If you haven't read Gerard Baker of the London Times and his hilarious satire of Sen. Obama's world salvation rock tour, you've been in a hole someplace or perhaps have been up above the treeline with Gregg.
Read it first to enjoy the prose. Then enjoy listening to Baker reading it as a narrative accompanying video of Obama on World Tour.
Showing posts with label Satire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Satire. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, May 25, 2007
Article on Mike Lange
Today, the Billings Gazette published a piece on Mike Lange's personal financial misfortunes, as if the poor guy hadn't been beaten on enough.
We assume, though, that this is part of a series of articles, and that tomorrow's edition will feature a prominent Montana Democratic politician, alternating between a discussion of the details of his personal financial situation and a discussion of his past and future political career.
If it doesn't appear, not to worry -- it probably just means that reporters are still busily doing background research.
In other breaking news, just in case someone missed it, the article tells us that Mike Lange had a YouTube moment in the closing days of the regular session of the Montana legislature some weeks ago.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Gazette gives out statesmanship awards -- Montana Headlines offers the Gazette editors some modest math suggestions
The Billings Gazette seems to have the same problem that Mike Lange was criticized for having -- not knowing when to remain silent.
The governor got his budget, essentially unchanged from what was originally proposed. He got his $400 election-year "check in every pot." There was virtually nothing that was originally proposed from a budgetary point of view that went the Republicans' way. One would think that enough to satisfy the Gazette editors, but apparently not.
No, there just had to be a final editorial defining statesmanship on the part of a Republican: whoever voted with the Democrats was a statesman. Whoever didn't vote for their proposals wasn't. Let's take a look at a few highlights from the editorial:
The compromise that allowed lawmakers to complete their first and most crucial job was, in the end, possible only because a small number of Republican legislators joined most of their Democratic colleagues in support of a budget compromise.
The editorial thus begins with a fallacy: that the final bill was a compromise. How exactly does a budget that is not substantively different from what the executive requested a compromise? If the Gazette is going to label this a compromise, they need to point out the substantive ways in which this was a true compromise on spending. Was a 0.6% reduction in spending from the
Democratic Senate's bill (one that brought spending back to what the governor requested) a significant compromise?
If the "no" voters had their way, the special session would still be running and costing taxpayers money.
Now, the Gazette gives the reader a false choice: vote for the Democratic spending proposals as written, or stay in session with legislators spinning their wheels. The editors seem very concerned about $250,000 in special session costs, and indignantly take up the mantle of fiscal responsibility by advocating passing the bills and going home in order to save money.
There are other alternatives. We're no budget wizards, but let's throw out a few numbers -- and we'll try to round up and give the benefit of the doubt at every point, to account for the fact that we haven't run this by any legislative budget analyst and may be completely off.
The Senate's budget was $7.9 billion, of which 40% was general fund money. We'll ignore the federal taxpayers' portion of the tab and stick to state general fund. That makes for about $3.2 billion.
Now let's suppose that a real compromise had taken place. The governor wanted (and got) a 23% increase in spending, while Republicans would probably have wanted something on the order of twice the rate of inflation. Inflation has been roughly 2.5% in 2007, so double that to make it 5%, and double that to account for the fact that this is biennial spending -- 10%.
Now, we should be able to agree that the legislative races were essentially a tie. Democrats controlled the more powerful chamber due to a defection (and would have controlled it anyway, since one doubts that Lt.Gov. Bohlinger would have voted with his own Republican party on tie-breakers,) but Republicans had more votes cast for them statewide. The governor is Democratic, so call him equal to a house of legislature, and since the governor's race is winner-take-all we can't titrate that one. So in this hypothetical compromise, rather than being met half-way at 16%, the governor would get 2/3rds (67%) of the increase in spending he asked for.
But wait, there's more! To be generous, we'll spot another 3% for Mike Lange's expletives, and another 5% for the fact that Republicans are just plain nasty creatures who really ought to be forced to move to Wyoming -- just to round it up and give the governor a hefty 75% of the increase he wanted. Meeting 3/4 of the way like that would amount to about a 19% increase in general fund spending -- about 4 times the rate of inflation (wouldn't we all like our wages to get increases at that rate!)
A quick calculation (again rounding up) translates that into a $3.1 billion general fund budget, as opposed to $3.2 billion. That would be $100 million less in spending in this theoretical compromise (and still a hefty $500 million increase.)
Supposing the legislature special session costs $50,000 a day (the number thrown around was $38,000 but we'll round it up to be sure,) this means that the legislature would have to stay in session 365 days a year for 5 1/2 years in order spend that kind of money.
Let's say that the steaks were 2 inches thick, and all of the whiskeys were doubles, and call it 2 1/2 years -- in other words they would have to stay in session past the end of the next general session to spend $100 million.
There were about 6 weeks remaining until the drop-dead date of July 1. Working 6 days a week at $100,000 a day (those 2 inch thick steaks and double-shot whiskeys again) all the way to that deadline, that would mean a cost of $3.6 million for the longest possible special session at this ridiculously high hypothetical cost.
Now, just suppose that this hypothetical legislature arrived at the Montana Headlines hypothetical compromise, saving $100 million in spending.
There would have been a net savings to the Montana taxpayer of more than $96 million dollars.
So what is the fiscal problem? The legislature being in special session, as the Gazette claims, or just plain spending too much money in the budget?
Perhaps the Gazette might have saved us all a lot of money if they had been calling for statesmanship on the part of Democrats, urging them to make real compromises with Republicans. But statesmanship, Gazette-style, isn't defined as Democrats giving up anything to Republicans, is it?
The Gazette editors scold the intransigent Republicans who didn't vote for the "compromise" by praising the few who did, saying that "they understand that getting everything one wants is not an option."
Well, actually, apparently it is. Just ask the governor.
The governor got his budget, essentially unchanged from what was originally proposed. He got his $400 election-year "check in every pot." There was virtually nothing that was originally proposed from a budgetary point of view that went the Republicans' way. One would think that enough to satisfy the Gazette editors, but apparently not.
No, there just had to be a final editorial defining statesmanship on the part of a Republican: whoever voted with the Democrats was a statesman. Whoever didn't vote for their proposals wasn't. Let's take a look at a few highlights from the editorial:
The compromise that allowed lawmakers to complete their first and most crucial job was, in the end, possible only because a small number of Republican legislators joined most of their Democratic colleagues in support of a budget compromise.
The editorial thus begins with a fallacy: that the final bill was a compromise. How exactly does a budget that is not substantively different from what the executive requested a compromise? If the Gazette is going to label this a compromise, they need to point out the substantive ways in which this was a true compromise on spending. Was a 0.6% reduction in spending from the
Democratic Senate's bill (one that brought spending back to what the governor requested) a significant compromise?
If the "no" voters had their way, the special session would still be running and costing taxpayers money.
Now, the Gazette gives the reader a false choice: vote for the Democratic spending proposals as written, or stay in session with legislators spinning their wheels. The editors seem very concerned about $250,000 in special session costs, and indignantly take up the mantle of fiscal responsibility by advocating passing the bills and going home in order to save money.
There are other alternatives. We're no budget wizards, but let's throw out a few numbers -- and we'll try to round up and give the benefit of the doubt at every point, to account for the fact that we haven't run this by any legislative budget analyst and may be completely off.
The Senate's budget was $7.9 billion, of which 40% was general fund money. We'll ignore the federal taxpayers' portion of the tab and stick to state general fund. That makes for about $3.2 billion.
Now let's suppose that a real compromise had taken place. The governor wanted (and got) a 23% increase in spending, while Republicans would probably have wanted something on the order of twice the rate of inflation. Inflation has been roughly 2.5% in 2007, so double that to make it 5%, and double that to account for the fact that this is biennial spending -- 10%.
Now, we should be able to agree that the legislative races were essentially a tie. Democrats controlled the more powerful chamber due to a defection (and would have controlled it anyway, since one doubts that Lt.Gov. Bohlinger would have voted with his own Republican party on tie-breakers,) but Republicans had more votes cast for them statewide. The governor is Democratic, so call him equal to a house of legislature, and since the governor's race is winner-take-all we can't titrate that one. So in this hypothetical compromise, rather than being met half-way at 16%, the governor would get 2/3rds (67%) of the increase in spending he asked for.
But wait, there's more! To be generous, we'll spot another 3% for Mike Lange's expletives, and another 5% for the fact that Republicans are just plain nasty creatures who really ought to be forced to move to Wyoming -- just to round it up and give the governor a hefty 75% of the increase he wanted. Meeting 3/4 of the way like that would amount to about a 19% increase in general fund spending -- about 4 times the rate of inflation (wouldn't we all like our wages to get increases at that rate!)
A quick calculation (again rounding up) translates that into a $3.1 billion general fund budget, as opposed to $3.2 billion. That would be $100 million less in spending in this theoretical compromise (and still a hefty $500 million increase.)
Supposing the legislature special session costs $50,000 a day (the number thrown around was $38,000 but we'll round it up to be sure,) this means that the legislature would have to stay in session 365 days a year for 5 1/2 years in order spend that kind of money.
Let's say that the steaks were 2 inches thick, and all of the whiskeys were doubles, and call it 2 1/2 years -- in other words they would have to stay in session past the end of the next general session to spend $100 million.
There were about 6 weeks remaining until the drop-dead date of July 1. Working 6 days a week at $100,000 a day (those 2 inch thick steaks and double-shot whiskeys again) all the way to that deadline, that would mean a cost of $3.6 million for the longest possible special session at this ridiculously high hypothetical cost.
Now, just suppose that this hypothetical legislature arrived at the Montana Headlines hypothetical compromise, saving $100 million in spending.
There would have been a net savings to the Montana taxpayer of more than $96 million dollars.
So what is the fiscal problem? The legislature being in special session, as the Gazette claims, or just plain spending too much money in the budget?
Perhaps the Gazette might have saved us all a lot of money if they had been calling for statesmanship on the part of Democrats, urging them to make real compromises with Republicans. But statesmanship, Gazette-style, isn't defined as Democrats giving up anything to Republicans, is it?
The Gazette editors scold the intransigent Republicans who didn't vote for the "compromise" by praising the few who did, saying that "they understand that getting everything one wants is not an option."
Well, actually, apparently it is. Just ask the governor.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Pay more taxes -- please!
Well, today is the day: the deadline to file those IRS returns and mail in those checks to the government.
Of course, most Americans "get money back," which just means that withholding has masked how much is coming out of their paychecks. And it means that the IRS and DOR have tricked them into feeling as though the government is somehow giving them money, when what really happened is that they gave the government a no-interest loan.
As most conservatives point out, if every American had to write checks to the state and the federal government every pay period rather than having it painlessly withheld... well, we would very quickly have something that would make that old California Proposition 13 look like a "let's raise taxes" party.
But the only thing more annoying than paying those exorbitant taxes is listening to voices on the left talk about how much they enjoy and are proud of paying taxes, and how they would gladly pay more.
Well guess what? Anyone who wants to is free to put their money where their mouth is, and actually do it. And you don't have to live in a state with a "tax me more" fund. (Incidentally, neither John Kerry nor Barney Frank took advantage of this program in Massachusetts to pay under the older, higher rate when the income tax rates dropped there. And we won't even talk about way that wealthy liberal families use intricate trusts to avoid the death taxes they advocate retaining and raising.)
Of course, most Americans "get money back," which just means that withholding has masked how much is coming out of their paychecks. And it means that the IRS and DOR have tricked them into feeling as though the government is somehow giving them money, when what really happened is that they gave the government a no-interest loan.
As most conservatives point out, if every American had to write checks to the state and the federal government every pay period rather than having it painlessly withheld... well, we would very quickly have something that would make that old California Proposition 13 look like a "let's raise taxes" party.
But the only thing more annoying than paying those exorbitant taxes is listening to voices on the left talk about how much they enjoy and are proud of paying taxes, and how they would gladly pay more.
Well guess what? Anyone who wants to is free to put their money where their mouth is, and actually do it. And you don't have to live in a state with a "tax me more" fund. (Incidentally, neither John Kerry nor Barney Frank took advantage of this program in Massachusetts to pay under the older, higher rate when the income tax rates dropped there. And we won't even talk about way that wealthy liberal families use intricate trusts to avoid the death taxes they advocate retaining and raising.)
In fact, Howie Carr has been waiting for four years to find a Massachusetts politician who actually does voluntarily pay at the higher rate.
But as we were in the process of saying, you don't need to pass any special legislation to be able to pay more taxes and make sure that the government (state or federal) has more of your tax dollars to spend. You don't even need special accounting skills.
Just don't claim any exemptions or deductions. Talk about filing a 1040SuperEZ! No complicated rules, no tax-preparer bills, no need to keep track of charitable contributions or mortgage interest. We're talking Real Simple -- on steroids.
You can buy that "clean and green" hybrid and by not claiming the tax credit, you can feel really, really righteously good about it -- rather than feeling a little tainted by having to share the spotlight with the taxpayers who helped you pay for it.
Another technique is that you could report income you didn't receive. Granted, that might buy you an audit, but it would be an audit that you would pass with flying colors (much to the bewildered confusion of the IRS or DOR auditor.) Again, you'll feel really good, and they'll feel a little guilty since they all take advantage of every loophole they can find on their own returns. You change the world one mind at a time, you know.
Or, if you're married, calculate your taxes both by married and single filling separate methods -- use whichever one costs you more. You shouldn't get audited on that one.
If you think you feel good about paying taxes now, just think how great you'll feel when your tax bill is higher. You might get to experience the happiness of a smaller refund check or even (joy above joys!) -- see what it feels like to write a check on April 15 rather than get one back. Or if you already write a check on April 15th, what it feels like to write an even bigger one.
It's all for a good cause, so let's all go out there and have a good time! Think global, act local...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Mike Lange is out of control again
As if the other stuff wasn't bad enough, now we have the following:
Mike Lange needed a crossover vote from the Democrats -- one would have done it -- to pass a piece of legislation near and dear to his heart. Of course, it was really one of his conservative compadres who was to blame, since the Republicans plus Jore make 51 -- but that didn't stop Lange from going ballistic on some Democrats.
Next thing you know, he was calling a radio station in the home town of a Democrat that he thought should have voted for his bill, criticizing said Democratic legislator. Reports of Lange's comments include words like "hopping mad," and "wrath."
Lange, known for using colorful analogies when criticizing his opponents, had this to say: "I didn't hear people in his district say, 'We're against that bill.' I heard, 'Giddyup.'" "But," Lange continued, "he instead pulled back on the reins and took the saddle off."
Lange went on to say that while he wasn't going to distribute attack fliers in the middle of a session to try to influence votes, he just couldn't remain silent about this: "You can't say one thing back home and then vote another way in Helena."
In other news, Governor Schweitzer, who has been known to reach into his pocket for a pen and come out with a rifle cartridge "by mistake," engaged in more explicitly threatening behavior when he went into Republican legislative offices, threatening legislators by making hand pistols and saying that "blood-letting" was going to begin if he didn't get the votes he wanted. He pretended to fire shots, but witnesses differed in their stories at this point.
Some said that he said "bang, bang!" Most, however, agreed that he used the more realistic and frightening sound of "pshew, pshew, pshew!" One witness said that the governor used a one-gun technique, using the palm of his other hand to rapidly brush the "thumb hammer" to quickly recock a hand-revolver.
Most observers, however, agreed that he was a "two-gun kid," rapidly firing off shots in multiple directions with each hand. "From the way he held his hands, I don't think this was an Old West kind of thing -- he seemed to be imagining that he had a semi-automatic Glock in each hand," a visibly shaken Scott Sales murmured.
Things are getting rough up in Helena, and its about time we see some moderate leadership from the Senate -- both sides of the aisle.
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