Evolution: Is This Progress?

God of the Gaps? Good grief, no. I was merely pointing out that such concepts as "randomness" and "probability" are concepts that implicate events that are not causally determinate in any a priori sense. Sort of like friction in physics. Will heavier objects fall at the same rate as lighter ones? Yes, but only when certain ... um ... un-earthly conditions are present, such as a vacuum. Introduce pressurized air into the occasion, and lighter objects tend to fall slower than heavier objects. How much slower? Well, that in turn depends on many other factors, all of which need to be discovered through observation and measurement, and hopefully, can be reduced to some formula of predictability that, at base, is arbitrary, even if true. In reality, the mathematical precision of the laws of gravity gives way to the actual behavior of real objects in real life, and "friction" is a convenient scientific catch-all encompassing these all but infinite exceptions to the rule.

To put my original point another way, secular evolutionists appear to embrace non-causal or quasi-causal conceptions ("random" and "probability") they deem important, but will not admit other kinds of non-causal conceptions. And with rare exceptions, they do so without explaining why these other conceptions are refused a place at science's table. They simply declare, "Ad hominem." And when questioned further, they loudly reply, "Ad hominem!"

God is not in the gaps; oh no, not at all. The gaps are merely the limits of human understanding, and God is in the gaps, the non-gaps, and most importantly, in the humans who refuse to rest in ignorance and despair. At base, secular evolutionists seek comfort rather than truth, because if there is a God, then the world is most certainly a larger place than is contained within their philosophy. And in this, they are more like religious dogmatists than they are like free people created in the very image of God.

Posted by: Whitman via email.

Evolution: Is This Progress?

So, Whit, are you espousing some sort of God of the Gaps idea? I've often thought this was a particularly demeaning approach to including God in the scientific discussion. After all, part of scientific progress has been the gradual closing down of more and more places where God might be located, each time making Him appear like some Grapes of Wrath immigrant, uprooted again, tiredly loading His heavenly goods on a broken down truck, searching for some plot of earth that will sustain His own.

via email.

Evolution: Is This Progress?

Well, not if you are a secular evolutionist, aka an atheist, aka the mythological media creature known as a "scientist." A scientist in this sense somehow transcends the human, and lives in grand conceptual constructions where the merely human has no place. Unfortunately, the whole notion of "progress" is precisely human in content and import, and has no place in any theory of a true scientist – unless of course "progress" is defined as having one's theory published and peer-reviewed and extolled and admired by other scientists. Then the secular evolutionist's theory becomes more than true; it becomes Truth, a large edifice anchored in the granite rock of unexpressed metaphysics.

Except for the approbation of their peers, the secular evolutionists are particularly obsessed with keeping science free of anything remotely human. By and large they do so by erecting around their little garden massive walls of "randomness" and stout gates of "probability." Evolution's processes ultimately must be random, or measurable only in a probabilistic way. Anything less, and evolution might become teleological, and heaven forbid, might even point us towards some sort of theocratic presence. But what are "randomness" and "probability?" Well, whatever they are, I do not think they can be defined without reference to the important Enlightenment (and scientific) concept of determinate causality. They are, in essence, conceptual placeholders for things that happen for which we find no necessary causative precursor. Random events are effects that do not have causes, and probable events are effects whose precise causes are
unknown or indeterminate.

But on this view, randomness and probability are themselves outside of determinate causality, or at least NOT OF determinate causality. How then do such concepts differ from objective teleological concepts, artistic categories such as mystery and beauty, and in deed, theological concepts like divine intervention? But even if they differ from them (and I most assuredly think they do), why on earth do secular scientists think they necessarily exclude teleology, aesthetics, and theology?

Because that's how secular scientists define them in the first place. Or to put it another way, that's how secular scientists want them to function. Careful, Doctor, your metaphysical presence is showing.

Posted by: Whitman via email.

A Rude Awakening

It's early. Sipping my first cup of coffee, I look south-west out my 2nd floor window, and freeze. The short grass of the rolling hills of the pasture, framed by the tall trees hiding the far Pacific, seems normal except …

It's the bovines. They are crouched down in the grass, staring at me. Just the chance flick of a tail, the close-lipped motion of a single cud being chewed, else I would never have noticed. They mass for attack.

Trembling ever so slightly, I look down at Frederick, my dog, mostly Labrador, and give him the bad news. "Okay, here's the plan: you go out the front door, and meet the first wave. That will give me time to run out the back door and get help."

Frederick seems decidedly dubious. Just my luck: the one time I need a man, and all I have is a dog.

Posted by: Longfellow via email

Citizen Nanites

If you haven't heard yet, President Obama is not like other politicians in Washington. Unlike past administrations, he wants it to be clear that he will be meticulously monitoring government spending to eliminate waste, fraud, incompetence and personal or political agendas. On February 14, the Washington Times tells us: "As he prepared to sign the massive economic recovery spending bill President Obama ... [told the American people that] ... 'ultimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it's going and how it's spent,' [and promised] to help with the most ambitious spending scrutiny project the government has ever undertaken." And then again, as reported by FoxBusiness News on February 20, Mr. Obama warned the Mayors of America:"We have asked for the unprecedented trust of the American people to deal boldly with the greatest economic crisis we have seen in decades -- and the privilege of investing unprecedented amounts of their hard-earned money to address this crisis. With that comes an unprecedented obligation to do so wisely, free from politics and personal agendas. On this I will not compromise or tolerate any shortcut ... " But the problem, of course, is just how spending of this magnitude - let's repeat it again as it cannot be said enough, the stimulus is close to $1 trillion - just how spending of this magnitude can possibly be monitored to achieve such pristine and pure results as are desired by Mr. Obama. Not to mention the fact that neither Mr. Obama nor the Congress have enunciated any objectives precise enough to give direction to any such oversight. They have talked of spending "stimulus" that will be "stimulating" on "shovel-ready" projects, that will "save" the economy and those who are "most harmed" by the failure of capitalism, but these obviously fall far short of the precision needed. In actuality, the most concrete objective our governing class enunciated in all of their deliberations was that the spending needed to be "large." History apparently teaches us that FDR, our sainted 32nd President, committed the grievous error of not spending enough, and so the current crop of FDR wannabees began with a number in mind, $800 billion, and then proceeded to insert spending projects until that number was met or exceeded. To Washington, any spending will "stimulate" and it is only important that it be sufficiently LARGE enough to "jolt" the economy back into gear. Unfortunately, LARGE is not any more precise for oversight purposes than "stimulus," "stimulating" or "shovel-ready." Now it is the bane of the existence of the largest corporations in the world (who deal in billions and not hundreds of billions, much less trillions) to control such gargantuan spending as they do each year. It is actually a marvel of the capitalistic system that such large entities have developed ways to track and manage their spending in any meaningful way, but no victory against corporate bloat ever ends the war. Each month, each year, each decade produces re-newed bloat, inefficiencies, fraud, and sloth in the body corporate, and the company that forgets this is the company that ultimately will fail. But don't worry, President Obama has a plan to leverage the information age we live in to effectively monitor all this federal spending as no one has been able to do before him: he is introducing what I can only call citizen nanites into the blood-stream of the economy, to oversee and report to him the effectiveness of all this stimulus spending, right down to the smallest dollar spewed out of the body politic. That same Washington Times article noted above stated: "As he prepared to sign the massive economic recovery spending bill President Obama called Saturday for citizens to become watchdogs on where the $787 billion goes ... [and] ... called on 'every American' to use recovery.gov — a Web site that will be up and running once the money begins to be spent — to track where the money is being spent and to 'weigh in with comments and questions.' " What a concept. Thousands and thousands of citizen nanites, watching government spending at every level and reporting back in real time to President Obama, his staff and Congress, for immediate action as appropriate to save the stimulus package from waste, fraud and abuse. This grand vision provokes a thought-experiment. To be continued ... via email

Blood is Thicker Than Water

I note an interesting new phrase in the news. It came to my attention in the strange case of the refusal of the British government to allow one Geert Wilders to enter the country. Apparently, Mr. Wilders wanted to show a short documentary of his to select members of the House of Lords who had communicated their interest to him. A private showing of a privately produced documentary to willing British citizens was apparently too much for the Home Secretary, who was afraid of .... what? Insurrection? Out-breaks of murder and mayhem? Revolution? Well, maybe, but not likely. After all, these were members of the House of Lords, who have long since buried their warlike passions in a lethal combination of serial marriages between cousins, brandy, cigars and somnolence induced by general public indifference to them and their affairs. No, the Home Secretary was concerned about - and here is the new phrase - a "threat to public policy." Eh? I can see what a threat to public peace might be, or a threat to public order. These invoke images of real life people in a state of turmoil or chaos. But a threat to public policy? Here, I can only see a thin pale faced man with thick glasses and a pocket protector huffing and puffing as he attempts to rip a volume of drainage regulations in half. And behind him, the Home Secretary leading a fully armored SWAT team of British irregulars, racing to the rescue of home and hearth. Without going into the details of Mr. Wilders offense, which are, quite frankly, irrelevant to the whole affair, let's assume that his documentary was inflammatory. Isn't the description of this problem as a "threat to public policy" a rather blood-less way of putting it? And, in fact, a little googling informs me that the phrase originates in that most blood-less of nation-states, the European Union, wherein each member state is allowed the right to protect itself against "threats to public policy." I can see the zealots massing together now, under the imposing acronym PPCRPP: People for the Protection of Committee Reports and Position Papers. This wonkish approach to the world actually points us to the real reason for this unusual show of determination by the Home Secretary. Mr. Wilders and his film were opposed by British Muslims, and whatever you want to say about Muslims, they are not blood-less. And when the resolute force of real human passion meets the thin, watery drool of modern western culture, the result can only be unseemly capitulation. via email

No Harbingers Need Apply

The New York Post tells us that in Buffalo, New York, a man killed his wife due to the stress he was under from his failing business. Apparently, she was divorcing him, and we are to understand from the news report that it was his financial predicament that lead him to take a decided umbrage at her intentions, and he killed her. Now, this is just another dog bites man story. As a friend of the couple says in the story: "Murders are being committed in the US every day ... " As a result, the story garnered no real publicity outside of a few news gatherers, like The Buffalo News, the normally racy Post, and Newsday (the story comfortably ensconced on page 26). But there are a couple of more facts in the story that might tell us a little bit about the age we happen to find ourselves in. Number 1, the couple was Muslim; and number 2, the husband beheaded the wife. Beheaded her? I know (because the press and politicians tell me so) there is a veritable tsunami of domestic violence going on in this country (most of it is husband on wife, but there is also a rising tide of husband on daughter molestation, as well as just general stalking, rape and pedophilia by men in general. Wives just can't seem to satisfy their men anymore). But I have yet, among all the facts, half-truths, myths and outright muckraking on the issue, heard of a man deciding to behead whatever female he happens to be oppressing at the moment. People who are sick in the head do all manner of horrendous things; our culture is certainly no stranger to such aberrations. But the form of aberration that occurs can be a useful indication of the type of influences culture is subject to. Is it possible that beheading was used because the man was influenced by the example of Muslim jihadists? Well, of course it's possible, and really, very probable. Absent the jihadist example it seems all but certain that this man would have come up with a more traditional way to off his wife. In fact, this is a a man bites dog story, a startling new thing that might be an indication of terrible trends to come. Or not; we really don't know. But consistent with our age, no one notices, least of all the news media charged with the responsibility of informing the public about what is happening in their country. And so whether it is a sign of things to come will not be discovered until after the fact, if ever. Harbingers, alas, are no longer news. Sacco and Vanzetti, call your office. All is forgiven. via email (h/t Mark Steyn on The Corner).

Racist Stimulus Bill 2009

Nicely hidden in the Stimulus Bill of 2009 is the preparation for an all-out attack on the poor and minorities. Disguised as a macro-economic Keynesian stimulus, the Bill contains provisions which encourage States to expand their welfare rolls, as well as provisions to put welfare payments into the hands of able-bodied adults who have no dependent children, increased sums going to food stamps, the EITC, the refundable child credit, Medicaid eligibility standards, Pell grants, and Title I education grants (h/t Michael Franc on The Corner).

Now, there is hardly a true American who will not help a person who is down on his luck (as it used to be called). It is well documented that Americans are by far the most charitable people in the world, whether in giving money or their own time. But there is also nary an American who would think about helping a person in a way that would keep that person in his sorrowful condition forever. In today's psycho-speak, Americans prefer the "tough love" approach, a concept that fundamentally recognizes that there is something worse than being poverty stricken, homeless, or alcoholic, and that is to be robbed of ones personal dignity.

Against this view you have the Racist Stimulus Bill 2009. It is as immoral a piece of legislation as has come down the pike since slavery in the old south. Simply put: it seduces people to become wards of the State. And the people it seeks to seduce are the weakest, most downtrodden, most susceptible people in our society, the poor. And let's be honest, a large number of the poor are black.

To be sure, there will be many African-Americans who will resist the allure of welfare, no matter how much money the government throws at them. But it is a fact that if you pay more for people to go on welfare, you will have more people on welfare. And this effect will fall disproportionately on African-Americans.

Welfare is a drug, and Congress is a drug-pusher seeking to consign another generation of American citizens to single parent homes, crime and despair. And I will not even give Congress the credit that it has manifest "good intentions." Gross negligence in the service of gross immorality trumps all good intentions.

In truth, the Liberals are returning to their roots: their forerunners, the Wisconsin Progressives of the early 20th Century, were explicitly racist and promoted policies to "weed out" "genetic inferiors," aka African-Americans, in order to enhance their own privileged race. Congress continues this heinous tradition, but instead of weeding out blacks, it seeks to marginalize them into a dehumanized state of permanent dependency on government. This ever-expanding constituency will in turn create ever-expanding political power in Washington, which will then enhance the privilege of the new elite, the fat cat drug-pushers of Congress.

via email

Moderates on the Warpath: A Case Study

Is anything more emblematic of the utter vacuousness of moderate Republicans than the deal struck with the Democrat majority by the three "centrists" in the Senate?   With high dudgeon, Collins, Snowe and Specter announce they smacked the majority party around and got $100 billion trimmed from a nearly $1 trillion stimulus plan.  However, word has it that this hard-won victory of Republican moderates will be short-lived as the Senate-House conference committee eliminates these cuts in the reconciliation of the Senate and House bills.    But don't worry.  Steely-eyed, Senator Collins made it plain that if these cuts are re-instated, that she ... will not vote for the reconciliation package.   Democrats in both chambers thereupon began trembling in fear.  Or perhaps from barely controlled laughter; it's rather hard to tell from this distance.   via email

The Jobbed Bill 2009

Congressional Republicans recently published the following about how our current 7%+ (and rising) unemployment is distributed through the various sectors of the economy (thanks to Mark Hemingway of The Corner)::   Agriculture and related private wage and salary workers - 18.7% Construction - 18.2%     Leisure and hospitality - 11.5%   Manufacturing - 10.9%     Professional and business services - 10.4%     Nonagricultural private wage and salary workers (total) - 9.0%     Wholesale and retail trade - 8.7%     Transportation and utilities - 8.4%   Information - 7.4%     Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction - 7.0%   Self employed and unpaid family workers - 6.5%          Financial activities - 6.0%   Education and health services - 3.8%     Government workers - 3.0% So, given this, the vast bulk of employment relief in the Stimulus Bill goes to .... expanding government programs/jobs, where the rate of unemployment is as near zero as you can get?  "Of course," responds the Washington political class with a look of incredulity that we are even asking the question.   Here's wishing good luck to our friends working in the Agricultural and Construction sectors, who will continue to experience Great Depression levels of unemployment for years to come while Washington loudly celebrates its towering work in service of the people (using our money of course).   This is not a jobs bill, but a "we're being jobbed" bill.     via email

Bloviated Spending

Representative Barney Frank graced us with this response to a Republican on NBC's Meet The Press recently: "On the bloated spending, this comes from a man whose party controlled the federal government - House, Senate and White House - for six years. The spending that we have now was set by six years of Republican spending."

Well yes, like an acorn sets the growth of the oak tree. However, although connected at some base genetic level, both the kind and quantity of growth between the two are wildly disparate.

Through 2007, Bush's deficits never exceeded $415 billion in any given year, and averaged less than $280 billion (USA Today). Such profligacy is not admirable. But remember, the Democrats controlled the Congress (and the budget) for the full fiscal year of 2008, and through 2012 it has been projected that the highest single year deficit will be more than $1.1 trillion (a 287% increase), and budget shortfalls will average more than $621 billion (a 222% increase) (Congressional Budget Office).

These estimates of course are already being revised upwards, as Obama and the Democrats seem incapable of addressing any old or new problem in fiscal units of less than $1 trillion. I don't think Bush's deficits are a place Representative Frank wants to go. With such a clear demarcation between Republican and Democrat control of the machinery of government, highlighting past deficits only serves to show that in the spending game, Republicans are fiscal pikers compared to the shamelessly audacious spending of Democrats.

Talking Points and the Major Media

This Post continued from here and here.

Well, well, well, well. In some previous posts I stated that " ... the level of congruence b/t the editorial decisions of the Media and the Dems political strategies since 2000 can only be described as active coordination." I then went on to note that "I don't know exactly how the Dems and the Media communicate and coordinate their actions but I submit that if evidence is found about this relationship that it will be a scandal of major proportion. The Major Media are entitled to support any candidate they want, but to use their media power surreptitiously for a candidate while pretending to be a standard news outlet is at a minimum a violation of campaign contribution laws, and at the maximum a betrayal of a fundamental public trust." Apparently, we are now getting some information on how this Democrat Media coordination is done. At the end of January Politico published a story that ABC's George Stephanopoulos has had morning strategy chats with various Democrats for more than 10 years, including the President's current Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. WorldNetDaily has a nice summary of the article and the controversy it has generated. Exhibiting the ability to compose under pressure a talking point coming to a media outlet near you, an ABC spokesman told WorldNetDaily that " ... George speaks to Rahm, but he speaks to plenty of conservatives and Republicans every single day – that's part of his job. The idea that there is some daily conference call that he hops on is just nonsense and not true." But talking points alone just won't do. As I said in my previous posts, it has been clear that active coordination has been going on between the Democrats and the Major Media for at least eight years and probably longer. The only question is how they do it, and the Politico has given us the evidence " ... of at least one major tributary of Washington politics." But only one such tributary. Georgie is only the tip of the iceberg. Where and how are the political consultants posing as reporters at CBS, NBC and MSNBC meeting and coordinating with their clients? And what about the print media; how deeply are they involved in all of this? The net of this scandal could get very large indeed. My previous thoughts were that such active coordination by the Media with a political party could possibly be serious breaches of federal campaign laws (haven't some people gone to jail for such things?). Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center thinks the issue is one of journalistic ethics. I can go either way; I just want the degenerating distortion of the American political culture by partisans masquerading as objective news reporters to stop. via email

News Flash! Graham Shocked by Obama's Behavior

Lindsey Graham, the estimable Senator from South Carolina, apparently has just experienced a Carteresque moment. As Jimmy Carter was surprised by the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan, so to was Lindsey shocked, shocked! that Obama would play mere politics with the Stimulus Bill. In his own words: "I was shocked. Because listen, we are opposing this bill for two reasons: It's too large in terms of what it needs to be, and it's unfocused. We agree that you need to do more than cut taxes. He's making arguments from the campaign that are not relevant to the debate. The McCain Amendment, which got every Republican vote, spent money as well as cut taxes. He's trying to convince the American people that they are wrong about this bill. He's trying to lay blame on the Republican party and convince people they're wrong about the bill...(emphasis mine)." This guy, along with McCain, has been shmoozing with Obama and the Democrats ever since McCain lost, trumpeting bi-partisanship wherever he might ingratiate himself with the national press. Did he not see how his collegial friends in the Senate savaged John McCain during the campaign, including demanding that he get out of town before (what was touted as) one of the most important votes in the history of the Senate (i.e. the first Bail Out Bill)? Did he not see how Nancy Pelosi harangued Republicans in the House for partisan electoral advantage just before a crucial House vote on this supposedly most important legislation to come up in our lifetime (i.e. the first Bail Out Bill)? At every turn, upon every crisis of the last six months, Democrats have uniformly taken advantage of the public's earnest attention to spin the moment as another Republican failure. But for Senator Graham, this was all "just politics" and no reason to worry about the mutual respect and friendship with his Senate colleagues. It all rolled off his back like water on an armadillo, an apt metaphor considering the social IQ points Senator Graham seems to lack. Senator Graham, these people are not your friends. They are political opponents who have an agenda, and care nothing about you personally. Senate courtesy is a good thing in itself, but Republicans are the only ones who understand this. To Democrats, Senatorial deference is just another way of manipulating their enemies for advantage. via email

Cheap Stimulus

President Obama tells us recently that "stimulus" = "spending," and that therefore any money spent by the government regardless of purpose will be a stimulus to the economy. For an alternative view, see "Rat Hole Stimulus Bill 2009" below. But assuming arguendo that the President is right, might it not be prudent to at least think about stimulus spending that, you know, doesn't cost so much? Let me give a few examples.

Mark to Market. This economic fiasco is, by all accounts, driven primarily by the collapse of the real estate and financial sectors of the economy. So why not a stimulus that not only would directly shore up the balance sheets of banks, but also encourage lending and ... will not cost a dime in federal money? I think it was Bill McGurn who wrote an excellent Wall Street Journal article last October or so, who said in effect that we don't know that suspending the mark to market accounting rules would help banks, but since we are contemplating spending $750 billion, why not just give it a try first? After all, suspending an accounting rule is cost-free; billion dollar bail-outs are expensive.

But that type of reasoning is too subtle for the political class. As an accounting disabled person, I don't know much. But I do know that whereas liquid markets are an excellent indicator of the current value of an investment, they are not the be-all of valuation. Markets can be wrong, and sometimes, it is the sellers who refuse to sell at low prices who are correct. If my house price goes down $100,000.00 (which would bring my palatial home down to approximately -$50,000.00), I can decide that the market is stupid and hold onto my investment until the market corrects itself. This kind of contrarian thinking happens all the time. The oldest rule in investing is "buy low, sell high." How is that possible if the market is always right?

But banks have a particular problem with market pricing of their assets. By law, banks have to maintain a minimum amount of capital. When they (perhaps stupidly) buy huge amounts of sub-prime mortgages and the market in those suddenly turns nasty, then mark to market rules require them to immediately recognize billions of dollars in lost capital. But those assets are not lost in reality (the banks still own the paper), but only because of an accounting rule, a theoretical construct. No one really knows what these assets are worth, and so why can't a bank decide they are worth more than the market thinks, and hold onto them until the market corrects itself?

Sure, savvy investors will have their own ideas as to what these assets are worth, and if they see Bank of America has valued them well above what they deem reasonable, they will pull up their handy calculator and conclude that BOFA is insolvent. And then sell short. BOFA's stock price will plummet (as it's doing now), but BOFA will not face an immediate capital crisis, and will thereby have time to work-out the problem and find out if the short-sellers are correct. This is how markets function, and mark to market short circuits this process to the detriment of banks, lending and our economy.

But again, suspending mark to market wouldn't cost a dime of taxpayer money. Why not get rid of an abstract accounting rule and see what happens?

To Be Continued ....

via email

Tax Cuts - The Magic is Gone

The Republican tax cut mantra has been a political boon for more than 25 years. However, it has run it's course, but only because the Republicans have used it as a talking point rather than as a specific case which exemplifies a greater truth. As such, tax cuts are now a stale, tepid, policy program designed to buy votes.

This was most apparent when our Prez hi-jacked the Republican tax cut issue in the Election run-up. Noted by many commentators as proof that this conservative issue was still potent among the voters, it actually proved the opposite. Obama's proposed tax cut was designed to be a welfare like give-away without the onus attached to entitlements. As such, it performed the same function as any other entitlement program, to shoot money directly to various voting blocks.

However, this deconstruction of the political phrase "tax cuts" was made possible by Republican misuse of the term for more than two decades. The original conception of tax cuts by Reagan (and Kemp) was grounded on at least three fundamental ideas: (1) taxes were a gross appropriation of the people's property (income), and should not be higher than necessary; (2) people were much better equipped to decide what to do with their money than Government, and (3) tax cuts were an effective fiscal policy that would benefit the economy as a whole.

These premises lead the conservatives of the 80's to adopt a policy of broad-based tax cuts, reduction of "progressivity" and simplification of the tax code. At the time, I remember being amused that the Democrats only response was the oft-repeated mantra that Republicans wanted "tax cuts for the rich." This was as lame a response to a huge reduction in all tax brackets as there could be, and I felt that this showed the bankruptcy of ideas in the liberal community.

Increasingly thereafter, however, Republicans let the Democrats back in the game. More and more, Republicans began playing the liberal game of buying constituencies, by larding up the tax code with Christmas tree ornaments of child care tax credits, education tax credits, larger personal exemptions, various home ownership goodies, and the like. No longer did they have an over-arching view of what and how taxation should be structured. As a result, more and more Americans at the low-end of the income scale were paying less and less and those at the upper-end of the income scale were paying more and more. Today, something like 35% of the electorate pay no taxes at all. Thus, largely under Republican leadership, the tax code has returned to it's demonic roots as a redistributional program aimed at various constituences. And more fundamentally, the tax code more and more increased the marginal cost of moving from poor to rich in direct contradiction to conservatives supply side tenets.

The macro-economic effects of this became obvious, and so the Republicans turned to targeted tax cuts for business and investment to counter the negative incentives of the tax code: accelerated depreciation, investment tax credits, capital gains tax reduction, etc. Policy wise, most of these are good for business and investment and therefore good for the economy - and the people - as whole. But politically, they are precisely what the Democrats have been complaining about: they are tax cuts for the rich. They are Christmas tree ornaments for the supposed constituency of the Republicans. Although not a huge John McCain fan, this was precisely what he was saying in the early 2000's about the Bush business tax cuts, and in this, he was correct.

So, tax cuts are not an expression of a larger idea of American freedom, but simply one more way government pays off constituencies. Obama promises tax cuts to the masses, Republicans promise tax cuts to the wealthy. Liberals will win this arguement every time, and that is why I say the Republican tax cut mantra has run it's course. Everytime I hear a conservative today extol the political effectiveness of a program of "middle class" tax cuts, I cough up my coffee. Democrats can do that too, and their Christmas tree ornaments are always more beautiful than ours. So long as conservatives focus simply on the benefits to different classes of people of tax cuts, they are playing the Democrats game, and will always lose.

Conservatives need to return to tax simplification and general across the board tax cuts. The flat tax is such a program, which probably will never be politically palatable in its ideal form. But we can get somewhere close to it, and it will blunt the Democrats charge that we are the party of the rich as welll as benefit the economy - and the people - as a whole.

via email

revised 2/6/09 for grammar and clarity