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By Elton Beard There are two kinds of people in the world, those who divide people into two kinds and those who don't. I don't. |
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| ARCHIVE | ARCHIVE | ARCHIVE |
| Sunday, January 5, 2003 |
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A simple solution. Nick seems tentative, a bit cynical but sincere and well-intentioned. Norm is older, wiser and very confident. In this television Public Service Announcement, they discuss drugs over an indeterminate meal.
Nick: This whole drugs and terror thing ... I mean ... it's a very complicated issue.Get it, dude? It's, like, so not complicated.Norm: (raises eyebrows) Complicated issue?
Nick: Complicated. Very complicated.
Norm: (sighs in exasperation) No drug prohibition, no drug money. No drug money, no drug dealers. No drug dealers, no drug murders, shootings, bribery, corruption.
Nick: (comprehension dawns) Not that complicated!
Actually, the real White House Office of National Drug Control Policy commercial is different by exactly one word - Norm's causal chain starts with "users", not "prohibition". But his pristine logical sequence, clarified of any murky complexities, holds equally well for both cases. And the elimination of drug prohibition, unlike the elimination of drug use, has the benefit of being within the government's power to accomplish. That should count for something.
Besides, even if things aren't really that simple and legalization doesn't mean an end to all murders, shootings, bribery and corruption, it would still be worth it - if only because this would mean the elimination of the ONDCP and with it the extremely annoying, fallacious and illogical propaganda that it produces.
I mean, if it's so simple, and with so much at stake, why not do what can be done?
| Saturday, January 4, 2003 |
Schadenfreudeian analysis. Ah, to sleep in and wake up having been Atrios'ed. Thanks, oh Mighty Middle 'C'! To put the Force to good use, and maybe provide a clue into what makes Mickey tick, I hasten all to visit Zizka's VanitySite for a stunning, spot-on analysis of the illiberal mindset (scroll down to "Left vs. Right"). Cruel but fair.
To those who don't quite get it - over at Blue Streak, Devra Blue explains it all to you.
In other news... this Daily Kos history of the coming year is no more than a linear extrapolation of the last two.
Like that guy who changes jackets a lot, now you too can play the North Korean Brinkmanship game at UggaBugga!
And finally, everyone here is no doubt already a regular reader of The Sideshow, but just in case a Martian is reading this - and also because it's impossible to ever mention the ineluctable, shockingly perceptive Avedon Carol quite enough - don't miss it!
[Hours later, a shocking error was reversed.]
| Friday, January 3, 2003 |
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kausfiles
A nasty political Weblog.
Spinning Mortgage Deductions
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Tax deductions for mortgages and the English Language: The editorial board of the New York Times declares::
In fact, the tax deduction for mortgages is not welfare, not even charity, but a housing program that helps the rich and poor alike buy homes.I love the bogus, whistling-past-the-graveyard authority of "In fact." ... Of course the mortgage deduction is welfare, under virtually all definitions of the term. The most common definition -- and my definition -- would define "welfare" as assistance that a) helps people get what they need to live, e.g. housing, and b) that's available to recipients, even if they don't work. Despite a one-million dollar limit on deductible mortgages, the tax rebate remains largely available to poor workers and inherited-wealth shirkers alike.
It doesn't matter that, as the Times notes, many mortgage deduction recipients actually do some work -- many recipients of the hated (by me!) Food Stamp program worked also. Indeed, the Times could just as easily have claimed that the Food Stamp program itself is "not welfare, not even charity, but a financial assistance program that helps the poor buy food." (Isn't food as important as housing?) But if a taxpayer-funded subsidy for homeowner mortgages isn't welfare, what is? Like the food stamp program, taking government money in the form of a tax rebate to help subsidize the recipient's mortgage payment is stigmatized, and rightly so, not because nobody who gets a mortgage deduction works, but because you don't have to work to get this taxpayer subsidy...
It's a measure of the Times' distance from the citizenry that they would think the average American might conceivably be bullied into agreeing that " the mortgage deduction is not welfare." ... (If you adopt a broader definition of "welfare" occasionally used by both liberals and conservatives -- in which any means-tested program qualifies -- the mortgage deduction is still welfare, since it's only available up to the first $1,000,000 of mortgage.)
The NYT didn't need to try this semantic bluff to make its point. There's a plausible argument that the Internal Revenue Service should make sure that people are aware of their right to a government subsidy for their mortgage payments. On the other hand, if poor and middle class Americans -- including many who are vastly better off than those who might qualify for, say, food stamps -- don't want to claim the mortgage deduction because of the (justified) "welfare" stigma, that's their right too. It should also be permissible for the IRS to remind potential beneficiaries of the mortgage subsidy that is carries a stigma. Which means the Times' proposed measure of success for the administration -- the more people buying homes the better -- can't be the right one. ... P.S.: A government subsidy targeting only the possessors of inherited wealth would not have this problem, since work is not in the cards for them anyway... P.P.S.: I only complain so much about government subsidies for the well-off because I care deeply about them ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it ... 1:31 A.M
| Thursday, January 2, 2003 |
Les has more. If you found interesting the discussion about oil and the dollar in the comments section of the "oil thing" entry, you'll want to head over to Testify for Les Dabney's fascinating exposition on the subject.
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Busy, busy, busy. What bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is. |
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