Why We Can’t Catch the Bombers

Organization Chart

Who We Are

We are committed to maintaining updated organization charts as part of our efforts to meet the President's Management Agenda for an organizational structure that provides optimal service and responds to changing business needs.

When viewing the organization chart of the Transportation Security Administration; you know, the guys who are supposed to stop nuts from getting on planes with bombs, it's a fascinating structure. Tracing the reporting lines, nobody reports to anybody. They all report directly to the administrator. One minor hitch; there is no permanent administrator. There is an acting administrator, but President Obama did not nominate someone until September. After all it was much more important to do the non-simulative stimulus package, and waste months on screwing up the health care system. When he finally nominated a seemingly well qualified former FBI agent, Sen. Jim DeMint (R- S.C.- that' "R" for retard) put a hold on the nomination, because the nominee, Erroll Southers, had the temerity to say the TSA workers should have the right to unionize. Well, we certainly can't allow that to happen because they might spend more time protecting their jobs than protecting us!

In case you haven't noticed, THE ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS OUT OF CONTROL! The mindless partisanship has reached a level of imbecility that is beyond description. Unless the public sends a very clear message to these morons this coming November, it will only get worse.

Is Our Health Care Secure?

So, the folks who want to control our health care can't stop a terrorist bomber who is on a suspect list and who has been ratted out by his father, no less, from getting on a plane a with a bomb and trying to blow it up. How well do you think they will administer the relationship between you and your doctor?

Frankly, I am sick of the Obama Administration blaming everything on the Bush Administration (not that they didn't screw up plenty), but for goodness sake, PLEASE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING!!!!

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano clearly made a misstatement about the system working (nowhere near as bad as "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"), but nevertheless, it does not strengthen your confidence in our government's ability to get anything right. What shouldn't Homeland Security get everything they need at airports to do the job correctly? If the latest screening equipment is available it should be put into service immediately. People's lives are dependent on this. No, our elected nitwits are more interested in taxing sun tan salons and forcing people to buy services that they don't need.

The plain simple fact is that the Federal bureaucracy is too damn big and the lines of communication aren't clear. The Feds must review the whole HSA set up at once. Given how quickly it was thrown together after 9/11, and how much infighting there is between the various units, a top to bottom review should be done. When the bomber's father reported him to a U.S. embassy, that information should have gone directly to people at Homeland Security who could have acted on it. How come that didn't happen? Frankly, I think the U.S. ought to ban anyone from getting on an overseas flight to the U.S. where the ticket has been paid for in cash and there is no luggage declared.

And with respect to screening, TO HELL WITH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS! Not all Arabs are terrorists, but all of the terrorists who want to harm us are Arabs. Notice any Norwegian suicide bombers lately? If profiling will help to identify these people then it should be done. If VISA and MasterCard know what millions of cardholders are doing every day, we shouldn't be able to monitor the coming and going of several hundred thousand dirt bags?

These Guys Want to Run Healthcare

The following is from Real Clear Politics. It's instructive in that the feds can't do something as basic as keeping a potential bad guy,who they had previous knowledge of, from bringing a bomb onto a plane, yet they want to control the health care of 300 million Americans. I am sick of officials spinning everything rather than acknowledging the truth. They treat us like morons.

Heckuva Job, Janet
Posted by Tom Bevan | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano isn't personally responsible for the security lapses that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to nearly bring down a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. But she is responsible for going on national television yesterday and repeatedly claiming - contrary to the evidence and the truth - that "the system worked."

It's fine for Napolitano to want to reassure the American public that the skies are safe. That's part of her job, too. But she should be smart enough to find a way of doing that without treating the American people like a bunch of morons and dupes.

Clearly, when a person who has been flagged for investigation of being a suspected terrorist (alerted to the presence of US officials by his father, no less) manages to get through security and take a seat on a US-bound airliner with a bomb strapped to his crotch, the system is not working the way it's designed to.

The reason we didn't have a major terror attack over Detroit three days ago is because of the heroism of the passengers on Flight 253 and the fact Abdulmutallab's bomb had a faulty trigger. Neither of those things are part of "the system" that the government manages to ensure (to the best of its ability) that the public is safe from terrorists when they get on an airplane.

Despite sufficient warnings, that system failed - and the Secretary of Homeland Security made a fool of herself by going on television yesterday and asserting the opposite.

The Doctors Hold The Cards

What if all the doctors, in a massive act of civil disobedience, decided to protest the health care revisions by going on strike? What if they collectively said, "This bill is crap, we're not treating anything but emergency cases until you make the following changes." No docs, no health care. Since doctors are licensed by the states, what could the feds do? They couldn't be fired like the air traffic controllers since they are not federal employees. They could literally bring the entire process to a screeching halt. Merry Christmas!

Lets' Make A Deal!

If the Senate wanted to play Let's Make a Deal, they could have at least shown some class and made Monty Hall temporary Majority Leader. They could have brought in Dom Pardo to describe the prizes. " A beauuuuuutiful lifetime exemption from Medicaid increases!" This legislative garage sale would be funny if it wasn't so insulting. Michael Gerson of the Washinton Post has really nailed it, so here in full is his article:

December 23, 2009
Votes For Sale in the Senate
By Michael Gerson

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes there is a fine ethical line between legislative maneuvering and bribery. At other times, that line is crossed by a speeding, honking tractor-trailer, with outlines of shapely women on mud flaps bouncing as it rumbles past.

Such was the case in the final hours of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's successful attempt to get cloture on health care reform. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, was offered and accepted a permanent exemption from his state's share of Medicaid expansion, amounting to $100 million over 10 years.

Afterward, Reid was unapologetic. "You'll find," he said, "a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about."

But legislating, presumably, is also about giving public reasons for the expenditure of public funds. Are Cornhuskers particularly sickly and fragile? Is there a malaria outbreak in Grand Island? Ebola detected in Lincoln?

Reid didn't even attempt to offer a reason why Medicaid in Nebraska should be treated differently from, say, Medicaid across the Missouri River in Iowa. The majority leader bought a vote with someone else's money. Does this conclusion sound harsh? Listen to Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who accused the Senate leadership and the administration of "backroom deals that amount to bribes," and "seedy Chicago politics" that "personifies the worst of Washington."

This special deal for Nebraska raises an immediate question: Why doesn't every Democratic senator demand the same treatment for their state? Eventually, they will. After the Nelson deal was announced, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa enthused, "When you look at it, I thought well, God, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent (coverage by the federal government). So he might have done all of us a favor." In a single concession, Reid undermined the theory of Medicaid -- designed as a shared burden between states and the federal government -- and added to future federal deficits.

Unless this little sweetener is stripped from the final bill by a House-Senate conference committee in January, leaving Nelson with a choice. He could enrage his party by blocking health reform for the sake of $100 million -- making the narrowness of his interests clear to everyone. Or he could give in -- looking not only venal but foolish.

How did Nelson gain such leverage in the legislative process in the first place? Because many assumed that his objections to abortion coverage in the health bill were serious -- not a cover, but a conviction. Nelson, a rare pro-life Democrat, insisted in an interview he would not be a "cheap date." Republican leadership staffers in the Senate thought he might insist on language in the health care bill preventing public funds from going to insurance plans that cover abortion on demand, as Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak had done in the House.

Instead, Nelson caved. The "compromise" he accepted allows states to prohibit the coverage of elective abortions in their own insurance exchanges. Which means that Nebraska taxpayers may not be forced to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions in Nebraska. But they will certainly be required to subsidize such plans in California, New York and many other states.

In the end, Nelson not only surrendered his own beliefs, he betrayed the principle of the Hyde Amendment, which since 1976 has prevented the coverage of elective abortion in federally funded insurance. Nelson not only violated his own pro-life convictions, he may force millions of Americans to violate theirs as well.

I can respect those who are pro-life out of conviction, and those who are pro-choice out of conviction. It is more difficult to respect politicians willing to use their deepest beliefs -- and the deepest beliefs of others -- as bargaining chips.

In a single evening, Nelson managed to undermine the logic of Medicaid, abandon three decades of protections under the Hyde Amendment and increase the public stock of cynicism. For what? For the sake of legislation that greatly expands a health entitlement without reforming the health system; that siphons hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare, instead of using that money to reform Medicare itself; that imposes seven taxes on Americans making less than $250,000 a year, in direct violation of a presidential pledge; that employs Enron-style accounting methods to inflate future cost savings; that pretends to tame the insurance companies while making insurance companies the largest beneficiaries of reform.

And, yes, for $100 million. It is the cheap date equivalent of Taco Bell.

mgerson@globalengage.org


Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Health Care RICO

If Attorney General Eric Holder was doing his job, he would presently be drawing up RICO indictments for interstate bribery and prostitution naming the members of the House and Senate who have voted for their respective health car reform bills. Sure, politics is about deal making and give and take, but the level of taking required to get the recalcitrant Democrats to “buy” into this bill surely must set a new NCAA indoor record for unabashed thievery.

Ben Nelson’s stance on abortion was clearly based on principal not on principles. Nelson gave up his principles as soon as there was enough special moolah on the table He joins fellow prostitute Mary Landrieu of in proving the old Winston Churchill adage, “Madame we’ve established what you are, we’re just negotiating over the price.” The list of codified bribes is almost endless.
One of the main causes of the American Revolution was taxation without representation. Taxation with representation may go a long way in fermenting another Revolution. Disgusted!

The Sun Tan Tax

The following was posted today on Politico:

Democrats have dropped the widely mocked “botax” on cosmetic surgery in the health bill – but if you want that summertime glow all year-round, you’re going to have to pay up.

Democrats replaced the tax on tummy tucks and nose jobs – which quickly became a prime target for late-night comics – with a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services.

This means anybody who uses tanning salons with beds that have "1 or more ultraviolet lamps" would see the tax on their bill starting July 1.

Of course, in Senate-ese it sounds so much more official: the tax will be paid for services “intended for the irradiation of an individual by ultraviolet radiation, with wavelengths in air between 200 and 400 nanometers, to induce skin tanning.”

The botax was originally meant to collect $5 billion, so that's a lot of trips to the tanning booth.

Posted by Carrie Budoff Brown 09:07 AM

 

So this is what it has come to. No tort reform. No reform of fee for service. No centralized records database. A tax on sun tans; that's what these imbeciles think is important. I can picture John Cleese reading the Senate-ese line in a Monty Python sketch. Pathetic.

 

The Dems want to force everyone to buy insurance from an industry that they routinely trash in public, but take huge sums of money from in private. The insurance industry got what it wanted. The pharmaceutical industry got what it wanted. The medical device manufacturers who refused to play the game got hit with a new tax on their devices. This means that the cost of everything from pacemakers to stents is going up, but The President tells us that the cost of health care is going to go down. We have gone through the looking glass.

Perhaps the most  insidious part of this bill is the combination of guaranteed issue coupled with community rating. I'm not opposed to guaranteed issue, people should not have to go bankrupt because they get sick. But combing it with community rating makes no sense. If insurance companies have to take on people who are sick with pre-existing conditions, people who will clearly cost them more, they are going to raise all premiums to offset that cost.

As an example, take two forty year old men; one is in perfect health, the other is forty pounds overweight, smokes, and has blood pressure and bad cholesterol levels that are sky high. If these two men applied for life insurance, the second gentleman with the obvious issues would pay more. More importantly, not only should he pay more, but there would be no public outcry that the insurance company is being unfair. When these same two men apply for health care, this new bill would throw logic out the window and have them both paying the same rate via community rating. Even though the addition of millions of new customers  is a financial bonanza for the insurance companies, they are going to quietly begin raising rates across the board to cover themselves for the millions of sick people they are going to have to cover.

Given the compromises that have been made in the Senate to get to 60 votes, reconciling this bill with the House version will be next to impossible. Still more absurd compromises on taxes, abortion, fees on high value plans and other issues will be made. What will ultimately be produced will not only be bad, but will set back real reform for decades. I wonder, if a tanning salon leaves someone under the lights for too long, is that malpractice?

Health Care on Life Support

With health care reform in the ER on life support, many in the mainstream media have bashed the Republicans as obstructionists or dismissed them as irrelevant, suggesting that they would not vote for reform under any scenario. Actually, they just don’t like this scenario. And they have some interesting company including many liberal commentators, major unions and not to forget the vast majority of the American people. And frankly, why should they vote for this garbage? The Dems have systematically ignored their proposals, excluded them from conferences and have sent a clear message that they are neither wanted or needed (except for maybe Olympia Snowe). The very notion that social change of this magnitude could be undertaken with no bi-partisan support is deranged, yet the Dems seem bound and determined to recreate a Japanese kamikaze mission.


For the White House to put out the scare tactic that “We will never have this opportunity again”, is ludicrous. Maybe they’ll never get the opportunity because they will be voted out of office, but America is certainly up to trying this again only this time trying to do it based on rational thinking rather than nonsensical political considerations. They are working overtime to convince the gang that the price for enacting nothing, will be worse than the price for enacting a bad bill.

The problem for the Democrats is that their real motivation is not how they can truly reform the health care system in this country, but how they can take it over. The current proposals don’t even scratch the surface. They can’t wait to bury us under value added taxes. Why don’t we just join the European Union and save all the hassles? Hey, at least we’d get a stable currency!

Circular Firing Squad

Well, the Democrats, pioneers of the circular firing squad, have done it again. The Senate Democrats and President Obama have managed to simultaneously alienate the progressive wing of their own party, Republicans, and the American people. Liberals from Howard Dean to Keith Olberman to the liberal blog the Daily KOS have demanded the plug be pulled on the health care reform initiative.
The White House and other Democrats have in turn thrown haymakers in Dean's direction. Someone needs to provide parental supervision.

The compromised pile of ashes that remains of the Senate bill is an insult. President Obama has shown that he has no principles that he is willing to fight for. All he wants is a deal so that he can declare victory in the upcoming State of the Union address. Forget the fancy speeches and empty promises. He is nothing more or less than a cheap South Side Chicago politician.

Remember Obama’s promise about how he wasn’t going to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year? Well, if the bill that’s in the Senate gets passed, many Americans will be forced to buy health care insurance that could run as high as 17% of their income, or alternatively pay a fine for not doing so. You can spin it anyway you want to, but when the government is forcibly extracting money from my wallet, it’s a tax.

If the Democrats continue with this flawless impersonation of lemmings walking off a cliff and actually pass this pile of junk, I believe that they are going to get their heads ripped off in the 2010 mid-term elections. All of the major polls indicate that Democratic voters are disinterested, and it’s the Republicans and independents who are up in arms and who intend to vote. As leaderless and rudderless as the Republican party currently is, if the Dems continue on this course, all the Republicans will have to do is show up. It may not be as bad as the 1994 rout, but Obama will be crippled and vulnerable in 2012.

Burnin' Mad: Boy, are we on the "precipice"

Burnin' Mad: Boy, are we on the "precipice"

Boy, are we on the "precipice"

Yesterday, President Obama did his best Knute Rockne imitation at a White House healthcare reform pep rally with Senate Democrats. The President said that we are on the "precipice" of achieving major comprehensive healthcare reform. Interesting choice of the word "precipice". Websters defines precipice as 1) "a very steep or overhanging place, and 2) a hazardous situation".

Given the combined 4,000 pages of legislative mumbo jumbo that the House and the Senate have cranked out, and the substantial differences between the two bills, the Democrats are indeed about to go careening down a steep overhanging place into a very hazardous situation. Every major poll has indicated that while the people want reform of the healthcare system, better than 50%  do not favor the solution that Obama and company are offering.

It is clear the the Democrats are focused on passing anything so that they can declare victory. They don't care that the components of the bill are wrong, they will "fix" them later. Don't hold your breath. Senator Tom Harkin described the bill as a "starter house" that could be added on to later.

The statement that the President released after the meeting contains some really choice tidbits. It is frankly amazing to see the unmitigated gall exhibited by the President in some of his pronouncements. Here are a few samples, the emphasis is mine:

"And I just want to repeat this because there's so much misinformation about the cost issue here. You talk to every health care economist out there, and they will tell you that whatever the ideas are--whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses and government, those elements are in the bill." 

In the immortal words of Steve Martin, "Well excuuuuuuuuuuuse me!" All the health care economists agree? Who is President Pinocchio kidding? Is he totally oblivious to the debate that has been raging over the lack of cost controls in this bill? Even CBO in its analysis has expressed doubts about the long tern effect on costs. Neither of the bills address tort reform and malpractice, the viability of fee for service, or the establishment of a centralized records database; all major drivers of the relentless increases in medical costs.

Reducing costs for families, as in the fines that are going to be imposed on people who don't buy government approved plans, or the proposed taxes to be levied on so-called "Cadillac Plans"? (The unions are going ballistic over this because having traded wage increases for better benefits, they get ensnared).

Next lulu

"This plan will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of that program. And because it gets rid of waste and inefficiencies in our healthcare system, this will be the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade."

The May 12, 2009 report of the Medicare Trustees is rather sobering. In 2008 Medicare started to pay out more than it took in, and absent tax increases or cost reductions, the part of the fund that pays for hospital costs will be exhausted by 2017. Given that state of the economy and Obama's campaign pledege not to raise taxes on anyone earning less that $250,000 a year, raising the Medicare component of the payroll tax is a non-starter. The current legislation targets a $500 billion reduction in Medicare expenses over the next ten years. If you believe that $500 billion is merely "waste and inefficiency, then you probably believe in Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny. By the way, what happened to fraud? Don't we want to eliminate that anymore?

Think about it; what new magical powers are going to accrue to the people who administer Medicare that will suddenly enable them to root out all of the waste and inefficiency that they have heretofore been unable to control? These reductions are going to come directly out of the hides of hospitals and physicians in the form of lower reimbursements, and they will negatively impact Medicare beneficiaries. Is it de facto rationing? Call it what you will, the net impact is the same.

And there's more. I really like this one becuase whenever the President says "Now let's be clear, or let me be clear", what usually follows is anything but clear.

"Now, let's be clear. The final bill won't include everything everybody wants. No bill can do that. But what I told my former colleagues today is that we simply cannot allow differences over individual elements of this plan to prevent us from meeting our responsibility to solve a longstanding and urgent problem for the American people."

Huh? What does the President think a plan is but the sum of its individual elements. Individual elements are things such as abortion coverage, fines on people who don't purchase coverage, new government bureaucracies to order us around. You bet people differ on these elements, and that's precisely why this bill is where it is, on a precipice.

And finally

"I am absolutelly confident that if the American people know what's in the bill, and if the Senate knows what's in the bill, that this is going to pass."

What do you mean, "if"? The American people are certainly not going to read 2,000 pages of junk, and I'd wager a fair number of senators have not and will not read the bill. Just last week when Senator Reid announced his new compomise, his second in command, Senator Durbin was unaware of what it was. But hey, why let trivial details like that actual words in a bill get in the way. The Presdent said that we'll never have the chance to do this again, so we most vote on a bill even though we don't know what's in it. Only in America.

I"ve said it before, and I'll say it again reconciling the mess in the House with the  mess in the Senate is going to be a non stop laugh-a-thon.

Healthcare Food Fight

As I mentioned in my previous post, the real fun is going to start when the Senate and House try to reconcile their bills. The following is from the New York Times as regards the meeting that the President is having with Democrats about the urgency of passing a bill. Emphasis is mine.

"But in the interview, Mr. Lieberman said that he grew apprehensive that the program would lead to financial trouble and contribute to the instability of the existing Medicare program.

He said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who strongly endorses a fully government-run health care system.

“Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it’s the beginning of a road to single-payer,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Jacob Hacker, who’s a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, ‘This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.’”

Mr. Weiner on Tuesday fired back, suggesting that Democrats should rally against centrist lawmakers who seem to be dominating the health care debate.

In a statement, he singled out Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan and Mr. Lieberman. Ms. Snowe played a heavy role in the Senate Finance Committee’s drafting of the bill; Mr. Stupak put forward an amendment, approved by the House, that added tight restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions.

“Who left these people in charge,” Mr. Weiner asked in the title of a news release. “Here’s an idea — how about we fight for a Democratic bill?”

Too bad Messrs. Weiner and Hacker shot off their mouths. The Dems might have been able to sneak this one though. NOT! Get the beer and the popcorn, reconciliation is gonna be a million laughs.

The Healthcare Train Wreck Keeps on Rolling

Thanks to Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and several other Democrats, the bill that will ultimately emerge from the Senate will amount to a pile of nothing. Each new compromise is designed not to reform healthcare (that  noble objective was forgotten a long time ago), but to get something, anything, that will garner sixty votes. What is so looney about this is that the Democrats apparently do not give a hoot about the fact that there is not one iota of bi-partisan support for this monstrosity, nor do they seem to care that polls indicate that almost 60% of the public does not like what's in the bill. The White House has apparently told Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Lieberman and be done with it before Christmas.

Keep in mind, that this is only the preliminary round. The real fun will start when  the House and the Senate try to reconcile their two respective bills. They are very far apart on the public option, abortion and taxes. Stay tuned.

The Healthcare Mess

Take it from someone who has managed many big projects, the reason why the healthcare reform debate has sunk to its current low point is relatively simple....no leadership. President Obama stated that healthcare reform would be the signature issue of his administration. No sooner did he make that pronouncement then he walked away from the issue and stood idly by as Pelosi, Reid & Company made an utter hash of it.

Right at the beginning, the President should have clearly stated the basic principles that he wanted to see in a finished bill. He should have worked on building the bi-partisan consensus that is clearly required for change of this magnitude. He should have explained that this reform had to be done in incremental steps.You can't build a pyramid from the top down, so the President should have tried to fix the problems of the current system first, before adding millions of new people to it. He should have had the courage to insist that serious tort reform be included as fear of malpractice lawsuits drives doctors to perform unnecessary and expensive tests. He should have insisted that we examine if fee for service is the best way to go. He should have insisted that work be done to establish a secure centralized medical records database to help reduce costs. (for goodness sakes Taiwan has a terrific one) But he did none of these things.

We all know that the President proposes and Congress disposes, but Obama really dropped the ball when he proposed nothing and sent Congress on their merry way while he tried to stay above the fray. That's not leadership.

Over the August recess as public opinion of the plan soured (due in no small part to some mis-information and scare tactics), Obama found himself backed into a corner, hence the speech for before the joint session of Congress. The strategy, such as it was, also made a radical turn. The insurance companies, whose representatives were all smiles with the President during a March rose garden photo op, now became the bad guys who were subjected to daily poundings. All the problems were their fault.

The result has been thousands of pages of incomprehensible legislation (I'm not kidding, just try reading the bills) that fails to address the real problems of our healthcare system. Every day we see a new compromise that further dilutes the bill in order for the Senate to get to sixty votes. They just want to pass something, anything, to get this behind them. But that is not good enough. Not when you are dealing with one sixth of the U.S. economy, and the personal relationships between doctors and patients. And the advice of former President Clinton to pass something just to get the ball rolling was not helpful either, because history tell us that Congress is not particularly adept at fixing things once they've been put into motion.

So much of this could have been avoided had President Obama taken control of the process from the very beginning. He probably would not have gotten everything he wanted, but I bet he would have gotten something with bi-partisan support that sixty percent of the American people would be for rather than against.

What is sad is that like lemmings walking in lockstep off of a cliff, the Democrats will simply continue with this process until it reaches a pointless conclusion. They will then congratulate themselves on this "major accomplishment". If they had any common sense ("if" being the operative word), they would pullback from the brink, and restart the process. But alas, I dream.

Value Added Tax

On December 11, The New York Times ran a piece about how a value added tax might be instituted to pay down the federal deficit. After repairing the hole that my fist made while going through my wall, I rationally thought about what this would mean to me as a resident of New York City. Since a federal VAT would not eliminate any other taxes, as a New Yorker I would be paying on top of the VAT:

1) Federal Income Tax
2) State Income Tax
3) City Income Tax
4) State & Local Sales Tax
5) Property Tax
6) Social Security
7) Medicare

One of the major causes of the American revolution was taxation without representation. It is pretty obvious that taxation with representation is not all it's cracked up to be. VAT is totally regressive and would hurt lower income people, while increasing the cost of almost all goods and services. It's a rotten idea. You would not offer an alcoholic another drink, and we should not allow people who have shown no capacity for managing money the ability to get more money. Does anyone really believe that the money would be used for the avowed purpose? Look at how they are trying to fool around with TARP. How about the social security "trust funds". As former senator Fritz Hollings once famously remarked, "There ain't no trust and there aren't any funds".

The real problem is that no one in government has the courage or the will to really dig into government expenditures and reduce them. The defense budget is full of unnecessary expenditures for weapons that we will never use in wars that we will never fight. Do we really need 35,000 troops in South Korea? What does the Department of Education do? What about all of the departments with overlapping responsibilities that could be consolidated? We can't just blindly continue to feed the beast, because at some point the feed will run out.