Timothy Travis: caesar has no idea what's going on

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 04:19:07 GMT

You have got to hand it to them.

Two members of the legislature wrote an op-ed piece in the Oregonian today. They were decrying Oregon's decades long inability to solve our school funding problem. We have, they say, the shortest school year in the nation because we cannot solve the problem. Taxes get mentioned, when we try to solve this problem, and that's the poison pill.

The real problem is the commonly held opinion about the tax burden of Oregonians. Research (as opposed to propaganda) shows that the share of Oregonian's income that goes to taxes supporting state and local government is actually lower than it was twenty five years ago. That bears repeating: lower than it was twenty five years ago.

Research (again, as opposed to propaganda) shows that Oregonians, compared to tax payers in other western states, have a light tax burden. With our (effectively) flat income tax, no sales tax and limited property tax, we make the final cut in the "libertarian paradise" competition among all fifty states. (Not, of course, that the libertarians would acknowledge that). Again, it bears repeating: light tax burden compared to other western (or even eastern) states.

The real problem, and our esteemed legislators know this, is that the multi million dollar drumbeat of propaganda from our home grown tax groaners (subsidized and supported by out of state think tank tax complainers) has convinced us that we are over taxed when, in fact (do the research, stop listening to talk radio and Clapper ads) we are by no stretch of the imagination over taxed. We are, compared to our own past and to other states, under taxed.

The resources available to our schools are certainly over taxed. Every aspect of the infrastructure upon which our lives and prosperity rely in this state are overtaxed. But our paychecks? Not a chance.

As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up." Go ahead, look it up. No, no--don't ltake the word of the propagandists (not even me)--do the research for yourself. You're not overtaxed. They just want you to think they are. And you just want to think you are. Human nature.

It's not at all amazing that no politician dares to tell us this truth. So many of us have been so sold on the so oft repeated big lie of overtaxation that we are unfit for self government. Self government requires and understanding of what's going on. And so it's not at all amazing, given our unfitness, that the current crew is here to relieve us of that burden.

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 02:58:58 GMT

Oh, yeah. North Korea has the bomb and we are pretty annoyed about that. Wow. How dare they?

Why don't we ask ourselves how it is that we can have the bomb but North Korea cannot? Why is is that people who nod seriously and solemnly when the NRA talks about how we all need guns to protect ourselves become outraged when other nations employ the same logic to arm themselves?

They have to be just laughing at us. How stupid we look.

We can have the bomb and our friends in the nuclear club can have the bomb but no one else can.

The only way to make the argument against proliferation with any kind of integrity is to say that we are willing to give ours up and propose a way to enforce that world wide. As long as we have the bomb then we not only have no moral leg to stand on in demanding that others not have it, we also have no hope of stopping the eventual spread of nukes to the people who most fear having them.

I gotta go.

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 02:55:10 GMT

ok. now for the accountability.

President Bush got some tort reform. If we don't see lower prices as the result then we hold him accountable. Right?

Of course, we already need to hold him accountable because everyone finally has to admit that the prescription drug benefit bill that he championed last time around is turning out to cost far more than he said it would.

Where is the accountability?

Speaking of accountability...when asked how he should be held accountable for the lies and deceit used to get us into the Iraq war he said, in effect, that there was an election and that was the accountability mechanism. Funny, that didn't seem to work for President Clinton.

Oh, yeah. A single standard. Like that could happen.

I gotta go.

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:58:56 GMT

On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 23:55:46 GMT, Ron Hardin <rhhardin@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>"One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their
>ears, cutting off their heads,

Was there a denial that any of this happened, in what Dole said?

> throwing away his medals or his ribbons,"
>Dole said. "The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president
>because I'm a Vietnam veteran.

I believe that what Senator Dole meant to say was that Senator Kerry
is standing there saying that because he did hear shots fired in anger
that he understands what it is to be "in harms way" and so he has a
perspective on starting and fighting wars than those who lack that
experience do not have

>
>"Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who
>served.

Well, again, I'm not sure what Dole (or any of my fellow vets of the
time) want him to apologize for. He (along with many others who
fought there) brought the ugly truth of what went on there home and
put at at the feet of the American people. They, not him, are to be
villified for their refusal to believe it and to keep the knowledge in
mind for future reference. That refusal has made the rewriting of the
history of that war, necessary groundwork for the current war,
possible.

> He wasn't the only one in Vietnam,"

So, true. There's a wall full of names of others--many of whom would
have stood and cheered for Kerry in front of Congress and would stand
and cheer for him Kerry today.

How come the people who still support the Vietnam war get to use the
KIAs to support their side when so many of them didn't support the war
in which they died, themselves?

>said Dole, whose World War
>II wounds left him without the use of his right arm.

Sometimes I wonder what in Dole's life experience left him with a
talent for half truth and such an apparent relish for being the
hatchet man. I also wonder, sometimes, if he understands that this
talent and glee, and his sarcasm, are what prevented him from being
elected President.

>
>Dole added: "And here's, you know, a good guy, a good friend. I respect
>his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I
>mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're
>out."

As Senator Dole's political record teaches us, there is more than one
way to be out.

Timothy

"How dare you? How *dare* you! At this time!
In this place! They did the job they *didn't*
have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't
give them anything. Do you understand? They
fought for those those who'd been abandoned,
they fought for one another, and they were
betrayed. Men like them always are. What
good would a statue do? It'd just inspire
new fools to believe they're going to be
heroes. They wouldn't want that. Just let
them be. *Forever.*"

   Sir Samuel Vimes
   Commander
   Ankh-Morpork Night Watch

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:28:18 GMT

Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms. American intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts have concluded weapons programs in Iran and North Korea over the past year have made significant progress. By By DAVID E. SANGER. [The New York Times > Home Page]

What a news flash. Perhaps the countries in the world who consider us to be a threat to them are not impressed with our efforts to hold nuclear weapons but deny them to others.

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 22:57:17 GMT

I wish that someone would hold the ideologues accountable.

A few years back a group of neoliberal activists, headed up by Bill Sizemore, bankrolled by money from various anti-tax organizations from out of state, persuaded Oregon voters to roll back and limit property taxes. It took them several runs on the initiative ballot to get it passed but with the amounts of money they had available it was only a matter of time until the drum beat of propaganda got the job done and, finally, it did. Corporate profits were made safer from taxation and relieved of a little more of the obligation to pay the cost of maintaining the economic infrastruture upon which they depend.

One of the major items in the bill of goods Oregonians were sold was that reducing property taxes was going to reduce prices for consumers. According to the free market freaks who swell the neoliberal ranks, these property taxes were a part of the cost of goods sold. A part of the price of everything was property taxes. The more property tax a business owner had to pay--either directly or through the lease--the more that goods cost to produce or sell. Therefore higher prices. Therefore, cut the tax and prices would be reduced.

Ah, but wouldn't the landlords just keep the money? And if they didn't wouldn't the merchants who lease the property, wouldn't they be tempted to pocket the savings?

Yes, they might be so tempted, said the ideologues, but competition in an unfettered market would prevent them from doing that. Any landlord who didn't cut rent/lease rates would find themselves unable to find people to rent or lease because those in need would go to the rate cutters. Therefore, all will be forced by the iron laws of competition to cut their prices.

Just common sense, if you think about it.

It didn't work that way, of course. No prices were cut. No rent/lease rates were cut. The property owners simply pocketed the savings. That cut throat market competition just wasn't up to the task assigned to it by capitalists and their apologists. And so the bulk of the tax reform savings went to swell the stock dividends of large corporations, while the homeowners put on their tin beaks and pecked with the rest of the chickens--thinking all the time that they had actually won a victory for themselves rather than realizing how they had been manipulated into shifting even more of the tax burden to themselves under Oregon's flat income tax.

It is bad enough, from my point of view, that the ideologues are not held accountable for the curent budget crisis in Oregon--which has the worst per capita deficiet of any state. When they cut property taxes they held schools "harmless" by shoving the cost of funding local schools into the general fund budget of the state. That means income taxes funded schools, as well as all state services previously funded. Tax rates were not increased to take care of the new demand on the state budget. As long as the revenue stream was expanding during the super prosperity of the nineties everything was fine. Once, however, it crashed there was no longer enough for schools and services so the schools started crowding the services out. It has become so bad that not only are the services being cut so are the schools!!! (This was, of course, the plan of the neoliberals all along. The goal was to significantly reduce spending on state services and on schools--expanding the same of corporate earnings that go to dividends and reducing the amount that goes to keeping the economic infrastructure sound).

The worst part of this is that no one seems to have a long enough memory to say "Hey, what happened to the lower prices we were supposed to get?" The media doesn't ask the question. No one asks the questions.

There is absolutely no accountability.

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 14:03:41 GMT

"Don't you think people are smart enough to run their own lives?"

This is the atomic bomb of conservative and neo conservative thought and the appeal of this rhetorical question is overwhelming, even beyond the confines that those ideologies. The ultimate argument against any form of government (or any other kind of) regulation, this phrase trips off of the tongue and is intended to end the discussion.

Not with me, anymore. When someone says that around me, now, I turn my head from side to side, as though taking in the vast panorama of human existence and say "Are you nuts?"

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 23:36:21 GMT

I have to hand it to people who keep saying that raising taxes will be bad for the economy. Like those who decry the loss of family farms as a reason for doing away with the estate tax, those who say raising taxes costs jobs have repeated the lie so often that no one doubts it.

But I remember the "largest tax increase in American history." Was it in '93? "The Clinton Tax" it was called by the very same people who now chant "raising taxes costs job." Yes. That was the tax increase that proceeded the greatest period of economic growth and prosperity in American history.

Apparently increasing taxes doesn't always cost jobs. Apparently new taxes do not always put the economy in a tailspin.

It's a bummer when some notion that is "just common sense" turns out to be false. But, of course, it doesn't keep that from being the basis of public policy--or an election campaign slogan. Anymore, of course, there is little difference between public policy and campaign slogans.

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 20:32:36 GMT

Oregon's governor is opposed to slot machine gambling, but the economy is bad enough that he is willing consider it. This means that he is willing to do, in bad economic times, something that he would not do, because he thinks it is destructive of society, in good times. Given our regressive tax system (including our flat state income tax), revenues are down and he doesn't want to try to lead us into a responsible fix for our situation. He would rather pander to our desire for a "painless" way out.

What else will come up for sale in pursuit of an easy way out? How bad will times have to get before everything is for sale? Will we reach that point before we face the facts? Or will we face the facts only after we have sold everything?

He is not alone in this. He is just one more of the majority of us who believe we can have something for nothing, that other people can be made to pay for what we want--and that we would rather have it that way even if it means degrading and, in some instances, destroying those who will pay. Gambling is a tax on stupidity. The irony is that even those who think they are exploting the stupid are being degraded in the process.

What other scruples will go by the wayside, what other self destructive impulses will we cater to in others, to avoid doing the tough but correct thing, to avoid telling Oregonians that only raising the income taxt will prevent our further descent into this Libertarian Paradise we are enjoying at present?

How bad will revenue forecasts have to look before drugs are legalized so that drivers can have the safe roads and bridges they demand but refuse to pay for? How many kids per class room will there be before before state sponsored prostitution looks attractive to people who don't want to pay for education? Will we soon have stickers that motorists can purchase that will allow them to drive ten, twenty or thirty miles an hour over the speed limit to pay for the 911 services? Will a factory be allowed to exceed parts per million effluent concentrations by paying for a license that will provide funds for the state police officers they want but will not pay taxes to fund?

To what extreme of expediency will we resort rather than telling people that they get what they pay for? How far will we degrade ourselves before we will allow our politicians tell us what we really already know--that the corollary of "The world doesn't owe you a living" is that "You owe the world a living?"

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 05:41:19 GMT

and, before I put my beautiful Lucy to bed...

Ask any Oregonian whether s/he thinks that the percentage of hisser income that goes to state and local taxes has increased, since 1980, by

A) 5%

B) 10%, or

C) 15%

Most people I have talked to will select (C).

The truth is that the proportion of personal income that Oregonians pay in state and local taxes since 1980 is

DOWN by 2%.

It's such a bummer when the truth gets in the way of good ideology...

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 03:01:13 GMT

Are you tired of paying taxes to educate other people's children?

You aren't.

You are paying paying taxes to live in an educated society.

Despite what you have been told for years and years, and what you "know" as a result of the drumbeat of propaganda, the United States has never been as literate and well educated as it is today.

Your tax dollars go TO educate the doctor who treats you, the lawyer who handles your estate (or your divorce) and the guy who fixes your car. They can read and write and do the math they need to do to serve you, as well as perform the advanced skills you need because of the taxes you pay for education. (most college graduates have a degree from a publically funded institution). Despite what you have heard from the same people who convinced you that public education doesn't work, there is no free lunch.

public education. you need it. you have to pay for it.

you don't need to like it--you just need to know that it is true.

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:41:03 GMT

ah, yes, tax reform. Reform is one of those words...

The Oregon Legislature is stuck in the mire of its decision to not increase state taxation when an initiative shifted a significant part of the burden of local taxation (school funding) to the state. Instead of raising more revenue to meet the greater need, law makers decided to rely on the increased revenue from the expanding economy and, of course, gambling money.

But the state economy has stopped expanding and has, in fact, contracted over the past four years or so. With that has come a contraction of the revenue raised by our all-but-flat income tax. The programs and services that have always been funded by state revenue have been pitted against the new responsibility to fund education in the process of dividing less and less money.

After two regular legislative sessions, and five special sessions, some members are actually talking about reforming the tax system. Yes, most members are still grandstanding and otherwise using their time in office to set the stage for the next election, but a small number are trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. Their voices are hard to hear through the din raised by those whose interests are served very nicely by a continuation of this crisis.

But what are these few voices proposing? They want to maintain the all-but-flat (regressive) income tax, they want to add a new regressive tax (sales tax), cut estate and capital gains taxes. The result of this reform will raise taxes on the low and middle class and deliver substantial tax cuts to the wealthiest Oregonians!

This is no accident. This is class warfare at its finest. It's what the Bush tax cuts and the "pension reform" bills currently in Congress are meant to do. In a few years the coming federal crisis will be, in the words of a great American, "Deja Vu all over again" for those of us who live in Oregon.