Today's Thoughts on Tax Day

Today is April 15^th – Tax Day!  I wonder if Tim Geithner, Kathleen Sibelius, Tom Daschle and Ron Kirk payed their taxes this year.  I paid mine, got some money back, and bought a guitar today, so I’m doing my bit for “economic stimulus.”  There are quite a few people who picked today to hold “TEA [Taxed Enough Already] parties”.   These folks, who are pretty much fed up with everything the federal government does, think they are protesting just like the guys who threw English tea into Boston Harbor.  There’s one flaw in their thinking – the original Boston Tea Party protested “taxation without representation.”  Sorry gang, but we have representatives and our representatives let us down.  I never thought I would say this, but on this Paul Begala and I agree.  We just had an election, the other guys won.  These protests will last all of one day, and then the protesters will get on with their lives.  The political ruling class will ignore them.  While I agree with their sentiments, if an annoying mosquito like Sean Hannity thinks having TEA parties is a brilliant idea, there MUST be something wrong with it.  If one really wants to change the status quo, vote to throw the bums out in November 2010.   It worked in 1980, 1994, and in 2008 – it can work again.

This week the Department of Homeland Security published their "intelligence assessment" [and I use that term very loosely - more on that later] about right-wing extremism. According to these clowns, anyone who thinks states ought to have more say in how they run their own affairs are extremists [Texas and 21 other states?].  Apparently in the eyes of DHS, those who think illegal immigrants [there's that word illegal again] should NOT get the same products and government services as those who are here legally [that would be my big sister and me] are right-wing extremists.  Disgruntled military veterans [hmmm...people like me?] are right-wing extremists.  I have to take all this with a huge grain of salt.  DHS has done similar assessments on left-wing extremism [Friends of the Earth, Earth Liberation Front. etc] where they actually name organizations and actual targets of domestic terrorism.  The piece on right-wing extremists goes into no such detail.  Every stereotype about right-wingers one can think of is this document.  Was this document written by intelligence professionals or left-wing bloggers with axes to grind?  I guess I should be appalled and outraged by this document, but I when I consider its source I can only shake my head in amusement.

At this point, I don’t have very much faith in the folks at the Department of Homeland Security.  Let me start with Customs.  I just recently got back from a business trip to Germany.  On the flight back I had to fill out this little two-page form to declare anything I brought home from overseas.  The front of the form asks if you brought any food.  I checked the “yes” box.  The back of the form asks you to itemize said items.  What food did I bring home?  I brought home some Belgian chocolate candy for my wife. Now, any reasonable person would be able to connect the “food” that I checked “yes” on the front of the form to the “chocolate candy” that I listed on the back of the form.  Not so Customs agents.  When it was my turn to get a “welcome home” and a passport stamp from the Customs agent, the following conversation took place:

Customs agent [after looking at both sides of my declaration form]:  Do you have anything to declare?

Me: Yes – chocolate candy and T-shirts.

Customs agent: This form says you brought food into the country.  What kind of food did you bring?

Me:  CHOCOLATE……CANDY!!!!

I have to mention that this Customs agent was male.  If the agent was female, I wouldn’t have gotten such a stupid question.  Every female on this planet thinks of chocolate as a major food group [and for any women reading this, you KNOW this to be true…].

Where do they find these people?

The next object of my irritation is the favorite agency of anybody who flies, the Transportation Security Agency [TSA].  In my job, I fly a lot.  Suffice to say, I’m usually gone two weeks out of every month.  I was in the Air Force for a long time.  I still have a military ID.  I work as a contractor supporting the Air Force.  I have a security clearance.  Let’s just say my clearance is higher than those who check old ladies for weapons in airports.  And yet, whenever I fly an airline other than Delta, my name pops up on TSA’s terror watch list.  It must be because of that Homeland Security study that said to be on the lookout for disgruntled veterans.  The airline people are very nice, and they tell me to go to TSA’s web site so I can get my name off the watch list.  So when I got home after one particular trip, I went to TSA’s site.  I followed their instructions, made copies of my passport and driver’s license, and emailed the copies to the email address the web site provides.  Did I get any feedback from TSA? No.  Did I get an acknowledgement of them having received my paperwork?  No.  Am I still on the terror watch list?  You betcha, dontcha know!

Where do they find these people?

Now, about this state sovereignty business.  A long time ago a bunch of white slave-owning aristocrats got together in the late summer of 1787 to write a new Constitution for the young fledgling nation known as the United States of America.  While the Untied States operated under the Articles of Confederation, the individual states had sovereign rights.  There was a very weak central authority.  It was not the kind of government that could deal with outside threats very well, because all decisions made by the states in a collective had to be unanimous.  It was an unworkable framework.  So in 1787, these white slave-owners got together to come up with something new.  These guys had just broken away from England and they didn't want power concentrated in the hands of a single individual, like an English king.

They came up with a federal system.  There would be a central government with a strong executive to run the day-to-day affairs of the country, but power was also divided among three separate branches.  In addition to this new central government, the Founding Fathers saw the need for the individual states to have some authority.  Power is shared between the national government and the states.  This arrangement was codified in the 10th Amendment to the new Constitution.  This amendment is very simple - it reads "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Twenty-two states are currently drafting resolutions in their respective legislatures that would re-assert their authority under the 10th Amendment.  These states see the federal government as becoming too big and usurping state authority.  This is not a new phenomenon.  This movement began during the Bush years.  They are protesting what they call "unfunded mandates" [among other things].  One example of such a mandate is in the stimulus bill recently enacted into law.  This item concerns unemployment benefits.  The federal government is giving money to the states, but with some strings attached.  Some of this money has to be spent on unemployment benefits.  The dirty little secret is these funds run out after 2010, and after that the states have to pick up the tab.  The states are none too thrilled at that prospect, especially since THEY and not the Feds who will have to come up with sources of revenue [which usually means higher taxes and "user fees"] which is why you are hearing about some states rejecting stimulus money.

When I read and think about these state sovereignty resolutions, I have one question - what would be the practical effect if these resolutions are enacted into law?  Will we have a Nullification Crisis like what this country went through in the 1830s?  Will there be any effect at all?  Will states begin to stop sending their tax dollars to Washington?  I don't know the answers to these questions, but it is something that makes someone go "hmmm..."