“Shoot for 30%”

The Weekly Standard has a lengthy and great piece on Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. My favorite part:

“But when you meet your goal,” Kitchell said, sitting at his office conference table, “he [Daniels] just moves the goalpost.” He turned to his computer and scrolled to an email the governor had just sent. That morning a transportation official had emailed with the happy news that bids on a new road construction project were coming in 28 percent below projections. No doubt he expected a hearty attaboy for driving a hard bargain to save the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. Kitchell read me the governor’s reply: “Shoot for 30 percent.”

Freedom of Common Sense

My apologies for the long tirade. It’s rather personal to me, so it’s nice for me to flesh out my thoughts…

I wasn’t able to vote in a presidential election until this past one, where I voted for Barack Obama. Frankly, McCain and the Ghost of Mrs. Twit weren’t really viable alternatives. Obama fit the bill with me pretty well and was a smooth performer and seemed articulate, smart and generally a good guy with a good heart. But lately, I’ve felt a little disenfranchised. I don’t regret my vote — at least not yet — but I don’t feel like Obama is making good on the things that were most important to me (and a lot of other people).

For years, I’ve dubbed myself as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal”. I call this “common sense” — it even says on my Facebook profile next to “Political Views”. I like the idea of a government that doesn’t spend or take much, but makes sure everyone’s protected and respected. My government currently doesn’t do either of those things. Congress ran out of checks 3 years ago and maxed out all the credit cards 2 years ago. Now, we’re just scribbling “IOU” on napkins. It’ll be an economic disaster when the bills come due and something my generation will have to deal with.

My government doesn’t do much to protect people, either. I’m not talking about protecting us from banks and GM, I’m talking about protecting us from one another. Frankly, my government should be in the business of doing what’s right, even if it’s not politically good. I’m talking, of course, about gay rights, women’s rights and the like. Plus, there’s something wrong when my government can suddenly start, stop or twist a private business around overnight.

That’s why I’m switching parties. I’m switching to the Libertarian party. Frankly, I don’t know why I hadn’t been more involved with these guys before. The Tea Party resonates a lot of Libertarian beliefs — namely, stop taking and spending my money on shit I and no one else cares about. But, I’m not a Tea Partier — most of those guys seem kinda nutty. But ever since Rand Paul, the Senate GOP Candidate running in Kentucky, got some press for his views on property rights, it’s weighed heavily on my mind and his success is largely fueled by the Tea Partiers in Kentucky. While he is running as a Republican, it’s an awfully small “r” and it’s really just so he can get on the ballot. These kinds of small “r”, mostly Libertarian, politicos I can get behind. Folks like Ron Paul, Mitch Daniels, etc. They take the approach of “let’s make people’s lives better by butting out of their lives as much as we can.”

Libertarians seem to be a consistent bunch, that’s for sure. And boy do I appreciate consistency. Ever try reading comments on articles on the Huffington Post or watch FOX News? Those guys can’t keep a straight story together. Libertarians always have an easy, simple, plain and common-sense approach to everything: “Yeah. We probably shouldn’t even bother with that.”

Here are some of my conclusions on various issues that match up pretty darn perfectly with the Libertarians.

Education

No one ever complains about Catholic schools. No one ever complains about Jewish schools or Christian schools or anything else. Why? Because if a parent has a problem with those schools, they don’t have to fund them or send their kids to those schools. Let’s do the same with traditional public schools and put ‘em in competition mode to get results and support, innovate their way to success and let parents send their kids wherever they want. Then, when bat shit crazy Texan wing nuts want to stamp Jesus and a gun on Algebra II — fine, whatever. Your crazy asses won’t be around for much longer anyway. And if they do stick around, those parents would have instilled the same message on the kids anyway.

Taxes

The bellwether for any politician, this is really simple: tax only for the bare necessities and let everyone manage their own money, their own savings and their own lives the way they want. For example, I hate Social Security. It’ll be gone before I get to draw anything from it. It’s a stupid idea anyway. Who thought of that shit hole? “Hey, I have an idea. How about we make everyone pay into a big pot of money, then, when they get to an arbitrary age they can all draw from the same pot of money!” It’s the closest thing to a government pyramid scheme anyone has ever imagined and for all the money people put into the program, they don’t get nearly the same amount out of it.

I have a better idea: how about you let me invest my own money how I see fit? Then, in the event that I die before I ever get to draw, or I find a way to make more by investing it wisely, I’m all set with my own estate plans and don’t get screwed out of my own money. Better yet, we won’t waste public money on people who don’t need it . Are we seriously going to give Bill Gates and Warren Buffet a Social Security check!?

Yes, someone will say, “but what about all those people who don’t save money?” Well. I guess they screwed up, huh?

Transportation

Every city in the nation with a transportation system is sitting around scratching their heads on what to do with just about every piece of subway, rail and transit line they have. It’s all falling apart, yet they keep building on to these things and they never have a way to make repairs. Indy’s sitting in the enviable spot of being on the cusp of change on all of this and, sadly, it looks like there’s going to be a push for a massive public funding effort for the same rail lines everyone else can’t afford.

The Libertarian stance on public transit seems to be, from my readings, that it’s better to let private companies figure out and compete on ways to make busses and trains work. I could run off the wagon train just a bit to get behind the idea of government subsidies for some poor, elderly and disabled people to get cheaper fares.

They’re already tons of private shuttles and busses all over the place anyway. I’m sure they’d be happy to figure out ways to run another block or two.

Foreign Policy

America is over here between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Our empire doesn’t need to exist all over the globe — bring everyone home, join in with allies as necessary and keep wars and conflict at zero. If someone rattles our crib, we’ll get up and kick ass, then come home and have a beer.

Gay Rights / Abortion Rights

Libertarians seem pretty straightforward on abortion: “Well. You’re the adult.”

As for gay rights, it’s the same thing — two consenting adults can do whatever they want. The interesting thing here is they believe what I’ve thought for years in that government shouldn’t be meddling in marriages. If people want to be married in the eyes of Jesus, Buddha or the Flying  Spaghetti Monster, go to your own freakin’ church. The government, to instill protections in terms of real estate, guardianships, finances, kids, etc. should only offer up civil unions. Then, folks can choose to have a civil union and a religious union, or one and not the other and you can choose which benefits you want. Only want to get married in a church? Fine, but when your spouse goes to the hospital, don’t expect visitation rights. You’re the adult — you decide. This makes the gay marriage issue moot, because suddenly there’s absolutely no tinge of religious or historical precedents in “marriage” to mess with.

I guess, in close, this all makes perfect sense to me that adults should do whatever they want, however they want, so long as it doesn’t endanger me or my property (so no firing fireworks and guns off your roof right next to mine, don’t drive 110 MPH on the highway, stay off my lawn, etc.). Keep the government limited in scope and size and let the adults be adults.

IndyGo Resembles a Bus Crash Scene

This IndyGo dealio is really like watching a bus collide with another bus:

They showed that routes the agency plans to cut — the 11, 55 and 87 — have among the lowest ridership of all 29 routes.

They explained that the door-to-door paratransit service, known as Open Door, is far more expensive to operate than fixed-route service — $35 per passenger versus about $4.

Well. There’s yer problem, son. IndyGo’s average rider fare is $1.75. They want to raise it $2. That means they’re, uh, still $2 short. If it costs $4 per passenger to operate the system, I’d be charging $4 a rider!

Assuming a person were to drive from one end of Marion County to Downtown, that’d be about 11 miles. The average cost-per-mile to include wear-and-tear, gas, oil, insurance, etc. is 50 cents a mile. That’s $5.50, or $11.00 round-trip by car. A bus fare would be $8, round-trip at the full cost to the rider, which is still a net savings of $3 for the rider to take the bus.

Heck, they could raise the fares to $3 a trip and there’d be even more savings for the rider vs. driving a car and they’d close their budget cap overnight. Or, you could subsidize some riders and not others. They’re a number of riders that take the bus because they can’t drive — maybe they have DUIs, seizures, want to be eco-friendly or are just plain afraid to get in a car. They may likely be perfectly capable of affording a car, but can’t or just don’t want to drive one. In which case, charge them $4 a ride and the poor folks can get a $3 fare.

Somehow, though, that was lost among those at the public hearing:

“It took me an hour and a half to get from my house to Washington (Street to catch the bus),” said regular IndyGo rider Nora Wright, her voice shaking with anger. “I don’t think that’s right.”

…

Then came the personal attacks and accusations.

“Thank you for lying to us all!” one person yelled toward a table where IndyGo employees were seated.

Another man, shouting at Terry, demanded to know: “What kind of car do you drive?” (Terry said he hasn’t owned a car since the 1990s.)

She’s right — that’s not right. IndyGo needs to beef up and attract more riders. They do that by improving service and adding busses to make it more convenient and faster. A 10 minute car trip takes 40 minutes by bus, if you’re lucky enough to live and work close to the stops. And you fix these problems by generating revenue. They can’t look to the government for funding — there isn’t any. Alas, raise the fares on a tiered system to provide better service, get people where they need to go and all the while helping those less fortunate.

Rand Paul Likes Property Rights, Sorta Cares About Civil Ones

An interesting story caught my eye yesterday about Kentucky’s upcoming GOP Senate candidate, Rand Paul. Rachel Maddow asked him the following:

Maddow: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that ‘We don’t serve black people?’

Paul: I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.

But I think what’s important in this debate is not getting into any specific “gotcha” on this, but asking the question ‘What about freedom of speech?’ Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don’t want to be associated with those people, but I also don’t want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that’s one of the things that freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn’t mean we approve of it…

Now, I see what’s he saying. He danced around quite a bit, but as politicians go, that’s a pretty honest response. It’s a very libertarian stance, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And he’s not coming off as racist and I don’t believe he is. Basically, it boils down to “The government and its public money won’t discriminate because it’s the right thing to do. But, if, for example, a restaurant owner who owns and runs his own establishment decides they don’t want to serve a group of people, I guess that’s their right.”

It’s realizing we can’t change the way people think, necessarily. So, let them do whatever they want on their own property. It’s their business — if people don’t like it and disagree, they’ll go elsewhere and the business will fail with no one else to blame but the owner. It’s not any different if I don’t want people on my front yard — whether they’re a majority or minority. It’s my property and if I don’t want you there, I’ll call the police and they’ll remove you.

The trick, however, is that Rand has to have the same feelings about every other law. Does this mean that if a person were to smoke marijuana on his property, the government has no right to stop them? It’s not harming anyone, so what right do they have? This doesn’t mean the government can’t say no to its use on public property like schools, hospitals, parks, etc. That could be treated just like alcohol and tobacco.

One could easily argue that the point here is to protect minorities and without the government’s help, they’ll never have rights. That’s absolutely right. But, it doesn’t cost the government anything to say, for example, “gays now have equal rights”. And, if people don’t want to change their views about gays, fine. But, if a gay couple is on their own property and not doing anything lewd or harmful, they’re protected from people who do harm them on their property and in public places. And if a business owner doesn’t want gay people in his establishment, fine. They lost a customer and revenue and it’s their own fault what happens from there.

And, just as an aside because I know someone is thinking about it: I’m not really a fan of hate crimes for minorities. You have to stop treating people like minorities/majorities and just treat them like people. If someone is killed, someone is killed and it’s wrong and our system of laws will convict and punish the killer. But to say that because someone killed a black woman and not a white woman they have to spend an extra 10 years in jail (or whatever it is), I don’t think that’s fair. Plus, it’s not like anyone ever said, “Oh, I’d better target the white guy so I don’t get charged with a hate crime.”

Read My Lips

Liar, liar, pants on fire…

Remember President Obama’s supposedly inviolable pledge—repeatedly uttered during the 2008 campaign and at countless town meetings since the inauguration—that he would never raise taxes on middle-class citizens who earn $250,000 a year or less?

This morning at a Manhattan breakfast sponsored by Thomson Reuters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag threw that pledge out the window. Instead, he described Obama’s “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge as a “stance” and a “preference” that is subject to study by the president’s newly formed bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.

“The president has been very clear about what he prefers.”

Oh, so it’s a preference now.

Let it be known that I can deal with Obama being late, coy or plain non-existent (buh bye, gay America), on a lot of issues. I recognize that some things are just harder to grapple than others in Washington. But if he thinks I’ll just roll over at the idea of him raising taxes, he’s plain wrong.

I know we have the lowest tax rate among any western nation, I know we have the lowest tax rate right now in a generation and I know we have a duty to pay taxes to keep a functioning government — but I don’t care. I wouldn’t mind seeing highish tax rates if I really got a good deal on my investment, but we’re just throwing good money after bad at this point and it’s not helping anyone except the Chinese. I do not doubt, for an instant, that half of the agencies in Washington could be done away with and no adverse consequences would befall anyone. A little thrift goes a long way. A lot of it goes even further.

Marion County Can’t Afford Stamps

I received an email the other day from my mortgage company telling me they paid my taxes on my behalf. That’s nice.

The same day, later that afternoon, I received my tax statement in the mail from the Marion County Auditor’s Office. That’s not nice.

That means the county sent my tax records to my mortgage company in California and they had time to process it, pay it and alert me all before the same office bothered to mail me my statement all of 8.5 miles away. I don’t like that.

Then, inside my tax statement (which, thanks to Mitch Daniels, is at an all-time low and my taxes have dropped another 28% over last year. Thank you, Mitch) was a form that I was required to fill out so I could prove I lived in my home and qualify for my homestead deduction.

The problem is that they didn’t bother providing a self-addressed and paid envelope. They must think very highly of their residents. First, they assume people will open the envelope. Then, they assume people will read any of it beyond “how much do/did I owe?” and then they assume that people will not lose the form long enough to fill out it’s horrible layout, provide information no one knows (local parcel number, state parcel number and the last five digits of your driver’s license number. Yes, the parcel numbers are on the tax forms you just received, but I doubt anyone notices that) and then they assume people have stamps and an envelope laying around to send it back. No online system, no envelope and a crappy form.

I bet they get about 10% of those forms back. I’m hedging my bets that Monroe County will have the highest return rate in the state because most people there are probably renters because of IU’s proximity.

This, as Doug Masson often points out, is probably a feature. The fewer people return that form, the more people get kicked off their homestead deductions and the more their taxes go up, resulting in more income for the county.

As a side note, yes, I know that when my taxes go down my county gets less revenue to do things – namely, fund schools. And, quite frankly, I don’t give a rip. I don’t have kids and I don’t believe pushing money into the system would fix anything. If it did, we’d have fixed everything by now and we’d be living in an educated utopia. Some kids are smart, some kids are dumb. The smart ones will stay smart and do good things – like filling out that homestead deduction verification form. The dumb ones will stay dumb and lazy and do nothing of value to anyone except pay higher homestead taxes because they didn’t fill out that form. That’s evolution.

Justin Harter is Deep

Yesterday, my go-to contractor for all things home improvey, Tracy Smith and I were talking while he took a short break from working here at the house. Since we’re both businessmen, we talked taxes. I had a point that the government somehow justifies hiring some sap to sift through paper returns and enter the data electronically for “free” to the filer, but the e-filing is done instantly, one-time and HAS to be cheaper for the government, yet it costs more for the filer with a $25 surcharge. That’s Comcast and AT&T-caliber service right there.

Tracy then looked at me, chuckled and called me “someone who thinks about things way, way too deeply.”

I take that as a compliment, but I’m concerned that no one else ponders about these things.

No More Taxes! And Don’t Cut Anything, Either!

Mother Jones has an interesting story. When Americans were asked if we should raise taxes or cut services to balance the budget, a majority said we need to cut services. When asked what services they’d cut, not even a third of those polled could agree on one thing to cut — except, foreign aid, which is only 1% of our entire annual budget cycle.

Here’s a thought: how about we cut all of them?

The Justin Plan:

• Cut Social Security by raising the entitlement age to 75.
• Cut national defense by leaving the Iraqis and Afghans to sit and muddle in their own hellish sandbox alone.
• Cut Medicare by weeding out fraud.
• Cut aid to the poor by a couple percentage points.
• Cut VA benefits by not having as many veterans. See, “National Defense”.
• Cut health research by incentivizing private firms to do the research instead.
• Cut education by complete reform — if education could be fixed by throwing money at it, we’d be done by now.
• Cut highway spending by stopping the practice of building highways that go absolutely nowhere.
• Cut mass transit by building more rail lines — which are cheaper to maintain — than busses, subways or carpool lanes.
• Cut foreign aid because we can’t take care of everyone else if we can’t take care of ourselves first.
• Cut unemployment benefits by incentivizing businesses to hire more people with far-reaching tax credits.
• Cut science and technology by incentivizing private firms, just like medical firms, to do the research.
• Cut agriculture spending by ceasing the subsidies of massive factory farms and ridding ourselves of that stupid farm bill.
• Cut housing by no longer building more frickin’ houses — we have enough houses in this country. Start refurbishing and saving older homes that are built better to begin with. This will also stop urban sprawl and save money on highway and transit spending.
• Cut environmental spending by throwing down the gauntlet. Let local police do the job of policing heavy polluters with strict, straight-forward rules and regulations on what’s acceptable and what’s not.
• As a side note to the environment and leaving Iraq and the middle east – let’s do everything with what we have here to sustain ourselves. Build windmills, solar panels, nuclear power plants, drill off the coasts (since no one would actually see the dereks from land anyway) and mine for natural gas and coal. This appeases everyone because we do everything and as we develop better technologies, the older stuff (coal, gas, etc.) will fall away.

That oughta save a few trillion.

States Looking to Tax More

In the scramble to find something, anything, to generate more revenue, states are considering new taxes on virtually everything: garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns.

“It’s hard enough doing what we do,” grumbled John Luke, a plumber in the Philadelphia suburbs. His services would, for the first time, come with an added tax if the governor has his way.

Opponents of imposing taxes on services like funerals, legal advice, helicopter rides and dry cleaning argue that this push comes as businesses are barely clinging to life and can ill afford to see customers further put off by new taxes. This is especially true, they say, in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the most sweeping proposals are being considered this spring.

Not in Indiana. Somehow, Indiana has been affected by the recession just as much, if not more than Michigan and Pennsylvania, yet we’re ok. Gee, I wonder what the difference could be…

The Politics of Life

I’m really exhausted by our national discussion on politics. This healthcare bill has just sucked the life out of me, ironically.

I am completely conflicted and no party adequately represents what I believe or think – meaning, no one supports things that benefits only me. It sounds evil, but I’m not really interested in things that doesn’t at least benefit me in some way. Schools, libraries, meat inspections, social security, etc. – I’m all for that because I’m surrounded by its benefits either all the time or at some point in life. That’s good policy – it benefits everyone.

On the other hand, things like food stamps, affirmative action and Judge Judy really bother me. Programs like food stamps are hard to get off of, work poorly, subsidize shit food that later causes more expenses when people get fat and unhealthy and I personally know three people that game that system for no good reason. It’s these programs that could go away tomorrow and I wouldn’t care – they benefit few. That’s not good policy. The fixes to these will have to wait for another post.

Republicans

I hate spending money. I hate waste. I hate wasted money with a passion. A good Republican would too. Now, our current crop sucks, but they’re some good ones in there – Ron Paul, Mitch Daniels and a few others. I want people that cut the crap and do the work.

I also like the general conservative outlook on life that you can’t rely on other people for everything – you have to get up and go do something to get anything out of life and to live comfortably. To me, this translates to “work hard, be nice, play fair, do well”. I like that idea. Notice I said, “play fair”. This doesn’t mean companies can mistreat workers or invent new kinds of cheeses made from lead to reduce costs to raise profits on cheeseburgers.

And, I loathe laziness, I loathe lazy people and I respect two things very much: loyalty and timeliness. Two things that go well together and make for a great person. Get up, commit to a cause, do it, do it well and do it on time – with as few resources as possible.

Basically: shut up, quit whining and work hard.

Democrats

Some people are just so stupid, they require someone of authority to tell them they’re wrong. Whether that’s companies doing evil things like dumping sludge in a river or some hick who picks fights with blacks and gays. Democrats, generally, do a good job of looking out for individuals, as people.

Also, I think our current crop of Democrats are just ever-so-slightly better at being better politicians. They seem more interested in governing and less interested in just winning elections (but only slightly). I respect that.

And, I want to be around people who like to think every now and again and don’t always resort to “it’s in the Bible” for every argument they can’t win. A good Democrat wouldn’t.

Basically: think for  a second and be nice to people.

The Problem

My issue with all of this is that those kinds of people don’t seem to coexist, or at least not on a national level. Heck, not even on a state or local level. Maybe it’s generational, maybe I’m just weird.

But I have a problem with how “easy” it feels to me for poor people. I mean really poor – like $10,000 a year and less poor. Yes, I know, they’re poor and they usually live in squalor, but dangit, if a person really knew what was available to them, it wouldn’t be unfair to assume a person could get cheap living in decent areas – maybe not in Indy where you’d be in the ghetto, but in small, rural towns. You could get $150 a week in food (I only spend $40 a week), you could get free healthcare (even before the health bill) and you could get funding to go to school at the drop of a hat if you wanted it. All because you don’t have anything. And those people still don’t bother to seek a way out – probably because the system makes it so much easier to do nothing. We call them “entitlement” programs – I’d prefer if we redefined them to, “safety net” programs that are there to get you back on your feet and shove you back into the real world.

Yet, if you make more than a few pennies, you get turned away at every corner for everything. You’re left to fend for yourself while you watch the poor get help and the rich get richer. I think that’s called “the crumbling middle class”.

Everything bothers me.