Negociating With Terrorists: Cease-Fire Eyed to Stop Violence in Iraq

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. military commanders are talking with Iraqi militants about cease- fires and other arrangements to try to stop the violence, the No. 2 American commander said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said he has authorized commanders to reach out to militants, tribes, religious leaders and others in the country that has been gripped by violence from a range of fronts including insurgents, sectarian rivals and common criminals.

Something tells me that Democrats didn’t have anything to do with this since Congress doesn’t control the military.

Tax cut idea gets negative reviews

By JONATHAN RIVOLI
Bismarck Tribune

A proposed ballot measure that could give voters the opportunity to drastically cut their state income taxes next fall met with a thud Wednesday in the state Capitol.

Americans for Prosperity, a taxpayer advocacy group that announced the plan Tuesday, is pushing it as a way to stimulate the economy and give taxpayers more control over how their money is spent. But officials of both parties say the plan goes too far too fast.

“We certainly support tax relief, but we believe this is premature,” said Don Canton, a spokesman for Gov. John Hoeven. “It’s much too early to be depending on revenues we don’t know we have yet for tax relief.”

Canton pointed out that legislators just passed a $120 million tax relief package during the 2007 session and won’t have a good idea of whether the state has enough money to responsibly enact another one until the 2009 session.

Under the proposal, North Dakotans would pay 50 percent less in income taxes while companies in the state would see a 15 percent reduction. For a single North Dakotan, that would amount to about $7 to $8 per week, according to Americans for Prosperity.

The group estimates that this would cost the state $280 million over two years. North Dakota’s total general fund budget is about $2.5 billion.

Jaime Selzler, executive director of the North Dakota Democratic Party, said he’s worried this large revenue reduction would eat into revenues for social services and education.

“It’s understandable that most people would see a tax cut and like it, but the reality is it may result in higher taxes or lost services down the road,” Selzler said.

He said a hit to education funding would be especially damaging because it could lead to an increase in property taxes on the local level, which represent a comparatively larger tax burden and have been the main concern of taxpayers.

State House Majority Leader Rick Berg, R-Fargo, also worries about the possibility of a cut now leading to a tax increase in the future.

Berg said the Legislature would be open to further tax cuts when it reconvenes in 2009 and has revenue projections that give policy makers a better idea of whether the state has enough money to responsibly do so.

“I think this is something that’s premature to look at now,” Berg said.

To get the measure on the ballot, Americans for Prosperity will have to collect at least 12,844 signatures by March 11, 2008, according to the secretary of state’s Web site.

Duane Sand, a former House and Senate candidate who serves as state director for the group, said he anticipates no trouble getting enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

Sand dismisses criticism about reduced revenues, saying that the tax cut will have simulative economic effects that could result in higher revenues from other sources such as sales taxes.

Overall, he called the criticism “predictable.”

“All politicians are cautious about proceeding on a reform platform, especially one as significant as this, before they’ve talked to their constituents,” said Sand.

North Dakota ranks 39th nationwide in state and local tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., based tax research group.

Bush: If you oppose the immigration bill, you are a terrorist

Well, that is basically what he said.

New York Times

President Bush today accused opponents of his proposed immigration measure of fear-mongering to defeat it in Congress, and took on his own conservative political base as he did so.

“If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill’s an amnesty bill,” Mr. Bush said this afternoon at a training center for border enforcement agents located in this town in Georgia’s southeastern corner. “That’s empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our citizens.”

Good idea, piss off your own people more.

Group hopes to cut income taxes

By JONATHAN RIVOLI
Bismarck Tribune

North Dakotans may get a chance to vote next fall to reduce their own state income taxes.

Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group that promotes low taxes and fiscal conservatism, announced Tuesday that it will be attempting to get such a measure on the ballot.

The proposal calls for a 50 percent reduction in North Dakota’s personal income tax rate and a 15 percent reduction in its corporate tax rate. It would cost the state $280 million over two years, according to Americans for Prosperity.

To get this idea on the ballot, supporters will have to collect at least 12,844 signatures by March 11, 2008, according to the Secretary of State’s Web site.

Duane Sand, a former Republican candidate for the House and Senate who now serves as state director of Americans for Prosperity, said he expects a lot of support for the idea. He said a tax cut would help stimulate business investment in North Dakota and provide a financial incentive to curb population loss.

“We believe people in North Dakota know how to spend their money better (than the government),” Sand said. “And we believe this is going to make the state a better place to live, raise a family and run a business.”

North Dakota’s state income taxes vary from 2.1 percent for those who make less than $30,650 to 5.54 percent for those who make more than $336,550, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C. based tax research group. In terms of overall state and local tax burden, North Dakota ranks 37th, according to the group.

“I think most people view the North Dakota income tax as being fair,” said state House Minority Leader Merle Boucher, D-Rolette.

Boucher said the Legislature already provided relief for a bigger problem property taxes when it passed a $120 million tax relief bill in April. That bill provides property tax owners with an income tax rebate equal to 10 percent of their property tax liability.

Boucher also predicted that they measure may not be widely supported because corporations have already received many specifically targeted tax breaks and subsidies in the last few legislative sessions.

“I don’t think people are going to get all that enthused about it, though it’s not at all surprising that there’s a measure or that it’s coming from this group,” Boucher said.

Tax Commissioner Cory Fong told the Associated Press that he could not assess the impact until he sees the proposal.

Because the announcement came at around 5 p.m., other state officials could not be reached for comment.

Newt Gingrich: Bush Administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter Presidency

 Party Unfaithful

The appointment of a war czar four years after the invasion of Iraq has struck some as a late and insufficient response to the crisis, and has been a reminder that the Administration, ever since its halting response to Hurricane Katrina, has been judged harshly on questions of competence. Newt Gingrich is one of those who fear that Republicans have been branded with the label of incompetence. He says that the Bush Administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when nothing seemed to go right. “It’s just gotten steadily worse,” he said. “There was some point during the Iranian hostage crisis, the gasoline rationing, the malaise speech, the sweater, the rabbit”—Gingrich was referring to Carter’s suggestion that Americans wear sweaters rather than turn up their thermostats, and to the “attack” on Carter by what cartoonists quickly portrayed as a “killer rabbit” during a fishing trip—“that there was a morning where the average American went, ‘You know, this really worries me.’ ” He added, “You hire Presidents, at a minimum, to run the country well enough that you don’t have to think about it, and, at a maximum, to draw the country together to meet great challenges you can’t avoid thinking about.” Gingrich continued, “When you have the collapse of the Republican Party, you have an immediate turn toward the Democrats, not because the Democrats are offering anything better, but on a ‘not them’ basis. And if you end up in a 2008 campaign between ‘them’ and ‘not them,’ ‘not them’ is going to win.”

Rules ‘hiding’ trillions in debt

 USA Today

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

“We’re on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations,” says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.

[...]

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.

It’s too bad our own government isn’t held to the same standards as say - Enron.

Watchout Stockmarket, The Governments Coming

U.S. probes Google deal on DoubleClick

 The Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into Google’s plan to purchase DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion, The New York Times said.

Citing an industry executive who had been briefed on the FTC’s preliminary antitrust investigation, the newspaper said the inquiry was opened last week after it was determined that the commission, rather than the Justice Department, should conduct the review.

The last time the government tried to mess around with the internet the stock market crashed.

4 Positions on Immigration

A great article on the politics of immigration - Why Don’t We Just Bring Back Slavery?

1. The Geraldo Rivera/La Raza/Democrat Party Position.

Borders?  We don’t need no stinkin’ borders.  America is the land of opportunity.  We owe it [insert reason here] to the people of the world to let them come to this blessed land and make a decent living for themselves and their extended families, as well as vote for the Democrats in the next election.  How they get here — legally or not — is just a detail.

2. The Wall Street Journal/U.S. Chamber of Commerce/George Bush Position.

9/11?  What does controlling the borders have to do with national security?  There are jobs in this country that American workers simply will not do . . . for the wages we want to pay them.  So bring on the cheap labor, and don’t hold American businesses accountable for hiring illegal aliens and/or paying under-the-table wages.  We need these people to pick our crops, cut our lawns, and build our homes at a price we are comfortable paying them.

3. The Uber-Conservative Position.

Immigration?  Legal or Illegal, there are too many people in this country already with a vowel at the end of their name, who pray at the wrong church (or no church at all) or don’t need SPF 50 sun block to keep from looking like a fresh boiled lobster on a sunny July afternoon.  Close everything down and return this country to its original state.  Er, I mean the original state after we got rid of the Indians.

4. The Build a Fence, Deport ‘em and Re-admit ‘em legally Position.

Logistics?  You say we can’t find 12 million illegal aliens, and even if we did, we don’t have enough prisons to lock them all up?  So, we give it a try anyway, and see how many we can catch and deport.  And as we’re doing this, we see how many will leave voluntarily once we start putting a few dozen CEOS in jail for hiring illegal aliens in the first place.  Whatever number is left over becomes “the problem.”  We keep hunting them down while we secure our borders, and re-introduce some sanity into the legal immigration process.

Of course, the point of this article was to show how absurd the current Kennedy-McCain immigration bill is:

All four are destined to fail, because none of their core positions address the three main fundamental issues of (a) security, (b) the need for a sufficient pool of reasonably priced labor, and (c) addressing immigration not as a legal issue but a matter of personal conscience. 

Those that highlight security make it impossible to keep paying subsistence wages, or under the table wages without the corresponding state-mandated obligations and benefits.  Those that continue the free flow of cheap labor make it impossible to adequately control the borders and/or keep track of the immigrants and their extended families flooding into the country.  And those that address both security and labor fail to consider matters of personal conscience that supersede the law, whatever it says.

But I have a solution to the problem that addresses all three needs.  The answer is found in the distant past of American history, and is in fact an acceptable practice today in many parts of the developing world.  We can have cheap labor, protect our security, as well as pick and choose the laws we want to obey if we simply repeal the 14th Amendment, and bring back slavery.

Read the whole thing.

Tax and Spend Republicans

Republican Senator Introduces Bill Which Would Tax Internet Purchases

(Washington, DC) - If you are one of the millions of people who purchases airplane tickets online or buys items through online sites like eBay or Amazon.com, you might have to start paying sales taxes on your purchases.

“U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced legislation [on May 22] that would level the playing field for all in-store, catalog and online retailers so each has the same sales tax responsibilities,” states Senator Enzi’s website. 

While Enzi insists the bill “would not increase taxes,” the Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act would open the door for states to charge sales tax on Internet sales.  In contrast to his statement, a recent C-Net article states that Enzi warned that other taxes may zoom upward if his “mandatory sales tax collection” bill isn’t passed.

“Are we implicitly blessing a situation where states are forced to raise other taxes, such as income or property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue?” Enzi is reported to have said.

Enzi’s arguments about leveling the playing field have several fundamental flaws.  To begin, nothing prevents brick-and-mortar shops from maintaining online presences — where generally no sales taxes would apply.  An alternate solution, available to the states, is to follow the lead of Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon by eliminating the sales tax for brick-and-mortar operations.  Instead, Enzi wishes to stifle a hundred billion dollar a year and rapidly growing sector of the American economy. The most obvious flaw is that government, at all levels, could concentrate on reducing spending as opposed to increasing taxes. 

“This is yet another GOP tax increase to help pay for the Republican addiction to massive government spending,” said Libertarian Party Political Director Stephen Gordon, whose efforts helped kill a major Republican tax increase proposal in Alabama. “One would think that the Republicans, following the 2006 election results, would have learned to keep big government programs off the table.”

 

Like most Americans, the Libertarian Party opposes the ever increasing level of government spending.  Like most Americans, the Libertarian Party opposes the taxation of Internet transactions at a local, state and federal level.  Unlike the Republican and Democratic parties, the Libertarian Party promotes smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

US fears over China long-range missiles

Financial Times

The US is increasingly concerned about China’s deployment of mobile land and sea-based ballistic nuclear missiles that have the range to hit the US, according to people familiar with an imminent Pentagon report on China’s military.

The 2007 Pentagon China military power report will highlight the surprising pace of development of a new Jin-class submarine equipped to carry a nuclear ballistic missile with a range of more than 5,000 miles.

Washington is also concerned about the strategic implications of China’s preparations later this year to start deploying a new mobile, land-based DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missile that could target the whole US.

It’s too bad we’re preoccupied in the sandbox.