February 4, 2007
Feb 04 00:01 GOP Proposes Death Tax Cut Feb 04 02:28 Vulnerable Democratic Seats in 08 Feb 04 11:33 I'm Cheering For TD Feb 04 15:34 Feingold Being Feingold Feb 04 16:58 Coming Out Swinging Feb 04 22:13 Colts Win Soup Bowl
Prior Months: Jan
Prior Years: 2006
GOP Proposes Death Tax Cut
Laura Brod has just announced that she will submit a bill cutting Minnesota's death tax and bringing it into conformity with the federal death tax laws. Here's some of the details:
"Now that we have a large budget surplus, it will be easy for some lawmakers to rush to judgment on how to spend this money," Brod said. "But we should not forget that this is an opportunity to cut taxes."I suspect that DFL Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark is opposed to this tax cut based on this statement:
Brod's bill would align Minnesota's tax structure with the federal government's plan by allowing a higher exemption amount. Minnesota's current exemption amount is $1 million, but Brod's bill would raise it to $2 million for individuals who die in 2007 and 2008, and $3.5 million for those dying in 2009. Brod estimates the plan would put $23.4 million into the hands of taxpayers in Fiscal Year 2008, and $31.9 million in Fiscal Year 2009.
Inflation has not been included in budget forecasts for expenditures since 2002, when the Legislature passed a bill banning its inclusion. The Governor's budget creates the misimpression that the state is swimming in surplus dollars.As I mentioned here, Mr. Anton isn't an impartial bystander. He's an advocate for higher spending, especially on social programs. I based that opinion on the Wilder Foundation's stated mission:
Many economists have questioned the exclusion of inflation in Minnesota's budget forecasts. Paul Anton, a member of Minnesota's Council of Economic Advisers and the chief economist for the research unit of St. Paul's Wilder Foundation, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that he believed that if the Legislature did not pass this bill legislators would be "making a conscious and deliberate choice to mislead the public about the true financial condition of the State of Minnesota."
To promote the social welfare of persons resident or located in the greater Saint Paul metropolitan area by all appropriate means, including:It's obvious that the DFL intends to paint a picture of a much smaller surplus than is currently reported. I find it offensive that Mr. Anton said that he believed that if the Legislature did not pass this bill legislators would be "making a conscious and deliberate choice to mislead the public about the true financial condition of the State of Minnesota."and in general the conservation of human resources by the provision of human services responsive to the welfare needs of the community, all without regard to, or discrimination on account of, nationality, sex, color, religious scruples or prejudices.
- relief of the poor
- care of the sick and aged
- care and nurture of children
- aid of the disadvantaged and otherwise needy
- promotion of physical and mental health
- support of rehabilitation and corrections
- provision of needed housing and social services
- operation of residences and facilities for the aged, the infirm and those requiring special care
My friend King addressed that here:
That is a misleading statement. The governor is following the law. The law was passed by the Legislature. Why? As I posted before, it's only a misimpression if you think a government spending program is entitled to meet the same level of activity -- not just the same level of dollars -- as was once voted. Each Legislature is therefore able to tie the hands of future Legislatures to that level of service. Who's doing the misleading?Why didn't Anton state that the legislature passed the bill that mandates surpluses be calculated this way? Is he insinuating that the law mandates that government lie to the voters? If he is, is he aware that Democrats voted for the bill, too?
The bottom line is that Democrats won't let this bill see the light of day because they don't want anyone to know that they're vehemently opposed to tax cuts. The DFL would rather increase spending on the types of programs that Mr. Anton advocates. In fact, the only tax cuts they seem to be ok with are property tax cuts. I don't think I've ever seen them advocate for lower income tax rates.
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 12:01 AM
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Vulnerable Democratic Seats in 08
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza already has an article outlining which Democratic seats are most vulnerable in 2008. I pretty much agree with him with one exception. Nowhere does Cillizza list MN-1, Gil Gutknecht's former seat. Democrats know that Tim Walz, the man that defeated Gutknecht last November, is vulnerable. Here's how the Rochester Post-Bulletin puts it (H/T MDE's Michael Broadkorb ):
"It's understandable why Republican candidates would be drawn to the flame of a congressional race, political observers note. The defeat of former GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who held the seat from 1994 to 2006, offers other Republicans a shot at the endorsement for the first time in 14 years. Moreover, Walz is in his first term, a time when an incumbent is thought to be at his most vulnerable.Putting it bluntly, Walz is a one-term wonder. He barely pulled out a victory in a year when Democrats were winning everywhere. Walz's only chance for re-election is if Republicans totally screw this nomination up, which I'm confident they won't do.
It's still pretty early to be predicting things but I'd say that the GOP will regain a bunch of the seats that they lost in 2006, especially TX-22 (Tom DeLay's old seat), FL-16 (Mark Foley's old seat), OH-18 (Bob Ney's old seat) and MN-1 (Gil Gutknecht's old seat).
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 2:30 AM
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I'm Cheering For TD
Saturday afternoon, Mitch Berg predicted a Bears blowout, something that Captain Ed correctly termed as hyperbole. Mind you, Captain Ed likely didn't mean Al Gore hyperbole but hyperbole nonetheless.
I'm picking the Colts, partly because their defense has played well since Bob Sanders returned to the lineup, partly because Peyton Manning is throwing the ball to a great trio of receivers and partly just because I've gotta cheer for Tony Dungy.
Most, if not all, of his players weren't even born when Tony Dungy first walked onto the U of M campus as a quarterback. In fact, I'd doubt that many of his current players knew that he earned his World Championship ring as a nickel back with the Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty of the 1970's.
I'm cheering for Tony Dungy because he was also Denny Green's first defensive coordinator for the Vikings. I'm cheering for Tony Dungy because he took over a pathetic Tampa Bay team that strung together 10 loss seasons as routinely as John Wooden won NCAA basketball championships at UCLA and turned them into eventual Super Bowl champions.
Mostly, I'm cheering because pro sports needs hundreds more Tony Dungys. We need more men like Tony Dungy because of his dignity, his character and his unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. In short, we need more men like Tony Dungy because he's a great role model at a time when our children look at sports figures as role models.
Everyone would have understood had Dungy walked away from football a year ago after the Colts' fantasy season came crashing down in defeat and Dungy's son committed suicide. That he didn't is testament of Dungy's resolve & his deep faith. I remember Dungy being asked about how he was handling it. In typical Dungy fashion, he simply said that it was difficult for selfish reasons but that he knew his son was with God because he had accepted Christ as his Savior.
After handling that difficult situation with that much dignity, how can you not cheer for Tony Dungy?
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:33 AM
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Feingold Being Feingold
That's the title of Salena Zito's column in this week's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It's definitely must reading if you want to understand Feingold's intellectual dishonesty. Here's an example of that dishonesty:
"I personally came up with the idea of saying, 'Look, I am the chairman of the Constitution subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. There are people out there saying that you can't use the power of the purse to cut off funding of the war, that it might be constitutionally suspect.'"I've been following Feingold a very long time. This one is easily the most dishonest statement I've ever heard him say. I haven't heard anyone say that Congress's power of the purse is "constitutionally suspect." In fact, the overwhelming majority of people say that Congress's check on presidential war-making power is the power of the purse.
I can't say that Feingold's statement surprises me, though. He's one of the worst senators in terms of being afflicted with BDS. His hatred for President Bush is nearly complete. His willingness to make these types of dishonest statements is a testimony as to what he's willing to do to undermine American victory against the lethal terrorists now in Iraq.
Here's another hint of Sen. Feingold's dishonesty:
To those outside of the Washington Beltway and progressive politics, Feingold is more familiarly known as the conjoined namesake of the campaign reform bill, McCain-Feingold. Feingold considers criticism of McCain-Feingold to be based on a ridiculous myth.That's utter nonsense. Conservatives railed against it because BCRA violates peoples' First Amendment rights. Conservatives also predicted that soft money would still be part of elections but that it would just find its way into other organizations' coffers. That's verified by the new 'reform' legislation that seeks to eliminate this money from reaching 527's. Finally, conservatives said that this was non-reform 'reform' legislation. It was hailed as reform but it didn't reform anything. PERIOD.
"The (political) right perpetrates that it did not work and it did not get rid of money in politics. Well, that was never the goal," he explains. "The bill's main purpose was to not allow members of Congress to directly raise six-figure contributions from corporations, unions or individuals, that was what the bill was about, banning party 'soft' money."
In fact, I've heard lots of conservatives say that this system made things worse because outside interest groups could now accept campaign contributions without disclosing where the contributions came from. Instead of political parties being held accountable for the soft money ads, we now have unaccountable soft money ads being run by obscure 527's.
The truth is that Feingold thinks he's a giant, a difference-maker when he isn't even a blip on history's radar screen. He'll never be a somebody because he's a hateful little man with a disgusting anti-American agenda.
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 3:35 PM
Comment 1 by USpace at 04-Feb-07 09:16 PM
Good piece here, Feingold is a raving moonbat, he's disgusting, you're linked, thanks!
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
the world is Bush's fault
.
Coming Out Swinging
John McCain's had enough of the intellectual dishonesty and he's speaking out about it, according to this AP article:
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee sought to weaken support for a resolution opposing President Bush's Iraq war strategy, saying Sunday that proponents are intellectually dishonest.Bravo, John McCain. He's right in saying that these non-binding resolutions are the equivalent of a no confidence vote. The Biden-Hagel-Warner resolution is proof that any idiot can criticize a plan. The McCain-Lieberman-Cornyn plan doesn't give the President's handling of the war a free pass but it's pro-victory, which is the most important thing in any Iraq War policy.
On the eve before a possible congressional showdown on Iraq strategy, Arizona Sen. John McCain contended the bipartisan proposal amounted to a demoralizing "vote of no confidence" in the U.S. military. The measure, he said, criticizes Bush's plan to add 21,500 troops in Iraq yet offers no concrete alternatives.
"I don't think it's appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don't want to fund it and you don't want it to go, but yet you don't take the action necessary to prevent it," said McCain, a 2008 presidential candidate.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA), called GOP efforts to block a vote on the resolution "obstructionism." Neither a Senate majority nor voters, she said, will tolerate such a delaying tactic.Other than Sen. Feingold, Senate Democrats won't challenge the President with anything more than resolutions. They know that their anti-war views don't have majority support. They know that being openly anti-victory is political suicide. they don't dare cutting off funding to the troops because the American people will understand that Democrats don't care about defeating the terrorists.
"If we can't get this done, you can be sure a month or so down the pike, there's going to be much stronger legislation," she said.
Sen. Feinstein's statements are meant to sound tough without having real teeth to them. She knows that they won't get GOP support. That means that we'd simply be right back there complaining about another GOP filibuster. Republican senators know that abandoning a pro-victory position will get them defeated the next time they're up for re-election. They know that because the activists won't show up and work hard on their re-election campaigns.
"I do believe that if you really believe that this is doomed to failure and is going to cost American lives, then you should do what's necessary to prevent it from happening rather than a vote of 'disapproval,'" McCain said. "This is a vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops who are going over there," he said, noting the proposal does not seek to cut off money for troops.Democrats can't argue that logic. In fact, they've avoided using logic throughout this debate. They won't propose cutting off funding of the troops because they know that they'd be political roadkill. That's why they've proposed these non-binding resolutions. They can be critical of the President without making a real policy statement.
That's hardly a profile in courage.
He called McCain's proposal meaningless because it offers benchmarks but does not spell out what the U.S. government will do if the Iraqi officials fail to meet them.Sen. Hagel has been critical of the war almost from Day One. He's whined about what went wrong without offering anything resembling a solution. In my opinion, Sen. Hagel is this year's Lincoln Chafee: the guy we should seek to defeat in the primaries.
"What are the consequences? Are we then going to pull out?" Hagel asked. "Are we going to cut funding? Now, that falls more in the intellectually dishonest category."
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 5:01 PM
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Colts Win Soup Bowl
In one of the most boring Super Bowls in recent years, the Bears offense defeated the Bears defense. Seriously, the Colts won 29-17 in a muddy, boring game. It's beyond me how anyone could predict a Bears victory is beyond belief. The Bears offense isn't just offensive. It's pathetic. Rex Grossman shouldn't have been a starting QB in college, much less in the Super Bowl. He clearly was in over his head.
The Bears offense wasn't the only awful performance that was turned in tonight. I had to walk away after CBS analyst Phil Simms said that the Colts defense had done a tremendous job in the playoffs. Forgive me, Phil, but it's easy to look great against a Bears offense that wouldn't be among the best offenses in major college football.
Evidence of Chicago's ineptitude was provided by a graphic halfway through the third quarter. The graphic showed Indianapolis running 68 plays to Chicago's 28. That's all you needed to know because you can't score if you don't have the ball.
It's difficult to say that Chicago was in the game much longer than the opening kickoff. The Bears offense went from just being inept to being a paint machine for the Colts. Grossman couldn't handle good snaps in the first half. Then he threw interceptions in the fourth quarter. Grossman's play was so bad that I think the Bears must jump into the free agent market for Philadelphia's Jeff Garcia.
I do want to take this time to congratulate Tony Dungy for the great job he did of keeping his team optimistic through the times when their defense didn't show up this season. He's a great coach and an even better man. Congratulations to Peyton Manning for winning his first Super Bowl championship, too.
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007 10:13 PM
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