Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, War Commentary

The Latest Lies

9 Comments

I rarely link to Mark Whittington any more, because I see no need to give him the traffic for which he seems to troll, but I’ll make an exception in this case, because it’s so blatant and stupid:

Rand Simberg, like many commercial space advocates, has attacked the Iran Nonproliferation Act (now including Syria and North Korea) as being ineffective and harming commercial space operations.

I have never “attacked,” or even criticized INKSNA, nor do I know anyone else in the commercial space community who has, so he is either making this up out of whole cloth, or he doesn’t understand the difference between INKSNA and ITAR. I guess the latter interpretation is more likely, and more charitable, since he understands little about space and technology policy in general.

[Afternoon update]

Mark has updated his post to continue his fantasies about me:

I suspect that he will play Clinton-like word games by saying not “attacked” but rather “expressed reservations” or “was dubious about” or even “mildly amused by.” Since it seems so important to him, I’ll give him that.

I have done none of the above. I have rarely, if ever, discussed INKSNA prior to that piece yesterday. He needs to adjust his meds, either up or down.

Political Commentary, Space

The Congressional NASA Battle

2 Comments

Henry Vanderbilt has the latest:

HR.5781 is not on the House calendar for this week. Our sources tell us that at least in part due to a significant number of constituent calls late last week, the House Leadership probably (no guarantees, of course) won’t put HR.5781 on the calendar this session (at least not in its current form). We hear that negotiations with Senate Authorizers continue, with the outcome (if any) now more likely to be based on the Senate bill. So, the battle is going well — to everyone who made a contact so far, thanks! But the battle over this NASA Authorization continues. We need to keep the pressure on, with the general message being, NASA Exploration R&D (including Commercial Crew and Cargo) is a good thing to fund, while NASA in-house booster developments (see numbers in the Generic reason below) are very likely to be massive wastes of scarce funds. Those of you who’ve already contacted your Representative might want to contact your Senators now too. Those of you who haven’t yet made a contact, why not? More when we know more.

For much more background detail, see Space Access Update #117 and Space Access Update #118.

Let’s keep the pressure up.

[Update a while later]

OK, Henry notes in comments that there’s an even more recent link, which also includes this:

We generally avoid taking partisan positions, as tending to be a distraction from our overall goal of cheap access. We will occasionally mention partisan matters that are actually relevant to our goals. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R CA) is a long-time member of the House Science Committee who on space matters over the years has pushed in what we think is the right direction considerably more often than not. Notably so in this year’s NASA funding fight, where he’s been on the correct side of some very muddled party lines, standing up for sound NASA policy over local partisan pork.

We understand he’s interested in becoming Chair of the Science Committee in the event the Republicans become the majority party in the House. We think that he would make a good Chairman for our purposes. He has a new website that is among other things concerned with helping him campaign for that post within his party. We’re passing word along so that if you’re so inclined, you can take a look and decide for yourself whether to help.

Having Dana as head of the Science Committee would be great news for those of us seeking a more enlightened space policy.

Political Commentary

The Ads Roll Out

16 Comments

This would be pretty effective most places in the country these days.

We’ll see how it plays in Delaware.

[Update a while later]

Christine O’Donnell versus Jimmy Carter: take the quiz!

Of course, with O’Donnell, you get a bonus — she’s not a Marxist, or Harry Reid’s pet. Or even Jimmy Carter. Plus, unlike the Democrats (and particularly Barack Obama), maybe she could actually work her magic on the economy.

Also, a note to Harry. In my admittedly limited experience with them at our cottage in northern Michigan as a kid, and now in our back yard in Redondo Beach, coons make lousy pets.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, maybe I’m wrong about Jimmy Carter. He is, after all, superior to other former presidents. Why, just ask him — he’ll tell you so himself.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Very Strange Feeling

26 Comments

I’ve only voted for one presidential candidate in my life who won (Jimmy Carter, and I’d like that vote back), and most of my political life has been out of step with the country. You know those (misleading) “right track/wrong track” polls? I’ve never thought that the country was on the right track. At best, there have been times that the train on the wrong track was slowing down a little, but in the past couple years it’s been speeding up to the point that the boiler is about to blow (not sure how far to stretch this metaphor…).

Anyway, I’m gratified to be among the majority of likely voters (note, not “adults,” or “registered voters,” which are useless for determining election outcomes) whose views are closer to Sarah Palin’s than Barack Obama’s. Note also the disparity between the views of the political class, which still loves The One, and the serfs.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Gillespie Versus Chait, On Deficits

54 Comments

And it’s Nick in a knockout. As always, though, phrases like this seem jarring, and oxymoronic:

What I showed in the post is that in fact federal revenue increased nicely under Bush, despite the tax cuts. Revenues tailed off at the end of his reign of error, because of the recession and the financial crisis (caused largely by idiotic government policies).

Emphasis mine.

How can federal revenue increase when we cut taxes? The answer is that we didn’t cut taxes. We increased taxes. What we cut was the tax rate. This misleading phraseology makes me crazy and if we could get it right, we’d have a strong rhetorical upper hand, but both conservatives and libertarians almost always feed the left with it. As I wrote a while ago:

Both sides of the aisle continually make the mistake — though it’s no mistake on the part of the Democrats — of confusing a tax rate cut with an actual tax cut. Here is a commonsense, as opposed to the Alice-in-wonderland, definition of a real tax cut. It is a reduction in the amount of taxes paid. Conversely, a tax increase is an increase in the amount of taxes paid to — and revenue received by — the government.

That’s it. Almost too simple, isn’t it?

When a politician says that he’s going to either cut or increase your taxes, he is engaging, wittingly or not, in a conceit and a deceit. He says it as though he has the power to do any such thing, when in fact he does not. He has no power except to reduce or increase the rate at which you pay taxes, whether on property, income, or whatever.

Think of it as the difference between a joystick and a mouse. With a computer mouse, you can point directly to the place that you want to be on a screen. With a joystick, you can only control the rate at which you move toward it, and in so doing, the target may move, and it may move faster or in a different direction than you can keep up with using your rate control. Politicians talk about tax cuts as though they have a computer mouse that allows them to pass a law and a specified amount of revenue will roll in, but the reality is that they have a slow joystick, with a nebulous relationship to the eventual goal.

For instance, he can raise your top income tax rate from, say, thirty to ninety percent. Did he increase your taxes by that amount? Only if you’re as stupid as he is. More likely, you’ll just cut back on how much you work, settle for the lower bracket, or do more work off the books, and he’ll end up getting less in taxes from you than before. So did he increase your taxes? Nope.

Similarly, he could cut your rate, and you might be motivated to go out and earn even more, perhaps enough more that you pay more taxes, even at the lower rate. So did he cut your taxes? No. But the wealth of the nation — including your own — was increased.

I also note in that piece the implicit assumption of the statists that all of your wealth belongs to them, and that you should be brimming with gratitude for whatever they allow you to keep, an assumption that some in the UK want to bring to its logical conclusion:

The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.

But of course! Why hasn’t the IRS thought of that?

Anyway, the simple addition of the word “rate” as a modifier of “cuts” in Nick’s sentence renders it non-oxymoronic and sensible, and more care with phrases like this in general would reduce both confusion and obfuscation on this issue by the Chaits of the world.