The Freedom Bulletin

…is more taxes. But guess what the state legislature just did? Voted to raise the sales tax!

This is absolutely ridiculous. Legislators passed the tax increase to avoid the horror of having to pass a budget that was slightly smaller than last year’s and makes small cuts in programs that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. How terrible that would have been. NOT!

I have never heard of a tax being lowered in Massachusetts. All that happens is taxes keep going up and up and up, and so does the state budget. Now that we have a 6.25% sales tax, unless a revolution occurs, you can bet the sales tax is never going back down to 5%. Voting no on Question 1 was an incredibly dumb decision. Foes of the question argued that there would be huge sales tax increases if the income tax was repealed. Well, the income tax sure wasn’t repealed, and there is now a huge sales tax increase anyway!

The state government needs to do what is morally right: stop stealing people’s money and redistributing it to other people who don’t deserve it. This Globe editorial bemoans the fact that the budget would have cut $4 million from food banks, $21 in home care for the elderly, $2.4 million for homeless mentally ill people, $15 million in emergency rental assistance, $4 million for students who are flunking the MCAS exam, and $22 million for drug and alcohol recovery programs. But what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with people having to (gasp!) pay for their own food, their own home care, mental health, and addiction services, and their own housing, or to study for the MCAS themselves using books or the Internet? Liberals might respond that people simply cannot pay for these things. Well, if you don’t pay for something, you shouldn’t get it. If private charities want to operate food banks, fine. But it is simply wrong for people to have their money forcibly taken from them and given to those who have less.

The Globe makes one interesting point. “Those who think they don’t need government services should thank their stars, and dig a little deeper,” the editorial reads. First of all, it is probably not true, as the Globe suggests, that success or failure in life is entirely due to luck. But perhaps it is to some extent – for example, maybe people get jobs because of their looks, the employer’s bias, or random chance, instead of their merit. That would mean that society is sometimes unjust in distributing wealth, and that some of the poor deserve to be rich and vice versa. But this is where liberals and libertarians disagree. As a libertarian, I believe that the way to solve this problem is to change the rules for how society distributes wealth, to ensure that wealth is being distributed justly. Liberals, on the other hand, have no problem with the unjust rules, but then once the wealth is distributed they want to take money from people simply because they have a lot and give services to people merely because they don’t have much. This is never the right thing to do, since it does not take into account whether the wealthy people justly earned their money, or whether the poor people actually deserve more than they are getting. Disparities in wealth are not a bad thing. What is bad is for people to get what they don’t deserve, and taxes and social programs don’t do anything to fix that.

Hopefully that long rant gave you an idea of why I philosophically oppose government-funded social programs. It’s also worth adding that in addition to being morally wrong, tax increases are bad for the economy. We need people to buy more stuff to get us out of the recession, and raising the sales tax is certain to cause the exact opposite to happen.

Thanks, Speaker DeLeo! Your budget proposal almost gave me hope for Massachusetts, but now you took that hope away. It’ll just be another year of exorbitant taxes, socialist redistribution of wealth, intrusive and oppressive government, and a ballooning budget. Hooray!

NOT!!!!

Hell has frozen over! Massachusetts might actually cut its budget! Yesterday the state legislature proposed a budget for fiscal year 2010 that is $700 million lower than that of 2009. The House’s budget is $57 million lower than Governor Patrick’s proposal. Best of all, the budget contains no proposals to raise taxes!  The Boston Globe (which I really hope stays in business even though I disagree with its politics) might not be happy about this, but I sure am!

Ways and Means Chair Charles Murphy told the Boston Herald that “It’s not pretty, but that’s what we’ve got.” I beg to differ. I think that a smaller state government is beautiful! Although there is a lot more that the state could and should cut, I am amazed that the budget is finally going in the right direction. The Globe calls it “the greatest reduction in year-to-year spending in recent memory.” I certainly don’t see anything wrong with that!

Among other things, the House budget proposal cuts local aid by 25%, makes state employees pay for 30% of their health insurance, cuts funding for seniors’ home care and rental vouchers for low-income people, and eliminates Shannon grants, which are used for anti-gang advocacy, the Quinn Bill, which pays for police officers’ education, and the volunteer program Commonwealth Corps. It fully funds court-appointed lawyers at $192 million, which I think is a good use of state money because it protects people’s constitutional rights.

The House has until tomorrow to file amdendments, debate on the budget will start on April 27, and then the State Senate will get to propose its own budget. I really hope that the House budget is for real and ends up passing, and that the legislature doesn’t change its mind and decide to raise taxes. Maybe Speaker DeLeo and the rest of the House aren’t so bad after all. It seems like there might be hope for Massachusetts.

President Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill today to keep the government funded until the end of the fiscal year. Although on the campaign trail he talked about reducing earmarks and waste, if this bill is any indication, it sure doesn’t seem like he meant it! According to Fox News, the omnibus spending bill contains an estimated $7.7 billion in earmarks, in addition to a 14% increase in aid for poor women and babies and a 10% increase in housing vouchers for the poor.

After the porkulus bill that they just passed, this is the last thing the government should be doing. Obama should have vetoed all earmarks and increases in funding for social programs. The number one priority when it comes to federal spending should be to make sure that expenses are less than or equal to revenues. With a national debt of over $10 trillion and a gaping budget deficit, there should be no increases in government funding for anything, period.

I really hope Governor Deval Patrick does not succeed in passing all the new taxes and fee increases he wants to. To close the Massachusetts budget deficit, Patrick wants to…

• Extend the 5% sales tax to alcohol, soda, candy, and other good-tasting foods
• Raise the meals tax from 5% to 6%
• Raise the hotel occupancy tax from 5.75% to 6.75%
• Allow towns to create their own meal and hotel taxes
• Raise RMV fees (which are already pretty darn high)
• Charge 50 cents a month for Fast Lane transponders to pay tolls
• Either double tolls on the Turnpike or more than double the gas tax

This is just ridiculous. There are way too many taxes as it is. Why do Massachusetts politicians (and many regular people) think it’s normal and expected for taxes to keep increasing and increasing? Wouldn’t the norm be to establish a good level of taxation, and then leave taxes the same? If taxes are too high (as they are now), then wouldn’t people want and expect them to go down?

Plus, it’s obvious that Governor Patrick isn’t just trying to raise revenue with the candy and soda taxes; he’s trying to influence people’s behavior. But what’s wrong with eating food that tastes good? Eating tofu isn’t superior to eating candy. Contrary to what Deval thinks, a world in which people ate less candy and soda would not be a better world. The best world would be one in which people had the right to make their own choices, about eating and everything else, without others trying to influence their decisions. The government has no right to declare which foods are good and which are bad, but that’s exactly what they’re doing by taxing some foods and not others.

Yes, Massachusetts has a budget deficit, but I think that 100% of closing the deficit should come from budget cuts. With no exceptions that I can think of, I’d always rather see a budget cut than a tax hike.

The economic stimulus package is nearing $900 billion, about a third of the most recent federal budget. Although it is scary that the government is adding almost a trillion dollars to the $10 trillion national debt, some parts of the bill are more objectionable than others.

• The worst part was billions of dollars to expand Medicaid coverage of contraceptives. If you want condoms, you should have to pay for them yourself! Thankfully, Obama said he was willing to drop this.
• Obama also says he will agree to getting rid of the alternative minimum tax for tens of millions of people, one of the few good parts of the stimulus bill.
• $180 billion will go toward increased Medicaid funding and unemployment benefits. This is unfair to people who work and/or have too much money to qualify for Medicaid.
• There will be a $500 payroll tax holiday for all workers. Tax breaks are always better than increased spending, I guess.
• $365.6 billion will go toward roads, highways, bridges, and other brick-and-mortar projects. This is better than giving people money for nothing, a la Medicaid and Welfare, but it doesn’t seem like America really needs all those new roads…

It’s good that Obama is at least trying to compromise with Republicans, but if I was in Congress, I still probably wouldn’t vote for it. It’s just a mind-boggling amount of money, and with the national debt at such a ridiculous level, we can’t add to it any more.

Why can’t the government stop spending money? Despite the first stimulus package and all the bailouts, our economy is still stinking, which kinda makes it seem like these things didn’t exactly work. There’s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that goes, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So, I don’t really like the idea of the new, $550 billion economic recovery package. Most of the money will go toward health care, education, food stamps, and unemployment benefits, instead of tax cuts. The tax cuts that are included in the package will discriminatorily help the poor, many of whom don’t even pay any taxes. More financially successful taxpayers who are unfairly slapped with the alternative minimum tax won’t get any assistance at all.

Cutting taxes for everyone would be a much better way of stimulating the economy. The government needs to shrink its budget and decrease the gargantuan national debt. Spending billions of dollars to give people free stuff at the expense of more successful people is just wrong.

Have you seen Obama’s new website? It’s called Change.gov and it’s probably the creepiest website I have ever seen. From the Obama quote at the top of the layout to the countdown to his inauguration to the additional Obama quotes at the top of each section, it is just unsettling and reminds me a little bit of 1984. Even creepier than the design of his website are Obama’s ideas. Change.gov goes into detail about a plethora of his political positions, on a variety of issues. I could never list all of the items I disagree with, but here’s a sampling:

First off, he lists “Women” as one of his categories under “Agenda,” but he doesn’t list “Men.” Singling women out for special attention is sexist in itself.

“Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.”
So he will steal people’s money in order to create non-fun things that kids will be forced to do instead of having time to themselves as they desperately need.

“The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.”
Not only will Obama discriminate against economically successful people, but he’ll also discriminate against people who don’t have babies!

“Obama has introduced a comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan to provide critical supports to young children and their parents by investing $10 billion per year…”
Stealing more money…

“Barack Obama has re-introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts.” There are government penalties on married families? I never knew that being given benefits and money was a penalty. Looks like Obama wants to discriminate against bachelors and bachelorettes even more than the government already does. Plus, it is sexist to assume that only men avoid child support payments.

“Barack Obama and Joe Biden will expand programs like the successful Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers. The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income expectant mothers and their families.”
Stealing money from successful, sometimes unmarried and baby-free people to give to poor people who have babies! That’s just what America needs when our population is about three times as large as it should be, causing global warming!

“He introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.”
I have a really revolutionary, hard to understand idea to prevent AIDS: how about not having sex!!! Chastity is dignified, empowering, and free.

“Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education.”
More theft…

“Barack Obama introduced legislation to combat domestic violence by providing $25 million a year…”
And even more theft…

“Senator Obama co-sponsored and helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Signed into law in January 2006, the bill funds and helps communities, nonprofit organizations, and police combat domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The legislation establishes a sexual assault services program and provides education grants to prevent domestic violence.”
How sexist! He equates “violence against women” with domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking! Sadly, women can and sometimes do abuse, rape, and stalk men. Sometimes acts of domestic violence are not abuse at all but are acts of self-defense against an abuser. It seems that to Obama, women are weak and need to be protected, while men are abusive brutes. Such an attitude is degrading to both genders.

And finally, the Obama youth corps! Michael Graham pointed out in his awesome blog that Change.gov used to say “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year” (under “America Serves“).

But then he changed it to… “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.”

Obviously, it’s never good when the president thinks people don’t have a right to their own money or their own time, but at least he changed it to something less objectionable. Overall, it looks like Obama doesn’t really believe in gender equality or individual rights, and his spending will make Bush look fiscally conservative in comparison.