Conversation about Arizona Senate bill 1070

There is general agreement that illegal aliens in Arizona number around 500,000. The total population of Arizona is approximately 6.5 million (census data), 30 percent of whom are Hispanics. For the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that none of the illegal alien population is reflected in that 30 percent. If true, the estimated Hispanic population would total almost 2.45 million out of a population of 7 million, approximately 35 percent Hispanic, about 20 percent of those, illegal aliens.

Some of those illegal aliens are surely reflected in the census data, so the 20 percent number is somewhat lower than the actual percentage. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the percentage falls in 24 to 28 percent range. Recent passage of Senate bill 1070 in Arizona can't be fairly analyzed without that context. In reality, upwards of 20 percent and perhaps as much as 30 percent of the Hispanic residents of Arizona are illegal aliens.

Having said that, I agree with commentators running the gamut from Fred Barnes to Kirsten Powers who fear that it raises the potential for racial profiling.

The bill is sixteen pages long and much of it deals with employer responsibilities. The controversy is mostly focused on article 8, section B. To paraphrase; in lawful contacts between law enforcement and residents, where a reasonable suspicion exists that the subject of the contact is an illegal, unlawfully present in the United States, some reasonable attempt should be made, when practicable, to determine the person's immigration status.

This bill isn't the answer, but the feds who usually see no bounds to their responsibilities and authority are notably absent here.

The potential for abuse is real but the likelihood is overstated. One out of every four Arizona Hispanics is an illegal alien. The percentage of those who are encountered via lawful police contacts is surely higher than 25 percent.

This bill isn't the death of civil liberties but ongoing scrutiny is warranted. The scope of 'lawful contact' requires some legal clarity as well as serious policy discussion. No one believes that mere police presence at emergency medical service runs should be considered a pretext for investigating the immigration status of principals or bystanders.

Horrific violence is occurring on the southern border every day. In Phoenix, criminal illegals are often the victims of drug-related kidnappings. And over seven percent of the state population is Hispanic illegals. Conscientious policing and measured responses from native-born and naturalized Hispanic communities will help in the short term. It has become vogue for politicians to justify every unconstitutional misadventure with "we had to do something." Well Arizona had to do something.

Arizona will survive this legislation in the short term. The virtue of the citizens will offset the law's shortcomings. In the long term, the feds need to do their job.

Tea party terror

President Truman was in office when I was born. He was the target of gunshots fired by two Puerto Rican independence activists. President Kennedy was assassinated. Gerald Ford was the intended target of a shooting and Ronald Reagan suffered life-threatening wounds. Gunshots were directed at individuals thought to be Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. Assassination attempts against Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were foiled during or in close proximity to the attempts.

Every president since Hoover has been the victim of an attempt on his life, except Eisenhower (the attempt against President George H. W. Bush occurred after he left office). President Bush 43 was also the target of a serious attempt on his life in the Soviet Republic of Georgia in 2005. The president of the United States is always in harm's way. All of the would be assassins had political leanings, although only the attempts on foreign soil can credibly be linked to political movements.

Even the lunatic fringes have their own lunatics. This brings me to recent speculation about the extremist underbelly of the Tea party movement. The speculation is fueled by a twisted form of inductive reasoning. Timothy McVeigh was an anti-government terrorist. Some Tea party participants express anti-government sentiments. Ergo, Tea party supporters are terrorists.

Someday, a mentally disturbed person will once again set off a bomb or shoot at a president. If this action comes sooner rather than later, the action will likely be laid at the feet of the Tea party movement.

Any movement can potentially spawn maniacal violence. It's happened before. But the violence usually erupts from movements that both rationalize violence in advance and are inclined to defend it later.

Tea party protesters may disapprove of the government and they express their disapproval in a sometimes raucous and inarticulate fashion. But so far, the whole of the movement has set four fewer bombs than Bill Ayres alone and criticized the government in a generally constructive, albeit somewhat angry manner.

This pre-emptive strike against dissent is a dangerous game played by self-centered people, They are not alerting us to a new danger. History informs us that violence is always somewhere in the mix and grandstanding makes no one safer.

Electoral sweeps, questionable judgments?

President Obama made a troubling and tactless remark when he publicly characterized the activities of the Tea party participants as a source of amusement. But, to be fair, Mr. Obama is hardly the first leader to have a low opinion of the disapproving masses. In other times, we might be discussing his lack of grace or debating the validity of his perceptions. But unlike his recent predecessors, this president can afford to find us amusing. He can, for a short time, afford to ignore us.

We have temporarily put governance out of the people's reach. The Democrats have a significant majority in the House and 59 votes in the Senate. No poll result can discourage the President. Republican opposition cannot derail his legislative agenda. Grassroots protests can be treated as a minor annoyance, for now. As long as the president retains the reflexive loyalty of his Democratic colleagues, the only opinion that counts is his.

The country's frustration with the Bush administration was broad-based. Much of it focused on military action (where the president's opinion actually does count more than that of the voters). But it is the scope of the reaction that concerns me. The extent of the congressional turnover turned this president into the dreaded ‘transformational figure’. This president doesn't have to persuade Congress. He transforms more by dictation than negotiation.

Anger-generated electoral sweeps are usually untimely overreactions acted out without serious consideration of the consequences. Every clean sweep is a potential disaster-in the making.. It sweeps away the opposition.

The voters don’t like to be ignored or mocked. The voters may be tempted to clean house again soon.. Honestly, the Democrats could benefit from a dose of humility. But the country will not benefit from making the Democrats politically impotent in 2010 and 2012.

In 2008, we voted for president and elected, for a short time, a king. Neither party has earned the blinding confidence shown the Democrats in 2008. Today, the country is full of disgruntled Republicans, Libertarians, Independents and some fiscally conservative and pro-life Democrats complaining that their voice isn’t being heard. Absolutely true, but we did this.

If we want politicians to be accountable, voters have to be continually interested, not periodically. Citizenship is an everyday responsibility, not an every-so-often one.

Amusing citizen annoyed

Very little in politics surprises me. It doesn't surprise me that President Obama finds the concerns of many of his fellow citizens entertaining. It doesn't shock me that he finds them lacking in gratitude. But it really surprises me that he would cruelly and publicly ridicule them for a laugh.

Chris Wallace, at best a member of the vast Blue Dog conspiracy, called it the height of condescension. We are now lead by a man whose respect for his fellow citizens is conditioned on their gratitude. When voters have to purchase respect with silent assent or with a dollar or a vote, you can be pretty sure the respect that they are being shown is transient and insincere.

President Obama mocked, a not insignificant, sliver of the electorate. In so doing, he crossed a line that politicians occasionally stumble over but almost never step across intentionally. Some weave across the line with the assistance of alcohol or the encouragement of flattery, but only rarely do they cross the line simply to prove that they can.

Mr. Obama has traveled to the political black hole that traps politicians who come to regard their self-preoccupation as a virtue. In the recent past, the president has treated Representative Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain dismissively and was pointlessly rude to Brent Baier in a White House interview. Now, he has needlessly insulted voters for his own amusement. In politics, confrontational can sometimes be a virtue, but rude trumps confrontational.

It was clear early in the 2008 campaign that I wasn't going to vote for Barack Obama on policy grounds. However, I did perceive in him a sense of civility, a respectful and sincere demeanor. I've seen it in other politicians, Paul Tsongas, Ronald Reagan, Donald Dellums and John Kasich. Sadly, I saw something that either wasn't there or later disappeared. I would prefer to think it was the latter.

Years ago, I read an article about astronomical black holes. It said that if you were to travel to a black hole and return, when you got back you would be younger than you were when you left.
(Wrap your head around that idea.) Should the president return from this political black hole, let's hope he returns as the 2007 campaign version of the man we see today.

I don't know which Barack Obama is the real Obama. The 2007 candidate looked like a class act. The 2010 president is a testy, insecure and unkind chess master. The first guy would be a more effective leader today and would be more kindly remembered in the legacy years.

Infiltrating the tea parties

News reports this week exposed an effort to sabotage the upcoming tea parties by infiltrating the assembled crowds of protesters, raising signs with misspellings and making racist or homophobic representations. These actions would serve to discredit the movement.

Fox anchor Megan Kelly commented to Bernard Goldberg that if the tea parties were actually peopled by racists and homophobes, why would it be necessary to import fake racists and fake homophobes to discredit them? This is a really good question and deserves some further exploration.

Contrary to the revised history of the United States so popular today, racism actually pre-dated the Nixon campaign of 1968. Institutional racism and loyal Democrats gave us famous civil rights pioneers such as Ross Barnett, Lester Maddox, and Orville Faubus. George Wallace and Strom Thurmond cut their political teeth as Democrats.

Even today some Democratic politicians struggle with racial sensitivity. Senator Reid noted that candidate Obama had conquered his Negro dialect and could employ it selectively to his political advantage. Senator Biden observed that candidate Obama was clean and articulate. Senator Boxer gave us one of the more racially tone-deaf moments in YouTube history. Chris Dodd praised Robert Byrd, characterizing him as the right man at any time in history, including the Civil war. Republicans can compete in racial insensitivity, but by no means, do they own it.

So, now I am forced to wonder; if all these racists and homophobes really did reside in the Republican party and have now set their allegiance aside, why are these activists so consumed? A Republican party that was already reeling is now further hampered as elements of the party splinter off. The racists and homophobes are now ensconced in a still politically impotent third party movement that further marginalizes them. And best of all, the bad element is not tainting the Democratic party by endorsing their candidates or voting for them.

I think I have the answer. None of this has to do with racists or homophobes or bad spellers. It has to do with the potentially credible force represented by the Tea Party movement. It has to do with the death of reliable voting constituencies, chronically indebted to either the Republican or Democratic parties.

In the same way that it is effective to paint your wife as an alcoholic, or your husband as an abuser during a divorce action, it is effective to denigrate innocent parties in a political movement. While the Republicans have kept a low profile about criticizing the Tea Party protesters, the election is coming. I expect to see them playing political paintball in the fall.

If the two parties cling to the same ideologies and policies that have sustained them, the third party movement will remain in the cross-hairs. The political mud fight won't be pretty. It never is.

Paying their fair share

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Those individuals making over $250,000 will finally be required to pay their fair share. Let's examine a partial list of the upcoming changes.

The tax rate in the 35 percent bracket will adjust upward to 39.6 percent. The Medicare tax will increase for all taxpayers from 2.9 to 3.8 percent. The tax is now expanded to include unearned income (previously exempt) such as interest and dividends. The president may believe that unearned income produces itself but most invested money was once earned income and was subject to Medicare taxes at that time. Government certainly benefits from taxing in perpetuity but it precludes any alternative uses of the money. More on those alternative uses later.

The capital gains rate will increase from 15 to 20 percent. While it is a sensible adjustment when considered against the 29 percent Mr. Obama proposed during the campaign, it will hardly spur new and aggressive investments.

In a truly misguided effort to increase revenues, the deductibility of charitable contributions by the wealthy will be limited. All such contributions that qualify as itemized deductions will be exempted from taxation at the rate not exceeding 28 percent.

It works like this. Under the old rule, a taxpayer earns $290,000. He contributes $40,000 to the Red Cross and cancer research. If he contributed nothing to charity, he would owe $15, 840 in federal taxes on that $40,000. To promote charitable giving, the tax is essentially waived and the taxpayer is now voluntarily $40,000 out of pocket. Under the new policy, the same taxpayer would be exempted from $11,200 of the tax and would owe 11.6 percent or $4640. The benefactor would be paying a fee of $4640 in taxes for the privilege of giving away $40,000. In other words, it now costs $46,400 to give away $40,000. Will this promote public charity?

A little noted change in the health reform bill will increase the threshold for deductions of out-of-pocket medical expenses from 7.5 to 10 percent of adjusted gross income. Should the taxpayer have $100,000 in adjusted gross income and $17,000 in qualifying physician, hospital, nursing and drug charges, only those expenses exceeding $10,000 (10 percent) are deductible. So income is reduced by $7000 and the $10,000 excluded from the deduction is taxable.

This change is manifestly counterproductive. The people who pay their own medical expenses are not the problem. Why would you punish them further by taxing them on their expenses?

Back to the alternative uses of the money. The wealthy spend their money not so differently than the poor or the government. It goes for medical care, education, investment, charity and consumption. When the government spends money, there is no guarantee that they will put it to more productive uses than private citizens or spend it more judiciously.

The justifications for targeted tax increases usually center on relative wealth inequalities. But this is hardly the only consideration. The creation of wealth entails hard work and exposure to risk. There is less incentive to work hard and suffer risk when we don't own the financial reward. Simply put, incentives matter and they are hard to locate in the administration's strategy.

You may feel little common bond with those nameless wealthy individuals and their disparate tax treatment. Or, they may be the people who don't hire you in 2011.