OOPS! Here it is,
you decide
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Republicans party has become the “Almond Joy Party”. Sometime they
act like a nut and sometime they don’t.
Comedian
Stop Lying and Let Racism Die
Posted: 02/13/2012
2:03 pm
You
can be a namby-pamby leftie, a gun-toting neo-con or a soft, indecisive
moderate. I really don't care. Just don't lie to me.
That's
what happened this week when both Gawker and Wonkette lied
about the following song, claiming that the "n-word" had been used at
CPAC:
As
you can see, no "n-word" was used... but a "K" word in the
form of "knickers." As a matter of fact, during the verse, we (as
performers) went out of our way to point to our knickers as to avoid any confusion.
It's then followed by the line:
"Man, you think I'd say that? What's wrong
with you? I'm just talking about my short pants that I rock with my
shoes." The
verse was used to point out the hyper-PC, disingenuous liberals who today seek
for a reason to be offended under every rock.
As
an aside, I've never once claimed to be "offended." Then again, I'm a
grown man.
Some
may not like the video, and that's fine. Some may disagree with the political
content of the video. That's fine too. Lying about it isn't. It all started
with a post here at HuffPost where Amanda Terkel posted an
intimate, live performance of the song (to nothing more than friends/peers) at CPAC
along with a thinly veiled insinuation of racial offense. Claiming that at the
moment the "K" word was used, "a technician -- who happened to be one of the only African-American
individuals in the room and was working at the front at the time -- stood up
and walked away." Taking advantage of the less-than-stellar video
quality and murky sound, auxiliary websites like Gawker used the secondhand
video to re-set the narrative to "N-word
yelled at CPAC."
A few things that should be mentioned here;
A)
The "n-word" was never, ever used.
B)
He wasn't one of the only African-Americans in the room.
C)
He didn't walk away in offense. More on this below.
Like
all great character assassination attempts, implication is much more effective
than accusation.
"Does the Tea Party hate Barack Obama because
he's black and only because he's black? You decide!"
"Is Sarah Palin encouraging the violent
targeting and shooting of US congressmen? Who knows!"
"Does Keith Olbermann specifically hire
younger, female producers for questionable reasons unknown? Don't ask me!"
Let
me clarify. Chris (my co-performer) and I were talking with the aforementioned
sound technician both before and after the show, laughing and enjoying each
other's company. Furthermore, Bradd Young, the co-creator of the song who
produced this entire track, also happens to be black, and enjoys the video
immensely.
Note: I'm aware that one would generally use the
term "African-American" as to avoid the wrath of the privileged,
often white, PC progressives looking to mount an "offended" campaign.
However, since I've never heard Bradd refer to himself as such, and many black
Americans today deem "hyphenated Americanism" offensive, I've avoided
using the term out of respect for him. See what I did there?
Listen,
I'm not somebody who really cares about polarization, political correctness or
even what context can be fit into proper 40-character formatting. People can
hold any opinion that they want on any subject that they choose. Just don't
proactively lie to people. It's a simple request really, and one that we don't
hear nearly enough.
It's
for that same reason that I'd rather engage the president over his current
policy failures than crazy conspiracy theories. By that same token, I would
expect many of the HuffPost readers to hate me for plenty of things that I've
actually said in the past as opposed to those made up by weak, lefty,
online-commentating wieners.
Go
ahead and take your foot off the "civility" gas pedal for all I care.
We should all be replacing it with "honesty."
White Grandfather Cuffed For
Walking With Black Granddaughter
Scott Henson (pictured), a self-described White Texas
redneck, was cuffed last Friday by a swarm of policemen, because he was walking
his Black 5-year-old grandchild down the street. The Austin resident spoke to
NewsOne about how he was accosted by police for being in the company
of his grandchild, Ty(pictured).
SEE ALSO: GLAAD Is Not Anti-Black
Ty’s
mother is not Henson and his wife’s biological child; the couple decided to
raise her after her own father died. Still, the woman calls Henson
and his wife “Mom” and “Dad,” and naturally, her daughter refers to the couple
as her grandparents.
Henson’s
grandchild typically spends Friday nights with her grandfather and his wife, so
that the little girl’s parents can get a break. Last Friday,
Henson, who is a journalist and creator of two popular blogs GritsforBreakfast and Huevos
Rancheros, took his grandchild to a skating rink near his home as a
reward for being a high achiever at school. The kindergartener grew
tired of skating, so the pair decided to walk home rather than have his
wife pick them up from the rink.
After
walking a distance from the rink, Henson felt as if he was being
followed. Suddenly, someone called out to them, and it turned out to be a
deputy constable.
“She
told me to take my hand out of my pocket and to step away from Ty, declaring
that someone had seen a White man chasing a Black girl and reported a possible
kidnapping. Then she began asking the 5-year-old about me. The last time this
happened, Ty was barely 2, and I wasn’t about to let police question her. This
time, though, at least initially, I decided to let her answer. “Do you know
this man?” the deputy asked. “Yes, he’s my Grandpa,” Ty said. “What did
you say?” the deputy repeated. “He’s my Grandpa!” Ty yelled, then rushed back
over to me and grabbed hold of my leg. “Okay,” the deputy responded.
The
constable asked for Henson’s name and address, and he chose not
to answer stating that if he was not being held for anything, he would
like to take the child home. The woman complied and allowed Henson to
leave.
Just
as Henson and Ty were approaching their home, a police cruiser that had passed
them by after the constable released them suddenly turned around and threw on
his flashing lights. Four more police cars joined, surrounding Henson and
Ty. Officers jumped out of their vehicles with tasers drawn, demanding
that Henson throw up his hands and step away from the child. The officers
grabbed the child and put her in the backseat of a vehicle. By now there
were a total of nine to ten police cars surrounding Henson and his
granddaughter.
“ I
gave them the phone numbers they needed to confirm who Ty was and that she was
supposed to be with me (and not in the back of their police car), but for quite
a while nobody seemed too interested in verifying my story. One officer wanted
to lecture me endlessly about how they were just doing their job, as if the
innocent person handcuffed on the side of the road cares about such excuses. I
asked why he hadn’t made any calls yet, and he interrupted his lecture to say,
‘We’ve only been here two minutes, give us time” (It had actually been much
longer than that). Maybe so, I replied, sitting on the concrete in handcuffs,
but there are nine of y’all milling about doing nothing by my count so you’ve
had 18 minutes for somebody to get on the damn phone by now so y’all can figure
out you screwed up.”
According
to Henson, the same deputy constable who had questioned him earlier
walked in on the scene and briefly looked his way as she spoke to police
personnel. Soon after, a supervisor arrived and began questioning the
officers. The woman came over to Henson and began explaining how the
police department has to take complaints about possible kidnappings seriously.
By this point, though, Henson felt he was guilty in the eyes of law enforcement
for the “heinous crime of babysitting while white.”
After
Henson was released, there were no apologies issued. After being
interrogated, Ty was given a flashlight as a consolation prize. According
to Henson, the deputy constable who could now barely look him in the eyes, “You
knew better. This is on you.”
Meanwhile
Ty, who was visibly shaken after witnessing how authorities treated her
granddad, is left with a negative perception of law enforcement. “I hate
for a 5-year-old to be subjected to such an experience. I’d like her to view
police as people she can trust instead of threats to her and her family, but
it’s possible I live in the wrong neighborhood for that.”
Attempts
were made by News One to obtain a quote from the Austin police department
regarding the Henson case but our calls were not returned.
Berkeley writer, retired Silicon Valley executive
Obama vs.
Romney: Class Warfare
Posted: 04/13/2012 10:12 am
With
the departure of Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney is sure to win the 2012 Republican
Presidential nomination. His campaign has turned its focus to President Obama.
The first week of April, both Obama and Romney spoke to the American Society of
Newspaper Editors. Their speeches previewed what we're likely to hear from
their two candidates over the next seven months: very different perspectives on
economic fairness.
Obama's central theme was
inequality: "Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of
people do exceedingly well while a growing number struggle to get by or are we
better off when everyone gets a fair shot?" Declaring, "this is a
make or break moment for the middle class." The president observed that
the Democratic and Republican positions are extraordinarily different. He
defends the 99 percent, while Romney favors the 1 percent.
In
contrast, Romney's central theme was
President Obama. "He did not cause the economic crisis but he made it
worse." "President Obama's answer to the our economic crisis was more
spending, more debt, and larger government."
According
to a recent Pew Research Poll 61 percent of
American's believe the U.S. economic system "unfairly favors the
wealthy." Romney won't acknowledge this. When questioned on the Today Show about
growing concern regarding economic inequality, Romney responded: "I think
[this concern is] about envy. I think it's about class warfare." In his
ASNE speech, the closest Romney came to responding to Obama's comments about
inequality was to accuse the
president of "setting up straw men to distract from his record."
Obama observed:
"What
drags down our entire economy is when there's an ever-widening chasm between
the ultra rich and everybody else. In this country broad-based prosperity has
never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from
the success of a strong and growing middle class."
Romney sees it differently:
"We're
struggling because our government is too big. As President... I will cut
marginal tax rates across the board for individuals and corporations, and limit
deductions and exclusions. I will repeal burdensome regulations, and prevent
the bureaucracy from writing new ones... Instead of growing the federal
government, I will shrink it."
Romney's
solution to America's economic malaise is a reprise of the discredited maxims
of Reaganomics: government is the problem; helping the rich get richer will
inevitably help everyone else; and markets are inherently self-correcting and
therefore there's no need for government regulation -- whether the problem is
bank fraud or polluted water.
Obama anticipated Romney's
perspective:
"For
much of the last century, we have been having the same argument with folks who
keep peddling some version of trickle-down economics. They keep telling us that
if we convert more of our investments in education and research and health care
into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. They
keep telling us that if we just strip away more regulations, and let businesses
pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, that somehow we'd
all be better off. We're told that when the wealthy become even wealthier and
corporations are allowed to maximize their profits by whatever means necessary,
it's good for America and that their success will automatically translate into
more jobs and prosperity for everybody else. That's the theory... the problem
for advocates of this theory is that we've tried their approach. The income of
the top 1 percent has grown by more than 275 percent over the last few decades
to an average of $1.3 million a year. But prosperity sure didn't trickle down.
Instead, during the last decade, we had the slowest job growth in half a
century. And the typical American family actually saw their incomes fall by
about 6 percent, even as the economy was growing."
The
2012 Presidential election will center on economic fairness. Obama is a
Democrat defending the rights of the 99 percent. Romney is a plutocrat
defending the rights of the 1 percent. Obama wants to use government as an
instrument to ensure a fairer economy, to revitalize American democracy. Romney
wants to eviscerate government. He wants a reprise of Reaganomics, a return to
the economic philosophy that produced 2008's economic meltdown and the current
recession.
Understanding
Romney's perspective helps crack his campaign code. When Romney says Obama made
the economic crisis worse, he means Obama did not follow Republican advice and
do nothing; Obama did not stand by and let the economy crater. When Romney says
Obama has no economic plan, he means Obama does not have a plan that
Republicans agree with, a plan that relies upon the magic of Reaganomics.
In
his ASNE speech, President Obama said, "I can't remember a time when the
choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously
clear." That's correct. Obama's challenge is to make sure that American
voters understand this. In the 2012 presidential election the central issue
must be economic fairness.
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By
JIM ABRAMS 10/27/11 04:57 PM ET 
House Democrats Want House Republicans To Work More Days
WASHINGTON
-- The House will be in session less than one out of every three days next
year, a slight decline from past years. House Republicans say they are running
the place more efficiently and lawmakers need the time to be with constituents
in an election year. Democrats say that's too few days on the job during an
economic crisis.
The
announcement of the 2012 schedule even led to a Twitter battle between the
press offices of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and the No. 2
Democrat, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, over how Congress is being run. "As
with this year, the goal of next year's calendar is to create certainty and
productivity in the legislative process, protect committee time and afford
members the opportunity to gain valuable input from their constituents at
home," Cantor said in a letter to colleagues as he released the calendar
scheduling 109 legislative days in 2012.
Under
the tentative calendar, the House would have only six voting days in January.
There would be three working days in August, when Congress usually takes off,
and the House would be off from Oct. 5 until a week after Election Day on Nov.
6. The last scheduled session of the year would be on Dec. 14.
In
2008, the last presidential election year when Democrats controlled the House,
the House met for 119 days.
"The
American people deserve better," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of
California said at a news conference, referring to congressional inaction on
creating jobs and the House's six-day schedule in January. "We have work
to do." Hoyer said the House has had only 111 days of legislative business
this year and the floor schedule "has prevented the House from getting
anything done to create jobs." Republicans responded at a news conference
where they highlighted what they called the "forgotten 15," bills
that the House has passed and Republicans say will lead to job growth but which
the Democratic-controlled Senate has ignored.
The
15 bills focus on promoting development of domestic energy and reducing or
eliminating regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and
other federal agencies.
Differences
over the schedule and who's to blame for lack of productivity played out on
Twitter. Cantor's office derided the "fake outrage" of Hoyer and
Pelosi and claimed that the House will be in session more days than it was
under Democratic control. Hoyer's office shot back, "You mean days like
today when last votes started before 11 a.m. and we jetted out of town for the
week?"
House
Republicans, when they gained the majority in January, put into effect several
changes to make the chamber operate more smoothly. They reduced the number of
votes on minor legislation such as naming post offices, cut back on morning
votes so committee hearings would not be interrupted, and reduced late-night
sessions. Cantor said the House has taken 800 roll call votes through Oct. 14
this year, compared to 565 last year.
The
Library of Congress says the House has met 139 times through Wednesday. That
includes several dozen "pro forma" sessions that last a few minutes
and where no business is conducted. This year such sessions have been convened
to prevent President Barack Obama from making federal appointments when
Congress is away.
The
number hasn't varied much in recent years, with legislative sessions generally
going down in election years. According to the Library of Congress, the House
met 127 times in 2010, 159 times in 2009, 119 times in 2008 and 164 times in
2007.
The
Senate has met 136 times so far this year and convened 157 times last year,
including pro forma sessions.
A Guide to the Class Warfare of
Presidential Politics
By Michael
Kinsley Apr 12, 2012 7:00 PM ET
Everyone
says there’s a class war going on in the U.S. If so, it is, at least so far, a
war of words.
It’s
also a war in which a principal tactic is to accuse the other side of fighting
a class war, while denying that you’re fighting one yourself. Meanwhile,
everybody claims to be on the same side: the side of the people, against the
aristocratic elitist snobs who … where did I park my tumbrel?
In this war of words, certain words take on a special weight or meaning. Here
are a few:
About Michael Kinsley
Michael
Kinsley is an editor and columnist at Bloomberg View. His column appears on
Fridays. For many years he was the editor of the New Republic and a columnist
for the Washington Post. He was the founding Editor of Slate.
--
Elitist. The verbal class war is like a game of pin-the- tail-on-the-donkey (or
elephant, as the case may be). The goal is to pin the other side with the label
of “elitist.” In my opinion -- purloined from writers such as Thomas Frank and Thomas Byrne Edsall -- conservatives
continually gin up an essentially phony cultural class war over social issues,
to distract people from the economic class war that the wealthy are winning.
--
Buffett Rule. President Barack Obama is
making this a centerpiece of his campaign. Originally
proposed by Buffett himself, this rule holds that Warren Buffett should
pay a higher tax rate than
his secretary. And, more to the point, Mitt Romney should pay
more than the 13.9 percent he did pay on his 2010 income of $21.6
million. Specifically, Obama proposes a minimum tax of 30 percent on all
incomes over $1 million.
Lucky, Not Evil
Thirty
percent is a perfectly reasonable tax rate on incomes over a million -- even if
the recipients are sainted small business folk. Whether 30 percent constitutes
class warfare depends on the rhetoric that goes with it. People who make more
than a million a year are not evil. They’re just lucky. Obama’s rhetoric
has largely avoided cheap shots that imply
otherwise.
But
there’s a second problem with the Buffett Rule, as practiced by Obama: It
lets too many people off the hook. As the
right-wing media love to point out, it would only bring in about $4 billion a
year, or about one day’s worth of the federal deficit.
Effective
class warfare requires drawing a line and choosing a side. All this talk about
millionaires effectively moves the line from $250,000 income a year (the level
below which Obama has promised not to raise taxes) to $1 million (the level
below which you don’t have to worry about the Buffett Rule). Politically, the
more people on your side, the better. But economically, it makes the war nearly
pointless.
--
Soft Side. This is not a reference to luggage (though it may involve some
baggage). A soft side is something that presidential candidates -- especially a
rich candidate -- need to have, and that Romney is widely felt to lack. A soft
side is evidence of personal vulnerability. Poor guy, everything has always
gone well for him. He’s had no opportunity to suffer. Or, much worse, he may
have suffered but won’t talk about it. This is downright un-American.
A
refusal to reveal his soft side may have been the only evidence we have that
there is something Romney won’t do or say to become president. Romney says
frankly that if suffering is what you need, he’s not your guy.
C’mon,
Mitt -- this is no time for stoicism. His wife, Ann, has multiple sclerosis and
they seem to have handled it as well as possible as individuals, as a couple
and as a family. They’ve been playing it down, but that’s got to stop. And we
need more anecdotes like the ones in the Washington Post this week
about how Romney and his sons once rescued some people and their dog from a
capsized boat, and about his work counseling neighbors as a lay pastor of his
church. Rescuing the dog may counteract the only personal thing people do know
about Romney, which is that story about strapping his caged dog to the top of
the car.
Just Marvelous
--
Marvelous. Obama actually started this one, mocking Romney for describing the
Republican budget proposal as “marvelous.” Obama said it’s a word you don’t
often hear describing a government budget proposal, or indeed at all.
Marvelous
is not really such a rare word. But it does have a certain trivial, epicene
quality that one associates with rich people and was not what Romney was trying
to convey. (Remember the Billy Crystal character on “Saturday Night Live,”
Fernando, with his tag line, “You look mah-velous”?) Romney should have said
the Republican budget was “awesome.”
--
Harvard. Romney said last week that Obama “spent too much
time at Harvard.” This Harvard, in contrast to the real Harvard (well, as
partly or somewhat in contrast to the real Harvard) is a place where people get
indoctrinated with a lot of fancy left-wing theories and purged of any common
sense or empathy with ordinary people that they might once have had. The
laughably obvious trouble with this remark is that Romney himself spent four
years at Harvard -- one year longer than Obama -- and got two Harvard degrees
(law and business) as opposed to Obama’s one (law).
How
could Romney say such an idiotic thing about Obama, given his own scandalous
record of time spent at Harvard? Did no little voice in his head tell him,
“Don’t go there”? Perhaps he observed how, in 1988, George Bush the Elder
successfully used Harvard as a bludgeon against Michael Dukakis, even
though Bush himself had gone to Yale. Nevertheless, the fact that Romney
thought he could play the Harvard card again suggests that he really will say
anything to get elected. Or that it’s Romney, not Obama (as some Republicans
have said), who gets in trouble when he departs from the teleprompter. Or
possibly that he has bottomless contempt for the voters.
In
the end, the voters don’t actually seem to share the thuggish
anti-intellectualism implied by attacks on a rival presidential candidate for
the sin of having attended one of the world’s great universities (and one of
America’s great ornaments). Among the past four presidents, there are five Yale
or Harvard degrees. To be sure, this is no guarantee of intelligence or
wisdom. George W.
Bush has one of each.
(Michael
Kinsley is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Read
more opinion online from Bloomberg View.
Today’s
highlights: The View editors on capital flight in the euro zone and some
final words on gender inequality at the Masters; Jonathan Alter on
why Paul Ryan’s budget proposal would irk the founders of
the Republican
Party; Jonathan Weil on
JPMorgan derivatives trader Bruno Iksil’s
nicknames; Stephen Carter on Mitt Romney and his father’s portrayal on the program “Mad
Men”; Gary Shilling on misplaced optimism in the stock market;
and Rohit Aggarwala on why user fees are preferable to an
infrastructure bank.
To
contact the writer of this article: Michael Kinsley at mkinsley@bloomberg.net
To
contact the editor responsible for this article: Michael Newman atmnewman43@bloomberg.net
Albert Stanley, Former
Halliburton Exec, Sentenced In Bribery Scheme
Posted:
02/24/12 03:52 PM ET | Updated: 02/24/12 05:52 PM ET
A
former top Halliburton executive will serve 2 1/2 years in prison after
pleading guilty in Houston federal court to orchestrating a $180 million
bribery scheme to secure $6 billion in natural gas deals in Nigeria, the Justice Department announced
Thursday.
Albert
"Jack" Stanley is the former CEO of KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary at
the time of the bribes; he was tapped to run the company in 1998 by future Vice
President Dick Cheney, who ran Halliburton between 1996 and 2000. Cheney was
not charged in the case.
KBR,
spun off by Halliburton in the wake of the scandal, called the scheme an "unfortunate
chapter" in its "rich and storied history" after pleading guilty
to corporate criminal charges in 2009.
The
investigation of the bribes crossed four continents over 10 years and involved
five companies in Europe, the U.S., Japan and Nigeria. Criminal and civil
penalties in the case have yielded more than $1.7 billion in fines, forfeitures
and other sanctions.
"This
case shows the importance the department places on putting an end to foreign
bribery," Mythili Raman, a prosecutor with the Justice Department's
criminal division, said in the Feb. 23 announcement.
Stanley,
69, who also pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud in a separate kickback
scheme, agreed to pay $10.8 million in addition to incarceration. He faced a
maximum of seven years in prison, but prosecutors said the lighter sentence was
merited by his "substantial cooperation" in the investigation. Stanley
had pleaded guilty in September 2008, but his sentencing was delayed 16
times, according to Reuters.
Two
co-conspirators in the bribery scheme -- Jeffrey Tesler, 63, a British lawyer,
and Wojciech J. Chodan, a salesman for KBR's British subsidiary -- were also
sentenced Thursday.
According
to the Justice Department, Tesler served as the principal bagman in the scheme,
steering more than $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials between 1994
and 2004 to secure natural gas contracts worth $6 billion. He was ordered to
serve 21 months in prison and a pay a $25,000 fine. He had also agreed to
forfeit $149 million under the terms of a 2009 plea agreement.
Chodan
previously agreed to forfeit $726,000 and was sentenced to one year of
probation.
All
three men cooperated with authorities in the investigation, the largest multi-company
prosecution ever under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a
federal anti-bribery statute.
In
a statement to U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison, Stanley requested leniency,
saying that he had been raised on "traditional American values of hard
work, honesty and integrity."
"But
somewhere along the way my values were compromised, through ambition, ego or
alcoholism," Stanley said, according to Bloomberg.
The
U.S. investigation never reached Cheney, despite his leadership role at
Halliburton during the time of the scheme. Nigerian officials announced in
December 2010 that Cheney would be charged criminally as part of an
anti-corruption investigation into the bribes, but those charges were dropped
after Halliburton paid a $35 million settlement related to the case.
Under
questioning from Judge Ellison, Brad Simon, a lawyer for Tesler, said that
bribery remains widespread in Nigeria, one of the world's top oil producers and
a key source of imported oil for the U.S.
"It
was a fact of life and continues to be a fact of life in Nigeria," Simon
said.
Have the Rich Ever Paid a Fair Share of Taxes? (Part
1)
By John Steele Gordon Apr 13, 2012
12:30 PM ET
The
idea that the rich aren't paying their "fair share" of taxes isn't
exactly a new beast in the zoo of American politics. It has been around since
the Civil War ended 150 years ago.
To
fund the war, the federal government taxed as it had never taxed before. The
tariff, long the main source of government revenue, was raised sharply. So were
excise taxes on commodities such as liquor. The government also instituted
the country's first income tax, which imposed a 3 percent levy on incomes above
$800. It was soon raised to 3 percent on earnings of more than $600 and 5
percent on those that exceeded $10,000.
In
the mid-19th century, anyone would have considered a person with a $10,000
annual income "rich."
With
the war's end, government outlays declined sharply. In 1865, they had been
almost $1.3 billion, the first time any government anywhere had spent more than
$1 billion in a year. By 1870, they had declined to $309 million.
The
income tax was allowed to lapse in 1873, and excise taxes were lowered as well.
What remained very high was the tariff. But the purpose of a high tariff wasn't
solely to fund federal operations; it was so high that the government ran
budget surpluses for 28 straight years, from 1866 to 1893.
Rather,
the tariff was kept high to protect the booming industrialization of the
American economy in the postwar years. That was very popular in the Northeast
and Midwest, where the industry was concentrated, but deeply unpopular in the
South and West.
The
problem was that the tariff is a consumption tax. It is simply built into the
price of imported goods and paid by the purchaser. (It also, of course, allows
domestic producers to raise prices.) And consumption taxes are inherently
regressive. They fall more heavily on people of low income, who must spend most
of their earnings to buy necessities. The rich usually bank most of their
incomes and thus largely escape consumption taxes.
Not
surprisingly, many thought that a federal tax system based mostly on the
tariff was unjust: The rich weren't paying their fair share. One way to
make them do so was an income tax. In 1894, with the economy in deep
depression, Congress, with a Democratic majority, passed a revenue act that
slightly lowered tariffs and imposed an income tax to make up the lost revenue.
The tax amounted to 2 percent on incomes above $4,000.
That
was a comfortable upper-middle-class income in the 1890s (only about 85,000
households would have been subject to the tax). So this was explicitly a tax on
the rich. Naturally, a lawsuit ensued. The plaintiff's argument was that an
income tax was a "direct tax" and the Constitution requires that all
direct taxes laid by the federal government must be "in proportion to the
census." In other words, direct taxes must be apportioned among the states
according to population, not income, something obviously impossible with a
personal income tax.
The
case, Pollack v. Farmers' Loan and Trust, reached the Supreme
Court in 1895. Joseph Choate, an eminent Wall Street lawyer,
argued for the plaintiff. He had a tough case to make. The court had ruled as
early as 1796 that a direct tax was, simply, any tax that could be apportioned
among the states according to population. In 1881, it had ruled that the Civil
War income tax, which had already expired, was an indirect tax. With precedent
against him, Choate demagogued, calling the act socialistic, communistic and
populistic. He argued that the income tax endangered "the very keystone of
the arch upon which all civilized government rests."
This
approach proved good enough to get a tie vote in the court, 4-4. But a tie in a
case that had generated such national attention would never do. Justice
Howell Jackson of Tennessee had been absent from the
argument due to illness. Although he was dying of tuberculosis, he managed to
return to the court for a rehearing. As one journalist wrote, "He
interested the crowd more than all the rest of the bench; that his life can
last but a short time and that it will probably be shortened by the effort
which he has made to attend the hearing."
Advocates
for the income tax were confident that, with Jackson's known political
sympathies, the tax would be upheld 5-4. The vote was indeed 5-4 when the
decision came down on April 8, 1895. But it went against the income tax. One of
the other justices -- which one isn't known to history -- had switched his
vote. Jackson could only write a stinging dissent, calling the decision
"the most disastrous blow ever struck at the Constitutional power of
Congress." He then returned to his bed, where he died four months later.
The
rich would go undertaxed a while longer.
(John
Steele Gordon is the author of numerous books, including "Hamilton's
Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt." The
opinions expressed are his own. This is the first in a two-part series.)
To
read more from Echoes, Bloomberg View's economic history blog, click
here.
To
contact the writer of this blog post: John Steele Gordon at
jsg@johnsteelegordon.com.
To
contact the editor responsible for this blog post: Timothy Lavin at
tlavin1@bloomberg.net.
Undocumented New Mexicans Can Still Get
Driver’s Licenses
TUCSON, Arizona – Undocumented immigrants in New Mexico still have the right to get driver’s licenses, after Republican Gov. Susana Martinez failed for a third time to repeal the 2003 law authorizing the issuance of licenses to people without Social Security numbers.
The state legislature ended its
session Thursday rejecting a bill to undo the 2003 measure.
The controversial bill was approved by the lower house, but was later defeated by the Democratic-majority Senate, which instead passed alternative legislation imposing harsher penalties on people who commit fraud when applying for a license and reduces the length of time the document is valid.
For now, New Mexico remains one of the three states where undocumented migrants can obtain driver’s licenses. “It’s a great victory for the immigrant community,” Marcela Diaz, director of the organization Somos un Pueblo Unido (We Are a United People), told Efe from Santa Fe, the state capital. For the activist, the message being send is very clear – that New Mexico is a “friendlier” state toward immigrants and it won’t play games with public safety. “This has been a battle like David and Goliath, because the funds we have don’t compare with the funds the governor used to promote this bill,” Diaz said.
The controversial bill was approved by the lower house, but was later defeated by the Democratic-majority Senate, which instead passed alternative legislation imposing harsher penalties on people who commit fraud when applying for a license and reduces the length of time the document is valid.
For now, New Mexico remains one of the three states where undocumented migrants can obtain driver’s licenses. “It’s a great victory for the immigrant community,” Marcela Diaz, director of the organization Somos un Pueblo Unido (We Are a United People), told Efe from Santa Fe, the state capital. For the activist, the message being send is very clear – that New Mexico is a “friendlier” state toward immigrants and it won’t play games with public safety. “This has been a battle like David and Goliath, because the funds we have don’t compare with the funds the governor used to promote this bill,” Diaz said.
Martinez is promoting an
anti-immigrant political agenda that is part of a national drive by the
Republican Party, according to Diaz, who said that while immigration is a
controversial subject that divides communities, up to now the extremists
haven’t achieved their goal in New Mexico.
“What the state Senate did was
important, because it said that if the point is to prevent fraud and protect
public safety, it’s possible to pass reasonable regulations and statutes to
combat fraud,” Diaz said.
“What we want to do is protect immigrant families who live here, work here, and whose kids study here,” she said.
“What we want to do is protect immigrant families who live here, work here, and whose kids study here,” she said.
Martinez has said she will veto
any bill that would continue to grant driver’s licenses to the undocumented. Diaz
believes that the governor “took off her mask” when she talked of vetoing any
kind of agreement, since what she wants is “all or nothing.” “We see that the
governor is not interested in public safety – this is an immigration issue, it
is definitely an attack on our families,” Diaz said.
Last July, Martinez announced a
program aimed at checking the addresses of 10,000 suspected undocumented
immigrants who have obtained driver’s licenses in New Mexico.
The Republican governor says that licenses have turned New Mexico into a “magnet” for the undocumented, who come from other states for the sole purpose of obtaining a driver’s license. EFE
The Republican governor says that licenses have turned New Mexico into a “magnet” for the undocumented, who come from other states for the sole purpose of obtaining a driver’s license. EFE
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