Taxing Churches to Pay National Debt

Our country is facing a looming financial crisis in the form of a mountainous load of debt. Only a decade ago, Clinton left us a budget surplus and was trimming our national debt. Then Bush garnered enough hanging chads to get elected, and burned up most of that surplus on tax cuts. Politically popular, but guaranteeing our nation would flirt with debt again. Then, after 9/11, having presided over the start of two wars, he felt that a national crisis was best served by reducing national income yet again at the benefit of the wealthy. Add a sweeping sellout to the drug companies for Medicare and Medicaid and yet more tax breaks for the fattest of felines, and you understand how we could have dug such a deep hole in such a short amount of time. Bush never vetoed a single spending bill. Now, at ten trillion and counting, the Bush Debt is projected to reach 17 trillion by 2017, and it is not entirely implausible that the interest owed will exceed our entire national product! And then, frankly, we're fucked!

Way to go, Dubya.

For brevity, I'll ignore the insanity of Republicans using the Bush Debt as a means of unhorsing Obama, who had nothing to do with it. Instead, I'll simply point out how the Bush Debt was partly predicated on a dangerous philosophy, known as "starve the beast." The idea is, limit the amount of money the nation takes in through taxes, and this motivates the government to cut spending. Sounds good, right? But we've seen time and again that cutting spending is easier said than done, and while Republicans often cut taxes, they seldom cut spending. For that matter, neither do Democrats. It's simply easier for a legislator to eat shards of broken glass than it is for him to vote for a spending cut in his district. So, without a significant number of politicians willing to fall on their swords, the debt goes out of control.

This is something I try desperately to explain to my more conservative friends: The beast doesn't starve. The beast borrows from China, Saudi Arabia, and India. And then the beast destroys the dollar.

So what do we do? Admit defeat when it comes to getting politicians to cut spending? I think not. There are some simple things we can do as citizens to get the debt under control. But we have to be smart enough to make sure it happens. Here's our assignment list:

1. Institute term limits. The only way to get a significant number of politicians to vote for spending cuts is to make sure that a significant number of politicians are not concerned with re-election. Term limits are the only way to accomplish this. We need to insist that this gets done. If we do nothing else, we must do this!

2. Re-institute Pay-As-You-Go. George Bush, Sr. enacted pay-as-you-go during his presidency as a means of curtailing government debt, and it worked well. What it means is, you can't propose some new spending increase unless you either propose a spending cut of equal amount elsewhere, or propose a tax increase which will pay for it entirely. Unfortunately, this measure expired in 2002, just in time for his brat kid to give away the farm! We need this rule in place again, badly. And permanently, this time.

3. Let the Bush, Jr. Tax Cuts Expire. This one's a no-brainer. In time of dire national crisis, we simply must call upon those who are financially strongest to help bear the heaviest of the burden. America's been good to the rich. It's time for them to be good back! Because if we lose the dollar, their fortunes are at risk, too, even if they've moved their investments entirely to the Euro or the Yen.

4. Line Item Veto. We gave a line item veto to President Clinton in 1996, but the Supreme Court struck it down two years later. We need to explore a way to give our president the ability to slash spending at the stroke of a pen in a way which will hold up under judicial review.

5. Legalize and Tax Cannabis. Again, a no-brainer. Our economy needs new industry, and new tax revenue at the same time. During the Great Depression, the repeal of prohibition helped to rebuild the economy. We need to end prohibition against marijuana.

6. Consider Rescinding Tax-Exempt Status On Certain Non-Charity Organizations.

It's that last item I'll consider more in depth. Specifically, should we consider taxing churches at this time?

In a way, it makes sense. Corporations, families, soldiers, stores, property owners, highway travellers, and nearly every other walk of life has to pay taxes. When it comes right down to it, even the dead pay taxes! But not a church. What makes them so damned special?

Certainly, our economy could do without greedy televangelists using their ministries as a means to sequester huge swaths of the public's money supply out of circulation! But most churches out there typically struggle just to keep the lights on. One likely consequence of church taxation might be that little churches would instantly go belly-up, leaving only big-box mega-churches in many urban areas.

Another problem is Constitutional. Congress cannot pass any law favoring any religion or denying it's free practice. Certainly, taxing a particular behavior acts as a strong disincentive. Thus, by taxing churches, Congress effectively denies the free practice of religion. Put another way, there's no tax for not going to church. Hence, people are encouraged to be atheist or agnostic. Or at least, discouraged from starting their own independent ministry.

What about the new Islamic Center near Ground Zero? I'll bet lots of people would like to see that taxed! But then, we'd be playing favorites again. If we can tax a Mosque, we have to be able to tax a chapel.

I suppose some people are resentful that churches sometimes get politically active having paid no taxes. It's anything but fair for those who don't put money into the hat to try and have a say in how it gets spent! But there would be an unintended consequence in forcing the issue. As it is, churches try to walk a fine line between being politically active, and politically neutral. This is because there is a law on the books, known as the Johnson Amendment (1954), which states that any non-profit organization cannot be politically active, or else it loses it's tax-exempt status. So churches try to remain politically neutral in theory, while being subtly active in practice, particularly on issues such as abortion or homosexuality. So long as they don't endorse political candidates, they are reasonably safe. However, if we taxed those churches, they might see this as a green light to become community-based political action groups, and preachers would begin endorsing candidates openly from the pulpit. This would be a consequence I would not want to live with!

So, no, I don't think Churches should be taxed. There are too many negative consequences, including one I missed earlier, which is that if Churches get taxed, so likely do humanist and atheist groups, who barely have a budget as it is. However, I do think that the Johnson Amendment needs to be strengthened. Churches should not even think of being subtle in political activism. In this time of national monetary crisis, we can't have ministries who pay no taxes campaigning, even quietly, for any "faith-based initiative" tax dollars. True, this is only a cosmetic solution to the problem of our national debt, but for important reasons concerning the "culture war," the message needs to be sent that non-profit means non-political. If you want to be in the game, you pay your admission fee just like everybody else. And if you are a tax-exempt church, it needs to be understood that such exemption comes at an all-important price:

You fundies stay the fuck out of politics!

Eric

Stem Cell Research Funding Blocked!?!

Oh, shit, they're at it again.

Those who would block embryonic stem cell research are once again rearing their ugly heads, out to sacrifice the lives of the adults that are, in order to save the children that never were.

This past Monday, a federal judge blocked the efforts of the Obama administration to expand ESC research, and the reasons for this blocking have me flabbergasted. You see, I (like all of you) had been under the impression that Obama had reversed the backward and scientifically illiterate meddling of the Bush administration on this issue. But apparently, that isn't the case, as the mass media failed to inform us.

You see, in 2005, during the Bush Jr. years, a bill somehow managed to get through Congress which banned federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. That bill, unfortunately, still stands. What the Obama administration and the National Institute of Health did to get around this, was to argue that federal funding for the research could be done, provided the embryos themselves were provided through private funding.

Not so fast, says a group known as Nightlight Christian Adoptions. According to them, the intent of Congress was to block federal funding of stem cell research altogether, not just the funding of the stem cells. Nightlight Christian Adoptions, by the way, is a group which buys up the excess embryos from fertility clinics and offers them up for adoption to Christian families.

Alas, it looks like these guys might have a case. Congress may have fucked up, but they did get the law on the books, and that's that. But this is just the sort of thing we might expect when our Trophy President does something like take the correct stand in an incorrect way. Rather than tackling the issue head-on and pushing through a bill reversing this previous act, he decided to try an end-around, probably hoping to undo the legislation after the onset of his second term (when all presidents decide to finally take on the tough issues with impunity). It may have worked for a little while, but now the loophole is closing.

This continues the general trend of those on the left being cursed with a limpness of spine while those on the right currently having vertebrae which remain quite turgid, particularly in the neck region. Instead of dealing with the issue now, while we have the power in the House and Senate to do it, we risk putting off this crucial issue until it's too late, when economic discontent has convinced those with little or no money to vote for the party of the wealthy -- just to unhorse the incumbent.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council called this judge's ruling "a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration and its attempt to circumvent sound science and federal law.

I have pointed out in previous posts how the brain, rather than conception, defines the being, and that's scientifically right. How dare this theocratic bastard falsely claim the ground of "sound science!" If ever there were a time for those within the scientific community to come down from the ivory towers and go to war, it's now, lest the emollient left and inflexible-as-a-crustacean right manage to throw away yet another generation of sick people to the ravages of Alzheimer's, spinal injuries, and cancer -- to name just a few maladies ESR promises to cure. Scientists have typically not spoken up for fear of losing their federal funding, but with the funds taken away regardless, what is there really to lose?

Nightlight claims that the Obama administration's guidelines on embryonic stem cell research will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption.

Interesting. Since when was that any of the government's business?

They have two scientists who work with adult stem cells as part of their lawsuit. As such, they are also saying that ESR increases the competition with adult stem cells for limited government funds.

Hang on, isn't greater competition in the free marketplace a good thing?

This just goes to show, when it comes to limiting big government, "conservatives" don't really believe in it. They want big government even more than liberals do when it comes to their religious agenda.

Frankly, folks, that does it. I'm pissed off! I've put off the publication of my book dealing with this issue for far too long. I intend to raise the hue and cry on this issue. And if you think that the reason I'm doing so has partly to do with the fact that I'm currently living with a mother whose Alzheimer's developed after Bush blocked the stem cell research which might have saved her, well, all I can say is...

You're damned well right I am!

Eric

Tori, Women's Rights, and Porn

Ah, yes! Once again I see how Facebook loves to ignore my blog posts, until at last I post something which is highly critical of their absent-minded bot, and three posts appear at once. I would be inclined to simply remove the offending news-feed program and simply post things by hand, except that Facebook has moved this feature to some dark corner of the technosphere, where none but experienced staffers can find it. Ah, such sweet betrayal.

Anyway, I was listening to Tori Amos the other day, and thinking about some of my dearest friends who enjoy her music along with me, such as my sister, or my former neighbor, Marie. And suddenly it occurred to me that one of the issues I'm most passionate about, namely porn vs. women's rights, is something I haven't blogged about yet. Strange that I've missed this! But here it is, and I hope it's not misjudged.

My problem isn't with porn itself. What really bugs me is how the industry is run. Over and over again we see poor girls who are sucked in by evil thugs, given enough cocaine to make them do whatever they're required to do on camera, and then spat out again, with barely a couple thousand dollars for their dignity -- and that's if they're lucky. Many young women get nothing after they've bared everything.

I, for one, think this shit needs to stop! There are a few enterprising women who have shown the ideal -- Nina Hartley and Jenna Jameson, just for examples. These are women who control their own bodies as their own franchises. But they've been lucky enough to have withstood the slings and arrows of one of the most trap-ridden industries, and also been smart enough to have navigated the reef-filled waters of "The Lifestyle" as it's called. Most are not so fortunate. But in my book, all should be.

Many say that women are belittled and demeaned in pornography. Bullshit, that. Women are worshiped in porn. And the tragedy of it is that these goddesses, in spite of being worshiped by hundreds of thousands of (very!) happy men, do not reap the well-earned financial rewards of this stardom. The money instead goes to the cocaine-dealing, hairy-bodied thugs, who are about as popular as BP, and as ugly as Ron Jeremy.

What we need are some laws which protect the women who strip down and/or have sex on camera for a living. These women need guaranteed compensation for what they do, in clear-cut terms of percentage of product sales (not profit on sales, or the books get cooked), especially if and when footage becomes re-syndicated in a new compilation. At least 75% of that money should go to these women. They've earned it!

Unfortunately, we are so sexually immature and backwards in this nation that this may never happen. Rights for porno women? No politician will even touch that! And because of this, our own prudishness ensures that thousands of young women get taken advantage of, used up, and cast aside again, penniless, likely hooked on drugs, and without hope. ("Children of the Night" as they're called by a cause my friend Marie and I both support.)

If we ever stop being such Puritans, and develop a positive, healthy attitude towards sex (like every adult ought to have anyway), we can start seeing porn stars in a positive light, especially when they turn to the Law. Then we can finally make sure that the profits of the porn industry go to its TRUE stars -- those young women whom we all adore. And that the money stays out of the hands of useless middlemen whose presence is scarcely needed.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Eric

Mosque Near Ground Zero

The new 13-story Islamic center, which is set to be built just two blocks north of ground zero where Islamic extremism destroyed the twin towers, just cleared a final hurdle recently. the building needs to modify a historic landmark structure, and the approval for this was voted in, 9-0.

This has ignited tempers all over New York, and indeed, the entire world. I therefore thought I'd weigh in on it, since, as usual, people's hearts and minds are in the wrong place.

First, let's understand right off that the debate is in the wrong place. It should not be we, the American public, who are arguing over this Mosque-slash-Islamic-Center. As far as We The People are concerned, such debates are already over. Religious freedom is our founding principle, and that's that. Muslims may build a Mosque whenever, and wherever, they like. The right is theirs. Period. And in a land of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and a free market economy, that's the way it should be.

The debate ought to be among the Muslims!

Yes, the Muslims have the right to build their Mosque near ground zero. But FUCK what a bad P.R. move! Terry Pratchett's fictional engineer, "Bloody Stupid Johnson," could not have designed it worse! There should not be one, NOT ONE, Muslim in favor of this travesty! Every Mohammedan should be in near-riot outrage stage over allowing this big, fat, middle finger to be erected at every New Yorker, and the entire U.S. These Muslim leaders should be asked to step down. These Immams should be defrocked. Any other Muslims behind this should be -- whatever the Mohammedan equivalent of excommunicated is.

So where, oh where, are the enraged Muslims?!

According to the New York Times, certain moderate Muslims are showing "some ambivolence" about the choice of this location.

SOME AMBIVOLENCE?!?!

Okay, I won't join with those who are trying to get legislative and civic leaders to violate religious freedom in order to stop this Center from getting built. But I WILL join with them in voicing my own freedom of speech, and calling this an outrage, an insult, and a deliberately-aimed spit in the face of the families of lost loved ones on 9/11. The sheer stupidity of this is something to behold, and the universality of the myopia among Muslims is staggering. If the popularization of Islam in the West were to be likened to a ship, then it's captain is Peter "Wrong-Way" Peachfuzz! (Go brush up on your Rocky & Bullwinkle, if you don't follow.)

I'll admit it, I would probably be one of those legislators who approved the measures needed to allow this building to be erected. Why? Because Mayor Bloomberg is partially right, we need to show the Islamic world that America stands, if nothing else, for religious tolerance. But the Center will forever be for non-Muslims a wart upon Islam's face. It's spire will be it's first great coffin-nail. It's minaret, a wooden stake through the heart of this vampire-esque religion. These Muslims in New York have raised a Jim-Jones-like glass of poisoned Kool-Aid to their lips.

And the beautiful tragedy of it is, that they don't even realize it.

Eric

The Banker's Paradox

I'm currently reading a book called "The Mind of the Market" by the always brilliant Michael Shermer. In it, he outlines the way humans think about their own personal economic interests and how that influences societal trends. It's a remarkable book, which I'd recommend strongly to anyone. But he opened with some interesting thoughts, which I'd like to expound upon, having to do with what's called the "banker's paradox."

The banker's paradox is this: Say you're a banker with a limited amount money to lend. Do you lend it to poorer people, who are greater credit risks, and take a high gamble that they won't be able to pay you back? Or do you lend to richer people, who are low credit risks, and take a safe bet that they will pay you back? If you are like most people, you'll want to take the safer investment with your money. Thus, the money loans tend to go to the rich, while the poor who need it the most can't get loans. The rich get money for start-up businesses, while the poor are denied their fair shot at opportunity. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Only a government program can circumvent this trend by taking on the risks banks cannot. But this is not due to any malice on the part of the banking industry towards the poor, nor is it done out of any desire to safeguard the rich. It is merely individual bankers being smart with their money, just as any of us would be with our own checkbooks.

The Banker's Paradox, writes Shermer, can be translated via evolution into a general understanding of altruism. Why should one engage in altruism: that is, why risk the reproductive success of one's genes in order to help the reproductive success of someone else's genes? If we risk our own reproductive success to help someone else's reproductive success, and they don't repay in kind later on, then we've lost our reproductive success for nothing. So here again, we see the Banker's Paradox, but in a different form. Why should I invest in my neighbor?

Analyzers of evolution have traditionally taken two paths to answer this question: One, they cite kin selection: that is, favoring those who are our children, or those closely related to us, as a means of enhancing one's own genetic success. And two, reciprocal altruism: "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." But this is too simplistic. We see right away that there is a sort of "altruism credit rating" where one can decide whether the person being helped is truly worthy of our support. If such a person is a "fair weather friend," who won't help us if things get rough, we might tend not to help that person. And if the person is seen to be a loyal friend, who helps us even in times of trouble, we might tend to help that person more. And so this altruism credit rating helped to develop human society as it emerged from a hunter-gatherer state into an agrarian, and later, civilized, one.

Shermer writes that evoluion "would have selected for adaptations to work around the Banker's Paradox dilemmas, including selecting us to (1) seek recognition from our fellow group members for our trustworthiness and reliability, (2) cultivate those attributes most desired by others in our group, (3) participate in social activities that recognize and reinforce such prosocial attributes, (4) avoid social activities that lead to untrustworthy actions and therefore a negative reputation, (5) notice similar attributes of trustworthiness in others, and (6) develop the ability to discriminate between true and fair-weather friends." This, taken from earlier insights from some earlier writers named Tooby and Cosmides, is how Shermer reckons that an evolved psychology comes about. If you are valuable to someone else, someone else will take a strong interest in your welfare. In turn, their interest in your well-being makes those individuals more valuable to you. "The fact that they have a stake in you means you have a stake in them," as the author cites.

And here is where my thought processes digress from Shermer's, because I can immediately see one consequence of these facts: If one wants to dramatically increase reciprocal altruism, all one has to do is wrap superstitions around them which influence people to help one's interests and not harm them. That means that any beliefs regarding the gods would be incorporated into assisting behaviors deemed desirable, and deterring behaviors considered undesirable. "Do X, Y, or Z, even if you don't feel like doing it, and the gods will be pleased. Do them not, and the gods will become angry." Eventually, the belief in an afterlife (probably already invented long before this stage of human history) gets recruited for this purpose. Do those things which please the gods, and you go to a happy afterlife. Do those things which displease them, and you will have an unhappy afterlife.

It's easy to see that those societies who developed the most successful superstitions would have the most cohesive societies. This, in turn, would increase their survival potential. At first, this might seem to be a good thing. But it has a dire consequence. Those deemed not part of the "inner circle" are considered unworthy of support, regardless of their true merit. The results are well known: Wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades, inquisitions, and other persecutions of all sorts.

But religions were not the only superstitions to try to encourage altruism. Often, we got a "winning feeling" about someone, and ended up sticking to that person, because that feeling helped reinforce mutual survival. But hundreds of thousands of years of that winning feeling being an asset have turned it into a detriment. Just as a craving for sugar was a survival trait in a sugarless environment, and today is a detriment in a sugar-saturated world, so that "winning feeling" has turned into a craving for that which is harmful to us. We hold on to stocks which we ought to sell. We continue to gamble, even though the casino always eventually wins. We buy name-brand, even though generic is cheaper. We remain in the Catholic Church, even though it abuses our children.

And now, that "winning feeling" has so infested the Muslims of the East in their war against the democracy of the West, that it has many in it who will forfeit their own life in order to snuff out others. This is the Banker's Paradox turned backwards: Instead of investing genetic success to help others, it sacrifices one's genetic success permanently in order to eliminate the genetic success of as many others as possible, because those others are deemed by the superstition (wrongly, of course) to be non-altruistic. It's as if the banker decided that rather than lend his money, that he would spend it on gasoline to burn as much of other people's money as he could.

We turned to superstitions in our past to augment the altruistic behavior which was already in our best interests. We had done just fine without superstition before then, but discovered that the belief structures gave our societies an added boost, which enabled our cultures to spread far and wide. We let that "cultural conquest" go to our heads, and embraced it as sacrosanct - as unquestionable as our mother's love.

But we were wrong.

That same structure, which was once a beneficial supplement, has turned itself into a detrimental ball and chain. Capital interests will forever synergize with psychological beliefs to trick consumers into buying useless or outright fraudulent product. And not only that, but we are living in the age of post-conventional warfare. Never again will armies meet one another in battle. All-out war means total annihilation in the nuclear age. All wars will now be ones of attrition, where standing armies try in vain to put down some variation of guerrilla warfare. And that guerrilla warfare will always try to thwart democracy by frightening voters into voting their way. These modern-day enemies will target the women and children first - because they must.

Thus, the supplements of old - religion, nationalism, and credulity, are now our greatest enemies. We must defeat them, before they seize the already-present technology and defeat us.

Eric

Unemployment Benefits and Taxing of the Rich

I love being an independent political thinker.

Although most people would classify me as a liberal, and I think of myself as mostly a progressive libertarian, the truth is that I do my best to listen to both sides. Well, except Glenn Beck. That asshole pisses me off far too much.

So what I see going on right now is precious: a classic example of where both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. Conservative Republicans have declared that the national debt is a priority crisis, and have moved to block additional deficit spending for unemployment benefits. Simultaneously, they've proposed funding unemployment benefits with stimulus money, essentially cutting spending elsewhere in order to pay for the additional spending. Democrats, on the other hand, have been pushing for an extension to unemployment benefits in spite of it being an increase in deficit spending, arguing that this is an emergency measure which is needed immediately to aid our economic crisis. For now, it seems the Democrats have won, having passed their unemployment benefits bill, with Republicans swearing that they'll make them pay for it come November.

What is so very interesting is how the politicos are posturing themselves around it. Our trophy president has pointed out that a partisan minority is blocking aid to those who need it the most, and he's correct. Republicans, by contrast, are saying that our deficit and debt are simply too large, and we must prioritize doing something about it now, and they're correct. Somewhere, there's got to be room to see the merits of both sides. I believe I do.

What cracks me up about all this is how Republicans are almost right. They've got a good idea, saying that additional unemployment benefits should come by cutting spending elsewhere. They're quite correct in saying that we need to eliminate our deficit and pay down the national debt. These are good values, and need to be championed by all concerned. But somehow, conservatives think that the spending which should be cut ought to come from stimulus money. In other words, in order to increase spending to help the economy, we must cut what we're spending to help the economy! In other words, we must rob Peter to pay Peter!

What cracks me up about the opposite side of the political spectrum is how the Democrats are also almost right. Yes, it is a crisis situation, but sooner or later will come the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or, in this case, the dollar that breaks the greenback. Democrats are concerned about this, but not nearly as much as they need to be.

Now, it's been suggested on Capitol Hill already that what needs to happen, if we're to talk about cutting spending elsewhere, is for something other than stimulus money to be cut. What follows is a clusterfuck of competing suggestions, of which none emerge as winner. Fuck that! Here's my list of skull-bangingly obvious suggestions on where and how to cut money.

1. Admit that Osama Bin Laden is probably dead. Make it a public announcement, and challenge the asshole to prove us wrong. He's almost certainly dead in reality. So by doing this, and showing that Al Quaeda's leader is a ghost, we can pull out, and avoid spending that money. The Afghan war cost 55 billion last year, and will cost 72 billion this year. So, we end that war, save 35 billion, spend 34 of that billion to help the jobless, and reduce the deficit by a billion. Simple, huh?

2. I hate to keep harping on this (actually, check that -- no I don't!), but something like 15 billion is uselessly spent on a pointless drug war, trying to stop what cannot be stopped. Let's turn that 15 billion going out into money coming in. I'd argue that this would increase tax revenue by half a trillion or more -- enough to pay for healthcare, jobless benefits, and an elimination of the deficit, all at a single stroke. Shit, what are we waiting for?!

3. Let the Bush tax cuts expire.

Okay, regarding that last one, I'm not one of these "stick it to the rich" people. Hell, I think Republicans are damn well right to insist on lower taxes. But the best way to ensure that you, the average American, have low taxes is to make sure that the wealthiest 1% don't shirk their taxpaying responsibilities! Because if they do, the only one to make up the difference is YOU! Yes, the rich pay most of the tax revenue regardless, but we're not talking about percentage of tax revenue -- we're talking about their percentage of non-earned income. Anything else is bullshit and noise. But let's not do so in order to "put the screws" on those who are successful financially. Taxes are a duty, not a punishment, and the only reason we ask them to pull more weight is because they are stronger.

A delicate balance needs to be struck here. And this balance is better decided by economists than by legislatures. But it goes like this: Tax the rich too much, and they tend not to hire as many people. Or worse, take their employment interests away to other countries. The wealthy individuals, as well as corporations, are the primary job-makers (for better or worse), and we have to act in a way that ensures the maximum number of jobs get created by them. But tax the rich too little, and then too much of the money supply gets sucked away from the lower and middle class, resulting in depression. This is because the government, for all it's ills, is the primary means of siphoning the money supply away from the wealthiest people and getting it to the poorest. Whatever else a government may be there for, it needs to be there at least for equality of opportunity. So we need to be Goldilocks when it comes to taxing the rich. Not too much, not too little, but just right.

And in case you didn't get where I was going with all that, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans made it so that we were taxing too little. Even Alan Greenspan agrees that the Bush tax cuts should expire.

It's been said that our government has no cause for denying unemployment benefits after it spent so much money bailing out giant mega-banks and large corporations. It was argued then that these businesses were "too big to fail." But when the working stiff who can't find a job is on the line, suddenly, that's not as important? No, the American people are "too big to fail" every bit as much as a mega-bank or a giant corporation. Let's bail them out!

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves in blaming certain legislators, mostly Republicans, for the big corporate bailouts. Most of the TARP money given to the big banks has been paid back, with interest. Meaning the government actually made money on the deal. Since the government was asserting control over paying of salaries and dividends, these entities were more willing to pony up the cash than hand over the reins. (Maybe that's the real secret to taxation of the ultra-rich.) But there's still blame to go around for turning a no-deficit, debt-paying-down government budget into a trillion-dollar runaway stagecoach. That's primarily a Republican fault, especially given that party's approach to fighting terror, which is to throw money at the problem. After fighting to prevent Bush's tax-cuts for the wealthy from expiring, and endeavoring to make them permanent, these clowns have some nerve getting in the way of helping the poor and the unemployed on the grounds of lessening the deficit!

Yet the cause is still noble, in spite of the knife wound inserted firmly into our backs. The deficit is a ticking time-bomb, and the debt an increasingly large ball-and-chain. We simply must find a way to deal with it. And if Republicans have finally taken up this cause, good for them. Granted, they should have done so during the Bush years, but we can welcome home the prodigal son, and forgive the penitent sinner. I give them a clean slate. (Not my vote, though.)

And for Democrats, it's time to stop being so damned timid with what needs to be done. All the momentum that had been built up by conservatives leading up to the midterm elections has now been blown on the worst possible tactical error, as those of us fellow Americans who needed help the most were instead made into a political football for nearly two months. It's time to end the wars in nations where we've already done all we can. It's time to make the tax code fair again, and pay off the national credit card. It's time to put all energies towards rebuilding our economy, and attracting more industry. It's time to make our nation free, and put an end to useless, anti-American prohibitions. Do that, and do it now! And if you lose your majority after November, then at least you seized your opportunity!

Eric

Global Warming E-Mailers Are Cleared!

Oh, is this news story ever under-reported! Remember the big hullabaloo last winter over the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, and the e-mails that a hacker was able to find and publish to the world? At the time, this seemed to indicate that the climate change researchers were trying to cover up or fudge their data in a way which showed global warming was happening, when in fact it wasn't. Not long afterward, "Snowpocalypse" hit the East Coast, and conservative pundits were calling global warming a hoax more loudly than ever before.

Well, guess what? The third and final independent investigation into that matter by Muir Russell found that the conduct of the CRU scientists were solid in their conclusions. Although the scientists were sometimes lax in being open with their documents (they argue, quite rightly, that this was due to the excessively large number of frivolous requests for information), the investigation found that the conclusions drawn were still fundamentally sound. Global warming is real.

Now, with massive heat wave after massive heat wave covering the nation, it seems clear that all those claiming global warming was a hoax only a few months ago clearly had a premature brain ejaculation.

Here's where we get to see just how truly "fair and balanced" Fox News is. Let's see how frequently this news item gets covered. True fairness and balance dictates that this news item should be broadcast with the same intensity as the former one, along with an abject apology for making it appear that this news story was anything other than a big misunderstanding. So far, I not only don't see Fox News retracting or apologizing, I don't even see MSNBC taking the opportunity to rub this one in their face -- a sure sign that Fox isn't talking about it, since they tend to dictate the talking points Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann discuss on their shows.

There's a great cartoon that illustrates global warming best. A scientist is talking about the need for green energy and an end to fossil fuels, and a detractor stands up and says, "Yeah, but what if global warming ends up being a big hoax, and we make a better society, free ourselves of foreign oil, and stabilize our economy for nothing?"

That just says it all, doesn't it? If it's a win-win, we ought to do it regardless.

Ah, well. Let's hope more bloggers like me refuse to let this story die. The climate scientists' e-mails are exonerated! Spread the word!

Eric