Some People Hate Apple

And this article from Consumer Reports will likely make their heads asplode!!!!!!!

Oh Snap!!!!!!!!

To supply siders, that is. Kevin Drum has a link to an Atlantic Monthly piece about a Cato Institute study up on his blog. The upshot? Something I've been saying for years -- reducing taxes inevitably causes an increase in government spending. Why? Simple, really: When you can get something for free (or more cheaply), you'll demand more of it. On the other hand, when you're forced to pay the (higher) actual cost of something, you'll demand less of it.

William A. Niskanen, the chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute, "recently analyzed data from 1981 to 2005 and found his hunch strongly confirmed. When he performed a statistical regression that controlled for unemployment (which independently influences spending and taxes), he found, he says, “no sign that deficits have ever acted as a constraint on spending.” To the contrary: judging by the last twenty-five years (plenty of time for a fair test), a tax cut of 1 percent of the GDP increases the rate of spending growth by about 0.15 percent of the GDP a year. A comparable tax hike reduces spending growth by the same amount.

The article's author offers three conclusions (emphases mine):

First, the root-canal economics of pre-Reagan conservatism was right all along: the way to limit the growth of government is to force politicians, and therefore voters, to pay for all the government they use—not to give them a discount.

Second, conservatives who are serious about halting or reversing the dizzying Bush-era expansion of government—if there are any such conservatives, something of an open question these days—should stop defending Bush’s tax cuts. Instead, they should be talking about raising taxes to at least 19 percent of the GDP. Voters will not shrink Big Government until they feel the pinch of its true cost.

Third, the most effective constraint of all is to raise taxes and cut spending: exactly the sort of anti-deficit package that anti-tax conservatives pummeled the first President Bush and President Clinton for approving, and exactly the sort of package that the current President Bush and his anti-tax allies are sworn to block.

I Wonder What the Introductory Speech

is going to sound like. "Tony Snow has served the White House well for the past several years in a position at our public relations branch. He has been faithful and loyal. I know he will continue to serve us well in his new position."

Chinatown Main

That would be the default MS Office spell check of my name. It has shown up in at least one email that I've received.

Your Government at Work

My friend's mortgage loan almost didn't close today because her name showed up on a terror watch list. Uhmmm.....she's a freaking hindu people!

Reordering of Automotive Royalty

Anybody who knows Atlanta knows that the valet parkers at Lenox Square estimate a car's cachet rather well. Plebian carriages are relegated to the lot, while they reserve these premium covered, angled spots up near the pick-up/drop-off driveway for the cream of the crop. My pedestrian (bad word choice?) Audi A4 has no business in one of those spots. Porsches, Rolls Royces, and M5s and S-Class Mercedes get those spots.

So imagine my shock yesterday when I saw a lowly Ford Fusion in one of those prized berths. And next to it...a freaking Buick? Yep. Apocalypse Now.

Free Boar Fodder

Email from a Chicago friend...

So I checked out a new gym a few blocks from my house on Saturday morning.

While I was getting a tour I noticed that Dee Brown was chillin’ on a couch in the lounge.

That’s all, just thought you’d be interested.

Succinct Summary of Republicanism

At least how I see it, from The Washington Monthly.

...but what's more striking about the GOP over the past 100 years or so is its continuity. The party's main, almost sole, purpose has been to ensure that as much money as possible goes to those who need it least and that as little as possible goes to those who need it most. In a party of moneybags, Theodore Roosevelt was the exception, not the rule.

I don't know if the author knew it, but he is paraphrasing Bill Maher, who said that Republican economic policy is underpinned by the belief that the Rich aren' t rich enough because the Poor are hoarding all the money.

The Complicated Tax Code

One election year promise of George W. Bush that I hoped would come to pass was simplification of the nation's byzantine tax code. Unfortunately, reports the Economist, W has made it even worse.

During the past five years America's tax code has become far more complex, somewhat less progressive, and has done less to improve incentives to work and save than first appearances suggest. [...] Tax rules were horribly complicated, of course, long before the Bush presidency, but during the past five years things have got much worse. The number of pages of federal tax regulations has risen by over 40%, from 46,900 in 2000 to 66,498 this year, according to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. The number of different tax forms issued by the Internal Revenue Service has soared from 475 in 2000 to 582.

On the other hand, I guess it was unrealistic of me for W to have success in even this simple goal. Why should this be any different than any other area of governance?

OK, I Have to Brag....

Wife and Sister-In-Law,
originally uploaded by chintanamin.

....on my wife.