The Massachusetts legislature just passed a statewide anti-bullying law that will require teachers to report bullying to the principal once they become aware of it. Bully! But I doubt it will change anything.
When I was in elementary school, I was a bully magnet. Heck, that magnetism kept working through high school too. One time in 5th grade, some moron name Dale (my tormentor in chief) was strangling me in the corner (!!!) of the classroom while the teacher was down the hall. I saw the principal walk in, look around, and leave (!!!).
Now times have a-changed, and teachers are forced to sit through all sorts of sensitivity workshops and anti-bullying symposiums, but many don't want to get in between boys just being boys.
I appreciate the thought behind the new law, though.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Tax away in Kansas!
From a CJonline article on a proposal to raise sales tax to solve the state's budget woes. To raise or not to raise, that is the question:
The battle over Kansas economic projections intensified Monday with release of a Wichita State University study indicating closure of a state budget deficit with a $350 million tax increase would be less harmful to general economic vitality than an equivalent reduction in government spending.
The report adds to political debate raging in the 2010 Legislature on whether the state's financial deficit ought to be resolved by slicing at the edges of government spending or by imposing new taxes.
WSU's Center for Urban Studies and Kansas Public Finance Center outlined the influence on employment and economic output of a 1 percent increase in the state's retail sales tax. It follows a January report generated by a researcher at The University of Kansas' Center for Applied Economics.
A) What you tax, you get less of. Tax sales? You get fewer sales.
B) This study presupposes this tax increase would operate in a vacuum. With the spending spree of Congress and the President, big tax increases are coming to us all. I heard a retailer tax-apologist tonight on TV saying the same thing they said when campaigning to raise local sales taxes last year to fix roads. "It's only a little bit per person, and the government needs to the money." Sure, the same government that runs everything so efficiently needs MORE money to manage.
C) Sales taxes are the most regressive tax. They disproportionately impact the poor and elderly.
D) Our taxes are already higher than the states we compete with (primarily Missouri). Sure, let's give Kansans another reason to go support the Missouri economy.
E) Accomplish D, you drive Kansas businesses out of business, and you don't get the revenue you want. See my earlier post on the proposal to raise cigarette taxes.
In a so-called Republican state, the solution is still always the same -- RAISE taxes. Try lowering them for once and see economic activity increase, sales stay local, and revenues to the state actually increase!
The battle over Kansas economic projections intensified Monday with release of a Wichita State University study indicating closure of a state budget deficit with a $350 million tax increase would be less harmful to general economic vitality than an equivalent reduction in government spending.
The report adds to political debate raging in the 2010 Legislature on whether the state's financial deficit ought to be resolved by slicing at the edges of government spending or by imposing new taxes.
WSU's Center for Urban Studies and Kansas Public Finance Center outlined the influence on employment and economic output of a 1 percent increase in the state's retail sales tax. It follows a January report generated by a researcher at The University of Kansas' Center for Applied Economics.
A) What you tax, you get less of. Tax sales? You get fewer sales.
B) This study presupposes this tax increase would operate in a vacuum. With the spending spree of Congress and the President, big tax increases are coming to us all. I heard a retailer tax-apologist tonight on TV saying the same thing they said when campaigning to raise local sales taxes last year to fix roads. "It's only a little bit per person, and the government needs to the money." Sure, the same government that runs everything so efficiently needs MORE money to manage.
C) Sales taxes are the most regressive tax. They disproportionately impact the poor and elderly.
D) Our taxes are already higher than the states we compete with (primarily Missouri). Sure, let's give Kansans another reason to go support the Missouri economy.
E) Accomplish D, you drive Kansas businesses out of business, and you don't get the revenue you want. See my earlier post on the proposal to raise cigarette taxes.
In a so-called Republican state, the solution is still always the same -- RAISE taxes. Try lowering them for once and see economic activity increase, sales stay local, and revenues to the state actually increase!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Future of Healthcare
ObamaCare is similar to RomneyCare in Massachusetts in many ways, so here's a peek into the future:
From the Boston Globe:
A half-dozen health insurers yesterday filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to reverse last week's decision by the insurance commissioner to block double-digit premium increases--a ruling they say could leave them with hundreds of millions in losses this year. . . .
The insurers' complaint alleges that the state Division of Insurance acted illegally in three ways: by imposing a "rate cap" that is arbitrary and capricious; by attempting to peg rates to a measure--the medical consumer price index--that does not predict future costs; and by violating a requirement to enable insurers to charge adequate rates based on their projected costs in covering medical care.
This is what we can expect when the government supersedes the free market in setting prices and letting competition work. Insurance companies will eventually go broke because they can't operate under the ObamaCare rate caps. At the same time, of course, they're forced to insure people with health problems who will cost more in pay-outs than they make in premiums. So our insurance companies that we may choose for ourselves will go out of business, and what are we left with? Government-issued, one-size-fits-all healthcare.
From the Boston Globe:
A half-dozen health insurers yesterday filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to reverse last week's decision by the insurance commissioner to block double-digit premium increases--a ruling they say could leave them with hundreds of millions in losses this year. . . .
The insurers' complaint alleges that the state Division of Insurance acted illegally in three ways: by imposing a "rate cap" that is arbitrary and capricious; by attempting to peg rates to a measure--the medical consumer price index--that does not predict future costs; and by violating a requirement to enable insurers to charge adequate rates based on their projected costs in covering medical care.
This is what we can expect when the government supersedes the free market in setting prices and letting competition work. Insurance companies will eventually go broke because they can't operate under the ObamaCare rate caps. At the same time, of course, they're forced to insure people with health problems who will cost more in pay-outs than they make in premiums. So our insurance companies that we may choose for ourselves will go out of business, and what are we left with? Government-issued, one-size-fits-all healthcare.
Outlandish Hypocricy
The attack on the Tea Party movement by the media and leftist/statist politicians is galling, because the events coordinated by the Tea Party are just ordinary citizens peacefully expressing their views. Does Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly no longer ring our liberty bell?
Most galling is the hypocrisy -- those who decry protest today was leading it against George W Bush.
Watch this video (beware the language...the kind of language you would NEVER hear at a Tea Party rally).
Rep. Maxine Waters is completely exposed as a fraudulent hypocrite, and of course the media she talks to doesn't point out the hypocrisy. It's left to Breitbart to bring it to light.
Most galling is the hypocrisy -- those who decry protest today was leading it against George W Bush.
Watch this video (beware the language...the kind of language you would NEVER hear at a Tea Party rally).
Rep. Maxine Waters is completely exposed as a fraudulent hypocrite, and of course the media she talks to doesn't point out the hypocrisy. It's left to Breitbart to bring it to light.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Google, I mean, Topeka, for info on Topeka, I mean Google
The ultimate kick-back for re-naming Topeka after Google for the month of March, Google renames itself Topeka for... (presumably April Fools Day?)
Well played gentlemen!
But now I'm confused because I have, if I've got this right, to Topeka for information on Google.
From Google's, er, I mean, Topeka's blog post this morning:
For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt — and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our ‘beta’ releases. And just as the town's nickname is "Top City," and the word “topeka” itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes,” we’d like to think that our website is one of the web's top places to dig for information.
Well played gentlemen!
But now I'm confused because I have, if I've got this right, to Topeka for information on Google.
From Google's, er, I mean, Topeka's blog post this morning:
For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt — and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our ‘beta’ releases. And just as the town's nickname is "Top City," and the word “topeka” itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes,” we’d like to think that our website is one of the web's top places to dig for information.
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