New York City Councilman looking to secede

New York Sun:

Emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg’s testimony in Albany this week that the city’s taxpayers pay the state $11 billion a year more than they get back, a City Council member is offering legislation that would begin the process of having New York City secede from New York State.

Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents Queens, is pushing the idea, and the Council plans to hold a hearing on the possibility of making New York City the 51st state.

“I think secession’s time has definitely come again,” Mr. Vallone, who spearheaded a similar push in 2003, told The New York Sun yesterday. “If not secession, somebody please tell me what other options we have if the state is going to continue to take billions from us and give us back pennies. Should we raise taxes some more? Should we cut services some more? Or should we consider seriously going out on our own?”

This is pretty unlikely. Not only would New York state be a bit crazy to let them go but Article 4 Section 3 Clause 1 doesn’t allow it without Congress’ approval:

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as well as of the Congress.

However, I fully support their plan. I’m a Free State Project member and some of us feel that if things continue getting worse nationally we will start supporting a New Hampshire secession from the union. That is also unlikely but given NH has the right to revolution in its constitution at least it has some legal legitimacy.

It does seem a bit funny to me that NYC is generally known to be fairly liberal place. A whole lot of socialists here. So you’d think that their wealth being redistributed to the rest of the state wouldn’t be a problem.

McCain Soft on Taxes - Hard to Stomach

What sets John McCain apart from the rapidly thinning Republican Presidential field? He is the only remaining Republican candidate who has not pledged to refuse to raise taxes.  According to Americans For Tax Reform, Huckabee, Romney  and of course, our hero Ron Paul, have all all signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.   McCain has not.

With a recession looming, tax cuts (and of course the attendant spending cuts) are badly needed.  Recessions reduce tax revenue and increase deficits so you could argue that the only politically practical way to control the deficit is to keep the economy strong by cutting taxes.   Interest rate cuts just encourage more bad investment decisions and prolong the agony. For some background on the problems with interest rate regulation check out www.mises.org.

But does McCain get it? Apparently not. While McCain has scored at high as above 80% with the ATR he has also fallen to 66%. ATR suggest that he has “tried to reinvent himself as a taxpayer friendly Senator”. Sure John, I trust you.

Here is a short list of other completely wrong headed McCain Votes

No - Economic and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, Conference Report - May 26, 2001
No - Death Tax Repeal Sense of the Senate – February 13, 2002
No - Permanent Repeal of the Death Tax - June 12, 2002
No - Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 - May 15, 2003
N0 - Jobs and Growth Conference Report - May 23, 2003

The list goes on and on.

To all you prospective McCain voters - please ask yourself whether our economy can withstand higher taxes. Then ask yourself if Ron Paul isn’t a better choice.

The Libertarian Party’s Response to the State of the Union Address

The following is a response by Libertarian Party National Chairman William Redpath

Washington, D.C. - Following President Bush’s annual State of the Union Address, the Libertarian Party issued their response from National Chairman William Redpath:

Tonight’s State of the Union address went much as expected.  Instead of calling for a more limited role of the federal government in American society, the President laid out plans that would only increase the government’s intervention into the realm of economics, health care, education and foreign policy.  It is unfortunate to see that after seven years of increasing the size of government and increasing the government’s presence in the day to day lives of all Americans, the President refuses to limit the scope of the federal government, a once championed virtue of the President’s party.  The President’s last State of the Union address encapsulated his legacy of an abandonment of the principles of limited government and individual freedom.

What Do the MTA and Al Qaeda Have in Common?

Both destroyed hundreds of downtown businesses for no good reason. Now that the MTA has abandoned its gazillion dollar transit hub boondoggle, some of the business owners who saw their livelihoods needlessly ruined for the sake of some bureaucrat’s petty scheme are rightfully pissed:

Mirza Mamur closed his art gallery, endured 10 months of unemployment, took out loans to make ends meet and then struggled to re-establish his business at a new location.

He was one of more than 140 business owners displaced by plans for the Fulton Street transit hub in lower Manhattan. Now, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it was again scaling back the project - and scrapping its centerpiece, a 110-foot-tall, steel-and-glass-domed entranceway - Mamur is asking if he was needlessly pushed out.

No need to ask, Mirza. You were.

I Wanna See Blood and Gore and Guts and Veins in My Teeth!

In honor of Arlo Guthrie’s enthusiastic endorsement of Ron Paul today, here are a few bars of Arlo’s anti-war masterpiece Alice’s Restaurant, with footage from the movie of the same name. (Don’t any of you whippersnappers tell me you never heard of it either! Kids today…)

The Redistribution of Debt

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s a saying as old as history, and just as toxic. It’s misled millions to believe they’re doomed to poverty and that wealth is just an elusive dream for a select few. But the 2008 Economic Stimulus package may help put us all on equal footing. By ensuring everyone experience poverty through massive inflation.

Both Democrats and Republicans are in favor of the plan. The proposal would pay up to $600 to individuals, married couples up to $1,200, plus $300 per child, and even many who don’t earn enough to pay taxes, can receive up to $300. The total plan will cost an estimated $150 billion dollars. But despite it’s good intentions, the program may turn a mild recession into a full-blown one, or worse.

There’s only three ways it can be paid for: taxes, new currency or credit. Through taxes, while it would force government to cut spending in the short term, which is a good thing, there’s no doubt taxes will be raised in the long run to compensate. If it’s paid by printing new currency, the dollar would definitely devalue even further and our current inflation would spiral out of control. But the real problem is credit. By merely tacking it onto the national deficit, which is currently at $9 trillion, it will still devalue our dollar with taxpayers footing this seemingly endless debt.

There’s no doubt spending stimulates an economy. It was lack of spending which fueled the panic from the 1929 Stock Market Crash into the Great Depression. Which is why it’s ironic to hear those who at one time swore the “trickle down theory” only benefited the wealthy, are now clamoring for the potential spending behind the stimulus package. Some, such as the AFL-CIO Labor Union, claim it isn’t enough.

But spending on credit, especially amounts that can’t be realistically paid for, creates serious problems. After all, that’s what got us here in the first place thanks to the subprime mortgage crisis. This is why the Economic Stimulus package is nothing short of a welfare handout. Simply giving money away and conditioning people to an entitlement mindset every time they make mistakes will never address this fundamental problem.

And deficit spending by a government comprised of career politicians who believe they can manage our money better than we can, creates disastrous results. Especially when they simply take our money out of one pocket just to put into the other. Minus inflation no less, not to mention compounding interest. That’s not even the redistribution of wealth. It’s the redistribution of debt.

Presidential Poker

Harvard Professor Charles Nesson has an interesting proposal — he wants Stephen Colbert to host a televised poker tournament among the presidential candidates. I this is a terrific idea — as long as it’s not strip poker. (Yeesh, sorry, that’s a mental picture I didn’t need to conjure.)

You have to wait til the end of the interview to get to the presidential tournament idea, but the rest of the interview is good stuff about the stupidity of the federal ban on online poker:

Hat tip: the lovely and talented Karol at Alarming News

The Ultimate Betrayal?

The New York chapter of the National Organization for Women is calling Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton “the ultimate betrayal” of women. I would have thought leaving an innocent woman to drown would be more of an ultimate betrayal, but maybe I’m not feminist enough.

Back-to-Back Silver: Paul Takes 2nd in LA

It appears that Ron Paul finished in second place in Louisiana among caucus voters who expressed a preference for a candidate — finishing right behind John McCain, just as he did in Nevada on Saturday. That’s the second straight race Ron has brought home the Silver Medal. Now let’s go for the Gold!

Spitzer’s Cocaine Tax

The Times’ City Room blog points out a bizarre provision among the hundreds of items in Eliot Spitzer’s budget proposal — he wants to impose a $3.50-a-gram tax on marijuana and a $200-a-gram tax on other illegal drugs such as cocaine.

New York City and State combined tax tobacco cigarettes at a rate of $3.00 per pack. Anyone know how many grams of tobacco are in each pack? I’m curious to see whether tobacco or pot will have the higher tax.

Either way, as with tobacco, Spitzer is muscling himself a piece of the drug traffickers’ action. He has an advantage over other thugs in that his gang has the most guns — and badges.