Incumbents Going Down

The election yesterday will hopefully be a portent of things to come in ways Republicans can't imagine. Three Republican County Commissioners, two Republican house members and a long-termed Republican Congressman all went down to defeat. Admittedly, Chaffetz isn't the brightest star in the galaxy, in fact, after watching him debate Chris Cannon, I've concluded he's barely a meteor. But voters were restless and ready for change. The question will be in Utah, does that desire for change include voting for more Democrats and restoring accountability to our government? At this point, I don't know. Chaffetz postured himself as a more pure right-wing ideologue, and that message resonated with the Republicans who vote in that district. So Chris Cannon isn't conservative enough for that district? If that is the case, the collective lobotomy of the people of that district is likely irreparable. However, I'm still holding out hope, that the people of Utah, and the people of this country are hungry for appropriate changes, which includes electing more Democrats.

I guess we'll see in November.

Profiles of Cowardice- Yep, I'm still Pissed

Finally, we have Democratic leaders who will stand up to the Bush Administration's grasping for unfettered executive powers. NOT!!!!! Our first female Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave in without dinner, a movie or even a little hand-holding. And our brave and valiant Majority Leader, Steney Hoyer, certainly, this brave foot soldier from Maryland would defend our Constitutional values. Certainly, he has the testosterone to say to Bush and his cronies "Don't even think about it, bucko!." Well then again, maybe not.
Steney would have taken on the schoolyard bully, but hey, he was late for debate class and by giving in, he would look like someone who genuinely likes a peaceful schoolyard.

Certainly, Utah's lone brave Democratic Congressman, Jim Matheson, will have the intestinal fortitude to atleast yell at the bully and tell him "you've gone too far this time." Nope, just crickets. Blue-belly Matheson was in the boy's room hiding in a stall with his feet in the air, hoping no one would notice him.


Alright, so our House Speaker, Majority Leader and local blue-belly warrior won't do anything, certainly we can call upon our presumptive Presidential candidate to, how shall we say, "act Presidential." He's even made a public commitment to filibuster telecom amnesty. Now we've got ya, Repug totalitarians.
What you say? So acting Presidential is acting bi-partisan now? Not new leadership, just old appeasement to the Bush Administration? Sigh. And we're the party of Harry Truman?

I give up. Who's next in this legislative appeasement policy?


Oh yeah. I forgot.

For the Love of the Sales Tax

In general, Utah’s legislature loves the sales tax. The reasons are fairly simple to understand. First, the sales tax is a tax on consumption and is therefore inherently regressive. In other words, the higher your income, the less of a percentage of that income goes to consumption, and therefore, to sales tax. Utah’s political leaders have generally had the idea that the way you gain economic growth, is by taxing the poor and exempting the wealthy, therefore freeing up money from the wealthy that can be invested in Utah’s economy. The obvious flaw in this logic is that investment capital is highly mobile. Savings from reduced tax burdens on the wealthy can just as easily flow out of the country to fund Chinese manufacturing as they can to home-grown businesses. Investment capital may also go to fund government bonds, used to cover the deficits created by reduced taxes on the wealthy. So I’ve made my point, back to the sales tax.

The sales tax from a political perspective is popular with lawmakers for the same reason fees are. It is because you pay a lot of them out, but you do so piecemeal and therefore don’t really internalize exactly what your tax burden is. People don’t adequately quantify how much they pay in taxes and fees that are taxed piecemeal, whereas they see quite clearly what their property tax and income tax burden is for the year.

Now there are some good things about the sales tax and consumption taxes. If your state or locality that assesses a sales tax is dependent upon the tourism industry, the sales tax is a great way of harvesting into this industry to pay for roads, infrastructure, parks and other things that reinvest back into tourism or to your citizen’s quality of life. It is no coincidence that states, such as Hawaii, which rely heavily on tourism, also use the sales tax as a major funding source. Even states with a modest tourism industry will often put extra taxes on hotels and other forms of lodging. Utah is one such state that imposes that kind of tax.
In Utah, the sales tax is a “staturory tax” which means exemptions to the sales tax can be passed through a simple bill through the legislative process, signed by the Governor. As a result, exemptions are constantly being bandied about for whatever interest group approaches the legislature. In Utah, the “manufacturers” exemption is one of the big exemptions which alleviates investment in business plant and equipment from facing a sales tax. There are a bunch of other exemptions, that every once in a while, a brave reformer will seek to repeal, but will usually find that the political will behind the repeal isn’t as great as the donations that come to those who support the exemption. As usual, farmers don’t pay any sales tax on farm equipment. As mentioned before, farmers don’t pay taxes, they receive them.
That being said, the Utah Legislature in a surprise move, did eliminate 50% of the sales tax on food (not food bought in a restaurant) which makes the sales tax less regressive than it had previously been. Though still slightly regressive, half of the most regressive aspect of the sales tax was statutorially eliminated by the legislature.

There are a couple of hazards from relying too much on the sales tax. First of all, consumption can be highly variable, and as a result, dependence upon the sales tax can create budgetary problems for governments which depend upon them. The sales tax is generally not deductible on your federal income tax as is the property tax and state income tax. Over-reliance upon the sales tax therefore increases the tax burden of Utahns to the federal government. Utah’s moving away from property tax on vehicles to fees on vehicles had pretty much the same effect, a decrease or increase in state burden (depending on whether you own a Mercedes or a Hyundai), and an increase in federal income tax (assuming you itemize deductions on a schedule A). When I address Utah’s income tax, I will address this further and in greater detail.

The sales tax, and particularly a local jurisdiction's dependence upon it, gives retailers a very strong bargaining chip when dealing with local government. That Walmart you may not want in your neighborhood, brings with it tax revenue that may be critical for your city. The location of that Home Depot, plus or minus 1/4 of a mile may determine where those tax revenues go. Reliance on the sales tax by local entities can skew the relationship commercial developers have with local government in ways that are unhealthy and imbalanced. Something to think about in the trade-off between development and having quiet neighborhoods.

My Letter to Rep. Matheson

I need some justification for your vote to provide Telecom amnesty for unlawful surveillance of Americans done by the Bush Administration.

To eviscerate the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution on a bi-partisan basis has caused me to wonder to what advantage is there to have a Democrat in Congress, if their devotion to Constitutional principles is on par with their Republican colleagues?

Please provide me with some justification for this bill. If there is some sound justification, perhaps I will reconsider my position. I would appreciate some clarification.

Insert Obi's IRL name here-

Trying to Make Sense of the FISA Capitulation

First of all, I decided not to write about this bill this weekend because I was too hopping mad. When I write when I'm that bent out of shape, who knows who I'm going to tear into. As I've sat back and contemplated, "why would Democratic leaders do this?" I've come to this conclusion. "They were complicit in the whole thing." It to me is the only explanation that makes sense. Democrats were made aware of what the Bush Administration was doing, and complicitly said, "do it." I know it sounds conspiratorial, but it is the only plausible explanation I can think of for their actions. This wasn't about spinelessly going with a corrupt executive, this was about covering their own misdeeds.

A traumatized nation magnified the Al Qaeda victories over us on 9/11 by surrendering many of our most prescious liberties. Democrats were complicit in that surrender. They didn't have the moral courage to stand up and protest and reign in an executive which took on unconstitutional powers in order to "protect us." And outside of a few outspoken liberal bloggers, the public has been silent. Let's admit it, outside of the liberal blogosphere, all I hear are the chirps of crickets. In fact, I found it hard to find a local news outlet to adequately report on what had happened.

The fourth amendment only matters to us liberal bloggers and maybe half of the Democratic Congressional delegation. And we are not a coalition, that is going to preserve our Constitution. This reminds me of a scene from Star Wars episode three: "So this is how democracy ends, with rapturous applause."

293 Yea 129 Nay- Democratic Capitulation of our Constitution

What an embarrassing day for our Republic and for the political party I belong to. Authoritarian conservatives, lockstep support lawlessness, while the best that can be said of Democrats, is that around half of them still believe in the rule of law and in our rights under the Fourth Amendment to our constitution.

The absence of strong principled leadership within my party is truly disconcerting. What this vote may also suggest, is that Democrats were complicit with the Bush Administration in their violating the law, and therefore sought to cover their own tracks through the granting of telecom immunity. The checks and balances our constitution's framers sought to put into place, have disintegrated. Future law-breakers can just have laws passed that retro-actively legalize their actions.

In the words of my mentor Yoda, "how embarrassing."

Blue-belly Democrats- Support the Rule of Law

The time has come for Democrats to actually stand for something. Jim Matheson has that opportunity. Blue-belly Democrats who refer to themselves as "blue dogs" are primed to surrender our Constitutional freedoms under the fourth amendment and grant a corrupt and imperial President, unprecedented powers. They are also primed to grant immunity to telecoms whose complicity in our executive branch's lawbreaking has created a serious Constitutional crisis.

I have no doubt, that Utah's authoritarian conservatives, namely, Hatch, Bennett, Bishop and Cannon will support telecom amnesty and a statutory rape of our freedom from unlawful surveillance. All of them are partisan hacks and respect the constitution as much as they respect the bacon they had for breakfast and just defecated prior to dinner. Bush asks them to jump, and they say how high on their way up. But Matheson, has the freedom to show principle and resolve. He has the truth, and he has the basic and fundamental intent of our founders on his side. If he wishes to oppose the tragic surrender of our civil rights under the Bush Administration's grasping for a FISA bill which grants retro-active immunity for law-breakers, he will show the sort of resolve that Wayne Owens showed when he voted for impeachment of a law-breaking President in Richard M. Nixon.

This issue is so fundamental to our Republic. Will our Congress decide to legitimize law-breaking by statute? Congress, which has oversight responsibilities on the actions of the executive branch cannot abrogate that responsibility without diminishing our Republic to imperial precedent. Will Jim Matheson have the courage and wherewithal to stand for fundamental constitutional principles. Or will he sell out to a fear-mongering executive which uses our fear of terrorism to grant to Al Qaeda further victories by surrendering our collective soul out of basic fear?

The law is the law. If you disagree with the law, change the law. But retro-actively legalizing illegal actions is reprehensible to the principles of the rule of law. What would Scott Matheson jr., a law professor think, of his brother enabling illegal actions by retroactively making them legal? What would his father think? Surrendering to the worst enabling of illegality out of political prudence?

Jim, grow some stones, and Scott, call your brother and set him straight. We are a nation of laws, not of men. Jim can show whether he supports the constitution and the rule of law. Or he can surrender to pragmatic politics.

I'm not a fan of the late Gordon B. Hinckley, but I agree that each of us, must "Stand for Something." Jim Matheson. Stand for the rule of law and oppose the evil and unprecedented FISA law that will come before the U.S. Congress. Show the resolve your predecessor, Wayne Owens showed when he voted for impeachment and probably doomed his ambitions to replace Wallace Bennett in the U.S. Senate. The time has come to show whether a future replica of John F. Kennedy will write of you in their 21st Century version of "Profiles of Courage."

If you read this, please forward this post to Matheson's office.

Thanks.