Republican leader John McKinney, very much alone, has decided that Connecticut should oppose a ruling by a U.S. Justice Department functionary to open the doors of the Republic’s 50 states to internet gambling.
On the question of internet gambling, Governor Dannel Malloy has already folded – pun intended. Mr. Malloy has said that internet gambling is at least as inevitable as death and taxes. The enabling ruling revises an earlier understanding that internet gambling should not be permitted, while at the same time holding out to states the promise of a hefty return in new tax revenue.
Appearing on The Talk of Connecticut with Brad Davis, Mr. McKinney said in so many words that the expansion of gambling and its attendant taxes ought to be firmly resisted.
In his effort to re-define Connecticut, Mr. Malloy has mounted soap boxes all across the state in vigorous attempts, largely successful, to push forward his tax and spending agenda for Connecticut. Mr. Malloy instituted the largest tax increase in Connecticut history. Only the proverbial man from Mars could believe that spending increases will not follow, one might say inevitably, in the wake of such tax increases.
This re-invention business is no easy task; neither is it cheap. On the question of opening his state to internet gambling -- and coincidentally to an additional revenue stream much needed by Mr. Malloy to produce surpluses necessary for pushing the state forward on the governor’s predetermined path – Mr. Malloy has become unaccountably camera shy and powerless. He has not mounted a single soapbox in the state to inveigh against internet gambling. He had not publicly instructed by letter the members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation, all Democrats sitting in the same ideological pew as the governor, to attempt an legislative assault on the interpretation of a Justice Department functionary. Neither has he asked Attorney General George Jepsen to resist that ruling in federal courts.
The governor finds himself in good company. The editorial board of the Hartford Courant has agreed with the governor that internet gambling is inevitable. When good men do nothing, inevitability happens. U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal who as attorney general once strenuously opposed internet gambling for all the right reasons suddenly finds himself suffering from moral anemia.
Only four years ago, Mr. Blumenthal flexed his considerable muscles as attorney general when New York state decided to open a horse race betting parlor on the internet, writing indignantly to the New York gaming Commission in one of his morally infused letters:“An out-of-state entity taking Internet wagers from Connecticut also violates the federal Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, which says, ‘the states should have the primary responsibility for determining what forms of gambling may legally take place within their borders.’"
Huffing and puffing, Mr. Blumenthal continued: "The New York tracks cannot trample our vital rights to prohibit Internet gambling - luring children and compulsive gamblers. Internet gambling is fraught with insidious pitfalls - particularly for children - which is exactly why Connecticut prohibits it. I am hopeful that New York officials cooperate and respect federal and state law. My office will continue to work closely with the Division of Special Revenue to enforce Connecticut gambling laws."
“States… primary responsibility…” Huh? Internet gambling “luring children and compulsive gamblers… fraught with insidious pitfalls…” Come again?
Attorney General Blumenthal used to operate as a one-man temperance league. Now, as U.S. Senator representing a state that’s stone broke from overspending and desperately in need of additional tax resources – even if the resources are filched from helpless children and desperate people unable to master their gambling addictions – internet gambling seems to him a rare inevitability; it will, after all, supply Connecticut with additional tax dollars Mr. Malloy may then dispense to those less fortunate than Mr. Blumenthal or U.S. Reps Jim Himes and Rosa DeLauro, millionaire members in good standing of the one percent club in Washington’s Beltway.
“We've got more than enough state-sanctioned opportunities for people to lose money,” another Courant commentator wrote, “but Malloy is probably right when he says that outlook is irrelevant now that the federal Department of Justice has given the OK to turning computers and mobile devices into virtual casinos. It's hideous, but that won't stop it from coming to your local Internet connection.”
The Malloy administration seems fully prepared to save Connecticut citizens from the hideous effects of the hideous practice it will allow, perhaps by instituting yet another administrative department to bind up the wounds it has caused by abjectly surrendering to the inevitable. This work of salvation, one may be sure, will be costly.
Given the scraping and bowing of Connecticut’s moral epigones before a practice they regard as “hideous,” perhaps Mr. McKinney might consider engaging the services of Bob Englehart of the Courant to produce the following cartoon:
A bordello, above which hangs a shabby but insistent sign -- “Raging Hormone Bordello And Internet Betting Parlor.” Seen through the window, a flimsily dressed, fetching creature wearing a banner that reads, “Place your bets here.” On the street milling in front of the bordello, a crowd of people that includes Mr. Malloy, Mr. Blumenthal and Connecticut’s Democratic U.S. Congressional delegation, all singing the following tune shown in large bubble: “We can’t help our raging hormones. We are only human.”
Such a cartoon would make more sense than the next dozen of the state’s commentaries yielding abjectly to an inevitability that will increase state revenue at a time when some politicians have begun to understand that there must be a ceiling to profligate spending.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Curry On Obama The Populist
Another rumor about President Barack Obama has been exploded, this time by Bill Curry, a two term state senator defeated by moderate Republican Nancy Johnson. Mr. Curry held a seat previously held by Toby Moffett, once a progressive legislator, now a big time Beltway lobbyist who most recently was in the news explaining why he was proud to represent a country that seems determined to eradicate Christian Copts.
Mr. Curry is famous enough to enjoy face time on Wikipedia where it is recorded that “During his political career Curry has been the favored candidate of liberal Connecticut Democrats and pundits frequently at odds with the old style moderate policies favored by such figures as former Governor William O'Neill and former party chairman John Droney.”
The false rumor had it Mr. Obama was planning to buy the late Katharine Hepburn’s estate on the Fenwick waterfront in Connecticut.
Absurd, said Mr. Curry, the author of a soon to be released book on Mr. Obama titled “Barack Obama and the Politics of Populism.”
If the rumor had been true, it might have affected the sales of Mr. Curry’s book. “If he bought it, he wouldn't be practicing the politics of populism."
Mr. Curry is famous enough to enjoy face time on Wikipedia where it is recorded that “During his political career Curry has been the favored candidate of liberal Connecticut Democrats and pundits frequently at odds with the old style moderate policies favored by such figures as former Governor William O'Neill and former party chairman John Droney.”
The false rumor had it Mr. Obama was planning to buy the late Katharine Hepburn’s estate on the Fenwick waterfront in Connecticut.
Absurd, said Mr. Curry, the author of a soon to be released book on Mr. Obama titled “Barack Obama and the Politics of Populism.”
If the rumor had been true, it might have affected the sales of Mr. Curry’s book. “If he bought it, he wouldn't be practicing the politics of populism."
Friday, January 6, 2012
Malloy’s Gadfly
Even Greece at the height of its powers had a “gadfly.” The Greek term was used by Plato to signify the rather uneasy relationship between Socrates and the political scene in Athens. Plato described Socrates as the goad of Athens, a city he compared to a dimwitted horse. Athens, as we all know, had the last word in its dispute between the city’s most famous gadfly and city fathers who could not abide what Socrates himself called the sting of truth: “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.” Socrates considered his role as that of a public critic whose purpose it was “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." Athens convicted Socrates of corrupting the youth of the city and forced hemlock upon him as a remedy to quiet his fearless outspoken tongue.
Not to put Senator Len Suzio in quite the same category as Socrates or even Jeremiah, the irritating prophet who compared Egypt to “very fair heifer” but noted, ominously, “the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north,” even so, Mr. Suzio has managed to cause some perturbation among the Malloyalists who surround Governor Dannel Malloy.
Mr. Suzio bit the heifer a little hard on the question of Mr. Malloy’s financing of the reinvented UConn Health Center, causing Mr. Malloy to explode in mock anger in Connecticut Post reporter Ted Mann’s 18th installment of the life and times of the state’s first Democratic governor since former Governor William O’Neill hit the skids, “’The world is flat! Flat! Flat! Flat!’ Dan Malloy slams his palms flat against the top of his desk, again and again. ‘Flat, I tell you! Flat! Flat! Flat!’”
One gets the impression that anyone in the Malloyalist contingent would be willing to administer the hemlock to Mr. Suzio, provided it could be done discreetly.
The final agreement between Mr. Malloy and Jackson Lab, however, suggests that Mr. Malloy had half an ear turned towards his gadfly critics. The governor evidently altered his initial agreement to accommodate some critics of the UConn-Jackson Lab deal, among them gadfly Suzio.
A new wing on the deal arranged between Mr. Malloy and Jackson Lab includes, according to one news account, “several provisions designed to protect the public's investment, including one that gives the state a slice of the royalties from any lucrative drug therapies born from the research.”
The slice on royalties is a very iffy proposition. In what Mr. Malloy calls “a unique intellectual property-sharing agreement," Connecticut will receive 10 percent of any net royalty proceeds up to $3 million and 50 percent of those royalties over $3 million starting in the 10th year and running for 15 years.
Assuming these best laid plans are not torn asunder, Connecticut will not pull even on the deal until Jackson Labs realizes earnings on it its intellectual property of $600 million. In 2010, the company’s financial report showed revenue of $129 million, excluding donations and government grants, and $170 million in expenses. Government support so far has kept the company above water. In arrangements such as that concluded between the Malloy administration and Jackson Labs, those financing the project – donors, federal taxpayers, and now Connecticut taxpayers – assume risks, while the corporation reaps the lion’s share of profits.
Gadfly Suzio, the Flat-Earther, said he was pleased that the final deal included a provision giving the state a piece of the royalty pie: “One of my explicit criticisms was if we're going to be risking taxpayer money in some sort of venture capital way, why would we not reap the potential benefits?''
The final deal obligates Connecticut to provide a $192 million contingent loan to Jackson Lab that the company will then use to purchase a new 250,000 square-foot building on the site of the University of Connecticut Health Care pink elephant in Farmington. The state also will award Jackson Lab $99 million in research money.
The contingent loan is “forgivable” provided Jackson creates within 10 years 300 direct positions including 90 for senior scientists. Once Jackson Lab creates 600 direct jobs, it may purchase the state-owned land for $1, a win-win prospect for Jackson Labs.
Those who assert positively that the Jackson Labs-Malloy deal is an unqualified win for Connecticut are not Flat-Earthers; it would be uncharitable to label them as such. But they are much in need of gadflies to keep their ungovernable optimism rooted in the real world.
Not to put Senator Len Suzio in quite the same category as Socrates or even Jeremiah, the irritating prophet who compared Egypt to “very fair heifer” but noted, ominously, “the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north,” even so, Mr. Suzio has managed to cause some perturbation among the Malloyalists who surround Governor Dannel Malloy.
Mr. Suzio bit the heifer a little hard on the question of Mr. Malloy’s financing of the reinvented UConn Health Center, causing Mr. Malloy to explode in mock anger in Connecticut Post reporter Ted Mann’s 18th installment of the life and times of the state’s first Democratic governor since former Governor William O’Neill hit the skids, “’The world is flat! Flat! Flat! Flat!’ Dan Malloy slams his palms flat against the top of his desk, again and again. ‘Flat, I tell you! Flat! Flat! Flat!’”
One gets the impression that anyone in the Malloyalist contingent would be willing to administer the hemlock to Mr. Suzio, provided it could be done discreetly.
The final agreement between Mr. Malloy and Jackson Lab, however, suggests that Mr. Malloy had half an ear turned towards his gadfly critics. The governor evidently altered his initial agreement to accommodate some critics of the UConn-Jackson Lab deal, among them gadfly Suzio.
A new wing on the deal arranged between Mr. Malloy and Jackson Lab includes, according to one news account, “several provisions designed to protect the public's investment, including one that gives the state a slice of the royalties from any lucrative drug therapies born from the research.”
The slice on royalties is a very iffy proposition. In what Mr. Malloy calls “a unique intellectual property-sharing agreement," Connecticut will receive 10 percent of any net royalty proceeds up to $3 million and 50 percent of those royalties over $3 million starting in the 10th year and running for 15 years.
Assuming these best laid plans are not torn asunder, Connecticut will not pull even on the deal until Jackson Labs realizes earnings on it its intellectual property of $600 million. In 2010, the company’s financial report showed revenue of $129 million, excluding donations and government grants, and $170 million in expenses. Government support so far has kept the company above water. In arrangements such as that concluded between the Malloy administration and Jackson Labs, those financing the project – donors, federal taxpayers, and now Connecticut taxpayers – assume risks, while the corporation reaps the lion’s share of profits.
Gadfly Suzio, the Flat-Earther, said he was pleased that the final deal included a provision giving the state a piece of the royalty pie: “One of my explicit criticisms was if we're going to be risking taxpayer money in some sort of venture capital way, why would we not reap the potential benefits?''
The final deal obligates Connecticut to provide a $192 million contingent loan to Jackson Lab that the company will then use to purchase a new 250,000 square-foot building on the site of the University of Connecticut Health Care pink elephant in Farmington. The state also will award Jackson Lab $99 million in research money.
The contingent loan is “forgivable” provided Jackson creates within 10 years 300 direct positions including 90 for senior scientists. Once Jackson Lab creates 600 direct jobs, it may purchase the state-owned land for $1, a win-win prospect for Jackson Labs.
Those who assert positively that the Jackson Labs-Malloy deal is an unqualified win for Connecticut are not Flat-Earthers; it would be uncharitable to label them as such. But they are much in need of gadflies to keep their ungovernable optimism rooted in the real world.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Performance Artist Damages Painting
Mr. Still died in 1980. He was considered, according to the NMBC report, “one of the most influential of the American post-World War Two abstract expressionist artists, although he was not as well known as others such as Jackson Pollock” – until now.
Four of Mr. Still’s paintings were auctioned last year by Sotheby’s and brought in $114 million, a sum that endowed the Denver museum, which opened in November.
The performance artist, Ms. Carman Tisch, “dropped her pants at a museum and rubbed her rear end all over a painting valued at $30 million,” according the NBC report. Tragedy was averted when the lady attempted to urinate on the painting – and missed. Her aim apparently was off.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office told the Denver Post, "You have to wonder where her friends were."
Evidently, they had scurried away, muttering a few words from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land”:
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think."
Possibly her friends were in search of a Jackson Pollock elsewhere in the museum.
Ms. Tisch was charged with felony criminal mischief on Wednesday and has been held on a $20,000 bond since the incident in late December, said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney's Office.
There has been no attempt from the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) to snatch Ms. Tisch from the clutches of benighted prosecutors unaware of the Constitutional rights of performance artists.
The story bears watching.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Republican Presidential Race: National Review Mauls Gingrich
The Republican Presidential Race: National Review Mauls Gingrich
National Review, the county’s premier conservative magazine, wacked Newt Gingrich with a big stick in its December 31 pre-Iowa vote issue.
The magazine featured on its cover a zany cartoon of Mr. Gingrich on the moon with a lead line above its masthead – “The Editors: Against Gingrich.”
There are four feature articles on Mr. Gingrich, all cripplingly critical:
“’How Speaker Newt Balanced The Budget’ (and why president Newt would not)” by Kevin Williamson; “‘Amnesty Again’ (Gingrich’s plan would reward criminals and make the law arbitrary)” by Kris Kobach; “‘Some Shade Of Green’ (The former Speaker has a longstanding love-hate relationship with environmental reform)” by Jonathan Adler; and perhaps most devastating, “‘The Gingrich Gestalt’ (You take a dubious record. You take some wacky ideas, you take a narcissistic personality…)” by Mark Steyn, more politically astute than the late Christopher Hitchens and just as dangerous.
Together the articles do not represent, shall we say, a vote of confidence by the editors of National Review.
Here is Mr. Steyn belaboring Mr. Gingrich:
“Unlike the niche candidates, he offers all the faults of his predecessors rolled into one: Like Michele Bachman, his staffers quit; like Herman Cain, he spent the latter decades of the last century making anonymous women uncomfortable, mainly through being married to them; like Mitt Romney, he was a flip flopper, being in favor of government mandates on health care before he was against them, and in favor of big-government climate-change “solutions” before he was against them, and in favor of putting giant mirrors in space to light American highways by night before he was agai… oh, wait. That one he may still be in favor of. So, if you live in the I-95 corridor, you might want to buy black-out curtains.”
Most of Mr. Gingrich’s moles are prominently displayed in the issue, days after Mr. Gingrich, pummeled by negative ads, plummeted in the polls.
National Review, the county’s premier conservative magazine, wacked Newt Gingrich with a big stick in its December 31 pre-Iowa vote issue.
The magazine featured on its cover a zany cartoon of Mr. Gingrich on the moon with a lead line above its masthead – “The Editors: Against Gingrich.”
There are four feature articles on Mr. Gingrich, all cripplingly critical:
“’How Speaker Newt Balanced The Budget’ (and why president Newt would not)” by Kevin Williamson; “‘Amnesty Again’ (Gingrich’s plan would reward criminals and make the law arbitrary)” by Kris Kobach; “‘Some Shade Of Green’ (The former Speaker has a longstanding love-hate relationship with environmental reform)” by Jonathan Adler; and perhaps most devastating, “‘The Gingrich Gestalt’ (You take a dubious record. You take some wacky ideas, you take a narcissistic personality…)” by Mark Steyn, more politically astute than the late Christopher Hitchens and just as dangerous.
Together the articles do not represent, shall we say, a vote of confidence by the editors of National Review.
Here is Mr. Steyn belaboring Mr. Gingrich:
“Unlike the niche candidates, he offers all the faults of his predecessors rolled into one: Like Michele Bachman, his staffers quit; like Herman Cain, he spent the latter decades of the last century making anonymous women uncomfortable, mainly through being married to them; like Mitt Romney, he was a flip flopper, being in favor of government mandates on health care before he was against them, and in favor of big-government climate-change “solutions” before he was against them, and in favor of putting giant mirrors in space to light American highways by night before he was agai… oh, wait. That one he may still be in favor of. So, if you live in the I-95 corridor, you might want to buy black-out curtains.”
Most of Mr. Gingrich’s moles are prominently displayed in the issue, days after Mr. Gingrich, pummeled by negative ads, plummeted in the polls.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Out With The Old In With The New
The New Year has finally arrived, and with it old things have or soon will be put away.
Among them are former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now comfortably ensconced in Hollywood as the chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America and, within the year, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democrat and now an Independent. It may be worth mentioning that Mr. Dodd’s last vow in leaving office is that he would not – no, never – become a lobbyist.
This sweeping out of the old is what is called in politics a “sea change.” Some things, of course, will not change. Connecticut will remain a blue state even if by some stroke of Divine Providence a Republican is able to wrest Mr. Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat from progressive or liberal Democrats. Connecticut’s congressional delegation has for a long while been the private preserve of the Democratic Party and presently is home to three millionaires: U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and U.S. Reps Rosa Delauro and Jim Himes, who made his money on Wall Street.
Mr. Dodd waited until his lobbyist job opened before becoming a millionaire. If Connecticut’s Democratic millionaire office holders were to be transported back in time to 1942, during the reign of progressive war president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they would be paying in taxes more than 100 percent of their salaries.
Before World War II, fewer than 5 percent of Americans paid income taxes. From 1940 to 1942, personal exemptions were drastically lowered and the number of Americans paying income taxes jumped tenfold, from $4 million to 39 million. The year 1942 introduced the first mass tax in U.S. history and was also the first year of withholding taxes at the source. Congress passed the first income tax law in 1913-14. The tax was made retro-active so that dollars could be immediately extracted from millionaires, but to ease the pain of payments the 1913 tax was payable in 1914, a lapse in payment that lasted thirty years. FDR’s much broader tax subjected some taxpayers to double taxation in 1943. The Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 forced some millionaires to pay double taxation and eliminated the lapse. Result: For each of the war years, 1944-1945, those earning $1 million per year owed $1,006,750 in taxes. When Democratic U.S. Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana was asked how some people could pay more in taxes than they earned, he replied coolly, “I submit that the [rich] taxpayer is likely to have accumulated sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments.” Even at confiscatory rates, Mr. Roosevelt was convinced that millionaires were not paying their “fair share” in taxes, according to a luminous article in The American Spectator written by Burton Folsom and Anita Folsom, the authors of "FDR Goes To War."
The New Year has finally arrived, and with it old things have or soon will be put away.
Among them are former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now comfortably ensconced in Hollywood as the chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America and, within the year, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democrat and now an Independent. It may be worth mentioning that Mr. Dodd’s last vow in leaving office is that he would not – no, never – become a lobbyist.
This sweeping out of the old is what is called in politics a “sea change.” Some things, of course, will not change. Connecticut will remain a blue state even if by some stroke of Divine Providence a Republican is able to wrest Mr. Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat from progressive or liberal Democrats. Connecticut’s congressional delegation has for a long while been the private preserve of the Democratic Party and home to three millionaires: U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and U.S. Reps Rosa Delauro and Jim Himes, who made his money on Wall Street.
Mr. Dodd waited until his lobbyist job opened before becoming a millionaire. If Connecticut’s Democratic millionaire office holders were to be transported back in time to 1942, during the reign of progressive war president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they would be paying in taxes more than 100 percent of their salaries.
Before World War II, fewer than 5 percent of Americans paid income taxes. From 1940 to 1942, personal exemptions were drastically lowered and the number of Americans paying income taxes jumped tenfold, from $4 million to 39 million. The year 1942 introduced the first mass tax in U.S. history and was also the first year of withholding taxes at the source. Congress passed the first income tax law in 1913-14. The tax was made retro-active so that dollars could be immediately extracted from millionaires, but to ease the pain of payments the 1913 tax was payable in 1914, a lapse in payment that lasted thirty years. FDR’s much broader tax subjected some taxpayers to double taxation in 1943. The Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 forced some millionaires to pay double taxation and eliminated the lapse. Result: For each of the war years, 1944-1945, those earning $1 million per year owed $1,006,750 in taxes. When Democratic U.S. Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana was asked how some people could pay more in taxes than they earned, he replied coolly, “I submit that the [rich] taxpayer is likely to have accumulated sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments.” Even at confiscatory rates, Mr. Roosevelt was convinced that millionaires were not paying their “fair share” in taxes, according to a luminous article in The American Spectator written by Burton Folsom and Anita Folsom, the authors of "FDR Goes To War."
It is a safe bet that none of the members of Connecticut’s bluer than blue progressive congressional delegation would admit to being quite as progressive as FDR. Millionaires Mr. Blumenthal, Mrs. DeLauro and Mr. Himes, asked to contribute their “fair share” in taxes as “fair” and “share” were understood during FDR’s presidency, very likely would resist the imposition.
At the turn of this year, Connecticut’s media was full of swan songs in a minor key as Mr. Lieberman sought an exit door that would not bang him too fiercely on the rear. So off message was Mr. Lieberman with progressives and peace-at-any-price Democrats that it must have seemed to them the life-long Democrat was on the verge of bolting his party.
In foreign policy matters, Mr. Lieberman is what used to be called a “Scoop Jackson” Democrat, nearly the last of a dying breed. Mr. Lieberman disagreed sharply with Democratic candidate for president Barack Obama’s views on foreign policy, and his hawkish ways did not endear him to those in his party who, along with Mr. Obama, vigorously resisted what they regarded as President George Bush’s war in Iraq. When Mr. Lieberman backed then Republican Party presidential contender John McCain over Mr. Obama, he crossed a bridge too far. A political neophyte, Ned Lamont, challenged Mr. Blumenthal in a party primary, defeated Mr. Lieberman and was in turn defeated in the general election after Mr. Blumenthal had re-entered the lists as an Independent.
A liberal in domestic policy and a “Scoop Jackson” Democrat in foreign policy, Mr. Lieberman’s leave taking will mark, for good or ill, the end of an era.
Among them are former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now comfortably ensconced in Hollywood as the chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America and, within the year, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democrat and now an Independent. It may be worth mentioning that Mr. Dodd’s last vow in leaving office is that he would not – no, never – become a lobbyist.
This sweeping out of the old is what is called in politics a “sea change.” Some things, of course, will not change. Connecticut will remain a blue state even if by some stroke of Divine Providence a Republican is able to wrest Mr. Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat from progressive or liberal Democrats. Connecticut’s congressional delegation has for a long while been the private preserve of the Democratic Party and presently is home to three millionaires: U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and U.S. Reps Rosa Delauro and Jim Himes, who made his money on Wall Street.
Mr. Dodd waited until his lobbyist job opened before becoming a millionaire. If Connecticut’s Democratic millionaire office holders were to be transported back in time to 1942, during the reign of progressive war president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they would be paying in taxes more than 100 percent of their salaries.
Before World War II, fewer than 5 percent of Americans paid income taxes. From 1940 to 1942, personal exemptions were drastically lowered and the number of Americans paying income taxes jumped tenfold, from $4 million to 39 million. The year 1942 introduced the first mass tax in U.S. history and was also the first year of withholding taxes at the source. Congress passed the first income tax law in 1913-14. The tax was made retro-active so that dollars could be immediately extracted from millionaires, but to ease the pain of payments the 1913 tax was payable in 1914, a lapse in payment that lasted thirty years. FDR’s much broader tax subjected some taxpayers to double taxation in 1943. The Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 forced some millionaires to pay double taxation and eliminated the lapse. Result: For each of the war years, 1944-1945, those earning $1 million per year owed $1,006,750 in taxes. When Democratic U.S. Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana was asked how some people could pay more in taxes than they earned, he replied coolly, “I submit that the [rich] taxpayer is likely to have accumulated sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments.” Even at confiscatory rates, Mr. Roosevelt was convinced that millionaires were not paying their “fair share” in taxes, according to a luminous article in The American Spectator written by Burton Folsom and Anita Folsom, the authors of "FDR Goes To War."
The New Year has finally arrived, and with it old things have or soon will be put away.
Among them are former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now comfortably ensconced in Hollywood as the chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America and, within the year, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democrat and now an Independent. It may be worth mentioning that Mr. Dodd’s last vow in leaving office is that he would not – no, never – become a lobbyist.
This sweeping out of the old is what is called in politics a “sea change.” Some things, of course, will not change. Connecticut will remain a blue state even if by some stroke of Divine Providence a Republican is able to wrest Mr. Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat from progressive or liberal Democrats. Connecticut’s congressional delegation has for a long while been the private preserve of the Democratic Party and home to three millionaires: U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and U.S. Reps Rosa Delauro and Jim Himes, who made his money on Wall Street.
Mr. Dodd waited until his lobbyist job opened before becoming a millionaire. If Connecticut’s Democratic millionaire office holders were to be transported back in time to 1942, during the reign of progressive war president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they would be paying in taxes more than 100 percent of their salaries.
Before World War II, fewer than 5 percent of Americans paid income taxes. From 1940 to 1942, personal exemptions were drastically lowered and the number of Americans paying income taxes jumped tenfold, from $4 million to 39 million. The year 1942 introduced the first mass tax in U.S. history and was also the first year of withholding taxes at the source. Congress passed the first income tax law in 1913-14. The tax was made retro-active so that dollars could be immediately extracted from millionaires, but to ease the pain of payments the 1913 tax was payable in 1914, a lapse in payment that lasted thirty years. FDR’s much broader tax subjected some taxpayers to double taxation in 1943. The Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 forced some millionaires to pay double taxation and eliminated the lapse. Result: For each of the war years, 1944-1945, those earning $1 million per year owed $1,006,750 in taxes. When Democratic U.S. Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana was asked how some people could pay more in taxes than they earned, he replied coolly, “I submit that the [rich] taxpayer is likely to have accumulated sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments.” Even at confiscatory rates, Mr. Roosevelt was convinced that millionaires were not paying their “fair share” in taxes, according to a luminous article in The American Spectator written by Burton Folsom and Anita Folsom, the authors of "FDR Goes To War."
It is a safe bet that none of the members of Connecticut’s bluer than blue progressive congressional delegation would admit to being quite as progressive as FDR. Millionaires Mr. Blumenthal, Mrs. DeLauro and Mr. Himes, asked to contribute their “fair share” in taxes as “fair” and “share” were understood during FDR’s presidency, very likely would resist the imposition.
At the turn of this year, Connecticut’s media was full of swan songs in a minor key as Mr. Lieberman sought an exit door that would not bang him too fiercely on the rear. So off message was Mr. Lieberman with progressives and peace-at-any-price Democrats that it must have seemed to them the life-long Democrat was on the verge of bolting his party.
In foreign policy matters, Mr. Lieberman is what used to be called a “Scoop Jackson” Democrat, nearly the last of a dying breed. Mr. Lieberman disagreed sharply with Democratic candidate for president Barack Obama’s views on foreign policy, and his hawkish ways did not endear him to those in his party who, along with Mr. Obama, vigorously resisted what they regarded as President George Bush’s war in Iraq. When Mr. Lieberman backed then Republican Party presidential contender John McCain over Mr. Obama, he crossed a bridge too far. A political neophyte, Ned Lamont, challenged Mr. Blumenthal in a party primary, defeated Mr. Lieberman and was in turn defeated in the general election after Mr. Blumenthal had re-entered the lists as an Independent.
A liberal in domestic policy and a “Scoop Jackson” Democrat in foreign policy, Mr. Lieberman’s leave taking will mark, for good or ill, the end of an era.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Gambling Then And Now, Blumenthal Then And Now
In moving from Connecticut’s attorney general’s office to the U.S. Senate, Dick Blumenthal left behind a truckload of news releases sent out on an almost daily basis to the local media, as well as a few hundred moldy cases quickly dismissed by incoming Attorney General George Jepsen as unsound.
No doubt some of those numberless press releases are rattling around like dry old bones in the news morgues of many a Connecticut newspaper.
A few of them relating to internet gambling and the stories they mothered can be fetched from the internet.
Attorney General Blumenthal, as early as 1997, sent out to various newspapers in Connecticut, some of which were much in the habit of reflexively printing his news releases as received, an anti-internet gambling thunderbolt entitled “Blumenthal Urges Effort to Ban Internet Gambling.”
Mr. Blumenthal noted in his release that “Gambling and the Internet is a mix that is a recipe for deceit and financial disaster.”
Along with other state attorneys general, Mr. Blumenthal appeared at the time before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to endorse legislation he said was essential to preserve state regulation of gambling.
Mr. Blumenthal testified that internet gambling would be, according to his press release, “rife with problems, including no regulation or control over those operating the Internet gambling -- including possibly criminals -- and no protections for those who placed wagers.”
That was then.
Coincident with a memo written by Virginia Seitz, head of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, stating that previous legislation bars only internet betting on sports – not internet betting in general – Governor of Connecticut Dannel Malloy said that “he welcomes the ruling as a way to raise more money for the state,” according to a report by WTHN News 8.
The Christian Science Monitor has pointed out that “To win Senate approval to serve on the court, she [Ms. Seitz] would need the support of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada. Last year, most of Nevada’s big casinos became big backers of an effort to overturn the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.”
Other cash strapped governors across the fruited plains salivated uncontrollably after the legal opinion that allows states to authorize Web-based, non-sports gambling within their borders.
The ruling breaks open the tax piggy bank at a time when spendthrift legislators and governors had been forced by circumstances to cut spending in their states. The rush of new taxes from newly permitted internet gambling would relieve their anxieties and postpone politically wounding cost saving measures, perhaps beyond the upcoming elections.
It should be noted that internet gambling could not effectively be regulated by current state strictures governing state betting parlors. Internet gambling is a new game that would need new regulations, as well as a federal regulatory apparatus to insure a happy outcome.
Mr. Blumenthal, whose opposition to internet gambling has thawed since 1997, recently told News 8 that "What we really need” are federal regulations that will protect “consumers, so that credit card fraud and identity theft do not come with online gambling.”
In 2002, then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was one of the keynote speakers, along with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and Jeff Benedict, author of “Without Reservation,” at a public forum sponsored by the Coalition Against Gambling Expansion (CAGE).
In a media release, CAGE noted a series of “facts” surrounding gambling that have not been disputed by Mr. Blumenthal:
Such “facts” cannot be mitigated through regulations. But, then again, inconvenient truths are not likely to weigh heavily on the consciences of Democratic senators and governors whose overriding concern in an era of diminishing tax returns is – how best to raise tax revenue to allow increases in state spending levels without spooking the geese that lay the golden eggs.
No doubt some of those numberless press releases are rattling around like dry old bones in the news morgues of many a Connecticut newspaper.
A few of them relating to internet gambling and the stories they mothered can be fetched from the internet.
Attorney General Blumenthal, as early as 1997, sent out to various newspapers in Connecticut, some of which were much in the habit of reflexively printing his news releases as received, an anti-internet gambling thunderbolt entitled “Blumenthal Urges Effort to Ban Internet Gambling.”
Mr. Blumenthal noted in his release that “Gambling and the Internet is a mix that is a recipe for deceit and financial disaster.”
Along with other state attorneys general, Mr. Blumenthal appeared at the time before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to endorse legislation he said was essential to preserve state regulation of gambling.
Mr. Blumenthal testified that internet gambling would be, according to his press release, “rife with problems, including no regulation or control over those operating the Internet gambling -- including possibly criminals -- and no protections for those who placed wagers.”
That was then.
Coincident with a memo written by Virginia Seitz, head of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, stating that previous legislation bars only internet betting on sports – not internet betting in general – Governor of Connecticut Dannel Malloy said that “he welcomes the ruling as a way to raise more money for the state,” according to a report by WTHN News 8.
The Christian Science Monitor has pointed out that “To win Senate approval to serve on the court, she [Ms. Seitz] would need the support of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada. Last year, most of Nevada’s big casinos became big backers of an effort to overturn the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.”
Other cash strapped governors across the fruited plains salivated uncontrollably after the legal opinion that allows states to authorize Web-based, non-sports gambling within their borders.
The ruling breaks open the tax piggy bank at a time when spendthrift legislators and governors had been forced by circumstances to cut spending in their states. The rush of new taxes from newly permitted internet gambling would relieve their anxieties and postpone politically wounding cost saving measures, perhaps beyond the upcoming elections.
It should be noted that internet gambling could not effectively be regulated by current state strictures governing state betting parlors. Internet gambling is a new game that would need new regulations, as well as a federal regulatory apparatus to insure a happy outcome.
Mr. Blumenthal, whose opposition to internet gambling has thawed since 1997, recently told News 8 that "What we really need” are federal regulations that will protect “consumers, so that credit card fraud and identity theft do not come with online gambling.”
In 2002, then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was one of the keynote speakers, along with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and Jeff Benedict, author of “Without Reservation,” at a public forum sponsored by the Coalition Against Gambling Expansion (CAGE).
In a media release, CAGE noted a series of “facts” surrounding gambling that have not been disputed by Mr. Blumenthal:
“Crime rates in communities with casinos are 84% higher than the national average… Gambling hurts local businesses. One-third of Atlantic City’s retail businesses closed within four years of the arrival of casinos… Gambling costs taxpayers money. Every $ 1 in gambling revenue costs states between $ 3 to $ 7 in hidden costs… Gambling eliminates jobs. For every 1 job created by casinos, surrounding communities lose 1 to 2 jobs… Gambling hurts our kids. In states with legalized gambling, 5% to 11% of the teenagers will become compulsive gamblers… Gambling is addictive. A Connecticut study showed that 47% of those who gamble in the state are problem or pathological gamblers… Gambling wrecks lives. In states with legalized gambling: 99% of compulsive gamblers commit crimes; 100% of compulsive gamblers become physically abusive, especially towards children; 25% of compulsive gamblers end up in the legal system…”
Such “facts” cannot be mitigated through regulations. But, then again, inconvenient truths are not likely to weigh heavily on the consciences of Democratic senators and governors whose overriding concern in an era of diminishing tax returns is – how best to raise tax revenue to allow increases in state spending levels without spooking the geese that lay the golden eggs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)