Dakota Beacon

There is at present a tension within the ascendant conservative movement. There are the laissez-faire capitalists who largely shy away from the contemporary moral questions to keep the debate on low taxes, limited government, and want to mostly be just left alone, perhaps best termed the Materialist Libertarians. On the other side of the discussion are those who believe that the moral questions as fairly narrowly constrained by the Judeo-Christian traditions of Western Civilization predominate in the arena of public debate. Many commentators fret about the possibility of an election lost as the result of excessive focus on the “divisive” questions of contemporary personal behavior. We must not ever forget the Natural Law foundation of America’s design.

Instead of enforcing the current law, the State of North Dakota (via legislative support of the Streamline Sales Tax Project and the Multi-State Tax Commission) has opted to give its power to control its tax laws to a multi-state quasi federal entity.  This is not acceptable because North Dakota simply does not need the revenue, and certainly should not be giving lawmaking authority to an un-elected body. 

The term “greedy” is usually reserved for anyone who acquires a buck more than one’s neighbor. Sadly, greed is seldom alleged when referring to those seeking the power of the purse intent on squeezing successful entrepreneurs. Obama’s BILLION dollar campaign comes to mind.

To paraphrase P. J. O’Rourke, “When buying and selling are controlled by politicians, the first things to be bought and sold are politicians.”

Middle-class America is dying before our eyes: The job market is flatlined, the college fees soar ever upward, the property market is underwater, and ObamaCare is already making medical provision both more expensive and more restrictive. That doesn’t leave much else – although no doubt, as soon as they find something else, the statists will fix that, too. As more and more middle Americans are beginning to notice, they lead more precarious and vulnerable lives than did their bluecollar parents and grandparents without the benefit of college “education” and health “benefits”. For poorer Americans, the prospects are even glummer, augmented by ever grimmer statistics on obesity, childhood diabetes and much else. Potentially, this is not decline, but a swift devastating downward slide, far beyond what post-war Britain and Europe saw and closer to Peronist Argentina on a Roman scale.

There are countless ways that the tax code is unfair to one type of taxpayer or another.  While it is proper to try to eliminate those differences, expanding the tax burden to include activities previously exempted by federal laws and court cases is not a proper way to handle it.  And we should certainly not be looking at taking money out of consumer pockets in the middle of a national recession.

North Dakota is sitting in a good position financially.  When legislative leadership supports federal laws that would allow for automatic tax revenue increases, at least in North Dakota, they need to follow it up by telling the public where other taxes will be cut.  Otherwise it is really is a tax increase, and North Dakota simply doesn't need any more tax revenue.

Let's focus on making North Dakota's tax policy more competitive by reducing taxes on North Dakotans and less on making others pay more..

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Those who can most afford to emigrate are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. The high tech revolution has freed business owners to run their operations from anywhere in the world. I-phones, cell phones, Skype, e-mail, internet, satellite TV and more facilitate the flight to freedom. Businesses and the wealthy no longer put up with looters, free loaders and politicians. They no longer need to struggle against the US bloated government flush with bureaucrats living off the largesse of the producers.

Capital flight is the natural result of taxing. The erosion of the tax base means fewer people to carry the tax burden. That will only accelerate the exodus.

Ah, but the great advantage of mass moronization is that it leaves you too dumb to figure out who to be mad at. At Liberty Square, one of the signs reads: “F**k your unpaid internship!” Fair enough. But, to a casual observer of the massed ranks of Big Sloth, it’s not entirely clear what precisely anyone would ever pay them to do.

When Fiebiger was a legislator, he always had to fight the North Dakota budget into balance because he was required to do so.  Why would he not want our Federal Government to operate under the same controls?  He says, “Congress can choose to balance the budget” and he is right, they can.  But they don’t and they won’t.  Fiebiger says “it’s been done before” and he is right.  But unfortunately, Congress has only carried that discipline for brief periods of time and then fell right back into the cavalier spending attitudes that have brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy.

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Conservatives respect the wisdom and thinking of their predecessors. They grow skeptical of proposed wholesale revisions of societal norms and structures. In other words, the essence of conservatism preserves the ancient moral traditions of humanity. Natural law significantly developed our legal and political practices and remains integral to the moral standards for judging individual and governmental conduct.

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus.  

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus.  

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus. 

Election 2012 must be about economics and fiscal policy. The process know as “budgeting” occurs at all levels of society, from the family, to the small biz, to the mega-corporation, to government. But at only one of these levels is budgeting bastardized into something other than the practice of basing spending on income. That outlier is government. Patterson’s “demographics” have nothing to do with what makes government unaccountable. Government is unaccountable mainly because in order to buy votes needed to stay in power, politicians succumb to the irresistible urge to spend other people’s money—which those politicians assume they will always be able to obtain.

Election 2012 must be about economics and fiscal policy. The process know as “budgeting” occurs at all levels of society, from the family, to the small biz, to the mega-corporation, to government. But at only one of these levels is budgeting bastardized into something other than the practice of basing spending on income. That outlier is government. Patterson’s “demographics” have nothing to do with what makes government unaccountable. Government is unaccountable mainly because in order to buy votes needed to stay in power, politicians succumb to the irresistible urge to spend other people’s money—which those politicians assume they will always be able to obtain.

The federal government has grown to mammoth size and consumes more than it takes in revenue, it must now find more revenue so it searches for untapped sources and it finds the "rich and the wealthy." These are the Gates, Waltons, Buffetts, Jobs, Kochs, Zuckermans, et al. So, if we took it all, how long would the wealth of our richest Americans keep our government going? The estimate is about a week--when their money is gone--who is next?

As for the "Investing In The Future" part of the President's plan,  that means lots more government, lots more half billion dollar payoffs to pseudo-businesses cooked up by cronies, lots more 4.8 million-dollar-per job taxpayer subsidies paid for with money borrowed from our unborn grandchildren. In a perfect snapshot of this Administration's witless banality, the President travelled last week to the Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River and claimed that, despite the fact that the structure connects the home states of the Republican House leader and the Republican Senate leader, the mean spirited GOP is going to kill the jobs bill and thus all prospects for a new bridge between their two states.

As for the "Investing In The Future" part of the President's plan,  that means lots more government, lots more half billion dollar payoffs to pseudo-businesses cooked up by cronies, lots more 4.8 million-dollar-per job taxpayer subsidies paid for with money borrowed from our unborn grandchildren. In a perfect snapshot of this Administration's witless banality, the President travelled last week to the Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River and claimed that, despite the fact that the structure connects the home states of the Republican House leader and the Republican Senate leader, the mean spirited GOP is going to kill the jobs bill and thus all prospects for a new bridge between their two states.

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Without the ability to project and sustain power overseas, we may risk fighting a conflict on our own soil.

Our economy and defense are inextricably linked. Adam Smith understood this when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations in 1776, “When institutions protect the liberty of individuals, greater prosperity results for all.”

The converse could well spell disaster.

North Dakota’s AA+ credit rating is not an economic parameter that North Dakota politicians brag about during re-election campaigns, nor should it be.

North Dakota’s booming oil and gas industry is largely responsible for our credit rating being relatively high by providing for our great state the equivalent of “full employment”.

Action by legislators and our governor are necessary in the near future to reduce North Dakota’s tax backed debt, to decline federal funds in new areas and even reject federal funds in historically federally funded areas, and to change state pension plans from “defined benefits” to “defined contributions”. These actions will require courage and commitment to the well being of future generations of North Dakotans…but the reward will be a AAA credit rating and a state government to be proud of.

In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the zoning and permitting processes are presumably less arthritic than in Lower Manhattan, but the Flight 93 memorial has still not been completed. There were objections to the proposed “Crescent of Embrace” on the grounds that it looked like an Islamic crescent pointing towards Mecca. The defense of its designers was that, au contraire, it’s just the usual touchy-feely huggy-weepy pansy-wimpy multiculti effete healing diversity mush. It doesn’t really matter which of these interpretations is correct, since neither of them has anything to do with what the passengers of Flight 93 actually did a decade ago. 9/11 was both Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid rolled into one, and the fourth flight was the only good news of the day, when citizen volunteers formed themselves into an ad hoc militia and denied Osama Bin Laden what might have been his most spectacular victory. A few brave individuals figured out what was going on and pushed back within half-an-hour. But we can’t memorialize their sacrifice within a decade. And when the architect gets the memorial brief, he naturally assumes there’s been a typing error and that “Let’s roll!” should really be “Let’s roll over!”

The Wall Street Journal nicely encapsulates The One’s newest fiscal absurdity. Obama wants to see “Congress create a ‘bank’ that could borrow huge sums with only a small federal outlay and would be independent of any political interference.” The bank would allegedly “stimulate” the economy by funding public works projects and jobs that would otherwise go unfunded. The WSJ points out that the tactic would result in unions and construction companies benefiting from the same taxpayer largesse–a recipe for another subprime-like economic meltdown. The Journal also observes that an infrastructure bank would end up functioning just as characterized by Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro in 2008, as a “public private partnership like Fannie Mae.”

The reality facing the Obama administration is that its Keynesian tools have failed, and the economic advisers that continue to prescribe more intervention to bolster markets refuse to acknowledge their impotence. Krueger is the master of short-term Keynesian stimulus, … [which may have] provided a minor short-term boost for the economy, but once the delirium of the cheap-cash binge wore off, the hangover sapped away any minor gains that were to be had.

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