Month: March 2007

Usual Suspect Strikes Again in Florida Tax Scheme

Trish

Florida taxpayers have paid a consultant $40,000 so far to tell them to cut wasteful tax spending. This could only be brought to us by that great brain trust, Republican state legislators.

Donna Arduin, former advisor to Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is at it again

To date, the consultant has produced 35 pages of deliverables for her fee — that’s $1,143 per page. Fifteen of those pages were an early draft of a report that was finalized at 16 pages, plus three pages of projections under various tax scenarios.

And not just any consultant, either.

Donna Arduin, former advisor to Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is at it again, according to investigative reporter Shirish Date (pronounced DAH-tay).

Arduin…is a partner in a consulting firm with Arthur Laffer – as in the Laffer Curve, the justification of President Reagan’s massive tax cuts in 1981 – and Stephen Moore, former head of the anti-tax Club for Growth.

Florida is paying the firm of Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics $10,000 a month under a six-month contract with the state House for Arduin’s service, which so far has included delivery of a 16-page treatise that argues that taxes on wealth are bad for the economy while taxes on consumption are good…

[House Speaker Marco] Rubio spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin said Arduin also has given oral advice to Rubio and other House leaders on numerous occasions…

Arduin did not return phone calls for this article.

Rubio, on Arduin’s advice, has proposed that Florida do away with property taxes and instead up the state sales tax. And up it. And up it.

The plan is so bad that the St. Petersburg Times said, “Better ideas have been drawn up on cocktail napkins as bartenders served a final round.”

Others are more specific.

“It’s the same old discredited nonsense of supply-side economics,” said Brice Nissen, a Florida International University professor and head of the Center for Labor Research and Studies there. “It would be a massive giveaway to the most wealthy.”

Ed Montanaro, formerly the state’s chief economist and now a professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin, said most government economists prefer to spread tax sources across income, wealth and transactions to keep the revenue stream as stable as possible…

“This is an ideological shift, not a pragmatic one,” Montanaro said of Arduin and Rubio’s new proposal. “Those boring little details that ideologues don’t often have patience for are the difference between effective, efficient government and chaotic government.”

Date is also an author, and his latest book is JEB: America’s Next Bush.

Former Writer for Professional Homophobe Group Sees the Light on Gay Rights

Jon Ponder

After Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace came out of the closet two weeks ago as a proud homophobe, telling an interviewer that he believes gay people, including gay servicemembers, are “immoral,” the general was the target of a barrage of criticism from the left — as well as from one lone voice on the right.

“As I studied the Bible, I found that the word ‘sodomite’ that was used in Corinthians and Romans referred not to all homosexuals, but largely to the promiscuous behavior of the Roman/Greek bathhouses and the use of boy prostitutes.”
— Joe Murray

Joe Murray is a former staff writer for the American Family Association, an anti-gay organization with a multimillion-dollar budget based in Mississippi. In Murray’s response to Pace, he wrote:

This is not a political situation, but instead it is a situation where a high ranking official made comments that judged individuals, not ideas. Pace singled out gay soldiers during a time of war and told these men and women that they were immoral. His comments, as a military official, were over the line and not defensible.

This caught the attention of our friend Pam Spaulding, editor of Pam’s House Blend, who contacted Murray and asked to interview him. Murray agreed. The result is a very interesting read that gives hope to cynics like myself, who believe religious rightwingers are so invested in their fantastical beliefs that they can never be reclaimed.

Here is an excerpt, but you really should read the entire interview:

[…]

If Bush Had Macro-Managed War, Veto of Emergency Funding Would Not Be an Issue

Jon Ponder

In all the hot Rovian rhetoric Pres. Bush is spouting about vetoing the Democrats’ emergency supplemental war spending bill, the fundamental fact that it is an “emergency supplemental” is routinely overlooked.

Bush complains about the Democrats “micro-managing” the war, but if he had “macro-managed” it, “emergency” funding would not be necessary.

As he enters the fifth year of his war in Iraq, why are emergency supplementals still necessary? If he were competent — and honest — he would have included the cost of fighting the war as a line item in the annual budget he sends to Congress.

Bush complains about the Democrats “micro-managing” the war, ignoring the fact that if he had macro-managed it, “emergency” funding would not be necessary.

Speaking to a friendly crowd at the National Cattlemans Beef Association in Washington, the president responded yesterday to the Senate’s version of the supplemental by threatening a veto, and making the contorted assertion that if he kills funding for the war, the public will blame the Democrats.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response was a beautifully crafted short statement that put politely put the president in his place:

Calm down with the threats.There is a new Congress in town. We respect your constitutional role; we want you to respect ours. This war must end. The American people have lost faith in the President’s conduct of the war. Let’s see how we can work together. This war is diminishing the strength of our military, not honoring our commitment to our veterans, and not holding the Iraqi government accountable.

In a reference to Bush’s increasingly apoplectic responses to confrontations from Congress, the Speaker also advised the president to “take a breath.”

Bush Embroiled in Belgium Envoy Crisis, Blames ‘Politics’

Buck Banks

Although our country is at war in Iraq, the United States will have to continue to carry on without diplomatic leadership in Belgium after President Bush announced today he was withdrawing his nomination of Sam Fox to the post of ambassador to the Benelux nation. The reason?

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush believes Fox is qualified to serve as ambassador but withdrew the nomination “because of politics.”

Oooh, politics — that old bugaboo that sometimes gets in the way of George Bush getting what he wants, except when it helps him get what he wants. In this case, however, it wasn’t politics so much as Missouri moneybags Fox’ decision to financially back a political loser — those nasty Swift Boat Veterans who fought so long and dirty against Sen. John Kerry’s bid for president in 2004.

‘Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth.’
— Sen. John Kerry

Fox, a Bush supporter from Missouri, had come under fire for contributing $50,000 in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which spent $26 million disparaging Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s service during the Vietnam War.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said the White House had made a “wise decision” in withdrawing Fox from consideration.

“His unwillingness to denounce the reprehensible activities of the Swift Boat organization and express regret for providing $50,000 to bankroll the organization convinced me that he would not be an acceptable candidate to represent the United States abroad,” he said.

Dodd is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was preparing to vote on Fox’s nomination today until Bush announced the withdrawal. Dodd said Tuesday that he would oppose Fox. Kerry also is on the committee, and we can guess which way he would have voted, though all he said was that the White House made “the right decision.”

Of course that didn’t stop the White House from trotting out its favorite whiny accusation:

“Some members of the Senate would have voted against his nomination, which would have prevented him from serving in this important position,” Perino said. “So we are disappointed that they made their decision based on partisan politics instead of his leadership abilities.”

Seems Fox’ “leadership abilities” are concentrated in his wallet and his ability to extract contributions on behalf of the Republican Party. We’re certain he would have achieved a lot as ambassador to Belgium.

Fox, 77, of St. Louis, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and has helped raise millions for the Republican Party over the last three decades. He hosted a record-setting Washington fund-raiser in 2000 that took in $21 million. Fox and his two sons, Gregory and Jeffrey, were named “Rangers” in Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign by each raising at least $200,000 for the effort.

In a side note to the Fox story, everybody’s favorite turncoat-for-sale, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, testified in favor of Fox at his February confirmation hearing and stood by him as late as yesterday, probably because the Fox family contributed $23,500 to Lieberman’s re-election campaign in October when he successfully ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary.

Way to be independent, Joe!

Thompson Only as Conservative as McCain, Brownback and Hagel 80 Percent of the Time

Buck Banks

The rest of the time, he’s more conservative: Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is being described in the MSM as a conservative’s conservative as he mulls a possible presidential bid. But CQPolitics conducted a comparison (follow link, then click on “chart” to download the PDF) of his Senate voting record to that of Republican candidates Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, and potential prez candidate Sen. Chuck Hagle of Nebraska.

Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion …

The upshot of it is that there’s not much of a difference in their voting records, so Republicans are just going to have to decide between them based on their looks and personalities. Good luck with that, folks.

During the eight years that Thompson and McCain served together, they cast votes on 102 CQ-defined key votes and agreed on 83 of them — or 81.4 percent of the time.

Thompson showed a similar rate of agreement on key votes with Brownback and Hagel. Thompson and Brownback agreed on 57 of 70 key votes (81.4 percent) for which both senators participated. Thompson and Hagel voted the same way on 57 of 71 key votes (80.3 percent) during the six years they served together.

The four senators evince agreement on many legislative issues. Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion, to approve tax-sheltered education savings accounts, and to enact a balanced-budget constitutional amendment.

Among the instances in which Thompson and McCain differed were votes in 2002 to effectively extend a repeal of the estate tax beyond 2010, to authorize oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to postpone tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards. Thompson voted “aye” and McCain voted “no” in all three cases.

Also in 2002, Thompson agreed with McCain but opposed Hagel and Brownback — and most Senate Republicans — in backing a rewrite of campaign finance laws that barred the national party committees and federal officeholders from raising the unlimited “soft money” dollars upon which the parties had come to rely. McCain was a chief sponsor of that law.

In 2001, Thompson opposed and McCain supported a Democratic bill to bolster the rights of patients in managed care plans. Hagel and Brownback joined Thompson in opposition.

Poll: Fred Thompson Surge Cuts Rudy Support; Romney at 3%

Jon Ponder

I complain about obsessing on the horse race so early, and yet somehow it is… irresistible.

According to the USA Today-Gallup poll,the GOP’s putative frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani lost 13 percentage points over the last three weeks, from 44 percent on March 4 to 31 percent now. His support was drained by “Law & Order” star Fred Thompson, who is not in the race. Thompson has support from 12 percent of voters now, and was not listed in the poll last time.

Sen. John McCain is up two points at 22 percent. Newt Gingrich is down one point to 8 percent. But my favorite is Mitt Romney, who is at 3 percent, down from 8 percent in the last poll. Looks like Republicans aren’t buying his filp-flops.

On the Democratic side, the top three are virtually unchanged: Hillary Clinton at 35 percent, Barack Obama at 22 percent and Al Gore — also not running — at 17 percent.

John Edwards is fourth with 14 percent, gaining 5 points after the announcement he would stay in the race despite the reocurrence of his wife’s cancer.

Bill Richardson and Joe Biden have flipped for bottom of the heap. Richardson has 3 percent, up from 1 percent; Biden has 1 percent, down from 3 percent.

For what it is worth.

Study: If God’s On Our Side, We Kick Ass

Buck Banks

Ever felt like going Old Testament on somebody? You know, maybe exact some divinely sanctioned retribution on a neighbor or the guy who cut you off on the expressway this morning, secure in the faith that you’re backed up by your crew — Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Well, according to a recent study, that apparently is perfectly natural for us hyper-aggressive over-zealous human types.

‘We hypothesized that exposure to a biblical description of violence would increase aggression more than a secular description of the same violence. We also predicted that aggression would be greater when the violence was sanctioned by God than when it was not sanctioned by God.’

Apparently, if we believe that “God is on our side,” we find it easier to inflict pain and suffering on perceived enemies. And if we think God sanctions violence, we are way more likely to “bring it on.” Those are the findings of social psychologist Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan, who said he is very “disturbed” by the results, though he wasn’t surprised by them.

“I think many people use God as their justification for violent and aggressive actions,” Bushman said. “Take the current conflict in Iraq as an example. Bush claims that God is on his side. Osama bin Laden claims that God, or Allah, is on his side.”

Name a religion, any religion, and it’s a good chance that at some time its adherents attacked, killed, enslaved or burned at the stake other humans who held a different set of beliefs. How Bushman sussed that out in a laboratory setting is fascinating:

Bushman assembled teams of researchers at two very different universities, Vrije University in Amsterdam, Holland, and Brigham Young University in Utah.

Only half of the students who participated in the study at Vrije reported that they believe in God, and only 27 percent believe in the Bible. At Brigham Young, 99 percent said they believe in God and the Bible.

“We hypothesized that exposure to a biblical description of violence would increase aggression more than a secular description of the same violence. We also predicted that aggression would be greater when the violence was sanctioned by God than when it was not sanctioned by God.”
[…]

Will Limbaugh Criticize Tony Snow’s Reaction to His Cancer Diagnosis?

Jon Ponder

After Elizabeth Edwards announced her cancer had returned last week, comedian Rush Limbaugh criticized her and her husband, the presidential candidate John Edwards, for staying in the race:

The likelihood Limbaugh will suggest that Snow’s announcement is a political ploy to gain sympathy for the White House — despite abounding evidence they could use it — is slim and none.

Now, let me say something else that might be accused of cynicism: What is their religion? I don’t doubt they’re religious people, but, we talked about this. Political people are different than you and I. And, you know, most people when told a family member’s been diagnosed with the kind of cancer Elizabeth Edwards has, they turn to God. The Edwards turned to the campaign.

Their religion is politics and the quest for the White House. And that’s — it’s not just with them, I mean, it’s part and parcel of political people — undergo all this stuff, the media anal all over their private life being made public even by the candidates themselves — it’s all part of the drill.

After slamming the Edwards over their reaction to Elizabeth’s cancer diagnosis, Limbaugh went on — with typical blindness to his own rank hypocrisy — and slammed Sen. Hillary Clinton by harshly suggesting that she would “find a way” to criticize the Edwardses. (She could just read his statement out loud, of course.)

Now that White House spokesman Tony Snow has announced that his colon cancer has returned, it is fair to wonder what Limbaugh will say about it. Of course, the likelihood he’ll suggest that Snow’s announcement is a political ploy to gain sympathy for the White House — despite abounding evidence they could use it — ranges between slim and none.

Instead, Limbaugh will treat Snow’s diagnosis, and his choice in how to handle it, with the sort of sympathy and deference that he should have given Elizabeth Edwards.