Don’t ask me silly questions
I won’t play silly games
I’m just a simple choo choo train
I’ll always be the same
I only want to race along
Beneath the bright blue sky
And be a happy choo choo train
Until the day I die
–Blaine the Train

On November 4th, the people of Marin and Sonoma will get another shot at getting the funding for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) up and running. This failed very narrowly two years ago when gas was about a dollar a gallon less around here, so there is a good chance that the curmudgeons that squeezed out just enough votes to deny the needed 2/3 majority will be on the losing side of economic momentum this time around. This is Measure Q, and I’ve already marked it “yes” on my absentee ballot. Hope you did the same.

All of California will also get a chance to weigh in on Proposition 1a, a high-speed rail bond intended to provide bullet-train service along a largely pre-existing right-of-way corridor all the way from the Sacramento, through the Bay Area, and down to Los Angeles. It isn’t cheap, but it is a massive infrastructure improvement that should help ease the crowding at some of our busiest airports, and take some burden of long-haul corridors like I-5 and Hwy 99, which see a lot of pass-through traffic. Unlike most of the recent bond measures, which I habitually vote against, this is a proper use of bonded debt: to build infrastructure that will help reduce future costs to the people and state, encourage economic development, and produce something that will be in use long after the bond is repaid. Prop 1a gets a thumbs-up from me as well.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have a (nearly) three-year-old son and would love to buy him two big choo-choo sets to play with. Also, I’d much rather kick back and read a book than drive for eight hours to visit my nephews and niece down in Long Beach.

The Republican Party here in the US has fallen on some hard times. The party of personal responsibility has prominent factotums refusing to honor congressional subpoenas. The party of high moral standards has been hit with a series of embarrassing corruption and inappropriate-sex scandals. The party of fiscal conservatism ran the federal government’s budget into the dirt and pushed for a $850 billion bailout for a financial market they are widely perceived as having failed to regulate for the past seven years. Their presidential candidate has hung his hat on a maverick persona that relies heavily on his reputation for opposing pork-barrel spending; but he pushed for, lobbied for, and voted for the $850 billion bailout laden with pork. Their vice presidential candidate… Well, I don’t think there’s a lot that needs to be said there.

I’m kinda feeling sorry for them at this point.

Logtar recently stirred up the pot a little on his blog by commenting on the evils of recent Republicans. That’s all well and good. There’s plenty of stuff for everybody to point fingers at. What got me riled up enough to participate repeatedly in the conversation that followed in his comments section was the notion that increasing taxes removes the incentive for people to do well, to outperform, to excel in their fields.

At first blush, this certainly makes sense: why should I try harder if I won’t get rewarded extra for it? Ah, but that isn’t what actually happens. If I bust my tail to make an extra $10,000 this year, the government will take away a portion of it. Let’s assume I am in the highest possible tax bracket already (because that is the strongest the tax deterrent gets, the deterrent is less pronounced at lower brackets). That means of the additional $10,000 I worked my keister off for, I have to give $3,500 of it to Uncle Sam. Those bastards. How dare they? Why did I waste my time? Oh yeah, because now I’m $6,500 richer for my efforts, have improved my standing with my coworkers and employer, elevated my reputation in my industry, made my kid proud of how awesome his dad is, and the thousand other reasons (including income) that I try to do well at my work.

The chart at the top of this post shows the top marginal income tax rate in the United States from 1930 to 2005 (in red, the aggressive color of the evil government stealing your money) compared to the year-to-year percentage change in gross domestic product (in blue, the serene and peaceful color of economic progress and the production of wealth). Due to the sharp differences in scale, I put the GDP on a logarithmic scale. Forgive me. I put it together to see whether the common-sense argument really holds up. During my entire politically-aware life (from the later Reagan years onward) I’ve heard the same thing over and over again: the economy is being strangled by the tax system. High taxes are stifling our economy, preventing investors from doing their part, preventing businesses from expanding and innovating, and preventing small start-ups from hiring new employees and keeping our economy healthy.

The numbers don’t seem to support this. We see that when taxes are at or above 70% for the top income-earners, we see similar growth as when those taxes are are or below 45%, with wild variations that make it difficult to draw any causal correlation here at all. We know that when the tax rate on top-performers is 100% plus a trip to the GULAG (the old Soviet system) things don’t pan out that well, but when it’s 91% and the accolades and respect of the community, it seems to go pretty well.

Standing on soapboxes claiming that the nasty liberals are going to take away your cheese is, at best, bullshit. The problem isn’t how much the government takes from your paycheck, it’s what it turns around and spends the money on and whether we’re getting a good return on our investment. When Eisenhower used tax funds to build the highway system, private enterprise was able to take advantage of new infrastructure to build, expand, and optimize their private endeavors. When vocational training and after-school programs help kids stay out of trouble and get jobs, we don’t need to spend as much money policing and jailing. When billions of dollars just up and disappear because some government contractor isn’t keeping track of anything and nobody’s minding the shop in Washington, we just plain lose out.

Sometimes I think I’m a little too hard on them.

• Bailing credulous homebuyers out of their lousy mortgages is not the role of the federal government. The government should ensure that parties abide by their contractual agreements. If you didn’t like the terms, you shouldn’t have signed five times and initialed thirty places in front of a notary. If your bank is violating those terms, then it’s time to get the government involved.
• International trade is, on balance, a good thing. Protectionism generally leads to the kinds of international relations that yield wars. There is a trade imbalance between the United States and several notable nations, but when you purchase something from a store, there is a trade imbalance between you and the merchant. He profits and gets your money. You get a good or service that you felt was worth at least as much as the money you paid for it.
• You’ll pay whatever the oil companies demand for gas. Your gas prices may be affected by market speculation and big-money manipulation, but fundamentally you’re being charged what the market will bear. You’ll know when they’ve crossed the line when you stop buying it. This is not a position that the Republicans are keen to shout from the mountaintops, but that’s just because economic populism sells.
• Competition works. Well, it works when there’s real competition, and there are some markets that simply do not lend themselves well to competition, in which case the government will have to step in and make sure the natural monopolies keep things above-board (the Democrats largely agree with this, but there’s a lot of common ground).
• Beefy Austrians make for interesting governors.
• Guns are cool.

Just a couple of things that have come to mind repeatedly while reading the news:

• Instant run-off voting doesn’t make sense to the entrenched parties. Why give the fringe parties a seat at the table? Possible solution: introduce instant run-off in non-party contests like county seat, city council, school board, etc. Over the course of a few elections, people may get used to the idea of not having to settle.
• Nuclear power is safe, and secondary and tertiary-fuel reactors are possible and feasible. Fire a couple up where the fault-lines aren’t.
• Transmission over long distances is inefficient, and centralized production is subject to market manipulation a la Enron or physical disruption. Put some solar-panel factories near the reactors.
• Recently-viable third party forms in-state to reform state constitution and ensure that California taxpayers are getting their fair share back from the feds.
• Take a queue from Germany and give some incentives for private citizens to buy into decentralizing the power grid a bit. More resistant to interruptions in transmission lines (earthquake, fire, etc.), increases in residential population helps offset increase in consumption.
• Continue building nuclear reactors to run desalination projects for Imperial Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other inherently-thirsty areas.

Not a plan, just thinking about some ways to address California’s reliance on its neighbors.

House Bill 1089 passed in Oklahoma yesterday. For those of you who, like me, were only vaguely aware that Oklahoma existed as anything other than a Christian terrorist militia target and monument to our nation’s mistreatment of our aboriginal population, this was an effort to assert their rights as a state as originally established in the 10th amendment to the United States constitution. This was largely prompted by a backlash to Oklahoma’s recent legislation that would deny taxpayer-funded services to illegal immigrants, which is ironic, as the federal government explicitly has domain over immigration policy per Article 1, section 8, which enumerates the federal legislature’s power “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.”

Well good for you guys, Oklahoma. I’ve been thinking about having my state renegotiate the terms of our entry into the union, but you seem to have found an interesting baby-step towards a modicum of independence.

The above is a fragment of Senator Dodd‘s argument against retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that colluded with the U.S. Government in illegal, unwarranted surveillance in obvious contradiction of both the FISA act and the 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He puts it far better than I could. It’s a shame this man won’t be on the ballot for president this November. At least, unlike the presumptive Democratic candidate, he’s still fighting the good fight.

So I was poking around on Prairie Flounder‘s site, and ran into a comment by the Progressive Conservative. Being somewhat libertarian-minded and socially progressive, as well as loving a good oxymoron, this piqued my interest. I followed him back to The Big Stick, a blog espousing a back-to-Teddy-Roosevelt variety of Republicanism that seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts these days.

Did you know that to be a proper conservative these days you’re expected to hold four separate, contradictory opinions on the value of human life? You are to be pro life in the womb, pro death penalty, anti assisted-suicide, and pro war. The precise opposite holds true for progressives. You are expected to be pro abortion (pro choice is a euphemism, let’s face it) , anti death penalty, pro assisted-suicide, and anti-war. This is why when Bill Bennett brings up the abortion issue as something that needs to be talked about in the Obama vs. McCain choice coming up in November, I cannot help but chuckle. It’s a wedge issue, something career politicians dust off every couple of years to drag the rubes into the polls. The Republicans won’t get rid of Roe vs. Wade. It’s against their interest, because the existence of that precedent keeps a lot of people punching that “R” on their ballots.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Democrats would have you think they’re against global warming, particularly with their former front-man and recent Nobel laureate Al Gore leading the charge. Do you know who was in charge of nixing every new nuclear power plant for eight years while vice president? Same guy. Thank him for all the brand-spanking-new coal-burning power plants belching greenhouse gasses into the sky. I think we are currently living in a golden age of political absurdity, where the environmental conservationists rape the land and those religiously convinced that every life has an immeasurable sacred value promote slaughter. Maybe we just need more progressive conservatives. Or maybe some conservative progressives.