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Flap’s Links and Comments for May 1st on 13:50
These are my links for May 1st from 13:50 to 14:20:
- Untitled (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/01/3592230/dan-walters-steinberg-proposes.html#mi_rss=Dan%20Walters?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) – Darrell Steinberg proposes sensible California tax plan?
- Darrell Steinberg proposes sensible California tax plan? – They had no way of knowing it, but when voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978, they created a nettlesome juxtaposition of sociopolitical megatrends.
The measure – which imposed a tight limit on local property taxes – was enacted just as California began to undergo massive demographic and economic shifts, and as the state Capitol's culture was changing.
The unintended consequence was that fiscal power of an increasingly complex state was shifted from local voters and officials into a Capitol that was becoming more crassly political, more ideologically divided and ill-equipped to make effective policy.
The result, more than three decades later, is political paralysis, as the chronic budgetary imbroglio attests.
It is impossible for the governor and the Legislature to make one-size-fits-all fiscal policy for the most complex society in the Western Hemisphere.
Jerry Brown, who was governor when Proposition 13 passed and is back in the gubernatorial saddle again, acknowledges this fundamental problem by proposing what he calls "realignment" – pushing some programs back down to county governments.========
Read it all….
Uh No.
Dan Walters forgets what happened prior to Prop 13. The cities and counties would tax and spend like drunken sailors. So, would the state – hence the current state of affairs.
Education funding must be equalized because of Serrano Priest so taxpayers will leave heavily taxed counties to less taxed ones and demand the same services.
The Problem today is the failure to reform the welfare system, education system, and illegal immigration.
Without those reforms, taxes may be shifted from state to counties and taxes will massively increase for all. More businesses and young taxpayers will leave for less heavily taxed states.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 25th on 10:15
These are my links for April 25th from 10:15 to 10:36:
- Boeing and the Wages of Subsidy – Is Boeing to Dependent Upon Obama to Fight? – Is Boeing too compromised by its dependence on Obama administration subsidies to fight a ruling by the administration’s National Labor Relations Board telling it where to build the 787? … Even if you heroically assume the NLRB is independent of political influence, that doesn’t mean the administration couldn’t retaliate elsewhere if Boeing fights the NLRB too vigorously. Boeing has recently gotten $15 billion in loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank. Is the Ex-Im Bank insulated from political influence too? The Washington Examiner rightly points out that it was just assumed–not even a scandal, no surprise at all–that banks receiving TARP funds were inhibited when it came to contesting their treatment as creditors in the administration’s auto bailout.
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If Boeing knuckles under, then you have your answer. But, my bet is that they fight.
- Supreme Court turns down Va.’s request to expedite review of health-care law – ObamaCare – The Supreme Court on Monday turned down Virginia’s request that it rule immediately on the constitutionality of the nation’s health-care overhaul.
The decision to reject Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s request for expedited review, announced routinely without elaboration or noted dissent, is not surprising. The court rarely takes up issues that have not received a full review in the nation’s appeals courts.
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Perfect…. SCOTUS will take up the matter in the middle of the 2012 Presidential campaign.
Let the repeal begin…..
- Rep. Dan Lungren on King and Spalding’s ‘Insult to the Legal Profession’ – California Republican Dan Lungren is chairman of the House Committee on House Administration. He just issued this statement regarding King and Spalding and Paul Clement:
“I want to express my gratitude to former Solicitor General Clement. I admire his unwavering commitment to his clients and his dedication to uphold the law – qualities that appear to be inconsequential at King and Spalding where politics and profit now appear to come first.
“King and Spalding’s cut and run approach is inexcusable and an insult to the legal profession. Less than one week after the contract was approved engaging the firm, they buckled under political pressure and bailed with little regard for their ethical and legal obligations. Fortunately, Clement does not share the same principles. I’m confident that with him at the helm, we will fight to ensure the courts – not the President – determine DOMA’s constitutionality.”
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Paul Clement has resigned from King and Spalding and now has joined the firm Bancroft PLLC. He will continue to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for the House
- DOMA’s Erstwhile Defenders – News reports this morning indicate that King & Spalding — the law firm whose partner, former solicitor general Paul Clement, was slated to defend the Defense of Marriage Act — has decided to withdraw. This follows a campaign of intimidation with threats from law schools and activist groups that retribution would follow if the firm continued to defend the law. This tantrum and its seeming success tell us that many on the left believe they have a veto on the principle that everybody deserves to be represented in court. It also suggests that there are few limits on what gay marriage supporters will do to marginalize those with whom they disagree. It’s worth remembering, as Maggie Gallagher says, that this is what “marriage equality” means. Paul Clement’s principled stand, which Kathryn has noted, is a much-needed grown-up decision and a very powerful rebuke to the intimidators.
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Intimidation worked for the firm but not attorney Paul Clement who has resigned.
- Paul Clement law firm drops DOMA case because of protests – In a real victory for supporters of same-sex marriage — and marking what seems like real marginalization for its foes — a major law firm has reversed course and will refuse to represent the House of Representatives in defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
King and Spalding Chairman Robert D. Hays, Jr., whose partner Paul Clement was to lead the defense, said in a statement through a spokesman, Les Zuke:
Today the firm filed a motion to withdraw from its engagement to represent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives on the constitutional issues regarding Section III of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Last week we worked diligently through the process required for withdrawal.
In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate. Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.
The statement is silent on the reasons for the decision, but the firm faced protests at its Atlanta office and a national campaign against it. And now the House majority may have to find a new lawyer.
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Of course, Paul Clement has now resigned from the firm.
I thought law firms were to represent the innocent and guilty or disparate interests?
Guess expedience is OK with King and Spalding
- Boeing and the Wages of Subsidy – Is Boeing to Dependent Upon Obama to Fight? – Is Boeing too compromised by its dependence on Obama administration subsidies to fight a ruling by the administration’s National Labor Relations Board telling it where to build the 787? … Even if you heroically assume the NLRB is independent of political influence, that doesn’t mean the administration couldn’t retaliate elsewhere if Boeing fights the NLRB too vigorously. Boeing has recently gotten $15 billion in loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank. Is the Ex-Im Bank insulated from political influence too? The Washington Examiner rightly points out that it was just assumed–not even a scandal, no surprise at all–that banks receiving TARP funds were inhibited when it came to contesting their treatment as creditors in the administration’s auto bailout.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 22nd on 09:10
These are my links for March 22nd from 09:10 to 09:12:
- Can California tax Internet purchases? – California's severe budget squeeze and a stagnant economy have rekindled a political war over how Internet purchases should be taxed – if, indeed, they could be taxed.
California already has one of the nation's highest sales tax rates, approaching 10 percent in some communities. But it's applied only to transactions inside the state or to mail order and Internet sales when the seller has a "physical presence" in the state.
The latter condition – decreed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 – is the rub.
Technically, Californians who buy from distant sellers are supposed to pay an equivalent "use tax" on state income tax returns. Few do, and enforcement is virtually impossible.
That would seem to be that, but the potential revenue gain – officially at least a few hundred million dollars a year – and pressure from brick-and-mortar merchants about untaxed competition have sparked efforts to mine the Internet and mail sales vein.
The situation's bête noire is Amazon, the huge Internet seller of almost everything. New York seized upon Amazon's use of affiliated sellers as the "physical presence" or "nexus" that would require it to collect sales taxes. But the New York law is tied up in the courts, and Amazon has threatened to cancel affiliate relations in any state that follows suit.
Some California legislators want to emulate New York, prompting Amazon to issue a declaration that it not only opposes four pending taxation bills as violating the Supreme Court decision, but "would be compelled to end its advertising relationships with well over 10,000 California-based participants in the Amazon associates program." Overstock.com issued a similar warning.
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Read it all.
- Levin 1, Wehner 0 – Advantage, Levin. Even if you don’t believe the seemingly apocryphal stories about Reagan regretting the 1986 bill, it clearly failed. (The amnesty part worked. The border enforcement part was blocked.) It’s one thing to say Reagan supported this policy the first time. It’s another to claim he would have supported making the same mistake a second time–and that this is the “conservative” approach. … P.S.: It’s particularly disingenuous for Wehner to claim that Bush “never supported” a Reagan-like “amnesty.” The main difference between Reagan’s approach and Bush’s is that Reagan was honest enough to call it what it was (“amnesty”). Bush and his apparatchiks preferred poll-tested confections like “path to citizenship.” … Also, Bush’s amnesty was bigger. …
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Bush's Amnesty Plan or Path to Citizenship would have been a MAJOR disaster.
Reagan's "Amnesty" was bad enough – Mark Levin was correct.
- Can California tax Internet purchases? – California's severe budget squeeze and a stagnant economy have rekindled a political war over how Internet purchases should be taxed – if, indeed, they could be taxed.