Christian Schneider

Author, Columnist

Month: May 2009 (page 1 of 2)

Take Me Out to the Drunk Tank

True story: Last Brewer game I went to was on the same Sunday that an episode of “Sunday Insight With Charlie Sykes” on which I appeared aired.  So before the game, I sat and actually gave some thought about what I would do if someone recognized me.  I mean, if there are 45,000 people in the ballpark, at least some of them had to see the show that morning, right?  And what if someone sees me and wants to punch me in the nose?  Or call me a name?

So I spent a good 15 minutes thinking about whether I should wear sunglasses, or a floppy hat, or a fake mustache.  (Which, of course, would just cover my real mustache.)  As it turns out, I did none of the the above.

So we got to the stadium, and walked around the whole length of the concourse before we got to our seats.  And not a single person recognized me.  We sat down, and after a minute, I realized – this sucks.  So I got up again and walked the length of the concourse again.  Still nothing.  I probably would have actually welcomed a punch to the grill, because it would have meant someone watched the show (or wanted my jumbo pretzel really badly.)

The lesson, as always, is this: I am a moron.

No such problems tonight as my buddy Johnny Roast Beef and I went to see the Brew Crew take on the Cardinals.  We were way up in the nosebleeds, where I had no allusions of being recognized.  It\’s actually a scientific formula – the closer the seats get to the top of the stadium, the less likely the inhabitants of those seats are to watch political television.  Hell, once you get to the top 4 rows or so, those people are most likely unable to actually turn their televisions on at all.

In fact, the upper deck is always interesting, in that it attracts people who aren’t really there to watch the game at all.  They’re cheap tickets, probably given to them, and it gives them the chance to socialize and look at college aged girls who also aren’t there to watch the game.  And as is often the case, it gives men the chance to get completely bombed and scream obscenities at the top of their lungs, as was the case tonight.

There really is no way to describe the discomfort one feels in a section where some guy is hammered and yelling profane non-sequiturs for all to hear.  It\’s like finding a pubic hair in a giant bowl of potato salad – it ruins the whole thing for everyone.  There is no saving the game experience at that point.

On the way home, I spent the whole time thinking about what the rationale is for people getting drunk at sporting events.  Think about it – alcohol exists to take unbearable situations and make them somewhat more bearable (work picnics, meeting girls, parent-teacher conferences, etc.)  Why would you take an already awesome experience, like going to a Brewer or Packer game, and make it somehow less memorable by getting liquored up?

(Full disclosure – I once emptied the contents of my stomach onto the left field bleachers at County Stadium, but I had an excuse – it was after a work party, and someone made me try chewing tobacco for the first time.  I was 21, I think.)

Here’s where I get all metaphysical…

When you think about it, our memories are really all we have of sporting events.  Days later, you can remember being there to see specific great plays or watching your team win.  But if you get hammered, and can’t remember anything that happened during the game, then what’s the point?  You (may have) paid for a ticket, and (certainly) paid $6.00 per beer to get sloshed.  Since you don’t remember anything that happened, you could have done it at home for a lot cheaper.

So, anyway, back to these morons in our section.  From a young age, I have certainly known my way around a well placed expletive.  I am no stranger to the art of profanity.  But if you try to confront one of these drunks, then suddenly YOU become the bad guy, and a whole host of bad stuff can happen to you.  And if you don’t, then your daughter just thinks you’re a giant puss, and will probably need therapy for 15 years to find out why daddy couldn’t protect them from the angry man at the Brewer game.

So are fans getting more obnoxious?  I think they are, and I have a theory as to why.

I think it mostly has to do with new stadiums.  Let’s be honest – Miller Park exists to attract people who aren’t there to watch baseball.  In a perfect world, everyone would go to the park to watch the game, and County Stadium (and Bernie’s Chalet) could have lived on in perpetuity.  What’s going on in the concourse is irrelevant.  But in order to finance a modern team, you need to draw more than just baseball fans – you need other things (food, attractions, racing sausages) to draw people, and therefore increase revenue.

When you get a lot more people (which Miller Park has been wildly successful in doing), you get a lot more people who are interested in doing other things in the stands than watching the game.  This includes drinking, and drinking a lot.  Add to that the fact that tickets are more expensive now – so drunks believe they have a constitutional right to be as offensive as they want, considering they’re paying such an exorbitant amount for a seat.  They are unaware or disinterested in everyone else’s constitutional right not to be harassed by their drunk ass.  (Side note – neither of these are constitutional rights, in the way I believe we have a constitutional right to know what’s in the secret stadium sauce.)

On the other hand, the Two Fisted Slobber has been a source of pride in Milwaukee sports for as long as I’ve been going to sporting events.  So I could be full of it.

Other sights and sounds from the game:

At one point, they showed a man and a woman on the jumbotron, and the older man looked as if maybe he shouldn\’t have been there with the younger woman.  So Roast Beef and I debated \”what to do if the jumbotron catches you at the game with your mistress.\”  I thought you should immediately pull out your cell phone and pretend you\’re talking to someone else.  Roast Beef thought you should turn and kiss the man next to you, as if you mistakenly thought it was the kissing montage.

There was one guy there wearing a number 45 jersey that clearly had once been a Carlos Lee jersey.  But he took a black marker and added a few letters, making it the jersey of current number 45, Mike DifeLEEce.  (Although it is actually spelled DiFelice, I thought it was a game effort.  Cheap-assed, but game.)

I made the mistake of getting one of those Palermo’s pizzas at the game.  It was one of the worst things I have ever eaten.  Serves me right for getting pizza at a baseball game.  But aren’t ballpark pizzas kind of an advertisement for what a Palermo’s frozen pizza will taste like if you make one at home?  Now, I just know I can lick the inside of my toilet at home for free, instead of buying a Palermo’s frozen pizza.

I was really fired up for the game this week, since I watched an hour long special on the 1982 season on MLB Network on Sunday.  The look on Bud Selig’s face when the Brewers beat the Orioles on the last day to make the playoffs is priceless.  During the entire celebration, he’s holding this incredibly long cigarette with four inches of ash hanging off the end – like he’s auditioning for the role of The Penguin in a hypothetical 1982 Batman movie.  It really is priceless.

Also notable from that season is how skinny all the players were.  As a kid, I remember Gorman Thomas being this larger than life, Paul Bunyan-type figure.  But today’s players make Gorman look like Lance Armstrong.  He looks rail thin in the old films.  He’d probably be a weak hitting second baseman on most teams today.

I listened to the last two innings in my car on the way home, and heard no update on what happened to Ryan Braun after he got plunked.  Almost 45 minutes of radio, with my sanity on the line, and no explanation of why he left the game?  Come on, guys.

Also, another radio-related note: Why do labor unions advertise during Brewers games?  Are there really a lot of people on the fence about joining carpenters’ unions that will be pushed over the edge by a radio ad?  Seems they could reach their intended audience (all 10 of them) in a little more cost-effective way.  And if you’re a member of one of these unions who can afford these ads – dude, your dues are way too high.

I was trying to remember whether Frank Catalanotto had ever played for the Brewers before, but I was getting him confused with fellow journeyman Tony Graffanino.  At that moment, Roast Beef mentioned that they actually had Graffanino jerseys still for sale in the Brewers gift shop.  Seriously – how much would one pay for a Graffanino jersey?  I think you could actually pay in dance moves and you\’d be overpaying.

Just think – if Ryan Braun is hurt for any period of time, the Brewers could be trotting out a lineup that includes Craig Counsell, Frank Catalanotto, Jason Kendall, and Mike Cameron.  I’m starting to have flashbacks to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, as if it’s 1998 all over again.  If Bea Arthur hadn’t died a week ago, she’d be a lock to play right field.

Speaking of Monica Lewinsky, I just read the new book “American Icon” about Roger Clemens’ steroid use.  As is well known now, Clemens began dating 15 year-old country singer Mindy McCready when he was 28 and had 2 kids.  But there’s a story of how Clemens once flew her in on his private jet to go to a swanky New York party with him in 2004, and the party was attended by luminaries such as Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan.

Seriously – how bad has it gotten for Michael Jordan that he’s now going to parties that also have Monica Lewinsky on the invite list?  Should we start taking up a collection for MJ?  Have a telethon for him?  This outrages me more than the fact that Clemens was hosing a 15 year old.  Outrageous.

Wisconsin Declared a Terrorist-Free Zone

If you were worried about Al-Qaeda operatives secretly infiltrating your Wednesday night bowling league, have no fear.  State Representative Dean Kaufert has declared Wisconsin off limits to terrorists, drafting a bill banning the placement of Guantanamo Bay prisoners in the Dairy State.

Guantanamo Warden:  “Pack your bags, boys – you’re going to Wisconsin.”

Al-Qaeda Terrorist Bomber: “Please – anywhere else – the taxes are too high there!

What Kaufert doesn’t realize is that our way of life in Wisconsin is already being threatened by a terrorist on the loose – one that never even served in Guantanamo. His actions will likely bring down the state’s financial infrastructure, rock our shared ethos to the core, and have Wisconsin families cowering in their basements until the nightmare is over.  So if anyone sees this man, please alert the Department of Homeland Security.

Actually, this bill should get a lot of support, assuming it can be amended to also include Cubs fans.

A Lesson in Scale

A couple weeks past its shelf life, but still instructive:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Doyle\’s New Lawsuit Rules Spoil Trip to Outback Steakhouse

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Stateline News-Tribune
May 20, 2009
by Sven Olsen

(La Crosse…) Inspired by a provision in his own state budget proposal, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle scored a free dinner last night when he got Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to pick up the tab at a local Outback Steakhouse.

Buried deep in Doyle\’s budget plan is language that could make someone who is only 1% at fault in an accident financially liable for 100% of the damages.

\”Jim told me that under the terms of his budget\’s joint and several liability clause, I had to pay for the whole bill. But I only ate two tiny wedges of a Bloomin\’ Onion, while the Jimster had soup, a salad, a rib eye steak, washed it all down with four Wallaby Darneds – and I\’m the one responsible for the whole bill?\” asked an incredulous Pawlenty.

Held up by meetings in St. Paul, the Minnesota chief executive was late to his dinner appointment at the Australian-themed restaurant. Upon his arrival, Doyle apologized for having already ordered and eaten most of his meal saying he was simply famished and could wait no longer.

The two Governors try to meet for a meal annually to discuss issues of the their states\’ mutual interest. This year\’s topics included discussing further interstate cooperation efforts and how to avoid bloodshed should Brett Favre become a Viking. The two state leaders worry the latter scenario will almost certainly lead to border riots that will choke the Mississippi River with dead bodies, which could adversely affect commercial freighter traffic on the waterway.

Hours after he and Doyle parted ways for the evening, Pawlenty was still irked at the way the check was handled.

\”I like the old way we did it where there was actually some relationship between what we each ordered and how we split the bill, \” said Pawlenty. \”If this is how they roll now in Wisconsin, I may just stop going out to eat there altogether.\”

Shaking his head as he looked again at his $73 credit card receipt, Pawlenty muttered, \”I knew we shoulda gone to Taco Bell instead.\”

Epic Timewaster of the Day

Awkward Family Photos.

Some favorites:

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Putting the “Employee” Back in “Employee Contribution”

My column arguing for requiring government employees to kick in  more for their retirement benefits appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday.  It has undoubtedly riled state employees who have become accustomed to the generous retirement benefits offered by the taxpayers.

It seems, however, that state and local government employees should be willing to make a fairly small concession in exchange for saving their jobs.  It seems that most on the left argue vehemently that fewer government employees makes for worse government.  This issue exposes the schism between conscientious liberals who believe in effective government versus those who merely see taxpayers as a way to pad their own wallets.

In the article, I mention that the issue of requiring more employee retirement contributions is “an idea that nobody is talking about.”  In fact, a requirement that new employees pay a portion of their pension was in the Assembly Republican budget that passed in 2007, and Representative Mark Gottlieb e-mailed me to point out that he introduced legislation on this in each of the last two sessions (2007 AB 449, and 2005 AB 267).  

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has an informative paper on the Wisconsin Retirement System which can be read here.  The section on employee contributions begins on page 37.

Look Out for Pterodactyls: Here Come the Democrats

I’ve posted about this before, but this most recent example just clarifies the blatant hypocrisy from both lawmakers and the teachers’ union.

Last week, Governor Doyle announced he would consider “cuts” to K-12 education as a way of making up the additional $1.6 billion deficit the state has recently identified.  (A “cut” simply means “not giving teachers as much money as they want,” even though total spending will continue to increase.)

Of course, when the state aid increase to school districts is scaled back, districts will simply raise property taxes to make up the difference.  Apparently, Democratic lawmakers are taking steps to cap these tax increases.  From last week’s Wispolitics Report:

Without changes to the revenue limits, the cuts to state aid that Doyle and lawmakers are considering could be backfilled with property taxes to make up most of the difference.  

But sources familiar with talks going on between the administration, legislators and school officials said revenue limits on school districts could be tightened to limit the impact on property taxpayers, or there could be a reduction in the per pupil adjustment.

Perhaps you remember such a scheme to hold down property taxes in the face of smaller increases in state aid.  Legislative Republicans proposed similar plans for eight years running – with Governor Jim Doyle vetoing all of the property tax freeze proposals that got to his desk.

In fact, in 2003, WEAC reacted to a proposal similar to the one being proposed by Democrats now by saying it would “return Wisconsin to the Ice Age.”  In the last budget, when Republicans proposed tightening revenue caps to allow an increase of $100 per pupil, Democratic Senator Bob Jauch said he had “a hard time understanding the Republican compulsion to take a meat axe to the children of this state.” Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair Russ Decker said the proposal was like “putting a gun to the head of public education and to students.”

It appears Doyle and legislative Democrats have been doing a little shopping at Menard’s, as they now appear willing to both wield a meat axe and aim a shotgun at our children.  The budget Jauch and Decker will end up voting for might end up being bloodier than the entire “Friday the 13th” movie franchise.

Perhaps the most vocal critic of a plan to cap property taxes was Governor Jim Doyle, who in his 2003 budget veto message, said:

The Republicans in the Legislature had a different approach. Instead of focusing on the problems with the state government’s budget – problems they played a key role in creating over the last decade – they tore a page out of the discredited playbook of the last Governor and pointed their fingers at the leaders of our local communities and schools. They tried to distract attention from their unfair cuts and sham budgeting by resorting to political gimmicks and slogans.

The arguments against their levy limits are numerous, but at the heart is a very basic Wisconsin value: We in Wisconsin have believed for more than 150 years that local communities know best the needs of their citizens.

[…]

That value – trusting our communities to make wise decisions – has served us well in education. It has given us schools that are the envy of the nation. Our children consistently perform at the top of national tests. They are our future. In order for Wisconsin to prosper in an increasingly competitive global economy, our children must have the very best education available to them. Our teachers work very hard to deliver that education, often under extremely difficult circumstances. Making children and teachers the victims of the state’s fiscal mess is irresponsible and inconsistent with Wisconsin’s values.

Is Doyle going to issue a press release condemning his own plan making “children an teachers the victims of the state’s fiscal mess?”  Or does he save that rhetoric for Republicans when they hold one or more of the houses of the Legislature?  Amazing how things change when one party runs everything and you don’t have a reliable bogeyman on which to blame everything.

I can’t wait to hear all the outrage from the teachers’ union when this new plan goes into effect.  More likely, we’ll hear praise heaped upon our lawmakers for “making the tough choices” and showing “fiscal discipline.”

Of course, these aid “cuts” wouldn’t be necessary if the state merely required government employees to kick in a little to their own retirement accounts.

A Very Special Message from WEAC

From the WEAC website, a special message from teachers’ union president Mary Bell:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

At the end, Bell suggests a new way of fixing the budget deficit, saying we should “revisit the thresholds for targeted tax increases.”  I guess that’s one way of putting it.  If WEAC spent half as much time trying to cut costs as they do coming up with innovative ways to say “tax increase,” we’d be out of this budget jam in a week.

I also enjoyed the stylistic flair of having two cameras filming Bell during her speech, then alternating camera angles.  Here’s a cost-saving tip: sell one of the cameras, then give that money to a new teacher. 

See?  We’re already making progress.

A Tale of Two Economies

Earlier this week, I linked to a column by Steve Malanga that detailed the history of the U.S. government’s attempts to expand homeownership to those who may not be ready to afford it.

Today, Malanga is back with an outstanding article in the Wall Street Journal that recaps the growth in union influence within government:

Call it a tale of two economies. Private-sector workers — unionized and nonunion alike — can largely see that without compromises they may be forced to join unemployment lines. Not so in the public sector.

Government unions used their influence this winter in Washington to ensure that a healthy chunk of the federal stimulus package was sent to states and cities to preserve public jobs. Now they are fighting tenacious and largely successful local battles to safeguard salaries and benefits. Their gains, of course, can only come at the expense of taxpayers, which is one reason why states and cities are approving tens of billions of dollars in tax increases.

[…]

The results of such efforts are evident in the rich rewards that public-sector employees now enjoy. A study in 2005 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated that the average public-sector worker earned 46% more in salary and benefits than comparable private-sector workers. The gap has only continued to grow. For example, state and local worker pay and benefits rose 3.1% in the last year, compared to 1.9% in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

But the real power of the public sector is showing through in this economic crisis. Some five million private-sector workers have lost their jobs in the last year alone, and their unemployment rate is above 9% according to the BLS. By contrast, public-sector employment has grown in virtually every month of the recession, and the jobless rate for government workers is a mere 2.8%. For anyone who thinks such low unemployment numbers are good news, remember that the bulging public sector must be paid for with revenues that most governments don’t currently have. This is one reason for a spate of state and local tax increases, such as $5 billion in tax increases New York state passed in April, and $12 billion in tax increases California’s legislature agreed to in February that will only become law if voters pass a series of ballot initiatives next week.

The whole article is certainly worth the read.

Oh Yeah, I Forgot…

I was on Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes last week. Swine flu, taxpayer funded trains, and alarms on day care vans are on the docket.

[flv:/wp-content/uploads/multimedia/videos/sunday_insight/Sunday_Insight050309.flv 480 360]

Daily Links

For as much time as I spend on the internet, you\’d think I would have seen most of this stuff before now – but some friends sent me a bunch of funny stuff today that I had missed, so here it is.

Check out actual resumes and cover letters at nothired.com.

I hadn\’t seen Eugene Mirman, but this stand-up special is pretty good:
Eugene Mirman Comedy Special Part 2

Some guy named Zach Galifianakis interviews Natalie Portman: (I know this is kind of the \”Chris Farley Show\” schtick from SNL, but it\’s still funny)

And an even funnier version, with \”Mad Men\’s\” Jon Hamm:

What Happens When the Dog Stops Barking

Ahhhh, yes.  The Summer of 2008.  I remember it so well.  Michael Phelps was spending more time in the water than he was pouring bongwater.  The Milwaukee Brewers were on their way to their first playoff appearance in 26 years.  Brett Favre was in the midst of the second of what would become his six retirements from football.  George W. Bush was still president, but Republican candidates at all levels were pretending that his name was as obscure as the leader of the German Bundestag.*  (“George Bush?  Never heard of him.  Is this some kind of trick question?”)

You may also recall the one issue that had America in the grips of panic, as the economy chugged along at a weaker, but still resonable pace. Gas prices hovered at over $4.00 per gallon, causing riots in the streets. Elected officials broke into tears when telling the story of “price gouging” by big oil.  Congress planned on rewriting the U.S. tax code to stick it to gas companies.  Local television stations routinely broke into their prime time lineup to announce that an area gas station had lowered their cost of gas per gallon by a nickel. The public couldn’t believe that Big Oil would have the onions to charge them what they would gladly pay for a gallon of gas.  America was in the grips of mass hysteria.

But a strange thing has happened since that national nightmare.  Gas prices have been cut nearly in half.  At one point, they were down to about $1.50 a gallon.  And suddenly, nobody really cares about gas prices anymore.  Nobody makes any effort at all to understand why the price of gas has dropped – we only care when the dog is barking, and gas prices are high.  Clearly, Big Oil is only useful to our elected officials when they are there to be the subject of demagoguery. 

Back in the Summer of 2008, we saw article upon article about why gas prices were up.  Has anyone seen a single article trying to explain why prices are now down?  Do we even care, as long as we’re paying less?

As I see it, oil companies did one of two things:

1.  Dropped prices in response to global demand and world economic conditions, or;

2.  They decided to stop being greedy d-bags.

Which is your guess? 

So while we blame oil companies for gouging us when they increase gas prices, I would like to take a moment to thank Big Oil for keeping gas prices down.  Here’s a big atta-boy.  Your willingness to forgo record profits over the past nine months has kept money in the pockets of working class people, allowing them to buy more groceries and lottery tickets.  Your perfectly reasonable and rational response to a bad economy (lowering prices) has saved regular folks the headache of learning how supply and demand works, and allowed them to store up their energy to start complaining again when the market forces prices back up.

Now we can all get back to watching American Idol.

*Answer: Dr. Norbert Lammert

A Quick Dose of Fred Risser Logic

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, relating to Governor Doyle’s announcement of state employee cuts and furloughs:

Risser said it’s unfair to require “dedicated and loyal” state workers to take unpaid furloughs.

He said he wants to consider other options, even tax increases, saying state workers aren’t responsible for the recession that caused tax collections to fall by 7.3% over the past 10 months. That drop meant state government collected about $790 million less in general-fund taxes over that period this year than in the previous year.

Translation: “Dedicated and loyal” state workers shouldn’t be punished for a recession for which they are not responsible, but everyone who pays taxes should be.  (That would be you “undedicated and disloyal” private sector employees, 115,000 of whom lost their jobs in the last year – while government employees actually grew by 5,700.)  

Does Senator Risser think taxpayers are responsible for the recession, since he wants to punish them for it?

The Business Tax Tornado

Yesterday, the news we all expected finally came down:  state tax receipts are expected to be $1.6 billion lower over the next two years, bringing the current budget deficit up to $6.6 billion.

Most of the coverage of this shortfall will be forward looking, and focus mainly on what steps legislators going to take to make up the shortfall.  But it’s also instructive to look at how we got where we are.

Here’s a list of the percentage reduction in tax collections over the previous year for the three largest categories:

Income Tax:            -8.3%

Sales Tax:               -3.3%

Corporate Tax:       -28.0%

The income tax reduction hurts the most, since the income tax is the largest single tax collected.  The 8.3% one year reduction accounts for 86% of the $1.6 billion additional shortfall.

But I would call your attention specifically to the Corporate and Franchise Tax, which is down a whopping 28% from last year.  This represents a $282 million reduction from previous estimates.

It’s not too difficult to figure out why business taxes are down.  If you’ve picked up a newspaper in the last year, you know that business receipts are plummeting, leading to an unemployment rate of 9.4% in Wisconsin.

But secretly, liberal groups are cheering, as plummeting business tax receipts strengthens their most common – and also most inaccurate – talking point: that somehow businesses aren’t paying their “fair share” of the tax burden.   Liberal groups like the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future advocate for higher business taxes on the premise that businesses are paying less in taxes and individual taxpayers are paying more, as a percentage of the total tax burden.  With businesses taking on large losses, and therefore paying less in income tax, it skews the ratio even more in favor of these groups, who like to argue that businesses are “dodging” their tax burden.

This was an incredibly weak argument to begin with.  The business/individual tax ratio could be skewed for any number of reasons.  If the economy was doing well (as it did through the 1990s), individual income could grow at a more rapid rate than business receipts.  As a result, it would appear that individuals were paying more as a percentage of taxes, even though it meant that incomes around the state were actually doing very well.  Conversely, business taxes could drop, as they are now, if businesses leave the state or close down.  This doesn’t mean businesses are paying less of their income in taxes, just that there are fewer of them and that they have diminished receipts on which to pay taxes.

Yet earlier this year, liberal groups had their way and sucessfully lobbied for a massive new tax (called combined reporting) on the same businesses that we now know are swimming in red ink.  Shockingly, the $282 business tax shortfall expected by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau actually includes the combined reporting tax receipts.  So even though they increased business taxes by $186 million, receipts are still $282 million short.  

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this punitive new business tax may have actually cost us as much revenue as it created.  New business taxes force higher unemployment, which gives us fewer taxpayers.  Higher business taxes also lead to more expensive goods, which could harm state sales tax receipts.

Furthermore, higher corporate and franchise taxes also force businesses to either move to another state (or country) or scale back their operations, thereby diminishing revenues on which they pay taxes.  (The same phenomenon occurs when states drastically increase cigarette taxes – fewer people buy cigarettes – at least legally – and tax receipts actually drop.)

But this is a dream scenario for lefty groups, which sets a spiral of taxation into effect.  They raise taxes on businesses, which causes business tax receipts to drop.  Then, they argue that businesses aren’t paying their fair share, and lobby for even more business taxes.  The circle is complete – and forces the remaining individual taxpayers in the state to pick up the tab when unemployment skyrockets and business tax receipts drop to virtually nothing.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Steven Malanga has written a must-read piece in this month’s City Journal Magazine that provides some historical background to the current housing crisis and how it has affected the American economy.  Malanga goes back and demonstrates that each and every time the government has gotten involved in attempting to expand home ownership, the economy has suffered badly:

In December, the New York Times published a 5,100-word article charging that the Bush administration’s housing policies had “stoked” the foreclosure crisis-and thus the financial meltdown. By pushing for lax lending standards, encouraging government enterprises to make mortgages more available, and leaning on private lenders to come up with innovative ways to lend to ever more Americans-using “the mighty muscle of the federal government,” as the president himself put it-Bush had lured millions of people into bad mortgages that they ultimately couldn’t afford, the Times said.

Yet almost everything that the Times accused the Bush administration of doing has been pursued many times by earlier administrations, both Democratic and Republican-and often with calamitous results. The Times’s analysis exemplified our collective amnesia about Washington’s repeated attempts to expand homeownership and the disasters they’ve caused. The ideal of homeownership has become so sacrosanct, it seems, that we never learn from these disasters. Instead, we clean them up and then-as if under some strange compulsion-set in motion the mechanisms of the next housing catastrophe.

After detailing each housing collapse and how our lawmakers caused them, Malanga points out that we’re headed down the same road again:

Yet before we’ve even worked our way through this crisis, elected officials and policymakers are busy readying the next. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts congressman who serves as chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has balked at proposals to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which would eliminate their risk to taxpayers and their susceptibility to political machinations. Why? Simple: the government uses them to subsidize the affordable-housing programs that Frank supports. California congressman Joe Baca, head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, also opposes reining in affordable housing lending. “We need to keep credit easily accessible to our minority communities,” he asserts. Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, have scrambled to reignite the housing market through ill-conceived tax credits and renewed federal subsidies for mortgages, including the Obama administration’s mortgage bailout plan, which recalls the New Deal’s HOLC. As Harvard economist and City Journal contributing editor Edward Glaeser has observed, mortgage lenders have finally “recovered their sanity”-only to have government dangling subsidized low interest rates and tax credits in front of them and their potential customers all over again. Behind these efforts is a fundamental misconception among politicians that housing drives the American economy and therefore demands subsidy at virtually any cost.

Changing notions of fairness and equity also cloud policymakers’ minds. Our praiseworthy initial efforts-to eliminate housing discrimination and provide all Americans an equal opportunity to buy a home-were eventually turned on their heads by advocates and politicians, who instead tried to ensure equality of outcomes.

It’s a lengthy article, but well worth your time.

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