Detroit was once the greatest city of the modern world. Automobiles were the cutting edge of technology in the first half of the twentieth century. Talent and genius flocked to Detroit. Innovators in engineering, technology, design, finance, marketing, and management created a concentration of economic dynamism and creativity unlike anything the world had yet seen. Detroit was the Silicon Valley of its day, except its products were made of tangible metal, rubber, and glass. The auto industry transformed America into a land of mobility and personal freedom beyond the dreams of earlier generations. Henry Ford said, “History is bunk.” He meant the old limits could be blown away, and ordinary people could have a better life than they had ever dreamed of before.
Taxes
Quote of the Day
The solution to this scandal is not to fire the likes of Lois Lerner (though that would be a good start). The answer is to abolish the agency entirely, and to make a concerted effort to shrink the size and reach of the entire federal government apparatus.
RTWT.
Peggy Noonan is figuring it out …
Peggy Noonan is getting there. A few days ago she was still talking about “restoring trust.”
But the IRS scandal is about facts not trust. She has apparently figured that out.
Now she says “If it isn’t forced back into its cage now, and definitively, it will prowl the land hungrily forever.”
That’s progress.
But “forced back into its cage” is a metaphor. Peggy can’t bring herself to say what it must mean.
Let’s think out loud about what it must mean.
The IRS is staffed by unionized employees who are aligned with one political party. The IRS is about to be given sweeping new powers under the ACA. This entity cannot be forced into a cage. The incentives drive the conduct, and the incentives are destructive for the liberty of anyone who opposes the Democrats on anything. That is structural, it is not a matter of individual incompetence or malice.
The only solution is too radical for most people to consider: The existing IRS has to be shut down and replaced. The only way this limitless menace can be removed is if the existing IRS, the existing tax code, the existing storehouse of personal data on all Americans, and the capacity to destroy people’s lives at discretion are ended. A new simplified type of tax code and a new taxing authority to enforce it, staffed with a new workforce, is a massive proposal, but anything less won’t work.
The monster can’t be caged, it has to be eliminated.
BTW, this is Cook County on a galactic scale. We have seen the Black & White version of this movie in Chicago, the color version in Springfield and now this is the 3D IMAX version of the same horror story. Government power for partisan oppression is too normal to talk about here in Chicago. Fifty Democrat alderman and zero Republicans is too normal to mention. Democrat super-majorities in Springfield at the same time they are reducing the state to an international dunce is somehow the way things inevitably go.
We know where this is going. America is next.
But America is a big place, and the Chicago Way may not play well in the other 49 states.
I hope the rest of the country figures out what is happening.
Soon.
Cascade
And so it begins; at first a trickle of rocks falling down a steep mountainside; then more and bigger rocks, and then half the mountainside comes away and falls away in a mighty roar, the earth trembles, and White House spokes-minion Jay Carney is probably looking around desperately trying to figure out what hit him.
RERUN–Paying Higher Taxes Can be Very Profitable
(Originally posted in January 2010now an April perennial)
Chevy Chase, MD, is an affluent suburb of Washington DC. Median household income is over $200K, and a significant percentage of households have incomes that are much, much higher. Stores located in Chevy Chase include Tiffany & Co, Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, Versace, Jimmy Choo, Nieman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Saks-Jandel.
PowerLine observed that during the 2008 election season, yards in Chevy Chase were thick with Obama signsand wonders how these people are now feeling about the prospect of sharp tax increases for people in their income brackets.
The PowerLine guys are very astute, but I think they’re missing a key point on this one. There are substantial groups of people who stand to benefit financially from the policies of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate, and these benefits can greatly outweigh the costs of any additional taxes that these policies require them to pay. Many of the residents of Chevy Chasea very high percentage of whom get their income directly or indirectly from government activitiesfall into this category.
Consider, for starters, direct employment by the government. Most Americans still probably think of government work as low-paid, but this is much less true than it used to be. According to this, 19% of civil servants now make $100K or more. A significant number of federal employees are now making more than $170,000. And, of course, the more the role of government is expanded, the more such jobs will be created, and the better will be the prospects for further pay increases.
If one member of a couple is a federal employee making $100K and the other is making $150K, that would be sufficient to allow them to live in Chevy Chase and occasionally partake of the shopping and restaurants. But to make the serious money required to really enjoy the Chevy Chase lifestyle, it’s best to look beyond direct government employment and pursue careers which indirectly but closely benefit from government activity…which are part of the “extended government,” to coin a phrase.