February, 2019, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: NYC Politicians Killing Amazon Deal, Virginia Political Circus Continues, and A Mean A Spirited Presidential Candidate

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) As most people know, Amazon sent over 200 cities in a tizzy over the past few years when they said they would be setting up new headquarters office complexes across the country to handle their ever growing business. These headquarters efforts would obviously be a big boost to local economic conditions, creating new and high paying jobs both inside the company and in outside businesses, e.g. restaurants, that would support this new, highly paid workforce.

Cities and local politicians jockeyed hard to be selected, given the obvious economic upside, and tried to outdo each other with tax abatements, economic incentives, and a myriad of other bribery gems to try and be one of the two locations.

Amazon eventually ended up choosing northern Virginia and Queens, New York as the sites of these two new headquarters locations. Local politicians were ecstatic….for a while until at least in New York, the whole thing started to fall apart when politicians started screwing up a good deal:

• According to CNBC, Amazon is likely at least taking a second look at whether or not the NYC locations is worth the hassle and grief it is getting from local politicians.
• According to CNBC, the announcement of NYC as one of the two locations “met almost immediately with protest by some New York officials and residents who feared Amazon would take over the Queens neighborhood, drive up prices and and push out existing residents.”
• In other words, Amazon may pull out of New York if the politicians hassle them too much and just go somewhere else, with over 200 cities more than happy to not hassle and hound the company.
• Just the Queens location would be home to 25,000 well paid employees, employees who pay taxes, eat in local restaurants, buy from local merchants, improve neighborhoods with home purchases, and generate a whole lot of economic growth.
• Of course, the newest and most out of touch and economically ignorant member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, put her two cents in, objecting that Amazon selected Queens for their location, proving that it is a great idea if she thinks it stinks.
• She issued the following, most ignorant tweet: “Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world’s biggest corporations?”
• So, in her world and reality, creeping overreach is good, high paying jobs, economic revival of all aspects of the local economy, and lower unemployment.
• The governor, Andrew Cuomo, is besides himself in frustration that a deal that took so long to to is possibly falling apart because of politicians like Ocasi-Cortez: "We have to make Amazon a reality. For the state Senate to oppose Amazon was governmental malpractice. And if they stop Amazon from coming to New York, they're going to have the people of New York state to explain it to. It is irresponsible to allow political opposition to overcome sound government policy. You're not there to play politics. You're there to do what's right for the people of New York, and what they did here was wrong."

I love it when the political class eats its own, they are so inept at anything they do. Over 200 cities saw this Amazon opportunity as a good thing and now some politicians in New York want to kill the golden goose of economic growth.

Now, look, I thought what Amazon did to these 200 cities was disgusting, economic blackmail. In New York, for example, the local politicians agreed to give Amazon a tax rebate of $3 billion if Amazon generated $27 billion in revenue for the state. Similar offers were made in the over 200 cities as well. As I said, economic blackmail.

But it is still so funny to see incompetent politicians trip over themselves trying to screw up a deal of a lifetime to the detriment of the people they serve. But that should not surprise anyone, these people screw up just about anything they touch.

2) Let’s review the Virginia political situation, or circus, that we have previously discussed in recent posts:

• It came to light that the medical school yearbook page of the current governor had a picture of two guys at a costume party, one dressed in a KKK costume and one dressed in black face in addition to listing the governor’s nickname as “Coonman,” certainly a racial slur.
• The governor first admitted that he was one of the guys in the picture and a day later contradicted himself and said he was NOT one of those in the picture, making himself look like a liar.
• Then the lieutenant governor was accused of a sexual predator attack years ago.
• Then the lieutenant governor implied that the governor had released the sex attack story to take the pressure off of him. 
• Then the state’s attorney general admitted that he had dressed up in blackface long ago.
• Then a member of the state government admitted that he knew of the sexual attack by the lieutenant governor for over a year.

So every day, the situation got worse and worse, and more comical. But just when you thought you it could not get any worse: 

• A second woman has now come forward to accuse the lieutenant governor of a sexual attack.
• Now he wants the FBI to investigate the charges.
• And many of his peers/politician friends are calling for him to resign but he says he will not.

Makes you wonder what insanity will unfold tomorrow in Virginia.

3) Okay, we talked about politicians fighting among themselves to screw up a once in a lifetime economic opportunity, we talked about Virginia politicians screwing up their public offices, and now let’s talk about a Washington politician possibly screwing up her Presidential run before it if got underway:

• Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar recently announced she was going to run for President.
• But according to the Washington Examiner she has a very nasty temperament and personality.
• Apparently she has a reputation for mistreating staff.
• At least three potential campaign aides withdrew their names from being considered to be on her Presidential campaign.
• According to the Huffington Post. the Senator cultivates a nasty work environment.
• She allegedly made staffers cry if they were late, constantly describing staff work efforts as “the worst,” sharing criticism in public emails, and giving staff tasks that were in conflict with Senate ethics rules.
• No surprise that she has had trouble filling her chief of staff position.

Sounds like she has a great temperament to unite the country and get everyone working together….not! If she cannot even get a small staff to function coherently and positively it is highly doubtful that she will be able to get the country to function coherently and positively.

That will do it for today, the insanity just keeps on coming.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2019, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Economic Ignorance in New York and Extreme, Unimaginable Weirdness In Virginia

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) We have often talked about the reality that when politicians raise taxes they rarely, if ever, reap the rewards they thought they would get. People are for the most part rational beings when it comes to their money and wealth. They will protect in any number of ways:

• Sometimes they just physically move where they live to escape ever rising taxes.
• Sometimes they will change their investments or jobs to avoid ever rising taxes.
• Sometimes they will change their behaviors to avoid ever rising taxes.
• Whatever politicians do, you can be sure taxpayers will at least give some thought to ways they can keep more of their hard earned wealth. 

The classic example we discussed previously happened in the state of Maryland several years ago. The state passed a law that raised the tax rate on every dollar taxpayers in that state earned over a million dollars. The politicians thought that the residents would not change their lives and just counted the extra money they thought they would get from millionaires under the new tax rate.

However, in a very short time they found that even though the had raised the marginal tax RATE on state millionaire earners, they actually received less REVENUE from state millionaire earners, many of whom probably just moved across state lines to reduce their tax burden.

But politicians never learn, as illustrated by the financial crisis starting to hit in New York state:

• As a former resident of a northeastern state (New Jersey), In know that local and state taxes, e.g. income taxes and property taxes, have always been extremely high.
• Fortunately for the local and state politicians, they could get away with a lot of these high taxes because they knew their citizens could deduct the high taxes on their Federal income tax returns, taking a little bit of the sting out of the high tax burden in their states.
• But along comes the Trump tax cuts which caps the amount of deductions that can be taken at $10,000, a level far below what many people in the northeast were used to taking.
• But according to Rachel Silberstein, writing for the Times Union website on February 4, 2019, the state of New York now finds itself in a potential financial death spiral because of its high state and local tax burdens and the new Federal tax guidelines.
• Top state politicians recently announced an unexpected tax revenue shortfall of $2.3 billion.
• It will be the biggest shortfall in the past eight years despite a booming overall economy.
• Most of the big shortfall is due to a large drop in state income tax revenue streams.
• The New York governor blamed the shortfall on the Trump tax plan that capped deductions for state and local taxes.
• Note, it was not his fault for spending too much, it was Trump’s fault for stopping the rest of the country from subsidizing his state’s over spending.
• In blaming Trump, for protecting the rest of the country’s taxpayers, the governor ends up sounding like a spoiled five year old: "Everything we did economically is right. We tightened our belt, we cut taxes, we're creating jobs, and here's a penalty just because we are Democrats."
• But it gets worse as one high ranking state politician cited “anecdotal reports of New Yorkers leaving the state or changing their primary residence and Wall Street volatility as factors in the revenue gap.”
• A recent Wall Street Journal article supports this trend, reporting that many, many New Yorkers are decamping from that state and coming to income tax free Florida and other places, with Miami realtors seeing a big increase in New Yorkers coming to the Sunshine state.
• Which is what happens when you spend too much and you squeeze your most productive citizens since the top 1% of New York earners pay a whopping 50% of the state’s income tax revenue, 1%.
• And you know that the top 1% certainly have the means to go live elsewhere for a far cheaper lifestyle and far lower taxes.
• And when that happens, it is the middle class and poor that have to either pick up the tax slack or endure cuts to services as pointed out by Senate Minority Leader John J. Flanagan: "We cannot allow this [Democrats to raise taxes on the middle class and poor]to happen. It's imperative that we balance the budget without resorting to tax increases, enact the spending cap into state law, and make the property tax cap permanent to bring certainty to homeowners and seniors. Budgeting is about choices; and it's time for Gov. Cuomo and legislative Democrats to make the right ones."
• But this is not unexpected, we have been discussing this reality for years. And in the face of this crisis, Democrats in the state government ”are pushing for significant increases in state funding for housing, healthcare and school aid in next year's budget.”

They just do not get it. Taxing people to the extreme eventually causes those being over taxed to fight back to protect their hard earned wealth. The solution to budget deficits is to clean up wasteful and criminal spending, and become more efficient and effective. Instead, these folks want to spend MORE in the face of LESS revenue, the classic definition of both being in denial and a financial death spiral. Insanity.

2) I am assuming that most of you have been following the political circus going on down in the state of Virginia:

• First, it came out that the Virginia governor had posed either as KKK member or someone in black face in a photo which appeared in the yearbook of the medical school he was attending.
• Initially, he said he was one of those in the picture and a day later said he was not in the picture on his personal yearbook page.
• It also came out, also on his yearbook page, that his nickname was racially insensitive “Coonman,” which he denied was his nickname despite it being on his personal yearbook page.
• And then his lieutenant governor was accused of making a sexual attack from years ago.
• The lieutenant governor than inferred that the governor had outed him to take the heat off of governor.
• The lieutenant governor allegedly then profanely stated what should happen to his accuser,  “F*** that b****!” Class act.

Wow, you could say it can not get much wilder than that. But alas, you would be wrong, according to an article on the Townhall website by Mike Vespa on February 6, 2019:

• Virginia attorney general Mark Herring is the third in command in the state government and reportedly has/had plans to run for governor in 2021.
• But then it came to light that he had also dressed up in black face and dressed as a rapper back in 1980: "The very bright light that is shining on Virginia right now is sparking a painful but, I think we all hope, important conversation. The stakes are high, and our spirits are low. I am sure we all have done things at one time or another in our lives that show poor judgment, and worse yet, have caused some level of pain to others. I have a glaring example from my past that I have thought about with deep regret in the many years since, and certainly each time I took a step forward in public service, realizing that my goals and this memory could someday collide and cause pain for people I care about, those who stood with me in the many years since, or those who I hoped to serve while in office. In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song. It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes – and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others – we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup. This was a onetime occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
• He then went on to try to explain that his actions since then have not been racist or cruel.
• In a great piece of irony and hypocrisy, he had called for the governor to resign for a similar part of his past a day or so earlier.

My gosh, you could not make up weirder set of idiocy, racism, sexism, alleged sexual assault, and lyng if you tried.

That’s enough political class sleaze and stupidity for today, nasty, depressing stuff: economic ignorance in new York and just plain hurtful, sad weirdness in Virginia. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w