxes.
    Okay, sure, our state has lots of poor people. As a result our state may receive a few dollars extra in federal aid. It should be pointed out that much of this aid does great harm, by encouraging illegitimate births and discouraging work. The federal school lunch program now forces schools to serve bad-tasting food that children won't eat.
    But those who make the outlandish claim that Mississippi receives more than its fair share of federal money invariably treat Social Security benefits, military pensions, and military spending as some type of giant welfare program when tallying their figures.
    Citizens are entitled to their Social Security benefits regardless of where they live. Many people from Mississippi work in other states and then return to our state to retire. As a result Mississippi receives more in Social Security payments than most states. But this isn't welfare. It isn't aid to our state. It is money these people are entitled to, regardless of which state they live in.
    The same is true for military pensions. The most recent chart I could quickly find is from 2005, but it shows that Mississippi has a well-above-average percentage of military pensioners. For example, in 2005 Mississippi had 25,623 military pensioners out of a population of just under three million. Ultra-wealthy Massachusetts had only 19,365 military pensioners out of a population of 6.5 million. Pennsylvania had 46,556 out of a population of almost 13 million. On a per capita basis, Mississippi has two to three times the number of military pensioners than does the average state. So yes, as a result Mississippi gets a substantially disproportionate share of federal pension and Social Security benefits.
    The disproportionate number of military pensions paid to Mississippi residents is evidence of the fact that we in Mississippi are more patriotic than the average American. We are, basically, better people. As a state we owe no thanks to the nation for the payment of military pensions to which our citizens are entitled. The very suggestion that these pensions are some sort of welfare is an insult to both the state of Mississippi and to Mississippians who have served our nation with honor. Military pensions are not welfare. They are not a gift. It is money to which our citizens are entitled, regardless of where they live.
    Finally, Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula builds quite a number of navel vessels for the military. My guess is that it's cheaper to build a naval ship in Mississippi just as it's cheaper to build a car in Mississippi. We, as a state, owe no "thank you" to the nation for selling the military naval vessels at a fair price. The nation should thank us for supplying affordable ships. Those who supply the military are not the recipients of charity.
    Liberals who promote the idea that Mississippi receives a disproportionate share of federal money do so purely to harm our state. It is, to a large extent, a false claim.
    I'm tired of our veterans, our retired people, and our shipyard workers being treated as poor, welfare cases sucking on the national sugar tit. They aren't. These people have earned what is theirs. As a state, we shouldn't be punished for being better people than residents of other states.
    This liberal, Yankee nonsense needs to stop, and needs to stop now. Just quit!

If disaster strikes we have Ragu; if disaster doesn't strike we still have Ragu!

   Okay, today is probably the last day that Ragu is on sale for 99 cents at Kroger. Spaghetti is on sale for 50 cents per 12 ounces. This is about as good as it gets.

    Back in 2008 or 2009 I was able to buy about 50 bottles of Ragu for 83 cents per bottle at the Maysville, Ky., Kroger store. I was also able to buy about 70 pounds of pasta at 50 cents per pound. I have not seen sub-dollar Ragu since 2009, so these prices are as good as they come and call for  all-out buying.

    In 2009 Maysville, Ragu was retailing for $1.33 on a week-to-week basis. So 83 cents was 50 cents less than the usual price. Today Ragu goes for a whopping $1.79 in Oxford, or even $1.99! So getting a jar of the stuff for 99 cents is a real bargain.

    There are some cheaper sauces than Ragu. They taste really, really bad, and are a false economy since nobody will eat the pasta and it has to be thrown out. Some of the more expensive sauces are quite good, but Ragu is best in my book for economy and taste.

    Twelve ounces of spaghetti usually goes for about $1.29. You can sometimes get it on sale for 79 cents, but 49 cents is about a low as it will go. I'd rather get a pound for that price, but 12 ounces is about all four of us eat in one meal anyway.

    Now that our cabinets are overflowing with pasta and sauce, one of two things is going to happen.

    First, we might have Armageddon in the form of economic collapse, nuclear war, a solar-flare-induced pulse which wipes out all electronics, or just massive riots by Obama's minions should their Food Stamp cards stop working one weekend; anything which might result in all the food being stripped off the supermarket shelves and not being replenished.

    Should that happen we'll have two month's worth of pasta with sauce. Obviously, I have other food items purchased at deep discount which we can alternate with the spaghetti, including 14 boxes of Lucky Charms cereal I bought when it was marked down by about 70 percent. Lucky Charms has a one-year shelf life and will keep my daughter happy in the event of a total societal collapse. My dad used to say the cereal box was more nutritious than the cereal, so if a crisis actually strikes after we eat the cereal we can then eat the box, too!

    Fortunately there is only about a one- to two-percent chance in any given year of a catastrophe so great that the food supply is disrupted. So what that means is that we'll probably just eat this spaghetti and sauce over the course of the next year. Since we have spaghetti at least once a week anyway, it's not like we're making a lifestyle change.

    The only difference is that instead of paying $1.79 for our jar of sauce we will have paid 99 cents. Instead of paying $1.29 for our spaghetti we'll have paid 49 cents. Which means that over the course of 52 spaghetti dinners we'll spend $76.96 on pasta and sauce versus the $160.16 we would pay if we just pranced into the store and bought these items without regard to price.

    The above cost analysis doesn't include the cost of ground beef, which should always be purchased from the old-meat rack. Lucy likes no meat. I like to use a half-pound of ground beef. Jinny and Ash want to use a pound-and-a-half of meat per jar of sauce, which is unhealthy, but sometimes I just can't stand the yammering.

    Of course, when the jar of sauce costs 99 cents you can always just make two versions, one with two much meat and the other with meat used properly as flavoring. You lose the savings, but everyone gets what they want. Sometimes peace in the valley is worth it.

For good students high tuition worth it, but for marginal ones it's a con leading to massive debt

    Ash is starting his second semester as a dual-enrollment student. Last semester he took Greek Mythology at Ole Miss and earned both college and high school credit. He managed to get an "A," which is a good thing.
    This semester he's taking Accounting 201 and Introduction to Homeland Security. I don't know what the Homeland Security class will be like, but I've warned him he'll have to work to earn his "A" in Accounting.
    Now I've got to pay tuition. The tuition for six semester hours is $1,740 after adding in the registration and capital improvement fee. Dual enrollment students receive a 50 percent scholarship, so my out of pocket cost is reduced to $907.50. These credit hours will apply to his eventual undergraduate degree, so in the end it's money well spent. Once he actually attends college the tuition becomes just one of many expenses. Then he will have room, board, Library expenses, fraternity dues, Spring Break vacation costs, and so forth.
    I commented last fall on how much tuition costs had increased. When I mentioned it on Facebook, everyone confirmed that in the mid-1980s tuition was less than $500 for a full load. Today tuition for a full-time Ole Miss student is $3,330.
    And then there are textbooks. Ash's Accounting book had to be purchased new to get some type of software code. The cost was $250 -- for a single textbook. Is there any need for new accounting textbooks? Has accounting even changed since the days of Bob Cratchit?
    Despite the steep rise in tuition and costs, Ole Miss remains a bargain when compared to other schools. Ash is an able student, and I consider money spent on college education and overpriced textbooks well spent, whether at Ole Miss or a more expensive school.
    But for many students college is a terrible deal. Roughly a third of entering college students are so unprepared that they have to take remedial classes. These are essentially high school (or jr. high) classes taught on a college campus. The only difference is that the students have to pay big money for them.
    If a student or his parents have plenty of money, remedial classes are just fine. Likewise, if a student is on some type of athletic or outreach scholarship, great. These people are not mortgaging their futures trying to reach a very elusive goal. But students simply should not be conned into taking on debt to take remedial classes at the university level.
    Why? Because five out of six students who enroll in a remedial reading class will not earn a degree. Three out of four students who start out in remedial math won't make it. All these students will earn is a mountain of debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and absolutely nothing to show for it. Colleges should not be allowed to encourage kids and their parents to take on massive debt in pursuit of a slight chance of earning a college degree.
    In the past 15 years or so we have adopted a national mantra that everyone should go to college. It's not true. Everyone who can do the work should consider college.
    People need to be reminded that they are spending real money on their education. The loans which are so freely given to both students and parents have to be paid back. They can never be discharged. Many students today are graduating with a large home mortgage hanging over their head; except they have no home to go with it. Many won't even have a degree, just debt.
    This mountain of educational debt almost certainly endangers the long-term outlook of the American economy. We need to do away with $250 textbooks and start using $50 ones instead. And our state colleges need to cut back on efforts to create a luxurious learning environment and work harder at keeping tuition costs down.

Say hello to the 28-hour work week as companies start to gear up for Obamacare

    We warned you! We did! Don't say we didn't tell you!
     The Obamiacs assured us that all we had to do was require every employer who hired someone for 30 or more hours each week to buy them insurance and all of our problems would be solved. And of course, it couldn't be a low-cost policy. It had to be the most expensive, comprehensive insurance money can buy, with low deductibles, low co-pays, no lifetime limits, and free birth control. Welcome to the good life!
     Many public-spirited employers of lower-wage employees were already providing insurance for their full-time workers. They didn't need a new law. But the insurance they have been providing isn't good enough for the government, which under the Obamacare law requires them to spend substantially more so there will be lots of extra money to provide college girls at expensive private colleges with free birth control and other extras that many working people neither need nor want to pay for.
     And so, faced with skyrocketing health costs under Obamacare, employers are acting rationally. They are cutting lower-wage workers back to a 28-hour-per-week work schedule. Remember, the employer-mandate only applies to full-time workers, so as long as the workers are kept under 30 hours the employer has no obligation to provide insurance.
     The Orlando Sentinel reports, for example, that the Darden Corporation, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn restaurants, is testing a new 28-hour work week in anticipation of new insurance rules that go into effect in 2014. If successful the shortened workweek will likely go into effect at all restaurants on the rollout of Obamacare.
     This isn't an outlier. This is going to be the new normal of employment for low- and moderate-wage workers. Obamacare is just going to make it too expensive to keep these workers on full-time.
     And sad to say for these semi-displaced workers, but because of the individual mandate they are still going to be required to purchase insurance or face fines. So instead of getting employer-sponsored insurance they can afford they are going to be forced to purchase subsidized, luxury policies entirely on their own or pay a fine -- and they will have a lot less money to do it with.
     Obama gave his word of honor that people who liked their current health insurance could keep their current health insurance. But that doesn't apply to many low-wage workers, who are losing both their low-cost insurance plans and the hours of work that they need to survive. These people don't want free birth control or to be forced to pay for lots of extras, they want the affordable insurance they used to have and plenty of hours at work to help pay for it. Those days are apparently gone forever, thanks to Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al.
     As a matter of public policy, Obamacare did just the opposite of what it should have done. Instead of outlawing bargain health plans, we should have concentrated on providing every American with limited health coverage. But the Democrats were too concerned with forcing the Catholic church to buy birth control for rich, unmarried college girls to think about the needs of actual working people.
     Obama would no doubt say that Change is hard, but he sure Hopes you have enough money to pay your bills once you are semi-unemployed. But at least those stuck without full-time work or health insurance will be able to rest easy knowing that any full-time job they get will come with insurance. Of course, they'll never again get a full-time job for as long as they live.

California school district financing proof that the worst is yet to come

    If you want proof the worst is yet to come in the municipal and state funding ponzi scheme that we've been running, just look at the graphic above from the Voice of San Diego.
    This graphic represents a recent bond deal that was agreed to last year by the Poway Unified School District in California. Under this agreement, the school district agrees to pay a high interest rate, but doesn't actually have to pay anything for 20 years, at which point it starts paying on the debt.
    It's called a capital appreciation bond, and presupposes that the value of both the buildings and the tax base will increase in value. But the fact is that California real estate remains overvalued and the economy is in a shambles. Deals like this one ensure that it won't recover in the future.
    Poway isn't alone in using these ridiculous bonds. San Diego Schools recently agreed to pay $1.1 billion in interest on a $164 million loan. Other school districts are joining in with the borrow now, pay 20 years later plan. Of course, if the taxpayers don't have the money now, what makes them think the citizenry will have five times more money in 20 years?
    If you want to know where the economic growth is going to be in the next 50 years, find states with the lowest unfunded pension obligations and the least amount of down-the-road debt that some many states are willing to accept. States which have huge unfunded liabilities are going to have to raise taxes to such high levels that industry will have to leave. California is one of these states. Unfortunately, as we've seen California's fiscal woes have a way of spilling over into the nation at large.
    The Voice of San Diego has led the way in educating the public about the dangers of these bonds. They've even put together a guide, including a spreadsheet, showing how to find which districts have issued these bonds. Currently there are more than $18 billion of these bonds outstanding in California. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
    We've known about the problem on unfunded pensions for some time now but have done nothing due to the power of public-employee unions. Now you can add to that problem these balloon bonds, or capital appreciation bonds, high-interest bonds on which payments don't start until long after the idiots who approved them are out of office and retired. Oh, and to add insult to injury many of these bonds are not callable. They can't be paid off early.
    Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Let's do it for the children," doesn't it?

Hard times I've never known, or why today's families need two incomes

    We're often reminded that today a family needs two incomes whereas in the past one income was sufficient to raise a family.
    I do agree that the decision by the federal government and left-wing educators to destroy our public schools by eliminating ability grouping has forced families with bright, well-behaved children to flee, at great expense, into high-cost school districts where they can enroll their children with others of like ability and temper. Certainly our schools policy has destroyed many of our cities and regions.
    But most people aren't talking about the high cost of basic housing when they reference the need for two incomes. They're pointing out the need for two incomes to maintain what they view as a decent standard of living.
    But what is decent? My mother's father was already a school superintendent when he decided to enter the Methodist ministry, a vocation for which he realized he would need a college degree. So he enrolled at the Mississippi State Teachers College and was given a job as manager of the bookstore to pay his tuition expenses. This was in the 1930s. The school allowed him to bring a couple of cows and pasture them where the football stadium is today. My mother and uncle would sell the milk in the mornings to professors. Can you imagine how many of today's students would refuse a college education if they were told it involved milking a cow or even working in the bookstore?
    While my maternal grandfather was enrolled at "Southern" my paternal Uncle Jake enrolled as a student. His first cousin was married to the president, Dr. George. My uncle lived with them because he couldn't afford the cost of a dorm. One semester the money was lacking to pay tuition and my grandfather instructed him to just write the check and he would cover it. As it turned out he was unable to persuade the local bank to loan him $25 against $1,000 in county warrants as collateral and he had to sell his finest mule to cover the tuition check. Today this would be considered intolerable!
    In the 1940s my mother was fortunate enough to attend the University of North Carolina on a Rockefeller Scholarship, where she earned a master's in health education. She told me during her time at UNC she was "rich," as it was the first time in her life she had ever had any money. The provisions of the scholarship were that she had to work in a rural Mississippi health department for five years, so she ended up in Holly Springs, where she lived in a boarding house. She wasn't alone. There were many successful, middle-class people who lived in boarding houses in those days. (One successful businessman told me he never paid rent as he always managed to work off his rent in chores.) My mother was struggling to pay off a car on a two-year payment plan, and she told me she always tried to arrange her daily schedule so she would be visiting a school at lunchtime so she could take advantage of the five-cent lunch. Money was that tight.
    By 1948 the Depression was over, and both of my grandparents were on a sound financial footing. By that time my paternal grandfather could even be called prosperous. Yet my parents were married that year in the living room of my grandparent's home. In 1948, the expectation was not that one spend a small fortune on a wedding. Today they would be expected to put on a lavish affair at great expense.
    Take a look sometime at the homes of the 1950s and early 1960s. They tend to be nice, comfortable homes but they are not nearly as luxurious as the homes of today. Today our homes are nicer and cost more, and perhaps that's why we have to work more to pay for them.
    As a child when my clothes would get a rip or a tear, my mother would repair them. Does anyone remember the little iron-on patches that people used to use? I never see a child today with patched clothes (including my own). I used to wear hand-me-downs as a matter of course; sometimes I would be the fifth cousin/brother to wear an item. It didn't bother me. Today, of course, kids rarely wear hand-me-downs and to offer a poor person an item of used clothing is considered an insult.
    The bottom line is we insist on a much higher standard of living today than what earlier generations enjoyed. In fact, we tend to view the standard of living of 40 or 50 years ago as abject poverty. It's really not, and perhaps we need to change the way we look at the world.
    I'm not suggesting that two incomes aren't great. I just question the notion that a family absolutely has to have two incomes to survive, particularly if one parent is staying home tending to the family. As my grandmother told my father one day when he was bemoaning the high cost of living: "Son, it's not the high cost of living, it's the cost of living high."

Obama's 'jobs' plan is help we don't need, taxes we don't want, for problems we don't have

    Obama has been repeatedly flacking his "jobs" plan, which involves the federal government providing the states with money to hire 50,000 teachers, policemen and firefighters. This isn't a job plan; it's an economic disaster waiting to happen.
    The hiring of police, firemen and teachers is something we in America do at the state and local level. We determine the need, hire, tax, and pay for these needs locally. While every organization always needs more workers, we, as citizens of cities and states, have already hired the people we need to fill these positions.
    Read the newspapers! Crime rates have been falling. Sure more police would be nice, but we don't need them. I appreciate our firemen, but the fires are getting put out. We don't need to pad the payroll.
    And don't get me started on teachers. Most school districts are so heavily laden with teachers that they are able to adopt a California-inspired, left-wing educational practice known as differentiated instruction. This puts kids working at all achievement levels in the same classroom and essentially recreates the one-room schoolhouse of yesteryear. This model requires small class sizes and still doesn't work very well. If anything we need to reduce the number of teachers and increase class size until schools are forced to group students by achievement level out of absolute necessity. Make no mistake, students are far better off in a class of 36 grouped by achievement than they are in a class of 16 with a six- to 10-grade difference in achievement and ability levels between the students.
    Aside from the fact that we don't need the extra employees is the economic time bomb that awaits states that do take the money and hire unneeded help. For example, suppose Oxford should receive this money and use it to hire someone to teach both Russian and Finnish for three years.
    Now Russian and Finnish are great courses and might well deserve to be taught. But if the need wasn't there before the district was handed free money the need isn't there. What is the district to do in three years when the money runs out? Does the school fire the teacher and anger the one or two dozen parents who hoped to enroll their children in these programs? Or does the school board raise taxes and keep the teacher, thus putting an additional tax burden on the citizenry? Chances are taxes will creep up just a bit. So in the long run Obama's "jobs" plan is just a plan to put a heavier property tax burden on every American citizen.
    We all know that one of the main reasons America's unskilled workers are struggling so hard today is because of illegal immigration. We have 11 million illegal immigrants in this country driving down wages for unskilled workers, stealing their jobs, and voraciously consuming public services. We're told that the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the immigration courts are just too understaffed to do the job of expelling these people.
    I've got an idea. Let's take the money Obama wants to use to hire 50,000 policemen, firemen, and teachers and use it instead to hire border patrol agents, immigration agents, and immigration court judges and staff. Let's work on fencing for both our southern and northern borders. Good fences make good neighbors.
    If we do this we'll not only create 50,000 or so immediate jobs, but millions of additional jobs for Americans; and employers will be forced to pay higher wages as they won't have a peasant labor force to depress wages and help them destroy the lives of America's workers.
    Instead of Obama sending the states money to hire help we don't need -- help that eventually will balloon our tax burden -- the federal government should use the money to hire enough help to enforce our nation's immigration laws. Is that too much to ask?

Zuckerberg doesn't tip in Rome. Good for him!

    It is apparently international news that Facebook multi-billionaire and his new bride ate at two low-end Rome restaurants while on his honeymoon and didn't leave a tip.
    Billionaire cheapskate! Zuckerberg's $0 meal tip in Rome screamed the New York Post headline.
    Zuckerberg apparently made the mistake of eating at a restaurant called Nonna Betta. After he ate there the most private details of his visit, including exactly what he ate and the fact that he didn't tip the waiter, were shared with the press. Oddly enough, nobody thought it important to share the fact that you aren't supposed to tip in Rome.
    Oh, you can. And Zuckerberg's waiter apparently expected a tip because lots of Americans throw their money around. But it doesn't make us popular over there. The waiters are well paid and don't need the tips. On our honeymoon I left a 10 percent tip at a restaurant in Florence and it clearly agitated the Italian couple at the next table, who saw us as Americans throwing our money around. (Jinny doesn't speak Italian, but she speaks French and Spanish and that was enough to figure out what they were saying).
    Mark Zuckerberg acted exactly as he was supposed to act and the staff and owner of Nonna Betta went out of their way to humiliate him. Needless to say I would never want to do business with such folks.
    In fact, the news stories seem to criticize Zuckerberg for not ordering wine with his meal and for eating at fairly cheap restaurants. He even got take-out from a McDonalds, clucked the press.
    Perhaps now that he's married he'll move into a nicer home, but for the past five years or so Zuckerberg has lived in a modest home. He's had a modest lifestyle. I have far more admiration for a billionaire who eats at cheap restaurants and doesn't tip when he isn't supposed to than one who feels the need to eat expensive meals, drink $10,000 bottles of wine and overtip the waiters.
    If we're going to have billionaires, Zuckerberg's the kind we need.

In Greece, the only safe bank is a mattress

    In reviewing the goings-on in Greece, I can't help but wonder how a single bank in the country has more then fifteen cents in deposits.
    In all likelihood Greece is still going to default on its debts. All of the machinations of recent months haven't been about helping the Greeks, who are unsalvageable, but rather to give the banks in France and Germany time to prepare for a total loss of their bond holdings.
    The sooner Greece leaves the Euro, the better. Once back on the Drachma they can devalue it until it is impossible for citizens to import any more foreign goods. Then people will flock to Greece because it’s a cheap tourist destination and Greece will be on the slow road to recovery.
    But just as Greece’s bondholders have been expected to take a 75 percent “haircut,” so will ordinary Greek bank depositors. Some morning when they least expect it, their Euro-denominated accounts will be converted to Drachmas at an inflated rate, at which point the Drachma will drop like a stone. Anyone foolish enough to keep money on deposit with a Greek bank will soon lose most of their savings.
    Greeks who have sense enough to stuff their Euros in their mattresses – or in foreign accounts – will come out of the impending default like Daddy Warbucks. They’ll have plenty of hard currency in a nation where many of their neighbors’ savings have simply evaporated overnight.
    Their foresight may not make them popular, but they'll keep eating.

March is Thank a Democrat Month!

    It looks like we may be headed towards $6 a gallon gas. It could put the economy back into a tailspin.
    Remember some years back when the liberals wailed that there was no need to drill in the Arctic wasteland because any oil found wouldn't benefit us for several years? Well, the several years are up and we sure could use the oil. But because of Democrats, we don't have any.
    The Democrats have steadfastly refused to allow drilling in the Arctic wasteland; they've blocked super-safe shallow-ocean drilling; they've opposed the conversion of oil shale into oil; they've even blocked the building of pipelines to bring much-needed oil from Canada to the U.S.
    And so our nation is going further and further into debt. Americans are paying higher and higher prices for gas to countries full of people who want nothing more than to blow up a stock exchange, airliner or major American landmark.
    Make no mistake, this has been an intentional plot by Democrats to cut off America's energy supply to further their radical global warming agenda. But all they've done is to wreck our economy and strengthen our enemies.
    So, be it resolved, I hereby declare the Month of March "Thank a Democrat Month."
    When you're busy pumping that $6-a-gallon gas, thank a Democrat. When you hear about what a shambles our economy is in, thank a Democrat. When nations that hate America humiliate us because we have to grovel for their oil, thank a Democrat. (Oh, and while we're at it, when your insurance premium skyrockets because the Democrats think they can just give away free medical care with a magic wand, thank a Democrat).
    So don't worry Democrats. We're willing to let you take all the credit. So thanks for everything. And don't worry, we won't forget you!

Britain raises taxes, revenue drops

    The London Daily Telegraph has a story about how Great Britain raised its top tax rate to 50 percent. Instead of raising more revenue as expected, less money was collected by the treasury.
    The cutline under a photo illustration of a 50-pence piece says it all: "A Treasury source said the relatively poor revenues from self-assessment returns was partly down to highly-paid individuals arranging their affairs to avoid paying the 50p rate." Who'd a thunk it?
    Folks like me have been saying it all along: Soak-the-rich tax policies might make some people feel better, but they will harm the economy. The rich can and will stop earning taxable income, by working less, investing less, refusing to sell assets, or investing in non-income-producing assets. People can and will avoid taxable events, and when that happens, all of society suffers.
    Currently the top one percent of earners pay more than a third of all income tax collected. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of earners pay about two percent of income taxes.
    Anyone who studies the figures will see that the percentage of tax revenue raised from top earners actually increased after the Bush tax cuts. In 1999, for example, the top 10 percent paid only 66.5 percent of taxes instead of the 70 percent paid in 2009. And the percentage raised from the bottom half has been cut in half, from four percent to just over two percent. With lowered taxes the rich worry less about paying taxes and just go out and make money.
    There's nothing wrong with making the rich pay more. Society spends a great deal of resources in protecting the assets of the rich, and it isn't unjust that they should pay for the service. But we need to recognize that high income taxes are counter-productive.
    A rational tax policy makes sure every citizen pays some type of tax. Everyone needs to be invested in government. Income tax rates should be kept low, so that they don't overly distort behavior. We can combine the low income tax with a wealth tax on the uber-wealthy; not the ruinous tax Huey Long proposed, but a lower wealth tax designed to raise revenue by taxing the mega-million and billion-dollar estates a nibble at a time. Add to the mix reasonable consumption taxes on those things we need to consume less of, whether its energy or cigarettes, and we are well on our way to a better and fairer tax code.
    You'll never hear these types of proposals from the left. They just want to raise income tax rates. If they succeed, revenues will drop and the economy will suffer. But the liberals can satisfy themselves with the knowledge that they have successfully punished industry and thrift.

On taxing wealth, Huey Long had it half right

    If Huey Long were on the political scene today, chances are I would be dead set against him. He was a despot and a demagogue. And yet, if you look back at some of his proposals, they aren’t so radical at all. In fact, water them down a little and they make darn good sense!
    Some of Long’s proposals are already law. The credit for Social Security and other New Deal programs belongs to Huey Long, not Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt only enacted them in order to take the wind out of Long’s sails, as Long was a serious contender for the 1936 presidential election and was agitating mightily for them.
    Long’s signature campaign platform was his Share Our Wealth plan. Essentially this plan was designed to whittle down the large estates and help the poor. Long hadn’t done his math, because it really wasn’t going to help the poor that much, but he told one reporter that was a worry for another election.
    Long’s plan, which I don’t agree with entirely, would have effectively sought to cap both income and wealth. He started out wanting to tax estates of $50 million or more (1933 dollars!) but quickly amended this to estates of $5 million or more. His plan was to cap annual income at $1 million and to progressively tax large estates, so that a $5 million estate would pay a five percent annual estate tax and an estate of $8 million or more would pay an annual estate tax of eight percent. Although I don't agree with the scope of Long's plan, I am surprised that there is essentially no voice in America calling for any taxation on wealth. What voices there are call for a one-time, ruinous tax at the time of death, which is counterproductive.
    It’s worth noting that Long’s plan really wouldn’t confiscate these people’s wealth, only whittle it down – a death of a thousand cuts, if you will.
    So what would Long’s plan look like today? A million dollars in 1933 is almost equal to $18 million today. $5 million is almost equal to $80 million. I’m not in favor of capping income at all, but levying a few wealth taxes on estates of more than $80 million – or more than $10 million for that matter – isn’t going to harm anyone.
    Now let me add that I think high income taxes are always a bad idea. People really will quit working and quit investing. There are a lot of good reasons why we shouldn’t tax income at high rates, no matter how high that income is.
    But a small annual tax on wealth is another matter. I think Huey Long’s proposed eight percent tax on large estates is too large, but a two percent annual tax on large estates and a three percent tax on mega-estates isn’t going to “confiscate” anyone’s wealth. Make it four percent and you can do away with the death tax altogether.
    This wealth tax can also be applied to corporations that send their profits overseas. The corporation either has a net worth or not. If it does, tax it. I’m always amused when people like Warren Buffet call for an increase in the income tax. You could raise the income tax to 90 percent and it wouldn’t hurt Buffet, because he has very little income in relation to his wealth. He never sells anything, and thus never has to pay taxes on his profits.  But tax his wealth, and suddenly this man will have to pay his fair share, and see if he doesn’t sing a different tune on taxes!
    Make no mistake, rich people contribute a lot to this country. I am a capitalist through and through. But over the last dozen years or so the moneyed interests have manipulated the system to profit when times are good and to have the taxpayers cover their losses when times are bad. Essentially over the past 10 years there has been a mass confiscation of wealth and income from the American middle class to transfer it to the high end of the upper class. Should we as a society snatch a little back it isn’t “confiscation.” It’s a self-help repossession.
    Our system is no longer a capitalist system, but a crony capitalist system, where spoils are distributed based on political contributions or racial affiliation.  Most schemes to raise taxes do so by hitting the upper middle class while allowing the super-rich to avoid taxes. It’s wrong.
    If we follow Huey Long’s advice and tax wealth, we tax everyone, and tax everyone fairly. We just don’t need to go overboard while we’re doing it.

Too much regulation cause of current banking, economic mess

    It's accepted as an absolute article of faith among most Americans that the current banking crisis -- and it certainly is not over -- is the result of too few regulations. More regulations, the liberals tell us, we prevent this type of thing from ever happening again.
    Here's a news flash for you: It wasn't too little regulation that has caused this mess, but too much. And more regulation is just going to make the problem worse.
    Now make no mistake, I support breaking up the really big banks. These banks are a threat to our economy. They should be forced to pay substantially more in deposit insurance than smaller banks. This alone will break them up into smaller pieces in pretty short order.
    But the constant pressure on banks to make minority housing loans, regardless of the quality of these loans, is what has led to our current quagmire. The federal government and groups like ACORN were constantly bringing court actions to force banks to increase their number of bad minority loans. And of course any bank wanting to merge had to be able to show a portfolio of risky minority loans or their merger simply wouldn't be approved.
    And then came George Bush and Karl Rove, who wanted to court the Hispanic vote by easing loan requirements to make it easy for minorities, i.e. poor peope, to purchase homes. Lenders were encouraged, and sometimes ordered, to make loans to people with marginal credit, with little or no money down. To facilitate this, Fannie Mae stood ready to guarantee this pile of fecal matter.
    Now it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of these bad loans didn't go to minorities. When the government lowered or eliminated down payments, these programs applied to everyone, not just minorities. The rest is history.
    In hindsight, how in the world did anyone think it was a favor to minorities to encourage banks to make relatively high-interest loans to then that they couldn't repay? How does this help anyone?
    With this as a backdrop, it is a bit more understandable why many of the banks feel they are entitled to a "bailout." They did what the government forced them to do and then everything turned to crap.
    What's important to understand is that the only banking regulation we need is to try to force big banks to get smaller, so no bank will be too big to fail. Aside from that, banks need fewer regulations, not more.
    Unfortunately, we're still going in the other direction. In June of this year the Obama administration forced a St. Louis bank to open a branch in a slum in order to make loans to people who don't have the income to repay them.
    As long as banks are being forced to make bone-headed decisions like that, it's a sign that we have too much banking regulation, not too little.

99-percenters right to protest crony capitalist bankers

    While the 99-percent movement is a bit ridiculous at times, it also makes some valid points. One point in that a few large banks are essentially destroying this country.
    Make no mistake, the government encouraged these banks to make risky loans to marginal borrowers. When they found out they could make a dollar they went at it full tilt. Much of the blame for our current problems belongs with the belief that every citizen just has to own their own home, a mantra still being chanted by some in Washington.
    But the real problem is the same one we had several years ago: Banks which are too big to fail.
    If the economy is functioning normally there will be bank failures from to time. And some bondholders might get their fingers burned just a bit. But in the end, no problem.
    But in today's economy we have a few large banks that can seek profits without regard to risk, because they know they are too big to fail. The government gives them all kinds of sweetheart deals, including unlimited money at one-half percent interest, in order to fatten their bottom line. Don't you think you could make money if you had unlimited funds at half-a-percent interest?
    So the government and the federal reserve are shoveling taxpayer money into these big banks, which now are recording record profits. And since they are profitable they are paying their top executives lots of money, which is fine when they are earning the profits on their on, but not so great when the government is essentially just handing them the treasury.
    The solution is the same today as it was four years ago. Force these big banks to get smaller.
    All we need to do is tax banks based on their size and charge bigger banks higher FDIC premiums. Leave the small banks alone, but hit the bigger ones with a progressively larger tax. These banks are run by businessmen who will soon see the benefit of breaking up their banks into smaller firms -- the kind of banks that helped build this country.
    And if a few of them fail, so what? We will have created an economy where banks are free to be successful -- or to fail. For the rest of us, life will go on.