Judd Legum's Philosophy of Governance

Judd Legum, the out-of-state funded Democrat for Delegate in District 30, also has a side gig in addition to be a candidate and a trial lawyer as the Chairman of the Market House and City Dock Committee of Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen's transition team. And buried deep in this Capital story about the failure of the Market House rehabilitation project to get on track are Legum's thoughts about how Market House should operate:

The committee recommended the formation of a commission to determine exactly who will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Market House and what businesses will move into it. It's more important to reflect the character of Annapolis than for the property to turn a profit, Legum said.

Emphasis mine.

So, just to be clear, Judd Legum has absolutely no problem whatsoever with Annapolis City Taxpayers operating an ostensibly for-profit enterprise that competes with local private businesses for customers and revenues operating at a loss. That of course would mean that city taxpayers could see themselves footing the bill for more of Market House's operating costs than would be legitimately necessary; a philosophy that has already failed at the state level.

In Judd Legum's world, soaking the taxpayers for the ineffectiveness of government is a perfectly legitimate position to take. We need to make sure that Judd Legum doesn't bring his backward philosophy of governance to the State House next year...

The Rats are fleeing the Titanic

Wow, President Obama must be doing a historically bad job if the New York Times editorial page is writing about how bad of a President he is:

The leading liberal voices of the New York Times editorial pages all criticized—and, in some cases, clobbered—President Obama on Sunday for his handling of the economy and national security.

It's not unusual for Barack Obama to take a little friendly fire from the Times. But it's perhaps unprecedented for him to get hit on the same day by columnists Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd—and in the paper's lead editorial. Their critique punctuated a weekend that started with a widely circulated blog post by Paul Krugman that said the president’s yet to be announced bank rescue plan would almost certainly fail.

The sentiment, coming just two months after the president was sworn in, reflects elite opinion in the Washington-New York corridor that Obama is increasingly overwhelmed, and not fully appreciative of the building tsunami of populist outrage.

And with the last sentence, Politico's Johnathan Martin may be making the understatement of the year. Read the lead editorial, and the editorials by Friedman, Rich, and Dowd for yourself to see how far reaching their criticisms are.

While I am glad to see that some of the most outspoken, out there voices on the left are finally seeing the error of their ways, I think they might need to be reminded of why we are where we are. Obama is still their guy. They cheerleaded for him throughout 2008, glossed over his nearly blank record and his ideological shortcomings, and heaped scorn upon John McCain for having the audacity to challenge Obama's Audacity of Hope......and we see where that has gotten us. (And that speaks nothing of Obama's recent gaffe-filled statements and his complete inability to say "hello" without the use of a teleprompter).

The problem with the New York Times crowd now realizing 60 days into his administration that Barack Obama makes a terrible, incompetent President is the fact that their realization comes a long, LONG time after the rest of the country reached that conclusion. Better late than never, I suppose.

But what really scares the rest of us is the fact that Obama still has 46 more months in the job before the adults get an opportunity to fix the damage....

Class is in session

Eric Luedtke, after discussing some language from Progressive Maryland, on the state of working Maryland:

This is what makes efforts like increasing the minimum wage, strengthening the living wage, guaranteeing paid sick days, finding ways to get people health insurance, and reinforcing labor protections are so important.Our economic growth is leaving too many behind.

So let's follow Luedtke's logic here.

1. Maryland's economy is leaving too many people behind.
2. We need more Government to fix the problem.

Now, let's talk about real reasons why middle and working class families are in their current state:

1. Government has gotten too big.
   
2. Martin O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats cannot control spending.
3. Martin O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats cannot control their urge to raise taxes on the middle and working classes.
4. Businesses who can afford to leave Maryland are due to higher taxes, more regulations, and labor unfriendly laws like living and prevailing wage laws.
   
5. Fewer and fewer jobs are left for middle and working class employees.
6. The left responds by calling for even bigger government.
7. Return to step 2 and repeat.

If Luedtke is serious about helping Maryland's middle and working class families (and I have no doubt that he is not and would rather put politics first) he will call for the reduction of lower taxes, reduced government spending, and a regulatory environment that encourages job growth here in Maryland.

People on the fringe left like Luedtke need to realize that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Class dismissed.

The time for Keynes has passed

Adam Pagnucco responded to yesterday's post regarding his take on the budget. Adam, unfortunately, still is unwilling to admit a few key points and still questions my more mainstream view of Maryland's fiscal matters.

First, Pagnucco tries to shift most of the burden out of the O'Malley Deficit out of Maryland entirely:

Even casual readers of the news know that Maryland’s economy has suffered along with the rest of the nation. The causes of American economic stagnation are well known: a bursting real estate price bubble, resulting problems in financial markets and rising fuel prices exacerbated by a weak dollar. (The weak dollar is caused in part by immense federal budget deficits driven by the war in Iraq.) Those national problems affected Maryland.

I don't think that either of us can dispute the impact that an unstable national economy has had on our state, particularly in light of the fact that neither Republicans nor Democrats in Washington have been willing to cut back on President Bush's ridiculously unnecessary rate of domestic spending (which makes Lyndon Johnson look like Ebenezer Scrooge in comparison). But to say that the national economy is first and foremost the cause of the O'Malley Deficit is just factually incorrect, much like his next statement:

The slowing economy laid bare an underlying truth: the state had a structural deficit and was on track to spend $1.10 for every $1.00 it received in taxes. As I said nearly a year ago in a blog post ignored by Griffiths, the cause was two-fold: a 10% income tax cut in 1997 and billions of additional spending on education (commonly called the Thornton Plan) started in 2002. Both of these events occurred during the Glendening administration, but Governor Ehrlich did nothing to reverse them.

Only somebody trying to pull a fast one could make such a claim. To say that the income tax cut of 1997 was directly responsible for the currently shortfall is patently ridiculous. While Glendening pushed through the tax cut solely to take teeth out of Ellen Sauerbrey's 1998 gubernatorial campaign, it was a correct move for the people and the taxpayers of Maryland. But once you cut taxes, you know the money isn't there to spend. So, in a state where the budget is constitutionally required to be balanced, how can one blame a deficit on money that is not available to spend in the first place?

While I will agree that the Thornton Plan is part of our budget problem, to blame Governor Ehrlich for doing "nothing to reverse" it is also slightly ridiculous. It was Annapolis Democrats who railroaded the Thornton Plan through, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle where nobody wanted to articulate where the money was going to come from. Once Ehrlich was elected, Annapolis Democrats would never vote to repeal it because it was a convenient albatross to hang around Ehrlich's neck when he couldn't fund the increase in education in Baltimore City and Prince George's County. It was the left who was responsible for fiscal silliness surrounding Thornton.

At this point, Pagnucco deviates into the absurd:

Griffiths implicitly assumes that tax hikes hurt the economy while government spending cuts do not. Here he demonstrates a basic ignorance of every macroeconomics course taught to college freshmen. From the perspective of economic growth, it does not matter whether the government implements a tax hike or a spending cut as a deficit reduction measure. Both reduce aggregate demand in the economy, especially when taking into account a reverse multiplier effect.

I didn't implicitly assume anything. I will explicitly state that tax hikes hurt the economy while government spending cuts do not. This is part of the basic philosophy of the Austrian School of Economics championed by folks such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. It is their philosophies that have shown, time and time again, to be the best course of action for our nation. Keynesian Economics played a large part, for example, in the creation of the New Deal and the further economic devastation caused by its implementation.

Pagnucco, instead, champions the failed policies of Keynesian Economics, which champions a strong role for the state in a theoretical effort to increase economic growth. That Pagnucco would champion such a model is not surprising, for Pagnucco is employed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. Ergo, Pagnucco's support for increased or maintained state spending, while understandably self-interested, is flawed and somewhat hypocritical.

Increasing or maintaining state spending helps Pagnucco and his employer, as in a closed shop state such as Maryland the preponderance of state capital construction projects wind up built by union shops. If taxes are cut and state spending is reduced, more capital will become available for the economy at large. There may be more constructions jobs available for a greater number of contractors, but since the free market is not bound to hire union workers at potentially inflated wages, it is in Pagnucco's interest and his employers interest to maximize the amount of jobs available to union members, in this particular instance union carpenters. The problem is, while this may be beneficial to Pagnucco and his employer, it is a raw deal for average middle and working class families who are expected to pay higher taxes to cover the cost of this governmental largess. Which is why he concludes with this:

The best thing the state government could do to revitalize Maryland’s economy is to increase its investment in infrastructure, even if it means taking in additional revenues. The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce recommended raising $600 million for the Transportation Trust Fund this year, a step that was unfortunately not taken by the General Assembly. The business community and building trades unions believe that infrastructure construction creates jobs, long-lasting physical assets and abundant opportunities for private sector growth. Those things in turn will stabilize the budget over the long term. If only conservatives like Brian Griffiths could agree.

While I would agree that our infrastructure needs greater attention, it would be completely foolish to again raise taxes in this economic climate. But once again, there is a way to address our infrastructure at a reduced cost, without increasing spending, and without raising taxes if we just again bring privatization to state building projects, particularly transportation projects. Pagnucco, however, would probably resist such an idea because, once again, it is not in his own self-interests.

Pagnucco and other liberals continue, however, to make one point clearly and painfully obvious to all voters and taxpayers here in Maryland. Liberals will stop at nothing to raise taxes and increase spending, particularly when it comes to their own self-interests and the interests of the special interest groups who support them.

Once again I ask: when are Maryland's leaders going to put the interests of our working and middle class families first? When are we going to get the tax cuts and spending reductions our economy needs to grow?

The Bay Bridge, Traffic Safety, and the Human Condition

A couple of stories tie together here today.

First off, the Sun's resident totalitarian Michael Dresser wants to turn the Bay Bridge into Big Brother's Rumpus Room:

That's why there is nowhere in the state where the case is stronger for vigorous use of video technology to enforce the law. Not just to issue automated speeding tickets but also to identify other offenders who can be pulled over once they're off the bridge. I'd like to see a defendant in District Court try to explain away video evidence of tailgating.

There's also a strong argument that traffic violations on the authority's bridges and tunnels deserve tougher sanctions. If fines are doubled in work zones, why not triple them on the Bay Bridge and other toll facilities? (The Harbor Tunnel, Fort McHenry Tunnel, Key Bridge, the U.S. 40 bridge over the Susquehanna and the U.S. 301 bridge over the Potomac. I'd exempt the toll section of Interstate 95 because it doesn't raise the same issues.)

It wouldn't take long before folks absorbed the message that Maryland toll bridges and tunnels are someplace where you drive as if your mom were in the car.

Of course, what Dresser suggests is patently illegal under state law. And frankly, it's a bit Pollyannaish too. Only a liberal would dare suggest that the presence of a camera is going to deter insane or criminal behavior. If they did, the areas around police cameras in Baltimore would be the safest places in Maryland. Why is that not so? Because cameras can only punish the act. They do not prevent the act itself and thus do nothing to protect the public safety, as liberals like to suggest.

Using technology to catch drivers on the Bay Bridge would be no different, and would probably serve only one purpose; revenue enhancement. We have see speed and red-light cameras across the country installed in places where they serve little purpose but to line the pockets of local government, to say nothing of the fact that they create traffic headaches and likely cause accidents. Of course, facts never stopped Dresser from promoting nonsense before...

While Dresser wants to baby us, an article in the Wilson Quarterly goes in a....different direction:

In the last few years, however, one traffic engineer did achieve a measure of global celebrity, known, if not exactly by name, then by his ideas. His name was Hans Monderman. The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety ­infra­structure—­warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so ­on—­is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

Emphasis mine....and read the whole thing. Because Monderman was right. The nanny state, in all of its forms, creates nothing but babies, people who cannot function without government oversight. Overregulation, overprotection dumbs us down. It's why kids who used to ride their bikes without helmets in the middle of the road to play ball at a neighbors house stay inside because parents are afraid of getting sued for a cut sustained on their property and overprotective parents want to dress their kids up enough pads before getting on a bike to take part in a jousting event. Is it any wonder kids are sedentary and show no interest in fiddling with things, and no interest in being outside?

And that is the kind of logic that people like Dresser wants to apply to the highways, and people like Dresser want to apply to every situation. They want to over-regulate to the point where nobody is safe. Sure, Monderman's principles on traffic control are revolutionary and perhaps a little too over the top. But are they really any different, as I noted before, from the laws of the Autobahn which has few regulations, but find those regulations strictly enforced? At the very least, Monderman's ideas appeal to our basic principles that the government that governs best governs least, and idea subscribed to by the majority of averaged Americas.

Finally, as a tribute to Monderman and finger in the eye of Dresser, I heartily endorse this idea from Donald Sensing:

So it's less polluting to drive than fly, right? And it appears that is is rapidly becoming just as quick to drive as fly on not only short-range flights, but increasingly on medium-range flights as well.

So here's my global-warming-fighting plan: significantly increase the speed limits on the nation's interstate highways. That will make driving rather than flying even more appealing, more financially attractive and less time consuming.

By "significantly increase" the speed limits, I mean to triple-digit speeds. The present limit in Tennessee in 70 mph. So let's reset it to 100, minimum.

Here, here. A plan that fights global warming, a plan that provides for greater national security, and a plan that embraces Monderman's idea for relatively unregulated roads. Quite Panglossian.

When can we sign up?

I Get Letters

Needless to say that yesterday's post about Paul Foer earned me a nastygram....from Paul Foer:

from	Paul Foer
to		brian@briangriffiths.com
date		Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 7:36 AM
subject		Thanks for all the free publicity of my ideas......

We've never met, yet you sure have taken an interest in me. I appreciate the fact that you read Capital Punishment, take me so seriously and pay so much attention to what you label as my "fringe left" views that you feel compelled to tell even more people about it--who then visit my blog. I think it's funny that you say I resort to "yelling" because I put a few sentences in bold. At least I don't resort to immature name-calling.

Regarding the Bay Bridges, you confidently feel that we'll alway have the energy available to power all the vehicles you anticipate for years and years to come. Okay. Talk about sticking one's head in the sand. There's plenty of it at the beach, so enjoy your next trip there...over two spans or ten....why not just build a fifty lane bridge? More bridges everywhere.....

It's bad enough that your views don't consider the tremendous changes we will are undergoing now, but to attack someone whose views you don't like or agree with is just silly. Now you'll turn around and whine that I'm like the people described in "Liberal Fascism" or some such thing. But you don't know me. You know nothing about me.


Paul Foer

Wow. Foer does realize that I am not promoting his ideas....I'm mocking them for their lack of foresight, thought, and reason.

If that weren't bad enough, he then tries to completely change the argument. At no point in my rebuttal of his post did I talk about fuel. Why? Because something is going to power cars. I don't know if it will be gas, ethanol, sawgrass, hydrogen, or chicken droppings, but the people of this country will be using cars. That's not going to change anytime soon. People have been using personal, land based conveyances since a minor invention 5700 years ago. If Foer believes that is going to stop, that we won't evolve to cleaner fuels, than he is even more naïve than I thought he was.

This is my favorite part:

but to attack someone whose views you don't like or agree with is just silly. Now you'll turn around and whine that I'm like the people described in "Liberal Fascism" or some such thing.

You mean like this?

No, Mayor Moyer, you're just a mean-spirited, angry, paranoid incompetent as mayor. You are not a bad person. Rough around the edges perhaps. Quick to anger. Not always warm and fuzzy. We can handle that. But please, we have a municipal government to run, a corporate body, and it just keeps getting worse.

Yeah, couldn't imagine how I'd find you a hypocrite.

Besides Foer. I know what your game is. You make money off of the transit industry, so naturally he is going to denigrate alternatives in an effort to put some money in his pocket. It kinda reminds me of this (warning, language):



Foer also makes money on boating, including gas-guzzling motorboats. So I'm not exactly sure I want to get preached at on the environment by somebody who makes a living on things that guzzle more gas than my Saturn.

I point out people like Foer because these are the people who think they know better than you. Paul Foer thinks he is better than me, better than you, and better than anybody involved in politics or government. In truth, he's just a bitter guy, mad that he wasn't old enough to be a hippie, so bitter that even reasonable liberals like Bruce Godfrey have trouble getting a meaningful conversation out of. I point people like Foer out because these are the people that are brining nothing constructive to the political conversation, and people like him need to be exposed for what they really are.

No need to wait to start building Third Span

Long before Sunday morning's tragic accident on the Bay Bridge, the need has been existent for a new span across the Chesapeake Bay. This has little to do with the accident, and everything to do with traffic, congestion, and public safety.

Well Paul Foer, ever the voice of failure and bad public policy, spouted off about how horrible that thought was:

It was not long after the recent fatal crash on our Bay Bridges (yes there are two of them as well as the bridge-tunnel near Norfolk) that some clamored for another crossing, a third span...yada yada yada...Okay-how often is there a fatal or serious crash on the bridges? Well they happen, but seriously, how often? Any more than on any other busy road? Of course the aftermath of tie-ups is worse, but does this mean we need another bridge? Sure, if you just want to build and develop and slash and burn, go ahead and make another bridge.

Of course, the construction of the new bridge has little to do with growth and little to do with development. Those are county zoning issues that are not impacted by the state. True, it may make the Eastern Shore more accessible, but isn't that the point of building a new span? Not necessarily for development, but to allow to improve the economy and to provide a more adequate public safety capability for the Shore?

I mean, does anybody really want to see a 25-mile backup on Route 50 if thousands of Eastern Shore residents are trying to evacuate to the Western Shore due to an imminently landfalling hurricane? Because even with a contraflow traffic pattern, five lanes going westbound would not be able to handle that capacity in an emergency, and if an accident were to close one of the spans during that evacuation the impact could be catastrophic.

Foer continues:

But we cannot build our way out of this one. The first crossing was in 1952 and then just 21 years later we opened a second one. Even if we could and did build a third to open in five years or so, would we find ourselves crying for another--a fourth crossing in the year 2020 or 2025? And we must ask ourselves that given what we can reasonably expect about the future of oil and all energy, as well as the environmental concerns, are we sure we really want to keep building as usual, imposing 1950's solutions on 21st and 22nd century challenges? If traffic is the problem and cars and roads make traffic, why would we want to continue adding cars and roads in order to alleviate traffic? Surely the argument is vastly more complex than I make it here, but we must really face the facts and ask ourselves if building more roads and highways is a viable or even sustainable option.

Obviously, Foer wants to talk about the need for a fourth span when we haven't even built the third span. As usually, Foer goes straight for the strawman argument that we may need to do more in the future. Well, not if you plan appropriately now. I have called for a six-lane span to be built at the current site, which would allow for eleven lanes of traffic crossing the Bay. And the span can even be constructed in a manner that allows multi-modal transportation options, including light or heavy rail, and dedicated rapid bus transit lanes. That's not a "1950's solution"; that's a solution that looks toward the future and allows for considerable relief options for transportation planners.

And if Foer wants to make an environmental argument, I say this: isn't it more environmentally sound for traffic to move at a reasonable rate than to have a five-mile backup of cars inefficiently spewing pollutants into the atmosphere?

Then, because Foer has no intelligible points to make, he switches over to yelling:

THE DAYS OF CHEAP OIL ARE OVER. EVENTUALLY WE WILL RUN OUT. EVERY ALTERNATIVE IS FRAUGHT WITH DIFFICULTY AND DOWNSIDES. HOWEVER, WE MUST FACE THE FACTS AND THEY ARE THAT WE CANNOT BUILD OURSELVES OUT OF TRAFFIC CONGESTION. IT MAY HAVE WORKED IN SOME PLACES FOR SOME TIMES, BUT THOSE DAYS ARE BEHIND US.

Of course, we can build ourselves out of congestion by adding highway lane-miles to our infrastructure. Foer says we can't, because only because the thought makes him unhappy and he likes to pout. Obviously if you expand highway capacity, you reduce highway congestion. Even a third-grader could figure that out.

The ostrich philosophy of the left, that by sticking our head in the sand and hoping our traffic problems disappear, is problematic. We do not have a transportation infrastructure that can sustain the amount of traffic in the area, the legacy of the de-mapping trend from the 60's and 70's (something I wrote about three years ago). Not dealing with the issue, by not adding more lane-miles to Maryland's transportation system, we are doing little but to further degrade the economic, public safety, and yes environmental posture of our state..

We have the capability to do this, to not only build a third span, but also improve mass transit options, through privatization as I have long been advocating. This project needs to be started, and started as quickly as humanly possible.

Astroturfing Health Care

FSP is shopping this on its front page in an effort to astroturf the creation of a socialist health care system:

Quite simply, with rising health care costs (including $50 billion per year to pay for insurance industry advertising) being born out by working families and American businesses, health care is a top economic concern. To keep American workers at their best, and to keep American business competitive in the world, something has to change.

Nancy Pelosi has recently declared health care expansion to be #2 on her list of legislative priorities, right after ending the Iraq war. In the past month, tens of thousands of Americans have told us they want quality, affordable health care for all. Now it's time to ask Congress.

So, Congress, which side are you on? Are you with us for quality, affordable health care for all? Or are you with the insurance companies, working to preserve our broken system?

We've set up a quick and easy way for you to contact your Members of Congress and ask them if they support our vision for health care reform. Just click here and enter in your phone number and address. Choose the elected official you want to talk to and in a few moments, we'll call your phone and connect you automatically.

Over the next few weeks, we want to make 100,000 calls to Congress, asking every Member which side they are on. We need your help to do it, so please click here to call!

I'm not really going to get into the idea of public health care, because there is a general consensus that it would be a disaster. But there are a few things that bother me with this, not the least of which is the fact that the author of the piece, Jason Rosenbaum, is employed by the Health Care for America Now group and Isaac chose not to point that out, which is disappointing.

What is not surprising, however, is the fact that the fringe left needs to try and create a groundswell of support for the issue of socialist health care. Because there is no support for it. The general public understands that when you have government run health care, you get government run solutions. The quality of care is diminished. The availability of care is diminished. Even the most important preventative procedures get a patient waitlisted and people resort to their own measures. Think of an HMO on steroids, and that's what the Democratic plan is.

Jon Henke wrote a piece for The Next Right yesterday afternoon that is very timely, given the left's attempt to further ruin American health care:

However, there are three problems with what Krugman claims about Medicare being "immensely popular"...

1. The recipients of Medicare get it, basically, for free. Since they're not paying for it at the point of purchase, it's not surprising that they think it's quite a nice thing.
2. Indeed, a lot of the real costs of Medicare lie in the future. And they are enormous. The costs are being hidden for now, while voters mostly approve of the more tangible benefits. Should voters ever have a chance to make a real cost/benefit trade-off, we'll see just how much they actually value it.
3. But, you might argue, polls show that 76% of Americans approve of Medicare. And so they do. But look what else those polls show about public approval of Medicare...

And that, my friends, is the problem. The most important plank of the Democrats plan is that it is a single-payer system available to everybody. But it is hard to create support for such a system when:

1. The costs of such a system would require draconian tax increases in an economy that cannot handle them;
2. The existing public health system already in place is one of the most reviled programs in government.

As usual, with the left it's about power, not about helping people, the same people who block affordable health care to the poor. The public would be best to ignore the health care solution the left wishes to manufacture support for.

So much for Hollywood's worship of "Truth to Power"

The Hollywood left always like to rally around the flag of somebody who stands up to Republicans or, more specifically, stand up to the Bush Administration. They are "saying truth to power" as the kids like to say.

Well, actor Jon Voight wrote a column in fact stating truth to power, at least the truth to the powers that be in the Democratic Party:

The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. The radicals of that era were successful in giving the communists power to bring forth the killing fields and slaughter 2.5 million people in Cambodia and South Vietnam. Did they stop the war, or did they bring the war to those innocent people? In the end, they turned their backs on all the horror and suffering they helped create and walked away.

A very much needed slap to the face of the Hollywood left.

Of course, the mindset of the fringe of the fringe of the fringe of American society can be best summed up by this idiotic post by some idiot named Jeffrey Wells at a blog called "Hollywood Elsewhere":

My honest deep-down reaction is that I now have a reason to feel negatively about the guy. I'm not saying Voight is on the HE shit list (although the idea certainly feels good -- just as it felt good to imagine the same thing last spring about Tina Fey when she became a rabid Hillary person on SNL), and I certainly don't think a symbolic condemnation along these lines would matter much to anyone. Nonetheless, it's going to be hard henceforth not to think of Voight as some kind of diseased wingnut.

That's right, the people who are trying to entertain America thinks that anybody who doesn't believe the Barack Obama, and that people who are not obsequiously subservient to the extreme leftist direction he is taking the Democratic Party and the direction he wants to take America, these people think that you and I (and probably 52% of their potential audience) are diseased. Diseased.

What a sad and pathetic statement from a sad and shallow community that isn't half as smart as they think they are.

What of course is most humorous is the fact that the same people who glorify Communist sympathizers who were blacklisted during the 1950's, these people who stood out for the crowd and stood up and spoke truth to power, are the same ones who ostracize conservatives for speaking up for the things that they believe in. These people are shallow, smug, and narrow minded in ways that I cannot dream of.

Hollywood's intolerance in the name of tolerance is said and pathetic, and maybe explains why the movies that most push a left-wing agenda bomb at the box office.

Too Smart by Half

Eric Luedtke trots out a theory that Mike Miller is in all actuality going to retire, he's just not telling anybody at this point in order to keep the Senate together in one place.

Luedtke's thought process there is completely rational, and totally something that Mike Miller would do in order to continue being Master of the Senate. However, whee Luedtke's analysis goes wrong is right here:

Martin O'Malley's polling numbers have been, in the words of one West Wing character, 'Less than yeasty.' He needs to bring those poll numbers up to have a good shot at re-election. In order to bring up his poll numbers, the Governor is going to need the legislature to, you know, legislate. And not just normal naming of post office legislating, but big time get popular and ground-breaking stuff done legislating. Now, if Miller is retiring in 2010, and that fact is public knowledge, the State Senate's Democratic Caucus would spend the next two years splitting into factions as Senators Frosh and Middleton jockey for position.

And I don't think he could possibly be any more wrong here. The reason that O'Malley's poll numbers are less than yeasty has everything to do with what the Senate has done for O'Malley. Miller led the Senate towards higher taxes. Miller ensured the Senate didn't cut parts of the budget to make up the difference. Miller helped the Governor pass his ludicrous spending plans. Let's face it: Mike Miller being Mike Miller and helping out Governor O'Malley is exactly why the Goveror's poll numbers are in the tank. O'Malley got what he wanted, which is something that taxpayers are less than enthused about.

The funny thing is that if Miller had stayed retired, and Luedtke's "Lord of the Flies" scenario came to pass, the Senate would be virtually in a stand still. And that means that none of the Governor's out of the mainstream tax and spend proposals would ever see the light of day. In that scenario, the divided Senate protects O'Malley from O'Malley, with the only piece of legislation derailed that would hurt the poll numbers would be the likely temporary election year tax cut that Democrats always like to pass.

In Luedtke's analysis, he assumes of course that a Miller retirement would have been the end of the universe:

But as for the whole idea of keeping the Senate Democratic Caucus in line, here's something our Democratic State Senators need to remember - if O'Malley loses, all of us lose. Not just in the larger sense of getting stuck with another four years of Bob the Golfer. But also in two very serious ways: 1. A strong showing by a Republican gubernatorial candidate could increase Republican turnout and swamp some of our Senators in the more marginal districts, decreasing our advantage in the Senate, and 2. Whoever is elected Governor in 2010 will have significant power over the redistricting after the next census, and could create districts in such a way as to completely screw with Democrats, as happened with the Republican gerrymandering in Texas. Sitting Senators stuck in the same district. The map redrawn to create Republican districts in Democratic jurisdictions, such as northern Montgomery County. It. Would. Be. A. Disaster. In other words, if the Senate didn't do its job without papa Miller to ride herd, they wouldn't deserve re-election, because they'd be doing serious damage to the party.

Because for Luedtke and his ilk, the party always comes before the people. And he, of course, forgets what happened when the Glendening map was thrown out in court for....completely screwing Republicans and conservative Democrats, with sitting Senators stuck in the same district.

Of course, Luedtke calls it a disaster....I call it a good start.

Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!

Getting past the racial nonsense from earlier, Eric Luedtke wrote a spiel about school vouchers today and how vouchers are not the "silver bullet" conservatives claim that they are. Of course, I'm not sure who exactly calls them a silver bullet. Nor do I know of anyody who says that vouchers were the be all and end all of education reform. Nor is it only conservatives who support voucher programs. But hey, let's humor the lad, pat him on the head, and accept his premise for the moment.

Luedtke's arguments (and virtual recitation of NEA talking points), of course, can be easily deconstructed.

Four decades ago, far too many minority kids and kids living in poverty were put into 'vocational' tracks, rather than college prep tracks. Four decades ago, very few schools in the country were confronting the challenge of teaching english language learners, something standard in schools today. And, something major that Chapman neglects to mention, four decades ago most schools didn't even make a reasonable attempt to accomodate students with special needs. Meeting the moral obligation and federal mandate to provide quality special education is alone responsible for a huge uptick in education spending. As to no visible payoff, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that both reading and math scores have increased since the early seventies, despite increasing challenges and demographic trends. In other words, Chapman's either too lazy to back up his assertions with research, or he lied.

Luedtke is a history teacher, so he really should no better than to automatically assume that there is only one way to skin the beast here. Just because test scores are up does not mean that the there is improvement. Many of the core subjects that were taught in schools 30, 40, 50 years ago are no longer taught, and if they are taught they are taught in a way to appeal to the most common denominator. Students are not learning the things they learned back in the 1970's. They are not learning the useful life, career, and work skills that they did thirty years ago. True, a lot of that has to do with horrifically bad parenting, but schools have dropped the ball here because instead of teaching children to do things, they are teaching children to achieve on these tests. That's not learning, that's memorization, and there is a difference.

Let me pull out this extra special quote:

Four decades ago, very few schools in the country were confronting the challenge of teaching english language learners, something standard in schools today.

Apparently in Luedtkeville, people were teaching English speakers back in the day. What I think he means is that schools were not forced to teach ESOL students forty years ago in the manner in which they are today. But doesn't the existence of ESOL students and the challenges the Luedtke speaks of flying in the face of the increased NAEP scores that he referenced? Is Luedtke (again) trying to have it both ways? How can tests scores be up with all of these other challenges that require more school spending.

1. Vouchers can not possibly help the neediest students. Why? Because private schools, unlike public schools, get to decide who they accept. This means, among other things, that a school could use voucher money and only accept rich kids, that a school could reject all special education students, or that a school could choose only the highest performers and then claim the success of those students as their own success.

Luedtke immediately shifts from racism to class struggle here. Why? Who knows. The entire concept of private schools, of course, is that they get to decide who to accept. Isn't that the point of private schools? To provide alternatives for students who can best qualify for their services? Of course students should have to apply and be accepted at private schools to use their vouchers. If private schools were being forced to accept all comers who had a voucher, than nobody would accept the vouchers and the system would collapse before it ever got off of the ground. That would force schools to return to the mean, thus meaning that all schools regardless of their being an expensive private school or the worst urban school would be returned to the mean. And let's face it, the mean is not what public education should be striving for. His premise, as usual, is flawed.

2. Vouchers reduce accountability. Private schools aren't subject to the same accountability measures as public schools. In many places where vouchers have been implemented, there is a separate, less stringent, system of accountability for schools that voucher students attend.

Luedtke, as we mentioned, is a teacher. He is a member of the teachers union. Once he reaches tenure, he is virtually unable to be fired. How's that for accountability?

One can take a look around at the students being churned out by some school districts and see that accountability really isn't a big priority, either for the school system or for the students within that system. The "accountability" argument is a strawman because public schools could not stand up to the scrutiny that the education lobby wants to impose upon private schools participating in voucher programs. The only "accountability" at this point lies in tests given only after students are taught to the test. Unfortunately, teachers and administrators have learned that accountability can be sidestepped if students spend more time preparing to take a test than learning important concepts or developing their writing and critical thinking skills. Skills that are useful to be successful adults. Accountability in that way only means that teachers and school districts are meeting requirements only to protect themselves and in order to meet the requirements of the poorly title and even more poorly thought out No Child Left Behind Act.

3. Vouchers are expensive. Places that have implemented vouchers have effectively had to create two school funding streams. Think of it as a financial commitment to an entirely new school system. In other words, those who support vouchers also support large tax increases, or large budget deficits.

Once again, say hello to the strawman. As usual, Luedtke backs this up with nothing. And, frankly, it is an intellectually dishonest argument. The per-pupil cost of a voucher is much less than the dollars spent per-pupil in the public school systems. The only way that there would be "two school funding streams" would be in a situation where politicians wanted to create a voucher system without proportionately reducing the amount of dollars being spent in the "regular" school system. Even in an appropriate situation where voucher money would be taken directly out of the operating budget of the school system, the per-pupil spending in public schools would increase since the cost of a voucher and the cost of educating a student in private schools would be much much less than that of public schools.

4. Vouchers don't work. The research on voucher programs is fiercely debated, but the most neutral observers out there pretty much agree that, for the vast majority of students, vouchers don't improve the quality of education, nor does the competition force much change in public schools. There are, of course, exceptions, individual kids for whom the opportunity to choose their school through vouchers has made a huge difference. But...

The truth is that vouchers work. And it's not just public school voucher programs that work, either. A private foundation in Pittsburgh has made it work there, with fantastic results:

Most of the 830 pupils who attend the Extra Mile schools are non-Catholic and low-income. An average of 70 percent of the pupils -- and as many as 87 percent in some schools -- have family incomes low enough to qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch program.

Parents who rely on the Extra Mile subsidies to help pay school costs are on public assistance, are low-wage earners or are not working because they're in school. Many are single parents. Some are grandparents or great-grandparents raising children who were neglected by their own parents.

These families put education first despite obstacles they face in their lives.

"[The children] learn academics, but they also learn a real sense of themselves, that they can fly," said Ambrose Murray, executive director of the Extra Mile Foundation.

And really isn't that what it's all about. Vouchers aren't about being "the silver bullet" to fix all schools. No mainstream supporter of school choice realistically wants to see the abolition of all public schools. But vouchers are about opportunity. The opportunity for talented children stuck in decrepit schools to learn, to thrive and to provide a better life for themselves and for their progeny. That's why one leading former elected official said the following about school choice:

Some say that school choice, especially vouchers, will weaken public education. My response is that choice can only strengthen public education by introducing competition and accountability into the mix. Others claim that school choice is undemocratic. My response to them is that choice is in keeping with the aspirations for freedom that formed the core of American democracy. As former Delaware Governor Pete Du Pont once wrote, "It's about the liberty to choose what's best for your children." All of us should have that choice.

Some say that school choice is elitist, or even racist. The truth is that black low-income children are among the prime victims of the nation's failing public schools. African-American parents know this all too well. This is why they have been so open to the idea of school choice...

...I am convinced that with time, and through open dialogue, critics of school choice will come to see this movement for what it is: part of an emerging new civil rights battle for the millennium, the battle for education equity. We need to give poor children the same right that children from more affluent households have long enjoyed. The right to an education that will prepare them to make a meaningful contribution to society. It is that simple.

Who made that statement? Kurt Schmoke. And he's not the only pro-school choice liberal out there. Newark Mayor Cory Booker is a supporter, too. And when you expand the concept of school choice further, including charter schools in the equation, even more liberals support the concept as well. Just look at the bipartisan support for D.C.'s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which has received the attention and support of both DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and Senator John McCain.

5. Vouchers are not the only way to give families a choice. School choice can be provided within the context of public schools. I've written before (a long time ago, so I won't dig it up) about the school choice programs Montgomery County has created, the Down-County Consortium, the Northeast Consortium, and the Middle School Magnet Consortium. These programs allow students to pickwhich school they want to attend, and to pick schools with specialized elective that they either have an interest in or want to pursue a career in. For example, the Parkland Middle School program in Aerospace and Robotics Engineering has given middle schoolers a chance to take extremely advanced scientific courses at a young age. And this is in a community highly impacted by poverty.

This is one argument in which Luedtke isn't necessarily wrong. To have true school choice one would have to have a number of options within the public schools in addition to vouchers. Luedtke, of course, would have institutional knowledge of this as he teaches at one of these schools in Silver Spring.

But let's think about this rationally, too. If public schools were fully capable of meeting the educational needs of all students, providing all students with the opportunities they need in order to succeed and achieve, wouldn't public schools be doing it already? And furthermore, if public schools and public school teachers were already meeting all of these needs and succeeding, would not the union enthusiastically support more teacher accountability in order to highlight those teachers who were achieving and succeeding in these schools. The truth is that public schools currently cannot meet this need, and we owe it to ourselves as citizens to offer students appropriate opportunities to advance. And sometimes that means thinking outside the box and allowing the market to take care of things.

6. Finally, vouchers are unpopular. Conservatives would have you believe that the only people who oppose vouchers are the teachers unions. This simply isn't true. Every time vouchers have appeared on the ballot since 1972, they have failed. And majorities in every public opinion poll oppose them.

When you start citing opinion popularity a reason something is bad, you're in trouble. True, there are a number of states in which voucher referenda went down. But except for Utah, all of those states were and remain heavily unionized states. It's easy when you realize that labor unions would coalesce around the teachers union to defeat a voucher program, even when it against the interest of those some union families.

When it comes to cockamamie arguments like this, I easily and readily remember one addage from my middle school days that always seemed liked liberal groupthink happyspeak, but it fits here:

"What's right is not always what's popular, what's popular is not always what's right".

It is easy to see why Luedtke is dyspeptic about the notion of school vouchers. As a union activist, that's potentially money out of his pocket, more power away from his union, and one way to determine whether or not public schools (and, ergo, union members) are getting the job done. If parents and students have the opportunity to vote with their feet and choose to go to private schools or to another public school with their voucher money, that may mean fewer opportunities for teacher's union members to earn higher promotions and higher pay. The opposition to vouchers by union members and their advocates has less to do with protecting interests of children and more to do with protecting their self-interest. They fear the open educational market that would be created.

For something truly informational regarding school choice, check out the Heartland Institutes's short pamphlet detailing ten arguments for School Choice, which is a nice and concise primer on the issue and why it is so important to improve educate.

The argument against vouchers by Luedtke and the teacher's union, thus, can easily be summed up by the words of one Governor William J. Le Petomane:

We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!

EDIT: The Manhattan Institute is not a liberal think tank, far from it. That error has been corrected, apologies.

This never ending Racialization is getting old

Once again, Eric Luedtke goes tries to equate conservatism to racism again, this time in regards to school vouchers:

Vouchers is one of those, an attempt to apply a radical conservative ideology to a public good. To give you an idea of what I mean: Milton Friedman, the great conservative economist who wrote Capitalism and Freedom, not only proposed school vouchers, but argued that the Civil Rights Act is not necessary because market forces will end discrimination. I'm sure Rosa Parks would have been comforted to know that if she had not sat down on that bus, the free market would have eventually solved segregation for her.

An unnecessary, pointless cheap shot at Friedman. It would also be a cheap shot to note that the Civil Rights Act would not have been necessary had Democrats not supported Jim Crow laws for 80 years, so I won't say it.

But how come the privileged Caucasians over at Free State Politics equate everything conservative to racism? You might almost think that they have no other arguments to stand on.

I'll address Luedtke's nonsense comments on education in a separate post....

Post-Heller, the work starts now

Obviously, everybody has heard by now the fantastic news about the Supreme Court upholding the lower court decision in D.C. v. Heller. Here is the best part of the Opinion of the Court, on Page 67 of the decision:

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Once and for all, the Supreme Court has affirmed while most people knew all along: that the United States Constitution unquestionable affirms the right of individuals the opportunity to bear arms. Of course, this decision should not have been a surprise seeing that the founders considered the right to bear arms a pre-existing right dating back to English Common Law and the Assize of Arms of 1189. Something that Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog points out the Court included in their decision:

The individual right interpretation, the Court said, “is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment,” going back to 17th Century England, as well as by gun rights laws in the states before and immediately after the Amendment was put into the U.S. Constitution.

What Congress did in drafting the Amendment, the Court said, was “to codify a pre-existing right, rather than to fashion a new one.”

Nor is it a surprise when one considers that all of the other Amendments within the Bill of Rights are affirming individual rights, but hey....

But supporters of the Constitution should not sit back and rest on our laurels. Yes, the Heller decision does affirm the the individual right of the citizen. However, Dave Kopel notes that there are many areas of law that are not addressed by Heller:

As for the constitutionality of other gun controls: “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” The word “commercial” in the last sentence could suggest that there might be constitutional problems on some laws which applied to non-commercial arms transfers. (However, there are few federal laws on non-commercial transfers, other than criminal penalties for transferring guns to prohibited persons.)

The majority opinion also affirmed the validity of bans on gun carrying in “sensitive” locations such as schools and government buildings. The language may imply that a total ban on gun carrying in ordinary public places is unconstitutional. But Heller does not attempt to answer the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment enforceable against state and local governments, and most carrying restrictions in public places are created by state and local governments. For now, Heller limits only the federal government — and entities such as the D.C. City Council, whose powers are granted by the federal government.

Which means that while the individual right has been affirmed, Heller does not universally cast aside any and all gun controls laws. Nor does the decision cast aside provisions that prohibit the purchase of firearms by criminals or those with mental issues. The rights of gun ownership and possession in Maryland have been left, realistically, unchanged by the facts of the decision. Since the Heller decision only the D.C. law, that means many issues are still living in a Constitutional shade of gray.

How would this Court rule on issues such as Concealed Carry permits? What about Waiting Periods? What about trigger lock laws? The fact of the matter is that now the right to own a firearm has be universally affirmed once and for all by the Court, we now must move on to address these other issues as a nation.

Nowhere is that more true than here in Maryland. We must fight the nonsensical gun laws that remain on the books. We must combat nonsensical politicians like Delegate Curt Anderson who wish to use the Court's affirmation of this civil right as a reason to pass even more restrictive gun laws in Maryland. We need to bring Maryland into the 21st Century, and pass appropriate concealed carry laws. These laws have reduced the rates of violent crime in the 40 states that have now passed them. The stats are there, and no type of cockamamie arguments from politicians like Anderson can change the fact that these common sense carry laws save lives. Liberals can be entitled to their opinions on the issue, but not their own facts.

The Heller decision is a great victory for the Constitution, and a great day for liberty in America. However, we in Maryland have a long way to go to fully enjoy the fruits of this victory. The work starts now.

Wow! What a Comeback

Paul Foer, who gave us this ridiculous screed, had.....this for a comeback:

It's no secret that the blogosphere is open to anyone with access to a computer. That is its beauty and its downfall. Here in Maryland we see some of the worst examples of angry, hateful rhetoricians who spend their days and their energy attacking and condemning just about anyone who does not agree with their extremist views. I must admit that it appears to me that they tend to hold what I think most fair-minded people would call hyper-conservative viewpoints. Whether it is gun control, global warming, immigration, abortion or you-name-it, you'll find these angry, mean spirited people spouting off, ranting and raving, name calling and spewing vicious and venomous vitriol at anyone, but especially other bloggers, with whom they disagree.

I know. I get attacked by them all the time.

Of course, I'm not really quite sure what the point of Foer's rant was all about. Let's face it, we are trying to engage in an exchange of ideas. Something that we do with other liberals in the blogosphere all the time. Problem for Foer is the fact he thinks its mean that somebody thinks he's wrong. Which is sad, because I gave him an opportunity to engage and even posited to him a question that I suppose he has no answer for.

Paul, all I'm asking you is to "communicate more effectively through written or spoken words" (your words, not mine) in an effort to tell me why I'm wrong. And pointing fingers and telling me I'm mean isn't what I'm looking for, either....

This deserves an answer

In my critique Saturday of Paul Foer's somewhat bizarre rant on in-school war protesting, Streiff made an interesting comment:

Does your view hold true for students supporting the war, or those who want to miss school to attend the annual March for Life?

I think it's a question that deserves an answer: does Paul Foer or other liberals who support students missing school or disrupting the school day to protest the war also support the right of conservatives protesting abortion or supporting our troops to do the same?

It's a fair question, and I think I know what the answer is going to be...

Shorter Paul Foer: "Kids don't need to learn, they need to recreate the '60's!"

Paul Foer over on his blog and at FSP is horrified that students who disrupted the school day at Annapolis High School were suspended.

Here is what the Capital story tells us:

Three students were arrested at Annapolis High Thursday afternoon for staging a sit-in to protest the Iraq war, according to county police.

Kit Whitacre, 17, was among the students arrested. He said they had only been sitting on the floor for about 10 or 15 minutes when administrators began threatening them, and the police officer stationed in the school called for backup, flashing sets of plastic handcuffs.

"We just sat down in front of the main office," Kit said. "We didn't want to go to class, because we felt it's unfair other people our age are in Iraq."

County police said yesterday they charged the three students with disorderly and disruption of school activity. They would not give names of those arrested because the report has not yet been filed, and because those arrested are juveniles.

Bob Mosier, a spokesman for the school system, said "appropriate disciplinary action" was taken against the protesting students. He would not specify what disciplinary action was taken.

"You can't disturb the instructional day," Mr. Mosier said. "That's in the code of student conduct."

Now, I will say that arresting the students was probably a little over the top. But I don't see a real big problem with suspending the students for their actions. Their actions are no different than any other stunt pulled to intentionally disrupt learning in their school. The students made a choice to make a spectacle of themselves and they got suspended for it. It's not like they were suspended specifically for protesting the war.

Paul Foer then takes it completely off the tracks:

Contrast this to the Vietnam era when we had a draft and for most purposes, had to pay for the war. The young people went nuts, and their protests eventually brought about an end to the war. And our country seems to have collective amnesia about every lesson we should have learned from that folly. So, after all these years in Iraq, trillions squandered and many thousands dead,we seem to forget all the lies foisted upon us by Bush and Cheney Incorporated. Instead, we take a few students who sat down peacefully and suspend them for ten days.

If Foer wants to argue the war, he can go ahead and do so and spill his offbeat, fringe opinions about the war to his hearts content. But to say that the kids should not be suspended because the war is still going and that's what we are doing "instead" of "learning the lessons" so to speak about the war is foolhardy.

Then, Foer seemingly encourages students to shut down the school day:

Perhaps, yes perhaps, if cooler heads prevail, we'll get a massive student protest going and maybe we'll shut the whole school down for ten days. That might make a point. As the parent of an Annapolis HS student, I'm all for it. It might make the lessons my son is learning about US government and history all the more meaningful. And if he gets suspended for ten days, we'll go visit all the war memorials in Washington, stroll among the gardens of stones at Arlington, visit our Senators and Congressman to protest. He might learn more than he does in school.

Apparently, Foer thinks that nonviolent protest of a war is more important for his son than actually receiving instruction that will prepare him for the rest of his life. And as a parent, Foer has that right. However, he does not have the right to take opportunities for learning away from the other students at Annapolis High School. He doesn't have the right to encourage protest of a war in lieu of learning about science, about history, and about math. For some of these students who go to Annapolis High, education is the only way out of their socioeconomic situation. They may only have the opportunity to go to college through what they learn during the school day. Why should they be denied that right when some of the uppity Annapolis-area bourgeoisie want to relive the Sixties vicariously through their children.

Ironically, Foer's idea to shut down Annapolis High will take educational opportunities away from the lower and middle classes who attend Annapolis. It may also keep kids out of college who then, ironically, may feel like they need to enlist and wind up fighting in the war that Foer so passionately opposes. Funny, I thought liberals were for education and against sending our kids to war.

Foer's assertions that this kind of nonviolent protest should be encouraged are disturbing. We should be encouraging students to go to school to get an education, not do the bidding of their parents by protesting a war. Education is everything, and nobody on the right or the left should be encouraging its disruption for any reason.

The Liberal Kool-Aid Acid Test

Whatever Isaac Smith is drinking don't follow suit, because this is the kind of thinking that is destroying Maryland:

One more thing I should add is that I think we can explain the right-ward lurch, as Paul puts it, in the General Assembly this session as a reaction to the economy taking a nosedive and the aftermath of the special session.

There are a number of just completely ridiculous things in that brief sentence. First is the accusation that the General Assembly took a "right-ward lurch." Only somebody to the left of Mao could think that this General Assembly lurched in any direction but towards a Maryland that taxes its citizens to the hilt, spends more than it can afford, and looks to find ways to interfere with the lives and the civil liberties of its citizenry. This is the Maryland that Isaac Smith claims he wants, but this is a Maryland that isn't far to the left enough for Smith and the fringe left.

Of course, Smith fails to acknowledge that part of the reason for "the economy taking a nosedive" here in Maryland is precisely due to the Special Session and the O'Malley Recession that was born from it.

Then, as if Maryland didn't have enough spending problems:

I know I harp on this, but the inability of states to do deficit spending like the federal government severly constricts what states can do during a recession.

Yes. Smith came out and endorsed deficit spending as the solution to our problems. Fortunately, the State Constitution in Maryland requires us to have a balanced budget, or lord knows how much Martin O'Malley and his crew could have begged, borrowed, and stolen from this General Assembly and, ultimately, the taxpayers. The reason that we are not allowed in Maryland to have deficit spending is for the precise reason that Smith wants us to spend into deficit: so that irresponsible, financially dimwitted elected officials can't try and spend our way out of economic problems. We are already taxed to death and concerned with our bond rating: how does Smith think that deficit spending is going to magically solve those problems?

Finally, we get this:

Given that environment, it's easy to see how O'Malley and the General Assembly adopted a tempermentally, if not ideologically, conservative stance on fiscal matters.

I am stunned that somebody as financially to the left as O'Malley can be called a conservative on any financial issues when he continues to spend beyond the state's means and continues to try to tax Maryland's middle class and working families into poverty and brokering deals that will require families to spend more on electric rates.

Folks, Smith is part of the fringe element that we have to deal with. People of this kind of fringe mindset are the ones shaping policy in Annapolis. I talk a lot about how important the 2010 elections are, and this is why: we cannot let absurd, irresponsible, and reckless ideas such as this ever enter the mainstream or else Maryland will be doomed to financial devastation and widespread poverty for generations to come.

This is why we continue the fight....

The Morality of Taxes

Sun reporter Michael Dresser provides virtually glowing commentary in beginning his article about the new "Millionaire's bracket":

It's quite an exclusive club, Maryland's new millionaires' tax bracket. A little more than 6,000 households statewide qualify for the distinction - more than 40 percent of whom reside in Montgomery County....

...With the General Assembly's passage of the new 6.25 percent top tax rate on incomes above $1 million, and Gov. Martin O'Malley's signing of the bill yesterday, Maryland has apparently become the first state to create an actual millionaires' bracket.

Some other states have created high-income tax brackets - some paying rates that make Maryland's levy look like a bargain - but they kick in at lower thresholds. For instance, New Jersey residents in the top income bracket pay a rate of 8.97 percent but don't receive the cachet of being in a millionaires' club because it applies to all income above $500,000.

Democrats even found the opportunity to trot out cheerleaders to talk about how great it was that Annapolis was going to screw them tax them more:

"I've had numerous people come up to me in the course of these last few months and whisper to me that they are in that highest bracket of millionaires and they are willing and they are able to pay their fair share," he said.

By the end of the session, the idea of taxing the rich wasn't looking so bad to many of the Assembly's leaders. O'Malley jumped aboard the repeal bandwagon and re-endorsed the millionaires' tax.

Ed Hale, chief executive of First Mariner Bank in Baltimore, said he told O'Malley the computer tax had to go - even if he had to pay more in income tax.

"Any self-respecting person that was wealthy enough could pay more tax just because of the quality of life in the state of Maryland," he said. "It's much ado about nothing for a very few people."

Which is fantastic. Maybe Ed Hale can pay my taxes too if he thinks it's so awesome. And just to prove the point how awesome this all is in the eyes of the Sun and the eyes of Annapolis Democrats, let's go to an example:

The average income reported by those in the new bracket was $3.1 million. That translates to an extra $15,000 a year for three years until the surcharge sunsets - or just about the $45,000 that would put a mid-range BMW in the three-car garage - compared with the law at the beginning of the session. (In some cases, some of that extra cost could be offset by federal tax deductions.)

That argument is, of course, ridiculous. It is ridiculous to think that a millionaire is being hosed out of a BMW because of the new O'Malley taxes. The millionaire's are going to miss the money just like anybody else is. Of course, what cheerleaders for the O'Malley tax won't tell you is the fact that $45,000 out of the pocket of somebody who qualifies for this tax bracket may be reducing that individual's capability to send that money directly back to the community, whether it be in the form of charitable donations or continued reinvestment into the local economy. That $45,000 could be better spent on job creation in the private sector than it will certainly be spent in the black hole that is Annapolis.

But the conversation we need to be having here has nothing to do with how poorly government wastes money, or how much better the private sector can spend it. It actually deals with the moral questions of taxes. How can government retain the moral high ground, particularly a government that claims that it is for the working men and women of Maryland, when most of the impact of the O'Malley Recession is being felt by these same work class folks? To paraphrase George Bailey, the working class people who are most hurt by what O'Malley and company are doing, they are the ones who do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this state.

So how come a disproportionate burden is placed on the middle and working class families of Maryland to pay for programs that make rich urban liberals feel better?

What we have right now in Annapolis is a situation involving taxes and the question of morality. How can government remain moral when government is doing its part to make it impossible for Maryland's working class families to survive financially? Why should parents who want to raise their children in the same communities in which they grew up be forced to choose between making ends meet or moving to another state in order to relieve themselves of the financial burden of living in Maryland? Why should the middle and working classes be forced to pay for unnecessary programs to which they receive no benefit? And how can Government maintain maintain its own sense of morality when it continues to ask more and more of citizenry in the middle of an economic downturn when this same citizenry is already overburdened with oppressive taxation at all levels.

The moral question of taxes is whether or not taxes in and of themselves are moral. The question is whether or not those who make tax policy, those who think that the citizenry is nothing more than a checkbook, those who believe that by taking more and more money away from taxpayers government can make taxpayers more economically viable, have the moral compass to do the right thing and reduce the oppressive burden on Maryland's taxpayers. And given the position of O'Malley and the legislative leadership, by their actions to raise more taxes and spend more money when we can least afford it, I think we have the answer to those questions.