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Friday, June 30, 2017

Time to Fight, Mr. President - By William L. Gensert

Despite registering as a member of the Conservative Party in 1976, I have always had a deep and abiding sympathy for Republicans, who in reality are ersatz conservatives who want to play the game more than they want to stand by their beliefs.
Who can blame them?  Everyone wants to sit at the cool table for lunch.  Yet that seat ain't free.  For many, the price is a moderation of their beliefs.  Hence, they let progressives dictate not only the game, but the rules as well, and then they make Republicans feel that if they don't play, they are not worthy of the game or their seat at the cool table, their invites to all the cool parties, and all that comes with being one of the cool kids.
This is one of the reasons why there often doesn't seem to be much of a difference between Republicans and Democrats.  Sure, they sound different, but invariably, when in control of the levers of power, they govern in a similar fashion.  Perhaps it can be argued that Republicans move the nation down the progressive rabbit hole at a slower pace, but down that hole we go.
Sure, some will say politics ain't high school, but it is – it truly is.  Everything in life can be reduced to the schoolyard.  If you don't punch the bully in the face that first time, you will have a bully problem.  The greatest continuing success the Democrats have ever had is their unending ability to bully the Republican Party into something more akin to being Democrats. 
Maybe they think to sink to the Democrats' level is beneath them – or maybe they are simply afraid of what the press will say about them if they actually stand up for themselves and fight for what they believe in.
When Mitt Romney had Barack Obama on the ropes during the 2012 presidential debates, he didn't go for the kill.  He held back because that's what good Republicans do.  They don't fight; they practice self-restraint.  All this while Dems were calling him the cruelest man who ever lived, who would put blacks "back in chains."
Despite serial eviscerations by the Democratic Party wing that is the media, and Democrats themselves, Republicans do not understand that in limiting the rules of engagement, they have actually constrained their ability to win.  Now, that's fine if perpetually your goal is to be a good loser.  The high road is filled with good losers.
Let's hope it's not too late for Republicans to turn themselves around and fight back against progressives using the same tactics the left uses against them.  Maybe they should take a page from Trump's election playbook.
Victor Davis Hanson said, "The problem with the election of President Donald J. Trump was not just that he presented a roadblock to an ongoing progressive revolution. Instead, unlike recent Republican presidential nominees, he was indifferent to the cultural and political restraints on conservative pushback."  He then added, "Trump brawled in a way McCain or Romney did not. He certainly did not prefer losing nobly to winning ugly."
While that's true, the true problem with Donald Trump and the reason the left pursues him with such ardor is that he is not a Democrat – and to progressives, that is the greatest sin of all.
Now, Donald Trump, who won the presidency by telling people he wouldn't take crap from anyone and would put America and Americans first, has seemingly put a little pause on his game.  Leaks, fake news, recusals, endless hearings, and a special counsel have hindered his ability to get anything done legislatively.  The Republicans in Congress seem entirely unwilling to stand up for their president. 
As soon as Trump was elected, everyone, Republicans as well as Democrats, started telling him he had to play the game – but the heck with their game; he needs to make them play his game.  No matter how much he tries to fit in, he will never be accepted, and he will ever be pursued. 
Fight, damn it – it won you the presidency.  Why stop now?  Don't stop tweeting.  Say what you want to say.  You have excellent instincts, as the latest CNN "fake news" kerfuffle has shown.
Mr. President, you have to understand that the people who are telling you to stop tweeting or are telling you to tweet with no offense are attempting to disarm you of the most effective weapon you have, and that is the "No BS Zone."  Bill O'Reilly had the "No Spin Zone"; you need to own the "No BS Zone."  That is your biggest strength.  You cannot let anyone tell you anything different.  Call a spade a spade.  America craves a president who calls it the way he sees it, without pretense and without political correctness. 
They are coming for Trump.  If he wants to win, he will need to fight, and he will need to fight with what he has.  Sure, he may say some things that are not relevant and perhaps even outright wrong, but as the holder of the Bully Pulpit, he needs to say what he think.  The left won't like it because they are all about silencing the opposition (see college campus dogma today).  Who cares about the ululations of the left?  Trump's tweets are the best way to bypass the media and change the conversation from the one progressives want to have to the one he wants to have.
The worst decision Donald Trump made upon becoming president was not to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton.  Needless to say, the criminal investigation would have been open and shut, and Ms. "Thing that Won't Go Away" would now be chugging her favorite chardonnay behind the bars of her federal prison cell.
I think the president showed infinitesimally more prosecutorial discretion than any elected Democrat would show any Republican guilty of far less serious infractions.  What did it get him?  Look around at what's going on today.  Trump is the target of a witch-hunt investigation by Special Counsel Mueller.  Mueller has his verdict; now what he needs is a crime.
When the Democrats are in control of the presidency, the left is all about "civility" and "can't we all just get along?"  Yet when they are out of power, it's "Resist" and comedians holding the bloody, severed head of the president.  If anyone had done that with Obama, he would probably still be in federal prison.  I seem to recall a rodeo clown who had the audacity to wear an Obama mask not only being fired, but also suffering through multiple interviews with the Secret Service.
Every day you hear the Trump administration and the Mueller investigation compared to Watergate, the hands-down high point of the Democratic Party.  As far as spying on American citizens for political gain and the weaponization of American institutions such as the IRS to pursue political opponents, it's the Obama administration that most effectively channeled its inner Nixon.
Mr. President, they started this fight.  It's time to take the fight to them.
With that in mind, how about appointing a special counsel for Hillary?
How about appointing a special counsel for Loretta Lynch and her obstruction of the Hillary investigation...oops, matter?
How about appointing a special counsel for Susan Rice and the unmasking of American citizens?
How about appointing a special counsel for Lois Lerner of IRS fame?
How about appointing a special counsel for Eric Holder and the Fast and Furious gun-walking?
Last but not least, how about a special counsel to investigate Barack Obama and the spying on Americans for political purposes?  Wasn't that part of the impeachment charges against Nixon?
The American people voted for Donald Trump because he said he would fight.  It's high time he started.

How Much Are Property Taxes in Each State? - LewRockwell

Even if you rent instead of own, property tax still is an important component of your housing cost. Your landlord will take the tax on his house – your home – into account to calculate your rent. So either way, the real-estate tax is a factor in your cost of living well worth considering. How high or low your effective real-estate tax is, varies by state. New Jersey has the highest rate, at 2.35%. Hawaii the lowest, at 0.27%.

Click to enlarge
Originally published by HowMuch.net.

Fiscal Impact of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics - RyanFaulk (This is the full text)


Even when all military spending is assigned to whites, blacks on net cost $7,700 per person per year. Black lives have a deep fiscal impact. Also, countries which are majority black have chronic financial problems.

Previously I wrote an article that just looked at the net budgetary impact of whites and non-whites. Here I decided to break down the black and hispanic numbers as well.
The most recent year with good data on everything is 2014. So that is the year all of these numbers are from.
Before getting into the methods, I’ll first show the final impact of this so you can see what a big deal this is:
Budgetary Impact of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics in 2014
CategoryEqual MilitaryStatic Military
Whites$553.52 billion$249.52 billion
White Per Capita$2,795$1,260
Blacks-$389.71 billion-$306.53 billion
Black Per Capita-$10,016-$7,700
Hispanics-$411.95 billion-$291.3 billion
Hispanic Per Capita-$7,298-$5,160
This takes into account taxes paid and government services consumed at both the State and Federal level. The “Equal Military” column treats military spending as a service consumed equally on a per-capita basis between blacks, whites and hispanics. The “Static military” assigns all military spending to whites.
On net, whites generate a $249.52 billion surplus, or $1,260 per person if you assign 100% of military spending to whites. If you just give whites a proportional share of military spending, their surplus goes up to $553.52 billion total and $2,795 per capita.
Blacks, by contrast, run a budget deficit of $389.71 billion, or $10,016 per capita. If 100% of military spending is assigned to whites, blacks STILL run a $306.53 billion deficit, or $7,700 per capita.
Hispanics run a budget deficit of $411.95 billion of $7,289 per capita if military spending is proportional. If 100% of military spending is assigned to whites hispanics run a deficit of $291.3 billion, or $5,160 per capita.

Race and Tax Revenue

So regarding the methodology, I first looked in several places to figure out how much each race paid in taxes, as the government doesn’t keep such statistics. However, there are statistics collected by the tax foundation showing how much each income bracket pays in taxes.
And the census has data on income for each race and the proportion of brackets they are. And so using this, we can deduce how much each racial group pays in taxes:
Race and Tax Payment in 2014
Bracket% of taxes bracket pays% of bracket is white% of bracket is hispanic% of bracket is black% of taxes paid by whites-in-bracket% of taxes paid by blacks-in-bracket% of taxes paid by hispanics-in-bracket
Top 5%38.980.876.175.0031.461.9452.4001
6-20%25.477.727.807.4819.741.89991.9812
21-40%18.373.6510.708.9113.481.63051.9581
41-60%9.968.312.6813.766.761.36221.2553
61-80%5.163.0117.8916.673.210.85020.9124
81-100%2.157.4116.2321.251.210.44630.3408
Total75.868.1348.8479
This comes out to $4529.52 billion paid by whites, $528.30 billion paid by hispanics, and $485.67 billion paid by blacks.

Race and Government Use

So how does that compare with services consumed? Well for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Welfare I was able to find racial breakdowns. But what about state spending? Roads, schools, trash pick-up, police? For all of that I lumped into “equal government” and assigned the cost of it on a population basis.

Race and Government Use 2014
ServiceBudgetWhite Use %White Use $Black Use %Black Use $Hisp. Use %Hisp. Use $
“Equal Gov.t”3,48262.12162.3212.2424.817.7616.3
Social Security1,26284.071060.969.31117.56.2378.6
Medicare50576383.901050.5945.45
Medicaid47639.06185.9319.994.7226.43125.8
Welfare47238.8183.1439.8187.8615.774.1
Total6,19764.16397614.1875.3815.2940.25
(Static Mil.)6,19769.07428012.78792.213.2819.6
So as it happened, and this is something I thought going in, the race differences in government consumption are not a very big deal, and the real cause of the budgetary impacts of races is the difference in tax payment. I also found some data showing that whites made up 75% of millionaires, and I thought “ya know, based on this, whites overall probably pay around 75% of the taxes” – and I was correct.
Wage Impact of Racial Diversity
One thing people will say in response is that white wages are jacked up by having non-whites around. This doesn’t appear to be true when you look at regions in the US:
Median Income and Proportion of Popoulation of Whites by Region
Region% WhiteMedian Income of White MalesMedian Income of White Females
Northeast67.6$40,435$25,090
Midwest77.2$36,892$22,803
South59.0$37,666$22,199
West50.9$41,366$23,140
So a big impact doesn’t just pop out at you. And if there is a correlation between median white income in a state, or county, and the proportion of blacks and/or hispanics in that state or county, well then the next step would be to show causality.
Another interesting thing to point out is that a Dutch meta-analysis of 384 studies on the impact of immigration on native wages in the United States and EU countries found that a 1% increase in immigrants as part of the labor force was associated with a 0.119% reduction in native wages.
But one thing to consider is correlation and causation. Just because a 1% increase in immigration is only associated with a 0.119% decrease in native wages doesn’t mean that the actual impact is that small.
So we’re looking at a small negative impact on wages, not the big positive impacts you would need for the libertarian story to hold water. I mean it’s not stupid to believe in the absence of data; lower-skill people come in, earn wages, white people are freed for higher-earning labor. But it doesn’t appear to be actually happening.
If you want to argue that the presence of blacks and hispanics around white people drives up white wages, that’s not something that is immediately obvious from the data, it’s only intuitive if you to hold very pro-market priors. You need more than just “ideas that make sense” and connect-the-dots / painting-by-numbers economic narratives that libertarians like to spin, and then act as if they’ve actually discovered something.
Conclusion
The negative fiscal impact of blacks and hispanics is significant. All of this discussion of a “national debt” and “deficit” is primarily of function of blacks and hispanics. Without them, we would be running budget surpluses today, even when keeping the military the same size.
Medicaid Enrollment by race, projected from these numbers:https://www.ccwdata.org/web/guest/medicaid-charts#a2_eligibility_race_2010
Total US Government Spending at all levels 2014
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2014USbt_17bs2n#usgs302
Total US Government Revenue of all types and at all levels 2014
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/piechart_2014_US_total