Reinke Faces Life

Network World’s Messaging Newsletter, 08/01/06
Why is the healthcare industry slow in adopting messaging technologies?
By Michael Osterman

>We all know that the healthcare industry has been fairly slow to adopt a variety of communications

I would call it glacial, or possibly even negative progress if such is possible.

I blame the technology industry primarily. Yes, you can pick your jaw off the table and let me explain.

No one has a good easy public key encryption system. I look for a “solution” with identification, authentication, authorization, accountability, confidentiality, non-repudiation, continuous protection, and recovery across the problem spaces of Users, Systems (Platforms and Operating Systems), Applications, DataBases, and Networks. Technology Industry has know the problem space for at least four decades. I remember being lectured about it when the personal computers were first put into use! This is all our faults. I could go on for hours.

PKI and GSSAPI are, were out there. Encryption engines abound. Yet, I can’t sit down and email, fax, call, or im my doctor. AND, the doc can’t communicate with me.

Next in line for derision is the gubamint and it’s asinine attempt to control every aspect of our lives worthy of a Communist country. They have ruined health care with several things: flawed policies (e.g., WW2 wage and price controls that created “company benefits”, disconnecting the payer from the consequences of their decisions, and many many others), regulations (e.g., FDA), licensing (e.g., Doctors, nurses, hospitals), Medicare / Medicaid rules ‘n’ reimbursements, the War on Drugs, and taxes. The inet has demonstrated what we knew in the late 1800s. No centralized control allows everyone to make decisions efficiently. The marketplace gives everyone the freedom for all participants to make the best decision for them.

Let’s look at one aspect of the current system that kills people, runs up costs, and is terribly inefficient. Paper prescriptions make me laugh. First, you have to payoff the doctor. Then you take this government order (It’s partially printed on the government’s official pad with the doc scribbling the important part in sanskrit.) The pharmacy checks with your insurance company to see if you can have it. That’s if the FDA has “approved” its use. Arghhh.

I have a solution. The doc tells me what I need and I go buy it. Period. I pay the doc for his advice like I do the tax accountant, the dentist, the vet, the lawn guy. I buy the products I need in a Home Depot or Wall Mart. No government, no rules, no expensive infrastructure. What do you bet that Wall Mart could have it all done with one trip to the store like eyeglasses, mobile phones, McDOnalds, and a bank if they’d let them.

So the problem is that industry did NOT solve the KNOWN general problem of which healthcare is a subset. Then the gubamint continues policies that guarantee the problem is unsolvable. IMHO

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/07/reform-minded.html#comments

> Reform pension and health benefits received by government workers

Already covered, eliminate the pension and health benefits. Workers can save on their own and buy the benefits they want on their own.

>Encourage shared services and consolidation among towns and school districts

Change the state Constitution to put the gubamint out of the education business. I wrote a 40 year transition plan that would do it in baby steps to minimize the human impact. It took decades to get into this mess; it’ll take decades to emerge out of it. BUT, let’s change the paradigm!

>through a $250 million fund created with new sales tax revenue.

More money down the rat hole.

>Reduce debt to free up funds to use for property tax relief.

Cut State, County, and Municipal government 10%. The guv did on Wall Street. It was a common exercise. Zero base budgeting. Exercises in spending reduction. Let’s put gubamint on a diet.

>by selling, leasing and naming state assets.

Oh I see, we paid for these assets. So sell and lease back so we can pay for them again! Dumb.

# a local sales tax.

NO NEW TAXES! NO TAX INCREASES! Period, exclamation point, Carved in stone.

# Create a state comptroller to audit all departments, agencies and programs.

Another gubamint bureaucrat! Nope. Let have external private auditors who get paid based on the fraud, mismanagement, waste, or stupidity they can find an eliminate. Let them “bid in” for the right to look and we get our money up front!

# Move school budget votes to November.

Why bother … …  unless defeating a school budget means something!

# Cap property tax increases at 4 percent.

Wrong. This guarantees that taxes will increase at 4%! I’d suggest that property tax decrease of 4% of year instead!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff85.html

***Begin Quote***

Compare a corporation with many shareholders whose stock trades on an exchange. A shareholder in such a company can exit ownership at any time by selling the stock; and therefore all the owners hold the stock willingly and unanimously at a given time. A citizen of a country has no comparable low-cost means of terminating whatever arrangement he has with the state. Shareholders are not stuck with their company, but citizens are stuck with their state. Furthermore, voters disagree all the time about what they want the state to do. At any given time a large part of the electorate disagrees with what the state is doing. There is no voter unanimity, and if a voter disagrees he can’t do much about it. Shareholders for the most part are in agreement, virtually unanimous agreement, about one thing. They want their agents to select investments that raise the price of the stock. If they do not like what managers are doing, they can do something about it. They can part company by selling the stock.

***End Quote***

So here we have an organization, the gubamint, that presumes consent of the governed, but we have no way to “un consent”. Interesting!

http://www.tjc.com/38states/

***Begin Quote***

The map reducing the U.S. to 38 States is the creation of C. Etzel Pearcy, geography professor at California State University, Los Angeles. The new boundaries totally erase the 104 lines currently separating the 50 States. Each State’s new name, chosen with the help of a poll of geography students, represents a physical or cultural aspect of the new territory. For example, Cascade (named after a major mountain range in Washington and Oregon), Cochise (named after the Apache Indian chief of Arizona), and Alamo (named after the mission in San Antonio, Tex.).

***End Quote***

But, I still think the Free State Project http://www.freestateproject.org is a better idea. A plague on all the politicians, bureaucrats, and the parasites.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_07/009254.php

***Begin Quote***

RAGS TO RICHES….The latest from the GOP:

Republican leaders are willing to allow the first minimum wage increase in a decade but only if it’s coupled with a cut in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates, congressional aides said Friday.

Clearly, the Republican Party is the party of common sense. After all, if you give a few hundred dollars a month to the poorest of the working poor, it’s only fair that you also give several million dollars to the richest of the idle rich.

Right?

***End Quote***

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

(1) Raising the minimum wage is a joke. All it does is put poor people out of work and give raises to the politicians and the politically connected unions. If 7$/hour is good, why not 10$/hour? Why not a 100$/hour? Argh.

(2) Estate taxes are theft. And the graves being robbed don’t vote.

How stupid are we?

http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000396.shtml

***Begin Quote***

Snap a picture and get arrested? It just happened to Philadelphia’s Neffy Cruz.

***End Quote***

We need IMMEDIATE legislation at all levels of gubamint to reinforce that the police have no expectation of “privacy”. If our servants, our employees, and our politicians are immune to supervision, then we are on the road to serfdom!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/24/MNGIHK4CSQ1.DTL

SACRAMENTO
Stanford professor stumps for electoral alternative
— Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
— Monday, July 24, 2006
***Begin Quote***

(07-24) 04:00 PDT Sacramento — A Stanford University computer science professor has come up with an idea to circumvent the more than 200-year-old Electoral College system and institute a national popular vote to elect the president of the United States.

The proposal by John Koza, who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket, is receiving serious consideration by lawmakers in several states. Legislators in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri have sponsored bills to enact such a plan.

Koza’s scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn’t require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

***AND***

Proponents say Koza’s proposal is ingenious because it would avoid the immensely difficult task of trying to get rid of the Electoral College system by amending the U.S. Constitution.

***End Quote***

Oh, of course, they don’t like that the current Electoral College system does NOT give the socialists on the East and West Coasts the answer that they wanted to hear. (Personally, I can’t see much difference between the Democan and the Republicrat.) SO they want to change the system.

Never mind, that the Electoral College was specifically DESIGNED to prevent the large states from dominating the small states. Never mind that the system eliminates the need for a precise accurate count in most state. (I’m not sure the dead old white guys thought of that problem.) Never mind that they want to do this without the muss and fuss of amending that old Constitution thing — a back room deal between the politicians of 11 states — oligarchy? — is all that is really needed.

And, that is just off the top of my head.

By the way, the invention of the scratch off lottery ticket probably has done more to impoverish the bottom half of the population than any other invention other than sales tax. Single-handedly he has allow the gubamint to steal more money that any bookie. So, if that is his credential, then I am singularly unimpressed. If the Intelligent Designer needed my advice, then I’d suggest he has to do extra penance for that invention. And, clean up all those darn scrapings at every 7-11 cash register.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200607/NAT20060724b.html

Death Penalty Needs Fixing, Say Critics
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
July 24, 2006

***Begin Quote***

(CNSNews.com) – The death penalty should be changed or abolished because it is corrupting the U.S. system of justice at all levels, critics alleged on Friday.
“It corrupts all of us. It is corrupting our courts, it’s corrupting prosecutors, it’s corrupting defense attorneys, it’s corrupting juries, it’s corrupting our society,” said Bryan Stevenson, a defense attorney and professor of clinical law at New York University’s School of Law. He was among those participating in a National Press Club discussion on the future of the death penalty.
***End Quote***

I would argue against the death penalty on many points –authority, efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness.
Where does the government get its authorization to kill a citizen? As a principled pro-life little L libertarian I challenge anyone to cite from whence the gubamint gets permission to kill anyone. To prevent the use of force on a citizen, it is justified in stopping an aggression. That’s in a “hot” situation. It’s a logical principal. Once they have stopped the aggression, their right to use force ends. Further, if I can’t morally do something, then just counting more noses can’t make it more right! And, when we allow the gubamint to kill any citizen, they get the idea that they are authorized or permitted to do it. Soon they will think it’s a good idea for any “troublemaker”. Mount Carmel, Ruby Ridge, and the Japanese Internment come to mind.

Does the gubamint do “capital punishment” efficiently? Nah, mistakes abound. That stat of DNA clearing the convicted on death row illustrates the efficiency of the process. We don’t know the size of the problem. There is an old canard about shaking a haystack and having needles fall out means that there are more needles in that stack and why are they there in the first place. So if there are some mistakes we find where there are supposed to be zero, we can be assured that there are many more mistakes we haven’t found.

Is capital punishment effective? So few murders are solved, it’s ineffective by definition. If it’s purpose of is justice, surely that has to left in the hands of the Intelligent Designer. If it’s purpose is retribution, I guess it does that. If it’s purpose is prevention or dissuasion. it does very little. Restitution is not even on the gubamint’s value radar. So I think we can say it’s NOT effective.
Fair? You have to be kidding. Just look at the racial component of the stats. Prima facie, this should stop it on just this basis alone.

Convinced? If not, you do it. Don’t delegate it to a state worker! Pick a citizen out of the jury pool and ask them to do it.

You have to be willing to do your own dirty work.

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/110/5618/texas.asp?wid=110&nid=5618

FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY DESTROYS THE VALUE OF YOUR SAVINGS
Tuesday, July 11, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even many mainstream economists now admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. Everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years; in many regions housing prices have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.

When the Federal Reserve increases the supply of dollars in circulation, both paper and electronic, prices must rise eventually. What other result it possible? The supply of dollars has risen much faster than the supply of goods and services being chased by those dollars. Fed policy makers have more than doubled the money supply in less than ten years. While Treasury printing presses can print unlimited dollars, there are natural limits to economic growth. This flood of newly minted US currency can only increase consumer prices in the long term.

***End Quote***

When most people think of gubamint, they think of it’s “benefits”. Or, perhaps what they would like it to do for them.

Nice people, who would not think of pickpocketing your wallet, have no reluctance to authorize gubamint to do it for them.

Just as it is wrong for YOU to steal my wallet, it is just as wrong for YOUR gubamint to do YOUR dirty work for you stealing my wallet.

Now when we think of government theft, we might think of TAXES. But that, while bad, is just the tip of the iceberg. The gubamint has other tools that are worse. So, you pay your unconstitutional income tax and your immoral sales tax and your unbelievable property tax and you’re smugly happy. Let’s see how the gubamint sticks it to  you!

Inflation, a tax upon your savings, is the bottom of that iceberg. That iceberg will sink the USA. If you think as you were taught by classical economics, then money is a store of value. But, it hasn’t been since Roosevelt took gold out of the money! The gubamint can finance all the guns and butter they want by just printing more money and you are none the wiser. Except your dollar buys a lot less year after year. This tax is FAR more devastating than those income, sales, and property taxes combined.

Unavoidable fees are taxes in dusguise that give the policticians and bureacrats slush funds.

Laws that the gubamint passes are taxes since they increase our costs directly and indirectly.

Regulations from the unelected bureaucrats are taxes since they increase our cost directly and indirectly.

The taxes, laws, and regulations imposed by the gubamint on corporations just get passed along to us people disguised in the price.

Don’t forget this is AFTER you paid income, sales, and property!

And, then you die, and then you get to pay a DEATH tax.

http://www.mises.org/story/2218

The Welfare State’s Attack on the Family
by Vedran Vuk
Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The agenda of the state is to break up the family. The more you depend on the state, the more you justify its existence, and the larger it grows. The idea that people can provide things for themselves either individually or through the family frightens the state. It delegitimizes its role. The role of the family is dangerous to its survival.

***End Quote***

The Communists attacked the family unit as part of their strategy to completely control everything. The Socialists do the same for the same objective. Welfare is that Trojan Horse into people’s minds. They don’t see the hidden agenda. Power!

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jul/13/071310623.html

July 13, 2006
Valedictorian sues Nevada school for cutting off Christian speech
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
***Begin Quote***

LAS VEGAS (AP) – A high school valedictorian who had the plug pulled on her microphone as she gave an address referring to Jesus Christ sued school officials Thursday, saying her rights to religious freedom and free speech were trampled on.
***End Quote***

That’s the problem with gubamint skoolz. First Amendment says the gubamint has NO right to prevent free speech. Any time one is placed in a situation where you have conflict, then you have to go back and study the rules. In this case, her free speech rights trump the gubamint. If it was a private institution, then the administration could enforce whatever rules it chose. See those administrators don’t see themselves as part of an oppressive gubamint. But they are. To the students of that skool, I’d say “learn what’s in store for you”. You’ll see the boot of the gubamint soon when you get your first job, your first car, or take your first trip. Remember that when the revolution starts.

How about recognizing that government is the only entity that can “provide a service” that an individual doesn’t want and then force everyone to pay for it? The logical extension is that if you have to FORCE people to pay for something then that probably is NOT a good idea. The next realization is that people should be allowed to CHOOSE peacefully and without coercion those services that they want and those that they don’t. They can then pay for those used.

If MickyD’s said “everyone has to buy soda”, then my wife who doesn’t like their soda, wouldn’t shop there and they’d suffer. But, if it was the government, she had to pay for that soda even when she wouldn’t drink it.

It’s all about FORCE. The government will kill you if you don’t go along with it. Try not paying your taxes or not showing up for a speeding ticket.

We DO NOT have to pay taxes. We can pay for the services we use and NOT pay for the one’s we don’t want.

We DON’T have to give up local control. I can choose Burger King, McDonalds, or Theo’s to get a hamburger. Is there duplication? Yes. But, I am not FORCED to subsidize the joint that I don’t like.

If this was a private enterprise supplying a valuable service, the employees could take the service “private”. It happens on Wall Street, Information Technology, Drugs, and the Internet all the time. They may lose a job and find a career!

Pensions. Guess the judges and politicans will not be able to rip off the future taxpayers by working “multiple full time jobs”, “many part time jobs”, or packing the pensions with sick time and OT. We’ve been getting ripped off for a long time. It’s time that it stopped!

Campaign finance reform! Please, let’s stop kidding ourselves. It’s about free speech. If there wasn’t Big Government, then there’d be NO NEED for campaign finance reform.

IMHO, you’re shifting all so slowly to the realization that the taxes are not needed. The market place can be used to peacefully supply all our needs. The voluntary free exchange is the way to freedom.

{Stolen from an email I wrote}

This is all fluff. They can count the beans anyway they want. It’s all a sham. In my mind, the key is “monetary inflation” and the Total Federal Spend. They can josh us all they want about this measure of that.

Did the Federal Total Spend go up? Don’t forget to include the unfunded mandates levied on the states. Don’t forget the “benefits” that have been promised. Don’t forget the off budget monsters like the misnamed Social Security Insurance ponzi scheme that you and I are going to try to collect on. Don’t forget the various wars that the politicians are waging and we have to pay for (i.e., poverty, drugs, terror, Iraq, Afghanawhere). Don’t forget the off budget commitments that are made to the UN, the various treaty organizations, and the myriad of NGOs that have their hands in our pocket.

It is just amazing to me that the economy can continue to produce even under the staggering load of tax, regulation, inflation, “laws”, and “mandates”. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in an environment without all of this force. Imagine keeping all you earn? There’d be immediate pay increases for the 10% employer SSI match. There’d be price decreases as the costs that businesses pass along disappear. And, we wouldn’t have people trying to force their views via laws on us.

Sigh. Time to move to New Hampshire.

Fjohn

—–Original Message—–
From:
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 8:43 AM
Subject: Taxes Cut, Deficit–not Sky–Falls

Liberals wrung their hands when President Bush first proposed tax cuts
back in 2001. It would ruin the economy and balloon the deficit, they
wailed. Now, we are seeing the deficit falling rapidly. This year’s
deficit of $296 billion is 30 percent lower than projected just last
February. That’s a $127 billion decline from that February forecast.
Revenues have increased, accounting for 90 percent of the deficit
reduction. This is an historic moment and President Bush is right to
call attention to the success of his pro-growth economic policies.

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060711/NEWS/607110324

Halpers defy eviction order
After battle, family says it won’t leave Piscataway farm
By GENE RACZ
Gannett New Jersey

***Begin Quote***

PISCATAWAY — The Halpers remained on their farm Monday night, defying an eviction notice after indicating earlier in the day they had planned to leave.

***End Quote***

Do you really EVER own your property?

Now that the Supreme Court has effectively eviscerated the Fifth Amendment, you really have no protection from the gubamint gang at any level from stealing your land.

While there may be times that there is no alternative other than a land seizure, I haven’t heard of one that was justified.

It’s all about the raw naked abuse of power. You just have to hope that they never desire your land. Because if they do, you’re just out of luck.

AND, they don’t want to pay a fair price for it. AND, they legislate, regulate, and zone what you can do with what is allegedly YOUR property.

It’s a crime!

Time for the pitchforks and torches!

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/07/09/a_mockery_of_the_rules/

JEFF JACOBY
A mockery of the rules
By Jeff Jacoby  |  July 9, 2006
***Begin Quote***

WHEN THE Massachusetts Legislature meets in joint session as a constitutional convention this week, the most notable item on its agenda will be a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A record-breaking 170,000 registered voters have signed petitions to put such an amendment on the state ballot. But the Massachusetts Constitution mandates a detour: The measure must first win the support of at least 50 lawmakers in two consecutive legislative terms. Only then can it be submitted to the people. If the amendment gets past every hurdle, it will reach the ballot in November 2008.

***End Quote***

I usually like Jeff. BUT, in htis case, he is asking the wrong question!

Why does the gubamint have any role in marriage? Gay, straight, or anything else. Could it be to keep black men from marrying white women? Could it be so that they can “track” us? Could it be so that they can train us to accept intrusion into every facet of our life?

http://bostontea.us/

***Begin Quote***

The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.

***End Quote***

And entirely e based!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger93.html

***Begin Quote***

Consider another example of conservatives’ intentional violation of the principles they expound: public schooling. It would be difficult to find a better example of socialistic central planning – that is, anti-free-market activity – than public schooling. After all, when we use that term – “public” – we’re referring not to the “general public” but instead to the government. Public schooling is a government operation. Even worse, it’s a quasi-monopoly, a type of institution that economists have long recognized is anti-free enterprise.

Under public schooling, the government, either at the national, state, or local level, plans in a top-down, command-and-control manner, the educational decisions of multitudes of students. Attendance is mandatory, with criminal contempt charges hanging over the heads of recalcitrant parents. Students are taught government-approved doctrines by government-approved schoolteachers using government-approved textbooks following a government-approved curriculum.
***End Quote***

Why do we pay for gubamint skoolz, with all the attendant problems, when we don’t pay for kid’s sneakers, fod, medical care, etc. etc.

The State “delegates” to the parents all the mundane stuff and then brainwashes them into the State Religion (i.e., the government is “god”. Only the State can save you!)?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html?sub=AR

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm
By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page A01

***Begin Quote***

EL CAMPO, Tex. — Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual “direct payments,” because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

***End Quote***

Yup, have to steal more money from honest taxpayers to pay welfare to “farmers” wink wink!

Here’s a novel suggestion. Abolish the Department of Agriculture. End all welfare by the Gubamint! Individual, Corporate , State, and Foreign Welfare.

http://www.njpp.org/com_salestax.html

Statement on Release of Sales Tax Report
June 21, 2006
By Jon Shure

>That (sales) tax has done a lot of good, especially for the higher education system in the early years

Just saying it doesn’t make it so. You don’t know if we have a entirely private system of education what would have happened.

>Governor Hughes wanted the tax after he failed to get the Legislature to support an income tax.

Now we have both!

>We don’t take in enough money to meet our needs

You mean that the State doesn’t STEAL enough to satisfy the wants of all the ROBBERS!

>left to those whose response would be to indiscriminately slash spending, regardless of need.

Whose determines needs! The marketplace is how to peaceful adjudicate the many needs of diverse people. The gubamint uses guns to pick winners and losers.

>This tax could be doing more for us.

Who’s “us”? Stealing more from the people who earn it and reward the people who don’t. Based on what moral principle do you justify this theft?

>cable TV

Telephone and cable are taxed to death.

>And the sales tax is riddled with inconsistency. … They unfairly shift the sales tax burden more to lower income people.
The tax is inefficient and ineffective. It is a theft. A mugging. It forces the marketplace to move underground. It burdens the entire economy with a drag on all production. It raises costs. Basat’s Law: Look for the hidden effects. If someone has to pay tax on detergent, then they can NOT satisfy other needs.

>The sales tax is often, and properly, derided for taking a larger share of a poor person’s income than a rich person’s.

Why is a rich person’s money less important than a poor person’s?

>we should consider a system of credits so low income people can get back the few hundred dollars a year

Oh, create more welfare entitlements. Great idea. Imprison more people in the virtual chains of welfare.

>This report lays out a range of options that could bring in as much as $6 billion a year in new revenue.

It’s not “revenue”; it’s booty. Ill-gotten gains. The proceeds of a crime.

>We can’t afford for the full revenue potential of the sales tax to go unrealized.

Sure we can. Reduce the sales tax to zero. Reduce the income tax to zero.

If the State provides “essential  services”, then the marketplace will supply them. People will have choices.

>But all the easy stuff has already been tried. That’s why we’re in this mess.

No, we haven’t tried freedom. This is the same Socialism that brought down the Soviet Union. It will bring us down just as surely.

> If New Jersey is to be a first-class state, it needs a modern, productive, fair tax system.

No, it needs freedom and liberty. End the sales tax. End the income tax. Free people to be all they can be!

>

It’s sad to see Socialism being advocated as “freedom” and “first class status”.

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/07/get-it-done.html

CHANNEL SURFING
Channel Surfing by Hank Kalet, managing editor of the South Brunswick Post
Monday, July 03, 2006
Get it done
***Begin Quote***And now, at this point, the best any of us can hope for is that a budget gets approved and the state to get back to work without pushing off the day of reckoning again.
***End Quote***

No, the best we can hope for is that this a wake up call to the people of NJ that they are gettign weenied. Perhaps we can cut the expenses of State Government down to what we poor taxpayers can afford.

The Sales Tax was put in with the promise that it would lower property taxes. Despite the warnings of the liberty, anti-tax, and  smart people, the voters of NK believed the politicians. Now we have an ever increasing tax burden, and no relief in sight.

How about cutting the sales tax, the boondoggles, and the property taxes.

Will everyone’s ox get gored … yes!

Will everyone “hurt” … yes!

Will the waste be eliminated … yes!

Will the corruption stop … yes!

Will we all be better off … absolutely yes!

You can’t tax your way to freedom!
No, the Southern NJ Democrats are afraid of the “tax increase” label. The Guv has higher ambitions so he won’t be here next election. The Republicans are eunchs. The Northern NJ Democrats have no shame because they know that they “control” their voters. The Guv and the Northern Dems feel they can get away with the equivalent of highway robbery.

When the tax revolt happens, I’ll be in the front lines!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060702/D8IK5LHO1.html

Atlantic City Casinos Ordered to Close
Jul 2, 7:45 PM (ET)
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
***Begin Quote***

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – Atlantic City’s casinos were ordered to close Wednesday, the latest casualty of a state government shutdown that entered its second day Sunday after the Legislature failed to adopt a budget by its July 1 deadline.

The head of the Casino Control Commission ordered gaming in Atlantic City to cease at 8 a.m. Wednesday – the day after the July Fourth holiday – if New Jersey fails to enact a budget by then.
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Readers here know that I have no love for the various things we call “government”. I use the word “gubamint” to describe all of the activities that the original limited government of the dead old white guys has taken over.

Now if you were a businessperson and had a problem, then the last person you’d want to feel the pain would be your customers. Not so with the gubamint of the People’s Republik of New Jersey!

Casinos, who are big campaign contributors, they get a relaxed close down schedule. Motor Vechicle  Commission, that services real people, shuts down right away.

Far as I am concerned, they can stay shut forever. A plague on all their houses.

Did they turn off the power in the Governor’s mansion? Did the stop fueling the governor’s car? Why does the Governor have a car I pay for any way? Nice perk! Maybe he should have to walk to work.

Argh!

Now here in the People’s Republic of New Jersey, we get another unique feeling. We get to pay for services that we are not receiving. It’s great. Gubamint is usually forcing us to pay for services that we don’t want, can’t use, or hurt us. Now they are forcing us to pay despite being “shutdown”! I love it. Imagine if I still had to pay for coffee that I was getting from the local snappy 7-11-like market which recently closed down. In the real world, if you don’t have happy customers, if you don’t provide goods or services, then you don’t get paid. Ah, Ah, AHHH, silly taxpayer, you still have to PAY! Arghhh!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers43.html

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Details of how Katrina and Leviathan’s victims wasted our taxes have emerged over the last fortnight as yet another Congressional investigation muddles along. You’ll be pleased to learn that the Feds help themselves to your income so that your fellow citizens can attend football games, party at Hooters restaurants, quaff Dom Perignon champagne, watch such classic videos as Girls Gone Wild, and cavort on the endless beaches of Hawaii and the Caribbean.

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Was anyone surprised?

I’ve ranted before about what makes effective and efficient charity. And having the gubamint involved in any way ensures, guarantees, predicts problems! Look for the waste, poor performance, and unintended consequences.

Compare the difference between private charity and what went on!

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/compassion/olasky.html

We used to know, in our gut, that government isn’t the right tool for the task. Helping people required a deft touch; not the heavy handed iron fist.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13782.htm

… is more than a bunch of fools. Jon Stewart has an excellent point: no weapons, no plans, and clueless.

Hmm, is this the equivalent of Clinton’s aspirin factory?

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/06/23/spelling.obit.ap/

Television producer Aaron Spelling dies
Saturday, June 24, 2006 Posted: 0308 GMT (1108 HKT)

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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Aaron Spelling, a onetime movie bit player who created a massive number of hit series, from the vintage "Charlie's Angels" and "Dynasty" to "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place," died Friday, his publicist said. He was 83.
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I think that the dead old white guys had this vision for the American Experiment. You can be what you want to be. In the pressure cooker of true poverty, diamonds emerge. It's a shame that the Republican and Democrat Socialists don't see the beauty of dreams fulfilled. Of obstacles over come. Of doing it yourself. No Nanny Government will make it all ok as long as you eat the gruel being served. And Father State will be you daddy telling you what you can and can't do. It's for the children. Like the human race wouldn't have survived without the Government. Remember governments kill their citizens should they dare to be free. AND, the government "kindness" just kills you a little slower. I wasn't a big fan of 90210 and its ilk. Didn't believe in the "beautiful" and "rich" people! Everyone I know has flaws. Even me. (Shocked?) But in reading about what he had to overcome to be Tori's Dad, I am impressed. Perhaps to have the drive to succeed greatly one needs the poverty, the discrimination, and the angst? Don't know that but do know that the man accomplished things.

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/06/random-thoughts-on-senate-race.html

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Sen. Menendez voted in favor of increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour this week, announcing on the Senate floor that "nine years is far too long" for low-wage workers to wait for the federal government to boost the wage, which currently stands at $5.15 an hour.
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Nine years is too long for those who work round the clock, hoping to save a little extra for groceries, for those working so they can buy schools supplies or clothes for their children, or for those saving so one day they can live in a place they are proud to call home. I ask members of Congress who receive a cost-of-living adjustment, how can they vote to not give those hard working Americans earning minimum wage the first increase in nine years?

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Can we talk? Minimum wage!
The minimum wage isn't for the poor hard working Joe six pack. Minimum wage laws really benefit a very interesting group.

First, the highly paid government "workers" get raises. A rise in the minimum wage jacks up the bottom of the pay table. So all the higher and highly paid "workers" all get a raise.

Second, all the union workers who have a pay table in their contracts gets a bump up.

Third, the politicians get the "moral high ground" as champions of the "little people" while rewarding the government and union workers.

Basat's Law tells us to look for the silent hidden losers in any "economic problem". SO who loses here?

Everyone loses because now they have to pay higher prices. Taxpayers lose because government workers now have to be paid more and, of course, pensions are keyed to that higher rate. People on fixed incomes get a double whammy in higher taxes and higher prices.

So, ANY politician, regardless of flavor, who advocates a higher minimum wage, shouldn't be elected. You shouldn't EVEN consider voting for them. Either that politician is: too stupid to understand the minimum wage is a bad idea OR too dishonest to admit what the truth of the minimum wage.

Is he dishonest or just dumb as a stump?

By the way, minimum wage jobs are the bottom rung on the economic ladder. People don't work at minimum wage jobs for life. They don't support households on them. But they are the training ground for the future great jobs.

The little businesses, the typical employer of minimum wage employees, are hurt by the raise and either have to fore go hiring, layoffs, or downsizing.

So raising the minimum wage is like pulling up the economic ladder to a better life.

And, just a little side effect, an unintended consequence, it impacts the young and the minorities disproportionately.

Oh, and by the way, this law, like all law, is the use of force on a peaceful market transaction. The worker doesn't have to work at that lower rate. With this law, the government puts its guns at the head of the workers and the employers.

Sigh. It seems so obvious!