Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Did The Wizard log in as Jon? I sort of like it!

[Ghengis Jon]

That is a low blow sir. Very low.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Did The Wizard log in as Jon? I sort of like it!

Jon's is one solution.

I like it as well.

I use to joke with my kids when they were old enough to understand such things that certain kinds of law breakers should be sent to large camps encircled with gigantic walls and covering thousands of acres, say in Nebraska, where the only supplies provided to them were basic tools and perhaps some seeds. On your own mother-fucker. Figure it out.

A lot like Jon's solution accept more in the American tradition of rugged individualism.

[Ghengis Jon]

It doesn't get much more rugged than Mogadishu.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well, I mean, it makes sense, at least superficially. But so do a lot of policies that might bump up against Constitutional limits. The question is how seriously you take the Constitution and the Constitutional process. Constitutionally, no Amendment is absolute. We have, e.g., examples of speech that isn't protected by the First Amendment. So, there's room to carve out some thing -- truly automatic weapons, e.g. However, I think the leeway ends somewhere around there.

To the macro policy question, I believe that as the number of guns has increased the number of murders in the US has decreased.

* As gun ownership has gone up, murders have gone down

* As gun control laws have increased, murders have gone down

* As the economy has improved & unemployment has gone down, murders have gone down.

I think we probably agree on which of these three nuggets has the great correlation/causation

[Da Geezer]

How do you figure that repealing the estate tax, or reducing the pass through tax rate follows "traditional Democrat [sic] economics"?

What I meant was that taken as a whole, the individual tax rearrangement concedes the point of class warfare by not only keeping the 39.6% rate, but by adding another jump to 45.6% for income over $ 1,000,000. It also increases tax credits substantially, so that the lowest half of filers will have another entitlement being sent to them through the tax code.

The two specifics that you raise are points well taken. The estate tax cut will help far more Dems than Reps, because there are simply more of the top 1% that vote Dem. But I'll grant your point that doing away with the death tax is Republican orthodoxy.

If you read the explanations for the pass-through 25% rate, you will find what the committee calls "guardrails". They are only going to allow the 25% rate for business income less the fair market value of the owners' time. They expect that each business will have a proportion of net income that is allocatable to what would be salary for the owner, and another that would be "profit" for the business. Only the profit gets the break, but the recordkeeping for determining the ratios will be massive. This is again a Dem thing, or maybe it is more correct to say that code simplification is a Rep thing, and this certainly is not that.

Remember, supply-siders want tax cuts to stimulate growth. The corporate cut clearly does that. IMO, the change in the individual code just makes it more complicated and gives more largess to that segment of society that should be encouraged to go to work.

[Jeff Buchanan]

* As gun ownership has gone up, murders have gone down

* As gun control laws have increased, murders have gone down

* As the economy has improved & unemployment has gone down, murders have gone down.

I'd be careful with the application of these stats to the problem of the kinds of shootings we've seen in the last couple of months especially if you are trying to argue for the position that no changes to gun laws in the US are necessary. Are you? I'm not sure.

The kind of shit perpetrated in Las Vegas and Texas is way different than some random idiot running into a 7-11 and shooting the clerk with a 38 for 90 bucks in the cash register.

[Da Geezer]

All that aside, the issue that is of most concern to me is, of course, a local issue. Our school district wants to build a shit-ton of new schools. They're asking for a staggering $143M, which will mean a very real $1000 tax increase for me. Very torn on it. Usually I like to vote down the first ask and make them come back for it. This time I inexplicably voted yes. And my kids will be basically be out of school by the time their done. Feeling dirty.

Well, if it is any consolation, your property values are directly related to the perceived quality of your schools. You have said here that you live where there are good schools.

The problem is that the $ 143M capital expansion can be done for about half that amount in Michigan. Don't know about Ohio.

[Da Geezer]

Jeff: You sound like some Brits I ran across this weekend. We were talking politics, and eventually, gun control came up.

The Founders were quite specific. One reason for a broad 2nd Amendment was that they had just gone through a forcible change in government, and they wanted the new government to be limited by the possibility of a revolution. It really doesn't matter what you may define as "common sense" or modern realities. As Talent says, if you don't like the 2nd Amendment, change it through the amendment process. But the Founders felt it necessary that the citizens have enough armament to revolt.

Just remember Lenin said there were three predicates for a dictatorship to arise:
Control over the educational system.
Control over the health system.
Removing weaponry from the citizenry.

[CGVT]

Why can't I own a Bazooka?

I mean the 2nd amendment and all that... AmIright?

[The Oracle]

Nope, only muzzies and muskets, just and only like the founders intended.

[AlabamAlum]

Right, and freedom of speech is just speech, no internet, TV, or radio.

[SeattleLionsFan]

An interesting note I saw about VAGov today. Northam and Gillespie spilt exactly evenly among voters whose #1 issue is guns. I can only assume that means there were a similar number of ANTI-gun voters as NRA type voters.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Only about 1 in 8 Virginia voters thought immigration was a their top issue. GIllespie won those handily. But almost 40% cited healthcare as the top issue and Northam won those overwhelmingly.

Elsewhere, Maine passed a referendum to expand Medicaid 59-41%. Gov LePage has vetoed legislation five times doing the same thing. Not sure what avenues he has now

[Dr. Strangelove]

Keep an eye on the Brits today...big political scandal brewing