We should repeal all federal income taxes. Income taxes are a great evil that has changed the nature of our relationship with government.
Instead, the federal government should be funded through a capitation (per-person) tax payable proportionally by each state. That is, our states would be responsible for collecting a tax calculated based purely on their own population counts, and each could collect the money in the way it deems best.
While their geographies, populations, and resources might make different forms of taxation preferable across the states, my generic preference is for a property tax collected at the municipal level and then paid upward to the state as the means of state funding.
The value of the government is the value of being within its borders, and its revenue should be directly related to that value, with as few subjective or confounding factors as possible. Why should we be taxed on income or production (sales)?
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Observing the lack of media curiosity about who runs the country while Joe Biden takes weeks of vacations, Steyn asks:
If that question is of no interest to the media or the majority of the American people, then what is the point of being breathless with excitement over a two-year presidential election campaign? Or even the truncated three-month express-check-in Kamala Harris version?
Arguably, Donald Trump became president because enough Americans were fed up with elections’ meaninglessness, and the Democrat establishment has responded by making them even more so. None of it — the health of the nation, the policies, the candidates — seems to matter anymore, provided the Party stays in power.
Steyn goes on to observe that France’s ruling party is refusing to step aside despite losing, and English progressives’ governing like they’ve got a mandate when their victory was narrow. As he writes, “when the left win, they’re in power; when the right win, they’re in office.” In England’s case, that means the elimination of the right to speak against government immigration policies.
Again, that “doesn’t leave a lot of point to the democratic process, does it?” No, and time is getting short to put a stop to this deterioration.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Nee, the king, heads toward retirement
- Between the lines of Washington Bridge news
- School busing problems
- Cranston primary race enters final stretch
- Hobbyist candidates for higher office
- Questionable ethics in Central Falls
Featured image by Justin Katz using Adobe Firefly.
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Note how progressive Democrats have framed the universe, as Sunny observes:
As always, people who disagree with progressives are abusing power when they do anything to their own advantage, but progressives are never abusing power when they do whatever it takes to win. Keep an eye out for this dynamic especially when it comes to cheating in elections. Whatever they can’t claim is unproven, they excuse as simply doing what is necessary to win.
Progressives won’t admit it, often even to themselves, but the only thing that is truly against the rules is defeating progressives.
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Gabrielle Caracciolo, of NBC 10, reports that the McKee administration is hiding behind its lawsuits to avoid releasing the “forensic analysis… to determinhe what went wrong and who is responsible for the failure of the Washington Bridge.” But she did do some investigating:
An NBC 10 News investigation found when it comes to “quality control and assurance,” the state’s bridge inspection manual indicates both the consultant and the state bear some responsibility.
According to the manual, consultants responsible for inspections are required to ensure the reports are reviewed for “completeness, accuracy and content.”
It is (or should be) obvious that the government entity accountable to the public for public works projects is ultimately responsible for failure. Journalists shouldn’t have to investigate that proposition, and the governor shouldn’t pretend it isn’t so for the sake of lawsuits.
We’re entering a truly bizarre form of representative democracy in Rhode Island. Just as the government regulates speech in the one area in which it should be least involved — politics and elections — it is claiming to be the one entity not accountable to the public. In essence, the governor’s position is that Rhode Islanders don’t need facts to ensure accountability of state department because the governor represents us, and he knows them, so we can hold him accountable for facts that we don’t know… or something.
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Gene Valicenti’s weekly Tuesday conversation on WPRO with Brown University Professor Wendy Schiller took a slightly unexpected turn yesterday when Gene honored her request to comment on the handling of the Washington Bridge closure. (Starts at Minute 06:45.)
Schiller: This is a significant, major problem that if something goes wrong with the eastbound side, for any reason … what is plan B. This is an important part of the state. We’re seeing signs in Providence that it is hurting the Providence economy in some quarters of Providence. Restaurants are closing …. We are seeing some serious ripple effects, at least in Providence. Like, Smiley, McKee, Shekarchi. Where are they? I just don’t understand. We pay taxes. This is a major, major thoroughfare for the entire state. We’re just not seeing any, any responsiveness. … How about a plan, Gene? How about a plan? They’ve got a broken bridge. They’ve had a broken bridge since December. It hasn’t even … I believe, construction hasn’t even started to take it down yet. At least, not that I’ve seen so far. They’re preparing for it. They haven’t taken it down. Look at the Jamestown Bridge, you know, the new one. That took a while but they got the old bridge down. Look at Baltimore, Gene. Right? The federal government’s getting $400M and ordered construction of the new bridge.
Valicenti: Okay, hold on, hold on. First of all, listen. Alviti comes on once a week, every Thursday, 8:00. Good times, bad times, he’s on the radio. So what exactly do you want from him?
Nice try, Gene. Adroit, even. But no. Professor Schiller didn’t want anything from an appointed state employee. She directed her excellent questions about the poor handling of and seeming lack of urgency about the abrupt closure of the failed Washington Bridge to the relevant parties: our state’s elected officials. The governor. The mayor of Providence. The Rhode Island Speaker of the House. And correctly so.
Whether to shield those elected officials or, less nefariously, to promote a weekly segment of your radio show, Gene, do not re-direct her very correct request for action and demand for accountability – emphatically shared by many, many Rhode Islanders! – away from where it belongs.
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… to relieve their existential anxiety, people want a simple story in which the good guys and the bad guys are easy to identify.
Genuinely bad people are willing to lie and tell that simplistic story, while good people acknowledge nuance and accept a share of blame. This imbalance tilts the community’s judgment scale against the good people and worsens as individuals who are less bad become more invested in the story and individuals who are less good become less willing to stand with the nuance because they are then saddled with disproportionate blame.
A moment will come (and we’re fast approaching it) when the lies of the bad have become so outrageous and harmful to everybody that their badness is, indeed, obvious and nuance does not apply because their blame is wholly owned. Yes, that moment will come, but its arrival does not inevitably portend the victory of the good; it may come too late.
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Mark Steyn raises the peculiarity of the mysterious deaths of two businessmen who actually managed to beat the U.S. Department of Justice’s process-is-the-punishment racket. Apparently, the statistics suggest that the DOJ way overcharges its targets in the hopes of pushing for a settlement: “95 percent of cases are won by prosecutors, 90 percent of those without trial.”
Despite the odds, Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain won their case, but now both are dead under mysterious circumstances. Lynch’s yacht fell victim to a fluke boating calamity, and Chamberlain was hit by a car while on his daily run.
The latter is what brings to mind a bit of forgotten Rhode Island mafia history. Shortly after his paper published information about a secret mafia ceremony, publisher Michael Metcalf died by falling off his bicycle. Sure, authorities concluded it was simply an accident, but Projo chairman and publisher, at the time, Stephen Hamblett expressed some skepticism: “we cannot forget that Mr. Metcalf was publisher of newspapers known for their investigative stories and editorials on crime. This fact, coupled with the unique circumstances surrounding his death, make it impossible for us to rule out foul play.”
I’ve often noted that the popular Crimetown podcast had a notable shift in its first season, starting with mafia corruption and moving into government corruption. It has seemed to me that perhaps that captures a trend that actually happened in the Ocean State. If the United States government is following the same trend, we should all be worried, indeed.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Does it matter who runs Providence schools?
- Does the leader of the RIGOP matter?
- Does anybody care that the state keeps hiring companies it sues?
- Should voters care about Hopkins’s car controversy in Cranston?
- Is Sen. Reed still concerned about Biden’s cognition now that it’s less of a political liability?
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.
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In the heat of the battle, political controversies over yard signs can become an almost comedic proxy for heated disagreements. I’ve seen people in the heat of a busy campaign drop everything to do battle with people stealing the yard signs of the other side or placing their own signs on property where they aren’t allowed.
A consistent lesson is that people will cheat when they perceive the stakes to be high, when they’re caught up in the result, and when they think it unlikely they’ll be caught. So, it’s disconcerting to see mail ballots joining yard signs in the heat of the Democrat primary for Rhode Island House District 9.
In addition to the normal yard sign controversies, State Representative Enrique Sanchez is raising a red flag about voters’ phone numbers being switched for mail ballots. More dramatically, one of his opponents, Santos Javier, has filed complaints, accompanied by notarized letters from people alleging that a Sanchez supporter has been pressuring voters to sign ballots before taking the ballots and filling in the vote for Sanchez.
That sounds like a pretty drastic and risky approach to mail ballot fraud, leaving campaigns apt to be caught, but we should take it as a warning. The placement of a particular yard sign is of unknowable value in a campaign, but these are actual votes.
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