Rahm Emanuel supporters go on strike against.....Rahm Emanuel

You may have read or heard that most of Chicago's public school teachers have walked out.  They're on strike. 

The average Chicago family earns $47,000.00 per year.  The average striking teacher makes $76,000.00 and has an incredible pension.  Forget about that.  You see, the struggling Chicago families paying for this gaggle of union ineptitude are the equivalent of wealthy coal barons, selfishly eating lobster and smoking cigars while their ragtime bands play into the night.  The striking teachers are the Molly Maguires, wearing fertlizer sack shirts, and boiling rocks to make soup.  That's the dominant media narrative today, anyway. 

79% of Chicago 8th graders aren't proficient at reading.  Here's something from a 7th grade teacher, perhaps one of the ones responsible for the 79% failure: 

Many in the peaceful crowd said they were surprised at how many teachers showed up to rally.


"This is an amazing display of democracy," said Rick Sawicki, a 7th grade teacher at Evergreen Middle School. "It is a wonderful lesson for children and adults alike. I'm honored that we are all sticking together. We all want what is fair. We want to make sure everyone is treated fairly, just like I teach my children."

You might be wondering about the impact this is having on Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's new Democrat mayor.  Is Rahm having to stay home to take care of his three kids until their school reopens? 

Hell no.  Rahm Emanuel doesn't trust public education.  Rahm Emanuel would no more send his kids to a Chicago public school than he would send them to a public housing crack den.  You'll catch the Obama's sending their kids to a D.C. public school first. 

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to send his three children to the University of Chicago Lab Schools rather than put them in the financially strapped Chicago Public Schools he’s trying desperately to reform," the Chicago Sun-Times reported last year.  
A phone call to the Lab Schools confirmed that it remains open. It is, after all, a private institution--and strikes are taking place in public schools.

The director's office, however, was not yet able immediately to confirm whether Emanuel's three children were in attendance today. (UPDATE: The school called back to say it wouldn't comment.) Emanuel's office did not respond to a request for comment

The Lab Schools are an expensive and elite Chicago institution. The website of the school high details the annual cost:

Good God in heaven !!  This almost puts Texas A and M into perspective. 

According to the school's website, it has a "rich academic and extracurricular offerings, [a] distinct approach to education, [a] diverse student body, and [a] unique relationship to the University of Chicago."

Hell yes, it has a unique relationship to the University of Chicago.  I bet most of the faculty send their kids there. 

Anyway, for those of us who enjoy watching people reap what they've sown, this is a delicious moment.  Does Emanuel defend the Teachers Union, the one that has provided him and The Teleprompter Jesus so many foot soldiers and donations through the years? 

Is he going to shaft those families making 47K in favor of those two-teacher families who make up the top 6% of incomes in the nation? 

I bet he does. 

Sheesh.  We need education vouchers.  Now. 

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president, supports the idea of education vouchers..  We should all have options, just like the Emanuels and the Obamas. 

Rahm Emmanuel - Why So Soon? (It just doesn't seem right)

From Talking Points Memo, where they are feigning confusion over why staffers are leaving the White House like rats leaving a sinking ship:

The word out tonight is that Rahm Emanuel is leaving the White House (to run for mayor of Chicago) and his departure will likely happen this week. I know people have strong feelings on both sides about Rahm. But I must say I find it somehow unseemly and almost bizarre what a rapid departure he's making.


Chief of Staff is usually considered a pinnacle job rather than a stepping stone. You do it until the president is done with you or you burn out, neither of which usually takes very long. And five weeks before an election? On very short notice? It just doesn't seem right.

--Josh Marshall

Mr. Marshall,

Rahm Emanuel has taken the suckers at the national level for all they've got.  There is now substantial opposition at the national level to any more Porkulus, Stimulus, Clunkulus or Rahmulus.
 
Prior to his "service" in the White House, Emanuel made $16 million dollars in just two years on Wall Street.  After that, he helped set up the implosion of Freddie Mac.  There is now substantial opposition to any more taxpayer gifts to Wall Street or Freddie Mac. 

Mayor of Chicago is one of the few opportunities that remain open to a looter of Rahm Emanuel's talents.  Despite sending more politicians/governors/mayors to jail than almost any other region, Illinois still has no serious opposition to grand scale theft.  At least not until the plunder has been thoroughly distributed to all the underlings. 

I hope this clears things up for you,

- Whited

P.S. - I'm setting the Over/Under for Rahm's first indictment at 6 years.  Do you want the Over or the Under? 

Caption Contest - March edition

I need a caption for this picture.

V For Vendetta - You really, really, really need The Chancellor

I've rented several movies for the long weekend, V For Vendetta among them.

I was struck by this scene in V For Vendetta, which I think is about the Wall Street Bailout, The Porkulus Bill, The Swine Flu panic, The TARP program, The Healthcare Bill, and the ongoing debates about whether government should require marching band instruments to be shipped to one of three sterilization facilities at the end of each school year in hopes of preventing something from happening that has never happened yet.



What follows in the movie is a montage of all the scares, panics, and crises where the socialist government has had to intervene, usually to protect the people from the worst instincts of....socialist government intervention.

In the words of Rahm Emmanuel, "Never let a crisis go to waste."

Obama's Healthcare Speech, Liveblogged

Before I start liveblogging this speech, let me get some basic assumptions out of the way.

Cash For Clunkers was supposed to last for three months, but ran out of money in five days. Auto dealers began pulling out of the program rather than go through the hassles of dealing with the government red tape and website crashes.

The Porkulus Bill ($750,000,000,000.00) had to be rushed through Congress in two days. No one had time to read it, because of the fierce moral urgency of NOW. Obama moseyed back from vacation and signed it after it sat on his desk for a couple of days. The stated goal was to immediately pump money into the economy, but so far they've only been able to spend 15% of it. They're saying that some of it won't be kicked back into the hands of campaign donors spent on infrastructure projects until after 2010.

This administration can't even screen their employees properly to be sure they aren't tax cheats. (FYI, I believe that if our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were on this earth in the year 2009, he would be doing everything possible to keep The Disciples' traveling money safe from Caesar. Just an opinion.) Click here for details.

Now they want to more or less take over a substantial part of the economy, and they promise they're going to get it just right.

Here are my preconceived ideas about insurance. Say a group of 100 homeowners are afraid that their houses are going to burn down. They go to an insurance company, and they say "We're afraid our houses are going to burn down."

The insurance company looks at the charts and graphs, and sees that in the next ten years, only one house out of one hundred houses is likely to burn.

So the company says "If each of you will give me 1/2 % of the value of your home every year, then we'll replace your house if it burns down."

That way, the insurance company can replace a house every two years without going bankrupt. If they get lucky, they won't have to replace any.

Here's the kicker....How much should an insurance charge to include someone whose house has already burned? That is, as soon as the former homeowner write a check for one premium, the insurance company has to build him a new house.

How much would the insurance premium be if you were running the insurance company? Unless you're a total idjit, it would have to be for the cost of a new house.

That's the problem with pre-existing conditions. Insurance is not meant to cover disasters that have already happened. Insurance is to guard against future diasters.

How would you respond if your homeowners insurance premiums doubled because your insurance company started paying for houses that burned before the homeowners bought insurance?

That's what I thought.

You can walk into John Petersmith hospital in Fort Worth, and if you need Free medical care, you can get it there. Granted, the taxpayers are footing the bill, but that's cheaper than letting The Chicago Gang get their tentacles further into the system.

Ok, that's all the disclaimers and full disclosures of prejudices I can think of. Here's The Teleprompter Jesus. Those who want to can hit this link and play Obama Clutch-Phrase Bingo.

BTW, the goal of live-blogging these things is to have them posted the minute the speech is over, just to prove you can think and type that quickly. (Thank you Coalla King, of North Sunflower Academy.) In geek circles, you get extra points for being able to do this.

Michelle O just entered the building. She is surrounded by Kennedys of various sizes, whose late patriarch is sure to be name-checked. I think Michelle is intentionally wearing Jackie O pink.

She Whose Name Is Not Spoken just enetered the building. She tried and failed to do the healthcare reform thing about 15 years ago. She's wearing reddish orange, and can be seen from The Washington Monument.

Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, and David Gregory are speculating about which Republicans could possibly be picked off from the herd and persuaded to betray their country. My guess? All of them, if the money and other goodies are adequate.

They just showed Rahm Emmanuel. One of my goals for this blog is to provoke him into mailing me a dead fish. If you don't know that Emmanuel story, Google it. I don't have time to explain.

Chuck Todd is explaining that there are 5, count 'em, 5 versions of this healthcare bill floating around. That way, no matter what objections you raise to Obama's plan, he can say "that's not in my bill." Brilliant.

Obama just entered the building. I'll say this for him, he knows how to wear a suit. He's shaking hands with Biden and Pelosi. I wonder if "Greater Tuna" Pelosi is going to do her Jack-In-The-Box routine all the way through this speech.

He starts the speech. He's reminding us that the last time he addressed both houses of Congress, we were on the edge. Well, we're still on the edge, but we're another 750 billion dollars in debt. Good work, all of you. We've pulled it back from the brink. If there was a brink.

We didn't come here just to clean up crises. We came here to take your money and give it to our friends. I'm not the first President to take up this cause, but I'm determined to be the last. It's been a century since Teddy Roosevelt called for Healthcare reform. (They still haven't gone free-market and reformed it. I have no idea why not.)

He's listing the reasons why some people can't get insurance. See my prejudices listed above. He's throwing out a bunch of stats that I can't wait for Factcheck.org to get ahold of. He's making some good points about how people are hesitant to change jobs because of insurance. Ditto for people being dropped if they get sick. (The solution is to sue the insurance companies until they have a radioactive glow.)

Now he's talking about the high cost. Hit that little link for "Free Market" a couple of paragraphs back.

We're putting a huge cost on taxpayers. We've got to cut costs. Therefore, we're going to have more government involvement in the process. He really is saying this. I'm hearing it with my own ears.

We KNOW we must reform this system.

Okay, here come the Straw Men. There are those on the left who say.... There are those on the right who say.... If you picked point #2 on Clutch-Phrase bingo, you just got points.

Obama says keep what works, rather than start from scratch.

Obama just thanked Congress for "working tirelessly", and NBC cut to a close-up of Charlie Rangel, the most corrupt, tax-evading bastard that God put guts in. Hilarious.

Now he's going to attack the scare tactics. Now is the time to deliver.

3 basic goals: More security and stability for those who have insurance, provide insurance for those who don't, and reduce costs for everybody involved. It's a freakin' Christmas tree, with something for everyone. No one ever has to pay the piper.

If you already have insurance, medicare, medicaid, etc, you don't have to change doctors or anything else. See Bingo point #5.

Now, here's where he goes totally off the rails. UNDER THIS PLAN, IT WILL BE ILLEGAL FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES TO DENY YOU COVERAGE BECAUSE OF A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION. In other words, if your house has burned down, you can still get fire insurance, and the insurance company will have to build you a new house. Don't pay premiums until you get sick. They can't deny you coverage ! ! ! I'm dropping my health insurance tomorrow ! ! !

Who the hell is going to pay for this? Does this goober think the rates are going to stay the same for the people who are dumb enough to pay for coverage if this nonsense passes?

They're going to compete for your business. there will be tax credits, etc etc etc. I'm so horrified, I can't even think straight any more.

John "reach across the aisle" McCain just got a standing-O for getting name-dropped.

Obama: if there are affordable options, and people still don't sign up for health insurance, if some workers don't provide healthcare, it hurts us. Unless everyone does their part, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance. Businesses will be required to provide insurance. But small businesses will be exempt. But you CAN'T game the system.

It only works if everybody does their part. And while there remain some significant details to be ironed out.....

(This wasn't intended as a laugh line, but everyone is laughing their asses off. Hilarious.)

Here are some of the key controversies out there, spread by bad, bad, people. Death panels for senior citizens. It's a lie, plain and simple. Every aging Democrat in the room rises to applaud.

No coverage for illegal aliens, no funding for abortions.

Now he gets to "the public option". He says consumers do better when there is "choice" and "competition". I shoulda put this at the beginning of this post. You can't compete with an organization that can print its own money. Totally false use of the word on Obama's part. The post office, Amtrak, etc etc etc woulda gone under years ago if it weren't for government subsidies. And that's what yer gonna see with Obamacare.

I need more Bud Light. Please excuse me for a moment. Whoaaaa there, he said "Let me be clear" ! ! ! That's Clutchphrase Bingo #21, for those of you playing at home.

The public option would only be for those who don't have insurance. He thinks less than 5% of Americans would sign up. And the public option would have to pay for itself with money printed on the spot. Somehow. I know it blows your mind to think the money would just appear, but it will happen.

He just said the word "Progressive", in reference to The Left. I really dislike that use of the word "Progressive". He's refering to ideas that should have died out during Feudalism. We've made a lot of "Progress" since then.

I missed some stuff there while I was ranting about Progressive. Sorry about that. He's gonna make sure no government bureaucrat or insurance exec gets between you and the care you need. He's gonna tell us how we'll pay for all this.

I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. Period. There will be a provision in the plan that requires more spending cuts if the savings don't materialize.

This man is full of more crap than the latrines at Fort Pemberton.

Most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings in the existing healthcare system.

You know, that might be possible. Let people go to nurses and other practitioners for care. Get the damn lawyers out of it. Go here for details. It'll never happen. Now he's talking about how much waste and care there are in Medicare and Medicaid. They're going to eliminate that waste. Woulda done it sooner, but they wanted to save the waste so it could be eliminated now. During this crisis. I think that's what he said. I'm on beer #5. This is hurting more than I thought it would.

He's going to protect medicare from becoming a private voucher system.

Some places in Utah and someplace else offer costs that are lower than average. Everyone is suddenly going to be like them.

Here's something that bugs me.... Did you know that HALF of all insurance companies offer care that costs less than average? And HALF of them cost more than average? No shit. They really do. Think about it. So don't look at the less than average cost ones like they're special. Half of anything is less than average, half is more than average.

Here's a bone thrown to the Republicans.... He's going to do something about medical malpractice law. We're gonna move forward on letting doctors focus on practice medicine. He's throwing a bone to Bush, saying that they, too, had this idea. Add it all up, and the plan he's proposing will cost 900 billion over ten years. Compare it to the Iraq War, or the tax cuts for the rich. And if you picked # 14 in Clutch-phrase bingo, you just got some points.

My door is always open.

I really hate that phrase. Nobody's door is always open. Not if you're important. Sometimes you're in meetings. Sometimes you're working on something more important that what Joe Blow is worried about.

Now here's some Macho Posturing on the part of our Commander-In-Chief.....

"If you mis-represent what's in this plan, we will call YOU out."

Easy to say, when there IS NOT FREAKIN' PLAN ! ! !

Ok, here's the sentimental Ted Kennedy moment. The Floater is speaking to us from beyond the grave.

Ted Kennedy hoped that this will be the year that healthcare finally passed. It concerns more than material things.....It's a moral issue. Social justice. The character of our country.

Ted Kennedy gave less than 1% of his money to charities. He went to great lengths to shield his fortune from the tax collector. What a freakin' farce.

Those of us who knew Teddy know what drove Teddy. And now I'm going to name-drop three prominent Republicans. Teddy had two children stricken with cancer (close up of Kennedy kids).

That large-heartedness, that willingness to spend other people's money on the things YOU think are important, that's what makes us Americans.

In 1935, there were those who argued that..... (See Clutch Phrase #2)

Too much govt is matched by the perils of too little. Not necessarily true, is it?

He's doing a great closing here. It's emotional B.S., but very well-written. Going faster than I can type. Oh, BTW, most of this won't kick in until after the next Presidential election. Did you know that? And that Congress and most federal employees will be exempt? If you remember those things when listening to this rhetoric, you hear it in a whole new light.

I'm just sayin'.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Rahm Emmanuel - The Latest "Whitey" Nominee

It's happening again.
It's Groundhog Day.

Can someone explain to me, using little-bitty words that I can understand, why it is that so many people near the top of the Obama administration don't believe they should have to pay taxes? Why do they all want to spend your money instead of their own?

(Ahemm.....) Could it be that they don't believe their own rhetoric? Maybe way down deep, they believe that they're the best judge of how their paycheck should be spent?

This time it's Rahm Emmanuel. He's been living at the home of a lobbyist, and not paying taxes on the "imputed income" from that arrangement.

(The lobbyist has Rahm Emmanuel listed as a client, along with Emmanuel's Mommy Party Congressional Campaign Committee. That's a secondary problem that everyone is too busy to worry about.)

This is becoming tiresome. When I created The Whitey Award for "Eliminating Government Waste By Not Giving Government Any Money", I had no idea that I'd need a playoff system.
So Rahm Emmanuel is now a nominee.
Remember when, just 3 weeks ago, candidates for this award could demonstrate some false modesty and say "Oh, it's an honor just to be nominated...." ???? Remember that innocent era?

Well, it's not that way any more. It's not an honor for anybody if we have to nominate everybody.

On The Inconvenience Of Prosperity

Here's John Stossel on [the President-elect's] plans to remake the economy because of the recession.
He begins with a couple of quotes:
"Painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people," - Barack Obama
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" - Rahm Emmanuel

So they will "transform our economy." [the President-elect's] nearly trillion-dollar plan will not merely repair bridges, fill potholes and fix up schools; it will also impose a utopian vision based on the belief that an economy is a thing to be planned from above. But this is an arrogant conceit. No one can possibly know enough to redesign something as complex as "an economy," which really is people engaging in exchanges to achieve their goals. Planning it means planning them.
[the President-elect] and Emanuel want us to believe that their blueprint for reform will bring recovery from the recession. Yet we have recovered from past recessions without undertaking a radical social and economic transformation.
In fact, reform would impede recovery.
This is not the first time a president chose reform over recovery. Franklin Roosevelt did it with his New Deal, and the result was long years of depression and deprivation.

Later on, he digs up the scariest quote of all. This is from FDR's 2nd Inaugural address:

"To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose."

We're already seeing grousing that the current stretch of cold weather is going to interfere with funding for initiatives to fight Global Warming. Is there anything that would be more disheartening to the current batch of "Progressives", whose economic and governmental ideals shouldn't have survived the age of feudalism, than a nice, quick economic turnaround?

Tax Holiday? Hell No. We Need A Bill In The Mail, Every Month

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert has proposed a two month tax holiday.
I'm generally in favor of anything that helps Starve The Beast, but I woke up this morning with a different worldview.
We don't need a tax holiday.
We need to start getting a bill in the mail every month, just like we do for electricity, water, trash removal, and credit cards. This one would be for Government.

The Nashville Business Journal has calculated the total bailout package at 8.5 trillion dollars. That's eight and a half trillion dollars, trying to prevent a generic recession. You might remember recessions. We've had ten or twelve of them in the last hundred years. They go away when we leave them alone. They linger when we have a Type-A, Proactive Messiah in The White House. Here's the NBJ:

Federal bailouts, equity buys into banks and investment houses, liquidity infusions by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, loan guarantees and economic stimulus checks now total $8.5 trillion, according to various estimates.

....The total includes the $700 billion bank and Wall Street bailout; federal takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; individualized bailouts for Citigroup and American International Group; and various cash infusions into financial and lending markets. The $700 billion includes federal equity buys into Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other financial institutions.

It works out to $28,000 per U.S. citizen that we've either loaned or guaranteed. Got any kids? Got any retired parents? Know any homeless people, people on welfare, or people who just don't pay any taxes? Lump their 28K's together with your 28K, add it up, and give the worksheet to.... your children.

Encourage them to start working very, very hard. Help them develop a taste for Ramen Noodles and Spam. In the meantime, the current Generation Of Swine should have to start making feeble efforts to pay down the deficit every month. Would that alter some elections? Would that change some campaign rhetoric?

Check out the National Debt Clock to your right. They've only added a half trillion to the odometer in the last month or so. Nobody, and I mean Nobody, has any idea how much of this is debt, how much is merely a loan guarantee, and how much is just a friendly transfer of dollars from you to somebody at Goldman Sachs that Paulson knew when he worked there. Or that Rahm Emmanuel knew from Freddie Mac. Or that somebody just wandered in and asked for.

A team of Nuclear Physicists, Forensic Accountants, the cast of CSI, and Stephen Hawking couldn't properly calibrate that National Debt Clock.

So, how are we going to pay for all this? My online acquaintance, Kevin Colby, has posted this gem about Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert. Gohmert wants us to have a "tax holiday" in January and February....

One U.S. Congressman, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), is fighting to prevent more outrageous spending sprees by Washington with taxpayer dollars going to executive cronies.
With $350 billion of the $700 billion bailout still available to Paulson pending Congressional approval, a conservative Texas lawmaker is proposing to put that money towards a tax holiday from both personal income tax and FICA tax for Americans during January and February of 2009.
He stated, “By instating a temporary tax holiday, we could electrify the American economy and provide overwhelming relief to taxpayers, all for less than the cost of the current failed Paulson-Pelosi bailout system.”
“We need to give this money to the people who earned it. I am sick of Washington millionaires trying to decide which of their cronies should get the next wad of taxpayer money,” Rep. Louie Gohmert continued. “Think about how much you would have if you didn’t have any social security or income tax withheld from your pay check, or if you didn’t have to pay those taxes for January and February! Americans could take and invest their own money where they believe it should go - to paying down mortgages, buying a new car, making credit card payments. The economy would get relief where it is needed the most."

In ordinary circumstances, I believe that The Laffer Curve does apply. You can increase revenue by lowering taxes.
But we now have a higher calling. It's called "Throwing The Bastards Out".

We should do the exact opposite of what Louie Gohmert is proposing.

Every taxpayer should immediately receive a monthly bill in the mail for his or her share of this giveaway, plus the payback for all other spending, based on a 30-year payoff plan. If 98% of us voted for RepubliCrats, then we should immediately start paying for the consequences.

Employers shouldn't be burdened by having to withold it from paychecks. The current witholding rates aren't remotely enough to pay this piper. We need to experience the pain of holding the money in our chubby little hands, and then handing it over to someone who has a campaign donor in need.

The monthly statement should include a nice, condensed, line-item summary of what the spending is for, with no more than two pages of detail. Just list Goldman Sachs, Fannie/Freddie, Growing Democracy In Muslim Sandpiles, Farm Subsidies For Millionaires, Cooling The Earth, The Ford, Chrystler, and Chevy Lear Jets, etc etc etc.

I also propose that it arrive in a black envelope, stamped with a white Skull and Crossbones, but that shouldn't be a dealbreaker. A plain white envelope sanctified with Ben Bernanke's blood would do nicely.

Chances are, your monthly bill will be for more than you currently earn. That's ok. If the government can operate at a deficit, I'm sure you can figure out a way to do the same.

Tax witholding, tax holidays, and the transfer of responsibility to future generations: these have us in a dream world where we can still pretend like everything is just peachy.

But hear that flute off in the distance, the annoying music that seems to be getting louder and louder? That's the piper, and he WILL be paid.


Poster from The Lazy Slacker, who owes me a bailout, should I ever need one.

Rahm Emmanuel and The Flat Tax

Rahm Emmanuel, former advisor to Bill Clinton, Democratic Congressman from Illinois, and Israeli Tank-Tread polisher during Gulf War I, has almost gotten it right with his flat tax.....
Ideas Primary » Blog Archive » The Middle-Class Flat Tax

"The principle is simple and fair: no middle-class family with an income of under $100,000 should ever have to pay an effective tax rate of more than 10%. If the amount they owe after calculating their taxes is more than 10% of their income, they won’t have to pay a dime above 10%. If what they owe is less than 10%, they’ll pay the lesser amount, and the Middle-Class Flat Tax will not apply."

So far, so good. Milton Friedman, the Libertarian demigod, couldn't have said it any better. If this proposal is succesful, the entire Tax Shelter Priesthood - Accountants, Tax Lawyers, and other Experts - can all be retrained at our Nation's Community Colleges. Careers in shipping, logistics, drafting, and electronics beckon. Because we're going with a flat tax for everybody, right? No more deductions, no more loopholes. The requirements for sheltering money from the government are incredibly wasteful, and devour a huge amount of resources. Here's more from Rahmbo....

Here’s how the idea works: As we’ve already pointed out, the current tax system is stacked against the ordinary taxpayer. Tax breaks go to those who need them least, while people who play by the rules get the shaft. What makes Americans most angry about the tax code is not just that it’s complex, but that they know the complexities are there because the game is rigged. They’re right- just look again at the difference between the wealthiest Americans’ tax bracket,and the effective tax rate they actually pay. In theory, taxpayers with incomes of $10 million or more are in the 35% tax bracket. But according to the New York Times survey, their average effective rate in 2003 - thanks to an average tax cut from Bush of more than $1 million - was 22%. In other words, the brackets themselves are a kind of tax fraud: What the wealthy actually pay bears no relation to the higher rates a progressive society intended them to pay."

Yes, the United States Tax Code is basically an elaborate record of the bribes paid to the dealers by the players in a long-running Blackjack game. Amen.

Emmanuel has nailed it. Except for the last line, which is standard boilerplate about the "rates a progressive society intended them to pay." I don't think our Founding Fathers came up with the progressive tax scale. Emmanuel's trying to equivocate the "tax" definition of progressive (escalating) with the currently fashionable "democrat" definition of progressive (warm and fuzzy feeling).

No one in his right mind wants to throw any more cash than necessary into the Gaping Maw of The Government Beast. I claim every deduction possible. If you can read this blog without moving your lips, or slobbering on your computer, then you claim your deductions too. Call your self a Progressive, Social Democrat, Marxist, Statist, etc., etc., etc., it doesn't matter. In between the Clinton White House and running for Congress, Rahm Emmanuel worked with an investment banking firm, and made an estimated 18 million dollars. Does anyone doubt that he took advantage of some accounting and legal advice to hang onto just a little bit of that 18 million? Maybe at least 7o% of it?

"Give unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar" worked great for itinerant rabbis. But if our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had gotten a job, and had to fill out a W-2 form, he would have claimed all his tax deductions. Caesar could just go figure out some other way to pay for his damn aquaducts.

I wish there were more deductions for children. I also wish there were huge deductions for weiner dogs. I wish I had the political influence to make it so. The incredibly wealthy, though, have ways of getting their tax percentage down to a level that roughly equals my tax percentage. But is there anything wrong with that? Who doubts that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will spend money more wisely and create more jobs for the rest of society than Nancy Pelosi and Trent Lott? And should Gates and Buffet be required to hire a plague of Tax Law advisors to help them do so?

In William Faulkner's final novel, The Reivers, a vile old man digs a trench across a road that runs near his property. Then he floods the trench. He then makes a living pulling travellers out of the mud. The current tax code is a trench. Flooded by the very people who are paid to pull you out of it.

Some people resent the wealthy for manipulating their tax percentages and rates. Others say good for them; help starve the beast. But here's the strange part....I'm a member of a charitable organization that feeds street people, provides clothing for them, and will soon be providing temporary shelter for them during the winter months. This organization has some wealthy members who could buy and sell me several times over. But I don't resent the wealthy members who give less than I do. In fact, when I see that they're obviously donating less, I feel guilty that I don't give more.

What's up with that? Why does the charitable organization, which has a broad sampling of political views in it's membership, not need collectors, accountants, and lawyers to regulate it's donations? Could it be a competence issue with the charity, as compared to the government? Or could it be that I don't like paying the government to blow up Mosques, produce high school graduates who can't read a tape measure, and NOT fill in the potholes on Meadowbrook?

Regardless of the reason behind it, and I suspect it's all just an anti-Republican wedge issue, I hope Rahm Emmanuel's flat tax goes through. It would mean the end of the tax shelter industry for a lot of wealthy accountants and lawyers. But I'm hiring dock workers. If they can drive a forklift, they'll earn even more. And the government will only get 10%.