Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Pyongyang favors Kerry -- my choice just solidified.

IHT%3A With an eye on U.S. vote%2C North Korea rails at Bush: "SEOUL North Korea called President George W. Bush an imbecile and a tyrant who puts Hitler in the shade%2C unleashing a stream of insults Monday that seemed to rule out any serious progress on nuclear disarmament talks before the American elections in November."

Well, that settles it for me. Granted, this is a negotiating tactic typical of North Korea, but it's somehow unsettling that Pyongyang prefers the Democrat.

Monday, August 9, 2004

International team to monitor presidential election

I am disgusted and appalled that this has been allowed. What kind of moralizing, handwringing weenie would you have to be to ask the U-freaking-N headed by Kofi Annan to monitor our elections? OUR elections. This is the country that taught the world what freedom and free elections are. This nonsense about Florida has gone far enough. What I also can't understand is how Colin Powell's State Department went along with this garbage.

The 13 Congresspeople who initiated this should be ashamed of equating this nation to a third-world tinpot dictatorship which really NEEDS this kind of help. And they should be removed from office in this fair and transparent election they seek to have. What an insult.

Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Unfit for command?

Drudge is leaking some of the details in the new veterans' book about Kerry. Serious stuff, if:

  • It's true

  • The Kerry-friendly press actually pursues it


My gut wants to believe what's being reported here, mainly because I have always thought Kerry was a huge phony. But I reserve judgement until this plays out. IF it plays out.

Monday, August 2, 2004

End of an era (I hope)

Drudge is reporting that a centerpiece of Republican strategy may be to push for elimination of the IRS in favor of sales taxes, VAT and other forms of simpler taxation.

VAT taxes and sales taxes have drawbacks, but they have one great advantage. They expose consumers to the real costs of taxation that the current system shields them from. Currently, employers are required to be tax collectors through withholding. In addition, there is the little fiction that employers are required to "match" a portion of the employee's taxes and the employee doesn't really pay that part. What really happens is that the "match" is considered when salaries and wages are set and the end result is that people are simply paid less. The reason government likes this is that it fools people about how much they're really paying in taxes.

The same is true of so-called corporate taxation. Corporation supposedly pay taxes that the "public" then doesn't have to pay. But, they DO pay for these taxes, sometimes with their jobs, when taxes become burdensome and companies decide to leave a particular area as a result.

BUT, in the case of the sales taxes, then everyone sees how much they're really being taxed, and this places a limit on government's ability to raise taxes. Which is exactly why the left will come up with reasons not to do it. Although it would put the left in an interesting position -- defending the existence of the IRS, the one universally hated government bureau. Personally, I'm all for a flat tax. A flat tax on INDIVIDUALS only. No corporate hide-the-real-taxes shell games. Individuals pay taxes anyway, when it comes down to it. And if everybody sees the real bill, the left's "tax cuts for the wealthy" arguments all dissolve into thin air. EVERYONE will like low taxes. AND they'll actually understand the taxes code for a change.
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