They Don’t Like It When It’s Them
Jan 26, 2015 Commentary
The police have no problem putting GPS trackers on cars without a warrant. They have no problem targeting people who have a concealed carry permit when they drive through an anti gun state. They have no issue using special devices to look through walls without a warrant (and mislead in their reports) and they have no problem driving around with license plate readers to see if you are a wanted person. They have no issue infiltrating group meetings to see what people are doing and hear what they are saying.
They always defend their actions as a matter of public safety. The logical among us would say that if this is the case then get a warrant when one is required because if it is so important the judge will agree with you.
While the police might not bat an eye at tracking you they are none too happy when they are the ones whose whereabouts are known.
There is a phone app that allows people to report, and others to read, where police officers are located.
According to a report at Yahoo, Sheriffs are campaigning to have Google turn the feature off. The police are worried that the app showing their locations make them targets for those who might want to do them harm.
There is no reported incident of that happening but officers say it is only a matter of time.
So what we have here is some officers (and how many is not disclosed in the story) upset that people are tracking them.
The thing is, they are public figures and as far as I know there is no law saying the public can’t disclose where they are. There is certainly no need for a citizen to get a warrant to track police officers.
But there is a certain document called the Constitution that protects the citizens from the actions police officers engage in each and every day.
This is not to say that some of the work they do is not important but if it is then they need to obtain warrants when those are required.
I have no sympathy for a group of people who have no issue illegally monitoring people and then whine when they are being legally tracked.
Suck it up guys. Now you know how it feels.
Then again, they might just be unhappy they are losing revenue because people know where they are and can avoid them or slow down, as the case may be.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: constitution, google, police, revenue, tracking app
Spending IS The Problem
Mar 18, 2014 Political
The reality is not that the federal government does not get enough of our money to spend, the reality is they spend too much of it. No matter how many times the government has some kind of record revenue (read more taxes coming in) it always manages to spend more than that number.
The biggest problem is that the federal government is an ever expanding entity that keeps taking on things that it should not and that it has no Constitutional basis for getting involved in. Each time government decides to add more to its plate it has to add more plates, more people, and more money. Its insatiable appetite for spending is why there is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund. Government looked at the money we paid in for retirement as a slush fund and issued worthless bonds and took the money to spend. Now it cannot pay back the money without taxing us more which, in effect, means we pay into Social Security at least twice.
Despite the terrible Obama economy the federal government took in a record amount of tax revenue during the first five months of this fiscal year. One would think that would be a good thing but the government spent more than it took in. So even with more revenue the government overspent.
Government has had a spending problem all along. When Reagan and Bush cut taxes the revenue to the Treasury went up. The government decided this meant it had more to spend and did so. The government never gave a thought to paying down the debt or balancing the budget.
[note]There are claims that Clinton balanced the budget and had a surplus. This is untrue. The revenue and expenses looked good on paper but the government did not follow the plan. The Treasury shows that we had deficits each year the budget was allegedly balanced. You can claim anything if you change the parameters after making the claim.[/note]
We are well past the time when government should be reigned in. We are well past the time where unnecessary, duplicated, and unconstitutional spending must end.
We are over 17 TRILLION dollars in debt (well over 100 TRILLION when unfunded liabilities are included) and that will go way up over the next ten years. We are in a crisis and it has to do with out of control spending.
Our government views us as an endless ATM but we are unable to pay our debt even if most of the wealth in this nation were to be confiscated. Until we get spending under control we will continue to spiral downward and when we crash it will make Greece look like a playground fight.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Don’t be Fooled By Talk Of Raising Revenue
Nov 14, 2012 Political
Democrats will talk about the fiscal cliff as if they actually care about it and then say we need to raise taxes to increase revenue. The term revenue is misleading for several reasons. First of all, revenue is income derived from business activities, usually the sale of goods to customers.
The federal government (or any level of government for that matter) does not sell goods and it does not produce anything. Therefore, government cannot gain revenue. Government extorts money from people who actually earn it and then uses that money to function. If the government used the money for only the items the Constitution authorizes then there would be few, if any, problems.
Unfortunately, government has elected itself as a big nanny over the rest of us and extorts money to pay for the nanny state. It is intent on providing cradle to grave care for people so that the elite ruling class can gain and keep power.
If the government wanted to increase “revenue” then it would lower taxes and decrease the stifling regulations that encumber business. When tax rates are lowered the amount of money that flows into the Treasury increases. This has happened each and every time tax rates have been lowered. The problems arise when all the money gained, AND THEN SOME, is spent by Congress. Like the Democrat voting process, spending is always greater than 100% of available income.
If the United States had a balanced budget and tax rates were lower the amount of money into the Treasury would increase and we could pay our bills and lower the debt which is currently at a staggering 16 TRILLION dollars.
Instead, our government will work to increase taxes. The claim is that the increases will be on the wealthy (and the definition of wealthy changes day by day) but this will not be enough to make a difference. Then, the taxes will be increased on others until everyone is taxed more and government is receiving less.
We have all seen this movie before. At no time in history have tax increases solved fiscal problems. As it is often stated, no nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
It is true that if you want more of something you subsidize it and if you want less of something you tax it. We subsidize the non productive and we are getting more of them. We tax the productive and we are getting fewer of them. If the government raises taxes on the alleged wealthy then those folks will work fewer hours and find other ways to keep from paying more in taxes.
This is the plan of the Democrats and the Obama regime. They want to collapse the system we have, blame it on capitalism and then impose Socialist methods on the population.
Socialism is a government design in which people are controlled. They are not free under this kind of government and they will never be free under it. Nations that have tried this form of rule have failed to thrive.
The Democrats do not want us to thrive. They want more and more people dependent on government so they can control them. One only needs to look at the elderly and the poor to see this. The elderly are continually threatened with the removal of Social Security and Medicare as a way to control them and the way they vote. The poor are continually threatened with the removal of welfare programs if they vote the wrong way. These methods are all designed to keep people enslaved to government.
And government wants more slaves.
People who truly need help should get it but those who depend on government (read the productive in society) for a living are irresponsible parasites that lack integrity and personal responsibility.
The best way to resolve this is to lower taxes, reduce regulatory burdens and let the private market take care of things. Put people to work and force people who live off others to go out and earn a living. That builds self esteem and pride.
Two things sorely lacking from those in the dependent class.
Related:
Baby Troll Blog
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Someone Can’t Face Reality
Dec 2, 2011 Political
I received a message via my contact page from someone using the name L-Dog. The message came from an Alaska.gov server. More specifically, it came from the Department of Administration (or through their server, anyway). This is the message I received:
So if tax cuts create jobs, where are they. We have 7 or so years of the bush [sic] tax cuts and no job growth. So stop lying.
A lie, by definition, is a deliberate attempt to deceive. Since I did no such thing, then it is not a lie. But let us explore.
The Bush tax cuts took place in 2003 and went into full force in 2004 so yes, it has been about 7 years though there were earlier tax cuts. After the Bush tax cuts, 5 million jobs were created and the revenue to the Treasury increased. This is not to say things were great because Bush was a big spender. He and Congress spent far more than we took in though now those numbers pale in comparison to Obama.
The linked chart shows that from about 2000 to 2003 revenue decreased. There are a number of reasons including 9/11 and a recession. The Clinton tech bubble was bursting as well and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 6 times from 1999-2000. From 2003 to 2007 revenues increased as a result of the tax cuts. In 2007 Democrats took control of Congress and revenues again began to decrease. We were also heading into another recession. It is also important to note that the first tax cuts of 2001 were to be phased in over several years and the economy and job production lagged in the early years.
Heritage published a report about the tax cuts and this, in part, is what that organization had to say:
In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced. Rather than expand by 36% as the Congressional Budget Office projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion.
The CBO incorrectly calculated that the post-March 2003 tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion. Revenues for 2006 came in $47 billion above the pre-tax cut baseline.
Here’s what else happened after the 2003 tax cuts lowered the rates on income, capital gains and dividend taxes:
- GDP grew at an annual rate of just 1.7% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the six quarters following the tax cuts, the growth rate was 4.1%.
- The S&P 500 dropped 18% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts but increased by 32% over the next six quarters.
- The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.
The timing of the lower tax rates coincides almost exactly with the stark acceleration in the economy. Nor was this experience unique. The famous Clinton economic boom began when Congress passed legislation cutting spending and cutting the capital gains tax rate.
In late 2007 the economy began to cool. By 2008, it entered a recession. The housing bubble burst, precipitating a financial crisis. But after 50 months of unimpeded growth, it is ludicrous to insist that the tax cuts caused the recession, let alone the global financial meltdown. Even after the Fannie and Freddie Mac-induced bust, there were still one million net jobs created during the Bush years.
So L-Dog of Alaska, the Bush tax cuts did indeed create jobs. The net gain was 1 million after a 5 million increase that was mostly wiped out by the government (read Democrat) induced trauma known as Fannie and Freddie.
Revenue increased, jobs were produced and the unemployment rate was in the 4-6 range. This happened despite a massive blow we took on 9/11.
Tax cuts, long term ones, create jobs because the private sector employers (government DOES NOT create jobs) know what to expect and are able to run their businesses accordingly. They can hire because they know what their tax burden will be. Uncertainty leads them to stop hiring and take a wait and see approach. Ronald Reagan cut taxes and he had tremendous job growth as well as increased revenue to the government.
If we could get government to stop spending what they take and then some we could get our house in order.
So, if tax cuts do not produce jobs why is Barack Obama running around claiming to be a tax cutter (he has raised them, not cut them)? Why did Democrats fight to keep the Bush tax cuts last year? They cited the problems with increasing taxes in a bad economy and how it would harm job growth so if tax cuts do not equal jobs why would they fight for the tax cuts enacted by a man they absolutely hated? Additionally, why did the Congress cut payroll taxes last year (the Social Security tax) if they thought it would not help.
A lot of things are working against any tax cuts and a major part is the out of control spending and the Keynesian economic policies that Obama embraces. You can’t keep spending money we don’t have to cure a spending problem. Tax cuts with discipline in DC will solve the problems.
When producers are taxed more it leaves them less capital to run their businesses and that means they can’t hire. When the tax situation is uncertain they are afraid to act.
So L-Dog, I hope this clears it up for you. I won’t call you a liar, just misinformed.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: alaska, Bush, department of administration, jobs, l-dog, reagan, revenue, tax cuts
Where Is Dr. Obama’s Scalpel?
Jun 26, 2011 Opinion
Barack Obama told us that John McCain wanted to take an ax to the budget and that he, Barack the Magnificent, would take a scalpel and he would go line by line in the federal budget to make cuts. Two and a half years into his first (and hopefully only) term and Obama has failed to do much cutting.
The first thing he did was raise things about 25% and then pretend that he was making cuts by backing off that number making it appear as if he cut when he was well ahead of what was taking place when he took office. In his time in office the deficit each year has been in the trillions of dollars and there is no end in sight as Democrats work hard to spend more and more to satisfy their need to continue to spend.
Democrats gain constituencies by promising free stuff which is only free to the people getting it. The rest of us must pay the bills for the free stuff Democrats give away. The Stimulus was nothing more than a nearly trillion dollar slush fund to pay off Democrat constituencies. We are in bad shape and things are continuing to decline as the so called experts act surprised at the news each month that is always “unexpected”. Perhaps if the economic news continues to be unexpected and the experts can’t understand what is going on then it is time to find real experts who know what they are doing.
Obama is telling us now that cutting is not going to solve our problems and this is his way of saying that we need to raise revenue. Raising revenue is Democrat speak for raising taxes.
Half of the workers in this country pay more than enough in taxes. The other half pays little of no taxes to the federal government and many pay no taxes and get money from the government. This is total redistribution of wealth and it is what Obama thinks is just and fair.
How about we have a fair tax code that requires ALL workers to pay a portion of their income in taxes. Close the loopholes and make everyone who earns wages pay taxes. We will increase revenue and then the people who benefit the most from Democrat wealth redistribution plans will see that things are not free.
However, the most important thing we can do is cut the spending at the federal level. Obama promised to go line by line but all he has done is expand government. Cutting is the way to go and we need an ax not a scalpel.
The only revenue problem we have is that half the workers do not pay any of the revenue. The real problem we have is a spending problem and that is where we need real change we can believe in.
Related:
We can’t just cut way to prosperity
We damn sure cannot spend our way to prosperity…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]