Month: February 2009

US Government is Now the New Illinois

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A while back before the election I wrote a depressingly omniscient post about the future of the US government after the Presidential election and the fact that it would look like Illinois. In Illinois the Democrats run the executive position (governor) and both state houses, and most of the big cities (Chicago) to boot. The post was called “As Illinois Goes, So Goes the Nation”

In this post I noted that in Illinois the Democrats were split as follows:

The Democrats here generally split into two camps:

1) Stone-cold redistributionists – these individuals view all people as individuals to be taxed virtually to the brink of death to fund various state schemes
2) Let’s not kill the golden goose – the rest of the Democrats fall into this camp, noting that if you tax everyone to death, they will leave, and there will be no money to fund government programs. Note that they aren’t per-se against these massive programs, they are just being pragmatic in how much they can extract from you before you expire, like a bookie’s enforcer deciding just to break your leg instead of killing you to keep you paying up

I was hoping that some Democrats would emerge as category #2 although I didn’t know of anyone who might fit the bill. Unfortunately the executive branch has come out strongly as type #1, stone cold redistributionists, as summarized below in this ABC News article:

President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal, the largest in history, presents a dramatic break from policy and a shift in governmental priorities. The administration is attempting to redirect vast sums of money from businesses and wealthier individuals to those with lower incomes and enact ambitious and costly new programs for energy, education and health care.

Only in the senate do we have any hope, and this is just a slight hope, of keeping the pace of the runaway spending train below the absolute top speed possible.

The only positive point out of this entire morass is that at least Republicans are starting to act like Republicans, instead of closet Democrats, and found their spine. I’d much rather vote for a party that is willing to go down with the ship than be craven and flit in the wind with the latest trends. The sorriest one of those was Governor Ryan of Illinois, currently incarcerated, who let everyone off death row and behaved like the wimpiest Democrat ever.

Rhinoceros!

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This link is not about a zoological species, but rather about Israel-bashing, anti-Semitism, and political intimidation on an American college campus. It deserves careful reading.

The “rhinoceros” reference is, of course, to Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 play, which is summarized at the link. (The play has also been made into an excellent film, featuring Zero Mostel–this would be a very good time to order it from Netflix or pick it up at a local video store.)

See also my 2002 post on the rise of political violence and intimidation in America.

link via Meryl Yourish

Clausewitz, On War, Book VII: The Attack, the Whole Attack, and Nothing but the Attack

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In Book VII, Clausewitz returns to his dialectical logic in framing the nature of “The Attack” by contrasting it with the previous book, “Defense”. He begins Book VII by discriminating between defense (whose strengths “…may not be insurmountable, [but] the cost of surmounting them may be disproportionate.”) and offense.

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The Rust Coast

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The speed with which socialism can destroy a region never ceases to stun me. In the 1960s Los Angeles eclipsed New York as the place to be in America to make things happen. And now...

“The Rust Coast” seems an incorrect metaphor as California does not have great industries of steel as did the Great Lake states. Yet, what do film, silicon and aircraft aluminum decay to?  

Whatever we call it, it is the dust of squandered dreams. 

[h/t Instapundit]

[Update: (2009-2-25 3:14pm): Steven Malanga via Instapundit,

But California doesn’t just have a spending problem. Increasingly it also has economic and revenue problems. Even as I write this other neighboring states are running ads in local newspapers inviting California businesses to move their headquarters out of the state. That’s advertising money well spent. A poll of business executives conducted last year by Development Counsellors International, which advises companies on where to locate their facilities, tabbed California as the worst state to do business in.

There are a host of reasons why California has become toxic to business, ranging from the highest personal income tax rate in the country (small business owners are especially hard hit by PITs), to an environmental regulatory regime that has made electricity so expensive businesses simply can’t compete in California. That is one reason why even California-based businesses are expanding elsewhere, from Google, which built a server farm in Oregon, to Intel, which opened a $3 billion factory for producing microprocessors outside of Phoenix.

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