Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Just Say No To Early Voting

Count me as one of the ones against Grayson's early voting plan. I have no problem allowing people who are incapable of voting on election day having access to an absentee ballot, but I don't like the idea of allowing open "early voting'. I understand that Grayson wants to make it easier for people to vote, but allowing early voting also opens up additional opportunities for voter fraud.  It makes it more likely for someone to vote early and vote often. It seems to me that it is much harder to cheat if it has to be done all in one day. Personally, I prefer keeping the sanctity of the election process over making life a little easier for the voter.
Posted by brians at 10:51 PM in Kentucky Politics
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Tax Hikes You Can Believe In

One of the mantras we consistently hear from the Democrats is the need to roll back the Bush tax cuts. We must do it because the tax cuts only helped the rich. Well, the Democrats will get their wish since the tax cuts expire at the end of the year. That means we are headed  back to the 2000  tax rates. I know what you are thinking. Since the tax cuts "only" helped out the rich then they are the only ones who will see an increase. Not so fast my friend.

It turns out that the "tax cuts only helped the rich" memo was a lie. In fact everyone who pays taxes got a tax break under Bush's plan. I did a little "do it yourself fact checking", and came across IRS statistics showing the average taxes payed for each income group in the year 2000 and 2004. Those are basically the before and after numbers for the Bush tax cuts. The first thing that sticks out when looking at the numbers is the fact that everyone got a tax cut. Secondly, some simple math and it is easy to see how much the rollback of the Bush tax cuts are going to raise taxes on EVERYONE.

I decided to put together a little chart to help you out with the numbers.

IncomeTax Increase
$1,000 - $2,999
$73
$3,000 - $4,999
$74
$5,000 - $6,999
$177
$7,000 - $8,999
$108
$9,000 - $10,999
$223
$11,000 - $12,999
$298
$13,000 - $14,999
$330
$15,000 - $16,999
$312
$17,000 - $18,999
$400
$19,000 - $21,999
$452
$22,000 - $24,999
$378
$25,000 - $29,999
$423
$30,000 - $39,999
$594
$40,000 - $49,999
$880
$50,000 - $74,999
$1,467
$75,000 - $99,999
$3,093
$100,000 - $199,999
$4,755

So all you have to do is find your tax bracket and you will have an idea how much more you will be paying after next years tax increases. Now that is change you can believe in!
Posted by brians at 10:45 PM in National Politics
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Murder You Can Believe In

The Catholic Church is beginning to ramp up its efforts to thwart Obama's attempt to push the Freedom of Choice Act. The FOCA would overturn state laws which ban taxpayer funded abortions, parental notification, informed consent for women, and conscience protections for facilities.

Such a bill would force Catholic Hospitals into performing abortions.  Fortunately, the Catholic Church would rather close their doors than play a role in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of additional lives each year.
The church is also resolute in opposing evil,” and the bishops are “completely united and resolute in our teaching and defense of the unborn child from the moment of conception....

.....Some of the bishops, during the discussion, went as far as saying the Catholic Church should be willing to close some health facilities rather them allow them to be subject to a mandate to do abortions from the Obama administration.

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago spoke up about the threats to Catholic health care under the bill.

“It could mean discontinuing obstetrics in our hospitals, and we may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our Catholic hospitals entirely,” Paprocki said. “It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil.”

I do not think I’m being alarmist in considering such drastic steps,” he said. “We need to respond in a morally appropriate, responsible fashion.”

I applaud my Church for making a principles stand on the issue of life. And they are no small player in the health care landscape. The Catholic Church runs over 550 hospitals and hundreds of other health care centers. If they were to shut down their facilities it would have an extremely negative impact on quality of health care in this country.  Hopefully the threat of closing 550 hospitals and hundreds of more clinics will give the congress and Obama pause to reconsider the lunacy of signing into law the FOCA.

Hat Tip to Ed Morrissey for this story.

Posted by brians at 9:22 PM in Political Issues
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Beshear Plans To Ram Through Tax Increases

It seems that Beshear is hell bent on ramming through some type of tax increase in this year's legislative session.

Gov. Steve Beshear, coming off an election in which Democrats managed mostly to tread water in state legislative races, said he will move forward with plans for to generate more state revenue later this month.

At the top of the list is a potential increase in the state's 30-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes. Beshear has suggested a special legislative session to address that, which he said must come after key revenue projections come out after Thanksgiving.

Apparently, government can't get by with less even though we are in a down cycle in the economy. It is amazing how companies and people can get by with less during lean times, but the government never can. They are always after some new "revenue" stream. Fortunately, we have a senate leader who just says no to higher taxes.

Of course I don't know why Beshear is so hot to trot on new taxes anyways. I have to imagine the efficiency study he promised during the campaign will be coming out soon. He has been in office for almost a year now so I can't imagine it will be much longer before the plan is unveiled. It promised to save us hundreds of millions of dollars annually. That should make up for any shortfalls in the budget which means we don't need any new revenue streams.
Posted by brians at 9:22 PM in Kentucky Politics
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