From Preston Brashers’s report, the three Bs appear to stand for “Build Bureaucracy Bigger”:
The Build Back Better Act has several provisions that make Congress less accountable for U.S. tax policy and give unaccountable bureaucrats more control. The act would (1) give the IRS more regulatory authority, (2) task IRS agents with finding new revenues, (3) allow a nonprofit organization to set tax rules, (4) allow the OECD to influence U.S. tax policy, and (5) force a future Congress to pay for this Congress’s fiscal irresponsibility. Congress should reject this misguided proposal.
Brashers gives several contrasting suggestions, such as simplifying the tax code and reversing the growth of the bureaucracy, especially the IRS.
I fear, however, that we’re already past the point that realizing the monster we’ve built is a plausible first step toward reversing it.
[Open full post]Miranda Devine, in the New York Post, describes a body camera video that has emerged from a police officer who was checking up on a strange, low-security middle-of-the-night flight into a small New York airport carrying young men, apparently illegal immigrants, before loading them on buses and sending them into communities around the East Coast a few months ago.
That these flights occurred isn’t new news. They appear to have arrived in Rhode Island, as well. What’s striking is the presentation of the government contractors engaged in the operation:
“The government is betraying the American people,” the contractor told a Westchester County police officer in a conversation that was recorded on the cop’s bodycam on the tarmac of the county airport on Aug. 13, 2021. The men were standing beside a Boeing 737 flown in from Fort Bliss, Texas, by iAero Airways under charter by the federal government. …
Also on board were 12 “chaperones” — employees of MVM Inc., a controversial private security firm that was a major contractor for the CIA and the NSA in Iraq, and which last year signed a $136 million contract with the federal government to transport illegal migrants and unaccompanied children around the country. …
“I can give you my state ID,” replies one man, “but work IDs we’re not allowed to.” …
One says: “We’re not allowed to have our picture taken when we get on base.”
This isn’t just the federal government trying to find the best solution to a difficult problem. Everything about it, from the timing of the flights to the “hush, hush” command given to those involved, screams that it’s a clandestine mission. The absolute best light, therefore, is that our federal government is doing something that officials know the American people won’t support, so they’re trying to hide it. Characterized with just a little bit more suspicion, it looks like a deliberate effort to change the makeup of our country… illegally… behind our backs.
Betrayal, indeed!
Most worrying of all, however, may be the fact that the people we should trust to keep an eye on the people we should trust to manage our country are engaged in the now-expected secondary operation of helping to keep it all on the down low.
Featured image by John DePetro.
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As I’ve written before, when considering a state’s mix of all the different taxes, I’m not as bothered by high property taxes as other folks on the hawk side of the taxation spectrum. That said, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) makes a good point that differentiations between different types of property should be a separate consideration:
Layered over wide disparities of property wealth between communities are tax policy choices—chiefly classification differences and homestead exemptions—that effectively shift the tax burden away from resident homeowners and toward businesses and renters. Higher nonresident tax burdens and commercial rates applied to apartment buildings make housing less affordable to those most in need of it. They also discourage the development of more affordable, higher-density housing.
RIPEC dresses its commentary up in “equity” language, but the real problem is that differentiated rates hinder the market’s ability to set prices. A parcel of property is a parcel of property, no matter what use its buildings are put to. Unless the goal is for politicians to buy votes by taking money unjustly from people who can’t vote against them, higher taxes are a discouragement to commerce, which doesn’t solve anybody’s problems.
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To be sure, Governor McKee’s rescission of his School Choice Week proclamation was a worrisome move independently of the underlying issue, so we can’t really fault Helena Foulkes, who’s campaigning for his job, for jumping on it.
That said, because the underlying issue is school choice, which seeks to expand the educational opportunities for all students, regardless of income or demographic group, it’s relevant to note that Mrs. Foulkes, herself, attended one of the most expensive private schools in the Ocean State, the Lincoln School. (Expensive, as in costing more than $40,000 per year for grades six and up.)
I’ve asked her campaign what school(s) her children attended or attend. If the campaign responds, I’ll let you know.
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A few weeks ago, I received a disconcerting email from the team at Facebook/Meta requesting detailed instructions and credentials to access areas in which a Facebook-related app is functioning. I’ve written about my concerns on Accuracy in Media:
Where this request might fit in Meta’s schemes is impossible to say. Maybe it is as innocent as wanting to make sure its new platform works well for users, no matter what they’re doing… for now. Or maybe they want to be able to plug the remaining bloggers and our readers into their algorithm, so that what we do and write in the wilds of the Internet can affect how we’re treated in the carefully cultivated virtual gardens of the Metaverse.
Readers may have noticed that you can sign into Anchor Rising’s commenting feature using your Facebook accounts. This is simply a convenient way to limit spam and fend of the most-obnoxious anonymous commenters. No special credentials are needed, however, and Meta’s request taps into my running feeling that the social media giants are doing everything they can to trap us all in their web, rather than the wilds of the worldwide web.
Featured image by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.
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The American Action Forum draws our attention to the massive increase in the cost of regulations Americans have experienced over the past year, mostly going into effect this month:
With more than $201 billion in costs, the Biden era to-date far outpaces its predecessors, with more than three times the costs of Obama’s first year and nearly 40 times those of Trump’s. The Biden total, however, only overtook Obama’s due to a massive Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emission rule (discussed further in the next section) to put it over the edge in the final month. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Trump Administration lead the administrations in regulatory costs for its first few months, hovering in the low billions of dollars. By the year’s mid-point (“Month 6”), however, both Biden and Obama shot past Trump with cost totals of $16 billion and $27 billion, respectively.
The Biden Administration was also clearly the leader in terms of paperwork totals by year’s end. The 131 million annual hours of paperwork attached to its rules exceeded the Trump and Obama totals by 123 million and 105 million hours, respectively. This was, however, not the result of a year-end surge. Starting at around the middle of the year, the Biden total spiked noticeably and never came close to relinquishing its lead. Overall, the paperwork trends hewed closer to expectations. Outside of “Month 1,” the Trump Administration’s total was consistently far below the others, reaching a high point of 9.2 million hours in “Month 11.”
Click over for the shocking charts. These costs make a difference. They truly are a tax on productivity and economic growth.
It’s worse than that for two reasons. First, regulations implicitly burden smaller entities, benefiting companies that dominate the market. They can more easily skim off a little more profit, slip in a little more cost, or squeeze out a little more savings to cover the additional burden. That is, they have the leverage to pass the costs on to shareholders, customers, and employees or suppliers. These steps only become easier for big companies as their competition flounders.
Second, for the Biden administration to pack on so much new regulatory burden so quickly, special interests must have been ready in the wings and the administration was entirely given over to them. Those interests might be the big businesses or working with them, but whatever the case, anybody who thought Americans elect presidents to serve their interests should rethink.
Featured image by Christa Dodoo on Unsplash.
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His legislation would essentially make every general election a two-stage affair, with the primary being more like what we think of as the general and the general becoming something more like a runoff.
The idea of primaries is to help voters organized into parties find the best candidate within the scope of their party’s definition. That’s a problem in Rhode Island only because the deck is so thoroughly stacked, and Republicans have fallen into a ditch they can’t get out of.
If Corvese wants to find a solution for our multi-candidate elections and ensure that the winner ultimatley has a majority of votes, there are ways to do that without foreclosing the possibility that the GOP could find a workable path.
Perhaps he’s more concerned that the primary system means a progressive might unseat him among Democrats and that unhealth partisanship would prevent his winning as a Republican or Independent even if he would be the most representative candidate on the ballot.
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Buzzwords flow through political and ideological debates — at the state level even more so than the federal — to the extent that one has to wonder whether the people using them really subscribe to the ideas that they represent.
Consider Democrat Representative from Cranston Brandon Potter, tweeting about the city’s decision to permit construction of an AutoZone distribution warehouse and some other commercial spaces:
When a city is severely below its affordable housing obligations, sees people sleeping in tents under a bridge, and builds an AutoZone—rather than housing—right next to them, it’s clear we need state action to hold municipalities accountable.
With the disclaimer that I haven’t familiarized myself extensively with this particular controversy, I’d note that it is not my understanding that the city is building the AutoZone warehouse. Rather:
- Somebody owned or owns this parcel of land.
- Somebody else bought or wants to buy the parcel in order to build some commercial space.
- No competing plan is on the table for a residential (much less specifically affordable-housing) project on that lot.
What Potter and other activists seem to be advocating, therefore, is that the city place a moratorium on any development where affordable housing might go for however long it takes for those projects to come forward. Look at the language of United Way activist Kristina Brown: “we are at a point where every time we lose a parcel that could be used for dense development, we are creating more obstacles for ourselves to bring on the housing the community needs.”
Take note, property owners. It is not your parcel. It is “our” parcel.
Another way Brown could have meant what she said (but didn’t) is that “we,” the activists, lost another opportunity. That wouldn’t be a criticism of the city, but rather a lament at the activists’ inability to compete.
For his part, Potter takes this up a notch. He thinks municipalities are so obviously the true owners of all property within their borders that when they don’t do what the activists think is the right thing, the state government must step in and take over true ownership.
If you’re wondering how, then, property owners and other people in a community can have a say in their communities, the answer in Rhode Island is increasingly that they have to engage in back-room corruption and bare-knuckle political brawls to seize power at the highest level possible. This approach been working out well for the state.
Featured image by Justin Katz.
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This can’t be good:
[Open full post]In the past few months, I have spoken to dozens of parliamentarians, officials and diplomats across Europe who have simply lost faith in American leadership. One very senior British MP told me last week that Biden’s foreign policy was “appalling” and “completely useless”.
And this is coming from America’s closest friend and ally, the UK. With an unashamedly anti-Brexit stance, and an arrogant willingness to lecture Britain on the Northern Ireland Protocol, Biden has succeeded in undermining the Special Relationship.
As for America’s enemies, they see Biden as a soft touch, whose time in office is a welcome opportunity to challenge America’s might and undercut the country’s strategic power. It is no coincidence that, with the former senator from Delaware in the White House, Russian forces are massing on the border of Ukraine, China is openly threatening to invade Taiwan, and Iran is rapidly building up its nuclear program.
It’s difficult to argue with this statement from the stepfather of a young woman who died from a fatal hit-and-run accident:
“When you say you’re going to do something and you document that you’re going to do it and you’re seen doing it, it can’t be an accident anymore. He murdered Olivia and we want him to be held accountable for that,” Olivia’s stepfather, Dennis Molloy, told NBC 10 at the rally.
It’s possible that some technical provision in the law might differentiate killing somebody with intentional disregard for life from murder, but this factor really should escalate the penalties. Speaking of penalties, Rhode Islanders shouldn’t lose track of the need to impose them on the elected officials who created the circumstances that allowed this crash to happen.
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