Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

RINO Mitt Romney now open to European-style VAT tax

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ABC News reports.

Excerpt:

In a December 24 story in the Wall Street Journal, Romney is described not favoring the idea of “layering a VAT onto the current income tax system. But he adds that, philosophically speaking, a VAT might work as a replacement for some part of the tax code, ‘particularly at the corporate level,’ as Paul Ryan proposed several years ago. What he doesn’t do is rule a VAT out.”

A value added tax, or VAT, is a form of the consumption tax in which the tax is levied based on a product’s price, not including the cost of materials, that originated in and is popular in Europe, imposed by the European Commission, and the governments of France and the UK, among others.

Gingrich’s campaign was not the only one to notice. The American Enterprise Institution‘s James Pethokoukis wrote that “(m)any conservatives/libertarians simply hate, hate, hate the idea of a VAT….They view it as a way to fund a massive expansion of government. I would be surprised if those quotes don’t end up in a 30-second, anti-Romney ad in Iowa or New Hampshire”

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist once called the VAT “a European-style sales tax. It’s assessed on the profits generated at every stage of production (raw material, manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, etc.), so there is constant reporting and payment. As such, it’s an extremely efficient money machine for big government. The VAT is embedded inside the price of a good … As such, people forget they pay it, and European governments have found it too easy to raise the tax repeatedly over time.”

People think that Romney should be the candidate because he “is the most electable”. But is that true?

Seven reasons why Romney’s electability is exaggerated

John Hawkins writing for Townhall.com lists the seven reasons. (H/T Right Wing News)

Reasons 2 and 3:

2) He’s a proven political loser: There’s a reason Mitt Romney has been able to say that he’s “not a career politician.” It’s because he’s not very good at politics. He lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994. Although he did win the governorship of Massachusetts in 2002, he did it without cracking 50% of the vote. Worse yet, he left office as the 48th most popular governor in America and would have lost if he had run again in 2006. Then, to top that off, he failed to capture the GOP nomination in 2008. This time around, despite having almost every advantage over what many people consider to be a weak field of candidates, Romney is still desperately struggling. Choosing Romney as the GOP nominee after running up that sort of track record would be like promoting a first baseman hitting .225 in AAA to the majors.

3) Running weak in the southern states: Barack Obama won North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida in 2008 and you can be sure that he will be targeting all three of those states again. This is a problem for Romney because he would be much less likely than either Gingrich or Perry to carry any of those states. Moderate northern Republicans have consistently performed poorly in the south and Romney won’t be any exception. That was certainly the case in 2008 when both McCain and Huckabee dominated Romney in primaries across the south. Mitt didn’t win a single primary in a southern state and although he finished second in Florida, he wasn’t even competitive in North Carolina or Virginia. Since losing any one of those states could be enough to hand the election to Obama in a close race, Mitt’s weakness there is no small matter.

For my own part, I find it surprising that people who are ostensibly pro-life are willing to appoint a Republican candidate who has no pro-life record. Until he started running for the Presidency, Mitt Romney was 100% pro-abortion. That’s 12 years of abortion advocacy. His record is pro-abortion. Many of the other candidates, especially Santorum and Bachmann, have a pro-life record. Newt has a 98% pro-life voting record. So why are we settling for someone who has a question mark on social issues?

Commentary

Who gives more to charity? Religious people or secular people?

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Barbara Kay explains in the National Post.

Full text:

No matter where you live, charity begins at home. But, as we learn from the Fraser Institute’s newly released annual report on charitable giving, the question of where charity ends depends on where you live. For the 13th year in a row, Quebec has come out on the bottom of the Fraser Institute’s charity scale.

Of the provinces, Manitobans are the biggest givers, with 26% of those filing taxes donating to a registered charity, and 0.89% of total income being donated. Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island tied for second place. Ontario, Canada’s largest province, tied Alberta for fourth place with 24% of its tax filers donating 0.74% of total income to registered charities.

And then there’s Quebec. Oh dear. Only 21.7 % of Quebecers claimed donations to registered charities, and gave only 0.30% of their total income. On average dollar value donated, Alberta led with $2,112. And Quebec limped in at $606, half the national average of $1,399.

Lest Albertans and Manitobans get swelled heads, they should know that no Canadian provinces are a patch on the Americans. Almost 27% of American tax filers donated to registered charities, compared with 23% of Canadians. Countrywide, Americans gave 1.32% of their aggregate personal income to charity, more than double the 0.64% that Canadians gave.

What’s up with these statistics? Aren’t we supposed to be kinder and gentler than Americans?

Well, one clue to deconstructing the Canadian figures, and in particular Quebec’s lousy performance, comes from the news release: “Utah was by far the most generous jurisdiction in North America, with 33.4% of tax filers donating 3.09% of the total income earned in the state, nearly three-and-a-half times the share of aggregate income donated by Canada’s top province (0.89%), Manitoba.”

Why? Here’s a clue: Mormons constitute about 60% of Utah’s population. Mormons give a lot to charity, in part because of their tithing system. And, countrywide, it’s not just Mormons. The United States is a religious country – and research tells us that observantly religious people generally give more to charity (both in time and money) than non-religious people. Canada’s secularism makes it a less generous place, no matter what we tell ourselves about the virtues of being Canadian.

Another well-observed sociological phenomenon is that big government tends to discourage charity – both because people have less money to give to charity in high-tax jurisdictions, and because coddled nanny-state citizens believe that taking care of the poor huddled masses has become government’s job. Statism dampens the impulse to be generous at an individual level.

Quebec scores high on both secularism and nanny-statism. In fact, it is the least religious of the Canadian provinces (and in fact the most militantly anti-religious). Quebec also is the most statist (and highly taxed) of the provinces. Quebecers figure their taxes are taking care of all the social problems, or should be taking care of them, and it is therefore no surprise that they are the least likely to take responsibility for the afflictions of others.

Taking personal responsibility for alleviating the sufferings of others is the mark of a mature individual. Statism tends to suffocate the blessing of empathy, and thereby promotes civic immaturity. One more in a long litany of reasons for working to bring down the size of government.

These findings echo Arthur Brooks’ study on who gives most. Religious people give more than secular people, and that just stands to reason, given that the former generally takes morality to be objective, and the latter generally takes it to be subjective.

Commentary

Why do men become feminists? Why do men support feminism?

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This is a must-read from Stuart Schneiderman.

Excerpt: (links removed)

How does a man become a feminist? What would lead a normally constituted American male to throw in with an ideology that appears to be unfriendly to men?

The answer is: gratitude.

True enough, very few men openly identify themselves as feminists. Still, many men happily mouth the basic tenets of the feminist credo. They may not understand what they are saying, but they support the cause because they feel grateful for what feminism has done for them.

Take Hugo Schwyzer. He has been married four times. He has had countless casual sexual encounters and no small number of relationships. Manifestly, he feels grateful and perhaps endebted to feminism for having provided him with so much free love.

So, he defends the feminist party line.

In debating Neely Steinberg Schwyzer does not dispute that feminism, especially sex-positive feminism, has helped create the hookup culture.

Yet, Schwyzer thinks it’s a good thing, for him, for his fourth wife, and for everyone who wants to learn from experience.

[…]Steinberg explains what feminism has done for men: “Instead of embracing the emotional and biological differences between men and women, or at least considering them, sex-positive feminists buried their heads in the sand, unintentionally creating, in the meantime, a veritable sexual playground for men, often times at the expense of women, many of whom just wanted relationships that were both sexually and emotionally satisfying. Women were told they could have their cake and eat it too, but the dessert in many ways has been a better payoff for men.”

How does feminism create male adherents to its cause? It provides them with an endless supply of young women.

Of course, this assumes that men want nothing more from women than free sex. If men are looking for marriage and family, the hookup culture detracts from this goal. It teaches men to respect women less. It teaches women to respect themselves less.

It should not surprise anyone that fewer and fewer Americans are getting married today.

That’s the excerpt, read the whole thing – but watch out for the F word, which occurs once. I think you’ll notice that he is talking about some of the same things I talk about.