Democrats are pretending there is a deal in the works to extend the Bush tax cuts.   Of course what they mean is they want to extend tax cuts only for the middle class.  This is really no compromise at all.  We are about to find out if Republicans got the message from the voters in the mid-term election or not.  I sure hope Republicans don’t roll over and compromise on this as it will be disastrous for the U.S. economy.

 I remain astonished that no one, either Republican or Democrat seems to be able to understand this issue.  All Republicans say if that we can’t raise taxes on anyone during a down economy.  Even Republicans seem to accept the premise that failure to increase taxes on the upper income people will result in a loss of revenue.  They accept the concept that failure to raise taxes results in less revenue.  But the problem is that this is unproven and is probably false.  It is incredibly simple.   It is better to take in 35% of a lot than 39.6% of a little.

This would be like McDonalds losing business because Burger King starts charging a much lower price.  What would McDonalds do?  Would they raise prices even more, because they want more revenue?  If they did that, they would probably end up with even less revenue because they would lose more customers.  But, if they lower prices to compete with Burger King, they might gain more customers and revenue might go up.  It is certainly less likely to decline.  This is really Economics 101.

I prepared the following analysis, which makes this really clear.  I assumed that the total taxable income in the U.S. is about $1 trillion and that the top bracket represents 25% of tax revenue or $250,000,000.  (That is pretty accurate).  I then took the $250 billion of tax revenue from the top 1% and divided it by .35 to come up with an estimate of the current taxable income for the top 1%.  The result was an estimate that current taxable income for the top 1% of wage earners is about $714,000,000.

Let’s assume that taxes are increased from 35% to 39.6% for the top 1% of wage earners, but as a result the economy declines by another 1%.  Taxable income for top bracket decreases from $714,000,000 to $706,860,000.  At the increased tax rates of 39.6% tax revenues increase from $250,000,000 to $279,916,560.

But, if the tax rate is left at 35% and the economy grows by 1%, tax revenue increases even more.  Taxable income for the top bracket increases from $714,000,000 to $721,140,000.  Even at a 35% tax rate, taxable revenue increases from $250,000,000 to $281,244,000. 

In other words tax revenues go up faster from a recovering economy than they do from an increase in taxes. 

If we change the percentages, the difference is even more dramatic.   For example let’s assume that the economy declines 4% if taxes are increased and the economy increases by 4% if the tax bracket remains the same.  If the economy declines 4%, the taxable income for the top 1% will decrease from $714,000,000 to $685,440,000.  There will still be an increase in tax revenue, but only from $250,000,000 to $271,434,240.  On the other hand, if the economy takes off and grows by 4% there will be a much larger increase in tax revenues.  Then taxable income for the top 1% will increase from $714,000,000 to $742,560,000 and tax revenue will increase from $250,000,000 to $289,598,400.

Obviously, the quickest way to increase tax revenue is to increase taxable income, not tax rates.  There have been several cases where raising tax rates resulted in a reduction in taxable revenue.  That is exactly what happened when New Jersey passed a millionaire’s tax.  Millionaire’s just moved, and the state got less money.  This is because the more rich people are taxed; the more likely they are to hide income.   This theory is consistent with the tax revenues following the Bush tax cuts.  The top 1% of wage earners paid a higher percentage of total tax revenue after the tax cuts than they did before.

In addition there is a huge difference between the way the top 1% spend additional money and the way the middle class spends additional money.  When lower income people get more money, they tend to spend in on food or clothing.  But higher wage earners are much more likely to spend additional money on investments.  After all, they are already rich, so they usually don’t need to spend more money on food or clothing.  The things they do spend money on are the things that drive the economy..

It’s too bad that, so far, no politician in either party seems to understand the obvious.

TDM

President Obama is now officially the worst President in the History of the United States.  The real problem with the WikiLeaks scandal is that the incompetence of this administration is too obvious to be ignored by anyone.  The original WikiLeaks disaster was bad enough, but the administration did nothing because they thought it would only embarrass George W. Bush.  The Obama administration didn’t even pursue criminal charges even though the original release did significant damage to our intelligence community.  Now there has been another whole group of documents released and the damage is international and overwhelming.  The Obama administration has proven to the world that it simply cannot be trusted.  The real damage is not the embarrassing disclosures, which are bad enough, but rather the failure of the Obama administration to protect the security of these communications.  How on earth is any nation on this earth going to trust the Obama administration after this?  If you cannot protect your own top secret communications, you can’t protect anything.

What makes this particularly appalling is that it was totally preventable.  The Obama administration knew of the leak and did nothing about it.  It appears they were more concerned about political correctness than they were about national security.   Even the Swedes tried to help us out here when they arrested Julian Assange in September on an alleged rape charge.  Hello!!! Anybody home?  Here was an opportunity to solve the problem quickly and painlessly.  Instead the Obama administration ignored the opportunity and just let Assange get released to do even more damage.  It was an unforgiveable act of incompetence..

I suspect that no other President, including weak ones like Carter and Clinton, would have allowed this to happen on their watch.  We may have never learned how they solved the problem, but they would have solved it.   Quite simply the President had a duty to do whatever it took to prevent this new leak from happening.   The President of the United States has a non-delegable duty to protect the country.  Obama failed to do his duty. 

The equivalent to this would have been if the Christmas day bomber had been released and allowed to get on an aircraft with another underwear bomb so he could try again, only successfully.  The Obama administration knew this problem existed, they knew who was responsible and they did nothing.  Are we to pretend that the Obama administration lacked sufficient resources to solve this problem?   Please!  Obama is guilty of dereliction of duty on a scale unprecedented in the history of this country.   Now we are about to find out if our congress is ready, willing and able to do its’ duty. 

TDM

Democrats are celebrating the felony conviction of Tom Delay.  But this verdict may ultimately have more negative impact on Democrats than they expect.  It is important to understand what Tom Delay did to put this in perspective.   In Texas, corporate business is prohibited from donating to specific candidates.  So, Delay collected funds from corporate business owners for his political pact.  He made a donation to the Republican National Committee.  The Republican National Committee donated money to Republican candidates that Delay supported.  This really made Democrats mad, primarily because Delay was extremely successful in getting Republicans elected to the Texas legislature.  In fact, one suspects that the jury was largely democratic, because during the trial prosecutors constantly accused Delay of manipulating the redistricting to get Republicans elected.  That gave Republicans control of re-districting and helped increase the Republican majority in congress.  The major crime that Tom Delay committed, in the eyes of the prosecutor, was getting Republicans elected.

 The problem for Democrats is that they have done the exact same thing, only worse, all over the country.  Tom Delay is hardly the only one to move some funds around.  There have been reports of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama receiving contributions from overseas sources and transferring those funds to legitimate sources.  If these reports are true, Delay may look like an amateur compared to the fat cat Democratic machine.  If tracking the source of contributions is going to result in felony convictions that I would guess a lot of high ranking Democrats should be more than a little nervous.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703678404575636942232850932.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

 There has been a long history of prosecutors gaining recognition by taking on high profile cases.  That is how Rudi Giuliani built his resume.  There are prosecutors all over the country who have been watching this case with great interest.  Right now Democrats are thrilled that Delay has a felony conviction.  But in the end, they could reap the whirlwind if prosecutors start investigation similar political gimmicks by Democrats.

 TDM

The latest and greatest is that Nancy Pelosi will soon be back to traveling Commercial.  She will still be traveling first class, at our expense, but it’s a start.  The TSA recently announced that high government officials, like say Nancy Pelosi, won’t have to go through the full body scan or be subject to groping.  I am not sure if this was done to appease Nancy or if this was a request from the TSA agents.  Perhaps they wanted hazardous duty pay for having to see Nancy naked.

North Korean lobbed a few shells into South Korean and got everything it wanted.  Obama is outraged.  I am sure the North Korean’s are terrified.  Jimmy Carter blames the whole thing on our failure to show North Korean sufficient respect.  Joe Biden is trying to figure out where Korea is located.   Michelle Obama is checking out potential 5 star resorts to visit.   In the meantime North Korea is like the little kid in a big car that thumbs his nose at you because he knows you can’t hurt him.  They have this nuclear weapon and they know that no one is going to risk getting them angry enough to set it off.   

24 million viewers tuned in to watch Bristol Palin get eliminated on Dancing with the Stars.  The Hollywood elite breathed a big sigh of relief that the show was spared the ultimate humiliation, when Jennifer Gray used her thirty years of experience to beat a complete novice.  Once again Palin paranoia raised its’ ugly head and one guy in Wisconsin even shot his TV because he didn’t like Bristol Palin’s dancing.   In the meantime it appears Bristol pocketed a cool $245,000, which ain’t bad for a 19 year old single mom with zero dance experience.   Expecting Bristol Palin to compete with Jennifer Gray was like expecting the other contestants to compete with Kirk Warner in a football toss contest.  Which would be more impressive, Kirk Warner throwing it about 60 years with little effort, or one of the other contestants with no prior NFL experience throwing a 30 yard spiral?  Exactly!

Did you know that domestic turkeys are incredibly stupid?  I will never forget watching a broadcast from a turkey farm in Wisconsin where the farmer disclosed that domestic turkeys are literally too stupid to get out of the rain.  Kind of like Democrats after the mid-term elections.

Finally, the following link has some funny “Turkey Puns”

GOBBLE GOBBLE

http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/thanks/turkey.html

TDM

I have now decided that the initials TSA does not really stand for the Transportation Safety Authority, but rather “The Stupid Agency.”

All out efforts to solve a problem based on an assumption that is clearly not true always leads to disaster.  This has been repeated many times throughout human history.  Perhaps the most devastating example was with yellow fever.  For many years, doctors firmly believed in the miasma theory of disease.  Basically this theory was that disease was spread by bad air.  The theory was that decaying materials would contaminate the air and make people sick.    Since people living near swamps frequently got yellow fever, the bad swamp vapors were often blamed.  But, the miasma theory was wrong.

In 1850 an American doctor, Josiah Nott wrote a medical article proposing that yellow fever was probably spread by mosquitoes.  His work was ignored.  In 1881, a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finley not only verified that yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes, he figured out which specific mosquito was the culprit.  He was also ignored.   Yellow fever had killed thousands of French workers trying to build the canal.  It also killed a lot of American troops during the Spanish-American War.  An Army doctor, Walter Reed, was sent to CUBA to find out what caused yellow fever.  He read the works of Carlos Finley.  He did not believe him, but after nothing else worked, he decided to conduct an experiment to find out for sure.    He paid people $100 to allow themselves to get bitten by mosquitoes that had previously bitten a yellow fever patient.  Obviously, they didn’t buy the mosquito theory either.  One of the people bitten was a doctor, Jesse William Lazear.  He may or may not have allowed himself to be deliberately bitten by a mosquito.  Soon, just about everyone bitten by the mosquitoes died a horrible death.   It became obvious that Nott and Finley were right, mosquitoes did spread yellow fever.  Dr. Reed published his findings and Dr. William Gorgas read them and believed in the results.  Dr. Gorgas was assigned to manage the medical situation at the Panama Canal, and he went to war against the mosquitoes.   It worked, which is why the Panama Canal exists today.

Today we have another example of people making decision based on assumptions that are clearly not true.   We have a serious problem with suicide bombers who dream of going to paradise along with a plane load of innocent people.  So far, all of the recent attempts have been made by young Muslim males.  There seems to be a severe shortage of other people willing to blow themselves up.  I have met some really stupid people who could be talked into doing some dumb things, but I don’t know of anyone who could have been convinced to setting off a bomb built into his underwear.  If one did believe in the 100 virgin theory, it would still seem logical to want to arrive in paradise with critical equipment still functioning.   

 At some point in the future we may face some unexpected risk from families on vacation,  outraged nuns or white grandmothers on a mission, but so far it’s pretty much been a jihad thing.  So it would seem obvious that focusing on a Muslim male, traveling on a one way ticket, paid in cash by someone else and having no baggage would have some merit.   That is exactly what happened with the “Christmas bomber” but the airport screeners were too busy patting down everyone else on the flight to notice.  They didn’t even notice that this guy was on a no-fly list until just before the plane landed.  Nice!  The only thing that prevented disaster was an alert passenger who became suspicious when this guy set his underpants on fire.   Once again the disaster was only avoided by the good fortune of being attacked by an incompetence terrorist.

The new TSA regulation are more than annoying, they are downright evasive.  But that is not the biggest problem.  The real concern is that trying to search everyone distracts the airport screeners from paying enough attention to those people who clearly are a threat.  It is like the French at the Panama Canal.  They spent a lot of time trying to deal with swamp vapors, when they should have concentrated on killing mosquitoes.  The French even put little saucers of water under the legs of their beds, providing a very convenient place for mosquitoes to breed in close proximity to their preferred food source.  In fact, they didn’t even need to kill all the mosquitoes, just the one specific breed that likes to carry around the yellow fever virus.   Until they figured that out they spend a lot of money, killed a lot of innocent people and made zero progress toward fixing the problem.  Actually, the French never figured it out, which is why the Panama Canal zone was built by the U.S.  Remarkably similar to what is happening at the TSA today. 

Any policy, based on an assumption that is not true, is doomed to failure.  That is why the TSA is really “The Stupid Agency.”  What makes this worse is that if someone other than a Muslim male is likely to be a serious threat, it is likely to be a Muslim female coerced into doing it by a Muslim male.  Yet the TSA has already adapted rules to avoid offending Muslim females wearing a head scarf by letting them “pat themselves down.”   That may seem like a dumb idea to some people who do not understand the importance of political correctness. 

TDM

Sarah Palin has perfected the art of annoying liberals.   This is particularly true of liberal women.  They have dreamed of having a woman in power for decades, but Sarah Palin does not begin to resemble that image.  They want a brilliant, Harvard or Yale graduate, pro-choice woman to lead the way with their progressive agenda.  They might tolerate a Republican, but only if she meets their standards.  Sarah Palin not only doesn’t fit the mold, she despises the mold.  She didn’t attend Yale or Harvard, she attended Hawaii Pacific, North Idaho and the University of Idaho.  She is not a lawyer, she has a degree in communications.  She doesn’t use liberal speak when she talks and she has this high squeaky, annoying voice that just sounds wrong.  She says things like you “betcha,” and even winks occasionally to make it even worse. Then to top it off she is a housewife with five children who chose to have a down’s syndrome baby rather than have an abortion.   Even Republican women despise her as being unworthy.   They are nauseated that this undeserving creature can possibly be liked by anyone.  They hate her and want to see her destroyed.

Let me begin with a disclaimer.  I personally have zero fashion sense.  I am literally incapable of dressing myself.  In addition, I am color blind.  I do see color; it just isn’t the same color as seen by most people.  Up to now, the world has been protected from me showing up wearing some really bizarre color combinations solely through the dedicated efforts of my wife and my three daughters.  The pattern was been repeated on numerous occasions.  I would get dressed and come down stairs.  Instantly all four females would scan my outfit for color violations.  I still remember when my youngest daughter was five years old.  I came down the stairs and was immediately greeted with:  “Dad….NO!”  I now have “safe” outfits, usually including black pants which, theoretically, work with any color.

 I once was at a trade show where Doug McClure was making appearances at the booth next to me.  I noticed that everything he wore just looked right.  I was also keenly aware that even if I wore the exact same clothes, they still wouldn’t look right, because he was Doug McClure and I was, well…me.  It’s really simple:  some people got it, some people don’t.  With all due respect, Jacqueline Kennedy do, Michelle Obama don’t.  Even to someone like me, that is really obvious.  I couldn’t begin to give advice on how to look good, but I still know it when I see it.  Yet, there were all these articles gushing about Michelle Obama.  The following headlines are typical of the crap we have been assaulted with for the past two years:

New York Daily Post – August 27, 2008

Michelle Obama’s fashion running mate

AFP – January 21, 2009

Michelle Obama becomes First Fashion Lady

Today – November 25, 2009

Once again, first lady’s fashion sense dazzles

New York Times

Don’t Get Gravy on the First Lady’s Gown

Note:  This article was so over the top I couldn’t resist providing the following excerpt: 

FIRST Lady Michelle Obama is now officially a fashion plate.  Not that there were any doubts before, mind you. Often called the First Lady of Fashion, Mrs. Obama has a sense of style, as we all know by now, that rivals Jackie Kennedy’s.

 There are certainly friends of mine who do have some sense of fashion that confirm my opinion.  But, I viewed this similar to the way I view modern art.  Beauty must be in the eye of the beholder because sometimes what other people consider to be brilliant art looks to me like the random result of a collision between several open paint cans, each with a different color.  In the case of Michelle Obama, there were these “other pictures” of her circling the internet indicating that my personal opinion was not necessarily unique.   Then there was the following article today in the Hindustan Times.  This is from the HT Fashion Watcher and it is, well, refreshing:

 Heard what they said about you, Mrs O?

Is it dreadfully hot in India? Doesn’t she have a stylist on this trip? Her hair looks like she hasn’t bothered combing it and her makeup and eyebrows are also a bit off …” says CJ in London. “She needs a tailor and a stylist. Everyone in the whole world knows this,” says This isn’t just another celebrity being dissed in conversation; these are the comments that Michelle Obama’s outfits during her trip to India, are drawing on the World Wide Web. While the Indian media thought that the first lady’s outfits were elegant and understated, people on the other end of the globe had a different take on her choices.

From being called “frumpy” to “old and unflattering” to “sporting the worst look ever,” the bashing by bloggers began right from the day she landed in Mumbai wearing a blue-grey outfit. Comments like “It’s a colour for someone who’s 70,” or “the emperor’s wife has dreadful taste” have flooded mrs-o.org, a blog that follows Michelle Obama’s fashion sense. Readers on washingtonpost.com, dailymail.co.uk and even on huffingtonpost.com are not mincing their words.

So what’s the real reason the first lady is being fashion bashed? How can someone who’s been on best-dressed lists for three years in a row, suddenly be criticised for every piece of clothing or accessory she owns/wears?

The answer may lie in the recently held mid-term polls in the US. When a country is unhappy with the presidency, one of the first things that is often targeted is their lifestyle. Something that Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy are acutely aware of.

This is entertaining, but the author missed the point.  Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion hasn’t changed.  All that’s really happened is that the glow from the halo has diminished to a level where the star struck main stream media can actually see, well, Michelle Obama.  Jacqueline Kennedy’s legacy is still safe!

TDM

President George W. Bush was interviewed by Matt Lauer last night and the result was stunning.  He reminds me of the first time I played golf with a true PGA professional.  I had played golf with a lot of very good players, but I never understood how really good those tour professionals are until I played along side one on the same course.  The contrast between those who think they are great and those who really are great is unforgettable.

The same thing happened in this interview.  George Bush showed that contrary to the myth that he is naïve, dumb and intellectually incurious; he was smooth, sophisticated, informed, eloquent and incredibly convincing.  He oozed competence and sincerity.  Tony Blair wrote that Bush was brilliant at understanding other people and that he was a man of unequalled integrity.  For the first time, watching this interview, I saw that George Bush.

This is going to cause huge problems for Democrats and particularly for President Obama.  After Democrats spent most of the last two years blaming everything on the incompetent Mr. Bush, people finally got to meet President Bush in a way that had never happened before.  I believe that even his critics are shocked at how well he performed.  The problem for Matt Lauer is that he was unprepared for the power of Bush’s personality in a one on one setting.  It is clear that while Bush was President, he could never be that candid with the public.  Now that he is out of office, that problem has been solved and we saw a very different Bush than we expected.  I once heard a Democrat say that it is very difficult to say no to George Bush in a one on one meeting.  Even Nancy Pelosi once said that it was impossible to meet personally with President Bush and not understand that he was sincere about what he said.  That is the George Bush who showed up for this interview and this is drastically going to change the way people think about him.

But what is really damaging is the stark contrast between Bush and Obama.  It was so different to hear a man who understood the issues, and was ready, willing and able to make the tough decisions.   While Obama always lectures everyone, trying to appear professorial and arrogant, Bush never adopts that tone.  He doesn’t need to put other people down to elevate himself.  He zeros in on a question, demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the situation and gives a clear, very believable answer as to how he arrived at his decision.  One may totally disagree with every decision he made, but it is hard to ignore ability of the man himself.  No one, objectively watching this interview, can have any illusions as to how Bush became President of the United States.  There is no doubt whatsoever who was in charge in the White House during the Bush administration.  This is one serious man with a lot of talent.  Bush is very self confident, but he is not arrogant.  He is also not intimidated. 

I think when Bush is done with the round of interviews and his book is released, it will fundamentally change the public’s perception of him and his Presidency.  Bush said that only history will decide if his Presidency was a success or a failure, but I think he got that wrong.  I think the verdict on the Bush Presidency will be very positive and that this will happen faster than anyone can imagine.

In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was scorned by the intellectual elite and he was not a popular President.  He was very popular with the troops, but the Washington Establishment despised him.  When he ran for re-election in 1864, not a single Republican Senator endorsed him for re-election.  His own chief of staff told him in August of 1864 that he had no chance of getting re-elected.  Lincoln was so sure he would be defeated that he wrote a letter to the “next President of the United States” explaining why it was so necessary to win that war.

What changed was not winning the war, but rather the assassination.  When Lincoln was assassinated, for the first time people started to honestly reflect upon the real Abraham Lincoln and they began to pay more attention to his words.  They didn’t realize what they had until he was gone.  In a short period of time he went from being one of our most despised Presidents to being one of our most worshiped.  Lincoln did not change and his job performance did not change.  What changed was that when he was assassinated, people finally saw him for what he really was.

There is a parallel between Bush and Lincoln.  Both were despised while they were in office and both were considered crude and uneducated.  In hindsight, we were fortunate as a nation to have such men in charge during a time of national crisis.  Both were considered incompetent by the cultured establishment.  Bush was obviously not assassinated, but he was vilified by nearly everyone.  Even Republicans were afraid to even pretend that he had done a good job.  In his case, it was his character that was assassinated.  Now, people are going to look at Bush in a whole new way and a lot of them are going to like what they see.  We were lied to, but not by President Bush.  Instead we were lied to by people too hungry for political power to care about the damage they were doing to the office of the President of the United States.  None of the public perceptions of Bush can be reconciled to the man himself.

 There are two kinds of people in this world.  One walks into a room and says “Here I Am.”  Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are those kinds of people.  The other walks into a room and says “There you are.”  George Bush is that kind of person.

 I always admired Bush, but I never really understood the power of his personal presence until I saw this interview.  One thing that changed was the famous Bush sneer that used to show up in his speeches and his press conferences.  That, changes everything.

 TDM

California used to lead the nation in a lot of areas.  We had the best schools, the best roads and the strongest economy.  We also had the best weather.  If there was a new trend that caught on in California, you could count on seeing it replicated throughout the rest of the country.  California was the undisputed leader of the country.  It was the place to be.

Sadly, we are about to lead the country once again, but in the worst possible way.  California is literally self destructing before our very eyes.  For a long time other states looked at the economic disaaster that is California and wondered if we could possibly be serious.  About every three months there is a new financial crisis and California faces another multi-billion dollar deficit.  Some people now estimate that in addition to the current deficit, California may have $100 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.   The rest of the country used to envy us.  Now they laugh at us.  How do you justify the thought process of political leaders who want to legalize marijuana and ban happy meals? 

On November 2, 2010, the entire country arose and demanded change with a loud clear voice.  They voted to reduce the size of government, stop taxing and stop spending.  But in California voters gave an overwhelming vote of confidence to the same clowns that have pushed our economy to the brink of collapse.  Then, in an act of pure insanity, voters gave the California legislature the authority to pass a budget with a simple majority vote.    The reason budgets weren’t passed on time is that a handful of Republicans refused to vote for increased taxes and increased spending.  Now the last remaining guardrail protecting the California economy from going over the cliff has been removed.  We have a union loving Democratic State Assembly, a union adoring Democrat State Senate, and a union worshiping Democratic Governor.   To finish the job, we elected pro-union liberal Democrats to every statewide office.

Following is the list of those elected to statewide office this Tuesday:   

Governor:  Jerry Brown, Democrat.   He was Governor for 8 years decades ago.  He became famous across the country as Governor Moonbeam.  During his tenure he fought against Proposition 13, which reduced property taxes, then tried to take credit for it.  By his own admission, during his previous tenure taxes went up, spending went up, roads deteriorated and education got worse.  But he was not Meg Whitman and he is a Democrat so he got elected.

Lt. Governor:  Gavin Newsom, Democrat.  He is the hard-core core left wing wacko Mayor of San Francisco.  He arbitrarily decided that Gay Marriage should be legal in California so he just started marrying gay couples in San Francisco.  He is so liberal and so far left that he was trounced by Jerry Brown in the Democratic primary.  So, he decided to run for Lt. Governor hoping no one would notice.  It worked.

State Controller:  John Chang, Democrat.   He claimed credit for saving the state millions of dollars because of actions taken by other people.  (This included the City of Bell scandal ignored by Debra Bowen).   But, no one cared, because he is a Democrat.

State Treasurer:  Bill Lockyer, Democrat.    He is famous for filing a Global Warming Lawsuit against automobile manufacturers when he was attorney general.  Then he even tried to sue the Board of Hewitt Packard with regard to a change in the board of directors.   However, the Republican candidate must have been really special, because even the Republican Party refused to endorse her.

Secretary of State:  Debra Bowen, Democrat.   She has been accused of ignoring massive voter fraud by ACORN.  She was notified of the problems in Bell, California, where the city manager and others were paying themselves outrageous salaries, but she ignored it.  The story eventually broke in the LA Times and became a major scandal.  There are also other allegations of preferential treatment of the Democratic Party.   This is the person who make sure our elections are fair and balanced.  Perfect.. 

Attorney General:  Kamala Harris, Democrat.  She set an all time record for poor performance as District Attorney for San Francisco.  Under her leadership, San Francisco has the lowest conviction record in the state.  No police organization in the state was willing to endorse her because too many obviously guilty people were set free because of her incompetence.  She also refused to turn over illegal aliens to ICE, even when one was a dangerous  convicted felon.  He ended up killing several people.   But, she is a Democrat, and in California that is all that matters.

Insurance Commissioner:  Dave Jones, Democrat.   He is an anti-insurance company activist who thinks all problems with regard to health insurance can be solved by personally ordering insurance carriers to lower premium, without regard to actual costs.  He loves Obamacare.  This tactic was tried before with Proposition 103, which was passed in 1988.  It is how we ended up with an elected Insurance Commissioner.  Proposition 103 required auto insurance companies to reduce rates by 20%.  It was litigated for 17 years.  Somehow rates never actually went down.  So far every person elected to Insurance Commissioner in California has tried to use the position as a political platform to run for Governor.  Perfect!

Superintendent of Schools:  Tom Torlarkson, Democrat.  (He switched from Democrat, to decline to state, to run for this non-partisan office).  He is a former teacher strongly endorsed by the California teachers union which spent more money on his campaign than he spent himself.  This is exactly the kind of balance we need in a Superintendent of Schools.  He will be more than willing to make the hard decisions and challenge the teachers union…right!

California has officially replaced Michigan as the dumbest state in the union.  For years we watched pro-union Democrats run the Michigan economy into the ground.   But this year the voters finally had enough and voted the Democrats out of power.  My prediction is that the Michigan economy will take off.   It is hard to imagine California improving under the leadership of this group.

Democrats are banking on turning the economy around by building the bullet train to run from Fresno to Bakersfield.  All of the trains and equipment will be manufactured in California. That actually is a good idea, because no sane business owner would continue to operate in California if there was a viable option.   This is progressive utopia; lots of government spending creating those delicious union jobs.  Of course California has no money and the federal government is broke.    So, they will probably try to finance this with bonds, backed by a project that has no chance of ever turning a profit.  This is similar to how the French financed the Panama Canal.  That worked really well too!

Even though voters miraculously voted down Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana, this state legislature is likely to just do that anyway.  Democrats view marijuana primarly as a great cash crop that they can tax with wild abandon.  In addition, this will attract a whole new business to California, pot farms.  No sane business owner, who does not smoke pot, is likely to be interested in setting up shop in this economic disaster zone.  In addition, the more people in California who smoke pot, the more likely we will continue to elect Democrats.

I am suddenly feeling warm all over.  Oops, I may have peed by pants.

TDM

Republicans scored a major victory last night and that is very good news.  Although Democrats managed to keep the Senate, it was only by the skin of their teeth.  There are 21 Democrats up for re-election in 2012 and only 10 Republicans.  I expect a lot of conservative Democratic Senators from red states to start to quickly distance themselves from Obama and the left wing of the Democratic party.  The only Democratic Senators who survived were hard core left wing liberals from states with major Democratic machines. 

This election literally tilted both parties.  The Democrats tilted significantly to the left and the Republicans tilted to the right.  Because all of them were on the ballot last night, conservative Democrats in the House tended to slide right out of office.  Those 21 Democratic Senators, particularly the ones from red states, up for re-election in 2012 can see the handwriting on the wall.  The only reason Democrats did not lose control of the Senate last night is because only 18 of them were up for re-election. 

Obviously, my analysis of Delaware was way off.  I should have known better, because Christine O’Donnell was a train wreck of a candidate.  But, I was basing this on a single poll and it is now obvious that the poll was nonsense.  She lost by 17 and that was with better than expected Republican turnout.  This is one case where the Tea Party did us no favors, because they simply did not vet her as a candidate.  The only recent major candidate with a worse resume was Barack Obama and he at least did graduate from Harvard.  We also weren’t well served by running a WWE Diva on a family values platform in Connecticut.  There were similar problems with Joe Miller in Alaska.  Fortunately, Lisa Murkowski appears to have saved that seat for the Republicans.

But, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are major victories for the tea party and more importantly, for the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  They proved that major elections can be won by people who run on solid conservative values.

Contrast that with California where neither Carly Fiorina nor Meg Whitman did that.  Meg Whitman spent over $140 million trying to get elected by repeating over and over again that she is not Jerry Brown.  She never mentioned cutting taxes or cutting spending or a return to core conservative values.  Ultimately, a lot of people saw very little difference between the two.  Carly Fiorina ran a similar race, where once again her main argument was that she wasn’t Barbara Boxer.  Then she had absolutely no response to the attack ads saying she had shipped 30,000 jobs overseas as CEO of HP.  She also did not talk very much about cutting taxes and reducing spending.  She never mentioned that she would stop Obama, she just wanted to replace Boxer.

Frankly, Republicans should have won both races, but until the Republican Party learns to unite behind a Candidate with something resembling a personality and the ability to explain the conservative agenda, we are going to continue losing every election.

Did anyone notice that Democrats dominated a 30 mile strip along the entire length of the California coast.  The rest of California has turned deep red.

The election for the country was great, for California it was a disaster.  Republicans only won one statewide office, Attorney General, and that was only because it was patently obvious that Pamela Harris was embarrassingly incompetent.  To make it worse, voters passed Prop 25, which now allows Democrats to pass a budget with only a simple majority vote.  The only thing that has kept California from taxing and spending itself into oblivion has been the ability of the Republican minority to block irresponsible budgets.  There is no longer any guardrail protecting California from going over the cliff.

Since no California Democrat currently in office, other than Bill Lockyear, has demonstrated a shred of common sense, it is always difficult to predict what they will do.  It is clear that they desperately need new tax revenue, because the unions who bought the election for them are not going to let them cut many more public sector jobs.  So the real question is what Democrats will do to raise money.

They will try to raise taxes, but taxes are so high now and the economy is so bad that this may not be possible.  So, they will still raise taxes, but they will call it something else.  I fully expect them to legalize marijuana, because then they can tax it.  Democrats view marijuana solely as a very attractive source of desperately needed new revenue so they can continue spending.  The fact that Proposition 19 was voted down is just an inconvenience, kind of like Proposition 8 and gay marriage. 

They will raise energy taxes, inspired by the California Green energy goals.  In some cases they will be disguised as fees, but they will really be a tax.  They will also increase car license fees, because they don’t like cars anyway.  They probably will come up with other new and exciting ways to raise taxes, but they will definitely raise taxes and small business owners will be hit the hardest.

Barbara Boxer said that her solution to California’s financial problems was to tax all the money made by California based companies from foreign operations.  In other words any company currently domiciled in California that makes profits anywhere else in the world, is going to be taxed by California.  Any CEO of a California based company who heard this brilliant idea or who learned about it later is probably developing plans to leave the state.  This is utter nonsense.

But perhaps the most dangerous result was the election of Dave Jones as Insurance Commissioner.  He is a hard core left wing political activist who thinks all problems can be solved by increased regulation of the insurance industry.  He has already proposed legislation allowing him as Insurance Commissioner to require prior approval of health insurance rates.  If you think the health insurance industry in California is bad now, just wait six months.  Many insurance carriers are already skittish about California in general because of the long history of the Democratic controlled legislature passing ridiculous regulations that make it impossible for insurance companies to make a profit.  At one point nearly all workers’ compensation insurance in California was underwritten by the State Compensation Insurance Fund, because private companies had withdrawn completely from the state.  I can remember many conversations I had personally with top executives who told me flat out that they would never again write business in California because they did not trust the California State Legislature.  That changed when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected, but my hunch is that many of them are already developing an early exit strategy.  I can’t blame them because California just turned over the insane asylum to the inmates.

So, one must ask, how do you create jobs in an environment that is so hostile to business owners?  One answer, already proposed by Democrats, is to create great new jobs with government money.  For example, California could build that coveted high speed rail line between San Francisco and Bakerfield.  In addition, they will require all engines and passengers cars to be built in….California.  This is progressive utopia.  High speed mass transit, massive spending and all those delicious union jobs.  Of course the fact that we have no money to fund this, that this has no chance of ever turning a profit and that the coveted federal funds are non-existent will not slow them down.  I predict they will issue bonds so that lots of people can help fund this marvelous idea.  This is very similar to how the French financed the Panama Canal.  That worked out really well.

Hurray, for the U.S.A., but for California, too bad, so sad!

TDM