The Hunt For Red Taxation

by: R.J. Moeller

Alec Baldwin is one of the most talented actors alive today. I mean it. I am a huge fan. He’s given masterful performances in both action and drama films, and now stars alongside Saturday Night Live alums Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan in the funniest show on television: NBC’s 30 Rock. Baldwin is a proud, outspoken advocate of his liberal political leanings that, it would be fair to say, are representative of those held by most of the actors and actresses in Hollywood.

But who knew this same multi-talented, uber-liberal guy, the one who famously threatened to move out of the country in 2004 should conservative George W. Bush be re-elected president, was an Adam Smith supply-side economist to-boot?

I guess to be fair to Baldwin’s proud Leftist reputation, he only really opposes excessive taxation and over-reaching government intervention when it affects his own profession.

You see, for many years the state government in New York has given a 35% tax credit for any production company that films their television show or movie within its borders. Each state has a different policy on this. The tax credit that New York offers is what we in the biz of promoting free enterprise call an “incentive.”

The government in New York, participating in its constitutionally-appointed duty to help facilitate commerce in and among the states, has in the past made the prospect of filming shows and movies in their state more attractive by offering big companies the tradeoff of lower taxes in return for their business. These production companies set up offices in New York, hire local workers to do everything from hold cameras to push brooms, and generate business and income for the Empire State in a million other smaller ways that would be impossible to fully calculate. Everyone benefits, just like Adam Smith envisioned.

But just this month, the Wall Street Journal reports, Governor David Patterson, a Democrat, has made a threat of his own, and it is one that appears to be infinitely more serious and important than Baldwin’s re-location oath of 4 years ago.

In lieu of the state’s gargantuan $7 billion budget deficit, one caused by over-spending and unprecedented levels of corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence within the government, Patterson says that the tax breaks for production companies might soon be one of those “incentives” that will be rescinded.

To this Alec Baldwin rightly, if not ironically, says: Phooey!

“I’m telling you right now,” Mr. Baldwin declared, “if these tax breaks are not re-instated in to the budget, film production in this town [New York City] is going to collapse. Television production is going to collapse. And it is all going to go to California.”

Bingo, Alec. You not only just made the case for why free markets cannot work in an over-taxed, over-regulated environment, you courageously overcame the typical liberal urge to deny common sense when economics is involved.

Baldwin’s surprising flip-flop from the Leftist compulsion to always favor higher levels of everything as far as the government’s involvement is concerned is simply yet another clear-cut case of mistaken political identity. You see, the liberalism most on the Left intend to espouse is the feel-good, look out for the “little guy”, “make love not war” platitude-ridden malarkey we hear from, say, college students whose English teacher has taught them all they know about economics and US history.

This type of person doesn't mean to be misinformed, and their intentions I'm sure are almost always pure. But there is a huge disconnect between what most liberals want liberalism to be and what actually happens when their government taxes and spends like there is no tomorrow.

The realities of life, including complex economies and delicate relations with hostile foreign nations, do not easily lend themselves to the hypothetical ramblings of, for example, someone who gets paid millions of dollars to pretend for a living, like Mr. Baldwin.

For many in Hollywood, politics is a game played every other November by people trying desperately to garner even more attention they don’t deserve. It obviously never dawned on Alec Baldwin as he clapped at fundraisers over the years for one liberal Democrat after another that when those politicians promised to punish the wealthy, greedy corporations in the United States that the list might include companies such as Paramount, MGM, or even NBC.

But now the free-range chickens have come home to organically roost.

Despite their voting and legislative practices, liberals consistently show that they know raising taxes on goods or services is a way to discourage that good or service. Take, for example, tobacco. Few products are more heavily scrutinized and taxed than cigarettes. Commercial campaigns led predominantly by liberal groups certainly help to spread the word about the risks involved with smoking. Yet the real way in which most Democrats in most states attack “Big Tobacco” is through higher levels of taxation. When they don’t want something to enjoy success, they tax it.

And here again, in the example of Governor Patterson’s attempt to repeal tax credits for production companies filming in his state, we see through the public statements of a life-long liberal like Alex Baldwin that even he recognizes the devastating effect higher taxes will have on an industry and thousands of jobs. This isn’t rocket science, people. Mr. Baldwin understands it.

The tough truth for prominent liberals to swallow is that free market conservatives and libertarians are not all conniving, selfish money-changers who want decreased levels of taxation and government intervention for their own personal gain. The economy is a complicated, interconnected web of trade and commerce that requires some basic things like voluntary participation (i.e. deciding to work in the movie industry instead of being a banker or teacher) and a largely hands-off relationship with the government (i.e. the opposite of Governor Patterson arbitrarily deciding to punish the movie industry because of his own government’s ineptness).

Sadly, foundational principles of the American economic system, things that seem self-evident to so many of us, are rejected by many who consider themselves Left-of-Center simply because it is free market conservatives or libertarians promoting them these days.

But give even the most ardent Leftist a healthy dose of economic reality, let taxation and over-regulation rob them of the Golden Goose that lays the golden eggs, and you’ll hear impassioned and eloquent defenses of the free market system that would make even old Milton Friedman smile from grave.

I don’t dislike Alec Baldwin. I mean him no disrespect when I call him a liberal. He is entitled to his opinions and positions just as much as anyone else. And, most importantly, Baldwin is absolutely right to say what he did. He could not be more justified in voicing his displeasure with the state of New York hurting an industry he has a stake in.

But why does he then vote for, publicly endorse, and financially support the very same party and ideology that proudly promises to continue such economically-crippling, short-sighted policies should they gain more power? Why do so many liberals become enraged when companies move overseas or out of state due to high taxes, but then cheer when their candidates promise to raise taxes and increase regulation on those same companies?

I would simply ask those of you reading this to take time from your busy schedules and learn more about the levels and types of taxation your government levies against you. Stay on top of the spending habits of your mayor, your governor, and certainly your president. All of this information is a matter of public record. Too many Republicans failed to do this while their party was in power six of the last eight years, and that failure to curtail spending (and the growth of the federal government) has helped land us in the tight spot we find ourselves in today.

Support lower levels of taxation and a decrease in government spending and you will see the economy begin to correct itself. This shouldn’t be a Right or Left issue. It’s common sense; something that has served America so well for more than two centuries.

Spain's Courts Want Say in USA

Ever heard of "universal jurisdiction"? No? Good. You're normal, and likely not from Spain.

European courts are increasingly seeking to try American citizens for alleged "war crimes" relating to the Bush's administration's adjudication of the War on Terror. Many liberal judges in this country like the idea of international law having bearing on what we do here in our legal system. It is insane and ludicrous.

Please read the full text of this article by Andrew McCarthy from National Review for a full re-cap of what's going on.

The New York Times reports that a Spanish court is considering filing human-rights charges, and issuing arrest warrants, against former attorney general Alberto Gonzales and five other Bush administration officials. The putative defendants did not carry out a single belligerent act, conduct a single interrogation, or direct the operation of any military or intelligence agents actually engaged in hostilities.

What these former White House, Justice Department, and Pentagon attorneys did do was to wrestle with complex, largely unsettled questions about the parameters of American law. Unlike their demagogic critics, they were engaged in a serious attempt to set the margins of permissible coercion, under wartime circumstances, against detainees who flout the laws of war, who are not covered by the Geneva Conventions’ prisoner-of-war provisions, who are schooled in counter-interrogation techniques, who had just murdered nearly 3,000 Americans in a sneak attack, and who were promising more of the same.

Quote of the Week

In light of the on-going debate and controversy surrounding the prison at Guantanamo Bay, I thought this quote from Sir Winston Churchill was appropriate. Enjoy.

"A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him."

Hitchens Goes to Lebanon

Christopher Hitchens is a world-renowned writer, journalist, and atheist. While I disagree with much of his worldview, the dude can write...and write well. His column this week is about a recent trip he made to Beirut, Lebanon and the hands-on opportunity he had to witness two very different Lebanon's that exist today. A fascinating read!

An excerpt:

Lebanon is the most plural society in the region, and the “March 14” coalition, the group of parties that leads the current government, essentially represents the Sunnis, the Christians, the Druze (a tribe and creed unique to the region), and the Left. Hezbollah has a partial stranglehold on the Shiite community but by no means a monopoly, and one of the speakers at the rally was a Shiite member of parliament, Bassem Sabaa, who argued very strongly that Arab grievances against Israel should not excuse Arab-on-Arab oppression. Almost nobody displayed any religious emblem, and even the few who did were usually careful to put it next to the ubiquitous cedar-symbol flag of Lebanon itself. Women with head covering were few; women with face covering were nowhere to be seen. Designer jeans were the predominant fashion theme. Eclectic musical choices came over the loudspeakers. The average age was low. Nobody had been bused in, at least not by the state. Nobody had been told to leave work and demonstrate his or her loyalty. You get my drift.

This is the way that Lebanon could be: a microcosm of the Middle East where ethnic and confessional differences are resolved by Federalism and by elections. But there is a dark, supervising power that keeps the process under surveillance, and then alters the odds by selecting some actors for abrupt removal.

Obamonomics

Spend. Tax. Over-regulate. Sounds like a winning combination to me, Mr. President. For such a supposedly intelligent, cerebral dude, Barack Obama apparently knows nothing about economics.

But he is willing to pretend he does and gamble with the economic future of this nation by implementing unprecedented levels of spending, debt, and federal government control over every aspect of our lives.

Mark Steyn has more here.

In their first two months, Obama and Geithner have done nothing but vaporize your wealth, and your children's future. What began as an economic crisis is now principally a political usurpation. And, to return to the president's "false choice," that "chaotic and unforgiving capitalism" is exactly what we need right now. It's the quickest, cheapest, fairest, most efficient route to economic stabilization and renewal. A regimented and eternally forgiving global command economy with no moral hazard will destroy us all.

Chickens Come Home to Roost for Ward

Remember Ward Churchill? No? Probably a good thing. He was the "Ethnic Studies" professor from University of Colorado that wrote a highly controversial (and disgusting) essay about 9/11 in which he compared the American victims of that fateful day to Nazi mass-murderer Adolf Eichmann.

Well the University did not take kindly to the negative publicity that surrounded Churchill and after some investigative reporting by local reporters, it was discovered that Old Ward also had lied about his academic credentials, his ethnicity, and was guilty of plagiarism to-boot. So he was fired and of course brought a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the university.

Here is where the Wall Street Journal's Katherine Mangu-Ward picks up the story in today's edition. A very interesting tale indeed.

Democrats get more money from Wall Street

If you're like me, you've likely had just about enough of the "Wall Street vs. Main Street" populist garbage that has been regurgitated since last year's election cycle. Ann Coulter does a wonderful job in her latest column of showing how it is actually the Left, not the evil Republicans, that is most comfortably linked with the rich CEO's that everyone is so mad at.

"How did Republicans get saddled with Wall Street? Obama just got the biggest campaign haul from Wall Street in world history, and Republicans still can't shake the public perception that they are tied at the hip to Wall Street bankers who hate them.

It's as if National Rifle Association members conspired with Republicans to bankrupt the country and everyone blamed the Democrats for being shills of the NRA."

Happy Birthday to Us

Well, I've not died since my last birthday, so that's worth celebrating. I'm just glad I get to share a day of birth with these "tremendous people."

-Elton John (gay guy who at one time wrote/sang creative songs)

-Sheryl Swoopes (chick who was good at basketball)

-Sarah Jessica Parker (bad actress from the trashiest show)

-Aretha Franklin (former good and healthy singer)

-Howard Cosell (former ABC Sports Broadcaster)

-John Smoltz (MLB pitcher with great beard)



But the one I am the happiest about is....my girl, Danica Patrick, the hottest race car driver since ever.

Happy Birthday to Us, Danica!!!

See ya in a year.

Sex and Food

Did I get your attention? Good. This latest column from Christian conservative commentator and author Chuck Colson is actually about both of these things. Mr. Colson believes that our society has incorrectly made what we eat more important than our sexual behavior.

Hating on AIG

Mark Steyn weighs in with his take on the Obama administration's "handling" of the economic crisis in general, and the AIG "scandal" in particular. He's very good!

"The first two months of the Age of the Hopeychange have been an eye-opener. I expected it to be ideologically distasteful to me, but I didn't expect it to be so inept. Not because I had any expectations of President Obama's executive skills. But I assumed he'd have folks around him who could take care of details like governing, while he pranced around as the smiley-face hopeychange frontman. But the bench is still empty save for a handful of mediocrities. And the disconnect between the smoothly scripted mush and what's actually happening makes the telepromptered cool look even more ridiculous."

Trivial Pursuits

Charles Krauthammer's powerful new column today tackles the uncomfortable issue surrounding the $165 million dollars in bonuses that AIG employees are set to receive. The controversy arose because AIG was bailed out by the American taxpayer and now is giving out, in some cases, large amounts of money in bonuses. But the real issue, as Charles so artfully explains, is the fledgling credit market that has little to do with the angry mob-mentality over AIG payouts.

PLEASE read the full article here. You'll be a better person for having done so.

A TIME Worth Reading

Typically I find both TIME and Newsweek to be highly ove - periodicals that are more interested in ideological indoctrination than thoughtful commentary or reporting (see: the Newsweek issue that claimed the Bible actually is pretty cool with homosexuality). But when even the most liberal publication gets it right, I am the first to commend them for it.

Such is the case with an upcoming special issue of TIME with the cover story: "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now". In this article, the third most important idea listed is "The New Calvinism" and highlights the effectiveness of such Christian pastors/writers/thinkers as John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and (my boy) Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Theological Seminary.

Read Dr. Mohler's thoughts on the TIME article here at his blog and check out the full article on newsstands this week.

Sowell on Rush

Thomas Sowell, the wisest voice of reason around, calmly and clearly explains what has gone on in the recent GOP scuffles between Rush Limbaugh and those who deem themselves more "intellectual" on the Right. Conservatives can be snobs too, I admit.

Overexposed and Under-qualified

Barack Obama is in over his head. The man knows not what he does as it pertains to the economy and our current crisis. Syndicated columnist George Will, writing in today's Washington Post explains how substance has caught up to the Man of Style and why we are all paying the price for it.

"Charles Dickens, who visited in 1842, described Washington as a "city of magnificent intentions" because of the incongruity between the city's grand aspirations and muddy, swampy actuality. Today Washington's discrepancy is not architectural but political. It is between the extraordinary powers and competences the administration claims it has, and the administration's inability to be clear or plausible about what it is doing."

Kids these days....

Don't get me wrong, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are understandably popular games and I've played both myself a time or ten...but this disturbing story from Blender magazine is a blog too far. Blake Peebles is a 16 year-old kid in North Carolina whose parents have allowed him to drop out of high school in order focus his efforts towards more thrashing on his plastic Guitar Hero axe.

This country is in good shape, economically, culturally, and morally. Look out China and India, if we're ever in a war that is decided by a XBox skills tourney.

A Little Bit of Gratitude

The eternal optimist that he is, talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager can't help but seek out the "silver linings" in the dark clouds of this current economy. What an important message! Please read this.

Here's one of those linings from his piece:

"Most people are complaining less. They are more grateful for whatever they have than they were before. For example, just about everyone who still has a job is grateful for having it; nearly all of us now realize how fragile employment is. Therefore, there is an increase in the most important human quality -- gratitude. It is the root of both goodness and happiness. Grateful people are better people and they are happier people. They make the world better while the ungrateful make it worse. So the increase in gratitude may make our society better."

The War on Rush

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh has taken some serious flack from liberals the past month, coincidentally at the same time they have been busying trying to permanently wreck our economy and convert our free market democracy into a Nanny State Euro-utopia. Almost as if they knew this would distract people from the real travesty taking place in Washington DC....

Nah, it's gotta be that Rush Limbaugh is ruining everything for the American people.

Mark Steyn's blog post today at National Review Online broaches the subject of those high-minded conservatives that have joined in the attack on Rush. Traitors.

Keith Olbermann: Obnoxious

I admit it is a guilty pleasure, but any time that Keith Olbermann, the pompous blowhard commentator miraculously employed by MSNBC, gets a dose of his own condescending medicine, my heart skips a beat. Ann Coulter, admittedly no stranger to condescension herself, skewers Olbermann in her latest piece for his incessant name-dropping of what college he went to (Cornell).

"Communications" is a major, along with "recreation science," most commonly associated with linemen at USC. But at least the linemen can throw a football, which Keith cannot because his mother decided he was not physically robust enough to play outdoors as a child.

It may seem cruel to reveal the true college of someone who already wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worried that he's a fraud. But I believe that by pointing out that Olbermann actually is a fraud, I am liberating him.

You may not realize it now, Keith, but you will look back on this day and say, "That was the best thing that ever happened to me!"

"Everything's amazing, nobody is happy"

Comedian Louis CK might usually be pretty vulgar and offensive, but in this appearance on Conan O'Brien the guy preaches some truth about the current state of a petty and ungrateful American society. One of the best things you'll see all week.

Can we get a re-do on all this re-making of America?

Jonah Goldberg, writing in USA Today, says that the American people might be getting exactly what they asked for in November: CHANGE!

But is it change worth pursuing? And how does Barack get away with saying four different things about the same fiscal issue? Read more here to find out.

Excerpt:

"He (Obama) loves to point out that he inherited a large deficit from the Republicans — which he did. But for reasons that are hard to grasp, he then suggests that this means Republicans have no right to complain when the deficit quadruples in one year or when he seeks to spend trillions of dollars on programs that have nothing whatsoever to do with ending the recession. Democrats flayed President Bush for deficits in the $300 billion to $400 billion range, when the country was at war and recovering from 9/11. Obama boasts that the deficit will be down to $500 billion to $600 billion during "peace and prosperity" — and that's only if his absurdly rosy scenario comes to pass. And we are supposed to applaud his fiscal seriousness to boot.

But the schizophrenia runs even deeper. The White House and congressional Democrats simultaneously caterwaul about the deficit they inherited from Republicans while they also tsk-tsk the GOP's woeful failure to spend on "underfunded" domestic priorities. During the Bush years, spending — whoops, sorry, "investment" — in most of these burning domestic priorities soared: education (58%), Social Security (17%), Medicare (51%), health research and regulation (55%), highways and mass transit (22%) and veterans' benefits (59%). But, according to Democrats, if they had been in charge we would have spent a lot more on these pressing needs and we wouldn't have this terrible Republican-fueled deficit. How does that work?"

Hollywood's "Red" Badge of Courage

by: R.J. Moeller

Sean Penn won the Academy Award for Best Actor of the Year last Sunday night, and opened his acceptance speech with this delightful line to the audience:

“You Commie, homo-loving, sons-of-guns…”

Nice one, bro. By the way, Sean, self-sanctimony called and wants its definition back.

The “joke” here of course being that the character Penn won the award for portraying was openly-gay activist and San Francisco City Council member Harvey Milk who was tragically murdered in the 1970’s, and also that Sean Penn himself is an open Socialist, and a personal friend to communist dictators like Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers in Cuba. (P.s. The guy also went to Iraq in 2002 before the war and helped to create propaganda films that the Arab world used to rouse even more hatred towards his own country, the United States of America.)

It is important to note that Sean Penn had lost to Mickey Rourke’s powerful performance in The Wrestler in nearly every single other awards show in the country, including the Golden Globes a few weeks prior. Yet Penn “just so happened” to take home the biggest award of them all when the decidedly liberal voters of the Academy knew the world would be watching and Penn would be willing (to run his mouth). After a heated election season this past fall where gay marriage was front-and-center in public debate and discourse, especially in California with the passage of Proposition 8, one could hardly be shocked that the dark-horse Penn would emerge victorious.

This, after all, is the same group of effeminate voters that ten years ago arrived at the baffling conclusion that the forgettable Shakespeare in Love was a better film than Saving Private Ryan.

Lights. Camera. Condescendingly rebuke supporters of the traditional definition of marriage, Mr. Penn.

“I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban on gay marriage to sit and reflect on their shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support.”

So those who rely on things like sociological study, human history, 5,000 years of unilateral cultural tradition, legal precedent and common sense to land on their “keep marriage a separate and unique legal and cultural institution” position are the ones in need of soul-searching?

And although it is none of Penn’s beeswax, he might as well hear it from me that that my grandchildren will receive the business-end of a ping-pong paddle on their tuckus should they ever have the audacity to tell their “gramps” that he ought to be ashamed of himself for having agreed with millennia of moral, legal, and religious thinking. The “But Europe is cool with it!” argument will cost them dessert as well.

Just try me, kids.

But regardless of how one personally feels about the issue of gay marriage, and where things might stand in the utopian future of Penn’s dreams, the reality in 2009 is that in every state where gay marriage has been on the ballot it has lost. The voters have spoken, and in states all across the country, so no charges of geographical bias (i.e. “Those idiots in the ‘Bible Belt’”) can be accurately levied.

Even in the People’s Republic of California a controversial ballot initiative like Prop 8 resoundingly passed to affirm “one man, one woman.” Millions of Democrats who voted for two more famous opponents of gay marriage, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, supported Prop 8.

Without getting bogged down in this column with the nuts-and-bolts of the gay marriage debate, what I want to highlight is this fact: Sean Penn and liberals of his ilk have no intention in ever relinquishing their quest to advance their secular-progressive worldview, but want conservatives to be culturally-shamed out of their own.

The subtext of what Penn said is that liberals of course come to their own conclusions based solely on a love for all mankind, but those close-minded nut-jobs on the Right are driven entirely by a blind obsession with keeping people from being happy. In fact, conservatives are so unconscionably evil that they really ought to begin practicing their “Sorry I was such a bigot” apology for yet-to-be-born offspring.

This from a guy who pretends to be other people for a living.

While at the podium last Sunday night Penn also found time to congratulate both the Hollywood entertainment industry for being so “courageous” in the subject matter and content of films they’ve been making recently, and the country for finally electing an “elegant man” as our president. (Note: "elegant" is shorthand for "black" in the vocabulary of un-courageous people who want to be able to keep the charge that America is a racist nation going even after becoming the first in the Western, democratized world to do so.)

Courageous? Really, Sean? How much are you actually putting on the line by being outspokenly anti-Religious Right, ardently pro-gay marriage and abortion, and quasi-sober long enough to accept your golden statue?

Hollywood is courageous like Congress is fiscally responsible. Courage isn’t making another movie about how Dick Cheney look-alike's are behind all the world’s corruption and murder. Courage isn’t churning out another poorly acted war drama about disillusioned soldiers returning from a war they never believed in. Courage isn’t stuffing your films unnecessarily full of sex and profanities when it is statistically provable that films rated PG or PG-13 earn exponentially more than those at are R.

Where are the movies about real heroes like George Washington who actually had to put something on the line to be a political dissenter? Where is the art-house, indie flick about the real persecution of gays currently taking place in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia? Where are the documentaries that reveal where living under the 50-year rule of big-government Democrats has landed the good people of Detroit?

During World War II more than half of Hollywood was employed by the War Department. Scores of famous and elite Hollywood stars volunteered to fight for their country. Jimmy Stewart had just won an Oscar of his own for his role in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington when his request to be allowed to fly combat missions as an Army pilot was granted. That is courage.

For his entire legendary career Charlton Heston (along with others like John “The Duke” Wayne) was an unapologetic conservative in Hollywood. Heston also served for decades as the president of the National Rifle Association, one of the Left’s favorite punching bags. His extracurricular choices were legitimately risky considering the disdain that the town he lived in, and industry he worked in, had for his brand of politics. His livelihood was on the line every time he opened his mouth to support a Republican running for office or Center-Right stance on a cultural issue.

Sean Penn on the other hand is preaching to the choir, from the choir.

Obviously the ramblings of an actor who jet sets the globe with known mass-murderers running tyrannical regimes mean little to me. It is that so many agree with (and applaud for) someone like Sean Penn that his words at the Oscars are worthy of contemplation and exegesis.

I believe he is wrong about gay marriage. I know he, and almost all in Hollywood, aren’t courageous.