Archive for ‘Social Commentary’

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December 19, 2014

Will the Gruber Party win the day?

by Steve Dana

Who is surprised that Governor Inslee is proposing more new taxes? As Rob McKenna pointed out the other day, when he ran for Governor in 2012, Inslee said he wasn’t proposing any new taxes at that time, but wouldn’t say whether he planned to if he were elected. McKenna reminded us that he was willing to commit to No New Taxes or Tax Increases if we elected him.

The way I see it the voters in our state fell into one of three categories; they voted

  1. For McKenna and his commitment to no new taxes.
  2. For Inslee knowing he was saying whatever it took to get elected and would raise taxes at the first and every other opportunity.
  3. For Inslee because they were told all Republicans were bad, they weren’t paying attention or they just hoped the Democrat was looking out for them. (For the sake of writers privilege I will call them Gruber Party Voters.)

For the most part, candidates for office over promise and under deliver. Newcomers to the political process do that because they don’t understand the limitations of their authority or the constraints of the system.

Veteran politicians do it because they know there are a lot of Grubers out there who won’t connect the new taxes with the guy they voted for. Jay Inslee is a veteran politician and anyone who is paying attention even a little knows he is a Big Government, Big taxes politician. The question for him, every time he runs is “How gullible will the voters be?”

Let me be fair about this, both political parties have their

  • Base voters, folks who consistently vote and who vote for their party candidates
  • Independent Voters who regularly vote and are engaged enough to swing back and forth between the parties based upon their feelings about the individual candidates.

Then we have the Gruber voters who don’t know, don’t care about the candidates or the issues but are enticed to vote a particular way by promises and incentives. We often see the Gruber Party Voters out on the streets protesting one thing or another. They really don’t know what they are in favor of or why they are there but Hey it must be a good idea.

For the time being, Jay Inslee is our Governor and he is now proposing new taxes; a Cap & Trade carbon tax, a Capital Gains tax and another cigarette tax increase of $.50/pack along with repeal of a handful of “tax breaks”. In fact, according to the article in today’s Everett Herald it is the largest tax increase in Washington State History.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a bit surprised by his actions. I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t because many of my persuasion predicted he would. We knew he was a lock for the Cap & Trade carbon tax since he’s been touting it for years. We knew there were other taxes and strategies he likes so he’s pealing his onion and revealing himself to us a little more this week.

The Governor views the reduction in gasoline prices as an opportunity to add on taxes because in his mind, you have surplus revenue in your pocket. He’s counting on the Gruber Factor coming into play.

Governor Inslee always characterizes his tax increases as “a few pennies” and questions why anyone should get upset about a few pennies. This is where he hopes the Gruber Factor will pay off for him.

Another new tax that’s gaining traction in this state is the VMT tax; the Vehicle Miles Traveled tax. Discussions began a few years ago about the predicted decreases in the revenue stream from Gasoline Taxes in the coming years and the way to offset those decreases.

You thought that by getting rid of your big comfortable car with low mileage in favor of a compact car with high mileage you would be doing your part while saving the money from lower fuel purchases. The government saw that as a hit to fuel tax revenues they are counting on. So now they are saying that in addition to the fuel taxes, they want the money you saved by taxing the number of miles you drive rather than the number of gallons of fuel you buy. That way, it doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive.

Remember, Governor Inslee says we shouldn’t object because it’s just “a few pennies”.

The elitists in the Democratic Party never expected Jonathan Gruber to reveal the secret that they have known about for many years but didn’t say out loud. There are millions of gullible people in our country who will believe just about anything you tell them if you tie the lie to something free for the voter. The big test has always been to determine how little you had to promise them to buy the biggest lie.

The Gruber Party

The Gruber Party

Let’s hope there aren’t enough Grubers in the State of Washington to buy Governor Inslee’s new line of crap.

Gruber Party

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December 12, 2014

Personal Foul, Blow to the Head

by Steve Dana

Earlier this week, the NFL announced that it had adopted new behavior standards as it related to domestic violence for football players in the league. Who would have ever thought that would come about? After all the trauma, It seems there is a bit of good that came from Ray Rice slugging his girlfriend in that elevator because it got the public discussion started. I’m happy that the NFL finally got off the dime and did the right thing.

I was amused watching the television commercials as those former and current football players struggled with their “NO MORE” thoughts. Each of those guys that struggled, must have known personally friends or team mates who were beating their wives or girlfriends and kept quiet about it. And now that Ray Rice is caught on tape they are moved to action. What does that say about those guys? I guess we should count our blessings and be happy that something is now happening to address domestic violence.

When you think about it, the rules on the field have been steadily evolving to address violence in the game because the league didn’t want to jeopardize their performers and their product. You couldn’t hit the quarterback in the head, but it was apparently okay to beat your wife away from the game.

It occurred to me that the idea wasn’t just a good idea for the NFL; every organization in the land should be going through a similar internal analysis to make sure they are at least aware of the possible abuses from their members and further that they were willing to take action to correct it.

Professional sports all have image issues they need to protect so it will be interesting to watch how Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the NBA respond.

How many times have you heard about abusive police officers, fire fighters or other public figures (let alone a professional athlete) and thought there must be some mechanism in place to put those guys in jail for their crimes? Professional athletes don’t have a corner on the domestic violence market, they are just a bit more visible than a lawyer, a beer truck driver or a realtor.

As a society we must adopt the “NO MORE” mantra to address domestic violence everywhere we find it. There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for abusing a girlfriend, a wife or a child.

And, like the NFL we need to determine whether there are other penalties abusers must endure besides jail time. If it’s appropriate that a ball player is prohibited from plying his trade as a penalty, shouldn’t an abusive doctor, lawyer, teacher or realtor have his license suspended or revoked for unprofessional behavior if criminal behavior isn’t enough.

Professional associations, organizations and unions need to examine whether being a member is a right or privilege. Certainly public employees should be held to a high standard.

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December 3, 2014

America – The Land of Opportunity or Entitlement?

by Steve Dana

It never ceases to amaze me that millions of people from other countries want to come to America, the United States of America because of the opportunities, freedom and liberty that our country represents. Untold thousands of them are willing to literally risk their lives to come here illegally for a chance at a better life. Not the guarantee of a better life, but a chance at a better life. I can’t help but feel privileged to be an American.

The thing I admire about the immigrants is their courage to face the unknown; the only hope being that there would be the opportunity to work hard and be successful as in “the American Dream”. What an incredible motivation.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big proponent of “the land of opportunity” here in the USA. I can’t say that opportunities don’t exist in other countries, but the entrepreneurial attitude in America is special.

At the same time a significant segment of our population continually alleges that they are being held down, prevented from being successful “by the man”. Most often, the “man” is white men.

I don’t doubt that they have good reasons why they feel that way, but I wonder which “man” is really holding them down. I think sometimes that the industry of civil rights activists would be severely damaged if those people in the down-trodden communities discovered that they were being held down by their own leaders. Think about the quality of life of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson and other “leaders” in poor black communities, how many of them are poor black men? The leaders all seem to be doing well.

From an anecdotal perspective it appears to me that the communities that have received the most government assistance (supposedly to raise poor black people out of poverty) for the longest time (40 or 50 years) are the ones still in the worst condition. It is from my observations that I conclude that the type of assistance they are getting isn’t the type that produces the stated goals of the programs. Opportunity is the answer. Even in minority communities opportunity prevails. Just look at the kids who have athletic ability and make it out of the ghetto in sports. Or, look at the ones who have other obvious artistic ability like musical talent. Keep in mind that talent alone doesn’t get you out. Those athletes and musicians worked their butts off to be successful. They did take what they had and develop it enough to get to a higher level.

There is no question that a percentage of the population in any ethnic group will be victims and another percentage will be victimizers. I’m not just pointing my comments to black communities; the same thing is true in Hispanic, Asian and White communities as well.  The vast majority of them will do what they must to not be the victims; they educate themselves and work their butts off.

Just as the immigrants who come to America don’t come with the intent of being a burden to society, but are victimized by the system (good or bad), native Americans can also be victimized. That’s native with a small n; Americans who have been here for generations.

That’s not to say that they can’t overcome that victimization because there are millions of examples of black Americans who work their butts off to get out of their personal ghetto and be successful along with white, brown and yellow Americans who have overcome their own challenges.

I don’t live in a minority community so my comments are just observations from the outside. I do know immigrants who have come to this country both legally and illegally and they are all hardworking people dedicated to being contributing members of American Society not looking for or expecting anything but an opportunity to show what they can do.

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