While everyone else is focusing on Virginia . . .

. . . I find the state of my birth to be far more interesting (Rasmussen, emphasis added):

John McCain holds statistically insignificant leads over both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in New Jersey. It’s McCain 45%, Clinton 42% and McCain 46%, Obama 45%. This reflects a significant change from a month ago when Clinton held a double-digit lead over McCain.

The last time a Republican presidential candidate carried New Jersey, Reagan was in the White House, I was in high school, and Stan Parris was still a Congressman (he was elected to his last term that same day – November 7, 1988).

Now, we are still in the spring, and November is a long way away, but if New Jersey is competitive at all, we’re in for a wild ride.

On the morning of April 1, 2006

The nation will wake up to find the Washington Nationals and the Tampa Bay Rays in first place in their respective divisions.

As much as I like that Nats, seeing this on April Fools Day makes a lot of sense.

At last, a real transportation plan

Those of us who refuse to believe our state budget can double in ten years yet still not cover “core services” have been accused of being simplistic or ignorant.  Yet those who defend the idea of limited government usually end up the most knowledgeable and creative of pundits and politicians.  There is no better example of that than the new Conservative Transportation Alternative.

Feel free to read it for yourself, but in summation, it is largely similar to my own call for decentralization, local control over secondary roads, and getting subdivision roads of the transportation grid (or to be more precise, giving localities the authority to take them off the grid) – plus, of course, an end to the egregious regional authorities.

Now, a plan is one thing, but turning it into legislation is another.  Fortunately, State Senator and would-be Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is planning a bill on similar, if not identical, lines (Rick Sincere).  In other words, legislators have a genuine choice between the tax hiking plans of Howell, Kaine, Saslaw, et al, or a real alternative that asks those who value the roads to start paying for them, rather than the taxpayer.

In other words, if the Cuccinelli bill were to become law, all of you could finally stop paying for my street.

As many readers will remember, I am one of the most virulent opponents of the debacle that was HB3202 – both the Howell version (which put a gun to localities and told them to raise their own taxes) and the Kaine version (which was struck down as unconstitutional).  Cuccinelli voted for the Howell version – once – and I have never forgotten.  However, if he comes through and sponsors this legislation, he will erase his earlier mistake – in fact, anyone who supports the Conservative Transportation Alternative will atone for any past support for HB3202 (either version) in my eyes.

That includes McDonnell and Bolling, who now need to use the power of their offices and their all-but-assured 2009 nominations to get Howell, Stosch, and the rest of the Richmond Republicans on board.  If they do that, they will reunite the party and put it in prime position to make 2009 the next 1997.  If they don’t, they risk a re-run of 2005 (which may be fine for Bolling, but not for McDonnell – or Howell).

It’s up to them; the Virginia GOP establishment can correct its mistake from last year and support the Conservative Alternative, or it can exacerbate it by succumbing to local, regional, or state tax increases.  Voter will never forgive the latter, but they will be forever grateful for the former.

On Spotsylvania, schools, and Republicans

As my local (Spotsylvania County) Board of Supervisors prepares to tackle the budget this week, the members have dissolved into a cacophony (Free-Lance Star).  Emmitt Marshall wants an increase for employees come heel or high water.  Gary Skinner (my Supe) is insisting on raising the tax rate from 62 (already 6 cents over the equalized rate) to 65 for “the schools” (more on them later).  Hap Connors also wants 65 cents, but for a whole slew of reasons.  T.C. Waddy and Ben Pitts are, from what I can tell, all over the map.

Only two members – Gary Jackson and Jerry Logan – are willing to even consider a budget under the equalized rate of 56 cents, and herein lies our first important observation: Logan and Jackson are the only board members who were nominated or endorsed by the Republican Party last November.  I mention this to respond to still far too popular notion that Spotsylvania candidates should run as “independents” in order to avoid the trappings of party affiliation.  Logan has been a Republican for his entire time on the Board; Jackson was forced by his employer (the federal government) not be a GOP nominee, but he has always won the party’s endorsement and is a member of the Spotsy GOP committee.

All of the others are “independent” – which in this case really means they are not accountable to the voters.  Logan and Jackson know there will be the devil to pay if they support higher taxes.  More to the point, however, Logan and Jackson oppose higher taxes in principle – which is why they are Republicans.  In other words, the party label sends a signal to voters about who the candidate is, and for what (s)he stands.  The five “independents” provide no such information to voters.  With luck, Spotsylvania taxpayers will remember that it was the Republicans who placed their interests ahead of the slew of special interests who demand more of their money.

That brings me to the Spotsylvania School Board, which has quickly fallen away from its responsibility of overseeing the school system on behalf of the people and into its usual role of overseeing the people on behalf of the school system.  Initially, they presented a whopping budget with a slew of data that said nothing (activity-based-cost not being a well-worn phrase in our nation’s schools).  Then the Board of Supervisors asked them what would happen if they had to find $12.1 million in savings, and hesto presto, a whole slew of line items came forth (SpSchBd).

Now, to hear the school board tell it (including their agent on the Board of Supervisors – Gary Skinner), the cuts listed in the above link are too horrifying to consider.  Yet there they are, and in fact, a hiring and salary freeze would, by their own numbers, save $12.2M.  Of course, the school board will scream “higher class sizes” – without the important note that the increase in school enrollment is projected to be one student for every nine teachers - hardly an unbearable increase.

This episode does, however, provide another valuable lesson in budgeting: if you want to know what a government bureaucracy will do with the money they want, don’t give it to them; they will suddenly become very informative.

The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors will meet tomorrow (April 1 – that may already be today for you, dear reader).  I intend to remind them of the dangers of setting a rate above equalization.  We are on the knife’s edge of a recession.  Every county supervisor and city councilor will make decisions that will either keep their locality on the shaky road to growth, or tip it into bargain-basement property values, boarded-up homes, and blight.  I hope Spotsy’s elected officials make the right choice.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red

Pay no attention to those protestors behind the curtain

The Tibetans demand their voices be heard just as the Communist China was parading their supposed silence to diplomats.

Witness says a “Tibetan rioter” was actually a Communist policeman

Those of us who have watched Communist China over the years were immediately skeptical upon hearing their accounts of “riots” in Tibet.  Now, weeks after the protests ended, we’re starting to see the Communist propaganda come a-cropper:

A Chinese woman from Thailand (who prefers that her name not be used) was studying in Lhasa when the protests broke out in March. As one of her friends is a policeman, she visited him at the local police station quite often and got to know other policemen there.

After the protests on March 14, she and other foreigners were sent to the police station where she saw a man with a knife in his hand walking in with some arrested Tibetans. The man later took off the Tibetan-style clothes and put on a police uniform.

This woman was sent out of Lhasa with other foreigners the next day. When she arrived in India via Nepal, she recognized the policeman she had seen in Tibetan garb from BBC TV news and photos that the Chinese embassy had provided to the media.

Ngawang Nyendra said the witness was shocked when she saw the policeman in the BBC broadcast. She realized then that the man had disguised himself as a Tibetan in order to incite people to riot.

Hats off to the Epoch Times for breaking this story.

The Communist regime has a history of doing stuff like this, in the hope of whipping up the Chinese people into a nationalist frenzy (there is no other justification left for the failed-state-superpower) and, if they’re lucky, garnering some decent foreign press.  Of course, it all went horribly wrong for the cadres this time.

The Audacity of Hype wants to do what?!

We all have issues that – as my dad likes to say – “get a rise” out of us.  These are the issues that, over time, have become viscerally important to us.  For most, it’s a social issue; for others, it’s something involving foreign policy.  I must confess to having a very unusual one: the capital gains tax – and Barack Obama pretty just ensured that I will never, ever see anything beneficial in his candidacy again.

What did the Audacity of Hype do?  Here’s Riley at Virginia Virtucon with the news (initial source – Politico):

In an interview in conjunction with his big economic speech in New York, Senator Obama tells CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo he favors increasing the capital-gains tax rate.

Bartiromo reported after her interview: “Right now, as you know, the cap gains tax is at 15 percent. He has yet to give us a specific number. How high he wants that number to go? He has said, and he told me today, that he won’t go above 28 percent. So we are talking about the possibility of a doubling in the capital gains tax. He was averaging at about 25 percent.”

Perhaps I should explain why this issue, above all others, bothers me so much.

1. When it comes to economic policy, there is nothing more important than reducing the capital gains tax.  From the old-school Keynesian side, it spurs investment, which increases aggregate demand and leads to more economic growth.  From the more modern supply-side argument (which I favor), the spur in investment not only affects aggregate demand, but much more importantly, it leads to more capital creation and increased aggregate supply (i.e., the economy has more room to grow before inflation could kick in).  Raising the capital-gains tax rate would do the exact opposite.
2. Because stock transactions demand tends to be elastic, a reduction in this tax always leads to increased revenue.  It is the ultimate Laffer curve tax (so confiscatory that cutting the rate increases revenue – as income tax rates were before the Reagan Administration).

Thus, Obama’s blase discussion of raising the rate reveals a frightening economic ignorance that disqualifies him for the White House.  Don’t beleive me?  Well’ if you look at what else he said (Politico), it’s clear that he has no idea what the history of this tax is:

. . .  if it’s 20 or 25 percent, they say, look, if it’s within that range then it’s not going to distort, I think, economic decision making. On the other hand, what it will also do is first of all help out the federal treasury . . .

No, Barack, it is not going to “help out the federal treasury,” it will hurt the federal treasury, to say nothing of the economy as a whole.

Obama then goes on to suggest raising the top income tax rate back to 39%, index the minimum wage to inflation, and various other economic cripplers. 

The main thrust of this interview is simple: Barack Obama is a 1970s throwback who must be rejected at the polls.

Communist China forgets Godwin’s Law

The cadres’ Tibet propaganda falls victim to reductio ad Hilterum.

Olympic opening ceremony boycott

Poland’s Prime Minister will boycott the Olympics opening ceremony – and Nic Sarkozy may follow suit.

Now, if we can just convince the free world to stay away entirely . . .

Obama’s foreign policy advisor reminds me of his minister

For those who thought Obama’s problems ended with his deflection of the Reverend Wright controversy.  The Weekly Standard Blog finds something that will not make your day.

In the wake of comments by Obama adviser Gen. Tony McPeak the other day, Robert Goldberg pulled some quotes out of the McPeak memory hole in a piece for the American Spectator:

In a 2003 interview with the Oregonian, McPeak complained of that the “lack of playbook for getting Israelis and Palestinians together at…something other than a peace process….We need to get it fixed and only we have the authority with both sides to move them towards that. Everybody knows that.”

The interviewer asked McPeak: “So where’s the problem? State? White House?”

McPeak replied: “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote — vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.”

McPeak also questions whether some aren’t more concerned with “the security of Israel as opposed to a purely American self-interest.” It’s been a while since a presidential adviser flat-out questioned the loyalty of American Jews, and yet Obama seems to surround himself with people who have crackpot views of “the Israel Lobby.”

Obama’s got a pastor who draws a straight line between Zionism and racism–and he would no more disown him than he would his own grandmother. His pastor preaches that Israel is a “dirty word” and Obama denies that he attends a “crackpot church.” And now he’s got a military adviser who thinks America’s Middle East policies are controlled by New York City and Miami voters (read Jews) with divided loyalties.

I eagerly await the next attempt at deflection from the Audacity of Hype.