E!! The True Conservative Story™

Re-posted from The Corner without comment (or not, I guess, since saying there’s no comment requires a comment):

Lobbying Expenditures Found to Have Incredible Rate of Return on Investment   [Veronique de Rugy]

The Washington Post reports about this new University of Kansas study:

In a remarkable illustration of the power of lobbying in Washington, a study released last week found that a single tax break in 2004 earned companies $220 for every dollar they spent on the issue — a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investment.

This should make all bloggers, policy analysts, and other pundits wonder whether we are really using the right medium to get our ideas through.

Read it for yourself. 

Sum up:  This is a blank check from Bush for the inauguration.

The following letter was sent yesterday to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson:

September 24, 2008

The Honorable Henry Paulson
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20220

Dear Secretary Paulson:

As you continue to craft a financial stabilization plan with Congressional policymakers, I wanted to once again urge you to consider a move that could be executed unilaterally by the Treasury Department: indexing the basis of capital assets to inflation for purposes of calculating gain or loss.

There is a body of legal opinion which holds that the Treasury Department has the power to define “cost basis” when taxpayers calculate capital gain or loss. To date, Treasury secretaries of both parties have chosen to define “cost” as nominal purchase price.

This creates a situation whereby an asset held for many years and later sold may generate a capital gains tax liability when much or all of that gain is purely from inflation. For example, a stock purchased in 1990 for $1000 and sold today for $1676 would face a capital gains tax liability on the $676 “profit.” But in reality, 100% of that “gain” is attributable to inflation.

If the Treasury Department were to re-define “basis” to discount the effects of inflation, it would have a timely and pertinent effect on the current financial challenges. Households and businesses would be able to sell assets, unlock liquidity, and pay a much lower level of taxes. This liquidity is badly needed by capital markets. Best of all, this can be done by you unilaterally, substituting Congressional permission in favor of mere consultation.

Sincerely,
Grover Norquist

– E!! says:  This is better than nothing, but I’d like it much more if we eliminated the capital gains tax altogether.  (Yes, I realize that is probably a pipe dream.  That being the case, Grover’s suggestion is excellent.)

Not content to let Eric & Allen & Friends have their Happy Ending, Progress Illinois took the Open Left talking points about #dontgo that Eric had debunked on his blog earlier and ran it as fact without doing any checking.  From the Progress Illinois site:

Let’s be clear. This is a “movement” that originated at the highest level of powers in Washington. It’s a movement that, if successful, would benefit large oil companies and their rich executives far more than the average American consumer. It’s a movement with protests populated by paid staffers from industry-funded organizations. In short, there is nothing “grassroots” about it.

ROFL

Anyone who knows Eric “the Libertarian” Odom knows he is as anti-establishment as it gets.  He isn’t In with the Insiders in D.C. in any way, shape or form.  I’ll grant that Eric’s day job is a paid consultant for Sam Adams Alliance, but Eric blogs and Twitters on the side (and only WISHES he got paid to do it). 

Eric and Allen are two very enterprising individuals who threw up the Twitter tag, purchased the two #dontgo-affilliated domain names and built the dontgomovement.com website on their own dime and on their own time.  They were not paid by Big Oil fat cats, mythical “industry-funded organizations,” or Newt Gingrich.  The huge influx of Twitterers and bloggers happened because a lot of good citizens are angry about the lack of Congressional action on energy and were/are interested in what was/is happening on on the House floor…and the Twitter feed was/is the best way to follow the play-by-play.

Isn’t it interesting that the Left just cannot FATHOM the concept of a committed activist who isn’t getting paid and/or receiving some personal benefit for championing a cause?  Seems to me their accusations and protests are very revealing.  One wonders how many staffers at Open Left, Progress Illinois, or MoveOn.org would spend their own time and money trying to get something worthwhile done.  Not too many, I’m guessing.

So, anyhoo, just know that Progress Illinois got the story Wrong.  Not surprising, considering they never bothered to contact Eric and took their talking points from an outdated, debunked post on Open Left…which, by the way, continues to get the story wrong.  To borrow Open Left’s oh-so-sophisticated Slam-fest sum-up which simultaenously insists #dontgo is (1) backed by “the highest levels of power in Washington” and (2) “insignificant”:  whatever!   If Dontgomovement.com is so insignificant, why is the national media all over it – and why are you guys still writing about it?

(For those of you who do not know the whole back story, you can read my post from yesterday and/or catch Mary Katherine Ham’s piece in the Washington Examiner.)

While I’ve got Harry Reid on the brain, I saw a funny note by Henry Payne on NRO’s Planet Gore blog the other day.  He referred to an early June debate over the Lieberman-Warner climate bill and quoted Senator Reid as saying that global warming is “the most important issue facing the world today.” The funny part is that Reid drives to work every day in a large, armor-plated, 13 mpg Chevrolet Suburban SUV provided to him by Capitol security police.  With respect for Senator Reid’s concern (awareness?) that more than one citizen might wish to do him harm, is this really necessary?  Payne said one of his Detroit News colleagues recently quipped, “I’ll believe climate change is a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”  Amen!