Very Special Interests

One of the interesting anomalies of the current communist administration comes in the area of regulation. This administration has piled regulations on every part of our economy. They cover everything from the legal angle for apple pickers’ ladders to the amount of air allowed to be compressed into scuba tanks.

The anomaly, however, concerns drones. They have reduced regulations concerning unmanned aircraft. What makes it particularly strange is that they have increased regulations on piloted boats, piloted aircraft, motorcycles, and unmanned automobiles. It made me wonder why unmanned aircraft could stand alone.

At first I figured it was the result of BigTech’s control of the administration. But that did not make sense because industries that are heavily regulated benefit those already within the industry, especially large companies. If you want to crush competition from start ups, over regulate your industry.

Then I got an idea and my research supported my theory. The two most important deregulations of drones were the limitation on length of flight and prohibition of nighttime flying. These restrictions were removed in 2023, shortly after we discovered a Chinese spy balloon crossing the USA with stops to hover over strategic locations.

So I came to the logical conclusion: drones were deregulated to make it easier for China to fly them over the USA without detection. The Harris-Biden administration deregulated them because the CCP told them to. The Department of Defense is silent about their proof because they do not know what to do. The only thing they can do with these drones is ask them which pronoun they prefer.

Did you really think China gave the Bidens tens of millions of dollars without expecting anything in return?

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Along those lines, do you think all of the businessmen dropping money at Mar-A-Lago are doing so because they love Donald Trump? They spent much more money trying to keep him from getting elected.

The real evidence of a politician’s character is their ability to accept gifts without leaving their moral path. I doubt Donald Trump will leave the center of the road. Let us hope history proves me right.

An opposite example: When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton approved the sale of Boeing airplanes to Russia at the same time that Boeing made an $800,000 contribution to the Clinton Foundation, she proved she has the morality of a mass murderer. When she approved the sale of our uranium mines to a Russian company after they contributed $3 million to the Clinton Foundation, she proved she is the equivalent of a $2 Tijuana gutter whore.

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Eight years ago I wrote an OpEd for a Tallahassee newspaper about the proposed tax cuts by incoming President Donald Trump. Many of my conservative friends made their opinions known to me after I advised against some of his tax cuts.

I will save you the time of looking it up by giving you the benefit of my research now. As to the corporate tax reductions, not only were they necessary but we should continue to reduce them. Actual historical evidence proves that reducing corporate tax rates helps the lowest-income employees the most and also helps a nation build and maintain its industrial base.

Countries like Ireland and Switzerland that reduced their corporate tax rates to 12% and 8.5%, respectively, have been able to chose from the best and brightest which industries to expand in their country. Ireland proved that at 12% they could compete with China in every manufacturing category without the need for duties or tariffs.

As to the reduction in individual taxes, however, history has proven that a reduction in the highest marginal tax rate has absolutely zero impact on the economy. All of the talk about the wealthiest having more money to invest has proven to be untrue. The greatest 20 years of GDP increase and greatest increase in the standard of living in the United States occurred from 1945 to 1965. (I broke down the data into five-year increments.) During that time the highest marginal tax rate was at one time 92% and never below 70%. It had no effect whatsoever on the expansion of our economy and improvement in our lifestyles.

During World War II, 92¢ of every $1 made over $200,000 went to the federal government (we did not have Social Security and Medicare taxes then). Wars are very expensive and the government did the right thing to pay for one. Not every government can simply slip some money to the son of the Vice President of another country to get that country to later pay for their war.

My conclusion today is the same as it was eight years ago. We need to return our highest individual tax rate to at least 50% if we are ever going to balance our federal budget. If the threshold was somewhere around $5 million, it would mostly affect actors, professional athletes, and top-level executives at large companies, three groups of people who have the most to lose should the USA go under. Also, the vast majority of these people keep lobbying our government to hand out more money. Someone needs to teach them that free stuff is not really free.

History has proven that the behavior of most businessmen is not materially affected by the higher tax rate. That is especially true for small businesses. Small businesses generate about 75% of the GDP growth in the United States. Without them our economy would be overly dependent on the government. In other words, freedom depends on the growth of small businesses and higher individual tax rates (at the top level) do not materially affect them.

Of course raising the marginal individual tax rate is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to raising the money necessary to pay off our debt. But every little bit helps. A much bigger help would be to tax the revenue of all foundations and nonprofit organizations (Churches, synagogues, and mosques should remain nontaxable for constitutional reasons). We should tax them at around 34%, the same rate as private trusts. That alone could raise the government’s revenue by at least 10% and more likely 20%.

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Before we spend more money on free college for people who are getting worthless degrees, we should also recognize that college foundations would be among the foundations I recommend we tax. We would raise more money from taxing the college foundations alone than five times the amount of money spent on student loans.

My research revealed another truth. If the federal government got out of the student loan business, there is more than enough “charity” money already inside the colleges’ control to provide student loans to every qualified student in the country. There is absolutely no need for the government to be involved.

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This morning President Trump did something neither the current president nor the current vice president have done in the past four years: he had a press conference and took questions from everybody who had one. Remember when China Joe used to say he was going to be known as the “Transparency President”? It was just one more lie from a guy who never tells the truth.

I love watching the media backtrack. They used the fact that Joe said he was not going to pardon Hunter to profess his greatness. Now they cannot even comprehend why nobody wants to vote for Democrats. Apparently, the experts are much dumber than the voters.

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