Simplicity Itself

Obama is blinded by a ‘pathology’

President Obama says secretaries pay higher tax rates than the millionaires who employ them and he believes that’s unfair. OK, fine. Lower the secretary’s tax rate until it matches the millionaire’s. Problem solved, fairness achieved.

Of course, a lower tax rate for anyone would mean diminishing Obama’s ability to redistribute wealth as he sees fit. After all, that would mean less revenue for the federal government and we simply can’t have that, can we? That might force Americans to be charitable to one another, and the government to spend less.

Empowering citizens by confiscating less of their equity is not an option for a president who is blinded by liberal pathology and a hatred for vintage American culture.

Not being able to make such a choice also reveals the truth about the president’s intolerant, hate-filled abettors. Residing in the cultish tenet that it’s OK for Obama to implement a doctrine of post-modern economic justice, they seek nothing less than full control over the value of other peoples’ lives as vengeance for demographic disparity.

If you don’t agree that lowering the tax rate for secretaries is fair and still believe Obama has a bleeding heart for them, answer this: Why does Obama refuse to provide incentives through tax code modifications so millionaire employers will pay their secretaries more?

Pat Du Gard

Eugene

He's Right, You Know

From the RG mailbag:

Postal worker concessions unlikely

I would bet all the stamps in my stamp drawer that if the U.S. Postal Service defaults — or more likely, eventually goes to three- or four-days-a-week delivery — because it owes $10 billion it doesn’t have, two things will happen.

I will take this bet. What are we talking, $10 worth of stamps? Are they forever stamps?

First, mailing a letter from Eugene to Boise will take 10 days because the federal government will prove, once again, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it cannot run anything efficiently.

Ok, I will mail a letter to my father in Boise after the US Postal Service goes to three or four days. If the letter takes less than 10 days, I get those delicious stamps. If the letter takes 10 days or more, we move on to step two.

Before we move on, though, a question. How would the failure to deliver an envelope to Boise in less than 10 days prove anything about the efficiency of government? Is there some private entity out there that will come to my house, pick up the letter, and deliver it to my dad's house in Boise in less than 10 days for 44 cents?

[I'm also ignoring the fact that sentence was worded so that you have the government failing to make in 10 days so as to prove that they are inefficient, not because they are inefficient. This seems like a strange thing for the government to want to prove.]

Secondly, all the Postal Service’s union members still will receive full benefits, and sooner or later will strike for more. God forbid a federal employee should pay more for health insurance or not get a pay raise or take a pay cut.

The "sooner or later" would normally put a crimp in our bet-related plans, but since US postal workers are legally barred from striking, I'm confident that one day I will be collecting those delicious stamps. Maybe you could just concede this point?

The real heart of the letter, of course, is your demand that postal workers make concessions in their pay and benefits. never pass up an opportunity to call for someone else to take a pay cut, even if it means that it might lengthen the life of a quasi-socialist, inefficient, government program you obviously hate.

I wonder what kind of cuts postal workers would need to make to make up that $10 billion. There are 574,000 postal workers in the US, so that's a mere $17,421 each. Jerks. Of course, most of the $10 billion is for a payment to their retirement fund, so they will get it back. Hopefully no such future concession will be necessary.

What’s their silver bullet for every problem? We can be certain that higher taxes are the only solution, now and forever. I am, sadly, utterly convinced that a majority of government union workers would bite and then devour the hand that feeds them.

Well, the U.S. Postal Service does not get a regular subsidy from Congress, so the demand for higher taxes would be odd, but the point holds. Government workers should love pay cuts and less health care because the wealthiest 1% needs their tax cuts. They are, after all, the job creators. Not in this particular case, because we're talking about government jobs, but, you know, in general.

Brian Palmer

Eugene

Let me know in the comments where I can pick up those stamps.

We Got 'Em, Too

From the R-G letters:

Ultimate liberal would vote no

In the movie “Batman Begins” (2005), Batman fights against a shadowy group bent on destroying the entire Gotham City. This movie was hugely popular across the American demographic landscape. Why?

In my opinion Batman is a long-time icon of goodness, strength and overcoming adversity in many forms, and there are probably more reasons that you may have for liking Batman for all these years.

Let me give you a look at what “Batman Begins” does for me. He is the ultimate liberal! As soon as he realizes that the shadowy group is going to destroy Gotham City and all its residents, he fights against the group that saved him.

I read this as a parable of the Vietnam era policy of destroying the village to save it. We know where re-igniting this policy has gotten us (into not one but two more land wars in Asia).

I want to revisit this film’s themes because it’s 2011 now and the right wants to cut services to the neediest at a terrible time of uncertainty.

The right acts like the neediest of us need to be destroyed to save the village. The budget that Rep. Paul Ryan and his cronies propose will push us toward a society not unlike Gotham City. Is this where they want the United States to go? Conspiracy theorists may well say yes.

I know it’s a movie. And yet everyone knows that art (movies, books, TV, etc.) reflects culture and society. So, people, would Batman support this budget?

No.

Arthur Hering

Eugene

Conversations with a Farmer

In a world that hurts, it's good to laugh and that's why God gave us the Register-Guard letters to the editor.

Gross receipts tax hurts farmers

As Oregonians, we need to make it easier rather than harder for business people to make a profit.

Already I like you. You dispense right away with bullshit about job creation or some half-understood multiplier-effect mumbo-jumbo and go straight to the "it's your job to make sure I make money."

I’m a grass seed farmer; our prices for seed have been cut 40 percent to 60 percent in the last 1½ years. We are not anywhere close to profitability, but we still have to sell some of our seed for cash flow to pay bills. Measure 67 just doesn’t raise corporate fees from $10 to $150, it also taxes my gross receipts.

You're a grass seed farmer - one of God's own laborers - who sells seed to make money to pay your bills. No problems so far, things are tough all over. I mean, I am concerned how long you can run a farm that is nowhere close to profitable. I assume you have money in the bank or you're getting some sort of loan or something. I hope to Jeebus that this is not some sort of government loan.

Farming is a business that deals with a lot of money. A small grass seed farm easily could have $750,000 in sales, and a large farm several million in gross receipts, before bills are paid. Farmers could have a crop that cost them $3 million to grow and then sell everything for $2.75 million; they would lose $250,000 and would have to pay more than $3,000 in taxes.

Now, I am not an economist or anything, but holy hell, you lost a quarter million dollars last year and you're worried about an extra $3000 in taxes? Buddy, you got bigger problems. Or is it at all possible that in some recent years past you were actually making money on this little farm of yours while paying $10 in taxes. Let me see here, grass seed prices have fallen by 50% in the last 1.5 years, so $2.75 million in sales today was $4.125 million two years ago. By your own figures, you made roughly $1.125 million dollars a couple of years ago. I hope that money can help cushion that $3000 blow in the taxes. Oh, I know, you were just making up numbers and you didn't really make $1.125 million a couple of years ago and if you did, by gum, you earned it because if anyone deserves to make $1.125 million in a year it is the hard working grass seed farmer.

That sounds to me like kicking people when they are down, not fairness.

Exactly. Any businessman, small or otherwise, who cannot make a profit should not have to pay any kind of taxes whatsoever. In fact, there should be a government program where he could apply for loans or something to get him through the lean times because, obviously, businessmen can't fail, they can only be failed. By you (well not "you" you, the general you) and me. Oregonians. Also, any business that makes a profit should not have to pay taxes either, because that's just penalizing them for being successful.

I can understand why businesses leave the state; when government will no longer work with businesses, it’s time. Natural resources are the backbone of our state. The healthier we are, the more people we employ. It is private sector jobs, not those in the public sector, that make an economy work.

It's true. Oregon has really seen an exodus of businesses from this state, despite having the 3rd lowest business taxes in the US. Or they haven't left yet, but surely will if we raise their taxes to .01% of sales and have the 5th lowest businesses taxes. Except for natural resource businesses, of course, who can't leave even if they want to. Consider it the price we make you pay for exploiting our natural resources, because, once upon a time, it was actually thought that all the people owned the resources and taxes were the price you paid the people for the right to exploit them and make your $1.125 million. I know, I must be making that up.

Government bureaucracies need to learn how to cut budgets in hard times just as the private sector does. Join me in voting no on Measures 66 and 67.

Two billion dollars in cuts and more on the way. But don't worry, we'll keep making sure that you have all the infrastructure you need to sell your $3 million worth of grass seed all around this great big world, because, in the end, we all exist to make sure you, Eric Bowers, are able to make a profit.

Eric Bowers

Harrisburg

Au Contraire, Mon Frere

Far from being a blight on the visual environment, outdoor advertising is a valuable part of the business community.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

Dear Editor of the Register Guard,

Back in my day, August 2008, there was a certain stigma attached to being an unwed teen mother. Now that Bristol Palin has received a standing ovation at the Republican National Convention, I am relieved to assume that this is no longer the case.

I am also assuming that organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, Dobson's Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council will be joining with groups like Planned Parenthood and Doulas Supporting Teens in working to make sure teen mothers have all the support and information they need as they navigate difficult times.

Now that conservatives and liberals have joined together in recognizing that unwed teen mothers need society's support and encouragement, I also assume that we will see an expansion in the number of programs designed to help young mothers and an increase in funding for those that already do, no matter which party wins the presidential election.

Lastly, as long as I am making assumptions, I will go ahead and assume that, now that the Republicans are celebrating unwed teen mothers, we will be hearing a lot less about abstinence-only education, as we have just seen that no one really takes it seriously.

Stop Hitting Yourself

Dear Editor of the Register Guard,

In his Mailbag letter (September 1), Jack Roberts writes that after Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists in the air while receiving their Olympic medals in 1968, millions of white Americans took this as a sign that "nothing they did for black people would ever be enough," and they suddenly decided to revert to their racist ways.

Tragically, Roberts informs us, this happened right when we were so close to "uprooting the last remnants of discrimination in America." Roberts concludes his letter by stating that Smith and Carlos are directly responsible for setting back the cause of civil rights in America.

I'd like to posit that it is actually Roberts, and all the people like him, who have always and continue to set back the cause of civil rights in America by arguing that it is actually black people who are responsible for the racism in our society. It's not that Roberts wants to discriminate against black people, he tried to "give" them their civil rights, but they are just so ungrateful that there's nothing he can do but "backlash."

Of course, Roberts writes in a long tradition stretching back to antebellum America of white men finding the source of their racism in the character of black men. Hopefully, we are nearing the end of that tradition, but until that time, it is the responsibility of all who strive for equality in our society to keep raising our fists and fighting men like Jack Roberts.