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Archive for August, 2009

Conscience Of A Libertarian

August 28, 2009 By: Phred Category: Uncategorized

When the publisher sent me 2008 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential nominee Wayne Allyn Root’s new book, “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts” to review, I was naturally excited.

This book is a fast paced and energetic and offers many solutions, rather than just offering complaints about the current system. Root’s book hits the ground running, hitting high taxes, corporate welfare, bailouts, and the IRS on the opining pages of the introduction. This early parts of this book are refreshing made me very excited about Mr. Root’s future prospects.

In my opinion, 2009 is quite early to be publishing a 2012 campaign book. However, it is more understandable for a “3rd party” candidate to publish a campaign book this early than it would be for a Democrat or a Republican to do so. Wayne Allyn Root offers a [somewhat] realistic plan for his political future. He plans on winning around 2-5 million votes in 2012, getting “Ross Perot numbers” in 2016, and being elected in 2020. While the odds of a Libertarian Party candidate winning the Presidency any time soon are slim, Mr. Root’s plan is at least somewhat realistic.

Conscience of a Libertarian offers numerous examples to show how broken the system really is and how inefficient the government can be. Here is my favorite example:

“The most famous brothel ever was the Mustang Ranch run by Joe Conforte. Mr. Conforte made more than $100 million, and paid taxes on very little of his fortune. He was indicted for income tax evasion and escaped to Brazil as a fugitive from the U.S. Government. The IRS seized the Mustang Ranch and rather than selling it, decided to keep running it. In less than a year, under government management, the same brothel that produced profits of more than $100 million went broke! Bankrupt. Out of business. Can you imagine? The federal government can’t even run a brothel!!! Yet we allow the same corrupt, incompetent government to run our economy and schools.”

The book contains many similar examples of the government bungling things while the private sector is able to succeed doing similar tasks at a lower cost.

Wayne Allyn Root is angry and it shows in this book. While this is refreshing and pumps the reader up early on, by the end of the book it seems more like angry ranting than energetic ideas.

I have major problems with quite a few of the proposals Mr. Root makes in this book. One such proposal is to increase the number of Congressmen so that no member of the House of Representatives represents more than 100,000 Americans (down from an average of around 700,000 today). This proposal sounds good—until you realize that doing so would increase the size of the House to over 3,000 members! This would turn our National legislature into nothing more than a circus.

Another of Root’s proposals is a [so-called] two tiered flat income tax. An income tax with two different rates based on income levels is by definition a graduated tax, not a flat tax. But it gets worse: Mr. Root “propose[s] a flat tax rate of 15 percent on any and all income up to $500,000 per year; then a 10 percent flat tax on any and all income above $500,000.” I am philosophically and morally opposed to all income taxes, yet this income tax is regressive—it will tax a McDonald’s worker at a higher rate than it would tax Bill Gates. Regardless of whether or not this plan is even a good idea, I would argue that there is a zero percent chance of the public supporting it.

A third such plan is for the government to collect no taxes for an entire year—and still continue to function. This would cost trillions of dollars, even if Root was able to drastically cut spending. In his own words regarding the three plans above: “Does it cost trillions of dollars? Sure it does.”

This leads me to my next point: while I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I was left with one very important question: is Wayne Allyn Root a libertarian? My personal opinion is that he is not a libertarian, but rather a very conservative, limited-government Republican who feels betrayed by his party.

Rather than pushing for the elimination of all corporate income taxes, Mr. Root advocates cutting these taxes to “20 percent (or lower),” yet at the same time he advocates cutting corporate income taxes for small businesses to 10%. This would create a nightmare situation where mid-sized corporations would attempt to do things like move money overseas, lobby for changes in the definition of small business, or could even create disincentives for small businesses to grow into larger ones.

At times, Mr. Root even openly advocates corporate welfare. He pushes for a plan that would create “a $7,500 tax credit that goes directly to any employer who hires a new fulltime employee during the next three years, increasing to $10,000 if the person they hire was out of work at the time.”

Plans like these are typical conservative Republican plans, not libertarian ones. Libertarians are naturally very principles and are very unwilling to compromise on major issues. If Mr. Root has already strayed so far from orthodox libertarian ideas, how much more will his views be compromised when he has to deal with a Congress that is highly unlikely to support libertarian ideas.

I guess I do recommend reading this book, however, I would recommend it more to my conservative friends than I would to my libertarian ones. It does have a lot of great ideas in it and is a quick, energetic read.   Additionally, the first half truly was excellent.  However, as you read it, ask yourself if Wayne Allyn Root is a libertarian, or just another Conservative Republican.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Listen To My Interview On Fightin Words Podcast

August 26, 2009 By: Phred Category: Uncategorized

I was recently interviewed by Walter Hudson for his the Fightin Words Podcast. I spoke with him mostly about the Audit the Fed bill, but we also touched on health care.  I hope this is the first of many interviews for me on the Audit the Fed bill.

Its a very interesting podcast and he hits on the health care debate from a different perspective than I usually do.  My interview starts at around 16:35.

Please check out Walter’s blog as well.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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President Obama To Nominate Bernanke For 2nd Term… So Much For “Change!”

August 25, 2009 By: Phred Category: Uncategorized

President Obama announced today that he will nominate Ben Bernanke to serve as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for a second term.  This is a huge mistake.

Ben Bernanke started as Chairman of the Federal Reserve on February 1, 2006–about two years before the economic crisis fully blossomed.  While his policies are not responsible for the onset of the crisis, they have done little to help the situation.  Chairman Bernanke has consistently been wrong about his assessments of the economy since he began his tenure:

I think that nominating Ben Bernanke for a second term is a careless move on President Obama’s part.  For one, the man ran on a platform of “change.”  He hit the Republicans and President Bush particulary hard on two main issues–the administrations handling of the war(s) and the administration’s handling on the economy.

And yet, in his first year of office, President Obama has continued to allow President Bush’s Secretary of Defense to serve, as well as allowing President Bush’s choice for Federal Reserve Chairman to stay on.  Selecting a new Federal Reserve Chairman would have been a great opportunity for the President to reinforce his message of “change.”  He could have dumped Chairman Bernanke and blamed President Bush for the economic crisis in the process.  By renominating Chairman Bernanke, President Obama has taken ownership of the economy, and tacitly accepted President Bush’s decisions with regard to the crisis.

This will be one of the moments that will come back and bite President Obama in the 2012 Presidential elections.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Plaxico: Pistol Whipped By The Law

August 24, 2009 By: Phred Category: Uncategorized

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard that NFL star Plaxico Burress has been sentenced to two years in prison for “criminal possession of a weapon” and “reckless endangerment.”  Plaxico had a gun in the waistline of his pants at a nightclub, it slipped, and as he went to grab it, the gun went off, shooting him in the leg in the process–yet injuring no one else.  And now he is going to jail for two years.

Forget for a second that the United States Constitution states that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Plaxico Burress is famous football player with no history of major criminal actions.  It is pretty safe to assume that Mr. Burress was carrying the gun to protect himself prom any possible threats, rather than with the intent of committing a crime.

The man shot himself in the leg.  No one else was injured.  The fact that the presence of the gun “could have” resulted in injury to someone else is irrelevant.  The truth of the matter is that no one except for Plaxico Burress was injured.

Anyone, whether they are a celebrity like Plaxico or a “regular Joe” has the right to defend themselves. The right to bear arms is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.  It is my opinion that the right to self defense is a natural and inalienable right of man.  This idea comes to me directly from the works of John Locke.

A law that violates the spirit and the letter of the Constitution, as well as “natural law” is an unjust law.

Plaxico will be going to prison with rapists and murderers for the next two years as a result of New York’s unjust “law” concerning guns.  His young son will be left without a father for the next two years because the city of New York rejects the right of a man to defend himself.

As I said above, Plaxico was almost certainly carrying this weapon as a defensive measure to use only in case of a hostile threat.  Sentencing a productive, non-violent member of society for two years for this offense is an affront to justice, as well as an affront to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Response To Comment

August 19, 2009 By: Phred Category: Uncategorized

I received the following comment from my friend John who recently started medical school.  The comment was posted on my Not Doing Nothing About Health Care post.

“I totally disagree with # 2. There is no way to control the quality of medical education in every country around the world. This would also completely flood the market with medical practitioners and drastically reduce doctors salaries which I am totally against. I don’t think reducing medical practitioners salaries is the right way to go. Why would anyone do 9 years of med school and residency and be on call all hours of the night if they were making less than they are now?? And on that note, would you want a surgeon trained somewhere you’ve never heard of in Tanzania cutting into you.. even if he charges 1/5 the price of an American?”

Here is my response:


John,

Thanks for the comment.

There is a very simple way to “control [for] the quality of medical education in every country around the world.”  This plan is completely workable if you force foreign doctors to take the same medical licensing exams that American doctors have to take.  This way, whether the doctor was from Canada, Tanzania, or somewhere Ive never heard of, he or she would have to be held to the same standards that all American doctors would.

As far as “drastically reduc[ing] doctors salaries,”  that wouldnt be the case either.  Remember, that part one of my plan would end all income taxes on doctors.  Given that the average doctor finds himself in the highest tax bracket, this would actually result in a massive increase in pay.  [Furthermore, it would save the doctor time, allowing him or her to relax or work more instead of having to figure out their taxes.]  When talking about reducing doctors’ pay, I think you are also forgetting the demand side of this equation.  The simple fact is that demand for medical care is rapidly rising.  A big part of this is because baby boomers are getting older and are requiring more care.  Allowing more doctors into America will result in better care for more Americans at a lower rate.  Yet, ending income taxes for doctors allows them to keep more money while charging less for services–a win-win situation.

Additionally, if we could ensure that doctors from foreign countries were held to the same standards as American trained doctors the cost of medical school might actually decrease.  Think about it–if you knew for a fact that medical schools in Asia, Europe, South America, or elsewhere were significantly cheaper, and you were able to go online and find the pass rates for student from these schools, you as an American might be more willing to attend one of these less expensive schools.

To sum up:  the goal is to increase supply without decreasing pay or quality.  That is why allowing foreign doctors into the country must be done while holding them accountable to the same medical standards as American trained doctors.  That is also why this must be accompanied by an end to taxes for doctors.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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