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Taxes and Growth, Money for Infrastructure, Virginia Tech, Global Warming Solution

By Theresa Camoriano

Taxes and Growth – The Kentucky legislature is going into a special session to provide tax rebates to try to entice Peabody Energy to build a coal gasification plant in the state.  Meanwhile, Louisville is planning huge tax rebates to encourage downtown construction.  Obviously, elected officials understand that reducing the burden of taxes encourages growth.  Unfortunately, they only reduce the tax burden for their favorites – usually large, visible businesses -- not for small business people who invest their own money, pay full freight in taxes, and collectively generate the largest number of jobs.  Too bad “equal protection under the law” is a myth.

Money for Infrastructure - After the Minneapolis bridge fell, and people discovered that the country’s infrastructure was decaying, the socialists predictably said we need to raise taxes to make repairs.  Once again, they want to reward the government for its failure.  They have been taking this approach for years with education, noting the failure of schools to teach children and rewarding them with more money.  To paraphrase Dr. Phil’s question, “How’s that been working for you?”, the answer is, “Not very well.”  Similarly, there is no reason to suspect that increasing taxes would result in better infrastructure.  It would just give the politicians more money to help their friends and build monuments to themselves.  Thomas Sowell has suggested that we should consider privatizing the infrastructure, because private enterprise would have the incentive to do a good job, while government does not.  It certainly is worth a try.  A reduction in ridiculous, burdensome regulations would help, too.  (See also: A bridge too far gone?  http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2007/08/07/a_bridge_too_far_goneand Tragic implications http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2007/08/14/tragic_implications

Virginia Tech – I just dropped my daughter Nina off at Virginia Tech for her Junior year.  How the time flies!  They had a memorial service on Sunday for the people who were murdered on April 16.  According to news reports, some families are demanding large sums of money, while others are demanding answers as to how the murderous rampage was allowed to happen.  While I cannot even imagine the pain these families are going through, and while I certainly sympathize with them, the fact is that no amount of money and no answer will be enough to satisfy them.  Yes, the murderer was known to be a threat and should have been removed from the university and forced into treatment.  Yes, the University should have been locked down after the first two murders were committed, which would have prevented the additional 30 murders and additional injuries.  However, neither of those steps is likely to stop the next murderous attack, which could come from someone with an entirely different profile and follow an entirely different sequence of events.  The only solution with a high likelihood of stopping the next murderer is to stop disarming the potential victims and allow them to carry weapons for self defense. 

Global Warming Solution – If man-made emissions of carbon dioxide really are causing the earth to warm, as the environmental extremists keep telling us, then the solution is simple.  All the true believers who really care about the earth should simply voluntarily stop emitting carbon dioxide.  Not only would such a step stop those emissions, but, since those folks currently emit carbon dioxide every time they exhale, they would have to stop exhaling, which also would stop their harping and complaining and would give the rest of us some peace and quiet, thereby most certainly improving our environment!

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