'Let's make a deal'

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:30 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED MAY 23, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
'Let's make a deal'

Desperate to raise taxes somewhere, Nevada state Sen. Mark James is now reduced to playing "let's make a deal" in Carson City, dropping his initial plan to charge a $500 filing fee to every business that incorporates in Nevada, instead now offering an even more burdensome plan to charge all Nevada corporations annual filing fees depending on company value -- fees ranging from $150 to $50,000.

(If this goes forward, James would apparently abandon Senate Bill 571, an attempt to make his earlier tax plan more palatable by exempting smaller firms from the state business employee tax. Confused yet? James' colleagues might be well advised to hold out till he throws in a Bass-O-Matic and a couple of free Ginsu knives.)

Of course, under this latest scheme, companies that might have incorporated here (the state rakes in tens of millions from such absentees) could instead choose Wyoming or New Mexico; even firms that stay could simply pass along the added costs to their Nevada customers.

Yet Sen. James, who still claims to be a smaller-government "Republican," justified his plan by asserting legislators will "do a tremendous disservice" to the state if they fail to whack someone with an extra $65 million per year in taxes, since otherwise they'd have to trim by a meager 3 percent (Oh, the humanity!) Gov. Kenny Guinn's original proposed state budget ... which would still grow by double digits.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Sen. James isn't actually a socialist. Perhaps he was only cynically playing on the presumed socialist sympathies of those on the other side of the aisle (he would need two-thirds support to enact any of these hare-brained schemes) when he commented Monday, "We have to take a first step, and this is a good first step. This puts the burden on the wealthiest corporations."

One is put in mind of the hypothetical "ideal Democratic plan" to compensate the fans of a rained-out baseball game -- fortuitously e-mailed to us this week by Connecticut Republican legislative staffer Mark Anderson:

"The team was about to send out refunds when the Democrats stopped them and suggested they send out refund amounts based on the Democratic interpretation of fairness. After all, if the refunds were made equally to the people who paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the top 2 percent who bought the most expensive seats. The Democrat's Plan:

"-- People in the $10 seats will get back $15, because they have less money to spend.

"-- People in the $15 seats will get back $15, because that's only fair.

"-- People in the $25 seats will get back $1, because they already make a lot of money.

"-- People in the $50 luxury seats will have to pay another $15, because they have so much to spend.

"-- And the people driving by the stadium will get $10 each, even though they didn't pay anything in, because they must need the most help."

In America, such taxes as are necessary are supposed to be capitized equally among the citizens. The doctrine that more should be assessed from those who have worked hard and gathered together enough capital to set up a business and create jobs, "from each according to his ability," belongs to quite a different school of economics, Sen. James, one which has spread poverty and desolation across half the globe in the past 80 years.

Anyway, as Gov. Guinn correctly points out, even a little family limited partnership established for estate purposes -- the governor has one, himself -- would be hit with an additional $150 fee under Sen. James' latest "tax plan of the week."

Give it up, senator. The educrats will never be happy, no matter how many millions you shovel their way. Like a bloated restaurant diner counting the change in his pocket and deciding to skip dessert, it's time to get to work and trim back that big double-digit state spending increase ... by a paltry 3 percent.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair