perfidy

Johno, $4.50 x 280,000,000 = 1.26 billion dollars. That is a lot. The thing is, when you leave the money in the pockets of the people that earned it, instead of giving it to Ted Kennedy, they will use it for many different things. Some will buy beer and pizza. Some will collect stamps. Some will go out for cheap hookers. Others will save it, and invest it. Still other people will take the money that was invested, and give it to some yahoo with a too-clever idea for vacuum-powered hair cutting devices. That guy will hire people to manufacture and sell it. If some money is left over from beer and pizza, stamps or hookers, they will buy it. The economy has just grown. There is more wealth in the system. The new company will pay taxes. So will the formerly unemployed welfare mothers making the doohickeys, and the sleazeballs hawking them on infomercials at three in the morning. So revenue goes up. And as long as we maintain a sound fiscal policy, a low rate of inflation will be the result. This is a good thing. If some people aren't as rich as the new Vacuum Hair Cutter magnate, that's because they didn't go out and found their own company, which anybody with sufficient gumption can do. It's all about liberty. 

This kind of thinking is generally associated with the Chicago school - Hayek, Friedman, and that crowd. Historically, when taxes go down, revenue and the economy go up. Post WWII, post Kennedy, Reagan. When taxes went up in the sixties, by the seventies, the economy was a wreck. (Of course it is more complicated than that. But measures that limit the economy generally go hand in hand with higher taxes. So it evens out.) 

And the real problem with deficit spending is not the military - which is a legitimate function of government constitutionally, but entitlement programs that inexorably spiral upwards in cost. There is no conceivable tax increase that would pay for what's going to happen to Social Security and Medicare. If the economy grows fast enough, we'll have more money for warm fuzzy programs, and for things that kill little brown people. Liberals and Conservatives will live together. Mass hysteria. 

(Considering the vast expansion of the investor class, ironically one of Marx' dearest hope - that the proletariat would own the means of production, has kind of happened.)

Some people are waking up to two things: that the Chinese are serious in their space aims, and that the private drive for space is stronger than it has ever been. Within a year, we will almost certainly see the Chinese become the third nation to send a man into space, and also a winner of the x-prize for the first civilian team to fly twice above the atmosphere in the same vehicle in a week's time. 

The Washington Times has a new report on Chinese space activities. Some time ago, the Chinese announced their plan to set up a Lunar outpost within a decade. As the article relates, the Chinese are moving steadily towards their goal. EVA Training and dependable, simple Russian space technology indicate that they are intending more than simple orbital publicity stunts. In response, India has also announced a Lunar program, and the Japanese may follow. Remarkably, the Japanese source believes that the Chinese will be on the moon within three or four years.

So far, the Chinese have successfully launched four test vehicles. The last, in November of 2002, was considered to be a full on test run that will lead directly to the first Chinese manned flight, probably before the end of the year. Once in space, very few missions could prepare a lunar mission. The United States did its moon missions all in one shot. However, a more cautious Chinese strategy might be to assemble a lunar vehicle in Earth orbit from two or three launches. A lunar shuttle could fly repeatedly between Earth and Lunar orbit, requiring only refueling. It would never need to land on Earth. A lunar shuttle could travel between the Lunar surface and orbit - again requiring only refueling. This strategy would give the Chinese a permanent capability to travel back and forth to the moon. 

A Chinese presence in space, let alone on the Moon, would drastically alter the global strategic situation. Capabilities, rather than intentions are the key factor in military planning - and a space capable Chinese nation is an enormous threat to the United States that depends on space resources for military dominance here on Earth. 

The flip side of this equation is the increasing investment in private space programs in the United States. Many computer industry billionaires are funding private space companies - including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, John Carmack of Id software (of Doom and Quake fame) and the inventor of Paypal, Elon Musk. As I have reported here, Burt Rutan has already flight tested an x-prize competitor, and hopes to take the prize on the centennial of the Wright brother's flight. Rumor is that he has deep pocketed computer industry funding as well, to the tune of over $20 million. 

If we just stand back from this burgeoning industry, and not let NASA or the FAA interfere, we will have an answer for any Chinese strategic challenge. There is no way that the Chinese government effort could compete with an unleashed American civilian effort. Once the door is kicked open - and the X-Prize will go a long way toward achieving that - it could explode; much like the computer industry did.

Have to hate America, or at least agitate for its overthrow?

The working classes that you correctly say constitute the majority of the military are also reliably the most patriotic segment of American society, and have always been. The academic and chattering classes are the only ones liable, as a group, to throw down their rifles like the French. The aims of actual members of the working class have rarely been what leftists always insist that they have to be.

I wasn't imputing that you said Anti-Irishism was widespread, merely saying that that was the first I've heard of it.

To go a little further on the tax issue, here it is: 

• Axiom A: The current tax code is a kafkian horror.
• Axiom Two: People should be treated equally and fairly under the law.
• Axiom III: a taxation scheme should have only two objects, to provide reasonable revenue for government functions, and not to impede the functioning of the economy or for social engineering.
• Axiom N: a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. 

The current tax system runs to seventeen thousand pages of regulations. It is, literally, impossible for anyone to understand it. With even a moderately complex financial situation, there is no way to be assured that you are in compliance with the law. Every year, journalists will create a fictional family of four, with a reasonable spread of investments and assets, and earning something in the comfortable middle of the income spectrum. They will send this hypothetical tax picture to several IRS functionaries, tax accountants, and HR Block type tax preparers. No return will match any of the others. Better to spend your time figuring how many conflicted, compulsive centrists can agonize on the head of a pin. 

On general principle, the current scheme should be completely scrapped. Vague and conflicting regulations make enforcement arbitrary and predatory. When you speak of fear of the government, most people don't think Big Brother, they think the IRS. There is absolutely no need for a tax system this Byzantine, this elephantine, this cruel; especially in a republic with pretensions to liberty and justice. And beyond the costs of shoveling an average of a third of our income onto the IRS fire, there is the cost of preparing the tax returns themselves. Millions of man hours for the general public, billions spent by businesses and individuals to tax accountants and tax preparers that could be spent more profitably elsewhere. Further, there is the uncalculated effect of tax law on how businesses change practices to avoid punitive tax liabilities, like delaying replacement of aging capital equipment (a factor in the industrial decline in the Midwest), avoiding investment, delaying capitalization and a hundred other things to obscure for me to comprehend. 

But what to replace it with? Conceivably, we could replace the current nightmare with something simpler that worked in largely the same way - tax brackets, deductions, credits - but easier to cope with. But if we are going to go to the effort to replace it, it ought to be something better. 

I feel that the current tax system makes a mockery of our commitment to justice and equality before the law. If it is illegal to discriminate against someone for reasons of creed, color or gender, why is it kosher that a one set of tax laws applies to Mike, completely different set of laws applies to Mr. and Mrs. Two-Cents, and yet a third and even harsher set of laws applies to the Buckethead clan? If Mike were white, and Johnny Hispanic and me black, legions of the unwashed would rise up in protest. Yet, there is not a murmur of discontent when it is shown that these three have different incomes. 

We should always be treated the same before the law. If I kill someone, the same law should apply to me as when Johno kills someone. Even if I did because they deserved it and Johno kills merely because they have bad taste in music. Similarly, the same tax laws should apply to everyone, even if one of us makes more money than the other. This is the primary moral argument for a flat tax. 

If we assume that the current level of revenue is adequate for government needs (sharp internal wrenching pain) we could structure a new tax system that would generate that much money. One of the reasons that our tax system is so complicated is that all the many special interests, over decades, slowly weaved a web of exemptions, shelters, credits and what-have-you into the tax code. Most of these complications have no positive effect on the economy as a whole, and many are probably very negative. One way to eliminate unfairness is to completely eliminate all the complications. If every person, and every corporation, paid 10% of income to the government everyone would be on the same level. No industry would have special sanctions, or considerations. It would limit the government's meddling in the economy. (Tax law is a great sub rosa way to meddle, because it is less obvious.) 

The thing is, if I pay 10%, and Mike pays 10%, that's fair - even though I will pay more in absolute terms. If it's that simple, I can compute my tax return in seconds. Even corporations would have a simpler time of it. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation had high taxes. But almost no revenue, because the government was largely incapable of collecting it. When they switched to a flat tax, their revenue skyrocketed. One, because the lower tax rate was fair enough that many who had not paid taxes now paid them, and two, because it stimulated the economy. And if I know every corporation and rich person is paying ten percent, I'm much less likely to think that the fat cats are getting away with murder, because there would be no loopholes or tax shelters. 

While I said earlier that the government shouldn't use the tax system to meddle with the economy, or use it for social engineering, that is only generally true. While staying within the flat tax format - so that the same laws apply to everyone, we can fudge it a bit to have beneficent effects. For example, a certain standard set of deductions would apply to everyone's income. A personal deduction, child deductions, mortgage interest, marriage deduction are all good candidates. These deductions would be set amounts, so the effect on someone with a low income would be proportionally much larger than for someone with a large income. You could finagle these deductions so that someone or a family at the poverty level would pay no tax. Then, as income increases, taxes would increase. By the time income got to a couple hundred thousand, it would look more and more like 10% as the deductions became a smaller and smaller proportion of the total income. This would help the poor, encourage marriage and children - but the same law would still apply to everyone. A similar situation could be imagined for businesses. 

A flat tax of 15 to 17 percent would probably generate about the same revenue as the current system. And the rich would pay more taxes than they do now (though Democrats would still claim that it's a tax cut for the rich.) But everyone would have the same, understandable law.

John writes, "I still want to know how Mike resolves Marxist orthodoxy with an evident love of the United States and its ways ..."

Easy. I'm not an Orthodox Marxist. I'm not really a Marxist for that matter. I use it when applicable to historical circumstances.

Buckethead writes,

"If American historians hate and villify the Irish Americans, they are the only ones doing it. I haven't noticed any anti-Irish bigotry in the wider world."

Yeah. No shit. I never accused the wider world of anti-Irish bigotry. I wrote precisely: "That's just one more way for American historians to criticize Irish-Americans, easily the most hated and villified ethnic group in American ethnic historiography over the last 40 years." This is an old ethnic animosity maintained exclusively within the Ivory Tower.

As to the rich man's war/poor man's fight issue, your argument is that that's the way those things are done. Sure, it's the way of the world. But if we all collectively shrug our shoulders and say, "oh well that's how it is," we'll never see any changes. No, we can't put old rich men in trenches. But how about their children? They don't serve. What if they had to? What if the working class, that has historically constituted much of the American military, threw down their rifles and said, "fight your own damn war."

Of course this is an historical issue as opposed to a present issue. With the professionalization of the American military class issues are becoming less acute. The military itself is becoming an opportunity for upward mobility once service is complete. They aren't paid very much while serving, but there are opportunities for education and the acquisition of skills. So the rich man's war and poor man's fight might be evolving into a non-issue.

Buckethead, dude, I think he's got you on Thatcher. Whatta beast.

Mike is correct in pointing out that all heroes have feet of clay, but I'm gonna poke, poke, poke, at the hornets' nest by claiming that Reagan and Thatcher won the cold war exactly because they forced the USSR to stop, think, check their wallets, and put the brakes to what Stalin had set rolling. Also, it doesn't hurt that Gorbachev was a second-generation Party member, the first Premier without direct ties to the Revolution.

But let's not bicker and argue about who killed who! I still want to know how Mike resolves Marxist orthodoxy with an evident love of the United States and its ways, and what sages Buckethead is consulting to assert that tax cuts dependably spur the economy (you're not allowed to mention Larry Kudlow).

On that last point, I'm not sure that an extra $4.50 in people's pockets is particularly meaningful for the economy, except for convenience stores, pizza shops and breweries. I'd like to think that the Average American does think of tax cuts as something they can count on, but I'm not so sure. That presupposes that the Average American acts rationally in economic matters, and I have always found that assumption laughable.

Finally, the discussion of the current tax cuts has to eventually come around to the question of massive deficit spending. Where's the wall, how fast are we going, and how long til we hit it? There's a war on, you know.

Steve, I'm going to quibble with your statement that Reagan, Thatcher, Roosevelt, and Churchill were superhero defenders of freedom. Emphasis on the hero with Thatcher if you know what I mean. Roosevelt and his administration I'll grant you conditionally, aside from racism in the New Deal, ignoring the Holocaust, denying European Jews access to the United States, Executive Order 9066 that interned Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, etc. But he qualifies as a defender of freedom in that he led the United States through most of the second World War and did a lot to bring down Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Mistakes were made, but challenges also met. 

I could say much the same about Churchill. His actions while in the Imperial office, unleashing the Black and Tans on Ireland, and in negotiating the 1921 Treaty with Ireland significantly limited the freedom of subject peoples. But for two years, he and Britain stood alone against Germany. Like Roosevelt in the U.S., he led Britain through the second World War and also did a lot to bring down Nazi Germany. 

I'll leave alone the Reagan issue, and will offer to agree to disagree on that score. On Thatcher, however, I will make a few remarks. Thatcher did a great deal to limit the freedom of British workers and engaged in the most brutal campaign against Catholics in the north of Ireland since her Tory predecessor Edward Heath's government sanctioned the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry. Under Thatcher and her own orders, rather than permitting the Blanketmen to wear their own clothes with prisoner of war status, many of the Blanketmen starved to death. In other words, Thatcher preferred that northern Irish Catholic insurgent prisoners starve rather than allowing them to wear civilian clothes. 

Thatcher refused to negotiate with anyone. She would not negotiate with Irish insurgents, she would not negotiate with striking workers. She responded to strikes by closing factories and collieries, and putting thousands of British workers out on the street. She and her administration virtually liquidated the TUC, the cornerstone of British organized labor. She went to war with Argentina over the Falkland islands, a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica, in an archaic colonial war specifically designed to drum up reactionary patriotism. Thus, Thatcher beat up sixth graders as an adult. In the last year of her administration, Thatcher introduced a poll tax. Poll taxes are a tremendous limitation on freedom. 

As to preserving the freedom of America by winning the Cold War, at what point could the Soviets have conquered the United States? The strategy was they nuke us, then we nuke them, and it's all over. Cold War brinksmanship could have gotten us all killed. And I haven't admitted that Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War. I still adhere to my thesis that the Soviets simply couldn't maintain the House that Stalin built and I'm not convinced that it was because they got into a spending arms race with the U.S. But we've had this discussion before, and it will remain forever unresolved and disagreed upon between you and I. 

That aside, the above League of Superheros members Churchill and Roosevelt did lead the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War, according to you, not me, but all of them did a great deal to limit the freedom of their own and subject peoples in various ways.

I thought of something smart to say, and it's pithy, too!

Liberals are sanctimonious, and conservatives are condescending.

Too bad for both of 'em, I say.

[moreover] Present company excepted, needless to say. I'm thinking of Chomsky, Moore, Coulter, and O'Reilly, among many others.