The Denver Post has had an excellent series on tax breaks for corporations. These breaks were supposed to encourage businesses to move into poor areas called enterprise zones, but eventually enterprise zones covered most of the state and just constituted another tax break for almost any corporation doing business in Colorado, in some cases giving tax breaks to corporations that eliminated jobs, rather than creating them.
This is also an example of the "beggar thy neighbor" policies pursued by many government jurisdictions, from nations to cities. One of the big Republican arguments for lower business taxes is that other nations have lower taxes; if we don't match their low rates, all companies will leave the US, they say. Within the US, companies move to the states with the lowest business taxes. Most big companies incorporate in Delaware because it has the most lenient laws governing corporations. In the Denver area, the Aurora suburb is bidding to take the annual stock show away from Denver proper by offering all kinds of tax advantages to it and the Gaylord hotel chain which would build a new hotel near the stock show grounds.
All of this takes money away from basic activities that governments perform, from defense to education to building and maintaining roads. Colorado just voted down a small increase in taxes for education, but it has millions to subsidize big corporations in "enterprise zones," or to get the stock show to move ten miles out of town.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Rich Doctors Are America's Problem
This op-ed by David Brooks says that the largest proportion of the richest 1% of Americans are doctors. He says 16% of the wealthiest are doctors, compared with 8% being lawyers, for example. That's why health care costs are going through the roof, why Medicare is out of control, etc.
He doesn't break down the doctors' incomes, but it's pretty well known that the richest doctors are the specialists, the heart guys, the bone guys, etc. Many of them getting rich on Medicare because old people have heart attacks, broken hips, etc. The general practitioners, who keep people healthy, rather than repairing them after they are sick, don't make nearly as much.
It's a system where the rewards are misallocated, and that threatens to destroy the whole American economy.
He doesn't break down the doctors' incomes, but it's pretty well known that the richest doctors are the specialists, the heart guys, the bone guys, etc. Many of them getting rich on Medicare because old people have heart attacks, broken hips, etc. The general practitioners, who keep people healthy, rather than repairing them after they are sick, don't make nearly as much.
It's a system where the rewards are misallocated, and that threatens to destroy the whole American economy.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Another Congressional Letter
I hope that you saw "Morning Joe" this morning on MSNBC. In case you did not, here is a link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#44886865
They discussed Warren Buffett's release of his income tax. It shows he is correct that rich people who make most of their money from investments pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than much poorer working people do. This country clearly hates people who work for a living, just like it claims to love veterans, but then won't give them a job when they come home from Iraq or Afghanistan. As a Vietnam veteran, I know that anybody who fights for this country for any but the most patriotic reasons is a fool. This country will kiss you on the lips while the TV cameras are on, and then stab you in the back when they go off. No one representing me in Congress is a veteran. When Senator John Kerry ran for President, George W. Bush's huge political apparatus "Swift Boat Veterans" reviled him (and every other Vietnam veteran) because Kerry was a veteran, Bush was not a real veteran. He spent the war getting drunk and becoming an alcoholic in the Alabama National Guard. Then after 9/11 he sent many National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that the National Guard has been his refuge from combat.
The best part of the "Morning Joe" clip above is the presentation by former Obama automotive czar Steve Rattner, which shows how badly income in the US has skewed toward the rich in the last few years. This is a corrupt government. Democrats and Republicans have betrayed the American people, by selling themselves to the wealthiest one percent. I have not joined the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but I am mad, too. This is a failed government run by cowardly, incompetent or evil people. The corrupt characters in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" would be right at home in today's Washington.
On veterans again, I am very disappointed that the Army's Walter Reed Hospital has been closed and wounded Army soldiers transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital. People like you don't understand that the Army and Navy are different. Or you probably don't care. But the Army and Navy have different cultures and traditions. It is truly insensitive to take someone who has spent five or ten years in the Army, and then when he gets badly wounded, to add to his problems by putting him in a Navy environment. No wonder so many of our troops have mental problems. But you don't care; you saved some millionaire ten dollars on his taxes.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#44886865
They discussed Warren Buffett's release of his income tax. It shows he is correct that rich people who make most of their money from investments pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than much poorer working people do. This country clearly hates people who work for a living, just like it claims to love veterans, but then won't give them a job when they come home from Iraq or Afghanistan. As a Vietnam veteran, I know that anybody who fights for this country for any but the most patriotic reasons is a fool. This country will kiss you on the lips while the TV cameras are on, and then stab you in the back when they go off. No one representing me in Congress is a veteran. When Senator John Kerry ran for President, George W. Bush's huge political apparatus "Swift Boat Veterans" reviled him (and every other Vietnam veteran) because Kerry was a veteran, Bush was not a real veteran. He spent the war getting drunk and becoming an alcoholic in the Alabama National Guard. Then after 9/11 he sent many National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that the National Guard has been his refuge from combat.
The best part of the "Morning Joe" clip above is the presentation by former Obama automotive czar Steve Rattner, which shows how badly income in the US has skewed toward the rich in the last few years. This is a corrupt government. Democrats and Republicans have betrayed the American people, by selling themselves to the wealthiest one percent. I have not joined the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but I am mad, too. This is a failed government run by cowardly, incompetent or evil people. The corrupt characters in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" would be right at home in today's Washington.
On veterans again, I am very disappointed that the Army's Walter Reed Hospital has been closed and wounded Army soldiers transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital. People like you don't understand that the Army and Navy are different. Or you probably don't care. But the Army and Navy have different cultures and traditions. It is truly insensitive to take someone who has spent five or ten years in the Army, and then when he gets badly wounded, to add to his problems by putting him in a Navy environment. No wonder so many of our troops have mental problems. But you don't care; you saved some millionaire ten dollars on his taxes.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Killing American Citizens
The US should only kill an American citizen when he poses an immediate threat of deadly harm and there is no other way to stop him. I am not sure that these conditions were met in the recent assassinations of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.
According to the press, Awlaki encouraged other Americans to kill their fellow citizens and to oppose the US government, but it's not clear that he personally killed any Americans, or anybody else, for that matter. He was more an accessory to murder than a murderer. Secondly, its not clear that there was no other way to stop him than to kill him by remote control drone. That may have been the easiest way to kill him, but not the only way.
I think there should at least have been an effort to take him prisoner and return him to the US. I also think we should have tried to capture and return Osama bin Laden. The problem is that the US legal system is unable to deal with terrorists, because Americans are so afraid of them. Guantanamo should have been closed years ago, but Americans are afraid of the men there. There was some talk of a terrorist trial in Kentucky, and Sen. Mitch McConnell almost had a fit he was so scared. This is a man who refused to fight in Vietnam, and got his patron, Sen. John Sherman Cooper, to help get him out of military service during the war, although officially he got a medical discharge.
These legal niceties are what our troops are supposed to be fighting to protect, but we are afraid to apply them. In many ways Osama bin Laden won, because people like Barak Obama and Mitch McConnell are afraid to stand up for them. Of course, the real cowards were George W. Bush, who spent the Vietnam War becoming a drunkard in the Alabama National Guard, and Dick Cheney, who avoided service by churning out babies. These are men who liked running the country, but had no concept of what it was to serve the country. They were missing in action on 9/11. Bush flew away to Nebraska or somewhere, and Cheney retreated to a spider hole under the White House.
According to the press, Awlaki encouraged other Americans to kill their fellow citizens and to oppose the US government, but it's not clear that he personally killed any Americans, or anybody else, for that matter. He was more an accessory to murder than a murderer. Secondly, its not clear that there was no other way to stop him than to kill him by remote control drone. That may have been the easiest way to kill him, but not the only way.
I think there should at least have been an effort to take him prisoner and return him to the US. I also think we should have tried to capture and return Osama bin Laden. The problem is that the US legal system is unable to deal with terrorists, because Americans are so afraid of them. Guantanamo should have been closed years ago, but Americans are afraid of the men there. There was some talk of a terrorist trial in Kentucky, and Sen. Mitch McConnell almost had a fit he was so scared. This is a man who refused to fight in Vietnam, and got his patron, Sen. John Sherman Cooper, to help get him out of military service during the war, although officially he got a medical discharge.
These legal niceties are what our troops are supposed to be fighting to protect, but we are afraid to apply them. In many ways Osama bin Laden won, because people like Barak Obama and Mitch McConnell are afraid to stand up for them. Of course, the real cowards were George W. Bush, who spent the Vietnam War becoming a drunkard in the Alabama National Guard, and Dick Cheney, who avoided service by churning out babies. These are men who liked running the country, but had no concept of what it was to serve the country. They were missing in action on 9/11. Bush flew away to Nebraska or somewhere, and Cheney retreated to a spider hole under the White House.
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