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 Copyright ©2003-2008 Anthony Canales |
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 Anthony Canales is the President of the San Fernando Valley NRA Member’s Council. He works as a Quality Control Manager in Glendale, California. He is married with one son. The opinions expressed in 'News Briefs' belong soley to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Rifle Association of America or the NRA Members' Councils of California. |
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03-20-2008
12-31-2007 |
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August 14, 2004
"...' He knows people want to go and hunt' ,
said
Raleigh Helmick, who works at the Iowa
State
Penitentiary. " But I can't believe that
our
forefathers , when they sat down and
decided
you have the right to bear arms, had in
the back
of their minds that somebody would have a
weapon
like an Uzi or an M-16, M-14. They didn't
have a
clue'..."
- Raleigh Helmick, as
quoted in
an article by James
Kuhnehenn
in the Philadelphia
Inquirer,
August 12, about John
Kerry.
To All,
Mark Twain said it best:
"...It is better to keep your mouth
closed and
let people think you are a fool than
to open
it and remove all doubt..." :
Hearts and Minds, Part One:
The Lamestream Media is "crowing" about John
Kerry's seeming ability to hornswoggle gunowners about his position on
gunownership.
In an article by James Kuhnhenn in the
Philadelphia Inquirer, he notes that Kerry's use of some talking points from
Andrew McKelvey's "Americans For Gun Safety" (and Confiscation) is designed to
limit the kind of rank-and-file union vote defections that hamstrung Algore in
the 2000 Presidential Election.
But despite the historical principle that the
individual right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with hunting rights,
it is apparent that Team Kerry can find a few ignorant shills to vouchsafe
Kerry on the gun issue.
Still, it would be safe to say that Raleigh
Helmick would find it a tad more difficult to bag a whitetail if John Kerry
had his way on "armor piercing" ammunition. And Raleigh Helmick would find it
infinitely more expensive to buy that shotgun he might have always wanted if
John Edwards had his way on firearms manufacturer liability. In fact, if
Edwards were given his natural inclination, it would be financially impossible
for firearms and ammunition to be made and/or sold in the United States, given
the current legal theories being proposed by certain segments of the Tort
Lobby.
Another thing that Helmick fails to take to
account is that Kerry/Edwards is also burdened by the coterie of gun
confiscation advocates currently ensconced in Donkey Central. Helmick only has
to listen to the words of Zell Miller, or Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, to
know who really holds the whip hand in the Democrat Party. Add to that the
influence of the animal rights wing, and hunting would soon be tossed into the
circular file of historical pursuits.
In reality, Helmick would be hard put to
convince rational gun owners that Kerry would defend the individual right to
keep and bear arms any more vigorously than any other issue Kerry has flipped
or flopped for the sake of political expediency. Gun owners need a President
made of sterner stuff than Silly Putty when it comes to defending the rights
and traditions of the Republic.
Story may be found, with registration, at:
The Real Kerry Record on the individual right to
keep and bear arms can be found at:
Hearts and Minds, Part Deux:
As with gun owners, the Kerry Campaign's
tactic to scam the electorate is being mirrored in the fight over the
veteran's vote. Given that the VFW convention is to be held next week, the
Presidential Campaign of 2004 may be fast approaching a key moment.
Many have been following the comments of
Kerry's squadron mates, peers who are attesting to an image of Kerry
that seems closer to the fictional Frank Burns than to any real Audie Murphy
or David Hackworth. Despite their revelations having been known to Kerry and
his minions prior to the Silly Season of Politics, it was immediately
noticeable to political junkies that the Democrat nominee was unable to "splain"
certain discrepancies to the public at large.
What is more, it seems that some of the Swift
Boat Veterans For Truth's observations have proven to be true, enough to bring
further "clarifications" forth from the Bowels of the Kerry Campaign.
Christmas in Cambodia, 1968, is now more like late January, 1969, assuming
that Richard Nixon followed LBJ's penchant for micromanaging the war effort
from the floors of the various Inaugural Balls held in his honor.
Given the above, both active duty military
personnel and the members of the various veterans groups will have much to
ponder between now and the first Tuesday in November. It would be an
interesting turn of events if groups such as the VFW did not endorse Kerry for
the Presidency, especially given the importance he has placed on his past
military service. It is hard to imagine what would remain of Kerry's campaign
strategy absent this endorsement, but suffice it to say that it would take a
phenomenal "pitcher" to learn another pitch after their "fast ball" lost it's
oomph. Stay tuned.
Story basis may be found at:
Double Double, Toil and Trouble
Update:
The
not-so-fair-and-mostly-unbalanced coverage by CBS News and the AP Wire Service
has been extended to the dismal science yesterday, in coverage of a report
released by the CBO on the effect of the various tax cuts enacted during the
Bush Administration.
CBS and AP reported yesterday that a
Congressional Budget Office study requested by Congressional Democrats shows
that "...President Bush's tax cuts since 2001 have shifted more of the tax
burden from the nation's rich to middle class families...". They cite
numbers from the study that show that the "effective tax rate' for the top 1
percent of taxpayers dropped from 33% in 2001 to 26.7% in 2004, while at the
same time showing that the middle 20 % of taxpayers (the CBO report calls it
the "middle quintile") only saw a 4% decline for the same time period.
But if one were to dispense with the media's
"interpretation" of the CBO report, and go directly to the CBO's website, one
can see clearly that the CBO report is another fine example of the old adage
"...close enough for government work...".
For example, Page 10, Table 2 of the
CBO report does note that under the heading "Total Effective Federal Tax
Rate", the Top 1 Percent of incomes do see the reduction from 33.0 to 26.7 in
"effective Federal tax rate" during the time period 2001-2004. But what the
CBS/AP report does not mention is that, barring renewal of certain aspects of
the tax cut, the Top 1 Percent see their Effective Federal Tax Rate jump back
to 31.1% in 2005, a huge one-year increase.
In fact, the CBO report does note that certain
provisions of the tax bills have limited duration through the 2001-2014 time
period. Many tax cut provisions sunset between 2004 and 2010, thus
establishing tax increases on autopilot unless a future President proposes,
and a future Congress decides, not to raise taxes.
Table 2 also has some interesting ways at
slicing and dicing the assumptions used by the CBO statisticians. For example,
just under the columns labeled as "Total Effective Federal Tax Rate" is a
column labeled "Effective Individual Income Tax Rate. In this column, the
lowest "quintile" (lowest 20% of incomes) have an effective individual income
tax rate of -5.7% in 2004 (Yes, a negative 5.7% rate. This might
have to do with the earned income credit, which is unavailable to the rich).
It also reports that the top 20% pay an effective individual income tax rate
of 14.2% in 2004, down from 16.3% in 2001. In the meantime, the middle and
"fourth" quintiles pay 3.5% and 6.6% respectively in 2004, down from 3.8% and
7.2% in 2001.
Of course, no CBO report on tax rates and
impacts is complete without a table listing the share of Total Federal Tax
Liabilities. Here is found the numbers that Shaun Hannity has noted in the
past. The highest 20% (quintile) of incomes paid a 65.3% share of all
liabilities in 2001, and are scheduled to pay 63.5% in 2004 and 64.3% in 2005.
The fourth highest 20% (quintile) paid a total share of Federal Tax
Liabilities of 18.5% in 2001, less than one third of the highest quintile.
They are also scheduled to pay 19.5% in 2004, and 19.0% in 2005, indicating a
divergence from the rate trend effecting the highest quintile.
Given the reduction of Federal Tax
liabilities in the top 40% of incomes, and the top 83% of all Federal tax
liabilities, the percentage of share of total Federal Tax Liabilities for the
middle quintile did go up .5% from 2001 to 2004. But the middle quintiles of
incomes are calculated to remain between 10.3-10.5% of all Federal Tax
Liabilities between 2004 and 2010. How these others thus indicate a
significant "shifting of the tax burden" to the middle class is relatively
dependent upon the concept as to how much burden shifting can be made to take
place without adversely affecting the economy.
Now, the qualifications in the CBO study are
enough to give anyone pause. The validity of percentage income rates realized
some ten years in the future alone have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Likewise, there are "assumptions" noted by
the CBO in the beginning of the report, which include the now-famous choice of
static-modeling (no allowance for economic effects of greater retention of
income by taxpayers) as well as the assumption that incomes will increase 4.5%
annually between now and 2014, while inflation will remain a flat 2.2% during
the same time period (Alan Greenspan is sure to be relieved with this news).
Add to these the vagaries and temporary
lifespans of certain tax cuts, alternative minimum tax impacts, depreciation
schedules, and that much of the tax receipts from the top quintiles are
dependent upon capital gains, and one can see that the issue is much cloudier
than what the media would have us believe.
In fact, any slowing or postponing of capital
gains realization, which would result in less income for the government, would
by definition "shift the burden" to the lower quintiles that normally do not
have capital gains income in the first place (The "upside" for the government
of wider homeownership among broader income classes is the "planting" of a
potential crop of captial gains payers some 7 or more years into the future,
depending upon the turnover of the real estate market. Thus it would seem that
it would be best for the country to maximize capital gains realization, rather
than stifle it. Perhaps someone had better have a yet another long talk with
John Edwards...).
Lastly, the CBO is very clear in its
report that it is difficult to pin the numbers down exactly. All the
horse-trading with the Democrats (and certain taxaholic Republicans) during
the negotiations for these tax bills have schedules coming and going "every
which way". The CBO's expectation of a 4.5% increase in incomes annually may
not be realized if the reality of the economy is that tax policy favoring tax
increases (especially on capital gains) inhibits capital gains realization.
This, in turn, could mean less total receipts to the government, less money
available for the nation's needs, and the illusion of burden shift simply
because the total tax receipt pie was smaller due the half-baked ideas of the
class-envy types.
Activists with long memories will remember
that these are the same old tactics from campaigns gone by. But it is also
clear that without the economic stimulus of the Bush tax cuts, the economic
downturn subsequent to the attack on 9-11 would have been more protracted. The
need of some partisans to resort to misrepresentation should not stand in the
way of the voters apprising themselves of the real situation, at least not in
these days of widening Internet access. It is only by diligence, coupled with
the ability to access competitive information sources, that the one-sided
presentations of the Old Media can be judged for what they are.
Story may be found at:
Respectfully,
Anthony Canales
SFVMC-NRA
Copyright 2004 Anthony Canales
All rights reserved.
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