Comments by mikewaz / LJWorld.com

mikewaz

Last login: Sunday, December 2, 2012

Comment history

Editorial: Leadership Gap

Fact: Thanks to Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon deliberately appealing to many residents of Southern states in the 1964 and 1968 elections, the Republican Party is now the party that actively courts the votes of racists using racially divisive tactics and outright anti-minority policies.

December 3, 2012 at 12:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Rally-goers seek expansion of Medicaid; Brownback’s office says discussion continues

The GOP complains about states getting unfunded mandates from the federal government. Then when the federal government gives the states a very generously funded mandate from the federal government, they still complain. Why don't they just admit that they don't want the federal government to tell them what to do in any situation?

November 10, 2012 at 4:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Jenkins touts tax reform

Switching to an all-consumption-based tax, even one with a very expensive prebate like the FairTax, will inevitably hit the middle class very hard and ease the burden on the rich. It's pretty simple why that happens. There are a lot of things people need to a) survive, and b) exist in a modern world. Things like food, housing, electricity, water, phone service, a mode of transportation, etc. Some of those you can only reduce the cost so much, and others you really can't reduce at all. Poor people consume almost all of their income on these goods. Middle class people typically can save some money, but the vast majority of their income still goes to these goods. Upper class people, especially the very rich (which I'll say is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million), have so much money that they couldn't possibly use even a majority of it on these goods. There's only so much steak and lobster you can eat, and there's only so many Lexuses you can drive. Once you adjust for how much of your income different groups consume, it's pretty clear that the FairTax is very regressive. If you want to go to a consumption tax, why not support a progressive consumption tax?

November 8, 2012 at 1:10 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

GOP raises specter of Medicaid expansion as campaign issue

Hold on a minute. Hasn't the GOP been complaining about the federal government making unfunded mandates on the states for years now? So now that the federal government is rather generously funding a mandate on the states, the complaint is that the federal government can't afford to fund it? It almost sounds like they just don't want the federal government to tell the states to do anything regardless of whether it's funded or not. Why don't they just say that instead of moving the goalposts?

November 5, 2012 at 1:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

AP source: Romney picks Ryan for running mate

This is a Hail Mary play that is almost certainly going to bite Mitt Romney in the ass. Obama is going to air ads saying his opponent wants to destroy Medicare non-stop now. They will weigh him down like an anvil.

August 11, 2012 at 1:41 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Direct vote

The idea that a direct vote will lead to candidates focusing exclusively on NYC, LA, and Chicago is ludicrous. Assuming equal turnout, if a hypothetical candidate somehow won 88% of the votes in each of the 5,000 biggest towns in America and 0% elsewhere, he would not get a majority of the votes in that election and would lose to the other candidate. That is a ludicrous standard to achieve. Only ten counties in the entire country hit that percentage of votes for one candidate in 2008. If anything, this would lead to higher turnout rates as states would try to maximize their impact on the election.

July 30, 2012 at 7:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Should evolution be taught in schools?

I'm okay with schools teaching both evolution and intelligent design/creationism as long as the amount of time devoted to each topic is equivalent to the amount of scientific evidence that supports said topic. Since the scientific evidence for intelligent design/creationism can fit on one side of a postcard, that means evolution will still get almost 100% of the teaching time in the classroom.

June 7, 2012 at 9 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )