The-Asterisk

My local newspaper recently ran an opinion piece by Paul Krugman  concerning Paul Ryan's report on the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty. The Fiscal Times also ran a piece on the same report. In my response, I reference a column by Coby Dillard which is linked here . I wanted to share my response to the newspaper. Paul Krugman is the undoubtedly the most arrogant pundit to grace your pages. In “The Hammock Fallacy” he criticizes Rep. Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee’s new poverty report for twisting the conclusions of research cited so voluminously in the report. In spite of, or perhaps because of his Nobel Prize in Economics, Mr. Krugman makes no such citations himself, relying solely on his own unassailable version of facts to rebut the Congressman.   Research properly done produces statistics and figures commonly referred to as facts . Reports, based on these figures, produce opinions. Like the story of the six blind men and the elephant , a set of facts han...

I just saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC, frothing, as he usually does, about Ryan's budget proposals. About how his proposal will cause a tax increase for the middle class... for everyone watching his program right now, just so that the richest Americans (including MANY lefties who steadfastly refuse to pay more taxes than they are currently required to pay) can get a 20% tax cut. I am not rich, but I sure pay "my fair share" of taxes. As little as I clear each year in my business (we are supposed to make a profit aren't we?), I always cringe to find out how much I will have to come up with to make sure I have paid enough. Tax refunds? Hah! As I have stated in a previous blog post , if the government confiscated every last penny of taxable income from the richest 1%, it would make a dent in the annual deficit but wouldn't allow for a surplus. Armed with this knowledge, even a fourth grader could figure out that by making our currently progressive tax rates more ...

Open letter to Rep. Paul Ryan and the House Republicans KILL CORPORATE WELFARE! There, I said it. If you want to have even a shred of dignity and a snowball's chance of getting your much-needed budget-cutting ideas through the House, the Senate and then signed by the President, you need to remove the most egregious and hypocritical-appearing part of our current spending regimen. Is there some good done by corporate welfare, AKA "Targeted Tax Policy"? Sure. Every tax law (except some by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel) started out as a sincere attempt to cause something beneficial to happen. Same with welfare and entitlements. But as so often occurs, the Law of Unintended Consequences trumps all other laws and no good deed goes unpunished. If the Federal Government wants to cause things to happen, why don't we come up with a better way than bribing corporate entities or people by allowing them to keep more of their own money if they do what you want the...