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Ortman’s counterpart in the House, Taxes Chair Greg Davids, threw cold water on that idea [eliminating tax breaks] Tuesday, declaring that “getting rid of tax expenditures is a tax increase.” His comments came after his committee considered a round of new tax expenditures to give breaks to military veterans.

I have argued with anyone who toes the “no earmarks” line that tax expenditures, like earmarks, are part of the poison that is polluting our political process. Tax expenditures are nicely explained (admittedly from across the political divide) at the Center for American Progress site as having advantages over the usual and transparent means of allocating government spending, which is through direct grants and programs. Martin Feldstein at the Wall Street Journal agrees that tax expenditures are behind much of our spending woes. The primary advantage touted, that they are “tax cuts” is one that we, as Republicans, normally embrace.  But a reduction in taxes that only goes to some is only spending disguised as a tax cut. Uunless it is across the board, it just does not qualify as a “tax cut”, which means that we are duped into thinking it is a good thing by the labeling.

A tax expenditure is not a tax cut. It is simply pork used to buy votes and spun to look like a tax cut. Chair Greg Davids needs to step up to the issue and realize that while Republicans believe that higher taxes are in general a bad idea, claiming to lower taxes through targeted tax cuts violates an even more important Republican principle, which is that we should all be equal under the law.

- Bruce W. Morlan, Major, USAF (Retired) and State Central Delegate, Rice-Scott BPOU

[An aside] A specific tax expenditure being proposed would directly impact the author. The expenditure being considered would remove some or all of the state’s tax claim on military pay and retirement. While this sounds nice, as a retired veteran I object on two grounds. The first is that such tax expenditures are in fact morally equivalent to earmarks and as such I am opposed to them on principle. The second is that I am insulted that anyone thinks my vote is for sale at any price.

“a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-O-Meter. We’re also tracking more than 500 of Barack Obama’s campaign promises and are rating their progress on our new Obameter.”

Politifact is one of a new class of websites, claiming impartiality and through that claim gaining followers who trust them to be fair and balanced. And while we applaud the effort, and enjoy the sight of pompous politicians being pummeled by the own pronouncements, we must remember that to call a statement a “pants on fire” lie requires that you know what the truth is. We took exception to Politifact’s understanding of our use of the Ponzi scheme as a lesson for understanding Social Security.

Politifact Texas said

In September, PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Barely True GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson’s statement that Washington politicians “run Social Security like a Ponzi scheme.” Despite a superficial similarity, Social Security is obligated to pay benefits, a commitment the shysters who run Ponzi schemes do not share. What”s more, participants are aware of how the system is operating. It”s all public. In a Ponzi scheme, investors have no clue where their money is going and are told lies by its promoters.

This comment completely misstates the reason we call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. The essence of the Ponzi scheme is that it pays current beneficiaries using funds that by the very nature of the mathematics of income and payouts cannot be sustained forever. An interesting and instructive example appeared in the mid 20th century. In those times, nearly everyone collected S&H green stamps. In the early 1960′s chain letters were common, and offering a bonanza in S&H green stamps was one of the schemes that would surface from time to time. The basic idea was simple, you received a letter with 5 names on it. You were supposed to send the person on the top of the list (or send each person on the list) a book of S&H Green stamps. You then removed the top name, put your name and address on the bottom and sent the list to five of your friends. The mathematics were simple, if each recipient played along you could receive 3125 (or 3905) books in return. A veritable king’s ransom! This was the first introduction of the baby boomers to the sort of Ponzi scheme that you could set up if the victims did not understand the limits to growth of such schemes posed by the finite population of possible payers.

When activists refer to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, it is this mathematical certainty, that population growth is limited, that drives their concerns. Unfortunately for us, our political leaders (especially populist Democrats) either do not understand these limits or are willing to lie to us rather than change those plans (for example, as a starter, from defined benefit to defined contribution plans). With a certain amount of charity, we assume it is because they neither think about nor understand the mathematics.  It is the growth in the entitlement programs without the necessary savings to fund them that represents the Federal equivalent of sending out that letter with our kids names at the bottom of the list. And that is why we stand against the politicians who ignore that problem.

- Bruce W. Morlan is a delegate to State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Minnesota

More reading …

• What If the GOP Embraced Paul Ryan’s Entitlement Plan? Jim Powell, CATO Institute
• A Roadmap for America’s Future. Rep Paul Ryan.

Oberstar’s defeat may be a sign of a new economic awareness.

What the GOP needs to accomplish goes far beyond earmarks.

We Republicans shouldn’t punish members for following their conscience

In this commentary, Bill Paulsen argues that the party central powers have, in the name of party purity, shrunk the Republican tent in defiance of the “big-tent” grassroots movements within the party. He points out that even though he disagrees with some of the positions held by some of the now shunned members of the party, he would rather dialog with them within the party than see them cast out and made available to other parties as supporters.

The authors:

Bruce W. Morlan, Northfield, works as a mathematician conducting research into medical practice and policy. He is an elected Township Supervisor, member of two planning commissions, and a volunteer mediator for Rice County Dispute Resolution Program. He conducts periodic political salons at a local pub and is a source in MPR’s Public Insight Network. He is a delegate to the Minnesota Republican Party State Central Committee, representing Rice and southern Scott Counties.

Bill Paulsen, Lonsdale, is an engineer in the electronics industry. In 2008 he was the Rice County coordinator for the Ron Paul for President campaign and in 2010 sought the Republican endorsement for Minnesota Senate District 25. He is a delegate to the Minnesota Republican Party State Central Committee, representing Rice and southern Scott Counties. He is a source in MPR’s Public Insight Network.

An astute reader sent us the following introduction to some more reasoned comments on this item.

Hi Folks! As I suppose was the case in many American households, when we heard this morning that Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, we were dumbfounded as to how a president who has been in office not quite 9 months could be even considered for such an award, let alone be given it over all the others in the world whose accomplishments are worthy of such an honor. Especially since we have learned that the nominations for this award closed shortly after he took office this year. Then a couple of editorials appeared this morning also and to us it became clear what the Nobel committee’s purpose was.

The first is by Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for the Washington Post who obviously wrote it and published it before today’s Nobel announcement. It clearly spells out the quandry in which President Obama finds himself with regard to Afghanistan, primarily of his own doing. It gives the background and the reasons for his apparent hesitation on what policy to follow.
From The Washington Post via RealClear Politics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/09/young_hamlets_agony_98640.html
October 9, 2009, Young Hamlet’s Agony, By Charles Krauthammer

The second is an op-ed by C. Edmund Wright, who writes for The American Thinker. He clearly states, “The award is a not so veiled attempt to make it psychologically impossible for Obama to now send 40 thousand more American troops to Afghanistan. To do so would be to spit in the face of his most adoring audience in his favorite venue, the vague and undefined world stage.” In light of all the recent controversy over the statements of General McChrystal regarding troop levels in Afghanistan, it becomes perfectly clear what the Nobel committee was doing when they decided to award the honor to him at this point in time.
From The American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/10/obama_afghanistan_and_the_nobe.html
October 09, 2009, Obama, Afghanistan, and the Nobel Peace Prize, C. Edmund Wright

Read and thoughtfully consider!
Doug Ferguson
Mankato, MN

The bottom line is that we need to remember that the Nobel prizes, like many other such awards, serve the awarder more than the awardee. At the same time, we must admit that there is a movement within the Republican party to get back to our less interventionist way of international life, with calls to end the war because we have no compelling concern with the people in those countries. Certainly from the humanitarian perspective there are heinous tribal wars all over the planet that find innocent women and children being abused every bit as much as in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we were there for humanitarian reasons we should consider other venues that might be more responsive to our help. If even some Republicans are having trouble seeing the value in killing Afghanis, perhaps this is a time to reconsider whether sending more troops makes sense.

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As an aside, in a conversation with a friend I commented that the difference between (R) and (D) was that (D) thought you had to have peace first, while (R) think you have to have liberty first. This may be simplistic, but it does shed some light on how the two sides view the issue of wars to deliver freedom (Civil War, Second World War, to name a couple of well known examples of democracies waging wars of liberation in lands not their own, per Victor Davis-Hanson in The Soul of Battle)